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I recently bought a set of towels from Next. When I got them home, I left them on the dining room table saving the pleasure of unwrapping them (I am a towelaholic, P reckons this is the sole reason I started out as a massage therapist and he’s probably right). When I came into the room later to, ahem, play with them, I noticed a really strong chemical smell. I left them in a bedroom for a few days to see if it would wear off, but the smell was just as strong and so I returned them unused.

Then, the other day, I saw the piece in the Daily Mail: Toxic Dyes, Lethal Logos, Cotton Drenched in Formadehyde… and it all clicked into place. Of course, cotton is the most sprayed crop on the planet and it seems many other chemicals are added to our clothing, bedding, towels, upholstery and anywhere you care to look. I have long advocated organic unbleached underwear for recurrent thrush sufferers, for example.

Have a read of the piece, and download Dirty Laundry by Greenpeace which is mentioned in the article.

Then, check the now burgeoning suppliers of organic goodies. I often use  Natural Collection who do tons of ethical stuff and have recently massively extended their organic clothing and bedding ranges.

Related articles

• Toxic chemical formaldehyde found in common personal care products (truthsupport.wordpress.com)

Meantime, put the words allergy, intolerance into the search box or click the special diet category and find tons of posts from the last few years!

Right, off to continue feverishness… luckily P is here to mop my brow, there is SO much to say!

When I trained, I was lucky to be part of the naturopathic nutrition course run by Dr Lawrence Plaskett (which took me 5 years to complete in total!). His courses gave plenty of scientific background (Dr Plaskett is a biochemist) but within a naturopathic medicine philosophy (he became a naturopathic physician later).

This way of looking at nutrition and how it can help the body is substantially different to most nutritional therapy practitioners today who have the benefit  of the science, but not the medical philosophy framework to put everything into context. That is changing, though, as we see more and more functional medicine practitioners who, to my mind, are getting back to the science and the old naturopathic principles combined, which is a good thing.

Anyway, I waffle. I have always found Nutrigold an excellent company because their supplement offering and education is based around naturopathic nutrition. Happily, they have recently launched a non-practitioner nutrition home-study course, which I think would be a fab grounding for anyone wanting to delve deeper into this subject. Add on 10 interactive webinars and you can get accreditation with the FNTP as an entry-level  nutrition adviser, so perfect for all you life coaches and personal trainers out there.

Check out details here: Nutrigold Nutrition & Health Course.

Image by sarniebill1 via Flickr

A daily dose of rosehips can reduce the risk of heart disease by almost a fifth according to a piece in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph.

Overweight patients who drank a rosehip powder drink every day for six weeks, followed by six weeks of an apple and grape drink saw their blood pressure fall by 3.4%.    LDL bad cholesterol dropped by 6%.  It is estimated it would reduce the risk of heart disease in obese patients by 17%.

Research by Lund University  and published in the ‘European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.’

I think the amounts used in this albeit small study would be pretty high, but an extra cup of rosehip a tea a day is sounding like a good idea. Rosehip has always been an old-fashioned tonic/cold remedy with rosehip syrups being given aplenty in times gone by.

Have a read of the article yourself and see previous comments on flu here. I have no doubt that anti-virals and perhaps Tamiflu can save lives, but it may turn out not be the saviour-drug it was believed to be and we may have millions of pounds worth of stocks we shouldn’t have bought. If it turns out Roche were misleading governments, I hope they will be made to refund the money and take the stock back. But I can’t see that happening anytime fast, can you?

Perhaps we can make a reasoned and educated decision on the use of Tamiflu in future – if we can get the full data. In the meantime, something doesn’t smell very nice about all this.

Related articles

• Researchers renew fight with Roche over flu drug evidence (blogs.nature.com)
• Tamiflu: Side effects and effectiveness of ‘wonder-drug’ under the microscope (dailymail.co.uk)

In the queue at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. 

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.”

He was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the shop or off license. They sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized and refilled and re-used. So it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have lifts and escalators in every shop and office building. We walked to the local shops and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go to a supermarket.

We bought fruit and veg loose – and washed them at home. We didn’t have to throw away bins full of plastic, foam and paper packaging that need huge recycling plants fed by monster trucks all day, everyday.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind.  We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up KW’s — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.

Kids got hand-me-down (mostly hand made or hand knitted)  clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing shipped from the other side of the planet.

 

But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

 

Back then shops repaired things with funny things called spare parts – we didn’t need to throw whole items away because a small part failed.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?),  not a screen the size of Wales .

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power and hand clippers for the hedges.

We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a brightly lit, air conditioned health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity and then drink millions of bottles of that special water from those plastic bottles.

 

But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

 

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new plastic pen, and we replaced blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole plastic razor just because the blade got dull.

 

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their parents into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.  And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest fish & chip shop.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

I can’t belieeeeve it: 2012 already. Gosh, I am getting on a bit. Just sending you greetings for a happy and healthy new year. I have tons of plans for the coming 12 months to help us all so stay tuned, have a fab day and see you on the other side. What fun, a whole new blank annual canvas for us to draw on!

Healthy Barrier on the Left, Not So Healthy on the Right..

How do you know if your gut barrier (and probably other body barriers including skin, eyes, blood-brain etc) has been damaged and is allowing proteins through which you are reacting to immunologically?

How can you see how ‘leaky’ you have become?

Do you want to know if bacteria, food proteins and yeasts like candida have breached the mucosal barrier – your first line of immune defence? How about checking if all proteins checked have got through, thus showing a major breakdown of barrier permeability?

The traditional leaky gut test was seeing how much of certain types of sugars got through, but, in my opinion at least, a new saliva barrier function test is much more sophisticated.

The test looks to see if you have formed antibodies to common day-to-day substances including common food proteins, yeasts and bacteria. If antibodies are found, it shows they have breached the first-line defence mucosal barrier. We can then get a feel for how leaky you are by looking at the level of antibodies you are producing – and whether all 4 measurements are high (eek!).

Here is some blurb for you from the eshop including information from the lab about the test; it’s there if you need it. Check here too for more on this subject.

Barrier Permeability Test £185

The new much more sophisticated and reliable way to test leaky gut, barrier hyper-permeability and mucosal immunity breakdown. Once the proteins tested are getting through (evidenced by the IgA and IgM antibodies found), we know that other sensitivities will soon follow, as can inflammation and auto-immunity.

This test is especially useful for anyone suffering allergies, intolerances, gluten sensitivity and auto-immune conditions. We use it mainly to confirm that gluten has upregulated a protein called zonulin which allows breakdown of the mucosal barrier, starting in the gut but possibly affecting other body barriers including skin, eyes and blood-brain barriers. We then use a protocol designed to regain strong barrier protection, lessen sensitivity and risk of inflammatory damage and autoimmunity.

Overview:

Lab testing to assess: the integrity of the gut’s mucosal barrier; antigen penetration; dysbiosis; leaky gut; malabsorption; dietary protein sensitivity; secretory IgA production; intestinal permeability; crypt hyperplasia; antibody response to: Candida, aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, and dietary proteins.

Analytes tested:

• Single sIgA, plus IgA+IgM antibodies to:
• Combined dietary proteins (Wheat/gliadin, corn, soy, cow’s milk, egg)
• Aerobic bacteria (Escherichia coli and E. enterococcus)
• Anaerobic bacteria (Bacteroides fragilis and Clostridium perfringens)
• Candida albicans yeast

Introduction:

Optimal health is not possible without proper Intestinal Barrier Function.  

Being on the front lines in defending the body, the mucosal layer, the extrinsic barrier, of the GI tract is exposed to a multitude of stressors, antigens, pathogens, imbalances of neurotransmitters, toxins and medications, and sometimes this barrage can weaken and break down the protective barrier.  What follows the loss of mucosal immune tolerance is a cascade beginning with the formation of immune complexes and inflammatory cytokine responses.  These abnormal levels of regulatory cytokine production such as in IL-10 and TGF-beta lead to enhanced intestinal permeability in which the tight junctions in the intrinsic barrier open and allow the passage of dietary proteins and peptides into the blood stream.  Commonly known as leaky gut, enhanced gut permeability is the precursor to autoimmune disorders such as Type I Diabetes, RA, Lupus, MS and autoimmune hypothyroidism.  It is also the pathway to neurologic dysfunction associated with gluten intolerance, Celiac disease, Autism and ADHD.

Your First-Line Immune Defense

The mucosal barrier—your first-line immune defense—refers to all of the mucous membranes that comprise the primary interface between the external environment and the internal environment of the body. This mucosal barrier lets beneficial things into your general circulation and keeps harmful ones out.

To clarify this, an analogy can be made between the earth’s ozone layer and your body’s mucosal barriers. The ozone layer lets the right amount of sunlight through, sustaining life on earth; your mucosal barriers allow nutrients through, sustaining your health. The ozone layer prevents harmful radiation from getting through; the mucosal barriers prevent infectious agents and allergens from invading your body. But just as our planet has a damaged ozone layer, many of us have damaged mucosal barriers. Consequently, we are not protected from harmful substances such as parasites, viruses, and bacteria.

No disease or symptom needs to be present to warrant protecting the mucosal barrier of the intestines; keeping it healthy helps to keep us strong and disease-resistant. Strengthening the gut lining is applicable to relieving and avoiding the impacts of asthma, arthritis, food allergies, ulcers, Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, autoimmune diseases, alcoholism, chronic fatigue, joint pain, migraines, diarrhea, parasitic infections, dysbiosis, candidiasis, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes, all of which can have their origin in harmful substances penetrating through the intestines.

The one thing I would add is that the test can only show if you are producing antibodies and how high the antibody level is. It can’t show you if you currently have candida, allergies to the proteins tested, or a bacterial infection. If they turn up positive, I usually advise we check those and deal with them because the barrier will never heal properly in my view if pathological attackers like those aren’t dealt with. The other choice you would have is to check IgA, IgG and IgM antibodies in the blood (the second stage of the allergy/intolerance immune reaction), which not only shows you that the barrier is broken but also a list of foods you may be having problems with.

If you suffer from mood disorders, anxiety, insomnia, depression or other nerve/neurological issues, you can now test your brain chemicals via a postal urine test.

I am sometimes asked if I can help people find out how much serotonin or other brain neurotransmitters they have. To help, I have found a fab US lab who specialise in this field, (for love nor money, I couldn’t get it done in the UK!) and have today listed a urine screen of the top 12 neurotransmitters should you need to look at them.

Here’s a bit of blurb from the eshop for you and a link to a good info leaflet: