Lemon is known, first and foremost, for its tart and tangy taste.  It is bold and, for this reason, we often find it in the culinary arena.  It pleases our palate as a marinade for our meats, as a garnish for our drinks, and as the well known drink – lemonade.  But, what is not often said about lemon is that there is tenderness to it, a beautiful, healing tenderness.

When used in aromatherapy, lemon enhances mood.  In animals, the aroma of lemon alone is known to alter anxiety and decrease pain perception. As essential oil, lemon has a calming effect.  For an insomniac, lemon oil can help induce sleep.

Lemon oil is an anti-fungal, anti-microbial, anti-infection, detoxifying genius.  It has been used to treat stress disorders, skin disorders, and hair disorders.  It is often used in anti-septic soaps and in astringents.  It has been used in deodorizers, in flea tonics, for insect bites, and on greasy skin.

Lemon juice itself is an extremely powerful healing agent.  It aids in digestion, relieves heartburn, relieves bloating, relieves gas, and stimulates the liver.  Lemon juice is known to nourish the brain and nerve cells and aids in the body’s ability to rid itself of toxins.  It helps aid in the treatments used for malaria and it is useful when it comes to asthma, colds, coughs, sore throats, fevers and rheumatism.

The greatest thing about lemon is that it is so east to obtain.  Whether you are looking for candles, soaps, astringents, or the fruit itself, it is not hard to come by. Source: healthrepublic.com

In the 19th century, most work involved physical activity; in the 20th century, exercise became a leisure pursuit; today, it’s an urgent medical necessity.

Exercise: It’s cheap, readily available, and the single most effective step nonsmokers can take to avoid chronic and potentially fatal diseases. If it were being hawked on late-night television, you’d think the phone lines would be tied up for hours.

But regular physical activity remains a hard sell. Despite mounting evidence that it lowers the risk for obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, and many forms of cancer, the average citizen is increasingly sedentary. Still, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) isn’t giving up on us.

In 2007, the agency convened an expert committee to evaluate a decade of scientific evidence on the benefits of physical activity. Committee member Dr. I-Min Lee, who also serves on the Harvard Women’s Health Watch advisory board, said she and her colleagues found an “impressive range of health benefits coming from being physically active.” They submitted their findings, and in the fall of 2008, the U.S. government issued a detailed exercise prescription for the nation.

THE GROUND RULES

The “2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans” (www.health.gov/PAGuidelines) are more extensive than those of most other health organizations, and more extensive than earlier HHS recommendations. While assuring us that a couple of hours a week of moderate activity provides important health benefits, the guidelines also stress that more is indeed more — finding added benefit from exercising longer and doing so with greater intensity. As Dr. Lee puts it, “Any physical activity one can do is good, but more is better.”

The guidelines are also more inclusive. They apply not just to the standard adult audience but to almost everyone age 6 and over — children, adolescents, pregnant women, seniors, and people with chronic diseases and disabilities. This time around, no one gets off the hook. Adults, whether 18 or 81, are urged to get no less than 150 minutes (two and a half hours) of moderate activity or 75 minutes (one hour and 15 minutes) of vigorous activity — or some combination of the two — each week. Sessions should last at least 10 minutes and be spread evenly through the week.

Adults are advised to fit in two weekly sessions of strength training, as well. The authors urge even people with medical conditions to meet these standards, though they acknowledge this may require a gradual buildup.

EXERCISING WITH HEALTH CONDITIONS

The HHS exercise guidelines emphasize that people with chronic medical conditions and disabilities should get just as much exercise as other adults, if they can. This prescription may be daunting, especially for those with disabilities that sap energy or hamper mobility, like depression, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis. But regular exercise can actually improve mood and energy level, increase muscle and bone strength, and reduce the pain associated with many health problems. So even if a health condition makes it difficult to meet the guidelines, you should participate in any activity as best you can and avoid inactivity.

The HHS guidelines advise patients with disabilities or chronic conditions to speak with their health care providers about appropriate kinds and levels of exercise.

The National Institutes of Health and other organizations like the American Heart Association and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society provide specific, condition-based exercise information. For example, the National Osteoporosis Foundation suggests low-impact exercises that build bone and minimize the risk of fracture during workouts. If you’re not sure where to go, just type “exercise” and the name of a condition into an Internet search engine. The most reliable Web sites are those ending in “.gov,” “.org,” or “.edu.”

The American College of Sports Medicine Web site also has detailed advice for people with certain chronic health conditions. It provides topical paperback guides (“Action Plans”) that discuss particular challenges associated with menopause, allergies, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

The site also offers “Your Prescription for Health” — concise tip sheets on issues related to physical activity, including Alzheimer’s disease, blood clots during exercise, anxiety and depression, heart conditions, cancer, low back pain, and visual impairment. To order or download these materials, go to www.exerciseismedicine.org/public.htm.

Children and adolescents should be getting even more than adults: at least an hour a day (420 minutes per week), including both aerobic activity and exercise that builds muscle and bone.

The guidelines also distinguish between different levels of physical activity. For example, for most middle-aged adults, moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is comparable to walking three to five miles an hour; vigorous exercise is anything higher. Or, on a zero-to-10 scale, with zero as the amount of activity involved in sitting, and 10 as the effort of running at top speed, moderate exercise begins at five and vigorous exercise at seven.

Perhaps the simplest way to distinguish moderate from vigorous exercise is by trying to speak as you work out: if you can talk while working out but have a hard time singing, you’re exercising moderately; if you find it difficult even to talk, that’s vigorous.

Strength training should involve all the major muscle groups of the legs, hips, back, chest, stomach, shoulders, and arms. You should repeat each exercise for each muscle group eight to 12 times. Many aerobic activities also provide strength training: for example, race-walking strengthens legs and hips; rowing builds muscles in the arms, legs, chest, and shoulders.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Go beyond the basics if you can, say the guidelines. Once you’re routinely logging the recommended levels of aerobic activity, start to add a few minutes a day. (Ramping up slowly reduces the likelihood of injury.) The HHS committee found that you can get even greater health benefits and more effective weight control when you reach twice the recommended weekly amount — that is, 300 minutes of moderate activity, 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or a combination of the two. More than that may be even better. Hartford Courant.

Men with prostate cancer are being diagnosed at a younger age and earlier stage today than in years past, and the racial disparity in stage at diagnosis has decreased significantly, researchers report today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“Traditionally, blacks are diagnosed with prostate cancer at a later stage compared with whites,” and are more likely to die of the disease, study co-author Dr. Grace L. Lu-Yao of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick, told Reuters Health.
Lu-Yao and colleagues analyzed 2004-2005 data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program on more than 82,500 prostate cancer patients.
They compared this group with patients diagnosed in 1988-1989 and 1996-1997. The average age at diagnosis decreased from about 72 years in 1988-1989 to about 67 years in 2004-2005 and the rate of particularly late-stage cases fell from about 53 to 8 per 100,000 among whites and from 91 to 13 per 100,000 among blacks.
Based on the 2004-2005 data, the vast majority of men had cases diagnosed when they had not yet spread, Lu-Yao said.
Lu-Yao credited prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for the earlier diagnoses. While that test is recommended by some medical groups, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force “concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of prostate cancer screening in men younger than age 75 years” and that men over the age of 75 should not be screened.
The questions over screening come from the fact that many prostate cancers are slow-growing and may not be deadly, while the treatments can have significant side effects.
The current study also “is the first nationwide study to document that the racial disparity in prostate cancer stage at diagnosis has decreased substantially during the period from 1988 to 2005,” Lu-Yao noted.
“Whether the narrowing of the racial disparity in the presentation of advanced prostate cancer will lead to reduced racial disparity in prostate cancer mortality remains to be seen,” Lu-Yao said. By Megan Brooks, The Star.

A tall glass of fresh-brewed iced tea does more than cool you off on a sultry summer day. Tea is the world’s second most popular libation (right after good old H2O). In fact, the U.S. guzzles more than 55 billion cups a year.

No wonder: In addition to tasting great, tea also can fight disease and help you slim down. The latest news on tea may be one of its best attributes yet: its ability to improve mental focus and clarity.

Tea is nature’s major source of the amino acid L-theanine. When paired with caffeine, this wonder compound decreases alpha wave activity in your brain and increases focus. In fact, downing two to three cups of tea within an hour or two of each other (the amino acid goes to work within 30 minutes) has been shown to make people more alert and focused. One more upside: You won’t get that jittery feeling you do from other caffeinated drinks.

The fat that could stop stomach trouble

Olive oil — the unsaturated omega-9 fat that’s great for your heart — is making headlines for what it can do for your tummy.

Research suggests that polyphenols in olive oil may inhibit the bacterium that causes most stomach ulcers. Not only could those polyphenols withstand the harsh gastric juices of the stomach, but they also seemed to kill off H. pylori pretty handily — even antibiotic-resistant strains.

But don’t eat truckloads of the stuff because it packs more than 100 calories per tablespoon. To use less, use extra-virgin olive oil, the most flavorful. For cooking, use more-refined olive oil, because the fancier stuff burns more quickly.

Breakfast that takes the pressure off

Want more from your first meal of the day? Adding certain foods to your plate, bowl or baggie can lower your blood pressure. Here’s how:

• Sprinkle flaxseed on your cereal. Your whole-grain cereal lowers blood pressure, and ground flaxseeds contain alpha-linolenic acid, a nutrient that relaxes blood vessels.

• Stir chopped walnuts into oatmeal. These are loaded with ALA, and their protein and healthy fat profile pushes blood sugar, blood pressure and lousy (LDL) cholesterol down.

• Whip berries into your smoothie. One study recorded a seven-point dip in systolic (the top number) pressure from a daily dose of berries.

• Toss a tomato onto your egg-white omelet. The lycopene in cooked tomatoes has a talent for tamping down blood pressure.

• Grab a yogurt. Making nonfat, no-sugar-added dairy products such as yogurt a regular part of your diet can reduce hypertension risk by 30 percent. By Michael Roizen, MD and Mehmet Oz, M.D of Houston Chronicle.