(NaturalNews) According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about 7.5 million Americans suffer from the chronic, autoimmune skin disease called psoriasis that causes irritated, flaky and thick patches of red skin; some forms of psoriasis are also associated with joint pain. Most medical treatment for the often painful and quality-of-life robbing disease center around controlling symptoms with medications like cortisone. But now research just published in the August issue of the Archives of Dermatology indicates there’s a non-drug way to clear and maybe cure the disease naturally — exposure to vitamin D boosting UV-B light.
Read the rest of this entry »
Study: UIltraviolet light may clear up psoriasis, while boosting vitamin D levels
August 30th, 2010Sleep affects kids in school; how much do yours need?
August 23rd, 2010Oh, to be the Bildens. Their three kids go to bed at a decent hour — around 9 — and sleep through the night. No little ones tiptoeing out of the bedroom for a third glass of water or fifth bathroom trip.
“The embarrassing part is, I go to sleep shortly after them. I raise the white flag and crawl into bed. I get up early, by 5,” says Kristin Bilden of Durham, N.C., whose three children range in age from 6 to 13.
Healthy parent sleep habits like Bilden’s just might be one of the keys to why her kids are well rested, while technology may be kids’ biggest sleep robber, says Nancy Collop, president-elect of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).
“Cellphones, Facebook, iPods and video games are keeping kids up later at night. And the literature is suggesting it’s getting worse, not better,” Collop says.
Read the rest of this entry »
Decreased Severity of Ovarian Cancer in Hens After Taking Flax Seed
August 16th, 2010In animal models of ovarian cancer, researchers found that chickens supplemented with flax seed demonstrated a significant reduction in tumor size and severity and enjoyed overall improvements in health and mortality than those that were not supplemented with flax.
How to Cleanse and Nourish Your Cells with Fresh Vegetable Juices
August 4th, 2010By Dr. Ben Kim
I’m often asked to name one thing that can be done right away to get healthier. With respect to food choices, the best suggestion I have is to begin drinking freshly pressed vegetable juices. Drinking just one freshly pressed juice each day is a reliable way of infusing your body with a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that can protect your cells against premature aging and disease.
Almost everyone who has studied nutrition can agree that freshly pressed vegetable juices are highly beneficial to human health. But few people make time to prepare and drink them regularly.
Read the rest of this entry »
Will New Psych “Bible” Make Everyone Crazy?
July 31st, 2010Is anyone normal anymore?
An updated edition of the medical reference doctors use to diagnose mental illnesses could include a range of brand-new disorders, including some that describe thought patterns and behaviors that have long been considered mere quirks or examples of eccentric behavior.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sitting, even after workout, can cut lifespan
July 26th, 2010A new study debunks the theory that an hour of exercise a day is all you need to live a long life. Turns out, people who spend more time sitting during their leisure time have an increased risk of death, regardless of daily exercise.
American Cancer Society researchers tracked the activity levels and death rates in more than 123,000 healthy men and women for 13 years. They found women who spend over six hours a day sitting during leisure time (watching TV, playing games, surfing the web, reading) were 40 percent more likely to die sooner than women who spend less than three hours sitting. Men who spend more time sitting have a 20 percent increased risk of death. Essentially, those who sit less, live a longer life than those who don’t.
Read the rest of this entry »
Study: Supplements beat sun for vitamin D boost
July 17th, 2010Adequate vitamin D levels are best achieved by supplements because of the side-effects of UV exposure, says the results of a new computer simulation model from the US.
We can produce vitamin D in our skin on exposure to sunlight, but the merits of getting the supplement via sunlight or supplements is a source of ongoing debate.
In the US, where over 1.5 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year, experts are pushing supplements, claiming recommendations for sun exposure are “highly irresponsible”.
Computer science
Scientists from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Norwegian Institute for Air Research in Tromsø used a computer model to determine optimal sun exposure times to produce blood levels of vitamin D3 equivalent to 400 or 1000 IU of vitamin D.
The researcher chose two geographical sites – Miami, FL, and Boston, MA – for their simulation and selected four months – January, April, July, and October.
Data showed that in summer in Boston, people would need between three and eight minutes of sunlight exposure to about 25 per cent of their body surface to synthesise 400 IU of vitamin D. In winter, the simulation indicated that it would be difficult to produce any vitamin D in Boston. No such problems were calculated in Miami, however, with between three and six minutes needed to produce 400 IU at all times of the year.
“There are many limitations to these models, and clearly the estimates are only rough approximations,” said the researchers. “Although it may be tempting to recommend intentional sun exposure for a few minutes several times a week, cutaneous vitamin D synthesis is an intricate process and depends on numerous variables.
“Even in a simplified model such as the one used here, it can be seen to vary considerably by geography, season, and skin type. Furthermore, even if a more accurate and practical model were developed, titrating one’s own exposure to sunlight is difficult, if not impossible.
“Because of these practical difficulties combined with the detrimental side effects of UV exposure, we endorse the IARC assessment that even if it is ultimately demonstrated that increasing vitamin D levels impacts cancer and chronic disease, oral supplements of vitamin D would probably represent the safest way to increase vitamin D status,” concluded the researchers.
D details
Vitamin D refers to two biologically inactive precursors – D3, also known as cholecalciferol, and D2, also known as ergocalciferol. Both D3 and D2 precursors are hydroxylated in the liver and kidneys to form 25- hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), the non-active ‘storage’ form, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D), the biologically active form that is tightly controlled by the body.
An ever growing body of science supports the benefits of maintaining healthy vitamin D levels. In adults, it is said vitamin D deficiency may precipitate or exacerbate osteopenia, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, fractures, common cancers, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases. There is also some evidence that the vitamin may reduce the incidence of several types of cancer and type-1 diabetes.
Source: NutraIngredients
Childhood Arthritis and Bone Density
July 12th, 2010Children suffering from juvenile idiopathic arthritis have lower than normal overall bone mass and are prone to developing osteoporosis in early adulthood.
It has now being advised that these children increase their supplemental intake of calcium and vitamin D to help protect them from the effects of this possible outcome.
IPM offers Osteo Complex for support of healthy bone growth and maintenance (great for adults too!)
Pomegranate Juice – Juice From The Tree of Life
July 8th, 2010Ancient religions and the mystery traditions have always used the pomegranate tree and its fruit in symbol and decoration and myth, and alchemists and the hermetic traditions have often used it in symbolic form for its many esoteric connections to the ‘Tree of Life’, the Qabbalah, and other spiritual streams.
History
The pomegranate is also the traditional representation of fertility and life, and seems to have its origins everywhere, particularly through the Mediterranean, up to Georgia and across to China and to India – there is even a Sanskrit word for the fruit, and Indian royalty always included it in banquet and ritual.
There are many European references to pomegranates and they were to be found growing wild in Georgia in 1772. The Spanish Conquistadores took the pomegranate to America and Jesuit missionaries carried it north to their missions in California.
With so much scientific and medical interest being shown in the current era, it seems almost that this fruit is special beyond others, that it has been singled out as a gift to the human race.
And other questions arise: the pomegranate tree lives a very long time and suffers, like the fruit, almost no disease or damage by pests. Is this tree actually keeping its own health? Are its powerful antioxidants actually keeping the tree healthy too?
Why has it been selected by many cultures and religions to represent fertility, good health and good luck, rather than other fruit?
Why are there so many contradictions in the fruit? It is sweet, and yet tart; the fruit is tough and wrinkled, and yet when open is rich and red and sweet. It has been called the fruit of the underworld, with strong connections to Persephone, and yet the Koran calls it the fruit of paradise. It is so hard to eat the fruit and then eventually so rewarding.
In the field of vibrational healing, we are always dealing with the human system as a ‘bio-field’, or field of information or energy, which at the most fundamental levels operates on energies of all qualities. All the medications and foods we take are consumed because we wish to incorporate the energetics of those substances in our ‘energy fields’. And it is the quality of the energetics of any substance that is of the highest importance.
I believe that the pomegranate has always been recognised as a fruit which holds a particularly potent energetic charge. It is in the look of the fruit, the taste of the juice, the colour of the arils, the variety of its many qualities. Anyone who pays attention to what their senses (including the more subtle senses) are telling them will soon know whether a substance will enhance their health and energy. Naturally occurring pomegranates and their juice register high on the list of those which do enhance.
Read the rest of this entry »