You need to know how to determine the best fish oil supplement if you want to get the maximize health benefits from fish oil.

Fish oil is the best source for the omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which are essential to good health. But taking a low quality fish oil supplement that may be contaminated by environmental toxins or contain rancid oil will negate the health benefits that DHA and EPA provide. And unfortunately, there are plenty of low quality fish oil supplements on the market.

Here are the five primary factors you need to consider in order to determine the best fish oil supplement:

1. DHA and EPA Amounts. The fish oil supplement must contain high amounts of the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, with the dominant fatty acid being DHA. DHA is the most beneficial omega-3 fatty acid. Some fish oil supplements contain low amounts of DHA and EPA, while others contain an adequate amount of EPA but very little DHA.

2. Bioavailability. The fish oil supplement must be very bioavailable. The more bioavailable a fish oil supplement is, the more easily it will be absorbed by your body and the more effective it will be in providing health benefits. The bioavailability of different fish oil supplements varies greatly.

3. Anti-Inflammatory Properties. The fish oil supplement must have strong anti-inflammatory properties. The anti-inflammatory properties of fish oil are what provide many of the health benefits. Some fish oil supplements have minimal anti-inflammatory properties.

4. Purity. The fish oil supplement must be free of contaminants. Some fish oil supplements have been found to contain 70 times more PCBs (an industrial chemical) than other fish oil supplements. Other fish oil supplements have been found to contain toxins such as mercury, dioxins, arsenic and lead.

5. Freshness. The fish oil supplement must contain fish oil that’s as fresh as possible. Some fish oil supplements contain rancid oil, and use additives or flavoring to mask the rancidity. Rancid fish oil not only causes “repeats” or burping, it can also increase damaging free radicals in your body.

It’s important to note that many fish oil supplements are advertised as being “pharmaceutical grade” in order to show high quality, but there’s actually no such thing as pharmaceutical grade fish oil. It’s a term that was initially used by one particular fish oil marketer and is now being used by other fish oil marketers. The U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) has not set standards for the quality, purity, strength and consistency of fish oil.

In conclusion, now that you know what primary factors need to be considered in order to determine the best fish oil supplement, you’ll be better able to experience all of the fantastic health benefits that fish oil provides.

]]> http://www.cqyc315.org/vibration-training-to-stay-fit-and-healthy/feed 0 http://www.cqyc315.org/alcohol-free-wine-explore-the-great-discovery http://www.cqyc315.org/alcohol-free-wine-explore-the-great-discovery#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:14:00 +0000 admin http://www.cqyc315.org/?p=327 Alcohol free wine is quite healthier just like its traditional counterpart, rich in minerals and vitamins, fat free and best substitute of beer when you drive. Is that non-alcoholic wine completely free of alcohol?

Some manufacturers state that non-alcoholic wine is alcohol free. This sentence sounds strange just like the following: non alcohol wine is not perfectly alcohol free. Calling a wine with highly reduced alcohol contents as alcohol free, sounds misleading. Then what non alcohol wines is? Any alcohol that constitutes less than 0.05% alcohol is called alcohol free under the law. This portion of alcohol is too low to make us drunk. In fact the juices that we drink contain the same amount of alcohol in them and this is quite safe for drivers and pregnant women.

If you are a wine addict, you will not find anything to do with this discussion. But if you are trying to get rid of alcohol and have to take various medicines daily, you will find the “fake” wine working well. In fact most of the people are interested in the taste of the wine and not the alcohol in it. Wine has a large scale usage in steaks, French fries, sausages and other dishes. Moreover, Muslims can also use this wine. For these reasons and others mentioned below,alcohol free wine is indeed a great discovery.

Now we have made this thing clear that non-alcoholic wine is in fact alcoholic but safe. Now let’s have a look at some other benefits.
The first thing to state is that non alcohol wines is the real wine, although many wine enthusiasts and occasional consumers will argue that. Although some alcoholic wines are made without fermentation and they are enriched with tastes from natural flavorings, non-alcoholic wines are prepared in a way just like traditional wines: mixing water, hops, barley malt and yeast. The alcohol is separated after the wine has fully brewed. This is done by a specific process called the vacuum distillation. This process not only separates the alcohol form wine but partially influences the taste and makes it a little bland. The ingredients of non alcoholic-wine are the same as the alcoholic one minus 99.95 percent of alcohol. This is the thing that makes it a good dietary supplement because it contains plenty of iron, fiber, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and B complex vitamins.

On the other hand, alcohol free wines have been found helpful fighting against cancer, decreasing thrombin and similar cardiovascular benefits of traditional wines. Drinking non-alcoholic wines help decreasing clots formation in blood just like the regular wine does at moderate consumption rate.
Alcohol free wines contains amount of alcohol equal to that found in natural fruit juices and half the protein of the ordinary alcoholic wine. Therefore, there is nothing to fear like “beer belly” any more, just start avoiding snacks and you will find the results.

Conclusively,alcohol free wine allows you drive after drinking, enjoying the taste like real stuff, sociable and without accepting and side-effect on your brain. And one thing more, you don’t have any exposure to becoming its addict.

Lemon Verbena (Aloysia triphylla) is just one of the special herbs cultivated on the Greek Island of Crete. Crete is of course home to the Cretan Diet which has been scientifically proven as the healthiest diet in the world and is a close cousin of the Mediterranean diet.Lemon Verbena is a small deciduous perennial shrub renowned for its citrus lemony fragrance, and smells wonderful. When crushed, the leaves of this wonderfully fragrant plant give off a gorgeous lemon citrus aroma.

Although unrelated to lemons, lemongrass has a distinctive aroma of lemons, due to the fact that it shares a number of chemical constituents in its essential oil, including citral, citronellol, and geraniol. A number of other herbs, also unrelated, have similar lemony aromas because they share various concentrations of these same chemicals; these herbs include lemon balm, lemon verbena, and lemon myrtle. Fascinatingly, many of these “lemony” chemicals are responsible for the medicinal properties of these plants.

Another category is the aromatic herbs which have pleasant smelling flowers or foliage. These herbs can be used in linens or clothing to give them a nice scent. Some herbs are dried and used as potpourri to scent the air. Lavender and lemon verbena are good for this. Oils from some aromatic herbs, like rosemary and mint are used to make perfume.

The benefits of herbal teas go beyond fresh, invigorating taste. By controlling the growing environment, you can make sure your teas are fresh, pesticide and herbicide free, and processed without additives. They cost next to nothing, just your initial investment in seeds or seedlings. Many of the herbs you grow can be used in a variety of ways, as aromatics, in cooking, as natural remedies, and, of course, for teas.

As most of the projects here are for sachets or other items where the herbs are hidden away behind some fabric, the look of the finished pot-pourri is not of paramount importance. The main point is that the scent should be strong and long-lasting. When making small sachets it helps to use fairly small ingredients of an even size, so there are no unsightly lumps and bulges in the sachets. The best answer for this is to use small sprigs of dried herbs and flowers with a much larger proportion of fixative.

Calendula’s popularity dates back to King Henry VII of England who loved colored food. Calendula was used to season his meals. It also has many other benefits. In particular it is good for digestive health as well as for skin preparations. It can be made into a foot soak or bath herb. To get the most medicinal potency out of it, grow a variety with a high resin content, such as “Resina” found at Johnny’s Seeds, a popular online source for medicinal herbs. Calendula is one of the easiest medicinal herbs to grow.

The main difference between black tea and green tea is the oxidation process. Black tea leaves are fully oxidized whereas green tea leaves are lightly steamed before they are dried. This process contributes to the tea’s taste as well as caffeine content. Like green tea, black tea has also been shown to have health benefits. Research has suggested that the antioxidants found in black tea may play a preventive role in conditions like heart disease, stroke and some cancers.

Guarani Indians of this area as in southern Brazil are using “ka’a he’ê” (”sweet leaf”), as it is called in Guaraní, since hundreds of years as a sweetener in yerba mate, and several tribes reported the use of this plant in the control of fertility of women, applying concentrated Stevia infusions for prolonged periods.

It is precisely this contraceptive property that is discussed since the 70s until today in the scientific literature. The reason is simple: Who wants to consume a sweetener that suddenly makes you barren?

Stevia leaf contains a complex mixture of glycosides (compounds where one or more sugar molecules are bound to a non-carbohydrate moiety). These compounds give the leaves an intensely sweet taste, about 30-45 times sweeter than sucrose, the sweet stuff of refined sugar. To date, ten different chemical compounds (chemically, all steviol glycosides) were isolated which are responsible for the sweet taste of the plant: stevioside, rebaudioside A, B, C, D, E and F, dulcoside A, rubusoside and steviolbioside. The highest concentration of the sweetening effect comes from Stevioside and rebaudioside A, responsible for the extract of Stevia being 250-300 times sweeter than sucrose with almost cero calories (about 0.2 calories per gram).

Both sweet steviol glycosides are chemically diterpenic glycosides, substances composed of two molecules of different types of sugar and a molecule called steviol. Steviol serves as “backbone” of the chemical structure and is structurally similar to the plant hormones gibberellin and kaurene. Several studies show that these glycosides are – at least partially – metabolized in the body releasing the sugar molecules and steviol.

Is It Safe to Use Stevia instead of sugar?

It is precisely this compound steviol that for many years called attention to toxicologists. In studies with bacteria and in cell-cultures it was demonstrated that this compound is genotoxic (i.e. is capable of changing the genetic information). However, more recent studies with mice, rats and hamsters, indicated that it requires relatively high concentrations of steviol to cause any considerable damage to the DNA, the molecule of life containing all our genetic information.

Browsing toxicological databases, there are hundreds of publications discussing potential adverse health effects of stevia extract, but the results are not very consistent. In particular, the effects on fertility and the potential carcinogenicity of Steviosides were subject of controversy in the scientific world. It was a study published in 1968 by Professor Joseph Kuc Purdue University in Indiana, USA, which initiated a controversial discussion about stevia and fertility. Prof. Kuc detected a clear contraceptive effect on female rats that were administered high doses of stevia. The fertility rates of the rats dropped by up to 79 percent.

While the outcome of this study was not confirmed by other scientific groups, a study published in 1999 by Prof. Melis of the University of São Paulo also reported a reduction of sperm quantity in male rats after applying high doses of Stevia glycosides. Concerns of carcinogenicity or mutagenicity were not confirmed in the vast majority of the toxicological studies.

Although adverse health effects of Stevia never really have been tested in humans directly, the authorities in the United States, Canada and the European Union considered Stevia extracts not to be safe in the application as a tabletop sweetener due to the lack of long-term toxicological studies. In contrast, authorities in other countries like Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Mexico have a different point of view and accepted the use of extracts of Stevia as a natural sweetener. In several other countries, in particular in Latin American and Asia, Stevia and its extracts are available with and unverified regulatory status. In Japan, Stevia extracts are already commercially available since 1971 as tabletop sweetener and there are no reports about health problems associated with this product.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration on (FDA) approved the use of Stevia extracts as “nutritional supplement” but not as tabletop sweetener. Only the glycoside Rebaudioside A in its pure form is considered as “Generally Recognized Safe Substance” (GRAS), since December 2008. In contrast, Stevioside, the other main compound of Stevia extracts, was not recognized as GRAS by the FDA.

Both, in Canada and the European Union (EU), the use of Stevia as a tabletop sweetener was prohibited based on the fact that there was insufficient evidence to prove its safety. But now this situation likely is going to change. In April 2010, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) performed a new evaluation of the available toxicological information. As a result of this review, Stevioside and Stevia extracts in general are now considered safe when used as a tabletop sweetener – at least under certain conditions.

EFSA established an acceptable daily intake (ADI) of 4 mg per kilogram of body weight of steviosides, the same ADI recommended by the World Health Organization according to a WHO document published in 2008. In common words, an adult weighing 70 kg can consume each day 280 mg of Stevia extract without running any health risk. As Stevia extract is about 250 times sweeter than table sugar, an adult can replace daily 70 grams of refined sugar with Stevia extract. This is equivalent to about 4-5 tablespoons or about 20 teaspoons of sugar. As children have a lower body weight, the dose should be reduced in proportion to their weight.

It is interesting to compare these data with Aspartame, the globally most used synthetic tabletop sweetener. Food safety authorities worldwide have set acceptable daily intake (ADI) values for aspartame at 40 mg/kg of body weight based on a 1980 Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives recommendation (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). This means that – strictly based on toxicological available information – Stevia is considered about 10 times more “toxic” than Aspartame.

Even though Stevia sweetener is a product isolated from a plant and not product of a classical chemical process, being critical is never misplaced, because “natural” does not necessarily mean risk free. As a conclusion, Stevia extracts can be considered safe if not consumed in large quantities. The common idea that this “natural” product is safer than other commercially available tabletop sweetener is not supported by the available toxicological information.