I was at a Prediabetic class yesterday. There were about 12 of us and about half of the people in the class were about my age, and the other half were elderly.

From the questions that some raised during the class, I deduced that I was the only one who was monitoring my blood sugar using a glucose meter!

I was surprised that not more would want to monitor their blood sugar using a glucose meter. Ever since I was taken off the prescribed diuretic I had been on for about 2.5 years, I now test my blood sugar less frequently.

My doctor was right when he suggested that my elevated blood sugar could have been due to the prescription diuretic. My fasting blood sugar used to be in the high 90s mg/dL. Now it is on the low 80s or high 70s mg/dL.

I have also totally changed my diet. I bought several diabetic cookbooks and those books have been useful in helping me plan my meals.

One other thing that I have also done was take some food supplements that have been proven helpful in lowering blood sugar like gymnema sylvestre, alpha lipoic acid, bitter melon tea, and today I discovered Banaba.

Nobody at the prediabetic class raised the possibility of using certain food supplements in controlling their blood sugar. I guess I was the only one using food supplements! I told the elderly lady sitting next to me about what I was taking, and recommended that she try a couple of them.

The following, on Banaba which is a variety of crepe myrtle that grows in the Philippines, India, Malaysia and Australia, was taken from a site called DiabetesHealth.com

Active ingredients include corsolic acid and tannins, including lagerstroemin. These ingredients are thought to stimulate glucose uptake and have insulin-like activity. The latter activity is thought to be secondary to activation of the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase or the inhibition of tyrosine phosphatase.

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A 15-day randomized control trial on banaba was done in 10 patients with type 2 diabetes and fasting glucose levels between 140 and 250 mg/dl. The results of the trial were published in a 2003 issue of the Journal of Pharmacological Sciences (93:69-73).

Diabetes medications were stopped 45 days before the study. Three different doses of banaba—16 mg, 32 mg, or 48 mg—in either a soft-gel or hard-gel formulation were used.

Five subjects in each group received the three different doses for 15 days, with a 10-day washout between doses. Basal glucose was determined by a fasting blood sample seven days before starting banaba.

During the study, three samples were taken, and an average of the three readings was compared to the basal value. The 32- and 48-mg soft-gel formulations showed 11 percent and 30 percent decreases, respectively, from basal values after 15 days of treatment. Only the 48 mg hard-gel formulation showed a significant decrease of 20 percent, but it was still lower than the soft-gel formulation.

I was browsing the tea shelves at an Asian Supermarket recently because I was looking for teas that have diuretic properties. I had read that ginger was a natural diuretic, so I bought some ginger tea, also a ginger and green tea mix. I also bought Noni tea, and Gymnema Sylvester tea, which have sugar lowering properties.

I also noticed guava tea, and wondered what guava tea was good for. Guava, the fruit, is rich in Vitamin C, richer than an orange in fact, has high fiber content. The leaves are boiled to treat diarrhea, and the leaves also have anti-microbial and sugar lowering properties.

The next time I am at the supermarket, I will definitely get myself some guava tea! The only thing I am worried about is that the tea may cause constipation!

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli scientists claim that a wild mushroom, used in traditional Chinese medicine for a century, could treat prostate cancer, the University of Haifa said Friday.

Researchers at the university in northern Israel said they found molecules in the Ganoderma lucidum mushroom, commonly known as the reishi, which help supress some mechanisms involved in the progression of prostate cancer.

"We already knew the mushroom could impede the development of cancer by affecting the immune system. The in-vitro trials we have done show that it attacks the cancer cellsdirectly," chief researcher Ben Zion Zaidman told AFP.

"These results give rise to hope about developing medication to treat prostate cancer," he said of research carried out to date only in Petri dishes. The research still has to be tested on animals.

Full story here.

Just the other day, I commented on the benefits of green tea with regards to warding off colorectal cancer. And now this wonderful news about reishi mushroom and the treatment of prostate cancer.

I think that it is indeed wonderful that researchers are discovering more and more benefits from plants or mushrooms in the treatment of cancer. The fact that the reishi mushroom directly attacks the cancer cells directly is the best news about the benefits of the mushroom.

Reishi is also popularly used to treat asthma and other respiratory ailments. Among the primary constituents of the mushroom are polysaccharides, coumarin, sterols, mannitol, and triterpenoids called ganoderic acids. Ganoderic acids is thought to be beneficial in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure as well as inhibiting blood platelets from sticking together.

I checked my favorite health supplement supplier and indeed they carry reishi mushroom. I will head on over and place an order! I have issues with cholesterol and blood pressure and since the consumption of reishi has no known side effects, I think I can only help my health to be at a better level by consuming the product!

NEW YORK - An extract of green tea wards off colorectal cancer, animal experiments show.

According to research reported at the Sixth International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, a standardized green tea polyphenol preparation (Polyphenon E) limits the growth of colorectal tumors in rats treated with a substance that causes the cancer.

“Our findings show that rats fed a diet containing Polyphenon E are less than half as likely to develop colon cancer,” Dr. Hang Xiao, from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, noted in a statement.

Full Story here.

I have been paying a lot of attention to the benefits of herbal tea recently. I have started drinking bitter melon tea which is supposed to help in bringing down your blood cholesterol level. I've also started drinking cassia alata tea which is a natural diuretic, laxative and is also helpful in bringing down blood sugar.

This news about green tea and how effective it is about warding off colorectal cancer is simply great news. I know people who drink a few cups of green tea daily because they believe in the benefits of the tea. With this great news, I think I should start drinking green tea too!

I am quite the hypochondriac and last year when I started noticing how narrow the size of my stools was, I quickly made an appointment for colon screening. Boy, what an experience that was! Fortunately the results of the screening was all positive.

The only problem I have with tea is that I cannot drink it on an empty stomach. I have to drink tea or coffee for that matter, after a meal. That is not difficult to do. Tea, fortunately, is one of the free foods for those of us who are monitoring our blood sugar. That means I can drink as much tea as I want in a day and it is not going to affect my blood sugar much.

I was talking to the vendor who was selling all kinds of gourmet nuts this morning. He told me how as he was selling his cashews he used to snack on them all day. He then discovered that all his joint pains disappeared after a while. He could only think of the cashews as causing the positive effect on his joints.

According to an article by Kate Meyers, the cashew "tree's leaves and bark as well as the popular cashew apple possess herbal health benefits that include killing bacteria and germs, stopping diarrhea, drying secretions, increasing the libido, and reducing fever, blood sugar, blood pressure and body temperature. "

I have always loved cashews and with such health benefits contained within the nut itself, there is no reason not to snack on the nut!

As someone with a family history of diabetes, I am always interested in ways to prevent it from happening in myself. A quarter cup of cashews contained 37.7 percent of the daily recommended value of monounsaturated fats, and that means cashews can reduce triglyceride levels in diabetics, protecting them from further complications.

A quarter cup of cashews contains 22.3% of the daily recommended value for magnesium. A deficiency in magnesium is often associated with hip and joint pains, and I think what the nut vendor said about the pains in his joints disappearing is indeed true. Since cashews are rich in magnesium, someone suffering from joint pains from lack of magnesium will surely be helped by consuming cashews.

I recommend you read Kate Meyers article called The Nutrional Health Facts of Cashews.

Scientists in Japan have created two synthetic versions of an ingredient in curry that is noted for its potential to fight cancer.

Some studies have suggested that curcumin, the yellowish component in turmeric that gives curry its flavor, can suppress tumors and that people who eat lots of curry may be less prone to the disease. However, curcumin loses its anti-cancer attributes quickly when ingested.

The scientists wrote in the latest issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics that they had synthesized two variations -- GO-Y030 and GO-Y031 -- which have proved more potent and lasting than natural curcumin.

They tested them in mice with colorectal cancer and found that they worked far better.

"Our new analogues (synthetic versions) have enhanced growth suppressive abilities against colorectal cancer cell lines, up to 30 times greater than natural curcumin," said Hiroyuki Shibata, associate professor at Tohoku University's Institute of Development, Ageing and Cancer.

"In a mouse model for colorectal cancer, mice fed with five milligrams of GO-Y030 or GO-Y031 fared 42 and 51 percent better, respectively, than did mice in the control group."

Like curcumin, the two synthetic versions may be able to fight other cancers, such as gastric cancer and cancer of the breast, pancreas and lung, they added.

Source: Yahoo News

This is not only an amazing piece of news but also a wonderful one! I wrote earlier about the benefits of curry, and now to find that scientists have actually isolated and reproduced a synthetic version of the ingredient that is so effective at fighting cancer, is simply wonderful.

I love persimmons and at this time of the year, persimmons are abundant!

I always credited my ability to conceive to persimmons. I had been married more than three and the year I got pregnant, I ate a lot of persimmons. Before that, Doug and I had gone on an extended holiday. It was busy trip hopping from plane to plane and airport to airport. When we got home it was persimmon season. I ate lots of it. That was the only thing I did different that year, apart from the tiring holiday.

And just before Thanksgiving that year, I felt strange. My heart would race for no reason. In fact it alarmed me. Many times I thought I was going to have a heart attack! :-) I was pregnant!

Today, I found that persimmons have some really good health benefits.

Persimmons contain significant concentrations of dietary fiber, minerals and phenolic compounds - all instrumental in fighting atherosclerosis, a leading cause of heart disease, heart attacks and stroke.

Persimmons are also rich in sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and manganese.

According to Shela Gorinstein, Ph.D., a research associate with the department of medicinal chemistry in the School of Pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, eating one medium-sized persimmon (about 100 grams) a day is enough to help fight atherosclerosis.

Eat your persimmon today, and enjoy its health benefits as well!

Source: A Persimmon A Day Could Be Better For Your Heart Than An Apple

Did you know that eating curry is good for you?

One of the spicy ingredients in curry is tumeric and it contains a crucial chemical called curcumin. Researchers have found that tumeric can help slow the progression of neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is linked to the build up of knots in the brain called amyloid plaques.

Turmeric reduced the number of these plaques by a half.

It is interesting to note that studies have found that in India only 1% of people over age 65 living in some villages suffer from Alzheimer's.

Tumeric is also beneficial for digestion, fighting infection and guarding against heart attacks. It has also been found that tumeric eases the swelling in joints for those suffering from arthritis and rheumatism.

I love curries, and with this great news, I will try to cook curried food more often! :-)

Sources: BBC News | Tasty Curry Might Have a Fringe Benefit

HONG KONG - A study involving nearly 3,500 women in several countries suggests that Chinese herbs might be more effective in relieving menstrual cramps than drugs, acupuncture or heat compression.

Australia-based researchers said herbs not only relieved pain, but reduced the recurrence of the condition over three months, according to the Cochrane Library journal.

“All available measures of effectiveness confirmed the overall superiority of Chinese herbal medicine to placebo, no treatment, NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), OCPs (oral contraceptive pill), acupuncture and heat compression,” said lead author Xiaoshu Zhu from the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research at the University of Western Sydney.

Full story here.

I have always prefered a more natural alternative to drugs, if the natural alternative is proven effective.

Some of the Chinese herbs used in the concoction were Chinese angelica root (danggui), Szechuan lovage root (chuanxiong), red peony root (chishao), white peony root (baishao), Chinese motherwort (yimucao), fennel fruit (huixiang), nut-grass rhizome (xiangfu), liquorice root (gancao) and cinnamon bark (rougui).

Left, liquorice root, and right, red peony root.

I wonder if these herbs and others were put in a tablet form, it will be as effective? Hope some day there will be seach an herbal tablet available so women all over the world can have a safe alternative to pain killing drugs.

In the past, I had used ginger for relieving my digestive problems, especially problems with gas, and had always found it very beneficial. What I did was heat a chunk of mature ginger over a flame, pound it to flatten it, put it in a cup and add boiling water to it. I would drink it like I would drink any tea, and as a sweetener I sometimes added a teaspoonful of honey.

Last Wednesday, I bought a small bag of crystallized ginger from a vendor at the local flea market. I liked the product that I had bought because the ginger used was mature and therefore had the strong hot/spicy taste. It worked wonders for my gas problem.

Other than eating the crystallized ginger like you would any candy, you can also put a few pieces in a hot cup of water and drink the water like you would with ginger tea. It works just as well for relieving your gas problem.

Ginger is also beneficial for the treatment of motion sickness, nausea associated with pregnancy, and holds potential benefit in the treatment of arthritis, asthma, menstrual cramps, and migraines.

Further reading on the benefits of ginger: The Joy of Ginger

My father has been on oral diabetic treatment for many years and it has adversely affected his kidney function. He is now on insulin treatment.

I suffered from gestational diabetes and since I have a family history of diabetes, I am afraid that I am a likely candidate for diabetes.

I am interested in natural solutions for diabetes. I have known for quite some time now about the benefits of Gymnema Sylvestre in lowering blood sugar levels. I have a bottle of it which I got from my online food supplement store. But the thing with this tablet is that I am supposed to take it about half an hour before a meal. And I keep forgetting to do it!

I have recently discovered that bitter melon (peria, in Malay) also have some benefit in lowering blood sugar levels. There has been in fact a study on the effects of bitter melon (Momordica charantia) on serum and liver triglyceride levels in rats.

Today I was at my favorite Asian supermarket, and bought myself some fresh bitter melons. I was quite surprised to find bitter melon tea at the tea and coffee aisle in the supermarket. Naturally I bought some! I don't really like bitter stuff but if it helps my health, I will take it! I even bought a small teapot for my tea. :-)