Spending just pennies a day on healthcare can reduce our expenditures by $24 billion over five years.

Sound crazy? It’s true.

New research from the Lewin Group has shown that spending pennies a day on a few key nutritional supplements can dramatically reduce sickness and chronic disease -- and greatly decrease healthcare expenditures as a result.

How did they come to this conclusion? And why haven’t we heard about it?

The Lewin Group looked only at rigorous scientific studies that documented the benefits of nutritional supplements. They used the Congressional Budget Office’s accounting methods to determine the economic impact of supplements. And they kept their analysis specifically to Medicare patients and women of childbearing age.

Although nutritional therapies can help a broad range of illnesses, the group only looked at four supplements and disease combinations because of the rigor and validity of the scientific evidence available for these nutrients and diseases.

While there are many other beneficial nutritional therapies that have been proven helpful in studies, the ones in this particular study are only those that are unquestionable, beyond scientific doubt, well-accepted, and proven to help.

Yet they are also under-used and not generally recommended by healthcare providers.

The study looked at:

1. Calcium and vitamin D and their effect on osteoporosis
2. Folic acid and its ability to prevent birth defects
3. Omega-3 fatty acids and their benefits for heart disease
4. Lutein and zeaxanthin and their benefit in preventing major age-related blindness, or macular degeneration

Let me review these in more detail.

"There are no studies that prove the benefits of nutritional or integrative therapies..."

It's a refrain that I hear time and time again.

And I hear it from my colleagues.

But they couldn't be more wrong!

They just have not done their homework -- or perhaps they are reading the wrong medical journals.

One of my favorite medical journals is the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition," which every month publishes more than 300 pages of research with NO ADVERTISING. 

This is very unlike my other medical journals -- such as the "Journal of the American Medical Association" or "The New England Journal of Medicine" -- which have pages and pages of color glossy drug ads.

So today, I thought I would take you on a journey through just one issue of the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" to see just how much research is being done on how food and nutrients affect our health. 

"Live to 120 years old by eating as much as you want and drinking lots of red wine!"

That's the intriguing finding of a recent study from Harvard researcher David Sinclair and his group.

The only catch?

Well, you'd have to drink about 1,500 bottles of wine a day to get those results.

Of course, that would kill you pretty quickly -- before you'd have a chance to reach age 120!

Still, those are important findings.

In fact, Dr. Sinclair thinks that they're so important that he started a company to produce a pharmaceutical derivative of the active compound in red wine, resveratrol.

Although his findings have merit, I think he is misguided in his attempt to find the "magic pill" that will allow you to eat whatever you want and live forever. 

Imagine eating 12 pounds of food a day -- and still staying thin and healthy.

Sounds crazy, right?

Well, that's exactly what our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate for millennia!

And they didn't have any obesity or chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or dementia.

Of course, I wouldn't advise anyone today to eat 12 pounds of food, because the food in our society lacks one major secret ingredient that our ancestors ate in nearly all their food -- fiber!

Fiber has so many health benefits that I've made it the entire focus of this week's blog.

But before I tell you about what fiber can do for you, let's a look a little more at the history of fiber.

Imagine having a condition with symptoms so severe that you can't leave the house.

Yet your doctor calls it a functional, or psychosomatic, disease -- meaning that it's all in your head.

Frustrating?

You bet!

But it's a very real problem for the 60 million people -- that's 20 percent of Americans -- who have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

They're plagued by uncomfortable and often disabling symptoms like bloating, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, and pain.

I have lots of patients with IBS, some of whom have suffered for decades without relief.

Their previous doctors couldn't find the cause of the illness, so they were told to just get more fiber or take Metamucil, or were prescribed sedatives or anti-spasm drugs or antidepressants. 

That is NOT the answer.

I've found a better way.