Month: October 2010

At the first sign of an infection, immune responders in the brain and spinal cord known as microglial cells normally begin to produce signaling molecules called cytokines that generate an inflammatory response to deal with the problem. But as people age, the microglial cells begin to degrade in function, leading to excessive cytokine production and corresponding brain damage.

"We found previously that during normal aging, microglial cells become dysregulated and begin producing excessive levels of inflammatory cytokines," explained Rodney Johnson, professor of animal sciences at the University of Illinois (UI) and author of the study. "We think this contributes to cognitive aging and is a predisposing factor for the development of neurodegenerative diseases."

But luteolin — which is found in foods like carrots, peppers, celery, peppermint, rosemary, chamomile, and olive oil — effectively produce a natural anti-inflammatory effect that stops the errant microglial cells from causing damage. Even during otherwise normal microglial function, luteolin helps to protect cell neurons from damage as well.

"The neurons survived because the luteolin inhibited the production of neurotoxic inflammatory mediators," explained Johnson.

For the study, the team compared two groups of mice, one of which was fed luteolin. Aged mice taking luteolin performed better in learning and memory tests than did their non-supplemented peers, and the cytokine levels in the brains of mice in the luteolin group were comparable to those of much younger mice.

"When we provided the old mice luteolin in the diet it reduced inflammation in the brain and at the same time restored working memory to what was seen in young cohorts," Johnson said.

The central nervous system is the primary system that controls all function and healing within the body. This flow of nerve energy from the brain to the body coordinates all 75 trillion cells to action. The brain is then fed through movement information that it receives from skin, joint, & muscle receptors. This movement information is called "proprioception." The brain depends on adequate proprioception for optimal function.

Physical nerve stress occurs when the spinal bones are twisted or thrown out of alignment. This is caused every day by macro traumas such as falls, car accidents, & sporting activities. Micro traumas such as bad posture, repetitive movements, and poor sleeping habits can damage the spine & nervous system as well. Physical nerve stress causes a deficiency in healthy brain-body signaling and an increased release of the stress hormone cortisol. This disrupts the body's ability to heal.

Chiropractic adjustments remove this built-up pressure on the nervous system allowing the body to heal as it was designed. Many studies have shown chiropractic care to be a powerful form of anti-aging.
In 2005, a landmark study published in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation (JVSR) found evidence that chiropractic care can reduce oxidative stress in the body.

Oxidative stress is the damage that occurs when free radicals outnumber the body's antioxidants. Oxidative stress damages all body cell components: proteins, lipids and DNA. In fact, researchers have found that one out of every three proteins is rendered dysfunctional by unchecked free radical damage.

Thiols are sulfur containing compounds in the body that act as antioxidants. They react with free radicals to neutralize them. Serum levels of thiols reflect DNA's capacity to repair itself, report scientists of Biomedical Diagnostic Research, Inc, and can be used to measure aging and disease status. In a 2003 study published in the Journal of Anti Aging Medicine, low serum thiol levels were found in nine different categories of human sickness and disease.

The study published in JVSR consisted of 76 participants: one group received short-term chiropractic care; a second group received long-term chiropractic care; and the third group received no chiropractic care.

The study qualified participants for age, sex and the use of nutritional supplements. Healthy individuals that received chiropractic care for 2 or more years had higher serum thiol levels than those with disease. Some of the chiropractic patients had serum thiol levels higher than what is associated with normal wellness.

Chiropractor Dr. Christopher Kent explained: 'Oxidative stress, metabolically generating free radicals, is now a broadly accepted theory of how we age and develop disease.'

'Going through life,' he adds, 'we experience physical, chemical and emotional stress. These stresses affect the function of the nervous system. We hypothesized that these disturbances in nerve function could affect oxidative stress and DNA repair on a cellular level.'

'Chiropractic care appears to improve the ability of the body to adapt to stress,' concluded Kent.

Under the proposed "traffic light" plan, which has already been adopted by some European supermarkets, foods would be marked with a series of prominent green, yellow or red circles representing different key nutrients. A red light would mean that the product should be consumed only occasionally, a yellow light would mean the product could safely be consumed in moderation, and a green light would mean the product was good to consume in quantity.

Concerned that such a plan would turn consumers away from sugary drinks, salty snacks and other foods labeled with a number of "red lights," the food industry poured €1 billion ($1.2 billion) into lobbying the European Parliament to reject the scheme.

Food industry lobbying had previously convinced the parliament's environment committee to reject the plan, by a 32-30 vote.

The traffic light plan would be an important contribution to efforts to reign in obesity, said Monique Goyens of the consumer group BEUC.

"Consumers have a right to clear and easy-to-understand information on packaging," Goyens said. "At a time when one in five Europeans are obese, there should be no reason not to empower individuals to improve their diets if they so wish."

But instead, the parliament adopted an industry-backed plan that will put calorie, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar and salt content on the front label of foods, with reference to the daily recommended intake per 100 milliliters or 100 grams.

Supporters of the traffic light plan — who include medical associations, anti-obesity advocates, consumer groups, and a majority of British shoppers — expressed anger at the decision.

"They prefer complex labels that make it far harder for shoppers to really understand what's going in their basket," said British MEP Glenis Willmott.

Published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the study evaluated data from a 2006 nationwide survey on employee absenteeism as well as presenteeism, which means showing up for work sick or simply under-performing at work due to physical constraints and inability. The team found that for every categorical increase on the body mass index (BMI) scale, lost productivity at work doubled.

"As you increase in your BMI, there is just a tremendous increase in the impact of that obesity on work productivity," explained Marco daCosta Di Bonaventura, director of health economics and outcomes research at Kantar Health, a health-care consulting company, and co-author of the study.

Women with a BMI between 30 and 34.9, which is still considered to be obese, averaged roughly 6.3 days of lost work time per year while at work. But women with a BMI over 40 averaged the equivalent of nearly 23 workdays a year while at work. And in men, the results were similar.

"Now that we've uncovered this sort of hidden cost, I think that it ups the ante for [employers] to think harder about what sort of interventions they want to implement," said study author Eric Finkelstein, deputy director for health services and systems research at both Duke University and the National University of Singapore, in an interview with LifeScience.

In an earlier study covered by NaturalNews back in January, researchers found that obesity-related medical expenses cost more than $344 billion a year. When combined with current productivity loss figures, total obesity-related costs approach nearly a half trillion dollars a year.

From this discovery, the mainstream media is leaping to the conclusion that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been "solved." Oh, it's a virus and a fungus! Mystery solved!

This kind of thinking is quite characteristic of pseudoscientific western medicine, where everything comes down to naming the right virus, fungus or strain of bacteria discovered to be involved. But it completely misses the far more important question of why honeybees are suddenly more susceptible to such viral and fungal infections.

The real cause is even deeper
You see, the Iridovirus has been around for a long, long time. And the Microsporidian fungal strain has been around for probably even longer. So why didn't honeybees get infected before?

Obviously something had to change over the last few years to create a vulnerability to infection that's causing the bees to die off.

By comparison, in the human world, many people think the seasonal flu is caused by a flu virus. That's not actually true, since the flu virus is circulating all year long. What truly causes "the flu" is when people become vitamin D deficient in the winter months, creating an immune system vulnerability that the circulating virus is now able to exploit in achieving a successful infection.

It is the changes in the terrain (the altered immune function caused by nutrient deficiency) that allows an ever-present virus to cause an infection in humans. That's why people who have healthy nutrient levels can be exposed to seasonal flu viruses all year long and never get sick. (Go ahead, sneeze on me. I dare ya!)

Getting back to the honeybees, something has obviously changed that created a vulnerability that the virus and fungus can now exploit. So the real scientific question here is what caused the honeybee vulnerability to infection?

This is a question that's one level deeper than what western scientists typically dare to ask. Even in medicine, doctors are happy to name a symptom as a disease — "high blood pressure" — without bothering to ask what caused the symptom in the first place. They actually have a disease called "high cholesterol." Well that's not a disease. That's just an observation of a symptom. I could say the weather suffers from "a really windy day" but that tells me nothing about why the wind is actually blowing harder.

Similarly, "high blood pressure" is a meaningless disease label because it indicates nothing about the cause of it. To say that honeybees are being killed off by a virus is similarly meaningless because it doesn't get to the root cause of the infection vulnerability.

Are they going to vaccinate the honeybees?
Now, according to the limited thinking models of western scientists, the "cure" for a viral infection is, of course, none other than a vaccine! By ignoring the root cause of the infection and focusing on the virus itself, they can promote a vaccine as the solution.

Hey, why not? They do it for HPV, flu season and soon even things like cancer!

This is precisely what goes on with HPV and the scare campaigns that try to recruit young girls into getting vaccinated with high-profit HPV vaccines. Although cervical cancer is actually caused by the lack of good immune health, it is blamed on the presence of a virus that can be targeted with a vaccine. But in HPV infections, the presence of the virus is actually more of a symptom of disease than the cause of it.

I can't wait to see what the loony vaccine pushers are going to suggest for honeybees. Will they come up with little vaccine needles and set up fly-through honeybee vaccine clinics? Will they set up a Walgreens outside every honeybee colony and offer vaccine shots 24/7? Will they launch a new non-profit called "save the honeybees" and run a TV telethon to raise millions of dollars to fund "the search for the cure?"

I can just see the pharmaceutical companies drooling over the possibilities here. If they can push this viral explanation of CCD, they could potentially start marketing vaccines for honeybees. And why stop there? Why not start discovering viral infections in wild birds and butterflies and promote vaccines for them, too? (No animal is safe from Big Pharma's vaccine agenda, it seems… just ask your veterinarian.)

The real cause of Colony Collapse Disorder
So what's the real cause of CCD? Well it's certainly not the mere presence of a virus and a fungus. Those are just the symptoms of something else that's gone wrong.

To really answer the question, you need to look at the environmental influences on honeybees. What has changed over the last few years that could create an infection vulnerability among honeybees?

Some of the more obvious factors to consider include:

• An increase in the number of genetically engineered crops that are pollinated by honeybees (http://www.naturalnews.com/025287_b…).

• An increase in the number of cell phone towers emitting radiation that might affect honeybees.

• An increase in the use of chemical pesticides on crops pollinated by honeybees (http://www.naturalnews.com/023679.html). And (http://www.naturalnews.com/028429_c…).

• Increased pollution of streams and rivers (water sources for honeybees) with trace levels of pharmaceutical chemicals.

• Increased air pollution and coal-fired power plant emissions.

• Changes in the atmosphere which may impact the amount of solar radiation reaching honeybees.

• Lack of genetic diversity among honeybees, creating an "in-breeding" genetic vulnerability to disease.

… and so on. It's not difficult to come up with a list of possible factors that are likely be the real root causes of CCD.

But I suspect that western scientists, who are typically unwilling to consider environmental factors for just about everything (just look at the cancer industry!) will ignore these root causes and focus on the viral infections. And that will send them down the path of trying to come up with a honeybee vaccine rather than addressing the real root causes of disease.

They're doing precisely the same thing in humans, of course. Instead of addressing the real root causes of disease — widespread consumption of processed junk foods, chemicals in personal care products, lack of exercise, and so on — they focus on the presence of a virus and the intervention of a vaccine.

Vaccines are useful tools for simple minds. They're convenient for unintelligent scientists who are incapable of looking beyond the obvious. But they don't really do much for people. The scientific evidence, by the way, says that seasonal flu vaccines don't really work at all (http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_v…). But that doesn't stop superstitious scientists from "believing" in them.

I can't wait to see what sort of vaccines they're going to come up with to "treat" the honeybees while ignoring the real root causes of CCD. This will go down in history as yet another striking demonstration of human scientific stupidity while the honeybees continue to die off.

For ten years, Dr. Susanne Rautiainen and her colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm monitored 31,671 women with no history of heart disease and 2,262 women with heart disease to observe their progression in overall health. Roughly 60 percent of women from both groups took some kind of dietary supplement.

At the completion of the study, 3.4 percent of the women who had no heart disease to begin with, but who did not take any dietary supplements, ended up having heart attacks. In contrast, only 2.6 percent of women from the same group who did take a multivitamin had heart attacks. Statistically, the multivitamin group exhibited a 27 percent less chance of having a heart attack.

Additionally, women who began the study without heart disease but who had been taking a multivitamin for less than five years had an 18 percent reduced risk of heart disease compared to the non-multivitamin group, while those who had been taking multivitamins for ten years or more had a 41 percent reduced risk of developing the disease.

The study does not explain what type of multivitamins and supplements the women were taking, so it is difficult to ascertain their quality. Multivitamins made with whole food vitamins are far superior to the synthetic varieties commonly sold at drug stores and big-box retailers, and they work best as part of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.

by: Shawn Bauer

(NaturalNews) Zinc isn't just for colds. For years reports about zinc's benefits in the early stages of a cold has been known. But did you know that zinc has so many functions including determining how healthy you eat? Its role in mental health is being reviewed and in many circles is now being accepted as a "must have" in nutritional support for ADHD, depression and bi-polar.

Zinc Balance

So many Americans are deficient in zinc and do not even know it. The truth is, when you eat a diet high in refined sugar, you run the risk of a zinc deficiency. If you have copper pipes in your home, you may need extra zinc to counter the added copper. The ideal zinc/copper ratio is 8:1. Anything less than 6:1 can cause symptoms as well as some frightening illnesses.

Suppose your teen's acne is as simple as adding zinc to his/her diet? Maybe your child's hyperactivity doesn't need powerful stimulants to calm him/her down? What if your insomnia can be as simple as a 10mg zinc supplement? These are just a few examples that link zinc to a variety of common complaints. How does this happen? How is sugar linked to low zinc? What foods can you eat to add zinc in your diet?

Your taste buds are vital to your overall health. They communicate with you and tell you what tastes good and what doesn't. When your taste buds are working less than ideal, your body and your taste buds ask for more flavors. Low levels of zinc can leave your taste buds looking for more flavor, so you pile on more sugar in the morning to your cereal or you add more salt to your dinner. Zinc is vital to how we taste our foods so in a nut shell, it can determine how healthy you eat. Sugar consumption lowers zinc levels, which lowers taste ability, so you add more sugar which lowers zinc levels and the cycle continues. Once the cycle leads to enough of a drop that you end up sick, you take your zinc to fight the cold and you recover.

Finding zinc in nature isn't as easy as it may seem. Its sources are limited but its need by our bodies is very high. Beef has the highest levels of zinc but you can also find it in many nuts and eggs. In cases of vegetarianism, supplementation may be necessary.

Mass media coverage of vitamin D has brought knowledge of it to the forefront, and yet vitamin D deficiency is so prevalent that there has actually been a resurgence of the rickets. Rumors abound, distorting the truth about this life-saving nutrient. Find out what you truly need to know about vitamin D.

The Fundamentals of Vitamin D

– Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight.
Your body cannot create vitamin D behind glass; UV rays are filtered through glass. You must be in direct exposure to sunlight!

– Sunscreens hamper your ability to create vitamin D. Even the lower SPF sunscreens, such as SPF 8, reduce your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. It would require ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk to get the minimum required daily intake of vitamin D into your system.

– Vitamin D3 can be purchased in supplement form and is better than vitamin D2 in supplement form, which your body has trouble processing.

– Most people are deficient in vitamin D.

– Many health experts recommend taking around 5,000 IU vitamin D daily, but this amount varies. The best way to gauge how much you should be taking is to get a blood test.

Of course, the amount of sunshine it takes to meet your daily requirements varies quite largely. It depends on your geographical location, the time of day, the season, and the atmospheric condition. It is often easier to supplement with vitamin D3, the natural form of the vitamin. Many lower-end multivitamins contain vitamin D2 which is the synthetic version of vitamin D. It can be potentially harmful to the body and is not utilized properly.

If you choose to intake your vitamin D via sunshine, then you should consistently test the level of vitamin D in your blood to ensure that you are getting enough. This is the surest way to determine if you are vitamin D deficient.

Some Symptoms of Vitamin D Deficiency Include:

Chronic Back Pain (One of the most common symptoms)
Musculoskeletal Pain
Irritable Bowel Disease
Inflammatory Pain
Nerve Pain or Neuropathy
Bone Pain

Vitamin D deficiency is scarcely mentioned by the medical establishment as the cause for these symptoms or conditions. The only way to find out if a vitamin D deficiency is the cause of your pain is to start supplementing each day and see if the symptoms are relieved, or again to utilize a blood test.

Vitamin D is a free vitamin that can help relieve a host of medical conditions and prevent most forms of cancer. It's amazing to note that despite this, many do not take advantage of this magnificent vitamin. Educate yourself on its many benefits and take advantage of them to better your health.

Professor Michael Schemann's research team at the TUM Department for Human Biology demonstrated that micro-inflammations of the mucosa cause sensitization of the enteric nervous system, which in turn cause irritable bowel syndrome. The researchers used ultrafast optical measuring methods to demonstrate that mediators from mast cells and enterochromaffin cells directly activate the nerve cells in the bowel.

The hypersensitivity of the enteric nervous system upsets communication between the gut's mucosa and its nervous system. Project leader Professor Schemann explained: "The irritated mucosa releases increased amounts of neuroactive substances such as serotonin, histamine and protease. This cocktail produced by the body could be the real cause of the unpleasant IBS complaints."

The scientists are the first to identify IBS's cause; up to now, many doctors have dismissed their IBS patients as merely being hypochondriacs. Irritable bowel syndrome makes life miserable for those affected – an estimated ten percent or more of the population.

IBS can turn digestion into a nightmare. Common symptoms include stomach disorders, nausea, cramps, Flatulence, constipation and diarrhea, nausea and stomach cramps, sleep disturbances, headaches and backache. While the new research findings will almost surely lead to medicines and treatments to inhibit serotonin, histamine and protease, the findings could also help reinforce and narrow natural treatments for IBS.

Proper diet has been the foremost tool used against IBS. Eating properly for IBS can relieve and prevent both diarrhea and constipation, as well pain, gas, and bloating. This is best accomplished by avoiding foods that over-stimulate or irritate the colon and eating foods that soothe and regulate it. It is considered essential to strictly limit the amount of unhealthy dietary fats (the single most powerful digestive tract stimulant), eat soluble fiber consistently with every snack and meal, eliminate coffee, carbonated beverages and alcohol, be very careful with insoluble fiber, and avoid overeating. It is also important to avoid cigarettes, as tobacco wreaks havoc on the digestive tract.

The following list includes many potential dietary sources of trouble. Please note that, since individual tolerances for IBS triggers vary, you may find through experimentation that you have a higher degree of tolerance for some of these foods than others:

Red meat (beef, pork, lamb, etc.), poultry dark meat and skin, dairy products, egg yolks, fried foods, coconut milk, oils, shortening, butter, fats, solid chocolate, regular and decaffeinated coffee, alcohol, carbonated beverages, artificial sweeteners, artificial fats, and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

One food item that may be particularly beneficial is apples (with the hard to digest skin removed or else cooked). Apples contain malic acid, a substance that eases pain and inflammation. Apples also contain pectin, which helps remove toxins that may be causing stomach irritation as well as other problems.

Another item which could help tremendously is raw honey, especially a type of honey known as manuka honey. People have reported being able to conquer IBS completely with the combination of a good diet and taking a teaspoon of raw manuka honey dissolved in a cup of warm water three times daily on an empty stomach.
Other items which have been reported to be beneficial for IBS include:

* Digestive enzymes
* Ginger
* Colloidal silver

Nearly 14 million people in the United States abuse alcohol. That is 1 in every 13 adults. Cirrhosis of the liver resulting from alcohol abuse is among the 10 leading causes of death in the United States. Worldwide, 3.6% of cancer cases are alcohol related and that is a modest statistic.

95% of alcohol consumed must be metabolized in the liver. This process requires a lot of work and becomes a priority above other necessary functions.

Alcohol abuse can also lead to dehydration, anemia, osteoporosis, leaky gut syndrome, ulcers, pancreatitis, gallstones and cardiovascular disease. And it increases the risk of hypoglycemia, diabetes and neuropathy due to nerve damage.

Almost all alcoholic drinkers are malnourished and nutritional deficiency becomes serious. Alcohol robs the body of needed nutrients and interrupts vital functions. Many of the health problems that may occur are due to the depletion of needed minerals and vitamins. These may include calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C and most of the B vitamins. With liver impairment absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K is also reduced. The body receives a lot of calories and little nutrition. Cells weaken from starvation and become prone to disease.

Alcohol is a simple sugar that is rapidly absorbed. It contains empty calories and coverts to fat. One beer has around the same instant caloric value of 10 teaspoons of white sugar.

It can be a dual addiction of both alcohol and sugar. It's the reason many newly recovering alcoholics find they have a craving for sweets. If sugar is avoided when drinking stops the cravings for the sugar will diminish in a few weeks and usually disappear altogether after several months. However, if sugar consumption continues, the fluctuating blood sugar levels can trigger cravings for alcohol.

Diet and supplement therapy can play a big role in physical recovery. The use of plenty of fluids, alkaline foods and additional vitamins and minerals eases the initial detox. Adding more vitamin C and a B complex along with some specific minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium can help to replenish the body of these depleted nutrients. The amino acid L-glutamine is also useful to reduce cravings.

The body will begin to eliminate the alcohol and other toxins and it will also begin breaking down some of the fat. Due to fluctuating blood sugar levels, some basic hypoglycemic protocols are suggested. This means avoiding sweets and refined foods. The more processed foods avoided the better.

The right foods can help to stabilize blood sugar and counter cravings. Protein and complex carbohydrates are needed. This would include a variety of vegetables and leafy greens with the addition of fruit, legumes, organic cheese, beans and whole grains such as brown rice, wild rice and quinoa. Some healthy fats to add (in modest amounts) can be olive oil, nuts, seeds, flaxseed and avocados. It's also important to get a lot of fluids. Drinking water throughout the day will help the process of moving alcohol and its by-products out of the body and aid in hydration.

A diet full of the nutrients can help to minimize some of the potential problems that can surface due to alcohol abuse. Following these suggestions can reduce cravings, aid in the physical recovery process and move you toward vibrant health.