Miracles of the BANANA

This is interesting. After reading this, you'll never look at a banana in the same way again.
Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.
But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit.

It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.



Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking & Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassiu! m and ma gnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in "The New England Journal of Medicine, 'eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"

Note: Never, put your banana in the refrigerator!!!

The 12 germiest places in your life

Soap up! - The 12 germiest places in your life

Sure, there are outbreaks of microbes and viruses across the country, but some of these germs are lurking where you least expect them. "Health" magazine senior editor Frances Largeman-Roth pinpoints the 12 germiest places you're likely to encounter during an average day and devises ways for you to keep clean. After all, the fight is in your hands. Literally. Eighty percent of infections are spread through hand contact. So wash up, people, and get ready to wage a bit of germ warfare of your own:

1. Your kitchen sink
Kitchen sinks are dirtier than most bathrooms. There are typically more than 500,000 bacteria per square inch in the drain alone. Plus your sponge, basin and faucet handles are crawling with bacteria as well.

Reduce the risk: Clean your kitchen counters and sink with an antibacterial product after preparing or cleansing food, especially raw fruits and vegetables, which carry lots of potential pathogens like salmonella, campylobacter and E. coli. Wash your hands as well with warm, soapy water for 20 seconds (long enough to sing "Happy Birthday"). Sanitize sponges by running them through the dishwasher's drying cycle, which will kill 99.9 percent of bacteria on them. As for the sink, clean it twice a week with a solution of one tablespoon of chlorine bleach and one quart of water. Scrub the basin, the pour solution down the drain.

2. Airplane bathrooms
It may not be a shock that there are a huge number of germs in most public bathrooms, but experts agree the cramped and overused ones on airplanes are the worst. There are often traces of E. coli or fecal bacteria on the faucets and door handles because it's hard to wash hands in the tiny sinks. And the volcanic flush of the commode tends to spew particles into the air, coating the floor and walls with whatever had been swirling around in it.

Reduce the risk: Toilet seats are surprisingly clean, but use the paper cover when available. After using the toilet, wash and dry your hands thoroughly, and use a paper towel to handle the toilet seat, lid, tap and doorknob. Put the lid down before you flush. If there's no lid, turn your back to the toilet while flushing and beat a hasty retreat.

3. A load of wet laundry
Any time you transfer underwear from the washer to the dryer, you're getting E. coli on your hands. Just one soiled undergarment can spread bacteria to the whole load and machine.

Reduce the risk: Run your washer at 150 degrees (you can check the temperature of your washing-machine water with a candy thermometer) and wash whites with bleach (not the color-safe type; it doesn't pack the same punch), which kills 99.9 percent of bugs. Transfer wet laundry to the dryer quickly so germs don't multiply, wash underwear separately (there's about a gram of feces in every pair of dirty underwear) and dry for at least 45 minutes. Wash your hands after laundering.

4. Public drinking fountains
Drinking fountains are bound to be germy, but school fountains are the worst, with anywhere from 62,000 to 2.7 million bacteria per square inch on the spigot.

Reduce the risk: Send your child to school with plenty of their own beverages and tell them to wash their hands throughout the day.

5. Shopping cart handles
Saliva, bacteria and fecal matter are just a few of the substances found on shopping cart handles. Cart handles rank high on the yuck scale because they're handled by dozens of people every day and, of course, raw food carries nasty pathogens.

Reduce the risk: Many stores have dispensers with disinfectant wipes near the carts. If your store doesn't, bring your own wipes and give the handle a quick swab. Or carry along a cart cover like the Grip-Guard or Healthy Handle.

6. ATM buttons
If you're not careful, you might pick up more than quick cash from your local ATM. These buttons have more gunk on them than most public-bathroom doorknobs! ATMs aren't frequently cleaned, and are regularly touched - a perfect combination for a lot of germs.

Reduce the risk: Carry an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with you and rub it on hands after visits. Also be sure to do it after you handle paper money, which actually carries quite a few germs, too.

7. Your handbag
Recent studies found that most women's purses had tens of thousands of bacteria on the bottom and a few were overrun with millions. Another study found bugs like pseudomonas (which can cause eye infections) and skin-infection-causing staphylococcus bacteria, as well as salmonella and E. coli.

Reduce the risk: Instead of slinging your bag on the floor, hang it on a hook whenever possible - especially in public bathrooms - and keep your bag off the kitchen counter. Stick with leather or vinyl purses, which are typically cleaner than cloth.

8. Playgrounds
There's just no way to put this delicately: Children tend to ooze bodily fluids and then spread them around. When researchers sampled playgrounds, they found blood, mucus, saliva and urine. Pair those findings with the fact that children put their fingers in their mouths and noses more than the rest of us, and it's easy to understand why Junior (and maybe his mom or dad) has the sniffles.

Reduce the risk: Carry alcohol wipes or hand-sanitizing gel in your purse, and clean everybody's hands a couple of times during a park visit, especially before snacking. Pick warm sunny days for outdoor play: The sun's ultraviolet light is actually a very effective disinfectant. Most bugs won't survive long on surfaces that are hot and dry.

9. Mats and machines at health clubs
Antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus has been found on yoga mats and cardio and resistance machines. At high schools, antibiotic-resistant-staph infections have been transmitted through wrestling mats. The same thing could happen at health clubs.

Reduce the risk: Wipe down machines with antibacterial wipes before working out. Bring your own yoga mat or cover a loaner with your towel. Shower after a workout and soap up your skin to rinse off any bacteria you may have been exposed to, as thorough washing gets rid of antibiotic-resistant staph.

10. Your bathtub
Shocking, but true: The place you go to get clean is quite dirty. A recent study found staphylococcus bacteria, a common cause of serious skin infections, in 26 percent of the tubs tested, as compared with just 6 percent of garbage cans. Tubs typically had more than 100,000 bacteria per square inch! You're washing germs and viruses off your body and the tub is a fairly moist environment, so bacteria can grow.

Reduce the risk: Once a week, apply a disinfecting cleaner to the tub and actually scrub. Then you need to wash the germs down the drain with water and dry the tub with a clean towel. If you leave the tub wet, germs are more likely to survive. If someone who uses the tub has a skin infection, scrub it afterward with a solution of two tablespoons bleach in one quart of water.

11. Your office phone
This is enough to make you dial 911: Office phones often have more than 25,000 germs per square inch, and your desk, computer keyboard and mouse aren't far behind. Phones, including cell phones, can be pretty gross because they get coated with germs from your mouth and hands.

Reduce the risk: Simply cleaning your desk, phone and keyboard with a disinfecting wipe once in the middle of the day will kill 99.99 percent of the bacteria and viruses.

12. The hotel-room remote control (and yes, specially in a cruise ship)
What's the first thing you do when you settle in at a hotel? You grab the remote control and switch on the TV - you, and the hundreds of other guests who've stayed there. How dirty is it? A recent study tested various surfaces for the cold virus after a group of sick people had stayed overnight and found the virus on the remote, door handles, light switches, pens and faucet handles.

Reduce the risk: Clean the remote control, phone, clock radio, door handles and light switches with germicidal wipes.

Water on an empty stomach

It is popular in Japan today to drink water immediately after waking up every morning. Furthermore, scientific tests have proven its value. We publish below a description of use of water for our readers. For old and serious diseases as well as modern illnesses the water treatment had been found successful by a Japanese medical society as a 100% cure for the following diseases:

Headache, body ache, heart system, arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma, TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhoea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases.

METHOD OF TREATMENT

1. As you wake up in the morning before brushing teeth, drink 4 x 160ml glasses of water

2. Brush and clean the mouth but do not eat or drink anything for 45 minutes

3. After 45 minutes you may eat and drink as normal.

4. After 15 minutes of breakfast, lunch and dinner do not eat or drink anything for 2 hours

5. Those who are old or sick and are unable to drink 4 glasses of water at the beginning may commence by taking little water and gradually increase it to 4 glasses per day.

6. The above method of treatment will cure diseases of the sick and others can enjoy a healthy life.

The following list gives the number of days of treatment required to cure main deseases:

1. High Blood Pressure - 30 days

2. Gastric - 10 days

3. Diabetes - 30 days

4. Constipation - 10 days

5. Cancer - 180 days

6. TB - 90 days

Arthritis patients should follow the above treatment for only 3 days. In the 1st week to be followed by daily treatment. This treatment method has no side effects, however at the commencement of treatment you may have to urinate a few times.

cooking instant noodles

WRONG way of cooking instant noodles!

Normally, we cook instant noodles by putting the noodles into a pot with water and throw the condiment powder then let it cook for 3 mins.

Boiling the ingredients of the condiment powder, which is heavily laden with MSG (monosodium glutamate or "vetsin") changes the molecular structures of the MSG causing it to be toxic.

Instant noodles are normally coated with wax to prevent it from sticking to each other. Once consumed, it will take around 4 to 5 days for the body to excrete the wax after you have eaten the instant noodles.


CORRECT method should be to cook the noodles this way:

1. Boil the noodles in a pot with water.

2. Once the noodles is cooked, take out the noodles, and throw away the water which contains wax.

3. Boil another pot of water till boiling and put the noodles into the hot boiling water and then shut the fire.

4. Only at this stage when the fire is off, and while the water is very hot, should you put the condiment powder into the water, to make the noodle soup.

5. However, if you need dry noodles, take out the noodles and add the ingredient with the powder and toss it to get dry noodles.

Virgin Coconut Oil

Virgin coconut oil really is a wonder food, preventing obesity in people and preventing some cancers. This is a good report that should be made known to more people.

Coconut eating nations should be proud of this fruit. In the Philippines, the coconut tree is considered and called "Tree of Life". Not only is the coconut a wondrous meal in itself, it's tree trunk are used by Filipinos as lumber for their houses, it's roots & bark for handicrafts, it's trunk's heart as a delicacy and the leaves provide shelter as roofing to houses and many types of handicrafts sold even internationally.

COCONUT OIL
by Raymond Peat, Ph.D.

I have already discussed the many toxic effects of the unsaturated oils, and I have frequently mentioned that coconut oil doesn't have those toxic effects, though it does contain a small amount of the unsaturated oils. Many people have asked me to write omething on coconut oil. I thought I might write a small book on it, but I realize that there are no suitable channels for distributing such a book--if the seed-oil industry can eliminate major corporate food products that have used coconut oil for a hundred years, they certainly have the power to prevent dealers from selling a book that would affect their market more seriously.

For the present, I will just outline some of the virtues of coconut oil.

The unsaturated oils in some cooked foods become rancid in just a few hours, even at refrigerator temperatures, and are responsible for the stale taste of left-over foods. (Eating slightly stale food isn't particularly harmful, since the same oils, even when eaten absolutely fresh, will oxidize at a much higher rate once they are in the body, where they are heated and thoroughly mixed with an abundance of oxygen.) Coconut oil that has been kept at room temperature for a year has been tested for rancidity, and showed no evidence of it. Since we would expect the small percentage of unsaturated oils naturally contained in coconut oil to become rancid, it seems that the other (saturated) oils have an antioxidative effect: I suspect that the dilution keeps the unstable unsaturated fat molecules spatially separated from each other, so they can't interact in the destructive chain reactions that occur in other oils.To interrupt chain-reactions of oxidation is one of the functions of antioxidants, and it is possible that a sufficient quantity of coconut oil in the body has this function. It is well established that dietary coconut oil reduces our need for vitamin E, but I think its antioxidant role is more general than that,and that it has both direct and indirect antioxidant activities.

Coconut oil is unusually rich in short and medium chain fatty acids. Shorter chain length allows fatty acids to be metabolized without use of the carnitine transport system. Mildronate, which I discussed in an article on adaptogens, protects cells against stress partly by opposing the action of carnitine, and comparative studies showed that added carnitine had the opposite effect, promoting the oxidation of unsaturated fats during stress, and increasing oxidative damage to cells.I suspect that a degree of saturation of the oxidative apparatus by short-chain fatty acids has a similar effect--that is, that these very soluble and mobile short-chain saturated fats have priority for oxidation, because they don't require carnitine transport into the mitochondrion, and that this will tend to inhibit oxidation of the unstable, peroxidizable unsaturated fatty acids.

When Albert Schweitzer operated his clinic in tropical Africa, he said it was many years before he saw any cases of cancer, and he believed that the appearance of cancer was caused by the change to the European type of diet. In the l920s, German researchers showed that mice on a fat-free diet were practically free of cancer. Since then, many studies have demonstrated a very close association between consumption of unsaturated oils and the incidence of cancer.

Heart damage is easily produced in animals by feeding them linoleic acid; this "essential" fatty acid turned out to be the heart toxin in rape-seed oil. The addition of saturated fat to the experimental heart-toxic oil-rich diet protects against the damage to heart cells.

Immunosuppression was observed in patients who were being "nourished" by intravenous emulsions of "essential fatty acids," and as a result coconut oil is used as the basis for intravenous fat feeding, except in organ-transplant patients. For those patients, emulsions of unsaturated oils are used specifically for their immunosuppressive effects.

General aging, and especially aging of the brain, is increasingly seen as being closely associated with lipid peroxidation.

Several years ago I met an old couple, who were only a few years apart in age, but the wife looked many years younger than her doddering old husband. She was from the Philippines, and she remarked that she always had to cook two meals at the same time, because her husband couldn't adapt to her traditional food. Three times every day, she still prepared her food in coconut oil. Her apparent youth increased my interest in the effects of coconut oil.

In the l960s, Hartroft and Porta gave an elegant argument for decreasing the ratio of unsaturated oil to saturated oil in the diet (and thus in the tissues). They showed that the "age pigment" is produced in proportion to the ratio of oxidants to antioxidants, multiplied by the ratio of unsaturated oils to saturated oils. More recently, a variety of studies have demonstrated that ultraviolet light induces peroxidation in unsaturated fats, but not saturated fats, and that this occurs in the skin as well as in vitro. Rabbit experiments, and studies of humans, showed that the amount of unsaturated oil in the diet strongly affects the rate at which aged, wrinkled skin develops. The unsaturated fat in the skin is a major target for the aging and carcinogenic effects of ultraviolet light, though not necessarily the only one.

In the l940s, farmers attempted to use cheap coconut oil for fattening their animals, but they found that it made them lean, active and hungry.For a few years, an antithyroid drug was found to make the livestock get fat while eating less food, but then it was found to be a strong carcinogen, and it also probably produced hypothyroidism in the people who ate the meat. By the late l940s, it was found that the same antithyroid effect, causing animals to get fat without eating much food, could be achieved by using soy beans and corn as feed.

Later, an animal experiment fed diets that were low or high in total fat, and in different groups the fat was provided by pure coconut oil, or a pure unsaturated oil, or by various mixtures of the two oils. At the end of their lives, the animals' obesity increased directly in proportion to the ratio of unsaturated oil to coconut oil in their diet, and was not related to the total amount of fat they had consumed. That is, animals which ate just a little pure unsaturated oil were fat, and animals which ate a lot of coconut oil were lean.

In the l930s, animals on a diet lacking the unsaturated fatty acids were found to be "hypermetabolic." Eating a "normal" diet, these animals were malnourished, and their skin condition was said to be caused by a "deficiency of essential fatty acids." But other researchers who were studying vitamin B6 recognized the condition as a deficiency of that vitamin. They were able to cause the condition by feeding a fat-free diet, and to cure the condition by feeding a single B vitamin. The hypermetabolic animals simply needed a better diet than the "normal," fat-fed, cancer-prone animals did.

G. W. Crile and his wife found that the metabolic rate of people in Yucatan, where coconut is a staple food, averaged 25% higher than that of people in the United States. In a hot climate, the adaptive tendency is to have a lower metabolic rate, so it is clear that some factor is more than offsetting this expected effect of high environmental temperatures. The people there are lean, and recently it has been observed that the women there have none of the symptoms we commonly associate with the menopause.

By l950, then, it was established that unsaturated fats suppress the metabolic rate,apparently creating hypothyroidism. Over the next few decades, the exact mechanisms of that metabolic damage were studied. Unsaturated fats damage the mitochondria, partly by suppressing the repiratory enzyme, and partly by causing generalized oxidative damage. The more unsaturated the oils are, the more specifically they suppress tissue response to thyroid hormone, and transport of the hormone on the thyroid transport protein.

Plants evolved a variety of toxins designed to protect themselves from "predators," such as grazing animals. Seeds contain a variety of toxins, that seem to be specific for mammalian enzymes, and the seed oils themselves function to block proteolytic digestive enzymes in the stomach.The thyroid hormone is formed in the gland by the action of a proteolytic enzyme, and the unsaturated oils also inhibit that enzyme. Similar proteolytic enzymes involved in clot removal and phagocytosis appear to be similarly inhibited by these oils.

Just as metabolism is "activated" by consumption of coconut oil, which prevents the inhibiting effect of unsaturated oils, other inhibited processes, such as clot removal and phagocytosis, will probably tend to be restored by continuing use of coconut oil.

Brain tissue is very rich in complex forms of fats.The experiment (around 1978) in which pregnant mice were given diets containing either coconut oil or unsaturated oil showed that brain development was superior in the young mice whose mothers ate coconut oil. Because coconut oil supports thyroid function, and thyroid governs brain development, including myelination, the result might simply reflect the difference between normal and hypothyroid individuals. However, in 1980, experimenters demonstrated that young rats fed milk containing soy oil incorporated the oil directly into their brain cells, and had structurally abnormal brain cells as a result.

Lipid peroxidation occurs during seizures, and antioxidants such as vitamin E have some anti-seizure activity. Currently, lipid peroxidation is being found to be involved in the nerve cell degeneration of Alzheimer's disease.

Various fractions of coconut oil are coming into use as "drugs," meaning that they are advertised as treatments for diseases. Butyric acid is used to treat cancer, lauric and myristic acids to treat virus infections, and mixtures of medium-chain fats are sold for weight loss. Purification undoubtedly increases certain effects, and results in profitable products, but in the absence of more precise knowledge, I think the whole natural product, used as a regular food, is the best way to protect health. The shorter-chain fatty acids have strong,unpleasant odors; for a couple of days after I ate a small amount of a medium-chain triglyceride mixture,my skin oil emitted a rank, goaty smell. Some people don't seem to have that reaction, and the benefits might outweigh the stink, but these things just haven't been in use long enough to know whether they are safe.

We have to remember that the arguments made for aspartame, monosodium glutamate, aspartic acid, and tryptophan--that they are like the amino acids that make up natural proteins--are dangerously false. In the case of amino acids, balance is everything. Aspartic and glutamic acids promote seizures and cause brain damage, and are intimately involved in the process of stress-induced brain aging,and tryptophan by itself is carcinogenic. Treating any complex natural product as the drug industry does, as a raw material to be fractionated in the search for "drug" products, is risky, because the relevant knowledge isn't sought in the search for an association between a single chemical and a single disease.

While the toxic unsaturated paint-stock oils, especially safflower, soy, corn and linseed (flaxseed) oils, have been sold to the public precisely for their drug effects, all of their claimed benefits were false. When people become interested in coconut oil as a "health food," the huge seed-oil industry--operating through their shills--are going to attack it as an "unproved drug."

While components of coconut oil have been found to have remarkable physiological effects (as antihistamines, antiinfectives/antiseptics, promoters of immunity, glucocorticoid antagonist, nontoxic anticancer agents, for example), I think it is important to avoid making any such claims for the natural coconut oil, because it very easily could be banned from the import market as a "new drug" which isn't "approved by the FDA." We have already seen how money and propaganda from the soy oil industry eliminated long-established products from the U.S. market. I saw people lose weight stably when they had the habit of eating large amounts of tortilla chips fried in coconut oil, but those chips disappeared when their producers were pressured into switching to other oils, in spite of the short shelf life that resulted in the need to add large amounts of preservatives. Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, potato chip producers, and movie theater popcorn makers have experienced similar pressures.

The cholesterol-lowering fiasco for a long time centered on the ability of unsaturated oils to slightly lower serum cholesterol. For years, the mechanism of that action wasn't known, which should have suggested caution. Now, it seems that the effect is just one more toxic action, in which the liver defensively retains its cholesterol, rather than releasing it into the blood. Large scale human studies have provided overwhelming evidence that whenever drugs, including the unsaturated oils, were used to lower serum cholesterol, mortality increased, from a variety of causes including accidents, but mainly from cancer.

Since the l930s, it has been clearly established that suppression of the thyroid raises serum cholesterol (while increasing mortality from infections, cancer, and heart disease), while restoring the thyroid hormone brings cholesterol down to normal. In this situation, however, thyroid isn't suppressing the synthesis of cholesterol, but rather is promoting its use to form hormones and bile salts. When the thyroid is functioning properly, the amount of cholesterol in the blood entering the ovary governs the amount of progesterone being produced by the ovary, and the same situation exists in all steroid-forming tissues, such as the adrenal glands and the brain. Progesterone and its precursor, pregnenolone, have a generalized protective function: antioxidant, anti-seizure, antitoxin, anti-spasm, anti-clot, anti-cancer, pro-memory, pro-myelination, pro-attention, etc. Any interference with the formation of cholesterol will interfere with all of these exceedingly important protective functions.

As far as the evidence goes, it suggests that coconut oil, added regularly to a balanced diet, lowers cholesterol to normal by promoting its conversion into pregnenolone. (The coconut family contains steroids that resemble pregnenolone, but these are probably mostly removed when the fresh oil is washed with water to remove the enzymes which would digest the oil.) Coconut-eating cultures in the tropics have consistently lower cholesterol than people in the U.S. Everyone that I know who uses coconut oil regularly happens to have cholesterol levels of about 160, while eating mainly cholesterol rich foods (eggs, milk, cheese, meat, shellfish). I
encourage people to eat sweet fruits, rather than starches, if they want to increase their production of cholesterol, since fructose has that effect.

Many people see coconut oil in its hard, white state, and--as a result of their training watching television or going to medical school--associate it with the cholesterol-rich plaques in blood vessels. Those lesions in blood vessels are caused mostly by lipid peroxidation of unsaturated fats, and relate to stress, because adrenalineliberates fats from storage, and the lining of blood vessels is exposed to high concentrations of the blood-borne material. In the body, incidentally, the oil can't exist as a solid, since it liquefies at 76 degrees. (Incidentally, the viscosity of complex materials isn't a simple matter of averaging the viscosity of its component materials; cholesterol and saturated fats sometimes lower the viscosity of cell components.)

Most of the images and metaphors relating to coconut oil and cholesterol that circulate in our culture are false and misleading. I offer a counter-image, which is metaphorical, but it is true in that it relates to lipid peroxidation, which is profoundly important in our bodies. After a bottle of safflower oil has been opened a few times, a few drops that get smeared onto the outside of the bottle begin to get very sticky, and hard to wash off. This property is why it is a valued base for paints and varnishes, but this varnish is chemically closely related to the age pigment that forms "liver spots" on the skin, and similar lesions in the brain, heart, blood vessels, lenses of the eyes, etc. The image of "hard, white saturated coconut oil" isn't relevant to the oil's biological action, but the image of "sticky varnish-like easily oxidized unsaturated seed oils" is highly relevant to their toxicity.

The ability of some of the medium chainsaturated fatty acids to inhibit the liver's formation of fat very likely synergizes with the pro-thyroid effect, in allowing energy to be used, rather than stored. When fat isn't formed from carbohydrate, the sugar is available for use, or for storage as glycogen. Therefore, shifting from unsaturated fats in foods to coconut oil involves several anti-stress processes, reducing our need for the adrenal hormones. Decreased blood sugar is a basic signal for the release of adrenal hormones. Unsaturated oil tends to lower the blood sugar in at least three basic ways. It damages mitochondria, causing respiration to be uncoupled from energy production, meaning that fuel is burned without useful effect. It suppresses the activity of the respiratory enzyme (directly, and through its anti-thyroid actions), decreasing the respiratory production of energy. And it tends to direct carbohydrate into fat production, making both stress and obesity more probable. For those of us who use coconut oil consistently, one of the most noticeable changes is the ability to go for several hours without eating, and to feel hungry without having symptoms of hypoglycemia.

One of the stylish ways to promote the use of unsaturated oils is to refer to their presence in "cell membranes," and to claim that they are essential for maintaining "membrane fluidity." As I have mentioned above, it is the ability of the unsaturated fats, and their breakdown products, to interfere with enzymes and transport proteins, which accounts for many of their toxic effects, so they definitely don't just harmlessly form "membranes." They probably bind to all proteins, and disrupt some of them, but for some reason their affinity for proteolytic and respiration-related enzymes is particularly obvious. (I think the chemistry of this association is going to give us some important insights into the nature of organisms.

Metchnikof's model that I have discussed elsewhere might give us a picture of how those factors relate in growth, physiology, and aging.) Unsaturated fats are slightly more water-soluble than fully saturated fats, and so they do have a greater tendency to concentrate at interfaces between water and fats or proteins, but there are relatively few places where these interfaces can be usefully and harmlessly occupied by unsaturated fats, and at a certain point, an excess becomes harmful. We don't want "membranes" forming where there shouldn't be membranes. The fluidity or viscosity of cell surfaces is an extremely complex subject, and the degree of viscosity has to be appropriate for the function of the cell. Interestingly, in some cells, such as the cells that line the air sacs of the lungs, cholesterol and one of the saturated fatty acids found in coconut oil can increase the fluidity of the cell surface.

In many cases, stressful conditions create structural disorder in cells. These influences have been called "chaotropic," or chaos-producing.In red blood cells, which have sometimes been wrongly described as "hemoglobin enclosed in a cell membrane," it has been known for a long time that lipid peroxidation of unsaturated fats weakens the cellular structure, causing the cells to be destroyed prematurely. Lipid peroxidation products are known to be "chaotropic," lowering the rigidity of regions of cells considered to be membranes. But the red blood cell is actually more like a sponge in structure, consisting of a "skeleton" of proteins, which (if not damaged by oxidation) can hold its shape, even when the hemoglobin has been removed. Oxidants damage the protein structure, and it is this structural damage which in turn increases the "fluidity" of the associated fats.

So, it is probably true that in many cases the liquid unsaturated oils do increase "membrane fluidity," but it is now clear that in at least some of those cases the "fluidity" corresponds to the chaos of a damaged cell protein structure. (N. V. Gorbunov, "Effect of structural modification of membrane proteins on lipid-protein interactions in the human erythrocyte membrane," Bull. Exp. Biol. & Med. 116(11), 1364-67. 1993.

Although I had stopped using the unsaturated seed oils years ago, and supposed that I wasn't heavily saturated with toxic unsaturated fat, when I first used coconut oil I saw an immediate response, that convinced me my metabolism was chronically inhibited by something that was easily alleviated by "dilution" or molecular competition. I had put a tablespoonful of coconut oil on some rice I had for supper, and half an hour later while I was reading, I noticed I was breathing more deeply than normal. I saw that my skin was pink, and I found that my pulse was faster than normal--about 98, I think. After an hour or two, my pulse and breathing returned to normal. Every day for a couple of weeks I noticed the same response while I was digesting a small amount of coconut oil, but gradually it didn't happen any more, and I increased my daily consumption of the oil to about an ounce. I kept eating the same foods as before (including a quart of ice cream every day), except that I added about 200 or 250 calories per day as coconut oil.Apparently the metabolic surges that happened at first were an indication that my body was compensating for an anti-thyroid substance by producing more thyroid hormone; when the coconut oil relieved the inhibition, I experienced a moment of slight hyperthyroidism, but after a time the inhibitor became less effective, and my body adjusted by producing slightly less thyroid hormone. But over the next few months, I saw that my weight was slowly and consistently decreasing. It had been steady at 185 pounds for 25 years, but over a period of six months it dropped to about 175 pounds. I found that eating more coconut oil lowered my weight another few pounds, and eating less caused it to increase.

The anti-obesity effect of coconut oil is clear in all of the animal studies, and in my friendsd who eat it regularly. It is now hard to get it in health food stores, since Hain stopped selling it. The Spectrum product looks and feels a little different to me, and I suppose the particular type of tree, region, and method of preparation can account for variations in the consistency and composition of the product. The unmodified natural oil is called "76 degree melt," since that is its natural melting temperature. One bottle from a health food store was labeled "natural coconut oil, 92% unsaturated oil," and it had the greasy consistency of old lard.I suspect that someone had confused palm oil (or something worse) with coconut oil, because it should be about 96% saturated fatty acids.

Raymond Peat, Ph.D.

Ebola Reston Virus in Pigs

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ON EBOLA RESTON STRAIN

from www.doh.gov.ph

1. What is Ebola Reston strain?

Ebola virus has four subtypes, namely, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Ivory Coast, and Ebola Reston.

Subtypes Zaire, Sudan and Ivory Coast can cause hemorrhagic symptoms, Reston does not.

Reston was previously found among Philippine monkeys in 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1996. The virus was found in sick pigs in the Philippines for the first time in 2008. It has not been found in any other country or animal.

2. Does it affect humans?

Unlike the three subtypes, there has been no evidence that Reston can cause significant illness in humans. When Reston was previously found in monkeys, few animal handlers were infected but only one had very mild symptoms.

3. Is it safe to eat pork?

Yes, if the meat is prepared safely and cooked thoroughly.

All meat should always be cooked properly until no pink meat and juices run clear and good kitchen hygiene should always be used when handling raw meat.

Proper cooking of meat inactivates viruses including Reston.

4. Is it safe to eat sick pigs?

Meat from sick pigs or pigs found dead should never be eaten. Sick and dead animals should be reported to the Bureau of Animal Industry and the National Meat Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture.

5. How would we know if the pork being sold in the market is safe or not?

The public should buy meat only from meat stalls with certification from the National Meat Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture.

6. What should be done when sick pigs are found?

Immediately report this to the nearest Provincial/ City/ Municipal Veterinary Officers. NMIS officers or Meat Inspectors shall not allow the slaughtering of any sick or dead pigs.

7. What is the government doing to address the issue?

DA and DOH are conducting simultaneous surveys to know the extent and public health implications of the finding of Reston in pigs.

Recent testing of healthy pigs in previously affected areas is now negative for the virus. No human has been infected.

DA continues to monitor occurrences of unusual pig illnesses and deaths.

DOH will also continue to monitor the situation. DOH will institute measures to reduce possible risks to human health as the DA reports unusual pig illnesses and deaths.

8. How can we keep food safe?

Keep clean
- Wash your hands before handling food and during food preparation
- Wash and sanitize all surfaces and equipment used for food preparation
- Protect kitchen areas and food from insects, pests and other animals

Separate raw food and cooked food
- Separate raw meat, poultry and seafood from cooked food
- Use separate equipment and utensils such as cutting boards for handling raw food
- Store food in containers to avoid contact between raw and prepared foods

Cook food thoroughly
- Cook food thoroughly especially meat, poultry, eggs and seafood
- Bring foods like soups and stews to boiling to make sure that they have reached 700C. Make sure that meat juices are clear, not pink.
- Reheat cooked food thoroughly

Keep food at safe temperatures
- Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than 2 hours
- Refrigerate promptly
- Do not store food too long even in refrigerator
- Do not thaw food frozen food at room temperature

Use safe water and raw materials

MGA MAHAHALAGANG IMPORMASYON TUNGKOL SA EBOLA RESTON STRAIN

1. Ano ang Ebola Reston strain?

Ang Ebola Reston strain ay isa sa limang uri ng Ebola virus. Ang ibang uri ay Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Ivory Coast at Ebola Bundibugyo. Ang apat na uri na ito ay nagmula sa Africa.

Ang mga virus na ito, Ebola Zaire, Sudan at Bundibugyo ay naisasalin sa tao at nagiging dahilan ng lubhang pagkakasakit at pagkamatay ng marami. Samantalang ang Reston ay hindi. Ang karaniwang sintomas nito ay lagnat.

Ang Reston strain ay nakita na sa mga unggoy sa Pilipinas noong 1989, 1990, 1992 at 1996. Sa kauna-unahang pagkakataon, ang virus na ito ay nakita sa mga baboy sa Pilipinas ngayong 2008. Wala pang nadiskubre na ganitong uri ng virus sa ibang bansa o sa ibang hayop man.

2. Nakakaepekto ba ito sa tao?

Wala pang naitalang tao na nagkasakit ng malubha dahil sa Reston strain. Noong matuklasan ang virus na ito sa mga unggoy, may mga ilang tagapag-alaga ng unggoy na naitalang naapektuhan subalit isa lamang ang kinakitaan ng bahagyang sintomas.

Negatibo naman ang resulta ng pagsusuri ginawa ng Research Institute for Tropical Medicine sa ilang tao na nag-alaga at nagkatay ng baboy kung saan natagpuan ang Reston strain.

3. Ligtas bang kumain ng baboy?

Oo, kung ang baboy ay hinanda ng maaayos at nilutong mabuti.

Ang lahat ng karne ay dapat na lutuing mabuti hanggang ito ay hindi na mamula-mula o kulay rosas o pink. Dapat din na ang katas nito ay malinaw na.

Ang tamang paghahanda at pagluluto ay nakapapatay ng mga virus kasama na ang Reston.

4. Ano ang dapat gawin sa mga baboy na may sakit?

Agad itong ipaalam or ireport sa pinakamalapit na Provincial/City/ Municipal Veterinary Officers.

Mahigpit na ipinagbabawal ng mga National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) officers o Meat Inspectors ang pagkatay ng may sakit o patay na baboy.

5. Ligtas bang kainin ang may sakit na baboy?

Hindi. Ang mga may sakit at namatay na baboy ay hindi ligtas kainin dahil maaari itong makaapekto sa kalusugan ng tao.

6. Paano malalaman kung ang baboy na mabibili sa palengke ay ligtas?

Pinapayuhan ang lahat na bumili lamang ng baboy sa mga tindahan na mayroong sertipikasyon mula sa National Meat Inspection Service ng Kagawaran ng Agrikultura.

7. Ano ang ginagawa ng pamahalaan sa problemang ito?

Patuloy na binabantayan ng mga Kagawaran ng Agrikultura at Kalusugan ang sitwasyon.

Sabay na nagsasagawa ng pag-aaral ang dalawang ahensya upang malaman ang epekto ng pagkakatuklas ng Reston strain sa baboy at sa tao.

Binabantayan ng Kagawaran ng Agrikultura kung may hindi karaniwang pagkakasakit at pagkamatay ng mga baboy.

Sakaling may ganitong sitwasyon, Ang Kagawaran ng Kalusugan naman ay magpapatupad ng mga hakbangin upang mapangalagaan ang kalusugan ng tao.

8. Paano mapananatiling ligtas ang pagkain?

• Panatilihin ang kalinisan

- Maghugas ng kamay bago humawak ng pagkain at sa paghahanda ng pagkain.
- Hugasan at linisin ang lugar ng paghahandaan ng pagkain at mga kagamitan sa pagluluto.
- Siguraduhing walang langaw, ipis, daga at iba pang mapinsalang hayop sa kusina at hapag kainan.

• Paghiwalayin ang luto at di-lutong pagkain

- Ihiwalay ang hilaw na baboy, manok at lamang dagat sa mga lutong pagkain.
- Gumamit ng mag-kaibang sangkalan (cutting board), kutsilyo at iba pang kagamitan para sa luto at hilaw na pagkain.
- Ilagay sa magkaibang lalagyan ang mga hilaw at lutong pagkain.

• Lutuing mabuti ang pagkain

- Lutuing mabuti ang pagkain lalo na ang mga karne, manok, itlog at lamang dagat
- Pakuluang mabuti ang mga sabaw at nilagang pagkain. Siguraduhing ang karne ay hindi na mamula-mula o kulay rosas o pink. Dapat din na ang katas nito ay malinaw na.
- Initin ng mabuti ang lutong pagkain

• Panatilihing nasa ligtas na temperatura ang pagkain

- Huwag iwanan ang lutong pagkain sa lamesa ng mahigit sa dalawang oras
- Kaagad itong ilagay sa refrigerator
- Huwag din itong hayaang magtagal sa refrigerator
- Palambutin o lusawin lamang ang frozen food mula sa freezer sa loob din ng refrigerator.

• Gumamit ng malinis at ligtas na tubig

Love Moon (Anion) Sanitary Napkins

Winalite Int'l (USA website) http://www.winalite4usa.com/about.php

Love Moon Sanitary Napkins enhance your health with "negative ions" strip embedded within every single napkin.
These strips release up to 5800 negative ions per cubic cm to protect you against genital diseases by eliminating harmful bacteria and odor.

7 Unique Characteristics http://www.winalite4usa.com/product_Characteristics.php
1. Enhanced air ventilation
2. Patented anionic padding
3. High absorbency prevents leakage
4. Strict compliance to international safety standards
5. Packaged in hygienic foil and individual packets
6. Hi-tech production facility meets highest quality standards
7. Vaginal inflammation self-test kit free w/ every foil pack
The product is ISO9001;2000 (Quality & Environment) Certified, Halal certified, approved by US FDA, registered with SEC, DTI & BIR, and covered with a 20-year global patent. Winalite is US NASDAQ (stock market) listed.

Health Benefits from negative ions:
•Increases energy level & stamina
•Enhances the immune system
•Improves body metabolism & blood circulation
•Helps to balance PH & hormones
•Improves sleep patterns
•Aids the body in detoxification
•Inactivates viruses, fungi & bacteria
•Helps prevent UTI & other common diseases/discomforts
•Relieves dysmenorrhea & migraine
•Relieves tension, joint stiffness & arthritis
•Reduces inflammation & common pains
•Anti-aging, anti-stress & anti-depressant
•The only highly-absorbent, 'breathable' & biodegradable sanitary pad with 7 layers

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Based on distributors and clients' testimonials:

Common Uses of Anion Strip
The Anion Strip when removed from the Love Moon Panty Liner can be safely placed and used in the following manner:

• Water pitcher - Use as ionized water for around (24) hours as recommended; the water can be refilled when almost consumed without changing the Anion strip within the recommended time frame. Benefits: 1) Instant energy booster & increased physical stamina -- GUARANTEED INSTANT EFFECT!; 2) Detoxicates; 3) Significantly reduces joint pain from arthritis; 4) Drastically eliminates hemorrhoid & urinary tract infection (UTI)
  
• Water pail or basin - Use for body and/or foot bath. Benefits: 1) Anti-dandruff; 2) Reduces wart; 3) Smoothes skin; 4) Relieves stress and fatigue
• Facial cleaner - Wet the pad with anion with cold water and wipe it in circular motion on the face every now and then instead of using handkerchief. Benefits: 1) Removes black/white heads; 2) Freshen your face; 3) Smoothens skin; 4) Eliminates pimples; 5) Reduces wart (Update!)
  
• Nebulizer - Benefits: When placed in its built-in water container and upon application, significantly reduces asthma and other respiratory-related illness
• The strip can be folded in smaller size (do not cut) so this can be easily chewed like a gum -- Anion strip is made of algae, a food grade material, and hence, safe to use. Benefits: 1) Energy booster and increased physical stamina - GUARANTEED INSTANT EFFECT!; 2) Eliminates bad breath; 3) Eliminates migraine; 4) Pain reliever; 5) Relieves stress and fatigue; 6) Eliminates mouth sore
  
• The strip can be placed in aircondition and electric fan units using an adhesive tape. Benefits: 1) Eliminates foul odor; 2) Improves sleep patterns
• The strip can be placed in a freezer and chiller and other places at home where foul odor usually develops -- e.g. shoe rack, comfort room, storage area, particularly underneath the sink, etc. Benefits: 1) Eliminates foul odor; 2) Extend fresh condition of fruits and vegetables

celebrities benefiting from anion:
1) Mr. & Mrs. "Erap" Estrada
2) Mr. & Mrs. Pilita Corales
3) German "Kuya Germs" Moreno
4) Vina Morales
5) Lucy Torres
6) Gretchen Barreto
7) Lorna Tolentino-Fernandez
8) Ding-dong Dantes
9) Rex Cortez
10) Alvin Patrimonio
11) Danny Ildefonso
12) Ogie Diaz
13) Daisy Reyes - Winalite Product Endorser
14) Roxanne Barcelo
15) Piolo Pascual

Are there harmful side-effects? There are none reported / monitored (as of today). The use of anion is popular in Japanese clothing, aircon, ref, car ionizer, air ionizer, water ionizer, detox foot spa, detox patches, and many other products. There are also anti-radiation cards and anion diapers that will be made locally available soon. You may research more about health benefits of anion and feel free to email about your findings.