craigmaltby

I just could not pass up this one.  Some new research out of the U.K. suggests that women are more attracted to healthy looking men than good looking men. What does that mean?  It means if your face has a healthy glow, rather that just being handsome, women are more likely to connect. Says lead investigator Ian Stephen: “The attractive color in our face is affected by our health—especially by the amount of colorful antioxidant carotenoid pigments we get from fruit and vegetables in our diet... Read Full Story

Just heard a sugar story today on the radio. If I remember correctly, the report said Americans should limit processed sugar intake to the equivalent of no more than 9 teaspoons a day. Right now, we average 28!   And sugar is hell on immune function . The radio report centered on a new commentary in Nature, the science journal. You have to have a subscription to read it so I’ve posted a video below in which the authors discuss the piece. Here’s some additional analysis of the commentary as... Read Full Story

As if the human immune system and the many health conditions it impacts aren’t complex enough. Try wrapping your brain around this. Some new Yale research paints a wild picture of how the immune system in the gut, controlled by a mix of good and bad bacteria or “microflora,” may actually be transferred from one person to another and may transmit obesity between people. Yeeesh! The research, a mouse study , showed that when two mice–one healthy, one obese with liver disease–were put in the... Read Full Story

This TED Talk presentation given late last year is worth a watch. It’s a 17-minute overview of the immune system, given by Tim Mossman of the University of Rochester.  It’s got a lot of complicated charts and images that attempt to describe the infinitely complex immune system If you don’t view the whole thing ,at least  make sure to watch the segment from 3:23 to 5:20 , where he talks about the optimal immune health state:  the state of “balance.”  That’s where the nutritional and life... Read Full Story

My daughter and her design studio friends in college put in a lot of  late nights getting projects ready to turn in. In addition to consuming massive coffee, she and her fellow late nighters are drinking a lot of green tea as well. She buys the loose leaf stuff in the fancy store in the mall for God knows how much money. But, with her crazy hours, lack of sleep many nights and other factors, I’m totally down with the green tea. Keep it going, I say.  There are immune health benefits to be... Read Full Story

You ever wonder why so many political consultants and managers seem a bit sickly, overweight, pale, etc.? They live in a world of conflict, of attack mode politics, of demonizing. And they live it 24/7. The pros who make it big in this field endure this existence for years. Or how about a manager or CEO who has to fight off the dogs every day: shareholders who want their scalp; competitors trying to take their company down; hostile board members. Add to that, perhaps, a marriage at home that... Read Full Story

Just came across an interesting article from a site called Organic Authority. The article highlights its selection of “The 8 Most Nutrient-Dense Foods on Earth.” Some of the winners you’d expect: blueberries, spinach, broccoli. Others were bit more exotic:  hemp seeds, chia seeds and, the winner, spirulina (algae). If I could add another, it might be yeast culture, the active ingredient in EpiCor. Yeast culture is a basic yeast that has been heated and oxidated to promote outgrowth from... Read Full Story

One of the concerns the consumer market has about foods, supplements, medications or pharmaceuticals (in other words, anything they put into their bodies) is safety. It seems every other week we’re reading about some new safety breach in a food product or a bottle of over-the-counter medicine. Could be the presence of heavy metals or other contaminants, maybe outdated or unlabeled ingredients, or some kind of contamination. Sometimes ingredients are supplied by foreign suppliers that are... Read Full Story

Right before my kids came home from college for the holiday break, my wife and I cleaned the house. Now that the kids are back in school, I’ll give it another going over this weekend. You ever notice how you feel just a bit better when you come home to a clean abode?  It just seems things are brighter, calmer, easier when the dirty towels are off the bathroom floor, the laundry is off the bed and put away, the kitchen floor shines, and the bookcases don’t sport a double layer of dust... Read Full Story

There a lot out there about stress and immune health, and stress and digestive health. But what about all three? Stress. Gut health. Immune health. The all three interact with each other. What’s the real story? Here’s a brief explanation . Stress can alter the bacterial composition of the digestive tract. When that happens, good/bad bacteria are out of balance. When bad bacteria rule the roost (in the gut), the ability of the body’s immune system to operate at top efficiency is... Read Full Story