***Five Choices You Can Make, Starting Today, to Achieve Optimal Health and Well Being

I am often asked what simple measures I can do starting today to immeasurably improve my long term health?

I will detail 5 simple but challenging changes you can decide today that will have a dramatic effect on your "healthspan" and sense of well-being.

1. Remove all the chlorine from your shower water -- Chlorine is a pro-oxidant. It is very caustic. It dries the skin and hair. There is an interesting postulate that all halides may be one of the causes of hypothyroidism as they block vital iodine pathways. The halide group (group IX of the periodic table) includes fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. Iodine is critical for thyroid function. It is the source of all your thyroid hormones. Fluorine is in toothpaste. The controversies over fluoridation of the water is well-known. Bromine has been added to bread and is widely found. Chlorine is added to all water supplies to reduce bacterial counts in addition to chloramines which are an even more toxic than chlorine.

Chlorine can easily be removed from your shower water. You can buy filtering cartridges from CustomPure.com. These cartridges will last for 6 months and can be easily replaced on schedule. This removes most of the chlorine from the water. There are other sources.

2. Don't microwave. Now I know most of you will say, "but I live a busy life and microwaving has become necessary in a rushed lifestyle." In the past microwave units carried prominent warnings not to approach within 10-15 feet if you had an implanted cardiac pacemaker. Obviously, warning you that microwave units were not entirely innocuous. Microwave energy is coherent and pinpoint. So it is difficult to measure radiation from a microwave oven with a simple meter, because there may still be pinpoint radiations. There are even more dangerous consequences of microwave cooking.

If you simply follow the instructions for normal microwave dinner, you would place the entire plastic container in the microwave oven with plastic top secured. For at least 30-40 years it has been known that plastic food containers leach various plasticizers notably BPA (Bisphenol A) during a microwave session. And there is an even more obvious condition called the Maillard reaction or browning.

From Wikipedia:

"The Maillard reaction also occurs in the human body. It is a step in the formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs).[9] It is tracked by measuring pentosidine. Although the Maillard reaction has been studied most extensively in foods, it has also shown a correlation in numerous different diseases in the human body, in particular degenerative eye diseases. In general, these diseases are due to the accumulation of AGEs on nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids."

So I offer this suggestion. If you must microwave, and I will admit even I microwave upon occasion, there is a safe way to microwave your food. Carefully remove the contents of your frozen dinner and place in a glass Pyrex bowl. Then cover with a glass Pyrex top. This assures you that the contents of the container are completely inert. Microwave cooking creates hot steamy water vapor that cooks your food. By placing in a Pyrex Bowl, all of this steamy vapor is well contained and more thoroughly, safely and uniformly heats and cooks your food. Immediately, you'll notice that your food is "fresher" and thereby probably healthier. Even on the road you can improvise by placing the contents on a large plate and covering with a second plate to form a thi "bowl."

3. Never drink tap water. I never drink tap water any longer. Most municipal supplies are infused with chlorine or chloramines which are even more toxic. In many municipal areas such as the Silicon Valley groundwater has been severely contaminated with toxic chemicals that leach from poorly maintained toxic dump sites. The stories of Love Canal in the past are not isolated to one municipality. In the most current controversy conce s fracking which has been well documented. Natural gas that seeps into the water supply causing water that is literally explosive.

As a corollary, don't even allow your pets to drink tap water. Much for the same reason. I have suffered 2 cats in the last 2 years with oral cancer. I have never seen this in the past.

4. Severely restrict your cell phone use. Now I know this may be the most difficult suggestion to accept because cell phone use is so ubiquitous. But there are significant consequences to the increased use of cell phones. It has not yet bee "proven beyond doubt" that cell phones cause brain cancer, but the scientific evidence is fast accumulating. More modern MRI studies have shown significant brain dysfunction resulting from cell phone radiation. This is particularly dangerous for young children who are beginning to use cell phones at the age of 6! You can use earplugs.

But cell phones cause other problems. They are exacerbating short-attention-span minds. Based on classic Pavlovian "conditioned response". Bells rings -- dog salivates. Bell rings (or toots or plays whatever tune) and you need to answer immediately -- anywhere – bathroom, supermarket checkout line or wherever. They are causing accidents due to simple but serious inattention. In fact, Jerry Seinfeld had a very funny routine on the tonight show during the first week of Jimmy Fallon's takeover. Who calls any longer?

5. Get 7-8 hours sleep – easier said than done. Sleep loss and deprivation is such an epidemic in the US. Repeated studies have shown it is one of the keys to a longer and healthier life. Sleep is the rejuvenative phase of your daily cycle. The reverse is obvious and time-proven. Sleep deprivation leads to loss of daytime vigilance, fatigue, and depression. More recently we have documented that sleep is necessary for optimal insulin control. Insulin resistance exacerbated by sleep deprivation makes weight loss all the more difficult.

And there you have it -- 5 recommendations that will increase your healthspan – how many years you will remain healthy. Stay tuned for more.