All Our Latest Health Blogs

Stay updated with our latest articles, featuring in-depth discussions on everything from nutrition and lifestyle to innovative medical treatments. Explore our posts below and take the first step towards better health and well-being.

BLOOD BRAIN PERMEABILITY

The human brain is regarded as the most sophisticated, complex system in the known universe.  It stands to reason that such a precious system, your internal mainframe computer, should be well protected.  To this end the brain is encased in the 7mm thick skull, surrounded by protective cerebrospinal fluid and a protective membrane, the meninges, to protect it from external physical injury. However, internal damage may occur when damaging substances, such as toxins or disease-causing pathogens, gets transported in the blood stream to the brain.  To protect the brain from internal damage, it has its own border control, consisting of a very sophisticated and tightly regulated barrier system that regulates which substances are allowed to enter the brain. This primary

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CANCER ON THE RISE IN YOUNG PEOPLE

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of our time.  Cancer refers to any malignant growth or tumor that can occur in any organ or tissue in the body, caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell growth. Cancer is caused by changes to the DNA in cells.  Genetic changes that result in cancer can be inherited, or result from certain environmental exposures, or from errors that occur when cells divide.  During the last decade there has been a shift in thinking, from viewing cancer as a genetic disease to viewing cancer as a mitochondrial metabolic disorder, with more of the latest research supporting this thinking.  Research has shown that the energy metabolism of tumour cells varies greatly from normal cells. 

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CRYOTHERAPY

Cryotherapy is also known as cold therapy and refers to the use of low temperature in medical therapy.  It is commonly used to relieve sprains, muscle pain, and swelling due to soft tissue damage.  It is a well-known remedy to accelerate recovery in athletes after exercise.  As cryotherapy in its simplest form is utilized to decreases the temperature of tissue surface to minimize hypoxic cell death (when oxygen demand exceeds oxygen supply), edema (excess fluid) accumulation, and muscle spasm, it helps to alleviate discomfort and inflammation. Types of cryotherapies: Cryotherapy is used in a variety of applications, ranging from ice packs, immersion in ice baths, cold chambers, to cryosurgery. External cryotherapy: Ice pack therapy is the simplest form of cryotherapy,

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Gratitude

Keeping a gratitude journal seems to be one of the latest self-help fads doing the rounds.  Is this just another trendy self-improvement activity?  Apart from a “feel-good” experience, is there any scientific proof of the value of keeping such a journal, and what would the value be? What is gratitude? A simple definition of gratitude is the recognition of all the positive things in your life, which makes your life better.  Many things can spur feelings of gratitude, provided you have the right frame of mind to notice and acknowledge them, while recognizing that something good happened to you and that someone – or something, such as nature or a divine entity, was responsible for it. The origin of the

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INSULIN RESISTANCE

The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, but short on its heels is the intricate biochemical factory that regulates the functioning of the body – a variety of individual chemical processes that work together in prefect harmony.  One of these chemical processes originates in the pancreas by producing insulin. Insulin: The pancreas is a gland located near the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) which makes a few hormones, with insulin one of two principal hormones, the other being glucagon.  When insulin is excreted into the bloodstream, it acts like a key in a lock to open the cells in the muscle, fat, and liver, to allow the transport of glucose into the

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The “MIND” DIET FOR BRAIN HEALTH

A specifically formulated diet, called the MIND diet, is aimed at preventing mental decline, while bolstering brain health and reducing the incidence of brain disease.  Recent research indicates that the MIND diet may lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease significantly when participants in the study adhered to the diet rigorously.  Even when the diet was followed only moderately well, a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s was found amongst participants. What is the MIND diet? Based on information that has accrued of years of research about what foods and nutrients have good and bad effects on brain functioning over time, the MIND diet was developed by a research team at the Rush University in Chicago.  It is linked to findings that two

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INFANT GUT COLONIZATION

Microscopically small organisms, consisting of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other single cell organisms, live in and on our bodies.  Some are found on the skin, in the mouth, the nose, the urogenital system, but the vast majority are found in the gastrointestinal tract (known as the gut), particularly in the large intestine (colon).  This body wide collection of microorganisms, including their genetic material, is known as the microbiome.  The term “microbiota” is used to refer to the community of microorganisms themselves, usually in a specific environment, for example the gut microbiota.  These microorganisms play a vital role in the functioning of our bodies and scientists view the microbiome as an “essential organ” of the human body.  More than 1 000

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DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS

Advances in technology may someday into the future determine your daily nutritional needs with a simple test at home, where for example a pinprick of blood could indicate nutritional deficiencies.   An app on your cellphone would then, for instance, tell you to cut down on the red meat to twice a week, eat more colourful vegetables, and increase the intake of your vitamin D3 supplements by 4000 International Units (IU) and Magnesium Glycinate by 100 mg a day.   All scientifically based on your specific nutrient deficiencies and dietary supplements can then contribute to good health and a longer lifespan. We are not there yet, but nutrition and nutritional supplements will become more personalized into the future, based on blood levels

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GENESIS IN OUR BODIES

The way the human body functions can be compared to a large chemical factory, where many individual biochemical processes are interlinked to function as a complete organism.  These amazing biochemical processes are designed to create life, to grow, to heal, to repair, and is some cases, to create something new in a genesis-like way. The word “genesis” was borrowed from Latin and derived from Ancient Greek, meaning origin, beginning.  The Mirriam-Webster dictionary describes genesis as “the origin or coming into being of something”. “Coming into being of something” also applies to some of the biochemical processes in the human body, where “-genesis” is used as a suffix to describe certain genesis-like processes in our bodies. Genesis-like processes in our bodies:

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