Female Care

They’re popping up and showing their sunny yellow faces, bringing smiles to the enlightened. At last, Spring has arrived! Time to start gathering, and cleaning the winter sludge from your body.

This is NOT just a useless weed! Dandelion has been safely used as a medicinal herb and food for centuries. Dandelion (taraxacum officinale) – The name of the genus, taraxacum, is derived from the Greek word taraxos (disorder), and akos (remedy), because it was considered to be a cure all for every health problem. Native Americans were using Dandelion long before the discovery of America for a wide variety of ailments.

Traditionally, this abundant weed has been used as a tonic and blood purifier, for constipation, inflammatory skin conditions, eczema and acne, joint pain, and liver dysfunction, including liver conditions such as hepatitis, cirrhosis, gout, and jaundice. Continue reading »

Sunshine, not food, is where most of your vitamin D comes from. So even a healthy and well balanced diet, that provides all the other vitamins and nutrients, is unlikely to provide enough vitamin D. To get enough vitamin D you need to spend some time outside with some bare skin on most days during the summer months.

How is vitamin D different to other nutrients?

You make vitamin D under your skin when you are outside in daylight, which is the reason vitamin D is sometimes called the sunshine vitamin. By definition, a vitamin is a nutrient that we cannot make in our body. Vitamin D is actually a hormone rather than a vitamin. Very few foods contain vitamin D naturally.

What does vitamin D do in your body?

Vitamin D makes sure you absorb enough calcium for your bones and teeth. Even if you have a calcium-rich diet, without enough vitamin D you cannot absorb calcium into the body. Its importance as a hormone is also being recognised. It helps maintain a healthy immune system and reduces the risk of some forms of cancer. Population studies suggest that lack of vitamin D may increase the risk of chronic health conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
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With so many different vitamins and minerals, it is difficult to keep up with the reasons why we need any particular one. Vitamin A is a vitamin that is vital for healthy living, and has many more benefits than you might realize.

Many people know that Vitamin A can maintain healthy vision and improve your eyesight. By keeping the retina healthy and keeping your eyes moist, Vitamin A can prevent many eyesight problems. Vitamin A is also very beneficial in maintaining your immune system. It promotes the maintenance of mucous membranes that protect nasal passages and skin from exposure to bacteria and viruses. These membranes also help maintain the digestive system. This vitamin also aids in healthy skin, hair and nails, and is often used to treat problems associated with these elements, including acne and scalp irritation. The benefits of Vitamin A in the skin tissues includes the healing of minor scrapes, cuts, and scars. Many studies show that Vitamin A can help prevent and treat certain types of cancer, and it may even improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Continue reading »

When you get a cold, you will most likely be told to take vitamin C. In today’s health news, we hear a lot about vitamin C being the “cure-all” vitamin, and many people want to know if this is true.

Vitamin C is definitely an important part of anyone’s diet. Ingesting a healthy level of vitamin C has been shown to have an impact on the presence of cholesterol in the body. This means that vitamin C can help prevent gall bladder disease and some heart problems. Some studies show that vitamin C can aid in maintaining healthy blood pressure levels. Vitamin C can also help you look younger by aiding in collagen repair and formation.
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Vitamin D is an important part of a healthy diet. New benefits of this vitamin are being discovered every day, but many people still do not receive enough vitamin D to reap the wonderful benefits it can provide to their health. Vitamin D is most famous for its contribution to joint and bone health by helping the body absorb calcium. It has been shown that people who take in enough vitamin D are less likely to suffer from osteoporosis and joint pain. This vitamin can also slow the affects of arthritis and lessen back pain in many individuals. Studies have shown that vitamin D can also prevent certain types of cancer.
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Vitamin E is one of the more well-known vitamins that is included in most vitamin supplements. Its antioxidant powers are particularly strong and are beneficial in different ways than other antioxidant vitamins, so it is good to be aware of the specific health benefits of vitamin E.

One of the benefits of vitamin E is its ability to improve the health of the skin. This benefit can be reaped by taking a vitamin E supplement or by directly applying vitamin E oil to the skin. When used in this way, vitamin E can help to heal scars and burns, reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles in the skin, and can also relieve the scratchy, itchy feeling of dry or irritated skin. As an antioxidant, vitamin E protects the body from free radicals and provides a boost to the body’s immune system. This can not only fight the aging process, but it may also protect against certain types of cancer. Studies have shown that Alzheimer’s patients who maintain high levels of vitamin E see a slower progression of the disease. Vitamin E also benefits the health of the eyes by helping to prevent cataracts and macular degeneration. A few studies have even shown that vitamin E may improve the health of your heart by lowering the level of bad cholesterol in your body and by preventing blood clots.
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Vitamin K is commonly known to aid in blood clotting. When the body is injured, vitamin K initiates the process of healing by slowing and stopping the bleeding. For this reason, vitamin K is often given to patients before surgery to prevent excessive bleeding. Although this is the primary function of vitamin K, this vitamin has several more health benefits.

Vitamin K helps the body absorb the beneficial mineral calcium. Recent studies have suggested that vitamin K can help prevent or treat osteoporosis and the loss of bone density. If you have a family history of osteoporosis, it is important to make sure you maintain healthy levels of vitamin K.

There are also recent studies that have suggested that vitamin K also has preventive and treatment benefits for cancer. Several human trials have shown that vitamin K may have anticancer effects.

Vitamin K also prevents the hardening of the arteries, which aids in preventing heart disease and heart failure. Continue reading »

Remember your mother telling you to eat oranges in order to supply your body with much needed Vitamin C? Well, researchers in California have discovered that oranges provide our bodies with other vitamins that help us fight off a variety of health problems.

Oranges are rich in a compound called citrus limonoids, which help to prevent cancers of the breast, colon, lung, mouth, skin and stomach. In laboratory tests animals and human cells both benefited from citrus limonoids in the fight against these cancers.

Chemist Gary D. Manners and a team of scientists at the Agricultural Research Service in northern California are now doing extensive research into the benefits of citrus limonoids to human health. Manners and his team reported findings from research that they have conducted over a number of years. It seems that each time we bite into a slice of orange or drink a glass of orange juice our bodies recognize a limonoid called limonin. It is believed that limonin also reduces cholesterol, which is linked to heart disease and other health problems. Continue reading »

With the new information that increasing your calcium intake helps your body to burn fat, and whittle your waistline, many more people are making it a point to get their three servings a day of milk and dairy products.  However, people who are lactose intolerant, or simply don’t like milk or dairy, find this a difficult task, even with all the new calcium enriched foods on the market.  What many people don’t know though, is that calcium is found in many other sources, and it is quite easy to fit them into your diet.

For example, many fruits and vegetables contain ample amounts of calcium.  A grapefruit contains about 113 milligrams, and a cup of kidney beans provide about 255 milligrams of calcium, almost the same as a serving of dairy.  Chickpeas, another great source of fiber, contain about 100 milligrams of calcium, and black-eyed peas, 184.  Cooked mustard greens contain about 150 milligrams a cup, and cooked beet greens contain 164, for a cup.  Surprisingly, a cup of cooked collard greens contains 357 milligrams of calcium, even more than a serving of dairy.
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About Protein Supplements And Soy Protein.

There are many different types of protein supplements to be found on the market and this is because there are various different sources of protein to be found. Egg protein, fish protein and meat protein have always been popular in dieting and whey protein has really come to the fore especially for professional bodybuilders striving to achieve greater muscle growth and less body fat. Soy protein is sometimes overlooked despite offering what appears to be an excellent resource for dieters and people who want to live a healthy lifestyle.

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