Recent health research

A few interesting health tit-bits from watching Oprah - see www.oprah.com.

1. Role of fibre: Its important to include fibre in your diet to reduce your chances of constipation. Low fibre foods like yoghurt take in excess of 3ohours to pass through the body, but this is significantly reduced if you include more than 35grams of fibre in your diet per day (25g for women, 35g for men). Fibre not only regulates the flow of stool through the small intestine and bowel, but its helps to flush out toxins (that can cause colon or bowel cancer) and excess bial and sugars. The best sources of fibre are beans, bran, fruit & vegetables.
2. Importance of calcium: It has been shown that an increase in calcium in your diet helps you loose weight. Calcium is not only good for the bones, but it soaks up excess fat and secretes it. Calcium is best taken with Magnesium to improve absorption into the body, and better still if it is consumed in natural forms. eg. milk, fish, other seafood.
3. Tomatoes: If you want to protect your skin eat tomatoes. Research has shown that a protein in tomatoes called licopin results in 30% less skin damage.
4. Water: Convention has it that drinking 1.5 litres of water a day is good for your skin. Research has debunked this belief. I already thought as much because I drink very little water, and concluded that there is already plenty of water in food, and the chemical reaction that releases the energy in food results produces surplus water as well. The consequence is that I pee alot more than I drink. Tests showed that drinking water had no discernable difference of skin moisture levels or salinity. If you do strenuous exercise - thats different, you are consuming water faster than you can produce it, so when we sweat excessively, we need to replenish with water. Most foods are 40-60% water.
5. Toxins: You might have seen alot of detoxing clinics or resorts being established. Really these are alot of nonsense. Research has shown that it takes more than 10 days to reduce toxins from your body, so short internsive programs will achieve little more than a break, and perhaps a change in priorities. Toxins tend to be concentrated in fatty tissue, which means they tend to reside in the liver, brain.