The leading authority in anti-inflammatory nutrition, Dr. Barry Sears, explains how to lower your cholesterol without taking a bunch of prescription pills.

This is the year to get yourself on the road to better health; you don't even have to give up burgers, pizza or chocolate.

Donating blood has many health benefits. Not only will you help someone in need of blood, but you will also help optimize your health and wellness. Here are the top three health benefits from donating blood.

Protect Your Heart by Reducing Oxidative Stress

Iron in your blood can oxidize resulting in damage to your cells and tissues. The increase in oxidative stress is most dangerous to your cardiovascular system. According to a new study published by the American Medical Association, giving blood every six months led to fewer heart attacks and strokes in test participants ages 43 to 61.

Excessive iron is thought to contribute to heart disease, especially at its early stages. Donating blood on a regular basis reduces the iron stores in the body and this study supports the theory that reducing iron appears to preserve cardiovascular health.

A second study of 2,682 men in Finland, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that men who donated blood at least once a year had an 88 percent lower risk of heart attacks than non-donors. This same group of researchers published a follow-up study and found that men who donated blood were less likely than non-donors to show any signs of cardiovascular disease.¹

Many people ignore symptoms and are slow to seek help when the indicators arise.

I have a radio show that airs every Wednesday at noon Pacific Time on RadioMD.com called "Mindful Medicine". It is simply another format for me to hopefully "knock 'em alive" with empowering information that can help people be their own PCPs "primary care providers" and have their homes be their own HMOs "Health Maintenance Organization" Get it?

I am fortunate to have a fascinating and amazing regular contributor, Dr. Jacob Tietlbaum MD, join me every week to talk about easy, effective, natural ways to help people take back control and manage their health. Jacob and I were talking very passionately about the newest recommendations, handed down from a government agency, which suggested (based on a faulty calculation) that many more people would be candidates for taking statin medications.

We both were fairly incensed about this notion, knowing that statin medications come with serious risks and side effects and research has shown that there are many common lifestyle choices that are far more likely to be associated with a lower risk of heart attack and heart attack death than taking statins medications. Some of these include eating chocolate, participating in regular exercise, getting adequate nutrition and having cats. YES, having cats.

Many practitioners and patients think that statin drugs are the answer to preventing heart disease. Well, they're not.

Cardiologist, Dr. Tim Fischell, weighs in on the new guidelines for preventing heart attack and stroke.

Cardiologist and author of Burn Calories While You Sleep, Dr. Tim Fischell, provides diet and exercise tips to help you lose weight fast.

Could this possibly be true? Cardiologist and author, Dr. Tim Fischell says yes... you CAN lose weight while you sleep.

Every 33 seconds someone in the United States dies from cardiovascular disease. Will someone you love be next?

Would 51-year-old James (Tony Soprano) Gandolfini or Tim ("If it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press") Russert be alive today if their docs had followed the new cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines just issued by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association?

This week, we asked that question to many of the docs with whom we work at the Wellness Institute. We just do not know enough about Gandolfini or Russert; however, you know enough about YOU—that's the key. And the likelihood is Gandofini and Russert both would have been taking statins if their docs had followed the new guidelines...and aspirin and exercising, losing weight and changing their diets (and Russert and Galdofini weren't doing food –perhaps the most important choice—right if observations and news reports are correct.) You might too—and we want you to stay alive.

Learn what makes a good energy drink and what makes a not-so-good energy drink – ones you'll probably want to avoid.

Are there certain heart medications you should avoid? Learn which treatments work the best for heart health.

Learn how you can best treat, or even reverse your Diabetes symptoms.

The popularity of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) moves it to the top of the list for fitness trends. Have you tried it yet?

Cleaning your house: side effects may include a healthier heart, reduced colds and flu, and even weight loss.

The leaves are falling and snow is coming. Don't dread the chores, use them as your free personal trainer.

Pets and music may not sound like they go together. Surprisingly, they both hold enormous benefits for your heart.

Do you know what diseases run in your family? Fortunately, genetics doesn't have to predict your risk of getting one of them.

Are you disease-proof? What if you were able to reduce your risk of disease by a whopping 80 percent?

Low nitric oxide results in arterial dysfunction and increases your risk of heart disease.

If you're on a statin medication but not taking CoQ10, you may be putting your health in severe danger.

Sugar contributes to weight gain, pre-diabetes and can take a toll on your overall appearance. Learn how to kick the habit.

Elevated homocysteine is now associated with cognitive decline in older adults. Might you be at risk?

As much as you'd like to trust your doctor, there are things they may neglect to tell you regarding heart health.

Recent evidence indicates that coffee drinking can improve endothelial function, reducing your risk of stroke.

If you or a family member is genetically at risk for heart disease, your student athlete could be at even greater risk for sudden cardiac death.

Energy drinks can do wonders for your sluggishness. But they may also do irreversible damage to your heart.

Blue corn is loaded with the same type of antioxidants as blueberries and tart cherries. But, is it healthy? Or potentially harmful?

If you're in your 20s, you may think heart disease won't hit you. But the choices you make now can affect your risk later on.

You love your morning cup of coffee or afternoon espresso for its mid-afternoon boost. But could your caffeine habit be affecting your heart?

The DASH diet can lower systolic pressure by as much as 11 points. So why aren’t more people with high blood pressure following it?

Can the heavy traffic in your commute be affecting your health? No matter where you live, the quality of the air you breathe impacts you every day.

Anthocyanins are a type of plant-based antioxidant found in abundance but not exclusively in berries. Take, for instance, blue corn, which is regular yellow corn that has a high level of anthocyanins. The anthocyanins are actually what give it a bluish hue.

Fortunately, anthocyanins are good for you from any source, including corn. Just take a look at this short list of benefits that are commonly attributed to anthocyanins:

Enhance glucose metabolism and reduce glucose absorption
Induce cancer apoptosis (programmed cell death) in several cancer cell lines.
Metabolize toxins and inhibit DNA damage.
Inhibit inflammatory gene expression and reduce inflammation.
Reduce capillary permeability and fragility and boost nitric oxide.
Metabolize carcinogens.

So this is why I am interested in both blue corn and anthocyanins. See where I am headed now?

The Presidents' arteries, and what it means for you and yours.

George W had a positive stress test and received a stent to open up one (or was it more—we do not know) of his coronary (heart) arteries.

Was the stress test appropriate, and was the stent needed? Or could food choices have changed the need?

George W isn't the first President with arteries that show aging and plaque. Clinton's did. So did Reagan, and Ike and Harrison and Roosevelt's times two, and maybe every President. Just look at Obama's hair, or Bill C's heart arteries before he radically changed his diet and stress levels - or you can look at Ike or Harrison or - chose any President - it is a job laden with aging stress.

Inflammation is the way your body responds to a problem. Whether battling an infection or cancer, or healing from a bone fracture, your body needs to deliver powerful immune and repair cells to the impaired location through your bloodstream in order to fight and fix the problem.

Inflammation is really designed to be an acute process that gets in and out quickly. The longer the immune and repair cells stay in a location, the greater the chance they'll actually cause damage to surrounding healthy cells and tissues.

Chronic inflammation, simply put, is acute inflammation that did not resolve properly. The result is damage and disease. This is why we call chronic inflammation the common denominator of all age-related disorders.

This type of testing can be the difference between effective disease management and needless risk of sudden cardiac death.

Learn how apps, iPads and social media are redefining medicine and improving your health.

Learn ways to incorporate movement into everyday life and give up that sedentary lifestyle once and for all.

What if there was a simple blood test that would tell if you are at risk for a heart attack? Would you take it?

Ever wonder what causes a heart attack? Is it high cholesterol, bad eating habits, obesity? Learn the biggest reasons and how to prevent them.

You may not even realize the many ways you undermine your own weight loss efforts. We're here to help.

Modifying traditional heart disease risk factors is not enough to protect your heart. Many Americans continue to suffer from heart attacks and stroke despite receiving a clean bill of health from their doctors. So what are we missing?

Traditional medicine modifies just 6 risk factors — obesity, smoking, high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL-cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high blood sugar.  However, integrative and alternative doctors have come to recognize 11 additional risk factors.

Here are two additional risk factors to consider if you want to keep your heart healthy …

Recently on the YOU The Owner’s Manual Radio Show, we featured a top medical story about how to prevent 80% of chronic disease. It related to food choices and portion size.

Wait! Don’t stop reading!

It really does get more interesting, because if each of us paid as much attention to restaurant menus as some my friends do to NBA scoring, we could save 600 billion a year at least. A year!

That would make North America as competitive for jobs as for energy independence. You’d be patriotic. And we are being helped. Most fast food restaurants have added an additional column of numbers on their menus. The new column contains the calorie content of the food items. However, apparently not too many people have taken an interest in the new information provided to help Americans get healthier.

A new study published in May 2013 highlights the ineffective attempt to encourage people to moderate calories. Nearly 2/3 of adults, adolescent, and school age children underestimated the number of calories in their fast food meal....and not by a little.

Can cell phones really cause brain cancer? Get to the bottom of this and other common health questions.