Tag: diabetes

Onions Help Sleep May Prevent Asthma Cancer Stroke Heart Attack

Natural Remedies

The healing compounds in the humble onion are truly remarkable. Onions are rich in Vitamin C, Selenium, and other phytochemicals which are thought to prevent cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other maladies. They also do much to help prevent asthma attacks.

The oil of the onion is strongly antiseptic, and also has a soporific quality which will be welcome news to the insomniac. Eating onions in the evening will not just do much to benefit your immunity, they can help give you a sound night’s sleep.

Note:  Habitual lack of sleep leads to poor memory function, poor decision-making, and poorer health in the long run.  Sleeplessness is usually due to anxiety, but it can be that the thyroid gland is not functioning properly.  Extra iodine can help to remedy an overactive thyroid, as well as an underactive thyroid. (see Dr Caroline Shreeve, who recommends using kelp to up your iodine and other minerals)

Get a checkup from your doctor or naturopath to make sure there is no serious underlying cause to your sleeplessness.

A medical book from the early 20th century recommends the eating of raw onions to encourage sleep, and quotes a Frank Buckland, who said: ‘Everybody knows the taste of onions; this is due to a peculiar essential oil contained in this valuable and healthy root.  The oil has, I am sure, highly soporific powers.  In my own case, it never fails.  If I am much pressed with work and feel I shall not sleep, I eat two or three onions and the effect is magical.’

(From The Doctor At Home and Nurses Guide’, published in London and Melbourne by Ward, Lock and Co Limited.  No date, but the book is very old, from early 1900’s.  Some drugs recommended in this book, such as mercurial salves, would be quite toxic, and we would avoid them at all cost. However, the book  makes interesting reading and does discuss some commonsense home remedies such as this onion remedy, which can only do you good)

I find that eating an onion sauteed in butter or oil also enhances sleep, if it is taken in the evening. Even half a raw onion, chopped finely and added to crackers and cheese for supper at night, can be  helpful towards attaining sound sleep.

This old book also advises that ‘tea and coffee taken during the day are particularly prejudicial in the interests of sleep.’  We all know this, but how eloquently put…..

I would try an inhalation of onion:  Cut up half an onion and pour over boiling water.  Inhale the steam with a towel over your head.  This can be used as a therapy for many ills, including sleeplessness, flu symptoms, onset of asthma or bronchitis. Be careful not to get too close to the steam, or to burn yourself.

Other helpful hints in the interests of quality sleep, from various sources:

Homeopathic Remedies: The biochemic cell salt Kali phos (potassium phosphate) can help.  A lack of this mineral in the blood can cause sleeplessness. Constance Mellor advises the dose of two pilules before each meal, dissolved on the tongue, and four pilules to be taken just before bed.

Ms Mellor also suggests having a warm bath or shower at bedtime, but not drying oneself completely.  Instead, wrap up in a warm clean sheet to absorb the moisture, and presumably, go to bed with the wrap still on.  This is a similar remedy found in other writings, where a damp wrap is left on at bedtime:  The effect is to bring an increase in temperature, which can be very useful for sweating out the beginnings of a cold or flu.

Suggested Remedies for Sleeplessness Before Midnight:  Depending on the other symptoms, one of these could be helpful:  Ambra, Arsen alb, Calcarea, Calc phos, CCarbo veg, Coffea, Conium, Kali carb, Lycopodium, Magnesia mur, Mercurius, Nat mur, Phosphorous, Pulsatilla, Rhus tox, Sepia, Silicea, Sulphur. (see Dr Andrew Lockie)

Suggested Remedies for Sleeplessness After Midnight: Arsen alb, Capsicum, Coffea, Hepar sulph, Kali carb, Nux vomica, Phosphoric ac., Silicea.

Onion Pack: The onion pack for pleurisy is worth remebering.  This involves cutting an onion, skin and all, covering with water, and simmering for ten minutes or so.  Soak a flannel or piece of cotton material in the onion water.  Wring out, and apply hot to the chest.  Wrap up the pack well to keep the heat in.  A woolen blanket around the chest works well. Cover up in bed and keep the pack on for several hours if possible.  After several hours, the onion water can be heated up again, and a fresh pack made to put onto the chest.  This treatment should work well to bring about peaceful sleep, as the essential oils from the onion will be absorbed into the skin.

Keeping the feet warm is important for sleeping well.  A hot water bottle in cold weather, and woolen socks, are good recommendations.

Putting a sprig of rosemary, lemon balm, or lavender under the pillow can also be helpful in gaining restful sleep. Dried hops sewn into a wee sachet also work as a soporific.

List Of Heritage Apples Rich In Cancer-Fighting Phytonutrients

Natural Remedies

Apples are a wonderful health food.  ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’, we used to say, and I think there is some truth in this old adage.

Apples are a great natural cleanser of the digestive system, including the intestines.  This makes them very helpful in preventing or treating cancer. A good heritage apple eaten daily will help lower cholesterol, thus helping to prevent heart attack and stroke, and provide many valuable vitamins and nutrients as well.

For best health benefits, of course it is best to eat the whole, unpeeled apple.  Even the pips of the apple are benefial, as these contain laetrile, or amygdalin, also called Vitamin B17, which has been used to good effect in treating cancer.  Be cautious about eating too many pips, though – the pips of one or two apples per day should be more than enough for a person of average build who is in good health.  More pips could be taken if one was treating cancer or another degenerative disease, but it is important to get some advice on an appropriate cleansing diet, preferably with the use of enemas, in the case of treating cancer and other serious disease with the help of laetrile.  You can over-do the pip therapy, as the pips also contain traces of cyanide.

If you can grow or procure apples heritage apples, and you eat at least one a day, then you are less likely to develop serious degenerative disease, such as cancer, than if you ate no apples, or ate commercially grown modern varieties.  This is a proven fact:  In the February 2005 publication of the ‘Growing Today’ magazine, I found an article about the proven benefits of eating heritage apples in preference to newer, commercial varieties.

The article also quotes a 2002 National Public Health study from Helsinki:

The study group of people who ate several heritage apples per day over many years had not any signs of serious diseases such as cancer, arthritis, obesity or diabetes at the end of the study. The health of these people was far superior in every way to the people who ate few, or no apples per day.

The fact is that heritage apples, or seedling trees which have been grown from scratch in your garden, have a higher amount of phytonutrients than the modern, commercial types of apples.  Supermarket varieties are mostly grown for their appearance, and their storage qualities, rather than the amount of ‘goodness’ within the apple.

Heritage apple trees, and seedling trees, are generally much hardier and need less attention than modern commercial strains, as they are more bug resistant, and disease resistant than their modern rivals.  This means that they need less spraying, whether or not you use organic or commercial poison methods.

At the top of the list of heritage apples, according to studies done in NZ and elsewhere, are the Monty’s Surprise and Hetlina apple varieties.  These  two have the highest amount of phytonutrients than any other apple trees tested so far.  The russet apples are also high on the list.

Generally speaking, any of the heritage apple trees will likely be higher in nutrients than any shop-bought variety which has been grown for its looks.

Here are some to consider: (note – this list will continue to grow – i will continue to add information about each variety)

Belle de Boskoop: A very old heritage variety which originated in Boskoop, Netherlands.  It is a common tree throughout Europe:  It is a distinctive tree,  willowing out from the upper centre quite beautifully with abundant flowers followed by large handsome apples which are crisp and tart and sweeten with storage. Good for cooking, eating, and for cider.

Boskoop Rouge: A version of the Belle de Boskoop, but with a redder skin.

Cox’s Orange

Gravenstein:  This apple has apparently been known since the 1600’s.  It originated in Denmark.  A New Zealand variety of the Gravenstein is the red-fleshed, sweet-tasting, juicy Albany Beauty, which originates from the Albany area north-west of Auckland.

Hetlina: One of the highest after Monty’s Surprise for riboflavin content and other phytonutrients.

Kentish Filbasket

Lord Wolsely

Monty’s Surprise: According to ‘Thunder Mountain’s nursery list, Monty’s Surprise is a ‘unique New Zealand seedling variety’ from the lower part of the North Island.  It is very resistant to disease and is therefore capable of being grown without chemical sprays. It was re-discovered by Tree Crops Association member Mark Christensen in the 1990’s, the original Monty’s Surprise tree being around 90 years old..  Monty’s Surprise is a great cooking and dessert apple, and, eaten whole, pips, skin and all, is a powerful disease inhibitor. ‘This is to the best of our knowledge, the best anti-cancer eating apple in the world.’ (Thunder Mountain says)

Northern Spy:  This is a well-known apple commonly grown in the northland areas of New Zealand, where clay and wet soils often prevail.  It has excellent resistance to wooly aphids.  Because of its hardiness, it is often used as a root stock for other varieties.  It grows from 3 to 5 metres high.

Reinette du Canada

Sidero Cidre

Sturmer

Takapuna Russet

Wealthy

Worcester Pearmain

Yarlington Mill

 

Apples To Prevent Cancer Diabetes Heart Disease

Medicinal Apples To Help Prevent Disease.

The health benefits of apples, especially those of the heritage variety, are truly remarkable.

Heritage apple trees, generally speaking, have a higher vitality, and a higher resistance to disease, than more modern commercial varieties.

It really is a very worthwhile thing to plant some heritage apple trees in your garden, such as the New Zealand Takapuna Russet, Northern Spy, Worcester Pearman, Sturmer, Lord Wolsely, and the cider apples Sidero Cidre and Yarlington Mill.

80% of the old heritage apples in America have died out due to modern commercial operations.  This is a very good reason to make the effort to plant some heritage varieties if you can.

Just this past week, I have been planting up a community orchard of heritage apple trees, and I am very fortunate to have a Takapuna Russet included in this garden of, so far, 21 trees.

The Takapuna Russet is one of the best apples to grow for your health, according to recent research. It is very high in vitamin C and other antioxidants. The Sturmer and Northern Spy, which are also part of my collection, are also well-known for their high Vitamin C content.

Others highly recommended for their phyto nutrients and polyphenols are the Belle de Boskoop, Bramley Seedling, Golden Russet and the Liberty.  Liberty is, according to the Raintree website, one of the highest in antioxidants available.

http://www.raintreenursery.com/Apples.html

 

Dr Max Gerson famously used a grated raw apple, served with oatmeal porridge each morning, as part of his alternative cancer treatment. One whole, organic apple, skin and all, was grated and eaten every day by his cancer patients. Other important components to his diet were vegetable juices and salads, castor oil, to be taken every second day, and daily enemas.

Apples are rich in flavanoid antioxidants and benefical phytochemicals which are believed to help to prevent diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.  More about research on this below. Apples are also high in fibre, which is also important in resisting disease and in treating it.

Eating raw apples can  help to prevent asthma attacks, according to a UK survey of 1,500 people. This study showed that people who ate two or more apples per week were 22%-32% less likely to get asthma than those who did not eat this amount of apples. Read this in ‘Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs’, written by Patrick Holford and Jerome Burne, 2006. Piatkus Books Limited, London.

These vital, natural, disease preventing chemicals of the heritage apple are found mostly in the skin and just under the skin of the apple, which is why you should eat the whole, unpeeled apple, and why unsprayed fruit should be sought or grown.

The pips of the apple are also high in beneficial compounds, especially in laetrile, or vitamin B17, which has been shown to be effective in helping to reduce some cancers.

Note:  Be cautious in your use of the apple pip.  If you are treating a disease such as cancer, then you need to build up your dose of laetrile gradually. Begin with just four or five pips per day and, depending on body weight, increase the dose to around ten to fifteen per day, to be eaten in divided doses.

Again, it is important to use unsprayed organic apples if you are going to be eating any of the pips, since the toxic chemicals used in spraying build up in high concentrations in the pips and kernels of fruit.

The old-fashioned heritage varieties of apple are, without a doubt, superior to most modern varieties of apple in many ways. Many of the heritage varieties have been shown by researchers to have a much higher quantity of these antioxidants and phytochemicals which help to prevent and fight diseases such as cancer.

Following trials already done overseas, research began in New Zealand in 2002 to compare the nutrient value of some older NZ apple varieties to more modern, sweeter, commercial varieties. This research was called ‘The Apple Cancer Research Project’.

Some of the findings of these 2002 New Zealand studies were published by The New Zealand Tree Crops Association in March, 2004. In this publication,

http://www.treecrops.org.nz/resrch/apple/applecanc.html

it was pointed out that the old-fashioned Red Delicious was higher in almost all nutrients to its modern-day equivalent, the Pacific Rose. The only beneficial compound to have higher levels in the Pacific Rose, over the Red Delicious, was chlorogenic acid. This compound, chlorogenic acid, is a powerful antioxidant. However, there were other varieties of heirloom apples which proved to have an even higher content of antioxidants than even the Red Delicious.

The two heritage varieties  in these NZ trials which stood out from all other varieties, rating higher than any other apple in almost all nutrient categories, were the Hetlina and Monty’s Surprise. So watch out for these varieties.

These two varieties along with ‘Fairbelle’, topped the list for the powerful antioxidant, chlorogenic acid.  You will see that the flesh contains the higher amount, over the skin.  But this is not an indication that the flesh is necessarily better for you than the skin, because there are other important cancer-preventing chemicals contained in the skin. The antioxidant quercetin is found in high quantities in the skin of the heritage apples.

The following comparisons  for chlorogenic acid will give you some  idea of the exceptional nutritive quality of these heritage apples.

Hetlina rated 1115.7 in the flesh, 117.3 in the skin.

Fairbelle 783 rated in the flesh, 56.5 in the skin.

Monty’s Surprise rated 614.5 in the flesh, 86.3 in the skin.

Egremont Russet 391.2 in the flesh, 73.8 in the skin.

Red Delicious 178.7 in the flesh, 3.3 in the skin.

Pacific Rose 306.7 in the flesh, 29.2 in the skin.

So – the research shows that heritage apples are overall much higher in nutritive value than modern commercial varieties. Kentish Filbasket, Sweet Alford, Apple Mother, Cox’s Orange, Gravenstein, Northern Spy, Sturmer, Takapuna Russet, Red Delicious, Sidero Cidre, Yarlington Mill, and many other old heritage apples are very good trees to grow for their health benefits.

Personally, I love the Belle de Boskoop which comes from the Netherlands.  It  originated from a chance seedling around 1856, and is now widely spread across Europe.  According to Wikipedia, the Belle de Boskoop apple beats the Granny Smith for Vitamin C  by up to four times as much.

You will also find these old-fashioned trees to have a higher resistance to disease, which means you have to worry less about black spot and other fungi or insects spoiling your crop.

The Heritage Russet apples were thought to be especially good for preventing and treating diabetes, as well might we guess, but more research is needed to make a scientific claim.

 

 

 

 

Chromium

CHROMIUM
Deficiencies of Chromium are thought to be wide spread, affecting roughly 50% of the population in Western societies.

Older women, and expectant mothers, need to ensure that their chromium levels are maintained.
Chromium is necessary for the processing of sugar and alcohol.
It feeds the nerves and helps to promote a calm state of mind.
Chromium helps to monitor your cholesterol levels and helps in the manufacture of essential natural cholesterol.
It helps prevent high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.

Chromium is especially important because it helps regulate the supply of insulin in the body. Adequate chromium helps protect you against sugar-related conditions like hypoglycaemia and diabetes.
A normal healthy body will utilize the Chromium within foods to process their sugars: Fruits, honey, root vegetables, treacle, molasses and maple syrup all contain chromium, which is used by the body to process the  sugars they contain.

The reason why  refined, white sugar is so bad for the general health is perhaps not just because of the sugar content, but because processed sugar has been stripped of its chromium value. White sugar  has been left bare of the valuable nutrients which naturally help with the assimilation of sugar in the body:

Sugar cane is extremely high in Chromium. Treacle and molasses, which come from the less refined sugar cane product, are  also rich sources of Chromium.
Chromium is found naturally in the outer part of grains which contains the bran. Hence,  processed grains are deficient in Chromium. Brown rice is preferable to white rice for this reason, just as wholewheat flour is  the preferable choice
to white flour. Use oat bran instead of the more processed fine oatmeal to make your porridge.
Chromium is found in good quality cooking oils such as grape seed, olive oil, avocado oil and rice bran oil.

The recommended daily allowance of Chromium is 200 mcg.
One of the best sources is Brewer’s yeast, which contains 100 mcg per each tablespoonful.
Two eggs contain 60 mcg.
1 cup of fruit juice such as orange or apple contains about 115 mcg.
Kiwifruit is fairly high with 35 mcg per average sized fruit.
One potato contains roughly 20 mcg of Chromium.
Most other vegetables contain roughly 20 mcg per 100 grammes.
Meats contain about 55 mcg per 100 grammes.
One slice of wholemeal bread has about 17 mcg.
One tablespoon of molasses or treacle has about 25 mcg.