Thursday, August 22, 2013

Make Our Food Work For Us

by guest blogger Jody Perrecone

Earlier this month, I attended Veggie Fest in Naperville, Illinois.  Not just for vegetarians, this festival drew over 25,000 people, had food demonstrations, dozens of speakers, and over 100 booths.

One of the speakers was Sara Sukumar, PhD, Professor of Oncology and Pathology and Director of the Breast Cancer Program at Johns Hopkins University. She spoke on anti-cancer properties in specific foods.  Here is her list:

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Anatomy Of A Bowel Movement (And How To Cure Constipation)


Many of us take for granted our trip(s) to the porcelain throne each day as we rid ourselves of built up toxins and waste products via nature's evacuation system. Or to put it more candidly, I'm talking about pooping. Everybody does it, but not everybody does it well.

We've all been in this second group of folks, at least at some point in our life, straining and struggling to get those rock hard miniature boulders out of our bottom end to finally provide us some relief. Ultimately, many of us still find ourselves falling short of the call of "duty". This is no fun by any means, so what now? A pill? A powder? An extra gallon of water? A trip to the doctor's office?

I'm going to outline the ins and outs of constipation, as well as what you can do about it, to help you navigate the human plumbing system in hopes of providing you with some much needed relief. After all, everybody deserves to feel good. As an added bonus, you'll get the bragging rights of becoming a super pooper. Now how can you turn down that deal?!

Constipation - Definition and Prevalence


Constipation is officially defined as less than 3 stools per week using the Rome III criteria. The presence of hard stools, straining, and incomplete defecation is present 25% or more of the time. Constipation does tend to be a very subjective disease, however, as lack of agreement between patient and physician can occur when defining what exactly constipation means to each individual. Nonetheless, nobody wants to be constipated regardless of how many or what kind of stools are taking place so no sense in squabbling over diagnosis details.