Healthy World Digest, Issue #003

Welcome to our 3rd issue of Healthy World Digest. Subscribe to HWD by filling in email on upper left tab. In this issue...

* Herbal remedies for pregnancy

* Use fabric shower curtains

* Munching on spinach may build muscles.

* Worst foods your children might be eating

* Water helps keep you thin

* Water makes you more powerful

* Soap reduces sex drive

* Tone up neck to cut back pain

* Beet hypertension

* Master Yoga in Twenty-eight days

* Best herbs for pregnancy

For expectant mothers & fathers, a list of the top herbs for pregnancy follows.

The following ease pregnancy: peppermint, ginger, partridge berry, raspberry leaf teas

The following speed delivery: blue cohosh and parsley, in large amounts

To help prevent spina bifida, eat lots of spinach

Click for our page on best herbs for pregnancy

* Use fabric shower curtains

An easy way to elude health problems?

Switch your choice of shower curtains.

A group in West Virginia finds vinyl shower curtains contain chemicals that are continually released, especially more so when in contact with hot water.

That pungent new curtain smell may be one indicator you should switch curtain types.

* Popeye, was right. Munching on spinach may build muscles.

Well, it's not the spinach itself.

Research finds that spinach helps your body absorb and use protein leading to muscle growth.

* Worst foods your children might be eating

According to Men's Health, the worst foods your kids might be feeding on include:

> Cap'n Crunch: Full of empty sugar

> Oscar Meyer Lunchables: Loads of salt, sugar & chemicals

> Baskin-Robbins Health Shake: A small cup contains 46 grams of fat and 27 tsps of sugar.

By the way, fast food chains that graded high for health includes Subway & Wendy's. Scoring low were Pizza Hut & Krispy Kreme.

*) We told you that downing H2O helps keep you slim

Now research proves that downing water does keep you thinner.

Our sister site, Healthy Water, has a page on how chugging water helps you keep weight off or lose weight. However, we didn't have much recent research proving this connection.

Well now German researchers have shown that in fact gulping water greatly ramps up your metabolic rate leading to a slimmer you.

Researchers found that 90 minutes after drinking Sixteen ounces of cold water, metabolism rises by a whopping 24%.

Drinking 50 extra ounces of cold water each day can help use up 47 calories each day or about 17,400 calories yearly.

Hey, that's a whole bunch of calories but really it directly leads to only about Five pounds of fat loss every year.

Simply drink more cold water to boost up your metabolic rate even more.

Want more water benefits?

* Water makes you stronger!

Other studies showed how drinking water helps performance during a weight training session.

Uconn researchers showed that men who drank water before lifting weights performed 17% more reps per set than men who did not drink water.

The advice is to drink Sixteen ounces before a workout, 4 ounces for every 20 minutes of workout time during workout & One -2 glasses after a workout.

So along with the many other benefits to drinking water, adding water to your diet is win, win for dieters and exercisers.

Click to visit our page on how cause & effect of obesity can be dehydration

* Store bought soap may cut back your sex drive

Yep, we at Healthy World Online will never be happy until every adult is having good sex!

University of California at Davis researchers found that an ingredient, triclocarban, in many soaps leads to the body decreasing testosterone. Not good if you're a man on the prowl.

Low testosterone can also lead to other symptoms such as infertility & depression. The National Institute of Health has a page on soaps containing triclocarban at hpd.nlm.nih.gov

* Strengthening exercises eliminate neck pain

A study in Arthritis & Rheumatism showedthat strengthening the upper trapezius muscles relieves neck pain by 80%.

Makes a lot of sense since training helps repair muscles and prevent further strain.

Oh, the upper traps are those muscles alongside your neck, you know the ones that hide football players' necks.

Healthy Exercise World has several good pages on building and stretching the neck muscles.

Click to visit HEW's pages on neck exercises

* Beet hypertension

The many connections between consuming veggies and fruits & good health never fail to surprise me.

Harvard & British scientists found that drinking beet juice lowers blood pressure by Ten points in just a few hours.

The reason seems to be the nitrate in beets which converts into nitric oxide in your body.

Nitric oxide helps open blood vessels thereby lowering blood pressure.

* Twenty-eight Days until you're a yoga master, give or take a day

The best yoga book for people who know they should be doing yoga but can't commit to being consistent with it.

But enough about me.

Actually, here I go again. I'm beginning to do the yoga program in Richard Hittleman's book, Yoga Twenty-eight Day Exercise Plan.

This isn't the place for a full scale book review. I'll leave that for another day.

Anyway, I've done the program 2 -3 times before and loved it and felt so much better and, and ... then ... just stopped. Why? IDK.

But I'm into the 3rd day, likely further along when you read this and I just want to urge the many non-Asians, and Asians, who are somewhat like me, to go get this great book and give it a try.

The book is a bit old but really it's timeless. You will not be disappointed.

For a brief introduction to yoga visit our page on the benefit of yoga exercise

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