How Your Diet Affects Anxiety

By Gordon Dalwood

If you down cup after cup of coffee all day, it shouldn't surprise you when your nerves are jangled and your anxiety problems are starting to seriously disrupt your life. You might find that the same things that cause the average person light to moderate stress cause you to spiral into a full blown anxiety or panic attack. You can actually alleviate your anxiety and stress by eating a healthier diet and reducing your caffeine and alcohol consumption.

Anxiety is brought on by several causes but understanding the link between your diet-drink habits and anxiety can help you control your anxiety levels. Take that coffee-drinking habit of yours; coffee contains caffeine, a powerful stimulant that gives you an adrenalin rush. Just imagine what that fourth cup of coffee is doing to your body!

Too much coffee or alcohol causes a biochemical imbalance in the body. Too many cups of coffee and alcohol jolt the nervous system into a tizzy. You become over alert and when the effect of the drug-like effect of methylxanthines (a stimulant) wears down, you are plunged into a nervous state, which sometimes can bring on panic attacks. Try going through the day without coffee, you will be less tired and emotionally calm.

Alcohol is a depressant rather than a stimulant, but has the same sort of effects as caffeine - elation, then anxiety and fatigue. Cut back on alcohol and you can make your anxiety attacks less frequent and milder. There's no harm in having a drink or two sometimes, but if it seems to trigger your anxiety attacks, then give it up. You should also make sure to drink plenty of water, since dehydration can make your moods unstable and increase your anxiety level.

Eating small meals, helps lower your anxiety levels as food keeps your blood sugar on normal levels. Avoiding breakfast before a big job ahead can wreck havoc on your nerves. Eat more whole grains or food rich in complex carbohydrates to increase the brain's serotonin levels. When serotonin levels are normal, you experience its calming effect.

Foods which contain high levels of the amino acid tryptophan should be added to your diet. Tryptophan helps you produce serotonin and melatonin, which help you have stable moods and get higher quality sleep. Dairy products, oats, nuts, bananas, poultry and soy are all good sources.

Fiber is also an important part of a healthy diet which helps to fight anxiety. Getting plenty of fiber in your diet keeps your blood sugar levels properly regulated. Women going through menopause should make sure to get plenty of calcium to alleviate fatigue, depression and irritability. You may want to avoid foods which seem to trigger mood swings in many people, including eggs, dairy products, shellfish, wheat, nuts and corn.

Keep your salt intake low. Your body naturally makes potassium and sodium from other dietary sources and a diet which is high in salt increases your sodium levels, which leads to water retention and increases blood pressure. Excessive sodium intake also causes irritability and mood swings in many, so steer clear of high-sodium foods, especially junk food. Refined sugars and artificial sweeteners should also be avoided; these ingredients can exacerbate anxiety and make panic attacks worse.

Your diet has a lot of bearing on your overall anxiety level and a good diet can make anxiety attacks less frequent and less severe. However, if your anxiety is getting the best of you, see a doctor for their advice.

About the Author:

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Clinical Trials For Cancer

By Allan Tan

When scientists make a breakthrough and discover a potential new treatment for cancer, the clinical trials for cancer test the safety and effectiveness of the new treatment. Clinical trials for cancer are not restricted to testing new treatments. Some clinical trials test the effectiveness of prevention and screening methods.

The early detection of cancer improves the prognosis of the patients. New screening methods are tested using clinical trials for cancer to see if they are more sensitive than currently used screening methods.

Screening methods for clinical trials are often focused on detecting a specific cancer. Some recent clinical trials for cancer tested screening methods for prostate cancer and breast cancer.

Clinical trials for cancer prevention test the power of medications and supplements to prevent cancer in individuals who are at high risk for cancer. Vitamin E and selenium were tested to see if they prevent prostate cancer.

New treatments for cancers or ways of determining the best treatment for the individual may be the subject of clinical trials for cancer treatment. A clinical trial to test a method of determining the best treatment for a cancerous tumor may involve testing which proteins are produced by the tumor and selecting a treatment based on the result of that test.

New treatment medications and methods for cancer are also tested with clinical trials. The new treatment can be an entirely new cancer fighting drug or a new delivery method for targeting the tumors.

Clinical trials typically have a deadline after which enrollment in the clinical trial is closed. Most clinical trials are national, but more efforts have been made to have international clinical trials for cancer.

Not only do clinical trials for cancer provide information to doctors, but they also help guide future research. Even a failed clinical trial can provide valuable information to researchers.

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Selecting the Best Reishi Extract

By Dr. Markho Rafael

For two millennia, medicinal mushrooms have been mainstream in Asia. Now, America is taking notice and interest is rapidly "mushrooming." With the sprouting of this new industry follows issues of ethical quality claims between competing brands.

All medicinal mushroom species are plagued by this. Most fiercely debated is red reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), the most popular of all medicinal mushrooms. So this article will primarily focus on that species, but it's generally applicable to all species of medicinal mushrooms.

An obvious caution is to stay away from cheap, mass-produced reishi. It may be merely dried and pulverized. In order to be medicinal, the mushroom cell-wall has to be broken down. Mass-produced reishi may be mostly inert and ineffective.

But even among the truly effective therapeutic brands, which are plentiful, there are important differences. Each seems to claim superiority over other brands, not surprisingly, because why else would anyone buy them? This article aims to clarify the confusion of conflicting and sometimes misleading information that is out there.

There are primarily three ways to extract the medicinal compounds from red reishi. Each method pulls out different compounds, all of which have been proven by scientific research to be therapeutically important.

1. Water (Hot) Extraction (polysaccharides, etc.)

2. Alcohol Extraction (triterpenoids, etc.)

3. Fermented (arabinoxylanes, etc.)

The most important hot water extracted compounds are the polysaccharides. Studies have shown them to possess strong anti-tumor properties, help boost immune system and be powerful antioxidants. [1]

The alcohol soluble compounds are mainly triterpenoids, a large group of related compounds. Scientific studies suggest they help stabilize cholesterol, blood pressure and clotting. Most importantly, they are the anti-inflammatory compounds so critical to many of reishi's suggested uses, including arthritis, allergies and asthma. [1]

Finally, by fermenting the red reishi, the original medicinal compounds break down to form new compounds with unique healing properties. These "secondary metabolites" have among other things been shown to be immune enhancing and help regulate blood sugar, as well as having unique anti-tumor properties. [2]

Since this article is not intended to elevate any one brand over another, no brand names will be mentioned. Nevertheless, the author does know of two highly reputed brands (American and Japanese) that claim only hot water extracted red reishi is of any value and that alcohol extracts are useless.

They do that, of course, because they wish to sell their products. However, there is no scientific validity to those claims. All three extraction methods listed above yield important medicinal compounds.

To determine if a brand of reishi (or Ganoderma) contains all the important medicinal compounds from the mushroom, find out if it utilizes both alcohol and hot water extraction. An additional plus would be if it also includes fermented reishi.

Last but not least, remember to look at the form the reishi comes in. If the reishi is able to dissolve completely in water-based drinks like coffee, it's a safe bet that it only contains the water-soluble polysaccharides. An excellent choice as far as coffee goes but an incomplete reishi supplement because it does not include the anti-inflammatory triterpenoid compounds.

On the other hand, alcohol tinctures can actually contain both water soluble polysaccharides and alcohol soluble triterpenoids. The way you know is that the polysaccharides will fall out of solution because of the alcohol, and will make the tincture cloudy. That's alright though; you just need to shake before you take. Capsules and tablets may be one or the other or both. The only way to know is ask the manufacturer or read their information.

[1] Boh B, Berovic M, Zhang J, Zhi-Bin L. "Ganoderma lucidum and its pharmaceutically active compounds." Biotechnol Annu Rev. 2007;13:265-301.

[2] Tang YJ, Zhang W, Zhong JJ, 2009. "Performance analyses of a pH-shift and DOT-shift integrated fed-batch fermentation process for the production of ganoderic acid and Ganoderma polysaccharides by medicinal mushroom Ganoderma lucidum." Bioresource Technol. Mar;100(5):1852-9.

About the Author:

Dr. Rafael has worked in the health field since the 1990's, recently focusing on medicinal mushrooms. He partners with Cordyceps Reishi Extracts, LLC on red reishi extract and cordyceps extract plus the increasingly popular mesima and many more.