Thursday, 31 July 2014
Kill Parasites with Home Remedies
Parasites are living organisms that live off of a host organism. Parasites take and utilize the host organisms nutrients and in so doing hurt the host organism. Parasites take on a number of different forms and can thrive throughout the body. They most often live within the human intestines. It is estimated that about 50% of Americans have an abundance of parasitic organisms in their gut. Take action and cleanse your system of parasites naturally.
How do We Get Parasites?
Parasites enter the human body through the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. In 3rdworld countries the most common way to encounter parasites is through contaminated water. Anyone traveling to a foreign country should be cautious about drinking the water. Poor sanitation and poor hygiene are the most common ways people encounter parasites. In America, parasites are spread through pork products and shellfish as well as contaminated food and water.
There are thousands of different types of parasites that are common to humans. Protozoa consist of a single cell and multiply in enormous numbers inside the human intestine. The most commonly found protozoic parasites are giardia, neospora, amoebae, toxoplasmosis, cryptosporidium, and sarcocystis.
Parasites and Worms
Another form of parasite is the Helminth worm. This includes tapeworms, pinworms, hookworms, threadworms, roundworms and others. Many individuals doing a parasite cleanse will see the worms in their stools as they are eliminated from the body.
The body’s immune system goes after the parasites once they are identified. Often times the parasites are extremely strong and multiply too quickly for the immune system to keep them at bay. Some of the most common symptoms associated with intestinal parasites include diarrhea, gas, bloating, flu-like symptoms, nausea, rashes, joint pain, chronic fatigue, and chronic sinusitis.
Destroy Parasites in Your Body
Parasites love sugar and everything that turns into sugar. So the best way to starve the parasites is through using healthy fasting and cleansing strategies while eliminating as much sugar and grains as possible from the diet.
Several herbs and foods act as very strong anti-parasitic agents. Extra-virgin coconut oil is loaded with medium chain triglycerides that enhance the immune system in its battle against pathogens. Raw garlic and onions provide sulfur containing amino acids that are anti-parasitic. Eat six tablespoons of raw, extra virgin coconut oil, one whole clove of garlic, and one large red onion daily to help parasite proof your body.
Dried oregano and especially essential oil of oregano are extremely volatile and anti-parasitic. Use 2-3 drops of oregano oil in water with fresh squeezed lemon and drink this 3x daily. Clove works just as well so you could also substitute or use clove oil with oregano oil. Ginger, wormwood, black walnut are also commonly used in anti-parasitic strategies.
Fasting with fermented drinks such as fermented whey from grass-fed cows and fermented ginger, kombucha, coconut kefir, apple cider vinegar, etc. are powerful tools to help destroy parasites. Many holistic health coaches recommend a three to twenty-one day low calorie, liquid diet that is rich in fermented beverages, water and fresh squeezed lemon. Probiotic supplements are highly recommended to help destroy parasites and re-innoculate the gut.
After the cleansing period, it is especially important to utilize high quality fermented raw dairy and vegetables. Raw, grass-fed fermented dairy products like amasai & cheese and kimchi, sauerkraut, and fermented veggies should be used abundantly. These foods are rich sources of L-glutamine, an amino acid that helps rebuild the gut. These fermented foods also contain very powerful strains of good bacteria, organic acids, and enzymes that act to keep parasites out of the body.
If you are in the market for supplements to help speed along the process of ridding the body of parasites I recommend Para-Shield and Oil of Oregano, two powerful supplements for ridding the body of parasites.”
If you are in the market for supplements to help speed along the process of ridding the body of parasites I recommend Para-Shield and Oil of Oregano, two powerful supplements for ridding the body of parasites.”
– Michael Edwards
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
The 10 Most Harmful Parasites That Could Be in Your Food
HELENA HELMBY, SENIOR LECTURER AT LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINE
Most people are fascinated, and probably equally repulsed, by parasites. And it may be something you think you only need to worry about if you go on holiday somewhere exotic. However, increasing globalization and transportation of food products across the globe means we are all increasingly at risk of catching something unwanted from our favorite foods
Many infections can be thwarted with proper hygiene — washing fruit and vegetables, including "ready-washed" lettuce, cooking meat properly and avoiding contamination from domestic or wild animals. A joint UN/WHO report said better farming and global food trade standards could also prevent parasites entering the food chain. Experts have ranked the 24 most damaging foodborne parasites according to number of cases, global distribution and health impact. Here are the top ten:
1. Taenia solium
IMAGE: ROBERTO J. GALINDO
T.solium, also known as pork tapeworms, can measure up to 10m when mature and are among the biggest of these ribbon-like worms to infect humans. They do this through larval cysts in undercooked pork that hatch in the stomach and quickly grow into adult worms which inhabit the intestine, feeding on the nutrients you eat.
Disease is generally restricted to malnutrition as the worm competes with you for food — unless you ingest eggs rather than a cyst. These migrate around the body before forming larval cysts — a condition called cysticercosis — just like they do in the pigs. This can cause severe problems, particularly in the central nervous system (neurocysticercosis) where they can cause epileptic seizures. This is believed to be a main cause of epilepsy in many poorer parts of the world.
2. Echinococcus granulosus
IMAGE: CDC/DR. L.L.A. MOORE, JR
Another tapeworm, but only 3 to 7mm long, which causes a nasty disease called cystic echinococcosis (CE). The worm has a life cycle that normally cycles between carnivores (usually dogs), and sheep or other livestock. Humans become infected through accidental ingestion of eggs from dog feces, either through contaminated food products or from direct contact, or contaminated soil. The worm’s eggs are tough — they can remain infective for months, even in freezing temperatures.
More than a million cases of CE occur every year worldwide, mainly in areas where livestock, including camels, come in to close contact with dogs. After ingesting eggs, the parasite migrates, primarily to the liver. Slow-growing cysts form and symptoms may not be obvious until several years later. Cysts can contain several liters of fluid and are full of infectious larval stages called protoscoleces. Spontaneous rupture of the cysts can be very dangerous and lead to fatal shock.
3. Echinococcus multilocularis
IMAGE: CDC/DR. I. KAGAN
Geographical distribution of this tapeworm is patchy but it’s found in both North America and Europe where prevalence is slowly increasing. Its life cycle normally involves foxes and small rodents but can happen in domestic dogs and even cats. In humans it causes a disease called alveolar echinococcosis, which forms cysts in internal organs. The cysts can reproduce and spread like tumors and be fatal if untreated. This infection is considered a risk factor for hunters who handle infected fox carcasses and people foraging for berries and mushrooms contaminated by fox feces.
4. Toxoplasma gondii
IMAGE: KE HU/JOHN MURRAY/PLOS
T.gondii is a single-cell parasitic animal (protozoa) that can infect practically all warm-blooded mammals, but its life cycle normally takes place between cats and rodents. T.gondii is present in most countries and is one of the most widespread protozoan parasites affecting humans. Infection rate in humans varies between 10-80% of the population in different parts of the world and the parasite usually stays dormant in the tissues for the lifetime of the host — most infected people have no symptoms and never know they’re infected.
The most serious problems arise in pregnant women because the parasite can cross the placenta and cause fetal abnormalities or even miscarriage, which is why its advisable for them to avoid cleaning cat litter. Immunosuppressed individuals, such as HIV/AIDS and organ transplant patients, are also at risk because the parasite can start multiplying uncontrollably.
5. Cryptosporidium spp.
IMAGE: ALAE-EDDINE GATI
These protozoan parasites are mainly transmitted via contaminated water or food washed in contaminated water. Unpasteurized cider and milk, and contaminated shellfish have been implicated in several outbreaks. The parasite is present worldwide, including the UK, and infection is often caused by fecal contamination of water supplies by infected livestock. In healthy individuals the disease causes severe watery diarrhoea, which often rights itself. Thorough washing of fresh produce — including "ready washed" lettuces — is recommended.
6. Entamoeba histolytica
IMAGE: CDC/DR. GEORGE HEALY
Another protozoan parasite that infects the digestive tract causes amoebic dysentery. The disease is characterized by bloody diarrhea and abdominal pain that can become life threatening. More severe problems can occur if the parasite starts spreading from the intestine out into the body, causing abscesses in the liver and other organs.
7. Trichinella spiralis
IMAGE: CDC
Trichinella spiralis, is an intracellular "pork roundworm" responsible for trichinellosis, a muscle infection caught from eating raw or undercooked pork, or pork products such as smoked sausages. Other sources include game such as wild boar, and even walrus. Infected meat is contaminated with cysts, invisible to the eye, that contain a small larvae. When the meat is digested, these grow into adult worms that mate and produce thousands of new larvae, which travel out into the muscle tissues where they encyst, awaiting the current host to be eaten.
8. Opisthorchiidae
IMAGE: CIRCA24
This is a family of flatworms, or flukes, mainly present in south-east Asia (though some species are also present in Europe and Russia). The infection is contracted through eating raw or undercooked freshwater fish that have themselves been snails infected with larvae. These develop into another type of larvae in fish, and when they are eaten by a mammal (such as a human) they turn into adult worms that make themselves at home in the bile duct and gall bladder. It then produces eggs that are excreted in faeces, which hatch to infect new snails when they reach a fresh water source.
Infected dogs and cats roaming freely in villages are often significant reservoirs of infection. Chronic long-term Opisthorchis infections are significantly associated with cancer of the liver and bile ducts. Freezing or cooking fish prevents infection — pickling, drying, salting or smoking fish won’t.
9. Ascaris spp.
IMAGE: ALAN R WALKER
These are the largest of the human intestinal roundworms (up to 35cm) and with 25% of the world infected, is the most common parasite in humans. After ingestion, the eggs hatch into larvae in the intestine before undergoing a remarkable migration: they travel out of the intestine via the blood to the lungs, then migrate up the airways to the throat, where they get swallowed down into the stomach and back to the intestine again, where they finally develop into adult worms.
Each female worm produces hundreds of thousands of eggs per day which are excreted in the feces, contaminating the environment and further spreading the disease. A second species,Ascaris suum, was until recently believed to only infect pigs but is also able to infect humans. The level and symptoms of disease depends on the number of worms the individual is infected with, and intestinal blockage can happen because of the size of the worms.
10. Trypanosoma cruzi
T.cruzi is a protozoan parasite which causes a disease called Chagas disease. The disease is characterized by slow progression where the parasite infects various cells and organs in the body, including the heart, over many years, often with no or only mild symptoms present. Eventually the disease manifests itself through serious, and sometime fatal, cardiac or intestinal problems.
The infection is normally transmitted though contact with the feces of triatomine beetles ("kissing bugs"), which seek nightly human contact to feed on human blood. When it feeds, the beetle defecates on the host’s skin. Bug feces are often then scratched into the bite wound.T.cruzi is on the top ten list because it was recently discovered that humans can be infected by simply ingesting foods contaminated with bug feces — several outbreaks in recent years were caused by contaminated fruit and sugar cane juices — causing concern that it could become a global pathogen.
Helena receives funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for her research on immunity to intestinal nematode infections.
7 Reasons Why We Should Be Giving More Hugs
By Lindsay Holmes
Admit it: Nothing gives you comfort quite like a warm hug.
Whether you're wrapped up in the arms of your partner or greeting a friend hello, hugs have a way of making us feel warm and fuzzy inside. But aside from making us feel protected and loved, this touching gesture can also do wonders for our well-being. So whether it's a simple squeeze, a big bear hug or some cute cuddling -- there are plenty of reasons why we should embrace the act of, well, embracing someone.Below, find seven reasons why we should be giving more hugs.
They make us feel good.
The simple act of a hug isn't just felt on our arms. When we embrace someone,oxytocin (also known as "the cuddle hormone") is released, making us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The chemical has also been linked to social bonding. "Oxytocin is a neuropeptide, which basically promotes feelings of devotion, trust and bonding,"DePauw University psychologist Matt Hertenstein told NPR. "It really lays the biological foundation and structure for connecting to other people."
More hugs = lower blood pressure.
The hormones that are released in the body after a hug aren't just good for happy feelings -- they can also help your physical health. When someone touches you, the sensation on your skin activates pressure receptors called Pacinian corpuscles, which then send signals to the vagus nerve, an area of the brain that is responsible for (among many things) lowering blood pressure, NPR reported.
They may alleviate our fears.
In a study on fears and self-esteem, research published in the journal Psychological Science revealed that hugs and touch significantly reduce worry of mortality. The studies found that hugging -- even if it was just an inatimate object like a teddy bear -- helps soothe individuals' existential fears. "Even fleeting and seemingly trivial instances of interpersonal touch may help people to deal more effectively with existential concern," lead researcher Sander Koole wrote in the study. "Interpersonal touch is such a powerful mechanism that even objects that simulate touch by another person may help to instill in people a sense of existential significance."
Hugging can be good for our hearts.
Embracing someone may warm your heart, but according to one study a hug can be good medicine for it too: In an experiment at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill , participants who didn't have any contact with their partners developed a quickened heart rate of 10 beats per minute compared to the five beats per minute among those who got to hug their partners during the experiment.
Adults can benefit from hugging the most.
According to researchers at Ohio State University, hugging and physical touch becomes increasingly important with age. "The older you are, the more fragile you are physically, so contact becomes increasingly important for good health," University psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser told USA TODAY. Studies have shown that loneliness, particularly with age, can also increase stress and have averse health effects. By hugging someone, we instantly feel closer to that person and decrease feelings of loneliness.
Hugs are a natural stress reliever.
Feeling strung out? Go give someone a squeeze. When we embrace, we immediatelyreduce the amount of the stress hormone cortisol produced in our bodies. Hugs also make our bodies release tension and send calming messages to the brain.
Well-hugged babies are less stressed as adults.
Want to do something for future generations? Hug them when they're still little. An Emory University study in rats found a link between touch and relieving stress, particularly in the early stages of life. The research concluded that the same can be said of humans, citing that babies' development -- including how they cope with stress as adults -- depends on a combination of nature and nurture.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/27/health-benefits-of-huggin_n_5008616.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/27/health-benefits-of-huggin_n_5008616.html
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
Food-Mood Connection: How You Eat Can Amp Up Or Tamp Down Stress
By ALLISON AUBREY
Eat more when you're stressed? You're not alone. More than a third of the participants in a national survey conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health said they change their diets during stressful times.
And many of us are quick to turn to either sugary foods or highly refined carbohydrates such as bagels or white pasta when the stress hits.
Stress-Busting Foods
"There can be a bit of a vicious cycle," says David Ludwig, a professor of pediatrics and nutrition at Harvard University and a researcher at Boston Children's Hospital. "When we feel stressed we seek foods that are going to comfort us immediately, but often times those foods lead to surges and crashes in hormones and blood sugar that increase our susceptibility to new stresses."
Now, of course, we can't control lots of the events and circumstances that lead to stress. But, Ludwig says, "our body chemistry can very much affect how that stress gets to us."
He points to a study he and some colleagues published in the journalPediatrics several years back.
They gave teenage boys different types of breakfast meals. One included protein-rich eggs, while another meal included high-fiber, steel-cut oats. A third meal of instant oatmeal was highest on the glycemic index, a measure of how quickly sugar is absorbed and how soon a food is likely to make you hungry again.
"After the highly refined instant oatmeal, blood sugar soared but then crashed a few hours later," Ludwig says. "And when that happened the [stress] hormone adrenaline, or epinephrine, surged to very high levels."
Ludwig says the links between food and mood are complex. And just as there are individual differences in susceptibility to diseases, there are differences in response to food, too. Not all of us are equally sensitive to foods like instant oatmeal, high on the glycemic index.
Given what we know about how different foods affect the risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, "why should it be so surprising that the nature of the foods we eat can also affect our emotional and mental well-being?" Ludwig says.
So, if eating lots of refined carbs and sugar may exacerbate our responses to stress, are there other types of food that make us more resilient? Researcher Joe Hibbeln of the National Institutes of Health believes the answer is yes.
"I think there's a very strong connection between what you eat and your mood," Hibbeln says.
He has spent the past two decades investigating links between the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and emotional health.
"One of the most basic ways that omega-3s help to regulate mood is by quieting down the [body's] response to inflammation," Hibbeln says.
When you get walloped by something, whether it's a virus or an emotional stressor, you want to bounce back as quickly as possible, he notes.
"You can either be good at weathering stress or you can be brittle. And omega-3s make your stress system more flexible," Hibbeln says. He points to studies showing that omega-3s can help protect neurons against the damage that can be done by chronic stress.
He also points to clinical trials that have found that omega-3s may help control depressive symptoms. And a study of schoolchildren in England linked omega-3s to more pro-social behavior.
Hibbeln knows that some people shy away from fish due to the cost, so he points to affordable options such as canned light tuna and sardines, which are good sources of omega-3s. There are also plant-based sources of omega-3s, such as flaxseed and chia seeds.
Now, clearly, omega-3s aren't the only food that's good for our emotional health.
Drew Ramsey, a psychiatrist at Columbia University and author of The Happiness Diet, says a nutrient-rich diet is best for beating stress.
He points to his favorite stress-busting breakfast: scrambled eggs mixed with kale (or other greens) and topped with pumpkin seeds.
With this meal, you're covering all your bases, Ramsey says. The eggs are a good source of B vitamins and protein, which can be more satiating than a carb-based breakfast. The greens are incredibly nutrient-dense, and are a good source of vitamin A, vitamin K and potassium.
And the pumpkin seeds are a good source of magnesium — which is thought to play a role in fending off anxiety — and zinc, which may help boost the immune system.
For dessert, go for dark chocolate, which can have "an acute affect on mood," Ramsey says. He points to a study that found cocoa flavanols can help boost mood and sustain clear thinking among adults who are engaged in intense mental efforts — like students cramming, or journalists on deadline.
In addition, dark chocolate has been shown to improve vascular health by increasing blood flow and reducing inflammation.
The bottom line? The foods we choose can't magic away stress. But Ramsey says he believes "there is a very, very strong connection between food and mood."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/14/329529110/food-mood-connection-how-you-eat-can-amp-up-or-tamp-down-stress
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/14/329529110/food-mood-connection-how-you-eat-can-amp-up-or-tamp-down-stress
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