this side of heaven

Broccoli, again

A new study reveals that compounds found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables (such as cauliflower and cabbage) helps boost the immune system, which naturally weakens as we age. I already knew crucifers were an important component in detoxing the body. Just last week I learned that broccoli can help clear the body of too much estrogen that probably contributes to excess upper arm and lower body fat.

Let's start a list of must- include nutritional powerhouse foods. After all, the best way to get cured of degenerative and debilitating diseases is to not ever get sick in the first place.

1. Coconut or coconut oil, for the omega- 3 fatty acids!
2. Broccoli and other crucifers!

What else shall we add?

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Clean Eating magazine

My husband and I were at Barnes and Noble last night, having coffee and reading books. He was having coffee, I have cinnamon tea. But I found a new magazine that caught my eye called "Clean Eating." I found so much helpful and useful information in it that I bought the issue I was reading to take home.

One of the columns (Ask the Doc, page 111) had this very interesting question:

"I've heard that excess estrogen levels in the body can lead to increased thigh and triceps fat. Is this true? And if so, what can I do to drop the fat?"

Right away I got excited, because I carry excess fat in my thighs and triceps, and even though I am losing weight everywhere, that stubborn fat hasn't seemed to budge. So I was asking the Lord just last week to help me! And voila! Here's the answer:

"Indeed, some scientists and fat- loss experts believe that certain body fat stores are linked with specific hormonal characteristics. For example, there's evidence to suggest that excess belly fat is linked with high levels of stress, excess fat in the upper back is linked with insulin resistance, and excess thigh and triceps fat is linked with higher- than- normal amounts of estrogen.

"So, if you're struggling with excess lower- body fat and triceps fat, it is likely that your estrogen levels are a bit higher than your lean- armed and lean- legged friends. Here's what you can do about it:

"1. Eat more cruciferous veggies. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, may help eliminate excess estrogen from the body, making it easier to lean out the lower body."

And cruciferous veggies are one of the daily essentials for the detox diet, too. Imagine that!

"2. Exercise regularly. Regular exercise can help increase the rate of estrogen clearance from the body. Just make sure you're focusing your energies on strength exercise and interval training for the lower body. Cardio alone doesn't help that much.

"3. Supplement with DIM. The supplement DIM (diindolylmethane) may help in the same way that cruciferous veggies do -- by eliminating excess estrogen from the body."

I am so happy with this magazine that I might have to subscribe to it, LOL.

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Nursing blessings

My daughter sent me this link: Breast milk contains stem cells. She is a natural health, organic, nursing mother to our 8 month old granddaughter, and so many people give her grief for "still" nursing at 8 months! So she is constantly on the look out for articles that point out the benefits of breast- feeding your baby. The interesting highlights from this article, besides the fact that breast milk contains stem cells which can be utilized by the baby if needed, are:

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood.

“We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia.

He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled.

“It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life.

“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”

This is our happy and healthy granddaughter, Grace, at 7 months old. Why people feel the need to criticize our daughter's mothering when the baby is so obviously thriving is beyond me. So don't let anyone make you feel bad that you are providing for your baby the food which God designed for his or her optimal health!

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On Alzheimer's and omega- 3s

Yesterday I ran across another article on Alzheimer's: researchers have discovered that increased intake of one of the omega- 3 fatty acids boosts your body's production of a protein that destroys the plaque buildup in the brain that leads to Alzheimer's. Is there any disease that omega - 3 fats don't guard us against? I am beginning to think not.

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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... omega- 3 fatty acids!

I don't have a trace of cold left anymore. Yay!

So today I was reading the latest Nutrition & Healing by Dr. Jonathan Wright that had come. One of the articles was about preventing diabetes in your children, even before they're born! It turns out omega- 3 fatty acids are again at work, keeping us healthy! Why am I not surprised? Here is an excerpt from the article:

"In one very recent publication, researchers reported studying 1,770 children at increased risk for developing type 1 diabetes. These children each had a brother, sister, or parent with type 1 diabetes, or "HLA" (genetic) testing that showed them to be at extra risk. Each of them underwent special testing for "islet cell autoimmunity" which "proves" type 1 diabetes.

"Fifty- eight children developed diabetes as proven, by antibodies to pancreatic islet cells. However the researchers found that the children with the highest omega-3 fatty acid intake and the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their red blood cell membranes had the lowest risk of type 1 diabetes -- and vice versa. The researchers concluded: "Dietary intake of omega- 3 fatty acids is associated with reduced risk of [type 1 diabetes] in children at increased genetic rish for type 1 diabetes.""

-The two simple nutrients that can keep your grandkids diabetes- free before they're even born, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, Nutrition & Healing, Vol. 14, Issue 12, Feb 2008.

I wonder if all those decades of telling us that we had to have a no- fat diet to be thin and healthy has really caused much more harm than good in those women, and their children. So moms, keep feeding your family a high omega- 3 fatty acid diet, this is something else omega- 3s protect against!

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Antibiotics do not promote wellness

Today I am not near- pneumonia anymore, back to just icky cold, which I much prefer. I am soo much better. And yes, I did start taking enzymes yesterday. I have been rereading all of Dr. Prystupa's articles that I had bookmarked, and this one I highly recommend: Dirty Aquariums and Sick Fish. It presents a different wellness and disease process than I can remember being taught or led to believe, but it makes so much sense. I used the information in his articles to combat the pneumonia I was facing, because I did not want to go to the hospital and go on antibiotics. I was so tempted to, especially when I was at the worst stage: "Just take the antibiotics! You will feel better in 12 hours! Why are you doing this to yourself and suffering?" the little voice in my head kept saying. I am so glad I didn't listen. Read Dr. Prystupa's article linked above to see why antibiotics do not promote wellness, just more disease.

What I did do: Drank half my body weight in ounces of water per day. Something has to flush the gunk out of the system. Took an anti-microbial tincture every three hours, along with oregano oil. Drank hot lemonade. Drank Cold Care tea from Traditional Medicinals. Ate chicken noodle soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Really! Went through three giant boxes of kleenex blowing my nose every five minutes for three days, because I understood that making that gunk is my body's way of trying to get the disease out of my system. I did take Dayquil one day and I was much worse that day. Never again! Used coconut oil on my nose when it got sore from blowing. The worst was getting the gunk out of my lungs. I coughed so hard for three days that I didn't sleep at all (last night I got four hours, which felt like heaven). I did take Robitussin cough syrup a few times during the worst of the gunkiness in my lungs, because it is an expectorant, and it helped the coughing accomplish its purpose, of cleaning out the lungs.

The yummy desserts at Disney are NOT worth the price I ended up paying for them. I thought it just might show up as a few pounds to lose. Boy do I know better now!

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Unexpected snoring cure

My sweet husband is a snorer. I sometimes have to go sleep on the couch in the wee hours because he keeps me awake. He has tried nose drops, nose strips, lots of different things. Well, we bought our first humidifier yesterday. We had just spent three weeks in Florida, and when we returned home to dry dry dry Colorado, he had nose bleeds from the dryness that he couldn't stop. Plus I had picked up a scratchy throat upon our return as well.

We thought the humidifier would help. Boy, did it! It ran all night next to our bed, and my husband slept all night without snoring. This is the first time I can remember no snoring in years and years! So if your spouse is a snorer, try a humidifier by the bed; you might find it helps. Oh, so far so good on the nose bleeds, too.

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Health and disease: the truth

I found a new blog today that I bookmarked. Stop Autism For Ever (SAFE). It is by a local doctor, and if his past posts are any indication, and if he keeps blogging, the quality of info available on it will be invaluable. Check it out.

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Is this the medicine cabinet or the pantry?

Soon we will be able to replace the medicine cabinet all together with the pantry. A have blogged about the medicinal properties of honey before (here and here). Now a study has just come out which shows that a spoonful of honey before bed helps quiet nighttime coughs in children better than cough syrup. I am going to try it on myself tonight, and see if it works for adults, too. I don't see why not.

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Cold and flu season

If you were unable to do a detox earlier in the fall to help your immune system sail through winter with nary a cold or flu in sight, and the sniffles try to attach themselves to you or a family member, this is what I do. Start drinking hot lemonade at the first sign of symptoms, and keep it up, as much as you can stand (use fresh lemons for the juice). Then make a big pot of chicken noodle soup. While the soup is simmering on the stove, stand in a steamy shower until the hot water runs out. Then wrap up in Grandma's quilt and read books and nap while sipping hot lemonade until the soup is done. You will be feeling like new in no time. Health through better living, not nyquil.  That's my motto.

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I was afraid of this

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Overcoming antibiotic- induced weight gain

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Antibiotics and obesity

When my son was about 9 years old, he developed a series of tonsil infections that kept him sick with colds for nearly a whole year. This was 13 years ago, and my husband and I were just beginning to learn the natural healing that we know now. So we believed the doctor when they put him on a course of different antibiotics throughout the year, then decided to take out his tonsils.

My son, who had always been lean (I fed my children all homemade, real food, very little processed or junk food was ever in our house) began to gain weight that year, and keep it on after the illness was over. He only lost it in high school through self- imposed diet and rigorous weight training.

Then one of our (lean) kittys was hit by a car on the road outside our homestead. He was miraculously uninjured, except for the claws on all four of his feet being ground down to the nub and asphalt dirt imbedded in his toes. That and tons of bruising and soreness, of course. The vet had us soak his little paws in an antibiotic solution twice a day for two weeks, to get the dirt out and prevent infection while his paws healed. They also put him on a course of antibiotics to be on the safe side. He also began gaining weight from that time, and never lost it. He became the extra large tubby kitty with the weight problem, even though we began measuring his food.

We have one more kitty, she has always been a sleek, svelte, petite thing. Last spring she had gotten into something that left a gash on one of her legs. The vet stitched it closed, splinted it for a week so she would stay off that leg as much as possible while it healed, and put her on a course of antibiotics. Now, she was a middle- aged cat by this time, and had never had an extra ounce of fat on her before. But from that time, she put on weight. She has a definite flabby tummy now, and now we measure her food, too, although she does not seem to be losing weight.

The common denominator in the beginning of the troublesome weight gain for our son and our cats was antibiotics. They kill off the good bacteria in the digestive system, and now reseach is being done in the relationship between the good bacteria, fat metabolism, and obesity.

"Agriculture experts quickly noted that sick livestock gained weight when dosed with antibiotics, leading to the industry practice of routinely rotating various low-dose antibiotics in livestock feed. Huffnagle says the antibiotics actually change the metabolism of the animals, creating something called “enhanced feed efficiency” – an improved ability to retain fat.

“We take the antibiotics to recover from a microbial illness, but the trade-off is that fat we eat may be staying with us instead of being metabolized and converted to energy,” Huffnagle says.

Well, I am convinced there is a connection. This is only one more reason to avoid antibiotics unless it is absolutely necessary to save your life. They are overused WAY too much in this country.

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Wrapping up loose ends

There are several issues I have been following in this blog, which have had resolutions or new information discovered since I last wrote about them.

On the HPV vaccine in Texas, the Texas legislature had acted to nullify the governors' executive order requiring the HPV vaccine for all sixth grade girls in Texas public schools, by writing a bill blocking state officials from following his executive order. The governor said today that he would not veto this bill (the legislature had the votes to override his veto in any case) and would allow the bill to become law without his signature.

On the contaminated pet food crisis, it has been discovered that farm- raised fish were fed wheat gluten from China which was contaminated with melamine, and those fish have subsequently entered the human food supply (Moral of the story: always eat organic). They say that the amount is so little as to provoke no adverse health response in humans. I wish I could believe everything "they" say. If they were to say, "If you eat any of these fish, you may develop kidney disease or die," there would be panic and lawsuits, so what else are they going to say?

On the FDA regulation of vitamins and supplements, here is an excerpt of a report on the resolution of this issue, which I received from Natural Solutions Foundation, one of the outlets which facilitated the public commenting to the FDA:

"Although the FDA denied our request to extend the comment [period], failed to update its site or its comment tally, extended the comment period and then resinded the extension (!), our collective voice won us a huge victory in Congress today [Friday, May 4, 2007]. Because we rallied behind our health freedom and access to natural health products, every member of the Senate voting today heard us loud and clear and acted -- without a single dissenting voice -- to protect our health freedom! Congress has accepted the following amendment to S.1082 - Enhancing Drug Safety and Innovation Act of 2007 - from Sen. Durbin:
Sec. X08. Rule of Construction: Nothing in this title (or an amendment made by this title) shall be construed to affect--
(1) The regulation of dietary supplements under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act; or
(2) The adverse event reporting system for dietary supplements created under the Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act.
It appears that Congress heard our concerns! Hundreds of thousands of messages to FDA no doubt reverberated through the halls of Congress. The amendment was adopted by the Senate 94 to zero."

And that is a good thing.

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