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Nature’s antivirals: Top 5 antiviral agents that help boost immune health
Nature’s antivirals: Top 5 antiviral agents that help boost immune health
(Natural News) Scientists are scrambling to fast-track a cure for COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease that’s still currently spreading throughout the globe.
In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been conducting clinical trials for a potential COVID-19 drug since April, but to no effect.
Based on recent reports, the international clinical trial team tasked to develop an effective treatment for COVID-19 has stopped conducting tests on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a drug used to treat malaria. This development came about after scientists found that HCQ failed to reduce the mortality rate in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Natural antiviral agents
The infectious disease may still be at large, but according to recent reports from the online statistics portal Statista, more than 4.5 million people of the 8.58 million confirmed global cases had recovered from the disease as of June 19.
This astounding figure indicates that it’s possible to recover from the disease despite the lack of a specialized drug or vaccine. For the most part, recovery can be attributed to a strong immune response to infection and disease.
Studies suggest that immune health is largely influenced by diet. For instance, eating foods rich in essential nutrients and potent plant compounds can help enhance immune health. But some do a better job of boosting immune functions and fighting off pathogens than others.
Here are some of the most potent all-natural immune boosters that can help protect against infection and disease:
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is hailed for its immune-boosting properties. Considered a potent antioxidant, this micronutrient has been found to strengthen cells and tissues against pathogens and to stimulate the production of disease-fighting antibodies and immune cells.
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Beware of the N-bomb
Beware of the N-bomb
There are good, and frightening, reasons to closely follow the changes in the nitrogen cycle. We should not be surprised if the effects and costs of disturbing it turn out to be as dramatic as those for the carbon cycle. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizers are around 3% of global emissions, but they are not visible in greenhouse gas inventories. The abolition or drastic reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers is a pre-condition for a sustainable food system.
In farming, the availability of nutrients, particularly of nitrogen, potash and phosphorus – mostly referred to by their chemical symbols N, P and K – is a major limiting factor. All traditional farming systems have had some strategy for replacing nutrients in the soil. One is to rest the soil and allow a natural re-charge and release of nutrients from the soil and through atmospheric decomposition. Crop rotations with leguminous crops can fix nitrogen from the air and the nutritional demands of the various crops can complement each other. Phosphorous, from deeper layers or bound in the soil, can be ‘mined’ by some crops making it available to others. Nutrients can also come from irrigation water (especially sediments in flood waters), animal manure, human waste, plants, grass and other residues, a plethora of natural organic fertilizers. Farmers have used oil-cakes, feathers, leathers, bone, sea weed and fish as fertilizers. There are even reports that human remains from battlefields and ossuaries have been used as fertilizers. Yet all these methods have some limitations, and in most cases they require a lot of work or other efforts.
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Workout Like the Pros: How Pre-Loading Meals Get You the Best Workouts
Workout Like the Pros: How Pre-Loading Meals Get You the Best Workouts
Ready Nutrition guys and gals, let it never be said that I under-emphasize weight training and physical conditioning. I believe it to be the centerpiece of keeping yourself in good health both physically and mentally. That being said, you need to give yourself an “edge” in your training. Train intelligently and with purpose, and you will garner significant results. Nutrition is the cornerstone of proper training. That being mentioned, we’re going to cover pre-loads in terms of both supplements and “standard” foods that will help you prior to a workout.
Everyone varies, and everybody is different. In the morning, I can’t stand to eat anything just before I lift. The food never sits well in my stomach. My pre-load comes the night before, in the form of high protein and ample carbohydrates. Let’s discuss this. Your body will digest the food slowly from the night before…especially if you eat very late at night, such as 10 pm or later. I like to finish up my meal about 7 pm if possible.
I stack up the high protein, and medium to high carbohydrates, the latter in the form of potatoes or pasta. I prefer the potatoes: they are more readily-absorbable and digestible for your system. The carbs and proteins provide energy and tissue repair, in that order. They “fortify” you by giving you a load of energy to work with after you arise in the morning. This may not sound important, but it is. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it does not detract from the fact that they’re all important.
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Immune System-Boosting Nutrients You May Need During Fall and Winter
Immune System-Boosting Nutrients You May Need During Fall and Winter
Hibernating works for bears, bees, and bats, but unfortunately, is not ideal for humans. We require sunlight, year-round physical activity, and a steady supply of seasonal nutrients.
Fall and winter bring with them many joys (no more mosquitoes! the holidays are coming!), but they also bring with them conditions that make staying healthy a bit trickier.
For many of us, the shorter, colder days of fall and winter mean less sunlight exposure, less exercise, and less access to fresh produce.
We tend to get sick more often during fall and winter, but there are things we can do to reduce the risk.
Why do we get ill more often during colder months?
Being cold doesn’t directly cause us to get sick, but cold air may contribute to conditions that lead to illness, according to a report by Healthline. Factors related to colder weather may actually be the culprits. Some viruses prefer the chillier weather, including rhinoviruses (they cause the common cold and replicate better at cooler temperatures) and influenza viruses(they peak in winter). The dry air outside and in homes with central heating may make it easier for viruses to infect dry nasal passages. Low indoor humidity and poor ventilation may also play a role. And, because we tend to spend more time inside with other people during the colder months, we are more likely to share germs.
The “Winter Blues” and Seasonal Affective Disorder can play a role, too.
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The Gift of the Maya
The Gift of the Maya
It takes a bit of time for the elegance of a food forest to emerge, something on the order of decades. Strolling the garden through the morning mist in a hot Tennessee summer, we tried to remember what this landscape looked like 21 years ago, when we moved to this site, set up our yurt and started in on our little corner of paradise.
What we see today does not remotely resemble what was here then. Then there was a wire-fenced, stony horse paddock in a re-emerging poplar forest. The deep soil tilth now is blanketed in thick vines, their giant leaves hiding pumpkins, squashes and melons. Bamboo cathedrals twined with akebia and passionfruit arch 70 feet (20 meters) over a duck pond next to our cob henhouse. As we let out our poultry for their daily bug chase, bullfrogs croak and leap away. A snapping turtle submerges beneath the mat of duckweed and hyacinths at the water’s edge. All around us figs, peaches, apples, pears, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, plums and persimmons bend down boughs under the weight of their fruit, rabbits stealing out to grab a windfall and then hop back to cover, while high up in the oaks, beech, butternuts and hickories, squirrel forest wardens check the progress of their winter larder.
All this complexity, shrouded in mist and glistening in dew, would not be called orderly by farmers trained in Ag schools or raised in a tradition of straight rows and powerful machines with air-conditioned cabs. They can pump food from the earth the way you would pump barrels of oil, but not without depleting reserves accumulated over eons. As they pour on chemicals, the genetically monocultured crops gradually but inexorably lose nutrient density and attract predators.
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Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change
Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change
As many of you already know, 2015 has been named the International Year of Soils by the UN, so never has there been a better time to get soil into the conversation. The question of ‘how do we make soil sexy?’ is something that has been troubling soil scientists, farmers and NGOs for a number of years, and quite rightly so – we should be worried about the state of our soil.
Issues surrounding soil are yet to enter the mainstream of public concern. But if current rates of land degradation continue, quite soon they will have to. There are many challenges involved in driving the change towards agricultural practices that preserve and build soil fertility, but the gathering at the Global Soil Week (GSW) conference in Berlin last week certainly made me more hopeful. The event brought together young and old, experts and newcomers, all with the overarching aim to raise awareness about the vital need to look after our soils better and to get the issue onto the political agenda.
No one can deny the fundamental importance of soil and its fertility – in fact, you could say that, along with water, it is one of the most important natural resources on earth. It stores approximately 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon globally – three times as much as the atmosphere. And one tenth of the carbon in the atmosphere has come from soil degradation. Our first and most urgent goal must be to stop any more soil carbon being released, helping to warm the planet.
In addition to being the source of 95% of our food, soil is also a key part of global nutrient cycles, and an important sink for atmospheric methane. It’s also essential for maintaining biodiversity above ground, while providing an underground home for 25% of all life on the planet.
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