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August 22, 2010

Sunset

Beauty of Nature

Vitamin D has risen to the ranks of nutritional superstardom. Research suggests this nutrient will perform best if you take it during your biggest meal of the day — be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

D for Dinner?
About three-quarters of us are deficient in vitamin D. A growing body of research links this nutrient to a list of health benefits, such as lower blood pressure, stronger bones, better immunity, and possibly even a lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers. One easy way to get your D is to spend some time outside  just 10 to 20 minutes of sun during peak hours is all you need. But a supplement is a great backup plan. And when researchers examined D-deficient middle-aged and older adults, they found that pairing the supplement with the largest meal of their day — rather than small meals, snacks, or an empty stomach — doubled the participants’ blood levels.

Table 1: Selected food sources of vitamin D10-12

Food International Units(IU)
per serving
Percent DV
DailyValue)*
Pure Cod liver oil, 1 Tablespoon (Note: most refined cod liver oils today have the vitamin D removed! Check your label to be certain.) 1,360 340
Salmon, cooked, 3½ ounces 360 90
Mackerel, cooked, 3½ ounces 345 90
Tuna fish, canned in oil, 3 ounces 200 50
Sardines, canned in oil, drained, 1¾ ounces 250 70
Milk, nonfat, reduced fat, and whole, vitamin D fortified, 1 cup 98 25
Margarine, fortified, 1 Tablespoon 60 15
Pudding, prepared from mix and made with vitamin D fortified milk, ½ cup 50 10
Ready-to-eat cereals fortified with 10% of the DV for vitamin D, ¾ cup to 1 cup servings (servings vary according to the brand) 40 10
Egg, 1 whole (vitamin D is found in egg yolk) 20 6
Liver, beef, cooked, 3½ ounces 15 4
Cheese, Swiss, 1 ounce 12 4

Here is the Vitamin D in isotonic form

August 20, 2010

Organic food is becoming more popular.
But in many parts of the country it is not available and it is expencive
This article in Time is helpful.

Article in Time Magazine August 30 2010
Organic food benefits

Should we buy organic?

Our diet is indeed killing us, and it’s killing the planet too. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta released a study revealing that nearly 27% of Americans are now considered obese (that is, more than 20% above their ideal weight), and in nine states, the obesity rate tops 30%. We eat way too much meat — up to 220 lb. per year for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — and only 14% of us consume our recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

Our processed food is dense with salt and swimming in high-fructose corn syrup, two flavors we can’t resist. Currently, enough food is manufactured in the U.S. for every American to consume 3,800 calories per day — we need only 2,350 in a healthy diet — and while some of that gets thrown away, most is gobbled up long before it can go stale on the shelves.
Humans are designed to use and digest foods that look the way they did when they came from the ground or were cooked fresh from an animal. No matter how much technology or genetic modification led to what’s on your plate, your digestive system is pretty much the same as it was when our ancestors climbed down from the trees. So the smallest amount of industrial additives must be best, right? Maybe not.
Introducing modern chemicals into the food chain has raised concerns as well. Hormones given to livestock to spur growth are troublesome enough to warrant the extra cost of a label declaring which meat products are hormone-free. Paying a bit extra for hormone-free meat may be a case in which spending a little more makes sense. Otherwise, read as much as possible about the various hormones used in animals, since not all of them affect us the same way.
Here are some shortcuts to getting the benefits of organic without the cost:
• Avoid synthetic colorants.
• Choose foods without labels, which are better than packaged foods.
• Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly, preferably with a vegetable brush, which can enhance pesticide removal. Some foods absorb more pesticides than others and are easier to clean.
The top five common items that I recommend always be washed are peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery and nectarines.
• Peel fruit if possible since that removes pesticides and allows you to save money by buying nonorganic.
• Buy seasonal fruits. It lowers your grocery bill. And bear in mind, frozen veggies retain most of the health benefits of fresh ones.
Most important, remember: When it comes to food, buy organic if you can afford it to help the planet. If not, you can still eat healthily with a few precautions. Food is an affordable medicine for all of us.

August 19, 2010

Powerful antioxidant

Pine bark extract Pycnogenol

Pycnogenol is a trade name for a compound of natural antioxidants extracted from the bark of the French Maritime pine tree-Pinus pinaster. Loaded with bioflavonoids and other biologically active phytonutrients, or plant nutrients, Pycnogenol is backed by clinical research and a long history of use. Studies show that Pycnogenol-a powerful antioxidant-has cardiovascular benefits, boosts the immune system, improves the appearance of the skin, treats varicose veins, relieves the pain of arthritis, and reduces inflammation.

Pycnogenol is one of the few standardized bioflavonoid-containing plant extracts that has undergone numerous experimental and clinical studies to determine its effects on the human body. Because Pycnogenol is a standardized extract-meaning that each batch of Pycnogenol contains exactly the same amount of bioflavonoids and procyanidins-other researchers can use it in their experiments to confirm the results of previous studies. This is one of the important criteria of scientific research-that experiments can be successfully reproduced by other researchers. In fact, one reason why researchers have come up with so many different results when testing plant extracts and compounds is because these substances have not been standardized. Once a substance becomes standardized, however, it often attracts much scientific attention.
Short history
French explorer Jacques Cartier was introduced to pine-bark tea by the native Indians of Quebec during the winter of 1534. The Indians gave Cartier and his men the pine-bark tea to save them from dying of scurvy. Over 400 years later, Professor Jack Masquelier of the University of Bordeaux in France was working in Canada and came across this information. It fascinated him because he was very interested in studying the bioflavonoids, which he suspected were partly responsible for helping Cartier’s group ward off scurvy.
Professor Masquelier began to conduct research on pine bark to determine its biological effects. Later in France, he worked with extracts made from the bark of the Maritime pine trees that grew there. From this work, he determined that the extract did indeed display antioxidant activity and had beneficial effects on the vascular system-similar to the vitamin-P factor observed years earlier by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. Professor Masquelier continued his work on pine-bark extract and developed a standardized extract, which he eventually called Pycnogenol.

OPC-3 in Isotonic form

The Isotonix (TM) OPC-3

Pycnogenol has been used safely for many years in Europe. This substance has no mutagenic activity as determined by the Ames test. This means that Pycnogenol does not cause DNA mutations and is non-cancer causing. Moreover, Pycnogenol has gone through extensive testing to confirm its purity and safety. Studies on humans report no alarming side effects-even at high dosages. Pycnogenol is therefore considered nontoxic at the recommended dosage of 20 to 100mg per day for extended periods of several months, or 100 to 300mg for shorter periods of a few months, which is reserved for therapeutic usag

The phytonutrient components of Pycnogenol-including the antioxidant organic acids caffeic acid, gallic acid, and ferulic acid-have been tested for their free-radical scavenging activities. Pycnogenol has been shown to be effective in neutralizing several types of free radicals, such as the super oxide radical and hydroxyl radical. It also inhibits fatty-acid peroxidation caused by the biochemical t-butyl hydro peroxide, and thereby reduces damage to the cardiovascular system.
Here is some research done on Pycnogenol:

Antibiotics: Misuse puts you and others at risk

By Mayo Clinic stuff

antibiotics

Antibiotics overuse

If you think antibiotic resistance isn’t a problem or doesn’t affect you, think again. A prominent example of the dangers of antibiotic resistance is the spread of MRSA — or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. MRSA was once a concern only for people in the hospital, but a newer form of MRSA is causing infections in healthy people in the community.

Antibiotic resistance occurs when antibiotics no longer work against disease-causing bacteria. These infections are difficult to treat and can mean longer lasting illnesses, more doctor visits or extended hospital stays, and the need for more expensive and toxic medications. Some resistant infections can even cause death.

Dispute over rules for approving new drugs stalls production even as concern rises over deadly resistant bacteria

August 06, 2010|By Trine Tsouderos, Tribune reporter

Drug companies are abandoning the antibacterial business, citing high development costs, low return on investment and, increasingly, a nearly decade-long stalemate with the Food and Drug Administration over how to bring new antibiotics to market.

Soon, doctors fear, we could be defenseless against bacteria that can resist all existing antibiotics, which would mean more victims like Simon, dead from a staph infection that drugs used to conquer easily.

Dr. Brad Spellberg, an expert on antibiotic resistance, called the situation “catastrophic.”

The debate over setting new guidelines for antibiotic clinical trials has lasted almost a decade. In two years there have been at least nine meetings among the FDA, pharmaceutical industry scientists and physicians, academics and infectious-disease doctors, but the group has agreed on little besides the dire need for new antibiotics.

For years, new antibiotics often were approved based on clinical trials that didn’t have to show the new drug was better than an old one. Instead it had to fall within an acceptable margin of efficacy, which meant it could test somewhat worse and still be considered a success.

Some are suggesting that for community-acquired pneumonia, antibiotics trials might require as many as 10,000 patients at a cost of about $50,000 a patient, or $500 million. “Cubist barely makes that much a year,” he said.

“Nobody can run those trials,” said Shlaes. “They live in a different world. Their world is numbers and logic. It is not patients and life.”

And in my opinin that is the root of the problem. Big Pharma concerned about profits, not patients and life.

When is it appropriate to use antibiotics?

Antibiotics are effective against bacterial infections, certain fungal infections and some kinds of parasites. Antibiotics don’t work against viruses. Taking an antibiotic when you have a viral infection won’t make you feel better — and can contribute to antibiotic resistance.

Ways to avoid antibiotic resistance

Wash the right way. There is some concern that the triclosan in antibacterial soaps could lead to resistance, and it’s not clear whether they’re any more effective than scrubbing for 30 seconds with regular soap and water. Alcohol is also effective surface cleaner that don’t create resistance.

Buy organic. The antibiotics in the feed of some nonorganic farm animals may contribute to antibiotic resistance. Check your local farmers’ markets

Don’t take an antibiotic unless you absolutely have to. “We could probably cut our antibiotic use by 70% if people only took them when they are absolutely necessary,” says Louis Rice, MD, an expert on resistant bugs and chief of medical service at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. With some illnesses that typically go away on their own, like ear infections and sinus infections, you can practice “watchful waiting”—get the prescription, but don’t fill it unless the condition persists.

Ask for the shortest course of antibiotics. “The optimal length of antibiotic use for most illnesses may be much less than the current recommendations,” Dr. Rice says. “There might be a three-day course or a seven-day course that is equally effective as a longer one.” For example, when doctors studied treatments for urinary-tract infections, they found that 87% cleared up with a single dose of antibiotics and 94% were cured with a three-day course.

Strengthen your immune sysytem wit proper food and natural supplements.

Teach others how to avoid antibiotics

August 5, 2010

Maintain beautiful, healthy skin
Exposure to UV sun radiation generates harmful compounds called free radicals in the body.These unstable oxygen molecules attack healthy cells, damaging their lipids, proteins and DNA.

beautiful skin at any age

Anti aging products

Free radical attacks lead not only to the breakdown of collagen but also to impaired function of collagen-producing cells. Without healthy collagen, skin loses its elasticity, causing it to wrinkle and sag.
To stop free radicals from prematurely aging your skin, antioxidants are essential. These are found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, wine, tea and coffee. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals, are guarding healthy cells from injury.
While obtaining antioxidants through diet is ideal for protection of internal body systems, it’s speculated that only about one percent of them consumed orally reach the skin.

Powerful antioxidant

Isotonix OPC-3® Beauty Blend

Applying antioxidants topically may be a more effective way to protect skin from oxidative damage.
Idealiy it is best to take care of your skin both from the inside and the outside. For optimal effects, combine a diet rich in antioxidants with topically applied nutrients.

The resveratrol in grapes has long been heralded for its heart-healthy properties. But the same compound may also help reduce symptoms of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, writes Joseph Maroon, MD, in his book The Longevity Factor.
In a recent study, researchers found that injections of resveratrol helped soothe inflamed joints in animals. And while it’s not clear how much dietary resveratrol would be needed to help arthritis, grapes and grape juice have lots of other health-promoting qualities, so adding them to. your diet certainly can’t hurt.
Resveratrol stops inflammation the same way aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs do — by inhibiting the molecular switch that turns inflammation on and off in the body. Still hurting despite taking your pain meds and supplements?
Isotonix Resveratrol

The most efficient form of resveratrol

Isotonix® Resveratrol is an isotonic-capable supplement, made from three patented ingredients: Resveravine with 20% resveratrol extract, BioVin® Advanced with 5% resveratrol extract, and VitaBlue® (wild blueberry extract), designed to promote normal cell health. Isotonix Resveratrol works to maintain cell health, promote normal cell cycle activity, promote apoptosis (programmed cell death) in unhealthy cells, support the normal activity of the SIRT-1 gene, and promote cardiovascular health, by promoting healthy platelet activity, promoting vasorelaxation, and providing antioxidant protection of LDL particles. Resveravine is a combination of trans-resveratrol (20% purity) and viniferin extracted from vine stems, which work synergistically to enhance the effectiveness of resveratrol extract.

A review of previous studies — published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that statins do not lower death rates among

Statins for healthy people

Are statins good for you?

patients with risk factors but no evidence of established cardiovascular disease who take them as a preventive measure. The new study would seem to be a blow both to the drugs’ makers and to three-quarters of statin users — that is, those who take the drug in hopes of averting a first heart attack or stroke.

At the same time, a study in the journal Cancer suggests that for men who have undergone surgery for prostate cancer, statin use appears to reduce the chance that the disease will return.

Against the backdrop of such research, a third study released Monday characterized as “flawed” a widely hailed 2008 study that appeared to establish the benefit of the statin rosuvastatin (commercially marketed as Crestor) in the prevention of heart attack and stroke.

The third article, also published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, raised questions about the financial and professional motives of the medical researchers who conducted the highly influential study, known as the JUPITER trial. Nine clinical trials published in the last six years have found no benefit to the use of statins in the prevention of heart disease, but “the results [of the JUPITER trial] have undoubtedly propelled many healthy persons without elevated cholesterol levels onto long-term statin treatment,” wrote the authors of the critique.

The belief that statins lower the risk of a heart attack or stroke has helped make them the second-most-commonly prescribed class of drugs in the United States, behind antipsychotic medications.

There is a better way to stay healthy: Active lifstyle, proper diet and effective proven supplements if needed.

June 28, 2010

The carbonation in all soft drinks causes calcium loss in the bones through a three-stage process:
The carbonation irritates the stomach.
The stomach “cures” the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.
The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.
But, the story doesn’t end there. Another problem with most soft drinks is they also contain phosphoric acid (not the same as the carbonation, which is carbon dioxide mixed with the water). This substance also causes a drawdown on the store of calcium.
So, soft drinks soften your bones (actually, they make them weak and brittle) in three ways:
Carbonation reduces the calcium in the bones.
Phosphoric acid reduces the calcium in the bones.
The beverage replaces a calcium-containing alternative, such as milk or water. Milk and water are not excellent calcium sources, but they are sources.
Diabetes in a can
The picture gets worse when you add sugar to the soft drink. The sugar, dissolved in liquid, is quickly carried to the bloodstream, where its presence in overload quantities signals the pancreas to go into overdrive. The pancreas has no way of knowing if this sugar inrush is a single dose or the front-end of a sustained dose. The assumption in the body’s chemical controls is the worst-case scenario. To prevent nerve damage from oxidation, the pancreas pumps out as much insulin as it can. Even so, it may not prevent nerve damage.
But, this heroic effort of the pancreas has a hefty downside. The jolt of insulin causes the body to reduce the testosterone in the bloodstream, and to depress further production of it. In both men and women, testosterone is the hormone that controls the depositing of calcium in the bones. You can raise testosterone through weight-bearing exercise, but if you are chemically depressing it via massive sugar intake (it takes very small quantities of sugar to constitute a massive intake, because refined sugar is not something the human body is equipped to handle), then your body won’t add calcium to the bones.
Add this to what we discussed above, and you can see that drinking sweetened colas is a suicidal endeavor. And now you know why bone damage formerly apparent only in the very old is now showing up in teenagers.

The carbonation in all soft drinks causes calcium loss in the bones through a three-stage process:The carbonation irritates the stomach.The stomach “cures” the irritation the only way it knows how. It adds the only antacid at its disposal: calcium. It gets this from the blood.The blood, now low on calcium, replenishes its supply from the bones. If it did not do this, muscular and brain function would be severely impaired.But, the story doesn’t end there. Another problem with most soft drinks is they also contain phosphoric acid (not the same as the carbonation, which is carbon dioxide mixed with the water). This substance also causes a drawdown on the store of calcium.So, soft drinks soften your bones (actually, they make them weak and brittle) in three ways:Carbonation reduces the calcium in the bones.Phosphoric acid reduces the calcium in the bones.The beverage replaces a calcium-containing alternative, such as milk or water. Milk and water are not excellent calcium sources, but they are sources.Diabetes in a canThe picture gets worse when you add sugar to the soft drink. The sugar, dissolved in liquid, is quickly carried to the bloodstream, where its presence in overload quantities signals the pancreas to go into overdrive. The pancreas has no way of knowing if this sugar inrush is a single dose or the front-end of a sustained dose. The assumption in the body’s chemical controls is the worst-case scenario. To prevent nerve damage from oxidation, the pancreas pumps out as much insulin as it can. Even so, it may not prevent nerve damage.
But, this heroic effort of the pancreas has a hefty downside. The jolt of insulin causes the body to reduce the testosterone in the bloodstream, and to depress further production of it. In both men and women, testosterone is the hormone that controls the depositing of calcium in the bones. You can raise testosterone through weight-bearing exercise, but if you are chemically depressing it via massive sugar intake (it takes very small quantities of sugar to constitute a massive intake, because refined sugar is not something the human body is equipped to handle), then your body won’t add calcium to the bones.
Add this to what we discussed above, and you can see that drinking sweetened colas is a suicidal endeavor. And now you know why bone damage formerly apparent only in the very old is now showing up in teenagers.

I know that some people use calcium supplements and drink carbonated beverages.

Sounds a little counterproductive to you?

Pycnogenol® for skin disorders

Dr. Lester Packer of the University of California (Berkeley USA) has discovered the mechanism how Pycnogenol®, the famous French maritime pine bark extract, may act to improve psoriasis and other dermal disorders. Since years people with psoriasis have reported that the occurrence of the itching red blotches was dramatically reduced when they took Pycnogenol®. But until now, it was not clear how Pycnogenol® does it.

Dr. Packer pinpointed the action for Pycnogenol®’s help for skin disorders in the genes of human skin cells. The skin of patients with psoriasis and various other dermatoses have high levels of particular proteins called calgranulins. These proteins are typically associated with inflammatory conditions, prevalent in various skin disorders. According to Dr. Packer, Pycnogenol® would dramatically decrease (nearly 22 times) the activation of genes in skin cells encoding these unfavourable proteins. In consequence, dermal inflammations are counteracted and skin conditions are brought back to normal, argues Dr. Packer.

This result is an agreement with a recent clinical study conducted by Dr. Ronald Watson (University of Arizona, Tucson) and published together with Dr. Packer. In this study it was shown that human volunteers irradiated with UV light were more resistant against getting sunburn when they took Pycnogenol®. Exposure of the skin to UV-light causes production of harmful free radicals, which are quickly removed by Pycnogenol®. But more than that, cells of the skin were prevented from initiating an inflammation by Pycnogenol®, thus preventing further harm to the skin. This is how Pycnogenol® prevents the process known as photo-aging of the skin.

Pycnogenol® is among the most powerful antioxidants, but unlike the multitude of other antioxidants, Pycnogenol® provides immediately visible benefits to the consumer. The current studies of Dr. Packer point at the value of Pycnogenol® for a normal, beautiful and healthy skin.

It’s been found in baby bottles, water bottles, and cans, but here’s a new item to avoid that contains the estrogen-mimicking chemical Bisphenol A: paper receipts. Science News reports that John C. Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry has found that both carbonless copy papers and the thermal imaging papers that form most receipts today are coated in a powdery layer of the chemical. He believes that our exposure to BPA through receipts is many times greater than through bottles or cans.
So why should you be concerned about BPA? Recent studies of the chemical have found that, when ingested, it is linked to diabetes, heart disease, liver toxicity, and birth defects. Warner told Science News that BPA found on receipts is dusted off on the fingers, where it either makes its way to food, or is absorbed through the skin.
“When people talk about polycarbonate bottles, they talk about nanogram quantities of BPA [leaching out],” Warner observes. “The average cash register receipt that’s out there and uses the BPA technology will have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA.” By free, he explains, it’s not bound into a polymer, like the BPA in polycarbonates. It’s just the individual molecules loose and ready for uptake.
As such, he argues, when it comes to BPA in the urban environment, “the biggest exposures, in my opinion, will be these cash register receipts.” Once on the fingers, BPA can be transferred to foods. And keep in mind, he adds, some hormones—like estrogen in certain birth-control formulations—are delivered through the skin by controlled-release patches. So, he argues, estrogen mimics like BPA might similarly enter the skin.
I think you should avoid receipts if you don’t need them.
But it can be harmful for people who handle receipts for living-cashiers for example.
So what is your opinion?

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