Now you have heard and seen everything – flower power can assist you to lower your blood cholesterol levels! Yes, you read it correctly. The Hibiscus, which is one of the most beautiful flowers in the world and comes in various colours, shapes and sizes, now also, has medicinal value.

Research had found that Hibiscus flowers can assist in controlling blood pressure, increasing circulation and reducing cholesterol. But this is not all - the high vitamin C content in Hibiscus flowers can even help fighting colds and chest congestion.

The extract from Hibiscus flowers forms the basis of a traditional Eastern remedy and it was found that an extract could have the same health benefits for the heart as red wine and tea. It has many of the same oxidant compounds as red wine and the presence of flavonoid, polyphenols and anthocyanins assist with the prevention of the oxidation of LDL or better known as “bad” cholesterol. This oxidation is what contributes to atherosclerosis, the build up of a waxy plaque on the walls of arteries. It is also very possible that the Hibiscus extract could suppress blood lipid levels including triglycerides and total cholesterol significantly.

Some traditions were also known to have believed that Hibiscus extract could treat hypertension and liver disorders. This beautiful flower could therefore have important health benefits when consumed in food and drink. Other societies again believed the Hibiscus flower to have anti-bacterial properties and were also used to treat stomach aliments. There are also claims that the flower acts as laxative and diuretic.

It is very important to take note that scientific research regarding the value of Hibiscus extract as a life-saving medicine to lower blood cholesterol is still in the trail and error phase and it is not yet a cut-and-dried fact. Although dietary supplements in capsule form containing Hibiscus flower extracts are commercially available, the best advice is still to have a good exercise program and a diet containing fruit and vegetables as well as saturated fat. And the best is also to seek medical advice with any problem a person should have with high blood cholesterol levels. May be in the near future physicians would even be able to prescribe Hibiscus extract!

 De Villiers

Visit my other blogs also:

www.hendrikd.blogspot.com

http://hendrik.affinitiz.com

I had a bit of a nasty surprise this week.

On Tuesday, I went to the doctor's office to have my routine thyroid check done and my prescription renewed. Usually I just have some blood drawn to measure my TSH, but because it's been a long while since my last total health checkup, the doctor ordered a full blood work up.

On Wednesday, the nurse called. "We got most of your test results back. Your thyroid is perfect, so we renewed your prescription. All your other numbers so far are terrific! We're just waiting on the lipid panel now, so we'll call you when we get it." "Great!" I said, righteously sure that I was only reaping the just rewards of my healthy diet.

Yesterday, the nurse called again. "Well, we have the rest of your blood work results. I'm afraid it's not good news." My heart skipped a beat. She went on, "Your cholesterol is high. It's 266. And your LDL (that's the bad cholesterol) is 183."

"What does that mean?" I asked, "I don't know what the numbers are supposed to be."

"Your total cholesterol should be less than 200, and an optimal LDL level is below 100, so your readings are pretty high. Were you fasting before the test?" I said no. Apparently, she explained, cholesterol readings can be skewed quite a bit by food that is eaten shortly before having blood drawn. I breathed a sigh of relief as the nurse scheduled me for a follow up test this morning, to be preceded by a 12 hour fast.

Hungry and anxious, I drove back to the doctor's office after dropping Katie off at school to have my blood drawn again. Since it was just a cholesterol test this time, they were able to process the results on site in about ten minutes.

The verdict? Total cholesterol: 264. LDL: 178. Chubby blood.

I talked for a few minutes with Mark, our doctor, about my choices. Unlike some patients, I can't make many improvements in my diet. I already eat a low-fat, whole foods diet full of lean meats and lots of fruits and vegetables, and have been since January. Most people on the South Beach Diet boast vastly improved cholesterol numbers; why not me? I agreed to add some oats to my largely grain-free menu, but Mark couldn't suggest any other alterations. I also vowed to take up exercising with a dedication that has been--shall we say--a bit lacking in most of my previous efforts. All the same, Mark says that most people can only effect about a 10% change in their blood lipid levels through lifestyle change alone. Most high cholesterol problems are genetic, and many have to be treated with statin drugs. Instructed to come back in three months for another blood test, I was released to drive home, my mind whirling with new information.

Of course, I hopped on the internet as soon as I could and started researching both statins and natural remedies for high cholesterol. The news was mixed. Possible side effects like muscle fatigue, cognitive losses, and heart weakness make statins sound like more trouble than what they're trying to fix. And I really hate the idea of relying on yet another prescription medicine to regulate something that my body should be regulating on its own. But some of the more natural alternatives look promising. I also found that there is some dissension among medical professionals as to the significance of various numbers. Many of them say that more important than the individual numbers themselves is the ratio of HDL (good cholesterol) to LDL. Mine is very good. And my triglycerides are low, another good sign.

So I don't know what to think.

Foolishly, I always imagined only older people had high cholesterol. It never crossed my mind to be concerned about it for myself. I mean, here I am, thirty-four years old, within five pounds of my goal weight, and eating better than I have in years, only to find out that my circulation system never got the memo.

And I'm a little ticked off about it, to tell you the truth.

The original Walnut Study from Loma Linda University, published in 1993, made headlines around the world and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Why all the excitement? Because Loma Linda University had broken new ground. They were the first to find that walnuts in a controlled diet reduced LDL (bad) cholesterol and heart disease risk significantly more than the Step 1 diet that was then recommended by the American Heart Association.  In other words - they proved, scientifically, that food really can be your medicine. 

You can find Walnuts in many of your favorite Wholefood Farmacy foods such as Phi Plus, Cranberry Phi, Coco Cherry Phi and TropiPhi.

Hook Up with Health and Walnuts Today to lower your bad cholesterol!

With your Health and Wellness through Food in mind 

 www.hookupwithhealth.wholefoodfarmacy.com

I'd previously mentioned my suspicions of moon dust brought on by the cleanse. Whilst plaque production has dried up for now the recent appearance of the moon-dust was a bit shocking. More so when a little forensic work indicates that they might well have been Intrahepatic Cholesterol Stones.

Sitting inside the liver the internal  ducts that carry away the toxins that the liver flushes out by processing hundreds of litres of blood a day sometimes forms small 'stones' of cholesterol.

Here's a picture of the works.

and here's a sectioned organ revealing an identical looking cholesterol stone.

I'm a pharmacist and diabetes educator in St. Petersburg, Florida, and have had approximately eight years experience using BiosLife2 with my diabetic patients. Typically, most people think BiosLife2 will only help type 2 diabetics, however, I've found a greater benefit from using it with patients with type 1 diabetes. And that is simply because of the ability of BiosLife2 to level the blood sugar.

The problem that occurs with people who have type 1 diabetes, especially children, is that their lifestyles and their activities cause such a fluctuation in their use of glucose, metabolism of glucose and the amount of insulin they require that it's very hard to level those blood sugars. I've found that by consuming the soluble fiber in BiosLife2, this helps moderate the absorption of the glucose, makes it stay longer, pretty much giving them a slow-release form of glucose, so that they don't have those swings.

As we all know, low blood sugar for a type 1 diabetic is probably more harmful than high blood sugar. The ability to help stave off those lows with the Bios Life 2 gives them an opportunity to have better control over their high glucose. In addition, it will help with the high glucose. And as children tend to eat a little more irregularly and irrationally than adults do, taking the Bios Life 2 before they eat will help temper some of the effects that cause high blood sugar as well.

Dave J.

La propera conferència de recerca d’aquest curs tindrà lloc el proper dimarts, 20 de novembre a les 12:30 h. a l’Aula 5. La impartirà la Dra. Gemma Llaverias, del Departament de Farmacologia i Química Terapèutica. El títol és Dieta, nivells de colesterol plasmàtic i càncer.

Articles de Gemma Llaverias a PubMed.

Documents sobre 'Dieta I Càncer' o 'Nutrició I Càncer' al CRAI. De tots els llibres que tenim al CRAI us destaquem:

• Dieta, nutrición y prevención de enfermedades crónicas ; informe de una consulta mixta de expertos OMS/FAO
• Dieta para la prevención del cáncer de mama
• Dieta y riesgo cardiovascular estudio Dorica II
• Biochemical and physiological aspects of human nutrition
  

També us destaquem aquestes recomanacions: American Cancer Society Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for cancer prevention: reducing the risk of cancer with healthy food choices and physical activity, aquest -entre moltíssims- web: Answers About Nutrition & Cancer i aquesta entrada al blog Biosingularity.

Aquí trobareu tota la informació referent a les conferències de recerca de la facultat.

By Tina Rowley, R.N., Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and owner of the Birmingham, Michigan franchise of Home Instead Senior Care. 

Q.    High cholesterol tends to run in my family and when I went for my last physical, I noticed that it was up.  My doctor said to watch what I eat and gave me a diet to follow, but it’s difficult since my wife died.   What can you suggest? 

One of the easiest ways to stay out of trouble at the grocery store is to start reading labels.  According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI: www.nhlbi.nih.gov), it’s important to choose foods that are low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.   The government has worked to make this easier for all of us. 

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule went into effect in January 2006 requiring that food labels list the amount of trans fat together with saturated fat and cholesterol. What makes trans fat so dangerous?  Trans fat is a type of fat that is formed when vegetable oil is hardened through a process called hydrogenation.  The process actually helps to prolong the shelf life of food. Unfortunately, saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol work together to raise the level of LDL “bad” cholesterol in the blood.  And those factors contribute to disease such as coronary heart disease (CHD), the main form of heart disease and a leading cause of death, illness and disability in the United States, according NHLBI. Check the “Nutrition Facts” panel of the food label.  

Choose foods lower in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol. One way to determine saturated fat and cholesterol is by checking the “Percent Daily Value” (or %DV): 5% DV or less is low; and 20% DV or more is high.  There is no %DV for trans fat. All of this can still be overwhelming—so it might be useful for you to have help. 

Consider hiring a non-medical caregiver.  Home Instead Senior Care hires CAREGivers who are trained to help seniors shop for food, prepare meals and even clean up afterwards.  A CAREGiver could assist you with your food plan, as well as provide companionship and support.  Begin today to make a change. 

For more information call Bert Copple at 248-904-8455.

By Tina Rowley, R.N., Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and owner of the Birmingham, Michigan franchise of Home Instead Senior Care. 

Q.    High cholesterol tends to run in my family and when I went for my last physical, I noticed that it was up.  My doctor said to watch what I eat and gave me a diet to follow, but it’s difficult since my wife died.   What can you suggest? 

One of the easiest ways to stay out of trouble at the grocery store is to start reading labels.  According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI: www.nhlbi.nih.gov), it’s important to choose foods that are low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.   The government has worked to make this easier for all of us. 

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule went into effect in January 2006 requiring that food labels list the amount of trans fat together with saturated fat and cholesterol. What makes trans fat so dangerous?  Trans fat is a type of fat that is formed when vegetable oil is hardened through a process called hydrogenation.  The process actually helps to prolong the shelf life of food. Unfortunately, saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol work together to raise the level of LDL “bad” cholesterol in the blood.  And those factors contribute to disease such as coronary heart disease (CHD), the main form of heart disease and a leading cause of death, illness and disability in the United States, according NHLBI. Check the “Nutrition Facts” panel of the food label.  

Choose foods lower in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol. One way to determine saturated fat and cholesterol is by checking the “Percent Daily Value” (or %DV): 5% DV or less is low; and 20% DV or more is high.  There is no %DV for trans fat. All of this can still be overwhelming—so it might be useful for you to have help. 

Consider hiring a non-medical caregiver.  Home Instead Senior Care hires CAREGivers who are trained to help seniors shop for food, prepare meals and even clean up afterwards.  A CAREGiver could assist you with your food plan, as well as provide companionship and support.  Begin today to make a change. 

For more information call Bert Copple at 248-904-8455.

Some time earlier this year I found wetpaint.com, since then i have 3 wetpaint wiki's and am a member of at least 5 others...read what TIME has to say about Wetpaint and how they are ranked in Times TOP 50 Websites.

...HypoCol Community wiki..

TIME Awards Wetpaint Top 50 Websites Award 

Sure, your pals can post comments about your blog, YouTube videos and Flickr photos, but if you want a true collaborative exchange, consider creating a wiki—a site where anyone can add and edit any of the site's content. Wetpaint, a Seattle startup, makes it super easy for non-techie people to create a wiki or contribute to one. Even companies are using it: Food & Wine magazine has a Wetpaint wiki; CBS started one for CSI fans and T-Mobile created one for the Sidekick.

The process for adding text, Web links, photos and video to a Wetpaint wiki is highly intuitive, but there are video tutorials just in case. If you're feeling protective or want a little more control, Wetpaint lets you set different levels of access for different users. You can also restrict access altogether to only those you've specifically invited, though anybody will still be able to visit the site. As your wiki evolves and grows, there are tools that track the changes in detail, so you can see who did what and when—and then call them on it before changing it back.

Source: Time

Several years ago, there was growing interest in policosanols, a newly identified supplement, as a cholesterol-lowering agent. Major international scientific journals published promising studies of this substance derived from sugar cane wax, and it was already being marketed in a number of countries by the Cuban manufacturer, which had also conducted all the major studies (hmmm...). As of 2005, the accumulation of evidence was so impressive that even the NIH decided to fund an investigation of policosanols to lower lipid levels in people with HIV on HAART.

So what happened to this once-promising supplement? The tale is told in a piece of investigative reporting that NYBC published in early 2007. Author: Sean-Michael Fleming, with additional contributions from George Carter and Jared Becker.

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While updating the NYBC website [in 2006], I encountered disturbing reports of new, damning studies of policosanols, once the cholesterol-lowering darling of the supplement world. After some investigation, I realized I had started down a trail of…international intrigue.

Policosanols (chemically speaking, a mix of different kinds of long-chain fatty acids) became the golden child of supplements in recent years, with dazzling promise of being able to lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol up to 30% with negligible side effects - and at far less cost than prescription statins. They seemed a godsend for those on HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy), who often struggle with cholesterol control. Described in many respected scientific journals worldwide, they had been tested successfully on thousands of people!

Studies of sugarcane-derived policosanols first emerged from Cuba in the mid-1990s. Interest grew as human trials confirmed the supplement’s effectiveness in treating dyslipidemia. (Dyslipidemia refers to abnormal blood fat levels: elevated “bad” cholesterol and triglycerides, and low HDL or “good” cholesterol; it is frequently the precursor of cardiovascular disease.)

The Cuban studies received a major seal of approval from German scientists reviewing them in the American Heart Journal in 2002. Surveying over 20 published studies, the scientists declared the supplement to be “a fascinating new agent for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerotic disease.” Meanwhile the sale of Cuban sugarcane policosanols – now patented – expanded to more than 40 countries, mainly in South America and the Caribbean. The Cuban version couldn’t be sold in the US due to the trade embargo, but a multitude of policosanol products appeared here as well. At NYBC we were enthusiastic about policosanol’s potential, and added it to our catalog in 2005.But doubts were surfacing. Studies of policosanols extracted from wheat germ and from rice failed to find an effect, though some claimed these forms did not contain the right balance of aliphatic alcohols (=policosanols).

In 2006 the German scientists who had given the Cuban studies high marks returned with results of their own rigorous trial of Cuban sugarcane policosanols, which found them no more effective than a dummy pill. Later in the year, Canadian researcher Dr. Peter Jones also reported a study using Cuban sugarcane policosanols that showed the supplement had no value in lowering cholesterol. (However, he used a 10 mg dose that may have been too low; others suggest the study was too short, being only 28 days long.)

Perhaps there was cause for skepticism from the start. Almost all the Cuban studies came from Dalmer Labs, which was connected to the nation’s Center for Scientific Research and then became the marketer of Cuba’s patented policosanols. No independent scientific verification took place outside of Cuba for years. And was it coincidence that the policosanol studies came out just when Cuba’s sugar industry was staggering under the loss of Soviet subsidies and a string ofbad harvests? Boosting sales of sugarcane derivatives became an acknowledged national goal, and would certainly be a good way to restore profitability to the island’s major cash crop.

We don’t yet know the full back-story to this “policontroversy.” At NYBC we are considering discontinuing policosanols, and would like to hear reactions from any member who has used them. In the meantime, we urge anyone interested in using them to do so at the beginning of bloodwork on a stable regimen. Then see if they work for you—or not. And please share your experiences with us.

With the promise of policosanols tarnished, what lipid-lowering alternatives to prescription drugs do people have? Fish oils continue to gain respect in scientific/medical communities in Europe and the US (see info about them on our new Supplement Fact Sheets - see “Resource Relaunch Revealed” in this issue). Dr. Jones sees a potentially bright future for plant sterols, which may significantly improve lipid profiles—we look forward to more study of these substances. Then there’s niacin, which despite the problem of “flushing/itching,” works very well for some people as a cholesterol-lowering agent (see detailed suggestions on our website).

Of course, nutritionists have long known about the moderate cholesterol-lowering effect of high-fiber foods like oatmeal. If you are trying to control your cholesterol, you should also understand that sugar intake, not just fat intake, influences your cholesterol level. And when monitoring cholesterol and cardiovascular risk, remember that the more recent focus has been not just on lowering “bad” cholesterol, but raising “good” cholesterol (which niacin does very well). And of course, making dietary changes and getting routine exercise are the first basis with which to start.

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Thoughts? Comments? Any further information to offer us as we prepare to close the books on this once-promising supplement?