Pomegranate Cautions

A customer asked me if I had read or heard that pomegranate juice has the same effect that grapefruit juice has on certain medications. I was unaware of such effects so I googled pomegranate juice /drug interactions and found some interesting facts.

Pomegranate juice does in fact inhibit the same enzyme that grapefruit juice does. This is important because several heart medications and statin drugs are affected. Basically what grapefruit juice does is cause the liver to breakdown the chemical in grapefruit juice and not breakdown the drug. This can lead to toxic levels of the cetain medications in the human body.

What we have here is an object lesson in why you need to know how different supplements not only affect you, but how they may also affect the medication that you are taking. The links below will give you more information on this important subject.

http://dmd.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/33/5/644
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/herbdrug.htm
http://www.pharmacytimes.com/article.cfm?ID=2878

Thanks for spending part of your day here with me,

James

Vitamin D supplements better than Sunshine

Dr. Barbara A. Gilchrest of the Boston University of Medicine co-author of a comprehensive review on vitamin D says, "you do not have to put yourself at increased risk of skin cancer and photoaging." Dr Gilchrest goes on to say, "Vitamin D is very safe to take in the form of oral supplements."

I am asked at least once a week on the safety of taking vitamin D and the potential of vitamin D toxicity. According to the National Institute for Health, the upper limit for vitamin D is about 2000iu per day. This is five times the normal amount found in multivitamins and in most vitamin D supplements. Yes, vitamin D is a fatty vitamin that the body does store, but it is also metabolized in various body processes and needs to be replaced.

An excellent primer on vitamin D can be at this web site:

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/otherendo/
vitamind.html

What is also interesting is that most of the vitamin D deficiencies are actually found in very sunny climates like the middle east and in the American southwest. This is due to either cultural norms or the use of sun screen with spf 8. An sun screen with an spf 8 or higher will block all synthesis of vitamin D in the skin. This is usually not a problem because most foods are enriched with vitamin D. This is a problem for people with a poor diet or a damaged liver and/or kidney where the provitamin D cannot be synthesized to the active form.

Thanks for spending a part of your day here with me,

James

Pomegranate: Medicinal Properties

A customer called me on Wednesday to ask me if I had heard that Pomegranate would lower cholesterol. Telling this customer that I had not, as soon as I hung up I googled to see what I could find on the medicinal properties of Pomegranate.

Pomegranate was first reintroduced to the west about 3 years ago as an anti-oxidant. Pomegranate was initially promoted as an alternative to green tea. Several studies showed that Pomegranate has 3 times more anti-oxidants than green tea. After the initial hoopla died down Pomegranate seemed to lose its initial luster. This is to be expected because there were no studies on Pomegranate other than the one mentioned above. Since then new studies have found that Pomegranate may have other beneficial properties.

Below is a thumb-nail report of the studies on Pomegranate.

1) An Israeli study show that drinking pomegranate juice for one year showed that atherosclerosis progression was reduce by 30%.

2) Another Israeli study show that systolic blood pressure was reduced by 21% after drinking Pomegranate juice for one year.

3) A study in the same facility as number 2 showed that drinking 50ml of pomegranate juice for two weeks lower systolic blood pressure 5%. Interestingly this study also showed a 36% decrease in angiotensin converting enzyme activity. This is important because the ACE enzyme is a factor in atherosclerosis. Pomegranate is in fact a natural ACE inhibitor and could in theory be used in place of the drug Lisinopril.

4) An Iranian study using patients with type II diabetes and elevated cholesterol showed a reduction is total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and the cholesterol to HDL ratio. No studies have been done to determine if Pomegranate works the same in healthy patients.

If you would like to try pomegranate to see if this would work for you I suggest the Pomegranate extract capsules. The extract is many times stronger than the juice and has none of the sugars or the taste of Pomegranate.

Thanks for spending a part of your day here with me,

James

Soy: It is good for you? # 1

Soy has been around for centuries. The large scale consumption of soy has not. Soy was used in faming as a nitrogen fixator until fermentation was discovered. It has only been in the last ten years that soy has been promoted as a healthy food. This is the first of many posts that I am going to examine the truth about soy and its benefits.

Soy is one of only two or three plants that contain all eight essential amino acids. So in theory soy could replace eggs and meats as a source of protein. It is in fact heavily promoted by the soy growers and their trade organization SANA( Soyfoods Association of North America) for just this reason. The benefits of soy started to be noticed by looking the Japanese and the lack of certain cancers found in that society. Lower incidences of breast and prostate cancer has been attributed to the life-long consumption of soy. There is some evidence that soy may reduce those cancers. This observation started a decade long media campaign to convince Americans that soy is good for them. What SANA fails to tell you is that the Japanese do not use soy proteins powders or soy milk substitutes. The Japanese use the fermented soy products Miso, Tofu, Natto and Soy sauce. Fermentation is the key to understanding how the Japanese use soy. The next passage is from the Seeds of Change website. To learn more about soy place to go to: http://www.seedsofchange.com/enewsletter/issue_53/tempeh.asp

Soy beans are difficult to digest (even in the form of tofu), owing to the presence of oligosaccharides and trypsin inhibitors, and are associated with flatulence and indigestion. They also contain very high levels of phytic acid, a mineral chelator, which binds magnesium, calcium, and especially zinc, making them difficult for the body to assimilate.(Wikipedia, Hedger) It is perhaps for these reasons that the tradition of fermenting soybeans is central to the Asian cuisine. Fermented soybean products in Asia, some of which are familiar to us in the West, include: miso, shoyu/tamari (soy sauce), ontjom, natto, sufu, and tempeh.

Soy has other potential problems. It may cause hypothyroidism in children and women. It may also cause male fertility problems. On the plus side soy may help to lower cholesterol. I will write about these topics and more in upcoming posts.

Thanks for spending a part of your day here with me,

James

Deceptive Marketing Practices

In my new edition of the trade magazine Health Supplement Retailer an article jumped out at me I would like to share with you. If you remember back to my post on why I choose the products to sell in my store, another reason for including or excluding a product is scientific sense. This means the product must have some type of genuine scientifically verifiable purpose. I see many products that claim to have some benefit but when I do the research all I find are animal (rat) studies. One such company that fits into the deceptive marketing practices model is the Garden of Life company.

Garden of Life first hit the health food scene with a splashy ad showing sickly individual who claimed to have been restored to health with the Garden of Life Primal Defense HSO product. When I saw this ad it did not make a whole lot of sense to me. HSO or homeostatic soil organisms have very little to do with human health. After doing a little research, I found that HSO's are considered to be toxic to humans. Hmmmm!! This caused alarms to go off, red flags started to wave and my spidy sense started to tingle.

For the last few years I have lost many sales because I refused to carry the Garden of Life products. It now seems my spidy sense was absolutely correct. The Federal Trade Commission brought suit and has extracted a settlement against Garden of Life for deceptive claims about the four top selling Garden of Life products including the Primal defense HSO product. The Garden of Life company agreed to stop making deceptive claims about the results of scientific studies that supposedly substantiate the marketing claims about their products.

The old saying, "IF IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE..." applies here. Many people bought into the health claims of this company without doing their own due diligence. It is this type of company and the deceptive marketing they do that gives the entire health food and alternative medicine universe a black eye.

Thanks for spending a part of your day her with me,

James

Socially Acceptable Drugs

I have used this question as introduction for many of my seminars: What are the three socially acceptable and legal drugs? If you answered alcohol and nicotine, you are in good company. Most people are able to give me these two drugs. What about the third drug? This has just about everyone scratching their heads. Let me give you a couple of hints to see if you can deduce it on your own. The plant from which this drug is extracted is native to Ethiopia. Around 1000 AD, this plant is cultivated in Arabia. It was introduced to the Ottoman Turks in the 1400's. In 1688, this drink replaces beer as New Yorkers favorite breakfast drink. 97% of the worlds crop is grown in this South American country. Any guesses? The answer is the coffee plant. The drug in question is caffeine.

Caffeine is from the class of drugs called xanthines. There are over 150 xanthines in coffee. Caffeine is the most physiologically active of this class of drugs. Caffeine is a very seductive drug. It is first a central nervous system stimulant. There is nothing wrong with that as I have used caffeine just for this purpose. Caffeine gives you a little boost when you need it. The problems with caffeine come about with continued and excessive use.

The effectives of caffeine as a stimulant wears off fairly quickly. This is why you may find yourself drinking three cups of coffee when only one cup did the trick before. Caffeine in large doses can act like a diuretic. Over time this diuretic effect can lead to vitamin and mineral depletion, especially magnesium and potassium. When this happens you may start to develop high blood pressure. Many people have come into my store and asked about controlling high blood pressure. If I find that they are abusing caffeine, I suggest that they take one of my magnesium and potassium supplements while weaning themselves off of caffeinated beverages. More often than not, this helps to normalize the blood pressure. I will write more on the other effects of caffeine including osteoporosis and diabetes later.

Thank you for spending a part of your day here with me,

James

Customer Questions #1

Over the course of the last ten years I have been asked many questions. The most asked question by far is: Why don't I carry product certain products? The main reason for not carrying a certain product is that there is not enough people asking for it. There are other reason for not carrying certain products. These reasons range from not doing business with the company that makes the product to I am not happy with the company's quality or safety record.

Lets take a look at the category of multivitamins. In my 2006 industry source book, there are 96 companies listed that manufacture multivitamins. Many of these companies make multiple versions of the same product . The different versions may be iron-free or contain extra calcium or may contain herbs and other phytonutritents. Some companies make as many as twenty different types of multivitamins. This means that there is a at least 1920 different multivitamins available from these companies. This does not include the private label brands of vitamins that are only sold in a particular store or region.

As I looked again through my source book I find that there are 295 different nutritional supplements that are currently being manufactured. In each of these categories, there is an average of about 50 different companies manufacturing each of these supplements. As I hope you can now see, there is an overwhelming number of products to choose from. So how do I select the products that I carry in my store? That is a subject for another time. :)

Thanks for spending a little of your time here with me,

James

The Arizona Dust Bowl & Valley Fever

If you have read the Arizona Republic in the last few weeks you should have read about an upswing in the occurrence of Valley Fever. If you don't know, Valley fever is a fungal infection caused by spores that are inhaled into the lungs. Left untreated or misdiagnosed, valley fever can be fatal. I know of two people who have had relatives die of complications from Valley Fever.

There are both allopathic ways and natural ways to treat valley fever. The drugs usually prescribed by your doctor have some very bad side effects including liver damage. The damage caused by these drugs is may be irreversible.

The natural products used to treat valley fever are safer than the drugs, but a few of them can have side effects. I would suggest you look up each of these supplements before you use them. Below are the supplements I suggest for treating valley fever naturally.

Black Walnut Inner Hulls
Pau d' arco
Capryllic acid
Tea Tree Oil
Garlic

All of these herbs are useful in humans and in animals, especially dogs. Some of the symptoms of valley fever in dogs are as follows:

lethargy
heavy breathing
limping (from no known cause)
lose of appetite.

If you have any questions please stop by the store.

Thanks for spending a little of your time here with me,

James

The Good ole Summertime #1

Summer is typically a slow time of year in the health food industry. Just like everyone else, I am thinking of vacation from the abundant sunshine and plentiful heat we have here in the southwest. Summer is also when we seem to let our collective guard down. Sure there is no new stain of influenza coming out of China or an outbreak of pneumonia, but there are other less visible problems that sneak up on us.

Last week when the outside temp started its inexorable climb toward triple digits, I started to see more people looking for electrolyte replacement drinks. For those of you who played sports, the coach would always ask who needs a salt pill. The idea of electrolyte replacement has come a long way from that time. We now know that our body needs about 2 grams of potassium per day. Most of that is found in the food that we eat. The problem starts when we excrete more potassium than we consume. This usually happens in the summer when we do yard work. We sweat, drink a little water and go back to work. Sometimes we drink Coke or Pepsi, which is the exact wrong thing to drink. The combination of heat and caffeine in my opinion is the cause of many problems including dizziness, shakiness, lightheadedness and hunger. Other more serious health problems may include heat stroke, high blood pressure, heart attack and eventually death. Yes electrolytes are this important.

You can find potassium in bananas, orange juice and white potatoes. However if you are deficient in potassium, a potassium supplement is usually required. Supplemental potassium comes in capsules or powders. I usually like to take about 500-1000mg of potassium before I go to work outside in my yard during the summer. Do not take this as a suggestion for the amount of potassium you should take. You need to find out your own potassium needs.

What do you think. Have any stories of electrolyte imbalances? Post your thoughts.

Thanks for spending a little of your time here with me,

James