Natural News for Women » Letters from Marilyn

Letter from Marilyn (March 2009)

Marilyn — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:30:29 +0000

Dear Readers

Welcome to this issue of Natural News with longer days and brighter skies. Doesn’t it make such a difference when the days are brighter and we have more daylight?

This issue of Natural News takes us through a number of landmarks in our lives: the 40s, 50s and 60s, where we may need to be a bit more vigilant about certain aspects of our health. Also included in this issue is the serious matter of bowel cancer; what you can do to help protect yourself and also making sure that you get checked out if you notice any unusual changes in your bowels.

There is also a feature on the mineral boron, it is classed as an ultra trace mineral because we don’t need much of it, but it is important that we have enough. We mainly think of this mineral in relation to osteoporosis because it can help prevent calcium loss, but it does have other benefits too. Research has shown that in areas where soil levels of boron are low there is a higher rate of osteoarthritis. Restricting boron intake in healthy men and women has also been shown to impair brain function and mental performance. The suggestion is that boron is important for optimum functioning of both long and short term memory. Boron also helps with the conversion of vitamin D to its active form, which in turn is important for the absorption of calcium.

You will also find in this issue is a recipe for using kale, which is a lovely green vegetable but not everybody likes it just steamed, so I hope this recipe is a bit more unusual.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn (February 2009)

Marilyn — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:50:06 +0000

Dear Readers

Welcome to this issue of Natural News, which I hope you will find packed full of interesting articles. I have continued the topic of boosting immunity because it is so important to keep ourselves as well as possible over the winter months. There is an article on shifting stubborn fat because you may have been following a healthy diet from your New Year’s resolution and need a bit of extra help for that weight that has got stuck.

We all know we should be exercising but it is easy to forget the enormous benefits that exercise can give. These include improving mood and depression, reducing anxiety and stress, improving body shape and weight, reducing the risk of heart disease, lowering high blood pressure, reducing high cholesterol, lowering the risk of breast and colon cancer and reducing the risk of developing diabetes. And to add to those benefits is the fact that exercise can help building healthy bones. So this issue of Natural News features an article on exercise for osteoporosis prevention. So the message generally, knowing all these benefits, is for us to get moving!

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn (January 2009)

Marilyn — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:00:56 +0000

Dear Readers

I hope you had a good Christmas break and welcome to this issue of Natural News which starts off another new year. Of course, with a new year our minds turn to New Year’s resolutions and how we may do things differently for the coming year. I have always thought that is better to have achievable short term goals that you can stick to, see the difference and then add some more in as you gain in confidence. It is estimated that most people only maintain their New Year’s resolution for about a week to ten days and it is thought that the problem is that people give themselves unrealistic, unachievable goals which they can’t keep up.

So take small steps; it may be that you decide to add in either an extra 30 minutes of exercise a week or if you have not been exercising you start with 30 minutes exercising a week. After a month, you can add in another 30 minutes. The same with eating healthy, start with small changes, like making sure you are eating little and often and after a couple of weeks, think about eliminating caffeine. As your health improves you will find that you will have the energy to do more exercise and to make better choices with your food. It all becomes a positive circle rather than a negative one.

Included in this issue of Natural News is more information on boosting your immune function to keep you healthy over the winter months and how to keep your mood up during the long dark days. I hope you enjoy the recipe of stuffed pears as it is good to have some sweet foods but they do not have to be loaded with sugar. If you have any favourite recipes that you are happy to share do send them in and may be say a few words as to what you like best about them.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn (December 2008)

Marilyn — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:40:09 +0000

Dear Readers

Welcome to this December issue of Natural News. We are well and truly into the winter now and it is so important at this time of year to protect ourselves from colds and flu. Last month I covered the benefits of a good night’s sleep and regular exercise and this month you’ll learn how your morning shower, deep breathing and fresh air can boost your immunity. It is important that we do all we can to help ourselves because we are exposed to bacteria and viruses every day and it is only the strength of our immune system that stops us being constantly ill.

It was Louis Pasteur who discovered the antibiotic properties of penicillin. In the early stages of his research, he said, `In order to for you to have a disease you have to have germs’. This encouraged the conventional approach to ‘germs’ and illness. Scientists were determined to find the ‘germs’ responsible, and to get rid of them. But somewhere along the line, these scientists lost sight of the fact that our bodies can do this for themselves. If our bodies are strong and healthy, with our immune systems functioning at optimum level, we are much less likely to become ill, and when we do succumb, we heal that much more quickly. The emphasis clearly needs to be on keeping the body strong, rather than finding shortcuts to health.

Exposure to bacteria will not necessarily cause an infection. There has to be a weakness present in order for this to happen. In other words, it is the body’s ability to fight its own battle that governs whether or not we succumb to illness.

Years after making his original statement, Louis Pasteur backtracked, saying: ‘In a state of health, animals are shut off from the invasion of germs …The microbe is nothing, the terrain is everything’. If the terrain (your body) is healthy, disease cannot take hold. Interestingly, Louis Pasteur’s work is considered to be a turning point in the treatment of disease, but his final message has been largely ignored. Conventional medicine isn’t preventative. Nutritional medicine is. And that is what you are aiming to achieve.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn (November 2008)

Marilyn — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:30:50 +0000

Dear Readers

I have been working in the field of nutrition for around thirty years and as well as being concerned about what we eat, I have also been concerned about what we put on our skin and what our skin is exposed to on a daily basis.

Did you know that the average woman uses 12 toiletries every day and applies more than 175 chemical compounds to her body in the process?

We are surrounded with chemicals that we use every day on our skin and hair, in our homes and work places, yet nobody knows the potentially harmful chemical cocktail effect these chemicals might have when combined together over a period of time.

Current research continues to show that many everyday cosmetics and toiletries for example, contain chemicals that can be carcinogenic or harmful to your body. You do not want to be polluting your body by putting potentially toxic chemicals directly onto your skin. Your skin is one of the most absorbent and porous materials in the world, and will absorb into your body anything you put on it. That is why nicotine and HRT patches work so well through the skin.

Also this becomes even more important when we think of babies and children and the effect these chemicals might have on them.

I have always chosen natural toiletries and household products for my family and sometimes it has been really hard work finding the right products and checking all the labels. With so much confusion nowadays as to what is really a ‘natural’ product I have decided to source some of the best products available and grade them depending on whether they are certified organic, contain 100% natural ingredients and for some products like hair dye that they are the most natural they can be and still be effective. You will find these Natural Living Products on www.naturalhealthpractice.com. If you know of any really good natural products you think would be useful for other women to know about then do let me know.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn

Marilyn — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:10:36 +0000

Dear Readers

You probably read recently that a man was rejected as a bone marrow donor because his BMI (Body Mass Index) was too high as it put him into the obese category. This was a man who was very fit and athletic and it was obvious that the weight was made up of muscle. It is so sad that the BMI is still being used for categorising people into being overweight. The Army has given up using the BMI as they were getting very fit rugby playing men applying who would actually have been obese according to the BMI criteria but were in fact very muscular with very little body fat.

The importance of where fat is distributed on the body is also crucial and that is why I wrote the Fat around the Middle book. Further research in this area and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology only recently has highlighted again the relationship between waist circumference and risk of death. In this study, they looked at 250,000 men and women over 9 years. Within the group of people they looked at those whose BMI was classed as healthy and then within that group looked at the difference between those with a larger waist (more than 88cm (34.7ins)) for women and 102cm (40.2ins) for men).

So for those with a healthy weight according to the BMI, those women with the higher waist circumference had a 22% increased risk of death and the men with the larger waists had a 23% increased risk of death.

This message is so important, if you have extra fat around the middle of your body, it needs to be reduced. Not only will your clothes fit better and you will be happier with how you look but the change in body shape will have an enormous impact on your health, now and in the future reducing your risk of cancer (especially breast cancer), heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn – September 2008

Marilyn — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:30:56 +0000

Dear Readers,

Welcome to this issue of Natural News. This month there is an article on cutting cancer risk. It is something that affects us all or those closest to us at some point in our lives so it is important to know what we can do to reduce the risk, especially if you have a strong family history of this illness. Osteoporosis is also covered and why we need both calcium and magnesium for strong healthy bones.

One of the articles covers middle age spread and I wanted to share with you an email I received recently.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I have been following your Fat around the Middle plan for two weeks and have already lost weight and inches off my belly.

I am 41 years old and have had an early menopause at the age of 29 and was feeling large and uncomfortable at 11 stone, I also have a very stressful job but I have been doing weights and yoga on alternative nights and generally trying to be calm!! I have even had a glass or two of wine!! I just wanted to say thank you so much for your book. I intend to keep going for the next three months and hope to be lighter and flatter by the time I am 42.

An added side effect for me – and this may sound odd- but I have noticed a reduction in facial hair as I have only been drinking peppermint or spearmint tea since I started in May. I have seen articles in magazines on this before; in Middle Eastern countries where lots of mint tea is drunk, the women are less hairy!! And having been through an early menopause I did get quite fluffy around the lip and chin and resorted to waxing, which I had never done in my life so the benefits of this diet seem endless!’

I thought this last paragraph was interesting and thought it might be a useful tip for all women and wondered whether any other women had noticed this effect. Do let me know.

Kind regards,

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn – August 2008

Marilyn — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:20:39 +0000

Dear Readers,

I do hope you are enjoying Natural News and the aim is to keep giving you a good variety of articles and news. If there is something particular you would like to know about then do contact me as I am happy to include topics of specific interest.

In this issue of Natural News, there is a really easy to follow 24 hour summer detox, which can be useful if you have been overdoing things while on holiday. There is an article on breathing because this is something we all do, every minute of every day and yet very rarely think about it and it is so important that we breathe correctly. There is information on vitamin C because everybody knows about its immune benefits but there is a lot more to this water soluble vitamin than just that.

One of the articles covers cholesterol and although we don’t want too much of it, we also don’t want too little because it has certain functions. For instance, our sex hormones are synthesized from cholesterol and it a major component of the membrane that surrounds every cell. So as always with Nature we are aiming for a balance.

Hope you are enjoying the summer months and the wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables around at this time of the year.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

To read the rest of this article and for more information on ‘Natural News for Women’ please click here

Letter from Marilyn – July 2008

Marilyn — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:00:08 +0000

Dear Reader

I wanted to share something with you that was posted up in my local leisure centre. It conveys what I have written about in previous Natural News but it is good to see it all written down in such a practical way.

When the average women attempts to transform their body shape i.e. lose weight (fat), they make most, if not all, of these mistakes below:

She…

Skips breakfast (in an attempt to eat less)

Eats too many carbohydrates (usually bad ones)

Consumes far too little protein

Thinks ‘healthy’ dietary fat means no dietary fat

Doesn’t supplement her diet and training

Under-eats in the first half of the day

Over-eats in the second half of the day

Doesn’t lift weights adequately (if at all)

Eats too infrequently (meals are way too far apart)

Has her biggest meal at night, often a ‘binge’ or ‘out of control’ meal (therefore, she wakes up not hungry, skips breakfast and starts that cycle over).

From my point of view, it is easy to see how these bullet points are simple traps that a lot of women (and men too) fall into and then wonder why they are not losing weight or changing shape. So see which ones you need to change to keep you fit and healthy.

Kind regards

Marilyn Glenville

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Letter from Marilyn – June 2008

Marilyn — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:30:39 +0000

Dear Reader,

You probably read the headlines the other month to the effect that ‘supplements may do you harm’. It is very difficult when we get so many conflicting stories in the press and then it makes it hard to know what to believe.

The study that was quoted was actually a meta-analysis which is a combination of the results of a number of studies. For a meta-analysis, the researchers can decide which studies to include and what not to include depending on what criteria they choose. The researchers identified 748 studies that could be included in this meta-analysis and then decided that there were only 409 eligible trials which were randomised controlled trials. But then they decided to look at only 67 of those. They excluded 405 trials where no deaths were reported.

It is difficult to see how 405 trials which reported no deaths were excluded from an analysis which was supposed to look at the effects of vitamins on mortality. The other big problem with this meta-analysis is that they assessed all-cause mortality, which means death due to anything. So people whose deaths may have been caused by road accidents, murder or suicide would be included and of course would have no connection with taking vitamins.

So do take these results with a large pinch of salt (well maybe not so large because of the link with high blood pressure!) but it is easy to see how statistics can be manipulated and that people will only end up seeing the doom and gloom headline. My recommendation is to take good levels of vitamins and minerals along with a healthy diet to give yourself the best chance of good health.

Kind regards,

Marilyn Glenville

To read the rest of this article and for more information on ‘Natural News for Women’ please click here