The researchers studied 30 consecutive patients with psoriasis who were treated with narrow-band UV-B light three times per week between October 2008 and February 2009. The research subjects’ psoriasis cleared and their serum vitamin D levels (which were measured before the study, after four weeks of treatment and after the treatment was finished) were compared with those of 30 control patients who also had psoriasis but did not have any UV-B therapy. The researchers also assessed the severity of the patients’ psoriasis symptoms and their skin disease-related quality of life before and after treatment.

The results showed that levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is considered the most accurate measurement of vitamin D levels in the body, had increased significantly among individuals receiving UV-B therapy — rising from about 23 nanograms per milliliter to 59 nanograms per milliliter at the end of treatment. However, there was no change in the control group.

“At the end of the study, all patients in the treatment group were vitamin D sufficient, but 75 percent of the control group had vitamin D insufficiency,” the authors wrote in their paper. What’s more, the control group’s skin condition didn’t improve at all. And in the group treated with UV-B light exposure, their psoriasis severity scores decreased dramatically — from 7.1 at the beginning of the study to only 0.5 after light therapy.

“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.

With the start of a new school year on the horizon, many parents are concerned about getting kids back on track sleepwise.

Ideally, families should start good sleep “hygiene” in babyhood, but if nocturnal routines have been less than stellar, it’s never too late to help your little ones get better Z’s, Collop says.

Sleep affects performance

At the AASM annual meeting in June, dozens of studies were presented indicating school performance is dropping because of student sleepiness, Collop says.

“There’s more and more information showing insufficient sleep affects cognitive ability, and emotional and physical well-being,” says Dennis Rosen, associate director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

About 25% of children overall experience some type of sleep problem, ranging from difficulty falling asleep and night wakings to more serious primary sleep disorders. More than a third of elementary-school-aged kids and 40% of adolescents have significant sleep complaints, according to AASM.

While more than 5% of children are sleep-deprived resulting from more serious sleep disorders, the majority of under-rested kids are simply going to bed too late and getting up too early to rack up the hours they need to concentrate in school, feel emotionally stable, even play sports well, says Collop, the mom of two teenagers.

“There’s more and more information showing insufficient sleep affects cognitive ability, and emotional and physical well-being,” Rosen says.

Teens appear to be at high risk for sleep deprivation, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll that reported only one in five adolescents get an optimal nine hours of sleep on school nights. Over the course of a week, high school seniors miss nearly 12 hours of needed sleep.

Risks stretch beyond the classroom, Rosen says. In a recent study in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 15% of students who reported that they had had at least one car crash considered sleepiness the main cause.

There are behavioral strategies you can use to get kids on track, say sleep experts.

“Get the technology out of the bedroom. No TV, no cellphone, no computer. You really want it to be the place where they just sleep,” Collop says.

Light exposure from screens suppresses the release of melatonin, a hormone linked to circadian rhythms that’s released when your brain registers darkness.

Anything lit up is stimulating and delays your ability to fall asleep, Collop says.

Develop a pre-sleep routine with kids — the younger, the better, says Alon Avidan, associate director of the Sleep Disorders Center at UCLA. It could include a bath, a book, a light snack (avoid chocolate and caffeinated drinks at least eight hours before bed). “They begin to associate those behaviors with sleep,” Avidan says.

After her 11-year-old daughter eats dinner, wraps up homework and takes a shower, Charolottesville, Va., mom Lisa Climer says Addie likes to sit in the living room, eat some crackers and read a book.

“It’s been that way since she learned to read on her own,” says Climer, who allows the occasional e-mail check, but not if it’s nearing Addie’s 9 to 9:30 into-bed time frame. Bedtime has slipped this summer, as late as 10:30 or 11, and Climer plans to get stricter as the start of school nears.

Try a subtle transition

Transitioning back to school sleep timetables doesn’t have to be painful, though, Avidan says. Don’t just start setting bedtime earlier and earlier, get everybody up a little earlier every day, too, he advises.

“Wake kids up half an hour earlier each morning until they’re on school time schedule,” Avidan says. “In the morning, expose your kids to sunlight — don’t let them crawl out of bed and into a dark den for another hour. Get up, have breakfast.”

No need to be Stalinistic about sleep, though, Avidan says. Even at the Bildens’ house, special occasions turn into late nights. This past Fourth of July everyone stayed up well past bedtime, says Kristin.

“Let kids be kids,” Avidan says.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

Source: Decreased severity of ovarian cancer and increased survival in hens fed a flaxseed-enriched diet for 1 year

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.

Making time to drink vegetable juices isn’t a problem for most people. It’s the time that is needed to wash fresh vegetables, feed them through a good juicer, and clean the juicer afterward that prevents most people from making fresh juices a regular part of their lives.

So the first step to incorporating juicing into your life is to fully understand how good it is for your health and why making time to do it daily is one of the very best investments you can make.
The Right Ingredients
The key to making healthy vegetable juices is to make green vegetables the bulk of every serving. Green vegetables won’t spike your blood sugar and insulin level like fruits and sweet vegetables like carrots and red beets will.

This is not to say that you can’t juice fruits, carrots, and red beets. Fruits and sweet root vegetables can be healthy additions to your drinks, and they’ll definitely add sweetness and flavor. You just want to make sure that they never make up more than one-third of each glass that you drink.

And if you have a problem controlling your blood sugar level, you’ll want to use a blood sugar monitor to determine how much is acceptable for you. I’ve worked with dozens of diabetics over the years who haven’t been able to handle even an ounce of fruit, carrot, or red beet juice in their drinks without negative health consequences, so please consider this point before you select your ingredients for juicing.

Romaine lettuce is one of the best green vegetables that you can juice. You can also juice other types of green, leafy lettuce like red or green leaf lettuce.

For variety, try adding large handfuls of kale, Swiss chard, collard greens, Bok Choy, and any other dark green vegetable that you might steam before eating.

For another layer of flavor, you can add a tiny slice of lemon (including the rind for its flavonoids) to your vegetable juices.

Some people enjoy adding a clove of raw garlic for even more bite.

Be creative and add any vegetables you crave. You really can’t go wrong as long as you make sure not to use too many carrots, red beets, or fruits.

Clearly, organic vegetables are better than non-organic vegetables. But my experiences have led me to believe that the health benefits of drinking juices made with well washed, non-organic vegetables far outweigh not juicing at all. If you are only able to juice non-organic vegetables due to financial or other life circumstances, it’s still well worth your while to do so.
Preparing to Juice
We like to fill up the kitchen sink with cold water and dunk all of our vegetables for a good five minutes. Before we pull all the vegetables out to sit in a colander to dry off a bit, we shake them around in the cold water to make sure that we’ve removed any dirt or even bugs that may be hiding in the vegetables, particularly in heads of celery and lettuce.

If we know that we need to make a few gallons of vegetable juice over several days, we store washed carrots and ribs of celery in containers full of water in the refrigerator.

We store leaves of lettuce spread out and stacked vertically in a container with layers of paper towel in between each layer of lettuce to help absorb excess moisture. Fresh lettuce can last a whole week or more when stored in this fashion.

If you’re really pressed for time and want to make enough juice to last three to four days, you can make a big batch and store it in an air-tight container in the refrigerator – not as good as drinking right after pressing, but still likely better than drinking store-bought fruit juices or even vegetable cocktails like V8.
The Art of Juicing
Juicing is, for the most part, quite easy to do. You make sure that your vegetables are small or crunch-able enough to fit through the feeding mechanism of your juicer, and you push them in one at a time.

It’s best to juice soft vegetables like leafy greens first, as they are a bit harder to push through the extraction mechanism than firmer vegetables like carrots and celery. Firmer vegetables like carrots and celery can actually help to push any bits of softer vegetables that are deep within the feeding tube of your juicer but not yet
completely through the extraction mechanism.

With leafy greens, we find that it is best to roll them up into small balls before feeding them through the juicer. This helps prevent a single leaf from getting stuck between the feeding tube of your juicer and the plunger that you use to push the vegetables down.

Fruits, like firmer vegetables, can be added near the end, as you are unlikely to have a problem with pushing them down and through the extraction mechanism with the plunger.
Healthy Juice Recipes

Vegetable-based juices:

* 2 carrots
* 2 ribs of celery
* 8 leaves of romaine lettuce

* 2 carrots
* Handful of parsley
* 6 leaves of romaine lettuce
* Squeeze of lemon

* 2 tomatoes
* 3 ribs of celery
* 1 carrot
* Squeeze of lemon

* 6 leaves of romaine lettuce
* 1 tomato
* 1 rib of celery
* 1 carrot

* Big bunch of kale
* 2 carrots
* 2 ribs of celery

* Big bunch of Swiss chard
* 2 carrots
* 2 ribs of celery

* 6 leaves of romaine lettuce
* 2 cups of green cabbage
* 2 carrots

* 6 leaves of romaine lettuce
* 2 ribs of celery
* 1 apple, whatever is in season

* 4 ribs of celery
* 2 carrots
* 1 apple

Fruit-based Juices (only for special occasions and if you don’t have high blood glucose levels):

* 3 ribs of celery
* 2 apples

* Small handful of strawberries
* Watermelon (cut into strips, rind included if you wash it well before cutting)

* Honeydew (cut into strips)
* Squeeze of lemon

* 1 apple
* 1 pear
* 3 ribs of celery

* 2 apples
* 8-10 strawberries

* 1 cup of pineapple
* 1 cup of grapes
* Small handful of strawberries

This is some serious, life-sustaining stuff, so drink with gratitude and enjoy knowing that you’re taking great care of yourself.

Source: www.drbenkim.com

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.

Like what?

Are you angry at something or do you have “temper dysregulation disorder?”

Feeling upset or do you have “mild anxiety depression?”

And then there’s “psychosis risk syndrome,” a diagnosis that could apply to people who seem merely to be at increased risk for full-blown psychosis,.

The new edition of the book – the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,” or “DSM” – is considered the bible of mental illness. It contains specific criteria for diagnosing mental illness and is used around the world.

The new edition of the DSM isn’t due out till 2013. But medical experts met on Tuesday to discuss changes being considered to the text, Reuters reports.

Will the revised DSM help people get treatment for psychological problems that now go undiagnosed and treated? Or will it understate the impact of mental illness by suggesting that the term applies to a much wider swath of the population?

Some doctors worry that with so many new disorders, few people will be classified as mentally healthy.

“It’s leaking into normality,” Til Wykes, of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, told Reuters. “It is shrinking the pool of what is normal into a puddle.”

Source: CBSNews.com

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.

Several factors come into play when figuring out “why” sitting may take years off your life.

The first may seem like common sense. The more time you spend sitting, the more likely you are to passively eat snacks or consume high calories drinks resulting in unhealthy weight gain. But this isn’t always the case. Sedentary obese and normal weight Americans had similar increased risk of death in the study.

Prolonged time sitting suppresses your immune system, which may increase the risk of cancer and other diseases. And your blood isn’t circulating as it should when you’re sedentary for long periods of time. When blood doesn’t flow thru your veins up to your heart, it could lead to dangerous blood clot. It also has metabolic consequences – increasing your resting blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Researchers say the metabolic effect may explain why the association was strongest for cardiovascular disease mortality in the study.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemology suggests, “public health guidelines should be refined to include reducing time spent sitting in addition to promoting physical activity.”

So as you keep your brain stimulated with your smart phones, video games and gadgets, wireless apps and paperless books – walk around or stand up while playing your favorite game. You may add years to your life.

Source: CNN Health

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

IPM carries Vitamin D in both 1000 IU and 5000 IU

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!)

Source: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Evaluation of Bone Mass in Children and Young Adults with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: The Role of Bone Mass Determinants in a Large Cohort of Patients

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.

Lifestyle and health

This fruit contains more antioxidants than green tea and red wine combined. It is also a lifestyle choice these days, as witnessed by the profusion of more than five hundred new products derived from it in the US in the last 18 months. This fruit is now oddly fashionable – pomegranate martinis were served at the Oscars and Jo Malone’s new fragrance is called ‘Pomegranate Noir’. Even Estee Lauder launched a new range of skin repair called ‘Pomegranate’ last year! Far more importantly, hundreds of recent scientific studies are showing that this juice is a very wise choice for enhancing and prolonging your life.

Phytochemicals

Phytochemicals are powerful chemicals derived from plants, and the antioxidant phenolics are one of many sub-classes of these. It is an interesting fact that plants, just like animals and humans, have developed methods to protect their own health, from all the depredations of the environment. Because plants are not mobile, these defences come in the form of powerful chemicals, which also give the plants their colour, flavour, smell and texture. It is these very defences which give rise to the powerful chemicals which have proven useful to humanity, and which promise much more than has yet been discovered. It is also that very synergistic combination of compounds that may hold the secret to these effects, rather than extracts made of specific compounds which are isolated, such as happens in the medical extraction of ellagic acid.

Health Benefits

The astonishing antioxidant properties of the pomegranate are effective against many health conditions, including atherosclerosis, arterial and heart inflammation and high blood pressure. These properties are also useful for protection of the liver and kidneys from free radical damage, fighting bacteria and for promoting the activity of other antioxidants.

Ground-breaking research has been done recently which shows the juice’s potent effects on Alzheimer’s and on strokes. Drinking a glass of the juice daily can help to slow or even stop the progress of lung cancer and also of prostate cancer, allowing diagnosed men to live longer. Pomegranate fruit extract can block skin tumour formation in mice exposed to a cancer-causing agent – this and other studies show great potential in cancer intervention.

Even more interesting to some, perhaps, is the study which implies that pomegranate juice seems to be a ‘natural Viagra’, according to studies on rabbits. Pomegranates may make you frisky!

Pomegranate fruit extracts can block enzymes that contribute to osteoarthritis according to a Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine study. Drinking pomegranate juice during pregnancy may help reduce the risk of brain injuries in babies, according to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Pomegranates contain very high concentrations of polyphenols, a substance also found in berries and grapes, which have been shown to potentially have anti-ageing and neuro-protective effects.

Also exciting is the discovery of extremely high quantities of the anti-cancer phenolic ellagic acid in pomegranates, and also its uses in fighting cardiovascular diseases. The pomegranate is one of the world’s greatest known sources of ellagic acid, a powerful antioxidant and anti-cancer phytochemical which is being studied intensively for these properties. Dr Wendy Smith and her team at the University of Kentucky have shown that ellagic acid helps prevent the earliest chemical reactions that can lead to breast cancer. Dr Kim of South Korea’s Pusan National University led a team of scientists from the US, Canada, Great Britain and Israel in powerful findings regarding the action of pomegranate phytochemicals on reduction of breast cancer proliferation and formation of cancerous lesions. Such research is being fast-tracked in many places.

A True Superfood

In the global functional food industry, pomegranate is often mentioned among a novel category of exotic plant sources called “superfruits”, indicating fruits which are particularly potent in their effect on human health, historically and in modern times.

Maintaining your health becomes a pleasure with such a juice, as you receive a whole package of balanced phytochemicals, not just extracts of ‘active ingredients’ as you’ll often find in supplements. In fact, a properly produced pomegranate juice should be derived from the whole fruit, including its tough skin, which contains much of its goodness. Now the pomegranate is renowned for the hard labour involved in eating it as you have to hack through the skin and the sacs which contain the seed-like ‘arils’ which hold the flavour. And so much of the best part of the fruit is discarded! So to get the best of the pomegranate, you need to source a juice pressed from the whole of the fruit, and that fruit needs to be organic or ‘wild-crafted’, i.e., foraged from naturally growing pomegranate trees. They may be difficult to eat, but they are very easy to drink.

So do yourself a favor – choose your juice wisely and go get juiced up! Why not prevent a problem rather than try to cure it? Make sure you choose fresh un-pasteurized juice which retains its life-giving vitamins.

Source:  www.livingnow.com.au