Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Over the last three decades, green tea has been studied for its beneficial effects, including its neuroprotective effects. Studies have shown green tea is a powerful extract for brain health, especially memory.
On today’s episode we will discuss things that men do every day that can increase their risk of developing prostate cancer and the lifestyle habits, foods and nutrients that may help to reduce it, based on the results of multiple human studies.
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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Strokes are quite common. They are a leading cause of loss of mobility and independence. Yet many strokes are preventable by making simple adjustments to your lifestyle and changing some of the foods you eat.
What are strokes?
Strokes are a leading cause of long term disability, loss of mobility, loss of independence and even death. A stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is reduced or interrupted. When this happens, your brain does not receive enough oxygen or the nutrients it needs to function and your brain cells start to die. Now a TIA – a transient ischemic attack – is really a warning sign that you can have a major stroke in the future. The symptoms pass quickly; frequently, by the time you get to the emergency room, the symptoms may be gone. This is why it is referred to as a mini stroke.
Why Cocoa Is A Superior Heart Health Superfood. Listen Now >>
The most common stroke by far is due to a blockage, called an ischemic stroke. It could be a blood clot or just an embolism that could just be a piece of plaque that broke of the lining of your arteries that went into the brain and blocked the major blood vessels in the brain. Less frequent is a hematocrit stroke. This is when there is bleeding in the brain, which commonly occurs in vegans and vegetarians but also in smokers and people who abuse alcohol.
Warning signs and symptoms, using FAST:
Additional warning signs include:
The Stats
Every 40 seconds someone in the United States has a stroke. Strokes tend to impact women more commonly than men. They occur twice as often in African American men than white men. Typically, almost 800,000 people a year in the United States suffer with a stroke.
50% of the factors that increase your risk of a stroke can be controlled by a healthier lifestyle. 80% of recurrent strokes can be prevented with the recurrent steps, such as controlling blood pressure and blood sugar.
Preventing A Stroke
First and foremost, you have to work with your doctor on the best methods for you personal health. Generally, the first step is to get your blood tested. You have to treat your diabetes and maintain normal blood sugar, as diabetes is a big risk factor for a stroke. You want to have your cholesterol under control by eating the right foods, exercising regularly and sometimes taking medication. Listen to our Sterols Episode, if you are someone who cannot take a statin drug.
You want to keep your triglycerides under control. High blood pressure is the number one cause of a stroke, following that is atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is when the top chambers of the heart that pump the blood to the bottom chambers of the heart are quivering or beating faster than normal.
A couple of things not normally looked into but should be:
Other healthy lifestyle changes:
There are certain drugs that increase the risk of a stroke:
Nutrients and Foods That Support Brain and Heart Health
Minerals commonly found in vegetables and fruits like Potassium are extremely important. Only 2% of Americans get sufficient amount of Potassium in their diet. Magnesium found in fish and fresh vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables is important. Low Magnesium levels has been shown to increase your risk of stroke by about 25%. My recommendation? Magnesium Glycinate can supply a lot of Magnesium in one tablet and it is by far the best absorbed Magnesium you can purchase. A second option is Magnesium Citrate, which still has a great deal of Magnesium and is well absorbed but is not quite as good as Magnesium Glycinate. The difference is that Magnesium Citrate is also a stool softener and will work as a laxative. Magnesium Glycinate will not have this effect. Folate or Folic Acid is found in plants but it is hard to absorb. Oddly, a vegetarian eating plants all day long could still be low in folate. Plus, some people cannot convert folate to its active form and a lot of multivitamins out there use that synthetic, inactive form (folic acid). You want to use Methyltetrahydrofolate, which is already the active form of Folate.†
Cocoa gets processed into chocolate through a process called dutching that adds milk fat and sugar that creates the chocolate we all love to snack on. Unfortunately, when this process occurs, a lot of the beneficially ingredients for the heart and brain in cocoa gets damaged, especially flavonols. Cocoa in its original form has been shown to be great for circulation, the heart and the brain. Cocoa found in supermarkets can be tainted with sprays and a heavy metal called cadmium that has been connected to breast cancer. Cocoa as a supplement has to be checked for bacteria, heavy metals and things of that nature. Invite Health takes that steps further by ensuring our ingredients are not sprayed by chemicals, allowing us to offer a non-GMO cocoa supplement.†
A study by UCLA researchers reports that three cups of Green tea a day reduced risk of stroke by 21%. A meta-analysis of nine human clinical trials of 195,000 people concluded that six cups per day reduced the risk of a stroke by an additional 21%, so that means that if you have six cups of green tea a day, according to this study, you cut your risk of stroke by 42%. And the effect was consistent.†
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
Immune system supplements with specially formulated, clinically studied non-GMO ingredients can support a strong and powerful immune system. Here are the top four immunity products you need this season, from our degreed healthcare professionals.
With so much evidence in the form of clinical studies available, it’s hard to dismiss the impact Green tea can have on your longevity and heart health. Jerry Hickey, Ph. discusses the most recent studies in Episode 31.
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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The headline on Medpage this morning is alarming; “Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic according to Experts.” Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result. The purpose of today’s episode is not to alarm you. But you should know how to support and actually improve the function of your immune system with the help of nutrition. This in turn, if you are exposed to a dangerous virus, should make you more resistant to viruses in general but also you are a great deal less likely to become exceedingly sick; in other words improving survival by making you stronger.
So, what is the Novel Coronavirus?
It’s also called the Wuhan virus because of the city in China where it spread from. You probably have had a mild coronavirus at some point in your life because this is a whole family of viruses and some milder strains of coronavirus account for about 15% of all cases of the common cold. Almost all other colds are caused by the rhinovirus family of viruses
Unfortunately, sometimes, a dangerous version of the coronavirus emerges. In 2002, SARS emerged in Southern China. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and it eventually led to over 8,000 cases, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 17 countries, with the majority of cases in mainland China and Hong Kong. It had an almost 10% fatality rate, according to the World Health Organization with no cases reported worldwide since 2004. In late 2017, Chinese scientists traced the virus origin to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Yunnan province in China.
More recently the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus emerged. It is a coronavirus that causes respiratory tract infections. It’s symptoms range from mild to severe including fever, cough, diarrhea and shortness of breath. This infection, like most others, can become more severe in those with other health problems. The mortality rate with MERS is high; about one-third of diagnosed cases but its spread outside of a hospital is uncommon, MERS also comes from bats.
The new coronavirus, designated 2019-nCoV, was identified in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, after people developed pneumonia without a clear cause, and for which existing treatments were not effective. The virus has human-to-human transmission, with the number of cases quickly climbing into the thousands by late January 2020. Several countries across Europe, North America and especially the Asia-Pacific reporting cases. Its incubation period (time from exposure to onset of symptoms) ranges from 2 to 14 days and there is evidence that it may be contagious during this period and possibly also for several days after recovery. Symptoms include fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. It can be fatal. As of 3 February 2020, approximately 17,486 cases have been confirmed, including in every province-level division of China. Chinese scientists quickly isolated a strain of the coronavirus and publish the genetic sequence so that laboratories across the world could independently develop tests to detect infection by the virus. The 2019-nCoV’s genome sequence is 75- to 80-percent identical to SARS-CoV, and more than 85-percent similar to several bat coronaviruses.
The Current Update
Three more cases of novel coronavirus were confirmed in California over the weekend, bringing the total U.S. cases to 11, public health officials said on Sunday. The ninth case was in a woman from Santa Clara County, who had recently traveled to Wuhan, China, according to CNBC. And late Sunday night, KSBW 8 reported the 10th and 11th confirmed cases in San Benito County, California, from a man, age 57, who traveled from Wuhan, and his wife, also age 57, who contracted the virus from her husband. Rumors continue to abound about three potential cases in New York City. According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the patients is younger than age 40, and is being kept in isolation at Bellevue Hospital. Samples have been sent to the CDC, with results expected early this week.
The good news; only about 15% of the 17,000 plus Chinese cases are considered severe but cases in China continue to multiply. Plus over the weekend: doctors in Thailand said several patients with novel coronavirus improved after treatment with a combination of the influenza drug Tamiflu and some virus inhibiting HIV medications lopinavir and ritonavir, according to Reuters.
Generally Boosting Your Immune System
All strains of viruses use enzymes to infect us, and if you can inhibit these enzymes you may weaken or sometimes prevent an infection. To a good degree, Green Tea inhibits enzymes specific to all flu viruses, cold viruses, and other infectious viruses. When someone sneezes – which seems to be how the coronavirus spreads – that sneeze can travel at a 100 miles an hour for ten feet; try and duck this in a packed train or room. Coughs travel at 50miles an hour for about 5 feet; lots of luck ducking that one also. When the virus hits you, it uses enzymes to latch onto your cells, enter them, and then multiply, leading to that typical week-long infection. The enzyme neuraminidase allows the flu and other viruses to attach to the mucus membranes in your nose, mouth, and the tear ducts of the eyes. The virus is then able to enter and exit your cells and cause an infection.†
Drugs have been developed to block these viral enzymes including Relenza and Tamiflu back in the 1990s. But Green Tea has been shown to inhibit the enzymes used by many viruses to infect us including neuraminidase but also hemagglutinin. The antioxidant catechins in green tea also inhibit the interaction of many viruses with the cell membrane after they have invaded a cell.†
Evidence for Green Tea and Healthy Immunity
According to a study from the University of Florida at Gainesville, Green tea also stimulates a particular type of immune cell called a gamma-delta T cell, which helps govern the ability of your immune system to fight viruses in general. The research shows that Green Tea also stimulates the release of interferon-gamma further helping contain viruses. Two observational studies and three randomized controlled studies were conducted to determine the efficacy of gargling with green tea according to the Japan Health Authority. As an example, results of an observational study assessed the effectiveness of gargling to prevent febrile diseases (fevers) and absence from school among healthy children. In their study, which followed 19,595 children aged 2–6 years, scientists found that fever onset was significantly lower – 68% lower – in those that gargled with green tea compared to those that gargled with tap water.†
In the Journal of Nutrition, the University of Shizouka School of Pharmacy, looked at 2663 school kids from different parts of Japan over 2 winters and found that drinking Green Tea 6 times a week decreased a diagnosis of the flu by a pediatrician by 40%. But if they drank green tea more frequently, it cut the risk by 46%.†
In a study of healthcare professionals by the same pharmacy school, taking a green tea capsule along with it’s component L-Theanine, lowered the risk of the flu in healthcare professionals by 75%.†
If you are going to brew green tea, make sure it is organic. Always add lemon to your green tea (not milk) – milk weakens the properties in green tea. The University of Florida shows that taking a concentrated Green Tea capsule 2 times daily over the flu season strongly cut the incidence of the flu. However, if a person did get sick, the infection was much milder and lasted for a much shorter amount of days. Green tea is shown to help protect the elderly. Elderly people have a weaker immune system and the classic flu shot works less effectively in them. In a study of 124 elderly residents of a nursing home, all of whom received a flu shot, gargling with green tea further cut the risk of developing the flu versus placebo.†
Other Supportive and Protective Nutrients
Other nutrients that support immune system function†:
Protect your lungs†;
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
