Additional sources: Daniel J. DeNoon WebMD | Brenna Coleman Suite 101

As a health and fitness expert I have always advocated the concept of reward – a little indulgence, a treat for the hard work and discipline that goes with being fit.  And it was that motivation that led to my becoming a Dove distributor.  Another factor was that there is some really good news about chocolate.

In fact, if you are a chocolate lover like moi, it’s the greatest health news ever!  Studies in two leading health and nutrition journals say dark chocolate is good for you.

The scientists emphasize – “Not white chocolate or milk chocolate, but DARK, and the richer in cacao the better.”

Antioxidants in Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate — but not milk chocolate or dark chocolate eaten with milk — is a potent antioxidant, reports Mauro Serafini, PhD, of Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome, and colleagues. Their report appears in the Aug. 28 issue of Nature. Antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments.

“Our findings indicate that milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate … and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate.”

WebMD: Translation: Say “Dark, please,” when ordering at the chocolate counter. Don’t even think of washing it down with milk. And if health is your excuse for eating chocolate, remember the word “moderation” as you nibble.

A Brief History of Chocolate

The cacao tree, whose pods contain seeds that can be processed into chocolate, was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The first people known to have consumed cacao were the Classic Period Maya (250-900 A.D.). They mixed ground cacao (cocoa) seeds with seasonings to make a bitter, spicy drink that was believed to be a health elixir.

To the Mayans, cocoa pods symbolized life and fertility. The pod was often represented in religious rituals, including marriage ceremonies, and was referred to as food of the gods. In central Mexico, the Aztecs believed that wisdom and power came from eating the fruit of the cocoa tree, and that it had nourishing, fortifying, and even aphrodisiac qualities.

Europeans got their first taste of chocolate in 1519, when Montezuma offered the spicy drink to Spanish explorer Cortés and his army. The Spanish conquistadors brought cocoa seeds back to Spain, where they introduced new spices and sugar to the liquid concoction. The fad drink spread throughout Europe, where it remained a beverage of the elite for centuries.

In 1753 Carl von Linneaeus, the Swedish scientist, thought that chocolate was so important that he named the genus and species of the chocolate tree himself. He named this tree Theobroma Cacao, which literally means: cacao, the food of the gods. Just what the indigenous Native Americans called it.” Naked Chocolate, David Wolfe

The first machine-made chocolate was produced in Barcelona in 1780, paving the way for the mass production of chocolate. Later, mechanical inventions made it possible to produce smooth, creamy, solid chocolate for eating — not just the liquid for drinking. The first solid chocolate bar was developed by British chocolate maker Fry & Sons in the early 1800s.

Chocolate makes health headlines.

Dark chocolate contains healthful flavonoids similar to those found in tea, red wine, fruits, and vegetables. Studies have shown that small portions of dark chocolate can improve blood vessel flow and may improve blood sugar and insulin sensitivity to help reduce the risk of diabetes. But beware, chocolate candy has plenty of saturated fat and sugar, so enjoy small portions of as part of a healthy diet.

An Italian study shows that dark chocolate can significantly reduce the inflammation that leads to cardiovascular disease. The ideal amount is 6.7 grams per day (0.23 ounces). A typical Hershey chocolate bar weighs about 43 grams. That means eating one dark chocolate bar over the course of 6 1/2 days to get 6.7 grams per day.

The study was conducted by Research Laboratories of the Catholic University in Campobasso and the National Cancer Institute of Milan and has been published in the Journal of Nutrition. The data come from an epidemiological study called the Moli-sani Project, which selected men and women at least 35 years old randomly from city hall registries in southern Italy.

A Super Antioxidant FRUIT, Actually

You may be surprised to learn that cocoa is actually a FRUIT – and even more surprised to learn that it is actually one of THE HEALTHIEST fruits on the planet!

Recent research studies have shown a link between cocoa and cardiovascular health, with reduced risk of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks.

Cornell University food scientists discovered that cocoa powder has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine, and up to three times the antioxidants found in green tea.

In fact, raw cocoa has the highest antioxidant value of all the natural foods in the world. The ORAC score per 100 grams of unprocessed raw cacao is 28,000, compared to 18,500 for Acai Berries, 1,540 for Strawberries, and only 1,260 for raw Spinach. The ORAC score for a typical manufactured Dark Chocolate is an impressive 13,120 – although one unique, organic, and non-roasted brand of Dark Chocolate has a much higher ORAC score. But for Milk Chocolate the ORAC score is much lower at 6,740.

Cocoa also appears to have anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties. And cocoa is a good source of the minerals magnesium, sulphur, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, potassium, and manganese; plus some of the B Vitamins.

When heart problems occur, magnesium is the most likely mineral to be missing in the person’s diet.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Catherine Morgan writes at Living with CFS: “Could dark chocolate help relieve some symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome? A new study says it may.”

According to the scientists from Hull York Medical School who carried out the pilot study, it is possible the dark chocolate is boosting levels of serotonin, a brain chemical. They also stressed that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patients should consume moderate amounts of chocolate.

Recently dark chocolate has also been found to be beneficial in helping lower blood pressure. Of course it’s not recommended as a treatment, and should be used in moderation. I love dark chocolate, so if this turns out to be true, I’ll have no problem munching on a bit of dark chocolate each day.

Cocoa has a high content of the “beauty” mineral, sulfur. Sulfur helps build strong nails and hair, promotes healthy and beautiful skin, helps detoxify the liver, and supports healthy functioning of the pancreas.

Fresh cocoa beans are super-rich in the type of bioflavonoid called flavanols which are strong antioxidants that help maintain healthy blood flow and blood pressure. The heart-healthy flavanols in cocoa, especially the epicatechins, prevent fatty substances in the bloodstream from oxidizing and then clogging the arteries.

Flavanols help make blood platelets less likely to stick together and cause blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes – without the negative side effects associated with the use of aspirin (ASA) and other pharmaceutical blood-thinners.

If the pharmaceutical industry managed to produce a patented product that offered all the health benefits of cocoa, they would likely proclaim it a “miracle drug”! But since cocoa is widely available, is relatively inexpensive, and does not require you to pay for a doctor’s prescription nor pay fees to a dispensing pharmacy, you are not likely to hear many members of the medical establishment recommending chocolate for its many health benefits.

You may also be surprised to learn that dark chocolate can help you lose weight! Because it has appetite-suppressant properties, cocoa is often added to weight loss products to help control hunger.

The Dark Chocolate Diet?

Okay now, please be reminded (as even I must) the great news about chocolate’s health properties is absolutely no excuse to go on a chocolate binge. Eating more dark chocolate can help lower blood pressure — if you’ve reached a certain age and have mild high blood pressure, say the researchers. But you have to balance the extra calories by eating less of other things.

Dark chocolate is healthy, but it is still important to consume in moderation. While the unadulterated fruit is loaded with phytochemicals and nutrients, processed chocolate is not. Many low-quality chocolate brands and milk chocolate products are actually bereft of most of the beneficial flavonoids. Always look for extra dark chocolate and very dark products for health benefits.

While the cocoa bean itself provides a moderately healthy dose of oleic, palmitic, and stearic fatty acids, when combined with milk fat, chocolate can turn from a natural heart-healthy treat to a saturated fat health hazard. The amount of sugar in some chocolate products is also a concern.

The best way to utilize the nutrition, antioxidants, and beneficial properties of this food?  Savor a small piece of DARK chocolate once a day, or once every other day.

All things in moderation.

Want to live to be 100 and still be mentally sharp and healthy? Writing at NewsMax Health Dr. Russell Blaylock says that it IS entirely possible.

National statistics indicate that the leading causes of death are heart attacks, cancer, and strokes, with death related to normally prescribed pharmaceutical drugs close behind.

Short of death, the major scourges of aging are dementia and a generalized loss of function — failure of vision, hearing loss, severe weakness, and a loss of taste.

Younger people like to say that the old just run out of gas. More people who live to be 100 years old are healthy into old age, and a healthy early start will help you go a long way.

Follow these five rules:

• Eat a healthy diet. Your diet should include at least five servings of fruits and vegetables and no more than a slice of whole grain bread a day. Fruits, and especially vegetables, contain some of the most powerful chemical antioxidants found naturally. And don’t overeat. Many animal studies have shown that those on low-calorie diets live significantly longer than those on regular, or especially, high-calorie diets.

• Exercise regularly. Exercise is very important, regardless of your weight. Newer studies have found that obese people who exercise regularly will benefit significantly, just as with thinner people. In fact, being too thin presents its own risks: Studies have shown that young men who exercise excessively and have little body fat are at a much higher risk of developing Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).

• Get plenty of restful sleep. The lack of sleep can sharply influence your quality of life as well as raise your risk of everything from automobile accidents to obesity and heart attacks.

• Banish excess stress. Mental stress can actually cause cells in your brain to shrink and die! It can even set the stage for serious diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

• Avoid toxins. Environmental toxins, such as pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic chemicals, including the food additive MSG, can program one for a life of illness and speed the effects of aging.

If you follow these rules, you will have a much better chance of enjoying life into the 100s.

I’ve heard totally varied opinions on the benefits/hazards of saunas and steam baths.  Recently the question was put to some top health authorities.

Dr. Andrew Weil Responds – “To me, the benefits far outweigh any hazards. If you’re in reasonable health, the benefits of sauna or steam are great. If you have high blood pressure or heart disease, saunas may be good for you, but you’ll want to be cautious; check with your physician, and go easy. And with either of these conditions, it’s not a good idea to jump right into cold water afterward, as Finns do.”

When you take a sauna, the heat pumps up blood circulation near the skin and stimulates sweating. The Finns say a proper sauna elicits about a quart of sweat per hour. I generally encourage sweating. It helps the body rid itself of unwanted materials and improves general circulation. In medieval times, healers relied on saunas to cure illnesses, and priests used their heat to chase away evil spirits.

From Pure Inside Out: “There is a valid reason why human beings have used sweat baths for hygienic and health purposes since the Stone Age. It’s because sweating has proven its effectiveness in flushing out toxins and disease and maintaining optimal physical as well as mental health.”

Most cultures around the world have their own versions of the sweat bath, whether it’s the ancient Romans and their “Thermae” or the traditional Japanese “Onsen”. The Russians call it the “Banya” and the for native North American Indians it’s “Inipi”, without omitting the notorious Turkish bath or “Hamam”. However, the most prominent and popular one of all is the Finnish Sauna.

For the sake of clarity, we refer to all sweat-inducing baths as sauna in these pages. Those include actual saunas, steam baths and sweat lodges, which all work on the principle of generating abundant sweat to detoxify the body and relax the mind.

The skin is the largest organ in the body and through the pores it plays a major role in the detoxifying process alongside the lungs, kidneys, bowels, liver and the lymphatic and immune systems. The skin produces cool sweat to regulate the body’s elevated temperature. It also has the ability to transform toxins from lipid-soluble or oil-based, into -easier to eliminate- water-soluble forms. Sweat carries toxins out of the body and flushes them through the pores.

Sweating is the body’s safe and natural way to heal. Scientists and doctors are finally acknowledging what our ancestors instinctively knew, that regular sweating restores good health through the elimination of toxins.

Therefore don’t take the sauna for a mere luxury if you aim to achieve and maintain good health. It is a necessity, and a very reliable way to help your body stay healthy by eliminating toxin surcharge.

And remember our state-of-art infrared sauna is available for our spa and fitness clients – to your health!

Source: NaturalNews.com

A recent two-year international study demonstrated that a long-term weight loss plan featuring the reduction of calories and processed foods with an increase in vegetables can reduce blood pressure and reverse atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).

The subjects, mostly men, included 140 overweight workers at Israel`s Dimona Nuclear Research Center. Head researcher Dr. Iris Shai, from Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, said the study sought not only to restrict calories, but also to educate subjects and their spouses on healthy eating regimens for weight loss. The research center`s cafeteria managers cooperated with clinicians and nutritional advisors to provide healthy meals, changing the food service program in accordance with each of the three diet regimens. The spouses cooperated on the home front to provide the same required foods.

Probably because of such cooperation at work and at home, the study achieved an unprecedented result in the adherence rates. The first year achieved 95 percent adherence; after the second 85 percent stayed with the diet.

All three diets, which featured an increase in vegetables and the omission of trans-fats and processed foods, combined with calorie reduction, led to weight loss. In most diets, the dieters lose weight at first and start re-gaining after six months. This regimen showed that there might be some weight gained back, but a long-term change to one of these diet strategies can reduce carotid atherosclerosis. This is most true for those who are mildly obese and experience a decrease of more than ten pounds in weight and more than seven mmHg in systolic blood pressure.

The main diet changes call for reducing the amount of red meat, eating more fruits and veggies and eliminating as many sugars as possible, including alcohol and fruit juices.

The five most critical foods to avoid are doughnuts, chips, fried non-fish seafood, soda and French fries. If these items could gradually be replaced by dark green and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, turnip greens, Brussel sprouts), spinach and Swiss chard, over time, weight will come off and arteries will become less clogged.

>> CONTINUE AT NATURALNEWS.COM

Source: Mercola.com

Exercise is just as important for kids as it is for adults, but unfortunately many children are emulating their parents and getting far less physical activity than they need to stay healthy.

Less than one-third of kids aged 6 to 17 get at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise a day, and the 2010 Shape of the Nation Report from the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education actually recommends one hour of exercise a day for Americans of all ages.

Kids are clearly falling way short of this goal. The report states:

“The reality, of course, is that children and adolescents in the United States are primarily sedentary. Most kids under age 18 spend the majority of their day sitting in classrooms, and a big part of their free time outside of school watching television, playing video games or surfing the Internet.”

Why is Physical Activity So Important for Kids?

Too much sedentary time is one of the forces driving the child obesity epidemic. About one-third of U.S. children aged 2-19 years are now overweight or obese, and childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold in the last 20 years.

If this epidemic is not reversed we will, for the first time in history, see children living shorter lives than their parents. The risks of obesity for children are really that steep. For instance:

Children who are obese are more than twice as likely to die before the age of 55 than those of a healthy weight.

Obese teenage women are more likely to die between ages 36-56 than their normal weight peers.

Women in the moderately obese category as teens elevate their risk of death in adulthood by 50 percent.

Obese teens more than double their mortality risks compared to their slimmest peers.

Research calculations indicate that by mid-century the growing risk of serious obesity-related illnesses like diabetes, heart disease and cancer could lower the current average life expectancy by as much as five years.

These are diseases that have no place in a young person’s life, and the good news is that regular exercise can seriously decrease your child’s risk.

Along with helping your child to maintain a healthy weight, regular exercise can also help your kids excel at school and, later, in the workforce.

Exercise Can Boost Your Child’s Grades

Keeping kids active is a superb way to increase learning, focus and even test results. At one school, students who took part in a dynamic gym class at the beginning of the day had reading scores that nearly doubled, while math scores increased 20-fold.

Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage.

Lab tests on animals have also shown that during exercise their nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors.

One in particular, called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health, and has a direct benefit on brain functions, including learning.

>> CONTINUE AT MERCOLA.COM

Sources: NaturalNews & Mercola.com

Blueberries! – Among fruits, blueberries may be the perfect example of “big things come in small packages.” Organic blueberries taste good, are low in calories, high in fiber and are densely packed with important nutrients, including the phytochemical anthocyanin, which help protect you against Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders by helping reverse the effects of aging which occurs in the brain.

Blueberries have been proven to lower blood pressure, protect against oxidative stress and now a recent study shows that blueberries might help you lose that hard to get rid of abdominal fat.

Mercola.com reports – “Not only do blueberries have the highest antioxidant capacity of any fruit, but they have also been proven to help with a number of diseases and conditions. Highly purified proanthocyanidin found in blueberry leaves has been found to inhibit Hepatitis C, and blueberries have been used for centuries to improve liver-related conditions. Blueberries provide a natural alternative to expensive and ineffective pharmaceuticals that tend to only worsen the condition.”

NaturalNews reports: “Blueberries contain Epicatechin, which is why they are so potent at improving liver function. While grapes, green tea, and other items also contain this ingredient, blueberries carry other beneficial ingredients that help to improve total body function. Pterostilbene, another major component of blueberries, has been found to protect against colon cancer. Colon cancer is currently a major killer, with an estimated 50,000 people per year dying from colorectal cancer.”

An even larger killer than colon cancer, breast cancer is the number two killer of women. About 1.3 million women will be diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide this year, and 465,000 will end up dying from the disease. Blueberry extract inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells and was found to decrease enzymes associated with cancer spreading. Blueberries are truly an anti-cancer fruit.

If supplementing with blueberry extract, be sure to make sure that your supplement contains standardized pterostilbene, as all blueberries do not contain the same amount of pterostilbene. Of course supplementing with blueberry extract will not deliver the same results as eating fresh blueberries. Eating fresh berries will lead to better absorption by the body, and therefore better results. While supplements are a great means of getting vital nutrients that are hard to obtain through food alone, it is no supplement to real food. It is important to get most of your nutrients from whole foods.

Unfortunately, all blueberries are not prepared equally. Blueberries that are both fresh and organic will deliver a bountiful amount of antioxidants that non-organic blueberries will not. Blueberries that have been sprayed with harmful pesticides can do more harm than good. In fact, many chemical pesticides are neurotoxins and have been linked to conditions such as ADHD. The best way to avoid these pesticides is to buy local 100% organic produce. Growing your own food may also be a viable option, as long as you use seeds that are not genetically modified.