High blood pressure is a condition that has the potential to be quite a health risk. Therefore, it is essential for anyone suffering from high blood pressure to follow the advice a health care professional or a qualified naturopath before relying entirely on remedies other than prescription drugs. Similarly, for controlling blood sugar, while you may try alternative remedies, you should always take your doctor's advice about reducing the intake of (or stopping) prescription drugs.


Silymarin for blood sugar
Antioxidants are known to be beneficial in controlling blood sugar. Silymarin, (silybum marianum) a herbal extract taken from the seeds of Milk Thistle, has wonderful antioxidant properties that work in this manner. By taking Silymarin, you can reduce your blood sugar levels quite significantly. Silymarin contains the active ingredients called flavolignans, which help the liver from poisoning. They also are believed to help in controlling Type 2 Diabetes, although the exact mechanism as to how they do it is still not clear.

Mulberry leaf
Morus, or mulberry leaf is chock full of Vitamin A and the B family of vitamins. It also contains pectin, adenine and choline. Chinese make and consume 'sugar control herbal tea' made from morus, green tea and jasmine in order to control blood sugar levels.

Vaccinium berries
Herbs that include huckleberries, blueberries and bilberries belong to the genus Vaccinium. Bilberries are rich in antioxidants and are said to control blood sugar levels. Both the leaves and the fruit of the bilberry herb have long been in use for the treatment of diabetes. However, as the leaves do impair the normal working of the liver when used for a long time, it is better not to use the bilberry leaves at all. But the berries of the bilberry herb are very useful, even if they may not actually lower the blood sugar levels. They are good in protecting the blood vessels from the damaging effects of diabetes and other diseases.

Neem leaves
Extracts from neem leaves and bitter gourd, it is believed, help in controlling blood sugar levels, provided they are consumed on a long term and regular basis.

For controlling blood pressure, you should first take care of your nutrition. Avoiding meat and dairy products will help. In doing so, you can reduce your cholesterol too. Eat an abundance of fruits, especially those kinds that do not aggravate your blood sugar levels in case you are a diabetic as well. The best thing that can really work for lowering your blood pressure is drinking a lot of plain water while avoiding consuming soft drinks, particularly those that are processed drinks and those that contain sugar. It is better to avoid coffee as well. The best advantage with water is that it does not produce any side effects at all.

The next thing you can do is to minimize your intake of common salt or sodium. Better yet, just avoid salt altogether in your food. Table salt is processed sodium chloride and is found in high quantities in processed and pre-packaged foods. If you start with with only fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and whole grains, you won't have a problem lowering your sodium intake. If you cannot avoid salt intake altogether in cooking, you can perhaps use sea salt or "Celtic salt", whose molecules are quite complex, and so it is not harmful like table salt is. It is also difficult to find low-salt foods at restaurants due to the high volume of prepared and frozen foods they buy before they even begin making your dish in the restaurant.

Read More..

This is a question that people often ask but is actually a very difficult one to answer. Addiction is not just one single and simple process, it is a complex process that has both physical and psychological aspects. Nevertheless despite this complexity two attempts have been made to determine the most addictive drug. Independently Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz of the University of California at San Francisco, ranked six psychoactive substances, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and marijuana, on the five criteria they felt were most important in addiction.


The first of these criteria was withdrawal. This is defined as the severity of withdrawal symptoms produced by stopping the use of the drug. Both researchers rated alcohol as having the most severe withdrawal symptoms, for example hallucinations and convulsions, and the fact that withdrawal from alcohol is the only one of the included drugs that is potentially fatal.

The second criterion is reinforcement, that is the drug's tendency to induce users to take it again and again. This is influenced by the feelings that taking the drug brings, that is whether it is a pleasurable high or not, obviously if the feelings are negative there will be little incentive to repeat the experience. Again both researchers were in agreement and rated cocaine as the most reinforcing.

The third criterion was tolerance, this is defined as the user's need to have ever-increasing doses to get the same effect. For the first time the researchers disagree with Henningfield rating heroin first and Benowitz rating cocaine.

The fourth criterion is dependence. This is defined as the difficulty in quitting, or staying off the drug, usually measured by the number of users who eventually become dependent. For many dependence is viewed as the hallmark of addiction and how ‘addiction’ is usually measured by the medical profession. For this criterion both researchers are again in agreement as they rate nicotine highest for dependence. For the other drugs they both rated them in the same order that is highest for dependence, nicotine, then heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and last marijuana.

The final criterion is intoxication. This is the degree of intoxication produced by the drug in typical use. Again the researchers are in agreement and rate alcohol as the most intoxicating of the drugs.

Given the complexity of the addictive process it is not surprising that there is not a clear ‘winner’ in all criteria. What some may find surprising is that for both researchers caffeine ranked higher than marijuana on a number of the criteria and indeed Berowitz rates caffeine higher than marijuana for dependence.

These results have been quoted many times by many researchers, commentators and reporters. They are usually interpreted as nicotine, or tobacco smoking, being named the most addictive substance purely on the definition of the difficulty in refraining. What the results do show is that addiction is a complex and multi-facetted activity and that it is impossible to reduce it to a simple metric.
Read More..