(NaturalNews) Foods that have an incredible array of health benefits that go well beyond just their nutrient value are considered superfoods. These foods are typically loaded with a combination of critical fatty acids, anti-oxidant phytonutrients and essential amino acids. Avocados are one of the best anti-aging superfoods to consume.

Avocados are native to Central America and were a favorite food of the Aztec Indians. It is part of the flowering plant family Lauraceae which includes camphor, bay laurel and cinnamon. Avocados are considered a fruit. They are cultivated in tropical climates throughout the world including southern Florida and California.

The oldest known evidence of avocado use as a food was found in a cave in Puebla, Mexico. The dates of the writings are thought to be from around 10,000 BC. The two major types of avocados are the Hass Avocado and Florida Avocado. The Hass avocado was named after Rudolph Hass who developed an avocado farm and obtained a patent for the avocados he was growing.

Florida avocados are significantly larger than the Hass avocados but are lower in overall fat and calories. The Hass avocado is more dense in monounsaturated fatty acids than the Florida avocado. The Hass avocado averages between 18-30% fatty acids while the Florida avocado has about 3-5% fats. This equals out to the Florida avocados being about 25-50% of the total fat content found in the Hass avocados.

Avocados Rich In Healthy Fats & Anti-Oxidants

This amazing fruit is very high in healthy oleic acid. This is a monounsaturated fat that helps increase fat metabolism. It is also rich in the powerful carotenoid anti-oxidants lutein and zeaxanthin as well as vitamin E (tocopherol).

These anti-oxidants decrease oxidative stress and allow for a healthier cellular environment. Other critical components include ionic potassium and folate. These elements are alkaline forming in the body, helping to buffer acidic wastes that accumulate within the human tissue and bloodstream.

Avocados are a terrific complement to a vegetable based meal. Most vegetables, particularly in their raw state, contain a high amount of carotenoid based anti-oxidants. Studies have shown that these anti-oxidants are lipophilic (fat-loving) and are absorbed best in the body when combined with a healthy fat such as oleic acid.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition in March 2005 showed that adding avocados to salad increased absorption of alpha-carotene, beta-carotene and lutein 7.2, 15.3, and 5.1 times higher, respectively, than the average amount of these carotenoids absorbed when avocado-free salad was eaten.

Hass avocados have been found to be the most densely concentrated variety of the avocado fruit. They contain the highest content of lutein and zeaxanthin and other fat-soluble nutrients. Both types of avocados are terrific for the digestive system as they contain a good variety of both soluble and insoluble fibers.

Avocados are one of the best anti-aging foods that prevent wrinkles and skin aging. The D-manno-heptulose sugar that is found in avocados has been shown to improve the skin epidermis by boosting collagen formation. Avocados also contain specific amino acids and carotenoid anti-oxidants that reduce age spots, soothe inflammation and heals scars and burns.

When looking to find a ripe avocado it is best to feel the consistency rather than judge them off of their color. Ripe avocados that are still good are typically firm but have slight give to them. Any sort of mushy consistency is a warning sign that the inside meat is oxidized and rotten. Refrigerating your avocados will increase their shelf life while putting them in a bag with an old banana peel will make them ripen faster.

Sources For This Article Include:
http://www.superfoodsrx.com/superfoods/avocado/
http://www.oprah.com
http://valerietonnerhealthcoach.blogspot.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/028923_superfoods_nutrition.html

Of course you care how your hair looks. Who doesn't? Ever since humans emerged from caves, we've used our hair to broadcast two messages: "I'm healthy and powerful," and "Hello, honey, how about it?" Some politicians get elected just because of their healthy hair.

What you feed your body also feeds each of the 150,000 hair follicles on your head. Try these 8 top foods for healthy hair that tells everyone you're as young as you feel -- or even younger:

• Green tea, walnuts, and salmon. The polyphenols and omega-3s in these foods are good for more than your heart and brain. They also help make your hair shiny. (If you're fighting dandruff, try rinsing with green tea. It helps prevent dandruff-causing fungus.)
• Fruit. Brightly colored fruit, such as peaches, strawberries, mango, kiwi, and tomatoes (yep, they're a fruit!) are rich in vitamin C, which is essential for making collagen that gives structure to hair. Vitamin C firms skin, too.
• Beans, whole grains, and other healthful B-rich foods. B vitamins (especially vitamin B6 and folic acid) ensure a good supply of blood and oxygen to your hair follicles, which encourages growth and may slow hair loss. Other B-rich foods include beans, peas, carrots, cauliflower, soybeans, nuts, and eggs.
• Dark green veggies. Think spinach, broccoli, and Swiss chard. They're great sources of vitamins A and C, which help produce sebum, the scalp oil that's a natural hair conditioner.
• Dark sesame seeds. The Chinese swear this keeps a man's hair darker longer.
• Say yes to avocados. Avocados and avocado oil may prevent dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which kills hair follicles, from getting where it needs to go.

What food should you skip for healthy hair? Pass on animal fat (the kind in red meat), especially if you're losing hair. Animal fat can lead to more DHT production and hair-follicle damage. DHT shrinks hair follicles in men who are genetically predisposed to hair loss.

Article source: Mehmet C. Oz, MD, and Michael F. Roizen, MD

Image: RealAge.com

VITAMIN D deficiency is putting Australians at risk of developing diabetes, a landmark study has shown.

The largest study of its kind found people with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those with lower levels. It could lead to at-risk patients using vitamin D supplements along with diet and exercise to stop their development of the potentially deadly condition.

The study’s co-author Ken Sikaris, a pathologist at Melbourne Pathology, said the research could have a big impact in slowing increasing rates of diabetes in Australia. “It’s hard to underestimate how important this might be,” he said.

Between a third and a fifth of the Australian population could be vitamin D deficient and rates were highest in the southern states, which received less sunlight, Dr Sikaris said.

The research, which tested the blood of 5200 people, found every increase of 25 nanomoles of vitamin D per litre of blood (nmol/L) equated to a 24 per cent reduced risk of diabetes, another co-author, Zhong Lu, a pathologist at Monash Medical Centre and Melbourne Pathology, said. People with a level of vitamin D in their blood that is less than 50 nmol/L are deficient, although some experts believe the threshold for deficiency should be set higher.

The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care and presented by Dr Lu at a conference of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, retested blood samples taken as part of the major AusDiab study of risk factors for diabetes.

It found vitamin D deficiency was an independent risk factor, even after adjusting for others, such as weight and physical activity.

The AusDiab study, which was made between 1999 and 2005 and is the most recent to widely test for diabetes, revealed 7.4 per cent of Australians over 25 had the condition.Peter Ebeling, the chair of the NorthWest academic centre at the University of Melbourne and Western Health, said that in light of the findings he was conducting a trial to test whether vitamin D supplements could help prevent diabetes.

He was attempting to increase the vitamin D concentrations in the blood of a group of 100 people with pre-diabetes to 75 nmol/L.

Professor Ebeling said such research had progressed slowly in the past because it had not attracted funding, particularly from drug companies.

Article Source: Amy Corderoy, SMH.com.au

Image Source: Dan

Genetics matter but there’s still much you can do to obtain the body you want, writes Isobel King.

It was so much easier in Rubens’s day, when the folds and dimples of the ”full-figured” woman were objects of lust and there was zero pressure to achieve the rippling abs and chiselled lines we sweat over today. While tempting to think we could all become perfectly proportioned models with just a little bit of work, the reality is only about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of women are in the height and weight range of models, and the average Australian woman is now a size 16. Little surprise that so many of us are plagued by poor body image and unrealistic ideas of what is achievable, given the strong hand genetics play in our basic body shape.

Shape shifters

The good news is you can do a lot with the cards dealt to you. Admittedly, you can’t suddenly spring long legs or determine where your excesses cling to you but with focused toning, you can dramatically alter what you have.

”You can’t spot-reduce, as the way you lose fat is genetically determined,” says a dietitian and exercise physiologist, Gabrielle Maston. ”For example, if you tend to hold weight in the hips, then that’s probably the last place you’ll lose it. However, you can give a different appearance to your body without changing body-fat stores, just by getting more toned, reducing or adding muscle bulk.”

The one caveat health and fitness coach Amelia Burton adds – echoed by others S.Well spoke to – is that you need to shed excess weight to get the best results. If you’re more than five kilograms to eight kilograms overweight, you really need to look at shifting that, either before or in tandem with any toning regime.

Here’s a rundown of how you can target problem areas with specific exercises.

Shapely legs

We’d all kill for Miranda Kerr’s legs but few are that blessed genetically. However, there are many exercises you can do in and outside a gym to achieve more muscle bulk or simply a longer, leaner look to your legs.

Maston points out that sprinters tend to have muscly legs, whereas long-distance runners have lean legs, so depending on the look you’re after, you want to look at exercises that mimic these sports. Or take up running.

Burton recommends backward-stepping lunges, which are part of most pump classes: literally a step backwards, with the back knee almost touching the floor. ”They elongate out the muscles, giving long and lean shaped legs, and are also good for the butt,” she says.

Cycling and spin classes are also great for the legs but be mindful of what you want to achieve. The more resistance you add, the more muscle bulk you’ll build. Go for greater repetitions with less resistance if you’re after a slender, toned look.

Killer abs

Much has been written about the importance of a strong ”core” – the inner and outer back and abdominal muscles that surround and support the torso. A strong core not only leads to better posture but also easier breathing and, hopefully, a nice six-pack.

Yoga and Pilates both work on building core strength and many of their techniques have been incorporated into popular gym classes. The ubiquitous ”plank”, for example, has its origins in yoga, says the vice-president of Yoga Australia, Leigh Blashki.

Many variations exist but the most common is the front plank, which is held in a push-up position with the body’s weight resting on forearms, elbows and toes; and the side plank, where you lie on your side and push up, carrying the weight on your elbow and forearm, working the muscles along the side of your body (the obliques). In its many guises, the plank is universally heralded as one of the best workouts for the abs.

Not surprisingly, the core-strengthening focus of Pilates is also recommended highly. Pilates practitioner William Penhale describes it as a ”body balancer” that addresses the muscular system as a whole, working first on the deeper layer of abdominal muscles, then moving the focus to the bigger muscles on the exterior.

”You’re more inclined to get the long, lithe look of a dancer, rather than the bunched-up look of a body builder, with Pilates,” Penhale says.

Upper body

Both Burton and Maston recommend swimming as a great natural workout for the upper body. For men, it gives them the coveted V-shaped back, encouraging big shoulders and a lean waist. It also helps strengthen the triceps – the back of the upper arms that, when neglected, easily become dreaded ”tuck shop arms”. To replicate the effects at the gym, Maston suggests rowing and the lat pull-down machines.

Boxing and kickboxing are also great for upper- and lower-body resistance. Using light weights with lots of repetitions will stop you bulking up.

How much is enough?

It’s always a point of contention: exactly how much do you have to work out to get results? A lot has to do with the intensity put into a workout and just how much definition you’re after.

Maston recommends 30 minutes to one hour, at least three times a week, with the hope you’ll feel a difference within six weeks and visibly see changes within about 12 weeks. ”But with exercise it has to be consistent,” she warns. ”If you stop going, you’ll revert to where you were before.”

On the upside, she says a body of any age can respond positively to weights and aerobic training, developing new-found muscle tone.

Burton is similarly upbeat. ”Body shape is 50 per cent what your parents gave you and 50 per cent what you put into it, so no one has to settle for what genetics have handed them,” she says.

Body of hard work

”I just felt there was a better version of me in there,” Nisha Agiasotis says about what sparked her personal transformation.

The 33-year-old mother of two says she comes from a family in which ”all the women carry weight around the belly”, so a prime objective was to get a slender, toned abdomen along with shapely shoulders and biceps.

First, she dropped 10 kilograms to achieve her target weight of 45 kilograms, which was a comfortable fit for her slight, 153-centimetre frame. Then she embarked on a rigorous gym routine to achieve the toned look she was after, using the 12-week Advanced Lean and Strong program devised by personal trainer Michelle Bridges (12wbt.com).

Motivated to see quick results, Agiasotis put in an hour a day, six days a week, at the gym and says she started to see new definition in about a month.

”I was adamant I didn’t want to lose more weight, just tone up,” she says. With her weight stable, she found the waists of her jeans were roomier and her muscles firmer.

By the end of the 12 weeks, Agiasotis achieved the athletic body she has today.

For the benefit of those similarly inspired, she lists her exhaustive weight training: ”Barbell squats, body-weight squats, lunges and weighted lunges, planks, chin-ups, push-ups and push-ups with claps, barbell chest-press, dumb-bell flies, bicep curls and hammer curls, tricep pull-downs and tricep dips, leg extensions, hamstring curls, calf raises, seated rows and pull-downs.”

The results speak for themselves.

Article Source: SMH.com.au

This year a jar of hemp seed could be a respectable kitchen staple, nudging the rolled oats in your pantry cupboard – and giving chia and flax seeds some stiff competition in the health food stakes.

Although hemp seed in muesli bars, breakfast cereal – or even ice cream – wouldn’t raise eyebrows in the US, Canada or Europe, its use as a food is currently banned in Australia. But this could change in the next few months if a new proposal to overturn the ban is approved by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) – a move that’s backed by the Dietitians’ Association of Australia.

“As good foods go hemp seed is a rock star. It has a lot to offer and it would be a shame not to have it here,” says Accredited Practising Dietitian Camey Demmitt who was surprised to find no hemp seed on the menu when she moved to Australia from the US four years ago. A major benefit of hemp is that it’s a way of getting extra omega-3 fatty acids back into diets dominated by omega-6 fats, says Demmitt, a member of the DAA.

“One of the problems with a typical western diet is that it includes an over abundance of processed foods which tend to be high in omega 6 fats – but not enough omega-3 fats from foods like oily fish, walnuts and flax seed. But hemp seed provides another good source of omega-3 fats that’s very easy to add to the diet – and it’s also a sustainable plant source at a time when there are concerns about over-fishing,” she points out.

In case you need reminding about the skewed ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in our diet it goes something like this. It’s not that omega-6 fats are bad for us – just that our modern food supply is so over supplied with them that it’s easy to eat too many of them. This can result in a ratio of 20 to one in favour of omega-6 fats, instead of the World Health Organisation’s recommended ratio of four to one – an imbalance that’s been linked to a range of health problems including asthma and depression.

But what else makes hemp seed a standout, is that it’s also a rare food source of a fatty acid most of us have never heard of – GLA (short for gamma linolenic acid) that works as an anti-inflammatory, according to Demmitt. Emerging research suggests it may be useful for problems like eczema, allergies and rheumatoid arthritis.

“Hemp seed is also one of the few plant foods – soy is another – that provides all the amino acids that make up a complete protein. This makes it a great food for anyone who doesn’t eat animal foods,” she says.

It’s also high in vitamin C and E, is a source of B vitamins, iron and magnesium and it contains both soluble and insoluble fibre. Unlike flax seed, which needs to be ground in order to digest its nutrients, you can also eat hemp seed whole.

What about the taste? Similar to pine nuts. And the oil makes a good salad dressing, she adds.

In case you were wondering, munching a hemp-spiked muesli bar isn’t quite the same as eating a hash cookie. While hemp and marijuana are from the same plant Cannabis sativa, they’re different varieties and, according to FSANZ, hemp seed contains little or no tetrahydrocannabinol – or THC, the active ingredient that gets smokers stoned – and has no psychoactive properties.

So if it’s so blameless – and nutritious – why was a previous attempt to let us to eat hemp rejected in 2002? Because of concerns that making hemp foods available would “increase consumer acceptance of illicit Cannabis use and pose problems for drug enforcement agencies,” FSANZ says.

Do you include seeds in your diet? Would hemp seed find a place in your pantry if the ban were lifted?

Article source: Paula Goodyer,  SMH.com.au

Expressing appreciation, along with embracing a deep reverence for the beauty of our individual lives, is a most joyful and productive thing to do.

Learn to bask in the clarity and exhilaration of each moment. Oh yes, some moments are definitely better than others. As we make a conscientious effort to bring in more optimistic thought patterns, it becomes easier to find the precious good in our everyday experiences. And this in turn brings in the flow of more positive aspects…

Affirmations: ~I am grateful for all the lessons I have learned along this journey called Life. ~I strive to let appreciation fill my heart and my senses… and know that my life is better for it.

Article source: S S Berger

Image Source: Unknown

As soon as you awaken to your power to dream, you begin to flex the muscles of your courage. Then you can dream bravely: letting go of your limiting beliefs and pushing past your fears. You can begin to create truly original dreams that germinate in your soul and bear fruit in your life.

Courageous dreaming allows you to create from the source, the quantum soup of the Universe where everything exists in a latent or potential state. Physicists understand that in the quantum world nothing is “real” until it is observed. But quantum events do not occur in the laboratory only. They also happen inside our brain, on this page, and everywhere around us. When you access any part of the dream, the great matrix of energy, you can change reality and alter the entire dream.

Modern physics is describing what the ancient wisdomkeepers of theAmericashave long known. These shamans, known as the Earthkeepers, say that we are dreaming the world into being through the very act of witnessing it. Scientists believe that we are only able to do this in the very small, subatomic world. Shamans understand that we also dream the larger world that we experience with our senses.             Like the Aborigines, the Earthkeepers live in a world where the dreamtime has not been pushed into the domain of sleep like it has for us. They know that all of creation arises from, and returns to, this dreamtime.

The dreamtime, the creative matrix, does not exist in a place outside of us. Rather, it infuses all matter and energy, connecting every creature, every rock, every star, and every ray of light or bit of cosmic dust. The power to dream is the power to participate in creation itself. For the Earthkeepers, dreaming reality is not only an ability but a duty, one we must perform with grace and love so that our grandchildren will inherit a world where they can live in peace and abundance.

We went into extraordinary detail to dream our universe into being.  The Big Bang had to be so finely tuned, so perfectly orchestrated and calculated, as to produce only 1 part of matter in 10 to the 50^th power of stardust. This is 10 followed by 50 zeroes, no more and no less. What’s even more baffling is the fine tuning of the parameters of the universe that occurred, particularly here on the surface of the earth, which has maintained a perfect temperature balance between the freezing and boiling point of water for more than a billion years. The unlikeliness of these ratios that permit life to appear suggests the presence of an intelligent force. The Earthkeepers call this the Infinite Source, or Infinity.

The shamans I have studied with in the Andes and the Amazon believe that we can only access the power of this force by raising our level of consciousness. When we do so, we become aware that we’re like a drop of water in a vast, divine ocean, distinct yet immersed in something much larger than ourselves. It’s only when we experience our connection to Infinity that we’re able to dream powerfully. In fact, it’s our sense of separation from Infinity that makes us become trapped in a nightmare in the first place. To end the nightmare, to reclaim our power of dreaming reality and craft a better reality, we need more than an intellectual understanding of how this process works. We need to have a visceral understanding of our dreaming power and experience it in every cell of our body. In fact, the intellectual understanding of our ability to create reality mimics but forestalls the kind of dreaming we’re capable of. If we don’t get beyond mere intellectual understanding of this concept, we’ll end up lowering the bar and creating a far less glorious and beautiful experience of the world than we’re capable of crafting. With a visceral understanding of our power to dream, we recognize that we can share this experience of Infinity right here, right now, and stop feeling disassociated and disconnected. It takes courage to taste Infinity.

The Earthkeepers believe that the world is real, but only because you are dreaming it into being. But dreaming the world requires an act of courage. When we lack courage, we have to settle for the world that is being dreamed by our culture or by our genes. We feel we have to settle for the nightmare. To dream courageously, you must be willing to use your heart. Otherwise, your dream will stall at the level of emotions, and of thinking too much, planning too much, and worrying endlessly. Then your dream will turn into a nightmare or a mere daydream, trapping you or drifting away while you wonder, “What happened?”

Although your mind resists it, the fact is that you have a choice between having the life you want or having the reasons you can’t have that life. You can have joy and peace, or you can have that big black bag full of all the sorrowful incidents and accidents that happened to you in your childhood or in your last relationship. You can have your wounds or you can have your glory. You can live the life of a victim, burdened by the traumas of your past, or you can live the life of a hero, but you can’t do both. If you want to feel empowered, you need to make a conscious decision to dream a sacred dream and practice courage.

Article Source: Alberto Villoldo, PhD.
Image Source: Chanpipat, Surtrek

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have now determined that the insertion and deletion of large pieces of DNA near genes are highly variable between humans and chimpanzees and may account for major differences between the two species.

The research team lead by Georgia Tech Professor of Biology John McDonald has verified that while the DNA sequence of genes between humans and chimpanzees is nearly identical, there are large genomic “gaps” in areas adjacent to genes that can affect the extent to which genes are “turned on” and “turned off.” The research shows that these genomic “gaps” between the two species are predominantly due to the insertion or deletion (INDEL) of viral-like sequences called retrotransposonsthat are known to comprise about half of the genomes of both species. The findings are reported in the most recent issue of the online, open-access journal Mobile DNA.

“These genetic gaps have primarily been caused by the activity of retroviral-like transposable element sequences,” said McDonald. “Transposable elements were once considered ‘junk DNA’ with little or no function. Now it appears that they may be one of the major reasons why we are so different from chimpanzees.”

McDonald’s research team, composed of graduate students Nalini Polavarapu, Gaurav Arora and Vinay Mittal, examined the genomic gaps in both species and determined that they are significantly correlated with differences in gene expression reported previously by researchers at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

“Our findings are generally consistent with the notion that the morphological and behavioral differences between humans and chimpanzees are predominately due to differences in the regulation of genes rather than to differences in the sequence of the genes themselves,” said McDonald.

The current analysis of the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees was motivated by the group’s previously published findings (2009) that the higher propensity for cancer in humans vs. chimpanzees may have been a by-product of selection for increased brain size in humans.

Source - Sciencedaily.com