Month: August 2014

Eating organic on a budget: healing superfoods

Whether you are cooking at home or headed out on the town to eat, aiming for organic is a great way to avoid many toxins in our food supply. When you eat organic, you are avoiding pesticides, herbicides and petrochemical fertilizers that have transformed agriculture since World War II.

Eating organic on a budget healing superfoods

Eating organic poultry, meat, eggs and dairy is wonderful as well because those foods are produced without antibiotics and growth hormones which can have an effect on our health when we eat them! Sadly, I learned this the hard way after a decade of chronic illness and at the age of 30 decided to go 100 percent organic to save my life from years of toxic accumulation from these foods.

The organic food movement blossomed about 35 years ago and many people (including myself) find organic food to taste much better than their conventional (non-organic) counterparts. People choose to eat organic for the environment, but there are also many people, myself included, who choose organic because we know that when we ingest these toxins from our food, they have effects on our health.

The easiest way to start eating organic is to check out the Dirty Dozen, which is a list of the dirtiest fruits and vegetables that are the highest sprayed with pesticides. I also suggest always eating organic poultry, meat, eggs and dairy so you’re not ingesting antibiotics and growth hormones from the animals.

You can easily save money when buying organic by looking for in-season produce as well as frozen fruits and vegetables that are flash frozen and often have just as much, if not more nutritional punch to them as fresh fruits and vegetables that are sitting in your fridge.

Here are a few of my healthy superfoods that are healing for your body; they can help fight inflammation and are packed with vitamins, minerals and nutrients to keep your body strong and healthy! Be sure to reach for organic so you’re not eating pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics and other toxic chemicals.

Organic avocados are packed with vitamins and nutrients like vitamin E, B and folic acid, as well as fiber; they contain more potassium than bananas, and are rich in monounsaturated fats (and cholesterol-free). They’ve been shown to help our bodies better absorb nutrients in other foods and their balance of essential fatty acids and vitamins has been linked to lowering cholesterol and improving the appearance of hair and skin.

Organic coconut oil has been considered a superfood because it contains an optimal blend of fatty acids, which have been said to have antifungal, antioxidant, antoimicrobial and antibacterial properties.

Organic nuts and seeds are a great source of protein; they’re also rich in antioxidants like selenium and vitamin E along with phytonutrients and fiber. Walnuts and almonds are two of my favorites and when consumed in moderation have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol. You can use them in snacks, smoothies, salads and desserts for a kick of protein!

Organic whole husk psyllium is an amazing source of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber absorbs water and forms a jelly-like substance in your body which collects fats, cholesterol, sugars and food in your stomach and carries it through your digestive tract. Many of my clients love using organic whole husk psyllium and add it to many foods for an extra fiber boost.

BPA-free, organic sardines from Portugal are a safe option for seafood, unlike larger fish which are filled with mercury –and they’re a delicious addition to Caesar salad dressings, pizza and gluten-free grains like quinoa or millet. Be sure to look for BPA-free cans and Portugal-caught sardines like Bela sardines, which are also gluten-free. Sardines are soaring with omega 3’s to fight inflammation along with vitamin D, calcium and vitamin B12.

Organic moringa is an amazing green superfood that is soaring with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. It has been used to combat malnutrition in developing countries and grows back very quickly so it’s sustainable. I love using moringa because gram for gram, it contains more B12 than steak, more vitamin A than eggs and more calcium than milk. These tiny tree leaves are a powerhouse for my clients!

Source: fox news

Genetics play a bigger role than environmental causes for autism

Genetics plays more of a role in the development of autism than environmental causes, according to new research published Sunday in Nature Genetics.

The study found that 52% of autism risk comes from common genes, while only 2.6% are attributed to spontaneous mutations caused by, among other things, environmental factors.

Genetics play a bigger role than environmental causes for autism

“These genetic variations are common enough that most people are likely to have some,” said Joseph Buxbaum, a researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and one of the lead authors on the study. “Each one has a tiny effect on autism risk, and many hundreds or thousands together make a significant risk.”

Using Sweden’s health registry, the researchers compared 3,000 people with autism to 3,000 people without autism to determine the degrees that common and rare genes, as well as spontaneous mutations, contribute to autism risk. The study authors also compared the study’s results with a parallel study of 1.6 million Swedish families that identified specific genetic risk factors.

Buxbaum says the presence of these common genes can only determine the risk of autism, not whether or not the condition will develop. And even though spontaneous mutations only account for a small percentage of autism risk, their effect is significant. “[Individuals] might have all the common variants there as part of their background risk, but it took this initial hit to push them over the edge,” Buxbaum said.

Chris Gunter, an autism researcher at the Marcus Autism Center and professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, says the findings of this study are similar to those reported in other studies.

“There is no one gene for autism,” Gunter said. “Instead there are many different genetic variations which each contribute a little bit to the risk of developing the group of symptoms we diagnose as autism.” She added that we still don’t know exactly how much these different factors contribute to the development of autism.

Once scientists accumulate more data on the autism population, Buxbaum says this new research could help develop a “risk score” – such as the one that exists for heart attacks – that would help patients determine the likelihood of family members developing autism.  “The autism field has changed dramatically,” Buxbaum said. “We now have immense power to find both common and rare and spontaneous mutations in autism. That’s really the exciting part.”

Source: cnn

Encouraging healthy diet among toddlers can help curb childhood obesity

A new study has revealed that promoting healthy eating habits from infancy can help prevent childhood obesity and the onset of chronic disease.

Encouraging healthy diet among toddlers

Rebecca Byrne from QUT, said that the toddler years are a critical age in the development of long-term food preferences, but this was also the age that autonomy, independence and food fussiness begins and childhood obesity in Australia has doubled since 1986, with about 21percent of children aged 2-3 years now classified as overweight or obese.

She further added that liking a nutrient-dense diet that incorporates all five food groups was important, as evidence suggested that food preferences develop at this early age and persist into adulthood and iron deficiency also remained an issue for toddlers in both developed and developing countries.

It was also revealed that most toddlers were consuming a diverse diet, the amount and type of meat or meat alternatives was poor. Almost all children were consuming foods we would consider completely unnecessary at this age, such as sweet biscuits.

The study is published in the issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Source: ani news

Birth control pills make eggs look old, but they do not affect a woman’s fertility

Taking birth control pills may make women’s eggs seem old, at least as measured by two tests of fertility, a new study has found.

In younger women taking the pill, hormone levels associated with the ability to make mature, healthy eggs are more like those of older women than they are like the levels of younger women who don’t use these contraceptives, according to the study. Women on the pill also have fewer structures in their ovaries that can mature into viable eggs.

Birth control pills make eggs look old, but they do not affect a woman’s fertility

However, the new results don’t imply that the pill prematurely ages women’s eggs, the researchers said. Instead, the findings suggest that the pill obscures a woman’s underlying reproductive status, said Lubna Pal, director of the menopause and polycystic ovarian syndrome programs at Yale University. As a result, tests that are typically done to assess women’s fertility shouldn’t be done on women taking the pill, she said.

“Women should not be freaking out that they are losing their eggs” if they’re taking birth control, said Pal, who was not involved in the study. “These [tests] are yardsticks that should be applied only in the context of fertility assessments.”

A woman’s “ovarian reserve” is a measure that predicts how well her ovaries produce mature oocytes, or eggs, that can be fertilized. As women age, their ovarian reserve diminishes, leading to fewer eggs and to fewer that reach a mature stage.

Most doctors assess ovarian reserve by measuring the levels of anti-Mullerian hormone, or AMH, in the blood and by conducting a vaginal ultrasound to count the number of early-stage ovarian structures called follicles. Together, these two markers are strongly correlated with how a woman’s ovaries are aging. (Women nearing menopause tend to have lower values on these tests.)

In the new study, researchers looked at both markers in 833 Danish women between ages 18 and 46, including some who used oral contraceptives. Those who were taking the pill had 19 percent lower levels of AMH and 16 percent fewer early-stage follicles. Their ovaries were also much smaller than those of women who were not taking the pill.

The findings make sense from a biological perspective, Pal said.

The hormone levels that the researchers measured generally increase as eggs mature inside the follicles, in a process akin to a production line, she said. “So, if you suppress the ovarian function, particularly with higher-dose oral contraceptives, you are slowing that production line,” Pal said.

However, that doesn’t mean these women’s egg quality has permanently declined. Instead, hormonal birth control simply suspends the egg maturation process in an earlier stage.

Source: washington post

Five ways to prevent wrinkles

A wrinkle is a fold, ridge or crease in the skin. Skin wrinkles appear as a result of aging processes habitual sleeping positions,loss of body mass or temporarily, as the result of prolonged immersion in water.

Natural-Ways-to-Prevent-Wrinkles

Here are some ways to prevent wrinkles:

Quit Smoking:

Smoking is not good for skin. It makes you look years older, makes your skin dry and sallow looking, gives you age spots, and adds a ton of wrinkles to your face, especially around your eyes and lips.

It also deprives your skin of oxygen and nutrients, which causes a great deal of damage.

Drink Water:

Drinking lots of water is good, as it moisturises your skin. It also helps to get rid of toxins from your body. The skin looks healthy and radiant when it is properly hydrated.

Get Plenty of Sleep

While sleeping, our bodies produce human growth hormone, which induces growth and cell reproduction. When we don’t get enough sleep, our bodies produce cortisol, a stress hormone. Cortisol slows growth and tissue maintenance and results in dry skin.

Use a Nontoxic Sunscreen

Toxins and free radicals are a big source for wrinkles. So,we should use a nontoxic sunscreen to prevent from getting our skin wrinkled.

Eat Lots of Antioxidants:

Free radicals like pollution and toxins that damage our skin hate antioxidants. Vitamins A, C, & E, and beta carotene are all antioxidants. We should eat some sources of antioxidants like Blueberries spinach, kale, walnuts, artichokes, cranberries and beans

Source: zee news

World Breastfeeding Week: Five great reasons to breastfeed your baby!

Nothing can compare to the nutrients found in mothers’ breast milk for a newborn. While the benefits of breastfeeding are immense for the baby beginning at birth and continuing throughout his/her life, it also has many advantages over mothers’ health.

Below are five great reasons why breastfeeding is good for both the mom and the toddler.

Five great reasons to breastfeed your baby!

Nutrients: Breast milk is the best food for your baby. The vitamins and nutrients in the breast milk are easier for your baby to digest compared to the nutrients in formula. Breast milk also has the prefect amount of protein, fat, carbohydrate required by your baby. Outstandingly, your breast milk also changes with the growth of your baby providing him specific development and nutritional needs.

Protection: Breast milk protects your baby against all types of diseases as it contains antibodies. Colostrum, also known as the first milk, has high concentrations of antibodies that help protect the mucous membranes in the throat, lungs, and intestines of the infant.

Breastfed kids are less likely to contract a number of diseases later in life such as childhood diabetes, childhood obesity, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, and cancer before the age of 15. Children who are breastfed have a decreased risk of tooth decay.

Brain health: Research has shown that young children who were breastfed as infants scored higher on intelligence tests than formula-fed kids. It says the longer and more exclusively they were breastfed, the more intelligent they will become later in life.

Bonding: Breastfeeding is a special gift both for the nursing mom and the baby. The closeness and comfort of breastfeeding strengthens the bond of a mother with her baby.

Mothers’ health: Apart from the emotional satisfaction, breastfeeding has many health benefits for mothers. Studies have shown that breastfeeding lowers the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and anaemia in mothers. Breastfeeding helps mothers to lose weight faster gained during pregnancy. Exclusive breastfeeding helps delay fertility, thus avoiding early pregnancy. One of the good thing about breastfeeding is that – releasing feel good hormones, which will lower a mom’s risk of postpartum depression.

World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is being celebrated every year from August 1 to 7 in more than 120 countries.

First observed in 1992 by World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), the main goal of the WBW is to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, which yields enormous health benefits later. The event is being organised by WABA, WHO and UNICEF.

The slogan and theme for WBW 2014 is “Breastfeeding: A Winning Goal – For Life!”

Source: zee news

Young Kids Diagnosed with Depression Can’t Shake It Later, Study Says

New research shows it’s hard for young children to get past depression. Children diagnosed with depression in preschool are likely to continue to be depressed throughout adolescence, according to a new study.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis tracked 246 children ages 3-5 to ages 9-12 and found that depressed preschoolers are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from the condition in elementary and middle school, according to the study published in the July issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Young Kids Diagnosed with Depression Can’t Shake It Later, Study Says

At the beginning of the study, 74 of the children were diagnosed with depression. Six years later, 79 of the children from the larger group had clinical depression, and 51% of the 74 children originally diagnosed were still depressed. By contrast, only 25% of the 172 children who were initially not depressed went on to develop depression during elementary and middle school.

“It’s the same old bad news about depression; it is a chronic and recurrent disorder,” child psychiatrist Joan L. Luby, who directs Washington University’s Early Emotional Development Program, said in a statement. “But the good news is that if we can identify depression early, perhaps we have a window of opportunity to treat it more effectively and potentially change the trajectory of the illness so that it is less likely to be chronic and recurring.”

The researchers also identified some of the factors that put children at a higher risk of becoming depressed: Children with depressed mothers were more likely to become depressed themselves, and children who were diagnosed with a conduct disorder in preschool were more likely to become depressed by middle school (though significant maternal support mitigated the latter risk). But neither of these factors mattered as much as an early depression diagnosis.

Source: TIME

Sugar increases hypertension

All 12 studies in a May, 2014, meta-analysis found that sugar elevates blood pressure. The study called “Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages on Blood Pressure” was published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Sugar increases hypertension

Soft drinks easily earn the name “liquid candy,” because they contain an average of 10 teaspoons of sugar per can. Soft drinks are the largest source of added sugar in our diet. These drinks are often cheaper than bottled water and become the liquid of choice for most of the population.

In the U.S., high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the major source of added sugar in soft drinks. HFCS has only been around since 1975. It’s marketed as a safe and natural fruit sugar — fructose. However, if you watch the Sugar: The Bitter Truth video lecture by Pediatric Endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig, you quickly learn that fructose is even more dangerous than table sugar — sucrose.

Drinking liquid candy is associated with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and kidney stones, and now this analysis confirms that it increases the incidence of high blood pressure. I could add the follow effects of sugar: yeast overgrowth, arrhythmia, bowel disease, rashes, lowered immune system and allergies. In my Death by Modern Medicine book, I quote Nancy Appleton’s “146 Reasons Why Sugar is Ruining Your Health,” with references.

Lustig found that, in a large meta-analysis of soft drinks and obesity, 88 studies all show significant association of obesity with increased soft drink consumption. Sugar industry studies showed lesser effects, and they claim that soft drinks do not cause obesity. However, studies limiting consumption of soft drinks in kids show that obesity decreases. Weight gain is another factor associated with high blood pressure

Researchers say they don’t really know how sugar causes high blood pressure, but in the sugar impact study, the authors discuss several theories. Apparently, liquid candy can lower nitric oxide in the body, which causes blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise. Since soft drinks can contain extra salt, they theorize that that may be the cause. They may not know what causes the hypertension, but they do conclude, “On the basis of these studies, there is a suggestion that intake of greater than one serving of sugar-sweetened beverage per day is associated with higher risk of hypertension.”

I have a different theory. Lustig talks about the extra energy used by the liver to metabolize fructose compared with sucrose, but he doesn’t mention magnesium. A fascinating and little-known fact about sugar metabolism is that 28 molecules of magnesium are required to break down one molecule of sucrose, and 56 molecules of magnesium are used up to metabolize one molecule of fructose.

When magnesium is diminished to that extent, the resulting magnesium deficiency can contribute to raising the blood pressure, because magnesium is required to relax the muscles of the body including the smooth muscles of the blood vessels. If there is tension in the smooth muscles of the blood vessels, then the blood pressure rises.

Nitric oxide is mentioned in the blood pressure study and also by Lustig. But nitric oxide is controlled by magnesium. This is what I write in The Magnesium Miracle: “Smooth muscle cells provide integrity and control the dilation of the arterial cavity, triggered by the calcium/magnesium ratio in the body. Calcium causes contraction and magnesium causes relaxation, which together control the blood pressure and flow in the artery. A final messenger for the dilation response is nitric oxide, which is dependent on magnesium.”

What do I recommend? Avoid high-fructose corn syrup, of course. Take supplemental magnesium and also make and take your own Liposomal Vitamin C. Magnesium and vitamin C are the antidotes to a sugar binge! You can go to my Blog to find the recipe for making your own Liposomal Vitamin C and also see my recommendation for the best form of magnesium to take.

Source: natural news

Skip the Steroids for Shoulder Pain?

For relief of shoulder pain, physical therapy and steroid shots provide similar results, a new study finds. Researchers compared the two nonsurgical approaches in a group of 100-plus adults suffering from shoulder pain caused by rotator cuff problems, tendinitis or bursitis.

“Whether you had a steroid injection or physical therapy, the improvement in each group was the same,” said lead researcher Daniel Rhon, from the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Skip the Steroids for Shoulder Pain

“It was also a rather large improvement, about 50 percent, and this improvement was maintained for at least one year,” he said. But the group that received injections used more health care services and had significantly more shoulder-related doctor visits during the year of the study, Rhon said.

“Additional visits to your primary care provider may indicate that you had a persistent problem and were seeking further follow-up,” he said. In addition, 20 percent of those who got injections ended up going to physical therapy anyway, and about 40 percent who got shots needed more than one injection, Rhon said.

“While we don’t know for sure, needing another injection would likely indicate that they still had persistent pain, especially because additional injections were optional,” he said. About one in five in the physical therapy group also got an injection during the year of follow-up, Rhon said.

The findings should reassure patients who prefer to avoid injections. “Some patients really do not like injections, so physical therapy may be a great and effective option,” Rhon said.

The report was published Aug. 4 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Michael Hausman, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, said the findings “seem contradictory to my experience in practice.”

Most of his patients who opt for physical therapy say their pain got worse with therapy, Hausman said.

“Probably the reason for that was that the therapy involves strengthening exercises, so patients are stressing the tendons that are damaged,” he explained. “It’s not surprising that the therapy would aggravate the symptoms.”

Hausman thinks that steroid injections work and should be part of treatment if physical therapy isn’t enough. “If the joint is stiff, you should do stretching exercises to restore full motion. You should avoid exercises that put a strain on the rotator cuff tendon,” he said. “If the symptoms persist and limit activity, then I would recommend a steroid injection with a maximum of two injections.”

Shoulder pain is a very common condition, and treatment decisions aren’t uniform, said Dr. Michael Mizhiritsky, a physiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “An accurate diagnosis needs to be established before initiating treatment. An experienced physician needs to evaluate a patient and consider diagnostic tests, such as X-ray and MRI,” he said. “Only then should treatment begin.”

Treatment should include physical therapy, Mizhiritsky said. “Steroid injections should be considered either before starting physical therapy or anytime there is no significant timely improvement, and a home exercise program needs to be followed,” he added.

For the study, Rhon’s team randomly assigned 104 patients with shoulder pain between the ages of 18 and 65 to receive steroid injections or six sessions of physical therapy over six weeks. Participants reported on their pain throughout the study.

During the year of the study, those receiving steroids could have as many as three injections.

Physical therapy included a combination of joint and soft-tissue manipulations, stretches, muscle contraction-relaxation techniques and exercises to promote movement in the shoulder, chest or neck. These patients also were given exercises they could do at home that reinforced the therapy.

Source: web md

Parents admit to dosing errors when giving kids medication

Common household spoons are often used when parents give kids a dose of medication, but a new study suggests there’s a real danger to estimating amounts of prescription, or over the counter products.

Dr. Michael Rieder is chair of the drug therapy committee forthe Canadian Pediatric Society and director of pediatric pharmacology at the Children’s Hospital in London at the University of Western Ontario.Parents admit to dosing errors when giving kids medication

“The volume in that teaspoon ranges from 3.5 to 7.5 millilitres probably,” he said. “If you’re making a banana cream pie, that might not be a big deal, but if you’re treating with a medication it might be quite a big deal.”

A recent study done out of two medical centres in New York has found that parents frequently make dosing errors when giving medication to children. In fact, more than 40 per cent of the 287 parents interviewed for the research didn’t measure it correctly. And one out of six of those parents used spoons out of their kitchen drawer.

“In the United States, where the study was done, it shows if you use millilitres, which is not a commonly used measurement, it actually reduces dosing errors,” Rieder explained.

“In countries like Canada, where the metric system is well established, it suggests that maybe we should stop talking about teaspoons and tablespoons and go straight to millilitres as a way to reduce the potential for dosing errors for commonly used medicine in children.”

Rieder says prescribing medications in millilitres rather than teaspoons forces caregivers to be more precise.

“Drugs are safe and effective within certain doses. Usually if you don’t give enough they don’t work, if you give too much they can be toxic. So it addresses a really important issue of dosing errors,” he said.

For parents, the need for over-the-counter medications often arises at night, in low light, when parents have been woken up or been up late with a sick kid. But they’re not the only ones making these mistakes.

Rieder says a study in pediatric emergency medicine done a few years ago found the highest rate of dosing errors happened when the fewest number of patients were there.

“When is that? It’s three in the morning,” he said. “So if you look at emergency personnel, trained medical personnel, their error rate is highest in the wee small hours of the morning when people are tired. So it shouldn’t really surprise anybody parents have those same circumstances.”

Rieder says the consequences of giving too much medication depends on the drug in question. Anti-seizure medications, for example, don’t have much of a margin for error. And though using a spoon one night for a single dose of a painkiller likely isn’t a huge issue, parents need to be aware of a cumulative effect.

“There’s a disturbing thing with drugs like Tylenol, acetaminophen,” Rieder said. “There’s a couple disturbing papers which suggested that a relatively small overdose, over a period of several days can result in liver damage. If you think about a child who’s got a viral infection, some children are better in 24 hours, but often, especially during flu season, they’re often sick for three, four days. So under those circumstances, there’s a certain number of children that get toxicity from small but sustained doses.”

Rieder says companies in Europe are looking at alternatives, like mini capsules and formulations that melt on the tongue and require no measuring.

Manufacturers also do their part, bundling droppers into infant products. But since many of the medications are bought off the shelf without any interaction with a medical professional, it really comes down to parents being willing to take that extra step, and put away the spoon.

“A teaspoon is an intangible amount. Five millilitres is a very real number,” he said.

Various pediatric groups and health-care product associations in the U.S. are starting to recommend prescriptions and package instructions be written in millilitres to ensure clarity.

Source: cbc news