I feel like I have been living under a rock lately.  Some how I have missed all the hype about ASU, which is a supplement used for osteoarthritis (OA).  ASU is an extract from the oils of avocado and soy, which has been shown in studies to decrease pain and regenerate cartilage in patients who have OA.

The studies seem to be substantial and published in respected peer reviewed journals.  Here is a link to a very informative article on ASU with the studies sited.  Also, here is an NIH study from PubMed that demonstrated the efficacy of ASU.

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis and can cause neck pain, back pain and joint pain.  For more information about how we treat these areas visit our neck pain page and our back pain page.

If anyone has had experience with this product I would be interested in hearing about your experience.

A new study out of Switzerland shows that Pycnogenol (pic-noj-en-all), an extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree, reduces ADHD in children.  These findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Nutritional Neuroscience.

In this study stress hormones where monitored in the urine of children who took the Pycnogenol and those who were given a placebo for a one month period.  It is believed that these stress hormones cause children to experience excitement, arousal and irritability.  This is the first time that a natural substance has shown to decrease these hormones.

The only isotonic form of Pycnogenol is found in Nutrametrix OPC-3 and can be purchased online by clicking here.

Read more about the study Incredible News_Pycnogenol ADHD.

For more information about Pycnogenol click Medline or Drugs.com.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) filled a lawsuit agianst Denny’s restaurant chain for the sodium content in their food.  CSPI had been in negotiations with Denny’s since the end of last year regarding this salt issue.  CSPI is pushing Denny’s to list the sodium content on their menus and label certain foods as “high risk” if they contain a large amount of sodium.  Denny’s claims that there nutritional information is listed on their website and therefore there is no reason to list it on the menus.

For the original article, click here.

I am a big fan of CSPI and their work.  They publish one of the best nutrition newsletters available, Nutrition Action.  They are tirelessly working to better the food supply.  To find out more about the CSPI, click here.

A recent study suggests that there is a link between occupational exposure to pesticides and Alzhiemer’s disease.

At first glance we might think, “I don’t work in the fields, therefore this study does not pertain to me.”  It is true that the people in this study were subjected to more pesticides than the average person, but that is not to say that even small levels of pesticides don’t impact our health.

Pesticide use has dramatically increased over the past 50 years, she says. There are now more than 18,000 pesticides licensed in the U.S., and more than 2 billion pounds are applied each year, says Kathleen M. Hayden, PhD, of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

People suffering from Alzhiemer’s has also increased over the years with no known direct cause.  Currenly 5.3 million people are suffering from Alzhiemer’s and not all of them worked with pesticides in their past.

There appears to be a number of factors that play into the prevalence of Alzhiemer’s, but this study shows us one factor that we can have direct control over by choosing foods that are organic.

Some foods hold on to pesticides more than others, here is a link with the list of foods that are more pesticide laden and others that have less; Pesticides in food

Alzheimer’s is a disease of the old, but the choiced that we make now affect our health in the future.  Choose your food wisely especially if you have a growing child in your household.

For a more about this study on WebMD click here.

I put together the following video to explain Sciatica, which is often times misdiagnosed.

Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin for good reason.  Our bodies produce vitamin D when our skin is exposed to the sun, but using sun block may prevent this reaction.  There have been a few studies recently that have shown the decrease in vitamin D to be significant and can be as high as ten fold when using sunscreen.

How much vitamin D do we need?

Some experts are recommended as much at 5000mgs of vitamin D each day, but the actual amount is still up for discussion.  What is known is that most of us don’t get enough exposure to the sun, which limits our vitamin D production.  The National Institutes of Health state that it takes only 30 min of sunlight exposure per day without sunscreen to produce the amount of vitamin D that you need each day.  Getting your 30 minutes in the summer might not be an issue, but the winter months are a different story.  In the winter month here in the Midwest we cover our bodies from head to toe and run from our heated house to our heated car to our heated work with little or no exposure to the sun.

How can we get more Vitamin D?

In the colder months most of us don’t want to spend more time outside to boost our vitamin D, but there are other ways to get more through supplementation and diet.  Vitamin D can be purchased in a number of health food stores and vitamin shops.  It usually comes in 1000 IU tablets.  You can also obtain it from vitamin D rich foods such as salmon, milk or orange juice.

Is getting more Vitamin D worth it?

There have been some very promising studies of the health benefits of vitamin D and there is currently a Harvard study underway that is looking at the health benefits of Vitamin D.  I expect that we will see much  more about the sunshine vitamin in the near future.

If our stomach had eyes we might look at things differently.

What would a bowl of cereal look like to our stomach?  Depends on the cereal, but for the most part it would look like a large pile of sugar.  This is because, for the most part, it is a large pile of sugar.  Even the healthier cereals have a ton of carbohydrates.

Why do we crave sweets through out the day?

We start our day with a large bowl of cereal which has tons of sugar, subsequently our blood sugar rises for a period of time and then crashes below the level it was previously.  This causes our body to freak out and demand sugar in the form of cravings.  So we grab a snack which starts the entire process all over again.

All is not lost for cereal.

The reason that cereal starts you off on the wrong foot is that it is unbalanced, meaning that it is mostly sugar and nothing else.  If there was something to balance the sugar in the cereal, our blood sugar would not rise as dramatically.  Fat and protein are great for slowing down the absorption of sugar and therefore preventing the spike in blood sugar.

Adding topings to cereal can balance sugar content.

There are a lot of options for adding protein and fat to cereal.  One of them is TVP or textured vegetable protein to cereal.  TVP is a soy based protein that is crunchy much like grape nuts, but has very little flavor.  It can be put on cereal as a topping or mixed in with oatmeal before it is cooked.  Another good option is flax seeds, these little seeds provide the all important omega-3’s and also help to balance the sugar in the cereal.

FDA annoucned yesterday that there has been an outbreak of salmonella at a facitlity owned by the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, GA.  Their peanuts are not sold direclty to consumers, rather to corporations who use peanuts in products such as cookies, cakes etc.  For information of recalled products click Kellogg Products and FDA Recall of King Nut Peanut Butter.