May 2007

Hello, and welcome to this edition of my Natural Alternatives Newsletter!

I hope you will enjoy reading this issue.

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Nature is the Physician of all Disease ~ Hippocrates
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IN THIS ISSUE:

1) VITAMIN K2: THE MAGIC INGREDIENT

2) TAI CHI MAY HELP REDUCE TENSION HEADACHES

3) LEMON DETOX

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1) VITAMIN K2:THE MAGIC INGREDIENT by: Nina Planck

In 1945, Dr. Weston Price, the pioneer of nutritional epidemiology, published a revised edition of his masterwork, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, including a new chapter called “A New Vitamin-Like Activator.” Price described his experiments with a fat-soluble substance vital to healthy bones and teeth found in the butter of cows raised on grass. The grass-fed butter was remarkably effective in curing a number of chronic conditions, and even more powerful when combined with cod liver oil. Price called the magic ingredient Activator X.

Some 60 years later, researchers have identified Activator X. It is vitamin K2, a fat-soluble vitamin essential for optimal dental and skeletal health. Vitamin K2 has a very interesting role: it puts calcium where it belongs (in the bones and teeth) and keeps it away from the places it doesn’t belong, such as the arteries, where plaques calcify. Vitamin K2 is essential for healthy development and growth in children. Its effects are subtle: though K2 is necessary for bone density, it also prevents premature calcification of the cartilaginous parts of bones, the softer parts which allows your baby’s bones to grow.

Vitamin K2 can be made in the body from vitamin K1, which is found in green vegetables, but ideally your diet will contain ample sources of K2 itself. Get your K2 from the butter, organ meats, and fat of animals raised on grass. A reliable sign of K2 is the rich yellow color of butter from cows on grass; K2’s precursor is related to beta carotene.

Now we know what Price could only surmise: why traditional people went to so much trouble to get these ‘high vitamin’ foods, as Price called them.

K2 is an interesting fellow among vitamins. K2 is made in your reproductive organs. Sperm contains a protein that relies on K2. There is more K2 in your brain and saliva (where it protects you from tooth decay) than anywhere else. K2 deficiency (good name for a band) causes fatigue in lab animals. K2 prevents heart disease by preventing inflammation and calcification of the arteries.

Do you need more K2? If you’re vegan or vegetarian or trying to conceive, you probably do. Recall that Price found the combination of cod liver oil and K2 butter powerfully effective. That’s because cod liver oil is rich in vitamins A and D, which have several synergetic relationships with K2. In plain language, that means A, D, and K2 work together to build bones, among other vital tasks.

If it’s bone health you’re after, consider one more virtue of traditional diets: saturated fat. You need saturated fats to lay down minerals (such as calcium) in your bones.

Studies show that polyunsaturated fats (soybean oil) ‘depress’ mineralization while saturated fats (butter and palm oil) ‘stimulate’ bone density. That’s why I don’t drink skim milk and cannot recommend it, especially for women who are concerned about osteoporosis.

If you’re worried about the effects of natural saturated fats on your heart, fear not. The net effect of these traditional fats, such as butter, is to raise HDL. On the virtues of HDL, the National Cholesterol Education Program is clear: ‘the higher, the better.’ Recent studies even show that LDL is not the villain either, but a repair molecule sent to damaged arteries to repair them.

You might instead choose to avoid the new, ‘trans fat-free’ non-butter, vegetable-oil based ‘buttery’ spreads. (I grimace as I type the hype.) Now that trans-fats are known killers, Big Food brings you a new process for making industrial soy bean oil spreadable, because they know how much you want your butter.

How do they do it? By scrambling the fatty acids in a process called interesterification. It appears we won’t have to wait 60 years to discover that these fats are not good for you. In a recent study by K.C. Hayes, interesterified fats lowered HDL (that’s bad), depressed insulin (that’s bad), and raised blood sugar (also bad). Compared to what? Good question. Compared to palm oil—yes, the highly saturated tropical fat they taught you to fear.

Remember the rule: if your great-grandmother ate it, it’s probably OK. I know what you're thinking. My great-grandmothers in Sweden and Bohemia and Germany and England didn't eat palm oil, either. But you know what I mean.

www.NinaPlanck.com

2) TAI CHI MAY HELP REDUCE TENSION HEADACHES
www.postchronicle.com
Apr 28, 2007

A California study says that Tai Chi may provide significant benefits to adults suffering tension headaches.

The study, conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles, found that patients who participated in a 15-week Tai Chi program reported less headache pain, increased energy, emotional well-being, social functioning and improved mental health, the university said in a release. Researchers said Tai Chi's "emphasis on relaxation, breathing and coordination may address stress, the underlying cause of the pain associated with tension headaches."

The research appears in the March issue of the journal Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, also known as eCAM. (c) UPI

3) LEMON DETOX

An Incredibly Effective Lemon Detox. There are basic natural lifestyle habits which, once incorporated into your daily life, can make a tremendously positive difference to your health. Drinking lemon water is certainly one of them.

No article or research needed to convince me about this one, as I have been using lemon juice in one form or another for as long as I remember. But little did I know about the amazing health benefits of drinking water-diluted lemon juice daily!

In his classic 1939 book "Back to Eden", Jethro Kloss, the father of herbalists points out:

"Lemon is a wonderful stimulant to the liver and is a dissolvent of uric acid and other poisons, liquefies the bile, and is very good in cases of malaria. Sufferers of chronic rheumatism and gout will benefit by taking lemon juice, also those who have a tendency to bleed, uterine haemorrhaging

He goes on to add: "Lemon is an antiseptic, or is an agent that prevents sepsis [the presence of pathogenic bacteria] or putrefaction [decomposition of tissue]. It is also anti-scorbutic, a term meaning a remedy which will prevent disease and assist in cleansing the system of impurities".

A lot has been said lately about the lemon detox fast, which seems to yield great benefits. The fast consists in drinking lemon juice mixed with water and either maple syrup or honey with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, for a week or 10 days. If your health allows it, you can add to that a laxative tea at night and you're guaranteed a total cleansing effect, which must be done under the supervision of a qualified naturopath or herbalist.

Most of those who I know have tried it, managed to put up with this extreme regime for maximum 4 days. I, for one, recommend a gentler lemon detox that I have been using daily for the last 8 months. It consists of drinking the juice of half a lemon, diluted in lukewarm water, every night just before going to bed.

I have been drinking the lemon water every single night for the past eight months and the results are truly amazing. I live in a city where winters are harsh and long (Montreal, Canada) and I generally suffer from recurrent flu and cold symptoms all winter long... Not this winter!

I've also had to have my gallbladder removed and drinking the lemon juice has helped maintain my liver healthy. I no longer wake-up feeling tired and sluggish in the morning.

Lemon is not only a vitamin C rich citrus fruit and an immune system booster, it also acts as blood purifier and improves the body's ability to get rid of toxins. When taken regularly it acts as a tonic to the liver and stimulates it to fulfil its daily digestive and cleansing functions. Lemon is also believed to help dissolve gallstones.

My grandfather used to add a squeeze of lemon to his coffee and I remember thinking: How weird! Little did I know then that when lemon is mixed with coffee, it is thought to help treat malaria. It is also an effective headache remedy.

Some people drink the diluted lemon juice first thing in the morning. I used to do that too, and found it quite effective. However, a naturopath once told me that the body cleanses while at rest, so drinking the lemon water at night makes more sense, as it supports our inherent ability to detox.

For optimum health, I practice the Detox Bath daily alongside the lemon water cleanse. The Detox Bath is based on an ancestral bath technique created by Louis Kuhne of Leipzig in 1883 and is known to encourage toxin and waste elimination.

The Detox Bath's working principle is to refresh the core area of the body during 10 minutes daily or longer, depending on your initial condition, and the results you seek to achieve. This process creates a vibration in the fascia (Interconnecting tissue covering all internal organs), which sets in motion a roll-back effect that transports waste and deposited toxins back to the intestines, where they are later eliminated.

As in all natural remedies, my only recommendation is be disciplined and regular. Don't expect overnight miracles, they won't happen. However, these natural additions to your lifestyle, like drinking the lemon juice water and practicing the Detox Bath, will surely support your body's elimination capacity and enhance your health for a lifetime.

Detox Bath Ebook published by Dream Team Publishing UK Visit Pure Inside Out for quality information and articles on healthy and natural body and mind detox techniques.
Article Source: Content for Reprint

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE!

Thank you for reading.

Livia P.
www.natural-health-and-healing.com
Brampton, Ontario, Canada

P.S. If you have a comment or suggestion, just reply to this e-mail. Your feedback is important to me.

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This newsletter is for educational purposes only. It is your right to educate yourself in health and medical knowledge, to seek helpful information and make use of it for your own benefit, and for that of your family. You are the one responsible for your health. You must educate yourself in order to make decisions in all health matters. My views and advices are not intended to be a substitute for conventional medicine, but simply a help you to make educated changes in order to help your body heal itself. If you have a medical condition or concern you should consult your physician.