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Most of the diseases nowadays are result of increased inflammation within your body. If not treated on time, it can sometimes cause serious damage and even have fatal consequences. Here is a juice recipe we recommend whose regular consumption will help you reduce and fight inflammation completely naturally without using any supplements.

If left untreated for longer time inflammation can have devastating and even lethal outcome for people.

Of the ten leading causes of mortality in the United States, chronic, low-level inflammation contributes to the pathogenesis of at least seven, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. These include heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and nephritis ( inflammation of the kidneys)

Inflammation has been viewed as an acute (short term) response to tissue injury that produces characteristic symptoms and usually resolves spontaneously. More contemporary revelations show chronic inflammation to be a major factor in the development of degenerative disease and loss of youthful functions.

Chronic inflammation can be triggered by cellular stress and dysfunction, such as that caused by excessive calorie consumption, elevated blood sugar levels, and oxidative stress. The danger of chronic, low-level inflammation is that its silent nature belies its destructive power.

Chronic low-level inflammation may be threatening your health at this very moment, without you realizing it. We suggest making a delicious anti-inflammatory drink which consists of carefully selected fresh ingredients that fight chronic inflammation, combat chronic diseases and help you avoid age-related health decline.

Prepare it whenever you desire, either early in the morning or late afternoon. It will boost your energy and make you feel great and help you treat all the inflammatory processes going on in the body.

Ingredients:

• 2 oranges
• 1 apple
• 1 carrot
• 1 lemon
• a thumb of ginger

Instructions:

Combine the ingredients in a juicer and process everything well until you get this amazing juice with great refreshing taste.

How to cleanse your body and at the same time to promote healthy weight loss? Here is a great suggestion for fresh salad that will make you feel energized and fresh throughout the day.

It is made in a minute and boasts incredible effects on your overall health.

Red cabbage is choke full of antioxidants and has amazing anti-inflammatory properties. The antioxidants are powerful enough to make harmful free radicals neutral and quickly flush them from the body.

Cabbage has been known be a great support player in weight loss, this is because red cabbage increases your body’s production of two hormones adiponectin (fat-burning) and leptin (appetite-suppressing).

Along with filling you up with fiber and natural water found in this veggie, this powerhouse is full of essential minerals: Potassium, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium , Phosphorus , Zinc, Copper, Manganese and Selenium.

Red cabbage is loaded with many important compounds and vitamins such as with Thiamin, Riboflavin, Folate, Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6

Apart from the presence of vitamins, minerals and natural water, red cabbage also contains healthy Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.

Prepare this nutritious salad and experience its great potential. It is best if consumed alone for dinner, or in combination with light meal for lunch. For all those who want to shed pounds, it is recommended to consume the salad twice a day until you reach the desired weight.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head purple cabbage
• 1 big carrot
• 1 scallion

Salad Dressing:

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• a little bit Himalayan salt

Instructions:

Shred the cabbage, chop the carrot and the scallion and mix everything. Use the salad dressing and mix everything well again. Serve immediately

If there is one group of people that are known worldwide for their strict and old-fashioned lifestyle, that’s the Amish people. They refuse to use modern technology and modern pharmaceutical drugs.

The Amish people are living balanced lives by staying in touch with Mother Nature. They have natural remedies for treatment of many different health problems.

The world has recently found out about one specific and very efficient remedy used by the Amish people for many decades.

This homemade cure can treat many disorders and diseases and on top of that, it can boost the immune system.

With the help of this simple recipe you will be able to reduce hypertension and manage blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

It is made from common household ingredients and it won’t take much time to prepare it. The best part is that you will notice the positive results after taking it for just one week!

The Natural Cure for High Cholesterol Levels and High Blood Pressure:

Ingredients:

• 1 clove of grated garlic
• 1 piece of ginger (grated)
• 1 tsp. of honey
• 1 Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice

Instructions:

Place all the ingredients in a blender and use high speed to mix them for half a minute. After that, strain the mixture and keep it in the fridge for 5 days.

How to Use This Natural Remedy?

Take this cure 2 times a day. Consume one tablespoon of this healthy mixture in the morning on an empty stomach and one tablespoon before your last meal.

The first visible results can be expected after three days and you’ll be stunned by the results. People usually feel energetic, refreshed and their cholesterol and blood pressure levels are stabilized.

Ginger is grown as a root and is a flexible ingredient that can be consumed in drinks (tea, beer, ale) or in cooking. It can be used to make foods spicy and even as a food preservative. For over 2000 years, Chinese medicine has recommended the use of ginger to help cure and prevent several health problems.

Some of most prominent properties of ginger include migraine relief, soothing the stomach, muscles bath, cure cramps, improve metabolism, heal congestion problems, pain relief and anti cancer as well. This amazing ingredient can be a part of body wrap recipes.

RECIPE

Preparation:

Mix the flour and the ginger juice with a small amount of honey so that the mixture does not stick to your hands. Afterwards, add some vegetable oil and roll it up in the flour once more. After these steps, put the mixture on a napkin and wrap the napkin in the gauze.

Needed:

• Honey
• Ginger juice
• Flour
• Vegetable oil
• Napkin
• Gauze
• Band-aid adhesive tape

Use:

Attach the wrap on the chest or on the back, using the patch. After that, put pajamas on. Do not place the wrap onto the heart area but slightly above it. For children, the best time to put the compress is 2 or 3 hours before sleep. Bear in mind that children must not sleep with the wraps attached. On the other hand, adults can sleep through the night with the compress attached. For a more enhanced effect add a little bit of mustard powder.

Before the treatment, put some kind of cover onto the sheets since you will be sweating a lot. This compress is highly effective because it is rich in anti-inflammatory properties and warming effects. The first results are noticeable in the initial stage of the disease. Although your condition may get better after the first treatment with the compress, continue the procedure for several days in order for the treatment to be more successful.

NOTE:

Children younger than 6 months should not use these honey wraps. Also, if child has some skin injuries or diseases, you should not apply this wraps on his chest or back.

Added sugar is a disaster and many people are trying to avoid it.

But most of us are accustomed to sweet foods, and don’t want to live our lives without them.

For this reason, various artificial chemicals have been invented to replicate the effects of sugar.

These are substances that can stimulate the sweet taste receptors on the tongue.

They usually have no calories and don’t have the harmful metabolic effects of added sugar.

These chemicals are known as “artificial” sweeteners… as opposed to “natural” sweeteners like sugar or honey.

These chemicals are very sweet, and they are often added to foods and beverages that are then marketed as weight loss friendly… which makes sense given that they are virtually calorie free.

However, despite increased use of these low-calorie sweeteners (and diet foods in general), the obesity epidemic has only gotten worse.

The evidence regarding artificial sweeteners is actually fairly mixed and the use of these substances is highly controversial.

So… what is the truth about artificial sweeteners? How do they affect appetite, body weight and our risk for obesity-related disease?

Let’s have a look…

There Are Many Different Types of Artificial Sweeteners

There are numerous different artificial sweeteners available and the chemical structure varies between them.

What they all have in common, is that they are incredibly effective at stimulating the sweet taste receptors on the tongue.

In fact, most are hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, gram for gram.

Some of them (such as aspartame) do contain calories, but the total amount needed to provide a sweet flavour is so little that the calories you ingest are negligible (1).

Here is a table showing the most common artificial sweeteners, how sweet they are relative to sugar, and brand names they are sold under:

Then there are other low-calorie sweeteners that are processed from natural ingredients and therefore don’t count as “artificial.”

This includes the natural zero-calorie sweetener stevia, as well as sugar alcohols like xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol and mannitol. Sugar alcohols tend to have similar sweetness as sugar but less than half as many calories.

This article is strictly about the artificial sweeteners… but you can read about the natural ones here.

Bottom Line: There are many different types of artificial sweeteners. The most common ones are aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, neotame and acesulfame potassium

Artificial Sweeteners and Appetite Regulation

Animals, including humans, don’t just seek food to satisfy energy needs.

We also seek so-called “reward” from food.

Sugar-sweetened foods trigger brain chemicals and hormones to be released, part of what is known as the “food reward” pathway (2, 3, 4, 5).

“Food reward” is crucial to feeling satisfied after eating and shares brain circuitry with addictive behaviors, including drugs (6, 7, 2).

While artificial sweeteners provide sweet taste, many researchers believe that the lack of calories prevents complete activation of the food reward pathway.

This may be the reason artificial sweeteners are linked with increased appetite and cravings for sugary food in some studies (8).

Magnetic imaging in 5 men showed that sugar consumption decreased signalling in the hypothalamus, the appetite regulator of the brain (9).

This response was not seen with consumption of aspartame, suggesting that the brain does not register artificial sweeteners as having a satiating effect.

It may be that sweetness without the calories leads to further food seeking behavior, adding to your overall caloric intake.

But… there have also been studies where artificial sweeteners did not affect appetite or caloric intake from other foods (10, 11).

In a 6 month study of 200 individuals, replacing sugary drinks with either artificially sweetened drinks or water had no effect on food intake (12).

Bottom Line: Some researchers believe that artificial sweeteners do not satisfy our biological sugar cravings in the same manner as sugar, and could therefore lead to increased food intake. However, the evidence is mixed.

Sweeteners and Sugar Cravings

Another argument opposing artificial sweeteners is that the unnatural sweetness encourages sugar cravings and sugar dependence.

This idea is logical considering that flavor preferences in humans can be trained with repeated exposure (13).

For example, we know that reducing salt or fat for several weeks leads to a preference for lower levels of those nutrients (14, 15). Sweetness is no different.

While this is not proven, it does seem to make sense. The more we eat of sweet foods, the more we want them.

Bottom Line: The strong sweetness of artificial sweeteners may be causing us to become dependent on sweet flavor. This could increase our desire for sweet foods in general.

Observational Studies on Artificial Sweeteners and Body Weight

Many observational studies have been conducted on artificial sweeteners.

These kinds of studies take a group of people and ask them about various factors, such as what they eat.

Then many years later, they can see whether a particular variable (such as artificial sweetener use) was associated with either an increased or decreased risk of disease.

These types of studies don’t prove anything, but they can help us find patterns that warrant further investigation.

Several of these studies have paradoxically found that artificially sweetened drinks are linked to weight gain rather than weight loss (16).

However, the most recent review, which summarized the findings of 9 observational studies, found that artificial sweeteners were associated with a slightly higher BMI, but not with body weight or fat mass (17).

I should point out that this study was industry sponsored. It doesn’t mean that the results are invalid, just that we should be extra skeptical because the funding source of a study can often skew the results and the interpretation of the data (18).

That being said… correlation does not imply causation, so these studies don’t prove anything one way or the other.

Fortunately, the effects of artificial sweeteners on body weight have also been studied in numerous controlled trials (real science).

Bottom Line: Some observational studies have found artificial sweeteners to be linked with increased weight, but the evidence is mixed.

Controlled Trials on Artificial Sweeteners

Many clinical trials have concluded that artificial sweeteners are favorable for weight control (19, 20, 21, 22).

One of the largest trials looked at 641 children aged 4-11 years who had to drink either 250 ml (8.5 ounces) of an artificially sweetened drink, or the same amount of a sugary drink every day for 18 months.

The children who were assigned the artificially sweetened drinks gained significantly less weight and less fat than the sugar-drinking children (19).

The most recent review of 15 clinical trials found that replacing sugary drinks with their artificially sweetened versions can result in modest weight loss of about 1.8 lbs (0.8 kg), on average (17).

Two other recent reviews led to similar findings (23, 24).

So… according to the best available evidence, artificial sweeteners appear to be mildly effective for weight loss.

They certainly don’t seem to cause weight gain, at least not on average.

Bottom Line: Numerous controlled trials have studied the effects of artificial sweeteners on body weight. On average, replacing sugar-sweetened beverages with diet beverages may cause weight loss of about 2 pounds.

Artificial Sweeteners and Metabolic Health

All of this being said, health is about way more than just weight.

There are some observational studies (again, studies that don’t prove anything) linking artificial sweetener consumption to metabolic disease.

This includes an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Sometimes the results are quite staggering… for example, one study found that diet soft drinks were linked to a 121% greater risk of type 2 diabetes (25).

Another study found that these beverages were linked to a 34% greater risk of metabolic syndrome (26).

This is supported by a recent high-profile study on artificial sweeteners, showing that they caused a disruption in the gut bacterial environment and induced glucose intolerance in both rats and humans (27).

It is known that the bacteria in the intestine (gut flora) are incredibly important for health (28, 29, 30).

Whether artificial sweeteners cause problems by disrupting the gut bacteria needs to be studied further, but it appears that there may be some cause for concern.

Take Home Message

Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners may be helpful in reducing body weight, but only very slightly at best.

Their intake certainly does not seem to cause weight gain, at least not in the short-term.

At the end of the day, artificial sweeteners are not “toxic” like some people make them out to be, but I’m not convinced that they’re perfectly safe either.

The research goes both ways… and the decision about using them must come down to the individual.

If you’re healthy, happy and satisfied with the results you’re getting and you happen to use artificial sweeteners… then there’s no need to change anything. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

However… if you suffer from cravings, poor blood sugar control or any mysterious health problem, avoiding artificial sweeteners may be one of many things to consider.

Different strokes for different folks.

By Joe Leech, Dietitian