Ginkgo (herb)

I got a good feeling yesterday when I was thinking about that it's only 2 more weeks on this semester in school! - until I remembered that my summer course which I'm taking "just for fun" (I have to keep my reputation of being a nerd right?) starts in 3 weeks.. Oh well..

My church has a spring seminar this weekend which I really want to go to but I can't cause I'm having my phyto course in Stockholm this weekend. This time it will be about the liver, gallbladder, kidneys/urinary bladder and the skin. I'm really excited as it was sooooo good last time. Not as excited for the test we have though.. :/ I'll post a summary of the weekend later.

But now a little bit about ginkgo!

Ginkgo is widening arteries, stimulates the blood circulation and inhibits platelet collection. It is anticonvulsant and an antioxidant. It highers the tolerance for free radicals and the tendency of the blood to clot reduces.. 


Ginkgo contains a lot of positive substances but also one that is harmful but they normally take out the harmful substance so you won't get any serious side effects if you would take normal doses. 


That was short I guess but still interesting. You can buy these in different ways, personally I have capsules of these right now as I did a blood analysis last week and they could see there that my thrombocytes clot up more than they should so we'll see if it'll help. He also said that this is why I love running so much - because it helps the thrombocytes to not clot. I think I'd love running otherwise anyways though.. The picture is from my blood analysis. The circles are erytrocytes (red blood cells) and the big thing there is my thrombocytes that has "clot up" or whatever you'd say in english..

Phytochemicals

I've mentioned before that it is good to eat foods (vegetables, berries, fruits) from all different colours. The reason why they are so good is because of its contents of phytochemicals which has a very strong antioxidant effect.

Phytochemicals are micronutrients but still something different then vitamins and minerals, they are instead pigments.

There are several thousands different sorts and the most of them are healthy but a few are not (for example in mushrooms). Most of the phytonutrients are in the peel and it's what's giving the food colours. This means that the stronger colour a vegetable, fruit etc has, the better it is. For example, dark blue/red grapes are much better than green ones. One example is almonds where the shell (right english word?) contains a lot of phytonutrients.

Phytochemicals can prevent cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases etc etc.. the list goes on!

Two major subgroups of phytochemicals are carotenoids and flavonoids and if I don't remember wrong, I think I've already written about carotenoids before? I'll look for it and if not then I'll post about that and also flavonoids.

Normally a lot of vitamins gets destroyed when you heat up your food but when it comes to phytochemicals, many will be more healthier in a way that it will be easier for your body to use. For example, lycopene which is a phytochemical (carotenoid) in tomatoes and if you heat the tomato up a little bit them there will be 13 times as much lycopene then in a raw tomato. However, don't heat up your food too much in high temperatures, low temperature in a short while is enough. Also many phytochemicals are fat soluble which means that for a optimal absorption you need to eat some fat with these foods.

I will post one more post tonight about the metabolism system. I'm a nerd so even though I'm sick and threw up this morning, I went to the store to buy a big paper where I will draw the 3 different metabolism systems on - molecule by molecule.. We'll see if I get done today, I have a feeling it will take a while. But I'm weirdly enough really excited!

ORAC (about antioxidants)

ORAC is one way of measuring the antioxidants power in foods. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbtion Capacity. If a certain type of food has a high ORAC value, then that means that it has a high capacity to make free radicals harmless. 


Studies has shown that if you eat foods with high ORAC - then the protection against free radicals increases with 25 %. You need about 3000-5000 units per day for an optimal healthy intake, but you need different ones, you shouldn't try to eat all of them from only dark chocolate or only blueberries etc.. 


Here is a short list of a few foods and their ORAC. This is for 100 grams:


Prunes - 5770 units
Pomegranate - 3307 units
Blueberries - 2400 units
Oranges - 750 units
Kiwi - 602 units
Kale (grönkål) - 1770 units
Spinach - 1260 units
Onion - 450 units
Dark chocolate (at least 70 % cocoa) - 13 120 units
Broccoli - 890 units
Potatoes - 300 units
Tomatoes - 195 units


And get prepared for some HIGH numbers....

Cinnamon -  267 000 units
Oregano - 200 000 units
Turmeric - 159 000 units

 Remember tho that the ORAC for the spices are per 100 grams, which you would never eat per day but still even a little would be quite a lot! This is one of the reasons why I think spices are so interesting.. One of many positive things with them.
And once more - don't forget that you need to eat from all different colours so you get different types of antioxidants.

Dark chocolate/cocoa

A while ago, I searched the internet for different effects spices may have. I know that cocoa is not a spice, but I searched a little bit about that too. These things are so incredibly interesting and I'm considering writing my essay on my last semester on spices and stuff. It's incredible how many positive effects it may have on our bodies.
I wrote what I found in a document but didn't write any sources so I unfortunately don't remember where I found these things. I would like to write more about spices here on the blog, but we'll take the cocoa first before we take on the spices!

 First of all, as with sooo many other things, cocoa is best to eat raw. When you heat it up, many antioxidants it contains gets destroyed. This also means that it matter what kind of dark chocolate you eat.. Some of them have been heated up too much so it can't give you any good health effects. You can also try to find raw cocoa in the store (normal ones have been heated) and put in smoothies or something else. Just don't heat it up yourself if you buy it raw ;)

As I mentioned, cocoa contains A LOT of antioxidants. Catechins, which are high in the cocoa bean, has both positive and essential qualities. Studies suggest that some of these flavanoids can prevent stroke and have a positive effect in treating cancer as well as HIV. A swedish newspaper asked the French laboratory Eurofins to analyze the levels of the antioxidants/flavanoid which has been proved to be very important for our health. Epikatechin is the most important of these ones. Seven varieties with a cocoa content of about 70 percent were investigated. Most flavonoids per kilogram of these had: 1888 Origin, JD Gross, ICA Selection

Three that had a much lower amount of flavonoids were: Marabou Premium, Lindth Excellent and Änglamark. (Not sure where the 7th went...). For you swedish ppl - as you see, both marabou and lindth, two of our most common brands of dark chocolate, did not get a good result in this study. I have tried to find both 1888 Origin and JD Gross but haven't found them in any store. But ofcourse pretty much every ICA store will have the ICA selection dark chocolate. I have started eating that one.. A tip - the cranberry one is awesome, I think that one has about 72 % cocoa if I don't remember wrong.. They also have one with 74 %.

Oxidative stress article by Magnus Nylander

My dad was at the health exhirbition today that me and Whitley are going to tomorrow. He got this newspaper with him home and Magnus Nylander (the nutritionist I've mentioned several times before) has written a 2 pages long article about oxidative stress in it.
I haven't had time to read it yet but I will still recommend it already because I'm pretty sure it is a great article. And a very interesting subject! If you want to know what antioxidants are good for then you should read this. The magazine is called STARK and its number 3 this year.