(upbeat music)
- Welcome to HealthyLiving, I'm Lorie Johnson.
Thanks for joining us.
Chances are you or someoneyou know has diabetes.
More than 26 millionAmericans suffer from it.
That's 10 times the numbersfrom just 50 years ago.
But even with diets filled with sugar
and soaring obesity rates, there is hope.
Some people are actuallyreversing their diabetes,
getting off their medications,and feeling great.
Like millions of Americans,Janet Huffstetler
felt diabetes ruining her life.
Then she changed her diet.
- I will tell you, Ihave never felt so good.
I think having my body free of
sugar and carbs, and processed
chemicals
has made such a difference.
- [Lorie] It's a far cryfrom the fear she felt
eight years ago when doctors first
diagnosed her with diabetes.
She saw what it did to her uncle.
- He ended up on full dialysis, and blind,
and he also had coronary bypass surgery,
and they had started talking
about amputation, but he died.
- Diabetes is when there'stoo much sugar in the blood.
The standard treatmentis largely medication.
Janet's first doctor put her on medication
that led to weight gain and depression.
- And this kind of made me sluggish.
It made me dizzy, it made me lethargic.
- [Lorie] Daily life becamea series of finger sticks
constantly monitoringher blood sugar levels.
Believing there had to be a better way,
she changed doctors.
- I came home and Googled,and Dr. Westman's name
kept coming up, and I was fortunate enough
to get in to see him.
- [Lorie] That appointment sent her to the
nationally recognized DukeLifestyle Medicine Clinic,
and Dr. Eric Westman, whohelped reverse Janet's diabetes
through his diet only approach.
- Diabetes and obesity is complicated.
There are lots of factorsthat are involved,
but most experts agree that it's the foods
and the beverages that people eat
that are the major cause fordiabetes and obesity in the US.
And so that should be themajor focus of treatment.
- [Lorie] Instead of treating the sugar
in his patients' blood with medicine,
Westman simply eliminatestheir sugar intake.
- The program is tremendouslysuccessful if you do it.
- [Lorie] Susan Hollowelldid it, and went from
spending $400 a month on diabetes drugs
down to zero.
- I was insulin dependent,five injections a day.
The third day of my diet,
my blood sugar dropped
to 150,
and I asked Dr. Westman
what should I do about my insulin?
I didn't want to go over.
And he said get off of it.
- [Lorie] That was three months ago.
Now she's 20 pounds lighterwith greater energy than before.
Dr. Westman admits it's not easy
for some people to give up sugar.
- There's a feed forward, a drive
that comes from eating sugar, that
eating sugar makes youwant to eat more sugar.
- So his patients useartificial sweeteners
to manage their withdrawal symptoms.
- After awhile, you don'tcrave those things anymore.
You don't want it.
- [Lorie] In addition to sugar,Dr. Westman's diabetes diet
also limits starches likebread, pasta, and rice
because they also raise your blood sugar.
Surprisingly, the dietallows patients to eat fats,
the unsaturated kind, likeolive oil and avocados,
and saturated fat likecoconut oil and butter.
Although this diet maysound revolutionary,
it's actually a throwback.
This is an old medicaltextbook from the year 1900,
before insulin was discovered,
advising physicians to puttheir diabetic patients
on a low carbohydrate, high fat diet.
Dr. Westman tells hispatients not to worry about
eating saturated fat,because the latest science
reveals it does not cause heart disease.
- So now we're in a phase of education,
trying to get the word out on how the
cholesterol in the blood andthe heart arteries and all that
do not get adverselyaffected by a high fat diet.
- So to avoid diabetes or reverse it,
put the brakes on sugar and starch.
It's not always easy, butwell worth the effort.
When we come back, we'lltell you about a secret,
shocking crime against little girls
that you should know about.
These days, most immigration talk
is dominated by the issue of illegals,
but certain legal immigrants
can also bring problems into our country.
One specific practice comingfrom predominantly African
and Middle Eastern cultures,
is now a growing problem in America,
and since it's largely done in secret,
it's difficult to stop.
(screaming)
More than 5 1/2 milliongirls are subjected to
female genital mutilation each year.
For centuries, womenhave been performing it
on family members, anywherefrom infancy to puberty,
in mostly Africa and the Middle East.
Even if the victim survives,she suffers a lifetime
of physical and emotional trauma.
Female genital mutilationis when a razor like this,
or scissors, are used to cut off the
external genitalia without anesthesia.
Often the area is thensewn shut until marriage.
Referred to as female circumcision,
a more accurate term is female castration,
because the victim loses her ability
to become sexually aroused.
As a result, she is not tempted to engage
in premarital or extramarital intercourse.
(yelling)
Although not dictated by the Quran,
it's mostly practiced in 29Muslim-controlled countries
like Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
- Circumcision is the reasonwhy Muslim women are virtuous,
unlike Western women, who run after their
sexual appetite in any place with any man.
- [Lorie] Ayaan Hirsi Aliunderwent genital mutilation
when she was just five.
On The 700 Club, shesaid it will only stop
when Islam is radically reformed.
- Not a day goes by without people
who are Muslim
using their faith,
using the guidance of the prophet Muhammad
and what they read in the Quran
to engage in violence
and oppression, and to justifythat in the name of religion.
- The procedure leaves only tiny openings
for urination and menstruation,often causing constant pain,
recurring infections, and infertility.
Intercourse is excruciating,childbirth, life-threatening.
Currently, an estimated 140million victims worldwide,
including places you wouldn't expect.
An astounding half amillion girls and women
in the United States have either undergone
female genital mutilation or at risk
of having it done to them.
Many live here in New York City,
and other places withimmigrant populations
from countries wherecutting, as it's called,
is commonly practiced.
Legal immigrants settlingin Los Angeles, Seattle,
Minneapolis, Columbus, and Washington DC,
where survivors marchedto raise awareness.
- How did it happen,oh, I was 11 years old,
and we were told that we,meaning my sister and I,
she was 13 at the time, we were told that
we're going somewhereto be made into women.
- The experience of FGM, it's oh my--
I don't even think there's a word on Earth
that I can describe it with.
It's cruel, gruesome, no one on Earth,
I wouldn't even wish it on my enemy.
That's how gruesome it is.
- Congress passedlegislation making it illegal
to perform female genitalmutilation in the United States,
and making it a crime totake girls out of the country
to do it, a practiceknown as vacation cutting.
24 states have alsooutlawed both practices.
Shelby Quast leads Equality Now,
an organization dedicated toending FGM in a generation.
- Counselors, teachers,the medical community,
police, whoever really arefrontline professionals
that might engage withgirls who are at risk,
that they have a responsibility to
report this as a form ofviolence against children.
- Mm-hmm, why is this practice performed?
- There's many reasons for it,
but many of those are based in patriarchy,
based in controlling women, based in
controlling their sexuality.
A lot of it's frommyths, mythical reasons.
There's myths that herbody parts might grow
to represent a man'sif they're not cut off.
- [Lorie] Discussing thepractice is generally taboo,
although courageous victims speaking out
could become powerful agents of change.
- So I just hope that other women who have
gone through female genitalmutilation speak up.
Nothing's gonna happen to you,
even though I've beentold that when I go home
I'll be stoned to death, I'mstill not afraid to talk.
- [Lorie] They say voicingwhat was done to them
is therapeutic.
- I had scary nightmares,like of people chasing me
and then kidnapping meto do something to me.
But once I started talking about it,
you know, I was one of these people that
will crawl up in their own little corner
and then not to talk to anyone,
but look at me today, I'mbrave enough to stand here
and then talk to the whole world.
- [Lorie] Several Muslimwomen break their silence
in the groundbreakingdocumentary, Honor Diaries.
- We are seeing more casesof female genital mutilation
in the US, in Canada, and in UK,
so it has been imported into the West
as a cultural practice.
- [Lorie] Paula Kweskin hopesthe film will open eyes.
- I do believe that it's anelement of the honor system,
and I think if we canbreak down the honor system
we will break away issueslike FGM and child marriage,
and forced marriage, and honor killings,
because these thingsare all linked together.
- [Lorie] Victims of FGM shouldknow there are treatments
to repair some of thedamage to their bodies.
Gynecological surgeon, Marci Bowers,
is one of the few physicianscurrently performing them.
- Surgical treatment,defibulation, or removing the
scar tissue in the middle is important,
especially where it comes to pain,
and where it comes to blocking outflow,
and allowing childbirth, but also,
the newly
minted surgical proceduresthat are proven to work
are to restore sexual function.
- [Lorie] While thesetreatments will improve
a woman's quality of life, the hope is
one day they won't be necessary,
here and around the world.
When we come back, how one doctor
discovered coconut oil helped
reverse her husband'sAlzheimer's symptoms.
(light music)
Five million Americanshave Alzheimer's Disease,
and that number is expectedto increase exponentially
as Baby Boomers enter their golden years.
If you have a loved onewith this dreaded disease,
you'll want to listen tothis report about how,
in some people, coconut oil
slows down the progression of Alzheimer's
and may also prevent it.
Steve Newport's Alzheimer'sDisease has slowed considerably.
Some of his symptoms even reversed,
thanks to an unlikely treatmentprescribed by his wife,
Dr. Mary Newport, a physician,who runs a neonatology ward
at a Tampa, Florida hospital.
She became determined to help her husband
after he failed the so-calledAlzheimer's Clock Test.
He drew a few littlecircles and several numbers,
just in a very random pattern,
didn't really look anything like a clock,
and the doctor pulledme aside and she said,
"You know, he's actually on the verge
of severe Alzheimer's at thispoint, he's beyond moderate,"
so that was very, very devastating news.
- [Lorie] Dr. Newport beganlearning everything she could
about her husband's disease.
- It appears to be a typeof diabetes of the brain,
and it's a process that starts happening
at least 10 or 20 years beforeyou start having symptoms,
and it's very similar toType 1 or Type 2 diabetes
in that you develop aproblem with insulin.
- [Lorie] In this case, insulin problems
prevent brain cellsfrom accepting glucose,
their primary fuel.
Without it, the cells eventually die.
But there is an alternative fuel, ketones,
which the cells easily accept.
Ketones are metabolized in the liver
after you eat medium chain triglycerides,
which are found in coconut oil.
So Dr. Newport addedcoconut oil to Steve's diet.
Just two weeks later, hetook the Clock Test again,
and as you can see, demonstratedstunning improvement.
- I thought at the time,was it just good luck?
Was it a lot of prayer?
Was it the coconut oil?
And I thought well, we're gonnakeep the coconut oil going.
- [Lorie] Then three weeks later, he took
the Clock Test a third time,and continued to get better.
And it wasn't just intellectually.
He also improvedemotionally and physically.
- He was not able to run,he was able to run again.
He couldn't read forabout a year and a half,
but after somewhere aroundtwo or three months,
he was able to read.
He started being verysluggish, not talking
very much in the morning.
He would come out with energy
and talkative, andjoking, and he could find
his water and his utensils.
- [Lorie] Dr. Newportdocumented Steve's success
in a book called Alzheimer's Disease,
What if There Was a Cure?
She received this stackof thank you letters
from other people whoseloved ones' Alzheimer's
was helped after theyfollowed Steve's diet.
And while coconut oil is encouraging,
there's actually somethingmuch more powerful.
A team of biochemists, ledby Professor Kieran Clark
at England's Oxford University,
have developed a ketoneester that packs a punch
10 times greater than coconut oil.
- It reaches quiteconsiderably higher levels,
and you can get whatever levels you want,
depending on how much you drink.
- [Lorie] The problem isthey need millions of dollars
to mass produce it.
- Very expensive, and so we can't make
very much of it ourselves,
and what we would like is funding
so that we could actually scale up
and make it, but of course,there's no real profit
in manufacturing stuff like that.
- So until a high potency ketone ester
is available to the general public,
coconut oil is still a good ketone source.
Just make sure it'spure, non-hydrogenated.
Avoid any hydrogenated oil,
which is the same thingas dangerous transfat.
Many people avoid coconut oil because
they think it's bad for them,
but it's actually very healthy.
Dr. Beverly Teter is a researcher
at the University of Maryland,
who specializes in dietary fats.
She says years ago,coconut oil was criticized
for raising cholesterol, butscientists have since learned
there are two kinds of cholesterol:
LDL, the bad kind, and HDL,which is very good for you,
and is the kind coconut oil raises.
- So they put out the message that it
increased serum cholesterol,but the truth of the matter was
it was helping the profileof the serum cholesterol.
That never has been correctedin the public press,
and I think that's the reason people have
misconceptions about it.
- [Lorie] So not only does coconut oil
improve your cholesterol levels,
Dr. Teter says the way it helps the brains
of some Alzheimer's patients
can be extended to peoplewith Parkinson's Disease,
ALS, epilepsy, dementia,
even schizophrenia and autism.
And one more thing, coconutoil is a natural antibiotic
that also helps kill viruses
like HIV and Herpes viruses.
- But the coconut oil tendsto keep the bacteria down
so that if you're assaulted with a virus,
your immune system canconcentrate on the virus.
It doesn't have to concentrateon 27 other bacteria
that you may have beenexposed to that day.
- [Lorie] So considercoconut oil to improve
your overall health andperhaps even go so far
as to stave off life-threatening diseases.
- Oh, yeah, that's good.- Mm-hmm.
- When we come back, we'll tellyou how some cancer patients
are getting the gift of a clean house.
(upbeat music)
Many cancer patientsexperience extreme exhaustion
from their treatment.
This fatigue is especiallydifficult for women
responsible for running a home.
The good news is manyof them are getting help
with the housework for free.
Despite her ovarian cancer,Stacey Schwinghammer
resolved to be strong for her children.
- Whatever energy I had, I needed to use
to keep their lives normal,
and consistent with
what routines that theywere normally used to,
and then of course, whenthey went to school,
back in bed I went, and
just didn't move until itwas time when they got home.
- Cancer treatment,especially chemotherapy,
drains your energy,sometimes for weeks on end.
Many women don't even have the strength
to clean their homes.
Now they're gettinghelp, free maid service
once a month for four months,
an idea that grew from oneDallas cleaning business.
- So I did it as a companypolicy for many, many years,
and then fast forward years later,
I turned that companypolicy into a non-profit
and now we have maidservices all over the country
that are donating free housecleaning to women with cancer.
- [Lorie] Over 1000 cleaning services
from all 50 states are onboard.
- You know a lot oftimes patients don't want
to have family clean their home.
They don't want to have their best friend
come clean their home,and having a stranger
sometimes do that, is a little bit easier.
- [Lorie] So far, 15,000women have received this gift.
- My whole world changed just knowing
I could count on them.
- [Lorie] Cancer patientsor cleaning services
that would like to get involved
can find a link to theCleaning for a Reason website
at CBNNews.com.
A diagnosis of breastcancer can be devastating,
but there is some good news for women
diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer.
New research showschemotherapy is not necessary
in certain cases, where doctorspreviously thought it was.
The long awaited study from the
New England Journal of Medicine
followed nearly 10,000women for about a decade.
It found most women with small tumors,
whose cancer had notspread to the lymph nodes,
did just as well with only hormone therapy
as patients who received thattreatment plus chemotherapy.
- This is definitely good news.
This study is somethingthat we've been waiting for
for several years togive us some direction
on where to go with patients.
- [Lorie] Chemotherapy, whilean effective cancer fighter,
often causes serious side effects,
such as weakened immunity,bone loss and other problems.
- There's of course theissue with hair loss.
There's the issue withnausea and vomiting,
the ongoing fatigue, the changes it makes
to your day to day how you feel.
- If diagnosed with breast cancer,
women should talk to theirdoctor about a genetic test
to find out if they might benefit
from just the hormonetherapy, bypassing chemo.
Doctors emphasize thisstudy focuses on women
with the early stages of breast cancer,
and the best way to catch it early
is to get yearly mammogramsand do self-exams.
Well, that's all the time we have for now.
Thanks for tuning into Healthy Living.
I'm Lorie Johnson, we'llsee you again next time.
(upbeat music)
