Probiotic Safety – Update on Probiotic Safety

Most people assume that if something is “natural” then it’s safe.

Even natural products can be dangerous if:

• Taken by the wrong person
• Taken for the wrong reason
• Mixed with medications that interact
• Contaminated with potential toxins

To give you an example, The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) just released an update on probiotic safety, saying:

• Probiotics should be used with extra caution in newborns, pregnancy, short-bowel syndrome, and people who are immunocompromised.
• Probiotic supplements should be tested for purity, potency, and potential contaminants.

I believe that if a natural product has the potential to do good (to actually improve a person’s health) then it also has the potential to do harm. We can’t have one without the other! Look for products that meet the highest quality standards, such as using the most effective ingredients and third-party testing for purity.

Let’s respect natural products for the powerful therapeutics they are.

Junk Food – New Research

Even if you sleep the exact same number of hours, eating junk food during the day can affect the QUALITY of your sleep – making sleep more shallow and less restorative.

Let’s back up a minute. Sleep consists of different stages with different functions. Deep sleep, for example, regulates hormonal release. Each sleep stage is also marked by specific electrical activity in the brain.

A brand new study in the journal “Obesity” looked at what happened to sleep quality (measured in a sleep laboratory) when healthy young men ate nutritious meals vs. junk food. Here’s what they found:

• Participants slept the same number of hours, regardless of which diet they consumed.
• They also spent the same amount of time in each of the sleep stages.
• But slow-wave brain activity (a measurement of how restorative deep sleep is) was less in those who ate the junk food.

This means that the junk food resulted in sleep that was less deep – similar to what happens with aging and insomnia.

Why should you care about restorative sleep?

Because it’s essential for…

• Graceful Aging
• Balanced Hormones
• Healthy Metabolism
• Brain Function, Mood, & More!

Indoor Plants

This just in!!

Indoor plants remove toxins from the air – including cancerous compounds and gasoline fumes A study out of Australia just found that a mix of indoor plants effectively removed 97% of the most toxic pollutants from indoor air in just 8 hours.

Most people spend 90% of their time indoors, where the air can be 2-5 times more polluted than outdoors, so this information is powerful.

Other studies have shown plants to help purify air, but this is the first to show they can remove gasoline fumes, which is one of the most common indoor air pollutants worldwide.

Not everything needs to be complicated. In this case, better health might be as simple as adding a few plants to your home.

Flavanols

This one is for anyone who cares about their memory as they age. The just-released COSMOS-Web Study asked this question: Can flavanol supplements benefit the aging brain?

Flavanols are naturally occurring compounds in plant foods that have antioxidant and health-promoting properties, but not everyone eats enough.

Building on over 15 years of research, the current study assigned 3,500 healthy older adults to take a daily flavanol supplement (or placebo) for three years. The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80mg of epicatechins.

The results?

• Memory scores improved slightly for everyone taking the daily flavanol supplement.
• Memory scores improved most significantly (by 16%) in those who were consuming a poorer diet and had lower baseline levels of flavanols.
• Even more importantly, memory improvement was sustained for at least two more years

Think of it like this:

Just like the developing brain of newborns and small children requires specific nutrients for proper development, so too does the aging brain require specific nutrients for optimal health. Now we know flavanols are some of those key brain nutrients.