A Few Facts about Probiotics

Probiotics, Probiotics, Probiotics and the great benefits they can provide to your digestive system. That’s all we seem to see on TV these days. But.. do you really understand what they are and the difference between probiotic and prebiotic?

What do Probiotics do ... (It’s a Zoo down there!)
Our intestines are loaded with around 500 different types of bacteria, some good and some bad and some ugly. Probiotics are the “friendly” bacteria that hang out on the walls of your intestines.

Probiotics work with enzymes to break down and digest your food, but they also help to process waste, and keep unfriendly bacteria, yeasts and fungii in check. Probiotics work with your immune system by preventing bad bacteria (like H. Pylori & Salmonella) as well as yeast and fungi (like Candida) from grogetting out of control . Probiotics are actually your first line of defense against bacterial related disease. When unfriendly bacteria enter your digestive tract, probiotics recognize them as the bad guys (it’s the black hats that are the giveaway) and immediately attack them. Thus, probiotics greatly enhance your immune system!
Probiotics also manufacture essential vitamins and hormones, egulate their levels, and in their spare time, maintain the pH of our entire digestive system. So we are entirely dependent on the ‘bugs in our guts’!


Probiotics and what can hurt them. ...

Pharmaceuticals
Antibiotics don’tdiscriminate between good and bad bacteria. They kill everything. Other drugs like antacids, laxatives, birth control pills, and steroidal / hormonal drugs can also harm your probiotics. When this happens, your intestines may lose their protective layers, becoming dangerously vulnerable to invasion by ‘bad-guy’ bacteria. Once the bad guys take over in your intestines, they can easily enter the bloodstream and infect any organ in your body. Lack of probiotics may cause you to become more prone to infectious disease, digestive problems such as constipation or diarrhea, and malnourishment.

Foods & Chemicals
Other things that can kill your probiotics and skew the balance of your digestive system include fluoride, coffee/tea, vinegar, carbonated drinks, chlorine, man-made vitamins, and preservatives (in food).

When you consume meat, you're also eating the pathogenic bacteria in the meat which harm probiotics.

Foods high in yeast and fungus and foods that feed yeast also kill probiotics. Intestinal yeasts and fungi produce antibacterial chemicals (penicillin comes from fungus). In the same regard, Probiotics produce chemicals that attack yeast. So there's an ongoing war in your intestinal tract . When bad bacteria and yeast begin to outnumber your probiotic bacteria, the probiotics lose the war.

Are you depleted in Probiotics .?
Symptoms of probiotic deficiency are numerous, and are related to almost every known illness. Most commonly, insufficient levels of probiotics can lead to candida overgrowth which results in perforation of the intestinal wall, A.K.A. "leaky gut". This allows undigested food particles and harmful microbes to enter the bloodstream and abdominal cavity.

Bladder infections, yeast infections, gas, bloating, nausea, constipation and diarrhea may all be signs of an imbalance in intestinal flora.

The extensive and varied roles probiotics play in health have caused leading researchers in Europe to claim that as much as 80% of all degenerative diseases result from Probiotic deficiency. Keeping your probiotics winning the war...

Today, given the many unnatural factors that reduce probiotic populations, it has come to the fact that the only way to keep your probiotic levels high in a consistent manner is to keep introducing them into your diet while keeping your yeast and bad bacteria levels low.
You could take a whole bottle of a probiotic supplement in one sitting, but if your intestines are full of yeast and anaerobic bacteria, then the probiotics from the supplement won't live long.

Here's an 8 step battle plan that will keep your probiotics healthy and thriving:

1. Reduce your consumption of meat to one serving per day. Cook your meat will in order to kill off the pathogenic bacteria in it.

2. Reduce or eliminate processed sugars and simple sugars...they feed intestinal yeasts.

3. Reduce your consumption of foods that contain gluten - this includes oatmeal and wheat. Yeasts love gluten.

4. Eliminate or reduce foods that contain or feed yeasts. This includes breads, baked goods, crackers, beer, foods that contain yeast or yeast extract (many packaged foods do), malt, modified corn starch, and hydrolized proteins.

5. Increase your consumption of raw vegetables, nuts and legumes which contain probiotics. At least 3 servings is optimal. Drinking a green drink like Core Greens or pH Ion counts as a serving.

6. Increase your consumption of gluten free complex carbs like rice, potatoes, spelt, buckwheat, millet and quinoa. These will help feed your probiotics while starving yeasts.

7. Increase your intake of cultured dairy like kefir and yogurt. However...beware that most commercial yogurts contain modified corn starch which feeds yeast. Look for truly "natural" brands.

8. Look for a multi-strain probiotic supplement and take it every night preferably with a prebiotic fibre complex. (Prebiotics are fibres that feed Probiotics and cause them to grow and colonize at a faster rate. When you take your Probiotic supplement along with Probiotic fibre, the bacteria get "carried" to your intestinal tract by the fibre as well.
.(with thanks to pHIon)

Kaz's Whale of a time

Many of my readers will have talked to Karen (Kaz), one of our alkaline specialists here at AlkaWay.

Here's what she does in her free time. A lovely video of her holiday pics!
P.S.: She's the one trailing behind the boat!

WAZZA'S WAY

I love it when necessity is proven to be the mother of invention.wazza's son drowned in his pool at home and Wazza's way of dealing with it may change the way resuscitation is carried our worldwide. Well worth a look and watching the videos.. just in case you are placed in Wazza's position.
Click on the image for more.
(Thanks to Jennie Gorman for passing this on to me).

Now this is GOOD News!

A new study concludes that web surfing is good for an aging brain.
Here's the study.

However... here's another report that says all ageing will end in 2029.
Hmm. so.. I'll be..84! Thanks a lot!

The Hidden Cost of Unclean Syringes

How's your Athero?

The Little-Known Culprit Behind Clogged Arteries

If I talk about atherosclerosis most people will glaze over. “Oh.. ah.. it’s some sort of heart disease isn’t it?”

If I asked people to name the disease condition responsible for four out of ten deaths in the US, I’m confidently guessing the same people will say cancer.

But it’s not cancer. It’s atherosclerosis so perhaps it’s time to learn a little about it and what can be done now to jump the queue to health beyond that forty percent line.

I’m also guessing that of the people who don’t know about it, almost all of them will not know about its primary causes – especially one that is happening in their bodies right now.

So let’s ‘clear the deck’ with a little definition.

Atherosclerosis is the condition in which an artery wall thickens as the result of a build-up of fatty materials such as cholesterol. It is a syndrome affecting arterial blood vessels, a chronic inflammatory response in the walls of arteries, in large part due to the accumulation of macrophage white blood cells and promoted by low density (especially small particle) lipoproteins (plasma proteins that carry cholesterol and triglycerides) without adequate removal of fats and cholesterol from the macrophages by functional high density lipoproteins (HDL). It is commonly referred to as a hardening or furring of the arteries. It is caused by the formation of multiple plaques within the arteries.

See, you DID know what it was. It’s hardening of the arteries, and EVERYONE has heard of that!

So what is happening in virtually everybody’s body right now is a process called advanced glycation. And that means we need another definition moment.

Advanced Glycation is a non-enzymatic glycoxidation process involving sugars and basic amino acids of various proteins. The end products (AGEs) are chemically diverse, stable and implicated in various diseases in which deposits are formed, including amyloidosis, atherosclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Simple answer; it’s sugar attaching itself to naturally occurring proteins and fats in the body.

These end products are what reside in our body right now. They are molecules formed by a process called glycosylation in which excess sugars attach themselves to your body’s proteins and lipids. And once formed, these AGEs are completely irreversible—wreaking havoc on your body, where they damage cells and tissues while prematurely aging your body.

Under normal circumstances, this isn’t a problem—a healthy body is equipped to remove these toxic molecules on a regular basis.

But in the all-too-common case of prolonged oxidative stress - A.K.A acidosis – A.K.A. modern ifestyle (caused by high blood sugar, a diet rich in processed food or an environment steeped in toxins and stress), you may not be so lucky. In cases like these, AGEs build up at a faster rate than your body can handle—and studies show that the damage they can do to your tissues… and especially your arteries, kidneys and retinas… is severe.

Research says that AGE accumulation occurs in the small arteries in the heart muscle and arteries that have lost their normal elasticity due to diminished nitric oxide levels, increased plaque formation and inflammation—all of which directly contribute to the risk of serious cardiac events like heart attacks and strokes.6-7
What’s worse, these artery-hardening and clogging effects have been shown to be completely independent of risk factors like age, high blood pressure and hyperglycemia—which means that when AGEs are involved, even otherwise healthy people may be at risk.8-10
So let’s break all this down to some simple 1-2-3 points that a typical overstressed busy modern ‘glycolator’ can use.

1. Glycolation comes from excess sugars, and toxic and stressful lifestyle
2. Glycolation causes excess acidification and oxidation and its toxic byproducts cannot be removed.
3. To prevent glycolation and its toxic end products we need to change our diet.
- Less acid-forming foods, especially sugars, and more alkalinizing food and water sources.
- More anti-oxidation products in the form of greens or antioxidant water.

Oh, and there is a fourth action point. Because it’s non-reversible, and happening now, the last and most important point is to DO IT NOW.

References:
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Potential Infectious Etiologies of Atherosclerosis: A Multifactorial Perspective. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no5/oconnor.htm#1. Accessed on: 8-10-09.
2. Forbes JM, Soldatos G, Thomas MC. Below the radar: advanced glycation end products that detour “around the side”. Is HbA1c not an accurate enough predictor of long term progression and glycaemic control in diabetes? Clin Biochem Rev. 2005 Nov;26(4):123-34.
3. Tan D, Wang Y, Lo CY, et al. Methylglyoxal: its presence and potential scavengers. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2008;17 Suppl 1:261-4.
4. Wendt TM, Tanji N, Guo J, et al. RAGE drives the development of glomerulosclerosis and implicates podocyte activation in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. Am J Pathol. 2003 Apr;162(4):1123-37.
5. Ahmed N. Advanced glycation endproducts--role in pathology of diabetic complications. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2005 Jan;67(1):3-21.
6. Zieman SJ, Kass DA. Advanced glycation endproduct crosslinking in the cardiovascular system: potential therapeutic target for cardiovascular disease. Drugs. 2004;64(5):459-70.
7. McNulty M, Mahmud A, Feely J. Advanced glycation end-products and arterial stiffness in hypertension. Am J Hypertens. 2007 Mar;20(3):242-7.
8. McNulty M, Mahmud A, Feely J. Advanced glycation end-products and arterial stiffness in hypertension. Am J Hypertens. 2007 Mar;20(3):242-7.
9. Semba RD, Najjar SS, Sun K, et al. Serum carboxymethyl-lysine, an advanced glycation end product, is associated with increased aortic pulse wave velocity in adults. Am J Hypertens. 2009 Jan;22(1):74-9.
10. Vlassara H, Fuh H, Donnelly T, et al. Advanced glycation endproducts promote adhesion molecule (VCAM-1, ICAM-1) expression and atheroma formation in normal rabbits. Mol Med. 1995 May;1(4):447-56.
11. Loske C, Neumann A, Cunningham AM, et al. Cytotoxicity of advanced glycation endproducts is mediated by oxidative stress. J Neural Transm. 1998;105(8-9):1005-15.
12. Hipkiss AR. Would carnosine or a carnivorous diet help suppress aging and associated pathologies? Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2006 May;1067:369-74.
13. Reddy VP, Garrett MR, Perry G, et al. Carnosine: a versatile antioxidant and antiglycating agent. Sci Aging Knowledge Environ. 2005 May 4;2005(18):pe12.
14. Guiotto A, Calderan A, Ruzza P, et al. Carnosine and carnosine-related antioxidants: a review. Curr Med Chem. 2005;12(20):2293-315.
15. Hipkiss AR, Chana H. Carnosine protects proteins against methylglyoxal-mediated modifications. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1998 Jul 9;248(1):28-32.
16. Hsieh CL, Yang MH, Chyau CC, et al. Kinetic analysis on the sensitivity of glucose- or glyoxal-induced LDL glycation to the inhibitory effect of Psidium guajava extract in a physiomimic system. Biosystems. 2007 Mar;88(1-2):92-100.
17. Lunceford N, Gugliucci A. Ilex paraguariensis extracts inhibit AGE formation more efficiently than green tea. Fitoterapia. 2005 Jul;76(5):419-27.
18. Mosimann AL, Wilhelm-Filho D, da Silva EL. Aqueous extract of Ilex paraguariensis attenuates the progression of atherosclerosis in cholesterol-fed rabbits. Biofactors. 2006;26(1):59-70.
19. Yamagishi S, Matsui T, Takenaka K, Nakamura K, Takeuchi M, Inoue H. Pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) prevents platelet activation and aggregation in diabetic rats by blocking deleterious effects of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2009 Mar;25(3):266-71.
20. Suji G, Sivakami S. DNA damage during glycation of lysine by methylglyoxal: assessment of vitamins in preventing damage. Amino Acids. 2007 Nov;33(4):615-21.
21. Du X, Edelstein D, Brownlee M. Oral benfotiamine plus alpha-lipoic acid normalises complication-causing pathways in type 1 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2008 Oct;51(10):1930-2.
22. Hammes HP, Du X, Edelstein D, et al. Benfotiamine blocks three major pathways of hyperglycemic damage and prevents experimental diabetic retinopathy. Nat Med. 2003 Mar;9(3):294-9.

Unbelievable technology for 'Virtual Autopsies'

It's getting to be an everyday occurrence on this blog that I find technology that knocks my socks off. Take a look at this system of virtual autopsy. It allows investigators to ascertain cause and method of death without ever raising a scalpel.

Here it is.

Forward looking backward Statement

Check this out! It came on the end of an email I received recently. Is the world stark ravin' mad??

"Forward-Looking Statements Disclosure
This press release may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. In this context, forward-looking statements may address the Company's expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "seeks," "will," and other terms with similar meaning. These forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Although the Company believes that the assumptions upon which its forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, it can provide no assurances that these assumptions will prove to be correct. All forward-looking statements in this press release are expressly qualified by such cautionary statements, risks, and uncertainties, and by reference to the underlying assumptions."

Another happy thought just to make your day

It appears that a mother with cancer can pass it to her baby before birth.

In theory, any cancer cells that manage to cross the placenta into the baby's bloodstream should be targeted for destruction by the child's immune system. But there are records of 17 cases of a mother and baby appearing to share the same cancer - usually leukaemia or melanoma.

Here's the report.

How Green is Your Diet?

This test is quite cool. Answer a few simple questions and you get a score for health, environmental and aimal welfare on your diet. I scores great on the health but not so good on the environment and animal welfare... Try it. remember, on the fruit and vegetable questions to just enter how many serves you have per week.
Click on the pic to see how you fare.

AlkaPod Test Results: Amazing!

And here's where you can order it.

An Alkaline/mediterranean Diet and the Black Dog

Here's an interesting report saying that the Mediterranean diet is good for alleviating depression. look through the components of the Mediterranean diet and you'll see a distinct 'alkaline' look to it.
No wonder.
See the report here

Time to revisit ‘sports drinks’: are they really the best for your performance?

Up until now, we haven’t really looked at the role of alkaline ionized water in the process of hydration in the body. Sports scientists agree that in any competitive endeavour, prehydration is as important as post-hydration. The American College of Sports Medicine has a term for it. They say that prehydration allows us to begin our exercise in what they call an euhydrated state.

Euhydration means that your body is perfectly hydrated and electrolyte levels in the blood are perfectly balanced, geared for performance at a minute’s notice.

They say that prehydration should begin hours before an event. This optimizes absorption and also allows us to enter the event carrying the ideal volume or weight in urine. Like a jockey, we don’t want to begin a race carrying excess weight in the form of urine!

But why do we drink water before an event? So we don’t lose excessive amounts through sweat while the event occurs. As dehydration occurs, our system begins to adjust and shutdown certain normal operational functions - just what we do not need fifty yards from the finish line! Scientists determine dehydration simply; they measure body weight before and after the event. A kilo reduction in body weight equates roughly to 1200mls of water loss. Try drinking 1.2 litres in one shot and you’ll understand the magnitude of such a loss! The general rule arrived at by sports scientists is a maximum 2%of body weight loss. After this, you are officially dehydrated.

Dehydration awareness isn’t new. Studies were completed as early as 1940, but recent studies have proven that once we lose that 2% body weight, performance wanes. Down goes our aerobic endurance, up goes our core temperature, our perception of effort even some studies even say we begin to rely on carbs even more than usual.

One October 2007 study says that showed that If you go the the gym you’ll receive far less benefit from a workout if you are dehydrated. This may seem obvious, but do we have a drinking problem or a drinking advantage when we attend gym? Of course we have seen many enhanced waters enter the marketplace with ‘power’ names like ‘Boost’, ‘Gator’ and more. These drinks are usually salt enriched. However modern thought is that the vast majority of westerners have excess salt in their system anyway as a result of a salt laden diet.

So perhaps it is time for a new look at the very best rehydration drink, targeting the true culprits of exercise; free radicals, lactic acid and general increased acidosis and inflammation. Our experience over the last ten years has, unfortunately, not been centred on athletic results of alkaline water, but we do get letters and emails from people who have experienced greatly improved recovery times, less after-exercise pain, and a more even energy. Although we have not done the research, it makes sense that a water with the following qualities would offer far more than simple salty, sugary electrolyte bottles of drink;

· Microclustered; Alkaline ionized water has a far smaller molecular cluster size, resulting in enhanced hydrative ability. Imagine swallowing a grapefruit and a cherry tomato. That’s indicative of the difference between ordinary water and alkaline ionized water in molecular cluster size. It logically follows that this form of water will penetrate cells more effectively and possibly explains why so many people begin detoxifying when they begin drinking alkaline ionized water.
· Ionized; The ionization process reconfigures the molecular structure of the water and provides an abundance of negatively charged ions, which have the capability of uniting with, and therefore neutralizing, free radicals created as a result of exercise. · Oxygen-supporting: It’s pseudoscience to believe that water can hold more oxygen in special forms. However in this form, the abundance of hydroxyl ions may support the correct pH balance of our bloodstream. Few people realise that the bloodstream is our oxygen storehouse. Oxygen is essential for all energy production in the body, and acidic blood has far less ability to hold maximum oxygen levels. The best alkaline blood level means the highest ability to supply oxygen from the blood to the body.
· Alkaline: There are always alkaline minerals in our tap water but they are always mixed with acid minerals. This means that drinking alkaline enriched ordinary water still gives you the bad acid minerals along with the good alkalis.
Alkaline Ionized water has acid minerals separated out, thus concentrating the natural alkaline minerals like magnesium, calcium, and potassium in the end product.

I suppose you have heard that we should drink 8 glasses of water per day. On research, this has no scientific basis. But drinking alkaline ionized water really upsets the beliefs about how much water to drink for maximum hydration, because of its vastly improved hydration ability.

When asked what is the ideal, I simply answer ‘Let your body tell you. As you alkalise and move out of the health-threatening acidic life, your body will begin to ‘talk’ to you again, and my own ‘measure’ of hydration is based on how much I urinate. My body is telling me what I need.

Learn more

IgNobel Awards

Congratulations to our local Australian scientist, Elizabeth Blackburn who scooped an Oscar.. er.. Nobel Prize for her contribution to medicine. At the same time as the Nobel Prize, we now have the famous IgNobel awards; this year ripe with er... amazing advances from obviously dedicated people...

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand - but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand - every day for more than sixty (60) years. REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid - specifically from tequila.
REFERENCE: "Growth of Diamond Films from Tequila," Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M. Castano, 2008, arXiv:0806.1485.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078 (December 13, 2007). DOI:10.1038/nature06342.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a "Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks."

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Kitchen Refuse With Enzyme-Producing Thermophilic Bacteria From Giant Panda Feces," Fumiaki Taguchia, Song Guofua, and Zhang Guanglei, Seibutsu-kogaku Kaishi, vol. 79, no 12, 2001, pp. 463-9. [and abstracted in Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, vol. 92, no. 6, 2001, p. 602.]
REFERENCE: "Microbial Treatment of Food-Production Waste with Thermopile Enzyme-Producing Bacterial Flora from a Giant Panda" [in Japanese], Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, Yasunori Sugai, Hiroyasu Kudo and Akira Koikeda, Journal of the Japan Society of Waste Management Experts, vol. 14, no. 2, 2003, pp. , 76-82.

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.

Would you chance a burger in America?

It's over a year since I read Fast Food Nation, which completely turned me off fast food in the US.. and here in Oz. Now I come across this devastating tale of a girl who innocently ate a burger.. just like she had an times before.. but this time... take a look at this article from the NY Times
Footnote; Parts of the beef in her burger also came from... Uruguay!!!???!!!