Vitamin D reduces fall risk in older women

Australia is a country with no shortage of sunshine, but even there in the winter months there may not be enough to keep the body adequately supplied so you can imagine that the situation is even more pronounced in more northern climes. Sunshine is the main source of vitamin D, and one very specific element of that – Vitamin D2 – appeared to reduce the risk of falls, especially during the winter months. This is important news for women at high-risk, such as those with osteoporosis, and the simplest advice is to get as much natural sunlight as you possibly can, and make sure you have adequate amounts of calcium in your diet as that helps vitamin D to be best utilized by the body.

Approximately one-third of women over 65 fall each year, and if a woman has a vitamin D deficiency then she is at greater risk of fracture. Those women given a vitamin D2 and calcium supplement in a trial at the University of Western Australia had a 19% lower risk of falls compared with patients given calcium alone. The trial studied 300 women over the age of 70 living in Perth, Australia who had a history of falling in the previous year. Older people who fall frequently do tend to have more risk factors for falling, including greater degrees of disability and poorer levels of physical function, so supplementing with D2 is only one factor to be considered. Taking any one vitamin in isolation can cause problems so before you decide to supplement please talk first to a qualified nutritionist, or treat yourself to a couple of weeks in the sun during the darkest days of winter. If you can’t get away, then take advantage if every ray of sunshine you can find and get outdoors as often as possible.

Depression in men could be reduced by 50%

There have been several studies linking folic acid (folate) intake specifically, and all the B vitamin group generally, to improved mood. Folate is a water-soluble B vitamin that occurs naturally in food and studies done by scientists at the University of York and Hull York Medical School reported that low levels of it in the body were linked to increased depression overall, but now a new study has made a specific link to depression in men

Researchers from the International Medical Centre of Japan, and the National Institute of Health and Nutrition, undertook a study involving 500 Japanese subjects. Of these, 36% of the men and 37% of the women were found to have symptoms of depression on starting the study. What they found was that the men with the highest average intake (235 micrograms per 100 kcal) of folate were 50% less likely to have depressive symptoms than men with the lowest average intake (119 micrograms per 100 kcal). They also found that increased levels of folic acid did not mean less depression in the women subjects, only in the men.

While it is clear that increased folate intake will help men, either from a dietary supplement or food such as dark leafy greens like spinach, citrus fruit and dried beans and peas, and because of it’s importance in pregnancy, you will find many foods such as breakfast cereals fortified with added folic acid, so check the labels.

It is important for both men and women’s health that there is a good supply of the entire B-complex vitamins in the diet, not just folic acid alone as they work together synergistically to provide the best ‘mood’ protection. If your diet contains dairy, whole grains, omega 3 and 6 oils and lean meats then you are probably getting a good variety. If in doubt, take a good B complex supplement from a reputable source.

Broccoli can relieve inherited skin condition

Epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS) comprises a group of inherited disorders in which the skin blisters extremely easily and can be extremely painful to the sufferer. The problem lies in the genes that hold the instructions necessary for production of certain proteins in the top layer of skin. These instructions have a minor fault, rather like a typing error, with the result that the proteins are incorrectly formed, and unable to fulfil their role as scaffolding for the topmost layer of skin. The result is that the top layer of skin does not ‘stick’ securely to the layer beneath it, and where the two layers separate a blister develops.

Even the mildest form of EBS can leads to blistering of the hands and feet and the condition is more common than you might think. If only one of the two parents has the condition then there is a 1 in 2 chance it will be passed on their children.It may be obvious from birth, or develop during the first few weeks of life. Sites of blistering respond to areas where friction is caused by clothing and frequently appear around the edges of the nappy, but may not be noticed until the child begins walking, when foot blisters start to appear. There is currently no effective treatment that can cure it, though a number of measures can be taken to relieve the symptoms. However, a new study that was reported at the American Society for Cell Biology 47th Annual Meeting shows that eating broccoli could be of great benefit. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, found that the natural compound sulforaphane, which is present in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, can help treat this disorder. Sulforaphane has already been lauded for its cancer-fighting powers and so the researchers carried ouit an experiment where they found that mice with EBS who were exposed to sulforaphane, had significantly reduced skin blistering. Patient trials have not yet been conducted, but in the meantime anyone suffering from this condition could benefit from eating broccoli at least 2-3 times a week.

Toning Up Your Digestive Tract

December usually is the start of the ‘out of the window’ with sensible eating plan. It’s a sociable time; office parties, Christmas lunches and dinners with friends and neighbours and what they all have in common is rich food and usually some alcohol. It is of course great fun, but if you are not used to eating that sort of diet in such quantity and with such regularity it can put a real strain on your digestive system and one of the results can be constipation and bloating. There are of course numerous products you can buy to help you with it, often expensive, usually with additional additives in terms of chemicals, sweeteners and colourings.

How about something incredibly cheap, natural and yellow? It’s called a lemon and is the simplest way to help your system stay toned and ready to cope with that additional load. All that extra food and drink puts a large strain on your liver, gallbladder, and pancreas and so you don’t digest your food properly and the result is discomfort. One of the great things about lemons is that they are the most amazing cleaners for your body and a great source of Vitamin C and potassium. How do they do that? First by building up enzymes in your liver, so it can detoxify toxins in your blood, and then they help to prevent kidney and pancreatic stones forming by combining with calcium in your body.

All you need to do to get these great health benefits is to drink the juice of a lemon in a large cup or mug of hot water every single morning after getting out of bed. Make it the first thing you do, and don’t eat anything before it or for at least 30 minutes afterwards. If that sounds too sour for you then add some honey or maple syrup to sweeten it but however you drink it I promise you will feel the benefit – oh and it helps keep your skin clear too!

More on Health Texting

It may seem like a gimmick, but there is serious money being invested around the world in setting up systems to send mobile phone text messages for a variety of health situations. Some companies are beginning to capitalize on the concept by selling a service that companies can then provide to their employees or customers. They will send text, email or voice-mail messages reminding users to take their pills, refill prescriptions, get to appointments or check vital signs such as blood pressure or blood sugar levels. Interested parties include drug companies, insurers and large employers hoping to improve efficiency and decrease absenteeism and next year, a direct-to-consumer service is being launched that for $60 a year will offer you a personal email, text or voice-mail reminder about prescriptions and appointments. In the older age groups, 60 plus, they showed little interest in the service as generally that age group are more averse to using new technology.

The advantages are fairly clear. Text messaging is fast, cheap and private. Unlike voice mail, it is easier to recall and easier to respond to. In England, women have received text reminders to take their birth-control pills, and Rifat Atun, professor of international health management at Imperial College in London, says several hospitals in England already text-message appointment reminders and test results. AIDS patients are helped to keep to adhere to complicated drug regimens by text in Australia, and German researchers are examining how text messages can offer psychological support to bulimics.

The San Francisco Health Department started a texting service for sexual-health information last year, in response to rising venereal disease rates among adolescents and young adults. A text-message number was extensively advertised on posters, and on public transport and urged young people to call and they will get texted responses to common questions. This is similar to a programme running in the UK aimed at the same age group, and in case you wanted to know, the top three messages that were accessed by users were:

1 “what 2 do if ur condom broke,”
2 “2 find out about STDs,”
3 “if u think ur pregnant”

For the older generation, yes I do know how to spell, and those messages are exactly as they appear on the phone! It’s why I struggle with texting, I spell everything in full which takes me so long it’s much quicker just to phone someone!

Decaffeinated doesn’t always mean caffeine-free

Did you know you can get withdrawal symptoms like headache and sluggishness from just 100mg of

caffeine? That’s why many people choose to reduce their caffeine intake for their health’s sake and switch to decaffeinated coffee for at least part of their daily consumption. They do this on the confident belief that when they see the words ‘caffeine-free’ that meant that the product contained no caffeine or at least only very tiny amounts. However, that is not the case as the people from the Consumer Reports organisation recently found out.

They sent out a team of ‘secret shoppers’ with the arduous task of buying cups of decaffeinated and ‘normal’ coffee from six major US concerns: Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Seattle’s Best, 7-11, McDonald’s and Burger King. At least four of those brands are available in the UK and Europe and the results were not impressive when the different coffees were analysed for their caffeine content.

If you drink a can of coca cola or pepsi – the regular kind – you are getting around 30mgs of caffeine, but you get over that (32mg) if you got a decaf from Dunkin’ Donuts. Containing a third less caffeine, but still weighing in at a whopping 20mg was Starbucks. If you want to get coffee with the lowest caffeine levels (in a decaffeinated blend) then McDonalds came out best with less than 5 mgs.

If you like your caffeine content to be high, then again the amount varies wildly. In a 120z cup the levels ranged from 58-281 mgs – and at that highest level it’s practically giving your nervous system the equivalent of an electric shock.

What’s the answer? Don’t worry so much about the levels, but monitor the effect on your nervous system – if the coffee revs you up and boosts your adrenalin levels so you feel an increased heart rate, or perhaps jumpy and nervous, then you know you are getting a caffeine hit – whatever the label says. Herb tea anyone?

Tangerines may tackle cancer

One of the delights of the winter period for me as a child was the appearance of tangerines. Oranges were just too much trouble to tackle, but those small, sweet tangerines were just right for small fingers. Now it appears that new research by the Leicester School of Pharmacy has revealed that tangerine peel can kill certain human cancer cells. They found that salvestrol, which is a chemical produced by plants to repel attackers such as insects or fungi, was also able to kill cancer cells. Salvestrol is converted into a toxic compound by a particular enzyme which is found in much higher levels in cancer cells. It was found to be 20 times more toxic to cancer cells than to healthy cells. Eating tangerine peel doesn’t seem like much of an appetiser, but if you want to protect against cancer than salvestrol is found in other fruit and vegetables including those other winter favourites broccoli and Brussels sprouts.

China has longevity licked

Generally speaking, you would think China would be an unhealthy place to live given all the bad press they have received about their lack of food standards, dangerous lead-laced toys, environmental abuses, exorbitant pollution, and widespread poverty. However, there are two surprising facts that have emerged recently: China boasts a life expectancy surprisingly close to that of the United States and perhaps not surprisingly they do this by spending a lot less money.

The US life expectancy is about 78 years, compared to China’s of 73 years overall, though it rises to around 80 years in cities like Beijing and Shanghai and Hong Kong is out in front with over 82 years. What do the Chinese pay for these extra years of life? Just $277 a head on healthcare in a year, compared to the United States where it is a staggering $6,100 a head each year.

The Chinese are great smokers, live with the many health hazards inherent with living in hugely over-crowded cities and in one of the most polluted countries on earth. So what is their secret? Well it is very simple and down to the fact that daily exercise is widespread and woven into the Chinese culture, offering more than just a way to burn calories. It also enforces social interaction, limiting the isolation that so often comes with old age in the West. Any visitor to China is struck by the way masses of people can be seen practicing tai-chi, aerobics, games, and even open air ballroom dancing. Every day exercise is vital for health and longevity and if you want to try something different from your usual morning or evening walk, then studies have pinpointed several benefits of Tai Chi, as it stimulates your central nervous system, lowers your blood pressure, relieves stress, tones muscles and helps with digestion and waste elimination. If you want to find a teacher locally, then ask at your local alternative health centre or shop for a personal recommendation or visit www.taichifinder.co.uk and just search your postcode.

Keeping it raw

There are several reasons we are usually healthier in the summer, but one of the prime ones is that we tend to eat more raw food. Salads are easy when the weather is warm, but it could help your health enormously if you carried that habit through to the winter months. The reason? Cooked food weakens your immune system, and this was discovered in 1930 when Dr Paul Kouchakoff observed that after eating a cooked meal, a person’s white blood cells (leukocytes) would increase.

An increase in white blood cell count usually indicates a stress reaction by the body, which means basically that your immune system is finishing your digestion process for you, which is a function that it is not meant to do, and that puts a strain on it. Eating a raw meal does not produce this immune suppressing effect, so with every cooked meal you have try to include some fresh, raw vegetables to go with it and try to maintain that healthy salad habit through the winter.

Cooking also can take away the antioxidants, and reduce the amount of bio available vitamins, so you are doubling your benefits when you eat raw – although there are a few vegetables that are more difficult for some to digest raw, such as broccoli so you may need to experiment to see what suits you. If you want to know a whole lot more, then visit http://www.totalrawfood.com/

Natural ways to control high blood pressure

As there are 16 million people in the UK with high blood pressure (hypertension), and of those nearly a third are not aware that they have the condition, it is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed. High blood pressure is defined as being at a level consistently at or above 140mmHg and/or 90mmHg and it is a both a preventable and manageable condition. You would think that as it is the direct cause of half of all strokes and heart attacks in the UK that those who have it would be regularly monitoring it, but sadly only 10% of those diagnosed with the condition have their blood pressure controlled to target levels.

Yet there is something that is so incredibly simple, that everyone can do, at no cost and no risk that will naturally help control high blood pressure. Hypertension results from the balance between two factors: how hard the heart is pumping (cardiac output) and how easily plasma can diffuse out of your capillaries (peripheral resistance) and most people with high blood pressure have a normal cardiac output but increased peripheral resistance. That resistance means you are more at risk of heart attacks and strokes and the most likely cause is dehydration.When you are dehydrated the level of blood in your body falls but the body has it’s own incredibly clever regulatory system where it prioritises the maintenance of your essential organs and shuts down blood supplies to the capillaries of non-essential areas like the muscle and skin. The effect of this is to increase your peripheral resistance and also to increase the production of histamine, a hormone-like substance, and this causes your blood vessels to narrow and this in turn further increases blood pressure. This can be also exacerbated by the fact that many treatments for hypertension include the taking of diuretics and this again reduces the amount of fluid in the body.

The remedy? Drink at least two litres of plain, still, water every day – not tea, coffee, soft drinks as a substitute but pure unadulterated water. Often the easiest way to measure is to have a full bottle by the kettle and make sure it is empty by the time you have that bedtime drink – or even earlier for preference so you aren’t then getting up too often in the night.

If you want to try and control your blood pressure without drugs, then one of the most effective supplements is Co-enzyme Q10. This is a substance which is produced naturally in the body and taking it has lowered blood pressure as effectively as prescription medications in a number of patients. Unlike some of the drugs, it’s only side effects are the good ones of lowering cholesterol and preventing diabetes and gum disease and the recommended dose for supplementation is normally between 60-120mg a day, but always start on the lower amount first and in consultation with a natural practitioner.

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