One might ask just how beneficial juicing is to health. There are only good things to say about the simple act of extracting the juice from fresh fruits and vegetables.

The liquid that comes out is packed with plant chemicals and phytonutrients, plus vitamins and minerals. There is only one drawback: precious fiber is lost during juicing. But no matter, its benefits for outweigh any kind of fiber loss.

You don’t have to juice. But if it interests you to slim down, acquire radiant skin, cleanse the body and boost the immune system, then juicing is good.http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/257833/the-power-of-juicing/

Here’s why:

1) It’s an energy booster. A heavy breakfast, while healthy, can make you feel full. But if you juice, there is no heaviness whatsoever. Because it spares your digestive tract from working too hard, the result is an indescribable lightness of feeling. This, plus the burst of energy you never expected.

2) It’s a sleep aid. More live enzymes in your body have a regulating effect. The result is balance. Thus, you are guaranteed a good sleep.

3) It helps in weight loss. The more you juice, the less solids you will look for. Therefore, instead of bulking up through weight gain, the opposite happens. Take the case of Patty, a 50-year-old businesswoman who had been struggling with her weight. She suffered the seesaw effect each time she crash-dieted. Overweight today, underweight tomorrow. She couldn’t find a stable weight level.

One day, she tried juicing. Within two weeks she lost 5 pounds. Finally, after two months she shed 20 lbs. As soon as she reached her ideal weight, she introduced a big bowl of fruits and a small bowl of oatmeal to her breakfast.

Alzheimer’s

4) It makes for a stronger brain. It is believed that drinking fresh juice three times weekly will drastically reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.

5) It helps you detoxify easily. The quickest way to rid the body of waste products is to juice daily. If you go purely green, then your health profile should be excellent.

6) It rids you of health problems. People who juice as a habit are most probably free of maintenance medication.

Most people fear the color green, while labeling it tasteless. Question is, if it’s green, will you run away from it, or claim it?

Greens come in the form of romaine, spinach, celery, turnip, kale, lettuce, cucumber, carrots, sugar beets and more. While many might find the taste of green juices too “earthy,” eventually one can acquire a taste for it. Eventually, you will end up savoring its fresh, natural, unadulterated goodness.

Remember, green is good for you.

To add zest: Include a little flavor with a squeeze of lime, lemon and fresh ginger.

Those who don’t have juicers can opt for the blender.
But it isn’t the same. Opt for a slow juicer that doesn’t introduce heat in its juicing process, the reason being that heat destroys sensitive enzymes contained in the raw vegetables.

It is important to remember that fresh juices must be taken within six minutes of preparing them, if possible. But they will keep longer in a tightly-closed glass jar, and can be stored in a refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Choose organic vegetables. But should this be unavailable, bathe veggies in a big basin of water, add ½ cup sea salt and ¼ cup sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Keep submerged in water for 15 minutes to remove impurities.

In what way is the mind connected to the body, and vice versa?

Mainstream Western science has long held the theory that mind and body are two separate, independent entities.

Until recently, the mind has been regarded merely as the “epiphenomenon” of the brain, meaning that the mind is merely a result of the complex electrical, chemical and biological actions of the brain. Without the brain, the mind does not and cannot exist.

Fortunately, recent research on body-mind medicine and in neuroscience has proven this theory utterly wrong. The mind is not merely the result of the activities of the brain. It may even be the other way around—that is, the mind has created the brain.

I define the mind as “the thinking faculty of the soul,” but science does not believe in the existence of the soul, because it has no way of proving its existence.

Body-mind connection

Western science can no longer ignore the growing number of evidence regarding the body-mind connection. As Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD, MD at Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention said, “Mind and body are inextricably linked, and their second-by-second interactions exert a profound influence upon health and illness, life and death… Emotional stress… can trigger chain reactions that affect blood chemistry, heart rate, and the activity of every cell and organ in the body—from the stomach and gastrointestinal tract to the immune system.” (From “Mind, Body Medicine,” edited by Daniel Goleman, PhD and Joel Gurin)

Because it has been conclusively proven by neuroscientists and researchers that every cell in our body is in constant communication with each other through neurotransmitters and their receptors, the important role of the mind and emotions in the cause, progression and cure of diseases can no longer be dismissed by the medical community.

Not all diseases can be traced solely to a pathogen (like bacteria), germ or microbe, allergen or carcinogen. Disease can be also caused by nonphysical things or conditions, like emotions and negative thought patterns.

As Harris Dienstfrey, editor of “Advances” for the Fetzer Institute, pointed out in the book “Where the Mind Meets the Body”: “The level of health today would likely be higher if the medical community had retained a bit of skepticism toward the germ theory and was more responsive to the capacity of the mind to move the physiology of the body.”

The brain is not the same as the mind. The brain is the physical organ that presumably produces thought and directs the physiological activities of the body. The mind is a nonphysical entity which is not contained in the brain. It is all over the body, it is nonlocal. It is the seat of consciousness.

Near-death experiences

Consciousness is not dependent on the brain. A man can be conscious or aware even if he is out of his body. Numerous cases of near-death-experiences (NDE) and astral projections (or out-of-body experiences) have proven this beyond doubt. Many times I have experienced being out of my physical body and even saw, at least once, my physical body sitting in a chair while I hovered near the ceiling. Yet I was fully aware of everybody in the room, including their thoughts. That’s why I know that consciousness is not dependent on the brain.

Can the mind cause the body to be ill? Of course it can. Not only that, it can also do the opposite, that is, the mind can restore a person to health or wholeness.

People who develop heart disease are typically high-strung, highly stressed, perfectionist, type-A personalities. They can’t keep still and are always looking at their watch. They want to finish a job, not on time, but ahead of time. These people are usually very successful and financially stable. But they are also usually the ones who have high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and ulcers.

This does not mean that the easygoing, type B person won’t get ill. He will, too, but between the two types, the former is more prone to disease than the latter.

A study was done by Harvard cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson on the effects of meditation (or what he calls the Relaxation Response) on the body of an individual. He found, among other things, that meditation not only relieves tension or stress. It even lowers blood pressure, slows down metabolism and reduces oxygen consumption and blood lactate level, indicative of a relaxed state. Dr. Benson discussed these in his best-selling book, “The Relaxation Response.”

Each cell in our body is in communication with every other cell through neuro-transmitters and their receptors. So, when you talk to your body, the body listens. I once cured my “trigger finger” ailment by simply talking to it, as advised by a spirit entity from the fifth dimension.

Dr. Candace Pert, a pioneer in mind-body medicine, discovered the role of neuropeptides in one’s health and immunity. She described how the emotions “act like drugs in the brain and body and control storage of memories, i.e. the brain is not the sole storer of information, that happens in the body, too.” She published more than 250 scientific papers on peptides and died in 2013 at age 67. Her research findings paved the way for the development and acceptance of “psychoneuroimmunology.”

One in four Filipinos has high blood pressure, and half of that number do not know they are hypertensive.

An estimated 200,000 deaths annually can be attributed directly or indirectly to high blood pressure. This was cited during a forum at the 22nd Annual Convention of the Philippine Society of Hypertension (PSH) with Philippine Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society.

PSH will soon launch a series of activities for “Blood Pressure Awareness” in the country with the International Society of Hypertension (ISH). PSH will spearhead the May Measurement Month 2017 (MMM17), which targets to screen at least 1 million Filipinos 18 years and older. The goal is to measure 25 million around the world, making it the biggest screening program ever.

Leading cause of death

High blood pressure remains the leading cause of death in the country and worldwide.

“The biggest single killing risk factor is high blood pressure—9.4 million people die every year in relation to blood pressure. It is the biggest single epidemic that mankind has every experienced,” said professor Neil Poulter, ISH president.

Poulter said those found hypertensive—equal or greater than 140/90— during the MMM17 program will be counseled on diet and lifestyle modification, and treatment. Hypertension is also a lifestyle disease caused by physical inactivity, high fat and sodium diet and alcohol and tobacco use.

Today, with the rise of obesity and sedentary lifestyle of children and adolescents due to gadget use, young people are already being diagnosed with high blood pressure.

“Of 60,000 people measured for blood pressure, only half know they have it, 40 percent get treated, and only a third of that number gets controlled. We eat too much salt, we eat too much fat, we eat too many calories,” Poulter said.

Hypertensive minors

Even children today are hypertensive.

“People think young kids do not get heart disease or kidney disease, do not get hypertension, but they eat a lot of fast food,” said Dr. Rafael Castillo, past president of PSH and currently a member of ISH. He said some parents even allow their kids to eat a lot of fatty and oily food, believing they’re too young to acquire any serious disease.

Dr. Dolores Bonzon, pediatrician and kidney and hypertension specialist, told Lifestyle that the most common cause of hypertension in children is acute postinfectious glomerulonephritis in children 5 years old and above, an acute condition in which hypertension eventually resolves.

“So, hypertension, in this case, is only transient,” Bonzon said. “However, essential hypertension is starting to be seen more frequently especially among adolescents because of the increasing incidence of obesity in children and the proliferation of fast-food restaurants which serve high fat and high-salt food.”

The exact incidence of hypertension in the Philippine pediatric population, however, is unknown, she said.

“More than 50 percent of adults don’t know they are hypertensive, (the number is higher) among our pediatric patients,” said Dr. Lynn Gomez, president of PSH. She added that bewildered parents often ask how and why their children got hypertensive.

In the United Kingdom, Poulter said, among the highest sources of salt in the diet are bread (brown or white) and cereal. Poulter said consuming a bowl of cereal is like drinking a bowl of seawater. It is therefore imperative that parents always check the nutritional labels on the food they are serving their children.

‘Walking time bombs’

Castillo said those who remain untreated or unaware that they have hypertension are like “walking time bombs.” They are called such, he continued, because “anytime they could ‘explode’ to develop complications like massive stroke, acute myocardial infarction, and even sudden cardiac death.”

Filipinos love their fast food, salty food, bagoong, cured meats like longganisa for breakfast. The maximum limit of salt intake for those with hypertension is 1 teaspoon of salt per day. A typical Filipino household, however, consumes 5 tablespoon or more per day.

“In the end it’s about education. We are duty-bound to treat sick people. Cheap generic drugs are now being produced,” Poulter said.

Doctors are encouraged to participate in the MMM17, one of the major activities under the observance of the World Hypertension Day.

A new cholesterol-slashing drug that has shown promise for high-risk patients does not impair brain function, according to a study out Saturday.

Previous research had raised the possibility that evolocumab, sold under the brand name Repatha by Amgen, may have a damaging effect on memory and cognitive function.

Evolocumab is part of a new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors, which dramatically lower bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

The drug has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death in patients who have severely clogged arteries or previous cardiac problems.

But it comes at a hefty price tag of more than $14,000 (over P702,000) every year, raising concerns about how many patients could benefit.

Aiming to address questions about its cognitive effects, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in collaboration with Brown University and the University of Geneva ran cognitive tests on nearly 2,000 people enrolled in a two-year study of the drug.

Researchers assessed the executive function, working memory, episodic memory and psychomotor speed of patients at six, 12 and 24 months after starting treatment.

“After an average of 19 months of treatment, our data show that changes in memory and cognitive function were very small and similar between patients treated with evolocumab and those treated with placebo,” said Robert Giugliano, a cardiac doctor at BWH. “These data should reassure physicians and patients who may have had questions about the safety of this drug as it pertains to cognitive impairment.”

The research, funded by Amgen, was presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Washington. Full results are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming months.