Being deficient in B12, B6, and folate causes an amino acid called homocysteine to rise in your blood

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Here's a fact that few physicians discuss with their patients:

If you're not getting enough vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and folate through your diet, you will almost certainly develop cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or some other degenerative illness.

Why?

Being deficient in B12, B6, and folate causes an amino acid called homocysteine to rise in your blood, and if you have too much homocysteine floating around in your blood over many years, you're virtually guaranteed to develop heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or some other chronic, degenerative illness.

Make no mistake about it: Ensuring that your homocysteine level doesn't get too high is one of the most important ways in which you can prevent disease. In order to keep your blood homocysteine level at an acceptable level, you must make sure that you get enough B12, B6, and folate through your diet.

But be sure that you get these nutrients from real food and/or nutritional supplements made with real food. There's a significant difference between synthetic forms of these nutrients (found in most supplements and fortified foods) and forms that naturally occur in food.

For example, folic acid is the synthetic form of folate, which is the natural form found in foods like oranges, lentils, and chickpeas. The vast majority of supplements on the market contain folic acid, not folate, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that taking folic acid can actually impair your body's ability to make use of folate. [1,2]Homocysteine Care: A 100% Whole Food Source of Vitamin B12, B6, and Folate

In order to give our clients the ability to ensure adequate intake of these essential nutrients, I've been at work to bring this new formula, called Homocysteine Care, to our family of natural health resources.

Until recently, I had been recommending either our green food powder or our whole food tablet formula to fortify intake of B12, B6, and folate from actual food sources. But it became clear to me that some clients need the option of taking a single supplement that guarantees more than enough B12, B6, and folate to ensure a healthy homocysteine level.

Homocysteine Care is specifically designed to help:

People who have a family history of cardiovascular disease, including diabetes.

People who have a family history of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

People who aren't able to get their homocysteine levels down to a healthy range through diet and lifestyle only.

Women who are preparing to get pregnant or women who are pregnant or nursing - in such scenarios, I recommend combining Homocysteine Care with a quality source of DHA, such as Carlson fish oil or cod liver oil. Taking this combination can help ensure adequate intake of folate and DHA, both of which are critical to the development of a baby's nervous system.

If you're already taking our green food formula or our whole food tablet formula, and you'd like to fortify your intake of B12, B6, and folate, it's fine to combineHomocysteine Care with either of these other formulas, as B12, B6, and folate are water-soluble, and in the amounts provided in all of these formulas, they pose virtually no risk of toxicity.

I'm so confident in the quality and effectiveness of Homocysteine Care that I'm providing it to the groups of people mentioned above with the following guarantee:

Take just one tablet of Homocysteine Care per day for six months. If your homocysteine level doesn't improve, then let me know and I'll see to it that you are refunded in full.

This is a formula that is targeted to reliably lower blood homocysteine via intake of 100% whole food sources of B12, B6, and folate. And because we can objectively measure blood homocysteine, the guarantee is a no-brainer because I know from experience that it works beautifully.

If you'd like more information on homocysteine and why it's critical that you prevent it from getting too high, please read on...What is homocysteine?

Homocysteine is an amino acid that your body makes from another amino acid called methionine. You obtain methionine from plant and animal foods that are rich in protein - examples include legumes, nuts, seeds, eggs, and fish.

Normally, homocysteine found in your blood gets converted into two substances called SAMe (S-adenosyl methionine) and glutathione.

Both SAMe and glutathione have health-promoting effects. Specifically, SAMe helps to prevent depression, arthritis, and liver damage. Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant and detoxifying agent that helps to slow down aging.

Put another way, you want your body to efficiently convert homocysteine into SAMe and glutathione.How does your body break down homocysteine?

Your body converts homocysteine into SAMe and glutathione with the help of the following nutrients:

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B6

Folate

Vitamin B2

Zinc

Magnesium

TMG (trimethylcholine, which comes from choline)Of these nutrients, studies indicate that the most critical ones needed to keep homocysteine at acceptable levels are vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and folate.

As mentioned above, please note that we're talking about folate, not folic acid. Folic acid is a synthetic version of folate. Folate is the natural form that is abundant in fresh plant foods like lentils. Folic acid is not normally found in significant quantities in foods or in the human body.

With growing evidence that suggests that supplementing with folic acid over a period of years can actually interfere with your body's ability to make proper use of folate, it's frightening to know that folic acid is the form that is primarily used to fortify foods and to make low grade nutritional supplements.

So in ensuring adequate intake of vitamins B12, B6, and folate to keep your blood homocysteine level at acceptable levels and minimize your risk of a wide variety of degenerative conditions, it's essential that you take only whole food forms of these vitamins.

This means that you should be getting these nutrients from minimally processed foods and/or supplements that are made from minimally processed foods.What if you're not getting enough vitamin B12, B6, and folate?

Inadequate intake of whole food forms of these micronutrients can predictably increase the amount of homocysteine that floats around in your blood.

And a high blood level of homocysteine hurts your health in the following ways:

High Homocysteine Speeds Up Oxidation and AgingNormal metabolic processes that occur in your body are constantly producing free radicals, which are unstable forms of oxygen, also called oxidants. The pace at which you age depends in large part on your body�s ability to protect its tissues against these free radicals. High homocysteine significantly increases free-radical oxidation in your body and the damage that comes with it.

High Homocysteine Causes Damage to Your ArteriesHigh blood levels of homocysteine can damage cholesterol that is found in your blood, which can lead to direct damage of the walls of your arteries. This can lead to a series of reactions that results in thickening of the walls of your arteries, leaving less room for proper circulation. This whole process is commonly referred to as atherosclerosis.High homocysteine can also cause your blood to have a higher than normal tendency to clot, which increases your risk of developing a dangerous clot that could lead to a stroke.Finally, high homocysteine is known to significantly lower nitric oxide in your blood. Nitric oxide is a gas that is critical to maintaining healthy and flexible arterial walls.

High Homocysteine Causes Your Immune System to WeakenWhen a high blood level of homocysteine is the result of inefficient conversion of homocysteine to glutathione, your body has less glutathione and the antioxidant activity that it provides. With less glutathione and antioxidant activity in your blood, your cells are more susceptible to damage by free radicals, which accelerates overall aging.

High Homocysteine Increases Pain and InflammationA high blood level of homocysteine promotes higher blood levels of arachidonic acid and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), which are chemicals that your body uses to promote inflammation. While inflammation is necessary for healing in the short term, chronic inflammation can cause lasting structural damage to tissues like your arteries, joints, and nerves.

Ultimately, because a high blood level of homocysteine accelerates aging and decreases the strength of your immune system, it is not a stretch to say that having high homocysteine over the long term significantly increases your risk of every chronic health condition that we know of, including many varieties of cancer.If homocysteine is such a powerful marker for disease, then why is it that we hear so little about it from doctors and in the media?

The answer is simple.

Currently, there are no patented drugs that are designed to lower blood levels of homocysteine.

With no patented drugs for lowering homocysteine, pharmaceutical companies have no incentive to spend their marketing dollars on educating doctors and increasing public awareness about homocysteine.

Some doctors who know about the diagnostic value of homocysteine may be reluctant to order this test for their patients because they wouldn't know what to prescribe for patients who have high levels.

Despite the lack of widespread testing for homocysteine, many cardiologists in the United States now use homocysteine in evaluating their patients. Many doctors in Europe are starting to include homocysteine along with the usual parameters in a routine blood work up. In Canada, general practitioners rarely order a blood test for homocysteine; if you want one, you have to ask your doctor to include it on the requisition that details the blood work that he or she wants done.What is a healthy blood level for homocysteine?

A good resource for information on homocysteine is The H-Factor Solution*, by Dr. Braly and Holford. Based on their review of numerous epidemiological studies on homocysteine, they have come up with the following table:

Homocysteine Level

Health Status

Below 6 units

10 percent of populationExtremely low risk for disease

6 to 8.9 units

35 percent of populationLow risk for disease, could be better

9 to 11.9 units

20 percent of populationSignificant risk for premature death from degenerative diseases

12 to 14.9 units

20 percent of populationHigh risk for premature death from degenerative diseases

15 to 19.9 units

10 percent of populationExtremely high risk category, at risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, cancer, or Alzheimer's disease in the next ten to thirty years

Greater than 20 units

Extremely high risk, right now, of heart attack and stroke.How can you keep your blood homocysteine at an acceptable level?

Don't smoke - smoking directly increases your blood homocysteine level.

Minimize your intake of caffeinated coffee, tea, alcohol, salt, and salty foods - too much of any of these substances can increase your blood homocysteine level.

Eat a well balanced diet that includes plenty of naturally occurring B12, B6, folate, and the other micronutrients that are needed to convert homocysteine to SAMe and glutathione.

Strive to stay away from unhealthy fats and oils, mainly those found in highly processed foods and animal foods that are prepared with high temperature cooking techniques (deep-frying and high temperature baking or grilling).

Be mindful of emotional stressors that come your way, and take steps to promote a sense of balance in every area of your life.

By far the most important step that you can take to ensure a healthy blood homocysteine level is to ensure adequate intake of B12, B6, and folate.If you wish to take a professional grade, 100% whole food supplement that focuses on these three nutrients and that I've found to be highly effective at keeping homocysteine at a healthy level, I wholly recommend Homocysteine Care.

Homocysteine Care is made with 100% whole foods that are cold milled and tested for nutrient integrity.

In addition to food-derived B12, B6, and folate, Homocysteine Care contains:

Organic beet root

Organic parsley

Organic carrots

Organic broccoli

Polysaccharides

CoQ10

And a plethora of food-derived minerals, enzymes, and amino acids that are needed to keep homocysteine in check and support every part of your immune system.

Homocysteine Care is also an excellent whole food prenatal supplement. When you're first pregnant or preparing to become pregnant, it's folate that you want to make sure you're getting into your blood for proper development of your baby's nervous system. If all you're taking is a folic acid supplement, your baby is likely depending mainly on folate found in the foods that you eat to develop its tissues.

If you take Homocysteine Care as a prenatal and nursing period supplement, I highly recommend that you take it with Carlson cod liver oil or Carlson fish oil, which are excellent sources of DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid that is also essential to the development of your baby's nervous system, not to mention essential to your body's ability to ward off depression and other mood disorders.

In my experience, just one tablet of Homocysteine Care per day is enough for the vast majority of people to ensure that homocysteine remains in check.

Here's a look at the supplement facts box for Homocysteine Care:

1. Victor Herbert, “Folic Acid”. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, Ninth Edition. 1999, Lippincott, and, 433-446.2 . Lucock, Mark. “Is folic acid the ultimate functional food component for disease prevention?”, BMJ 2004;328:211-214.