News on the food front – Green Tea

First I own up to the fact I am a big fan of green tea, partly for the taste but mostly for the whole range of health benefits it brings. However, I have to concede it’s not to everyone’s taste though I may have come across a way to overcome that. Hambleden Herbs is a wholly organic company that has been around for 25 years and they have developed a range of green teas in combination with other natural ingredients that might make it more palatable if you haven’t managed to crack the green tea barrier. These really are superior teas with all organic and natural ingredients – no synthetic ‘flavours’ to be found here. If the sound of Lemon Grass and Ginger, Green Tea and Jasmine, or Green Tea and Ginger tickle your taste buds, I am afraid you might have to search them out as they don’t sell in many stores, so your best bet is probably their website at www.Hambledenherbs.com

Mediteranean diet reduces kids asthma risk by 78%

With 1 in 11 children currently receiving treatment for asthma it is now a very common condition – but that doesn’t make it any the less worrying. We have dealt with asthma before, but some news in this week might help make life easier for some of those children, and their parents. For those who are unsure about asthma in young children, the symptoms to look out for are:

* A cough at night
* A cold that doesn’t go away
* A whistling sound when breathing out

That last symptom is particularly relevant in the UK as we apparently have the highest prevalence of severe wheeze in children aged 13-14 years than anywhere else in the world.

Now the medical journal Allergy is suggesting a way parents can be more in control of the condition through some simple dietary changes. I have talked about the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet for heart health in adults, but now it seems it could also relieve asthma symptoms in children. In Crete, where the Mediterranean diet is the norm, an estimated 80% of the children there eat fresh fruit at least twice a day and almost that same number also have fresh vegetables twice daily as well. (Sadly the research doesn’t tell us how they get them to eat so much without a fistfight) So why is it important? Well very few children in Crete have asthma or hay fever and the researchers from the University of Porto in Portugal concluded that their best asthma-fighting foods were oranges, apples, tomatoes and grapes.

Adults on the same type of diet, who had asthma, were found to have fewer attacks and flare-ups. However, if they also included nuts in their diet at least three times a week then that produced less wheezing. A likely explanation for this is that nuts contain a lot of magnesium which helps boost your lung power.

AVOID THIS: There was however one substance that the researchers found that would double the risk of children getting asthma and allergic rhinitis – margarine. This finding confirms what an Australian study found over 7 years ago when they first warned that the polyunsaturated fats found in many margarines can double a child’s chances of having asthma.

If you want more information, please visit www.asthma.org.uk

Exercise lowers post menopausal breast cancer risk

Breast cancer is a serious concern for women, and anything we can do to minimise that risk has got to be good news – especially when it’s natural, and free. An eleven year follow up study from the National Cancer Institute in the USA on over 23,000 women, appears to suggests that women who reported the highest levels of physical activity had an almost 20% lower risk of breast cancer compared with women who exercised the least. Two pointers here: the activity has to be vigorous or it appears to have no influence on reducing the risk, and the benefits were seen only in women who were fairly slim. As postmenopausal women have a tendency to put on weight, it seems as though combining exercise with a sensible diet might also be in order.

The survey defined vigorous activity to include scrubbing floors, chopping wood, and running or fast jogging. Though obviously not at the same time – how many women in the States still chop wood? They also defined non-vigorous exercise as activities including washing clothes, lawn mowing, and walking. They obviously have much more powerful lawn powers in the US that do all the work for you, rather than the old push-me pull-you mowers of my childhood which no one could define as non-vigorous as the aching back and arms afterwards would testify.

The message is clear; if you want to avoid post-menopausal breast cancer – especially if you have any history of it in your family – you could start by walking briskly to the nearest salsa class and then jogging home.

BUT!!!!!!!

If you are thinking of taking up running the marathon – as many do to help breast cancer charities – then please approach with caution and do it under professional supervision. Why? Well, there is now accumulating evidence from recent studies that pushing your body to run 26.2 miles can cause at least minor injury to your heart.

Dr Arthur Siege is director of internal medicine at Harvard’s McLean Hospital in, Massachusetts – and he has run 20 marathons. He is the ideal man to study the subject and he has published many studies on the health consequences of marathons. His main conclusions that you might want to think about before you strap on the running shoes are that the physical effects of running a marathon include changes in your immune system and kidney function, but obviously your muscles take the worst punishment. The further you run then your muscles stiffen and this can result in injury-signalling enzymes leaking through the heart membrane, and that is consistent with significant stress on the heart.

Benefits of Tai Chi for arthritic knees

Well anyone who is a regular reader, or has heard me speak, knows I am a great fan of Tai Chi for so many reasons. It is a traditional Chinese martial art that combines meditation with slow, gentle movements, deep breathing, and relaxation and any age or fitness can undertake it – just think of those elderly people you see doing it in the public parks in China. You can do it at home in 10 minutes, get a video to teach you or – best option of all is to find a qualified teacher and join a group. You will improve your fitness, helps build bone strength, lower your blood pressure, reduce stress levels and cultivate calm centredness. All good things, and now there is another one to add to the list – it can help if you have arthritic knees.

The American College of Rheumatology has just reported on a study done in Boston which found that patients with osteoarthritis of the knee benefited more from Tai Chi than from the traditional stretching exercises that such patients are usually given. Osteoarthritis sufferers experience interlinked pain, muscle weakness, and structural damage and where Tai Chi really scored was that it improved pain scores THREE times better than stretching. Researchers also concluded that the meditation, deep breathing, and relaxation involved may also benefit patients and it is recommended by the Arthritis Foundation. Personal recommendation is the best way to find a good teacher, so ask around your local area, health stores and alternative health centres can be good sources. The Tai Chi Union For Great Britain can offer you a register of practitioners throughout the country at www.taichiunion.com or in Scotland you could contact the East Winds School of T’ai Chi Chu’an at www.eastwinds.co.uk. If you are looking in the London area then I can personally recommend Jon Wallwork as a wonderful teacher and he can be contacted by email at [email protected]

How stress affects learning

Stress has the ability to affect so many areas of our lives.Our ability to function healthily, make effective decisions, avoid illness and infections are all dependent on how well we cope with stress.

It’s the role of cortisol, what we know as the “stress hormone” that is crucial in coping with stress. It now appears that high levels of cortisol in the body over a prolonged period of time impairs learning ability in young people, and also weakens memory as we get older.

It has already been demonstrated in 2001, by researchers at Utrecht University in Holland, that high stress levels can delay puberty, and a new study links stress and memory impairment. McGill University in the US has a well-respected Human Stress Research Laboratory and they have been running a study for the past six years to test memory on both young people and older adults. What they found was that long-term stress creates sustained high levels of cortisol, and when cortisol levels remain high with only brief periods of relaxation, the resulting chronic stress may help trigger problems with memory as well as possible blood sugar imbalance, high blood pressure, and decreased bone density and muscle tissue.

Cortisol is not a villain, when it is released in small amounts, it can sometimes briefly improve memory, and even supply a burst of energy, but it is prolonged exposure to stress that causes the real problem. Approximately 30% of elderly people start to produce too much cortisol and the first way to deal with it is to find out what is causing the major stress. Obviously there are many factors, but a key one turns out to be environmental. Those who do not have adequate social support, are far more likely to have cortisol levels than those who don’t.

Obviously there is no one, quick answer, and it can’t be solved by taking a pill. It’s about lifestyle examination, good nutrition, exercise and an enjoyable social life. Get those in balance and you are a long way forward on resolving your stress issues. If you need to find out why, you will find helpful tips and suggestions in my book ‘How To Cope Successfully With Stress’ and you will find more information about it at www.sortingstressout.com

Help with hand tremors

I was recently ‘afloat’ on Ventura and was approached by a gentleman with a question I have never been asked before – and those are ones I really appreciate as it lets me go off and try and find some information. He was suffering from hand tremors, but did not have Parkinson’s Disease and so I asked a doctor friend and then went searching elsewhere, but it proved far harder than usual to find information. That certainly interested me, as it seems this is an area where there don’t seem to be that many remedies available, but I did find some useful advice on Dr Andrew Weil’s site and a couple of others that might prove helpful to anyone suffering from this condition.

Trembling or spasm is the most common of all involuntary movements and is an unintentional and rhythmic muscle movement involving to-and-fro movements (oscillations) of one or more parts of the body. What happens is that the muscle fibres contract, tighten and restrict blood circulation so that the muscle becomes rigid. What causes it can be physical, emotional, or psychological; it may be as a result straining the muscle, sitting or lying awkwardly, or stress and anxiety that affect the nervous system. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: the muscles cannot relax on their own or release with movement.

Of all the information I found, there are three areas to look at:

1 The Medical solution. It is crucial first and most important to check with your doctor if you are taking any form of medication at all and ask whether any of the side effects could be causing the problem. If it is, then ask if there is any other treatment they can give you instead.

2 The Dietary Approach. Caffeine and alcohol can both exacerbate the condition so cut them out and monitor the results. Increase your consumption of ‘calming’ foods such as carbohydrates and soothing teas which contain valerian. Celestial Seasonings produce one called Sleepytime which I recommend to anyone to reduce anxiety and stress. 3 Alternative therapies that can help include cranial osteopathy or acupuncture and both tai chi or meditation will help reduce stress.

Because this condition can be made worse by anxiety and stress, it will be of benefit if you do all you can to reduce this to manageable levels.

What medicine are you really getting?

When you visit the doctor you have an entirely reasonable assumption that they will treat the condition that you are consulting them for. This may involve giving you medication, and again you a right to assume that what you are given will be effective. However, disturbing new evidence from the USA has found that many doctors routinely prescribe placebo treatment instead of ‘real’ drugs.

Now, as my readers know, I am not a fan of wholesale medication but I do think if you are being given a placebo you should be told about it. In my childhood, it was actually not that uncommon either as then most doctors also had their own dispensaries and had a variety of standard bottles of jollop for various ills. My mother was a cleaner for our own doctor and she soon realised that the making up of the various remedies for stomach ache, sore throat, coughs and colds were basically all the same but each was a different colour and had more or less sugar in them. I can see the point in them, often such minor illnesses cure themselves and being given treatment increases confidence and that you will soon be well.

However, in the USA, 58% of doctors surveyed said it was ethical and acceptable to prescribe vitamins, sugar pills, painkillers, saline injections, or even antibiotics instead of the medical treatment the patient might expect. They also admitted that they don’t inform the patients of what they are giving them and regularly give placebos, but without ever mentioning the word. Over 1200 doctors were surveyed and they most routinely prescribed standard painkillers that the patient could buy in a pharmacy, or vitamin pills in a different bottle. A staggering 46% of doctors said that at least two to three times a month they recommended a treatment (placebo) primarily to promote patient expectations. They apparently usually tell the patient that they were being given a “potentially beneficial medicine or treatment not typically used for their condition.”

Well, yes. If you go to your doctor for a condition that manifests with lethargy and tiredness and you are given a vitamin, I can see how it might help, but wouldn’t it be simpler to at least have a discussion about diet and lifestyle? I know placebos are helpful and have a place, but the fact it is so common and widespread concerns me because are the doctors saying these people don’t need medical treatment but they are getting the consultation fee and payment for their ‘treatment’ so that makes it all right?

A significant proportion of the doctors surveyed were rheumatologists and prescribing placebos to people who are often in a great deal of pain seems to me to be admitting that you don’t have an adequate treatment – so why not say so and look outside the box to the complementary medicine field which often has greater success with particular ailments than the medical profession do?

The moral of this story? Always ask what you are being prescribed and what it is going to do for you. Doctors may prescribe placebos without informing you, but they are not going to do so if you ask for chapter and verse on what you are getting.

CO Q10, How to boost levels by 4 X plus

Coenzyme Q10, (COQ 10) is a nutrient that occurs naturally in the body and plays a key part in metabolizing energy from food. It is essential in the production of energy in your body, and is found in large concentrations in those tissues that use a lot of energy, such as your heart. It has a whole host of health benefits associated with it, particularly in the area of heart disease, but current research is also showing its application in other areas such as those below:

* Migraine prevention – a 2002 study reported that 61% of patients treated with CoQ10 as a migraine preventive reported 50% fewer migraines at the end of three months. * Chronic fatigue – those deficient in CoQ10 reported higher levels of energy when supplementing withthan those with deficient levels of the enzyme.

* Hypertension reduced – patients with high blood pressure taking CO Q10 were compared to similar patients on heart medication and were found to have exactly the same reduction in levels – without the side effects of the drugs. * Heart transplants patients benefit – patients given CO Q10 regularly before their surgery were found in a 2004 study to have a significant improvement in functional status, clinical symptoms, and quality of life.

* Parkinson’s Disease damage reduced – only a small study has been undertaken so far, but it appears that patients with the highest levels of CO Q10 showed significantly less impairment to their motor functions than those on lower doses.

* Statins – those taking statins often show a low rate of CO Q10 and may be advised to supplement as these drugs work to block cholesterol and have the potential to block the production of CoQ10 and reduce levels further.

As we get older, the levels of CO Q10 we naturally produce in the body tend to be less, for a number of reasons. There may simply not be enough CIO Q10 in our diet – we get it mostly from oily fish, meat and whole grains – or we can no longer effectively produce or synthesize adequate amounts of it ourselves. Further factors include the external effect of illness, and stress

Now it appears there is another way of increasing your CO Q10 levels, and it’s absolutely free. It’s our old friend exercise that is the key factor, as a recent study from the Lancisi Heart Institute in Italy has shown. They divided their subjects into four groups:

* Group one received 100 mg of supplemental CoQ10 three times each day

* Group two received the same, plus supervised exercise five times each week

* Group three received a placebo

* Group four received a placebo and participated in the same exercise routine as group two.

They were supervised for four weeks, and the results were very positive for the combination of exercise and CO Q10. Those in Group one, who just took the supplement had their blood levels of CoQ10 boosted four-fold – which is impressive in itself. However, those who were in Group 2 had their levels raised even further while there was no difference at all for Groups 3 and 4.

As the greatest concentration is found around your heart, it makes sense to have some aerobic exercise that will make that muscle work harder. Good brisk walking, or take a look at the health tips what I think is an ideal form of exercise for everyone, regardless of age or fitness.

Omega 3, dieting and depression

Studies in the US have linked a low dietary intake of omega 3 fatty acids and dieting with growing rates of depression. Interestingly, the risk of developing depression has increased at a rate similar to the rise in consumption of omega 6 fatty acids from sources like vegetable seed oils and is relative to the decrease in omega 3 fatty acids from fish, walnuts, and flaxseed. Many nutritionists feel that this is a direct result of the increased consumption of processed foods as opposed to eating ‘real’ food.

The study gave either a fish oil capsule or a sugar pill in addition to their antidepressant medication to the participants. Just two weeks into the study, there was an improved sense of well being and sleeping patterns in the omega 3 supplement group. After four weeks a substantial had a significant reduction in the symptoms of depression as compared to those taking the sugar pill. The study concluded that the fatty acid EPA may be used as an antidepressant booster, but I would go further and suggest that it can be used proactively to help anyone with a tendency to depression before they start medication. Dietary changes have already been substantiated as helping depression, and adding in adequate amounts of Omega 3 can definitely help.

Vitamin K, helps women fight heart disease

Hardening of the arteries is a major concern for many, particularly as they get older, but new research has good news for women – sorry chaps but it doesn’t help you much apparently. It’s just been reported in the journal Atherosclerosis, that women who have the highest levels of vitamin K2 have the greatest protection against hardening of the arteries.

The researchers examined the diets of women in their 60s and found that vitamin K2 reduced hardening of the arteries by as much as 20 percent and the more K2, the better. We tend to be encouraged to eat more of the K1 vitamins, which are found primarily in leafy green vegetables, as they have plenty of other health benefits but they don’t provide any K2. The best sources are cheese and milk products and some from meat. These of course can be sources of cholesterol and fats, so don’t switch your diet completely – remember everything in moderation is the very best health advice.

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