6 cancer-fighting superfoods

To reduce your risk of cancer, look no further than your fridge. "All the studies on cancer and nutrition point to eating plant-based foods for their phytonutrients and other special compounds," says Richard Béliveau, PhD, chair in the prevention and treatment of cancer at the University of Québec at Montreal and author of Foods to Fight Cancer.

Aim for five to nine daily servings of all kinds of fruits and vegetables—especially these six superstars.

Broccoli
All cruciferous veggies (think cauliflower, cabbage, kale) contain cancer-fighting properties, but broccoli is the only one with a sizable amount of sulforaphane, a particularly potent compound that boosts the body's protective enzymes and flushes out cancer-causing chemicals, says Jed Fahey, ScD. A recent University of Michigan study on mice found that sulforaphane also targets cancer stem cells—those that aid in tumor growth.

Helps fight: breast, liver, lung, prostate, skin, stomach, and bladder cancers

Your Rx: The more broccoli, the better, research suggests—so add it wherever you can, from salads to omelets to the top of your pizza.

Health.com: 13 easy pizza recipes

Berries
All berries are packed with cancer-fighting phytonutrients. But black raspberries, in particular, contain very high concentrations of phytochemicals called anthocyanins, which slow down the growth of premalignant cells and keep new blood vessels from forming (and potentially feeding a cancerous tumor), according to Gary D. Stoner, PhD, a professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Helps fight: colon, esophageal, oral, and skin cancers

Your Rx: Stoner uses a concentrated berry powder in his studies but says a half-cup serving of berries a day may help your health, too.

Health.com: Go wild for berries!

Tomatoes
This juicy fruit is the best dietary source of lycopene, a carotenoid that gives tomatoes their red hue, Béliveau says. And that's good news, because lycopene was found to stop endometrial cancer cell growth in a study in Nutrition and Cancer. Endometrial cancer causes nearly 8,000 deaths a year.

Helps fight: endometrial, lung, prostate, and stomach cancers

Your Rx: The biggest benefits come from cooked tomatoes (think pasta sauce!), since the heating process increases the amount of lycopene your body is able to absorb.

Health.com: 10 tasty tomato recipes

Walnuts
Their phytosterols (cholesterol-like molecules found in plants) have been shown to block estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells, possibly slowing the cells' growth, says Elaine Hardman, PhD, associate professor at Marshall University School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia.

Helps fight: breast and prostate cancers

Your Rx: Munching on an ounce of walnuts a day may yield the best benefits, Hardman's research found.

Health.com: 8 super nuts

Garlic
Phytochemicals in garlic have been found to halt the formation of nitrosamines, carcinogens formed in the stomach (and in the intestines, in certain conditions) when you consume nitrates, a common food preservative, Béliveau says. In fact, the Iowa Women's Health Study found that women with the highest amounts of garlic in their diets had a 50 percent lower risk of certain colon cancers than women who ate the least.

Helps fight: breast, colon, esophageal, and stomach cancers

Your Rx: Chop a clove of fresh, crushed garlic (crushing helps release beneficial enzymes), and sprinkle it into that lycopene-rich tomato sauce while it simmers.

Health.com: Surprising health benefits of garlic

Beans
A study out of Michigan State University found that black and navy beans significantly reduced colon cancer incidence in rats, in part because a diet rich in the legumes increased levels of the fatty acid butyrate, which in high concentrations has protective effects against cancer growth. Another study, in the journal Crop Science, found dried beans particularly effective in preventing breast cancer in rats.

Helps fight: breast and colon cancers

Your Rx: Add a serving—a half-cup—of legumes a few times a week (either from a can or dry beans that've been soaked and cooked) to your usual rotation of greens or other veggies.

GARLIC - The Wonder Food

A clove of garlic a day keeps cancer away.But it does more than that.It also keeps the possibility of a love life away! Take heart however.There's always Close Up to remedy the situation!

Garlic contains a chemical called Allicin, which has already proved to have numerous health benefits. A team of Israeli scientists recently used this chemical to successfully kill cancer cells as well as malignant tumors in mice.

Allicin is not present in an unbroken clove of garlic. It only gets released when the clove is crushed, so when using garlic in cooking, make sure you crush it and use it.Don't add the entire unbroken clove in your food, as though this will give you the flavour of garlic, it will not provide you with the benefits of its anti-carcinogenic properties.

The clove needs to be damaged, so it is more effective crushed than cut.When crushed garlic is added to a dish, any parasites, bacteria or other microbes get killed even before the temperature kills them, so if you are worried about eating outside food - the safest option would be to order food with a strong garlic flavour. Chances of food poisoning would be slim! Garlic, as we all know or should be knowing, is a natural antiseptic, and eating a clove of garlic a day also helps ward off most infections.

Italians and Chinese eat plenty of garlic in their food, and have very low incidences of cancer.Pizzas and pastas,Italian dishes rich in maida and cheese, have liberal dozes of garlic, with the result that Italians seem relatively immune to other problems associated with such a diet such as high cholesterol and heart ailments. Similarly, Chinese food is rich in garlic, and the Chinese too are statistically less prone to cancer and heart ailments.

How should you eat the clove?

Needless to say, crushing a clove of garlic and eating it raw would not be the most pleasant of experiences.Garlic has a very strong flavour, and it needs to be mixed with other foods in order to be enjoyed.The best way to eat garlic would be to add it in food while cooking it. Allicin gets distributed throughout the meal, providing you with the benefits of its anti-carcinogenic and antiseptic properties.

Make sure you peel the garlic before cooking it. Cooking garlic in its peel destroys its curative properties. Similarly, peeling the garlic days before and crushing and storing all the crushed garlic together to be used a little at a time may be very convenient as a time saver, but you lose many of garlic's potent health properties. The natural compound of Allicin as found in garlic loses its beneficial properties within hours because it begins to react with garlic's other components as soon as the clove is crushed.

Peel the garlic and let it sit for fifteen minutes before cooking. Just before cooking, crush it. Consume soon after.

While you can get garlic supplements if you are looking for the easier way out, it is highly recommended that you get your daily doze of garlic the natural way - through the clove itself. As already mentioned, garlic has numerous other health benefits,and eating the garlic fresh would give you all these benefits. If you can consume the garlic raw, there's nothing like it! Peel it, crush it fifteen minutes later and down it, followed by a little milk. Do this every night - so you will not smell of garlic the entire day. Before long, you will see your health and immunity improve, and you needn't fear cancer again.

Top tips for a healthy diet

• Choose a variety of foods from each of the different food groups to make sure you’re getting a good balance.

• Ask your doctor about extra supplements if you’re worried you’re not eating from a particular food group.

• Have 3 regular meals and 2 to 3 light snacks a day.

• Include generous helpings of fruits and vegetables, wholegrain cereals and beans to increase your fibre intake.

• Drink water regularly – at least 8 glasses a day.

• Include other drinks in your diet such as low-fat milk, fresh fruit juices and soup.

• Eat one portion of oily fish and one portion of white fish each week (but avoid shark, swordfish and marlin).

• Use vegetable oils such as corn, olive and sunflower oil in your cooking, but use them sparingly.

• Limit your intake of processed and preserved foods as they usually contain high levels of salt.

• Reduce your caffeine intake to no more than 4 cups a day.

• Limit your intake of sweets, crisps, cakes, biscuits, fats, oils, and sugar. These all provide extra calories but not much of the nutritional value that you and your child need. Over-indulging now means it will be harder to regain your pre-pregnancy figure afterwards, so try to resist dipping into the biscuit tin too often!

Menopause

What is Menopause & Perimenopause

Menopause is the permanent ending of menstruation as a result of loss of ovarian follicular function in woman. It is identified retrospectively after twelve months of amenorrhea that is absence of menstruation. The average age at menopause is fifty one year’s among United States women.

Natural menopause takes place while the journal cycle of ovulation moves toward to an end. This is because of the refuse of ovarian delivery of follicles and spawns piercingly as woman move towards menopause.


In the end, as the ovaries are rejection longer intelligent to expand an egg for the ovulation process, manufacture of estrogen leaves into a enduring refuse, and progesterone is not longer shaped. The inside layer of the uterus skinny, since it is not life form enthused by elevated estrogen heights every month and journal blood loss stop and Menopause happens. Do not discount the significance of the “postmenopausal ovary”, though! It carries on creating hormones still after ovulation trimmings, creating a number of estrogen and too androgens.

Perimenopause

The Perimenopause points towards the to the occasion period previous to menopause, when fertility diminishes and indiscretion of menstrual series augments, waiting the primary year after end of menses. The start of perimenopause heads the last menses by two to eight years, with a mean duration of four years. Smoking accelerates the menopausal transition by two years. Though the peri- and postmenopausal periods share many symptoms, the physiology and clinical management of the two periods differ. Low-dose oral contraceptives have become a therapeutic basis in perimenopause, whereas postmenopausal hormone therapy is an ordinary technique of indication mitigation following menstruation stops.

Ovarian accumulation and fruitfulness refuse piercingly following age of thirty five years and even more abruptly throughout perimenopause. Reduction of main follicles, a procedure that starts earlier than birth, occur progressively awaiting menopause. In case of perimenopause, intermenstrual gaps shorten considerably characteristically by three days due to speedy follicular phase. Follicle-stimulating hormone levels known as FSH rise, due to altered folliculogenesis that is production of follicles and less inhibin emission. In difference to the time after time elevated FSH and short estradiol heights observe in menopause, perimenopause is typify with the help of “irregularly irregular” hormone heights.

Tomato Allergy

Some Important Facts About Having a Tomato Allergy

Have you ever wondered if you had a tomato allergy? This type of allergy is caused by the body having a bad reaction to tomatoes or any type of food that contains tomatoes. You may have eaten something with this ingredient in the past and suffered from a terrible reaction. You may have wondered if you were allergic to something you ate. This brief article will supply you with some of the important facts you may want to know.

A tomato allergy is actually very rare. However, for individuals that fear they may be allergic to tomatoes it is very important to know which part of the plant is dangerous. The seeds, skin, and juice are all actually very harmful to someone who suffers from this type of allergy. It would not be wise to touch the tomato or drink anything that has fresh tomato juice in it. The reason that fresh tomatoes are stressed here is because sometimes people with a tomato allergy can eat things that have processes tomatoes in them and not suffer from any adverse reactions. Allergies to foods such as tomatoes can develop at any time. Just because you are not allergic today does not mean that you will not be allergic tomorrow. Your reactions to the allergy can also become worse over time. It may be best to stay away from any food that may have tomatoes or tomato products in them. You can never be sure if there are fresh tomatoes on something that is mainly made from processed tomatoes.

You may begin with having a runny nose. Your eyes may also become sore, red, watery or even itchy. Next, you may begin to develop a cough. Although these symptoms may seem very similar to cold symptoms, you need to be aware of other complications that could develop with a tomato allergy. The symptoms will begin to get worse as your lip and tongue can begin to swell. Swelling of the throat may make it difficult to breath and you may have an asthma attack. Wheezing can also develop and contribute to these breathing difficulties. Other people could notice that your voice sounds hoarse. Your mouth may tingle or even feel itchy.

The following symptoms have a lot of the similarities to the flu. The tomato allergy may cause you to have diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. However, you may also become very constipated and have difficulties going to the restroom at all. Abdominal pain can be experienced as well. As you continue to experience some of these symptoms you might begin to fell very tired. This feeling of tiredness can also be accompanied by disturbed sleep. This can be very annoying when you do not feel well and you are tired but can not sleep.

You need to keep in mind that your reaction can vary from mild to life-threatening. If your reaction to the tomato is extreme you could even go into anaphylactic shock. This can cause you to become unconscious and can even result in death if you are not treated quickly and appropriately. You should always talk to your physician if you are concerned that you have an allergy to any type of food to ensure that you are prepared for any life threatening reactions.

Finally, remember that you can get relief from many of the mild symptoms that have been discussed. Vitamins may help you feel better and you can also consider buying an over the counter medication. Vitamins A,B,C and E may help you deal with allergies and function more comfortably if you are suffering. You can get these vitamins from supplements but you can also each foods that are rich in these vitamins. Eating healthy can be a great way to deal with allergies.

The Facts about Oatmeal Nutrition

Many people have never even considered the benefits of oatmeal nutrition. That’s because some of us think of oatmeal as a food of the past. You might remember your mother making you oatmeal for breakfast, especially if you lived in a place with winter snow. She may even have told you that you needed something hearty to get you through to lunch. If you were like most kids, you probably weren’t very concerned that you get your share of oatmeal nutrition. You may even have begged for a sugary cereal like some of your friends are for breakfast.

Well, if you had oatmeal for breakfast, you were indeed having a healthy meal. If your diet has changed now that you are an adult and you no longer are taking the value of oatmeal seriously, you might want to take another look at oatmeal nutrition. One of the phrases that you hear everywhere today is that to eat healthy, you need to eat more whole grains. Whole grains are an excellent source of fiber and have many other benefits.

Most of us do not eat enough whole grains. People who grew up eating the soft, white “miracle bread,” can have a hard time switching to a thick, heavy, chewy bread as is the case with many types of bread made from whole grains. Many people think that the only way to eat whole grains is to choose a product like a multi- or nine-grain bread. For those who grew up with white bread and peanut butter, this is a big change.

And, maybe you just don’t like the taste of whole wheat, or the other whole grains you find in these breads and other foods. Perhaps you are just one of those people who don’t care to have seeds or nuts in their bread. The good news is that if you take a new look at oatmeal nutrition, you might find just the answer to the whole grain dilemma. That’s because oatmeal is a complete whole-grain food.

The FDA recommends that each individual eat a minimum of three servings of whole-grain foods every day. And, if we are conscientious about doing this, the statistics indicate that we can decrease our risk of heart disease by as much as twenty to thirty percent. Oatmeal is one way to meet this goal, and the great thing about oatmeal is that it is lighter and sweeter tasting than many of the other whole grain products you will find at the store.

You can have oatmeal for breakfast or sandwiches made of oatmeal bread. You can have oatmeal bars for snacks. That’s already three servings of oatmeal. Plus, when you add fruit and milk to oatmeal you make it healthier still. Oatmeal actually sticks to the bad cholesterol in your blood and takes it with it out of your body. Keeping good cholesterol and getting rid of the bad is one of the best ways to have a healthy heart and prevent heart attacks and strokes.

If you eat oatmeal, nutrition in your diet is going to improve dramatically. Oatmeal is a complex carbohydrate. It is not one of those simple sugars that is released quickly in your blood and raises your glucose level too high for a short period of time. Complex carbohydrates break down slowly, helping blood sugar to level off, and all the while increasing our energy and stamina. People who run marathons eat a ton of complex carbohydrates.

Another part of oatmeal nutrition is the fact that it is full of vitamins and minerals--vitamin A, B-complex vitamins, iron and calcium are just a few of them. The fiber contained in oatmeal benefits not only the heart but the digestive system as well. Fiber is just what you need to clean out your colon and get your digestive tract back to a healthy level.

If you thought oatmeal was just a breakfast food for little kids or you simply just haven’t thought of it as a whole grain, take another look at oatmeal. Nutritionally, you can’t go wrong.

SKIPPING MEALS CAN HELP LOSE WEIGHT

Many people think that by skipping a meal, they will be eating less food and therefore lose weight. As we now know, this is a nutrition myth. People who think skipping meals means weight loss do not understand how our bodies work.

If you skip a meal, your body will think that you are in starvation mode and therefore slow down the metabolism to compensate. You then tend to overeat at the next meal. Often, skipping a meal and then eating too much at the next one means that you have a higher total caloric intake than if you just ate more frequently throughout the day. A better approach is to eat smaller frequent healthy meals and snacks to keep your blood sugar balanced.