Make 2011 the Year of Mind Body and Sole

January Special Offers: Book one treatment and get another half price

Read Full Post »

Soil Depletion and Nutrient Deficiencies

The 21^st century has probably seen more pollution than ever before and certainly less available nutrition from food. Food supply in contemporary society, when moving from farm to market, is often depleted of essential antioxidants, vitamins and minerals occurring from modern agricultural practices, processes, handling, shipping and storage, that make truly ‘fresh’ food rarely available.

 Soil is simply not what is used to be.  According to the 1992 Earth Summit  the USA has the worst soil in the world: 85% depleted, showing that the potency of food supply is not able to sustain optimum health.  One reason for soil depletion is the result of corporate farming methods. Historically, soil rotation has been essential in keeping the soil from becoming an inhospitable environment.  Today, the required soil maintenance is not carried out (Nugent 2005, The Missing Nutrients).   Instead, farmers simply add three nutrients to the soil: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, and sometimes calcium (Nugent 2005, p2).  Thus, the quality of food has changed.  A US Senate document published in 1936 stated: ‘The alarming fact is that foods now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us.  No matter how much of them we eat, no man today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health…” (Nugent 2005, p3).

Before farming was developed, hunter-gatherers ate a wide variety of freshly picked, unprocessed foods.  These wild foods were nutrient-dense, growing in mineral-rich soil which did not suffer the nutrient losses caused by cooking and modern processing.

Supporting evidence comes from a study by Berger (cited in Nugent 2005, p3) which compiled data from a variety of sources to show the decline in mineral and vitamin content of fruit and vegetables between 1914, 1963 and 1992. The table below shows the extent of mineral loss from a variety of different fruits and vegetables from the years 1963 to 1992.

Mineral	Average % of Change
Calcium	-29.82
Iron	-32.00
Magnesium	-21.08
Phosphorus	-11.09
Potassium	-6.48

(Source: Nugent 2005, p3)

To compound this problem, food, in many cases, is harvested green to obtain longer shelf life, yet only fully ripened foods can provide the full nutritional potential from the phytochemicals they were designed to yield (Nugent 2005, p4). Added to this equation are the toxins and pesticides that foods are sprayed with and the antibiotics and hormones that commercially raised livestock is subjected to.  

It can be argued that toxins and nutritional deficiencies contribute to the modern-day stresses the cells of the body already have to deal with.  To illustrate this point, research studies have shown that the immune system (over the past 15 years) has lost over 25% of natural NK cell function due to toxins, viruses and daily stressors, and that NK cell activity increases by 50% after glyconutritional supplementation in healthy individuals and by 400% amongst chronic fatigue individuals (See, Khemka, Sahl, Bui and Tilles 1997, p217).

Given the above information, there are many who believe that a so-called balanced diet is no longer adequate – that food supplements are no longer a luxury but a necessity (Nugent 2005, p11). 

The above is an extract from my dissertation ‘What is the evidence for glyconutrients? The concepts and theories behind glyconutrition and glyconutrient supplementation’. I received a BSc First Class Honours in Complementary Health Sciences.

Read Full Post »

Gift Vouchers for Christmas

If you’re looking for something nice and different to give to loved ones as presents for Christmas, why not give a gift voucher of a reflexology or Indian head massage treatment? Now available for £30.

Read Full Post »

Vitamin D – a crucial vitamin

Research keeps unearthing one find after another that cites vitamin D deficiency as a major culprit in disease development.  New studies show that vitamin D is important to proper brain development, and that a lack of this vitamin may be a contributing factor in causing schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and depression.  Calcium and magnesium deficiencies often accompany vitamin D deficiency and are associated with seizures in infants and degenerative neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s in adults.

The good news is that vitamin D:

• Relieves the symptoms of seasonal depression;
• Plays a critical role in slowing or preventing many types of arthritis;
• Reduces the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes;
• Improves the release of insulin and response of muscle and liver to insulin, which means that normal levels of vitamin D may help prevent diabetes;
• Helps the development of healthy immune system during childhood; and
• Plays a key role in regulating cell growth and differentiation which may prevent cancer.

Read Full Post »