Pineapples help fighting Cancer!!

The glistening, golden-orange pineapple slice, simply dripping delectable goodness, is a must-have dessert topping/drink for many. So named for its resemblance to a pinecone, the pineapple originated in South America and is now grown in tropical and subtropical regions all over the world. Called ananaas in Hindi, it is said to have been discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493.

Pineapple has a fruity fragrant aroma, and is loved in both its fresh and canned forms. Nutritionist Aruna Shyamsundar says, "The multiple fruit provides 46 kcal per 100gm of the edible portion, and is recommended in weight reduction and low cholesterol diets because of its low-fat content ( 0.1 g/100g).

Total dietary fiber is 2.8 gm, and the fruit has small amounts of b-complex vitamins. It can well be taken by renal patients for whom a low potassium diet is recommended, as it has just 37 mg of the mineral."

She adds, "Pineapple contains bromelain, which is a digestive enzyme having anti-inflammatory properties. It is rich in antioxidants, which are cancer fighting protective foods. Ulcer patients should avoid it as its natural acidity is high."

Best eaten between meals, the pineapple can be used to make jams, jellies, pies, salads and vegetable dishes.

Scientists discover breath test for Diabetics!!

A simple breath test could soon replace the painful finger pricks used to monitor blood sugar level in children suffering from Type 1 diabetes.

In what could come as a boon to diabetic children, who undergo constant finger pricks, sometimes more than six times a day, American scientists have discovered a method of monitoring diabetes that tests the breath rather than the blood.

A study conducted by a team of chemists and pediatricians from the University of California, Irvine, has revealed that children with Type 1 diabetes exhale higher concentrations of methyl nitrates when they are hyperglycaemic or have too much glucose in their blood. The team used a chemical analysis method, developed for air pollution testing, to conduct the study.

Announcing their non-invasive method in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, Dr Pietro Galassetti from UC, Irvine, said: "While no clinical breath test yet exists for diabetes, this study shows the possibility of non-invasive methods that can help millions who have this chronic disease."

Dr Sudhir Tripathy, endocrinologist, Sir Gangaram Hospital, New Delhi, said: "A breath test to monitor blood sugar level in children will be a boon. If analysing levels of methyl nitrates in the breath can give accurate levels, it will do away with the repeated finger pricks. Non-invasive methods developed earlier like the Glucowatch had not been successful in tropical weather."

During the study, researchers conducted breath-analysis testing on 10 children with Type 1 diabetes. They took air samples during a hyperglycemic state and progressively as they increased the children's blood insulin levels.

Chemists examined the exaled breath from the breath samples. They then measured the levels of over 100 trace gases and found methyl nitrate exhaled concentrations increased as much as 10 times more in diabetic children during hyperglycemia than when they had normal glucose levels. The methyl nitrate concentrations corresponded with the children's glucose levels — the higher the glucose, the higher the exhaled methyl nitrates.

Dr Galassetti said that during hyperglycemia, in Type 1 diabetes there are more fatty acids in the blood that cause oxidative stress.

Type 1 diabetes strikes children suddenly, makes them dependent on injected or pumped insulin for life. To stay alive, people with Type 1 diabetes must take multiple insulin injections daily and test their blood sugar by pricking their fingers for blood.

India is home to an estimated 46 million diabetics (the highest in the world, according to WHO).

Benefits of Exercise over Diet!!

When you are exercising, you use up more energy than when you are resting. During a fast walk, for example, you use four times as much energy/minute as you do when resting. If you take an hour's fast walk each day, you will use 260 kcal more than without any exercise, or 17 % more kcal than without any exercise.

Experiments with rats show that the rats who exercise at least an hour every day, have less risk of becoming overweight. However, it does not seem as the calories used during the exercise were most important. Instead, the natural mechanisms for regulating food and nutritional need works better with moderately and regularly exercising. The rats needed one hour of exercise per day, in order to make the normal weight control mechanisms of their body work.

Exercise also stimulates the production of beta-endorphins in the body. Beta-endorphins are substances produced by the body, which have similar effect to morphine. Because of this, exercise can reduce the need for alcohol, narcotics and overeating, since also these abuses stimulate the same pleasure centers as morphine and beta-endorphins. More .

Moderate exercising will also reduce the risk for a number of other diseases More. What about very much and extensive exercise? This is controversial. Some experts see extensive exercise as an abuse similar to substance abuse, since also when you exercise, you stimulate the production of beta-endorphins. However, experts do not agree on how much exercise is healthy, and where the limit is in terms of an unhealthy dependence on exercise.

Our recommendation to people with eating disorders is to exercise at least 30-60 minutes a day by walking, cycling, swimming, physical training, etc., in order to get the normal weight control to work better.

Dry Eyes!!

Dry eyes is a condition many people confront.It is caused when the tears produced by the eyes are insufficient in moisture, lubrication, and other features that help keep the eyes remain protected.

It may also be stimulated by environmental aspects such as weather that irritate the eye and dry up tears. People with dry eyes often feel discomfort in a variety of forms including irritation, inflammation, or the feeling of something in the eye.

They are diagnosed by a doctor and repeatedly have a decrease in the amount of tear creation due to obstruction or just a minimisation in tears. They tend to have the uncomfortable feelings and symptoms for a longer period of time where as dry eyes for a person who works on a computer frequently may be more short term. Treatments for minor degrees of dry eyes may not be as efficacious for chronic dry eyes because of the deviating causes.

Tears are a major protective agent for the eyes as they not only wash away dust from the eyes, but also soothe the eyes, provide oxygen and nutrients to the cornea, as well as help defend against eye infections by removing microorganisms that can colonise in the eyes.

It also shows that dry eyes are more likely if there is a depletion of tears due to reduction of generation because of age or by weather issues like windy days which can dry out tears quickly. Women approaching menopause especially face dry eyes due to the increase in hormones.

Another factor is that some people are not able to generate as much natural tears as needed whether it be from aging, blockage of tear ducts, or from medication that leads to less yielding of tears. This problem oftentimes leads to chronic dry eyes
as the person is not able to manufacture tears and the eyes are not sufficiently lubricated. Tears evaporate rapidly, and the eyes are not cleaned properly.

Environmental factors can also play a factor in eyes drying up. Examples include dusty air, dry or windy weather, or fumes like cigarette smoke which can evaporate tears much speedily or hamper their effectiveness.

Contact lens wearers usually experience dry eyes because they contacts seems to work against moisturization.A deficiency in vitamin A or insomnia may also lead to dry eyes.

Symptoms

• Unpleasantness in the eyes or a feeling of presence of foreign object in the eyes.
• Itchiness, redness, and excessive tearing without relief can all occur.
• Discomfort after periods of eye strain like watching TV, reading, data processing, sewing, etc are possible occurrences.

Remedy

• Drink plenty of water.
• Protect the eyes from harsh weather conditions like wind and dust.
• Make sure medication is not causing dry eyes.
• Eat healthy food containing eye nutrients especially with vitamin A, C, and E and
• if need be take supplements containing flax seed and Omega-3 fatty acids.
• When watching TV, using the computer or other eye straining activities, take frequent breaks and blink often.
• People who wear contact lenses should take them out and keep eyes well hydrated.
• Get plenty of sleep to keep eyes healthy.

Laugh your way to Health!!

The story is told of a man who, When a child of two, lost his eyesight. For almost thirty years, he lived in utter darkness. He was denied the joy of beholding the beauties of nature – the bubbling brooks, the swaying of trees, the richness of many-hued flowers, the splendor of the morning sun and the serenity of the sunset. At the age of 32, he had a cornea transplant, which gave sight to his unseeing eyes. Suddenly, he found himself in a new world of beauty and radiance.

"What are your immediate reactions, now that you are able to see?" He was asked.

"So long as I dwelt in darkness, I always imagined that the faces of most men around me were bright, cheerful. Now that I am able to look around, I am shocked to find that most faces are sad and glum. Scarcely do my eyes behold a cheerful, smiling countenance. Children, I find, are happy and bubbling with joy. But when they grow up, their smiles disappear, their joy evaporates."

Today, many doctors are of the view that if a man is happy and light-hearted, cheerful and contented, positive and uncomplaining, disease will not draw close to him and, even if it does, it will not stay with him for long.

"Laughter," says Dr. Wilde, "provides a rhythmic movement of the abdominal muscles, gently massages the intestinal organs, improves digestion and blood circulation. "

At the Harvard and Yale Universities of America and at the UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute at West Los Angeles and at several other research institutions, neurobiologists and medical researchers have confirmed that smiling, laughing and cheerful expressions set in motion happy waves in the mind stuff and generate neuropeptides which revitalize the immunity system to prevent and fight disease. People who are free from jealousy, envy, greed, are more healthy than people who lead cloistered, unhappy lives.

New clinches and prescriptions given by modern physicians are being displayed in hospitals and clinics. "Laugh your way to health"; "Laughter may be hazardous to your illness"; "Cheerfulness is the new Wonder Drug" are some of them.

How TV is responsible for Obesity?

TEENAGERS who watch several hours of television on a school day are consuming worrying amounts of chips, chocolate and high-energy caffeine drinks, an Australian study has found.

The survey of more than 18,000 students aged between 12 and 17, to be published today in the journal Health Promotion International, found that 55 per cent of teenagers who watched more than three hours of television each day reported drinking high-energy drinks more than four times a week and 61 per cent were eating snack foods more than four times a week, compared with 38 per cent and 46 per cent for those watching less than two hours a day.

The study also found that only one in five was eating enough vegetables and only two in five were eating sufficient fruit.

The chief executive of the Cancer Council Australia, Professor Ian Olver, said the survey supported evidence that child obesity had doubled since 1985.

He said governments should take note of the results and focus on strategies to combat child obesity, including a ban on junk food advertising.

"We know that about 75 per cent of overweight or obese teenagers become overweight or obese adults," he said. "It would be far more cost-effective … to address this problem where it starts - with children."

The study's author, Dr Victoria White, from the Cancer Council Victoria, said it highlighted the need for students to exercise more. "We found that only 14 per cent engaged in recommended [physical activity] levels," she said.

The Hidden Truth about Cholestrol!!

We all know that heart disease is one of the leading killers of people around the world, particularly highest in countries such as the US and Australia.

However, did you know that there are several medical studies worldwide that clearly show that higher cholesterol levels in the body actually increases longevity instead of decreasing it? Yes, you heard that right! People with high cholesterol have been statistically shown to live longer and healthier than people with low cholesterol in several studies. There are multiple references for this phenomenon in Shane Ellison's controversial book, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's (MD, PhD) book entitled The Cholesterol Myths, as well as Sally Fallon and Mary Enig's book, Nourishing Traditions.

So why in the world are the pharmaceutical and medical industry pushing for practically everyone on the planet to "lower their cholesterol"? Well, the first, and more innocent answer, is flawed medical studies from decades ago that have been accepted as fact and never fully analyzed for their validity. Another answer is that this practice of recommending that half of the damn planet takes a cholesterol lowering medication (currently, statins), regardless of whether they truly have any real risk for heart disease, creates insane multi-squillion dollar profits for the drug companies!

As a perfectly absurd example of how doctors have been wrongly influenced by the drug companies... a couple years ago, I was a perfectly healthy 28 yr old, in great shape, exercising daily, eating a balanced healthy diet full of antioxidants and quality nutrition, no smoking, and with no real risk factors for heart disease, and just because my cholesterol level has been consistently measured over 200 for my entire life, my doctor recommended I consider using a statin drug.

Consider how outlandish this scenario is! The drug companies have hypnotized doctors into prescribing unnecessary prescription drugs to healthy young people with perfectly normal cholesterol levels that just happen to be over this arbitrary number of 200 that they've come up with. Luckily, I refused to be a guinea pig and fork over my hard earned duckets for potentially dangerous drugs, and decided to start researching this whole cholesterol and heart disease connection myself. Consider also that my father, who is now 60 years old, has had cholesterol levels slightly over 200 his entire life also (just like me), yet he is perfectly healthy at his ripe age of 60.

As time goes on and scientists continue to learn more about heart disease, it has become quite clear over the recent years that inflammation within the body (NOT cholesterol levels) is what causes plaque build up in the arteries and eventual heart disease. Inflammation can be caused by many personal factors such as stress, smoking, viruses, consumption of refined and/or hydrogenated fats (man-made trans fats), an imbalance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats to omega-3 polyunsaturated fats in the diet, excess refined sugars in the diet, etc.

Here's a quick and dirty of how it works in general. Cholesterol is a healing substance within the body (among many other important functions), and responds to arterial inflammation by getting deposited in combination with other substances, forming "plaque" as a healing agent on the artery lining.

Levels of inflammation in your body can be measured with what's called a CRP test (c-reactive protein). The accuracy of this test still has room for improvement, as it can vary depending on the time of day and other factors, but it is a much better indication of heart disease risk than a cholesterol test (which is practically useless for determining heart disease risk).

Another more important test than cholesterol levels for heart disease risk is a test for serum homocysteine levels. The next time your doctor wants you to get blood cholesterol tests, request CRP and homocysteine tests instead. He/she should be well aware of the validity of these tests if they are up to date.

Basically, if you have significant internal inflammation, this plaque will be deposited as a healing agent regardless of whether you have high or low cholesterol. On the other hand, if you don't have inflammation, high cholesterol levels just keep circulating without getting deposited on the artery linings. Therefore, it is more important to control inflammation rather than trying to lower your cholesterol.

Lowering your cholesterol doesn't attack the root of the problem (what is actually causing the inflammation in you). Lowering your cholesterol does nothing except to make the drug companies rich, and possibly leave you with a whole assortment of possible negative side-effects.

The good news is that preventing heart disease is about living a healthy lifestyle, not about throwing down a drug pill everyday. Controlling your inflammation to prevent heart disease is as easy as reducing the stress in your life (try deep breathing exercises, Qigong, yoga, etc.), maintaining a healthy weight, eating a high-antioxidant, highly nutritious unprocessed diet (as recommended in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program), and avoiding smoking and other causes of heavy free radical production in the body.

I hope this article has given you some helpful info about the real causes of heart disease and not the propaganda that has been shoved down your throat for years, based on flawed medical studies from 40-50 years ago, making drug companies filthy rich.

If you or anyone you care about is currently taking statins, or if you just want to learn more about cholesterol and the scandal that is revolving currently around statin drugs, please see The Cholesterol Myths.

On a related topic, were you aware that there is also quite a controversy these days in the health industry over the fact that saturated fat is not necessarily bad for you, and can actually be downright good for you in some cases? I posted this article a few months ago, but thought I would mention this article again - The Truth about Saturated Fats