Exercise stimulates the formation of new brain cellsExercise has a similar effect to antidepressants on depression. This has been shown by previous research. Now, in a series of scientific reports, Astrid Bjørnebekk at Karolinska Institutet examines the underlying biological mechanisms that explain why exercise can be a form of therapy for depression and has also compared it with pharmacological treatment with an SSRI anit-depressant drug.
Major depression in humans is associated with shrinkage of the hippocampus. Astrid's results show that exercise increases the formation of new cells in this area of the brain that is important to memory and learning.
Another interesting finding from this work was that environmental factors, such as the presence of an exercise wheel in a rat's cage, helps to facilitate the antidepressant action of escitalopram, the SSRI drug.
Finally, Astrid's group analyzed the effect of the mild stress of social isolation in female rats, and demonstrated that socially isolated rats had lower dopamine D2 receptor mRNA levels compared to “non-depressed” rats. What is Dopamine? Dopamine is the “feel good” chemical naturally produced by your brain, a type of neurotransmitter. It is a chemical messenger that is similar to adrenaline and affects the brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and the capacity to feel pleasure and pain. So the more receptive you are to dopamine, the better you feel.
All of this may add up to explain why exercising can boost your mood, but exercising in a group or with a friend is even better!
Love Your LiverYour Liver is one of the largest, most complex organs in your body. It is located in the upper right side of the abdomen, just under the diaphragm and rib cage.
It's called the “liver” because its proper functioning is required if you want to “live” life to the fullest! (ok, so we made that up.) On a serious note though, your overall health, energy, and vitality depend greatly on the performance of your liver.
Its job description is really quite extensive, having to perform over 500 different chemical reactions that break down, synthesize, transform, conjugate, and detoxify a wide range of compounds. Some of its most important functions include:
- Metabolizing the nutrients for life: proteins, fats, carbohydrates.
- Detoxification - Turns toxic materials into non-toxic substances to be removed from the body
- Manufacturing and secreting bile in order to absorb fat-soluble nutrients and eliminate toxic substances.
- Purifying the blood - Filters bacteria, endotoxins, antibodies-antigens and other particles from the circulation.
- Acts as a blood bank for 20 to 30% of your body's blood.
- Manufacturing blood clotting agents and blood proteins.
- Manufacturing, metabolizing and storing hormones.
- Fat metabolism - Controls triglycerides, cholesterol, other blood fats and body fat levels
Even a minimal decrease in liver function can contribute to low energy, and other early signs of deteriorating health. A sluggish liver can be a result of toxic chemicals from food and the environment, drugs, alcohol, and gallstones which inhibit the flow of bile.
Signs of a Sluggish Congested Liver may include:
Allergies
PMS (Pre-menstrual syndrome)
Chemical sensitivities
Constipation
Obesity
Intolerance to highly fatty foods
Digestive discomfortToxins as Hormone Disruptors
As we know, a symphony of hormones work together to keep your body running smoothly and allow you to balance your weight. But environmental chemicals and heavy metals are well-known hormone disruptors. Relatively low levels of these toxins (far below the levels considered safe by EPA) – interfere with our normal hormone balance, including sex hormones (estrogens and testosterone) and weight control hormones including thyroid hormones, cortisol, insulin, growth hormone, and leptin.
Toxins and Weight Gain
Obesity and difficulty losing weight are often associated with a sluggish and damaged liver. A study of 534 over weight people showed evidence of compromised liver function in more than 65% of participants. Since the liver breaks down and metabolizes fats, you need a healthy liver for losing weight effectively! Furthermore, an impaired liver can prevent the conversion of thyroid hormones — the master regulators of metabolic rate — into their active form that is responsible for activating fat-burning power.
To overcome long-term challenges with losing weight, liver cleansing and detoxification can be an important piece of the puzzle.
Fatty Liver
Fatty liver is the most common liver disease in America , affecting 20% of the population. Of course, having a fatty liver impairs detoxification. It is not caused by a virus, pollutant or even eating too much fat. Its caused by the most abundant toxin in our diet: SUGAR. Overconsumption of sugar and refined starchy carbohydrates, not only increases insulin and insulin resistance, it leads to the accumulation of fat in your liver cells. (Some patients have developed cirrhosis of the liver from sugar alone!)
Sugar is turned into triglycerides which are stores in liver cells (and other cells). Excess sugar calories also increase oxidative stress and lead to free radical damage or the mitochondria (your cells energy converter), so that they can't effectively burn fat or calories = more weight gain. A fatty liver is also an inflamed liver, which produces high levels of inflammatory molecules. Toxic, fat and inflamed, the liver can no longer protect you from the damaging effects of other environmental toxins, leading to further damage.
We can't live without the liver. Yet, we spend our lives overworking it, intoxicating it, and abusing it. How much time and effort do we give to nourishing and strengthening it?
The most amazing thing about this organ is its capacity to regenerate and heal itself.
Spring is the perfect time to give special attention to nourishing the liver by undergoing a period of detox and cleansing. Cleansing the body means to get rid of excess, waste, and toxins. This is done by resting from foods for a period of time and drinking water and juices of vegetables and fruits. This is an enjoyable way to tune up your system and revive your energy for life!
How well do you know your body?
The more you know about your body and how it functions, the more you can do to take care of it!
Understanding your body gives YOU the power to nourish it better, to help it heal, and to make it work better for you.
Become an expert on your body… Ta ke a moment to appreciate the unseen… what goes on inside your body… so you can live longer, live stronger, and live smarter.
10 Steps For Dealing with Sugar Cravings
The Problem:
When we eat a candy bar, cake, doughnuts, or drink a soda, glucose molecules are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. The rise in blood sugar is followed by a parallel rise in insulin. This hormone, produced by special cells in the pancreas, allows glucose to enter cells like muscle cells, and helps blood sugar levels to decrease. However, these easily digested carbohydrates make blood sugar and insulin rise faster and higher than slowly digested whole foods. Even worse is that the rapid increase in insulin can cause glucose levels to fall too low.The result: you start sending out hunger signals for more “emergency fuel” - in the form of more sugar. This typically happens 2-3 hours after eating the first dose of high sugar.
The outcome : Eating more, never feeling truly satisfied, roller coaster energy levels, mood swings, ongoing cravings for more sugar, and eventually chronic problems like diabetes and heart failure!
The good news is that you are in control of when this roller coaster ride stops. Start by taking a couple of these steps, and work your way down to #10.
• Reduce or eliminate caffeine. The ups and downs of caffeine include dehydration and blood sugar swings, causing sugar cravings to be more frequent.
• Drink water. Sometimes sweet cravings are a sign of dehydration. Before you go for the sugar, have a glass of water and then wait a few minutes to see what happens. Caution: soft drinks are now America 's number one source of added sugar.
• Eat sweet vegetables and fruit. Try eating more butternut squash, sweet potato, beets, and other root vegetables. They are sweet, high in fiber, and delicious, especially when eaten with a touch of good fats like chopped nuts or nut butter. (Hint: The more you eat these foods, the less you crave sugar.
• Use gentle sweets. Choose gentle sweeteners like Agave Nectar, brown rice syrup, dried fruit, stevia, barley malt. Avoid chemicalized, artificial sweeteners and foods with added sugar
• Get physical activity. Exercise is critical to achieving good blood sugar control. Start with simple activities, like walking or yoga. Start with 10 minutes a day and gradually increase. It will help balance your blood sugar levels and reduce tension while reducing dependence on medication
• Get more sleep, rest and relaxation. When you are tired or stressed, your body will crave energy—in the form of sugar. These cravings are often a result of being sleep-deprived, going to bed late or waking up early, and accumulating “sleep-debt” for months and even years.
• Evaluate the amount of animal food you eat. Eating too much can lead to cravings for sweets. So can eating too little! A good health coach will help you sort this out. Experiment. Respect your body's individuality.
• Eliminate fat-free or low-fat foods. These foods contain high quantities of sugar to compensate for lack of flavor and fat, which will send you on the roller coaster ride of sugar highs and lows
• Experiment with spices. Coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom will naturally sweeten your foods and reduce cravings. Cinnamon offers the added benefit of decreasing fasting glucose levels, triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol.
• Slow down and find sweetness in other ways! You body longs for hugs, time with friends, outside time, workouts, massages, etc. When life becomes sweet enough itself, no additives are needed!
Finding Balance
Introduction
How It Works
What’s the Problem?
What can You Do?
Life Lessons in Balance
Discover your Body QuizThere is a lot of talk within health circles about "being too acidic", "alkalizing the body", and "acid and alkaline foods". What does this all mean and why should you care? The significance of terms like "acid", "base", and "pH", which you may or may not remember from your high school chemistry class, to our health is often overlooked and rarely understood. Yet, this acid-alkaline balance is intimately linked to good health.
Maintaining this balance in the blood and the other body fluids is one of the keys to keeping the body functioning well at all ages and stages of life. The normal pH for all the tissues in the body, except the stomach, is slightly alkaline. Our normal body metabolism is always producing acids. These acids must be neutralized and excreted in some way for life to continue. We therefore need a continuous supply of alkalizing foods to help us in this process of maintaining balance, which is called homeostasis.
Let's look a little closer at this basic body chemistry and how we can keep it in balance for better health.
Acid-alkaline balance is a dynamic, delicate equilibrium that keeps the pH level of our blood and body fluids in check. The higher the concentration of hydrogen ions (H + ), the more acid the fluids become, or the lower the pH. As an example, the pH of the hydrochloric acid (H + Cl - ) secreted in your stomach is about 2, whereas the pH in your small intestine where most of your food is digested is about 7-8, which is considered alkaline. Maintaining the correct pH in these organs is necessary if we want the enzymes to be able to do their job of properly digesting the food we eat. Our digestive enzymes are sensitive to changes in pH, and quit working when they are put in the wrong pH environment. A balanced blood pH is critically related to good digestion.
Enzymes are not the only ones that are sensitive to pH changes. The blood in our arteries must stay within the narrow pH range of 7.35 to 7.45 in order for us to function. The body uses the kidneys, lungs, and substances in these fluids to neutralize the enormous acidic load that is dumped into the blood from the food we eat, from toxins, and from normal metabolism. The kidneys regulate the secretion and reabsorption of important factors like bicarbonate that maintain a perfect pH. The lungs also play a part. By breathing more deeply and altering the rate of our breathing, we can alter the amount of carbon dioxide we exhale, which affects our pH. When an acid-alkaline imbalance occurs, the body attempts to restore normal pH by a response known as compensation. The body creates an electrolyte imbalance, overcompensating by retaining excess alkaline salts such as sodium and bicarbonate. This overcompensation affects the fluid balance in your systems, and can cause water retention and increased blood volume.
If a disturbance in this balance is left unchecked, the results can range from our electrolytes going haywire to death in severe cases. The most common imbalance is acidosis, a decrease in pH from the accumulation of acids in the tissues. In order for the body to excrete acids from the system without hurting the kidneys, it neutralizes them with alkalizing mineral salts such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. When our reserves of these minerals are low and the body fluids shift to becoming more acidic, the body draws these minerals from the bones and from nerve cells. The results? Our bones, nails, and teeth weaken. Our nervous system begins to malfunction. Mental clarity diminishes and the mind begins to slow down. Headaches, depression, fatigue, and muscle stiffness are other major symptoms of acidosis.
Many diseases are triggered by the body's attempts to rebalance its systems and the internal environment. If the body is not able to adequately compensate for an unbalanced diet and its effects on the system, the internal environment that supports and feeds the cells becomes sub-optimal and eventually the cells cannot even live in these conditions. Cancer cells are known to live better than normal cells in such an acidic, low oxygen environment. Some people propose that cancer is a condition in which the cells adapt to survive in these suboptimal conditions. Osteoporosis has been linked with a diet that is highly acid-producing. Arthritis also is developed in an acidic body, because one way that the system preserves the blood pH is to deposit excess acid substances in the tissues and joints.
Refined foods such as white sugar, white flour, white salt, chemical additives and preservatives, as well as most synthetic vitamins and synthetic drugs of all kinds have an acidifying effect in the body. The result is that they use up the alkaline mineral reserves in the body in an attempt to remineralize these deficient substances for assimilation. This leaves you craving more nutrients, feeling hungry even though you may have just eaten.
There is a limit to how much the body can compensate for acid-alkaline imbalances, without the help of our diet. We can use our food choices to provide the acid and alkaline components needed by the body to balance its systems. Eating more fruits and vegetables is the easiest way to maintain adequate mineral salt reserves, which can protect you in emergency situations when the body becomes acidic.
In the general American population, an acidic imbalance is more common than an alkaline one. Some ways to address this are incorporating high quality natural mineral salts (eg. The Original Himalayan Crystal Salt Sole Therapy), organic dark leafy greens, and sprouted seeds and grains (eg. wheatgrass) into your lifestyle. Supplementing with live digestive enzymes is also recommended, so that the alkalizing minerals in foods can be released and fully utilized to balance the system. Decreasing protein and fat intake is also critical.
In cases of excess alkalinity, a little raw apple cider vinegar in some water is a great help, and also provides the body with enzymes and essential minerals. Increasing protein intake or improving protein digestion with the help of digestive enzyme supplements is also recommended.
Two other factors to consider are improving your breathing habits and your thoughts. The deeper and better one breathes, the easier it is to remove acid from the system. Heavy exercise without proper breathing also adds to acid build up. Adding "deep breathing" exercises in the morning, at intervals throughout the day, and before and after exercise will help reduce acid build up. Also, thoughts are things, and they also have an effect on the balance inside your body. Repressed emotions, excessive anger, and other negative emotions increase acidity. Medical doctors have documented the direct effect of emotional changes on the pH of urine. So, renewing your thoughts can positively affect your health.
But how do you know if you are too acidic or too alkaline? There are several simple ways to measure this in your own home. One method recommended by medical practitioners is the 24-hour urine test. It involves collecting samples of all your urine produced over 24 hours, shake the total combined collection, and measuring the pH using pH paper (eg. PHydrion paper available at most health stores). Even though the idea may not sound pleasant, you can learn a lot about yourself this way. A pH reading below 6.3 or above 7.2 is usually associated with symptoms of an imbalance. Another option is to test the pH of your saliva. But perhaps the easiest way to judge whether you are functioning at an optimal pH is to look for these characteristics:
Good energy levels; a calm and efficient neuro-muscular system; effective digestion and regular bowel movements; resistance to colds and flus; feeling mental vitality and clarity.
This is not a cure for all disease, but rather a preventive measure that can help you understand your body and bring balance back to all your systems.
What lessons can we learn from this balancing act? Firstly, it takes continuous effort to stay balanced! Balance is not a static state of being; it is a dynamic process. This process is affected by many different influences in our lives - the food we intake, the air we breathe, the water we drink (or don't drink), the salt we consume, how much we exercise, and the thoughts that linger in our minds. Just as in life, in order to feel balanced, we must be aware of how we feel, know what we need to feel our best, and make the necessary changes to restore balance.
Also, overcompensation is temporary measure used to cope with an imbalance, but it never solves the core problem. When we find ourselves overcompensating for something in our lives, this should be a warning sign that something is wrong, a signal that something needs to be done to address the real issue. A common example of this in everyday life the parent who allows her child to have or do anything he wants, or the spouse who offers lavish gifts in an attempt to compensate for the fact that they do not spend enough time with their loved ones to make them feel loved. Balance, in all areas of life, is KEY.
1. What is considered an average balanced pH for urine?
a. 4.8 -8.4
b. 6.3 - 7.2
c. 6.2 or below
d. 7.2 or above2. Which of these electrolytes does the body use to make the system more alkaline?
a. calcium
b. sodium
c. magnesium
d. potassium
e. all of the above3. Which of the following foods does not cause an acidic reaction in the body?
a. fried chicken
b. green tomatoes
c. lemons
d. pasteurized milk
e. coffeeAnswers: 1. b 2. e 3. c
