Pomegranates

Pomegranates are a fruit high in antioxidants. Pomegranates are a great source of the antioxidant polyphenols which help to fight off free radicals in our bodies. Eating pomegranates or pomegranate juice helps reduce cellular damage. Pomegranate juice is seen to be the most powerful beverage you can drink due to its high antioxidant and vitamin content. Pomegranates may help lower LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol. Consuming pomegranates has been helpful in slowing down the cholesterol oxidation process, a process that causes atherosclerosis and increases risk of heart disease. Any consumption of pomegranates or pomegranate juice will give antioxidant benefits. This article states that “pomegranate juice each day may keep the cardiologist away.”

To read more: http://www.hhnews.com/pomegranate.htm

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Herbs To Lower Your Cholesterol

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Hyperlipidemia or high cholesterol is a condition developed when the levels of cholesterol in the blood become too high. Heart diseases, heart attacks and strokes have a higher risk of occurring with high levels of LDL cholesterol. Atherosclerosis is a hardening of the arteries caused by the LDL levels narrowing the arteries. LDL cholesterol affects the lining of blood vessels and by building up in the arteries walls. Lowering cholesterol levels becomes imperative in this case.

A natural and effective method to lower your cholesterol levels is through cholesterol lowering herbs. These herbs can, in most of the cases provide the desired results. Vitamin B3 – also known as Niacin – is effective when it comes to lowering cholesterol levels because it reduces LDL cholesterol by 10 to 20 percent but it also increases HDL cholesterol by 15 to 30 percent and it dramatically reduces lipoprotein.

Artichoke leafs

Artichoke leaf is another herb that helps lower cholesterol levels. This herb works by limiting the synthesis of cholesterol in the body. Artichokes are also known to contain cynarin that supposedly increases bile production in the liver and speeds the flow of bile from the gallbladder, which together increases the excretion of cholesterol.

Plant stanols and sterols

Plant stanols and sterols are naturally occurring substances that are found in some plants. Stanols can also be found in dietary supplements or are added to margarine, dressings and orange juice. Plant stanols help reduce cholesterol – it has been shown through recent researches. Plant stanols are similar in structure to cholesterol and help when it comes to block absorption of cholesterol from the intestines.

Garlic

In order to maintain a healthy balance with vitamins, one must keep in mind that herbs are as well as a good diet to keep the arteries smooth as well as clear. The ultimate herb that lowers cholesterol is garlic. Its antioxidant activity protects LDL cholesterol from oxidation

Guggul

Guggul is a herb that comes from India and is a cholesterol lowering herb which has been the basis of Ayurvedic medicine for over two thousand years to control cholesterol through its active ingredient guggusterone. Guggusterone helps increase the rate at which the liver takes up and breaks down LDL cholesterol from the blood.

Soy products

As a substitute for meat, one can consume soy products because of their cholesterol lowering properties, and they also enhance liver metabolism of LDL cholesterol.

[Via http://herbsandtheiruses.wordpress.com]

Welcome to the Natural Health Resource

The Natural Health Resource has been created to educate and enlighten those interested in learning more about all natural ways to maintain and enhance a healthy lifestyle. In recent history our society has been bombarded with a non-stop stream of marketing from big pharmaceutical companies with one goal in mind.  To cloud both practitioners and consumers minds into thinking that the only way to better or maintain health and wellness is with a pharmaceutical.  The truth of the matter is that there are countless other quality products available on the market, many of which are over the counter supplements that do have substantial benefits with much less likelihood of side effects.  You might be thinking if these alternative medicines are so great then why haven’t I heard much about them?  The main reason that there isn’t as much info on natural remedies is simple. Money.  For example, the number one selling pharmaceutical in the United States is Lipitor. This is an effective agent at reducing cholesterol.   If you don’t take Lipitor, I’m sure you’re familiar with the name.  In 2007 this blockbuster drug accounted for over 12 billion dollars in sales.  That’s just one drug!   Last year, combined sales in the dietary supplement industry only reached a total of $13 billion, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.  So where does all that Big Pharma money go?  It goes towards expensive FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval, commercials, large scale clinical tests, huge sales forces, physician practice lunches, loads of free samples, etc.  So why doesn’t Big Pharma make dietary supplements if they can be just as effective?  Well some pharmaceutical companies are actually beginning to enter the dietary supplement industry but it’s definitely not their focus.  The most important thing in the pharmaceutical world is patents.  It’s near impossible to get a patent on most supplement ingredients. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars performing double-blind studies on an ingredient like vitamin D that you can’t patent?  The bottom line is that if Big Pharma can’t receive a patent on a particular health solution then they have no desire to allocate large amounts of money to prove it’s effectiveness.

This blog was not created to jab at pharmaceutical companies.  For the most part they’re products are effective.  As for side effects, we’ll save that for a future post.  The purpose of this blog is to shed light on all natural alternatives that are proven to be safe and effective. Our featured author is a cardiologist by the name of Dr. M. H. Chaudhry M.D., F.A.C.P. He has been practicing cardiology for over 35 years and recommends both pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements on a case by case basis.  He is in the minority in regards to practitioners but is part of a growing movement towards the understanding and acceptance of natural alternative medicines.  Whether you are well versed in alternative medicine or have yet to be exposed. We invite you to subscribe to this blog and look forward to your input.

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Health – Statin Drugs, CoQ10 and Your Health – Are You Healthier Taking Statin Drugs?

The New England Journal of Medicine reported recently, that at least 250,000 heart attacks last year could have been prevented by controlling inflammation.  These 250,000 heart attacks represent 20% of the total 1,250,000 heart attacks.  Half of the total heart attacks occurred in people with normal cholesterol levels.  You have the same risk of heart attack with high cholesterol compared to people with normal levels of cholesterol.  Maybe cholesterol is not the correct indicator or marker of your heart health?  The New England Journal of Medicine stated that controlling inflammation might be a better way to prevent cardiovascular events.

Statin drugs sold under a variety of names including Lipitor (atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin) are prescribed to lower cholesterol and supposedly to reduce the risk of heart disease. Statin drugs block your body’s production of cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase.  By inhibiting this enzyme, your body’s production of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is also blocked.  CoQ10 is the key to energy production in every cell in your body.  Your heart uses more energy than any other organ, and has a higher concentration of CoQ10.  Statin drugs block this enzyme.  If you are taking statin drugs and have a concern, please consult your doctor about adding a CoQ10 supplement.  Interestingly enough, there are two United State Patents (4,933,165 and 4,929,437) filed in 1990 by one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world that added CoQ10 to their statin drug.  To my knowledge, this statin drug with a CoQ10 supplement has never been released to the public.

CoQ10 supplements are not affected by statin drugs.  The best reference book that I’ve found on CoQ10 was written by Dr. Emile Bliznakov wrote “The Miracle Nutrient Coenzyme Q10” in 1998.  CoQ10 supplements do not prevent any of the current side effects caused by statin drugs, although some researchers believe that muscle and joint pain might be reduced with CoQ10 supplementation.  If you have muscle and joint pain from taking statin drugs, check with your doctor before adding CoQ10 supplements to your diet.

There are some things you can do to reduce cholesterol without taking statin drugs.  Avoid trans-fats, refined sugars, reduced-fat milks and powdered milk products.  Supplements that should be considered are:  cod liver oil, evening primrose and borage or black currant oil.  Eat plenty of saturated fats and foods high in copper.  Use coconut oil and coconut products.  I personally mix coconut oil and olive oil (half and half) for frying foods.

Statin drugs block your body’s production of cholesterol and CoQ10.  Additionally, statin drugs block dolichols which target proteins based on your DNA’s instruction.  Blocking dolichols can lead to your cells responding chaotically because of dolichol deficiency.  The immediate precursor of cholesterol is squalene.  Researchers have found that squalene inhibits blood vessels formation in tumors.

CoQ10 supplements can be found with the name ubiquinone or ubiquinol.  Ubiquinone is the primary commercially available CoQ10 supplement being sold in stores and over the Internet.  If the label of the CoQ10 bottle doesn’t specifically stated ubiquinone or ubiquinol, it is most likely ubiquinone.  Ubiquinone is the oxidized form of CoQ10.  You body will convert ubiquinone to ubiquinol.

Ubiquinol is difficult to synthesize and a method was found about three years ago that makes it commercially profitable to sell today – and at a higher price than ubiquinone.  Ubiquinol is the reduced form of CoQ10 – it is not oxidized.  As such, ubiquinol is the antioxidant form of CoQ10 which neutralizes free radical damage.  Not all of the ubiquinone you ingest is converted to ubiquinol.  Approximately 90% of ubiquinone is converted to ubiquinol in healthy young people.  As you age, your body makes less CoQ10 and converts less ubiquinone to ubiquinol.  Therefore, if you are older and have a choice, take ubiquinol.  I have read some articles that state ubiquinol is six to eight times more effective compared to ubiquinone in those people over 50 years of age.

I always read every label and accompanying document for any prescription, non-prescription and food supplement that I take.  I want to know it will do for me.  Last year my dermatologist gave me a prescription for a fungal infection on both my large toes.  I bought the medicine and read all the paperwork and decided that I didn’t want to take any chances with the side effects.  I chose a natural alternative solution that worked fine and eliminated the problem.  Check all labels before using – even if your doctor prescribed it for you.  You are responsible for your health!

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin

[Via http://prosperityprofessor.wordpress.com]

Eating Like a Caveman

You may have heard of something called the paleo diet, the idea being that to live healthy, humans should probably eat what their bodies evolved to eat. Cavemen did not eat Lucky Charms, Pop Tarts, Hot Pockets, or even bread. Recently, I’ve been reading stuff over at Free The Animal, a blog by Richard Nikoley, who went paleo three years ago and lost 60 pounds since. He avoids eating grains, vegetable oils, and the products derived from them. He also avoids grain-fed meat. He does not avoid all carbs and does not intentionally avoid any kind of animal fat. He maintains that a good paleo diet can be zero-carb or can include lots of starchy vegetables.

What I like about him is that he is not at all dogmatic about it. He does not care much to argue what exactly humans were eating in the Paleolithic era, as some paleo folks do, rather he uses the likely Paleolithic diet as a foundation and goes from there looking into scientific research. For example, humans have probably been eating wheat for a while, maybe we’ve adapted to it.

I’ve understood for some time that eating carbohydrates causes your pancreas to produce insulin which causes your body to store fat, while eating excess fat causes your body to simply burn it off. In other words, low-carb is good for weight lots and low-fat isn’t. However, we are told that avoiding cholesterol and fat, saturated fat in particular, is necessary for good heart health. Richard links to a lot of science showing this to be nonsense. First off, the cholesterol problem is more complicated than good (HDL) and bad (LDL). Second, your body produces almost all of the cholesterol in your blood. Eating more or less has basically no effect.

I want to eat like he does. The two difficulties I see would be finding and affording meat that is not grain-fed and avoiding wheat. Still, even if I just move partly toward this diet, my health should improve.

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Top 10 Reasons to Manage Stress

1. Stress can cause you to ‘numb out’ and become insensitive. This is a natural survival instinct in an emotionally painful environment and could cause you to become an ineffective customer service representative or an insensitive manager. (David Lee, Training Scene)

2. Stress can stifle your creativity and innovation in the workplace due to the high physiological and psychological effects it can have on you. It causes your thought process to narrow and could make it harder for you to excel at thinking out of the box. (David Lee, Training Scene).This can be detrimental to your job security because in today’s harsh economic environment, “innovation is the best source of competitive advantage” according to Professor Larry Smith at the University of Waterloo.

3. Stress can cause accidents because your mind is often occupied elsewhere creating what David Lee author of “Managing Employee Stress and Safety” calls ‘tunnel vision’.

4. Stress can cause conflicts between you and your co-workers. In fact it could potentially lead to violence. According to the “Attitudes In The American Workplace VI” Gallup Poll in 2000: 14% of respondents had felt like striking a coworker in the past year, but didn’t; 25% have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress, 10% are concerned about an individual at work they fear could become violent.

5. Stress is can make you less productive as it might cause you to miss work, quit or change jobs. Northwest National Life reported in 1993 that one million absences each day in the workplace are stress-related and it is estimated that 40% of worker turnover is due to job stress.

6. Stress can cause memory loss. The renowned brain researcher, Robert M. Sapolsky, has shown that sustained stress can damage the hippocampus, the part of the limbic brain which is central to learning and memory. The culprit is Cortisol a hormone secreted from the adrenal glands during stress.

7. Stress can affect your problem solving abilities. In a study done by Thomas D’Zurilla and F.Collette Sheedy in 1990, they measured specific components of the problem-solving process (e.g., problem orientation, problem-solving skills). The results of the analysis showed that general problem-solving ability was negatively affected even years later when the stress/problems have disappeared.

8. Stress can cause weight gain. Too much cortisol can slow your metabolism, causing more weight gain than normal. You may also experience more cravings as the hormones released during stress cause carbohydrate cravings by lowering levels of serotonin, the calming hormone (Psychology Today, August 2007).

9. Stress can elevate your cholesterol levels. Studies of medical students near exam time and accountants during tax season showed significant increases in cholesterol levels during stressful events, when there was little or no change in diet. (Rosenman, 1993)

10. Stress can increase your risk of stroke even 50 years down the line. In a study of 556 veterans of WWII, the rate of stroke among those who had been prisoners of war was eight times higher than among those not captured. (Page and Brass, Yale Medical, 2001).

Co-written by Sumayya Sattar

[Via http://watershedsolutions.wordpress.com]

Tomatoes!

Scientists are suggesting that tomato lovers may be more likely to reduce the risk of serious disease. Lycopene, an anti oxidant which gives tomatoes their lovely rich red color, helps remove free radicals from the body. Free radicals are unstable oxygen molecules and have been implicated in cancer and other serious diseases.

Professor Michael Avirim of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel who is testing lycopene in clinical trials says, ‘ In its natural form, lycopene is an excellent anti oxidant that helps to prevent formation of oxidized LDL, the ‘bad’ cholesterol in blood, which contributes to the build up of plaque that narrows, stiffens and constricts arteries and can lead to heart attacks. When this natural extract was added to cancer cell cultures, the lycopene inhibited their growth. Lycopene is the most potent nutritional antioxidant found to date.

Another study compared men who have a heart attack with the same number of healthy men and found that those with high levels of lycopene appeared to reduce their risk of heart diseases by 50%. The study’s coordinator, Lenore Kohlmeier, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the university of North Carolina, said, ‘Based on our findings, and other research, lycopene can be an excellent antioxidant, we recommend that people eat tomato based cooked foods.

Several recent studies have shown that a diet rich in tomatoes and tomato products is strongly linked to a reduced risk of certain cancers. In a six year study of 48,000 male professionals, Dr Edward Giovannucci and colleagues at Harvard Medical School found that consuming tomatoes and tomato based products between five to seven serving a week was associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer of 21% to 34%.

Another study published in the International Journal of Cancer said that lycopene appears to protect against cancer of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum. Researchers at the University of Illinois report that women with the highest lycopene levels had a five fold lower risk of developing precancerous signs of cervical cancer than women with lowest lycopene levels.

The human body does not produce lycopene alone and therefore relies on a consumption of tomatoes and tomato based products for this anti oxidant. Nutritionists and other health professionals have long advocated the cancer preventative benefits of a diet high in fruits and vegetables.

Lycopene: Just The Facts

Research by Dr. Joseph Levy and colleagues from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel, may have identified the unique mechanism through which lycopene protects against cancer which is by activating cancer-preventive phase II enzymes.

Lycopene is an open-chain unsaturated carotenoid that imparts red color to tomatoes.

Lycopene is a proven anti-oxidant that may lower the risk of certain diseases including cancer and heart disease.

In the body, lycopene is deposited in the liver, lungs, prostate gland, colon and skin. Its concentration in body tissues tends to be higher than all other carotenoids.

Epidemiological studies have shown that high intake of lycopene-containing vegetables is inversely associated with the incidence of certain types of cancer. For example, habitual intake of tomato products has been found to decrease the risk of cancer of the digestive tract among Italians.

In one six-year study by Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, the diets of more than 47,000 men were studied. Of 46 fruits and vegetables evaluated, only the tomato products (which contain large quantities of lycopene) showed a measurable relationship to reduce prostate cancer risk. As consumption of tomato products increased, levels of lycopene in the blood increased, and the risk for prostate cancer decreased. The study also showed that the heat processing of tomatoes and tomato products increases Lycopene bioavailability.

Ongoing research suggests that lycopene can reduce the risk of macular degenerative disease, serum lipid oxidation and cancers of the lung, bladder, cervix and skin.

The Wholefood Farmacy’s Farmacy Gourmet V-6 Creamy Tomato Soup is quick and easy taking only a minute to prepare. Handcrafted using the finest whole food ingredients, our V-6 Tomato Soup is made from Tomatoes, Brown Rice, Soy Beans, Oats, Onions, Dill Weed & Stardust Pure Salt. If you haven’t tasted it, you don’t know what you’re missing.

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