Oregano: Nature?s Antibiotic and Antiseptic

Many of us sprinkle oregano on our pizza and stews without realizing its impressive healing powers. But oregano is much more than a flavorful herb. It contains three to 20 times more antioxidant activity than other herbs or fruit, and oregano's mineral rich content supersedes that of milk, cheese or green vegetables in calcium, magnesium and potassium. Yet its most remarkable use is to safely wipe out upper respiratory infections including bronchitis, sinusitis, sore throats and other bacterial and viral ailments.

Why not just use an antibiotic? No one will argue that they have saved a multitude of lives over the years. But unfortunately, antibiotics have become overused and abused for colds, the flu and mild bacterial infections which could have been remedied otherwise. They are even prescribed for viral conditions, mostly because patients feel their doctor should prescribe a medicine and specifically ask for antibiotics. This has resulted in a large population of antibiotic-resistant people with chronic upper respiratory ailments whose symptoms continue to resurface. Rather than strengthen the immune system and heal the underlying problem, antibiotics further weaken the body.

Oregano is a nontoxic antibacterial and antiviral herb that does not kill human cells like antibiotics do. It also strengthens the immune system. Dr. Cass Ingram's book The Cure Is in the Cupboard unveils oregano's multiple practical uses, including its ability to safely kill every germ against which it has been tested and nine pathogens, including salmonella, E. coli, listeria, strep, pseudomonas and molds.

Best of all, there is no indication that using oregano oil or herb long-term causes any resistance since it attacks bacteria and viruses via a different mechanism and does not cause those bothersome and long-lasting negative side effects.

But don't head for the cupboards yet. The form of oregano that contains the most health benefits and published research is the wild, mountain grown Oregano P73, which can be found in health food stores and on the Internet. Impressive scientific research exists on Oregacyn P73 and Oregamax, which contain the crushed wild oregano blend or Oil of Oregano. They have been shown to wipe out the human Coronavirus, which is responsible for 50 percent of colds, and to have powerful antifungal effects on Candida Albicans.

I personally grew resistant to the most powerful antibiotics due to years of returning bronchitis and sinus infections. Each year through high school and college, I was sure to go on at least three courses of antibiotics and suffered through miserable side effects. Fortunately, my current nutritional regimen, which includes Oregacyn at first sign of immune weakness or infection, has allowed me to avoid antibiotics for more than four years. Parents can use Oil of Oregano for their kids' sore throats. Mix six drops in water and gargle, or apply directly for immediate pain relief and on-contact anti-microbial and anti-viral effects.

In addition, Oil of Oregano can be inhaled several times daily and placed under the tongue for immediate relief of sneeze attacks, sinus congestion and runny nose. For pneumonia, the oregano oil helps thin mucous, opens clogged lungs, reduces wheezing and has an anti-cough effect. The oil can be applied topically to the chest and taken internally for optimal healing.

For more information on Oregano products visit www.RockwellNutrition.com

Since June 2000, Annika has owned and operated Rockwell Nutrition, Inc., offering top of the line, professional brand nutritional supplements, as well as private consultations to individuals requiring customized eating and supplement plans for their health concerns and goals. She has become skilled at using diagnostic tests including diet analysis, food allergy testing, blood tests, and hair analysis to help asses the best treatment options for women's health and conditions including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, low energy, and gastrointestinal ailments. Annika's specialty is her customized health programs which are unique for each client

Nutrition Is More Than The Nutrition Facts Box

Nutrition usually only comes up when people are finally deciding to diet. By that point, the only purpose of mentioning nutrition is just to find a reason why one particular diet might be better than another. However, most fad diets do not work nearly as well as the originators claim they will, due to the nature of most strict diets.

The majority of weight-loss diets work by banning you from eating certain foods that you would normally eat. Sometimes this means eating less of a food or ingredient, but often it means totally abandoning certain food groups.

Obviously if the food you are cutting out altogether is junk food you will be better off nutritionally. The problem is that when you totally stop eating a food that you are used to eating regularly, you will get cravings for this food.

Right from the start you will have a major temptation to cheat on the diet. Eventually you will probably cheat and render the diet useless. You should therefore opt for diets that don't restrict you as severely as this.

Most diets tend to focus on one attribute of food as being a problem (such as carbohydrates, or fat). A better approach is to look at the overall nutritional value of the food.

For example, many popular fad diets focus on eliminating fat, or sugar, or carbohydrates from the diet. This gives people blinkered vision by looking at only part of the nutritional picture and leads to bad nutritional decisions.

Say you are on a diet which aims to avoid carbohydrates. You have to decide between a diet soda (which is bad for you in almost all respects but contains very few carbs) and a fruit juice drink (which is very good for you but is high in carbs). The diet would have you disregard your general health and go for the diet soda. The best choice is, of course, the fruit juice which is rich in minerals and vitamins and is much better for you.

The best way to take care of yourself is to make sure that your chosen meals are nutritious, as often as you can. Try to make sure that you eat a balanced diet, consisting of several different types of food.

When choosing food for its nutritional value it is best to avoid packaged meals and food. This food is packed full of chemicals and retains few of the minerals and vitamins present in fresh food. Pre-packaged food will also tend to have an unhealthy amount of salt in it.

If you get into the habit of eating fresh food that you cook yourself you will become much more aware of what you are eating and what is in it. You will be able to ensure you don't eat too much sodium for example and it will be obvious to you if you are eating too much of one thing or indeed too much of everything.

The most important thing to remember about nutrition is that in order to be healthy, you have to look closer at the ingredients in the food you eat. While different statistics like calories, grams of fat, and grams of sugar are good indicators, the ingredients list is key to figuring out whether or not you should eat that particular food.

Connie Roemer is the Staff Writer of FF Nutrition This is where you will discover excellent information, resources and articles you want on nutrition. Connie also invites you to sign up for her free newsletter.

To find out more go to: http://www.ffnutrition.com

Feeling Tired? No Pep & Zing? Tap Into Breakfast Smoothies!

I'm 40-something years old, and for 40-something years breakfast has been a pain. Some of my earliest memories are getting ready for school with my mother insisting I eat a bowl of cereal. It just never interested me. Once high school started I was skipping breakfast and grabbing two apples on the run for lunch. All my life breakfast simply wasn't something I got interested in or thought about until I made this discovery...

Someone introduced me to the most amazing concept for breakfast. By now I was well entrenched in not taking time over the first meal of the day (and sometimes the second meal), so anything that captured my attention was going to have to be fast, no fuss and delicious to warrant any of my attention.

Instead of cardboard cereal and bland milk, it's possible to start the day with power packed, nutritious, energizing and best of all, yummy smoothies. Smoothies have been around for ages, but I had never twigged they make a great start to the day. Imagine the delight of selecting from a range such as Chocolate Strawberry, Hazelnut Coffee, Peach Almond, Banana Bread & Apple Pie Surprise. Kid you not! You can make an endless variety to suit your own taste. Now this was interesting to me.

Not only did I start regularly eating breakfast, my energy shot through the roof! This changed my whole perspective on being 40-something. A period where I thought as a mother, wife, and corporate executive I was supposed to be tired all the time. Not true.

Here is one of my favorite recipes.

Strawberry Parfait

3 tablespoons vanilla flavored soy/whey protein powder
250g (6oz) strawberry flavoured fat free yoghurt
1 cup strawberries
4 ice cubes

Blend in hand-held or benchtop blender. Pour into your favorite glassware and enjoy.

Kim Beardsmore is a weight loss consultant whose business operates across 60 countries. This world renowned, medically approved program will give you results you'll love and all the support you need! Estimate your healthy body weight, tons of recipes, articles, ezine and more fabulous smoothie recipes at http://weight-loss-health.com.au

Autism and Nutritional Supplements

Unfortunately, it has been proved beyond doubt that a large percentage of the United States population suffers from nutritional deficiency. Studies show, 30% of the general population has a marginal level of Vitamin C and 15% are Vitamin C deficient. Low level of vitamins and minerals like, calcium, iron, folic acid, magnesium, and chromium continue to be a significant but common problem in the United States. It is also being noticed that children suffering from Autism are the most common patients for vitamin and mineral deficiency. Generally children suffering from Autism have much lower level of vitamins A, C, D, and E, and all B vitamins (except choline) and some minerals (zinc, magnesium, selenium).

The most common problems that are detected in children suffering from nutritional deficiency can be listed as follows:

* High Copper: Zinc ratio

* B12 deficiency

* Calcium deficiency

* Sulfate deficiency

* Vitamin A

Why children with Autism suffer the most?

Chronic diarrhea/constipation: Malabsorption is a common problem related to Autism. A recent study by the Southwest Autism Research Center of over 400 people with autism has found that 48% reported chronic diarrhea or chronic constipation

Gastrointestinal inflammation: Many patients suffering from Autism experience chronic gastrointestinal inflammation and structural compromise in the digestive tract. This intestinal inflammation likely reduces nutrient absorption.

Dietary restrictions: One of the classic symptoms of autism is restricted interests and behaviors and this often extends to choices of food. Restricted, self-limited diets are highly likely to be deficient in one or more essential nutrients.

The Brighter Side

When we are all concerned with the increasing rate of autistic children and problems due to lack of necessary vitamins and minerals it has also been proved that multivitamin/mineral nutrient supplement goes a long way in helping these children. These nutritional supplements significantly contribute towards their improvement of IQ, scholastic test scores, and early neurological development. Children with learning disabilities experience substantial behavioral, cognitive, and academic gains by use of these multivitamin nutritional supplements.

Studies and feedback from parents of children with Autism has shown that calcium, vitamin C, folic acid, and vitamin B6 with magnesium, zinc, niacin, niacinamide, and dimethylglycine resulted in improvement in 41?58% of cases.

The Liquid Vitamin Formula and the Liquid Mineral Formula (available at http://www.awakennutrition.com ) developed with the advice of James Adams. Ph.D. Arizona State University is an ideal solution to meet the nutritional needs of Autism and ADHD. James B. Adams is a father of a young girl with autism, diagnosed in 1994, and that is what led him to eventually shift much of his research emphasis to autism, focusing on biological causes and treatments.

It was found in research that a combination of Vitamin B6 and Magnesium is highly effective in reducing many of the deficits and symptoms of autism. Vitamin C has also been shown in a clinical trial to facilitate a reduction in symptom severity in children with autism. Vitamin B6 is significantly elevated in children with autism, probably due to defective pyridoxal kinase, implying a functional need for more. This may explain why very high doses of vitamin B6 have been shown in numerous studies to benefit children with autism. However, further study is required to measure pyridoxal, pyridoxamine, PMP, and PLP simultaneously to validate this interpretation. Alpha lipoic acid levels should also be higher and preferably at par with those found in typical adults.

These are some of the basic requirements that must be kept in mind while developing any nutritional supplements to be effective and contribute towards proper treatment and growth of children with autism and people suffering from lack of minerals and vitamins. James Adams research ahs gifted us with two such multivitamin nutritional supplements however we should put in continuous effort to develop even better solutions and products that would be effective to cure autism.

This article is written by Ray Smith, a marketing expert with years of experience in different industries and specialized knowledge on branding and internet marketing.

Chelation

Simple Food and Diet Nutrition Remedies for Your Common Health Ailments

You are what you eat is a simple, time tested adage that still holds true today. There are non-medical remedies that can help with many of today's most common illnesses and conditions. In fact, making simple changes to your food diet to cure your common cold, acne or constipation problems is a much better choice than resorting to drugs. For one, natural food and diet remedies most often do not give you harmful side-effects that western allopathic medicine can bring.

Here are some health ailments that can be easily treated with a simple food and diet remedy:

Allergies. More Americans suffer from allergies than ever before. Perhaps the best remedy for allergies is drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day. Garlic and cayenne pepper have been used for years, and a good intestinal cleansing has been shown to provide relief. Almonds and walnuts, as well as sunflower seeds, reduce symptoms, and make sure that you are taking a multi-vitamin with the recommended doses of vitamins C, A, E and zinc.

Acne. Acne in both teens and adults is also becoming more and more common. There are many natural dietary changes that you can make to help clear up your skin. First, drink water. It flushes out the impurities. Soy protein helps, as does increasing your consumption of whole grains, fresh fruits and root vegetables. Have three servings of oily fish weekly and add some cold pressed seed oil daily.

Constipation. To help constipation, increase your intake of folic acid. Apple pectin can help relieve constipation and add fiber to your diet. Try drinking some ginger tea or yerba mate in tea form. Cod liver oil is a tried and true, but hard to swallow, remedy. Warm dandelion tea also helps.

Stress. Holy basil, also known as Tulsi, has been used to relieve stress and normalize cortical levels. Limiting caffeine can help the body to reduce the level of adrenaline. When you're particularly stressed out, eat carbohydrates and fresh vegetables. They help the body release serotonin which produce a feeling of well-being.

Cancer. Consuming the trace elements that are plentiful in seafood has been shown to help cancer patients. Broccoli, mustard greens, cabbage and turnips have been recently touted as not only preventative maintenance but perhaps even cures for different types of cancers. Limit your fats.

Help your body cure itself by trying some of these simple food and diet changes. By also including them in your regular diet, you also help in the prevention of these health problems and to build a strong immune system.

Sandra Kim Leong publishes information on food diet and nutrition remedies for common health ailments. For free articles and resources, please visit http://www.food-diet-remedy.com