Dear Readers,
Every spring, I find myself flooded with gratitude for the awakening of the life that slumbered beneath the snows of winter.
I think many of us have experienced the joyous greeting of the first daffodils of spring and the first calls of the mourning dove that came in early February to our mountains this year. It’s early, so I send little prayers to the buds to hold off for a few more weeks because we know there will be more frosty nights.
For many years, I’ve expressed my gratitude for the little and big joys in life by saying them out loud every night just before sleep.
If you haven’t tried the “gratitudes” for attitude adjustment, I strongly recommend it.
Get through the sneeze season—sniffle-free!
Can’t stop sneezing now that spring and pollen are in the air?
Boston family practitioner Kathleen London, M.D. suggests these super-simple remedies to reduce your misery quotient: Drink lots of water to keep your mucous membranes moist, use a humidifier to boost moisture levels if the heat is still on and keep windows closed to keep pollens out.
But there’s no need to hole up indoors. These natural remedies can clear your head and get you through allergy season without sniffling or itching so you can enjoy your spring!
Experts advise:
An herbal solution. A major new Swiss study confirms that an extract made from the giant leaves of the butterbur plant works nearly as well as prescription Zyrtec (cetrizine), and it’s effective against all hay fever symptoms, including itchy eyes, sneezing, drippy noses and sinus congestion.
Even better, the same Swiss study shows butter bur users avoided the drowsiness often associated with Zyrtec.
“Butterbur slows the body’s production of leukotrienes, signaling molecules that tell your body to produce the nasty symptoms of allergies,” says Linda Meltzer, senior research scientist at Source Naturals.
Your sniffle-free dosage: 50 milligrams two or three times a day with food to increase absorption. Look for products that contain a patented butterbur formula, Petadolex ™ sold by several supplements companies.
Add the right “E.” This antioxidant turns out to be a great way to stop the inflammatory process that triggers allergic symptoms. British researchers found for every milligram of tocotrienols you add, up to 7 mg, you lower the levels of those sneeze-inducing antibodies by 5%.
That means you can reduce your allergic symptoms by 35% by getting the right “E.” Gamma
tocotrienols are the workhorse of the components of vitamin E, making all of E’s antioxidant capabilities even stronger.
“Natural vitamin E with gamma-tocotrienols suppresses the Cox-2 enzyme, reducing inflammation and keeping your sinuses clear during allergy season,” says Meltzer.
For best results: Look for products that contain at least a 3:1 ratio of gamma–E to alpha- E.
Try perilla. This herb common in traditional Chinese medicine has a double-whammy effect on allergies. An extract of the leaves is a potent source of rosmarinic acid and luteolin, shown in Japanese lab studies to be a potent natural anti-histamine, reducing congestion by up to 93%.
Other Asian research suggests that perilla leaf extract actually kills the inflammation-causing
T-cells before they can make you miserable. The seeds of this potent plant are excellent sources of those all-important Omega-3 fatty acids that help control your body’s production of inflammatory prostaglandins, keeping everything from allergies to heart disease at bay. “Perilla seed extract works just as well as fish oil,” says clinical nutritionist Neil Levin of NOW Foods
in Bloomingdale, IL.
For a clear head: Try 100 mg. of perilla leaf extract twice daily and/or 500 mg. of perilla seed oil.
Consider quercetin. This potent flavonoid found in onions and garlic prevents allergic reactions as well as inflammation. Japanese researchers discovered that quercetin stopped 96% of histamines in minutes, making it one of the most powerful natural anti-histamines known—without side effects.
“For a great allergy fighting soup, throw in your onion skins with all the other veggies for a big antioxidant boost,” says Dr. London. Adding the anti-inflammatory enzyme bromelain to a quercetin supplement increases the effectiveness of both, says a study published in the Alternative Medicine Review.
To be congestion free, fast: Take 100-200 mg. of bromelain and 400-500 mg. of quercetin three times a day before meals.
All of these supplements have been shown to be safe and side effect-free at the recommended dosages, but, as always, check with your doctor before taking them or any other supplements.
Get hot! Spice up your life and turn up your fat burners!
If your life feels a little bit dull and drab and you’re feeling the weight of a few pounds of extra flab, it’s time to spice up your life! No, I’m not talking about a visit from the Chippendales or a fling with the UPS guy or gal.
I’m talking about zinging up your food with some of nature’s best fat burners. It’ll not only add spice to your life, it’ll help you drop pounds in a hurry.
These are called thermogenic foods, meaning they are foods that create heat. Since calories are simply a measure of heat, think about turning up your body’s metabolic furnaces, burning more calories without all those grueling hours of the treadmill. Have you ever broken out in a sweat after indulging in a fiery hot salsa? Think of thermogenic foods as an internal workout, since your body responds in much the same way as it would to a fast lap or two around the track.
Chile peppers head a list of health benefits attributed to thermogenic foods. It’s all due to a compound called capsaicin that makes chile peppers hot, jalapeno peppers hotter and habaneros make you feel like you stepped into a furnace.
British research shows that eating foods that contain capsaicin (like cayenne pepper) revs up your metabolism. In fact, one study shows that adding chiles to a meal can actually increase your ability to burn calories by as much as 10%. Plus, Canadian scientists have found that folks who added chiles to their meals ate 200 fewer calories per meal, on the average, even though they had a sumptuous buffet in front of them and they were encouraged to eat as much as they wanted.
The thermodynamic burn caused by spicy foods can speed up your metabolism for as long as five hours—ample time to get you to your next meal.
Do the math and you’ll see this can result in significant weight reduction over a year. Let’s see: If you save just 200 calories a day, you’ll lose a pound every two weeks—just thanks to the hot stuff—and that means an effortless 26 pounds drop away in a year!
That’s not all. Foods containing capsaicin have been study-proven to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, because they encourage blood vessels to open up by 10% almost immediately when you eat them.
Italian research shows eating chiles actually seems to protect against stomach cancer and the compounds in capsaicin may actually neutralize cancer-producing nitrosamines, most commonly found in cigarette smoke and air pollution.
Despite the feeling it may be burning away your stomach lining, Norwegian scientists actually say capsaicin increases protection to the stomach lining by as much as 30%.
Want more reasons to spice up your meals? Capsaicin can stop pain dead by blocking the pain signals to your brain, so it’s particularly effective against cluster headaches and arthritis pain.
Of course, if you’ve ever bitten into a taco slathered with spicy salsa, you now it can clear up a stuffy head instantly.
Are chiles just not your forte? Other thermogenic foods can power up your metabolism the same way chiles do. Try these for a spicier life: black pepper, curry powder, mustard, garlic, onions, horseradish, paprika, ginger, wasabi and radishes.
Excerpt from Kathleen’s book:
User’s Guide to Thyroid Disorders: Learn How to Keep Your Body from Dragging You
Down, Safely and Naturally (Basic Health, 2006):
Note:So many people suffer from thyroid disorders and so many have great difficulty getting a diagnosis and getting the treatment they need. I wrote this book in 2006 in hopes of empowering people to get the attention, respect and treatment they need. This is the introduction to that book and I plan to include more excerpts in coming issues of Living,
Naturally.
I’m in the process of writing another book that addresses this subject and expands upon it. Stay tuned!
While we have more high tech tools available for diagnosis today than we did in the 1950s, long time sufferers of debilitating fatigue, susceptibility to cold temperatures, intractable weight gain, shortness of breath and dozens of other widely diverse symptoms, find little more relief today than their grandparents found in country’s doctors’ offices of two generations ago.
In this book, you’ll learn that a straightforward diagnosis of hypothyroidism is difficult to obtain. A diagnosis of subclinical hypothyroidism (under-the-radar low thyroid function that is not confirmed by tests) is even more difficult to obtain, unless you know how to find a doctor who is willing to prescribe thyroid medication based on symptoms rather than lab tests.
If you’ve grappled with the hash of symptoms that can indicate hypothyroidism (and several other clinical conditions), you may have been subjected to accusations that you are lazy, a hypochondriac, PMS-ing or perhaps even a little mentally unbalanced.
Your problem may be compounded by the possibility that the tendency to hypothyroidism may have been present in your family for generations.
Recent statistics show as many as 10% of the American population has thyroid disease or will develop it. As of this writing, more than 13 million Americans have been diagnosed with thyroid deficiency and approximately 50% of sufferers are not diagnosed.
In fact, the late Dr. Broda Barnes, a pioneer in the study of thyroid malfunction, estimated as much as 40 percent of the American population has some degree of thyroid disorder.
Women are five to eight times more likely to have thyroid deficiency for a number of reasons, among them the likelihood there is an as yet-undiscovered female hormonal component to this complex disease.
“Even a slight deficiency in thyroid hormone can cause an incredible number and variety of sabotaging physical, emotional, and mental symptoms,” writes Stephen Langer, M.D. in Solved: The Riddle of Illness.
Calling low thyroid function an “undeclared epidemic,” Richard Shames, M.D. and Karilee Halo Shames, Ph.D., R.N., authors of Thyroid Power, pinpoint the problem precisely:
“Although extremely common, low thyroid is largely an unsuspected illness. Even when suspected, it is frequently undiagnosed. When it is diagnosed, it often goes untreated. When it is treated, it is seldom treated optimally.”
Although this book will primarily address hypothyroidism, by far the most common form of thyroid dysfunction, other forms of thyroid and glandular malfunction can wreak equal havoc with your life, and I’ll address them, too.
Hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid), Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism) and Grave’s disease (autoimmune overactive thyroid) will be addressed in Chapter 7 and I’ll talk about the link between hypothyroidism and adrenal imbalance in Chapter 5.
This book will present thyroid dysfunction in simple terms and hopefully help you help you understand the complexities of thyroid function and malfunction so you can navigate the stormy seas of the modern medicine, dispel myths about natural treatments perpetuated by the medical profession and find a diagnosis and correct treatment.
Contents of this page are copyrighted, and may be used freely, if unedited and with attribution as follows:
Source: Kathleen Barnes, www.kathleenbarnes.com
The content provided by this site is for informational purposes only and has not been approved by the U.S. FDA. This site is not intended to provide personal medical advice, which should be obtained from a medical professional.
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