You won’t find this berry in your parfait, and you may have never even heard of it. 

The berry you need to know about is from the Aronia family of shrubs, which are native to North America. 

The best-known fruit of aronia are Aronia melanocarpa and Aronia prunifolia, known as black chokeberries due to their astringency. Their dark pigmentation is the result of an abundance of polyphenols that include flavonoids, anthocyanins, and proanthocyanins, which are potent antioxidants. Among berries, aronia is particularly high in these factors.

Compared to elderberry, seven varieties of black and red currant, and six varieties of gooseberries, aronia has been shown in research to contain the highest total anthocyanin concentration and antioxidant capacity!

 
When do women reach their sexual peak?

Is it at 30, 40 or maybe even 50 years old? Well, if we use conventional medical opinion, then women are past their sexual peak when they hit menopause, which is characterized by ovarian shutdown.

So what do you think? Is a woman’s sexuality linked only to functioning ovaries?

I think the answer is no.

A woman’s sexuality is not linked to her ovaries. I believe that women and men can have active sex lives well into advanced age. Why else would we have a “blue” sex pill for men? But here’s the million-dollar question: Where’s the “blue” sex pill for women?

In 2010, a study published in British Medical Journal concluded that women taking calcium supplements significantly increased their risk of heart disease — by as much as 27%.

The authors’ conclusions were picked up by mainstream media and sensational headlines blanketed the airways and print media. The negative headlines made their impact as they fearfully convinced women to stop taking their calcium supplements.

What a mistake.

Now that it's sniffle and sneeze season, people are already looking for relief. Black cumin seed oil contains a known immune modulator that could potentially help millions of people dry up their sinuses.

Now, we're not talking about the spice cumin - that's a totally different plant species from black cumin. This is something else entirely.

So, although I would always advise to cook liberally with cumin, it probably won't help your runny, itchy nose. Sorry.

But black cumin, however, may very well help because it provides thymoquinone - an immune modulator. Let's explore how it works.

The Sea Buckthorn plant has an unusual concentration of the essential omega-7 fatty acid. Some nutritionists even believe it's the best source of Omega-7 fat that exists.

But why is this important to you?

Well, for starters, omega-7 helps your body maintain itself in a variety of ways, including counteracting weight gain. The discovery of this fact has obviously produced a great amount of interest among medical researchers, and initial surprising research has many predicting that omega-7 may ultimately become a powerful tool in the weight loss battle.

Below, we'll explore the details.

Did you know that ice can potentially save your life?

If you're having a heart attack, it could.

Scientists are discovering how cooling the human body down several degrees can actually save lives. This isn't the stuff of science fiction, but the result of many years of research.

If you find this interesting, read on to find out how hypothermia is making a difference in the medical field. Who knows, it may actually save your life one day.

Donating blood has many health benefits. Not only will you help someone in need of blood, but you will also help optimize your health and wellness. Here are the top three health benefits from donating blood.

Protect Your Heart by Reducing Oxidative Stress

Iron in your blood can oxidize resulting in damage to your cells and tissues. The increase in oxidative stress is most dangerous to your cardiovascular system. According to a new study published by the American Medical Association, giving blood every six months led to fewer heart attacks and strokes in test participants ages 43 to 61.

Excessive iron is thought to contribute to heart disease, especially at its early stages. Donating blood on a regular basis reduces the iron stores in the body and this study supports the theory that reducing iron appears to preserve cardiovascular health.

A second study of 2,682 men in Finland, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that men who donated blood at least once a year had an 88 percent lower risk of heart attacks than non-donors. This same group of researchers published a follow-up study and found that men who donated blood were less likely than non-donors to show any signs of cardiovascular disease.¹

In cooking, onions are one of the components of mirepoix (pronounced meer-pwah) - a French culinary term for a finely chopped mix of onion, celery, and carrots. It's used as a flavor base for a wide variety of dishes.

I know this, not because I cook, but because I love watching the Food Channel. I don't know why, but watching other people cook simply fascinates me.

I digress ... back to onions.

Anyway, new research shows that onions are good for mice brains and probably ours as well. Eating them or supplementing with an onion extract may help to lower MDA or malondialdehyde, a marker of oxidative stress and a brain cell killer.

Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is vegetable oil with bromine added to it. Brominated vegetable oil is used as an emulsifier in citrus-flavored soft drinks to help the flavors stay suspended in the drink and to produce a cloudy appearance.

Just look at Mountain Dew, for example. The hazy appearance within its very unnatural fluorescent color comes from BVO.

Patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant, and banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, BVO has been added to soft drinks for decades in North America. Now, some scientists have a renewed interest in this little-known ingredient.

Occasional constipation is usually not a big deal. For most of us, with better hydration, it resolves itself without much of a hassle.

However, chronic bouts of constipation are not only uncomfortable, but also can inflame your colon's mucosal lining. This inflammation can cause bowel motility problems in the future.

The problem with chronic constipation is that no one really knows how to define it or treat it. The conventional approach usually involves bowel stimulants which can be unpredictable and ineffective.

Not only that, but who wants to have to rely on bowel stimulants for long periods of time? They're just not a good option for effective relief.

What is a poison? Well, interestingly, there are different theories as to what makes something a poison. But most of them go something like this:

"A dangerous chemical, natural or unnatural, enters the blood through the skin, gut or lungs and travels to the liver, the primary organ of detoxification."

The liver attempts to "detoxify" the chemical creating metabolites — sometimes the metabolites are less toxic and sometimes they're not — in order to excrete the chemical and any remnants of it out of the body.

So for us to believe that fructose is a poison, it needs to follow, in some respects, the pathway I just described — and I'll get to that soon.

But first, let's clarify something...

Modifying traditional heart disease risk factors is not enough to protect your heart. Many Americans continue to suffer from heart attacks and stroke despite receiving a clean bill of health from their doctors. So what are we missing?

Traditional medicine modifies just 6 risk factors — obesity, smoking, high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL-cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high blood sugar.  However, integrative and alternative doctors have come to recognize 11 additional risk factors.

Here are two additional risk factors to consider if you want to keep your heart healthy …

Diabetic neuropathy results from two destructive processes caused by high blood sugar: oxidative stress and glycation. Here at Life Extension® we are always looking for innovative ways to help fight against the damaging effects of high blood sugar.

The latest discovery is found in almost every grocery store in the nation … red cabbage. Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University studied red cabbage extract’s protective action against oxidative stress. Their results are quite amazing.¹

Diabetes was induced in male rats using a common laboratory technique (infusion of the chemical streptozotocin). Within 60 days, all of the rats infused with streptozotocin exhibited many symptoms of diabetes including loss of body weight, high blood sugar, kidney problems and nerve cell dysfunction.