The Physiological Role Of Vitamin D
July 1st, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
When it comes to leading a healthy life, you need to make sure to get your vitamins: everything from vitamin C and D to B12. One of the most important vitamins you can consume is vitamin D. This goes for both children and adults alike. If you want a diet that is fully balanced, then vitamin D really is an essential component for people of all ages. The following are just some of the many benefits of vitamin D
Bones, Bones, Bones Are Mojor Benefits Of Vitamin D
When your mother or family member said that milk does the body good, they weren’t kidding. One of the best benefits of vitamin D is that it strengthens the bones. Not only does it make the bones that much stronger, but it can help children grow. Strong bones implies less worry if you get injured: you should be more than fine. Additionally, if your bones are strong, it means that you will have to worry less about developing bone disease when you grow older. A great benefit of vitamin D is that it not only makes the bones stronger but ensures that if you experience a break or fracture, that the bones will be able to heal in no time at all.
In the same manner, one more benefit of vitamin D is that it results in a brighter smile. For folks who are concerned with their teeth – either the appearance of just with keeping them through old age – this is an invaluable benefit.
Benefits Of Vitamin D Is That It Improves Digestion
A great benefit of vitamin D is that your body will be able to handle nearly any food you ingest. This is because the body will know how to identify, process, and absorb or use the vitamins you consume. Thus, the effect is a great one: it ensures the body will be in great condition and that you will receive the necessary nutrients to keep you in fighting form.
Immune System Is Invaluable Benefits Of Vitamin D
Another invaluable benefit of vitamin D is that improves a person’s overall immune system. This means that your body will be able to ward off the common cold and serious illnesses. Additionally, it means that the body will be able to heal itself in no time at all in the event of an accident or sickness. Really, vitamins are the fuel of the body. If you receive enough vitamin D, you can be sure that your body will work in tip-top condition and that you will have to worry less and less about illness.
NUTRITION: FOOD THERAPY FOR THE HEART & CIRCULATION
June 30th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
EVERY YEAR, NEARLY ONE MILLION AMERICANS DIE FROM HEART DISEASE
Some Startling Statistics!!!
- One in five individuals has some form of cardiovascular disease
- Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United states and has been every year since 1919
- One of every 2.5 deaths in 1998 was due to cardiovascular disease.
AND MORE THAN HALF WERE WOMEN !!!
Did you know that women have a 50% chance of dying from heart disease or stroke?
The risk of a woman dying from cardiovascular disease is nearly twice that of all forms of cancer combined. But, you can do something about it.
Out-patient adults diagnosed with heart disease: 23 million (2001)
The medical establishment perceives the heart as a separate organ that requires specialization. But what is forgotten is that all the organs in the body are related to each other. The heart pumps the blood to support the circulatory system. In turn, the blood supports the other organs and itself. The other organs support the heart. All parts of the body are interdependent. The liver filters (one of many functions) the blood from toxins, which aids all the other organs.
ANOTHER EXPLANATION FROM TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE
Chinese Medicine has had an answer for more than 1000 years!
According to Traditional Chinese herbs & medicine, the heart, like all organs of the human body, requires blood and energy to maintain itself. Arteries, capillaries and veins support the feeding and cleansing of the heart. When any of these vessels are blocked, then the heart becomes interrupted in its functioning. This can become serious resulting in many HEART & CIRCULATION problems. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) focuses on opening up the targeted channels revitalizing and harmonizing the heart’s function and obstructed circulatory channels.
The liver, spleen, and every circulatory system organ can be involved in an obstructive process that impedes natural blood flow. This results in the body lowering in energy or Qi (Chinese medicine), high blood pressure, with every body function suffering from poor nutrition and de-oxygenation. No amount of vitamins or minerals can overcome the level of toxicity that develops except through gradual elimination of toxins in the blood. If detoxification happens too quickly, then a crisis can occur where nausea, exhaustion, and further setbacks in the cleansing process. If elimination is allowed to proceed on a gradual improving pace then expulsion is optimized. This requires working with the body as opposed to making physiology conform to a standardized strategy.
If the blood remains toxic for too long then an acidic environment is created. The result is a breakdown of vascular walls. This involves a scarring effect with blood components filling in the damged areas. This build-up complicates the process of cleansing. If the circulatory plumbing is not cleared out then all organs suffer speeding up the aging process. Its important at this stage that balance is re-established before established damage occurs.
Summary: Excess constitution with heat and dampness characteristics stemming from over-ingestion of rich, greasy, spicy, refined, intoxicating foods. Foods: excess red meat, eggs, cheese, fried foods, salt, excess sweet, refined & stale flour and oil products, chemicals, drugs and acoholic drinks.
When the body becomes overwhelmed by the above foods then the blood, organs and body becomes toxic and malfuctioning. The excess wears the body down into deficiency resulting in conditions of arthritis, tumor, diabetes, etc. The blockages in vasularity produces heat and pressure resulting in the following conditions - high blood pressure, constipation, excess weight, stroke and circulation ailments. The remedy is purging and cleansing.with bitter herbs and foods. Bitter cools and reduces dampness in the body. There may be exceptions which require a seasoned Master herbalist’s (Traditional Chinese herbs & medicine) input.
NUTRITION FOR THE HEART & FOODS TO AVOID
FOODS THAT BALANCE THE HEART
Legumes: mung bean sprouts, soy bean sprouts, tofu, tempeh, peas, Adzuki Beans, Black Beans, Black-eyed peas, Broad Beans (Fava Beans), Butter Beans, Calico Beans, Cannellini Beans, Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans), Edamame
Great Northern Beans, Italian Beans, Kidney Beans, Lentils, Lima Beans, Mung Beans, Navy Beans, Pinto Beans, Soy Beans, including black soy beans, Split Peas, White Beans
Grains: (whole grains, ½ cup for all grains) sprouted wheat - hard red winter wheat, Amaranth, Barley, pearled, Buckwheat (kasha), Bulgar, Oats, whole kernel, Rice, brown, Rice, wild, Rye, whole kernel, Quinoa, Wheat, whole kernel, All Bran with Extra Fiber, Bran Buds, Fiber One, Kashi, Go Lean, Shredded Wheat, Shredded Wheat and Bran, Buckwheat Groats, Oat Bran, Old Fashioned Oatmeal, Steel-Cut Oats
Vegetables: (Pungent) radish, horseradish, hot peppers, onion family (garlic, onion, leek, scallion, shallot, chive), Leafy greens (cabbage, spinach, carrot greens, mint leaf, nasturtium leaf, dandelion greens, kale, wheat greens, barley greens, broccoli, parsley), asparagus, bell peper, rose hip, tomato, celery
Green seaweeds: Green rope, Green tuft, Dead man’s fingers, Encrusting codium, Bird guano alga, Sea lettuce, Stringy, hairy, ribbon Ulva, Green barrels, Brown seaweeds: Winged kelp, Bottlebrush seaweed, Seersucker, Three-ribbed kelp, Northern bladder chain, Flattened acid kelp, Witch’s hair, Green acid kelp, Geather Boa, Rockweed, Spiraling rockweed, Sea cauliflower, Perennial kelp, Twisted sea tubes, Bull kelp, Dwarf rockweed, Woody-stemmed kelp, Sea fungus, Sugar kelp, Stiff-stiped kelp, Sea cabbage, Split kelp, Wireweed, Soda straws, Studded sea balloons), Red Seaweeds (Turkish towel, Bleached burnett, Winged rib, Sea moss, Sea sac, Rusty rock, Sea tangle, Turkish washcloth, Tar spot, Iridescent seaweed, Coarse sea lace, Black pine, Flattened sea brush, Sea brush, Sea laural, Red ribbon, Sea comb, Bleachweed, Sea noodles, Red eyelet silk), chlorella, cucumber
Mushrooms: Honey Mushroom, Brown Stew Fungus, The Miller, Shaggy Ink Cap, Green Russula, Russula integra, Weeping Milk-Cap, Saffron Milk-Cap, Hedgehog Fungus, Man on Horseback, Wood Blewit, Chantarelle, Funnel Chantarelle, Horn of Plenty, Yellow-Crack Bolete, Slippery Jack, Brown Birch Bolete, King Bolete, Sheep Polypore, Pestle Puffball
Fruit: (citrus) Clementine, Kumquat, Minneola, Mandarin, Orange, Satsuma, Tangarine, Tangelo, Lemon, Rough Lemon, Lime, Leech Lime, Grapefruit, Pummelo, Sweety, Ugli, banana, persimmon
Nuts & Seeds: Almonds, hazlenuts (filbert), flax seed, chia seed, pumpkin seed (lightly roasted to remove surface E coli), poppy seed, walnut, sunflower sprouts
Animal products: fish: sardine, salmon, mackerel, Cold water fish (LAKE TROUT, RAINBOW TROUT, BROOK TROUT, BROWN TROUT, ARCTIC GRAYLING, ARCTIC CHAR, SPLAKE, etc.) raw honey, bee pollen
Herbs: hawthorn berry, dandelion root, burdock root, chaparral, peppermint (palpitations), cayenne pepper, ginger, rhubarb root (constipation), yarrow, chamomile, motherwort, valerian
FOODS TO AVOID (worsens heart conditions)
Sugar, or foods with added sugars, Processed grains, or foods containing them (except as listed on the Grains List e.g. packaged cereals, even whole grain cereals, are usually processed, verify), Refined grains (which don’t say “whole” in front of each grain on the label) or foods containing them, “Wheat” or “wheat flour” without the word “whole” is usually a code word for “white” (includes white rice, “Flour” listed alone is always white flour), Potatoes, Cakes, cookies, muffins, etc. Crackers, unless whole grain, Cereals, unless whole grain and at least 8 grams of fiber per serving, Chips, Ice cream, Jams and Jellies, Maple Syrup, Regular Soda and other sweetened beverages, Juices, Oils except for extra virgin olive oil, nut oils, and canola oil, Mayonnaise, Creamy salad dressings, Butter, Magarine, Dairy products that are not fat-free, including cheese, cream cheese, milk, etc., Fatty meats such as bacon or sausage, Anything with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats in it.
This listing is certainly not the end-all list but is the longest that I know for this condition.
Mark Hammer C.M.H. Master Herbalist Longevity Mountain 5/09
Eating Habit Control–Lose Weight Portion Food Wisely
June 29th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Lose Weight–control eating habit. Portion your food is just one of many techniques to eliminate the eating habit. Obesity along with all the associated health and self image issues is the cost of lack of food control.
In fact if all glutinous eating were because of habit, it would be easy to lose all the weight one wanted to and keep it off. The problem is that for many decades, the over eating problem has been treated mainly as a habit. The most effective techniques for changing eating habit is awareness.
If you think about it, most techniques and programs such as Weight Watchers are about the overweight person becoming more aware. They use one or a combination of the following:
- Weighing Food.
- Stop thinking techniques.
- Calorie counting.
- Behavioral modification such as putting the fork down between bites, eating slowly…
- Food Equivalents.
Certainly, these techniques do work for while. However, over the long haul, there is a break down to the change. The old eating habits returns to cause one to gain the weight back and then some.
Let’s define eating out of habit: The easiest way to understand it is to relate with the person who stops at Dunkin Doughnuts every morning on his/her way to work. It’s a habit. Or the person who comes home in the afternoon, walks through the living room into the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator door. It’s a habit.
Break the habit and break the behavior. Take a different route to work. Find another activity in the afternoon to replace coming home. Or, if you do come home, climb in the back window instead of walking through the front door.
Any of these techniques are effective in breaking the eating habit. Weight comes off until… The “until” is an emotional stress at which point all the effort “goes out the door.”
There are two factors that end the diet or whatever awareness technique that were being used:
1. Self put-downs: The individual gets very upset with him or her self and begins to wonder if they have a “mental problem.” They call themselves stupid, dumb, asinine… They believe that this one mistake has completely ruined all their past successes and may even gluttonize themselves to get even with themselves. In other words, they have become their own worst enemy through their own hapless thinking.
2. They are totally ill equipped to handle the stressful emotion. The disappointment or success that led to the emotion yields a stressful situation in handling the emotion. This is because most of us have been trained to avoid emotions, control them, or pretend they don’t exist. Even success leads to emotion? Yes, the emotion is happiness, yet it’s amazing how many of us don’t allow ourselves to feel happy. “How can you be so happy when there are so many others who have nothing to be happy about,” is just one of several beliefs we’ve acquired towards happiness.
We could write a book about all the other emotions such as feeling down, happiness, excitement, upset, aggravation, boredom, confusion… The result is emotional eating.
All the good work achieved to control eating habit. Portion control and everything else is lost. When we learn to treat ourselves lovingly instead of self put-downs and embrace emotion instead of denying them, changing eating habit is a natural process.
A progressive approach to change eating habit involves asking important questions “What is missing here? Why are you not getting the results you’ve been promised?” It is clearly insane to keep dieting and using techniques to deal with change eating habit when the results are so poor. It’s more important to gain a grasp on how to stop emotional eating–eating emotional stress than it is to read the scale. Besides focusing on the scale doesn’t empower you to be a better more enlightened person, whereas learning how to overcome emotional eating empowers you in all aspects of your life. If you’re a sales person, you’ll be a better sales person. If you’re an assembly line worker, you’ll be a better assembly line worker; a mother, a better mother… Overall, you’ll build self esteem and find that what you really want to eat is far more nutritious and less in quantity than you ever before imagined possible. Podcast version at http://hypnocast.podbean.com/
Richard Kuhns B.S., NGH cert., an expert for eliminating emotional binge eating and author of the Scale Conspiracy e-book. For more information on how to eliminate emotional binge eating please visit http://www.dstressdoc.com/BingeEatingEbook.htm
Weight Loss - Necessary or Cosmetic? Interesting Info to Consider
June 27th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Almost daily we hear people saying I must go on a diet or I need to lose a few pounds. These people are usually addicts of the slimmers’ market or are overweight and are just talking about weight loss as a means of consoling themselves, knowing that they probably will not make the effort that is necessary to achieve their “target weight”.
It seems in today’s society that weight loss is an almost constant concern, not just by the people who manufacture all sorts of slimming aids, but also the general pubic who seem that much more aware of the need to keep the calories down.
There are probably a hundred and one ways that retailers will tell you is the best method to make those stubborn inches reduce. However, common sense says that the only real way to keep weight down (that’s if you haven’t already lost it) is regular exercise and sensible eating. Personal opinion doesn’t enter into it. Our GPs have been telling us for years about these two facts but why do we consistently choose to ignore them? Does it sound too difficult?
Fact number one, as we get older - and the “lower end” of this scale has dropped to 40 years of age - probably because of lack of care, bad lifestyle management, bad eating, the only exercise taken is a walk to the car, one in four people are pretty well sure to have developed Type 2 diabetes. Obesity is the main cause of this condition. The side effects being high blood pressure, loss of circulation, usually in the feet, kidney problems, eye problems, etc, etc. It will eventually catch up with you. Promise!
Remember one in four: so if you’re sitting on a 60 seater bus, chances are 15 people could have diabetes - yes 25 per cent!
So, what’s the cure for diabetes. Answer. Nothing! On the one hand, we can ignore it, keep stacking the weight on, keep eating rubbish, let the blood pressure rise, start losing our eyesight, have problems with the waterworks. Then prematurely die!!
There is an alternative though, which involves weight loss. Many, many diabetics take responsibility for their condition - and that includes weight loss. They exercise regularly, eat plenty of low-fat food, plenty of pulses, as much diet drink as they like and, most importantly, walk for 30 minutes a day at least three times a week.
Weight loss is a critical issue in the society we live in today. With foods mass produced, it is up to us to keep ourselves in good condition. That means losing weight. It isn’t really that difficult. We hear a lot from the more famous weight loss companies about their products giving you the ability to lose more weight than their rivals. But, commonsense, a visit to the library to see what a diabetic eats - which is always a good guide. Write yourself a little chart with your regime and away you go.
You will be surprised just how quickly you will get into shape. And, more importantly, it will be fun to do and you will certainly reap the benefit in the long run, especially if you are getting on in years.
Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Weight Loss
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Ditch the Treadmill - Foods that Increase Metabolism
June 26th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
There are many food that increase metabolism available for us to buy. Metabolism is how fast our bodies are able to process food into energy. A rise in metabolism usually ends up as weight loss. Metabolism can be increased by a range of techniques; some of the best ones are listed below:
- Specialists advise to consume 5 to 6 smaller meals per day in the place of 3 larger ones. The same amount of food eaten in this way keeps the stomachprocessing food efficiently.
- Foods with high fibre content are a vital part of your diet as fibre has a major influence on your digestive transit, leading to higher metabolism. The more efficient your digestive system is, the more goodness from your food is able to enter your system.
- Protein will increase your metabolism even if you only increase your protein intake by a little each day. However, as most protein comes from meats, too much can be bad - this is especially true of meats like pork and beef. The balance of foods is crucial where metabolism is concerned.
- Keeping fit can be a metabolism boost as this is the point when your metabolism is at its fastest. A regular exercise routine will do wonders for your metabolism.
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