Category: Human Health

What About Salt Intake?

Commonly fat and sugar intake are looked at first but going over the RDI for salt is very easy. The USA government recommends a maximum of 6g of salt per day for adults, 5g a day for children aged 7-10 and 3g for children aged 4-6. The amount of salt consumed in one fast food meal is more than twice the daily limit for an adult and four times the daily limit of a six year old.
A family meal from KFC – consisting of eight mini breast fillets, two regular popcorn chicken portions, four regular fries, a large portion of BBQ beans, a large coleslaw and a 1.5 litre Pepsi shared equally between four – could contain 5.2g of salt per person.

Of meal combinations aimed specifically at children, the salt content varied from 4.3g of salt in a Pizza Hut chicken wrap and a soft drink to 0.6g in a McDonald’s Happy Meal of chicken nuggets and a fruit bag.
According to the Cash survey, a family of four sharing a Pizza Hut meal deal – consisting of one Cheesy Bites Meat Feast, one medium Super Supreme, a portion of garlic bread, a portion of potato wedges, chicken wings, and a cheesecake dessert – could eat 12.3g of salt each.

Full Article at BBC News

Fish Oil Helps Control Acne

Getting sufficient essential fatty acids is importance in clearing acne. It’s these fatty acids that help control the production of androgens – the hormones that surge during the teen-age times, which causes excess sebum oil to clog your hair follicle and contribute to creating your acne.
The three fatty acids you need daily are omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9. You need more omega 3, fish oil , than omega 6. When you are deficient in the essential fatty acids, you will have,

* A weaken immune system
* Inflammatory disorders
* Poor skin
* Skin eruptions that won’t heal
* Increase sebum production causing acne
* Sebaceous glands size increase

Eating essential oils is necessary to provide the right oils that are used in the sebaceous glands. These oils can come from fish oils or from oils in specific foods such as nuts and seeds. Use flax seed oil (omega-3 oil) and olive oil (omega-6 oil) in your salad. These are the best oils to eat and are called polyunsaturated fatty acids. The other oil that is even better for you is called monounsaturated fatty acid, omega-9. This oil is found in avocados.

Most diets people have contain an excess of omega-6 oils, so mostly likely you need to concentrate on getting more omega-3 oils into your diet. You can get omega-3 oil from,

* avocados
* sesame seeds
* pumpkin seeds
* walnuts
* dark leafy green vegetables (spinach, mustard greens, kale)
* wheat germ oil
* salmon
* sardines
* albacore tuna

and fish oil supplements

Or, you can take one to 4 tablespoon of flax seed oil, omega-3 oil, each day. This will give you the amount of omega-3 oil that your body needs to reduce or eliminate acne blemishes. You can add this oil to your morning cereal, soups, smoothies, salads and other liquid foods. Each tablespoon of flax seed oil contains about 100 calories. You can get omega-6 oil from,

* Flaxseed oil
* Flaxseeds
* grape seed oil
* pistachio nuts
* olives
* olive oil
* sunflower seeds
* evening primrose oil
* pumpkin seeds

Taking 2-3 tablespoons of omega-6 oil a day will give you the amount of this oil that you body needs. You can add olive oil and other oils into your salad with the flax seed oil. You can get omega-9 oil from,

* Olive oil
* Avocados
* Cashews
* Almonds
* Olives
* sesame oil
* pecans
* pistachio nuts

Taking around 1 ½ tablespoon of olive oil per day will give you the omega-9 oil that your body needs

Fish Oils

In addition to supplying your diet with omega-3 and omega-6 oils, you need to supplement your diet with fish oils. Fish oil contains EPA and DHA fatty acids. Normally, enzymes in your body break down omega-3 into EPA and DHA fatty acids.

* Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA)
* Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA)

These two fatty acids eventually change into prostaglandins. What are prostaglandins? Prostaglandins are chemical hormones that come from omega-3 and omega-6 oils and that help, regulate every function in your cells and organs.  Postaglandins also keep androgen hormones in control so that excess sebum is not produce in the hair follicle, which results in acne. However, eating plenty essential fatty acids may not insure that you produce enough EPA and DHA, which produce the essential prostaglandins.

It is critical for acne and more importantly for your health that you get enough EPA in your cells and organs so they can produce the required prostaglandins. To increase the prostaglandins in your cell walls, it is necessary for you to take a fish supplement, which contains EPA . Of course eating salmon, halibut, and mackerel twice a week will be a plus in providing your body with more EPA.

Free Range Eggs Are Better for You

Most of the eggs currently sold in supermarkets are nutritionally inferior to eggs produced by hens raised on pasture. That’s the conclusion we have reached following completion of the 2007 Mother Earth News egg testing project. Our testing has found that, compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:• 1⁄3 less cholesterol
• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

Read the full story at Meet Real Free-Range Eggs

Vitamin C and Cancer – Doctor Linus Pauling

Vitamin C whether intravenous or oral is one of the most prevalent types of alternative and complimentary cancer therapies. Yet, this nutrient is still considered “controversial” by mainstream oncology. Since two time Nobel Prize winner (in chemistry and peace) Dr. Linus Pauling advocated its use in cancer starting in the late 1970’s, evidence to its efficacy has been quietly and steadily mounting. Humans Do Not Make Vitamin C.  Almost all animals and plants synthesize their own vitamin C except humans and a small number of other animals, including, apes, guinea pigs, the red-vented bulbul, a fruit-eating bat and a species of trout.

Vitamin C and Cancer – Early Work – Pure L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) was first prepared in 1928 by the Nobel prize winning biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and in 1932 it was shown that this substance was vitamin C. In 1954 and 1959 Dr. W. J. McCormick, a Canadian physician, hypothesized that cancer is a collagen disease, secondary to a vitamin C deficiency. His theory was based on the fact that collagen is the “mortar” that binds cells together and if cells stick together, tumors would have a more difficult time breaking away and metastasizing. This concept was expanded upon when, in 1966, Dr. Ewan Cameron wrote a book entitled “Hyaluronidase and Cancer.” In it he pointed out that the ground substance or “intercellular cement” that binds cells of normal tissues contains various molecules that strengthen it including glycosaminoglycans and fibrils of collagen. Dr. Cameron discussed how tumors can produce enzymes that breakdown these molecules (i.e. hyaluronidase and collagenase).

Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (chemistry) had been interested in vitamin C for many years and had written previously how people required large amounts of vitamin C (1). Working with Dr. Cameron, Dr. Pauling pointed out that Vitamin C could: A) stimulate normal cells to produce increased amounts of a hyaluronidase inhibitor and; B) increase the number of collagen fibrils made (2). Based on these theories, Drs. Pauling and Cameron embarked on a number of studies to test the efficacy of vitamin C in cancer patients.

Pauling and Cameron Studies Find Improvement in Survival and Quality of Life – In 1976, Drs. Pauling and Cameron reported the survival times of 100 terminal cancer patients who were given supplemental ascorbate (10 grams/daily intravenously) and those of a control group of 1,000 patients of similar status treated by the same clinicians in the same hospital (Vale of Leven Hospital in Scotland) who had been managed identically except for the ascorbate. The 1,000 controls were matched by sex, age, primary tumor type, and clinical status. By August 10, 1976 all 1,000 of the controls had died while 18 of the 100 ascorbate-treated patients were still living. As of September 15, 1979, five ascorbate treated patients were still alive and “living normal lives.” The 100 acorbate-treated patients lived, on the average, 300 days longer than their matched controls with better quality of life (measured from the time all patients were considered “untreatable”).

A second study was performed in 1978 with 100 new ascorbate-treated patients and 1,000 matched controls (about half of the controls were in the original set) (3). This analysis broke out the improved survival times by cancer type. For each type of cancer there was an improvement in survival.

More of this article at Cancer Monthly