Just 10 minutes of exercise a day could make [...]]]> (Reuters) – Insomniacs looking for a good night’s sleep may want to hit the treadmill, take a walk or play a game of golf or tennis because a new report released on Monday shows exercise promotes good sleep and the more vigorous the workout the better.

Just 10 minutes of exercise a day could make a difference in the duration and quality of sleep, the survey by the non-profit National Sleep Foundation showed.

“We found that exercise and great sleep go together, hand in hand,” Max Hirshkowitz, a sleep researcher and the chair of the poll task force, said in an interview.

“We also found a step-wise increase in how vigorous the quality is, in terms of how much you exercise. So if you say you exercise a lot, we found better sleep quality. For people who don’t exercise at all we found more sleep problems.”

Earlier research studies have shown the impact of exercise on sleep, but Hirshkowitz, who is a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said the survey is the first to detail the benefits of exercise in a nationally representative poll of this size.

People who described themselves as exercisers reported better sleep than their more sedentary counterparts, although the amount of sleep, an average of just under seven hours on weeknight, was the same.

More than 75 percent of the 1,000 people questioned in the Internet and telephone poll who described themselves as exercisers said they slept well, compared to just over half of people who did no exercise.

Very active people reported fewer sleep problems, dozed off quicker and needed less shut eye a night to function at their best during the day.

Sitting, more than eight hours daily also had a negative impact on sleep, according to the poll.

NAPS, STRUGGLING TO STAY AWAKE

Nearly half of Americans report experiencing insomnia occasionally, and 22 percent suffer from the condition, which can be caused by stress, anxiety, pain and medication, every or almost every night, according to the foundation.

In addition to poorer sleep, non-exercisers also were less likely to report good or excellent health compared to active people and had more trouble staying awake while driving and eating.

Nearly three times as many sedentary people said they have trouble keeping awake during the day than exercisers. They also took more naps and had more symptoms of sleep apnea, a disorder that causes shallow breaths or pauses in breathing during sleep, than exercisers,

More than 44 percent of non-exercisers were at a moderate risk for sleep apnea, a higher percentage than active people questioned in the poll.

The survey also seemed to debunk the idea that exercising early or late in the day would adversely impact sleep because it showed that being active at any time of the day was better than being sedentary.

“Exercise is beneficial to sleep,” Dr. Barbara Phillips, a member of the poll task force, said in a statement. “It’s time to revise global recommendations for improving sleep and put exercise – any time – at the top of our list for healthy sleep habits.”

(Editing by Bill Trott)

Sinking your chi is a very important skill to learn to keep your body healthy. As we move from Winter into the Spring sinking your chi helps you clear out old energies in your body. The simple fact is that during the Winter most people do not sink their chi.  The chi [...]]]>

Sinking your chi is a very important skill to learn to keep your body healthy. As we move from Winter into the Spring sinking your chi helps you clear out old energies in your body. The simple fact is that during the Winter most people do not sink their chi.  The chi in the body becomes stuck and does not easily move downward.

Chi becomes stagnant in the winter season because of the cold. Winter is the time when the kidneys are activated. This in general brings up the emotions of fear and a sense of loneliness. In the winter we have dark days without sunlight because of rain. Then there is the cold snow in some places.

All of these factors can get your Chi stuck. So, it’s very important that when you’re coming out of the winter to focus on having your chi drop or sink. Let’s explore two ways you can sink your chi…The basic idea is to get your chi to sink from the top of your head all the way down to your feet. There are in general two basic Taoist processes to sink chi. One is a simplified version of sinking chi and the other one is a Taoist method called outer dissolving.  There are differences in how they are done and when you might choose one method over the other.

The first method of sinking your chi is to develop the ability of having your energy drop from higher places in your body to lower places in your body. You develop the sense of chi moving downward from your head to your lower tantien and then into your feet. You simply stand/sit and take your concentration from to top of your head downward going area by area. It is that simple.

Sinking your chi is incredibly useful in clearing out basic stagnant chi in the body. That’s what it does. It’s based on the principle that energy which the body cannot use goes downwards. When that energy reaches the feet the stagnant energy releases down into the earth.

To do this simplified method you can start by standing or sitting. Place your the attention at the top of your head. Then move your attention from the top of your head downward through your body all the way to your feet and into the earth. Rather than focus on individual spots in your body you are dropping your awareness and attention through your body as a whole. Relax any area that is tense and let your energy drop to the next lower area until you are at your feet. If you are sensitive you will feel the chi drop and if not just know that it is possible and this method works.

If you want to become very strong and healthy, then this method of sinking chi is particularly useful. That is why for example when practicing internal martial arts, the first focus is not on outer dissolving but is on sinking chi. What this does is condenses the chi of the body and makes it more heavy.

We generally think of someone weighing 300 pounds will be dramatically stronger and more powerful than somebody who weighs 100. The purpose of the first method sinking your chi is by internally opening your chi downward so that if you’re 100 pounds your strength can start equaling the strength of somebody who’s 150, 200, or 300 pounds normally, or even more.

I described this in my book, The Power of Internal Martial Arts and Chi. It is as though someone who has a normal body, let’s say is made of just tin, hits someone whose body energy is more like led. In this case the tin crumbles, regardless of whether it’s bigger than them or not.

This basic method of sinking of chi is a very important practice as we move into spring. You want to clear your body of old stagnant energy. You want to release that energy into the earth. You want to start the spring feeling fresh and invigorated.

Now this version of sinking chi, sets the stage for the next method of outer dissolving. It is important to say here that neither method is better or worse. They both are useful depending on the circumstances. You may find areas in your body are tight or may feel that your energy is blocked for some unknown reason.  That is when you should use the next method of sinking chi, the Taoist method of outer dissolving.

The outer dissolving method of sinking chi is likened to the process of how ice dissolves to water and then water dissolves to gas. You start from the top of your head and go from point to point stopping at any blockages and dissolving that blockage internally from ice to water and then water to gas outward. It takes practice to learn this but once you have it in your system it is highly effective.

Outer dissolving is not necessarily for developing physical strength, where I would say basic sinking is more efficient. Rather it is goes beyond blockages that are just physical and works with your emotional and mental energy bodies.

Outer dissolving is more useful if you have a specific physical problem in an area of your body or if you have general disease. For example, if you have chronic fatigue syndrome or if you had liver problems, heart problems or any physiological problems then with Outer Dissolving you can target specific systems or areas.

If the energy of your internal organs is disturbed this often causes your  emotions to be disturbed as well. When this happens your emotional stability and balance is almost always effected.  In this case, dissolving is going to be more powerful because it will help you clear your emotional blockages as well as your physical blockages. However, if you don’t have health issues, as I mentioned then sinking can be more useful in terms of just developing physical strength and power.

Article Taken From Energyarts.com

“Americans now spend [...]]]> Many of the global trends for processed foods are born in the USA. Carl’s Jr and McDonalds not only helped make the USA the ‘fast food nation’, they also made junk food of this type all the rage globally.

As author of the award-winning bestseller, Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser reminds us:

“Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music – combined.”

It seems, as you’ll see from what follows, that hiding aspartame in dairy products might be the next big thing. It follows that the idea would appeal to Big Food given the amount of publicity given to excessive carb consumption—along with lots of bad press on aspartame. And let’s face it, Big Dairy has already secured its seat at the government nutritional advice table in the US and the UK.

US dairy industry petitions FDA

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that two organisations representing the interests of the US dairy industry have filed a petition requesting that the Agency amend the ‘standard of identity’ for milk and various other dairy products to allow the use of ‘non-nutritive’ sweeteners, such as aspartame as an optional ingredient. But guess what? They don’t want this inclusion on labelling. They argue, unconvincingly in our view, that this would promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity!

The petitioners are none other than the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF). These organisations mean business—quite literally.

Standards be damned

The current standard of identity for milk and other dairy products allows only ‘nutritive sweeteners’ in the optional characterising flavouring ingredients (e.g chocolate flavouring).  However, the IDFA and the NMPF want ‘any safe and suitable sweetener’ to be used in this context.  This would include the controversial and potentially dangerous non-nutritive sweetener, aspartame, along with its other artificial cousins.  The petition also requests that the standards of identity for the following dairy products be amended to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener in the optional ingredients: acidified milk, cultured milk, sweetened condensed milk, nonfat dry milk, nonfat dry milk fortified with vitamins A and D, evaporated milk, dry cream, heavy cream, light cream, light whipping cream, sour cream, acidified sour cream, eggnog, half-and-half, yogurt, low fat yogurt, and nonfat yogurt.

US dairy industry: 1 US Children: 0

Non-nutritive sweeteners in the flavouring of dairy products are actually already allowed under the existing regulatory scheme. But of course their inclusion now requires specific, mandatory labeling that alerts consumers to the presence of artificial rather than natural sweeteners and flavours.

Amending the standard of identity for milk would remove the ‘necessity’ for labels that the IDFA and NMPF consider “unattractive” to children, such as use of the wording, “reduced calorie”.  These dairy organisations have also argued in the petition that “consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims”, and that “consumers do not recognize milk—including flavored milk—as necessarily containing sugar”.  For example, the petitioners want milk flavoured with aspartame to be simply labeled as ‘milk’, so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”

These arguments don’t make an iota of sense to anyone interested either in promoting good health or, for that matter, responsibility and transparency of Big Food.

It’ll be fascinating to see if the US dairy industry can get this by the FDA—and more importantly the growing group of aspartame-concerned US citizens.

It certainly won’t wash with informed consumers who already understand the risks inherent in the use of aspartame or other artificial sweeteners.

Is this déjà vu?

Confounding and misleading consumers with deceitful labelling is nothing new to the USA.  Last year saw a pitched battle waged in the State of California to get truthful labelling of GMO’s. Unfortunately Big Food played a dirty game and narrowly won the first round, but other states are lining up to take them on again. Consumers have had enough of being treated as fools and used to increase corporate profits. As we pointed out last week, artificial sweeteners are more likely to contribute to obesity rather than reduce it. So enough of the flimflam – product labels should tell the truth about what’s in them. If an ingredient has to be hidden, you can bet your bottom dollar it isn’t worth putting in your mouth!

Time to speak out to FDA!

• If you live in the US, and you can be in any way described as an “interested party”, the FDA’s “Request for Comments, Data and Information” is open now. Written or electronic comments need to be submitted by May 21st 2013. Follow the link: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/02/20/2013-03835/flavored-milk-petition-to-amend-the-standard-of-identity-for-milk-and-17-additional-dairy-products.

Please have your say. Follow the instructions provided, and remember to include the reference: Docket No. FDA-2009-P-0147.

You’ll also be hearing more about this from our colleagues at ANH-USA in due course.

• If you don’t live in the US, and you’re concerned about Big Dairy establishing a new global trend among young children whom we guess they want as addicts to their ‘low calorie’, artificially sweetened dairy offerings, please ask any Americans you know to have their say before the May 21, 2013 deadline!

Article From ANH-europe.org

I realy hope Marcel Dekker does not mind me sharing this information. Thank You Marcel!

Bruce demonstrating Wu style  Tai Chi short form CLICK HERE

Scientific/medical name(s): Astragalus membranaceus

Astragalus is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine taken from a plant known as Astragalus membranaceus, which is a type of bean (legume). The root is used in herbal remedies.

Avocados are high in healthy monounsaturated fat and have a rich source of glutathione [...]]]> Not all superfoods have to have crazy sounding names and be exclusive to health foods shop. Here are the top 10 superfoods you can get in your supermarket.

AVOCADOS:

Avocados are high in healthy monounsaturated fat and have a rich source of glutathione – a powerful antioxidant known to block over 30 different carcinogens (a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue). Avocados are also one of the most nutrient-dense foods; high in fiber, potassium, vitamin E, and magnesium. Also, if you’re looking to banish wrinkles then stock up as they are packed with antioxidants and good fats, which help in your fight against the frown.

GARLIC:

Yes it might leave you with bad breath, but it’s a small price to pay when garlic tops the National Cancer Institute’s list as a potential cancer-preventive food. It is a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory food that protects against heart disease, reduces blood pressure and lowers cholesterol levels. It also has vitamins C and B6, manganese, and selenium.

BLUEBERRIES:

These are a potent antioxidant. Blueberries are said to help with memory loss and they contain flavonoids which can help eradicate dangerous free radicals which can cause damage to cell walls and DNA. They also contain anthocyanosides which are beneficial in the prevention of all types of cancer. Blueberry extracts have also been reported to have anti-inflammatory characteristics and help prevent contagious bacteria from adhering to the walls of the bladder, urethra and gut. Impressive.

ACAI BERRIES:

This exotic berry from Amazon was named by nutritionist Nicholas Perricone as one of the greatest foods in the world. They are packed full of antioxidants which can help combat premature aging and contain something called monounsaturated oleic acid, which helps omega-3 fish oils penetrate the cell membrane. There’s also amino acids and essential fatty acids, to help promote cardiovascular and digestive health.

GOJI BERRIES:

Also known as wolfberries, this Himalayan fruit contains all 18 amino acids (six times higher than bee pollen) as well as huge amounts of vitamin A, B1, B2, B6 and vitamin E. Gram for gram they are packed with more iron than steak and spinach, and more beta carotene and vitamin C than carrots and oranges, respectively.

OILY FISH:

The Food Standards Agency recommends one portion a week so add salmon, trout, mackerel, herring, sardines, pilchards, kippers and fresh tuna (not canned) to your shopping list. Oily fish is important because it’s rich in omega 3 fatty acids, which are especially useful in warding off heart disease. Most oily fish contains protein, zinc, selenium, vitamins A and D, and some B vitamins. Omega 3-rich seafood might help slow down macular degeneration (a common cause of age-related blindness), protect against the build up of cholesterol on the artery walls which can cause heart damage, and help reduce the impact of arthritis.

ADZUKI BEANS:

All types of beans (kidney, chickpeas, soybeans, dried peas and lentils) are low in fat and have anti-ageing properties but these small red beans have one of the highest antioxidant ratings among superfoods. Typically used in Japanese cooking adzuki beans are a good source of carbohydrates, folate, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, manganese and zinc.

TOMATOES:

Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant and it’s this that gives tomatoes their superfood status.  Lycopene is what gives them their red colour it helps absorb the damaging free radicals that can harm our cells. Tomatoes are packed full of vitamins including vitamins A, C and E and contain potassium and other mineral salts. Not only does their high water content make them refreshing, but they’re low in calories too. It is thought tomatoes help ward against prostate breast cancers and stomach cancers as well as age-related macular degeneration.

QUINOA:

Quinoa (pronounced ‘Keen-wah’) is known as a super grain, but it is closely related to spinach. It is gluten-free, high in amino acids, protein, vitamin B6, B1, B2, B3, and potassium. Plus it is a great source of copper, zinc, iron, magnesium, and folate. Quinoa is also a source of calcium, so useful for vegans and those who are lactose intolerant. It is considered a complete protein because it contains all eight of the essential amino acids we need for tissue development and contains almost twice as much fibre as most other grains.

BROCCOLI:

Packed with folic acid, vitamin C and carotenoids (the colourful plant pigments some of which the body can turn into vitamin A), broccoli is thought to boost your immune system, protect your cells from being damaged by free radicals and improve reproductive health. Broccoli also contains beta carotene, energy producing vitamins B3 and B5, potassium and chromium , which help regulate blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Article from Metro.co.uk

REISHI mushrooms have been used for medicinal purposes in traditional medicine in China, Japan and Korea for at least 2,000 years. Now scientific research is demonstrating Reishi’s life-extending properties, as well as its significant [...]]]>

MAGIC MUSHROOMS: The ancients used to call Reishi mushrooms the ‘mushroom of immortality’ — and for good reason, say scientists.

REISHI mushrooms have been used for medicinal purposes in traditional medicine in China, Japan and Korea for at least 2,000 years. Now scientific research is demonstrating Reishi’s life-extending properties, as well as its significant ability to stimulate brain neurons, search and destroy cancer cells, and prevent the development of new fat cells in obese individuals.

Those are not all the targeted benefits. Studies show Reishi’s numerous compounds have a therapeutic effect on asthma, allergies, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, diabetes, liver disease and more.

Given Reishi’s complex composition of bioactive compounds, scientists say there is still more to discover.

The mushrooms were known to the ancients as “the mushroom of immortality”— and for good reason, Indian researchers from the Research and Development Centre in Gwalior say in the journal, Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, in 2009. The mushrooms had the reputation of promoting health and longevity, boosting the immune system, and reducing the risk of life-shortening conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Science appears to have validated this traditional wisdom.

Reishi mushrooms used to be rare and expensive but advances in cultivation techniques have made them more available, which has led to an explosion of research on their properties and components. (The mushrooms are available from practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, or on the internet.)

Studies have shown Reishi mushrooms can contribute to longer life spans. They can help manage some of today’s most troubling age-related conditions, including autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, liver disease, cancer and more.

How is it that this simple mushroom can have such wide-ranging health effects? Keep in mind, say scientists, that there isn’t one single cause of ageing and disease. Numerous factors contribute to these conditions — to combat them, you need to fight them from a multi-targeted approach. That’s what makes Reishi mushrooms so powerful. The mushroom itself contains hundreds of biologically active molecules, all of which work together to have such broad-reaching health benefits.

Researchers have identified three specific compounds essential to Reishi’s powerful antioxidant and anti-ageing effects:

1. Polysaccharides have anticancer effects based on their ability to prevent abnormal blood vessel formation and to boost immune system function.

2. Triterpenes protect the liver, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, prevent platelet clumping that leads to heart attack and stroke, fight allergic responses triggered by histamine, and also possess anticancer activity.

3. Ganoderma lucidum peptide is a unique protein that has remarkably potent antioxidant characteristics that are still being unravelled.

But what makes Reishi mushroom beneficial to so many varied aspects of your health is its actions on many different targets in your body. The actions triggered by Reishi mushrooms produce important changes that may contribute to their promotion of longevity. Reishi extracts are known to:

• Protect cellular DNA from oxidant damage that causes ageing and cancer.

• Protect mitochondrial DNA and the mitochondria themselves from oxidant damage that weakens their energy-producing abilities and makes them inefficient, another major cause of ageing.

• Increase levels and activity of a large suite of natural intracellular antioxidant molecules, resulting in reduced oxidation of cell membranes and organelles that lead to aging and its related diseases.

• Protect kidney tubule cells from oxidant damage that leads to kidney failure.

• Increase expression of a key longevity gene and promote an increased life span in species ranging from yeasts, to primitive worms, to mammals such as mice.

Several studies have shown that Reishi is one of the most powerful mushrooms with regard to antioxidant characteristics. Reishi mushrooms boost total antioxidant capacity, an important measure of the vigour with which they fight oxidant damage, Turkish researchers from Gazi University’s Department of Biology say in the Journal of Medicinal Food in 2011.

In a human study published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2004, Reishi mushrooms were given to healthy volunteers as a single 1,100mg dose. Plasma antioxidant capacity rose rapidly to a peak at 90 minutes, while urine antioxidant capacity (a measure of what has been in the body) rose by 29% after three hours, with no evidence of toxicity or side-effects.

Reishi’s many mechanisms of action allow it to have such a dramatic impact on such a wide array of age-related health threats. Here are some of the most promising areas of research.

Reishi mushrooms and cancer prevention

New compounds are being discovered within extracts of Reishi mushroom regularly; at least three were identified in late 2012 alone, in Japanese research in the journal Fitoterapia (Phyotherapy). These discoveries are shedding light on Reishi extracts’ remarkable, multi-targeted anticancer properties.

Most intriguing are findings on the phenomenon of immune surveillance. New cancer cells appear in your body every day but your healthy immune system normally searches these out, quickly activating killer cells to destroy developing cancers before they can form tumours.

Advancing age, coupled with the onset of other chronic illnesses, and exposure to various environmental toxins (and even some medications), means your immune system’s ability to carry out immune surveillance wanes. If just one abnormal, cancer-prone cell escapes detection and destruction, it can develop into a full-blown malignancy with tremendous swiftness.

An evaluation of all available clinical trials on the use of Reishi in cancer treatment was published in June 2012, by scientists at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney in the Cochrane, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

While there were insufficient data to demonstrate efficacy of Reishi by itself, when Reishi was given alongside radiation and/or chemotherapy, patients were 50% more likely to respond positively compared to those given chemotherapy and radiation alone. Results in cancer patients receiving Reishi showed the expected increases in immune cells known to enhance tumour response and stimulate host immunity.

There’s an abundance of data on the ways Reishi extracts boost immune surveillance, and enhance detection and elimination of emerging cancer cells from the body. In late 2012, several new studies revealed these mushrooms have substantially deeper and more advanced mechanisms than had been previously suspected.

The mechanisms of how Reishi identifies and then attacks cancer cells are extremely sophisticated and effective. We know that cancer cells evade immune system surveillance by “hiding” their abnormal surface markers. These types of molecular changes not only permit primary cancer to arise, but also contribute to relapses of cancer following chemotherapy.

Research shows Reishi extracts force cancer cells to reveal their telltale markers, flagging them for destruction by immune killer cells. At the same time, Reishi extracts induce the production of specific molecules the immune system needs to complete the killing process.

Ultimately, Reishi extracts enhance the killing of cancer cells by normal immune killer cells, and reduce the amount of chemotherapy drugs required to finish the job, say researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology in South China and the Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, in a report in the journal Public Library of Science One in 2012.

In addition to their impressive immune-surveillance-boosting properties, Reishi extracts have numerous other ways of attacking cancer:

• Reishi compounds, particularly the triterpenes and polysaccharides, limit tumours’ growth rate by blocking the abnormal reproductive cycles of cancer cells. Some of these compounds are directly toxic to cancer cells, while sparing healthy tissue.

• Reishi compounds inhibit metastatic processes and decrease the expression of genes involved in cancer cell survival, proliferation, invasion and metastasis.

• Reishi compounds also trigger the programmed cell death called apoptosis that is suppressed in malignant cells. Together, all of these effects of Reishi mushrooms are shown to reduce the size and growth rates of human tumours, both in animals and in human clinical trials.

The most dramatic impact has been shown in colorectal cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death among cancers that affect both men and women.

Reishi and brain function

Reishi extracts have been found to stimulate the production of nerve growth factor, which in turn supports the rapid development of healthy neurons and enhances their mitochondrial function, say Taiwanese scientists from the Institute of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, National Yang-Ming University, in Taipei, in the journal Nueorpharmacology in 2012.

Reishi’s powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties make these mushrooms attractive candidates for preventing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Both of these diseases are driven by oxidative stress and inflammation.

Studies reveal that supplementing with Reishi mushrooms has beneficial effects for stroke victims. First, it can limit the size of the stroke-damaged area in the brain, which helps limit behavioural and functional damage caused by the stroke.

Second, Reishi mushrooms protect brain tissue from hypoxia/reperfusion injury, the “one-two” punch of oxygen starvation followed by excessive oxidation that produces most of the damage in the brains of stroke victims.

As valuable as these benefits are, nowhere are the effects of Reishi mushroom extracts clearer than in their impact on diabetes-related cognitive disorders. In animal studies, Reishi spores alleviated diabetes-induced oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction in the hippocampus, one of the brain’s chief memory-processing areas.

Reishi and diabesity

Obesity is a health hazard sweeping the globe in epidemic proportions. It is particularly prevalent in South Africa, and chief among its complications is type 2 diabetes. The conditions are so often found hand in hand that researchers refer to them as a single disease called “diabesity”. Reishi mushrooms are especially valuable in the fight against this epidemic because they’ve been shown to have benefits across the entire spectrum of diabesity.

Laboratory studies show that the polysaccharides and triterpenes in Reishi extracts can prevent the development of new fat cells from pre-adipocytes, helping to limit excessive fat storage seen in obese people. The extracts also have favourable effects on lipid profiles (cholesterol and triglycerides), which are frequently elevated in those with obesity and/or diabetes — and are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Reishi extracts also work to lower blood sugar by several different mechanisms, helping to reduce diabetic consequences such as kidney disease.

Reishi and liver disease

Your liver is the direct recipient of toxic threats both from the environment and from destructive molecules produced within your body. While it is well protected with its own antioxidant and detoxification systems, oxidation and inflammation eventually take their toll, leaving the ageing liver at risk for decreased function, increased accumulation of toxic injury, fibrosis and cancer.

Fortunately, Reishi mushrooms are shown to offer direct protection against such threats.

A study by Chinese researchers from the Zunyi Medical College, School of Public Health, for instance, published in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology in 2012, shows pre-treating animals with Reishi spores can protect them when they’re exposed to cadmium, a highly toxic metal capable of causing massive liver failure.

The researchers found the spores decreased the cadmium accumulation in liver, while “pushing” the toxic metal into the liquid matrix of the cells. Once there, the mushroom spores increased the production of a cadmium-binding protein that removes the toxin from the body.

Reishi mushroom extracts similarly are shown to protect liver tissue from the toxic effects of certain bacterial infections. Other studies reveal that Reishi polysaccharides restore natural liver antioxidant systems to normal function following an infection, while inhibiting liver enzymes that produce excessive oxidative stress.

One of the most exciting potential applications for Reishi mushrooms in liver disease is in the condition called liver fibrosis, which is the final stage of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Statistics have shown that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common form of liver disease, ultimately affecting 20%-30% of the population. In most cases, liver disease that has advanced to the stage of fibrosis is considered irreversible.

Article From www.bdlive.co.za