Author Archives: julie

Dr. Oz’s Recommended Supplements

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I saw a great Dr. Oz show the other day where he listed out his top recommended supplements from all of the shows he’s done over the past year. Some of them were quite interesting so I thought I would list them out for anyone who is interested.  They address different problems such as a slow metabolism, bloating and cancer.  Please check with your doctor before you take any supplements.  The information below is not meant to be medical advice.

  • 7-Keto: used to help boost the metabolism.  He recommends taking 100 mg in the morning and 100mg at night.
  • Forskolin: also used to help boost the metabolism.  Recommended dosage is 125 mg a day.
  • Caraway Seeds: used to help control bloating.  Just take a handful after a meal and chew!
  • Relora: helps reduce cortisol levels (cortisol is the stress hormone and can make you gain weight).  Take 250 mg 3 times a day with meals.
  • Saffron Extract: helps control the appetite (billed as an appetite suppressant). He said to make sure that it is “satiereal saffron extract”.  Take 88-90 mg 2 times a day.
  • IP-6 Inositol Hexophosphate: use for cancer prevention.  Take 500 mg 2 times per day.
  • Black Raspberry: use for cancer prevention.  It is full of anthocyanins which help scavenge free radicals.
  • L-Carnosine:  helps fight aging.  Take 500 mg 2 times a day with food.
  • Primrose Oil: helps fight wrinkles.  Take 500 mg 2 times a day.
  • Biotin: helps fix brittle nails and hair. It’s a B7 vitamin.  Take 500 mg 2 times a day.
  • Black Currant Oil: helps improve hair.  Take 500 mg 2 times a day.

And there you have it!  These are the top supplements Dr. Oz recommends.  If you want more details, check out the Dr. Oz Show website.

Misozuke: mucho yummy!

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I tried out a new farmer’s market yesterday in Palo Alto.  It occurs every Sunday rain or shine (and it was raining) on California St in Palo Alto.  It was a very cute one where they block off about one block so that no cars can drive and vendors set up in the street.  I usually go to the Farmer’s Market in San Mateo, so it was fun to try something new for a change.  I saw some of the same vendors as I usually see in San Mateo, but I also discovered some new ones.  The most exciting one was a stand selling “tofu misozuke“.  I had never heard of it before, so I was interested to give it a try. They described it as an aged tofu that originally comes from the Fukuoka province in Japan.  Basically they take a  block of tofu, wrap it up in a cloth and dunk it in miso and let it age for several months to a year.

I’m not a huge tofu eater so I wasn’t sold at this point, but they said that it resembles some of the more complex cheeses like blue cheese, and this did get me interested because I love cheese, especially the stinky complex ones.  It was out on the table and looked creamy and spreadable.  They also had thin crackers so I took a swipe and tried it.  It was delightful!  The taste was complex- the easiest way to describe it is that it is umami.  It really did taste as close to a complex cheese as you can get with no dairy.  It was creamy and delicious and just a little was very satisfying.

They recommend eating tofu misozuke with wine or sake, which does sound delightful, but I think it’s delicious on its own.  And since I’m trying to cut out dairy and watch what I eat, this is a great substitute for cheese for me. I’ve included a photo of it here.  You can see that it’s not much to look at- just looks like a creamy blob of tofu, which I guess it was it really is.  Because it’s aged in miso there is sodium in this, but the good news is that a little tofu misozuke goes a long way because the flavor is so complex.

I thought that maybe because it was an aged food that it contained lots of probiotics, but when I asked the vendor she didn’t really know much about the nutritional profile of the misozuke.  She just said that because it’s tofu, it’s probably the same as regular tofu but with more salt.  I’m guessing that the aging changes the profile of the tofu somewhat, but there’s nothing scientific that I’m basing this guess on so take it with a grain of salt.

I just love discovering new things at the farmer’s market and this was something really different, so I thought I’d share it with you all.  It doesn’t seem to be widely available (I guess not even in Japan) but who knows, if you keep asking your farmer’s market or local grocer we could start a tofu misozuke craze!

 

Use Olive Oil to Help with Scalp Psoriasis

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Anyone who suffers from scalp psoriasis knows that it can be both physically as well as emotionally painful.  Those dry, flaky scales and red patches are uncomfortable and they are extremely embarrassing.  They can occur all over the scalp, but most often they tend to congregate around the front of the hairline- the exact place where they can’t be hidden.  No matter how great an outfit you have on or how fabulous your makeup looks, when you have red scales surrounding your face and white flakes dropping off on your clothing, it doesn’t look or feel good.  Going to the office with a gnarly scalp and flakes all over your clothes can actually lead to discrimination, even if people don’t realize that they’re doing it.

One of the most frustrating parts of scalp psoriasis is that most of us who suffer from it don’t really know what brings it on.  I’ve tried experimenting and for a while I thought that maybe it was a dairy problem.  But even after I cut out dairy, I found that it came back.  I do feel like it comes and goes throughout the month, so it may be related to hormone changes.  Whatever it is, it’s very frustrating not to know what it causing it because then I can’t do anything to try to avoid it.  I even asked my dermatologist and got the very unsatisfying answer that doctors don’t know what causes it, and they don’t have a cure. Well thanks for that- really helpful.  That send me on a quest to try to find something that would help.  One thing that I do think really helps is strong sunlight.  This is great during the warmer months where I can get outside and hike or run and cure my scalp psoriasis at the same time.  But I live in a very foggy place several months out of the year, so during this time it’s really not possible to get enough sunlight on my scalp to have any sort of impact.  That’s when I turned to experimenting with natural remedies to see what could work.

Olive Oil- a natural remedy for scalp psoriasis

Being already involved with skin care and natural remedies, it was natural for me to turn to the many wonderful oils available.  It just seemed to make sense that moisturizing the scalp and providing it with the many fatty acids and polyphenols found in oils would be a good idea.  First I tried some of the more exotic oils like tamanu oil and sea buckthorn oil  I really expected the tamanu oil to work, but found that it just moisturized my scalp and didn’t help cure or prevent the psoriasis.  Then I tried the sea buckthorn oil and I thought that worked better.  It didn’t get rid of the psoriasis, but it did seem to improve it.  I still had some red areas and flaking but it was better.  The downside is that sea buckthorn oil is a dark red color.  I find that when I put it on my face it will wipe off and not stain, but it was staining my scalp.  It didn’t really help to have a stained red scalp- that was only slightly better than the psoriasis itself!  So I decided that I should carry on with my experiment and try some different oils.

I had already been using a blend of oils on my body that was 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 sesame oil and 1/3 grapeseed oil, so I figured I’d give that one a go.  I started putting it on my scalp and found that it was actually doing a better job than the sea buckthorn, and without the red staining.  All three oils (olive, sesame and grapeseed) are clear so there is no issue with discoloration.  This blend was working pretty well.  Again, the psoriasis wasn’t completely gone but I did notice a marked improvement (and when you’re suffering with this ANY improvement is terrific!).  So I carried on using the blend for about a week.

Then I ran out of the blend and was left with just olive oil in my house, so I decided to give it a try.  It worked the best!  I’m truly not sure what about the olive oil works so well, I just know that it does, and that I love it!  As of right now I don’t have any redness or any scales at all.  I’m going to try it for the month and see how it goes.  I should also note that it’s been raining like crazy where I live so I don’t have the added benefit of sunlight to help me out.  If the olive oil can keep the psoriasis at bay this month without sunlight, then I’ll be sold.

How to apply the olive oil to your scalp

So what do you do?  I read some blogs about warming the olive oil and wrapping your head in a towel- let me just say that I don’t do that.  I don’t think it’s necessary.  I put the olive oil in a small travel sized shampoo bottle so that it’s easy to get out.  Then I just squeeze a little onto my finger and apply to my scalp right around the hairline where I really get the redness and scales.  I do this twice a day: once in the morning after a shower and once at night before I go to bed.  For the application before I go to bed I really pile it on.  Yes, it will make your hair look oily, but since I’m going to sleep anyways, who cares?  Actually olive oil is very good for your hair too, so if your hair is dry you can put it all over your scalp and hair and sleep with it (maybe put a towel down on your pillow though).  The nighttime application is the one to really try to soak your scale with the oil and let it seep in.  Then after my shower in the morning I will do a very light application around the scalp, being careful not to let too much get onto my hair because I don’t want it to look oily.  I’ve actually found that just a touch of olive oil works like a styling product in my hair and oddly gives the front some volume, so I like it.  But if too much gets on the hair then it does look a little oily (which isn’t ideal).  If you have a really bad case of scalp psoriasis you may want to bring a little bottle with you to work and lightly reapply some olive oil during the course of the day.

I’m going to try some other oils to see if they work as well and I’ll post my findings.  I wish that dermatologists and chemists would actually investigate these natural remedies further sot hat we could see what about them really works.  Olive oil is very high in oleic acid- not sure if that’s what helping it or if it’s the polyphenols or just something else entirely.  There’s definitely a moisturizing effect, but I don’t think that’s the only thing as I found certain oils work better than others.  I have to believe that there’s something specific in the olive oil that’s helping and since oleic acid is the primary fatty acid in it that would be my guess at this point (but again, I’m not a scientist).  I’m just thrilled that I’ve found something that’s working, so I’m sharing it here.  It’s cheap, it’s natural, there are no side effects, and it’s effective- what more could you ask for?  One tip- look for organic virgin olive oil that is cold pressed to get the good stuff.  And let me know if it works for you!

 

Eat More Veggies Diet

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I just got back from a great vacation in Brazil where I ate and drank my way through the country.  For anyone who has been there, you know that visiting Brazil entails eating a lot of meat and drinking a lot of caipirinhas (Brazil’s national cocktail made with lime, sugar and cachaca).

While it was delicious and fun, sadly I could feel my clothes growing tighter as the trip went on.  So I sucked it up and got on the scale when I got home.  Oh the horror!  I won’t mention any numbers here, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t pretty. So I made a resolution to go on a diet and lose weight (sadly no more delicious caipirinhas for me).

But losing weight is easier said than done.  Which diet should I do?  I decide this time around to actually do something sane and just eat right.  I’m calling it the “Eat More Veggies” diet and that’s pretty much the fundamentals of what I’m doing- eating more vegetables.

The Eat More Veggies Diet

So what is the “Eat More Veggies Diet”? It’s pretty simple- I’m trying to make vegetables the fundamental part of each meal. Certainly every meal must have vegetables involved, but the goal is to make them the primary part.

  • Breakfast: I like eggs so this meal is maybe the one exception.  For breakfast I’m eating two eggs with onions and a ton of herbs (dill, rosemary, thyme, oregano, anything I can find).  I really try to load up the eggs with the herbs so that it kind of overwhelms the eggs, although I guess it’s still primarily protein.  I also put a huge helping of sauerkraut on the plate which I buy every week at my local farmer’s market.  If you’ve only ever eaten canned and pasteurized sauerkraut, then you’ve never really had sauerkraut.  It is truly delicious when it’s fresh and unpasteurized and has the added benefit of containing a ton of probiotics.
  • Lunch: I’ve been partial to stirfrys for lunch and might have something like a head of broccoli sauteed with a little olive oil and a lot of garlic.  Then I might also stir fry some chicken breast.  But when I go to serve myself I put a huge heaping portion of the vegetable and try to limit the protein to around 2-3 oz.
  • Snack: I get really hungry at around 4pm, and I used to try to fight it and hang on for dinner which made me miserable.  Then I realized that if I actually eat something at around 4pm then I’m not really that hungry for dinner.  So that’s what I’m going with.  I try to eat some raw ready to go vegetables at this meal.  Something like carrots, pickles, sprouts or sugar snap peas.  If I already cooked for lunch, I don’t want to cook again here.  The sprouts have been interesting because they are so nutritionally dense that I have a theory that they fill me up at a nutritional level.  I sometimes wonder if the body eats until it gets what it needs nutritionally.  Our regular American diets are so nutritionally deficient that maybe it’s not wonder that we overeat.  If I open a bag of Cheetos I can eat the whole thing, and at the end I feel a weird mixture of still being hungry but feeling sick.  So at this meal I’m just trying to get nutrients in my system to satisfy whatever cravings are going on.  I also like to eat a few nuts at this meal as they are so delicious (and good for you).  And I may also add a little protein here (about 2 oz).  If I’m still in a snackabilly mood then I might eat an apple.  I always forget how filling apples are.  I think the combination of sugar and fiber really satiates me- I’m rarely hungry after I eat one.
  • Dinner: and then comes dinner, which I try to eat before 7pm.  I’ve been going with a huge salad and a little bit of protein (like adding anchovies to my salad which I love).  I love all oily fish so I may have some sardines on the side or smoked trout.  I also always try to have a huge bowl of salad in my fridge at all times.  Then I’ve basically got a meal ready to go at all times.  I use about 8 different vegetables in my salads to make it interesting, and I try to switch them up depending what I can get at my local farmer’s market.  Because I’ve eaten the meal at 4pm I’m usually not super hungry at dinner.  But if I’m still hungry after the salad then I may root around for something yummy like one square of dark chocolate, some more nuts or some fruit.  I particularly like snacking on dried fruit because it is sweet but also feels like snacking food.  I just make sure that I know how much I’m eating and how many calories it is because it’s easy to overeat dried fruit and pack in a lot of calories.

So that’s pretty much my plan.  I’ll keep updating how it’s going.  Wish me luck!

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What to do if you’ve broken your foot

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This is going to be a somewhat personal post, as I recently broke my foot and I was thinking that it would have been nice to have received some advice on what to do.  This isn’t going to deal with any medical advice- obviously if you have broken any bones you should seek emergency medical treatment.  But what you may not realize is that if you’ve broken your leg or your foot and you are in a cast and hobbling around on crutches, a lot is going to change in your life over the next six weeks.  So here is some advice if you’ve suddenly gone from being bipedal to one-legged.

First of all, you should know that being on crutches is a major pain in the butt.  It’s physically very uncomfortable to try to get around on one leg and two arms.  We’re obviously not built for that, and you are going to be sore for the first few days.  My arms and shoulders were sore from suddenly having to bear my body weight, and I guess I actually expected that.  What I did not expect was that my stomach would get sore.  At first I couldn’t figure out why it was sore, but then I realized that having to hold up the leg with the cast is actually a strain on the stomach muscles.  After a few days that went away too.  So you may actually develop some stomach, arm, shoulder and back muscles as a result of your injury.  And don’t worry, the aches will go away after just a few days.

In the past week since I first broke my foot, I’ve bought a few things that have really helped, so I thought I’d share them with you as well:

  • Amazon Prime- I signed up for Amazon Prime and it’s one of the best things I could have done.  For $79 a year, you can get free two day shipping on Amazon items.  Why would you need this just because you’ve broken your foot or leg?  One thing I didn’t realize is that when you’re using crutches, you can’t carry anything.  This is not only a problem when wanting to carry a cup of tea into the living room to watch TV, it makes shopping virtually impossible.  Even if you are able to go to the store, push a cart around and get your items to the car with assistance, now you’ve still got to get them inside when you get home.  It is exhausting and can be dangerous if you are trying to lug items into the house on crutches and end up falling.  With Amazon Prime I’m getting everything delivered straight to my door, and I don’t have to pay shipping!  Love it!  One thing to note when doing searches on amazon.com is that you can check a box to include only vendors who participate in Amazon Prime and will ship for free.  This is an important note as not everyone on the site will ship free.
  • Knee pads- I’m still too scared to use crutches going up and down my stairs (maybe because that’s where the accident happened).  It’s actually not that hard to go up and down the stairs on my knees, but I did notice that my knees were starting to hurt.  So, I ordered some knee pads, and problems solved!  Mine have Velcro on the back so I can easily fasten and unfasten them.  You probably don’t want knee pads that you slip over your foot because you might not be able to get them over your cast.
  • Shower boot- Although your broken appendage will be locked inside a cast for six weeks and won’t be able to be washed, there’s still the rest of the your body.  But of course you can’t get your cast wet, so what’s an injured person to do?  Buy a shower boot to put over your cast.  I got mine at the local drugstore (the last one!) but you can get them online too.  It’s a plastic bag that fits over the cast and has a rubberized top to prevent water from leaking in.  You can shower or bathe with, but if you take a bath, I wouldn’t recommend submerging the leg with the cast.  It is waterproof, but let’s face it, this is no time to scuba.
  • Rolling stool- Standing around the kitchen trying to cook, clean or even make a cup of tea was getting very hard on my standing leg.  I ordered a little rolling stool on wheels and it’s made a huge difference. I can now scoot around the kitchen easily and preparing meals is a breeze.  I got mine for about $60.  It can be listed as a massage stool too.  By the way, Amazon prime came in very handy here.  I had called around to over 15 stores to try to go pick one up, but no one actually had it in the store.  There are plenty of online stores that carry it though and I got free two day shipping on it.
  • Local produce delivery- I was actually already getting a local produce delivery from a company called PlanetOrganics, but it was every other week.  It’s a selection of organic, local produce that gets delivered to my house.  I upped the delivery time to every week, and I’m adding items to it like my milk and even meat.  Having my groceries delivered to my door every week is a tremendous help.
  • Temporary handicap parking pass- If one of your lower extremities becomes incapacitated you are eligible to receive a temporary handicap parking pass.  For anyone who is learning to hobble around a new set of crutches, this can be an invaluable tool in helping you try to live as normal life as you can.  You’ll need to get the form from your doctor and have him or her sign it.  Then take it to your local DMV and they will issue it to you on the spot.  I didn’t even need to make an online reservation- I just went to the DMV.  They let handicapped people use the same line as people with a reservation, so just walk right on up!
  • Cleaning service- getting a cleaning service to help around the house is essential during this time. It’s just not feasible for me to drag laundry and sheets up and down my stairs, so I need someone to help.  Also, trying to clean my house right now is just impossible.  Happy to spend the money to have someone help me.

I hope that all of these tips and tools help anyone out who has recently broken a foot or a leg or anyone who finds themselves on crutches.  Unfortunately my accident wasn’t caused by anyone else- I just slipped and fell down the stairs.  But if your accident was caused by someone else (like a car accident or you slipped an fell on something wet in a store), you may actually want to call an accident lawyer.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone and let’s be thankful for the health that we do have!

Major beauty product companies are using harmful ingredients in their baby products in the U.S. but not abroad- why?

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Today I read a very disturbing report on how Johnson & Johnson is continuing to use dangerous chemicals in their baby shampoo here in the States, but have discontinued it abroad.  My first reaction was shock which then turned to outrage.  Isn’t Johnson & Johnson based here in the U.S.?  Isn’t it an American company?  And why then would they be less concerned about our American kids’ safety than those abroad?  I just couldn’t believe that this could be true, but after reading the story, it does appear that it’s right on the money.  However infuriating, we have American companies who feel like it’s OK to use harmful ingredients in our baby products here while at the same time they are substituting better ingredients abroad.

It all started two years ago when the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released a report entitled No More Toxic Tub.  It exposed the beauty products for kids industry and revealed that many companies, including Johnson & Johnson, were manufacturing baby products with harmful chemicals.  These included chemicals known to cause cancer such as quaternium-15.  This chemical actually releases formaldehyde which is used to preserve dead bodies and causes cancer.  After this report came out, J&J stopped using the ingredient in their baby shampoo, but here’s the catch: not globally.  Apparently the babies in Norway, the U.K., Sweden, Japan, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands were deserving of having this toxic chemical removed from their shampoo.  What about the babies in Canada, Australia, Indonesia, China and the United States?  Not so lucky.  Quaternium-15 is still in the baby shampoo being sold and distributed in all of these countries.  This is clearly despicable.  They have found a safe alternative and are manufacturing the shampoo without this carcinogen, but for some reason they think it’s fine to keep on selling it in certain parts of the world.

When asked why this is so, Johnson & Johnson gave a very weak answer that they haven’t gotten around to reformulating the U.S. formula.  What?  That makes no sense as they clearly have another formula that they are selling.  They also stammered that they no longer make new products with formaldehyde releasing chemicals.  Are we supposed to be impressed by this?  Really?  No new baby products with this known toxin?  Hooray!  It is actually infuriating. When polls are conducted amongst the U.S. public, Johnson & Johnson is consistently ranked as one of the most trusted brands. Clearly we all need to do our research and start reading labels.

So what can we do?  First of all, we must demand that our cosmetic companies hold our American babies and children in as high regard as international children.  The standard of care here should not be any lower than abroad.  As consumers we vote with our dollars, so stop buying these products immediately.  Tell your friends about it too.  This is dangerous stuff that no one should be putting on their baby.  Second, look for alternatives.  There are lots of small beauty product manufacturers that are making organic skin care products that are safe for babies and kids.  Buy and use those products instead.  Third, get involved politically to make sure that our government representatives pass stronger laws which prohibit large companies from poisoning our kids in order to make higher profits.  It’s just flat out unacceptable.  We must hold these companies responsible for their actions since they clearly cannot be left to hold themselves accountable.  Go green and spread the word.  We will not sit idly by and watch our kids get poisoned.

New study shows that in some cases the body can rid itself of breast cancer

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Breast cancer is an insidious disease that affects not only the woman diagnosed, but the whole family.  Breast cancer accounts for almost 23% of all cancers on a global basis but the survival rate has gone through a dramatic shift and now is around 85%, although it does depend on which type of breast cancer it is.  People often make the mistake of thinking that breast cancer only occurs in women.  That is a falsehood as men can get breast cancer too, however it is around 100 times more common in women.  It can be a devastating diagnosis for men as they often can feel stigmatized by the disease.  Unfortunately they usually wait longer to get diagnosed, and this leads to a worse prognosis.

There have been a lot of different approaches to dealing with breast cancer over the years with the main treatment having been a breast mastectomy.  These surgeries got progressively more and more radical until at one point the radical mastectomy included removing parts of the collarbone and ribs.  Luckily as there were advances in medicine, these barbaric practices were stopped.  Chemotherapy was the next step in treatment and led to improvements in survival rates and remission.  The most recent scientific breakthrough dealt with genes- both in the detection and prevention of the disease as well as the treatment of it.  Certain genes were identified as being related to breast cancer and women with these markers often decide to have preemptory mastectomies.   There are also gene treatments for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and these treatments are fortunately not toxic like chemotherapy is.

But the latest news to come out on breast cancer is perhaps the most amazing of all.  A study published in the Lancet Oncology reveals that there are breast tumors that actually just disappear on their own.  The study involved 650,000 Swedish women who were screened for breast cancer between the years 1986 to 1990.  The study showed that some tumors found through the screenings just started to shrink and disappear when left alone.  This is the first time that a study actually left tumors alone once they were detected.  Usually any form of tumor found in a breast is immediately removed surgically and sometimes also treated with chemotherapy.  This has been done with a woman’s health in mind to rid her body of the cancer, but it means that very little analysis has been done on the natural progression of a breast tumor.

Clearly more studies are needed, but it does seem to indicate that given a chance that the body can sometimes heal itself.  Some experts are concerned that this study will lead women to forgo mammography and breast exams and fear that this will lead to an increased death rate for women of breast cancer.  It is known that if a cancer is going to metastasize, then the best chance at beating it is early detection and early removal.  Mammography is already a touchy subject within the medical community with some experts feeling that it is a life saving necessary procedure and others thinking it is possibly detrimental.  Those who oppose mammography argue that increased radiation can actually cause cancer and that mammography has too many false positives and false negatives to be a reliable tool.  The verdict is not in yet, but this study does provide an interesting look into how the body can heal itself.

Turmeric is found to help with the pain of arthritis

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We are all looking for natural ways to help us out in order to get rid of some of the medications in our medicine cabinets.  No matter what the pharmaceutical companies say, there are always side effects from using medication, and some of them unfortunately aren’t discovered until years after people have been taking them.  A new study has found that turmeric is just as effective (if not more so) at controlling the pain of arthritis as ibuprofen. This is great news as the side effects from ibuprofen range from vomiting to bloody stools to fainting.  Turmeric is an all natural solution with a plethora of health benefits.

Arthritis is a serious disease that afflicts more than 25 million Americans.  A sad statistic is that about one in two people will develop osteoarthritis over the course of their life which means that this disease will affect about half of the U.S. adult population.  Arthritis is a degenerative disease which wears away the cartilage of your joints.  The cartilage acts as a cushion between bones so that bone isn’t rubbing on bone, and when it gets worn away, it is very painful for an individual.  People with arthritis have trouble moving their joints and this can lead to difficulty with walking and general movement.  There’s no way to re-grow the cartilage, so people with arthritis try to manage their pain with medication.  But chronic use of the pain medications can lead to terrible side effects like liver and kidney damage, heart problems and gastrointestinal issues.

This new study with turmeric gives hope to the millions of arthritis suffers that a natural solution for pain management is a real possibility.  In this study, patients were receiving either turmeric or ibuprofen over the course of 6 weeks.  Their pain levels were tracked and measured, and it turned out that taking the turmeric was just as effective as taking the ibuprofen.  Doctors believe that the turmeric worked because of the curcumin in turmeric.  Curcurmin is what gives turmeric its beautiful rich golden orange coloring.  It has powerful anti-inflammatory properties that can influence both genes and enzymes.  And curcumin doesn’t just help arthritis, it also helps a myriad of other diseases such as psoriasis, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, cystic fibrosis, and diabetes.

The good news is that turmeric is inexpensive and there are a lot of ways you can take it.  The first thing to do is to start cooking with it.  It’s delicious and can be incorporated into dishes ranging from curries to meats to vegetables.  You can also take it in a supplement form in capsules, but make sure that your supplement contains 100% organic ingredients.  And if you’re cooking with turmeric, don’t be afraid to throw in other spices like ginger and cumin which also have great anti-inflammatory effects.

So many of us are either affected by arthritis of have loved ones who suffer from the disease.  It’s wonderful to discover natural herbs and spices that can truly help with the pain and management of arthritis without all of the negative side effects of manufactured medications. Perhaps we can put more money toward researching these natural remedies as opposed to creating new chemical concoctions.

Dogs Can Detect Cancer with a High Degree of Accuracy

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How amazing are dogs?  Not only are they man’s best friend providing steadfast companionship and guarding our homes and families, but now we know that they can also detect cancer.  A recent study in the European Respiratory Journal found that dogs were able to detect lung cancer in humans by smelling their breath.  They were accurate over 70% of the time.  Researchers believe that there was a specific chemical compound that the dogs smelled in order to detect the cancer.  Researchers believe that cancer cells give off different metabolic waste products than normal cells and that these have a different odor.  These dogs were even able to discern the difference between people with lung cancer and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Dogs can also detect other types of cancer through scent.  One dog named Marine has been trained to detect colon cancer and can do so with 97% accuracy.  She even beats the normal blood tests for cancer by a full 25%.  Another test used dogs to detect bladder cancer and achieved over 40% accuracy.  Researchers at the Pine Street Foundation in California trained five dogs to smell both breast cancer and lung cancer on a patient’s breath.  The dogs had an accuracy rate between 88-99% and even navigated around odors like smoke.

And dogs can do more than just sniff for cancer.  There are dogs that are trained to detect hypoglycemia in insulin-dependent diabetics.  These dogs live with their owners as companions, but they are also there for medical purposed.  Hypoglycemia can be a deadly situation for a diabetic and these dogs can alert their owners when their blood sugar levels are getting low, long before a crisis situation.

A dog’s ability to smell is one of its strongest features and is about 1,000 to 10,000 times stronger than a human’s sense of smell.  On average humans have 5 million scent receptors, whereas dogs have hundreds of millions of them.  When dogs smell something, they sniff and collect the air in a special chamber in their nose.  Dogs are able to exhale while keeping this air in the chamber which allows the scent molecules to accumulate until there are enough of them for the dog to identify what it is.  And dogs have another organ in their nasal cavity which helps them smell and taste.  It’s called Jacobson’s organ and it means that they can not only smell the air, they can taste it too.  If you’ve ever seen a dog almost grinning and holding his mouth in a somewhat open position, you may be witnessing the dog using his Jacobson’s organ.  This pose is called a Flehman Reaction and is most often used when smelling the urine or sexual markers of other dogs.

And not only can dogs detect scents at a phenomenal rate, they can also remember them at an incredible rate.  Their olfactory memories are fantastic and they can recall smells long after being exposed to them.  They also gather information from the odors such as the health of an animal, sex, age and even what they ate for their last meal.

So what can we do with this new information?  There are two ways to proceed.  One, we can do more to train dogs to detect cancer.  It’s a low cost, low invasive solution that can help with preliminary cancer screening.  Second, researchers need to do more to figure out exactly how the dogs are doing it so that they can apply this knowledge to create machines and screening tests.  But once again, nature in her wisdom has provided a natural solution to one of the greatest health issues facing people today.

 

The health benefits of green tea extend to your skin

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Good news tea drinkers: there are even more benefits to drinking tea than previously thought!  Tea has been drunk throughout the ages for the nice, calming effect it has on people, but recently the focus on tea has changed.  Doctors and researchers are now touting the health benefits of tea and are urging people to drink up to five or six glasses of it a day.  The British don’t need any convincing.  They are the biggest tea drinkers in the world consuming over 165 million cups of it a day!  But other nations are hopping on board the tea lover train and it is estimated that next to water, tea is the next most commonly consumed beverage in the world.

Research has shown for some time that green tea has great health benefits for helping to boost our immune system, but the latest reports say that the benefits of green tea go even further.  The great news is that green tea also has excellent rejuvenating effects on our skin.  In a study published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, it found that chemicals found in green tea can actually have an effect on dying skin cells.  These chemicals reactivate and energize the dying cells, and the hope is that this technology can be applied to skin care products.  The chemicals found in green tea are called polyphenols which are a type of catechin.  These phytochemicals work at a cellular level positively affecting our bodies.

Green tea and skin cancer

There is evidence that the topical application of creams with green tea extract can help reduce sun damage and the risk of skin cancer.  But it’s not that the green tea offers UV protection.  What the green tea actually does to protect skin is to reduce inflammation and scavenge free radicals.  Researchers are looking at using green tea extract in sunscreens in combination with UV blocking ingredients to create a synergistic effect.  And since it’s the antioxidants in green tea that seem to help our skin fight sun damage, the good news is that you also get the benefits of these antioxidants through drinking tea, which means that you can also protect your skin from the inside out.

Green tea and skin aging

But the skin benefits of green tea don’t stop there.  There is also evidence that green tea can help slow down the aging process.  Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) are the enzymes that contribute to aging and degradation of the skin.  Studies have shown that green tea is able to inhibit MMPs which is good news for people who want to keep their skin looking fresh and young.  There are other studies which have shown that the topical application of green tea can also help with the elastic content of skin, and this may be related to the MMP enzyme effect.

So the great news is that there are two different ways to reap the skin benefits of green tea: you can drink it and you can put it on your skin.  So take your pick and enjoy green tea in as many ways as you can.