Stopping Your Food Cravings with this spice..

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh found that the culinary spice saffron may stop your food cravings.

Saffron raises serotonin, a neurotransmitter that boost mood, influences hunger and helps put the brakes on food cravings.

In the study they conducted, mildly overweight women, ages 25-45, were divided into two groups. Half took one 90 mg capsule of a standardized saffron extract with breakfast and a second capsule with dinner.

The other group was given placebo pills. For eight weeks neither group made diet changes, but they were asked to record all food eaten outside of mealtimes.

The saffron pill popping women lost 2.1 pounds and they reported snacking half as often as before and feeling less hungry between meals.

Keep in mind that it takes up to four weeks to see results. So…happy saffroning!

(Reported Whitaker Newsletter Vol. 21, No. 9)

SHE BECAME A VEGAN AND LOST 80 POUNDS

My guest this week on the Internet Radio Program “Healthy Alternatives” is Gael D. Meyer; known as the Raw Vegan Realtor -(HealthyEatingHealthyBody.com).   Her new book, The Nuts and Sprouts of Healthy Eating, is coming out in September.

Gail will be talking about her becoming a vegan and how she lost 80 pounds in 8 months.

She will be answering my questions about whether a vegan can get enough protein, calcium and vitamin B12 in a vegan diet. You’re not going to want to miss this one!

Go to http://webtalkradio.net/shows/healthy-alternatives/ to listen or download the program.

Since I do this show weekly, we can inform you of each show with an email reminder.  Just click here to register.

Vinegar For Lowering Blood Sugar Levels And For Weight Loss

Vinegar can be used to lower blood sugar levels after eating a meal. It inhibits enzymes necessary for the digestion of starches and other complex carbohydrates preventing them from being broken down into glucose and absorbed into the bloodstream.

Taken at bedtime it can also lower morning fasting blood sugar levels. All of this means that it may help prevent people from getting type-2 diabetes.

Vinegar also stimulates the burning of fat for weight loss. Researchers in Japan divided subjects into three groups. One group drank one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar each day and the other group drank 2 tablespoons. The third group drank a placebo. After 12 weeks the vinegar drinking groups had lost 4.4 pounds compared to the placebo group which reported no change. The researchers also found that one tablespoon per day was sufficient to achieve these results.

The amount of vinegar needed is one to two tablespoons per day which can be added to foods you are eating.  One popular way of doing this is to add two teaspoons to a glass of water with a teaspoon or so of honey, mix well, and enjoy!

I’ve actually begun adding vinegar to my morning meal. So…please pass the apple cider vinegar!

A Way To Have More Strokes: Drink Diet Sodas

There’s an easy way to increase your risk of having a stroke: drink diet sodas.

According to a study reported at the American Stroke Association Conference, diet soda drinkers had a 61% higher risk of heart attack and stroke.

The researchers followed 2,500 New Yorkers for one plus years and found that people who drink diet soda every day had this increased risk.

Just think for a moment what’s in a diet soda – phosphoric acid, artificial colors, artificial favors and other assorted chemicals. Yummy!

So…water anyone?

A Side Effect From Taking Beta-Blocker Drugs – Weight Gain

A study by Australian researchers published in the International Journal of Obesity found that adults on beta-blockers weighed more and had larger waistlines.

The study looked at 11,400 adults with high blood pressure and/or diabetes. The researchers also found that the participants in the study burned fewer calories and fat after a meal.
 
The patients on beta-blockers also reported lower levels of physical activity. The researchers actually hypothesized that the widespread use of beta-blockers may be fueling the obesity epidemic.

The only group that will actually benefit from statins and beta-blockers are people who have a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia.

So…if your doc wants to you take beta-blockers, make sure you’ve got that genetic defect before you agree to take beta-blockers; otherwise, experiment with the diet, exercise and alternative therapies route first.

Using Music To Help You Exercise Harder

A recent study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports found that music can get you to exercise harder.

What the researchers did was have 12 college students ride a stationary bike while listening to music that had been pre-selected for them. During one session, the songs ran at their normal tempo. During other sessions, the tempo was slowed by 10% or increased by 10%.

When the tempo was slowed, the students’ pedaling slowed, their heart rates fell and their mileage dropped. When the tempo was increased, they produced more power with each pedal stroke, increased their pedaling rate and their heart rates rose.

So…get some high-energy music and exercise faster and better.

To read other research on music, go to http://www.musicianbrain.com/#index 

This is research reported at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess.

Obesity And How Close You Live To A Fast Food Restaurant

Who would have thought that how close you live to a fast food restaurant can lead to a child being obese.

A study conducted by the College of William and Mary was published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.

The researchers recorded personal information on 2,000 children and mapped their homes in relation to fast food restaurants in the vicinity.

The researchers observed that children who live within a quarter to a tenth of a mile of a fast food restaurant had a higher BMI (body mass index) and were more likely to be obese.

So…if you’ve got kids and you’re close to a fast foods restaurant, you’ll need to be more vigilant as to where your kids are eating.

(Reported The Health Journal July 2010)

Three Steps To Help Kids Control Obesity

A study published in Pediatrics found three factors that had a significant impact on a child’s weight.

These factors were simple things: eating dinner as a family, getting enough sleep, and watching fewer than two hours of TV or videos a day on weekdays.

Of the more than 8,000 preschoolers involved in the study, those families that followed all three factors were 40% less likely to become obese.

So… for many kids there’s an easy way to keep their weight down.

(Reported Health & Healing by Dr. Julian Whitaker April 2010)

Another Study on Vinegar & Diabetes

Using Vinegar To Help Control Diabetes

Technorati Tags: Vinegar,Diabetes control,Dr. Jerry Teplitz,lower glucose

A study published in Diabetes Care showed that vinegar could dramatically reduce the spike in blood sugars that diabetics experience after eating a meal.

In this study the researchers gave a group of people two tablespoons of vinegar just before a meal.  Next, they measured their blood sugar levels an hour later. The group had an average drop of 25% in blood sugar levels after the meal when they took the vinegar.

People who were highly prone to becoming diabetics had an even greater drop in their blood sugar spike. It dropped nearly 50%.

So…if you are a type 1 or type 2 diabetic, or prediabetic, start taking a vinegar appetizer right before a meal. 

See my post here for other studies, and my recommended "vinegar cocktail"! 

Mark this Feed

http://natural-health-alternative.blogspot.com/2008/02/use-vinegar-to-lower-glucose-and.html

Put a Dollar-Value on Losing Weight

Researchers at the Research Triangle Institute of North Carolina found paying a loved one to lose weight will actually help them shed some weight.

Dieters, over a three-month period, were offered a $14 bonus every time they lost one pound of weight more than the control group. At the end of three months, the people being paid lost more that 5% of their body weight as opposed to those who weren’t paid to lose weight.

A variation of this approach is to use money as a tool to break any habit that you are having difficulty breaking. This idea comes from Dr. Julian Whitaker. Dr. Whitaker recommends giving a sum of money (whatever amount that will cause you to let out an ouch if you lose it), to a friend with the instructions to pay it to a group or organization whose philosophy is the opposite of yours if you slip on breaking your habit or you don’t reach a goal you have set for yourself.

Technorati Tags: Losing Weight,Weightloss Research,Institute of North Carolina,Dr. Julian Whitaker,Dr. Teplitz

While Stress Creates Fat In Our Bodies, There May Be A Way Out

Chronic stress causes the body to create fat deposits around our stomach area. Scientists reported in Nature Medicine that mice that are experiencing stress activate a hormone, neuropeptide Y, which leads to fat accumulation.

This study sheds some light on why we may gain weight when we are under stress. Scientists are now beginning to study how to turn off this hormonal response. Stay tuned for more information.

 

Technorati Tags: Weight Management,Weightloss Research,Stress and Fat,Dr. Jerry Teplitz,Nature Medicine

Use Vinegar To Lower Glucose And Insulin Responses - and even Lose Weight!

With the rampant increase in the number of Adult Onset Diabetes patients, there may be a way to lower your glucose and insulin responses to eating carbohydrates. It's by using vinegar. In a study reported in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, volunteers drank about three tablespoons of vinegar diluted in water while they ate white bread that contained 50 grams of carbohydrates. Ninety minutes later, the volunteers had a 25% reduction in blood glucose levels and serum insulin levels.

So...if you are overweight and concerned about developing diabetes, then a glass of water with vinegar (2 teaspoons apple-cider vinegar and 2 teaspoons honey) 2-3 times per day could make a difference in preventing diabetes.  It has also shown great results for energy levels (probably due to it's slight blood thinning properties and all those steaks!), and weight-loss.

 

Technorati Tags: Diabetes,vinegar,glucose,insulin,weight loss,blood thinning,Dr. Jerry Teplitz