health-E-news #82
Issue 82-17/7 /12
health-E-news
Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a great week even with the rain!?! So what do I have for you today?
To Blog or not to Blog?
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Clinic closed
Just to let you know that the clinic is going to be closed from Friday 20th July until Wednesday 8th August. Hope you all get some better weather! See you in August – now where are my books??!
White flour and Diabetes
Are you having lunch? Is that sandwich on white bread? You may want to put it down carefully and walk away. There is a chemical in it – alloxan – that is used to make it look so white and appealing. OK you may be saying – so what’s the problem with that? Well, alloxan is a chemical that scientists use in laboratories to induce diabetes in lab rats to test diabetes medication! Now it is not guaranteed that eating white bread with the alloxan will definitely make you diabetic but it will put the beta cells in your pancreas under great strain and if you are one of the several million in this country that have beta cells that are predisposed to injury then you have a recipe for diabetes. And for those of you that think that this is not a big problem – think again – long term diabetics are looking at blindness, limb amputation, diabetic coma and death. As I said – put the white stuff down and walk away!!
So you’ve decided to switch to the brown stuff but have been eating the white stuff for years – is there anything you can do? Yes! Vitamin E reverses the effects of alloxan – I can test for the best supplement for you or you can eat more foods that have Vit E in. If you buy over the counter make sure that the product says d-alpha tocopherol (not dl-alpha or Vit E derivative). Also, garlic and onions stabilise blood sugar. In fact garlic dropped BS levels almost as much as an anti-diabetic drug in trials! If you don’t like garlic then you can get it in capsule form. And finally Aloe Vera does the same thing – another reason for taking AV daily (it’s great for the gut lining too!)
Are you at risk of heart disease?
For years doctors have looked at our BMI (body mass index) to measure obesity and therefore our risk for heart disease and diabetes. However, we are now seeing people who are obviously incredibly fit and healthy falling into this category – look at a lot of the bigger Olympic athletes – using the BMI they are obese which is obviously crackers!! So what should doctors be using? Studies now show that looking at your waist measurement is a much better indication – one article last year amusing said if your doctor saw your tummy enter the room before the rest of you then you were at risk! But basically you take your height and divide by 2. Your waist measurement should be LESS than this. So a 6’ (72”) person needs to have a waist measurement of less than 36”, a 5’4” (64”) person’s waist needs to be less than 32”. What’s yours?
Another plug for garlic
It is a potent antibiotic! In tests they found that garlic was 100 times (yes – you read that right – 100!!) more effective than 2 types of antibiotic against a common food poisoning bacteria campylobacter. Because of this it worked in a fraction of the time when people had actually contracted food poisoning. This bacterium is often found in poultry. Whilst there are no guarantees I think that if you are eating out and are going to be consuming chicken – especially pâté – take a garlic capsule before you go out!
Another Olympic themed healthy snippet – and Popeye!
Scientists have found more evidence that Popeye should have canned the spinach (not a high source of iron as promoted in the cartoons!) and switched to baked beetroot. Apparently in trials they found that the humble baked beetroot increased stamina and made muscles more efficient. The runners recruited found that not only were they able to run faster over the distance but were also able to speed up more at the end. Beetroot also appears to relax blood vessels which reduces blood pressure and allows more blood flow to muscles. This in turn reduces the amount of oxygen needed during activity making you so much more efficient!
Prince Charles was right!
Prince Charles was interviewed in 1986 and mentioned that he talked to his plants and said that he found that they responded. At the time the press went to town making him into a laughing stock. However, who has the last laugh now? Scientists have found evidence that suggests that plants can respond to sounds and even generate their own – they click to each other! This sound is inaudible to humans but lasers can pick it up (don’t ask me how!) A biology professor at Bristol university aid that they are very noisy little clicks and these seem to communicate through a channel via their roots. So – something else that Prince Charles is right about – hmmm – the guy is well worth listening too! Maybe we’ll look back in years to come and see just what a visionary he actually was.
Another sugar issue
Or High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS for short!). This is a cheap sweetener and started being added to soft drinks by Coca Cola and Pepsi amongst others in the 70’s. No problem? Well, yes, problem. HFCS can suppress leptin – this is the hormone that tells you when you are full. So no message and you keep eating – and putting on weight. Another reason to really limit the amount of fizzy drinks you consume.
And finally – Thought for the day
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase”
Martin Luther King Jr.
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