PALM OIL AND ITS BENEFIT FOR IMMUNE BOOST

What you eat is very important. It is commonly said, ‘you are what you eat’. In other words, what you eat has a way of determining what you will become. An international colleague said: ‘For most of us, we feel a certain twinge of guilt every time we eat a really fatty or greasy piece of food, as we know that the chances are it is increasing our risk of suffering from a heart attack… but it tastes so good.  I agree fat meal taste well, but endeavor to stick to heart friendly diet.
Vegetarian or no vegetarian, most of us consume large quantity of oil per day.  Most of the oil contains large percentage of saturated fatty acid that increases bad cholesterol and reduces good cholesterol in the body which predisposes to heart diseases such as heart attack. While most of the oil will fail heart friendliness test, our old red palm oil ( epo pupa) will scale the test with ease.  Contrary to belief that red oil is not good for the heart, there are a lot of researches that proved beyond reasonable doubt that it prevents cardiovascular diseases.
Palm oil
Palm oil is produced from the fruit of the Elaeis guineensis. It is a vegetable oil, not an animal or dairy product, and therefore does not contain high cholesterol. Palm oil is sometimes  confused with palm kernel oil, but it is different. Palm oil is derived from the fleshy part of the palm fruits, while palm kernel oil is derived from the seed or the kernel. Palm kernel oil and palm oil are two different oils with very distinct fatty acid composition. This explanation may not be necessary for some of us who lived in the villages but the current generation might not have seen a palm fruit before.
Palm oil can be classified as both saturated and non saturated fat.  That saturated fat is bad for the body depends on the type; saturated fat in red oil is palmitic saturated fatty acid which does not increase the body cholesterol level. Red palm oil contains a mixture of saturated fatty acids (51%), monounsaturated fatty acids (38%), polyunsaturated fatty acids (11%) and a whole spectrum of anti-oxidative carotenoids (vitamin A), tocopherols and tocotrienols (vitamin E) as major constituents.
Palm oil is trans-fat free. It does not need to go through the hydrogenation (hardening) process. Trans fatty acid achieved by hardening has been shown to lower the good cholesterol and increase the bad cholesterol. In comparison, most vegetable oils (corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil, etc) require hydrogenation hardening of oil, hence the high concentration of trans- fatty acid.
Benefits of red oil
•It does not promote the formation of plaques in the arteries. Atherosclerosis is the thickening and hardening of the walls of the arteries. Fatty deposits or plaques are made up of mainly fats and cholesterol. Atherosclerosis results in the narrowing of the lumen of the arteries, thus inhibiting the flow of blood.
•Vitamin E in red oil diet inhibits platelets (blood cells that aid blood clot formation) from sticking together. These high contents of tocotrienols (Vitamin E) are very potent anti-oxidants. If a tissue, such as the heart is starved of oxygen, this condition is termed ischemia. Even short periods of ischemia can cause large amounts of cell damage. If the tissue is reoxygenated, this process is called reperfusion. In many cases, the sudden supply of oxygen to cells that have been deprived of it causes further damage. This damage during reperfusion of a tissue or organ can be reduced by the use of certain antioxidants.
• Palm oil diet either increases the production of a hormone that prevents blood-clotting (prostacyclin) or decreases the formation of a blood-clotting hormone (thromboxane).
•The high vitamin A (carotenoid) content of red oil is 300 times higher than tomatoes for equivalent amounts. Vitamin A aids good vision
Warnings- the bad side of palm oil is pronounced when it is poorly processed and badly cooked. To eradicate these likely bad effect the following precautions should be adhered to:
•Do not adulterate palm oil in an attempt to make more profit. Do not mix with other apparently cheaper oil like ‘ori’ in Yoruba language and avoid adding hot water. All those things added negate the benefits of red oil.
•In cooking with red oil, please stop bleaching it. The bleaching destroys all the good nutrients in the oil and converts good cholesterol to bad cholesterol. If your reason of bleaching is to prevent the oil from ‘sleeping’ use your hot plate or burning stove to wake it the following morning.
•Limit other oil and use red palm oil as the people of old age and enjoyed  healthy life
•Be moderate in consumption.

honey as an immune booster

http://fast2earn.com/-51884.htm

Honey beneficiary in warding off heart disease

Individual that is worried about wading of heart diseases should substitute honey for refined sugar a sweetener in their tea, coffee or morning cereals. Expert’s assessment honey found it to be rich in chemical substances that ensure a healthy heart by improving blood circulation, helping to prevent blood clot that could affect important organs of the body such as the brain as well as in reducing blood’s level of bad cholesterol.

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties. Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation, and store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive.

It is composed of sugars like glucose and fructose and minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, chlorine, sulphur, iron and phosphate. It contains vitamins B1, B2, C, B6, B5 and B3 all of which change according to the qualities of the nectar and pollen. Besides these, honey also contains copper, iodine and zinc existing in small quantities. Several kinds of hormones are also present in it

Honey has a long history of human consumption, and is used in various food and beverages as a sweetener and flavouring. it has a role in religion and symbolism, flavours of honey vary base on the nectar source, and various types and grades of honey are available.

Historically, honey has been used by humans to treat a variety of ailment.  it contains is cheap, making it potentially useful for treating wounds and earthquake-sticker and war-ton areas where running water is scarce and often contaminated. It is being used to treat burn, wounds, effective in the treatment of stomach ulcers

Preliminary studies in the 2004 edition of journal of medicinal food on honey suggested that eating honey can reduce blood level of some markers that are linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

For many years, blood levels of cholesterol and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol have been used, and more recently homocysteine and C-reactive protein (CRP) have been added to the list of heart disease risk factors. People with high homocysteine level have higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and some other conditions, but antioxidants, vitamin E, and some medications such as statin drugs can lower CRP levels.

Antioxidants present in honey come from a variety of sources, and include vitamin C, monophenolics, flavonoid and polyphenolics. Now experts review of studies on antioxidant properties of honey and their ability to protect cardiovascular diseases such as heart problem indicated that honey’s antioxidant levels rivals those levels found in tomatoes and sweet honey corns although honey by itself may not serve as a major source of dietary antioxidants, it demonstrates the potential for honey to play a role in providing antioxidants in a highly palatable form.

For instance one of these studies involved seven small trials with between five and nine participants. In each trial blood was examined before and after drinking solutions containing honey, glucose and artificial honey (approximately half glucose and half fructose). The solution used in each trial contained between 1 and 3 ounces of honey, glucose, or glucose and fructose. Healthy people experience an immediate slight decrease in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglyceride levels after drinking the honey solution but not after glucose and artificial honey solutions

This trend persistence in healthy people drinking the honey solution for 15 days, after which HDL cholesterol levels rose and homocysteine levels dropped. The effect of taking the honey solution every day for 15 days was even more pronounced in people with high cholesterol: total cholesterol drop 8 per cent, LDL cholesterol levels dropped by 11 per cent,and CRP levels dropped by 57 per cent.

Interestingly, they indicated that “due to honey pleasing taste, it may be more readily consumed by individuals reluctant to ingest plant-derived antioxidants. Certainly compare to refined sugars such as sucrose and fructose which has no antioxidant values, honey can be a flavorful, supplementary source of antioxidant because of its unique positive effect on risk factors for heart disease.”

Furthermore, substances that belong to a class of chemical substances called polyphenols that are found in honey have been reported as promising pharmaceutical drugs in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. For instance, epidemiological studies reported that quercetin, an antioxidant flavonol that is present in honey, is associated with reduced risk of coronal heart disease and stroke.

The researchers in the review of health benefits of honey for the heart in 2010 African journal of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine in their conclusion wrote: ”This review has clearly demonstrated that certain honey polyphenols have a promising pharmacological role in preventing cardiovascular diseases. After generating more in-depth and exhaustive information of these compounds jointly in vitro and in vivo studies, clinical trials should initiated to further validate these compounds in medical applications. ”

So individuals avoiding honey because they think its consumption can cause obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease, must have a rethink. Indeed, honey contains sucrose, glucose and fructose but fortunately, the substances in honey are healthy.

HOW AFRICAN MANGO EXTRACTS SHED BELLY FAT, OBESITY IN DAYS

African mango is now becoming the wonder fruit in far away America. Considering the research published in the scientific journal “Lipid in Health and Disease”. It revealed that men and women supplementing with African Mango extract for just 28 lost an astonishing 3,990 per cent more weight than those taking a placebo (8.9 lbs vs. 0.22 lbs).

Beyond the weight loss, the volunteers taking African mango extract 30 minutes before meals lost a stunning average of 2.4 inches from their waistline as well as 1.8 inches from their hips – and their bad LDL cholesterol, triglyceride, and glucose levels all plummeted.

In fact, studies show that it is safe that it reduces LDL cholesterol and dangerous triglycerides. It is also effective that it is shown to shed 8.9 pounds and 2 inches of belly fat in just 28 days. Strange as it may seem, it is also not expensive with 62 cents per serving; less than a sugary soda at McDonald’s.

 It is product to aid in weight loss, lower cholesterol, level out sugar in the bloodstream, and regulate the hormone leptin. Leptin is responsible for controlling appetite and boosting metabolism. This is very important in the fight against body fat.

And much to the chagrin of nation’s $40 billion- dollar diet industry, which sells outrageously expensive surgical procedures and drugs that have done little, if anything, to trim America’s ever-growing collective waistline. Despite the recent frenzy surrounding African mango and its ability to cause safe weight loss, the fruit has actually been used as a diet aid for centuries in Cameroon, Africa

The brightly coloured tropical fruit is native to Cameroon’s west-coast rainforests and found in the forest of Leboudi outside Yaoundé. African mango, or bush mango, differs from other mango fruits in that it produces a peculiar seed, which native of Cameroon refer to as Dikka nut.

For hundreds of years, an extract from the seeds called “irvingia gabonensis” has been used among Cameroon villagers for its wide-ranging medicinal benefits, which range from reducing and preventing obesity to lowering cholesterol to regulating blood sugar to treating infections.

Studies carried out by the Laboratory of Nutritional Biochemistry of the University of Yaoundé, revealed that irvingia is efficient in controlling body weight. The research study was initiated in 2005 and later confirmed by nutritionists in the United State of America.

After the revelation, irvingia gabonensis or bush mango as it is known locally referred to, has suddenly become of high demand in the U.S. weight loss market. Expert reargue that the fruit has the strongest natural fat burner known, so far. Cameroonian scientist, Prof. Julius Oben who took part in the research, said that the bush mango burns fats and has no effects.

 Indeed, interest in the use of African mango extract (irvingia gabonensis) as a safe effective and inexpensive weight loss alternative surge after Dr. Mehmet Oz called it, mentioning no special brand, a “ breakthrough supplement” and a ”miracle in your medicine cabinet” on his Emmy Award-winning The Dr. Oz show in 2010.

Similarly, one of the show’s leading medical contributor, Dr. Tanya Edwards, M.D. called African mango extract, mentioning no special brand; a “miracle pill” after it helped her lose seven pounds in less than month without any changes to her diet or exercise routine.

According to Edwards, irvingia, an extract of the West African mango, has been used for a variety of medicinal purposes in Africa for many centuries. Recently, there have been a few studies on the use of this extract for weight loss.

As an obese nation, we are chronically on the search for that magic pill which allows us to eat whatever we want while losing weight at the same time.

In the randomized trials in overweight and obese humans using Irvingia, participants in the Irvingia group lost on average 5-10 pounds/month compared to the placebo group. Neither group made any life style change during the trial. They also noted that cholesterol levels and sugar levels improved significantly compared to the control group.

Sound like a magic bullet to me! I tried it myself, and low and behold, in the first month of taking it (only once per day, mind you, instead of the recommended twice daily), I lost seven pounds without making any changes in my usual healthy diet and exercise routing!

THE SECRET HEALING POWER OF WATER AS IMMUNE BOOSTER

The human body is made up of about 100 trillion cells and each of these cells is 80 per cent water. The whole body is 75 per cent water and the remaining 25 per cent is made up of solids that can dissolve in the water. At different stage of life this quantity of water varies, a new born baby is approximately 90 per cent water and old age, the body water falls to 55 per cent.

Water is involved in every process that takes place in the body. One very important function of water is transportation, nutrients, oxygen, enzymes, neurotransmitters hormones, carbon dioxide and acidic waste products are all transported from one cell tissue or organ to the other.

 Throughout the day, water is being used up for all the different processes, acidic water are being generated and released into the water around the body cells and eliminate of these wastes must be done as soon as they are produced. For optimal health, water should also be replenished as fast as it is used up through drinking of fresh and clean water.

God created the human body to operate in an alkaline environment. The mineral in the body determine whether the water in and around the cells and blood is alkaline or acidic.

The alkalinity or acidity of the body is measured by the PH. Scale which is from 0-14, a pH of 0-7 is acidic and 7-14 is alkaline. An alkaline pH supports life and an acidic pH support disease and death. Acid is harsh and corrosive and likely to destroy whatever it comes in contact with.

On the other hand, alkaline is mild and enhances growth and life. Your diet, what you drink and your life style all influence the pH of your body. Like I said earlier, the body was created alkaline but in function it is acidic and this acidic wastes must be eliminated from the body. If these acidic wastes are allowed to accumulate in and around the cells, destruction of the cells, tissues or organs become inevitable. Indeed this is the cause of almost all diseases in the human body accumulation of acidic wastes.

Dehydration (lack of adequate amount of water) is the single most important cause of acidic waste accumulation in our bodies. People do not routinely drink water on daily basis.

Almost everyone waits till he/she is thirsty before drinking water, but it will interest you to know that by the time you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated. Before you become thirsty your body may have been giving you some certain signs of either general or regional dehydration. These signs in the past were referred to as diseases and all sorts of drugs prescribed in an attempt to treat the symptoms of what I would like to refer to as mere physiological signs of dehydration. I am talking about anywhere in the body, including headache and  migraine, arthritis, ulcer and its pain, pain over the heart known as angina.

Hypertension, adult onset diabetes, asthma and obesity to mention but a few are all physiological signs of dehydration at their onset. They gave rise to dis-ease, the body being no longer at ease because of dehydration. However this state dis-ease will eventually become pathological if sufficient water is not taken to correct the dehydration.

How do I know this, if you have not been drinking up to two litres of water (eight glasses) daily, you are most likely already dehydrated and may be suffering from one of these diseases but you do not really feel thirsty because you drink other beverages.

There is no substitute for water and try drinking that quantity of water from today and see what will happen to that dis-ease or is it disease?

To explain further, in a state of dehydration, the body goes into a rationing mode whereby water is redistributed to the five most vital organs. The brain, heart, lungs, liver and kidneys water is drawn from the muscles, bones, joint e.t.c. which are considered less vital to supply to the vital ones, the less vital organs suffer the effect of this physiological dehydration like pain hypertension and so on.

On the other side of the divide we find problems associated with pumping the water into the cell of the vital organs against the osmotic gradient by a process known as reverse osmosis. Certain hormones and neuro-transmitters are involved in this water redistribution and they give rise to some of the diseases. Furthermore, the acid wastes being corrosive and toxic affect the cells directly destroy them and lead to conditions like cancer. What? is cancer also caused by acidic waste accumulation due to dehydration? Yes. What we eat and drink and our lifestyle cause over 95 per cent of disease including cancers.

GUAVA FRUIT CAN BOOST IMMUNE SYSTEM

Guava is one of the most popular, nutritional rich fruit all around the world. It is known for its unique flavour, taste and health promoting qualities making it a common ingredient in new functional foods category often called “SUPER FRUIT”.

Botanically this fruit belongs to the family of Myrtaceae of the genius Psidium (meaning “pomegranate” in Latin) and know as Psidium guajava. In Nigeria the names are qwaabaa (Hausa) ugwoba (Igbo) guava (Yoruba).

Head, department of Biochemistry College of medicine, university of Lagos Prof. Osaretin Ebuechi said guava is very rich astringents (compounds those make your gums feel tighter and fresh after you chew guava leaves or eat a raw guava or use some tooth paste), which binds up loose bowels in diarrhea.

These astringent are alkaline in nature and have disinfectant and antibacterial properties, thus help cure dysentery by inhibiting microbial growth and removing extra mucus from the intestines. Further, other nutrients in guava, such as vitamin C, carotenoids and potassium strengthens and tones up the digestive system and disinfect it, which makes it beneficial in gastroenteritis.

He added that it is one of the richest sources of dietary fiber. Its seeds, if ingested whole or chewed, serves as excellent laxative, these two properties of guava help forming bowels, retaining water and clean your intestine and excretory system thoroughly. It said that single constipation can lead to seventy two types of ailments; every way to your health goes through proper digestion and more importantly proper excretion.

Osaretin, who is also secretary general, West African association of food science and technology (WAAFoST), observed that juice of raw and immature guavas or decoction of guava leaves is very helpful in giving relief in cough and cold by loosening cough, reducing mucus, disinfecting the respiratory tract, throat, lungs and inhibiting microbial activity due to its astringent properties.

Guava is one of the richest in vitamin C and iron which are proven to be preventive against cold and viral infections. In some areas in India roasted ripe guava is used as a remedy against extreme cases of cough and cold and congestion.

In addition to the astringents guava is very-very rich in vitamin A, B, C and potassium, which are very good antioxidants and detoxifiers and keep your skin glowing and free from aging, wrinkles and other disorders.

Guava helps reduce cholesterol in blood and prevents it from thickening, thereby maintaining fluidity of blood and reducing blood pressure. Studies have shown that food stuffs lack fiber (such as refined flour) add to blood pressure, due to quick conversion to sugar. Guava being very rich in fiber and hypoglycemic in nature helps reduce blood pressure.

Guava is very helpful for those who want to lose weight without compromising with their intake of proteins, vitamins and fibers. Guava being very high in roughages and very rich in vitamins, protein and minerals but no cholesterol and less digestive carbohydrates is very filling and satisfies appetite very easily, just have a medium sized guava in the lunch and you will not feel hungry till night.

Studies suggest that lycopene in pink guava prevent skin damage from UV rays and offers protection from prostate cancer. It is also a very good source of B-complex, vitamins such as pantothermic acid, niacin, vitamin- B6 (pyridoxine), vitamin E and K and by the body as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme.

Since the 1950’s, guavas-particularly the leaves have been a subject for diverse research in chemical identity of their constituents, pharmacological properties and history in folk medicine. Guava leaves are used in folk medicine as a remedy for diarrhea and as well as the bark for the supposed antimicrobial properties and as an astringent. Guava leaves or bark are used in traditional treatments against diabetes. In Trinidad, a tea made from young leaves is used for diarrhea, dysentery and fever.

On the medicinal used, the roots, bark, leaves and immature fruit because of their astringency are commonly employed to halt gastroenteritis, diarrhea and dysentery, throughout the topics. Crushed leaves are chewed to apply on wounds, ulcer and rheumatic places and leaves are chewed to relieved toothache.