…or How to Engross Guests at Your Next Dinner Party
Forget popular diagnostic methods, from CAT scans to psychics with 0800 numbers. If you really want to know the state of your digestive system, adopt a CSI detective focus and study your fecal remains (and some people think nutrition is dull!). Read more
Human beings can give unquestioning acceptance towards a situation, if its harmfulness escalates gradually.
…and Your Heart Beating; Nerves Calm; Digestion Working; Nails, Joints and Bones Strong
Potassium is powerful: too much or too little can make your heart stop beating. Although many foods contain this alkaline mineral, your storage sites can become depleted if you are frequently stressed, or your body or diet is too acidic (check for aches, pains, reflux and other digestive complaints, coated tongue, bad breath). Your body prioritises keeping your blood slightly alkaline. If it is too acidic, then potassium and other alkaline minerals (especially magnesium and calcium) will be withdrawn from bones, joints, teeth, hair, nails, and your muscles including the heart.
Arthritis New Zealand states* that by age 65 more than 45% of people have some form of arthritis. Do you have any stiffness, aches, numbness, cramps or shooting pains? Your body is trying to get your attention.
Discomfort is an arrow pointing to Inflammation that urgently requires resolution (see website TIPS for related article). Detective work is needed to determine the causative factors. If these are not addressed then the damage can intensify, move or spread elsewhere, or become systemic and even appear unrelated.
Your child is an amazing creation whose every cell depends on the food you provide. What may be more difficult to imagine is how foods can affect their moods; perhaps their orientation toward particular substances, rewards or risks – even what you assume to be the essential nature of their personality.
If so, check your hormone balance.
Hormones are like food. Too much is as bad as too little. Men and women produce the same sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, but what differs is how much and the ratio of one to another. For everyone, if a hormonal imbalance is in the mix – due to inflammatory foods, drinks or other habits – this is most likely to be high estrogen in relation to progesterone and/or testosterone. Some of the complaints I hear most frequently from patients are about fatigue; weight, sleep, skin, bowel, fluid/urination problems; moods and mental function. Addressing hormonal triggers can prove transformative. Read more
Avoid human contact and new ideas. BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) is produced inside brain neurons or nerve cells, particularly in learning centres. While neurotransmitters (NTs) busily deliver instructions, BDNF builds and maintains the motorway structure that supports their journey. If you sprinkle BDNF on neurons in a Petri dish they will grow new branches. You can increase BDNF with mental, physical and social exercise. In animal and human studies this swiftly improved moods; ability to learn, focus, recall, and manage stress. Social and emotional deprivation can physically shrink brains, while positive stimuli produces heavier brains with improved nerve structures that fire signals efficiently.
Nutrition can be as affected by fashion as skirt lengths are. Calcium for instance, has current cover girl status and its role in good bone structure seems to warrant this celebrity attention.
The workings of the human body though are not based in a star system, but in the interrelationships of equally significant contributors. While calcium can help build bones, without sufficient magnesium – its key partner in life – those bones will be brittle. Likewise calcium allows muscles to contract, but only with enough magnesium are muscles and their owners able to relax.
Avoid all saturated fats. This is not only foolish but close to impossible. However it is a handy way to disqualify those who issue such sweeping nonsense. Every one of your 50 trillion cell membranes needs enough saturated fat and cholesterol for a firm, protective surround and enough unsaturated fat for flexibility. It is the quality of your fats that is most critical and the proportion of one type of fat to another in relation to your body-type and symptoms.
…and why you should invite bacteria to your next family gathering.
Some scientists date rocks. This is no comment on their social lives, just their area of expertise. On the basis of their work we can give our planet a birthday party to honour its 4.65 billion years.
The Big Bang is a theory about the birth of the universe, which refers to an expansion – not an explosion – about 14 billion years ago. Eventually the sun and later the earth condensed from cosmic dust and gas thanks to the power of gravitational attraction. The contraction of these materials and the radioactivity of some of them created heat. Some elements melted and differentiated into the earth’s crust and core with spectacular volcanic eruptions and other escaping gases. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen and others were held by gravity and formed the primitive atmosphere. Water vapour condensed and our oceans formed.