Superfoods & Super-nutrients

7 Food Choices to Add Years of Healthy Life
Healthier, longer, with better dietary choices We are living longer – but we are NOT living healthier longer. In fact, the average person will live their last 12 years in poor health and at some level of disability and dependency (UK Office of National Statistics). [See data here.] Who wouldn’t want to avoid that? Yet 7 simple tweaks in your lifestyle – changes that are totally in your control – can help you avoid that outcome, adding over 10 years of active, healthy life to your lifespan. Top risk factors for loss of healthy life... Read more...
Top 7 Anti-Inflammatory Foods
Nutrients which reduce chronic inflammation The biggest single risk to your long-term health is what’s called ‘chronic sub-clinical inflammation’. It’s a continuous, damaging level of inflammation of body tissues that tends to build up as we age, but is normally not noticeable. So it’s an insidious, but major threat. How major? VERY major! “Inflammation is an underlying contributor to virtually every chronic disease … along with major killers such as heart disease, cancer and stroke.” Scientific American “Inflammatory factors predict virtually all bad outcomes in humans … having heart attacks,... Read more...
Nutrient-Dense Superfoods Black Rice, Purple Corn, Red Palm Oil
Experts agree that eating fruits and vegetables is a good idea, health-wise, though even the current recommended ‘dose’ of five-a-day – almost twice what the average UK consumer actually eats – is widely acknowledged to be sub-optimal (1). The food industry has taken note, and it has also noted that many of us prefer processed to basic foods. Companies have capitalised on this by producing a wide range of processed foods with soft (and meaningless) fruit ‘n’ veg-related claims. Be sceptical of processed food health claims Iced tea Fresh green tea... Read more...
Beetroot and Beet Juice – In Moderation
Have you seen publicity about beetroot juice? It’s good for all kinds of things, apparently. It improves failing memory, enhances stamina, reduces blood pressure and even acts as a kind of natural male potency enhancer. Or does it? Increased athletic performance The story was originally kick-started in the mainstream media a few years ago by a trio of scientific papers, all from the University of Exeter, which showed that taking dietary nitrate in the form of beetroot juice increased athletic performance (1, 2, 3).  The performance improvement was significant: the juice... Read more...
Superfoods Fruit and Vegetable – What is a Portion Size?
The Department of Health urges us to eat “5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day”. And that perhaps should even be 9 a day! But what exactly is a portion? It’s rarely documented, but in fact, a portion is 80 grams. Here is a table to help you. Fresh, dried, frozen, or canned in juice are all equivalent. Note that potatoes don’t count! And eating more of the same fruit or vegetable doesn’t substitute for variety. Fruits 80g equivalent Apple 1 fresh or 4 dried rings Apricots – fresh/dried... Read more...
Extraordinary Health Effects from Curry Spice
TURMERIC/CURCUMIN OUTPERFORMS STATINS It’s difficult to refrain from hyperbole when reviewing the natural nutrient curcumin, found in the curry spice turmeric. It may well outperform statins and other arthritis, heart and dementia drugs – all without side effects. Probably the most prestigious database for health researchers is the US National Library of Medicine, Institutes of Health. This is the conclusion of a meta-survey, published on their site under the heading Therapeutic Roles of Curcumin: Lessons Learned from Clinical Trials. “Extensive clinical trials over the past quarter century have shown the safety and efficacy of this nutraceutical... Read more...
Role of Vitamin E Alongside Fish Oil
Dr Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter Autumn 2015 Vitamin E is needed to protect omega-3s. It does not appear to be as effective as the lipophilic polyphenols in protecting fish oil as it is consumed, absorbed, and then ferried through the bloodstream to the tissues, where it will be built into cell membranes. It does, however, play a critical role in protecting the fatty acids once they have been built into those cell membranes, and it is involved in the repair of damaged cell membranes (Howard et al ’11, Labazi et... Read more...
10-a-Day the Smart Way
Dr Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter April 2014 “The smart way to 10-a-day fruit and veg – don’t just count portions, but choose the foods which are most health-protective.” You may have seen recent press headlines telling us that we should be eating a minimum of 7 and an optimum of 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day! Actually, this is not really news. The American Cancer Society has been calling for 9 portions for some years as a preventative strategy, as have many other experts; and readers of my newsletters will know I... Read more...
Omega-3 in Wild and Farmed Fish
Dr. Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter March 2014 “Wild fish are high in omega 3 because of the marine algae they eat; farmed fish contain few, if any, omega 3s.” According to the Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO), we are consuming an average of 17 kg of fish per person per annum (FAO#1), and the figures are increasing. But where will tomorrow’s fish come from? Since 1980, the global volume of wild-caught fish has increased by a third, from 69m to 93m tonnes. Over the same period, aquaculture has increased nearly... Read more...
Berries as Brain Food
I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed the bumper harvest of berry fruits this year, and I hope you’ve managed to freeze or preserve some for the winter too. Berries offer much more than a great taste. Recent research suggests that nutrients in berries may protect your brain from age-related decline and enhance heart health. In animal studies conducted by Tufts’ Jean Mayer, USDA Human Nutrition ResearchCenter on Aging (HNRCA), nutritional antioxidants—such as the polyphenols found in blueberries—have been shown to reverse age-related declines in the brain’s ability to process information, as well as cognitive and... Read more...
Superfoods Reducing Inflammation – Chocolate
The root of much heart and vascular disease is now widely reckoned to be endothelial dysfunction (ED), a chronic inflammatory condition that afflicts the blood vessels and is caused by such factors as smoking and a poor diet. ED is known to respond particularly well to flavonoids, the health-promoting compounds found in such foods as fruits, berries, tea, and chocolate. In fact, given the way we eat, it is likely that for many of us, tea and chocolate are the main sources of these vital phytonutrients. Dark Chocolate At the... Read more...
Superfoods Dark Chocolate – Its Role as Cardio-Protector
Researchers in Athens set out to investigate chocolate’s heart health benefits by investigating the effect of eating dark chocolate on three determinants of cardio-vascular performance: endothelial function (the lining of blood vessels), arterial stiffness, and wave reflections(5). All three are predictors of cardiovascular risk. Their study found that soon after eating dark chocolate, wave reflections and endothelial function were both improved – a combination considered to be significantly cardioprotective. Soon after, their colleagues at the University of California published almost identical results(6). Lowers blood pressure In a separate study carried... Read more...