Seventy-million Americans have inflammatory joint pain, and I think it’s largely dietary-related. I noticed that when people have arthritis, and they change their diet from a standard American diet to a plant-based vegan diet, the arthritis tends to go away.

Greetings, vibrant viewers, to another episode of Healthy Living. Today we present Part 1 of a two-part interview with vegan naturopath, herbalist, neuromuscular therapist, Doctor of Holistic Health and author from the United States, Dr. Steve Blake, who will provide expert advice on nutritionally sound eating and discuss the benefits of a whole foods, plant-based diet.

Dr. Blake devotes his life to teaching others about achieving optimal health through natural medicine and proper diet. For seven years he served as director of the Maui Holistic Health Center, and recently he and his wife Reverend Catherine Blake, who has an extensive background in herbal medicine, established the College of World Health in Hawaii, USA.

The institution’s goals are to inform others about the most effective approaches to natural nutrition, healing and health from around the world, and to become “the first place to look for understandable, accurate information about natural health.”

Dr. Blake has written a number of outstanding health books including “Vitamins and Minerals Demystified,” “Understanding Dietary Fats and Oils” and “Healing Medicine.” He has also produced a comprehensive nutrition software program called the “Diet Doctor,” which enables users to analyze their daily nutritional intake, and gives suggestions on improving their diets based on input about their meals.

Another of Dr. Blake’s remarkable programs is “GlobalHerb 2009,” an extensive database that suggests natural remedies for many health conditions. Dr. Blake says it is one of the largest databases of its kind, and features over 128,000 book and journal references from around the world.

We begin our discussion with Dr. Blake on the subject of bone health. Osteoporosis, an illness in which the bones become porous and weak, affects an estimated 200-million people worldwide. Respected US nutritional biochemist Dr. T. Colin Campbell has found that the condition is associated with the intake of meat and dairy products.

There is no doubt that dairy products have a lot of calcium in them; they’re very calcium rich. However, it’s interesting that countries with the highest consumption of dairy products also have the highest incidence of osteoporosis. Too much protein and too much salt increase your needs for calcium or deplete your bones if you’re not getting enough.

Most Americans on an American diet will eat a hundred grams too much protein each day and this is almost inevitable; if you eat a diet with animal products you’re going to be getting too much protein. Perhaps two- or three- hundred milligrams (of calcium) are depleted by that hundred grams of extra protein that Americans are eating.

Excess sodium also very much depletes calcium in the bones. Salt, excess sodium comes usually from processed foods, packaged foods that have sodium added in one form or another, and these packaged foods account for about 80 percent of the sodium that the Americans eat. So if you don’t eat the packaged foods you probably won’t be getting excesses of sodium.

So these are two factors that are also important besides your intake of calcium. You have to look at what’s depleting the calcium in your body, and depletion is much more important because it takes no time at all to take calcium out of bones. It happens instantly.

Our bloodstream must always be the same in calcium so that we have proper nerve and muscle action, however to rebuild the bones takes a lot of time. So, for instance, if a person were to eat a lot of bacon they can deplete their bones and then it could take months for them to resupply their bones with the calcium. And I think that the depletion over time is a much more important part of osteoporosis than just keeping the calcium up.

And calcium doesn’t work alone; magnesium is also important; keeping a high vegetable and fruit content in the diet increases potassium and lowers your loss of calcium through excess protein. Also vitamin K is very important.

It’s important if you’re vegan to eat plenty of green, leafy vegetables; beans are a wonderful source of minerals and nutrients; they have wonderful fats, wonderful protein and wonderful carbohydrates, and lots of calcium. Especially, for instance, tofu is set with calcium and is a very rich source of calcium, and nuts and seeds provide a lot of calcium too.

In addition to calcium, several other nutrients are required to maintain healthy bones, particularly vitamin D. Approximately 90% of the body’s supply of vitamin D comes from exposure to sunlight.

Phosphorous and calcium are both needed to make bones, and vitamin D, for instance, triggers the phosphorous and the calcium to be deposited into the bones. You have to get vitamin D. However, the body stores vitamin D for years, so you don’t necessarily have to get vitamin D every day.

If you’re getting some on your face and hands for 15 minutes, two or three times a week even in this latitude of 38 degrees, just through the spring, summer and fall, you should have enough calcium to make it through the whole year.

After these brief messages, we’ll return with more from our informative interview with Dr. Steve Blake of the College of World Health. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. Our program today features an interview with Dr. Steve Blake, a naturopath and doctor of holistic health from the United States.

Fatty acids are necessary for maintaining excellent health. Omega-3 long chain fatty acids with docosahexaenoic acid or “DHA” and eicosapentaenoic acid or “EPA” are especially beneficial to adults in maintaining a healthy heart and to fetuses and young children in facilitating brain development. The essential fatty acids are the linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acids; these are found in plants. Fish oils don’t contain any essential fatty acids. They are not essential for human health.

You’re going to need enough ALA in your diet. That’s the alpha linolenic acid, which is an omega-3 fatty acid. It’s the root of the family and it’s the only essential one in the omega-3 family. Two to four grams a day would be a good amount of alpha linolenic acid.

Research shows that omega-3 fatty acids are highly effective in controlling inflammation, which can cause arthritis, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. Dr. Blake says it’s necessary to have a balance of omega-3 and omega-6, such as linoleic acid in our systems because while omega-3 can help prevent inflammation, omega-6 fatty acids aggravate inflammation.

Inflammation can be relieved by lowering the amount, and it’s not only linoleic acid excesses that increase inflammation, but also arachidonic acids. Arachidonic acid is a direct precursor to eicosanoids, the inflammatory ones. It’s found only in meat and dairy products. So limiting your arachidonic acid and increasing your ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) is a good way to reduce inflammation in the body, and it works quickly and effectively without drugs.

The other important thing is to keep the amount of linoleic acid down. Most Americans eat 10 to 15 even 20 times as much of this essential fatty acid as the ALA. This overpowers it and makes it difficult for the ALA to get converted into EPA, which is quite easy if the balance is about right. The proper balance would be something like three to one; three times as much linoleic acid as alpha-linolenic acid.

The myth persists that fish and fish oil are good for heart health. However, in the famous DART-2 (Diet and Reinfarction Trial) study, heart patients with chest pains who consumed fish saw no reduction in mortality and those who took fish oil capsules were found to have an increased risk of cardiac arrest and sudden death.

People with diabetes have trouble making their own EPA and they may need to supplement with EPA directly and DHA as well. People who are smokers, they have trouble making their own EPA and DHA and they may need to supplement with EPA and DHA. For the rest of us it’s much healthier to make our own alpha-linolenic acid into EPA in our bodies.

Taking EPA externally, whether it’s in the form of fish or as fish oils, there are problems. One of the problems is excess bleeding. If you get too much EPA in the form of fish oils, your tendency to bleed increases. The other problem that’s very important is that it lowers your immune response when you take EPA.

If you’re eating fish or fish oils, the chance of there being contamination with DBT or PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury and other environmental contaminants is quite great. It is also possible to get these made from algae because, after all, only algae makes EPA and DHA; fish don’t make it. They just eat it and concentrate it in their bodies, so you can get supplements made from algae that contain EPA and DHA in the same amounts that you might need.

Finally, Dr. Blake has some tips on obtaining essential omega-3 fatty acids from plant-based sources.

If you take whole flax seeds and you grind them up, for instance, in a coffee grinder or a blender, you can then add a tablespoon of that to a meal after it’s been cooked. This will be a wonderful supplement of ALA that will greatly enhance your ability to make EPA in your body and DHA also.

Walnuts are one of the very few nuts or seeds that have a large amount of alpha-linolenic acid. Also, chia seeds and perilla seeds are good sources. There’s a new oil out called echium oil that has stearidonic acid and stearidonic acid has the ability to be converted into EPA easier than alpha linolenic acid.

We sincerely thank Dr. Steve Blake for his insightful comments on how to stay healthy through intelligent eating, and applaud him for spreading the uplifting message about the invigorating, plant-based diet through the College of World Health and his other work.

Books and other media by Dr. Steve Blake are available at www.NaturalHealthWizards.com

Treasured viewers, please join us next Monday on Healthy Living for Part 2 of our program featuring Dr. Steve Blake’s sound advice on the role of oils and fats in our diet. Up next is Science and Spirituality after Noteworthy News. May we all enjoy the best of health and the highest of spirits.

The Animal Welfare League of Queensland in Gold Coast, Australia provides low-cost and free veterinary care so all dogs or cats in the community, whether they have a caregiver or not, can get the treatment they need.

We believe that every city and shire should be providing this service for its animals because why should animals miss out when humans don’t? There’s a public hospital for humans, there should be a public hospital or a community vet clinic for animals.

Learn how else the dedicated staff and volunteers of the Animal Welfare League of Queensland are helping animals and see the presentation of Shining World Compassion Award to the group on “Community Spirit: Compassion at the Animal Welfare League of Queensland – Parts 1 and 2” airing Thursday and Friday, April 29 and 30 on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.