Author Archives: Shawna Rhodes

Improve Your Immune System & White Blood Cell Count

May 11, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

There are many reasons that you could have a low white blood cell count. While it can indicate a possibly suppressed immune system, it can also be anything from stress and diet. Simply eating the wrong foods or not enough of good foods can lead to a decrease in your immune system’s capabilities and a low white blood cell count.

While it can be caused by many reasons, one thing is for certain: if you have a low white blood count or an inferior immune system, you should try to fix it asap. If not, you’re greatly increasing the risk of developing conditions and being susceptible to sickness and infections. So what do you do? How can you make sure your immunity is running full speed ahead and your white blood cell count doesn’t dip too low? Here are a just a few things that can help:

  • Limit the amount of sweets you eat and stay away from sugar. Sugars are known to weaken your white blood cells.
  • Steer clear of unhealthy fats like safflower, vegetable oil and sunflower oil. They’re all potentially harmful to your immune system.
  • Keep a healthy weight. If you’re overweight, strive to lose weight until you reach a healthy weight.
  • Make sure you drink enough water to flush out harmful toxins from your body.
  • Get active. When you exercise, you give your immune system a boost. Don’t overdo it, though.
  • Relax. Find healthy ways to reduce stress. Stress is often called the silent killer for sound reasons.

What to Eat

There are many foods that you can start eating to increase the effectiveness of your immune system and up white blood cell counts. Here are some foods you should try to incorporate into your diet:

Beta carotene foods: Beta carotene is well known for helping your body produce white blood cells and keep your immune system running smoothly. These foods include leafy green veggies and red/orange/yellow veggies like carrots.

Yogurt: Help your system produce much needed antibodies with yogurt.

Kale: By simply getting a cup of kale per day, you can get your daily recommended dose of vitamin A. Vitamin A, an antioxidant, is vital for producing white blood cells, as well as helping ward off cancer and other dangerous ailments.

Garlic: If you love garlic, good news. Eating plenty of garlic will usually mean you have some amazing white blood cell counts.

Consider Supplements

In addition to eating the right foods, many people can benefit from taking the right supplements. Some supplements to consider for boosting your immune system and increasing white blood cells are:

Astragalus root: This will ward off foreign organisms trying to attack your body and encourage white blood cell production. It also helps your body produce interferon, which is an extremely helpful compound for battling viruses.

Oleander extract: A supplement based on Oleander was used in a clinical study with AIDS/HIV patients who naturally have very poor immune systems. It worked 100%, in every case to increase white blood cell counts.

Green tea: Helps encourage your body to produce more white blood cells

Vitamin C: This will naturally enhance your immune system, including speeding it up to jump into action quicker when needed

Zinc: This is vital if you want your white blood cells to be able to perform their best.

 

 

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Seven Foods that Will Naturally Cleanse Your Liver

May 11, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

Your liver is probably more important to your health than you think. It provides the main way your body is able to get rid of dangerous toxins in your body. Throughout the day, your liver is constantly working to filter out poisons that enter through your skin, digestive system and respiratory system. At times though, it can get wore down from working too hard. This happens when too many toxins are constantly flowing in.

Bad news. Your liver, as well as other systems in your body get thrown out of whack and you significantly compromise your health.

In order to stay healthy, your liver needs to be able to do its job. So it’s important that you understand how it works and how you can help keep it running properly. If you don’t, your body won’t be able to absorb the important nutrients it needs. It won’t be able to expel toxins. When you consider that the health and condition of your joints, brain, eyes, heart and kidneys all rely on a healthy liver it’s easy to see why it’s so important.

So what can you eat to help keep your liver in good working condition? Here are just a few…

The 4 G’s

Garlic:  Garlic has two potent nutrients that have been shown to provide protection for your liver from toxic damage: selenium and allicin. Garlic also has a number of sulfur-containin compounds. These compounds kick-start liver enzymes that make it possible to flush out toxins.

Grapefruit: Antioxidants and vitamin C play an important role in cleansing your liver and grapefruit has both. A bonus? Grapefuit has naringenin, a flavonoid compound that gives your liver the ability to burn off fat instead of storing it (great news if you want to lose weight).

Green veggies: Leafy green veggies are good for you for many reasons. The most important reason they’re good for your liver is that they break down heavy metals that can otherwise put extensive stress on your liver. Examples of leafy greens to eat include spinach, arugula, mustard greens and gourd.

Green tea: Green tea prevents toxins that can build up and damage your liver. Plus, it also prevents fat from building up on your liver, which of course means it can function better.

 

The Last 3 Foods

Walnuts: Your liver can accumulate unhealthy amounts of ammonia that lead to disease. But you can prevent that with walnuts, as they contain many ingredients that fight against this: amino acid, omega-3 fatty acids, glutathione and l-arginine. An additional benefit is that it helps get the oxygen into your blood that’s needed.

Avocados: Your liver will cleanse more effectively if you eat avocados. In fact, some experts believe that if you can eat just a couple per week for a month and fix a liver that’s been damaged.

Turmeric: We saved possibly the best for last. Not only can turmeric act as a barrier to toxic liver damage, but damaged liver cells can even be regenerated.

 

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Spirulina Explained: You Need to Know This

May 11, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

Spirulina is one of the oldest life forms found on earth to this day. It’s actually an a algae – a microalgae to be exact. It’s fascinating to learn that it actually assisted in the formation of our atmospheres oxygen billions of years ago.

Today there are lots of superfoods you hear about. Some really are superfoods, while others are just part of a new diet or supplement that’s being promoted, but spirulina is truly a superfood. The very first one if you think about it. The original. In fact, you could live on a diet of water and spirulina.

Spirulina a Powerhouse of Nutrients

There have been literally hundreds of studies done on spirulina. The information we have on it is so overwhelming and makes you wonder why we don’t hear about it more often. It contains ALL 8 essential and ALL 10 non-essential amino acids that provide the basis of a healthy body. That means it has up to 70% proteins… yes, that’s providing more than soybeans, chicken, beef, you name it.

The amount of nutrients found in spirulina isn’t comparable to any other plant, grain or herb you can find on earth. Consider these facts:

  • It’s easily absorbed and digested by your body
  • It naturally protects your immune system
  • It reduces your cholesterol
  • It has iron, vitamin B12 and other important nutrients
  • It helps your body absorb minerals
  • It was used for centuries by historical populations, including the Aztecs

It’s easy to understand how spirulina is very likely the most nutritious food ever known by man. Some consider it to be the original source of life energy. Those who add it to their diet report an overall improvement in their health and an increase in energy. It can help protect you from everything from the mumps to AIDS.

The Omega Fatty Acid Fish Connection

You know that fish is an important food source for getting the omega fatty acids that you need. It helps reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, depression, high cholesterol and arthritis – just to name some. If you think about it, why do you think that is? Why do you think they’re such amazing sources for it? It is very likely due to algaes in the water like spirulina. Why not go straight to the source?

The list of benefits seem to never end. Spirulina contains vitamins K, D, B and E. It has magnesium, potassium, calcium, zinc, selenium and copper. All this means it can:

  • Reduce inflammation (inflammation is very often the underlying cause of diseases)
  • Boost a slow immune system
  • Balance an overactive immune system
  • Improve digestion
  • Slow down aging
  • Fight off free radicals
  • Reduce appetite and help with weight loss
  • Improve production of white and red blood cells
  • Cleanse blood of impurities
  • Improve skin appearance (age spots, acne and more)
  • Balance blood sugar levels

How to Get Spirulina

Spirulina has to be harvested from the warm water it grows in. It’s often processed into flakes, powders or pills. The flakes and powder can be added into drinks, but most people don’t like the taste of it. The most popular form of spirulina supplements is in capsules or tablets.

Other Notes

Spirulina can help when the body is exposed to radiation. In fact, the children from Chernobyl were given Spirulina.

One of the most common concerns about supplements, for good reason, is potential side effects. Spirulina has no side effects. It does have iodine in it, so if you’re allergic to iodine talk to your doctor before you start taking it. Of course, if you haven’t detoxed recently, start slowly. Detoxing too fast when you aren’t used to it can always lead to some ill feelings.

Always do your homework on a supplement before you take it. With spirulina, it can be harvested from the wild or it can be farmed in a controlled environment.

Considering its amazing benefits and the fact that it provides pretty much everything you need to survive besides water, this is the perfect item to stock up on and put away in your survival kits.

 

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Foods, Supplements and Other Tips to Fight Fatigue

May 11, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

Fatigue is something we’re all plagued by from time to time. It doesn’t matter if you’re working, at the movies or just trying to run errands, when fatigue sets in it makes anything a true challenge. You can feel mentally wore down. You can feel like you’re trying to lift a building with every step. To speak frankly, it sucks.

A lot of the time, when you’re suffering from fatigue you probably go for the closest energy drink or quick-fix pills. Right? That’s understandable. But it isn’t going to help you much long term. It works because it’s simply covering up the real issue and not dealing with the true cause. Unfortunately, sometimes it can even be detrimental to your health.

The better thing to do is to find and understand the root cause. What is it that’s dragging you down? Many times, fatigue stems from one of the following:

  • Dehydration
  • Not enough sleep
  • Not enough exercise
  • Not eating right

So how do you deal with it once you know what the problem is? Here are some tips for the above common causes of fatigue:

Treat Fatigue with a Better Diet

There are many foods that are known to trigger fatigue. They include starchy and sweet foods like cake, doughnuts, white bread and anything else with processed bleached flour or lots of sugar. They might provide a bout of energy, but it’s short lived. When that energy dissipates  you come crashing down. Instead, try to eat foods that will give you steady, longer lasting energy without the sudden crash.

What foods do that? Unprocessed, complex carbs. Some great foods that provide this are plums, nuts and quinoa. You also need to make sure you’re getting plenty of protein.

Treat Fatigue with Exercise

If you don’t get enough exercise, several things happen: your metabolism slows to a trickle and your body starts storing away fat for energy. If you’re overweight and suffering from fatigue, that’s common. If you aren’t getting any exercise, just adding a tiny bit per day can have dramatic results. Not only do bouts of exercise boost your metabolism, but it improves poor circulation which is actually another cause of fatigue.

Treating Fatigue with Hydration

A lot of people don’t drink enough water. Unfortunately, this can often lead to fatigue and is not normally identified as the culprit. Not only can it lead to fatigue, but a whole slew of other problems like:

  • Joint pain
  • Overly dry skin
  • Muscle cramps
  • Commonly occuring bloating
  • High blood pressure
  • Build up of toxins in the body
  • Weight gain

Luckily, this is the easiest root cause to treat – drink more water! You should try to get at least eight glasses a day.

Fighting Fatigue with Supplements

There are also supplements that can help you fight fatigue. just be sure you’re treating the real cause first. Then by adding any of the following to your daily routine, you can really give yourself a boost:

  • -Ginseng
  • -Bee pollen
  • -Chlorella
  • -Magnesium
  • -Longan berries
  • -B vitamins

Less Common Causes of Fatigue

In some cases, your fatigue may not be caused by natural things outlined above. There are external factors that can contribute to fatigue:

  • Stress
  • Illegal drugs
  • Alcohol
  • Caffeine
  • Prescription drugs

 

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Little-Known Superfoods You Should Know About

May 8, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

 

There are new superfoods being found every year. Those that we’ve become accustomed to get replaced by even better ones that we discover. Some of the ones that you may not have heard about are cloves, maqui berry and baobab fruit. But what is it about them that make so powerful and beneficial for your health? Read on to find out…

Maqui Berry

Maqui berries will remind you of blueberries the first time you see them. Recent berries that hit superfood status, like acai and goji berries are having to make room for the new addition of maqui berries. These little berries originate from Patagonia, which is found in southern South America.

Tests that measure the effectiveness of antioxidants in foods prove that they’re a valuable source of antioxidants. This test, knows as ORC (oxygen radical absorbency capacity) has been used to test various other foods in the past. The ORAC test says that maqui berries are ten times better than blueberries and that they might be able to aid in weight management.

Acerola

Ever heard of Amazon cherries? If so, then you’ve heard of acerola. They’ve also been marketed as barbados cherries. Native to the South American and Central America regions, they pack an amazing amount of vitamin C – as much as 40 times the amount you get from oranges. Again, this is a food that’s a valuable antioxidant source. If you try to find them in your local grocery store, you’ll probably have a hard time. The easiest way to add them to your diet is to use the supplements created from them.

Baobab Fruit

This is another new superfood and luckily, it’s just very recently been approved for export. Originally growing in Africa, it has a really interesting texture to it. How many fruits do you know of that has a powder-like texture? Yep, not very many… if any! Like the acerola, you likely won’t be able to find it in your local grocery store. We hope that it’ll become more widely available once all the exportation details are settled. But for now, you might be able to find it in yogurt.

Cloves

Cloves is something you’ve surely heard of. But it wasn’t until recently it was discovered just how healthy they are for you.Thanks to Spanish research, we’ve learned about some very strong antioxidant properties in them. Experts believe, and hope, that we might be able to take that and use it VS synthetic ones that we commonly used as a food preservative.

 

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Making Weight Loss Fun!

May 8, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

When you’re trying to lose weight, exercise is pretty much a must. But if you’ve never gotten into any kind of exercise routine then you probably haven’t discovered something that you enjoy. All exercise might seem like work. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is literally an unlimited variety of exercises out there, so there’s bound to be something that you will enjoy.

If you like the outdoors, you could:

  • jog
  • walk
  • swim
  • roller blade
  • play with your dog in the park
  • go whitewater rafting
  • ride a bike

If you aren’t fond of the outdoors, that’s ok too. There are tons of indoor activities you could including:

Try doing different things each week so you don’t get bored with one thing. Yoga is really good for both toning your body, while also reducing stress. Try to substitute that in once a week and you’ll feel great. Regardless of what you choose to do, just make sure you’re doing something several times a week for half an hour at a minimum. Remember that that half hour doesn’t always have to be all at once, either. If you walk for ten minutes, then later in the day play with your dog at the park (actively) for twenty minutes then you’ve gotten in half an hour of activity that day.

The secret to exercising more is finding things that you like to do. So keep trying different things until you find something that’s fun for you. Don’t let it get old and boring once you do, either. If you start to get bored with it, then start trying other things again and come back to it.

 

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Biothin and SDF3: Compare and Contrast

April 24, 2012 by Shawna Rhodes · Comments Off

Biothin is a new weight loss supplement aimed at those that want to shed any additional pounds without having side effects. Promoted by Dr. Mercola, Biothin is sold via the mercola website and is particularly one of many diet supplements and fat loss products promoted by Dr. Mercola. But is Biothin anything good and can it help you lose weight safely?

Dr. Mercola is a well-respected nutritionist and esteemed part of the diet and weight reduction community. He spends lots of time educating and informing the American public regarding their poor diets packed filled with junk food and non-nutritious foodstuffs bought in budget supermarkets. But whilst Dr. Mercola is clearly a responsible type of guy, he still needs to make money, and that end, he has a tendency to charge rather a good deal for his losing weight and diet supplement products.

Biothin seriously isn’t cheap. A bottle of sixty 500mg capsules retails at $39, which by any stretch of the imagination is quite a lot. Obviously, you might expect the merchandise to be on the higher end in the scale with regards to expense: in fact, Dr. Mercola has a huge team of researchers and writers working for him-but do the ingredients within Biothin justify the fee for the product and will it actually assist you to lose weight?

The key ingredient in Biothin looks like it’s Irvingia Gabonensis, which for those who are unfamiliar with long fancy names is African Mango in layman’s terms. Everyone’s heard of African Mango-it has developed in the news rather considerably lately due to its astounding fat loss properties, and also, since African Mango is the vital thing ingredient in Biothin, it makes sense that Biothin may perhaps be a very good weight loss product.

Biothin also contains several other key ingredients renowned because of their weight loss properties. Included in this are Hoodia, Fucoxanthin, Ginger herb, Pomegranate, Cayenne and Apple Cider Vinegar.

However, whilst Hoodia can be a natural diet pill and is successful, it should only be taken in small doses, as it is termed to cause negative effects when used larger doses. As a result issue, Biothin might be very good this sort of happy to drop some weight slowly and sensibly, but not much use if you’re looking for more immediate ends in their weight loss programme.

In conclusion, Biothin is a good product for weight loss, but only when you want to spend a great deal of money and wait a bit for the pounds to fall off. Is there an alternative solution?

There are always options for those who desire to lose weight safely, naturally, and for a reasonable cost, and one such alternative is SDF-3. A new weight loss product, SDF-3 is manufactured by the highly respected New Life Botanicals. The name SDF-3 means Superfruit Diet Formula 3 with the three major  superfruits found in the product like Sea Buckthorn

Just what are superfruits?

The term “superfruit” was coined by Dr Oz, along with this instance, it represents African Mango, Acai berry pulp, and Sea Buckthorn. All of these three ingredients is extensively recorded as having many great overall wellness benefits with no apparent side effects. It is also worth noting that none of the other ingredients marketed in SDF-3 are reported to cause nasty unwanted side effects, and since a comparable bottle of SDF-3 capsules costs much less than a bottle of Biothin capsules, it is really a no-brainer.

Biothin is clearly a superb product created by a respectable company, in case the benefits are weighed up, the bottom cost of SDF-3, in addition to the added power of two extra superfruits without any Hoodia is an extremely good reason for selecting SDF-3 as opposed to Biothin.

Capsaicin in screaming cayenne pepper may possibly deliver metabolism-boosting added benefits. The powdered from the red pepper cayenne has been recognized as equally a food items and for the health-promoting properties for over 9,1000 years. A substance in cayenne pepper, capsaicin, gives capsicum pepper its hot taste. Scientists think cayenne may well act as the Health-promoting catalyst while combined with various other herbs. Several animal and human studies suggest that cayenne pepper may increase the body’s production of heat for the short time. That increase in entire body heat could possibly burn more calories in addition to increase fat burning capacity. Additionally, principals are ongoing concerning whether capsicum pepper can help get a grip of blood sugar and break down glucose after a dish.

What more might both ginger along with cayenne carry out for you? They’re described to:

  • Service cardiovascular well being
  • Support digestive health
  • Support regulate ordinary detoxification
  • Boost a healthy the immune system response
  • Offer energy

Today These 8-10 Amazing Plants and Herbal products Can Be Your own!

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