THE GREATEST MEDICINE OF ALL… IS TEACHING PEOPLE HOW NOT TO NEED IT
IF YOU DON’T MAKE TIME FOR YOUR WELLNESS - YOU WILL BE
FORCED TO MAKE TIME FOR YOUR ILLNESS!
Citrus to the Rescue! Ancient Lime Peel Oil Stops
"Nightmare Bacteria" When Modern Antibiotics Fail
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo
As "nightmare bacteria" impervious to antibiotics proliferate, an ancient remedy steeps hope for modern medicine in lime peels and steam.
Amid alarm over rising antibiotic resistance, new research restores hope by reaching back to ancient plant cures. Scientists in Thailand tested an essential oil made from Kaffir lime peels against dangerous, multi-drug resistant staph infections. In lab dishes, the oil potently blocked growth and killed methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), restoring effectiveness to failing antibiotics like gentamicin.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that common bugs like MRSA are becoming "nightmare bacteria" - impervious to most antibiotics. This leaves doctors scrambling as more standard drugs fail against formerly routine illnesses. Seeking solutions, researchers extracted Kaffir lime's pungent, citrusy essential oil through steam distillation of the peels. In lab tests, they discovered this natural oil alone halted MRSA's spread. But it also exhibited a little-known power: restoring potency to gentamicin, an antibiotic beaten down by resistance.
This ancient-meets-modern pairing of plant oil and gentamicin provides a new strategy against stubborn infections. The CDC now acknowledges that rather than relying solely on new antibiotics, incorporating old botanical treatments may better protect public health.
The research team first confirmed antibiotic resistance levels in staph cultures from hospital patients. As expected, most strains resisted multiple drug classes like penicillins, cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, and more, qualifying as nightmare superbugs. But when exposing MRSA samples to Kaffir lime oil, growth diminished. The oil also completely killed MRSA within 12 hours at higher, but still safe, levels.
Additionally, the researchers tested lime oil and gentamicin together using checkerboard testing. This assesses if combining treatments improves efficacy. Strikingly, pairing tiny doses of gentamicin with minimal lime oil concentrations annihilated MRSA colonies. The mix also prevented single drugs from breeding resistance. Rather than crude plant compounds versus pharmaceuticals, the study revealed an elegant synergism against microbes when delicately blended by nature and science.
So with antibiotic miracles waning against proliferating drug-resistant threats, this research proffers hope. It suggests reviving ancient botanical wisdom could offer modern medicine tools to combat our most urgent infections. A little natural sour and spice, with gentamicin's still mighty punch, may concoct the soothing savior we desperately need.
7 Proven Ways to Keep Your Brain Young
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo
Over 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Another 10,000,000 suffer with severe dementia and Parkinson's. Even more struggle with age-related mild cognitive impairment. Here are 7 natural ways to defend your brain.
Alzheimer's disease affects about 5.3 million Americans. It's the leading cause of dementia and the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. And it's growing at an alarming rate. Already 13% of people over 65 have been diagnosed with the disease. An astounding 43% of those over the age of 85 are victims.
Alzheimer's has been called the defining disease of the boomer generation. Its victims are expected to triple by the year 2050.
In addition, it's estimated that 10,000,000 others suffer with severe dementia and Parkinson's disease.
But even if you escape these debilitating and life-threatening diseases, you may be among millions more who suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI or what is frequently called "age-related cognitive dysfunction") and normal "age-associated memory impairment." These conditions are what many of us have experienced as "senior moments." The symptoms include memory loss, as well as a decline in the ability to think and reason.
Some of these problems are a result of the natural aging of our brains. But others arise from poor nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins.
Drugs have shown little promise and serious side effects. But here are seven proven methods to keep your brain young and sharp.
1. Bacopa Boosts Cognition
Bacopa monnieri (L.) is a traditional herb used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine. It is prescribed as a memory and learning enhancer, a sedative, and anti-epileptic. In Australia, it is a popular memory aid for people over 60 years old.
Bacopa grows in the wet tropics and is also commonly known by its English name, water hyssop.
In a rigorous study published in the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, researchers found that Bacopa has positive effects on several measures of cognitive performance. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, they gave participants either 300 mg of Bacopa daily or a placebo pill. The subjects were 54 volunteers, 65 or older, without clinical signs of dementia.
After 12 weeks, those taking Bacopa improved their delayed recall memory, their reaction times and their ability to ignore irrelevant information. Placebo recipients saw no change.
In addition, Bacopa recipients showed a decrease in heart rate, depression and anxiety while placebo recipients saw increases.
Three other double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies support Bacopa's benefits in verbal learning abilities, delayed recall of word pairs, and age-associated memory impairment.
Bacopa's memory-enhancing effects have been attributed in part to saponins. Other ways Bacopa may work include its antioxidant effects, protein synthesis in the brain, and modulation of brain stress hormones.
Other studies show Bacopa extracts also ameliorate neurotoxic effects of nicotine and aluminum, and reduce β-amyloid plaque levels in animals.
2. Ginkgo Biloba Improves Memory
For years gingko biloba has been linked to memory improvement. It acts as a free radical scavenger, protecting neurons from oxidation. It also improves microcirculation in the brain and reduces platelet aggregation.
Human studies show taking gingko biloba regularly can improve mental health, cognition, motor skills and quality of life. It's particularly helpful for memory loss, attention, alertness, vigilance, arousal and mental fluidity.
In 2005 researchers put gingko biloba up against Pfizer's $4 billion a year prescription drug donepezil (trade name Aricept) in a 24-week randomized, double-blind study. An extract of gingko biloba (160 mg per day) was found to be just as effective as the drug for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. The researchers concluded there were no relevant differences in the efficacy of gingko biloba and donepezil, and use of both substances can be justified.
In a more recent double-blind trial gingko biloba was found to be significantly better than placebo in improving cognitive function and behavioral symptoms in 400 patients with Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia.
3. Tea, Wine and Chocolate Improve Thinking Skills
As we get older, a diet high in some flavonoid-rich foods may help with better thinking skills.
Researchers examined the relation between 3 common foods that contain flavonoids (chocolate, wine, and tea) and cognitive performance. They followed 2,031 participants aged 70 to 74 years from the Hordaland Health Study in Norway.
People who consumed chocolate, wine, or tea had significantly better scores on cognitive tests and lower rates of poor cognitive performance.
Those who ate all three foods had the best test scores and the lowest risks for poor test performance.
The good results were dose dependent. The best performance maxed out at 10 grams per day of chocolate and 75-100 ml per day of wine. The effect was most pronounced for wine and modestly weaker for chocolate.
Other research shows that resveratrol, found in wine and chocolate, has the ability to neutralize the toxic effects of proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease.
In a study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry researchers showed that resveratrol selectively targets and neutralizes clumps of peptides or proteins that are bad and have been linked to Alzheimer's, but leaves alone those that are benign.
Resveratrol is a chemical compound in plants that acts as an antibiotic to fight off both bacteria and fungus. Besides grapes and cacao, it is found in raspberries, mulberries, blueberries, and cranberries. It's also in peanuts, pine trees and Japanese knotweed, the source of most resveratrol supplements.
4. Antioxidants Decelerate Brain-Aging
It's clear that people eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables have fewer age-related diseases like Alzheimer's. Eating more high-antioxidant foods such as berries, Concord grapes, and walnuts may enhance cognitive and motor function in older people.
Studies show supplementing with fruit or vegetable extracts high in antioxidants (e.g. blueberries, strawberries, walnuts, and Concord grape juice) helps decrease the vulnerability to oxidative stress that occurs in aging. That can lead to improvements in behavior.
Fruits and vegetables can also enhance communication between neurons and decrease stress signals induced by oxidation and inflammation.
Other studies indicate that blueberry or Concord grape juice supplementation in humans with mild cognitive impairment increases verbal memory performance.
5. Intermittent Fasting Regenerates Brain
Overeating is a risk factor for many age-related diseases including cognitive impairment.
Experimental models of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and stroke show that dietary restriction (reduced calorie intake) can beef up the resistance of neurons in the brain to dysfunction and death.
How? Dietary restriction stimulates the expression of 'stress proteins' and neurotrophic factors. Neurotrophic factors may protect neurons by increasing production of proteins that suppress oxidation and free radicals.
In addition, dietary restriction increases the number of newly-generated neural cells in the adult brain. In other words, it may increase the brain's capacity for plasticity and self-repair.
Researchers suggest that limiting calories may reduce both the incidence and severity of neurodegenerative disorders in humans.
Intermittent fasting is not as difficult as it sounds. It doesn't involve just drinking water. Most intermittent fasting plans cut calories to 25% of normal amounts. That's about 600 calories for men and 500 calories for women on one or two days of the week.
6. Sleep Cleans Out Brain Toxins
A University of Oregon study shows middle-aged or older people who get six to nine hours of sleep a night think better than those sleeping either fewer or more hours.
Researchers used data involving more than 30,000 subjects in six countries. They found that individuals sleeping less than six hours and more than nine hours had significantly lower cognitive scores compared to those in the intermediate group.
The researchers used five standard cognitive tests involving immediate recall of a list of words, delayed recall of those words later, forward and backward recall of long lists of numbers, and a verbal fluency test in which they listed as many animals as possible without repetition, the use of proper nouns or descriptors.
One reason a good night's sleep works is the brain's trash removal system. During sleep the brain works 10 times as hard to remove toxic proteins like the ones responsible for Alzheimer's damage. If you're not asleep, the brain can't get rid of plaques so easily.
7. Curcumin Clears Alzheimer's Plaques
The incidence of Alzheimer's among adults in India is about 4.4 times less than that of Americans.
Researchers in Singapore suggest the reason might be curry and the spice turmeric. They looked at curry consumption and brain performance in 1,010 Asians between 60 and 93 years of age. Those who ate curry occasionally (less than once a month) and often (more than once a month) performed better than those who rarely or never ate curry.
Over 30 studies in the GreenMedInfo data base deal with the promise of curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, in the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease. According to one study, turmeric showed remarkable results in Alzheimer patients in just three months.
A 2006 UCLA study found curcumin may help clear the amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer's disease. One way it works is by boosting the work of macrophages. These cells in the immune system help the body fight foreign proteins.
Researchers took macrophages from the blood of Alzheimer's patients and healthy controls. They treated some of the macrophages with curcumin. The treated macrophages showed improved ingestion of the beta-amyloid proteins. The researchers concluded that curcumin may support the immune system to clear amyloid plaques.
And in animal studies low doses of curcumin led to 40% less beta-amyloid than in those not given the spice.
Studies indicate low doses of turmeric over a long period of time are most effective. That's a good reason to add turmeric to your daily diet. It's great in curry sauces, scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, mustard sauces or salad dressings.
There are many other natural ways to keep your brain young including coconut oil, ginger, B-vitamins, and saffron.
For much more information on healthy brain aging visit GreenMedInfo page on the aging brain.
Berberine Supplement Shows Promise for Pre-Diabetes
Management: New Study
A centuries-old Chinese and Indian herbal medicine ingredient could beat Big Pharma at its own game when it comes to managing pre-diabetes.
A new placebo-controlled trial found that taking a berberine supplement significantly improved markers of pre-diabetes like blood sugar and insulin levels compared to placebo over 2 months. The study suggests berberine could be an effective natural alternative to metformin for those with pre-diabetes.
In a recent double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Italian researchers examined whether taking a specialized berberine supplement could improve markers of pre-diabetes, also known as impaired fasting glucose (IFG). Berberine is a compound found in several plants used in Chinese and Indian traditional medicine, including barberry, goldenseal, and Oregon grape. Previous research suggests it may have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and glucose- and lipid-lowering effects.
However, berberine tends to have very poor oral bioavailability on its own. To overcome this, the researchers used a patented delivery technology called Berberine PhytosomeTM, which combines berberine with phospholipids to enhance absorption.
The study included 49 overweight adults aged 59 years on average with IFG. IFG is defined as a fasting blood glucose level between 100-125 mg/dL and signifies pre-diabetes. The participants were randomly assigned to take either 550 mg of Berberine Phytosome twice a day (188 mg berberine content per dose) or a visually identical placebo pill twice a day with meals for 2 months.
Compared to placebo, taking Berberine Phytosome resulted in significant decreases in:
- Fasting blood sugar levels: 0.24 mmol/L average greater reduction
- Insulin levels: 1.78 μIU/mL average greater reduction
- Total cholesterol: 0.25 mmol/L average greater reduction
- Triglycerides: 0.14 mmol/L average greater reduction
- Visceral abdominal fat volume by CT scan: 91.5 grams average greater reduction
- Total body fat mass by DXA scan: 945 grams average greater reduction
No serious side effects were reported. This is particularly noteworthy compared to metformin, the most commonly prescribed medication for managing prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. Metformin is associated with risks like vitamin B12 deficiency, lactic acidosis, diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, and kidney injury.
Overall, this rigorous clinical trial demonstrates taking a highly bioavailable berberine supplement can safely improve several markers of pre-diabetes compared to placebo over 2 months. The researchers concluded berberine could be a natural alternative to standard pharmaceutical options like metformin for those at high risk of developing diabetes.
In addition to the current study, berberine has shown promise for improving markers of high blood sugar in other clinical trials.
In one 2013 placebo-controlled trial in 116 patients with type 2 diabetes, taking 1500 mg per day of berberine for 3 months lowered hemoglobin A1c levels (a marker for average blood sugar over 2-3 months) by an average of 0.7% more than placebo.
Another trial compared taking 500 mg of berberine with the diabetes medication metformin in 68 patients with metabolic syndrome and high blood sugar. After 3 months, berberine lowered fasting blood sugar by 31 mg/dL, on par with a 38 mg/dL reduction for metformin.
Overall, accumulating evidence from randomized trials suggests berberine supplementation can lead to clinically significant declines in short- and long-term blood sugar markers, though more research is still needed.
Until next time, stay healthy and happy.
The information on this blog is provided for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical care, and medical advice and services are not being offered. If you have, or suspect you have, a health problem you should consult your physician (preferably a Naturopath).
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