Have you ever considered the role hormones play in keeping our bodies balanced and healthy? Sometimes, the solution to a disorder can be as simple as tweaking the hormones. Certain breast cancers, for example, are estrogen-driven, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is often prescribed by doctors for it, but these drugs can have harmful side-effects.

Hormones are vital in keeping us functioning normally. Progesterone, for instance, is a protective hormone which is normally produced by the body. It complements estrogen, and supports pregnancy and anti-aging. This is why it is sometimes referred to as the youth hormone. As we grow older, progesterone production drops considerably.

What exactly are the benefits of progesterone? It:
- aids the immune system
- produces collagen, which keeps tissues and skin elastic
- reduces swelling and inflammation
- can relieve many types of arthritis
- helps the thymus gland
- helps the thyroid gland
- helps use fat for energy
- improves memory
- is a mild diuretic
- is a natural antidepressant
- is a great skin moisturizer
- is necessary for fertility
- has been used to correct emphysema
- improves the efficiency of the heart
- maintains a healthy pregnancy
- maintains cell oxygen levels
- normalizes blood clotting
- promotes energy production
- protects brain cells/brain function
- promotes respiration
- relieves anxiety
- restores libido
- reverses aging in the skin
- reverses osteoporosis
- sensitizes estrogen receptors
- stimulates new bone formation
- keeps bones strong

Some health and even beauty problems which progesterone protects against are:
- breast fibrocysts
- breast cancer
- bulging veins
- cancer of the uterus
- cancer of the ovaries
- epileptic seizures
- facial hair
- fibrocystic breasts
- flushing
- heart attacks
- hot flashes
- insomnia
- irritability
- loss of hair
- mood swings (PMS)
- muscular aches and pains
- night sweats
- stress
- uterine fibroids
- vaginal dryness
- water retention

How can you balance out your hormones naturally? Declining progesterone levels can be boosted in various ways, such as by using topical progesterone cream, which is really easy to apply.

What is the difference between natural and synthetic progesterone? Natural progesterone is the exact same hormone that is produced in the ovaries. It is made from naturally occurring plant steroids found in the wild yam. Synthetic progesterone commonly comes in tablet form with a prescription. The synthetic version can produce adverse effects such as increased risk of cancer, fluid retention, nausea, abnormal menstrual flow, and depression. Other than the possibility that it may slightly alter the timing of the menstrual cycle, natural progesterone like Neways “Endau” rarely has side effects.

If you’ve been out of whack, check if your hormones are harmonious.

Posted: May 12th, 2009 under Alternative Remedies, Cancer, Hormone Health.
Comments: 1

Do you know that a vitamin or mineral deficiency can result in disease? Alarm bells should be ringing because commercially-farmed vegetables, fruits and grains are being cultivated on land which is depleted of minerals. No matter how much of these foods we eat, we are literally starving our bodies.

As early as 1936, it was reported in Senate Document No 264 that “We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for normal function of some special structure in the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the body’s appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless.”

“Certainly our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems than upon calories of vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein of carbohydrates we consume.”

Vitamins are organic compounds which are produced in living things like fruit, grain and vegetables. Minerals are inorganic compounds that plants obtain from the soil. Minerals ensure that we derive energy from the food we eat and help to direct that energy for life-sustaining functions.

Both vitamins and minerals help drive chemical reactions by interacting with enzymes responsible for a wide range of metabolic functions necessary for the maintenance, growth and repair of the human body.

Minerals perform a variety of special functions. For instance, potassium, sodium, and chloride act as electrolytes that help maintain cell-fluid balance. Iron carries oxygen. Potassium is critical in keeping your heart beating. Sulfur is a component of some amino acids — the building blocks of protein. Calcium and phosphorus are responsible for bone structure. Magnesium helps muscles relax after they contract.

Vitamins and minerals work together for optimal results. Vitamin D and calcium synergise to maintain bone health. Vitamin C helps iron absorption from beans, great news for those who are vegan or cutting down on meat consumption.

Processed foods tend to have a high sodium content, so try to avoid them. Too much sodium can cause an imbalance with other minerals and even lead to high blood pressure.

Not all carrots are equal. Take a long, hard look at your diet. Are you eating empty calories? Make sure you’re getting plenty of minerals and vitamins. People who could benefit from vitamin and mineral supplements include pregnant women, people recovering from surgery, strict vegetarians, the elderly, those who are very active – like sportsmen – and individuals with chronic diseases.

Posted: May 8th, 2009 under Healing Foods, Health Basics 101, Health Supplements.
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Don’t you just love spending some time outdoors, enjoying a walk, filling your lungs with fresh air, letting the breeze caress your skin, and feeling the sun on your face? It’s a simple way to have a change of environment, get in some exercise and recharge.

I get out as often as I can each day, and try to make it at least 20 minutes each time. My sweet doggy, Ginger, gets walked twice daily, in the morning and at the end of the day. I also try to go out for short errands somewhere in between. It really affects my mood and my energy level when I’m cooped up indoors.

In recent years, we’ve been told that too much sunshine can kill. Actually, cancers in general kill far more people every year then skin cancer does. In fact, regular doses of sunlight have been shown to help in preventing most cancers. It is sun-burning, not sun-tanning, that may cause skin cancer. Many people living in urban societies spend an increasing amount of time indoors, in artificial lighting and hooked to the computer. Occasionally, they spend a day here or a weekend there baking at the beach or by the pool, or fry on vacation. Such sporadic and intense exposure to the blazing sun may be compared to taking all of one’s yearly intake of alcohol in a fortnight or so. No wonder sickness may result.

Some decades ago, Dr John Ott investigated the background to a report that children at a school in Illinois had five times the national rate of leukaemia. The schoolhouse was a plain, modern building with very large windows in every room, and all the pupils who developed leukaemia had been in two particular classrooms. In these two rooms the teachers always kept the large curtains completely drawn across the windows to reduce glare and distraction, and to keep the children’s attention on schoolwork. The indoor lighting was therefore on all the time, and this was ‘warm white’ fluorescent. The whole class spent its working day in light of twilight intensity, with no blue or UV light at all except at playtime – and in Illinois they have some hard winters, during which the children might not go out to play at all.

Several years later the two teachers in question left the school, and their replacements kept the classroom curtains open all the time. The lights were also replaced with cool white fluorescent ones, and of course needed to be used less. From then on there was not a single case of leukaemia in the school for as long as Dr Ott followed it up. No other explanation has been put forward for this remarkable mini-epidemic of leukaemia. It started Dr Ott thinking about the possibility of a link between sunlight and cancer.

In 1936, a report in The Lancet by Peller, a US Navy doctor, suggested an inverse relationship between skin cancer and all other cancers. He observed that Navy personnel had eight times the skin cancer rate of the rest of the population, but only forty per cent of the total death rate from cancer. He proposed that the obvious explanation for this was the greater amount of sunlight to which men serving in the Navy were exposed. Nowadays, many naval personnel probably spend their whole working lives at computer consoles, but in 1936 they naturally led an outdoor life and were in the sun a great deal.

Peller made the startling suggestion that by using high intensities of light, either sunlight or ultraviolet from a carbon arc lamp, we should actively induce skin cancers in patients, in order to protect them from other cancers. As cancers go, those skin cancers that have been clearly shown to be related to sunlight have obvious advantages; the most important of these is that they are visible at a much earlier stage, and can therefore be dealt with. In a strange way, if you had to choose which cancer to get, skin cancer would be an excellent choice.

Now, I’m not saying that you should try to get skin cancer in order to eliminate other kinds of cancer. Baking in the sun is a bad idea. However, the fact is that we need the sun’s energy for a wide range of life-giving processes, like the synthesis of vitamin D (a powerful antioxidant) in the skin to improve our absorption of minerals; the triggering of certain enzymes that repair our DNA; the activation of oils on our skin by sunlight to make them antiseptic and protective; the production of hormones in the skin, in response to sunlight, that stimulate our immune system, and a range of other mechanisms that science has yet to explain.

So what are you waiting for? Let some sun shine in your life everyday!

Posted: May 6th, 2009 under Antioxidants, Cancer, Enemies To Health, Exercise & Fitness, Health Basics 101.
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