Your Incredible Shrinking Body

As bones and organs get smaller with age, Louise Atkinson reveals how to stay healthy.

As we get older, we get shorter. But what many people won’t realise is that height is just one thing that shrinks with age: our hearts, facial bones and sex organs all shrink, too.

Such changes often go hand in hand with health problems.

Last week, a U.S. study found the more height you lose, the greater your risk of suffering a fractured hip – and one in three people who suffer a hip fracture die within a year.

Here, LOUISE ATKINSON investigates age-related shrinkages – and how you can protect your body. Read more

5 Natural Remedies for Menstrual Cramps

Are you a female who suffers from menstrual cramps or other menstrual complications? If you are, you may feel as if your world stops each and every month. The good news is that it doesn’t have to. There are a number of natural remedies and other home remedies that you can use to seek relief from the pain and discomfort associated with menstruation.

5 Foods That Can Cause a Stroke

Stroke affects more than 700000 people each year. Here is a list of five food items that cause the damage and leads to stroke.

Few things feel more terrifying and random than a stroke, which can strike without warning. And fear of stroke -- when a blood vessel in or leading to the brain bursts or is blocked by a blood clot, starving brain cells of oxygen and nutrients -- is well founded. After all, stroke is the number-three killer in the U.S., affecting more than 700,000 people each year. Here are five foods that cause the damage that leads to stroke.

1. Crackers, chips, and store-bought pastries and baked goods

Muffins, doughnuts, chips, crackers, and many other baked goods are high in trans fats, which are hydrogenated oils popular with commercial bakeries because they stay solid at room temperature, so the products don't require refrigeration. Also listed on labels as "partially hydrogenated" or hydrogenated oils, trans fats are found in all kinds of snack foods, frozen foods, and baked goods, including salad dressings, microwave popcorn, stuffing mixes, frozen tater tots and French fries, cake mixes, and whipped toppings. They're also what makes margarine stay in a solid cube. The worst offenders are fried fast foods such as onion rings, French fries, and fried chicken.

Why it's bad Read more

Protect Yourself from Salmonella and E. Coli Naturally

A healthy body can resist illness, even when exposed to pathogens, says Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading.

Are you wondering when the next massive round of food-borne illness will occur?

36 million pounds of salmonella tainted ground turkey in the United States, a new, deadly strain of E. coli in Europe that killed 49 people, the massive salmonella tainted peanut butter recall of 2009 - with an industrialized food system that can potentially spread pathogens to every corner of the globe, you never know when you'll be exposed to toxic bacteria in your food.

Know Your Pathogens

E coli (Escherichia coli) and Salmonella bacteria are commonly found in the digestive systems of humans and animals. E coli 157:H7 bacteria is perfectly healthy and safe, as are many other strains. The term "Salmonella" is used to cover roughly 2,000 similar types of bacteria, which vary in degrees of potential illness. So why do some people get sick when exposed harmful bacteria, while other do not?

"It is not the germ that causes disease but the terrain in which the germ is found."

Preventing Cancer: 11 Tips to Live By

Joseph Mercola discusses ways of preventing and fighting cancer.

Curcumin – a derivative of turmeric, and the pigment that gives the curry spice turmeric its yellow-orange color – is a natural compound that has been extensively researched, and has been found to have numerous health applications. As a result, turmeric is becoming increasingly popular as a supplement. Each 100 grams of turmeric contains an estimated three to five grams of curcumin.

The ancient Chinese and Indian systems of medicine have recognized curcumin's beneficial properties for thousands of years. Most notably, curcumin is known for its potent anti-inflammatory properties, and as you may know, chronic inflammation is an underlying factor in many, if not most, chronic diseases. The compound has been shown to influence more than 700 genes, which may in part explain its numerous health benefits. Read more

Vitamin B Pill May Prevent Alzheimer's

Taking a high-dose vitamin B pill a day from middle age on may prevent Alzheimer's disease.

Taking one vitamin B pill a day from middle age could protect your memory as you grow older – and even ward off Alzheimer’s, British researchers say.

The supplement, which costs just 10p, is described as the ‘first glimmer of hope’ in the battle to find a drug that slows or stops the development of the disease.

Pensioners who took high doses of the vitamin once a day for two years did 70 per cent better on a simple memory test than those who did not. Read more

5 Easy Ways to Boost Your Metabolism with Ayurveda

Ayurveda ia the traditional Indian medical practice. It can help with weight loss by providing therapies to boost the metabolism.

At one point or another, just about all of us have tried to lose weight. With almost 75% of the American population either overweight or obese, this challenge is becoming seemingly more insurmountable every day. The typical quick diet programs and colon cleansings rarely provide any long-term benefit as the weight lost during those programs is usually gained back within weeks.

One of the main reasons for not being able to lose weight effectively is because the body`s metabolism is not up to speed. According to Ayurveda, the body`s main digestive fire, or Agni, is responsible for the remaining 12 sub-types of digestive and metabolic processes at various levels. Metabolic disruption in any of these can impede weight loss and overall health.

In conditions which cause an excessive accumulation of adipose or fatty-tissue, the medo dhatu agni (fat tissue metabolism) is invariably compromised. To reactivate it, there are a number of Ayurvedic therapies which can be done both internally and externally. Here are some of the easiest ones to try at home: Read more

30 Most Popular Herbs in Natural Medicine

Tess Pennington explains the uses of the thirty most popular herbs in natural medicine.

We tend to look to God as a source of all healing. It is said that He has provided all that we will ever need:

“the fruit of it shall be for eating and leaf of it for healing…” (Ezekiel 47:12)

Herbs are a wondrous thing. They not only assist in flavoring dishes and filling the air with delightful aromas, but they also hold medicinal properties that promote healing. Those of you who have herbal gardens of your own, no doubt have a few of these herbal friends already planted. Many of the plants listed below are also listed in my Top 10 Medicinal Herbs that should be in every garden. However, it seems that there are a few more worth mentioning. Read more

Bone Density: Quality over Quantity

When it comes to reducing the risky of fracture, bone quality is more important than bone quantity, says Margaret Durst, and to get quality, you need more than calcium.

D is for density as in bone density – a statistic that many women are concerned with. Bone density is a measure of the quantity of bone, not the quality. I like to make a distinction here, because bone quality is an important concern that is being overlooked by many.

Bone quality concerns reduced risk of fracture which should be distinguished from bone quantity as expressed as bone density. The conventional way to deal with osteoporosis is to keep old bone from being torn down by using estrogen and prescription drugs such as Fosamax and Actonel along with calcium and vitamin D supplements. .

The problem with this approach is that bone is living tissue. It is constantly being built up and torn down. The modern approach just works at keeping old bone from being torn down and using just calcium which does not greatly strengthen bone such that it resists mechanical stresses. The result may be increased bone density, but the quality of the bone is poor and tends to be brittle.

Calcium alone does not build strong bone. Read more

Detox Your Body

Better TV shows you the best products to detox from head to toe.