The most effective antioxidant juice – Honest

It used to be that you just went into the supermarket, and bought juice. Probably orange or apple and that was that. Now the packs all scream about being one of your 5 a day, or that they are rich in antioxidants and can reduce your levels of free radicals – in their opinion, which is rarely backed up by any facts and figures. You know that to be healthy you need a decent level of antioxidants in your diet, but with up to a dozen or so manufacturers all claiming the same thing for their product – so just who do you believe?

Happily for us, the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry has just reported on some research done at the University of California which definitively proves which juice has more antioxidants than any other drink, including other juices, green or black tea, and red wine.

Ready for it? The winner is pomegranate juice, which has around 20% more antioxidants than other drinks tested. They carried out a series of tests to determine their antioxidant levels and abilities to scavenge for free radicals. The pomegranate juice was a clear winner on all counts as was their conclusion and it has been linked to many other health benefits including a 50% reduction in Alzheimer’s risk, and suggested as part of a cancer prevention diet, particularly prostate cancer.

An effective vaccine for bird flu?

The words ‘bird flu’ have struck terror into many in the food industry as well as those concerned for wildlife. The H5N1 avian flu virus has become entrenched among birds in much of Asia and parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It rarely infects people but it has killed 243 people out of 385 infected in 15 countries, according to the World Health Organization.

Experts fear the constantly mutating virus could change into a form easily transmitted from person to person, perhaps sweeping the world and killing millions. At least 16 companies are working on vaccines against H5N1, and although it may be too early to claim complete victory, a DNA-based vaccine against bird flu has been developed by Vical Inc. This is a US company based in San Diego who research and develop biopharmaceutical products based on a patented DNA delivery technology. They have previously been involved in developing gene-based treatments for cancer and infectious disease vaccines, and with the bird flu vaccine they are claiming that it can safely stimulate the immune system to levels expected to protect against this disease.

However, their study is a small one, using only 100 volunteers, although 67% of the patients receiving the higher dose had immune responses that could protect against infection with the H5N1 avian flu virus, with no serious adverse reactions after two injections. This was a Phase I clinical trial, meant to demonstrate the vaccine is safe, and is continuing.

DNA vaccines use bits of genetic material called plasmids. They are meant to generate an immune response against a specific bit of the virus and are designed to last longer than standard vaccines under conditions of heat and cold. If successful, Vical says a DNA-based vaccine could be made in six to eight weeks, compared with four to six months for influenza vaccines made the current way, using bits of the actual virus grown in chicken eggs and this shorter time scale is a tremendous advantage when dealing with a potentially worldwide infectious disease.

Why low cholesterol is not always a good thing

I know that in the media there is a lot of emphasis placed on the dangers of high cholesterol, however what many people fail to realise is that cholesterol is essential for your health. It’s present in every single cell in your body where it helps to produce cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids to help you digest fat.

Cholesterol also helps in the formation of your memories and is vital for neurological function, and now scientists have discovered that there is one specific area where having low levels of one type of cholesterol has been linked to memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease.

Scientists studied more than 3,500 civil servants to investigate how levels of HDL or “good” cholesterol were associated with memory. HDL cholesterol can influence the formation of the beta-amyloid “plaques” that are a distinctive feature in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Higher levels of HDL are also believed to protect against damage to blood supply caused by the narrowing of the arteries.

After the five-year study period, the researchers found that people with low levels of HDL were 53% more likely to suffer memory loss than people with the highest levels of HDL. Those with impaired memory are at an increased risk of developing dementia later in life, and that is not the only area where low cholesterol levels can cause you health problems.

The Risks of Low Cholesterol

Other risks related to neurological function are depression, suicidal tendencies and may lead to violent behaviour and aggression. Cholesterol levels that are too low can also increase your risk of cancer and Parkinson’s disease so trying to reduce your cholesterol to unreasonably low levels is doing your long-term health no favours.

Why do cholesterol levels rise?

High cholesterol has become such a hot topic that many people don’t realise that it is not a disease in itself. It is actually a perfectly normal response when something has gone wrong and your body needs to make new, healthy cells. Because cholesterol is produced whenever your cells become damaged, it will show as high cholesterol levels, but if you have a lot of damaged cells, you’re also going to have a lot of cholesterol in your bloodstream. This is a good thing, because it means your cells are being repaired.

Instead of just trying to reduce the high cholesterol, it makes more sense to search for what’s causing the damage in the first place, rather than moving straight on to cholesterol-lowering drugs.

One of the most common causes of high cholesterol is inflammation, and that can be brought on by a number of factors, including:

** Too many processed foods
** Smoking
** Not enough exercise
** Emotional stress

Healthy cholesterol levels are essential to keep your cells functioning at their best, and all of those risk factors above are within your control so that might be the place to start. If stress is the issue, have a look at the website for my book on How To Cope Successfully With Stress at www.sortingstressout.com

Given up smoking? Take up gardening!

If you know anyone who has recently given up smoking, or is thinking of doing so, then there is some great news on a really substantial benefit if they will also take up a very specific form of physical exercise. Former smokers can decrease their risk of developing lung cancer by up to an amazing 45%, and if they also reform their diet they can reduce their risk even further. These findings came out of a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Sixth Annual International Conference in Philadelphia this month.

Researchers studied 3,800 women and men using a pairing system that sorts people according to smoking status. Therefore, smokers with lung cancer would only be compared to smokers without lung cancer, with the same pairing taking place for former smokers and those who have never smoked. Researchers compared those who had not developed lung cancer based on a variety of factors including exposure to secondhand smoke, dust exposure, family cancer history, personal respiratory history, diet and exercise.

The ‘exercise’ that is credited with this decrease in risk is gardening, because apparently that is one of the few activities that people with lung cancer report doing. So the former smokers who gardened reduced their lung cancer risk by 45% percent, while current smokers who gardened reduced their risk by 33%. Hopefully they were also growing their own vegetables because eating four or more salads a week reduced their risk by 67 percent, and for those still smoking who gardened and chomped on the green stuff they reduced their risk by 71% Time to get out the garden spade, rake and dibber and get planting.

Global warming effect on health

We are used to hearing about the dire effects global warming will have on the environment and the knock on effect on the animal and plant life of our planet. Now it seems that another animal is being affected: the human one. Apparently, as temperatures across the U.S. increase because of global warming, there is a suggestion that the prevalence of kidney stones is expected to grow.

Researchersat the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that if the temperature overall increases by just 2.38°C, then such climate change is expected to create 1.61 to 2.25 million new cases of kidney stones by 2050. This is an increase of 7% from 2000 and would add $947 million to $1.33 billion in annual healthcare costs, according to the researchers’ calculations. This represents a 25% increase over the $5.3 billion spent in 2000.

They predict the increase would either be in a band covering the southern half of the U.S. or the upper Midwest. The maximum climate-related risk increases would be found in cities such as New York, Detroit, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Sacramento although they predict new cases would occur mostly in the Midwest and Northeast.

The south east of the US already has a 50% higher incidence of kidney stones than other parts of the country, due to regional differences in temperature. Rising temperatures are believed to be associated with a greater risk of kidney stones, perhaps because of increased dehydration, the researchers said, although the link hasn’t been proven. It also appears that when people relocate from areas of moderate temperature to areas with warmer climates, a rapid increase in stone risk has been observed and it would be interesting to track whether has also been the case with the substantial number of UK residents who have relocated to Spain and the South of France.

Natural relief for joint pain

Old wives’ tales are usually dismissed as being nonsense, but if you really care about your health they are well worth paying attention to as they are based on experience and ‘case studies’ that may be anecdotal but have at least been tried on actual human bodies – usually several thousand of them over a long period of time. I have mentioned the health benefits of Manuka honey before, and an old folk remedy for joint pain combines honey with cider vinegar to good effect. I teased you with that mention of the Bible, well cider vinegar gets a mention for being a healing agent and having antiseptic properties and has been used for many things including dealing with high blood pressure, lowering cholesterol and reducing stress. However, one of it’s most impressive qualities lies in it being able to tackle joint disease.

How does it do it? Because vinegar is full of natural enzymes that can help dissolve uric acid, and it is that acid which breaks down the calcium deposits in your joints. It is also believed that cider vinegar builds up the minerals needed for healthy bone structure. In other words, it acts as a natural anti-inflammatory.

Commercial vinegars are produced to give you a fine, clear liquid which is produced by boiling, and unfortunately that also kills all the enzymes and removes vital nutrients. However, like honey, it is better when from a powerful natural source such as Manuka – which itself has anti-inflammatory properties – so cider vinegar is most effective when it is unpasteurised and for that you need to find a specialist supplier. One enterprising company has combined the two ingredients for maximum effectiveness – and to make the vinegar palatable it must be said! A tablespoon of the combination in water on a daily basis will have your joints thanking you, and personally I combine it with a splash of ginger cordial concentrate and make it with hot water. It really does taste good, and if you want to know more then visit this website if you want to order up some ease in your joints: www.greenbayharvest.co.uk

The secrets of longevity – Part 3

We have journeyed to the Japanese island of Okinawa and the Sardinian village of Ovodda, but now we are off to what can seem like the natural home of those seeking eternal life – California. Certainly no other nation spends so much time, money and effort in trying to look younger and live longer, but strangely enough their longest lived community subscribes to none of those ideas.

Loma Linda, in California, is a town that is home of a large community of Seventh Day Adventists and they are proving anyone can increase their chances of living a longer, healthier life – and it has nothing to do with your genetic inheritance.

On average, Seventh Day Adventists in the town live between five and 10 years longer than fellow citizens, and it makes them the longest living people in the US.

What is making the difference? For many of those living in Loma Lindo long life is a matter of their faith, and the simple explanation would be that the Church advocates no tobacco or alcohol and promotes a vegetarian diet. All of these are factors that will definitely improve health and prolong life, however,not all members follow this code and even they live significantly longer than average.

Research has previously shown that people that go to church regularly – whatever faith they have – live longer, and that fact has been known for the last 30 years. But why? According to Dr Gary Fraser, who is researching the community, it seems that regular churchgoers have significantly lower levels of stress hormones and so may be better equipped to cope with life’s upsets and challenges.

Dr Kerry Morton, who is involved in a longer-term study on Adventist health, certainly seems to agree. “Religion and connection to something higher than oneself, connection to the sacred,connection to a tight-knit religious community allows you to modulate your reactions and your emotions to believe there is a broader purpose. Therefore your body can stay in balance and not be destroyed by those stressors and traumas over time”.

Well there you have it, the three longest-lived communities in the world, and all with a different answer. Whether it’s faith, food, or family I think it comes down to attitude and how you feel about yourself and your life – whichever route you take make it a positive one.

Asthma spikes after thunder

Some interesting research has just come in from the University of Georgia Atlanta, and is worth passing on if you know someone with asthma. Apparently hospital emergency room data shows that there is about a 3% increase in asthmas cases coming for treatment the day after a thunderstorm.

The data was collected over the entire 20-county Atlanta region, and was studied initially because asthma is prevalent in the region so that even such a small relative increase could have a significant public health impact in the population.

It is certainly interesting and worth keeping an eye if you are susceptible to asthma attacks, but exactly why thunderstorms might have this effect remains unclear. However, one leading hypothesis is that pollen grains break up by osmotic shock in rainwater, releasing allergens, which are then spread by the gusty winds of the storm.

Oh really?!

Sometimes I really despair about the people who hand out research grants – then again sometimes I wish they would just give me the money because in a 30 second phone call I could give them the same conclusions for a lot less money – and so could you. This week’s prize goes to Aryeh D. Stein, M.P.H., Ph.D., of Emory University, Atlanta who has discovered that the if a baby is well fed for the first few years of life, they will be smarter as they grow up. No really? His study was based on children from poor and disadvantaged Guatemalan villages and he discovered that when said children were given a proper diet with sufficient protein and adequate nutrition they were able to think better – on average it related to the equivalent of 1.6 years of schooling, Having an inadequate diet has an effect on virtually every function of the body and certainly impacts the ability to think clearly – hunger can do that to you as you would have imagined the researchers could have guessed at for themselves. What really annoyed and upset me however was they based their trial on the children being provided twice daily with either fresco, a sugar-sweetened drink that provided 330 kcal/L but no fat or protein, or the dietary supplement atole — a traditional hot drink made with vegetable protein, dry skimmed milk, and sugar — that provided 6.4 g/100 mL protein and 900 kcal/L.

How do you justify giving deprived kids a sugar loaded drink with no benefit to them just to test a theory that anyone with half a brain could have predicted the results of? The supplemented kids who got atole showed improved growth and less stunting at age three years as well as better cognitive ability. Great, but what about the rest? This is research for its own sake and how it was justified is a mystery to me but presumably it made sense to the people who paid for it; namely the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Thrasher Fund and the Nestle Foundation. The latter was set up to provide initiates and supports research in human nutrition with public health relevance in low – and lower middle-income countries, and presumably to sell more of their products from coffee to baby milk – wonder if they also make fresco?

The researchers did not report any conflicts of interest.

Primary source: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine

Source reference: Stein AD, et al “Nutritional supplementation in early childhood, schooling, and intellectual functioning in adulthood: a prospective study in Guatemala” Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2008; 162: 612-618.

The 5 Cs’ that stop you sleeping

Everyone experiences occasional bouts of sleep disturbance, though if it is prolonged it can really impact your health. I have come across an excellent natural way to help you sleep, but I thought it might help you know the five main reasons why we can’t sleep. Knowing by itself doesn’t help, but identifying the problem is the first place to start. They are:

1. Change
2. Conflict
3. Criticisms
4. Concerns
5. Crises

Mostly during the day we manage to deal with them, or put them out of our minds, but at night they come back with a vengeance. Unfortunately they are almost automatic, your mind returns to them in order to solve the ‘problem’ so just telling yourself not to think about them doesn’t do the trick.

There are a couple of suggestions that I have tried, that might help you. First do not beat yourself up about not sleeping – it only makes it worse. Next, from that list of 5, what is the main thing that you focus on as being the root cause for you? If you can identify it then spend ten minutes or so before bed in just writing out everything in your head about that particular topic. Don’t make it neat, don’t make it orderly – just dump it all out on the page, thoughts, feelings, anger, pain, sadness. Whatever is in there, get it out. When you have finished, take the paper and put it in the bin. Say to yourself, that’s done with, anything on there can wait until tomorrow. Repeat this every night and you will find the list getting shorter, and you have made a commitment to yourself that it doesn’t matter until tomorrow.

Stage two, is to prepare yourself for bed by pausing for a few minutes and visualizing your day and all the good things in it that you are grateful for. Allow at least two hours after eating before going to bed, and don’t have any coffee or tea during that time either.

Finally, I have just come across a new item from the Bach Flower company called Night Rescue (they make Rescue Remedy) and it is a different combination of flower essences that I have found very effective in stopping the brain racing away. Five drops on your tongue before going to bed is recommended, and it is available from health shops, and Boots the Chemist. Worth a try.

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