Activator X

[Guest guest]

This is from Nina Planck's newsletter, which I heard about on another list. I don't think we've ever talked about Activator X. If any of you are familiar with Nourishing Traditions, they talk about it in that book. I found capsules that combine Cod Liver Oil and high-vitamin butter oil that contains Activator X here:

 

http://www.greenpasture.org/

 

Nina gives a good explanation of Activator X.

 

Cyndi

 

THE MAGIC INGREDIENTIn 1945, Dr. Weston Price, the pioneer of nutritional epidemiology,published a revised edition of his masterwork, Nutrition and PhysicalDegeneration, including a new chapter called "A New Vitamin-LikeActivator." Price described his experiments with a fat-solublesubstance vital to healthy bones and teeth found in the butter of cowsraised on grass. The grass-fed butter was remarkably effective incuring a number of chronic conditions, and even more powerful whencombined with cod liver oil. Price called the magic ingredientActivator X.Some 60 years later, researchers have identified Activator X. It isvitamin K2, a fat-soluble vitamin essential for optimal dental andskeletal health. Vitamin K2 has a very interesting role: it putscalcium where it belongs (in the bones and teeth) and keeps it awayfrom the places it doesn't belong, such as the arteries, where plaquescalcify. Vitamin K2 is essential for healthy development and growth inchildren. Its effects are subtle: though K2 is necessary for bonedensity, it also prevents premature calcification of the cartilaginousparts of bones, the softer parts which allows your baby's bones togrow.Vitamin K2 can be made in the body from vitamin K1, which is found ingreen vegetables, but ideally your diet will contain ample sources ofK2 itself. Get your K2 from the butter, organ meats, and fat ofanimals raised on grass. A reliable sign of K2 is the rich yellowcolor of butter from cows on grass; K2's precursor is related to betacarotene.Now we know what Price could only surmise: why traditional people wentto so much trouble to get these 'high vitamin' foods, as Price calledthem.K2 is an interesting fellow among vitamins. K2 is made in yourreproductive organs. Sperm contains a protein that relies on K2. Thereis more K2 in your brain and saliva (where it protects you from toothdecay) than anywhere else. K2 deficiency (good name for a band)causes fatigue in lab animals. K2 prevents heart disease by preventinginflammation and calcification of the arteries.Do you need more K2? If you're vegan or vegetarian or trying toconceive, you probably do. Recall that Price found the combination ofcod liver oil and K2 butter powerfully effective. That's because codliver oil is rich in vitamins A and D, which have several synergeticrelationships with K2. In plain language, that means A, D, and K2 worktogether to build bones, among other vital tasks.If it's bone health you're after, consider one more virtue oftraditional diets: saturated fat. You need saturated fats to lay downminerals (such as calcium) in your bones. Studies show thatpolyunsaturated fats (soybean oil) 'depress' mineralization whilesaturated fats (butter and palm oil) 'stimulate' bone density. That'swhy I don't drink skim milk and cannot recommend it, especially forwomen who are concerned about osteoporosis.If you're worried about the effects of natural saturated fats on yourheart, fear not. The net effect of these traditional fats, such asbutter, is to raise HDL. On the virtues of HDL, the NationalCholesterol Education Program is clear: 'the higher, the better.'Recent studies even show that LDL is not the villain either, but arepair molecule sent to damaged arteries to repair them.You might instead choose to avoid the new, 'trans fat-free'non-butter, vegetable-oil based 'buttery' spreads. (I grimace as Itype the hype.) Now that trans-fats are known killers, Big Food bringsyou a new process for making industrial soy bean oil spreadable,because they know how much you want your butter.How do they do it? By scrambling the fatty acids in a process calledinteresterification. It appears we won't have to wait 60 years todiscover that these fats are not good for you. In a recent study byK.C. Hayes, interesterified fats lowered HDL (that's bad), depressedinsulin (that's bad), and raised blood sugar (also bad). Compared towhat? Good question. Compared to palm oil—yes, the highly saturatedtropical fat they taught you to fear.Remember the rule: if your great-grandmother ate it, it's probably OK.I know what you're thinking. My great-grandmothers in Sweden andBohemia and Germany and England didn't eat palm oil, either. But youknow what I mean.Best wishes, Ninawww.NinaPlanck.com(Thanks to Chris Masterjohn, writing in the Spring 2007 issue of WiseTraditions, the journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, for the newinformation on vitamin K2. For more on saturated fats and bonedensity, see the chapter called 'Food Lipids and Bone Health,' byWatkins and Seifert, in Food Lipids and Health, published by MarcelDekker 1996.)See what's free at AOL.com.