Category Archives: Health & Nutrition

Guide to Nutritional Supplements and weight management.

Health & Nutrition #95 by Nutrobalance

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UNDERSTANDING HEART AGING AND REVERSING HEART DISEASE

The heart is an amazing muscle that beats around 100,000 times a day. It is essentially a complex pump that is able to adjust blood pressure, flow, and volume in order to provide your body with all the blood it needs. Your heart is constantly adjusting to what you are doing and the state of your body. As you age, your heart adjusts to the needs of an older body. These adjustments come with trade-offs, leaving the heart more vulnerable to disease and other problems.   continue reading…..

The Truth about Watermelons…and Benefits

by Cat Ebeling co-author of the best-sellers:  The Fat Burning Kitchen & The Top 101 Foods that Fight Aging Nothing says “Summer” better than a cool, refreshing, sweet, juicy, delicious slice of ripe watermelon—no matter what time of year it is. But I often hear cautions on eating watermelon—that it is high … read more….

One Hundred Abdominal Exercises

I created this website in order to gather at one place all possible abdominal exercises. You can find here at least 100 abdominal exercises.

There is a huge scam about good abdominal exercises. People believe that if they perform hundreds of crunches they will get six pack abs.

The SHARP truth

Abdominal exercises alone will not help you to achieve flat abs. You have to exercise entire body, and to loose weight in your all areas.

Here I will show you 100 abdominal exercises and entire body workouts which you have to combine with proper eating – this is the only way to have flat abs.

“Good abdominal exercises” mean not only physical exercises but also eating exercises and training for your mind.    read more…..

New Insights into How Mind Influences Body
Date:
August 15, 2016
Source:
University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences
Summary:
Neuroscientists have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla, which is responsible for the body’s rapid response in stressful situations. These findings provide evidence for the neural basis of a mind-body connection. Specifically, the findings shed new light on how stress, depression and other mental states can alter organ function, and show that there is a real anatomical basis for psychosomatic illness.    continue reading….

JAMIE OLIVER’S RECIPE OF THE DAY – CLASSIC MINESTRONE  click here!!

MORE HEALTH & NUTRITION  FROM NUTROBALANCE
Nutritional Supplementation
Antioxidant Protection
The fight against Arthritis

Lean for Life

It might be true that running burns more calories than walking and cross-country skiing
burns most calories of all, but fat loss has little to do with calories used during an
exercise session.
Many recent studies show that the right exercise raises your metabolic rate for up to
18 hours afterwards.

However, if you exercise in the evening and then go to bed, you lose most of the
fat loss effect, because sleep causes your metabolism rate to drop rapidly.
The best time to exercise is in the mornings, the earlier the better.

Exercise five mornings weekly for a minimum of 30 minutes
Dr. Leonard Epstein analysed all the published studies on exercise and fat loss
and showed that people who exercise five times per week lose three times as much
fat as those who exercise only twice or three times per week, even if they exercise for
a longer period.Those who exercise only once per week lost no fat at all.

For  fat loss, five days weekly exercise of 30 minutes is much superior to three days
weekly of 70 minutes, even though the total weekly exercise time of the three day
people is an hour longer.
In order to keep that metabolic rate churning, frequent exercise is the key.

Take a multiple anti-oxidant every day.
As you can read in my article about exercise, oxidation is the primary cause
of human degeneration.
Because exercise uses 12 – 20 times more oxygen than sitting in a chair, it also creates
masses of free radicals that causes a lot of oxidation damage.

Without additional anti-oxidants you are slowly killing yourself.
You can prevent exercise oxidation  damage by taking antioxidant supplements.

The first strategy in your fight against body fat is to reduce your appetite.
Phenylpropanolamine helps a little. Better is ephedrine hydrochloride and its original
source: Ma huang or Ephedra sinica.

But you should be very sensible in the use of these compounds.
Don’t use more than 25 – 50 mg per day, otherwise it lose it’s effect  and can cause
many side-effects, including raised blood pressure, anxiety and insomnia.

The second strategy is to reduce the taste of food, especially sweet tastes.
The herb Gymnema silvestre has been used for this purpose for thousands
of years in Ayurvedic medicine. It works a bit.

The third strategy is to reduce your body’s tendency  to store fat.
The herb Garcinia cambogia, a specific variant of the English brindleberry
is used in Ayurvedic medicine for this purpose.
The active ingredient is hydroxy citrate.

Ongoing studies by DR. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona indicate
that 500 mg of garcinia may reduce fat storage from a high-fat meal by up to 30%.
As a bonus, it may also reduce appetite.

The final strategy is to raise metabolic rate so that your body burns more calories
during the day. It’s called thermogenesis, which means: it raises body temperature.
To maintain the increased temperature, the body has to burn more calories to make
the heat – lots of calories. And because it is low level activation, the calories burned
come mainly from fat.

There are a lot of drugs that does the job, but all of them causes side effects.
It doesn’t make sense to make yourself unhealthy while trying to lose fat.

Least damaging are the beta-adrenergic agonists and most harmless of these
is ephedrine or its herbal source: Ma huang. These compounds work by inceasing
bodely output of noradrenalin, one of our “fight-or-flight” hormones.
That warns you right away not to use too much,(25-50 mg per day max.) or you
run into severe anxiety, irritability, headache and insomnia.

The FDA are against ephedrine, because folk have used larger doses and
caused real damage to the thyroid gland and other organs.

However, ephedrine on its own is not effective, because your body quickly
defends itself with multiple mechanisms that turn off the extra noradrenalin.
The three main defences your body uses against a sensible ephedrine
regimen (25–50 mg/day) are: increasing output of phosphodiesterase enzymes,
and increasing prostaglandin production.

These defenses can be overcome respectively by using caffeine, theophylline
(from tea) and acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
Herbal sources can also supply the caffeine, theophyline and aspirin.
Standardized extracts of kola nut, guarana, black tea and white willow are good
sources. And you can prolong the effect of caffeine, which is mildly thermogenic
by itself, by using naringenin, a compound found in grapefruit.

.Another effective chemical to use in conjunction with beta-receptor agonists
is yohimbine, a compound from the bark of the yohimbe tree.
Yohimbe is one of the class of compounds called selective antagonists
of alpha-2 receptors. This action of yohimbine has shown to cause long- term
thermogenesis and fat loss in animals.

Use the right herbal fat loss supplement every day
Controlling excess body water is the last thing you can do to lose body fat.
Especially for women, who have this problem. Bloating and edema prevent
your Lean For Life program, because they make you feel blah and make you
to sit like a slug and avoid exercise.

Diuretic drugs are not the solution, but mildly diuretic foods like melons,
cucumber, grapes, apples, parsley, pineapple and cooked asparagus
all help to shed excess water.
Mil diuretic herbs, like Uva ursi and Sarsaparilla also have a use in this
phase of fat loss.

Form specific, measurable, public, rewarded fat loss goals.
Success is always achieved by setting goals. To improve your performance,
you should set  specific goals and sub-goals and write them down and post
them on the fridge, for example, so that everybody can see them.

Goals have to be specific, measurable and time limited.
“To lose weight” is to vague. Instead for example: to lose 10 lbs of fat by
my next birthday is a good goal.
Lean for Life is a very long-term goal, so you have to use sub-goals to be able
to check your progress.

Finally, you have to make your goals public, so that your  family and friends
can blame you for failure, but praise & reward you for success.

Health & Nutrition #94 by Nutrobalance

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Diet and exercise may improve physical function and quality of life
in older obese adults

Date: September 19, 2016

A recent review and analysis of published studies since 2005 found low-to-moderate evidence that dietary and exercise interventions can improve physical function and quality of life in older adults with obesity.   Read  more….

Diabetes
Michael Greger M.D. · Last Updated on September 14, 2016
Plant-based diets (especially whole foods) may successfully prevent, treat, and even reverse type 2 diabetes including in children.
Excluding meat, milk, and other animal products and high fat and high protein foods may reduce the risk of diabetes andgestational diabetes by boosting our hormone-binding proteins, helping to prevent obesity, and reducing exposure to arsenic,BPA, dioxins, nitrites, and PCBs.
Eggs may be particularly risky – eating only one egg a week may almost double the odds of getting diabetes. Fish, especiallysalmon, is one of the primary sources of PCBs and other industrial toxins, which may play a role in the development of diabetes.
Continue reading……

Eliminate The Signs Of Low Testosterone!
The 214 page Testosterone Restoration Handbook e-book shows you how to eliminate signs of low testosterone such as low energy, moodiness and weak libido, within 12 weeks!
The e-Book is packed full of articles on ways to naturally maximise testosterone levels, which I’ve written over the past few years. The advice provided within the articles included in this book will allow you to push your testosterone levels up to the top of the natural range in an incredibly short time period, normally less than 12 weeks, and to eliminate the signs of low testosterone!
The book is not only for men, however; it also is packed full of information that will help women to correct specific hormonal issues and to improve their overall balance.
Click here to read a sample page (the introduction to the training section of the e-Book)
http://www.muscle-health-fitness.com/signs-of-low-testosterone.html
Correct the signs of low testosterone with this comprehensive ebook!

Lindsey Toth recipe   click here!!

Homemade Kind-Inspired Bars
Makes: 32 bars
Ingredients:
2.5 cups raw almonds
1 cup raw, hulled, sunflower seeds
1 cup dried cranberries and cherries combined
3/4 cup brown rice syrup
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, to taste
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Line shallow 9 in. x 12 in. baking pan with parchment paper.
3. Mix almonds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together in a large bowl.
4. Pour brown rice syrup (or honey) over ingredients, and stir together until well coated. This steps requires a bit of elbow grease, so get your muscles ready!
5. Spoon mixture into lined pan, spreading evenly and patting down until dish is completely lined with the mixture.
6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
8. Using the edges of the parchment paper, carefully lift bars from pan, flipping onto a cutting board, parchment side up, to continue cooling. Do not try to remove parchment paper if still warm – the paper will stick and rip!
9. When sheet of bars has cooled almost completely (30-40 minutes), carefully peel off parchment paper, and cut into bars.
Nutrition Information (per bar): 131 calories, 7.8g Total Fat, 0.6g Saturated Fat, 0g Trans Fat, 0mg Cholesterol, 13.8mg Sodium, 13.6g Carbohydrate, 2.0g Fiber, 7.5g Sugar, 3.3g Protein, 0% Vitamin A, 0% Vitamin C, 4% Calcium, 4% Iron

More Health & Nutrition from nutrobalance
Are Vitamin Supplements natural?
Fit for Life
Fit in Mid-life
Good Nutrition Tips
Good Nutrition Tips 2
Dr Bob’s Book : “The Magic of Minerals”

Dr. Bob’s Book – The Magic of Minerals

“The Magic of Minerals” is the latest of numerous books that Bob L. Owen , Ph.D., D.Sc., C.R. (or, as he prefers, “Dr. Bob”)
has published. And at 81 years young, he has no plans of slowing down. As an expert in minerals, Dr. Bob realized the importance of an easy to understand book for people who need to know about minerals.

These important nutrients are so poorly understood; and a shortage of minerals is responsible for so much misery  in those who don’t know about minerals. He is busy drafting more books that will help us to understand how to easily create programs of disease prevention for your body. He believes this is the only way to conquer cancer
and other disease epidemics that are so out of control in our modern world.

Dr. Bob began his journey into the health and nutritional  while serving his country in the U.S. Maritime Service during World War II. Even though his medical background at that time consisted solely of one year in a nurses  training program, when the captain on his first ship took a quick look at his resume, he decided Ensign Owen would be the ship’s “doctor”.

From those early days of often being in over his head, through being sidetracked into other areas and obtained degrees in Religion, journalism, Psychology, and Education, Dr. Bob always knew that he wanted to return to his first loves: physiology, health and healing.
While attempting to keep up with busy writing/editorial schedules, he began to experience health challenges.
He was advised to slow down or suffer the consequences.

In the process of “slowing down”, he was able to research, and consequently heal his own health challenges.
During this time he earned his Ph.D. in Nutritional Science  and used his experience from his publishing days to write his first book concerning the challenges of health and healing – Roger’s Recovery from AIDS, which has spanned the globe and has been published in at least thirteen languages.

Good Nutrition Tips #2

Are your body cells getting the nutrients they need in order to work optimally?
Good nutrition and regular exercise are the basic components for healthy living.

Our modern lifestyle is characterized by degenerative diseases, like stroke, cancer,
heart disease, diabetes, arthritis etc. The cause of all this is the build-up of free radicals,
which are caused by smoking, stress, lack of exercise, bad nutrition, pollution in air and
water, radiation from the sun and soil depletion.

To combat these free radicals our body needs a large intake of antioxidants.
If there are not enough antioxidants available to  neutralize the free radicals,
“oxidative stress” will occur. It’s the process by which the oxygen our body use,
cause the body to rust like metal does. It’s the cause of all degenerative diseases and
even the aging process.

We can get  antioxidants out of  fruits, vegetables and nuts. However, it is unpractical
and almost impossible to get the required amount of antioxidants out of our diet alone.
The nutritional value of our fruits and vegetables has enormously declined in the past
50 years, caused by soil depletion.

So in order to get a sufficient amount of antioxidants we have to supplement our diet
with high quality nutritional supplements.
However, the nutrients have to be in a form that the cells can accept them and the cells
have to be in optimum condition to be able to absorb the nutrients.

These are the keys to successful nutrition and two often overlooked facts.
That’s why most nutritional supplements miss the mark.
They don’t address the cellular condition of the body.
Even worse, many are in a form that is unacceptable for the cells themselves and they
don’t contain biological available substances that are useful for the cells in your body.

There is however one remarkable exception: the nutritional supplements designed and
manufactured by USANA Health Sciences
USANA is the only company that guaranties potency, the ingredients are bio available,
well balanced, and they work together in synergy.

For information about nutrition, multivitamins,and weight management,
visit my website: https://www.nutrobalance2.net

Good Nutrition Tips

Multivitamins for optimal cellular nutrition.
Are your cells getting the nutrients they need to work optimally?
Good nutrition is the cornerstone for optimal health.

Your daily diet must provide the essential nutrients

for your body cells to function properly.
That’s where USANA Health Sciences comes in.

USANA was established in 1992 by Dr. Myron Wentz, PhD in microbiology,
world-renowned expert in human cell culture and disease detection technology.

For more than 30 years he has studied, grown, observed and applied

the nutrient balance and dosage requirements for cells to grow,
multiply  and maintain at optimal health.

Dr. Wentz has used his expertise in cellular nutrition to develop
the USANA Nutritionals to help you maintain good health.

USANA’s nutritional products are manufactured according to pharmaceutical standards,
they are potency guarantied, well balanced, bio-available and they work together
in synergy.

USANA’s research and scientific excellence provides you with the  confidence
that you are following a nutritional and wellness program that truly works!

Nobody Knows Nutrition Like USANA!

For more information, visit:http://www.nutrobalance.usana.com

Are Vitamin Supplements Natural?

Many companies today falsely label their supplements “natural” for one reason: because the word sells. But don’t get confused. The ingredients in vitamin pills are about as natural as a plastic bag. Manufacturers play around this issue with statements like:”natural grown”, “natural source”, “food grown” etc. but to tell you the truth, most pill ingredients are synthetic.That means,they use natural materials and treat them with various chemical procedures, so that their resemblance to natural materials is gone.

For example, most vitamin C is made from corn.First the corn is chemically converted to sugar (d-ribose). Then the sugar is chemically converted to pure,ascorbic acid. There is not a molecule of corn left in it. The chemical processing makes it synthetic, not the raw materials it came from.

Let’s look at “natural rose hip’ and “acerola” vitamin C. The best rose hip and acerola powders contain only a few milligrams of vitamin C per gram.A 1000mg pill of natural rose hip vitamin C would be about the seize of a baseball. All these so-called “natural” pills are predominantly synthetic ascorbic acid, with a pinch of the natural powder thrown in for marketing.

Then there are those companies who claim that their pills are made of superior vitamins. Let’s get this one straight too. Almost all the vitamin raw materials in America come from a few large companies. Hoffman La Roche makes most of the vitamin C and many of the B-vitamins. Henkel makes most of the vitamin E. Almost all pill manufacturers buy their bulk powders from the same sources that are available to everyone.

Elemental Minerals.
Most consumers don’t know that chemical forms of minerals are not elemental forms. For example, a 1200 mg pill calcium gluconate is only 9% elemental.That means, it contains only 108 mg of calcium. To get the RDA for calcium, you would have to swallow eleven of these pills every day.

The same is true for every mineral.Calcium citrate is only 21% calcium and chromium picolinate contains only 12.5% chromium. Magnesium aspartate is only 11% magnesium. Some forms contain only 1-2% of the mineral element. Manufacturers are supposed to state the elemental amounts on the label, but many do not.

Chemical Forms.
Supplement pills only have to be true to label by law. That means, if the bottle says the pill contains 300 mg of magnesium, that is all that is required. But many chemical forms of nutrients are hardly bio available at all. They pass right through your intestines without ever being absorbed.

Magnesium supplied as magnesium oxide for example, is only one-tenth as bio available as magnesium aspartate. But the aspartate form is more expensive than the oxide and takes up more room in the pill.Manufacturers save money by using the magnesium oxide. They can also fit more magnesium into a given size pill by using the oxide, and therefore can put a bigger number for magnesium on the label. Consumers like big numbers.

Some manufacturers fudge bio  availability by claiming particular absorption rates, such as 60%, for their multi-nutrient supplements. All such claims are false, because different nutrients and different forms of the same nutrient are all absorbed at different rates. An average absorption rate is advertising nonsense.
For example, of a 100 mcg vitamin B12 tablet, only about 3% is absorbed, whereas calcium acetate is 32% absorbed. To say the average absorption rate is 17.5% for the two combined, tell you nothing about either.

This will give you an idea what you can expect when you look to buy supplements. Many supplement contents are not true to the label,there are only a few companies on the market you can trust.

Understanding the hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation

Humans are adapted to the cosmic radiation and the Earth’s magnetic field
that we have lived with for hundreds of thousands of years.
But since World War 1 there has been a massive increase in electromagnetic radiation.

Our homes and workplaces are now bristling with electrical appliances.
Some people are also influenced by radiation from high-tension power lines, street
transformers, microwave towers and mobile phones.

Any wire conducting electricity has an electric field around it.
If the current is steady, there is no problem, but it’s the alternating current in wiring, electrical coils and transmitters, that cause problems.

Naturally, the greater the current, the greater will be the seize and intensity of it’s
magnetic field. Fortunately, the intensity decreases according to the square of the distance.
This means that the electromagnetic field at two meters from an appliance is four times
less than it is at one meter from the appliance.

However, barriers such as brick, concrete or timber walls or floors provide no protection at all. They are as transparent to EMR as glass is to light.

Our bodies depend on electric currents to function. Very weak currents flow along nerves, conveying messages between various organs and particularly to and from the brain.
However, the electricity in appliances is many thousands of times stronger and its EMR
interferes with the body’s currents.

People who sleep with an electric blanket, bed lamp and radio all turned on, a TV set
running for hours on the other side of the wall an an off-peak hot water system overhead can wake up feeling more tired then when they went to bed.

We know that many research has proved that EMR has a variety of biological effects.
For example, even very weak fields upset individual nerve cells and affect the rate
at which hormones, enzymes and proteins are made.

Epidemiological research has associated the more intense EMR fields with childhood leukaemias and other cancers, immune system deficiencies, colonic complaints, Candidiasis, muscular weakness, miscarriage, depression, increased allergies and sleep apnoea.
EMR is also suspected of contributing to cot death, chronic fatigue syndrome. multiple
sclerosis and brain tumors.

The US Government’s National Council on Radiation Protection acknowledges that household appliances and power lines may increase the risk of leukaemia and other cancers, and degenerative diseases ,such as Alzheimer’s.

A New Zealand study found that people living within 20 meters of high tension power lines (which is very close), are three times as likely to suffer asthma, twice as likely to experience deep depression, allergies or dermatitis, and have a higher incidence of diabetes.

Mobile phone safety has been a raging controversy in recent years, because so many people are now using them. It was noted in the Medical Journal of Australia, that the increase in brain tumors may be related to the increased use of analogue mobile phones.

The problem with mobile phones is that they put a transmitter close to the brain.
The increased EMR may raise the level of free radicals, which could explain the risk of
cancer. Also, CSIRO scientists believe that the blood brain barrier may be affected,
allowing substances to enter the brain which otherwise couldn’t.

Fortunately, some manufacturers are now taking the danger seriously and redesigning phones to direct the radiation away from the brain. Some are also claiming to have substantially reduced the EMR.

The electromagnetic field strength is measured in the US in gauss and in Europe in tesla, the conversion being: one microtesla = 10 miligauss.

We actually live in a strong electromagnetic field of the earth, the strength of which is approximately 500 milligauss.It doesn’t harm us as it is a steady, direct current field in which our body is accustomed and synchronized. In contrast with the man-made alternating currents, which are continuously changing and totally unnatural. This caused the hazard.

In an alternating field, the safe level of long-term exposure to EMR is considered by
independent engineers to be approximately 2-3 milligauss. Long term exposure to more than 3 milligauss carries the risk of producing harmful effects.

As an indication of the potential hazards, the fields of a microwave oven, when turned on, is 250 milligauss, and that from an electric blanket: 45 milligauss.
Computers,TVs, stereo 3-5 milligauss.

EMR problems often have very simple solutions. The key is to know about EMR in the first place and then be on the lookout for potential sources that can harm us.
Once these are removed, the results will speak for themselves.

John Lincoln reports a remarkable success story in “New Vegetarian and Natural Health”.
In a family of three, the parents were always lethargic, the father’s hair stood on end
when he was in the bedroom and the wife had had two miscarriages. She was not ovulating
and was particularly lethargic. Their young son was frequently sick with a variety of
illnesses and most mornings was found at the bottom of his bed to where he had wriggled
during the night.

The EMR detector found high levels of radiation in the house, around 20 milligauss in the kitchen and 88 milligauss in the main bedroom, when the electric hot water heater was on.
In the small kitchen, where the wife spent some time, most of the field was coming from
the digital display on the electric stove.

The remedies were to disconnect this digital display, replace the electric hot water with solar, and earth the meter box.

Some months later the changes in the family were quite significant. The wife was ovulating again and had become pregnant. The husband’s hair no longer stood on end and the son no longer wriggled to the bottom of his bed. All had recovered their energy and were delighted with the improvement.

In “Natural Health”, a number of cases were reported by Richard Watkins, a Blue Mountains, NSW, engineer, who has also used a EMR detector.

A young baby frequently cried and had disturbed sleep. On the other side of the wall from the cot was a battery charger for a calculator, that was continuously switched on.
EMR was found to be high at the infant’s pillow. Once the cot was moved away from the wall, the baby settled down and in a few weeks was contented and sleeping peacefully.

A woman working in an office was experiencing leg cramps. An EMR surveyor found that small transformers for a calculator, computer, radio and an answering machine were located under her desk. Once the transformers were moved away, the symptoms disappeared.

A man’s performance at work was being affected by disturbed sleeping patterns.
A survey found high levels of EMR at his pillow, emanating from a radio set into the bedhead.
Even when it was turned off, the radiation was still high because the internal transformer was continuously energized. Within two weeks after turning the radio off at the power point, the man was sleeping normally.

Health & Nutrition #93 by Nutrobalance

??NUTROBALANCE????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????   Edition #93

A Diet for Better Energy

Complex carbs are key for sustained energy throughout the day, while too many sugary snacks can lead to energy crashes. Find out which foods you need for round-the-clock energy.

Juggling the responsibilities of work, life, and family can cause too little sleep, too much stress, and too little time.

Yet even when you’re at your busiest, you should never cut corners when it comes to maintaining a healthy diet. Your body needs food to function at its best and to fight the daily stress and fatigue of life.    continue reading……

Physical activity guidelines for older adults

physical-activities-older-adults_h

How much physical activity do older adults aged 65 and over need to do to keep healthy?

The amount of physical activity you need to do each week depends on your age and level of health.

To stay healthy or to improve health, older adults need to do two types of physical activity each week: aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity.

Older adults aged 65 or older, who are generally fit and have no health conditions that limit their mobility, should try to be active daily.

It’s recommended that adults aged 65 or older do:

  • at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity such as cycling or fast walking every week, and muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms),
  • 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity such as running or a game of singles tennis every week, and muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days a week that work all major muscle groups,

Some activity, however light, is better for your health than none at all.

an equivalent mix of moderate and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity every week (for example two 30-minute runs plus 30 minutes of fast walking), and muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days a week that work all major muscle groups.     continue reading.…..

Alcohol’s Toll on the Heart: Bigger, Not Better

wine-glasses-160507

September 14, 2016 | Article

Drinking alcohol, even in moderate amounts, may increase the size of the heart’s left atrium, a new study finds.
Read More

How to minimize the risk from man-made chemicals

September 13, 2016Health & Nutritionair-pollutants, food additives, man-made chemicals, pesticides Edit

Since biologist Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring in 1963: “We are living in a sea of carcinogens”, a lot have changed. She could not have predicted the explosion of chemicals that followed.
Hundreds of thousands of artificial chemicals have been unleashed. Of these approximately 75,000 are in common use around the world, of which more than 3,500 are used in food processing.
Every year, half a billion kilograms of pesticide are deposited into the environment.
continue reading…..

Jamie Oliver’s Recipe of the Day – Balinese chicken curry   click here!!

 

How to minimize the risk from man-made chemicals

Since biologist Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring in 1963: “We are living in a sea of carcinogens”, a lot have changed. She could not have predicted the explosion of chemicals that followed.
Hundreds of thousands of artificial chemicals have been unleashed. Of these approximately 75,000 are in common use around the world, of which more than 3,500 are used in food processing.
Every year, half a billion kilograms of pesticide are deposited into the environment.

Man-made/synthetic/ artificial chemicals – whichever term we use – are technically labelled
xenobiotic, which means: strange or foreign to life.
They affect the energy production of every cell in the body and thereby affect every system,
in particular the immune system. The consequences may be allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivities, infertility, birth defects, artery disease, stroke, cancer or other conditions.

An important affect of toxic chemicals is the production of free radicals, highly destructive
molecules, which cause tissue damage that may finally result in degenerative diseases.

To get an idea how widespread the pesticide contamination is: DDT residues have been found in penguins at the South Pole, thousands of kilometers away from where the pesticide was applied.
DDT and its metabolites have been found in most of the samples of human and animal tissues that have been tested. Toxic chemicals have been found in wild animals, in the oceans, in our drinking water, in our homes, in soils and in women’s breast milk.

According to Eve Hillarys, author of “Children of a Toxic Harvest”: “ It has been difficult or
impossible for the government to regulate this industrial bonanza and we are now living in a world without meaningful controls over toxic chemicals”. Nor do we have any idea about the combined effects of different chemicals – synergism – in which the combination may be far more toxic than any of the originals alone.

Considering that most of these chemicals accumulate in our fatty tissue and that the brain is high in fat, the potential for harm from prolonged exposure is very high.

Although none of us can avoid some degree of contamination, there is a lot of unnecessary usage of chemicals which can easily be avoided. Minimizing exposure to chemicals can make the difference between health and a nightmare of difficult to explain symptoms.

However, the good news is, according to the environmental medicos, that if we avoid the
chemicals that we can avoid, our bodies can probably cope with those that we can’t avoid.

What follows is some practical advise about how to avoid the chemicals we can avoid and also show that we can reshape our environment and ecology through micro to macro actions, depending on the amount of time and energy at our disposal.

Exposure to xenobiotic chemicals comes mainly from four sources:
1. atmospheric pollution
2. the food we eat
3. the water we drink
4. chemicals in our homes and workplaces.

Air pollution comes mainly from motor vehicles, industry and cigarette smoke.
Chemicals in food are basically the contamination from pesticides and herbicides, and
the intentional adulteration with food additives.
The problem chemicals we face in drinking water boils down to three main ones: chlorine, fluorine and aluminum. In homes and workplaces the chemicals can be numerous and varied.
Some, such as pesticides, we put there deliberately, while others outgas from paints, sealers, glues, cleaning products and dry-cleaned clothes.

We will now look at these in detail and see whether we can find safer alternatives.

Air pollutants
These include carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and of sulphur, and some very nasty ones, such as carcinogenic benzene.
Tests in Sydney in 1988 found that levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons emitted from motor vehicles and industry could account for 31 lung cancer deaths each year.
This is probably the tip of the iceberg. We may never know how many asthma deaths could be attributed to air pollution.
The best thing about air pollution is to forget and to stop worrying about it.
However, there  are some things we can do to keep away from the worst air pollution:
1. Use trains in preference to roads where possible.
2. If living near a busy road, shut the windows in peak hours and open them in quiet      times  and during the night.
3. If moving home, choose a locality where the prevailing winds are from the sea, mountains       or deserts and where there is no industry or agricultural spraying.

Smoking
Cigarette smoking is a major cause of both lung cancer and heart disease.
Passive smoking – breathing in someone else’s smoke – can be just as dangerous.
According to the NSW Quit Campaign, passive smoking causes more deaths than AIDS and heroin overdose together. There are over 2000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, and they are so harmful that in many  countries the cigarette butt is classified as toxic waste.

Self-protection is somewhat obvious:
!. For smokers, make a determined effort to quit smoking.
There are Government run QUIT Campaigns in most states and numerous privately   run    programs       that make it much easier to brake the powerful nicotine addiction.
2. If you can’t give up, do your smoking outdoors so that you don’t pollute your home or workplace.
3. To avoid passive smoking, declare your home and car smoke-free zones.
4. If necessary, install a high grade air filter.

FOOD CONTAMINATION

Pesticides
Contamination of food is widespread. An apple may have been sprayed 14 times with pesticides and other chemicals before we buy it.
However, due to public reaction, there is now a movement in agriculture to use less toxic and less persistent chemicals and more integrated pest management.

To gain massive insect kills with small amounts of chemicals, a lot of the pesticides that have been developed are highly toxic – so much so that many are linked with cancer, including numerous organochlorines (the DDT group),such as chlordane and dichlorvos.

Dioxin, a by-product of pesticide manufacture, is the deadliest known chemical on Earth.
It is linked to soft-tissue cancers at the stunningly low concentration of around two parts per Quintillion – that’s two parts per million million million.

Some pesticides, including DDT, PCB’s and dioxins are believed to contribute to infertility in men.
In contrast, men who eat organically grown food are twice as fertile as those who don’t.

It is possible to avoid most of the chemical menace:
1. Purchase organically grown food.
2. Grow your own vegetables if possible and/or grow sprouts indoors from organic seeds.
3. To remove surface residues, either peel fruit and vegetables (unfortunately, good minerals
are just under the skin)or wash them in a safe,low toxicity cleanser, such as Nutriclean,
Herbon, Tri Nature Chamomile or GNLD Green Personal Care Cleaner.
4. Select only in season fruit and vegetables to avoid chemicals that delay ripening, etc.

Food Additives
Many food additives are synthetically derived and some have been shown to cause allergic reactions, most commonly skin rashes, headaches, migraine and asthma. Some additives have been implicated in hyperactivity and ADD.

How to avoid them:
1. Eat a varied diet and use as much fresh and whole food as possible, minimize processed food.
2. When buying packaged food, read the list of ingredients and select food that contain the       least additives.
3. Carry a food additives guide to help you avoid the most hazardous. On request, Australian       Government Bookshops in all capital cities will supply copies of Food Additives Shopper’s   Guide, cat. no.9938032.

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