Evolution Pictures (33 pics)

Marines Help Boy With Prosthetic Leg Finish Race (5 pics)

During the 2012 Sea Turtle Triathlon in Pensacola, a 11-year-old boy broke his prosthetic limb during the run. Local Marines picked the boy up and carried him the rest of the way to the finish line. 

This Vitamin Protects You From Diabetes (and Chances Are, You’re Deficient)

A recent study looked at how vitamin D deficiency might be linked to diabetes. What the researchers discovered was surprising.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes tend to go hand-in-hand. In fact, type 2 diabetes is one of the main obesity-related diseases, also called metabolic disorders. This new research — published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism – looked at the connection between vitamin D, obesity and type 2 diabetes. It was a small study with around 140 participants, separated by Body Mass Index (BMI) and by whether they had diabetes, prediabetes or neither of these.

The researchers then measured each of the patients’ vitamin D levels. 

They found that low vitamin D levels may be a stronger indicator of diabetes than obesity. Obese patients without diabetes had higher vitamin D levels than subjects at a healthy weight who did have diabetes. Vitamin D may be key in protecting us from diabetes.

Study author Manuel Macías-González, PhD said, “Our findings indicate that vitamin D is associated more closely with glucose metabolism than obesity.” He suggests that obesity and vitamin D deficiency work together “to heighten the risk of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. The average person may be able to reduce their risk by maintaining a healthy diet and getting enough outdoor activity.”

Dr. Macías-González says that vitamin D deficiency and obesity “interact synergistically,” meaning that while one or the other could cause type 2 diabetes, if you’re both overweight and vitamin D deficient, your risk of developing type 2 diabetes is much greater.

That sounds a little bit grim, but these results may actually be good news. The study suggests that making sure we’re getting enough vitamin D — from sunshine, fortified foods or by taking supplements — could protect us from diabetes.

The bad news is that around 75 percent of Americans are deficient.

The best way to find out whether your vitamin D levels are low is to ask your doctor to do a simple blood test. If you’re deficient or if you have low vitamin D levels, your doctor may recommend that you take a vitamin D supplement.

If you’re vegan or vegetarian, it’s important to know that not all vitamin D supplements are created equal. In general, vitamin D2 is plant-based, and vitamin D3 comes from animal sources. But! There are plant-based vitamin D3 supplements out there made from lichen. Doctors tend to lean toward a D3 supplement, because this form of vitamin D is more readily absorbed, so it might be worth tracking down a plant-based D3 supplement to help get your levels up.

This new study is part of the mounting research linking vitamin D and immune health. Previous studies have also found that vitamin D may protect you from certain types of cancer, help your body fight the flu and support healthy pregnancy.

Is Your Sea Salt Contaminated With Plastic?

Millions of Americans have made the switch from chemical salt to sea salt in recent years. Sea salt is derived naturally from seawater, rather than mines and processed with chemicals like common table salt, making it a more desirable product for health seekers. But new research points to serious dangers in sea salt: microplastics.

According to the research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, a wide range of plastic pollution is contaminating salt as our ocean’s continue to fill up with plastic debris.

They’re extremely tiny pieces of plastic, and while you may not have issues digesting them, there’s still cause for concern, says the researchers out of Shanghai’s East China Normal University, “Microplastics are a particular threat to organisms due to their small size and their capacity to absorb persistent organic pollutants.” 

The researchers noted between “550 and 681microplastic particles per kilogram of table salt that originated from the ocean, 43 to 364/kg in lake salts, and 7 to 204/kg in rock or well salts,” reports Quartz.

“The highest level of plastic contamination was found in salt sourced from the ocean,” reports Scientific American. “The researchers measured more than 1,200 particles of plastic per lb of sea salt.”

The research comes on the heels of another study pointing to plastic debris in at least 25 percent of fish sampled in the U.S. and Asia.

“Plastics have become such a ubiquitous contaminant, I doubt it matters whether you look for plastic in sea salt on Chinese or American supermarket shelves,” Sherri Mason, an environmental science researcher at the State University of New York Fredonia told Scientific American. “I’d like to see some ‘me-too’ studies,” she added.

While the sea salt samples were procured in China, it’s likely there are similar contaminants in salts from around the world, especially sea salt. And with a growing number of processed foods coming out of China, the contaminated sea salt could be making its way into your diet.

Speeding Recovery from Surgery with Turmeric

Medicine is messy. One of the reasons researchers experiment on animals is they can create uniform, standardized injuries to test potential remedies. It’s not like you can just cut open 50 people and see if something works better than a sugar pill. But, wait a second, we cut people open all the time. It’s called surgery.

In my video below, I discuss a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study that investigated the efficacy of turmeric curcumin in pain and post-operative fatigue in patients who had their gallbladders removed. Fifty people were given either curcumin or an identical-looking placebo, along with rescue analgesics—i.e., actual painkillers to take if the pain became unbearable. Even though it’s just laparoscopic surgery, people don’t realize what a toll it can take. (You can be out of commission for a month!) In India, turmeric, found in curry powder, has traditionally been used as a remedy for traumatic pain and fatigue, so the researchers put it to the test.

According to the study, in the weeks following surgery, there was a dramatic drop in pain and fatigue scores in the turmeric curcumin group, with p-values of 0.000. Those are my kind of p-values! The “p-value” refers to a measure of the strength of evidence. The smaller it is, the stronger the evidence is that the result they found didn’t just happen by chance. By convention, a p-value under 0.05 is considered small enough for a result to be considered statistically significant. This means that you’d only expect to find a result that remarkable simply by coincidence 5% of the time, or in 1 out of 20 cases. So a p-value like the one in the study, <0.000, suggests you’d have to run the experiment thousands of times before you’d come up with such a dramatic result just by chance. 

It’s hard to come up with objective measures of pain and fatigue, but drug-wise, the curcumin group was still in so much pain they were forced to take 7 of the rescue painkillers. In the same time period, though, the control group had to take 39 pain pills.

6 Reasons to Use Cucumbers for your Skin, Hair, and Eyes

Cucumber is one of the oldest and most commonly grown vegetables in the world.  Variations of cucumber can be brown almost anywhere in the world.  They are a low calorie, high fiber food that contains about 95% water and a good amount of vitamins C and A.  In addition to being a great food, they are also very beneficial when used as a treatment for skin, hair and eyes.  Lets look at a few ways you can use this natural healer in your life to obtain a youthful, glowing appearance. 

 

Puffy Eyes: Probably the most commonly known uses of cucumbers (outside of a salad) is applying cucumber slices over puffy eyes.  This treatment is well known for a simple reason, it works!  In addition to providing a cooling affect (which shrinks dilated blood vessels), cucumbers contain flavanoids and antioxidants that decrease swelling, redness and skin irritation.

Sun Burn:  When applying thinly sliced cucumbers and/or cucumber puree over the body you will immediately feel the cooling affect.  Containing 95% water, cucumbers are a excellent way to naturally restore moisture to sun stressed skin.  They also contain potassium and vitamins A and C which are very beneficial for skin rejuvenation.

  

Fights Cellulite:  Unflattering cellulite can be reduced by applying cucumber puree over affected areas.  Cucumbers contain phytochemicals that aid in the production of collagen (which adds structure and elasticity to body tissue).

Acne:  Antioxidants contained in cucumbers act to reduce skin inflammation caused by acne.  Try adding Turmeric powder to a cucumber puree with a few drops of lemon and apply to acne affected skin for 10-15 minutes before washing off.

  

Hair Conditioner:  Add cucumber puree to your hair after washing for 5-10 minutes before lightly rinsing.  Cucumbers provide hair with much needed potassium, calcium, sulfur and silicon.

Effective Anti-Aging Mask:  Create your own natural anti-aging mask by miixng cucmber puree, aloe (1-3 Tbsp), organic plain yogurt (2 tbsp), honey (1 tsp) and lemon juice (1/2 tsp).  Apply to your face  for 10-15 minutes (2 times per week) before rinsing with cold water to close pores.

Do you suffer from fatigue, gas, bloating, headaches, and joint pain? You have a high toxic load. DO THIS!

Toxic Load can be defined as the accumulative amount of toxic chemicals affecting your body at a given time.  Some refer to it as “Body Burden“.   The source of these toxic chemicals that build up in our bodies are both internal and external (some toxins in our body are byproducts of natural chemical reactions and thus are unavoidable, while other toxins are man made and can be reduced but unfortunately very hard to completely eliminate in the modern world) the end result of toxic load on our body is both internal and external as well.  Toxins affect our skin, hair, organs which in turn affect our energy levels, aging and overall health.  As mentioned before, toxic load is a result of both natural reactions and man made chemicals.  While we can a should reduce our exposure to man made chemicals (contained in cleaning, cosmetic, clothing, processed and non-organic foods etc.) we cannot in reality completely expect these to be eliminated from our modern lives in totality.  So, given the reality of that, what can we do to reduce toxic damage (Toxic Load) once we already consumed the toxin?

  

What are the signs of Toxic Load:  As Toxins build up in our bodies we feel fatigue, gas, bloating, headaches and joint pain.  The inflammation is due to impaired liver function as the levels of toxins in our body exceed what our liver can handle.  This leads to the fluid retention and bloating.  In fact, if you are overweight, you are by definition Toxic.  As many toxins such as pesticides and plastics are stored in fat tissue.  If you are trying to loose weight, detoxing is essential as these toxins are released into your body.  Failure to detox, will impede your weight loss progress.

How to Reduce Toxic Load: 

 

• Enzymes:  Enzymes help to induce biochemical reactions like metabolism and detoxification. Fresh vegetables are a great source of these enzymes, however, when overcooked these enzymes are destroyed (especially when cooked in the microwave).
• Probiotics:  Our gut contains trillions of bacteria, these are called microflora.  Microflora assists with digestion, helps breakdown nutrients and assists in the immune system.  Maintaining essential bacteria in your gut through regular consumption of organic sources such as organic yogurt, kefir or fermented foods for example. 

• Take your shoes off:  Many don’t realize how many toxins we track into our homes via the bottom of our shoes.  As we walk across the street, for example, our shoes pick up all the rubber residue from tires, oil that drops from cars, petroleum in asphalt and tar, pesticides and fertilizers from the ground, etc.
• Spices: Research suggests that rhizome plants, such as turmeric and ginger are especially efficacious at reducing toxins in the body.
• Essential Oils:  Incorporating essential oils into your life cannot only offer a easy and affordable way to include a variety of very therapeutic compounds into your diet, they can also reduce the amount of toxic ingredients in your household by using essential oils for daily household duties such as laundry, cleaning and hygiene instead of conventional man made products.