Natural tips for weight loss

Quick fix diets are just that – quick, but not necessarily healthy. Do you think eating salad will help? Well, it could but you would do better apparently by switching it for a nutritious soup before your main course. Medical researchers in Texas found that by giving their volunteers a bowl of a high-fat soup then sending them off to a pizza buffet – only in America would that be in a diet trial – the participants followed it by eating considerably smaller portions, and fewer calories from the buffet table. Apparently the reason it works is that when the small intestine absorbs fat it releases hormones that make you feel full, if you then wait 20 minutes before your second course – just keep talking, or read a book – then you will definitely eat less of a second course and so lose weight. Of course anyone on a limited budget discovered this all on their own without the benefit of a research grant. When I was at university, I made pots of homemade soup, which was cheap, so I wouldn’t need so much of the more expensive protein main meal that usually followed. I wasn’t trying to lose weight, but the end result was that I felt full by eating less. Ahead of my time, as usual.

Oh and the second tip? It’s often suggested you drink a glass of water before you eat, again to fool the stomach into thinking you are full before you start eating, but a more pleasant way to do it is include lots of water-rich foods in your diet and that means plenty of fruit and vegetables. Researchers from Penn State University found that those who did so on average ate 25% more food by weight but still lost more pounds than the control group. Again, it’s because you can eat lots of fruit and vegetables so you get the feeling of richness from the quantity, and the fibre fills you up but gives you far fewer calories.

Cholesterol and Exercise – getting it right

Being recommended to take more exercise is usually what happens if you talk to your doctor about lowering your cholesterol levels. However, what they may not tell you is that what makes the difference is not how hard you exercise, but how long you do it for. A Japanese study has shown that working out extra hard has no effect on cholesterol, but exercising for at least 40 minutes several times a week raised the levels of HDL (beneficial cholesterol) by 2.53 points. It’s particularly important for women as for each point the HDL level increases means that our risk of heart disease gets reduced by 3 per cent. And don’t think 35 or 39 minutes will do, apparently it takes a full 40 minutes to activate an enzyme called LPL, which helps raise HDL levels. Anyone for a long walk?

Prostate Cancer and Diet

There has been recent research reporting that advanced cases of prostate cancer have been helped by lycopene (a phyto-chemical and a member of the carotenoid family) which is found in high amounts in tomatoes and watermelon. But it is not just those two fruits that can have an impact, as the latest findings into the disease have revealed that eating a low-fat and plant-based diet could reduce the risk of prostate cancer or slow the onset of the disease. It is obviously important that anyone at risk pays real attention to their diet and eats as naturally as possible. Not wishing to state the obvious, but the benefits of such a diet which is high in fibre, vitamins and minerals and low in fat and saturated fat will not only help the health of prostate cancer patients but anyone who has a conventional western diet.

Sadly, the highest incidences of the disease do occur in the West, particularly in the USA and Sweden, while the eastern countries like China and India have the lowest. We might be complacent in the UK as our figures for prostate cancer show we have half the number of cases reported in the USA, but that may be because they have much higher rates of testing for the disease.

Almonds in your tea?

If you are trying to cut down on dairy and have been buying substitute milks from the supermarket such as soya, rice, oat or almond milks then I thought you might like to try making your own almond milk as it is a great health treat. Almonds are a good source of calcium, protein, vitamins D and E, and is cholesterol-free and packed with omega-3 fatty acids.You can buy the milk ready-made, but it often contains a lot of sugar, so this way you can make it to your own taste. It is very simple to do and it can be used in place of milk in hot drinks as well as in desserts.

Almond milk is not new, it has been in use since medieval times as it is simple to make and keeps without the need for any refrigeration. It is still a popular drink on its own, and in Spain is widely available in cafes, just ask for horchata.

It could not be simpler, you just need 4 cups of filtered or bottled water, 1 cup of almonds (raw, not blanched) and any sweetener of your choice such as vanilla, honey or nutmeg.

Method:

1. Soak almonds 4 hours, strain off water and discard.

2. Place filtered water and soaked almonds in a blender.

3. Blend on high speed for 1 minute.

4. Pour contents from blender through a fine mesh stainless steel strainer or cheesecloth or similar straining bag.

5. Use a wooden spoon to mash the contents in the sieve to get more liquid out, or if using a bag close it and strain almond milk by squeezing milk through it.

6. Add any sweetener you might want to use to taste.

Although it keeps a couple of days without refrigeration, it is more refreshing to drink cold.

Keeping it raw

There are several reasons we are usually healthier in the summer, but one of the prime ones is that we tend to eat more raw food. Salads are easy when the weather is warm, but it could help your health enormously if you carried that habit through to the winter months. The reason? Cooked food weakens your immune system, and this was discovered in 1930 when Dr Paul Kouchakoff observed that after eating a cooked meal, a person’s white blood cells (leukocytes) would increase.

An increase in white blood cell count usually indicates a stress reaction by the body, which means basically that your immune system is finishing your digestion process for you, which is a function that it is not meant to do, and that puts a strain on it. Eating a raw meal does not produce this immune suppressing effect, so with every cooked meal you have try to include some fresh, raw vegetables to go with it and try to maintain that healthy salad habit through the winter.

Cooking also can take away the antioxidants, and reduce the amount of bio available vitamins, so you are doubling your benefits when you eat raw – although there are a few vegetables that are more difficult for some to digest raw, such as broccoli so you may need to experiment to see what suits you. If you want to know a whole lot more, then visit http://www.totalrawfood.com/

Pain relief on a plate

Usually, if you are in pain you reach for a pill. However, depending on the severity of your discomfort there are some foods that you might like to try. If you prefer a natural solution, you may want to visit your health store for white willow bark. In 1827, a French chemist named Leroux extracted a substance from the bark of a white willow tree that he named “Salicin.” This substance is the main active ingredient of white willow, and it works as a pain reliever. Many years later two other – Felix Hofman and Fredrick Bayer – found a related compound to salicin, and later developed a synthetic version of that compound. This led to the development of the commercial product known as aspirin. White willow doesn’t have the side effects of aspirin because it is naturally converted in the body to salicylic acid, which is mild and does not upset the stomach. You can use it wherever you would normally use aspirin: pain relief, to reduce fevers, and as an anti-inflammatory where it is particularly useful for arthritis and rheumatism. It is available as tablets or capsules, though the capsule form has a faster action.

However, if aspirin is your drug of choice for pain relief, then its effects will be accelerated if you drink a cup of strong coffee at the same time, according to research conducted by Dr Bernard Schachel of Yale University. If you are a cook, then there are a range of options available to you: eating chilli peppers can help reduce pain because they are an excellent source of caspsaicin, a substance found by researchers at the University of Alabama to diminish many kinds of pain, especially chronic pains, including those associated with pinched nerves, as in sciatica. Many everyday foods also have a high content of salicylates, like white willow bark, and they too have both analgesic effects and can also combat inflammation. Good sources of foods that are proven to have pain-reducing properties include: garlic, ginger, onions, cherries, prunes, blueberries, curry powder, dried currants and dates, paprika, liquorice, and peppermint.

Can’t get a doctors appointment?

I don’t know about your surgery, but mine operates an appointment only system and it can take several days to get one, and up to 30 minutes hanging on the phone to actually get to speak to the receptionist at all. That may be about to change as The Health Minister, Lord Ara Darzi, has proposed a three year plan where he wants more than 50 per cent of practices in England to extend their opening hours.

The Health Minister is also proposing to set up 150 large, GP-led practices that will be open seven days a week, from 8am to 8pm. They will be situated in easily accessible locations offering a range of services including walk-in services. He said funding would be available but if existing practices refused to open extended hours other providers would be commissioned. Can’t quite imagine what ‘other providers’ means; is he thinking of setting up freelance surgeries, rather like the ‘walk in’ doctors you can consult at mainline stations in London? Except they are all private and although you can see a doctor immediately, you usually want to see your bank manager afterwards.

It sounds a bit confused to me, as he is also saying there will be an increasing proportion of the NHS payments made to GP practices but that these are going to be linked to their success in attracting patients. So they want the doctors to have more flexible hours, offer the ability to book advance appointments and be able to see a GP within 48 hours – none of which they can manage with their existing patient lists in my area – but they are expected to do it only if they also have an increase in patient numbers. Paying them more to attract new patients doesn’t exactly help the existing ones does it?

Blood Test for Alzheimer’s diagnosis?

18 million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer’s, but it has been hard for doctors to make an accurate diagnosis until the disease is well progressed. Now, researchers have developed a simple blood test that may be able to predict whether mild lapses of memory could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, an international team of researchers describe 18 cell-signalling, or communication, proteins found in blood that predicted with 90 percent accuracy whether a person would develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently, doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease by excluding other potential causes of memory loss, such as stroke, tumours and heavy drinking. They can also administer simple paper-and-pencil tests, and sometimes use brain scans, but this blood test could be used to detect changes in these proteins and because they occur early on in the disease process they could be used to predict the disease two to six years ahead of its onset.

Girls reaching puberty as early as 8 in the USA

Health care professionals in the natural hormone field, like Dr John Lee, have been expressing concern for some years that the onset of puberty in girls is happening at a much earlier age than in previous generations. Their concern has centred on the fact that reaching puberty at a very early age will increase their risk of breast cancer because puberty exposes girls to more oestrogen. High levels of oestrogen are a known risk factor for breast cancer and indeed can cause it to flourish. According to a report by American biologist Sandra Steingraber, puberty is now occurring more regularly at the age of 8, rather than at 13 which was the previous norm. Her data indicates that if you get your first period before age 12, your risk of breast cancer is 50 percent higher than if you get it at age 16 and so her theory is that for every year we could delay a girl’s first menstrual period we could prevent thousands of breast cancers. Early puberty also has social and emotional implications for these young girls but hard evidence on what causes it are not known. Sandr Steingraber herself believes there are a number of causes but that is likely an ecological disorder arising from the increased amounts of oestrogen in our food and water, exposure to environmental chemicals coupled with increased childhood obesity and a substantial drop in exercise and activity like outdoor games.

Natural ways to control high blood pressure

As there are 16 million people in the UK with high blood pressure (hypertension), and of those nearly a third are not aware that they have the condition, it is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed. High blood pressure is defined as being at a level consistently at or above 140mmHg and/or 90mmHg and it is a both a preventable and manageable condition. You would think that as it is the direct cause of half of all strokes and heart attacks in the UK that those who have it would be regularly monitoring it, but sadly only 10% of those diagnosed with the condition have their blood pressure controlled to target levels.

Yet there is something that is so incredibly simple, that everyone can do, at no cost and no risk that will naturally help control high blood pressure. Hypertension results from the balance between two factors: how hard the heart is pumping (cardiac output) and how easily plasma can diffuse out of your capillaries (peripheral resistance) and most people with high blood pressure have a normal cardiac output but increased peripheral resistance. That resistance means you are more at risk of heart attacks and strokes and the most likely cause is dehydration.When you are dehydrated the level of blood in your body falls but the body has it’s own incredibly clever regulatory system where it prioritises the maintenance of your essential organs and shuts down blood supplies to the capillaries of non-essential areas like the muscle and skin. The effect of this is to increase your peripheral resistance and also to increase the production of histamine, a hormone-like substance, and this causes your blood vessels to narrow and this in turn further increases blood pressure. This can be also exacerbated by the fact that many treatments for hypertension include the taking of diuretics and this again reduces the amount of fluid in the body.

The remedy? Drink at least two litres of plain, still, water every day – not tea, coffee, soft drinks as a substitute but pure unadulterated water. Often the easiest way to measure is to have a full bottle by the kettle and make sure it is empty by the time you have that bedtime drink – or even earlier for preference so you aren’t then getting up too often in the night.

If you want to try and control your blood pressure without drugs, then one of the most effective supplements is Co-enzyme Q10. This is a substance which is produced naturally in the body and taking it has lowered blood pressure as effectively as prescription medications in a number of patients. Unlike some of the drugs, it’s only side effects are the good ones of lowering cholesterol and preventing diabetes and gum disease and the recommended dose for supplementation is normally between 60-120mg a day, but always start on the lower amount first and in consultation with a natural practitioner.

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