Low Carb for Health

Hypertension, known scientifically as hypertension, is really a continual health-related problem. Hypertension could be harmful, and is linked with an elevated threat of probably deadly ailments, including coronary heart attack and heart failure, stroke, aneurysm, and kidney failure. Fortunately, you can find quite a few successful pure treatments for hypertension, such as physical exercise, diet plan, and herbal treatments. This post focuses on one natural remedy for naturally lowering blood pressure which is secure, inexpensive, and broadly available: hibiscus tea. What's Hibiscus Tea? Hibiscus tea is really a drink created out of the sepals in the roselle plant, Hibiscus sabdariffa. This drink is common like a beverage in many countries throughout the world, particularly within the Carribean, Africa (exactly where it is referred to as karkade in North Africa, bissap in Senegal). Hibiscus tea is sour, fragrant, and has a deep purplish-red coloration. Hibiscus tea mi

 Obesity, technically speaking, is a disorder of excess fat accumulation.  How your body stores and accumulates fat is reasonably well-understood.  How is it, then, that there's so much confusion about what makes you fat? First, the basics.  You eat a meal containing carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, corn, potatoes, etc.  Your digestive system breaks down these carbohydrate molecules into glucose.  Your pancreas senses the glucose in the bloodstream and releases insulin in response.  In your muscle cells, this insulin binds to receptors that (indirectly) allow the glucose to pass through the cell membrane to be metabolized for energy.  In other words, glucose in the blood is required for insulin, and insulin is required to make use of the glucose. One of the many effects of insulin is to signal your adipose tissue (your fat cells) to store fat, in the form of triglycerides.  There are many other hormones that signal these cells to release or mobilize the stored fat for energy, b

 I'm going to start with a bold claim: cancer has the same cause, and should be treated with the same measures, as obesity.  I didn't say breast cancer, or skin cancer.  Different cancers have different properties that make it useful to study them separately, but all cancers have certain important things in common that make it possible to study cancer as a whole. Before I go on, let me disclaim myself: I'm not a doctor, and this analysis is not intended as medical advice.  If you have cancer, or want to prevent it, see your doctor, but do so armed with as much information as you can get. Now that I've made this ludicrous claim, I'd better back it up with some science.  You might first want to cover some cancer basics, which I'm going to skip... possibly here. I'm going to talk about some things that all cancer cells have in common.  One is called the Warburg Effect after its discoverer.  Warburg described a feature common to all forms of cancer - they carry

 Central to the theme of this blog is the concept of insulin resistance, which along with insulin itself, I'll identify as the cause of a great many problems.  I'll start with the basics. As I mentioned before, insulin is secreted by cells in your pancreas in response to elevated blood glucose levels, which in turn are caused by dietary carbohydrates.  Your body converts digestible carbohydrates into glucose, which is what stimulates the release of insulin, and that insulin is necessary for your body to make use of the glucose and manage your blood sugar levels.  When tissues become insulin resistant, their ability to make use of blood glucose is impaired, leading to a whole range of problems. There appears to be a very influential genetic component to the risk of developing insulin resistance (IR), but no specific cause has yet been identified to everyone's satisfaction.  A great deal of evidence exists to support the (intuitive) hypothesis that it's caused by chronica

 I've covered insulin resistance (IR) and mentioned its relationship to type 2 diabetes, but I need to discuss diabetes in a bit more depth, if only to establish a background for future posts. A central and controversial thesis behind this blog and many of the ideas behind low-carb diets is that tissues become insulin resistant after prolonged exposure to elevated insulin levels, caused by a diet high in carbohydrates.  That's a bit of an oversimplification, but that's the gist.  I'll go into greater depth shortly to back up that assertion.  Central to this post in particular is the idea that type 2 diabetes is nothing more than the final (insert pregnant question mark here, and anticipate a future post) phase of IR, in which all major tissue groups have become insulin resistant. Both conditions are well-known to correlate with metabolic syndrome or syndrome X, and as seen here and elsewhere it's all been long thought to be caused by obesity.  As far as I can tell f