Silymarin for Your Liver

Wikipedia explains that "Silibinin is the generic name of the plant from which it is extracted), is the major active constituent of silymarin, a standardized extract of the milk thistle seeds, containing a mixture of flavonolignans  consisting of silibinin, isosilibinin,  silicristin, silidianin and others."

Silymarin is a powerful, liver-protecting, and liver-toning anti-oxidant.  If you try it once, you will feel a difference because most people's livers, I believe, are tired.  Not sick just overworked.  The effects from taking silymarin will be an improvement and reintegration of brain function as well.  That's right.  The liver is a powerful organ.  See this article on the liver and brain health over at Natural News.  In fact, Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM, views the liver as the most important organ.  All other organs, including your heart and brain, can get sick or can be injured and you can still live, have a life and thrive because the liver regulates and helps to heal other organs.

A healthy liver is indispensable for your well being. When we have our health, or a proximation of good health, we take our liver health for granted.  The homeostasis we enjoy is an indication of the liver's, or any organ for that matter, ratio of healthy cells to sick ones.  But when an ailment or disease pierces through that mask of homeostasis that also is a signal, one that is telling us that the percentage of poorly functioning cells is increasing and causing that organ fatigue.  If an organ is fatigued, it won't be able to restore itself as well.  But combine the restorative effect of exercise with a good diet of broccoli and spinach and silymarin, I don't see why we can't regain that percentage we lost back. Check out what eHow says about your liver.  

FAT METABOLISM

The liver regulates the amount of lipids (fats) circulating in the body and controls the amount of cholesterol, which is used to produce bile salts. Bile salts, bile pigments and cholesterol combine to form bile, which is stored in the gallbladder and released into the duodenum of the small intestine to aid in the digestions of fats and proteins. Bile salts emulsify fat globules to make them easier for the body to absorb. Read more: What Does Your Liver Do? | eHow.com

Cholesterol Is Good for You

Excellent interview on the benefits and risks of statins and on how lowering cholesterol does not, that's right does not, help in avoiding heart disease.  There are other factors, like sugar intake, stress, oxidative damage that must be paid attention to.  I don't know how well people tolerate sugar intake.  I realize that when we're young, energy and health are redundant.  But after years of work and enduring some stressful arrangements here and there, you know, the health barometer doesn't read as well as it used to.  As a result, foods, like sugar, that we could consume without thought now must give a whole new respect to.  By the way, the evidence is in: sugar is toxic.  Some of my older siblings continue to consume regular amounts of sugary desserts, like cakes, tarts, pastries, and ice cream.  I love ice cream, but I can't eat it as often or as much.  Haagen Daz has two flavors that I could not resist--Dark Chocolate and Java Chip.  Flavors are remarkable.  But the sugar content can waylay me.

As to stress, well, you know when you need to release all the arguments from toxic folks at work.  Just let them go.  Let them be.  There is victory in you letting them go.  It may require a few times to say and think to yourself "Let them go.  Let them go."  It's therapeutic.  After a while, you'll find that it is easier to "Let them go" and start putting your mind on good memories, good people to appreciate, good days in your life.  Eating well  is a choice.  People love to toss around that phrase "Success is the best revenge."  No it isn't.  Success is a choice.  It's a decision about preferring to be happy.  Happiness in and of itself is success.

Oxidative stress?  What causes that?  Eating junk food.  Eating too much.  Be smart and take good care.

Sauerkraut

If you eat a high-protein diet, make sure that you're eating vegetables to break the protein down.  One clarifying vegetable you might want to consider is sauerkraut.  Not only is it the perfect enzyme for protein-high diets, but it also has anti-bacterial properties, breaking down bacteria that might otherwise make you organs or muscles sick.  Sauerkraut is a terrific probiotic.  I was sick from eating Chinese out recently a dish that was filled with msg.  I wished I'd had sauerkraut then. 

Medical Benefits: Do They Really Benefit You?

In the last 15 years, I have sought ways to increase energy.  I myself am in very good health, but my busy work schedule and irregular exercise schedule combined to tire me just a little.  I sought some answers.  My understanding of the medical industry at that time was that it was modern and that it could treat almost any ailment from broken legs to cancer to kidney surgery.  I'd heard of people getting by-pass operations, quadruple by-pass operations, heart replacement surgeries.  I mean the industry was doing remarkable things in its ability to prolong people's lives.  Fantastic.  I'd had health insurance, too, from my work, but I rarely, if ever, used it.  It was an amenity that I just never used.  I used it for annual check-ups, thinking that that was what I had to do.  But it proved of little to no benefit, in part, because all the doctors did was prescribe me medication.  Medication worries me.  I've never had good experience from medication.  The one time that I actually took any medications was when a doctor prescribed anti-biotics for me.  I took them, and they did nothing.  In fact, I felt that they almost depleted my immunity.  So for me, the medical industry has a poor track record, and that is based exclusively on my personal exchanges with doctors and their practices.  I would use running, swimming, or basketball as the magic bullet to energize me.  Though I had not read anything directly about it, the medical industry has sold itself to possess state-of-the-art of technology that could treat any condition.  Rhetorically, it works.  People believe that the medical benefits are so prized that they are worth continuing at a horrible job for.  People learn how horrible those benefits are when you go to use them.  You've worked hard.  You've put in your time.  When it comes time for you to tap into those benefits and that medical knowledge that is traded on a division of labor, you're hoping that the doctor is smarter than you on almost anything related to health care.  You are in for a big surprise.  That may be true, but their treatments are often bad, even life-threatening.  A young friend of mine, aged 20, had died from testicular cancer after receiving an avant-garde chemotherapy that Lance Armstrong used to defeat his cancer.  Now that Armstrong has recently come out about doping, I am wondering if the stories told about his victory over testicular cancer weren't lies.  Who knows?  Maybe the companies and cancer treatment centers gain greatly with a high-profile endorsement of their product.  What do you think?  The prescribing doctors were oncologists over at UCLA Medical Center.  The best of the best as they say.  Within a year of his diagnosis, this friend of mine was dead.  He had age on his side. 

Get Fat

It's not enough that you eat the right kinds of foods or that you find the foods that optimize your performance style, but it is important to know how to eat when you're sick.  You've heard the adage "Feed a cold, starve a fever."  I think that that is just the best that some advertiser could do with alliterative d's and v's.  No, what you need to do is to feed both a fever and a cold, in fact, feed an illness but not with the hair of the dog.  No, you feed it with good, regular nutrition.  Foods with fat will shock you with their nutritional function.  But again, don't always rely on diets that tell you what to eat.  Know which foods are high in fat, saturated fats and unsaturated fats and essential fats.  Of these which ones do you like best?  Start from there but be sure to get fat in your diet.  I like bacon.  I like sausage.  Given my history of eating pancakes, muffins, breads, pastries, donuts, candy, cereals, cases of sodas growing up it is no wonder that I have survived at all.  I didn't eat enough fats.  Now I do.