Eat more of these foods to help balance your body’s alkalinity and prevent cancer

Source: NaturalNews.com
David Gutierrez
February 11, 2016

Many people have heard of the “pH miracle plan” for restoring and preserving health, but are unclear on exactly which foods are considered “acidic,” and which are considered “alkaline.”

The “pH miracle” is an idea developed by researcher Robert O. Young, and introduced in his 2002 book of the same name. Young suggested that the body’s natural pH is slightly alkaline, but that the modern diet is high in foods that tend to produce an acidic effect in the body. These foods, such as processed sugar, dairy, meat, junk food, alcohol and caffeine, shift the body’s pH towards acidic. This causes acid wastes to build up in the body’s organs, producing a variety of diseases, including cancer.

“The focus for preventing and reversing cancer must be on maintaining the alkaline pH of the body fluids, and a recognition that cancer is a systemic acidic condition,” Young has written.

Top five alkaline superfoods

Unsurprisingly for anyone who follows the most current dietary advice, the most alkaline foods tend to be fruits, vegetables and oily foods, such as avocados, nuts and olives. These foods, by no coincidence, also tend to provide numerous other health benefits. The following five foods are considered among the most alkaline-promoting:

Cabbage, in addition to its alkaline nature, has been shown to fight infections and cancer. If you boil cabbage, be sure to save the water and use it in soup, sauces, or even as a beverage. For an extra health boost, eat your cabbage fermented in the form of sauerkraut (make it at home, or buy it in the refrigerated section so it hasn’t been killed!).

Olive oil, made famous by proponents of the Mediterranean diet, is known to be high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. It is also high in vitamin E, which has been shown to reduce the symptoms of hot flashes and may benefit heart health as well.

Flax seeds and flax seed oil have also gained quite a bit of attention, largely for their high content of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s, which are thought to be too scarce in the Western diet, have been linked with improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure, among other benefits. Flax seeds are also high in lignans, which help fight cancer and improve kidney function. Flax seeds can be eaten whole or ground, but many of the nutrients are best absorbed from the ground seeds or the oil.

Melons are incredibly nutrient rich, containing high levels of dietary fiber, potassium, folic acid and vitamins A, B6 and C. They have been shown to help prevent heart attack and stroke, perhaps by helping thin the blood. Watermelon is also considered an alkaline food.

Buckwheat is relatively uncommon in the Western diet, but functions as a highly effective wheat substitute for those trying to reduce their intake of the latter grain. Buckwheat has been shown to help prevent strokes, and ease the discomfort of hemorrhoids and varicose veins.

More alkaline diet tips

Other alkaline foods include alfalfa sprouts, avocado, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, celery, chives, cucumber, garlic, grapefruit, green beans, green peas, leeks, lemon and lime, lettuce, millet, onion, parsley, pears, pumpkin, radishes, sesame seeds and paste (tahini), soy (beans, sprouts and products), spinach, tomato, wild rice and zucchini.

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

Video: Nutrition on Steroids – How to Sprout Superfoods for 1000x Nutrition

Source: NatuarlSociety.com
Christina Sarich
January 30, 2016

If you want to get some of the most amazing nutrition available from the smallest food sources around, there is nothing equal to sprouting. Sprouted beans, lentils, buckwheat, chickpeas, alfalfa, broccoli seeds, and numerous other foods can be sprouted, in many cases giving you up to 1000 times the nutrition of the fully-grown plant!

Continue Reading At: NaturalSociety.com

Magnesium — A Key Nutrient for Health and Disease Prevention

S0urce:Mercola.com
Dr. Mercola
December 28, 2015

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in your body. More than 3,750 magnesium-binding sites have been detected on human proteins,¹ and it’s required for more than 300 different enzymes in your body.

In short, magnesium plays an important role in a wide variety of biochemical processes, including the following:

Creation of ATP2,3 (adenosine triphospate), the energy molecules of your body	Action of your heart muscle	Proper formation of bones and teeth
Relaxation of blood vessels	Regulation of blood sugar levels	Activating muscles and nerves
Helping digest proteins, carbohydrates, and fats	Serving as a cofactor for RNA and DNA	It’s also a catalyst for neurotransmitters like serotonin

As is the case with vitamin D, if you don’t have enough magnesium, your body simply cannot function optimally, and insufficient cellular magnesium levels set the stage for deterioration of metabolic function that can snowball into more serious health problems.

For starters, magnesium is critical for the optimization of your mitochondria, which have enormous potential to influence your health, especially the prevention of cancer.

In fact, optimizing mitochondrial metabolism may be at the core of effective cancer treatment. But your mitochondrial function is also crucial for overall good health, energy, and athletic performance.

Optimizing Mitochondrial Function with Magnesium

Mitochondria are tiny organelles, originally thought to be derived from bacteria. Most cells have anywhere from 1 to 2,000 of them. Your organs need energy to function properly, and that energy is produced by the mitochondria in each cell.

Since mitochondrial function is at the very heart of everything that occurs in your body, optimizing mitochondrial function (and preventing mitochondrial dysfunction) by making sure you get all the right nutrients and precursors your mitochondria need is extremely important for health and disease prevention.

As explained by Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D., in the video above, magnesium plays an important role. Patrick has done extensive research on the link between mitochondrial metabolism, apoptosis and cancer, and on the effects of hyperthermic conditioning on muscle growth.

High-intensity interval training helps optimize athletic performance by increasing your oxidative capacity, meaning the ability of your muscle cells to consume oxygen. Your oxidative capacity relies on your mitochondria’s ability to produce ATP by consuming that oxygen inside the cell.

As noted by Patrick, “You want your ATP production to exceed your ATP consumption, in order to enhance or maximize your performance and avoid muscle fatigue.”

You can increase your oxidative capacity in two ways:

• Increasing the total number of mitochondria in your cells by engaging in high intensity interval exercises. However, in order for new mitochondria to be created, you must have sufficient amounts of magnesium.
• Increasing the efficiency of your mitochondria to repair damage and produce ATP. This process also requires magnesium as a co-factor.

Common Causes for Magnesium Deficiency

A century ago, we were getting an estimated 500 milligrams (mg) of magnesium from the food we ate, courtesy of the nutrient-rich soil in which it was grown. Today, estimates suggest we’re only getting 150 to 300 mg a day from our food supply.

As noted by Patrick, eating a diet rich in calories and poor in micronutrients (read processed foods) is a primary risk factor for magnesium deficiency, for the simple reason that magnesium resides at the center of the chlorophyll molecule.

Chlorophyll, as you may know, is what gives plants their green color. Most Americans eat far too few fruits and vegetables, which may explain why more than half of the American public is deficient in magnesium.

In addition to not getting sufficient amounts from your diet, magnesium is also lost through stress, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, and prescription drug use (especially diuretics, statins, fluoride and fluoride-containing drugs such as fluoroquinolone antibiotics).

Magnesium levels can also decline in the presence of certain hormones, such as estrogen. If you have elevated insulin levels — which an estimated 80 percent of Americans do — you’re quite likely to have low magnesium levels.⁴

Increasing your magnesium intake may actually go a long way toward improving your condition, or warding off insulin resistance and diabetes in the first place. In one study,⁵ prediabetics with the highest magnesium intake reduced their risk for blood sugar and metabolic problems by 71 percent.

A second study⁶ also found that higher magnesium intake reduces the risk of impaired glucose and insulin metabolism and slows progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes.

According to the authors, “Magnesium intake may be particularly beneficial in offsetting your risk of developing diabetes, if you are high risk.” The mechanism by which magnesium controls glucose and insulin homeostasis appears to involve two genes responsible for magnesium homeostasis.⁷

Magnesium is also required to activate tyrosine kinase, an enzyme that functions as an “on” or “off” switch in many cellular functions and is required for the proper function of your insulin receptors. Last but not least, digestive problems such as Crohn’s disease and leaky gut impair your body’s ability to absorb magnesium, which is yet another cause of inadequate magnesium levels.

As noted by Dr. Dean, it’s quite possible that magnesium insufficiency is part of why health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure are so prevalent these days. It may also play a role in fibromyalgia,⁸ magnesium deficiency is a well-recognized factor in migraines.⁹

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com