I have heard about some revolutionary supplements that use liposomal technology. Find out more at https://rsvp.vasayo.com

To Revive The Blog?

To revive a blog or not.
Facebook seems to have taken over my need to express myself.

And the bread thing far from represents who I am in this current phase of my life.
I'm not eating bread of any kind, literally or figuratively.
In the literal sense, I'm also almost completely grain free.

















My current side gig:
http://rsvp.vasayo.com

Does he live??

If you've lived in this world but a year or four, you know what (or rather who) I mean by "he".

I have come a long way since Art began this blog. You can see in his title and heading what he proposed this blog to be about.

Well, things that stay the same forever are not really learning and growing and living.

So, we continue to read and search and delve deeper into truths and, quite frankly, our beliefs have changed. Dramatically.

It's hard to identify the exact beginning of the process, as I don't think there really was one.

The first book that helped me to see the intolerence of my Christian views and beliefs was If Grace is True by Philip Gulley, James Mulholland.

I grew up in the World Wide Church of God (WCG) - in the days when it was a cult, and an exclusivist "there is only one true church" group. Somthing Mormon's claim, as do Jehovah's Witnesses and even another major non-Christian religion. My commitment to the WCG shattered many years ago, after they left some of their fundamentalist beliefs behind and embraced, of all things, Christmas. (my picture is actually a book on the subject - a wee photo of me from when I was in a classroom at Ambassador College in Big Sandy Texas)

It thrilled me to see that the exclusivity of my Christian faith was exclusive and doesn't match up with what I believe a loving God to be. If God is love then he adheres to the definition of love as outlined in I Cor 13. But using that as a template for the basic character of God, so much of the rest of the bible is grossly contradictory.

Moving on:

The first book I read that put a kibosh on my belief in Jesus as my saviour was The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light by Tom Harpur

Wow, I tell you this book had me dancing around the living room. I don't agree with everything Harpur says, but the freedom and relief that comes through knowing that the story of Jesus is not about someone that lived 2000 years ago, but a collection of retold stories of many divine god myths, was so liberating. I always cringed the history of the church to kill and destroy cultures and other people. Christianity has a blood-lust history. In fact many today still use the bible as a right to kill others.

Harpur's views are supported again and again through other scholars and religions. All one has to do is read of the other man saviors and religions that date back ten to twenty thousand years.

Some of the below is wish list, and some of them I've read. Please comment if you have other suggestions.

Christ Conspiracy

Jesus Myth

Sons of God

Born Again Skeptic

The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity

If Grace is True

My conclusion after reading books and reviews? "He" never lived. I'm not an athiest. I believe God lives.

But I'm no longer an exclusivist. I believe God lives. But in everyone (now isn't that truly good news?)

The myths are merely there for teaching and uplifting, and showing the light that exists in everyone.

Everyone is a brother and a sister.

We ARE all one. The world fights when it sees itself and separate and divided. We can truly have peace when we see everything is God.

Categories: Bible, BibleProof, Jesus, JesusMythology, Christianity, PhillipGulley, JamesMulholland, PaganChrist, WorldwideChurchofGod, ChurchofGod, HerbertArmstrong, TomHarpur, JesusMyth, ChristConspiracy, Acharya, Leedom, ChristianityBeforeChrist, CrucifiedSaviorsBeforeChrist

Dealing with winmail.dat and unreadable email attachments

Why some emails come with winmail.dat files attached and what to do about it.

Ok, so this is a bit of a different topic for this board, but I have wondered about this for a while. WHY is it that I get those little 'winmail.dat' files on some emails, and of course, .dat extensions are not necessarily ones that you should mess with.

Well here's the answer, and the good news is, the sender gets to deal with it.

The main culprit is Microsoft email products (or perhaps some product using a Microsoft exchange server) that has coding that is unreadable by non-Microsoft products.

So if you get a winmail.dat file on an email from a someone, find out if you are supposed to receive the attachment before you open it, and if they never knowingly sent it, send them the link above to fix it.

Breastfeeding benefits `ignored`

British study found that 9 out of 10 women didn't know the health benefits of breast feeding.

Breastfeeding benefits `ignored`

I'm not sure how this relates to North America, but read this article and see.

New York Times

November 23, 2004
By DAN BARBER
Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Now that the bloom is finally off the Atkins diet rose, now
that the instinct to, say, make a purée of potatoes feels
slightly less suicidal, let us take a moment to realize
that, when it comes to food, Americans have the tendency to
lose all reason. With the same collective head-scratching
that goes on when we look back at the big hair and shoulder
pads of the 80's, we would do well to ask: What were we
thinking?

This question, of course, applies not just to the Atkins
diet but to pretty much every diet fad Americans have
followed over the last 30 years. In addition to catchy
names, these diets tend to have one thing in common: they
focus on what we eat - not on where what we eat comes from
or how it was grown. Good nutrition has been conveniently,
and profitably, reduced to an ingredient list. (Remember
the grapefruit diet?)

That's a shame - and there's no better time to explore the
ways in which we've been led astray than during
Thanksgiving week, a time when Americans are particularly
focused on food. (And, coincidentally, a time when we are
blessedly between diet fads.) With a little scrutiny, we
can see that our reductionist diet logic dissolves like a
lump of sugar. Just consider the traditional Thanksgiving
spread: it may appear to represent the American pastoral,
but looks can be deceiving.

Start with the turkey. If your image of a turkey's life is
one of green grass and rolling hills, look more closely.
Nearly 300 million turkeys are raised today on factory
farms where they live in windowless buildings illuminated
by bright lights 24 hours a day. (This keeps the turkeys
awake and eating.) The birds stand wing to wing on wood
shavings and eat an overly fortified diet that enables them
to reach an ideal dressed weight of 15 pounds in 12 to 14
weeks. The most popular breed is the Broad Breasted White,
aptly named because these turkeys develop
disproportionately large breasts, which makes it difficult
for the birds to walk (if they had room to do so) and
procreate (assuming they'd want to) without artificial
insemination.

So what kind of bird would fit more accurately with our
agrarian fantasies? Well, how about one that spends most of
its life outdoors? Such birds - called pastured birds - are
able to move around freely. Instead of having to be
injected with antibiotics to stay healthy, they doctor
themselves, seeking out certain plants at certain times of
the year for pharmacological reasons. Because they expend
so much energy moving around, they also grow more slowly:
it takes them a month longer to reach slaughter weight than
factory birds, which is one of the reasons pasturing is
less attractive to industrial farmers. Scientific research
comparing the health benefits of conventionally raised
turkey to pastured turkey is scarce, but some work has been
done on chickens. A study sponsored by the Department of
Agriculture in 1999, for example, found that pastured
chickens have 21 percent less fat, 30 percent less
saturated fat, 50 percent more vitamin A and 400 percent
more omega-3 fatty acids than factory-raised birds. They
also have 34 percent less cholesterol.

The pasture principle isn't limited to fowl. Compared to
most American beef, which is raised on a grain-intensive
diet, pasture-fed beef offers 400 percent more vitamin A
and E. It is also much richer in beta-carotene and
conjugated linoleic acids, all of which inhibit cancer.
It's also higher in omega-3 fatty acids, which are a major
inhibitor of heart disease. These benefits don't exist at
these levels in animal that are fed an unvaried and
unnatural diet.

The pasture principle can be applied to vegetables as well.
We don't live off the food we eat - we live off the energy
in the food we eat. So while Mom asked us, "Did you eat
your fruits and vegetables?" today we might well ask: "What
are our vegetables eating?"

It seems axiomatic but it's worth remembering that in order
to experience the health benefits of the roasted broccoli
at the Thanksgiving table, that broccoli needs to have been
healthy too. We can be forgiven for ignoring the obvious
because most every diet I've seen treats a head of broccoli
the way Gertrude Stein talked about a rose - but a broccoli
is not a broccoli is not a broccoli, especially if you
consider how and from where its grown.

Sadly, the broccoli and the other brassicas on your holiday
table (brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnips, kale, mustard
greens) were most likely grown in a monoculture - a place
where, with the help of large amounts of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, nothing but the crop is allowed
to grow. Fertilizers are as pervasive in these large farms
as tractors, especially synthetic nitrogen. And you can
understand why: the chemicals bulk up vegetables
beautifully and quickly, enabling them to withstand the
rigors of long-distance travel so that they can arrive at
your supermarket unbruised and brightly colored. But it's a
little like dating someone on steroids: the look and feel
may be an initially appealing, but in the end it's all kind
of disconcerting.

And think what gets lost. A serving of broccoli is
naturally rich in vitamins A and B, and has more vitamin C
than citrus fruit. But raised in an industrial farm
monoculture, shipped over a long distance and stored before
and after being delivered to your supermarket, it loses up
to 80 percent of its vitamin C and 95 percent of its
calcium, iron and potassium. Fruits and vegetables grown
organically, however, have higher levels of antioxidants.
That's largely because a plant's natural defense system
produces phenolic compounds, chemicals that act as a
plant's defense against pests and bugs. These compounds are
beneficial to our health, too. When plants are grown with
herbicides and pesticides, they slow down their production
of these compounds. (Even more important, from a cook's
point of view, organically grown fruits and vegetables
taste better - their flavors practically burst from the
ground and demand to be expressed, and we chefs merely
comply.)

The same rules apply to the root vegetables, whether
potatoes, sunchokes, beets, parsnips or carrots. Seek out
ones grown in nutrient-rich soil for the greatest flavor
and benefit. You can't buy good quality soil in a bag any
more than you can buy good nutrition in a pill. Most
organic farmers encourage complex relationships between
crop roots, soil microbes and minerals - relationships that
become wholly disrupted by chemical additives.

What about the milk and eggs that go into Thanksgiving pies
and tarts? The industrialization of our food supply did not
spare the dairy industry. Not surprisingly, pastured dairy
cattle and laying hens produce more nutritious milk and
cheese - pastured eggs in particular, with their glowing
yellow yolks, have up to three times the amount of
cancer-fighting omega-3's of eggs that come from factory
hens.

As a chef, I am often mystified as I hear diners, rooting
around for a nutrition and dietary cure, ask for this
steamed and that on the side, and in the process deny
themselves pleasure. Choosing what dietary advice of the
moment to follow by putting a wet finger up to the wind,
our patrons decide, or succumb, en masse, to a pummeling of
such wearisome regularity that it begins to resemble the
"rosebud'' of "Citizen Kane": the clue that solves
everything but means nothing.

There is an ecology of eating. Like any good ecosystem, our
diet should be diverse, dynamic and interrelated. In 1984
Americans were spending roughly 8 percent of their
disposable income on health care and about 15 percent on
food. Today, those numbers are essentially reversed. An
ever-more reductionist diet - protein this year,
carbohydrates next year - ignores plant and animal systems
loaded with genetic complexity, and the benefits that
complexity passes down to us.

So as you're getting ready for Thanksgiving, think of
yourself less as a consumer of the harvest bounty and more,
in the words of Carlo Petrini of the Slow Foods movement,
as a co-producer. Try to remember what you know
intuitively: that we can't be healthy unless our farms our
healthy; that the end of the food chain is connected to the
beginning of the food chain; that we can't lose touch with
the culture in agriculture (it dates back to before Dr.
Atkins). To the extent possible, shop at farmers markets
for your Thanksgiving foods. Try to choose diversity over
the abundance that the big food chains offer. Your food
will be tastier, fresher and more nutritious. You'll be
able to have your cake (and your bacon and your bread and
your potatoes) and eat it too.

Dan Barber is the chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns and
creative director of the Stone Barns Center for Food and
Agriculture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/opinion/23barber.html?ex=1102309482&ei=1&en=da31aa314c9b9f7f

Stress May Speed up Cell Aging
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4054207.stm



Tuesday, 30 November, 2004
Stress 'may speed up cell ageing'

The stress of caring for a sick child can add 10 or more years to the biological age of a woman's cells, researchers have found.

A University of California team suggest stress speeds up cell aging. It does this by affecting key pieces of DNA called telomeres which are involved in regulating cell division, they say. The team says the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study shows how stress could be linked to the early onset of age-related diseases.

Telomeres are strips of DNA at the end of chromosomes which appear to protect and stabilize the chromosome ends. However, they shorten each time a cell divides, until there is nothing left, making cell division less reliable and increasing the risk of age-related disorders. Previous research had suggested that premature ageing was partly caused by stress, but how the mechanism was unclear.

Body's defense
In this study, the researchers examined 58 pre-menopausal women. Nineteen had healthy children, the rest had children with chronic illnesses. The paper confirms the general perception that stress 'wears you out'. All the women completed questionnaires asking them to evaluate the level of stress they felt they had been under during the previous month. Blood samples were also taken so scientists could carry out DNA analysis of telomeres. Levels of an enzyme called telomerase, which helps build and maintain telomeres, in immune cells were also measured.

The researchers found that women who had reported higher levels of psychological stress - those who were caring for sick children - had shorter telomeres. They said that, on average, the difference was equivalent to over a decade of additional ageing compared with women who classed themselves as having low levels of stress. The higher-stress group also had lower levels of telomerase in immune cells. The researchers, led by Dr Elissa Epel, said this implied the immune cells could function less well and could die sooner.

It was also found that the high-stress women also had higher oxidative stress levels - cumulative damage caused by molecules called "free radicals" - which has been shown to speed up the shortening of telomeres in lab studies.

Writing in Proceedings, the researchers said it was not clear exactly how stress affected telomeres, but they suggest changes in stress hormone levels could have an effect. They add that their findings showed how cellular aging could be a way in which psychological stress was linked to the earlier onset of age-related diseases.

Professor Thomas von Zglinicki of the clinical medical sciences department at the University of Newcastle, said: "The paper confirms the general perception that stress 'wears you out' and makes you ageing faster by measuring telomere length, which is one possible bio-marker of ageing and age-related disease."

He said the study confirmed what his team had suggested in 2000.
"We said then that telomere length in human blood might be markers for oxidative stress and the capacity of the individual to cope with it." But Professor von Zglinicki added: "The study is small, and there are a number of unpublished studies that could not confirm telomere length as a strong biomarker.

"So this paper is very interesting and might be very important, but we still need some caution."

I found a good study with some good links on Glycomics:

http://www.searchspaniel.com/index.php/Glycome

http://www.avantrex.com/resources/Sweet2003-2.html

THE FIRST BATH TUB

Adam Thompson, of Cincinnati, is credited with having the first bathtub known in America. During a business trip to England he was introduced to the English way of bathing. On his return to America in 1842 he decided to make a bathtub big enough to contain his entire body, and to be filled by a tank instead of by hand. He built a tank in the attic of his home, pumping water into it from the family pump. Pipes for hot and cold water led to the bathtub, the one for hot water coiled within the length of the chimney, through which hot air and smoke from the kitchen range passed.

The tub was seven feet. long and four feet wide and deep enough to hold the plumpest of persons. It was built of mahogany and lined with sheet lead. On the first Christmas Day after installation of the tub, Mr. Thompson gave a bathtub party, all the men present trying out the wonderful invention. This party was featured in many of the newspapers and created a sensation.

Members of the medical profession fought the idea with warnings that the practice was dangerous to the health, and state and city governing bodies passed laws prohibiting and discouraging the use of bathtubs. The state of Virginia passed a law taxing owners of bathtubs $30 a year. In Boston a law was passed which was in effort from 1845 to 1862, forbidding one to take a bath except on advice of a physician. The cities of Providence, Hartford, and Wilmington put a high water tax on buildings that contained bathtubs, and in Philadelphia a law was proposed making it unlawful to bath between November 1 and March15. This failed of passage by a margin of two votes.

Irresistible Brussels Sprouts - Really
By Dana Carpender, Columnist
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Autumn is leaf season, deer season, Halloween season, and Brussels sprouts season. Unfortunately, Brussels sprouts aren't thought of quite as fondly as the other three. I, too, once disliked Brussels sprouts, but have come to love them.

Like all of the cabbage family, Brussels sprouts are moderately low-carb and highly nutritious. A half-cup of Brussels sprouts contains 7 grams of carbohydrate with 2 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 5 grams. They also have 2 grams of protein - not a lot, but a decent amount for a green vegetable. They're a good source of potassium (247 milligrams) and vitamin A (561 International Units). They have respectable amounts of vitamin C and folate, too. Plus current research suggests vegetables in the cabbage group offer protection against certain forms of cancer - a nice plus.

I didn't even try Brussels sprouts until I was grown up; they weren't anything my mom served when I was a kid. I actually expected to like them. I figured that I liked cabbage, and Brussels sprouts were just "Barbie cabbages." I don't know if I got a bad batch, or cooked them wrong (if I recall correctly, I steamed them and served them with butter and salt), but they were disappointingly bitter. I didn't try Brussels sprouts again for years.

Then we went to visit our dear friends John and Judy Horwitz. They were preparing dinner when we got ," we replied. "You will!" they said, cheerily. And to our great surprise, they were right. We scarfed down the Brussels sprouts, and were sorry when they were gone!

How were they cooked? The Horwitzes responded: Just heat an inch or so of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed kettle or skillet, add a couple of pounds of fresh Brussels sprouts, stems trimmed, and "burn the heck out of them." Yep, fry them till they're dark brown all over. At the last moment, stir in four or five crushed cloves of garlic. Lift sprouts out with a slotted spoon, drain well, salt lightly, and prepare to be amazed! Every time I serve these at dinner parties, they draw raves - especially from people who were sure they didn't like Brussels sprouts! This is enough for six to eight people. Since the oil adds no carbs, the count remains the same as above.

Another great thing to do with these little bitty cabbages is to run them through the slicing blade of your food processor. The result seems like a whole new vegetable. I like to saute this "Brussels chiffonade" in butter, which yields a particularly sweet and nutty result. You can season it in various ways; my favorite recipe follows. My husband took a bite of these Orange Pecan Sprouts, pointed to his plate, and said, "You could make these again!"

ORANGE PECAN SPROUTS

From "15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes" (Fair Winds Press, 256 pages, $17.95) .

MAKES FOUR SERVINGS

1 pound Brussels sprouts

1/3 cup chopped pecans

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons orange juice

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

Trim the stems of your Brussels sprouts, and remove any wilted outer leaves. Then run them through the slicing blade of your food processor.

In a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat, start sauteing the pecans in the butter. After about 2 minutes, add the sliced Brussels sprouts, and saute the two together, stirring every few minutes, until the sprouts soften and have a few brown spots.

While they're sauteing, you can grate your orange zest, then squeeze your orange juice. (You can use bottled orange juice, but since you need the zest, too, fresh just makes sense.) When the sprouts are tender and flecked with brown, stir in the juice and zest, cook for just another minute, and serve.

Each serving has 12 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 7 grams per serving, plus 4 grams of protein.

----

Dana Carpender is the author of "15-Minute Low-Carb Recipes" and "The Low-Carb Barbecue Book," and the editor of the biweekly online newsletter "Lowcarbezine!" You can contact her online at www.holdthetoast.com.


(C) 2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

Fat is good for your health

Healthy fats and oils. Your body needs fat.

This article at this link shows the health benefits of good fats. http://www.fatsforhealth.com/introduction/about.php

Don't Be Afraid of a Little Fat

Fat intake has become an obsession in this country; every day, it seems as if a new fat-free product hits the market, or an existing product is modified so that it has less fat than before. But some fat intake isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a recent study shows that specific amounts of some fats appear to improve the absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream, which may help reduce the risk of certain diseases.

Researchers in Iowa studied a group of young men and women between the ages of 19 and 28 who ate salads topped with a dressing that contained 0, 6, or 28 grams of canola oil, respectively. Blood samples were taken hourly for up to 12 hours after each meal. Results showed that when the study participants consumed salads with the fat-free dressings, they absorbed virtually no beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant. However, when they consumed salads with reduced-fat or full-fat dressings, they had higher absorption rates of beta-carotene, alpha-carotene and lycopene, all of which help fight conditions such as heart disease and cancer.

The lesson here? Some fat might not be as bad as you think; in fact, consumed in moderation, it may actually be good for you. Look for salad dressings and other foods that derive their fat content from olive oil or canola oil, both of which are high in monounsaturated fat. And if you insist on fat-free dressings, mix a few slices of avocado or cheese in your salad to help absorb nutrients.

References: Brown MJ, Ferruzzi MG, Nguyen ML, et al. Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat than with fat-reduced salad dressings as measured with electrochemical detection. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition August 2004;80(2):396-403.

The diabetes epidemic and you

USA Today

Topics Include
- What to do
- What is Diabetes

I Can't Afford Good Nutrition

If you think you can't afford good nutrition, think again! The truth is, you can't afford to be without good nutritional supplements. Most people are already spending at least 15 cents an hour, 24 hours a day (15 cents x 24 hours x 28 days = $100.80 every month) to insure their car and/or their house, which are replaceable. Don't you think that investing 15 cents an hour ($3.60 a day) into your personal health and longevity is immeasurably more important? Aren't you worth at least that much? Isn't everyone's health worth that much?

Many people have substituted good nutrition for drugs because their medical insurance covers the cost of going to the doctor and a percentage of the prescription drugs and nutrition isn't covered. Unfortunately, medical insurance doesn't cover the time and productivity lost at work and they don't reimburse you for your pain and suffering. To top it all off, the prescription drugs often have severe side effects that can cause temporary and, in some cases, permanent problems that are worse than the original symptoms! Did you know that more than 100,000 people each year die as a result of taking properly prescribed medications?

This statistic is according to a recent article appearing in The Journal of American Medical Association. The author, Bruce Pomeranz, M.D., Ph.D., reviewed 39 different studies of adverse drug reactions in hospitals, and came up with some alarming conclusions. According to Pomeranz's research, he estimates that 2,216,000 hospital patients experienced serious adverse drug reactions (side effects) and 106,000 died from these reactions in 1994 alone. This astounding number accounted for 4.6% of all recorded deaths in the U.S. in that year. This makes drug reaction deaths the fourth leading cause of death in the country.

According to the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, "90% of health problems can be dealt with at home, bypassing the cost of a visit to the doctor." A healthy diet with glyconutritional and phytochemical supplements can go a long way to ensure that you never get sick to begin with. Not only do you avoid the pain and suffering, you also avoid the risks of having adverse reactions to drugs!

Let's analyze what your health already costs you. First, most of us have to pay for our health insurance in one form or another. For those living in the United States, we typically pay a reduced rate through our employer. When you see a doctor, you pay a fee for the office visit plus a percentage or "co-pay" for the drugs the doctor prescribes. A single visit to the doctor can end up costing you more than $100 after you include the costs of the office visit and prescriptions. Suppose you make $10.00 an hour working and as a result of being sick, you miss 3 days of work. If you were working 8 hours per day, you would have just lost another $240. So the total cost of getting sick for only a few days could easily cost you more than $300, not to mention the loss in productivity for you or your employer! Imagine how much this could cost you if you had a long-term sickness - the costs can be unbearable!

What if improving your health increased your life span by just one year? What is that worth to you? At least one year's income! What if you lived 10-20 years longer? What is that worth to you? It's very easy to quantify the costs of good nutrition, but it's much more difficult to quantify the benefits of being healthy. None of us know how long we have to live or what diseases we may be preventing by making choices that will benefit our overall health.

Many people waste $3-5 a day on just drinks and snacks. Eliminate or reduce the harmful "foods" that are especially DANGEROUS, such as sodas, chips, candy, pastries, (sugar is more harmful than smoking), snacks, fried foods, packaged breakfast cereals, etc. Anything that has been processed robs your health. Rather than waste your money on these kinds of food, why not invest your money in better health? The little investment you make now could end up saving you hundreds if not thousands of dollars down the road!
I have found in my travels, that it is NOT the fact that someone can't afford WELLNESS, it's really about priorities in their life. People seem to find ways to purchase the things they really want.

You really can't afford not to invest in yourself....REMEMBER the saying:
"PAY ME NOW - OR PAY ME LATER"! It even works in Healthcare.

Cookies. Most everyone loves cookies.

But they are fast burning and create more fat than slow-burning foods.

Slow burning foods have a low glycemic rating (a low insulin response). See what glycemic indexing is at www.glycemicinstitute.com. Making healthy choices of low glycemic carbs is better than no carbs. You still need your fruits and vegetables and they count as carbs, but there are health issues to eliminating them from your diet. This is important information for diebetics as well.

You can get a weight management program that considers the glycemic indexing of foods at www.mannapages.com/matrix
Search for GlycoLean - order online.

Health Tip: A Slow Burn
Source: HealthDay (HealthDayNews)

-- Before you pop that cookie in your mouth, take a moment to consider how long it will take to burn off those extra calories.

If you eat two cookies -- about 150 calories -- and you weigh about 140 pounds, you'll have to walk more than an hour at a pace of 2 miles an hour to burn off those cookies, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Speed up the pace to 3.5 mph, and you'll still have to walk for 45 minutes.

By comparison, eating a 40-calorie peach will take just 10 minutes of brisk walking to work off.

Copyright © 2004 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.

Fewer Fruits, Veggies Eaten Out

Source: United Press International SAINT LOUIS, Mo.
(United Press International via COMTEX)

-- Families who frequently dine out are less likely to eat enough fruits and vegetables, St. Louis University researchers have found.

"The more often parents eat out, the lower their intake of fruits and vegetables," Amanda Harrod, a researcher at Saint Louis University School of Public Health, said at the American Public Health Association conference this week.

Harrod studied young families in southeastern Missouri and found 73 percent of the parents don't consume five or more fruits and vegetables each day, the amount recommended to combat heart disease and cancer.

Parents who frequently eat out are also less likely to have fruits and vegetables available at home because, they say, the foods don't taste good.

The research, funded by the National Cancer Institute for Parents as Teachers National Center Inc., concluded public health officials need to consider what families are eating at restaurants if they're going to find ways to improve families' diets.

Copyright 2004 by United Press International.

We need about a dozen servings of fruits and vegetables to be in the low risk group for cancer. (thats not the 'no risk' group - that's the 'low risk' group). Carciforous vegetables are the best for cancer fighting properties. Get your vegetables in a natural supplement. www.mannapages.com/matrix See 'order' and 'search' Phytonutrients (Phytaloe).

Recommended Water Intake

Here is the recommended amounts of water you should be drinking. After several years of hydration studies, which included the optimum amount of water to ingest and the schedule for ingestion, a specific protocol was developed to optimize the effects of the Wellness Filter® water. Water temperature (iced versus room temperature) was left to individual taste. This protocol is a simple four (4) step program. It is summarized as follows:

Drink approximately 10 to 12 ounces of freshly prepared water immediately upon rising.

Drink 10 to 12 ounces approximately thirty (30) minutes before each meal and use the water sparingly with the meal.

Drink 2 to 3 ten-ounce glasses between meals.

Drink one 10 ounce glass approximately 2 hours after the last meal of the day.

Melatonin Helps Asthmatics Sleep More Soundly


TUESDAY, Nov. 2, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Treatment with melatonin -- a hormone believed to play an important role in the sleep cycle -- improves slumber for people with asthma, says a Brazilian study in the November issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The study authors, led by Dr. Pedro F. C. de Bruin, of the Department of Medicine at Universidade Federal do Cear in Fortaleza, found improved sleep quality in the treated women as measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. They noted, however, that even when asthma is well-controlled, drugs such as oral steroids used to control the disease can disrupt sleep.The study included 22 women with mild to moderate asthma.

They were divided into two groups. One group of 12 took melatonin, a hormone secreted by the human pineal gland, for four weeks while the other group of 10 took a placebo.

The women in the melatonin group had greatly improved sleep quality, compared to the women who took the placebo. Neither group showed changes in asthma symptoms, daily peak expiratory flow rate, or in their use of asthma medication.

There were no adverse effects reported by the women who took melatonin, the study authors said. But the researchers concluded that, while melatonin can improve the sleep of asthmatics, further studies looking at long-term effects of using the hormone were needed before they could safely recommend its use for all asthmatics.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention has more about asthma http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/faqs.htm

http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2004/11/02/hscout522021.html

Melatonin is the main ingredient in Mannatech’s Mannatonin. It’s a great product for anyone who has trouble sleeping through the night. Our immune system works on repair and maintenance during deep sleep. If we don’t sleep well, we don’t repair and our health suffers. The levels of melatonin decrease with age, so the older we get, the harder it is to stay asleep and sleep deeply. - to order go to www.mannapages.com/matrix (US only, for information on what's available in Canada contact me through same web-site).

The TimeLine of the Development of Glycoscience and Glyconutrition

· 1880s - Characterization of monosaccharides by Emil Fischer.
· 1952 - Fresh, not aged, Aloe gel heals radiation burns on rabbits (Clarence C. Lushbaugh, Cancer 1953 vol. 6).
· 1970 - 500 glycobiology papers published.
· 1976 - Research paper identifies the 8 sugars found in biological glycoproteins and glycolipids.
· 1980 - 1500 glycobiology papers published.
· 1990 - 4000 glycobiology papers published.
· 1990 - Journal of Glycobiology started by Oxford University.
· 1990 - "Capitalizing on Carbohydrates" by John Hodgson in BioTechnology Vol 8 Feb. 1990 109 discussing cell surfaces containing carbohydrates involved in intercellular communication and essential for immune function.
· 1992 - Active component in Aloe gel is stabilized.
· 1994 - Mannatech established as a glyconutritional company.http://www.glycoinformation.info/nobel.html & http://www.nobel.se/medicine/index.html
· 1995 - Nature: cell surface sugars necessary for recognition and immune function.
· 1996 - Mannatech files patent application for composition and use of Ambrotose, a glyconutritional supplement.
· 1996 - Harper's Biochemistry, Murray et al.: chapter on glycoproteins focuses on the 8 necessary sugars used in glycoproteins and glycolipids for cellular communication. http://www.makemeyounger.com/HarpersBiochemistry.pdf
· 1996 - Mannatech begins marketing Ambrotose, a glyconutritional supplement.
· 1998 - Acta Anatomica: special March issue on glycoscience; emphasizes that information content of biological sugar combinations exceeds that of the DNA code.
· 1998 - South Africa issues world's first patent for a glyconutritional formula to Mannatech.
· 1998 - Healthy humans given radiologically labeled galactose, mannose and glucose incorporate all three directly into glycoproteins, proving that the body uses the different sugars as nutrients directly from the diet, instead of manufacturing them all from glucose alone.
· 2000 - 8000 glycobiology papers published.
· 2000 - Launch in March of GlycoScience.com website.
· 2000 - Newton Graphic Science Magazine: the science of cellular messaging.
· 2001 - Science: March 23 issue features "Carbohydrates and Glycobiology"; reviews structural and functional uses of 8 critical sugars in cellular physiology.
· 2001 - Physicians Desk Reference (PDR ) for Non-Prescription Drugs and Dietary Supplements: lists for the first time Mannatech's Ambrotose (glyconutrient complex), Plus (precursors for hormone health, and containing Ambrotose), and Phytaloe (freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, and containing Ambrotose). 2001 - Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia issue patents for a glyconutritional formula to Mannatech.
· 2001 - NIH grants consortium $34 million to study cell-cell communication interactions.
· 2002 - Australian Journal of Chemistry 55(2): Carbohydrates Special Issue.
· 2002 - The Scientist 16:9 April 29 "Glycobiology Goes to the Ball."
· 2002 - Yahoo lists 15,000 entries for the glyconutrient "mannose."
· 2002 - France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom issue patents for a glyconutritional formula to Mannatech.
· 2002 - Scientific American: July "Sweet Medicine: Building Better Drugs from Sugars."
· 2002 - New Scientist Archive: October story quotes JHU biochemist emphasizing glycobiology as the future of immunology, neurology, developmental biology, and disease research.
· 2002 - CAM: Volume 2, Issue 5 - December 2002 "Arthritis - Using the New Glyconutritionals."
· 2003 - M.I.T. Technology Review: February: "Glycomics" identified as "One of 10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change the World."
· 2003 - Yahoo lists 63,000 entries for the glyconutrient "mannose." 2003 - Mexico and Hong Kong issue patents for a glyconutritional formula to Mannatech. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=mannose

- to order your glyconutritionals, go to www.mannapages.com/matrix - click on products / shop and order! You can contact me through that web-site.

Interest in Probiotics Increases around the World

Mannatech recently, released the product, GI Pro™ in the US and Canada. This is a very useful product for many people. As you read through the following article, notice the various health conditions that are supported by adequate intestinal flora in the gut. GI Pro has excellent ingredients. You can read about them by going to www.mannatech.com/matrix and clicking on ‘Products/Shop’ where you can view the products and place an order. Contact me through that web-site if you would like some more information.

By Jane Brody, The New York Times September 21, 2004

From a cellular perspective, you might think the human body was mostly human. But you'd be wrong. It is actually mostly bacterial. The typical adult body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells from at least 500 species - 10 times the number of human cells. And that's not counting viruses and fungi. Most of these bacterial organisms are what medicine calls "friendly," or at least harmless. Friendly bacteria, or probiotics, serve a host of biological functions important to the survival of the animal they populate. Some aid in digestion, some compete with harmful bacteria and keep them in check, some stimulate the immune system. And they may have other roles not yet known.

Researchers here and abroad are looking at probiotics as a promising answer to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and abuse. To date, studies have indicated that ingested probiotics can play an important role in preventing or controlling food and skin allergies in children, bacterial vaginosis and premature labor in pregnant women, inflammatory bowel disease, recurrent ear and bladder infections, dental caries, chronic diarrhea and traveler's diarrhea. They may even help lower cholesterol in the blood and, by degrading carcinogens, thwart the development of certain cancers.

The health potential of probiotics has been known for about 100 years, but their value has largely gone unrecognized by Western health professionals. But interest in probiotics has exploded in the last several years in the face of surging bacterial resistance to many potent drugs, consumers' demand for natural remedies and accumulating evidence that some probiotic organisms prevent or treat certain challenging medical conditions. Probiotics, derived from the Greek phrase "for life," are defined by the World Health Organization as "live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host." There are three crucial concepts in this definition - "live," "microorganisms" and "health benefits."

Contrary to advertisements for some products, foods themselves are not probiotics, although some, like fermented milk, can be prepared to contain enough beneficial bacteria to promote health. Unfortunately, according to one prominent scientist in the field, Dr. Gregor Reid of the University of Western Ontario, many foods and supplements are now being sold as probiotics are worthless. All too often, he said, the organisms in them are present in too small a quantity to be beneficial. Or the products contain species not yet shown in rigorous studies to benefit health.

It has become increasingly apparent that the absence of bacteria in the intestines is unhealthy. For example, laboratory animals raised to be germ-free are often sickly, with seriously underdeveloped immune systems and vulnerable intestinal tracts. Such a circumstance would render an infant susceptible to allergies and life-threatening infections.

One of the best-documented benefits of probiotics has been preventing eczema in babies with an inherited tendency to develop allergies. For example, in a carefully designed study, researchers in Finland administered the probiotic Lactobacillus GG to pregnant women and to their babies who were considered at high risk for developing allergies for six months after birth. By the time the children were 2, the probiotic cut the incidence of eczema in half.

The human digestive tract is sterile at birth but rapidly acquires organisms. The first ones to become established dominate the system. Nowadays, many infants are first colonized by organisms acquired in the hospital, rather than the beneficial Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria that predominated when babies were born at home. Breast-feeding introduces beneficial bacteria, which may account for the lower incidence of allergies in breast-fed babies.

In another benefit to babies, Reid, a microbiologist, and his obstetrical colleague Dr. Alan Bocking have reviewed the ability of probiotics to prevent premature labor and delivery arising from bacterial vaginosis. These infections, which often cause no symptoms or are misdiagnosed as yeast infections, can invade the membranes around the fetus and stimulate premature labor.

For adults as well as children, some studies have suggested that regular consumption of probiotics can reduce the chance of contracting travelers' diarrhea and limit the formation of cholesterol, though not to the level of statin drugs.

In Japan, many people regularly consume a probiotic drink called Yakult, which has been shown to reduce the recurrence of bladder infections. Another product, VSL-3, which contains eight different probiotic organisms and is sold in Italy, may help keep Crohn's disease, a serious inflammatory bowel disorder, in remission.

At the moment, however, the hype about probiotics and the explosion of untested products in the United States have outstripped the science. Products must resist stomach acid yet dissolve readily in the intestines. They must also be protected from air and moisture to remain viable. If a probiotic product is formed into chewable tablets, the application of heat will destroy some organisms, so the manufacturer has to put enough in to have enough left.

Many consumers rely on yogurt with active cultures as their source of probiotics, but the organism most often used in these fermented milk products, Lactobacillus acidophilus, is not the primary bacterium naturally found in the gut, Reid said. Lactobacillus reuteri is a natural inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract and is an excellent probiotic. The organism was originally derived from breast milk and is available in capsule form at pharmacies and health food stores. Early studies indicate that this organism can speed a child's recovery from diarrheal disease and is safe for use in HIV patients, Reid said.

Currently, in Reid's opinion, "you get what you pay for, and in most cases you're not getting very much." Once again, caveat emptor.

How Long does it Take to Digest Food?

A handy guide to solve the problem of supplement directions which state ‘Take between meals’ or, ’Take on an empty stomach’:

It typically takes the stomach the following lengths of time...

4 hours to break down fats and proteins (meat, eggs, dairy)

2 hours to break down starches (rice, potatoes, pasta)

1 hour to break down vegetables (salad, cooked or raw vegetables)

1/2 hour to break down fruit.