Hoping to keep the flu at bay? A strong immune system helps. Enjoying the bounty of colorful fruits and vegetables available right now can be an important step toward supporting your family’s immune system this cold/flu season.
In addition to vitamins, minerals and fiber, fruits and vegetables contain phytonutrients, believed to come from the com-pounds that give these foods their vibrant colors. These phytonutrients provide a wide range of health benefits, including supporting a healthy immune system.
A new study, America’s Phytonutrient Report, found eight in 10 Americans are missing out on …

A study that tracked genetic mutations through the human equivalent of about 5,000 years has demonstrated for the first time that oxidative DNA damage is a primary cause of the process of mutation – the fuel for evolution but also a leading cause of aging, cancer and other diseases.
The research, just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also indicated that natural selection is affecting the parts of the genome that don’t contain genes – supposedly “junk” DNA that increasingly appears to have important roles in life processes …

The headlines that were supposed to shock the health food eating public: “Organic food ‘no healthier than conventional”.  These were the results of a review of 50 years of research findings by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. (click here for more on the study) This is similar to saying that a review of years of research shows that clean drinking water doesn’t do any better job of hydrating you than polluted water. 
 
Taking a narrow view of health benefits and then saying that the research proves that these foods are …

1.  Limit free-radical formation
 
The most potent generator of free-radicals in your body is respiration, i.e. breathing.  As far as free radical creators that you can do something about, inflammation is the most potent.  This means that not only does inflammation cause the discomfort of pain and dysfunction; it is also causing damage to your whole body, degrading your overall health and causing you to age more rapidly.  Now, I would never promote the regular use of anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen or acetametaphin, these have their own host of harmful side-effects …

·       Free radicals what they are and what they do
At this point in our story it is important to understand what a free radical is, and what it does.
A free radical is a highly reactive molecule with an unpaired electron in its outer shell.  What this means is that it is a particle floating around in your system looking to steal an electron from some other molecule.  Free radicals are generally not too picky, they will take an electron usually from the first molecule they bump into, usually the membrane …

Cholesterol story,

At some time in our recent history it came to the awareness of the medical community that the incidence of heart attacks and heart disease were increasing.  This encouraged research into what was the cause of heart attacks, and what were the warning signs and medical tests that could be done to detect the likelihood of you having a heart attack sometime soon. 
Following the usual reductionist process the researchers took dead bodies of those who died from HA and dissected the hearts and surrounding blood vessels.  What they discovered …