Recently I have been reading a great book called Your Skin & You by Bea Kinnear, it has opened my eyes towards how we have to treat our skin through out our life to keep it younger and healthy by using the right skin care product. She has talked about all the ingredients in different products and how they affect our skin.

As we all know ‘Baby Boomers’ are the heart and soul of major trends for decades and they are willing to go to any lengths to keep their appearance of youth longer. They are going a step further and want good quality for the money they are spending. Since skin care is a very competitive market, companies will go to any lengths to market their products. Through attractive packaging, celebrity prone advertisements, they try to make the product appealing to their end consumer. But when it comes to ingredients behind the attractive packaging, does it consume the same stuff as the cheaper brand,  is the only question that floats in everyone’s mind.

Cosmetics have always been ‘hope in a bottle’ for most of us. According to Ruth Winter, in her book, A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients – “There is a 500 to 1000% spread between the cost and sales price in cosmetics. This margin is needed, according  to manufacturers, to meet  heavy promotional expenses. The industry is the largest advertiser on TV and magazines. One french perfumer was asked the actual cost of ingredients for a perfume selling for $230 per ounce in a department store. His answer is “About four to six dollars”.

How do you feel about this? when I read it I felt ripped off, thank god I am not a perfume lover. I know a lady, according to her friend, will buy all expensive brand name perfumes. She enjoys collecting them and wearing them every day, wonder how she will feel when she finds out about this rip off.

Coming back to our subject did you know, in 1989 the cosmetic, toiletries and perfume industry reported sales of $18 billion in the U.S alone? Just 10 years later, sales for 2002 were estimated at $45 billion! World wide it comes to $115 billion in sales with thousands of cosmetic companies producing thousands of products. And each year we come to know more new companies and internet prone stores targeting consumers.

Teenagers and Men have  joined the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation in using skin care products now. The children’s market is estimated at $5 to $8 billion yearly and growing five to eight percent per annum. Statistics show that by the age of thirteen, 71.6% of female children use blush, almost 85% use lip-gloss, and 94% use a hair conditioner.

Functions of Skin:

• Regulating Temperature.
• Expelling Toxins.
• Manufacturing Sebum (oil).
• Protects from Bacteria.

As we know skin is the largest organ in our body and it is the first barrier for harmful things to enter our body. And it is important to protect and pamper our skin. Many things we apply to our skin can be detected in the blood stream within 20 minutes. There are external sources that impair our skin’s ability to function normally and result in premature aging.

Harmful External Factors:

• Moisture.
• Caffeine.
• Smoking.
• Sun exposure
• Soap
• Skin care products.

Cosmetic Variety:

Nowadays we come across many terms attached to different cosmetics. Few of these are:

• Cosmeceuticals: Refers to a product which is marketed as a cosmetic, but contains biologically active ingredients that can have an effect on the user.
• Nutricosmetics: It is a concept of working on skin health and beauty by treating your skin two ways – Outside skin and inside skin.
• Natural: Ingredients are extracted directly from plants or animal products as opposed to being produced synthetically.
• Organic: Natural cosmetics in the form of truly organic cosmetics with a proportion of at least 95% of the natural substances contained in a product stemming from certified organic production.

Preservatives in Skin Care Products:

Bea explains ‘that all cosmetic formulations have preservative components. Contaminations in personal care and cosmetic products can be caused by micro organisms. These contamination of formulations can lead to the separation of emulsions, product discoloration, the formation of gasses and odors, as well as infection of the user’s skin. The use of preservatives is required to prevent product damage caused by bacteria and to protect the product from inadvertent contamination by the consumer during use. If you don’t have a preservative in the product to retard microbial contamination, you run the risk of early spoilage of the product and in the worst case scenarios, possible bacterial infections that may even result in blindness’.

However, many preservatives have the potential to cause allergic reactions on sensitive skin, and most importantly, some have high possible linkage with cancer, while other do not sufficiently support the products. Luckily we do have several ingredients that can provide preserving abilities. It is our responsibility to learn about our options, such as how well these preserving systems affect our health, and our family.

Five preserving system commonly used today:

• Self-Preserving Technology
• Parabens (PHBA)
• Formaldehyde
• Alcohol and Volatile oils
• Using no preservative system

But it is obvious that no matter what excellent ingredients you find in a cosmetic product, if it is not preserved properly, using that product could be dangerous for the consumer. Therefore, finding a safe, chemical-free preserving system that is stable, non-irritating and complete in all requirements is the answer to product safety for the consumer.

Take care of your skin and Be Younger Longer through proper care for your skin!

Resources and Recommendations

• Bible for Skin lovers – Your Skin & You
• More info on Healthy Skin
• Detailed product info on Sense the Beautiful Science

In the recent times we hear a lot about soy and soy products. 10 years ago we had a few products in the supermarket, but now it is swamped with soy products natural and chemical alike. Soy products come in forms of consumables and external applicable. Now let us dive deep into understanding a bit more about soy, benefits of soy and contradiction of soy benefits.

What is Soy

The word ‘Soy” is commonly used to refer about food sources and ingredients derived from soy bean. Soy bean is a type of legume.

Throughout Asia, soy foods have been consumed for centuries as part of their diet, and as an important source of high-quality protein.  And these  people exhibit low rates of many of the chronic diseases that is found in Western civilisation.

Did you know that due to the massive shift in attitude about soy, soy food sales increased from $300 million to nearly $4 billion between 1992 to 2006, practically overnight, according to the Soyfoods Association of North America.

Scientific research has confirmed that substituting soy protein for animal protein in the diet can lead to beneficial effects in lowering blood cholesterol levels. Research also points that soy protein contribute towards maintaining bone health, relieving menopausal symptoms, provide protective effects against certain forms of cancer and enhancing athletic performance.

According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 25g of soy protein per day, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease. If you have health issues consuming more would be advisable. To reach the 25g per day, we need to consume three to four serves of soy protein.

Soy protein is a high quality protein, equal in quality to meat, milk, and egg protein. Soy protein meets or exceeds the essential amino acid requirements of both children over the age of two years and adults and is highly digestible.

Are all Soy products have the same benefits?

As per Professor Mark Wahlqvist (President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences), it is important to distinguish between traditional and modern forms of soy. The traditional forms of soy are ones which are characterised by tofu, (bean curd, soy is a bean) tempeh (tempeh’s principally used in Indonesia, it’s a fermented form of soy) and in Japan, traditional forms include miso soup, tofu, probably brought from China as well, and a fermented form of soy called nato. So they’re the traditional forms of soy and they’re characterised by being fairly intact, the whole bean is eaten, or has been processed by the traditional food technology, like fermentation, which probably confers important benefits.

But the other forms of soy in the West are often based on soy isolates, where the protein is used as a food ingredient. They’re used in reconstituted products, everything from meat look-alike products, to soy drinks. To read more on understanding the benefits of soy  head to Health Report

But unfortunately unfermented and processed soy products such as soy milk, soy cheese, soy ice cream and soy burgers does not contain the rich benefit of fermented soy products.

Unfermented soy products (that you should be avoiding):

• Tofu
• Soybean oil
• Soy milk
• Soy ‘meat’
• Soy infant formula
• Soy protein
• Edamame

Resources and Recommendations:

• More in depth information on Soy
• Must read book on The whole soy story
• Product rich in natural  Soy
• Delicious snack bar with natural  Soy protein
• Soy isoflavones supplement for Men
• Soy isoflavones supplement for Women

Manganese participates in many enzyme systems in the body. Needed for protein and fat metabolism, healthy nerves, healthy immune system, and blood sugar levels. Is used in energy production. Required for normal bone growth and for reproduction. Used in the formation of cartilage and lubricating fluid of the joints.

Works well with the B vitamins to give an overall feeling of well-being. Aids in the formation of mother’s milk.

Inadequate Manganese leads to:

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• high blood sugar levels
• Skin rash
• Loss of hair color
• Excessive bone loss
• Low cholesterol levels
• Dizziness
• Hearing loss
• Reproductive system difficulties

Recommended Daily Intake: RDA (as per UMM for Manganese)

Children and Infants

• Infants 0 – 6 months: 0.003 mg
• Infants 7 months – 1 year: 0.6 mg
• Children 1 – 3 years: 1.2 mg
• Children 4 – 8 years: 1.5 mg
• Males 9 – 13 years: 1.9 mg
• Males 14 – 18 years: 2.2 mg
• Females 9 – 18 years: 1.6 mg

Adult

• Males 19 years and older: 2.3 mg
• Females 19 years and older: 1.8 mg
• Pregnant women: 2 mg
• Breastfeeding women: 2.6 mg

People with special Manganese needs:

• Arthritic People
• Some Diebetic People

Rich sources of Manganese:

• Nuts
• Whole grains
• Tea
• Avocado
• Brown rice
• Spices
• Mustard greens
• Kale
• Chard
• Raspberries
• Pineapple
• Romaine lettuce
• Collard greens
• Maple syrup.

Recommendation:

• Interesting read on Manganese
• High quality Supplement
• Books on Vitamin and Mineral

People who are looking into creating healthy weight are facing a long painstaking journey in front of them. There are a lot of well meaning but conflicting information when it comes to choosing the right path in achieving healthy weight.

What to eat and how much to eat for optimum health and your ideal body shape and size can seem like a confusing, and at times overwhelming area to explore.

How do you work out a way of eating that fuels you with great energy all day long while burning fat is the big question. According to Dr Libby Weaver, there are a number of factors that need to come together for humans to be able to access fat to burn for energy, factors that are both biochemical and emotional.

Kilojoules:

If you eat well and exercise regularly and body fat still poses a problem for you, then your answer is probably not in the kilojoules department. There will be other aspects of your biochemistry that need to be addressed. If you do overeat at times, even though you know you’d be better off not doing so, then getting to the bottom of why you do this could change your life. The reason may be biochemical, emotional or both. Most people who overeat do not do so due to a lack of knowledge, so often the reason is emotional.

Stress Hormones:

The human body makes two dominant stress hormones: adrenalin and cortisol. Adrenalin is our acute stress hormone, while cortisol is our chronic stress hormone. In other words, when we are stressed for a long time, it is cortisol that tends to take over as our dominant stress hormone.

Historically, cortisol was designed to help save your life when food was scarce, so even though food may be abundant for you today, cortisol sends a message to every cell of your body that your metabolism needs to be slowed down so those precious fat stores can keep you going until the food supply returns. Cortisol lays fat down around your middles, on the back of your arms and you grow what I lovingly call a “back verandah”. Most people’s response to fat accumulation around their tummies is to go on a diet. But eating less only confirms to your body what cortisol has driven your body to believe is true – that is that food is scarce. When you restrict your food intake on a “diet”, you slow your metabolism even further making it feel like you only have to look at food for weight to pile on!

So if cortisol is a contributing factor to your weight gain, going on a kilojoule-restricted diet is not your answer. Sorting out your cortisol is!

Sex Hormones

The major sex hormones for both men and women are estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. The balance of these hormones influences whether you are storing fat or burning it.

Estrogen lays down fat. Progesterone, on the other hand, is essential for us to be able to access body fat to burn it. Reproductively for a woman, progesterone’s job is to hold the lining of the uterus in place after estrogen has laid it down. Biologically though, progesterone has many functions. It is one of our most powerful anti-anxiety agents, it is an anti-depressant, it is a diuretic – meaning it allows us to excrete any excess fluid we may be carrying and it is essential for burning body fat. I think most people want bucket loads of it forever.

If estrogen is far too high for the amount of progesterone being processed, body fat will be stored. It is essential to get to the bottom of why there is either poor progesterone production or why estrogen is in excess. Some people have excellent progesterone levels but their estrogen is simply far too high to balance the progesterone.

The liver plays a central role for both men and women in whether estrogen levels are appropriate or too high for body fat to be burned. Getting this hormonal balance right can change a woman’s life, for not only will she burn body fat far more easily, but her menstrual cycle will cause her far less PMT grief. Hormonal imbalances can also be magnified after pregnancy. Getting on top of your hormonal balance can change your headspace as well as your body.

The Liver:

The liver is the second largest organ in the body after our skin. One of its primary roles is detoxification – essentially a cleaning process with two phases. During this process the liver decides whether to fully process a substance or recycle it. The liver has to process things we consume such as alcohol and caffeine but also things we absorb through our skin. You only need to think about the way nicotine patches work to realise how effectively we absorb substances through out skin.

The liver also has to detoxify substances the body naturally makes, such as cholesterol and our sex hormones, and picks up any shortfall in digestion such as constipation or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) creating additional workload. The best way to imagine liver functionality is to compare it to a motorway. When you first drive onto a motorway, you want to go 100km/hour but sometimes you have to crawl along at 30km/hour due to heavy traffic in the liver gets banked up that it can impact on how we feel and function every day, including our hormonal balance. Sorting out liver function can also change your life and lead to far more effective fat burning.

The Thyroid:

The thyroid is a little butterfly shaped gland that sits in your throat area. It makes hormones that play a very important role in controlling your metabolic rate as well as your temperature regulation. The thyroid gland can become overactive or underactive and it is the latter scenario that can lead to weight gain that is incredibly difficult to shift until this issue is addressed. The thyroid gland is also susceptible to auto-immune diseases, meaning your immune system, which is supposed to defend you from infection and/or poor liver function are two factors that can initiate this process. It’s important to work out if you have irregular thyroid function because this will greatly affect your fat burning ability.

Gut Bacteria:

Recent research has found two distinct groups of gut bacteria inhabiting the colon that can influence whether you are storing fat or burning it. These are Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. People with more Bacteroidetes in their large bowel ave been shown to burn fat more readily, while those with more Firmicutes are more likely to store fat. Even if two people eat the same amount of kilojoules, the dominant gut bacterial species can make those kilojoules seem almost like a much larger amount for people with more Firmicutes. Addressing gut health and digestion can change your chemistry to one of fat burning rather than storage.

Emotions:

It’s not usually a lack of knowledge that leads us to overeat. People don’t polish off a packet of chocolate biscuits after dinner because they think it will help their health. They generally start eating and then can’t stop. Why? Emotions. The meanings you create from the situations you are a part of every day determine how you then feel. Without realising it, many people unconsciously create meanings of rejection or failure from conversations, looks on other people’s faces or their own thoughts. When you unconsciously touch on these emotions numerous times throughout the day, you might make lousy food choices. This is a key reason why diets don’t work – they never get to the heart of the matter as to why someone was over eating in the first place. Food is how some people cope.

For lasting change with weight loss to occur, it’s important to address the meaning of  food to an individual, and the meaning that individual creates.

Resources

• Food guide
• Portion Perfection – Book
• Ward off the imperfections with high quality Supplement
• Free e-cource
• Products to Healthy weight
• Healthy way to lose weight

Potassium is one of the major minerals necessary for human health. It is such an important nutrient that some experts have called it the MOST important. It is generally recognized that the average person does not get enough potassium. This is obvious when we look at chronic health problems which is directly related to a lack of potassium.

Potassium keeps the nervous system humming and muscles toned. It also helps keep the blood pressure at normal levels and may prevent stroke and chronic disease. A new report released by the US Institute of Medicine suggests that potassium deficiency may also be a critical factor in high blood pressure and heart disease, and that Americans would do well to consume more potassium-rich foods as part of their regular diets.

According to the report, the average American consumes half of the recommended daily amount of potassium, which is 4,700 milligrams (mg) a day for adults. A 2010 study published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine found that consuming this amount of potassium every day can significantly improve blood pressure, as well as reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/032456_potassium_disease_prevention.html#ixzz1Z6kWqj3e

If you don’t get enough, you’re likely to feel weak, tired and irritable. To avoid this, eat potassium-rich foods and control your sodium intake. These two minerals need to be balanced in your body, and too little potassium or too much sodium can cause problems.

Food rich in Potassium:

• All fruits and vegetables
• HIGH POTASSIUM FRUITS to limit: Apricots, banana, mango, peach, pineapple, nectarine, custard apple, dried fruit, kiwi fruit, orange/orange & mango/pineapple juice.
• HIGH POTASSIUM VEGETABLES to limit: Artichoke, avocado, baked beans, soybeans, kidney beans, hot chips, parsnip, potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, spinach, tomato, potato salad, vegetable juice, tomato juice
• snow peas
• corn
• spinach
• lentils
• flounder,  salmon, cod, chicken, and other meats.

Important tasks of Potassium in our body:

• Healthy functioning of nervous system ( communication between the brain, spinal cord, and nerves with the rest of the body)
• supports the normal function of the heart, muscles, kidneys and blood
• Important for regular heart rhythm
• Helps prevent strokes
• Aids in proper muscle contraction
• Works with sodium to control the body’s water balance
• Important for stable blood pressure

Inadequate Potassium leads to:

• Muscle weakness
• Confusion
• Irritability
• Fatigue
• Heart problems
• Chronic diarrhea
• Regular, intense exercise
• Use of certain diuretics

Recommended Daily Intake: RDA (as per UMM for potassium)

Pediatric

• Infants birth – 6 months: 400 mg/day
• Infants 7 months – 12 months: 700 mg/day
• Children 1 -3 years: 3 grams (3,000 mg)/day
• Children 4 – 8 years: 3.8 grams (3,800 mg)/day
• Children 9 – 13 years: 4.5 grams (4,500 mg)/day

Adult

• Adults 19 years and older: 4.7 grams (4,700 mg)/day
• Pregnant women: 4.7 grams (4,700 mg)/day
• Breastfeeding women: 5.1 grams (5,100 mg)/day

Recommendation:

• Interesting read on Potassium
• High quality Supplement
• Books on Vitamin and Mineral