Excess calories from free sugars are implicated in the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Honey is a free sugar but is generally regarded as healthy.
Objective
The effect of honey on cardiometabolic risk factors was assessed via a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) approach.
Data Sources
MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched up to January 4, 2021, for controlled trials ≥1 week in duration that assessed the effect of oral honey intake on adiposity, glycemic control, lipids, blood pressure, uric acid, inflammatory markers, and markers of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Data Extraction
Independent reviewers extracted data and assessed risk of bias. Data were pooled using the inverse variance method and expressed as mean differences (MDs) with 95%CIs. Certainty of evidence was assessed using GRADE.
Data Analysis
A total of 18 controlled trials (33 trial comparisons, N = 1105 participants) were included. Overall, honey reduced fasting glucose (MD = −0.20 mmol/L, 95%CI, −0.37 to −0.04 mmol/L; low certainty of evidence), total cholesterol (MD = −0.18 mmol/L, 95%CI, −0.33 to −0.04 mmol/L; low certainty), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (MD = −0.16 mmol/L, 95%CI, −0.30 to −0.02 mmol/L; low certainty), fasting triglycerides (MD = −0.13 mmol/L, 95%CI, −0.20 to −0.07 mmol/L; low certainty), and alanine aminotransferase (MD = −9.75 U/L, 95%CI, −18.29 to −1.21 U/L; low certainty) and increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (MD = 0.07 mmol/L, 95%CI, 0.04–0.10 mmol/L; high certainty). There were significant subgroup differences by floral source and by honey processing, with robinia honey, clover honey, and raw honey showing beneficial effects on fasting glucose and total cholesterol.
Conclusion
Honey, especially robinia, clover, and unprocessed raw honey, may improve glycemic control and lipid levels when consumed within a healthy dietary pattern. More studies focusing on the floral source and the processing of honey are required to increase certainty of the evidence.
DISCUSSION
This systematic review and meta-analysis of 18 controlled feeding trials involving 33 trial comparisons in 1105 predominantly healthy participants of mixed weight assessed the effect of oral honey intake on cardiometabolic outcomes. The results showed that oral honey intake at a median dose of 40 g over a median period of 8 weeks resulted in beneficial reductions in fasting glucose, ALT, total cholesterol, LDL-C, and fasting triglycerides and a significant increase in HDL-C. There was also a significant increase in markers of inflammation, specifically IL-6 and TNF-α. There was effect modification by both the floral source of honey and the processing of honey. Intake of clover honey and raw honey appeared to have a beneficial effect on fasting glucose, while both clover honey and robinia honey produced beneficial reductions in total cholesterol, LDL-C, and fasting triglycerides. The processing of honey produced a further effect modification on total cholesterol, HDL-C, and fasting triglycerides, with raw honey resulting in a beneficial effect. While there was no significant effect of oral honey intake on SBP, linear dose-response analysis showed that SBP decreased with an increasing dose of honey.
Are there any sugars that are good for you? The answer is yes
The human body needs a certain amount of salt, but we do not need refined sugar. This type of sugar only provides calories and has no nutritional value.
However, not everyone needs to quit sugar. Most healthy people can get away with occasionally adding sugar to their diets for flavor.
So are there any sweeteners or sugars that are less harmful or even beneficial? The answer is yes.
‘Sugar Substitute’ Is Not Necessarily a Good Sugar Substitute
When it comes to reducing sugar intake, many people first think of sugar substitutes. While replacing sugar with “sugar substitutes” sounds wonderful, artificial sweeteners should be chosen carefully.
Sugar substitutes can be divided into artificial sweeteners and natural sweeteners—the former are synthesized from chemicals, while the latter are obtained by fermentation or plant extraction.
“Zero-calorie” artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin have adverse effects on the body and can lead to metabolic syndromes such as insulin resistance and diabetes. There are three mechanisms by which artificial sweeteners impact metabolic function:
Interfere with glycemic control and energy homeostasis
Disrupt gut microbiota and induce glucose intolerance
Interact with sweet taste receptors expressed in the digestive system, thereby interfering with glucose absorption and insulin secretion
In addition, a study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2021 proved that the artificial sweetener (aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin) in two cans of sugar-free drinks was sufficient to turn normal and healthy gut bacteria into pathogenic bacteria that invade the body’s intestinal epithelial cells.
The types of sugar substitutes used in major brands in the U.S. artificial sweetener market are as follows:
Sucralose: Splenda
Aspartame: NutraSweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin
Saccharin: Sweet’N Low, Necta Sweet, and Sweet Twin
In the product ingredient list, the sugar substitute numbers 950, 951, 952, and 954 represent acesulfame potassium, aspartame, cyclamate, and saccharin, respectively.
Artificial sweeteners should be chosen carefully.
Stevia and Monk Fruit Sweeteners Are Less Harmful to the Human Body
In contrast, some sugar substitutes derived from natural plants are less harmful to our bodies. For example, stevia and monk fruit are both natural sweeteners.
Stevia
Stevia is a sweetening ingredient extracted from the leaves of a plant called Stevia rebaudiana. It has zero calories and does not affect blood sugar or insulin levels. It may be a good sugar substitute for diabetics and obese people.
A meta-analysis of nine studies with 756 participants showed that the intake of stevia can significantly reduce blood pressure and fasting blood glucose; the blood pressure decreased by an average of 2.98 mm Hg and the largest reduction was 6.23 mm Hg.
In fact, previous studies have shown that stevia can stabilize insulin levels.
It is worth noting, however, that stevia has a slightly bitter aftertaste.
Monk Fruit Sweetener
A review article published in Scientific Reports indicated that monk fruit could be the second-best natural sweetener after stevia.
Monk fruit sweetener is extracted from the fruit of Luo Han Guo. Current studies have found that it has anti-tumor, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidative properties.
It is also zero-calorie and will not be absorbed and metabolized by the body, so it will not affect blood sugar and cause obesity.
Monk fruit sweetener is a sugar substitute suitable for a wide range of people; its sweetness is relatively pure, close to that of white sugar. In addition, monk fruit sweetener can inhibit the growth of Streptococcus mutans and reduce its acid production and adhesion ability, which is beneficial to our oral health.
Stevia in the Raw, Pure Via, Truvia, and other sugar substitute brands use stevia in their recipes, while Monk Fruit in the Raw, Lakanto, etc., use monk fruit sweetener as raw material.
Natural Sweetener Products Have Other Ingredients Mixed In
However, it is worth noting that the sweetness of stevia and monk fruit sweeteners reach or even exceeds 300 times that of sugar. Due to various reasons such as taste, usability (difficulty of dosage control), cooking effect, and pricing, these sweetener products are usually mixed with other ingredients, even sugar itself (such as sucrose and glucose).
Stevia or monk fruit sweetener products labeled “sugar-free” are also mixed with many other types of sugar substitutes. Erythritol is one of the more common ingredients, and it generally accounts for up to 99 percent of the ingredients in these products.
According to a 2023 Nutrients paper, erythritol is a type of sugar alcohol that is about 70 percent as sweet as sucrose. Sugar alcohols are also called hydrogenated sugars; substances like xylitol, sorbitol, and mannitol are all sugar alcohols. Similar to xylitol, with which people are more familiar, erythritol is also produced through microbial fermentation.
Compared with xylitol, erythritol is less irritating to the human digestive tract and has a lower rate of adverse reactions. According to a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition, only about 10 percent of erythritol enters the colon, while 90 percent is absorbed by the body and excreted through urine without being utilized by cells. At present, erythritol has not been found to be harmful in human studies.
A clinical study published in June 2021 reported that healthy subjects who received erythritol ranging from 10 to 50 grams had no significant changes in blood glucose, insulin, glucagon, blood lipids, and uric acid. The secretion of gut hormones for satiety increased in the subjects, indicating that erythritol may also reduce appetite. Another human study showed a significant reduction in serum ghrelin and an increase in satiety after consumption of an erythritol-sweetened beverage compared to aspartame, but this study only involved nonobese subjects.
Increased nausea and borborygmi (the sound made in your stomach or intestines when gas or fluid moves through them) have been reported with the consumption of a single oral dose of 50 grams of erythritol. While it seems unlikely that erythritol will be fermented in the gut, as stated in the British Journal of Nutrition paper, it is not known whether long-term consumption of erythritol could lead to an imbalance in the gut microbiota, and according to the Nurtients paper, the effect of erythritol on body weight and risk for metabolic diseases remains to be discovered.
In addition to these almost calorie-free plant-derived sweeteners, there are also naturally occurring sugars. They too can sweeten our diets and offer health benefits when used in the right amounts.
Honey Can Fight the Flu and COVID-19
Honey is made up of about 82 percent carbohydrates and 17 percent water—of the carbohydrates, fructose accounts for about 40 percent, and glucose accounts for 30 percent. It also contains 4 to 5 percent fructooligosaccharides, which are probiotic agents. The physicochemical properties of honey can vary depending on the botanical sources, so its glycemic index (GI) varies between 32 and 85.
Honey contains about 180 different substances, including organic acids, enzymes, proteins, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, etc.
Compared with processed honey that has been sterilized at high temperatures, raw honey retains more nutrients. In particular, probiotics such as Lactobacillus and amylase are retained. Raw honey is also generally considered more nutritious and provides more health benefits.
Raw honey is more nutritious.
A systematic review and meta-analysis study published in the journal Nutrition Reviews in 2022 showed that within a healthy dietary pattern, eating unprocessed raw honey provided better blood glucose and lipid control compared with eating processed honey. The subjects’ fasting glucose decreased by 1.05 mmol/L, total cholesterol decreased by 0.61 mmol/L, fasting triglycerides decreased by 0.27 mmol/L, and HDL cholesterol increased by 0.11 mmol/L. These benefits were not seen in people who consumed processed honey.
Because of its broad spectrum activity against pathogenic bacteria, honey has been used for wound healing since ancient times.
An in vitro experiment found that honey can kill the influenza virus. The study tested five common kinds of honey, including manuka honey, buckwheat honey, honeydew honey, etc., and found that they all demonstrated strong inhibitory activity against influenza. In particular, manuka honey is the most effective type in killing the influenza virus.
In addition, a review study published in 2021 suggested that honey and its main components could combat COVID-19, and may also be effective against infection-induced pulmonary edema and fibrosis. Moreover, honey and its main components can suppress systemic inflammation in patients with COVID-19.
Glucose and fructose in honey can be directly absorbed by cells, and acetylcholine in honey has an anti-fatigue effect, so it can quickly restore physical strength and energy. The organic acids in honey can induce the secretion of digestive juices and promote digestion. Honey is also believed to promote bowel movements, relieve hangovers and protect the liver, moisten the lungs and relieve coughs, and boost immunity.
Traditional Brown Sugar (Non-Centrifugal Sugar) Has Health Benefits
Traditional brown sugar in the East is classified as non-centrifugal sugar (NCS) in the Western world. This refers to sugar obtained by traditional methods of boiling and drying sugarcane juice. Non-centrifugal sugar has different names in different countries, such as muscovado, panela, kokuto, jaggery, cane sugar, (ancient) brown sugar, brown sugar, and red sugar.
White sugar is made by boiling the sap of sugar-containing plants and adding ingredients such as decolorizers, then spinning it at high speed in a centrifuge to separate the sucrose crystals, while the remaining dark brown molasses are discarded. In contrast, brown sugar is reddish-brown because it retains molasses and has been boiled. It generally comes in the form of solid blocks or coarse particles, but some are in liquid form.
Brown sugar offers various health benefits.
Brown sugar is rich in nutrients. It has been used since ancient times for its potential to treat and improve certain diseases, as it is rich in minerals, bioactive compounds, flavonoids, phenolic acids, etc.
Brown sugar contains more iron than refined sugar; it also contains selenium, which is an insulin mimetic. In addition, there are minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and zinc in brown sugar.
Scientists have isolated about six antioxidants from Japanese jaggery (kokuto), including Syringaresinol, Coniferyl alcohol, and sinapyl alcohol.
There are 20 amino acids in brown sugar, among which is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which can regulate neurotransmission, promote neuron development and relaxation, and prevent insomnia and depression.
The conversion of sugar to acetic acid in the stomach increases enzyme activity, which improves digestion and stimulates appetite.
Animal experiments show that brown sugar effectively inhibits chromosomal aberration in cells caused by arsenic, which helps to prevent and treat arsenicosis.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that brown sugar is a warming and tonifying food. Li Shizhen’s “Compendium of Materia Medica” records that brown sugar has the effect of “harmonizing the spleen and soothing the liver,” while “Truth-Seeking Herbal Foundation” describes that it can “nourish blood, improve blood circulation, and remove obstruction in collaterals.” A similar view is shared in traditional Ayurvedic Indian medicine; it also dictates that brown sugar can treat migraines and throat and lung infections.
In a review article covering 46 studies of non-centrifuged sugars, the most reported effects were immunological (26 percent of all studies), followed by anti-toxicity and cytoprotective effects (22 percent), anticario-genic effects (15 percent), and diabetes and hypertension effects (11 percent).
Summary: In addition to helping treat mental health disorders, psychedelic treatments can help people overcome addictions. A new study reports psychedelics can help smokers quit nicotine and remain smoke-free for at least five years.
Source: University of Cincinnati
Researchers from the University of Cincinnati examined the post-treatment journals kept by participants in a 2014 smoking cessation study that found psychedelics were effective in helping some people quit smoking for years.
In a new paper published in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, researchers analyzed the participants’ own words and found that psychedelics combined with talk therapy often helped longtime smokers see themselves as nonsmokers. This new core identity might help explain why 80% of participants were able to stop smoking for six months and 60% remained smoking-free after five years.
The 2014 study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that participants who wanted to quit smoking and used psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, combined with cognitive behavioral therapy were far more likely to succeed than those who try other traditional quit-smoking methods.
Lead author and University of Cincinnati postdoctoral researcher Neşe Devenot said the results demonstrate the potential psychedelics have to reshape self-perceptions to help people break free of old habits or addictions in the face of life’s daily triggers and temptations.
“We saw again and again that people had this feeling that they were done with smoking and that they were a nonsmoker now,” Devenot said.
She studies the science, history and culture of psychedelics in UC’s Institute for Research in Sensing.
New sense of self
Devenot said this new sense of self might help arm people against temptation or old triggers.
“If you want to give up meat but you smell a delicious steak, it might be hard to resist,” she said. “But if you identify as a vegetarian and your sense of who you are is someone who does not eat meat, that identity helps encourage a different choice.”
During the smoking cessation study, therapists gave participants guided imagery exercises in which they were asked to envision smoking as a behavior external to their core identity. The participants documented their experience in writing.
One guided imagery exercise from the study framed nicotine addiction as an external force, manipulating behavior for its own ends like the zombie-creating fungus in HBO’s popular series “The Last of Us.”
“Like the Cordyceps fungi that functionally transforms insects into ‘zombified’ marionettes to serve the fungi’s own reproductive purposes, smoking behavior is characterized as a form of parasitic manipulation,” the study found.
Albert Garcia-Romeu, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, said psilocybin could serve as a catalyst to help motivate and inspire people to make a change with the help of cognitive behavioral therapy.
“Cognitive behavioral therapy asks us to tune into the thoughts and feelings that we experience in our day-to-day lives and how those relate to our behaviors,” Garcia-Romeu said. “In turn, people often tend to build a narrative or sense of self around those cognitions and behaviors.”
“This sets the stage for actually having the psilocybin experience, which can both provide novel insights and perspectives as well as serve as a marker of that identity shift like a rite of passage, signifying the change for instance from smoker to nonsmoker.”
Devenot said this new sense of self might help arm people against temptation or old triggers.
Devenot said the experiment’s sample size was relatively small at just 15 participants. But the results are encouraging.
“I feel that I am somehow fundamentally different to yesterday,” one participant wrote. “I guess I feel like some sort of metamorphosis has taken place!”
Some participants said the treatment with psilocybin made quitting feel easy compared to past experiences. Another said the cravings for nicotine used to be unbearable. But during the dosing session, the participant was unable even to imagine craving a cigarette.
“The concept seems firmly cemented into my reality even today, that cravings are not something that are real,” one said.
Breaking free
How do psychedelics help with this transformation?
Devenot says people often get stuck in the same ruts of behavior, responding the same way to stressors or other triggers. She likens it to a downhill skier who uses the same grooved path down the mountain that they have used a thousand other times.
“It’s not that simple, but it’s a metaphor for how we talk about psychedelics,” Devenot said.
“Psychedelics have been compared to skiing in fresh snow,” she said. “The entrenched grooves of bad habits might not have as much pull on our skis, so we can lay down other paths.”
“We’re looking for ways to help people shift behaviors and overcome the inertia of their habits that are more in line with their goals and aspirations,” Devenot said. “That’s why psychedelics are of wider interest to researchers.”
Summary: Traumatic brain injuries may increase the risk of developing glioma brain cancer later in life, researchers report. The study found brain injury caused specific genetic mutations to synergize with inflammation, making brain cells more likely to become cancerous.
Source: UCL
Researchers from the UCL Cancer Institute have provided important molecular understanding of how injury may contribute to the development of a relatively rare but often aggressive form of brain tumor called a glioma.
Previous studies have suggested a possible link between head injury and increased rates of brain tumors, but the evidence is inconclusive. The UCL team have now identified a possible mechanism to explain this link, implicating genetic mutations acting in concert with brain tissue inflammation to change the behavior of cells, making them more likely to become cancerous.
Although this study was largely carried out in mice, it suggests that it would be important to explore the relevance of these findings to human gliomas.
The study was led by Professor Simona Parrinello (UCL Cancer Institute), Head of the Samantha Dickson Brain Cancer Unit and co-lead of the Cancer Research UK Brain Tumor Center of Excellence. She said, “Our research suggests that a brain trauma may contribute to an increased risk of developing brain cancer in later life.”
Gliomas are brain tumors that often arise in neural stem cells. More mature types of brain cells, such as astrocytes, have been considered less likely to give rise to tumors. However, recent findings have demonstrated that after injury astrocytes can exhibit stem cell behavior again.
Professor Parrinello and her team therefore set out to investigate whether this property may make astrocytes able to form a tumor following brain trauma using a pre-clinical mouse model.
Young adult mice with brain injury were injected with a substance which permanently labeled astrocytes in red and knocked out the function of a gene called p53—known to have a vital role in suppressing many different cancers. A control group was treated the same way, but the p53 gene was left intact. A second group of mice was subjected to p53 inactivation in the absence of injury.
Professor Parrinello said, “Normally astrocytes are highly branched—they take their name from stars—but what we found was that without p53 and only after an injury the astrocytes had retracted their branches and become more rounded. They weren’t quite stem cell-like, but something had changed. So we let the mice age, then looked at the cells again and saw that they had completely reverted to a stem-like state with markers of early glioma cells that could divide.”
This suggested to Professor Parrinello and team that mutations in certain genes synergized with brain inflammation, which is induced by acute injury and then increases over time during the natural process of aging to make astrocytes more likely to initiate a cancer. Indeed, this process of change to stem-cell like behavior accelerated when they injected mice with a solution known to cause inflammation.
The team then looked for evidence to support their hypothesis in human populations. Working with Dr. Alvina Lai in UCL’s Institute of Health Informatics, they consulted electronic medical records of more than 20,000 people who had been diagnosed with head injuries, comparing the rate of brain cancer with a control group, matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status.
They found that patients who experienced a head injury were nearly four times more likely to develop a brain cancer later in life, than those who had no head injury. It is important to keep in mind that the risk of developing a brain cancer is overall low, estimated at less than 1% over a lifetime, so even after an injury the risk remains modest.
The UCL team have now identified a possible mechanism to explain this link, implicating genetic mutations acting in concert with brain tissue inflammation to change the behavior of cells, making them more likely to become cancerous.
Professor Parrinello said, “We know that normal tissues carry many mutations which seem to just sit there and not have any major effects. Our findings suggest that if on top of those mutations, an injury occurs, it creates a synergistic effect.
“In a young brain, basal inflammation is low so the mutations seem to be kept in check even after a serious brain injury. However, upon aging, our mouse work suggests that inflammation increases throughout the brain but more intensely at the site of the earlier injury. This may reach a certain threshold after which the mutation now begins to manifest itself.”
Abstract
Injury primes mutation bearing astrocytes for dedifferentiation in later life
Highlights
The tumor suppressor p53 restricts injury-induced plasticity of cortical astrocytes
p53 loss destabilizes astrocyte identity in the context of injury in early life
Increased neuroinflammation at the injury site drives dedifferentiation upon aging
EGFR activation by injury signals mediates dedifferentiation downstream of p53 loss
Summary
Despite their latent neurogenic potential, most normal parenchymal astrocytes fail to dedifferentiate to neural stem cells in response to injury. In contrast, aberrant lineage plasticity is a hallmark of gliomas, and this suggests that tumor suppressors may constrain astrocyte differentiation.
Here, we show that p53, one of the most commonly inactivated tumor suppressors in glioma, is a gatekeeper of astrocyte fate. In the context of stab-wound injury, p53 loss destabilized the identity of astrocytes, priming them to dedifferentiate in later life.
This resulted from persistent and age-exacerbated neuroinflammation at the injury site and EGFR activation in periwound astrocytes. Mechanistically, dedifferentiation was driven by the synergistic upregulation of mTOR signaling downstream of p53 loss and EGFR, which reinstates stemness programs via increased translation of neurodevelopmental transcription factors.
Thus, our findings suggest that first-hit mutations remove the barriers to injury-induced dedifferentiation by sensitizing somatic cells to inflammatory signals, with implications for tumorigenesis.
Traditional Chinese medicine has important insights on the effects of grief and how to process this emotion
A different perspective on grief offers tools to help us move through it.
No one on earth escapes grief. It’s woven into our human experience and something we will all inevitably endure many times throughout our lives.
Heartbreak, the loss of someone we love, lost opportunities, disappointments, and hardships are unavoidable—and life doesn’t care who you are, what you believe, or where you come from; grief happens to all of us.
So how do we deal with grief in a healthy way? Fortunately, Eastern medicine has a unique perspective on grief that can help us understand how it works and ways we can move through it and emerge stronger on the other side.
Emotions and Our Bodies
Eastern medicine views emotions as an integral part of the human being and vital to overall health. Unlike the Western view that has separated the body into the physical realm and the less important mental and emotional realm, Eastern medicine has remained holistic. In the Eastern view, every aspect of ourselves—physical, emotional, and spiritual—are essential components of a whole, healthy human being.
In Eastern medicine, our emotional lives are just as important as our physical and spiritual ones. Emotions and their expression are a normal part of being human, but when they are repressed, unexpressed, or expressed without control or in the proper context, they can make us sick.
Emotions as a cause of illness probably doesn’t seem so strange if we consider how our emotions can make us feel physically. When we get bad news, we feel it in our bodies. When you get angry or worried, where do you feel it? These sensations often manifest physically, and if we don’t acknowledge and process them, they can linger and become causes of disease.
In Eastern medicine, these connections are well-known and understood, and emotions are associated with different organs, which is how they affect the body.
Grief is associated with the lungs and its partner organ, the large intestine.
Each emotion is associated with a specific organ, which are listed below:
Emotions can affect all organs and the entire body, but each emotion is seen to have the most potent effect on its associated organ and organ partner. This partnership is also used as a diagnostic tool, helping a practitioner to isolate a problem depending on its location and what is being felt.
The Lungs and the Power of Letting Go
Every organ in Eastern medicine has a partner organ, one yin, and one yang, that work in tandem to keep the body balanced. When dealing with grief, the lungs are the yin organ, and their yang partner is the large intestine.
The lung’s job is to bring oxygen-rich air into the body, and the large intestine releases the waste in a constant cycle of interaction–taking in the new and letting go of what’s no longer needed. Many breathing and bowel disorders are rooted in excess grief—conversely, excessive grieving can lead to problems of the lungs and large intestine. This connection between grief and our physiology happens because the balance of yin and yang, or intake and outtake, are vital to health and well-being—allowing the new to come in and letting go of the old. Therefore, being open to new experiences and letting go of things that are no longer useful is essential to our physical and emotional health.
In Eastern medicine, emotions can either be the cause or the result of an illness. For example, asthma can be caused by prolonged sadness (the emotion of the lung). In contrast, someone who has had chronic asthma over many years can develop grief—the cause of the grief is the asthma.
The Emotional Aspect of the Lungs
In the Eastern view, when the energy of the lungs is balanced and plentiful, we think and communicate clearly, are open to new ideas and experiences, have a positive self-image, and can relax, let go and be happy.
When we grieve, especially intensely or over extended periods, it can weaken the energy of the lungs and diminish lung function. Energetically, when dealing with intense grief, we will have difficulty coping with loss and change, a sense of detachment, and a lingering sense of sadness that does not improve.
The lungs are also associated with our sense of attachment, so if you have a hard time letting go of people, places, or experiences—or are constantly reliving the past—it can point to weakness in the lungs. These feelings can be common when going through an intense or extended bout of grief.
Prolonged grief can weaken the lungs and their ability to bring new energy, or qi, into the body. Qi is the energy the body gets from eating and breathing and we need it to perform multiple vital functions. This is how grief can negatively affect the lungs and the whole body. Extended grief that is not acknowledged, processed, and released can lead to depression and other more serious problems.
Lung Associations in Eastern Medicine
Yin organ: lung
Yang organ: large intestine
Emotion: grief, sadness
Season: fall/autumn
Flavor: pungent
Color: white
Moving Through Grief in a Healthy Way
Thankfully, there are many things we can do to help us through a difficult period of grief. One of the most important is to acknowledge how you are feeling. Many people have a hard time acknowledging difficult, overwhelming, and unpleasant emotions, and some would rather avoid them, which is understandable. The problem is that until you bring your attention to what you are feeling, it will sit and wait. This stagnant grief can wreak havoc on your body and your life until it is processed and let go.
There is no ‘best way’ to deal with grief, and everyone must find the way that works for them. But acknowledging, processing, and letting it go is vital to our health and well-being.
The good news is that grief that is expressed fully and resolved is strengthening both physically and psychologically. This kind of emotional regulation is key to attaining balance in all aspects of life. Below are some ways to help you deal with grief in a healthy way.
Breathing Exercises for Releasing Grief
Because of the association between grief and the lungs, one of the most effective ways to release grief is through deep breathing exercises—breathing deeply into your belly and filling the lungs to capacity. Even more powerful is the addition of visualization, which helps to cleanse, detoxify, and release grief from the body.
Deep Breathing
Breathe in slowly through your nose, focusing on breathing into your belly, taking in as much air as is comfortable. Hold for a count of five when your lungs are full, then slowly exhale through your mouth from the very bottom of your lungs until they are empty. Repeat three times. This exercise should be done three times daily for the best results when grieving.
White Light Technique
This technique uses breathing and visualization. Because white is the color associated with the lungs, we will envision white light.
Find a comfortable place to sit with both feet flat on the ground. Place your hands in your lap. Mentally locate your lungs in your chest and connect to them. The more clearly you connect to them, the better and quicker the results.
Slowly breathe in through your nose, all the way into your belly, filling your lungs to capacity, while visualizing your lungs filling in your chest. Now, while holding your breath for a count of five, picture flooding your lungs with a white, healing light. Then slowly exhale, completely emptying your lungs, visualizing the grief leaving with your exhalation. Repeat three times, each time sensing the white light healing your lungs. With each exhale, you are literally breathing out the grief and sadness. This exercise can be done as many times as you wish and will help to move grief out of the body.
Walking Outside in Nature
Being outside in nature is one of life’s most healing activities, and this is especially true when you are grieving. Walking outside, particularly surrounded by trees—the literal lungs of the planet—while taking deep healing breaths helps us to take in oxygen-rich air and exhale what we no longer need.
Talk to a Friend You Trust
Talking to a friend is also helpful to get grief moving and to help us process it. Emotions can harm us if we let them linger and don’t acknowledge their presence. Talking to a trusted friend can help you process your feelings and get some perspective. Talking is another avenue that allows grief out of the body.
Acupuncture & Massage
Because our goal in Eastern medicine is to constantly keep energies moving, when we have difficulty coping with emotions, they can get ‘stuck’ and stop the flow, eventually making us sick.
Acupuncture and massage are both very moving to our internal energies, which is how they help keep us healthy. How often have you been on the massage table, and the therapist rolls over a big knot? That is a physical manifestation of energy getting stuck.
When grieving, acupuncture and massage are beautiful tools to help get things moving and release anything that might be stuck. People sometimes cry during acupuncture and massage treatments because these treatments move things that have accumulated, sometimes for months or years—which is an excellent thing. Crying is another way to move grief out of the body—a powerful catharsis.
Final Thoughts
Some of these concepts might seem strange to us in the West, but thousands of years of observation and practice have borne them out. Emotional awareness is something that needs to be learned and cultivated, and it behooves us to do so because of its impact on our health and well-being.
Understanding and processing our emotions is an opportunity for growth, self-discovery, and, ultimately, self-mastery. Understanding ourselves helps us extend that understanding to others and operate in the world with greater compassion and awareness, which, according to many ancient traditions, are the keys to a happy, fulfilling life.
The gastrointestinal (GI) tract of a healthy mammal is home to a complex community of bacteria. This microbial community is often called “microbiota,” “gut flora,” or “beneficial bacteria.” These microbes have evolved with us to coexist in a mutually beneficial relationship.
An Introduction to Gut Microbes
We need beneficial gut microbes for proper B vitamin production, digestion, and assimilation. Some bacteria also synthesize vitamin K. In fact, we need bacteria for synthesization, digestion, and assimilation of many vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and many other nutrients. Healthy bacteria also keep the population of other microbes (like candida) down to healthy levels. Healthy bacteria colonies form a biofilm that keeps the intestinal wall healthy and acts as a barrier against pathogens. Healthy bacteria move slowly and crowd out unwanted pathogens. A healthy gut biofilm is a home to thousands of different beneficial bacteria, the more the better. And they don’t just reside on our gut. Some of them can and do pass through the gut wall and they live all over our body. It’s often said that bacteria in our body outnumber our own cells by about ten to one. That’s incorrect, but there are more bacteria cells than human cells in the human body. The ratio is about 39 bacterial cells to every 30 human cells.
If you have ever been to a bio-dentist, they may have shown you what your mouth bacteria looks like under a microscope. Generally, the fast-moving bacteria are up to no good. You can see these guys frantically swimming around looking for trouble, banging against the teeth and gums, maybe looking for a good spot to burrow in and make a home, feed, and reproduce. If you have teeth and gum issues try this: take the capsule of a probiotic, break it open, and empty the contents into your mouth. Leave it in there. Move it around. Swish it around when you’ve built up some saliva. You should notice that some of the pain subsides. Now picture how this works in your gut. Incidentally, oral health is a very good indicator of gut health.
Without enough healthy bacteria, the whole body suffers. Gut microbes can change brain chemistry and alter endocrine functionality. Depression is tied to irritable bowel syndrome. Autism is believed to be caused by or at least exacerbated by an unbalanced gut. In my experience, every single autoimmune disease resides in the body of someone with an unhealthy gut.
Hopefully, you’re getting an idea of how important healthy bacteria are to our health. We need them for good health for many reasons, and likely most of which we aren’t even yet aware of yet.
It should be noted that the phrases “good bacteria” and “bad bacteria” are pretty inaccurate. Bacteria are only responding to their environment. “Good” bacteria, under bad circumstances, will become “bad” bacteria very quickly.
Candida
We all have candida spores in our gut even if we’re healthy. They’re practically indestructible. Anything we could do to kill them would probably kill us. They can reside in the body dormant without causing problems for an estimated six months.
Antibiotics kill bacteria and antibiotics can also kill other pathogens including fungi. But yeast spores are left to rule. When there is an opportunity to flourish candida turns fungal, becoming pathogenic.
Common Causes of Candida Overgrowth
Alcohol
Antibiotics
Vaccines
Amalgam Fillings
Refined foods
Smoking
An often overlooked way that candida gets fed is damage to the body. Cells are mostly made up of glycogen and starch. Damaged, dying cells feed yeast and other pathogens.
Leaky Gut
The gut is permeable, so to some extent, it’s always leaky. A health gut biofilm doesn’t let unwanted things pass into the bloodstream. Some of the “good” bacteria will get through, but that’s ok. Remember, there are bacteria all over our body. We want the good guys, not the bad guys. If candida takes over, an abundance of candida increases zonulin levels, the substance that controls the tight junctions between enterocytes in the gut, which leads to weaker junctions and the development of leaky gut. And here’s a scary fact for you: candida filaments also penetrate directly through the wall of the gut lining and contribute to leaky gut in this manner as well. In other words, picture centipede looking things with very long legs that kind of drill into the gut lining. The intestinal wall will also get dry and cracked. All of this makes for a gut that is much more permeable than it should be. At this stage pathogens and undigested proteins make it into our bloodstream, overwhelming the body’s immune system. Proteins have to be broken down completely or else the body sees them as foreign proteins and reacts accordingly. This is how most allergies happen.
And that gut drilling thing candida does – it does it all over the body as well, opening up pathways for infection throughout the body. It’s easy to see how candida wrecks havoc on the liver. Consider the gut-liver axis. 70% of the blood flow to the liver is flowing from the gut. The liver quickly becomes overwhelmed with the toxins produced by candida.
I could go on and on about candida, but I’m attempting to write my shortest gut-health article to date, so I’ll stop here.
Supplements
If you want to see a list of the top 25+ supplements for killing fungi, this is your list. Below is a list I put together a supplement stack with just a few that work very well to put the gut back into homeostasis.
Activated Charcoal: Binds with positively charged things in the gut, like candida in its pathogenic form, and many of the toxins it produces, which then gets defecated out of the body.
Astragalus: A potent antimicrobial that also is anti-inflammatory, boosts the immune system, slows tumor growth, helps prevent and reverse diabetes, and more.
Berberine: This plant-root alkaloid extract has confirmed and potent antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-fungal properties.
Biotin: With the presence of the B vitamin, biotin, it is said that yeast is unable to change into its mycelium form. On the other hand, there are some studies that suggest candida can feed off of biotin.
Black Walnut: Studies have shown that black walnut can effectively kill canker sores, herpes, and syphilis sores. The husks of black walnuts have potent anti-fungal powers; more powerful than many prescription drugs. Fungi and parasites thrive in an acidic environment.
Caprylic acid: A the fatty acid in coconut which contains antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Coconut or coconut oil by itself does not have very strong antimicrobial properties.
Chlorella: It’s not an anti-fungal, but chlorella is negatively charged like charcoal and has a host of other benefits that counter candida symptoms. Chlorella also helps remove heavy metals and limited amounts of positively charged candida from the blood.
Cinnamon: A potent natural antifungal with tons of other health benefits.
Clays: Like activated charcoal, bentonite clay can bind with candida and heavy metals and other positively charged items to pull them out of the body through defecation.
Clove: This strong smelling spice contains some of the same compounds as oregano oil. Studies have shown that cloves contain powerful antimicrobial and anti-fungal compounds.
Cranberry: There is nothing better for a urinary tract infection than unsweetened, unadulterated cranberry juice.
Diatomaceous Earth: Often called DE for short, this supplement is another negatively charged chelator (like charcoal and bentonite clay, but not as effective in that way), that also kills pathogens, but candida biofilm protects itself well from DE. More on DE.
Enzymes: Hemicellulase, protease, and Cellulase have been shown to break down the cells walls and the biofilm of candida. These must be taken within a protective capsule that will break apart in the gut and not the stomach acid.
Garlic: Allicin, a compound in garlic, has antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties, and garlic helps strengthen the immune system.
Goldenseal: A popular herb that has been used by Native Americans for hundreds of years, with potent antimicrobial activity, including some pretty decent antifungal properties.
Goldenrod: Goldenrod is antifungal, diuretic, diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, expectorant, astringent, antiseptic, and carminative.10
Magnesium: Breaks down the toxic metabolites (byproducts) of candida albicans.
Molybdenum: Also breaks down the toxic metabolites (byproducts) of candida albicans.
Mushrooms: Fight fire with fire, and fungi with fungi! Many mushrooms produce natural anti-yeast factors to prevent other fungi from taking over their turf. The reishi mushroom is well known throughout the world for its plethora of health benefits, including powerful antifungal properties, but there are many other mushrooms that help clean the gut as well.
Lemongrass: Lemongrass oil is the most powerful antibacterial and antifungal essential oil.
Neem: This plant’s properties include immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycaemic, antiulcer, antimalarial, antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenic.
Oil of Oregano: This extract is very well known for its ability to kill off pathogenic activity, and there are plenty of studies that demonstrate its efficacy.
Olive Leaf Extract: This extract is known for killing fungal and pathogenic bacterial infections without harming healthy bacteria. I suspect this is because it’s weak and doesn’t penetrate biofilm.
Pau D’Arco: Also known as Lapacho, this supplement has received worldwide attention in recent years due to the numerous studies proving its amazing health benefits including the ability to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria and difficult fungal infections like candida.
Probiotics: Most everyone knows to take probiotics to fight yeast infections, but make sure the probiotic is of quality. Lots of cheap probiotics break down in stomach acid and the ingredients end up actually feeding yeast. Also, they need to be able to pass through stomach acid and into the gut to do its job. Taking probiotics with antimicrobial supplements will reduce the effects of both.
Spirulina: For purposes of candida killing, it works just like the other aforementioned algae, Chlorella.
Turmeric: Turmeric is a potent antimicrobial herb with proven antifungal properties and a host of other amazing health benefits.
Undecylenic acid: This fatty acid is six times more effective than caprylic acid. It’s been shown in studies that candida cannot build a tolerance for undecylenic acid, which probably makes it the most potent candida killer on this list.
Wormwood: This is a potent antimicrobial’s active ingredient is Artemisia, and it is better known the world over for its ability to kill parasites.
Zinc: helps with protein digestion, enzymatic reactions, energy production, antioxidant functions, and it is imperative for proper mineral balance. It’s common to see a zinc deficiency in a candida-laden body.
Diet
You could probably take lots of SF722 every day and eat like the average health-conscious person does and be fine. If you don’t want to take supplements forever, you’ll need to adopt a much healthier diet.
Make cranberry lemonade every day. The cranberry lemonade helps keep the kidneys and liver working optimally. These organs typically get sluggish quickly when lots of candida are killed. If salads are #1, this cranberry lemonade is #2, and supplements are a distant #3.
Eat a very large salad (7-9 cups) for breakfast. The salad has at least 10 different vegetables and a few different herbs.
Don’t let anyone cook or prepare your food for you. This means no boxes or cartons or almond milk. Make it yourself. No restaurants, not premade dinners, no prepackaged meals, your foods you buy should have only one ingredient.
Start off with cranberry lemonade and a huge salad every morning. For lunch, for those that aren’t very sick, do a smoothie or snack on some nuts and/or fruit, or we finish that massive breakfast salad.
For dinner, cook from scratch, which will take preparation and time, but it gets easier. Try rice and beans, quinoa, lentils, millet, and amaranth. Some of these foods are not recommended on candida-cleanse diets, but I feel they are beneficial when one is eating the aforementioned salads. Also, we add lots of raw vegetables and herbs to our dinners as well. For instance, the rice and beans go great with raw chopped tomatoes and avocado, diced onions and garlic, and shredded turmeric and ginger. Eat raw herbs and cooked herbs together for maximum health benefits.
The salads are the most important part of this protocol. More than supplements, more than anything save getting enough water, the salads are imperative. Eat lots of raw vegetables. Eat a variety of them. Your fridge should be full of produce! There is nothing more beneficially life-changing than developing a salad habit when the salads are big and diverse and homemade. They do more than any supplement or any other food to clean the intestinal walls of filth and develop a beneficial gut ecosystem.
For those with very serious gut issues, legumes and grains may be a no-no for the first few weeks at least, but when enough salad has been consumed, the gut should be able to reap many benefits from cooked foods like the dinner meals aforementioned. I recommend, for those who are very sick and who have a hard time digesting foods, to slowly add in the aforementioned dinner foods into salads first.
Sweet fruit should be severely limited, and for those who are chronically ill, avoided until the gut is working well. Grapefruit, cranberry, avocado, lime, and lemon do not fall under this category.
Juicing with fruits is not much better than refined sugar, so don’t make the common mistake of thinking a fresh-juice fast is going to get you well.
Modern fruit has too much sugar in it; I don’t recommend being a fruitarian, especially with an abundance of candida. The key to fixing the gut is a very wide variety of fresh raw vegetables and herbs. Some fruit is great, but too much fruit can send even a healthy gut into fungal overload.
Wheat and oats should be avoided until gut health is restored. Wheat and oats tend to be drenched in glyphosate before they are harvested, and wheat has a host of other issues regarding health. If you want to eat bread, make your own using heirloom seeds and old-school practices.
Variety
You need a lot of different kinds of bacteria to make a healthy gut colony. Different bacteria like different foods, and the most beneficial bacteria like the healthiest foods. Raw vegetables and herbs feed the gut the best, producing the healthiest bacteria. If you think about it, nature really wouldn’t work any other way. A lot of health practitioners want to limit the diet when someone is sick. They also often say to avoid raw produce. These two ideas are wrong! I work the other way. Limit sweets, including fruits, and eliminate refined and processed foods, but expand your healthy whole foods that don’t feed pathogens, and fresh raw produce is best.
Six Months
It takes around six months for spores to die off. It takes about as long for the gut lining to heal. Fortunately, you can build a healthy biofilm full of beneficial microbes much faster than that. Unfortunately, spores are ready to come to life as soon as they’re feed. For anyone with systemic fungal related health issues, it takes six months of being very careful and strict on the diet – six months from the day, after all, symptoms are gone – to really get rid of candida, other fungi, and chronic illness.
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