OMEGA 3, 6, 9 FATTY ACIDS (Flax seed oil)

The Benefits of OMEGA 3, 6, 9 FATTY ACIDS

(Flax seed oil)

Flaxseed oil comes from the seeds of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum, L.). Flaxseed oil contains both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are needed for health.

Fatty acids are important for all systems of the body to function normally, including your skin, respiratory system, circulatory system, brain and organs. There are two fatty acids, termed essential fatty acids (EFA) that your body does not produce on its own. EFAs have to be ingested.

The two essential fatty acids that the human body cannot produce are the omega-3 fatty acid and omega-6 fatty acid, which are important for brain development, immune system function and blood pressure regulation.

When it comes lowering your risk for metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, eating foods that cause the least amount of inflammation might be the best diet of all. High levels of inflammation lead to vascular damage and insulin resistance.

The general consensus is that eating the right proportion of omega-3 and omega-6 reduces inflammation in the body.

What is Omega-3 Fatty Acid?

Omega-3 fatty acids, a polyunsaturated fat, are found in three main forms:

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).

DHA and EPA are marine omega-3 and are mainly found in fish. ALA is a vegetable source of omega-3 and is present in walnuts, vegetable oils such as canola and soybean oils, and flaxseeds. Benefits seem to be seen with all types of omega-3's

Conditions which Omega-3 Fatty Acid will help improve & prevent:

·      Asthma  ·      Diabetes  ·      Arthritis  ·      Osteoporosis ·      Some Cancer ·      Skin Disorders		·         High Cholesterol  ·         High Blood Pressure  ·         Attention Disorders  ·         Depressive Disorders  ·         Macular Degeneration ·         Digestive Difficulties

What is Omega-6 Fatty Acid?

Omega-6 fatty acids, which are polyunsaturated, are found in nuts, seeds and vegetable oils such as soybean, safflower, sunflower or corn oils, which are widely used by the food industry. 
Omega-6 fatty acid (Linoleic Acid) combined with omega-3 fatty acid produces many of the health benefits described above, but the trickiest part about playing the fatty acid game is that it is best to eat them in the right amounts.

You should be eating about twice as much omega-6 as omega-3, so that your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is 2:1, but in today’s world of fast food, frozen entrees, and high calorie snacks, it is not uncommon for most people to actually be getting about 15 times more omega-6 than omega-3.

Washington DC’s center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health suggest that eating omega-6 and omega-3 in the wrong proportions may actually negate the health benefits.

The best sources of omega-6 are seeds, nuts and grains and green leafy vegetables, like lettuce, broccoli, purslane and kale, and in certain raw vegetable oils. Care should be taken to use raw cold pressed vegetable oils because cooking destroys the benefits of the fatty acids.

Omega-6 fatty acids are also found naturally in: Olive Oil, Pumpkin Seeds, Chia Seed Oil, Sunflower Oil, Sesame Oil, Grape seeds, Raw Nuts.

What is Omega-9 Fatty Acid?

Omega-9 fats, or oleic acid, are monounsaturated fats abundant in olive oil, safflower oil, canola oil, avocado and nuts such as almonds and peanuts. Unlike omega-3 and omega-6, omega-9 is not considered an essential fatty acid; it can be produced by the body, although dietary intake is beneficial and when there is a lack of Omega 3 and 6, Omega 9 should be taken.

Omega-9 fatty acids help lower your bad cholesterol or LDL in addition to reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Most monounsaturated sources also contain high levels of vitamin E, a powerful health-protective antioxidant.

Omega-9 fatty acids are also found naturally in:  Avocados, Various nuts & seeds, Olives and olive oil.

Something more about DHA and EPA.

Within the body omega-3 fatty acids are converted to DHA and EPA (docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid, respectively). DHA and EPA are highly unsaturated fats that play very important roles in the vision development and brain function of infants.

One study found significantly lower amounts of EPA in the cells of patients who had attempted suicide, suggesting that omega-3 fatty acids may actually play a role in suicide prevention. A lack of DHA has been associated with Alzheimer disease, attention disorders, phenylketonuria, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.

You NEED your Carbs

WHY ZERO CARBING IS A BAD IDEA

In order to explain to you why you need carbohydrates I first have to talk about Muscle Protein Synthesis.

What is Muscle Protein Synthesis?

The synthesis of protein within the muscle is the method by which muscles are constructed and repaired.

Proteins are the compounds comprised of amino acids and amino acids are the building blocks within the body used for tissue formation.

Catabolism & Anabolism:

Muscle will naturally break down, a process known as "catabolism." The breakdown includes the physical separation of the fibers that comprise the muscle structure. The subsequent repair of the damaged muscle is "anabolism," the building up and the growth of the existing and previously damaged fiber.

Protein synthesis is the mechanism by which the body affects this repair and muscle growth.

When your goal is to grow and maintain your muscle it is very obvious that you would want OPTIMAL Muscle Protein Synthesis to take place.

Why is Exercise important for Protein Synthesis?

The human body synthesizes protein from diet at a rapid rate while the body is growing through adolescence and into young adulthood. The rate at which protein is synthesized slows significantly after age 20.

In an adult the synthesis of muscle protein is also related to how the muscles are being exercised.

Under normal circumstances it is only the ongoing repair and maintenance of existing muscle tissues that may be damaged through the course of daily living that takes place.

The human skeletal muscle will never get larger or stronger through either sedentary activities or the consumption of particular foods or supplements alone!!

Muscular activity is a prerequisite of meaningful muscle development through protein synthesis.

All forms of physical activity will direct specific stress into a muscle but activities that involve explosive and powerfully focused movements (such as weight training) the forces are directed against the muscle and the effect is much more significant opposed to distance running, cycling or sustained intensity cardio work where the stresses are cumulative and at a relatively lower level of intensity.

Under stress the muscle will naturally break down, a process known as "catabolism." The breakdown includes the physical separation of the fibers that comprise the muscle structure. The subsequent repair of the damaged muscle is "anabolism," the building up and the growth of the existing and previously damaged fiber.

Protein synthesis is the mechanism by which the body affects this repair and muscle growth and when the body produces more synthesized protein than it consumes through its catabolic processes, muscle will be developed.

How to ensure Anabolism:

The essential amino acid, leucine, is used as an indicator of the state your body is in.

A positive leucine balance is evidence that this acid is present in the cells, a condition consistent with protein anabolism. As I have told you earlier, amino acids are the building blocks which proteins consist of and leucine is one of those amino acids. Eating protein will then therefore provide you with leucine.

Where do carbs come in?

Researchers have focused very much on the combined effects of protein AND carbohydrate consumption after exercise during the last few years and they have found that a combination of the two has a better effect on protein synthesis than just protein alone.

It appears that eating enough protein so that you consume 2-3g of leucine along with some carbohydrates (20-30g) is an effective way to maximize muscle protein synthesis.

Maintain constant balance:

It is very important to remember that when proteins are consumed along with carbohydrates immediately after exercise, the catabolic process is not stopped within the affected muscles.

The process of protein synthesis is immediately stimulated (given a kick-start).

This leads to the prevention of further protein loss in the muscle.

As the degradation of the muscle due to strenuous exercise will not reach its peak for approximately three days after the exercise that affected the muscle, it is important to continue the ingestion of protein.

The consistent maintaining of balanced nutrition (Protein, Carbs & Fat) is essential to the body's ability to respond on an ongoing basis to the demand for muscle protein synthesis. 

BAD SUGAR

Okay, so yesterday I sat thinking, deeply, about something that is troubling me!

My son has a cold… he told me as soon as he started feeling ill and I immediately dosed him with Vit C but he still got it relatively bad. This was a strange thing to me since when the same happens to me, that is when I start feeling ill, and I up my Vit C the symptoms go away.

Then I also started to wonder about a lot of my clients and friends falling ill with colds and flu and not being able to get over it regardless of taking lots of Vit C, staying in bed… etc.

THEN it struck me, something I had completely forgotten about which I had read years ago.

It was research done by Dr Linus Pauling that I had read….

I have always been aware of the fact that Sugar negatively affects your immune system but as I went about paying attention to other things it had slipped my mind… something as important as that should definitely NOT so I did some research and found this article explaining it pretty well!

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Sugar and Your Immune System

Dr. Linus Pauling's Forgotten Research

Your body has a very efficient system for protecting itself from outside "invaders" such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc. The single most important part of this system is the body's ability to identify and destroy any invaders that get inside.

There is a fact that you may not know about your body’s immune system:

EATING ANY KIND OF SUGAR HAS THE POTENTIAL TO REDUCE YOUR BODY'S DEFENSES BY 75% OR MORE FOR FOUR TO SIX HOURS.

This is not new data. In the 1970's Dr. Linus Pauling (one of the greatest researchers in the field of microbiology) discovered that vitamin C helps the body to combat the common cold. As part of the same research, Dr. Pauling found that sugar severely slows down this same process.

This is very important to know, as using this information can prevent illness and dramatically assist healing. Because the idea that sugar is "bad" for you is so controversial, I am going to give you a quick, simplified tour through your own immune system so you can see for yourself what Dr. Pauling discovered.

1. How Your Body Disposes Of Invaders

Bacteria, viruses, etc. are literally "swallowed" by a special type of cell called a "phagocyte." This is a cell, such as a white blood cell, that engulfs and absorbs waste material, harmful microorganisms, or other foreign bodies in the bloodstream and tissues.

2. Vitamin C

Dr. Pauling discovered that vitamin C is needed by white blood cells to engulf and absorb viruses and bacteria. In fact, a white blood cell has to contain 50 times the concentration of vitamin C as would normally be found in the blood around it. That's how Dr. Pauling came up with the "take vitamin C for a cold" theory. In order to continue to destroy bacteria and viruses, the white blood cells have to accumulate vitamin C all the time to keep up the 50-times concentration. So, vitamin C is being moved through the cell membranes into the white blood cells all over your body, all the time. That's why it's important to have plenty of vitamin C available to your body.

3. Sugar

Glucose (sugar in its simplest form, as found in the blood stream) and vitamin C have a similar chemical structure. So similar, in fact, that when a white blood cell tries to pull in more vitamin C from the blood around it, glucose can get substituted by mistake. If the concentration of glucose in the blood goes beyond a certain concentration, the white blood cell's 50-times vitamin C concentration can start to drop because of the large amount of glucose it's pulling in as a substitute for vitamin C.

In fact, at a blood sugar level of 120, the white blood cell's ability to absorb and destroy viruses and bacteria is reduced by 75%. This blood sugar level would be easily obtained by any normal person eating some sugar (cake, cookies, candy, soda or even drinking fruit juice). Further, it can take four to six hours for the vitamin C concentration in the white blood cells to reach that optimum 50-times concentration again.

 

  Conclusion

As you can see, it's not a great idea to eat any kind of sugar if you're sick, including the much-recommended orange juice (which may contain vitamin C, but this won't help if the white blood cells can't get past the sugar to use it!).

Further, if you were on a program of health improvement of any kind, sugar would be your number-1 enemy! No matter if you're healing from an injury, either. White blood cells and other phagocytes remove dead tissue as well as other types of waste associated with injury healing.

The next time you go to the drug store and notice that the cough syrup contains mostly sugar, you can wonder as we do what happened to this valuable research that no one seems to know?

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The first thing you do when feeling ill, especially flue is go buy bottled orange juice for the “Vit C”, then you suck lozenges loaded with sugar for your sore throat, and like the article said, you buy flue medicine containing mostly sugar.

You also don’t feel like eating food and would rather nibble on snacks and drink hot chocolate… 

THAT is why you don’t get better!!!

Cut out the SUGAR and everything containing sugar and you’ll recover in no time and THEN stay away from it! 

RAW Broccoli in the morning... But WHY? and what is this thing with Green Veggies?

What is it about green vegetables that make them so special and why is it so good for you to have that green apple & RAW broccoli?

First let’s look at what makes plants green?

The reason green plants are green is because they contain a special chemical, called chlorophyll.

The chlorophyll in the leaves of plants absorbs sunlight, converting it into carbohydrates from both the available carbon dioxide and water. It also produces oxygen in this process. The carbohydrate that the plant produces is the food that the plant needs to grow. It is also the food that we eat when we eat the produce of green plants, whether fruits or vegetables.

Chlorophyll, the compound that makes the leaves of most plants green, is a delicate compound, and easily damaged by heat. The greener the leaf, the more chlorophyll it contains. However, when you cook green leaves and vegetables until they turn that grayish - green color, they lose their enzymes and water-soluble vitamins, reducing their potent benefits. 

SO... Don't overcook your veggies!!!

Chlorophyll also cleanses your body and helps it to detoxify by absorbing and removing heavy metals from your digestive system, but only when it is active, in the raw state.

Here are a few more benefits of chlorophyll:

*It alkalizes our cells

*It builds our blood count, therefore being helpful against anemia

*It is a natural body deodorizer

*It energizes our cells, due to its high oxygen content

*It contains a lot of fiber, which helps to escort toxins and heavy metals from our intestines and bowels

*It helps to regulate our hormones

*It reduces inflammation

*Due to its high oxygen content it is a natural cancer antagonist

Raw green vegetables are better!

It is best to consume green leaves and vegetables when they are raw, because the minerals contained in the produce are bonded to enzymes, as well as proteins and glucose. These minerals are called chelated minerals when they are in this form. When the produce is heated it loses these natural forms of minerals and enzymes, with the resulting nutrients not being absorbed as easily by our digestive system.

This is why dried green super-foods or blends have to be processed at low temperatures if they are to retain their nutrient density. Because the enzymes in green vegetables are destroyed by heat, and the enzymes are one of the important components of fresh vegetables, they also have to be protected from heat damage when producing a nutrient and enzyme dense green blend.

If you make the time, it is very simple to make a green smoothie with fresh green leaves, an apple or pear and some cold water. In this way you can get your daily dose of chlorophyll in a glass instead of only in salads.

    

What else is in green vegetables?

§  We already mentioned the chlorophyll molecule which is very similar in structure, to a molecule in our body, called hemoglobin, which contains iron and transports oxygen to our cells via our blood stream. Hemoglobin is also the compound that makes our blood red. Hemoglobin transports oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. The center of the chlorophyll molecule contains a magnesium molecule, while the center of the hemoglobin structure contains iron. Although there has been some discussion about chlorophyll becoming hemoglobin, because of their similar molecular shape, there is no clear evidence that this happens. But green foods do contain iron in its natural form, as well as the other compounds necessary for hemoglobin formation.

§  Green leaves and vegetables are also full of other very important nutrients, in varying quantities, dependent on growing conditions and specific varieties. They contain magnesium, phosphorous, calcium, zinc, copper, manganese, potassium, sodium, many of the B vitamins, such as B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B9 (folic acid)as well as vitamins A (in the form of beta carotene), C, E and K. Furthermore they also contain the important antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which promote eye health, with lutein possibly also playing an important role in preventing colon cancer. They also contain enzymes (if raw) as well as protein, fiber and some of the good Omega 3 fats. Although you would have to eat 55kgs/121lbs of green leaves to get 60ml of the right fats daily!

§  Green vegetables are also alkaline in action, which means that they are capable of shifting your body from an acid state to an alkaline state. This is important because cooked foods and refined foods, stress and low levels of exercise leave your body being acidic. A low pH is known to be a precursor for not only low energy levels and inflammation, but also for degenerative diseases. It’s therefore important to eat foods that promote an alkaline balance in the body, which help the body move away from an acidic state.

§  Green vegetables that come from the brassica family, are even more nutrient dense than ordinary green vegetables. Broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts and red cabbage as well as Asian greens, including bok choy, chinese cabbage and pak choy, have potent anti-cancer properties, detoxify the body of environmental toxins and supply anti-oxidants too. Any produce that protects you from cancer will also help with overall health and anti-aging.

It is not just to burn fat or to get into shape that I advise you to eat or do certain things. Taking care of your health is the main reason. 

Once you start to take care of your health burning off the fat and getting into shape will happen automatically! 

Vit C

Ascorbic acid is used up more rapidly with alcohol use, smoking, and under stressful conditions. 

Other factors that increase Vitamin C requirements include viral illness and fever, Aspirin and other medications (sulfa antibiotics, cortisone), environmental toxins (DDT), and exposure to heavy metals such as mercury, lead, or cadmium.  Vitamin C is involved in the formation and maintenance of collagen, which is the basis of connective tissue found in capillary walls, skin, ligaments, cartilage, vertebral discs, joint linings, bones and teeth.  Collagen, and thus Vitamin C, is needed for wound healing and to maintain healthy blood vessels.

Vitamin C helps the absorption of iron (particularly the vegetable, or non-heme form), so it is helpful for iron-deficiency anemia.  Other conditions that benefit from ascorbic acid metabolism include diabetes (for insulin production), certain cases of male infertility, as well as arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, cataracts, glaucoma, and musculoskeletal degeneration (mostly by Vitamin C keeping calcium soluble and preventing it

from calcifying soft tissue).

Vitamin C helps thyroid hormone production and the metabolism of folic acid, tyrosine, and tryptophan, and it stimulates adrenal function and the release of norepinephrine and epinephrine, which are stress hormones.

However, prolonged stress depletes Vitamin C in the adrenals and decreases blood levels.  Ascorbic acid is important in cellular immune functions, where it is beneficial for bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases.

At higher amounts, Vitamin C may decrease the production of histamine, thereby reducing allergy potential.

A combination of very high doses of Vitamin C + Vit E + Vit B12 has been found effective in lessening the symptoms of shingles (herpes zoster), provided they are all taken at the earliest onset of the attack.

AGE                             FEMALE                       MALES

19 - 30 years                 75 mg                           90 mg

31 +     years                 75 mg                           90 mg

Pregnant                       80-85 mg         

Lactating                       115-120 mg

Smoking                       110 mg             120mg

Therapeutic Range:   250mg - 50,000mg+     Upper Level amount:   400mg - 2,000mg

Best time to take Vitamin C:  Morning to evening, in divided doses, preferably with the 3 main meals.

Too little vitamin C can lead to signs and symptoms of deficiency, including:

• Possible weight gain because of slowed metabolism Rough, dry, scaly skin Swollen and painful joints Weakened tooth enamel

  Anemia
• Bleeding gums
• Decreased ability to fight infection
• Decreased wound-healing rate
• Dry and splitting hair
• Easy bruising
• Gingivitis (inflammation of the gums)
• Nosebleeds