Mercola - Natural Health Products & Articles

Vitamin D is one of the most neglected and misunderstood nutrients. For many years, people thought that vitamin D was just good for promoting bone health. Now, numerous studies have revealed that vitamin D provides many important health benefits, including helping reduce the risk of serious and life threatening conditions like cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and multiple sclerosis.

Natural health expert Joseph Mercola has been educating people about the importance of vitamin D in recent years. For Dr. Mercola, the best and most inexpensive way to optimize your vitamin D levels is simply by getting enough sun exposure. Sadly, because many Americans spend most of their time indoors, vitamin D deficiency has reached epidemic levels.

Now that more and more people are becoming aware that they need to increase their vitamin D levels o stay healthy, food manufacturers are cashing in by promoting foods that are fortified with vitamin D, like fortified milk. But don’t be duped because vitamin D-fortified foods contain a synthetic form called ergocalciferol or vitamin D2.

Vitamin D2 is not as potent as vitamin D3, the type of vitamin D produced by your body when sunlight strikes your skin. It also doesn’t stay in your body for long. Your body needs to convert both vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 to a more active form, and the latter is converted 500 times faster, Mercola explains.

Studies show that too much vitamin D2 may also cause adverse side effects, particularly the irritation of the blood vessel linings.

You’re not even sure of how much vitamin D you’re actually getting when you drink fortified milk. In lab tests, vitamin D expert Dr. Michael Holick found that 8 out of 10 samples of fortified milk contained either 20 percent less or 20 percent more vitamin D than the amount the label advertised, with some containing no vitamin D at all.

Since its winter and you have lesser chances of getting vitamin D through sun exposure, you can either try a vitamin D3 supplement like the Sunshine Mist Vitamin D Spray or try a safe tanning bed.

An important reminder from Dr. Mercola: Consult your doctor before taking vitamin D supplements. You need to regularly test your vitamin D levels to ensure that you do not overdose. The correct vitamin D test to use is the 25-hydroxyvitamin D test.

In the mood for love this Valentine’s? After dinner at a fancy restaurant, a romantic movie and a couple of drinks, spending the night with your significant other would be the perfect ending, don’t you think?

When you’re in the heat of making love, you’re probably not thinking of any other benefit other than being with the one you love and satisfying each other. Yet good sex enhances your life and health both physically and psychologically.


Natural health expert Joseph Mercola is no sex therapist but he believes that having regular sex can provide you with many health benefits, including:

•    Increasing your production of immunoglobulin A – an antibody that fights infection—to decrease your risk of catching a cold

•    More predictable periods for women due to exposure to male pheromones

•    A better physical response to stress

•    Lower blood pressure to reduce your risk of heart disease

•    Increase your levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol while lowering LDL (“bad”) cholesterol

•    Help tone your abdominals and any muscle in your body

•    Improve the appearance of women’s hair, skin and nails by naturally increasing estrogen levels

•    Improve your memory by increasing blood flow to your brain

•    Increase your motivation by releasing “feel good” brain chemicals called endorphins

•    Boost self-esteem and improve intimacy in your relationship by increasing oxytocin, also known as the “love” hormone

•    Reduce the risk of accidents in women by helping strengthen pelvic floor muscles


These benefits are backed by scientific studies and based on the assumption that you’re in a monogamous relationship, Dr. Mercola points out, because otherwise, you risk catching an STD (sexually transmitted disease).

The lack of a sex drive could make you miss out on these health benefits. Pharmaceutical companies have created drugs to treat sexual dysfunctions. But many believe that lack of libido in women does not need to be addressed by drugs. Also, while drugs like Viagra, Levitra and Cialis may help men maintain an erection, the initial erection still needs to be triggered psychologically – meaning men have to want to get hard, Mercola explains.


Here are Dr. Mercola’s 7 tips on how you can naturally boost your sex drive:

1.    Eat a diet based on your body's unique Nutritional Type. We need varying demands for the ratios of macronutrients – carbohydrates, fats and proteins – to function optimally. When you’re eating the foods your body was designed to eat, you’ll notice improvements in every aspect of your health, including your sex life.

2.    Take control of your emotions by learning the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Sexual dysfunction can become worse due to anxiety and stress. EFT helps you deal with all stress-related emotions to keep you calm and make you ready to face your challenges.

3.    Avoid sugar. Your sexual desire can be fanned simply by limiting your sugar intake because high levels of sugar in your bloodstream can turn off the gene that controls your sex hormones.

4.    Exercise. Aerobic exercises improve blood flow to sex organs and help boost your mood by releasing endorphins. Testosterone levels also shoot up about an hour after working out, which can leave you feeling sexier. Studies also show that men who engaged in regular physical activity reduced their risk of experiencing sexual dysfunction.

5.    Relax. Testosterone levels plummet when the stress hormone cortisol increases. Loosen up for about 15 minutes a day by meditating, listening to music or writing in your journal.

6.    Optimize your insulin and vitamin D levels. These two factors can help improve not just your sex life but almost every aspect of your health as well.

7.    Take choline and vitamin B5 supplements. These two nutrients help safely and effectively increase acetylcholine (ACH), a neurotransmitter that triggers the sexual message in both men and women. ACH also helps facilitate erections.

Multivitamins are among the trickiest health products to buy. It’s easy to get confused with all the bottles of vitamins you can find at supermarket shelves.

Many multivitamin brands use synthetic vitamins – chemical compounds manufactured in laboratories to mimic natural nutrients – because they are cheaper to produce. However, your body will only be able to absorb and use a small percentage of synthetic nutrients, natural health expert Joseph Mercola points out. So if you’re looking for a quality multivitamin, choose one that gets its nutrients from raw and whole foods.

While Dr. Mercola believes that there is no substitute for a healthy diet based on nutritious whole foods, he also recognizes the fact that not all people can eat right 100 percent of the time. And, even if you’re carefully watching what you eat, you may still miss out on some important nutrients. That is why supplementing your diet with a quality multivitamin is a good insurance.

Dr. Mercola joined forces with one of the most outstanding American supplement manufacturers to help him formulate the best possible high-potency multivitamin formula for you. Enter Dr. Mercola’s Multivitamin +Plus Vital Minerals, a highly concentrated, whole foods-based dietary supplement containing over 2000 mg of nutrients extracted from more than 50 fruits, herbs and vegetables. These nutrients include:

•    amino acids
•    enzymes
•    calcium
•    copper
•     iodine
•    Magnesium
•    trace elements
•    vitamin B complex (vitamin B12, folic acid, niacin, riboflavin and thiamine)
•    and more

Mercola carefully selected each ingredient based on absorbability, allergenic potential, competitive relationship with other nutrients, long-term safety and proper balance. Among the ingredients he picked include apricot, blueberry, broccoli, chlorella, green tea extract, pineapple, spinach and wheat grass juice.

Multivitamin +Plus Vital Minerals also features an exclusive antioxidant blend that includes beta carotene, L-cysteine, lutein, lycopene, red wine proanthocyanidins, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin D3 and vitamin E. Working together, these antioxidants help support your cardiovascular, immune, muscular, respiratory and skeletal systems.

Dr. Mercola’s partner manufacturer is GMP, ISO 9001 and VCP certified, which means that Multivitamin +Plus Vital Minerals was made using the highest health standards, manufacturing standards and top-quality raw materials. It also complies with good manufacturing practices and health and safety measures and is one of only four laboratories to receive the 5-Star Gold Medal of Achievement.

When it comes to multivitamins, don’t sacrifice quality for value. You get what you pay for so choose the best possible formula. With Multivitamin +Plus Vital Minerals, you’re sure to get the most bang for your buck.