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20. th 2008 by admin.
The liver plays a major roll in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It breaks down red blood cells, stores fat and glucose, filters toxins from the body and produces amino acids and bile. The main function of the liver is to provide energy and facilitate the digestion process, but the liver can only operate at full capacity when you eat a proper diet.
What is the liver’s job?
The liver has several functions that play a major roll in maintaining health. It breaks down red blood cells, stores fat and glucose, filters toxins from the body and produces amino acids and bile. Its jobs provide energy and facilitate the digestion process.
The liver is the largest gland in the body, located at the beginning of the small intestine. An adult liver produces between 400 and 800 ml of bile each day which is stored in the gallbladder until needed.
The Liver Can Be Damaged
The liver is one of few internal human organs that can regenerate. It can do this with as little as 25% of its mass in tact.
Still, liver function can be impaired, which in turn can afflict other parts of the body. Two common liver diseases are hepatitis and cirrhosis. The liver like the gallbladder can develop stones. Alcohol and other pharmaceutical grade chemicals such as, acetaminophen, and isoniazid can affect the liver adversely.
You May Get Warnings that there’s Trouble Looming
Sometimes your liver functions can be sluggish. Some ailments that have been reported that point to this condition are: headaches, depression, constipation, chronic fatigue, chemical sensitivities and digestive difficulties.
Actions You Can Take
Be proactive when it comes to having good health. Let pharmaceutical drugs be your last resort. They can damage the liver and they put a heavy burden on your liver to filter them from your blood stream. Limit or eliminate alcohol consumption. Your body only needs purified water to live. Choose organically grown items whenever possible. Genetically modified foods add many unnecessary toxins to your diet. Eating a proper diet is a good plan of action.
Eating Habits You Want to Have:
Remember the dietary stuff you learned in school? If you decided to ignore it in favor of fast food and steaks at your favorite steakhouse restaurant, consider returning to the healthy choices.
Good eating and drinking habits will save your liver the extra wear and tear of purging your system of all the toxins you regularly ingest. The following healthy dietary practices will nourish you, not overburden your liver, and should improve your energy overall.
Make sure as much as 40% of your diet consist of live red, purple, orange and yellow fruit and vegetables, including dark green leafy organic vegetables
Avocados and oily fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines promote liver health
Many varieties of raw seeds such as flaxseed, sunflower, and alfalfa seeds are beneficial
Eat balanced meals, not until you’re stuffed or overstuffed
Avoid empty calories of fatty foods, and excessive carbohydrates
Limit your vitamin A intake. Instead opt for emulsified vitamin A, the liquid form of the vitamin, which does not contain cholesterol or fat.
Keep your sodium intake low
Find out what your optimal protein intake is and don’t overdo it
Certain oils (primrose, black currant seed, and cold-pressed olive oil to name a few) assist the liver as well.
Always wash your food before eating and preparing it.
There are several healthful organic herbs that promote healthy liver functions. Some of these beneficial herbs are:
Turmeric
Greater Celandine
Peppermint Leaf
Dandelion Leaf
Dandelion Root
Chicory Root
Yellow Dock Root
Milk Thistle Seed
Wildcrafted Chanca Piedra
There are many more healthy living practices you can incorporate into your routines including minimizing your environmental toxins, and exercising regularly.
Make it easy for your liver and other organs to do their parts. Eat healthy for an energized life.
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13. th 2008 by admin.
Ever wonder how many bugs you’re actually consuming daily? You haven’t? Oh. Well, we’re gonna tell you anyway.
Deciphering food labels is tricky business. They’re filled with lots of multi-syllabic words that border on being impossible to pronounce, chemicals that sound like they could kill you just by touching them and … much, much worse. Read on, unless you’ve eaten recently.
Most everyone is familiar with shellac as a wood-finishing product. It’s often used to give furniture, guitars and even AK-47’s that special shine. But did you know it is also commonly used as a food additive? Yep, that’s why those jelly beans you gorge on every Easter are so shiny.
But what exactly is shellac?
Are you sure you want to know?
Shellac is derived from the excretions of the Kerria lacca insect, most commonly found in the forests of Thailand.
The Kerria lacca uses the sticky excretion as a means to stick to the trees on which it lives. Candy makers use it to make those treats you love so much shiny and beautiful. Then you eat them. The insects that is.
You see, the process used to harvest the Kerria lacca excretion is a pretty simple one. They just scrape that shit right off the tree. Unfortunately for you and your future enjoyment of shiny candies, this leaves little room for quality control measures to guarantee that the insects themselves aren’t scooped up also.
Once that happens, and it almost always does, the insect simply becomes part of the shellac-making process. And the candy-making process. And the candy-eating process.
Before some health nut out there pipes up to tell us they don’t eat candy, we’d like to point out that, during the cleaning process, apples lose their natural shine. Care to guess how it’s restored?
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10. th 2008 by admin.
In a regular cup of coffee there are about 170 mg of caffeine and in decaffeinated coffee there are about 30/40 mg of caffeine.
On the stock market, Coffee is a 90 billion dollar industry but what is significant is that just in North America 85%+ drink 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day. A huge number of people are at risk for many of the issues surrounding coffee consumption.
Top Ten Reasons why you should consider switching to a “Healthy Coffee”
Top 10 Caffeine-Related Health Problems
Cardiovascular Problems
Caffeine increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure, and can contribute to the development of heart disease. Both decaf and regular coffee increase your cholesterol and homocysteine, the biochemical that science has linked to increased risk for heart attack. Caffeine is also linked to coronary vasospasms, the cause for 20% of all fatal heart attacks which kill otherwise perfectly healthy people. Stress
Caffeine stimulates the excretion of stress hormones which can produce increased levels of anxiety, irritability, muscular tension and pain, indigestion, insomnia, and decreased immunity. Increased levels of stress from caffeine can keep you from being able to make healthy responses to the normal daily stress everyone is subjected to in their lives.
Emotional Disturbances
Anxiety and irritability are hallmark mood disturbances associated with caffeine consumption, but equally important is depression and attention disorders. Depression may occur as part of the let down after the stimulant effects of caffeine wears off. It may also appear during the recovery period after quitting caffeine while the brain’s chemistry is readjusted. Caffeine rather than increasing mental activity actually decreases blood flow to the brain by as much as 30% and negatively effects memory and mental performance.
Blood Sugar Swings
Diabetics and hypoglycemics should avoid caffeine because it stimulates a temporary surge in blood sugar which is then followed by an overproduction of insulin that causes a blood sugar crash within hours. If you’re trying to loose weight, this rollercoaster will actually cause weight gain since insulin’s message to the body is to store excess sugar as fat.
Gastrointestinal Problems
Many people experience a burning sensation in their stomach after drinking coffee because coffee increases the secretion of hydrochloric acid leading to an increased risk for ulcers. Coffee, including decaf, reduces the pressure on the valve between the esophagus and the stomach so that the highly acidic contents of the stomach pass up to the esophagus leading to heartburn and gastro-esophageal reflux disease. With America ’s high consumption of coffee, its no wonder the best selling over-the-counter drugs are the so-called antacids.
Nutritional Deficiencies
Caffeine inhibits the absorption of some nutrients and causes the urinary excretion of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and trace minerals, all essential elements necessary for good health.
Dont forget to visit our free stuff and our home page with natural remedies for Women’s Ailments. Get the answers today.
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10. th 2008 by admin.
A stressful life may make it tougher to fight the virus which causes the majority of cervical cancer cases, say scientists. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection - but only a small percentage of women who catch it develop cancer.
US researchers, writing in the journal Annals of Behavioural Medicine, said that stressed women had a weaker immune response to the virus. But the study did not prove that stress was the root cause of the problem.
Women who report feeling more stressed could be at greater risk of developing cervical cancer because their immune system can’t fight off one of the most common viruses that cause it.
It is already known that the way the body’s immune system reacts when confronted with HPV - short for human papillomavirus - can determine whether the infection causes more serious problems.
Many women appear able to “clear” the virus from their bodies, while in others it can cause a persistent infection which raises the risk of the abnormal cell changes which can eventually lead to cancer.
The latest study, carried out at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, looked for reasons why, in some women, the immune system is unable to clear the virus.
Their small study asked 78 women who had had abnormal smear tests to fill in a questionnaire about their day-to-day stresses over the previous month, and any major events such as bereavements or divorce over a longer period.
Dont forget to visit our free stuff and our home page with natural remedies for Women’s Ailments. Get the answers today.
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10. th 2008 by admin.
I was a junk-food addict in my not-too-distant past, and ballooning alarmingly around the waistline. I was addicted to burgers and sodas and fries and pizzas and sweets and all the fast food you can think of and most especially chocolate.
Today, while I can’t say I only eat wheat germ and fresh veggies picked right from my home garden, I generally eat healthier than I have ever done in my life.
How did I get from Point A (junk food junkie) to Point B (much healthier diet)? I’ll let you in on my secret (and it’s not a secret if you’re one of the many people who discovered this already): I didn’t go from Point A to Point B. It’s more like Point A to Point Z, with lots of points in between.
Actually, that’s the secret to any meaningful improvement, in my experience, but we’ll just talk about eating healthy for now.
Dont forget to visit our free stuff and our home page with natural remedies for Women’s Ailments. Get the answers today.
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