Dear Healthy Friend,

Everyone who's ever smoked and tried to quit will know how difficult it is to stop 'cold turkey'. What a blessing it was when pharmaceutical giants released pills to help nip the deadly habit in the butt (pun intended).

But what happens when you use these 'aids'? Could the blessing become the curse? See what Christine O' Brien's uncovered below about some of the deadly, dangerous side-effects these 'crutches' could have.

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

P.S. Undergoing surgery could be risky. Blood clots after surgery could be even riskier... Dr Wright has the answer to help prevent these. Keep reading...

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Are you risking your mental health to stop smoking?
Christine O’Brien
Contributor to Nutrition and Healing

If you're taking drugs to help you quit smoking, this research could surprise you.

Just last week, the FDA ordered that the smoking-cessation drugs varenicline and bupropion (branded under well-known names) must carry "black box" warnings that the use of these drugs have been associated with serious mental health events. Including suicidal behaviour in patients with no history of psychiatric illness.

The director of the FDA's Office of Drug Evaluation I, Dr Robert J. Temple, said the numbers come from crude reporting and haven't been verified, but "the reports themselves are enough to be convincing" and they're "more than you'd expect".

Other symptoms include changes in behaviour, hostility, agitation and depressed mood. If you start feeling any of these symptoms, the FDA recommends you tell your doctor immediately.

Maybe it's just me, but none of those symptoms seem to go along with a clear enough head to identify and tell my doctor about them. Wouldn't it be best to... oh, I don't know... just STOP taking them?

Of course not! Officials were quick to trot out the old lines - fear should not stop patients from taking varenicline and buproprion (which is also sold as a brand for depression). Dr. Curtis J. Rosebraugh, the director of the Office of Drug Evaluation II, still thinks the drugs could help people stop smoking, but they just need to "be careful".

Ridiculous.

But what do you expect - sales for varenicline have already been lower than the manufacturer had hoped for because of previous warnings about side effects. So the FDA doesn't want to scare TOO many people off.

I've never been a smoker, but I have watched people close to me go through the difficult process of quitting. I know it's not easy. But is it worth risking your life for? Some pharmaceutical manufacturers seem to think so...

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Use this fat to bust blood clots before they form

Q: I am scheduled to undergo bypass surgery soon. What can I do to prevent blood clots? I've heard the surgery will put me at high risk for them.

Dr. Wright: My primary recommendation for any "before and after coronary bypass" routine is regular use of fish oil (always with vitamin E), which helps prevent clots from forming in the first place.

You may also want to consider taking nattokinase, a natural enzyme derived from the Japanese soy food natto. While nattokinase is best known for its ability to break up existing clots, I have heard reports from people who tell me that it also works as a preventative.

If it were me, I'd use 1 tablespoonful of cod liver oil (mercury-free, of course) and 400IU of mixed tocopherols twice daily, along with one nattokinase capsule every 8 hours, starting as soon as possible after bypass surgery... or even before the surgery if I could.