Month: June 2016

That’s right. Most of the DNA in your body is not yours. It belongs to other than human species that live inside your body. Fortunately, most of them are symbiotic, they help us and we house them. Some, not so. That’s why you need to keep a balance between the good guys and the bad guys in your gut. Too many of the wrong sort and you get all manner of health issues.
This data came from a newsletter from Sherry Brescia. Sherry wrote the book, Great Taste No Pain, a book and recipes centered around food combining, the concept of not combining protein and starch in the same meal.
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…your microbiome—the population of bacteria that have made their residence inside of your intestinal tract.
Yes, these microscopic little creatures that number in the trillions inside of you might be small, but the influence they have on your health is ENORMOUS.
Here are the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons why that is so:
The obvious
First and foremost, your gut microbiome helps with digestion. It helps break down starches and fibers, thereby reducing gas and bloating and encouraging regular bowel movements.
Plus 70 percent of your immune cells reside in your intestinal tract.
So your ability to fight off colds and viruses starts with your GUT. That’s the reason why some people get sick when exposed to contagious illnesses and others in the same room at the same time do not—it’s a reflection of the health of your intestinal flora.
The not-so-obvious
Advanced immune protection
In addition to fighting off colds and bugs, your immune system also protects you against diseases like cancer.
In addition, having a sharp, well-functioning immune system means you are less likely to suffer from allergies, food and environmental sensitivities, asthma and autoimmune conditions.
Optimal nutrition
Having a healthy balance of intestinal flora helps to enhance your absorption of nutrients from your foods and supplements.
Plus it also helps produce vitamins for you as well!
Your gut flora is directly involved in the production of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, D and K.
Ulcer prevention
Certain beneficial bacterial strains have been shown to be helpful in fighting and preventing ulcers.
Studies have established that the Lactobacillus strains L. acidophilus, L. salivarius, and L. casei can slow and even help kill H. pylori (the bacteria that causes most ulcers).
Lower blood cholesterol
Beneficial bacteria can help reduce blood cholesterol by creating acids that counter excess cholesterol production.
In addition, because your friendly flora help to keep your bowel movements regular, this can help your body to better eliminate worn-out cholesterol from the intestinal tract (instead of risking reabsorption into your bloodstream).
Food cravings
Each species of bacteria in your gut (both good and bad) has their own “dietary preference.”
Depending on which species has the “upper hand” in your gut at any particular time, the microbes can influence your food choices and cravings by releasing signaling molecules into your gut.
And the preferred food of harmful bacteria and yeasts is—you guessed it—sugar!
So next time you crave sweets, that’s a sign your gut flora isn’t as healthy as it should be.
Stir up inflammation
Your gut is the starting point for inflammation throughout your body—it’s the “gatekeeper” for your inflammatory responses.
Mental health
Bacteria have also been identified as major players in the regulation of your mood and memory.
Research has shown that problems in your gut can directly impact your mental health, eventually leading to issues like anxiety and depression.
But the flip side is also true—better, healthier bacteria can help encourage better mental health!
Nurture gut with the “4 your R’s”
There is a whole lot you can do to nurture your gut and encourage a strong, well-functioning microbiome.
Here is what I call the “4 R” approach to a healthy gut:
1- Remove
Step one is to remove and avoid things that can harm your friendly flora, such as:
Foods that you are sensitive or allergic to
Cigarette smoke
Soda
Excessive alcohol (especially beer)
Refined carbs
Antibiotics
Acid reducing medications
Regularly lacking sleep
2- Replace
This involves replacing and supporting your supply of beneficial bacteria, and this is done with a probiotic supplement like Super Shield multi-strain probiotic formula.
3- Reinforce
Reinforcing a healthy flora balance means nourishing your friendly flora with gut-loving foods like fresh vegetables and fermented foods.
4- Repair
The final step is to help repair any intestinal damage that you may have from harmful bacteria and medications.
In addition to a healthy diet, Omega-3 essential fatty acids have been shown to help support intestinal health.
Omega-3 EFAs are abundant in fatty fish, but since many people don’t eat a lot of fish, fish oil supplements like VitalMega-3 are a convenient way to get the Omega-3 EFAs you need.
Your gut microbiome is truly your most important organ. If you don’t have a healthy population of beneficial bacteria, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of your health will start to crumble!
Taking good care of your microbiome will help keep the rest of YOU feeling good for years to come!
To your health,
Sherry Brescia
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If you have had a dose of antibiotics, chances are your microbiome has taken a serious hit. I have seen it written that a body can take a whole year to reset after a course of antibiotics. If you are wanting to rebalance your microbiome, check out the 2012 Probiotics that is an ingredients in my top bars and NutriBlast. It is the very last item on my price list page, just under the Fulvic Minerals a wrote about two newsletters ago.
http://www.healthelicious.com.au/PriceList.html

Two faced treason?

This is not the first time I have read on similar results – raw food handles diabetes!
http://www.realfarmacy.com/people-reversed-diabetes-30-days-one-change/

I had an order from a person not in my database so, as I usually do, I asked from where she had heard of Healthelicious. As she was from a country town in Victoria, I surmised it may have been at the Mind Body Spirit in Melbourne. This was her response:
Hey Tom, I wanted to email you last night but ran out of time, to answer your question… yes we did meet in Melbourne, I had your bars over the last week at work and I must say I was feeling amazing, so I ordered more and want my family to try them, the bars I had I loved and I can’t wait to try the rest of them. I’m a pretty healthy eater but I realise now that I needed more nutrition and a wider range of foods, was great to meet you and looking forward to reading your newsletter,
Regards A
So, my nutrition can make a pretty healthy eater feel “amazing”, and lead to a realisation that all is not well with the food supply, even for someone trying to eat well.
Two things, one, if you’d like to know one of many reasons why this is the case, read the ten paragraphs which follow.
Two, if you’d like to spend more time feeling “amazing”, road test my bars or a tub of my NutriBlast for 6 weeks. www.healthelicious.com.au
Findings released at the 1992 RIO Earth Summit confirm that mineral depletion of our global topsoil reserve is rampant. At the time, U.S. and Canadian agricultural soils had lost 85% of their mineral content. Asian and South American soils were down 76% while throughout Africa, Europe and Australia, soils were depleted by 74%, 72% and 55% respectively.1
Tragically, there has been precious little done to forestall the inevitable exhaustion of these precious mineral stores.
“Nations endure only as long as their topsoil.” ~ Henry Cantwell Wallace
The calculus is simple: plants can’t make minerals, and without minerals, vitamins don’t work.
We are made of the stuff of the earth. Consequently, if the minerals are not in the soil, they are not in the plants grown in the soil; and if they are not in the plants grown in the soil, they are not in our bodies. As such, it is not surprising that any depletion in the mineral and nutrient content of our soils reflects an increase in nutritionally related diseases in both animal and human populations.
The alarming fact is that foods fruits, vegetables and grains now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed nutrients, are starving us no matter how much we eat of them. ~ U.S. Senate Document 264
The remarkable thing about the preceding declaration is that it was issued in 1936 over 73 years ago. Since that time, the United States and other industrialized nations have been losing arable land at an unprecedented rate. Today in the U.S., topsoil is eroding at a rate ten times faster than the rate of replenishment, not bad considering that countries such as Africa, India and China are experiencing erosion rates 30 to 40 times the replenishment rate.
Today, estimates place the chronological reserves of our global topsoil at less than 50 years and as the topsoil goes, so go the nutrients.1
http://www.myhealthyhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/NutrientDepletionofourFoods.pdf
A landmark study on the topic by Donald Davis and his team of researchers from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.
“Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly,” reported Davis, “but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth.” There have likely been declines in other nutrients, too, he said, such as magnesium, zinc and vitamins B-6 and E, but they were not studied in 1950 and more research is needed to find out how much less we are getting of these key vitamins and minerals.
The Organic Consumers Association cites several other studies with similar findings: A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent. A similar study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal, found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19 percent, iron 22 percent, and potassium 14 percent. Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/