Krill – a better form of Omega 3?

The health benefits of Omega 3 are well known for helping with cardiovascular and cholesterol support as well as anti-inflammatory properties which may help arthritis and joint pain and is linked to improvements in memory and brain function.

If you already are a convert then you certainly have a huge variety of supplements to choose from and here is a new one from Silvertown Health and their source is pure Antarctic Krill.

The Krill population of the world has been estimated as outweighing the human population of the world which certainly came as a surprise to me, as the only thing I really know about krill is that it is a favourite food of whales. This particular variety of small crustaceans is found in the Antarctic peninsula and apparently, their Omega-3 oils are in a phospholipid form which is suggested as far more beneficial and potent than the triglyceride structure found in normal fish oil supplements.

Krill oil, unlike fish oil, also contains Astaxanthin, one of the most powerful antioxidants known to man (or indeed woman) and said to be 300 times more powerful than the antioxidant vitamins A & E and 34 times more powerful than Co Q10.
Antioxidants are vital in supporting the immune system and reducing DNA damaging free radicals.

It seems that Silvertown Health Krill Oil is harvested ethically by a leading European krill oil harvester (though I would have thought that the whales had first claim on that as it is one of their most essential forms of food) and has Novel Food Approved status-whatever that may be. I would have thought anything that was essential to health was hardly novel, but perhaps the krill are great readers.  However, as they are monitored by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Marine Stewardship Council to ensure strict environmental standards that probably balances itself out.

If you want to try Krill oil you should be able to find it in most good health stores and you only need one 500mg capsule a day to feel the effects. If you want to go the ethical route as well – buy it online from Silvertown here: Krill Oil

How to improve the appearance of scars

When I suffered a car crash in the 1980s I was left with a prominent and rather unattractive scar on my arm, due to it being stitched in A&E by a nurse who had worked rather too long hours and seeing I suspect too many car accidents. What I wish had been available in time is a new product that came across my desk this week to help prevent, improve and reduce scarring.

Lily-C™ Silicone Scar Therapy wrap moulds to the natural curves of the body, helping to reduce redness and relieve the itching and discomfort associated with wounds. Used properly the manufacturers claim that it will soften, flatten and dramatically improve the appearance of your scar. Scarring can occur from many causes; whether they are post operative, accidental or a sports injury but they can all cause not just physical but emotional suffering as well.

Anything that can reduce that impact has got to be worth looking at and silicone scar therapy is clinically proven in the prevention, improvement and reduction of scarring. The silicone provides a protective barrier which occludes and hydrates skin helping to encourage its natural healing properties.

This product was originally designed for women who had had a Caesarean, but it was then realised that it could be used on all scars. It consists of a skin like layer of silicone measuring 5cms x 22cms and has an adhesive free lining allowing it to gently adhere to the skin without the use of irritating adhesives or additional taping. One additional benefit is that it also comes with a special LilyWash™ that is designed to gently cleanse Lily-C™ and renew the tacky lining allowing it to be used over and over again.

LilyPadz Lily-C Silicone Scar Therapy has a RRP of £34.99 and is available from Boots. If you have any difficulty, please visit the website at www.simplylily.co.uk or you can telephone the company on 01753 202330.

Say No to Cancer

Experts are now predicting that our Lifetime cancer risk is going to be 1 in 2 by 2020 – a mere 10 years away. In fact, it is one in three already and top nutritionist and author Patrick Holford believes that most of this risk is completely avoidable by simple changes to both diet and lifestyle factors which expose us to a plethora of carcinogens, which promote cancer cells and also suppress the immune system.

It may be comforting to believe that great strides are being made in cancer treatment, but Holford believes that nothing substantial has changed. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there has been less than a 1% decrease in the rate of new cancer diagnosis and neither the death rate nor the incidence of new cases has changed.

Treatment is one thing but for prevention – both before and after diagnosis – to be effective, it has to respect the fact that the cancer process is multifactorial. It depends on:

a) Reducing exposure to carcinogens, of which there are thousands in our modern environment and diet;
b) Improving one’s ability to repair damaged DNA;
c) Controlling factors that stimulate cell growth, which include common ‘insulin resistance’ and drinking milk; and
d) Diet and lifestyle habits that strengthen immunity – from vitamin D and sunlight exposure to eating berries and upping antioxidants.

If a person has cancer, or early-stage cancer risk, these prevention factors have to be applied aggressively, not just as advice to ‘eat a well balanced diet’. There have been in reality no substantial change in cancer treatment and although surgical procedures have slightly improved they don’t actually address the underlying cause.

In his new book ‘Say No to Cancer’ Holford outlines the real strides that have been made in nutrition-based anti-cancer strategies that both kill cancer cells and boost immunity, rather than weaken it, as does chemotherapy and radiation. He discusses two of the most promising treatments which are intravenous and/or megadose vitamin C and salvestrols, both of which show promise.
Everyone knows that eating fruits and vegetables is good for your health. Conventional medical advice is to eat at least five portions a day and evidence shows that a diet rich in plant-based foods helps to combat many diseases, especially cancer. What is now becoming clear is that there is more than one single mechanism whereby plants are able to help prevent and reverse the cancer process.

A dedicated team of research scientists in Leicester believe that a key component, and a mechanism, in plants could be a major breakthrough in both cancer prevention and treatment. They believe that salvestrols, naturally occurring compounds in certain plants, can help to explain how plants offer a treatment for cancer with fewer side effects than conventional treatments.

Salvestrols are a group of naturally-occurring plant compounds present in certain fruits and vegetables, they contain substances which can be changed by an enzyme, present in both pre-cancerous and cancerous cells, to produce a toxic chemical which brings about ‘cell death’ (apoptosis) and therefore destroys the cancer cells.

He had written a previous version of this book, but Patrick Holford found that in the last decade there has been so much positive research showing how to make yourself cancer-proof that he has completely rewritten Say No to Cancer, to more than double the size, and is doing a nationwide tour, both in the UK and Ireland, to help you learn the simple tricks to boosting your body’s own defences against cancer, and also infections, and how to stack all the odds in your favour to never get cancer.

For information on Patrick’s forthcoming seminars, and to buy the book please visit his website at www.patrickholford.com

Cognitive decline can start in the womb in malnourished pregnancies

One of the conditions that most frightens us, and has seen such a rapid increase in the last 50 years, is Alzheimer’s with its accompanying cognitive decline. Now there is an interesting new approach based on a recent retrospective study that seems to indicate that poor or inadequate nutrition during the early part of pregnancy appears to accelerate cognitive decline in later life for the baby.

This work has been based on a study of people exposed to severe prenatal malnutrition in the Netherlands during World War II, but I believe also has great significance for the increasing number of people in the West who are on nutritionally poor diets. This was a regression analysis of almost 300 men and women born in Amsterdam during a severe food shortage in the winter of 1944 to 1945 and what the researchers found was that those conceived during that period (and considered to be exposed to famine in utero) performed significantly worse when tested for selective attention at ages 56 to 59.

During the winter of 1944 and 1945, a severe food shortage struck the western Netherlands as a result of a German embargo on food transport in response to a Dutch railway strike intended to hamper German troop movements. Food rations among this normally well-nourished population rapidly fell to as little as 400 to 800 calories per person during the five to six months of famine.

Susanne R. de Rooij, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam, led the study and she hypothesized that because the Dutch group had previously associated prenatal exposure to famine with coronary heart disease and diabetes — both aging-related chronic diseases — that this early exposure may also lead to premature age-related cognitive decline.

Indeed, they found on regression analysis that exposed individuals performed significantly worse in cognitive function tests than those who had not suffered this nutritional devastation. The study subjects were 56 to 59 years of age and undertook a general intelligence test, a perceptual motor-learning task, a memory task, and a selective attention task.

The participants did no worse than the control group on any of the tests except for that of selective attention. The researchers have speculated that those exposed to malnutrition during the first part of pregnancy are most vulnerable and a possible explanation is because of the effect of malnutrition on the development of the central nervous system, which occurs early in gestation. Another possibility is that the cognitive decline reflects vascular damage, which is supported by the researchers’ previous finding that famine exposure was associated with dyslipidemia and coronary heart disease.

Why these findings affect all of us:

This is not a definitive study, but I do think it’s worth paying attention to. The effect of nutrition on development throughout life is well known and I, along with many others interested in natural health, definitely see a link between the increase in conditions such as Alzheimer’s and the worsening dietary habits in the West.

We know from previous research that the vitamin and mineral content of food has been seriously depleted by modern farming methods and the overuse of pesticides and antibiotics in the animal food chain. Much of what we eat is nutritionally barren, and an addiction to fast foods, sugar and empty calories is leading to the current generation, who are the parents of the future, passing on their own nutritional deficiencies to their children.

Those who are trying to start a family know that the best advice they are given is to make themselves as healthy as possible in order to have a truly healthy baby. I have previously touched on the decline in both numbers and potency of the current generation’s sperm due to the environmental effect of such things as xenoestrogens and we also know that whatever the mother takes into her body during pregnancy will pass through the placenta to the baby. A generation reared on Diet Coke and McDonald’s are not essentially giving their unborn child the best start in life.

Why Black Rice is not just a gourmet fad but has health benefits too

You may have noticed when strolling down the aisles of your supermarket that in the “exotic foods” section that among the ordinary everyday types of rice — of which there are already quite a few — you may have noticed something called Black Rice. What you may not know is just how special it is and what a treasure house of nutrients it contains.

In ancient China, nobles commandeered every grain of a variety of black rice known as “Forbidden Rice” for themselves and – as is the way with rulers all over the world — issued an order forbidding the common people from eating it. Well now you can take your revenge and raid the supermarket shelves to treat yourself because new scientific research has discovered that a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health promoting anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries, plus the rice bran has less sugar, more fibre and an abundance of vitamin E.

In case you think this is a propaganda press release on behalf of the Chinese Department of Agriculture let me assure you this comes from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, USA. Many fruits are known to be rich sources of anthocyanin antioxidants and these phytochemicals show promise for fighting heart disease, cancer, and other diseases but this is the first time that black rice has been shown to have the same properties. . As part of a healthy diet many people have switched to brown rice — which is certainly an improvement on white rice — but it seems that black rice could be even more beneficial.

Brown rice is the most widely produced variety of rice in the world and has a brown colour because only the outer husks, or “chaff”, are taken off the rice grains during milling. When rice is processed more, and the underlying nutrient-dense bran is removed, the result is white rice. If you eat brown, not white, rice you are making a far healthier choice as the bran contains higher levels of gamma-tocotrienol, one of the vitamin E compounds, and gamma-oryzanol antioxidants, which are lipid-soluble antioxidants.

A large body of research has concluded these antioxidants can reduce blood levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol) and potentially lower the risk for heart disease. Indeed scientists at Temple University, Philadelphia have found that a specific natural compound in brown rice can reduce high blood pressure and protect blood vessels and Harvard University research suggests that eating brown rice may prevent type 2 diabetes.

An interesting side effect of their research was the discovery that pigments in black rice bran extracts can produce a variety of different colours, ranging from pink to black. Looking ahead, they think this may provide a healthy, natural alternative to the artificial colourings often added to some food and drink. This could certainly be beneficial as several studies have found an association between such colourings and cancer, behavioural problems in children, and other health concerns.

The Louisiana State researchers focused on testing black rice bran as this has the most potent effects, but I do not believe this to be commercially available anywhere. At least I have not been able to find it, if you do please let me know, so in the meantime it would still make sense to add black rice to your diet.

Black Rice has been promoted as a gourmet treat — which at its retail price it certainly is — and is more commonly used as decoration or for visual effect or mixed with either white or brown rice. However to get the maximum health benefits it would certainly pay you to add a tablespoon of black rice whenever you’re cooking any kind of rice.

Bisphenol A Link to Dental Treatment Problems

The danger of BPA is something I have highlighted previously in other newsletters, particularly in relation to children, and now there appears to be yet another cause for concern relating to dental treatment. BPA was originally produced for use as a synthetic hormone in 1936 and today is most commonly used as the building block of polycarbonate plastic for products such as baby bottles and water bottles, epoxy resins (coatings that line food containers), and white dental sealants. It is also an additive in other types of plastic used to make children’s toys.

To date there is extensive scientific literature reporting adverse effects of BPA at doses lower than the current level considered safe by U.S. EPA, a high rate of leaching of BPA from food and beverage containers, and evidence that the median BPA level in humans is higher than the level that causes adverse effects in lab studies.

Children are Most at Risk:

Growing children are particularly at risk to chemicals in their environment because they face greater exposure per pound of body weight and are physiologically more susceptible to them. Children’s exposures begin at conception, as chemicals, including BPA, cross the placenta in a pregnant woman’s body and can affect the embryo or foetus during critical periods of development.

Now there is even greater cause for concern as, according to researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, bisphenol A (BPA) is also released from some plastic resins used in dentistry. They found that this is detectable in the saliva after used during routine dental treatment and among the many risks associated with BPA are changes in behaviour, urinary tract development, and early onset of puberty. Adults of course are not immune either as prostate problems are also associated with BPA.

This study was carried out in the USA where children often have their teeth sealed with a dental resin containing BPA to prevent cavities, and it is often used for fillings. Although they point out that exposure to dental treatment is much less common than children being exposed to BPA in everyday food containers for example it is still a cause for concern. Indeed, they go further and as a further precaution urge that resins containing BPA should not be used on pregnant women.

One ‘prescription’ that could help treat emotional and physical pain – with no side-effects

Music is not only the food of love and the healer of the soul but now it seems from new research that it could benefit the treatment of depression and the management of physical pain.

Glasgow Caledonian University researchers are using an innovative combination of music psychology and leading-edge audio engineering by looking in more detail than ever before at how music conveys emotion. I suspect that many of us — as with so much of expensively funded research — know this already as it is almost instinctive to turn to music to enhance or change our mood.

What is new is that they are suggesting that the use of music to help regulate a person’s mood could lead to promoting the development of music-based therapies to tackle conditions like depressive illnesses and help alleviate symptoms of with physical pain.

They explain that the impact of a piece of music goes so much further than thinking that a fast tempo can lift a mood and a slow one can bring it down. Music expresses emotion as a result of many factors including the tone, structure and other technical characteristics of a piece. Lyrics can have a big impact too. But so can purely subjective factors: where or when you first heard it, whether you associate it with happy or sad events and so on. This project is the first step towards taking all of these considerations – and the way they interact with each other – on board according to Dr Don Knox, project leader.

Their method of assessing and analysing the impact of music is to ask each volunteer to listen to pieces of previously unheard contemporary popular music and assign each one a position on a graph. One axis measures the type of feeling (positivity or negativity) that the piece communicates; the other measures the intensity or activity level of the music. The research team then assess the audio characteristics that the pieces falling into each part of the graph have in common. They then look at parameters such as rhythm patterns, melodic range, musical intervals, length of phrases, musical pitch and so on.

According to Dr Knox music falling into a positive category might have a regular rhythm, bright timbre and a fairly steady pitch contour over time. If tempo and loudness increase, for instance, this would place the piece in a more ‘exuberant’ or ‘excited’ region of the graph. You might like to try this at home for yourself dear reader and see what results you come up with.

It is envisaged that your doctor could soon be putting music on a prescription that is tailored to suit the your individual needs – though quite how they’re going to train doctors to do this so they don’t end up giving you gangsta rap when a bit of Vivaldi might do the trick I am not entirely sure.

However, I certainly welcome the promotion of music as therapy and so let me be the first to offer you a “prescription” to help lift your mood. If you follow this link it will take you to a recording of a male acappella group from Corsica singing in the most spine tingling and inspiring way that I will be astounded if you don’t feel better after listening to it. They have the rather bizarre name of Barbara Furtuna (though if John Wayne could be called Marion I suppose anything is possible) and all you have to do is to press control and click to follow this link – Listen to them: here.

Why almost half of us are on prescription drugs and another ‘benefit‘ for statins

As it is often said that what America does today Britain will do tomorrow I worry when the latest statistics show that nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis and that one in five children are being regularly given prescription drugs. If you are over 50 then it is even more worrying as nine out of ten adults in the age group are on drugs. What concerns me more however is the fact that nearly a third use two or more drugs, and more than one in ten use five or more prescription drugs regularly.

That last statistic shows what can happen when you treat a condition on a symptom by symptom basis with the original need overlaying the subsequent responses and side-effects to each consequent drug. For example, if you need anti-migraine medication but it gives you severe stomach upsets then the second drug will help with that but unfortunately it may also have side-effects of its own for which you could easily be given yet a further drug.

The most commonly-used drugs were:

• Statin drugs for older people
• Asthma drugs for children
• Antidepressants for middle-aged people
• Amphetamine stimulants for children

Statins:
I have said my piece, probably all too often, on the widespread use of statins for what appears to be little perceived benefits and some serious side-effects but — as often happens when a drug is under attack — a perceived benefit has come to light. It appears that regular statin use is associated with a reduced risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. It reminds me of that other great drug HRT that always comes up with a new use for a specific condition when negative press appears linking it to a serious drawback for health.

I have no problem with people being given drugs that they need and will cure or alleviate their condition, but unfortunately this is just not always the case. Many of the drugs people take actually cause the very things they claim to prevent: osteoporosis drugs are linked to hip fractures, cancer drugs can cause cancer and antidepressants bizarrely enough have suicidal thoughts listed as a side-effect.

Now that the pharmaceutical industry is global, we are just as much at the mercy of the drug companies without any direct influence on them. We know that the drug companies have falsified research, distorted facts in studies and deliberately suppressed negative information about new drugs. You can’t blame your doctor, as they often as much in the dark as we are, but what you can do is get yourself the very best health insurance — by which I mean taking the very best pro active care of yourself through diet, exercise and stress management together with the all-important enthusiastic positive approach to life which will enhance your chances of an active and healthy life.

So before you rush off to the doctor for a prescription, ask yourself first whether you really need that drug or whether it is something that you can handle with the use of time and some sensible home treatment. In the winter most people get colds, some get flu, and many others are not affected at all so let’s try and make this the winter where your body is so healthy those infections just cannot take hold.

One way to do this is to increase the amount of “super foods” such as chlorella, spirulina and wheat grass in your diet and although I have to confess that none of these have a great taste I have found that adding chlorella and spirulina to a fruit or vegetable juice drink (though turning it an unattractive shade of green) does mean you get the benefit without the taste.

Wheat grass is now making a comeback as years ago (certainly here in Brighton) there were several wheatgrass juice bars with trays of the green stuff growing live and ready to be juiced. Happily — as again it is not top of the pops for taste — you can now buy it in supplement form from Natural Greens as capsules and you will also be helping the charity YES TO LIFE, which helps support people with cancer in the UK in accessing Complementary & Alternative Medicine as they are giving a percentage of the company’s profits to them.

One ‘prescription’ that could help treat emotional and physical pain – with no side-effects
Music is not only the food of love and the healer of the soul but now it seems from new research that it could benefit the treatment of depression and the management of physical pain.

More Good Reasons To Drink Cranberry Juice

Cranberry juice is a staple in most women’s store cupboard either as a preventive, or treatment, for cystitis but it now seems it has even wider applications as new research shows it has promise in blocking Staph Infections. These are very common and caused by a Staphylococcus (or staph) infection that often begins with a small cut, which then gets infected with bacteria.

Normally around a quarter of the population carry staph in the nose, mouth, genitals, and anal area but the prime area is usually the foot — especially if you go barefoot as it is very easy to pick up bacteria from the floor. Strains of S. aureus can cause a range of staph infections from minor skin rashes to serious bloodstream infections and one particular strain, known as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, (MRSA), is a growing problem in hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions because it doesn’t respond to most antibiotics. As we have recently seen, because of the overuse of antibiotics, our bodies have developed resistance to them which renders them relatively ineffective.

So the good news is that researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts have recently carried out a small clinical study that appears to show that a cranberry juice cocktail blocked a strain of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) from beginning the process of infection.

Terri Camesano, professor of chemical engineering at WPI, has done previous work with cranberry juice studying its effects on E. coli and urinary tract infections, but they included Staphylococcus aureus in this latest study because it is a very serious health threat. Although it is in its early stages, the results of the study are surprising.

Their analysis showed that subjects who had recently consumed cranberry juice cocktail significantly reduced the ability of E. coli and S. aureus to form and that Staphylococcus aureus showed the most significant results in this study.

These results do appear to create more questions than answers, according to lead researcher Camesano, but it seems to me that taking out some natural health insurance in the form of a daily glass of cranberry juice couldn’t hurt.

Natural Remedies for Sciatica

Each year, many people are forced to miss out on activities they enjoy because of sciatica-related pain. The sciatic nerve runs from the lower back all the way down the legs, and the pain associated with sciatica can be severe. Sciatica can be caused by many issues including herniated discs, bone spurs, poor posture, obesity, weak muscles, and major trauma. The symptoms of sciatica include weakness, pain, and numbness anywhere along the sciatic nerve. These symptoms can be incapacitating and most people will do anything they can to relieve their symptoms.

When walking it is important to always maintain proper posture. Walk upright with your head held upward. One way of teaching yourself the proper posture when walking is to get you back against a wall so that your head heels and your buttocks touch the wall and walk outwards maintaining that exact posture. When you sit it is good to remember to keep your thighs parallel with the floor and sit in an upward position and slouch back slightly. Sleeping is always one of the key ways to maintain a day free from lower back pain caused by sciatica. If you wake up pain free you are more likely to have a pain free day. The best way to sleep at night is by sleeping in fetal position with a pillow in between your knees.

Treatment for sciatica is directed towards maximizing mobility and your independence. The nerve problem should be classified and treated the right way. Some people with this need no treatment, and heal spontaneously. If there was no evidence of nerve degeneration, no history of trauma, sudden onset of the pain, no difficulty moving, then conservative treatments are the most effective.

Eating is very important, you want to make sure to maintain a healthy weight by eating properly. If you are over weight it puts more pressure on your back causing more pain than you would normally experience if you were at a healthy average weight. Being overweight means making your body carry around the extra burden of those gained pounds by eating unhealthy.

Legions that press on the nerve will have to be surgically removed. This may relieve your symptoms. In cases with lacerations to the nerves, even with sciatica treatment, recovery may be limited, or not possible. Injections are usually given to ease the swelling and irritation around the nerve. Over the counter medicines are given to relieve your nerve pain.

Sciatol is a natural supplement. Its formulated to support the health of the sciatic nerve, spine, and spinal cord. This is the best medicine to take to relieve the pain and discomfort caused by sciatica. Sciatol contains six potent ingredients carefully chosen by scientists and expert herbalists. Based on clinical studies, Sciatol is scientifically formulated to relieve sciatic pain and discomfort, reduce inflammation and swelling, relax muscles, prevent muscle spasms, sooth the sciatic nerve, relieve pressure on the sciatic nerve.

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