How healthy is your microbiome? More and more research is shedding light on the major role that the bacteria in our bodies play in maintaining good health. Anxiety, asthma, autoimmune illness, heart disease, and cancer are just a few of the diseases now being linked to disturbances in the balance of bacteria within the human body. If you're struggling with health issues, your gut is one of the first places you should look to for answers. Got Bacteria? Most of us grew up with the idea that all bacteria are bad. The truth is that many of the types of bacteria found in your gut as well as in other parts of your body like your nose, mouth, lungs, bladder, and vagina, are not just good, but act
If you've struggled with chronic fatigue, feeling "wired but tired", gaining weight despite efforts to lose it, or feeling less and less able to handle stress, you may be suffering from adrenal fatigue. Your adrenal glands are designed to do many things to keep you healthy, chief of which is responding to stress. Since the symptoms of adrenal fatigue and dysfunction are so diverse, you may be suffering from adrenal fatigue and not even know it. Could You Be Suffering From Adrenal Fatigue? When you experience stress, your adrenal glands jump into action by producing several hormones which enable you to meet the challenge at hand. One of these is cortisol and it has far-reaching effects on yo
Today, living with some form of stress is a common experience. But all too often, you don't recognize the extent to which stress is affecting your health. In some cases, prolonged stress may begin to feel "normal" to you - that is until cracks start to appear in your physical functioning and your body reaches its limit. Are You On Overload? While each of us might perceive stress differently, the main effect that stress has on our bodies is the same for all of us. Stressors, whatever their origin, stimulate the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which trigger physical reactions within us, prompting us to take action and: fight or take flight or freeze. When it comes to a
Before you grab for that diet soft drink, take a minute to consider what you're actually putting in your body. While artificial sweeteners have been touted for their reduced calories, they haven't exactly lived up to the expectations. In fact, they might be doing just the opposite: promoting weight gain and type 2 diabetes as well as disrupting your digestive tract. We all know that drinking diet soft drinks while continuing to eat large meals isn't going to trim your waistline. But reducing calories by consuming artificially sweetened drinks and foods seems like a good place to start when you're trying to lose weight - right? Not necessarily. A 2014 study published in Nature found an incr
