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Healing with Functional Foods is a new specialty in western Medicine, finally! It’s a chance to let Nature’s superior knowledge guide you out of the labyrinth that man-made, processed foods and poor food-choice have created in you and in your family’s Health. Let’s learn more!
Dr. Marchione has been practicing for more than 20 years. He trained in Italy and has practiced as a pulmonologist and internal medicine physician. Now, he focuses on how foods heal us, in this new specialty, Nutritional Healing.
Foods can definitely heal you in ways drugs never can. Why? Because our bodies evolved over millions of years to thrive on the foods around us — the things we hunted, the foods we gathered.
Foods are Nature’s way to bring chemical resources to be used to: repair, restore and rejuvenate your cells. Best of all, they usually heal your body without dangerous side effects.
There’s a saying in Natural Medicine: “For every disease known to man, there’s a country where it virtually doesn’t exist.” It’s all about diet. The Japanese have lower rates of heart disease. East Indians rarely get Alzheimer’s. The Egyptians benefit from plentiful magnesium, from their rich Nile soils, with all the healthy nerve and tissue benefits that brings. What we know makes the difference is Diet!
Dr. Marchione, MD says: “One truth keeps sounding loud as a bell in my daily work with patients. In a nutshell, this is:
Food is the cause of the vast majority of our health problems, and food is also the solution.“
Americans are definitely overfed and undernourished.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, “Two thirds of all deaths are directly affected by improper diet.” The numbers are not much different in any country in the developed world.
The dis-eases which have become the top killers — heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, even arthritis, asthma, and allergies — are all linked to our diets.
And these could be reversed and prevented by eating the right foods.
Dr. Marchione believes the root cause of many chronic diseases may actually be deficiencies in nutrients — many of which science hasn’t even discovered yet. And he says that if you’re eating the standard American diet (SAD), it’s very likely that you have critical deficiencies in phytonutrients — the miracle healers found in plants!
Drugs can relieve the symptoms of disease, but drugs rarely cure the underlying condition the way that foods can. The breakthroughs in knowing the effects of phytonutrients and functional foods is really exciting.
These functional foods help patients:
___ clean out clogged arteries
___ relieve stiff, painful joints
___ lower cholesterol as effectively as drugs
___ reduce blood pressure
___ boost energy
___ lose weight
___ prevent cancer
___ restore fading memories
___ defeat diabetes
___ and help virtually every disease or symptom.
Patients can often see results in even 14 days.
Here are a few examples.
BLUEBERRIES:
There’s a nutrient in Blueberries which lowers cholesterol just as well as the Prescription Drugs, without their liver harm!
Pterostilbene is a remarkable, powerful anti-oxidant phytonutrient that is making big news because scientists are buzzing about its amazing cancer-fighting and cholesterol-lowering ability.
Results from Research Study —
Researchers tried to see if pterostilbene could lower cholesterol and they tested it against ciprofibrate, a cholesterol-lowering drug. Their study explored how each ingredient helped cells metabolize cholesterol.
The results showed that Pterostilbene was just as effective as prescription drugs in reducing cholesterol!
Dr. Ray Sahelian, MD also notes that pterostilbene, an active constituent of blueberries, suppresses aberrant crypt foci formation. Regular readers know that Dr. Robert O. Young, PhD, one of my mentors, always says that disease begins in the crypts of the colon. So, if blueberries can create healthy intestinal crypts, that’s fantastic! And, this particular research was done with diabetic rats, so it is likely to help diabetic humans, too.
So, using them daily, in season, in your food would be a good idea. You can decide if you want to use them frozen, the rest of the year.
BETA-CRYPTOXANTHIN FOODS:
Certain types of fruits and vegetables are rich in a powerful, yet little-known nutrient called beta-cryptoxanthin which was shown (in a medical study of 25,000 people) to cut the risk of inflammatory arthritis in half. This nutrient also helps diabetics. Read on.
This study followed the diets of Americans between ages 45 and 74 found that those who ate fresh produce high in beta-cryptoxanthin had a 50% lower risk of arthritis.
Imagine — you might not need those potentially liver and heart damaging drugs for joint pain, because you won’t have the pain in the first place!
Food sources of beta-cryptoxanthin include: red bell peppers, papaya, cilantro, oranges, corn, watermelon, serrano pepper, avocados and grapefruit.
So, what is beta-cryptoxanthin?
It is classified chemically as a xanthophyll, and is one of the most abundant carotenoids in the North American diet. We would think of it as a “provitamin A”compound, one of approximately 50 carotenoids able to be converted in the body into retinol, an active form of vitamin A, if your body is good at that. (If you had acne or colon polyps, you may not do this conversion well.)
Beta-cryptoxanthin has approximately one-half of the vitamin A activity of beta-carotene, and it benefits by:
___ reducing risk of esophageal and lung cancer
___ potentially stimulating the expression of RB gene, which is an anti-oncogene that functions to protect cells from becoming cancerous
___ protecting against chronic free-radical damage to heart and other tissues
___ it likely prevents heart disease and prostate cancer
Your absorption of beta-crptoxanthin is hampered by a low-fat or no-fat (!) diet. You MUST eat healthy fats daily!
If you have pancreatic enzyme deficiency, then you will also have trouble using beta-cryptoxanthin, so boost your enzymes at meals with fresh, raw produce and with supplements.
Crohn’s disease, celiac sprue, cystic fibrosis, surgical removal of part or all of the stomach, gall bladder disease and liver disease will also impact your ability to digest or absorb this powerful anti-oxidant.
Smokers and alcohol drinkers have chronically low levels of this vital nutrient.
Those people who have been stuck taking cholesterol-lowering medications referred to as bile acid sequestrants (Cholestyramine, Colestipol, and Colestid) have lower blood levels of carotenoids.
Additionally, margarines enriched with plant sterols (such as Benecol and Take Control), may decrease the absorption of carotenoids.
Olestra, a problematic fat substitute added to snack foods, may also decrease the absorption of carotenoids.
More on Dr. Marchione’s report next week. You can learn more at his site: Dr. Marchione’s homepage.
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Best to all —- Em
(c)2010 Em at http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
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