One in two people die from preventable diseases, and one in two people have a high homocysteine level. The question is, which one are you?

From potential health risk to superhealth potential in just Two months!

H stands for homocysteine, a toxic substance produced by your body.
Your H level is the best single indicator of whether you are going to live a long and healthy life, or die young. A high H level is a greater risk factor for heart
disease than cholesterol. High homocysteine has been directly linked to over 100 diseases including:

Alzheimer's, Arthritis, Cancer, Chronic fatigue, Depression, Diabetes, Headaches, Heart attacks, Infertility, Obesity, Pregnancy, Rapid ageing, Strokes, Thyroid problems and Ulcers.

The H Factor stands for health. You can reduce your H level in two months and dramatically increase your chances of a long, healthy and pain- free life. In this groundbreaking new book, packed with the latest findings on the homocysteine breakthrough, medical expert Dr James Braly and top nutritionist Patrick Holford reveal:

• who is at risk and how you can test your H level at home
• 10 simple diet and supplement changes guaranteed to lower your H level
• an amazing two-month programme to halve your risk of disease

Patrick Holford is founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in London. He is the nutrition expert on TV's This Morning and the author of over 20 health books, including the international bestseller The Optimum Nutrition Bible.

Dr James Braly is at the cutting edge of American medical research. He was first to alert us to the epidemic of IgG food allergies and the true dangers of gluten, and is a leading world authority on homocysteine. He is the author of the bestselling Dr Braly's Food Allergy & Nutrition Revolution and Dangerous Grains.

The H Factor

Contents

Acknowledgements
Guide to abbreviations, measures, and references
Introduction

Part 1 : The Homocysteine Story

• The health secret of homocysteine
• What is homocysteine?
• Ten reasons to lower your homocysteine

Part 2 : How's Your Homocysteine?

• Homocysteine — your most vital statistic
• The homocysteine scale — from sick to superhealthy
• The 20 known risk factors — test yourself
• How to measure your homocysteine level

Part 3 : 50 Diseases Linked to Homocysteine

• How to live to a healthy 100
• Halve your risk of a heart attack
• Preventing strokes — the silent killer
• How to cut your cancer risk by a third
• Diabetes and homocysteine
• Halve your risk of Alzheimer's
• Thyroid problems linked to homocysteine
• Depression and schizophrenia — a methylation problem?
• Parkinson's disease and homocysteine
• Pregnancy problems and infertility
• Chronic pain — from arthritis to migraines
• Digestive disorders, stomach ulcers and coeliac disease

Part 4 :The H Factor Diet and Lifestyle

• Eat less fatty meat, more fish and vegetable protein
• Eat your greens
• Have a clove of garlic a day
• Don't add salt to your food
• Lower your fat
• Cut back on tea and coffee
• Limit your alcohol
• Keep cool and reduce your stress
• Stop smoking
• Don't diet without supplements
• Correct oestrogen deficiency
• Avoid certain medical drugs

Part 5 : The H Factor Supplements

• Eat right and take supplements
• Folate — chances are, you're deficient
• Vitamin B12 — watch out if you're vegetarian
• Vitamins B6 and B2, zinc and magnesium — the forgotten homocysteine busters
• SAMe, TMG and choline — the premier methyl donors
• The synergy principle — why multiple nutrients work better
• Supplements — a word of caution

Ten Steps to Superhealth
Appendix 1 The biochemistry of homocysteine
Appendix 2 Over 100 medical conditions associated with high homocysteine

References
Recommended reading
Resources
Directory of supplement companies
Index

The H Factor

Disclaimer: While all the nutrients and dietary changes referred to in this book have been proven safe, those seeking help for specific medical conditions are advised to consult a qualified clinical nutritionist, doctor or equivalent health professional. The recommendations given in this book are solely intended as education and information, and should not be taken as medical advice. Neither the authors nor the publisher accept liability for readers who choose to self-prescribe.

The H Factor

Introduction

Staying Healthy, Happy, clear-headed and full of energy into old age — this is what we all want. But ensuring that we do depends on how well we can 'read' the state of our health. What if there was a single test that could do that, as well as pointing the way forward to a superhealthy future?

This book is about an extraordinary discovery that has taken the world of medicine by storm. Open almost any medical journal today and you'll find something about homocysteine, a substance with a remarkable trait. Like a chemical crystal ball, it reveals exactly what we should be doing to guarantee our future health.

This amazing predictive chemical is an amino acid — a building block of protein — found naturally in the blood. Our levels of it, or our 'H score', are more accurate than a cholesterol reading in terms of predicting our risk of a heart attack or stroke, and a better measure than genes of our risk of Alzheimer's. In fact, your H score predicts your risk of over 50 diseases — including increased risk of premature death from all common causes. It can even tell you how quickly you will age. And by revealing your B vitamin nutritional status, immune system function and the state of your brain, it shows how well your body's chemistry can roll with the punches.

If this was the whole story, many of us would rather not know. But a high H score is anything but cause for gloom. The reason? It's remarkably easy to fix. In a mere two months you can ensure your future health, potentially halving your risk of most life threatening diseases and even slowing down the ageing process. We know how, and we want you to know.

You might already be taking some steps in the right direction. Maybe you've quit smoking, lost some weight, lowered your cholesterol, or are taking a high-quality daily multivitamin. But how do you really know where you stand on the scale of health and disease? If you don't know your H score, you won't ever really know.

What you will discover in this book is that most people's H scores, which can now be tested at home using a simple kit, are around 11 points. Probably two in ten people reading this book will have a superhealthy H score below 6, and two in ten will have an extremely unhealthy H score above 15. But what does this mean?

Researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway, one of the world's leading homocysteine research centres, measured the homocysteine levels of 4,766 people in their sixties a decade ago, and then recorded who died and who didn't. This is what they discovered.

A mere five-point decrease in H score predicted a:

• 49% reduced risk of death from all causes
• 50% reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• 26% reduced risk of death from cancer
• 104% reduced risk of death from any causes other than cancer or heart disease.

These are pretty staggering statistics, and you'll find them confirmed again and again by researchers all over the world. But let's look at what this means in real terms.

Let's say you're average, with an H score of 11 points. By following our H Factor programme, which you'll find in Parts 4 and 5 of this book, your H score should drop about five points in two months. And your risk of getting over 50 diseases will also substantially decrease. If your H score is 16 and you follow the H Factor programme for four months, you'll decrease your score by up to ten points and end up with a fraction of the risk you started with.

And we're not just talking about adding years to your life. We're also looking at how to add life to your years.

Whether you are young or old, sick or healthy, the best time to measure your H score is now. Then, if necessary, you can do what you need to do to bring it into the healthy range. If you're young, remember that homocysteine does much more than predict risk for diseases — it also shows how well we'll cope with life's long rollercoaster ride.

His cholesterol was normal, as was his blood pressure. His homocysteine, however, was 14.6, putting him in the high risk category. He started supplementing B6, B12 and folic acid.

Within three months his homocysteine level was 9.6, reducing his risk of a heart attack by more than a third.

Homocysteine measures your body's age and intelligence
It's an incredible fact that not only are we literally made from the food we eat, but that 70 per cent of our bodies are also renewed every year. The 'you' that stares back from the bathroom mirror isn't the same 'you' that stared back a year ago! It is, quite literally, a miracle. So, what is the 'intelligence' in our make-up that keeps making us new, or nearly new, every year?

It's all down to two extraordinary chemical balancing acts in the body. One is called methylation. The other is oxidation-reduction. If you can get these two working at peak levels you are going to feel great, and stay vibrantly young — mentally, emotionally and physically. Both are measured and predicted by your blood levels of homocysteine and both can be improved by the right nutrients, gleaned from both diet and supplements.

And this is a vital step. Methylation and oxidation-reduction largely control how rapidly you age and how early chronic disease sets in. If you lack antioxidants in your diet, such as vitamins A, C, E and selenium, you age more quickly and get sick sooner. The same happens if you lack 'methylating agents' in your diet, such as vitamin B12 and folic acid. These two chemical processes have got a lot more to do with your lifespan and pattern of diseases than your genes.

In fact, even gene 'mutations' that increase the risk of disease can be controlled by methylation. According to Dr Adrian Bird of Edinburgh University, 'One in three mutations that cause human disease can be attributed to methyl groups on our genes.

Homocysteine reflects the health of your genes, how well you are holding back the clock and your risk of premature death from all common causes. That's how all-encompassing the homocysteine story is. Your H score is more important than your weight, your blood pressure or your cholesterol level. Quite simply, it is your most vital, preventable and reversible health statistic.

Lowering homocysteine is easy with the H Factor programme
So, let's say your H score is higher than you'd like. What can you do over the next two months? All the H Factor programme involves are some simple changes to your diet, and a daily homocysteine-busting supplement or two. For a few pence extra a day, you can progress from potential health risk to maximising your health potential.

Using homocysteine as our yardstick, we've been researching exactly what kind of diet, supplement and lifestyle put you in the 'superhealth' category. We've looked at meat versus vegetables, wine versus beer, the effects of coffee, smoking, salt, being over weight and many other potentially harmful or protective foods, drinks and habits. And there are some surprises in store.

As you might expect, excess alcohol and cigarettes are extremely bad news. But do you have to quit completely? Yes, for smoking. No, for alcohol. In fact, small amounts of alcohol may even be beneficial. Smokers, on the other hand, have high H scores which plummet on stopping, but barely change on cutting back. Strict vegetarians are more likely to have a high H score than meat eaters. We'll explain why. Going on a weight-loss diet increases, rather than decreases, H scores. This doesn't mean you shouldn't diet, but does mean you definitely shouldn't go on one without taking homocysteine-lowering supplements.

Speaking of supplements, the evidence is clear. Certain vitamin supplements lower your H score much more effectively than diet changes alone. We advocate both supplements and dietary change and will tell you exactly what to take depending on your H score.

As you will see, the right combination of four B vitamins, zinc and a nutrient you might never have heard of — trimethylglycine (TMG) — can lower homocysteine in a matter of weeks. There are other beneficial supplements, too. The medical profession has homed in on folic acid as the 'answer' and, both in Britain and the US, folic acid supplements are starting to be more widely recommended, both by doctors and by government health advisers. However, folic acid on its own often can't lower a high H level down to within a safe range. The right combination of nutrients, on the other hand, works almost every time.

Interestingly, there's no drug yet discovered that lowers your H level, which is probably why the medical profession, used to massive campaigns to launch new drugs, has been slow to embrace this vital breakthrough. With no drug, there's no great profit to be made. In fact, exactly the opposite. If you do what we recommend in this book, you could bankrupt a few of the pharmaceutical companies who are selling drugs that treat only symptoms of disease, while promoting companies and therapies that treat underlying causes of diseases with the right diet, lifestyle and supplements.

We've put all this together into an easy, economical plan. All you do is measure your H score to know exactly where you are right now, then follow the recommendations in Parts 4 and 5, retest and see your H score fall. Once you hit the superhealthy goal — an H score below 6 — you've programmed yourself for super- health.

About this book

One last note before we plunge in to the particulars. We have made some bold claims here and in the rest of the book we'll show you how everything we say is backed up with good science — lots of it!

Part 1 explains what homocysteine is, why it's so bad when elevated, how lowering it decreases your risk of having the top five killer diseases, and how widespread the homocysteine problem is the world over.
Part 2 explains the risk factors for high homocysteine, and how you can test your own H level and see where you are on the scale from health to disease.
Part 3 gives you detailed information on some of the 50 medical conditions now linked to high homocysteine. If you suffer from any of these diseases, we want you to know the whole story.
Part 4 gives you the raison d'être of the H Factor programme. And it shows you why too much meat or extreme vegetarian diets can be bad news, why a little (but not too much) alcohol may help, and why caffeine, smoking and stress all raise homocysteine — and what you can do about it.
Part 5 explains why certain supplements can lower high homocysteine levels and which combinations and doses work best, depending on your H score.
Ten steps to superhealth puts it all together into a simple ten-step action plan to bring your homocysteine level into the superhealthy zone.

Wishing you the best of health,
Patrick Holford and Dr James Braly

About the authors

Patrick Holford is a leading light in new approaches to health and nutrition. He began his academic career in the field of psychology. While completing his bachelor degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of York he researched the role of nutrition in mental health and illness and later tested the effects of improved nutrition on children's IQ — an experiment that was the subject of a Horizon documentary in 1987. He became a student of twice Nobel Prize winner Dr Linus Pauling, who believed that the future of medicine was 'optimum nutrition'.

In 1984, with the support of Dr Pauling, Patrick Holford founded the Institute for Optimum Nutrition. A charitable and independent educational trust for furthering education and research in nutrition, ION is now one of the most respected training colleges for clinical nutritionists. At ION he pioneered many radical ideas in nutrition, from the importance of antioxidants to the dangers of HRT.

He has written 20 popular books, now translated into 17 languages. The first, The Optimum Nutrition Bible, has sold over a million copies worldwide. Backed by more than 20 years of research and clinical experience, Patrick Holford is convinced that homocysteine is the next big breakthrough in preventative medicine.

Dr James Braly qualified in medicine in 1970 and has remained at the cutting edge of new American medical research in natural medicine and laboratory science for the past 23 years.

Disenchanted with prescription drugs and symptom-oriented treatments, he founded innovative naturopathic medical clinics in Encino and San Mateo, California (1980—1994), specialising in an optimum nutrition approach to health care, backed up by proper laboratory testing. He founded and directed one of the first licensed clinical laboratories in the world for testing IgG-based food intolerance. Both through his clinics and laboratory he supervised the treatment of thousands of people using nutrition-based, non-drug treatments for preventing and reversing disease.

He was one of the first doctors to alert us to the epidemic of IgG food allergies and is author of the best-selling book Dr Braly's Food Allergy and Nutrition Revolution, as well as the more recent book. Food Allergy Relief. He is also a recognised world authority on coeliac disease and has helped to research and expose the widespread problem of gluten sensitivity, culminating in his recent book Dangerous Grains. He is medical editor and consultant for www.drbralyallergyrelief.com a website specialising in consumer education about clinical nutrition, delayed-onset food allergy, gluten sensitivity and coeliac disease. He is currently involved as medical director, researcher, nutrition product formulator and consultant with the California-based LifeStream Recovery, Inc., dealing with innovative nutritional, neurochemical, immunological and hormonal treatments of addictions and neurodegenerative diseases.

In recent years Dr Braly has extensively researched the role of homocysteine in health and disease and is convinced that homocysteine is the single greatest predictor of health and disease. His pioneering research has also identified how to lower homocysteine rapidly, thus reducing the risk of many life-threatening and debilitating diseases.