A sinus infection, or sinusitis, is an inflammation of the lining of the sinuses that often leads to persistent runny noses, headaches, fevers and facial pains. According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology, more than 37 million Americans — almost 12 percent of the United States population — suffer from at least one episode of acute sinusitis annually, and that number seems to be growing due to increased environmental pollution, greater urban sprawl and a growing resistance to antibiotics.

Fortunately, the natural world provides us with many foods that are effective at cleaning the sinuses and killing the bacteria and viruses responsible for these issues. This articles contains a list of the best of these foods.

Continue reading…

You can’t stop time, you turn back the clock to achieve more youthful-looking hair, hands, and skin. And you don’t need to submit yourself to plastic surgery, buy expensive salon treatments, or stock a medicine cabinet full of lotions and potions, either. All you need to do is examine your everyday habits and make simple anti-aging tweaks to your routine.

Declare a two-day-a-week heat-free holiday where you give your locks a rest from heat styling tools, suggests Dr. Fusco says. Master the wet bun, let your hair air-dry, or skip washing your hair altogether and spritz on a dry shampoo if needed.

SPF 30 is the gold-standard dermatologists recommend. Apply it every day, rain or shine. And use more than you think you need—most people apply as little as one-quarter of the recommended dose, says the American Academy of Dermatology. Rule of thumb: use a shot-glass worth of sunscreen every time.

Rub an SPF 30 moisturizer onto the backs of your hands every morning.

Continue reading…

A recent study, funded in part by the National Psoriasis Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, discovered that a natural molecule known as methoxyluteolin can block a type of immune cell called mast cells from launching an inflammatory response.

Mast cells are the “universal alarm cell” that starts the inflammatory cascade leading to psoriasis, according to Dr. Theoharis Theoharides, a researcher at Tufts University a co-author of the upcoming Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology study.

They can be triggered by infection, allergens, environmental factors like pollution, or even emotional stress. Once that happens, Theoharides explained, mast cells set into motion a series of inflammatory reactions, including the activation of immune cells and the release of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), a pro-inflammatory protein, or cytokine, involved in psoriatic disease.

Continue reading…

Diseases of the brain are rampant in America today, and evidence suggests that a popular class of pharmaceutical drugs may be largely to blame. They’re known as statins, and the science behind how they function in the body reveals that these powerful drugs gradually degrade the brain by depriving it of cholesterol, leading to memory problems, dementia and other similar conditions.

In his book Lipitor: Thief of Memory, Dr. Duanne Graveline, M.D., wrote about his horrific experience with statins, and how they caused him to suffer two transient global amnesia events as well as chronic neuropathy. The former astronaut and aerospace medical research scientist explains how these traumatic events were the direct result of statins altering his brain.

Continue reading…

Homer once described olive oil as ‘liquid gold,’ a term that still resonates with many. Fortunately, we do not have to fight wars over olive oil anymore as it is abundantly produced in many parts of the world and readily available. We all know that olive oil is one of the healthiest vegetable oils in the world, along with coconut oil. Not only can you consume this nutritious food and receive numerous benefits, you can also use it to boost the nutrient value of your beauty products.

Adding olive oil to your beauty routine may provide immense benefits to your skin, hair, and nails. Here are some of the olive oil skin benefits you may find surprising.

Continue reading…

We all know how important it is to get a good night’s sleep. Not only do you have more energy when you wake up, but sleeping well can have such a beneficial impact on your beauty — after all, they do call it beauty sleep. But sleeping well doesn’t just mean clock in the hours (although, that’s important too!).

The folks at Health Perch have put together a little infographic that shows not only how many hours you should sleep to keep your skin looking amazing, but also how you should sleep and what time you should go to bed. It’s actually pretty interesting considering we don’t usually take our sleeping position into much consideration, but clearly we should.

See more…

How Our Bodies Get Energy

Do you know how your body gets the energy it needs and what it does with it?

Like many people, you will probably have an idea but no real details about how our bodies get and use the food we eat. So here’s a quick resume covering the two most misunderstood hormones our bodies use.

Knowing about these will give you an insight about how our bodies convert what we eat into energy and what happens to the excess ‘energy’ our bodies produce. More importantly, it will show you just how you can gain more control over what your bodies does with what you eat and how by having that knowledge, you can get the most from the Snack Box Diet through evening out your eating habits.

Where we get our Energy

Glucose is a simple sugar that provides energy to all of the cells in your body. Your cells then take in glucose from your blood and break it down for energy.

For instance, brain cells and red blood cells rely solely on glucose for fuel. The glucose in your blood comes from the food you eat.

When you eat, food gets metabolised via your intestines and is distributed through the bloodstream to the cells in your body. In all conditions your body tries to keep the supply of glucose constant, maintaining as consistent as possible glucose concentration in the blood. If it did not do this [private_silver](as in diabetes for example) your cells would have too much glucose right after a meal (particularly one that is high in carbohydrates) and starve in between meals and during sleep.

When you have an excess of glucose, your body stores this in your liver and muscles by making glycogen, long chains of glucose. Conversely, when glucose is in short supply, your body mobilizes glucose from stored glycogen and/or stimulates you to eat food.

To maintain this constant blood-glucose level, your body uses two hormones – insulin and glucagon. These are produced in your pancreas and have opposite actions.

The Pancreas

Your pancreas is formed from clusters (Islets) of alpha and beta endocrine cells. The beta cells secret insulin and the alpha cells secret glucagons. Both these secretions are protein hormones made up of amino acids.

What Insulin Does

Insulin is used by almost all of your body’s cells, but it’s most active in the liver, fat and muscle cells. Insulin has the following effect:-

• Inhibits the liver and kidney cells from making glucose from intermediate compounds of metabolic pathways (gluconeogenesis)
• Causes the liver and muscle cells to store glucose in glycogen
• Stimulates fat cells to form fats from fatty acids and glycerol
• Causes the liver and muscle cells to make proteins from amino acids

Insulin production is the signal for the body to store energy (as fat). It does so by reducing the concentrations of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids in the bloodstream.

What Glucagon Does

Now when you don’t eat or eat food that have a very low glycemic index  (Are low in carbs), your pancreas releases glucagons instead which causes your body to produce glucose… Glucagon acts on the same cells as insulin, but has the opposite effects in that it:

• Stimulates the liver and muscles to break down stored glycogen (glycogenolysis) and release the glucose
• Stimulates gluconeogenesis in the liver and kidneys

The action of glucagon is opposite to insulin in that glucagon mobilizes glucose stored inside your body and increases the level of glucose in your blood, thus stopping your blood glucose levels from falling dangerously low.

How Insulin and Glucagons Work as a Tag Team

Under normal circumstances, the levels of insulin and glucagon are effectively counter balanced.

When you eat, your body metabolises the food quite rapidly and registers the presence of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids absorbed from the food. This causes the pancreatic beta cells to release insulin into your blood and inhibit the pancreatic alpha cells from secreting glucagon.

As the levels of insulin in your blood begin to rise they act on the liver, fat and muscle cells in particular causing them to absorb the incoming molecules of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids. The insulin acts to prevent the concentration of glucose, fatty and amino acids from increasing too greatly in the bloodstream.

In this way, your body maintains a steady blood-glucose concentration. This action occurs when you eat a properly balanced diet as opposed to the high carb diet of today. Unfortunately, where the diet is high in carbs (or there is just too much food) it has to go somewhere and inevitably, it is deposited as fat in just where you don’t want it to go.

Between meals, or when you are sleeping, your body senses that it is effectively starving. However your cells still need a supply of glucose to keep going. So while in this condition, the slight drops in blood-sugar level stimulate glucagon secretion from the alpha cells in the pancreas and in turn inhibit the release of insulin.

This causes glucagon levels in the blood to rise and start acting on the liver, muscle and kidney cells to mobilize glucose from glycogen to make glucose that’s then released into your blood. Such action prevents the blood-glucose levels from falling too much.

This change occurs many times throughout the day with the secretion of either insulin or glucagons helping to keep your blood-glucose level relatively constant, typically in the range of 90 mg per 100 ml of blood.

However, seeing as the secretion of the pancreas lag behind the blood glucose levels, the action of eating large quantities of high carb food will drastically disturb this. Simply put, when the blood glucose level is overly high more quantities of insulin will be produced than are needed as the glucose will have been dealt with. So more glucose will have been absorbed than was necessary. This will cause a dip in the blood glucose level causing us to feel a lack of energy and trigger a production of glucagon.

Sunday Lunch Syndrome

This is something I call the “after Sunday lunch syndrome” as it is most often seen after a big meal. You will most likely have noticed that 30 – 60 minutes after eating far too much (as in a typical Sunday lunch) and then not moving a great deal either, you tend to feel really sleepy and quite soon many will also start to get the munchies and go looking for that last roast potato or piece of pie. In fact the body is wanting anything that will get the blood sugar up again – and so the cycle continues…

What Can You Do?

Well, the most obvious first step is to cut down on foods with a high level of carbohydrates in them.

The nest thing would be to even out the amount you eat by eating smaller quantities more regularly throughout the day.

Just by taking these two small steps in cahnging what and how you eat will make a masive difference to how your body reacts to what you eat. And that will be shown by improved or more even energy levels and slowing down or even reversing the process of fat gain.  I.E. You will start to lose fat instead of putting it on.[/private_silver]

Having a thyroid problem can mean that you may end up putting on weight even when you take drugs?

But what a lot of people don’t know is that paying attention to your diet can have a drastic effect sometimes even  leading to a drug free solution too…

Drugs

One of the main drugs used to treat a thyroid problem is Synthyroid.

Synthyroid is a brand name of Levothyroxin, and is a replacement for the hormone that is normally produced by your thyroid gland to regulate the body’s metabolism and energy. These types of drugs are normally given when the thyroid does not produce enough of its own hormone, in a condition known as hypothyroidism.

In simple terms, people with low thyroid hormone have a slower metabolism then people with normal levels of the thyroid hormone, which generally means that they are apt to put on weight. The idea of taking a synthetic hormone is to bring the level of the thyroid hormone up in the body so that your metabolism is working more normally. At which point your energy levels and the rate at which you use the food which you are eating, should increase and hopefully stabilise, to the point where everything is working as it should be.

However, as with all synthetic hormone treatments, it is not a perfect answer to [private_silver] the problem.

Your History

One of the most helpful things you can do in cases like this is to look back over your health history and see if you can identify the reasons why you might have had an inactive thyroid in the first place.

The two most common causes of hypothyroidism are iodine deficiency and chronic thyroiditis. Iodine deficiency is quite rare in Europe, North America, and chronic thyroiditis is an inherited condition, and is commonly diagnosed by checking the levels of thyroid auto-antibodies in the blood. A third most common cause is removal of the thyroid gland, either because of cancer or infection, or as a rather drastic way of treating hyperthyroidism.

Foods

There are a number of foods that also cause hypothyroidism, if eaten in sufficient quantities. Overindulgence in these foods, particularly if you have an iodine deficiency, can cause not only hypothyroidism, it can also cause enlargement of the thyroid. This is because they block the conversion of T4 hormone to T3, which is the active form of the thyroid hormone in our bodies. The most common forms of food that cause this type of condition are turnips, kale, corn, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and almond seeds. Seeing as corn is one of the most common ingredients in many snack foods, it is little wonder that instances of hypothyroidism are on the increase.

It should be noted that these foods should also be avoided if you have a problem with your thyroid, help producing enough thyroid hormone should avoid them.

The good thing is that if consuming these foods are the cause of your problem, eliminating them from your diet will cure your hypothyroidism within four to six weeks.

Drug Side Effects

There are a number of drugs, also, whose side-effects are the cause of hypothyroidism. These vary from steroids like Prednisone and Hydrocortisone which are common treatments for inflammation, right the way through to beta-blockers, such as Propranolol. In addition, you have heart drugs like Amiodarone, psychiatric treatments whose ingredients include Lithium, and of course anti-thyroid drugs themselves.

There are many auto-immune diseases which, it should be noted, are primarily caused either by poor diet or reaction or sensitivity to a specific diet ingredient, and again elimination of these types of food to which you are sensitive from your diet can start the chain reversal which could lead you getting back to normal health.

Diabetes

There is also a profound link between diabetes and the onset of hypothyroidism. It is true to say that in many, many cases where the diabetes is brought back under control by sensible diet, most effectively controlling the intake of carbohydrates, then the hypothyroid problem will also go away as well.

Going onto the problem that many people have with hypothyroidism, and that is the difficulty in losing weight. Given all the above, and assuming that you wish to continue on the taking thyroid hormone route, there are a number of things that you can do in order to get back to your optimal weight.

For the diet to be successful, you need first to abandon any old-fashioned notions of what constitutes a healthy diet. The diet that can most help a thyroid condition is one in which the amount of carbohydrates are drastically reduced, particularly carbohydrates that are obtained from grains.

However, this needs to be put together with the second and also crucial part of a successful weight-loss regime for anyone who is suffering from hypothyroidism, that being exercise that stretches you to the point where you are exercising your cardio-vascular system. It should be noted that in this case you need at least 90 minutes a day, every day, in order for it to be effective, but only up until the point where your ideal weight is achieved.

The Soya Link

The next thing that is particularly prevalent to low-carb dieters, is the increased consumption of soya. In order to get the amount of carbohydrate in their foods to a supposedly low-carb friendly level, many manufacturers now include soya protein as quite a main ingredient to many so-called low-carb products, and indeed, non-low-carb products. The unfortunate thing is, the inclusion of soya starts at some of the earliest ages that it can do, as it’s a major ingredient in many of the instant formulas that can be found on the shelves today. The simple thing is that researchers have found that there is an unmissable link between the over-consumption of soya based protein and the onset of hypothyroidism. Keila Daniels article (on the website) goes into this in more detail.

Lastly, I mentioned earlier that the taking of synthetic thyroid hormone which only replaces T3 or T4 is not always the best way of treating thyroid conditions, and in fact many people respond much better to a natural form of the thyroid hormone, and in a few cases a combination of both natural and synthetic. The answer to that problem is to find a medical practitioner who is willing to help you find the right mix of treatment for your personal condition.

This really is a very vast subject, so you owe it to yourself to find out as much about it as you can, and then sensibly apply what you have found out to your own personal version of the condition.

The bottom line is that if your thyroid has not been removed or damaged beyond repair, then the condition is not only treatable, it’s reversible too. Obviously, treating the thyroid condition in the most effective way, combining that with a sensible change in diet and exercise will bring the weight under control as well.

What to do next.

What ever you do, don’t accept to do nothing.

It may be your regular doctor knows about the things we’ve mentioned here and may support you trying out solutions that are better for you.

If they are not supportive, you owe it to yourself to find a medical practioner who not only knows about the other treatments, but can also guide and support you in seeking a better solution.[/private_silver]

I’m very fortunate to live iin a community where we can get good quality raw milk – in our local supermarket (SPAR). It comes from a farm a little up the valley and if I have a mind to do so I can even go and watch the cows as they making it for me. (OK not just for me – but you never know…)

But just why should we want to drink raw milk, why is it better then treated milk?

Thomas Cowan MD explains

As I’m sure most of you know by now, there are very few subjects as emotionally charged as the choice of one’s diet. Sexual relations, marriage and finances come to mind as similarly charged subjects and, like diet, we are all sure we know all we need to know about each of these subjects. The subject of milk, as I have discovered during the past four years, when properly viewed will challenge every notion you currently have about what is good food and what isn’t.

The story of milk is complex and goes something like this.

[private_silver]

A Little History…

Back in the pre-processed food era (that is before about 1930 in this country) milk was considered an important food, especially for children. Not only was there an entire segment of our economy built up around milk but, as I remember, each house had its own milk chute for the delivery of fresh milk directly to the house. It was unquestioned that milk was good for us and that a safe, plentiful milk supply was actually vital to our national health and well-being. It was also a time (now I’m referring to the early part of the century) when many of the illnesses which we currently suffer from were rare.

As an example, family doctors would often go their whole careers without ever seeing a patient with significant coronary artery disease, breast or prostate cancer, whereas current doctors can hardly go one month without encountering a patient with such an illness. Furthermore, as scientists such as Weston Price, DDS discovered, there were pockets of extremely healthy, long-lived people scattered about the earth who used dairy products in various forms as the staple of their diets — further evidence that milk and its by-products were amongst the most healthful foods man has ever encountered.

Recent past

If we fast forward to the 1980’s, we now find an entirely different picture. For one thing, there have been numerous books written in the past decade about the dangers of dairy products — the most influential being a book by Frank Oski, MD, the current chairman of paediatrics of Johns Hopkins University and perhaps the most influential paediatricians in this country. It’s called Don’t Drink Your Milk. In it Oski pins just about every health problem in children to the consumption of milk, everything from acute and chronic ear infections, constipation, asthma, eczema, and so on. Secondly, just about all patients I have now in their initial visit proudly announce that they have a good diet and that, specifically, they don’t eat dairy (which they pronounce with such disdain).

One might well ask where the truth in this picture. Perhaps the experiments of Dr. Francis Pottenger in the 1940’s can help to solve this mystery. In these experiments Dr. Pottenger fed one group of cats a diet consisting of raw milk, raw meat and cod liver oil. Other groups were given pasteurized milk, evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk instead of raw milk. The results were conclusive and astounding. Those that ate raw milk and raw meat did well and lived long, happy, active lives free of any signs of degenerative disease. Those cats on pasteurized milk suffered from acute illnesses (vomiting, diarrhea) and succumbed to every degenerative disease now flourishing in our population, even though they were also getting raw meat and cod liver oil. By the 3rd generation a vast majority of the cats were infertile and exhibited “anti-social” behavior — in short, they were like modern Americans.

What’s ‘in’ Milk

Since the 40’s the “qualities” of milk have been extensively studied to try to find an explanation for these dramatic changes. Studies have shown that before heating, milk is a living food rich in colloidal minerals and enzymes necessary for the absorption and utilization of the sugars, fats and minerals in the milk. For example, milk has an enzyme called phosphatase that allows the body to absorb the calcium from the milk. Lactase is an enzyme that allows for the digestion of lactose.

Butterfat has a cortisone-like factor which is heat sensitive (destroyed by heat) that prevents stiffness in the joints. Raw milk contains beneficial bacteria as well as lactic acids that allow these beneficial bacteria to implant in the intestines. All of these qualities are destroyed during pasteurization. Once heated, milk becomes rotten, with precipitated minerals that can’t be absorbed (hence osteoporosis), with sugars that can’t be digested (hence allergies), and with fats that are toxic.

Raw milk has been used as a therapy in folk medicine — and even in the Mayo Clinic — for centuries. It has been used in the pre-insulin days to treat diabetes (I’ve tried it — it works), as well as eczema, intestinal worms, allergies, and arthritis, all for reasons which can be understood when we realize just what is in milk — such as the cortisone-like factor for allergies and eczema.

How to Ruin Milk

Another way we ruin milk is by feeding cows high protein feed made from soybeans and other inappropriate foodstuffs. Rarely is anyone truly allergic to grass-fed cow’s milk.

Fresh raw milk, from cows eating well-manured green grass is a living unprocessed whole food. Compare this to the supposedly “healthy” soy milk which has been washed in acids and alkalis, ultrapasteurized, then allowed to sit in a box for many months.

The Pottenger cat studies provide a simple but profound lesson for all Americans: Processed, dead foods don’t support life or a happy well-functioning society. We must return to eating pure, wholesome, unprocessed foods, including whole raw milk from pasture fed cows.

In my practice I ALWAYS start there — I encourage, insist, even beg people to eat real foods— no matter what the problem. Often with just this intervention the results are gratifying. SO, find a cow, find a farmer, make sure the cow (or goat, llama, or whatever) is healthy and start your return to good health!

Author: Thomas S Cowan MD

[/private_silver]

Daily Choices Matter

Studies have shown that each day we make as many as 200 food choices.

Those choices are influenced by many things, even the people we are eating with. While the individually choices may be quite small When you add them together their actual contribution to our health and well being can make a huge difference.

You’ll probably notice that many of our members questions are about small things. They seem to hone in on the details. Yet quite often people say – “Surely, if I just take care of the big things then I don’t really need to worry about the small things?”

Which on the dace of it seems fine. But when you analyse anything, the big things are made up of lots of small things. Meaning that If you take care of the detail in your diet, then each of those things that you take care of will add up and make the big things far more effective.

Here’s a just some of those small things that you might like to consider:

Check the Ingredients

Firstly, when you go to the supermarket or your local shop to stock up, look down the ingredients list to make sure you avoid eating foods that have got artificial sweeteners, MSG and a whole range of additives and colorants. These are the things that many manufacturers have to put into their food in order to put back the flavour and vitamin content that their processing has processed out.

Secondly, try as much as possible to use organically sourced and grown produce.

By sticking to organic (from a reputable producer), you know that you are not going to be eating and digesting pesticides, phosphates, all kinds of hormones and all the other things that commercial food producers use in order to overcome the problems that their fast-food production line cause.

It’s making those healthy choices, the small ones, that all add up to a much healthier lifestyle.

And it’s not just what you eat!

It’s Not Just What You Eat

A small choice you can make every day is just to take the elevator to get up two floors, or take the stairs. Taking two flights of stairs briskly will do far more for your heart than taking the elevator, that’s for sure.

Doing that five or six times a day, is just like jogging to the top of a ten-storey building!

It’s those type of small changes that I’m talking about, those small changes can make a really big difference.

The reason for making those choices is clear.

In Europe, the U.S.. Australia and in fact most of what would be considered the western world, its poor lifestyle choices that (e.g. what we choose to eat, to exercise, etc) account for the leading causes of death. Things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the rest.

In fact, the WHO (World Health Organization), in one it’s previous World Cancer Report, have said that the rates of cancer would increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years. Statistics like that are cause for concern.

However, all is not doom and gloom as WHO also suggests that at least a third of the cases could be prevented by folk making better lifestyle choices.

No Need to Make Huge Sacrifices

Some folk think that in order to make these changes they have to make a lot of sacrifices. But in reality, this is just not so.

If you think about it, it won’t cost you much at all to take the stairs (often times it’s quicker than taking the lift). In fact just 20 or so minutes of exercise a day can make the difference .

And to eat organic may cost you a little more each month, but these are all a small price to pay in exchange for a long, healthy, active and sickness free life.