Carnivore AND Keto Flatbread - make it with only 3 INGREDIENTS!

Dark Chocolate and Leg Circulation

Does the former help the latter? A recent study suggests it does:

Could Dark Chocolate Help Ease Poor Leg Circulation?

[...] In a small study, people with artery problems in their legs walked a little longer and farther right after eating a bar of dark chocolate, the researchers said.

Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants called polyphenols. The researchers believe polyphenols improve blood flow to the legs by affecting biochemicals that prompt arteries to widen.

"Our body secretes chemicals that naturally dilate blood vessels in response to certain stimuli, improving the blood flow to certain areas," said Dr. Richard Chazal, vice president of the American College of Cardiology. "Some of the chemicals inside dark chocolate could affect the way these enzymes are metabolized in the body," suggested Chazal, who was not involved with the study.

The pilot study involved 20 people aged 60 to 78 who suffered from peripheral artery disease, a narrowing of the arteries that carry blood from the heart to the legs, stomach, arms and head. Reduced blood flow can cause pain, cramping or fatigue in the legs or hips while walking.

The patients walked on a treadmill in the morning and again two hours after eating 40 grams of dark or milk chocolate -- the size of an average American chocolate bar -- on separate days. The dark chocolate in the study had a cocoa content of more than 85 percent, making it rich in polyphenols. The milk chocolate, with a cocoa content below 30 percent, had far fewer polyphenols, the study authors noted.

After eating dark chocolate, patients walked an average 11 percent farther and 15 percent longer than they did earlier in the day. That's about 39 feet farther and about 17 seconds longer, according to the study, published July 2 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

[...]

The researchers found that levels of nitric oxide, a gas linked to improved blood flow, were higher after eating dark chocolate. They suggested that the higher nitric oxide levels may be responsible for widening peripheral arteries and improving the patients' ability to walk.

Both the results and the theory are "intriguing," said Dr. Mark Creager, director of the Vascular Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"The results are certainly interesting but modest, in terms of the walking distance improved," said Creager, who also serves as a spokesman for the American Heart Association. "With information such as this, one would anticipate these investigators will conduct a much larger trial with long-term treatment to confirm their observations."

Creager and Chazal noted that chocolate is also high in fat and sugar, and eating too much can contribute to health problems such as obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol.

"People need to be very aware of the fact that there are many substances in chocolate bars that could have an adverse effect on health," Creager said. "I would not recommend that people eat chocolate bars to improve their walking distance."

Chazal agreed, saying the study's true value lies in identifying the way that polyphenols might affect blood flow to the legs.

Polyphenols also can be found in foods with less added sugar and saturated fats, such as cloves, dried peppermint, celery seed, capers and hazelnuts. [...]

So more polyphenols may be the answer, rather than just dark chocolate specifically. The article went on to say more studies should be done to confirm these findings.
     

Managing Fat: subcutaneous VS visceral

The Truth About Belly Fat
What you need to know -- and do -- about belly fat.

Belly fat: Did you know that it's not just about your waist size?

It's also about your health. And you can do something about it, starting right now, at any size.

But first, let's be clear: This is not about fat phobia. Your body needs some fat. And it's not about judging yourself or anyone else, or trying to reach some unrealistic ideal.

Instead, it's about getting a handle on your fat -- even the fat you can't see.

Location, Location, Location

That's right: You have fat you can't see. We all do.

People store most of their fat in two ways:

Just under the skin in the thighs, hips, buttocks, and abdomen. That's called subcutaneous (under the skin) fat. It's the fat that you notice.

Deeper inside, around the vital organs (heart, lungs, digestive tract, liver, etc.) in the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. That's called "visceral" fat. It's so deep inside you that you can't notice it from the outside.

Many people are self-conscious about the fat they can see. But actually, it's the hidden fat -- the visceral fat -- that may be a bigger problem, even for thin people.

Like Another Organ

Fat doesn't just sit there. It makes "lots of nasty substances," says Kristen Hairston, MD, assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism at Wake Forest School of Medicine.

We all have visceral fat -- and it isn't all bad. It provides necessary cushioning around organs.

The problem is when there's too much of it. That's linked to a greater chance of developing high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and certain cancers (including breast cancer and colon cancer.)

How Did I Get It?

When obese, a body can run out of safe places to store fat and begin storing it in and around the organs, such as the heart and the liver.

“Fatty liver disease was, until recently, very rare in nonalcoholics. But with obesity increasing, you have people whose fat depots are so full that the fat is deposited into the organs,” says Carol Shively, PhD, professor of pathology-comparative medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine. “Now there is much interest in fat being deposited around the heart, as well.”

Now that you know more about the fat that we all have, it's time to take action.

[...]

Thin People, Too

Even thin people can have too much visceral fat, though you'd never know it by looking at them.

It's partly about their genes. Some people have a genetic tendency to store visceral fat.

But it's also about physical activity. Visceral fat likes inactivity. For instance, a British study showed that thin people who maintain their weight through diet alone, skipping exercise, are more likely to have unhealthy levels of visceral fat.

So the message is, get active, no matter what size you are.

Controlling Belly Fat: 4 Steps to Take

There are four keys to controlling belly fat: exercise, diet, sleep, and stress management. [...]

It goes on to give advice, about what works, and why.
     

Health Links 09-08-12

Is it "feed a cold, starve a fever" or vice versa? And should you?

[...] The idea, if not the exact wording, dates back to 1574, when a dictionary maker named Withals wrote, "Fasting is a great remedie of feuer."

You're thinking: this guy wrote a dictionarie? His medical advice wasn't so hot either. Doctors have been trying to stamp out the above piece of folklore for years. Current medical thinking is that you want to keep an even strain when you're sick with either a cold or a fever, and you certainly don't want to stress your system by stuffing or starving yourself.

Nobody's sure where the notion of feeding colds and so on arose. (It surely didn't originate with Withals.) One somewhat dubious explanation has it that the proverb really means "If you feed a cold now, you'll have to starve a fever later." A more plausible interpretation is that the feed-a-cold idea arose out of a folk understanding of the disease process, namely that there were two kinds of illnesses, those caused by low temperatures (colds and chills) and those caused by high temperatures (fever). If you had a chill, you wanted to stoke the interior fires, so you pigged. If you had a fever, you didn't want things to overheat, so you slacked off on the fuel. [...]

WebMD goes a bit further, and gives lots of advice on How to Feed a Cold:

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever?

Do you starve a cold and feed a fever when you're feeling under the weather? Or is it the other way around? Good news -- starving is never the correct answer. [...]

Read the whole thing for detailed recommendations.


8 Lifestyle Tweaks for Restless Legs Syndrome

If you've got restless legs syndrome (RLS), your daily habits can make a difference to your condition.

Revamping your diet, exercise, and medications is just the beginning of what you can do to improve your RLS. You might even find some help in unexpected places. [...]

Can't Sleep? When to Get Out of Bed

You wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.

Whether you drank one cup of coffee too many earlier, or you've got a lot on your mind, it's time to decide whether to get up or stay in bed.

Getting out of bed makes sense at some point. Tossing and turning endlessly isn't going to help.

If you do get up, though, you're not giving up for the night. You still need rest. So your goal should be to get back to sleep as soon as possible.

Some activities help with that. Others put sleep even further out of reach.

What you do now, in the wee hours, will affect how the rest of your night goes. That could make all the difference in how you feel tomorrow. [...]

Read on for suggestions.
     

Gout attacks, and purines in meat; the proof

Foods to Avoid if You Want to Avoid Gout Attacks
Gout Flare-ups Nearly 5 Times as Likely in People With Diets High in Some Meats, Seafood

May 30, 2012 -- If you have gout, you may want to pass on the liver and keep the anchovies off the pizza.

People who had the highest amounts of compounds called purines in their diets increased their risk of having a gout flare-up by almost five times compared to those eating the least purine-rich foods, a new study shows.

Foods with the highest purine content include liver, organ, and game meats, sardines, mussels, anchovies, herring, and beer.

Foods with moderate levels of purine include red meats, chicken, fish, asparagus, mushrooms, peas, beans, lentils, cauliflower, and spinach.

Although a purine-rich diet has long been considered a risk factor for recurrent gout attacks, this is the first large study to explore this connection and quantify it.

[...]

For the study, which appears in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, scientists tracked 633 people with gout and monitored their health online for one year. More than three-quarters of the volunteers were men, and their average age was 54.

During the study period, each person was asked to submit information about any gout attacks they had. These details included any potential triggers and dietary information for the two days leading up to the attack, their symptoms, and what drugs they were taking to manage the condition.

As a comparison, participants also provided this same information over a two-day period every three months when they did not have a gout flare-up.

Purine-rich foods can trigger a gout flare-up relatively quickly -- often within two days of eating higher amounts of them, researchers found.

The odds of a gout flare-up were greater when purine came from animal food sources than from plant sources.

"Avoiding or reducing purine-rich foods intake, especially of animal origin, may help reduce the risk of recurrent gout attacks," the study concludes.

I suspected as much. Vegetables high in purines don't trigger attacks in me, the way that certain meats, in certain quantities, will do.
     

Magnesium and stroke risk

Magnesium-Rich Foods May Lower Stroke Risk
Study: Risk for One Type of Stroke Lower in People With More Magnesium in Diet

Jan. 20, 2012 -- People who eat more foods rich in the mineral magnesium appear to reduce their odds of having a stroke, a new study shows.

The link between magnesium in the diet and stroke risk was strongest for ischemic stroke, which is when a clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain.

Researchers found that the risk for ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke in older people, was reduced by 9% for each additional 100 milligrams of magnesium a person consumed each day.

Regularly eating magnesium-rich foods also helped modestly reduce the chances of having any type of stroke. The study found that for every 100 additional milligrams of magnesium per day, people cut their risk of stroke by 8%.

The best natural sources for the mineral are whole grain products, green leafy vegetables, nuts, and beans. Foods that supply close to 100 milligrams of magnesium a day include one ounce of almonds or cashews, one cup of beans or brown rice, three-quarters of a cup of cooked spinach, or one cup of cooked oat bran cereal. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details and embedded links.
     

Are conditions like "Allergic Disease" and "Increased Intestinal Permeability" related?

At the very least, they may overlap:

Allergic Disease IS the Symptom

Allergic Disease, also called Atopic Disease, is a term used for any one of several allergic diseases that all share one thing in common, an inappropriate and hyperactive immune system response to common substances.

[...]

People who have atopic diseases tend to say that their disease is genetic. While this is partly true, diseases are only INFLUENCED by genetics, The environment controls the outcome of how those genetics are expressed.

You may have a PREDISPOSITION to have these allergic diseases, but that does not mean that everyone who has the genes gets the disease. In fact, much recent research has been focusing on substances called nuclear receptors. These receptors attach to specific areas on DNA strands and act as messengers that tell the genes what is going on in the body. When specific deficiencies of enzymes or nutrients are present then the genes will 'turn on' other genes in response to the 'problem'.

The genes that get turned on can cause various things to happen in the body: inflammation and increased hormonal activity are examples of what can happen depending upon the situation. If you begin to understand this way of thinking, allergic diseases become SYMPTOMS of imbalance in the body and not a disease in and of themselves. When you have flare-ups, it is the body’s way of informing you that you have imbalance from overload of Environmental Toxins or improper nutrition for your genetics.

This allows you to have control over whether you experience symptoms or not. Allergy relief drugs become a way to get temporary allergy symptom relief when you are miserable, but they are NOT a lifelong commitment. [...]

So it's suggesting that imbalance can cause the body's failure to properly deal with ordinary substances. For instance, if the cell wall of the small intestine isn't able to do it's job optimally, as this next article claims:

Is Increased Intestinal Permeability
Making You Sick?

[...] Your small intestine is literally one cell thick and is the only barrier between the food that you eat and your bloodstream!!

These cells, called intestinal villi, are packed tightly together and are designed to absorb nutrients from your food and send it directly into the neighboring bloodstream that it is only one cell away from.

But this ultra thin barrier doesn’t just protect you from pathogens in your food, but from your food itself!!

It is ESSENTIAL that food particles do not get into your bloodstream. I know that it seems silly to think that food even COULD get into your bloodstream- yet that is EXACTLY what happens with Increased Intestinal Permeability!

[...]

You see, anytime that you get severely stressed, your intestinal tract becomes inflamed- and when inflammation occurs, the intestinal cells that are usually packed tightly together- begin to swell.

Under normal conditions, the Adrenal Glands produce a stress hormone called cortisol that decreases this inflammation and all is well again.

But if you are under severe stress for months or years- you get divorced, your mother dies, you’re working 80 hour workweeks in a job that you hate- the Adrenal Glands will Begin to Get Fatigued and won't be as effective at reducing the inflammation.

This constant swelling will eventually damage the cells and small gaps will form in between their usual 'tight junctions'.

Once this happens, those tiny gaps and inflammation prevent you from absorbing nutrients AND allow pathogens from your food and tiny undigested food particles into your bloodstream!! And that becomes a HUGE PROBLEM as you will soon see.

[...]

When Increased Intestinal Permeability allows food or pathogens into your bloodstream, your immune system gets activated in order to fight off the “invader”.

In the case of a pathogen, this is GREAT- as the next infection will be fought off easier. However, in the case of food particles, this is NOT a good situation. Your body recognizes that food particle as the enemy.

And each time you eat that food, the Immune System continually mounts a stronger and stronger response to that invader.

This is What Causes Food allergies- usually to milk, wheat, corn or soy- and is often the 'trigger' for Gluten Sensitivity- which is a HUGE undiagnosed health problem!

Some people are more aware that the food that they are eating is making them ill and they avoid those foods, but these food reactions can take hours or days to really be felt.

By that time, all you know is that you don’t feel well, but you don’t associate it with the food you ate 2 days ago! And if you eat that food nearly every day, then all you know is that you are always feeling tired and unwell.

This sets up a self perpetuating cycle because these food particles and pathogens cause you MORE STRESS which makes your Leaky Gut Syndrome even worse, which allows MORE food particles to pass through, which makes you allergic to even MORE foods....

[...]

The liver, when it’s healthy, is able to use it’s own immune system to take care of any pathogens or food particles that have escaped- and dispatch them without too much trouble. But when Increased Intestinal Permeability becomes the normal situation- the liver gets bogged down processing all of the excess junk that is coming at it. Your liver can only do so much! When it gets overloaded, it begins to store Environmental Toxins from your food, water, air and home products -in your fat so that it can ‘get to it later’.

If Leaky gut is the problem, then later never comes. When the liver gets REALLY overloaded, some of these molecules begin to get into your general circulation- and this is where the problem gets REALLY messy. Your entire immune system gets involved and goes into overdrive.

[...]

When the immune system begins to be activated on such a large scale and on such a constant basis, it's almost a sure thing that you will have some sort of chronic illness.

Everyone reacts differently to this, but it’s likely that you’ll be feeling pretty bad and will have been to the doctor a few times for your ‘disease symptoms’ that are really just symptoms of Increased Intestinal Permeability and liver toxicity.


Some of the problems that different people get are:

* Neurologic conditions like: autism, depression, schizophrenia

* Pain conditions like: Symptoms of Fibromyalgia, migraines, osteoarthritis

* General problems like: Chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivity

* Gastrointestinal problems like: IBS, Crohn’s Disease, Celiac Disease, Diverticulitis

* Skin problems like: Eczema and psoriasis

* Chronic infections: Urinary Tract Infections, Yeast Infections, Sinus Infections, Colds and Flu

* Autoimmune Disorders like: Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus


Sound like you or someone that you know?? [...]

Follow the links, for suggestions on how to deal with these problems.


Also see:

What Causes Food Allergies?
You Might Be Surprised...

Treating Atopic Dermatitis

     

The Many Functions and Benefits of Lecithin

We were discussing at dinner, trying more recipes with eggs. Eggs are a good source of Lecithin, so it would be more of a good thing:

Facts About Lecithin and Function of Lecithin