Holistic Health and Nutrition Blog

Do you have unexplained brain fog, trouble concentrating, memory problems, or constant anxiety? You may have what is called a leaky brain. I've previously explained what a Leaky Gut is, but what is a leaky brain?

Our brain houses our memories, our language and communication skills, our ability to move our bodies, as well as controlling our autonomic functions like heartbeat, breathing, temperature. We need to protect our brain. Your brain is your most protected organ in your body. Not only is it housed in the thick bones of the skull, it is floating in cerebrospinal fluid to protect it from damage in a head injury. We have built-in shock absorbing ability in our head!

On a previous post Health Brain Healthy Body I shared 7 tips for maintaining a healthy brain. Having a healthy brain is essential to having a healthy body. Low fat diets and junk food diets do little to feed the brain what it needs to maintain healthy neurological function, memory and emotional well being. Environmental toxins like heavy metals as well as alcohol and drug abuse contribute greatly to loss of brain function and mental health.

This blog post will focus on eating right for your brain. Those of you with issues like anxiety, deppression, brain fog, memory loss, attention deficit disorder, dementia, autism, and addictions cannot ignore the impact of nutrition on the brain. Everyone knows the importance of nutrition when other organs of the body are ailing. But interestingly enough, nutrition for the brain and the ailments of the brain goes all to often ignored. I don't care what other treatments you may be using to deal with your brain issues, you cannot forget to eat foods for a healthy brain! 

We are born with more brain cells than we will ever have again in our lives. As we age, we lose brain cells, and as far as science can tell at this time, our bodies cannot regenerate the neurons in the brain. To preserve health and brain function, it is essential that we protect, nourish and exercise our brains. This is the topic of discussion for my Healthy Brain series.

Although our brains are unable to regenerate dead neurons, scientists have discovered that the brain has an amazing way of overcoming this downfall in order to preserve memory and brain function. This process is called neurotropism. When a neuron (brain cell) dies, there's a gap left between the cells on either side of the dead cell. Nerve transmissions usually travel from one neuron to the other much like electricity does. The healthy neurons surrounding the dead space where the cell once was will reach out with their extensions (dendrites) and stretch across that dead space to create new connections with surrounding neurons. This phenomenon maintains the function of the brains cells so that messages are able to travel across those divides without disruption. You can see some cells in neurotropism in the video below.

Glutathione is known as the "Master Antioxidant." Without antioxidants, nature's free radicals would cause endless damage to our bodies and living healthy would be quite difficult. Fortunately, we have a built in system of antioxidant power that when operating optimally, the dreaded effects of aging can be thwarted and youth preserved.

Glutathione is revered because of it's amazing power over free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules in our body that cause damage to our tissue and organs because of their irradic behavior. Glutathione, like other antioxidants, grab on to the unruly free radical and remove an electron, the bad influence on the free radical, and render it harmless. Glutathione is our most abundant antioxidant found in our cells and livers, and even stored in our protein. Science has observed that when there is marked illness, glutathione levels plummet. It is crucial to maintain adequate levels of glutathione, especially for those with chronic disease and autoimmune conditions.  Those with autoimmune conditions are often low in gluathione levels.

Prostate cancer is a male cancer starting with abnormal cell growth in the prostate gland that may metastasize and spread to other parts of the body.  It is typically comprised of many very small slow-growing tumors and it strikes approximately one out of six American men (“About Prostate Cancer”, 2010).  Prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in American men, yet it is highly treatable and preventable (Rakel, 2007, p. 848).

Primary Organ/System Affected

The prostate gland and male reproductive system are predominantly affected.  If the cancer metastasizes, it can spread to other organs in the body through the lymphatic system.  Only a small percentage of migrating cancer cells can actually produce a tumor.  However, if successful, it becomes Metastatic Prostate Cancer, and cure rates considerably decline (“About Prostate Cancer”, 2010).

This week I've dedicated my blogging to the health practice of juicing vegetables for optimal health. If you've missed Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 of Tips For Juicing For Optimal Health, I suggest you back up and read those first.

By now I hope you're convinced you want to try juicing and you're pretty comfortable with knowing what you need to make a delicious, nutritious high quality juice. I only have a couple tips left and mostly want to help you with choosing the right equipment. If you've ever shopped for a juicer, I'm sure you know that the options are endless as are the price differences. Hopefully I can make the process of selecting the right juicer a little less daunting. But first I want to discuss something that always comes up when we discuss juicing vegetables.

I hope by now you are realizing the many health benefits of drinking nutritious fresh raw juice. I hope you've either dusted off your old juicer or are considering buying one to boost your nutrition. If you don't have a juicer yet, I will discuss choosing the best juicer in Part 4 of Tips For Juicing For Optimal Health. If you missed Part 2 or Part 1 of the series, please go back and read those first.

Juicing does not cancel out a bad diet. It is important to build a diet around whole foods that are clean (organic), unadulterated (non-GMO) and fresh! Juicing organic vegetables is a way to augment that diet and be able to incorporate even more healthy nutritious disease preventative nutrients found in our rainbow of vegetables. Here I'm presenting a few more tips to make your juicing experience most palatable and beneficial.

I've received a lot of interesting feedback on Part 1 of Tips For Juicing For Optimal Health. Mostly great feedback from people who love to juice as a part of their healthy diet. Then there are some who don't believe that juicing is a natural way to consume vegetables. The way I see it is if I can get people to eat more vegetables by juicing or by "hiding" vegetables in some of their foods (i.e., add spinach to spaghetti sauce), then I've done a great job of encouraging a healthier diet. Here is Part 2 of this series.

In Part 1 of this series I discussed what vegetables are good to start with. As you get accustomed to juicing and drinking liquid that is not sweetened, you can start to incorporate other nutrient dense vegetables.  The following are the vegetables recommended by Dr. Joseph Mercola in progressive order:

One of my favorite things to show my clients is how I juice my vegetables. Juicing is an excellent way to get more of the five to nine recommended servings of vegetables we should have every day. Juicing helps to clear the skin, improves vitality, cleanses the organs and is preventive of cancer and other disease. I highly recommend everyone to incorporate raw juicing into their health promoting diet.

Why Juice?

• Juicing helps you absorb all of the beneficial nutrients from the vegetables
• Juicing allows you to consume optimal amounts of vegetables in an efficient manner
• Juicing allows you to incorporate a larger variety of vegetables than you would normally eat

Drink Vegetable Juice

When I recommend juicing, people will most often imagine fruit juices. However, fruit juices are high in calories and sugar content. They should be avoided because of their ability to raise blood sugar quickly. This is undesirable as it can lead to weight gain and many symptoms related to blood sugar imbalance.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) can be a crippling and painful condition of the joints of the body affecting millions of Americans. It is not just a disease of the elderly, typically appearing in people from age 30 to 50. Understanding the mechanism of this autoimmune condition and known treatment options can help the sufferer cope with and possibly control its disconcerting symptoms.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory condition that affects the entire body, but especially the joints.  There is much evidence that RA is an autoimmune reaction, in which antibodies formed by the immune system attack components of joint tissue. (Murray, 2005, p. 761).