Nature's Prescription   HONEY
 

Many parents are concerned about the recent FDA recommendation that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines not be given to children under 6 years of age because of a lack of effectiveness and potential for side effects.

With this recent news in mind, a team of researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine decided to put nature to the test.   They tested the effectiveness of three different approaches for children who were having trouble sleeping due to a cough.

The children in the study were given either no treatment at all, a little bit of buckwheat honey or dextromethorphan (DM), the chemical cough suppressant found in many over-the-counter cold medicines. The children receiving the honey or DM took it about 30 minutes before bedtime.

The research team found that honey was more effective in reducing the severity and frequency of nighttime cough compared with DM or no treatment at all. Honey also allowed the children to sleep better.  The findings are published in the December, 2007, issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

According to the study's lead researcher, Dr. Ian Paul, Penn State's director of pediatric clinical research: "Honey provided the greatest relief of symptoms compared with the other treatments.  With honey, parents now have a safe and effective alternative to use for children over age 1 that have cough and cold symptoms".  Some of the children were hyperactive for a short time after being given the honey, Dr. Paul said. However, children who received honey slept better and so did their parents, he noted.

Paul cautioned that honey should never be given to children younger than 1, because of the rare risk of infantile botulism. In addition, he noted, cough medicines that mention "honey" on the label actually contain artificial honey flavor not real honey.

Honey has been used for centuries to treat upper respiratory infection symptoms such as cough. In addition, honey has antioxidant and antimicrobial effects, and also soothes the back of the throat.

Once again, science has proven that food really can be your medicine.    

Visit The Wholefood Farmacy

Health Nuts

Some fairly recent analyses of the Adventist Health Study findings showed a remarkable relationship between eating nuts and whole wheat bread, and experiencing a reduced risk for Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). These findings were the subject of a research article submitted by Dr. Fraser and his colleagues to the Archives of Internal Medicine, and published in its July 1992 issue.

The most outstanding findings of this part of the overall study show that nut consumption reduces the risk of both fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease. Again, the researchers looked for a variety of ways to disprove the finding, adjusting the data for differences in age, sex, smoking habits, exercise, relative weight, and hypertension. The protective qualities of nuts remained statistically significant and essentially unchanged in magnitude. 

Those individuals who ate nuts one to four times a week had 26% decrease in the risk of suffering from definite nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) and a 27% decrease in the risk of definite fatal coronary heart disease as compared to those who ate nuts less than once a week. However, those individuals who ate nuts five or more times a week had a 48% decrease in the risk of definite nonfatal heart attack and a 38% reduced risk of definite fatal CHD as compared to the group who ate nuts less than once a week. 

Age- and sex-adjusted analyses of the associations between nut consumption and definite CHD were calculated for various subgroups within the Adventist Health Study. Results were examined to see if the association between nut consumption and CHD held up in different segments of the population. The consistency was quite remarkable and adds to the researchers' confidence in the importance of these findings. 

Both "ever-smokers" and "never-smokers" showed a 46% decrease in the risk of coronary heart disease when they ate nuts five or more times a week. Study participants with normal blood pressure showed that eating nuts more than five times a week reduced their risk of coronary heart disease by 60% percent, and hypertensive individuals enjoyed a 30% decrease in risk compared to similar subjects who ate few nuts. 

Nuts are widely used here at The Wholefood Farmacy and you can find them in many of our foods. In addition, the next time you go to the grocery store, spend a few minutes looking at all of the different types of nuts and consider them in place of other processed food snacks such as potato chips and cheese puffs.  You’ll love them, your kids will love them and your whole family will be much better off.  Now is the best time to put your kids on a path that leads to health, vitality, longevity and happiness.

Visit The Wholefood Farmacy

Try our FREE Wellness Program

We are now offering a complementary public service educational program that we call 90 Days To Wellness. We’ll send you one short yet informative wellness article each day for 90 days. Each message is brief and can be read in about one minute. Your privacy is guaranteed and you can opt out at any time with one click.

Over the 90 days you will learn:

How to reduce your risk of heart attack by over 50% using plain water

How a woman can reduce her risk of heart attack by up to 92%

Which spices can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease

Which spices can lower your blood sugar and cholesterol levels

Which foods fight cancer

About a simple activity that can boost your immune system every day

…… and much, much more!

This is no cost or obligation whatsoever – we offer this program to all as a public service campaign of The Wholefood Farmacy.

1 minute a day for 90 days can change your life forever!

Click Here to Subscribe: http://www.wholefoodfarmacy.com/2005/FrontpageSubscribe2.asp

(If you can't click the link, copy and paste it into your address bar)

Visit The Wholefood Farmacy

FREE Sign Up:   WHOLE FOOD FARMACY !

First Order BONUS:   Free PhiPlus with order total of $89 or more. Because the free bag of organic Phi Plus is a $14.95 value, it offsets the cost of the membership fee and New Member incentive to place an order as soon as they join.

We have now added another promotion to help you in encouraging your new members to place their 2nd order within 45 days of their sign up date. This new promotion is as follows:

If your new members place their 2nd order of $40 PV, or more, within 45 days of joining – they will receive a FREE half pound bag of TropiPhi with their second order, which is a $16.95 value.

Water & Your Heart
 
Drinking high levels of water can significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, say researchers at Loma Linda University whose research was reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Vol. 155, No.9). This exciting study reveals that drinking high amounts of plain water is as important as exercise, diet, or not smoking in preventing coronary heart disease.

"Basically, not drinking enough water can be as harmful to your heart as smoking," warns Jacqueline Chan, DrPH, principle investigator and lead author of the article. Dr. Chan and Synnove Knutson, MD , PhD , second author, chair of epidemiology department, found that California Seventh-day Adventists who drink five or more glasses of plain water a day have a much lower risk of fatal coronary heart disease compared to those who drink less than two glasses per day.

The results from this study show that by drinking more plain water, healthy people without any history of heart disease, stroke, or diabetes-- reduced their risk of dying from a heart attack by half or more . This is as much or more than if they had adopted any other well-known preventive measure, including stopping smoking and lowering cholesterol levels, increasing exercise or maintaining ideal weight.

Because drinking more plain water is a simple lifestyle change that anybody can do, this simple practice has the potential of saving tens of thousands of lives each year with minimal cost .  Neither total fluid intake, nor intake of other fluids combined showed this reduced risk. Instead, for women, high intake (5 or more glasses a day) of other fluids showed a greatly increased risk of coronary heart disease.

"People need to be made aware that there is a difference, at least for heart health, whether they get their fluids from plain water or from sodas," says Dr. Chan.

As you enjoy your favorite Wholefood Farmacy foods, we encourage you to make water your drink of choice.

Visit The Wholefood Farmacy