Blueberries .... A vibrantly healthy you





When it comes to colorful foods, hands down the most powerful shade, nutrient wise, is blue.

Blue foods are jam-packed with phytochemicals that offer a myriad of health benefits, including improved memory, neurological health, cardiovascular health and reduced cancer risk. Among the so-called “superfoods,” those that are blue in color are considered the most potent of all.

The three fruits and vegetables listed below are not only delicious and abundant sources of vital nutrients that contribute to overall health, they each provide specialized nutrition that offers health benefits unique to these foods:

1. Blueberries – Contain carotenoids (lutein, zeaxanthin), flavonoids (rutin, resveratrol, quercetin) and are literally bursting with high levels of phytonutrients known as anthocyanins and pterostilbenes. This potent stew of nutrients imparts antioxidant powers greater than any other single food – making it the superhero of disease prevention. The nutrients in blueberries have been shown to improve memory and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, help prevent and suppress cancer and tumor growth, support healthy vision, improve liver function and promote healthy weight loss.
2. Blackberries – Rich in fiber and loaded with Vitamin C, blackberries have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 30 percent.
3. Red Beets – Actually considered a blue or purple food, red beets are a unique source of betalains, a phytonutrient that provides system-wide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support. The betanin pigments in this wonderful vegetable have been shown to suppress growth of colon, stomach, nerve, lung, breast, prostate and testicular tumors.

Have you read enough? It should be abundantly clear that eating generous amounts of these blue and purple foods will greatly enhance your health and well-being. Moreover, the extra years of life you get by including these foods in your diet will be vibrant indeed. But getting all the nutrition that these blue foods have to offer can be difficult. These foods are seasonal and, though they may be available fresh in the supermarket year-round; out of season, they are probably deficient in nutrition because they were grown far away, picked before ripe. and shipped over many miles and days, completing the trifecta of lost nutritional value.
The best way to maximize the benefit that you can get from blue food nutrients is to:

• Eat locally grown, fresh foods in season.
• Eat organic, flash frozen blue foods out of season.
• Support your dietary levels of these important foods by using a well-designed anti-oxidant complex. Clinical Antioxidant is the perfect addition to your daily regime to ensure that you are getting all of the blue nutrition you need all year long.

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The liver is one of the most vital organs in the body, that lies below the diaphragm in the thoracic region of the abdomen. It is responsible for converting the food we consume into energy. Therefore, an unhealthy intake of food can lead to headaches, anxiety, depression, confusion, fatigue, jaundice, food allergies, multiple chemical sensitivities, and fatal diseases like cancer, cirrhosis, fatty liver, liver failure, cholesterol, etc.

The liver plays an important role in metabolism, and various other bodily functions like sugar storage, decomposition of red blood cells, protein synthesis, and detoxification. Besides these, the liver also secretes an alkaline compound called bile, which is a digestive juice that helps in the easy digestion of fats. It would be impossible to digest food or absorb nutrients from food without the liver. Therefore, we can conclude that the liver performs and regulates a wide range of biochemical reactions in the body, which are essential for normal body functioning and well-being.

The best way of cleansing the liver naturally is by following a healthy diet. This will boost the health of the liver, allowing it to function properly. Here's more...

Cleansing and Detoxification
In the process of improving the health of the liver, it is very important to clean and detox it. This will empower the functioning of the liver. Antioxidants, flavonoids, minerals, vitamins, vital nutrients, amino acids, etc., are a very important part of a good diet for detoxification and cleansing. They include fruits and vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, green beans, eggplant, yam, ginger, kidney beans, navy beans, kale, arugula, wheat grass, sprouts, peas, carrots, green beans, pinto beans, garlic, beets, spirulina, grapefruit, cranberries, apricots, blueberries, cherries, blackberries, acai berries, pomegranate, bananas, grapes, lemons, pears, apples, kiwi, papayas, avocado, peaches, etc.

Other foods like caraway oil, cedar nuts, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, olives, oats, chickpeas, brown rice, oregano, green tea, mug beans, hemp, yogurt, sesame seeds, etc., and herbs like milk thistle, camomile, neem, lycopodium, artichoke, licorice root, dandelion root, yellow dock, turmeric, fringe tree, chicory, cascara sagrada, etc., are excellent sources for detoxification.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/foods-good-for-liver.html

Blueberries Battle Cancer ... And not just a single type of cancer, but a variety of today’s most malignant types.

Their remarkable findings were that the
juice of blueberries, as well as a number of other berry fruits including raspberries, black and white currants, gooseberries, and cranberries, all significantly inhibit in vitro proliferation of prostate, breast, intestinal, and gastric cancer. Surprisingly, however, study authors found no direct relationship between antioxidant capacity and anti-proliferative activity, suggesting that other factors, such as the anti-inflammatory phytonutrients inherent to berry juices, play an even more important role in their ability to combat malignancy.19
One such anti-inflammatory phytonutrient is pterostilbene, a phenolic compound found in extremely high concentrations in blueberries and grapes. A recent study demonstrated that pterostilbene induced apoptosis (cell death) in human gastric carcinoma cell cultures.20 In related work, administration of either isolated pterostilbene or blueberries suppressed the occurrence of pre-cancerous lesions in the colons of rats exposed to azoxymethane, a carcinogenic compound known to induce colonic adenomas and cancer.21,22 Other promising research suggests that blueberry may help limit tumor growth by inhibiting angiogenesis, the process by which cancers develop their own blood supply in order to fuel their growth.23,24

Gastrointestinal Health Benefits

Fighting colon cancer isn’t the only gastrointestinal health benefit of blueberries—studies suggest the berries may help fight inflammation and infection in the lower gastrointestinal tract.

Anticancer, anti-inflammatory activity of blueberry phytonutrients in the colon. Because low molecular-weight phenols exist attached to non-digestible portions of the berry and are therefore able to reach the large bowel intact, they are the predominant phenolic compounds detected in the colon. These low molecular weight phenols boost colon health altering local bacterial metabolism.25 This hypothesis is supported by the findings from another recent study of an animal model of colitis (inflammation of the colon), in which blueberry consumption was shown to improve several parameters of disease activity by reducing local inflammation and preventing bacterial translocation, a process by which pathogenic bacteria migrate from inside the colon to nearby lymph nodes and other extra-intestinal sites.26
One common cause of diarrhea in both the developed and developing worlds is the pesky protozoan parasite known as Giardia duodenalis.

What Can Blueberries do For You?

The recent eruption of scientific inquiry has only begun to scratch the surface of blueberry’s vast health-promoting potential. In addition to the work discussed throughout this article, currently there are studies linking the consumption of berries and berry extracts to protection against estrogen-induced breast cancer,28 osteoporosis,29 liver inflammation,30 vascular disease,31 urinary tract infections,32-34 and more.
It sort of makes you wonder how such a ubiquitous food item that is a treasure-trove of good health has, until very recently, managed to elude scientific detection. After all, prior to 10,000 years ago, when the advent of agriculture introduced the widespread cultivation of grains and obviated the caloric need to gather wild vegetation for survival, berry fruits represented a significant portion of modern man’s energy intake. In terms of our evolutionary history, it should then come as no surprise that berry phytonutrients constitute such a panacea.
As studies continue to explore their expansive health benefits, berry fruits seem destined to assume their rightful place as veritable powerhouses of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, “discovered” during an era when the perils of modern living, and especially the declining quality of our food supply, have rendered the human race more inflamed and prone to chronic disease than ever before.
http://www.naturalwellness.com/nwupdate/8-great-reasons-to-eat-blueberries/
http://www.naturalwellness.com/nwupdate/8-great-reasons-to-eat-blueberries/

http://diet.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Suggested_Diet_for_Gallstones