Category: General Interest

“This drug saved my life. What do you say to that?”
I get this challenge a lot, and my answer surprises people: I believe you. If you are crippled by anxiety or depression and a drug turns the volume down on it, you become more functional, and it can genuinely feel life-saving. The suffering that leads people to these medications is real, and I never deny it.

But here’s what I’ve watched over and over in my practice: there is a life cycle to being on these drugs, and “it saved my life” is usually what the beginning sounds like.

First, understand what the drug is doing. There is no chemical imbalance being corrected. The low-serotonin story is a myth. An SSRI produces a drug effect that masks symptoms, and your body pushes back against it, because serotonin isn’t just mood. It runs your heart, your digestion, your immune system. So the body downregulates receptors and produces less serotonin naturally, and over time the effect wears off.

Then the stages appear. Stage one: it works, where has this been all my life. Stage two: I don’t even know what this drug is doing anymore. Stage three: fatigue, brain fog, no motivation, and a doctor calling it “treatment-resistant depression” when it may be the drug itself. Stage four: after twenty years, the brain has built itself around the medication, and coming off makes life fall apart.

So when someone says these drugs are life-saving, and someone else says they wrecked them, they can both be telling the truth. They’re just at different points on the same road. The question worth asking isn’t whether the drug helped you once. It’s where you are in the life cycle now.

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Cocoa is one of the few foods with a genuinely interesting cardiovascular literature behind it, and most of what is sold has had the relevant compounds removed on purpose.

The compounds are flavanols, a subgroup of flavan-3-ols including epicatechin and the procyanidins built from it. They are what the cocoa research is about. They are also bitter, astringent, and reddish, which puts them in direct conflict with what a manufacturer wants from cocoa powder.

Alkalization solves that problem. Also called Dutch processing, it treats the cocoa with an alkaline solution, raising the pH from its natural 5.3 to 5.8 up to 7.6 or higher. The powder darkens, the harshness softens, and it disperses better in liquid. It is a cosmetic and sensory process. Nobody performs it for a nutritional reason.

The cost was quantified in a survey of commercial cocoa powders, and the relationship turned out to be linear. Untreated natural cocoa averaged 34.6 mg of total flavanols per gram. Lightly alkalized powder, at pH 6.5 to 7.2, averaged 13.8. Medium treatment brought it to 7.8. Heavily alkalized powder, the very dark kind, averaged 3.9 mg per gram. That is a loss of roughly 89 percent from natural, and even the gentlest commercial treatment removed about 60 percent.

Two things make this strange (in my opinion) rather than merely interesting.

The first is that darkness reads as quality. A deep, almost black cocoa looks stronger and more premium, and it is the tier with the least of the compound the marketing is implicitly referencing. The visual signal runs opposite to the chemistry.

The second is disclosure. In the United States, alkalized cocoa must be labelled, and it usually appears as “processed with alkali” or “Dutch process” in the ingredient list. That phrase is accurate and almost entirely uninformative to a shopper. It does not say what was processed out, and no front-of-pack claim is obliged to mention it.

This survey measured composition, not health outcomes, so it establishes what is present rather than what any given powder does in a person. And the work came from a chocolate manufacturer’s own research centre, which is unusual in that the finding runs against the sponsor’s commercial interest. That direction of bias makes it more credible, not less, though it remains an industry publication.

If cocoa is being eaten as a food, none of this matters much. If it is being eaten for the flavanols, the ingredient list decides whether that is happening at all, and the natural, lighter, more bitter powder is the one that still contains them.

Miller et al., J Agric Food Chem 2008. PMID 18710243

(Tom:
Some people still hold the view that vitamins are an expensive way to turn your pee yellow.
Some tell me that you can get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat.
This survey show both of those viewpoints need to be updated in line with  the evidence.
You DO need more than the standard diet provides and it is NOT a waste of money, it is actually a very worth while investmment in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

If, after ready it, you want to improve your prospects of maintaining your functional health, email or call me. My NutriBlast Greens Plus has a proven track record of helping many people lose mental fog and boost energy.

If a powder does not suit, ask me about the Amway Multivitamin/Multiminerals that may better fit your preferences.)

Sarah Otto writes:

Most of the time, when someone suggests you take a daily multivitamin, the reasoning is pretty vague. “It fills in the gaps.” “Can’t hurt.” “Just in case.”

Not exactly compelling.

But a large new study just gave me a much more specific reason to pay attention. And it has nothing to do with preventing a particular disease.

It’s about whether you can still climb the stairs. Get dressed without help. Carry the shopping in from the car. Do the household chores that keep your life yours.

Researchers at Augusta University analysed data from more than 16,000 adults aged 60 and over, all enrolled in a major randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial called COSMOS. Participants were randomly assigned to take either a daily multivitamin, a cocoa extract supplement, both, or neither. Placebos were used across all groups, and nobody knew which they were taking.

After three years, the multivitamin group scored significantly better on measures of what researchers call “functional health.”

Not disease markers. Not blood work. Functional health: how well you can actually manage the physical demands of everyday life.

The most notable improvements showed up in two areas: how much symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, and swelling interfered with daily activities, and a combined score reflecting both symptom burden and physical capability.

In practical terms, we’re talking about things like bathing, walking, climbing stairs, doing household chores, and simply getting through the day without being completely wiped out.

It wasn’t asking whether a multivitamin prevents heart disease or cancer or diabetes. It was asking something far more practical: does it help people actually feel and function better in their daily lives?

And in a trial of this size, over three years, the answer appears to be yes.

The researchers suggested the benefits may come from supporting cognitive function, circulation, and physical endurance. All of which contribute to whether you can keep doing the things that make your life independent.

I think there’s something pretty powerful about that. Not a dramatic intervention. Not a breakthrough drug. Just a simple daily habit that, alongside eating well and staying active, may help preserve the everyday abilities most of us take for granted until they start to slip.

Yours for better health, naturally,

Sarah Otto
Nutritionist (Master of Human Nutrition)
Goodness Lover Co-Founder

Scientific Reference:
Bekele, B.B. & Dong, Y. Multivitamin supplementation and functional health in older adults: Analysis from the COSMOS trial. Presented at NUTRITION 2026, American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting, National Harbor, MD, July 2026.

Although the nutrient combination slowed progression to advanced AMD, it didn’t restore vision that had already been lost.

In the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), a randomized clinical trial, a specific combination of antioxidant vitamins and zinc lowered the risk of progressing to advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and helped preserve vision in people who already had intermediate disease or advanced disease in one eye, but it did not prevent the condition in healthy eyes.

Your retina contains some of the highest concentrations of zinc in your body — and research indicates this mineral supports cell repair, communication between retinal cells, and the enzymes that help protect eye tissue against everyday damage.

Maintaining the right zinc balance is just as important as getting enough because zinc deficiency impairs retinal function. Laboratory studies indicate that excessive zinc concentrations can also damage retinal cells.

Animal foods such as oysters, grass fed beef, and lamb provide zinc in a form your body absorbs more efficiently than many plant foods, making animal-based whole-food sources an important part of supporting long-term eye health.

If you eat large amounts of whole grains or legumes, remember that they contain natural compounds called phytates that reduce zinc absorption. Eating zinc-rich animal foods as part of a balanced meal helps improve the amount your body actually uses.

Finish reading:  https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/10/04/zinc-antioxidants-age-related-macular-degeneration.aspx

Some interesting stretching and flexibility exercises here.

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To a Mason jar add:
A head of garlic
The juice of half a lemon
Tablespoon of honey
Teaspoon Pink Himalayan Salt
Fill the rest with warm water.

Drink 1-2 spoonfuls every morning on an empty stomach.

Click to view the video:  https://x.com/dailyfoodsfacts/status/2102007403021521364?s=20

And an additional 10 years of life.

Do These 3 Thing to Reduce Your Cancer Risk by 61%

And an additional 10 years of life.

2,000 IU D3 + K2>
2 grams of Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Strength Training

Click to view the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6o-H8zu1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X6o-H8zu1s

When you hear “PFAS,” you probably think of nonstick cookware, waterproof jackets, or contaminated drinking water. You probably don’t think of the prescription sitting in your medicine cabinet. Yet fluorinated compounds classified as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are built into a surprisingly wide range of approved pharmaceuticals, often not because they’re essential to how those medicines treat disease, but because they make the drug easier to formulate.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/09/21/pfas-containing-medicines-alternatives.aspx