(The Best Years in Life) Whether you want to live longer and healthier or you want to address a specific health concern, building a good healthy natural foundation is essential. Just like you cannot expect to get good results from patching a roof on a building with a shaky foundation, the same is true of your body.

To build your own healthy natural foundation, begin replacing bad habits with good ones and take healthy measures such as these:

* Avoid processed sugar as much as possible. According to the WHO, refined sugar is the number one cause of illness in the world. Likewise avoid artificial sweeteners. None of them are safe and Aspartame is the worst of all.

* Avoid excessive alcohol. A glass or two of wine is OK and so is a beer or two (though wine is healthiest).

* Avoid cigarettes and tobacco products. Likewise avoid excessive caffeine.

* Avoid cell phone use and avoid prolonged exposure to electrical and microwave radiation.

* If you are overweight, begin a slow and healthy weight loss program where you burn more calories than you consume.

* Eliminate chemical toxins from your home and workplace environment, such as commercial cleaning products, air fresheners and air sprays, cosmetics, deodorants, pesticides and herbicides.

* Eat a very healthy mostly raw and mostly vegan diet with some organic meat (good choices are oily cold water fish, free range organic chicken and small amounts of organic free range beef). Include healthy fats; get plenty of omega-3s and healthy nuts, roots, tubers and seeds. Make sure your vegetables and fruits include a wide variety of colors to get the best array of phyto-nutrients. Eat organic vegetables and fruits when possible (they usually contain more nutrients and fewer pesticides). Such a diet is much more in tune with what mankind developed to eat for millennia.

* Get plenty of regular sunshine, both direct and indirect, in order to get ample amounts of vital Vitamin D3 and other healing benefits from sunshine. Vitamin D3 is literally essential for life and it helps fight and prevent illness, including cancer. When weather, climate and/or location make it impossible to get enough, take supplemental Vitamin D3 (500 to 1000 iu or more daily).

* Avoid junk foods, fast foods, trans fats, and as much as possible processed foods on grocers shelves which have had the nutrition processed out and harmful additives processed in for shelf life, taste, texture and color.

* Include regular physical activity. Healthy exercise need not be strenuous - moderate is just fine. The key is "regular".

* Eliminate stress as much as possible in your life - it is indeed the "silent killer". Avoid stressful people and situations. Take time out to "smell the roses" on a regular basis.

* Make sure that you get optimum daily amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Often these amounts are significantly greater than the minimal RDA amounts, which are merely the amount needed to prevent vitamin-deficiency related disease. As many as 80-95% of us are deficient in magnesium, an essential mineral for optimum health. Likewise, most of us are deficient in other essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, such as digestive enzymes. Get as much of your vitamins as possible from your diet. Since it is next to impossible to get all the nutrients you need from diet alone, consider a good whole foods derived multi-vitamin product as well as a good superfoods powder.

Once you have built a healthy foundation, specific problems and concerns can be addressed with much greater chances of success.