Bitter Melon helps Diabetes, sugar control Bitter Melon

Bitter Melon

Bitter melon is a fruit that can be found in many Asian grocery stores. As its name suggests, the fruit tastes very bitter. It's also available in liquid extract and capsule forms.

The fruit has a different warty looking external and an oblong shape. It is unfilled in cross-section, with a relatively thin layer of flesh immediate a central seed cavity filled with large flat seeds and pith. Seeds and pith appear white in unripe fruits, ripening to red; they are not intensely bitter and can be impassive before cooking. However, the pith will become sweet when the fruit is fully ripe, and the pith's color will turn red. The pith can be eaten uncooked in this state, but the flesh of the melon will be far too tough to be eaten anymore. Red and sweet bitter melon pith is a popular component in some special Southeast Asian style salad. The flesh is crunchy and watery in texture, similar to cucumber, chayote or green bell pepper. The skin is tender and edible. The fruit is most frequently eaten green. Although it can also be eaten when it has started to ripen and turn yellowish, it becomes bitterer as it ripens. The completely ripe fruit turns orange and mushy, is too bitter to eat, and splits into segments which curl back noticeably to expose seeds covered in bright red pulp.

Bitter melon comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. The typical Chinese phenotype is 20 to 30 cm long, oblong with bluntly tapering ends and pale green in color, with a gently undulating, warty surface. The bitter melon more typical of India has a narrower shape with pointed ends, and a surface covered with jagged, triangular "teeth" and ridges. Coloration is green or white. Between these two extremes are any number of intermediate forms. Some bear miniature fruit of only 6 - 10 cm in length, which may be served individually as stuffed vegetables. These miniature fruit are popular in Southeast Asia as well as India.

Bitter Melon Medicinal uses

Bitter melon has been used in different Asian conventional tablets systems for a extended time. Like most bitter-tasting foods, bitter melon stimulates absorption. While this can be helpful in people with sluggish digestion, dyspepsia, and constipation, it can sometimes make heartburn and ulcers worse. The fact that bitter melon is also a demulcent and at least mild inflammation modulator, however, means that it rarely does have these negative effects, based on clinical experience and traditional reports.

Though it has been claimed that bitter melon’s bitterness comes from quinine, no proof could be located supporting this claim. Bitter melon is traditionally regarded by Asians, as well as Panamanians and Colombians, as useful for preventing and treating malaria. Laboratory studies have confirmed that various species of bitter melon have anti-malarial activity, though human studies have not yet been published.

In Panama bitter melon is known as Balsamino. The pods are smaller and bright orange when ripe with very sweet red seeds, but only the leaves of the plant are brewed in hot water to create a tea to treat malaria and diabetes. The leaves are allowed to steep in hot water before being strained thoroughly so that only the remaining liquid is used for the tea.

Laboratory tests suggest that compounds in bitter melon might be effective for treating HIV infection. As most compounds isolated from bitter melon that impact HIV have either been proteins or glycoproteins lectins), neither of which are well-absorbed, it is unlikely that oral intake of bitter melon will slow HIV in infected people. It is possible oral ingestion of bitter melon could offset negative effects of anti-HIV drugs, if a test tube study can be shown to be applicable to people. In one preliminary clinical trial, an enema form of a bitter melon extract showed some benefits in people infected with HIV (Zhang 1992). Clearly more research is necessary before this could be recommended.

The other realm showing the most promise related to bitter melon is as an immunomodulator. One clinical trial found very limited evidence that bitter melon might improve immune cell function in people with cancer, but this needs to be verified and amplified in other research. If proven correct this is another way bitter melon could help people infected with HIV.

Folk wisdom has it that ampalaya (Momordica charantia Linn.) helps to prevent or counteract type-II diabetes. A recent scientific study at JIPMER, India has prove that ampalaya increases insulin compassion. Also, in 2007, the Philippine Department of Health issued a circular stating that Ampalaya as a scientifically validated herbal medicinal plant, can lower elevated blood sugar levels. It is sold in the Philippines as a food supplement and marketed under the trade name Ampalaya Plus and the like. The study revealed that a 100 milligram per kilo dose per day is comparable to 2.5 milligrams of the anti-diabetes drug Glibenclamide taken twice per day.

Birchbark and Birch Bark

Birch, or White Birch, is a tree found in Northern US, Canada, Europe and Northern Asia. Mature trees can assume a height of up to 65 feet. Birch trees feature white bark which can be peeled off in horizontal strips. Its leaves are bright green, serrated and roughly heart shaped.

Collection and storage:

Birch bark can be removed fairly easily from the trunk or branches, living or recently dead, by cutting a slit lengthwise through the bark and pulling or prying it away from the wood. The best time for collection is spring or early summer, as the bark is of better quality and most easily removed.

Removing the outer (light) layer of bark from the trunk of a living tree may not kill it, but probably weakens it and makes it more prone to infections. Removal of the inner (dark) layer, the phloem, kills the tree by preventing the flow of sap to the roots.

To prevent it from rolling up during storage, the bark should be spread open and kept pressed flat.

Working:

Birch bark can be cut with a sharp knife, and worked like cardboard. For sharp bending, the fold should be scored (scratched) first with a blunt stylus.

Fresh bark can be worked as is; bark that has dried up (before or after collection) should be softened by steaming, by soaking in warm water, or over a fire.

Birch bark uses:

Birch bark was a valuable construction material in any part of the world where birch trees were available. Containers like wrappings, bags, baskets, boxes, or quivers were made by most societies well before pottery was invented[citation needed]. Other uses include:

* In North America, the native population used birch bark for canoes, wigwams, scrolls, ritual art (birch bark biting), maps (including the oldest maps of North America[citation needed]), torches, fans, musical instruments, clothing, and more.
* In Scandinavia and Finland, it was used as the substratum of sod roofs, for making boxes, casks and buckets, fishing implements, and shoes (as used by the Egtved Girl), etc..
* In Russia, many birch bark documents have survived from the Middle Ages.
* In the Indian civilisation birch-bark, along with dried palm leaves, replaced parchment as the primary writing medium. The oldest known Buddhist manuscripts (some of the Gandharan Buddhist Texts), from Afghanistan, were written on birch bark[citation needed].

Birch bark also makes an outstanding tinder, as the inner layers will stay dry even through heavy rainstorms. To render birch bark useless as tinder, it must be soaked for an extended period.

Bilberry Herb - Herbs Infomation Bilberry

Bilberry

Bilberry is a name given to several species of low-growing shrubs in the genus Vaccinium (family Ericaceae) that bears fruits. The species most often referred to is Vaccinium myrtillus L., otherwise known as the European blueberry. Other names are blaeberry, whortleberry, whinberry (or winberry), wimberry, myrtle blueberry, fraughan, and other names regionally. They were called black-hearts in 19th century southern England, according to Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel, The Return of the Native.

Bilberry Overview

Bilberry has been used for centuries, both medicinally and as a food in jams and pies. It is related to the blueberry and is native to Northern Europe. Bilberry fruit contains chemicals known as anthocyanosides, plant pigments that have excellent antioxidant properties. They scavenge damaging particles in the body known as free radicals, helping to prevent or reverse damage to cells. Antioxidants have been shown to help prevent a number of long-term illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, and an eye disorder called macular degeneration. Bilberry also contains vitamin C, which is another antioxidant.

Not many studies have been done to examine bilberry specifically. Even fewer studies have been done in humans. Most of the suggestions about bilberry's effectiveness come from research on similar antioxidants, or from test tube and animal studies.

Uses of Bilberry

Both the leaves and the ripe fruit of the bilberry and related berry species have long been a folk remedy for treating diabetes. Traditionally, people used the leaves to control blood sugar. While the leaves can lower blood sugar, they do so by impairing a normal process in the liver. For this reason, use of the leaves is not recommended for long-term treatment.

The berry, on the other hand, is recommended for people with diabetes. The berries do not lower blood sugar, but their constituents may help improve the strength and integrity of blood vessels and reduce damage to these vessels associated with diabetes and other diseases, such as atherosclerosis (calcium and fat deposits in arteries). The berries contain flavonoids, compounds found in the pigment of many plants. The blue-purple pigments typical of this family are due to the flavonoid anthocyanin.

With their potent antioxidant activity anthocyanins protect body tissues, particularly blood vessels, from oxidizing agents circulating in the blood. In fact, bilberries contain the highest antioxidant level, bite for bite, of any berry! In the same way that pipes rust as a result of an attack by chemicals, various chemicals in our environment -- pollutants, smoke, and chemicals in food -- can bind to and oxidize blood vessels. Two common complications of diabetes, diabetic eye disease (retinopathy) and kidney disease (nephropathy), often begin when the tiny capillaries of these organs are injured by the presence of excessive sugar. Antioxidants allow these harmful oxidizing agents to bind to them instead of to body cells, preventing the agents from causing permanent damage to the lining of blood vessels.

Bilberry extracts also may reduce the tingling sensations in the extremities associated with diabetes. Several studies have shown that bilberry extracts stimulate blood vessels to release a substance that helps dilate (expand) veins and arteries. Bilberries help keep platelets from clumping together, which, in turn, thins the blood, prevents clotting, and improves circulation.

Bilberry preparations seem particularly useful in treating eye conditions, so in addition to diabetic retinopathy, they also are used to treat cataracts, night blindness, and degeneration of the macula, the spot in the back of the eye that enables sharp focusing.

In the next section, you will learn how to prepare bilberry for herbal remedies and some of the potentially dangerous side effects.

Beetroot - Beet root Healthy liver gall bladder function.

Beetroot

Beta vulgaris, commonly known as beet or beetroot, is a flowering plant species in the family Chenopodiaceae. Several cultivars are valued around the world as edible root vegetables, fodder (mangel) and sugar-producing sugar beet

History Of Beetroot:

Although beet remains have been excavated in the Third dynasty Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt, and four charred beet fruits were found in the Neolithic site of Aartswoud in the Netherlands, it is difficult to determine whether these are domesticated or wild forms of B. vulgaris. Zohary and Hopf state the earliest written mention of the beet comes from 8th century BC Mesopotamia; the Greek Peripatetic Theophrastus later describes the beet as similar to the radish. Beet historians have long argued that the term “Bonbon de Naturel” or “Natures Candy” came into the popular vernacular during this time period.

Beetroot Health Benefits:

The vegetable that I most strongly recommend for general health improvement and especially for those with cancer is beetroot. The purple pigment has been shown to increase and normalise cell respiration - the oxygen-based energy production within cells. Thus beetroot is one of the key foods in preventing as well as curing cancer. It is equally important in the treatment of other degenerative diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome that are all characterised by reduced cell respiration. .The active ingredient in beetroot is called betacyanin with two carbonyl groups (C=0-). What happens when cellular energy is produced through the oxidation of nutrients is that electrons and hydrogen ions are transferred onto the inhaled oxygen to produce water and energy. In cancer cells and with chronic fatigue the respiratory enzymes that accomplish this transfer have been diminished or destroyed. The colour pigment in beetroot (and other purple food) strongly binds electrons and hydrogen and with this can reactivate the production of cellular oxidative energy. Seeger and others (1990) have shown that the respiration of cancer cells can be completely normalised by a combination of beetroot, raw fermented food and vitamin C. The multiplication of cancer cells would thus stop, and tumours become non-virulent. Clinical tests using beetroot with cancer patients revealed that often tumours regressed and disappeared.Therefore use plenty of beetroot grated in salads, juiced and cooked; also the residue from juicing may be cooked. Occasionally a small root may leave an acrid aftertaste.

Taste suspect roots before making salads or juice; cooking them is fine, and beet tops may be cooked also. Tinned beetroot has lost most of its pigments and is of little value.Beetroot may be available only seasonally. You may store a larger quantity in moist sand. Keep the tops exposed in a cool, shaded place with just enough moisture to prevent drying out. After a good root system has developed you may also let them continue to grow in a sandy and well drained soil, neither too wet nor too dry to avoid rotting or mould development, check frequently.

Bee pollen herbs information - Bee Pollen Trace minerals, amino acids, energy, healthy sex drive

Bee pollen herb

Bee pollen herbs information is considered to be one of the richest foods on earth, and is often referred to as "nature's perfect food.” Bee pollen was reserved for use by the original Olympic athletes to increase performance. Bee pollen provides daily support for the immune system, promotes vitality, and can be helpful in maintaining healthy skin. Microscopic in size, bee pollen is formed at the end of a flower's stamen, where it awaits the industrious bees who collect it. Try bee pollen by itself, or dissolve it in warm water and honey. Bee pollen herb information.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS:
There have been some studies that found Bee Pollen positive in the condition of pernicious anemia and conditions associated with the gastro-intestinal system, i.e. - constipation. Bee Pollen has been useful in hormonal balance, hypertension and conditions associated with the glands (the endocrine system). Bee Pollen improves the appetite where it has been lost. Bee Pollen also contains a large amount of protein, some researchers say as much as 35%. It is high in B-Complex, and has Vitamins A, C, D, E and Lecithin. Bee pollen has long been considered a complete food because it has so many nutrients essential to life.

POTENTIAL SIDE EFFECTS:
Those who are allergic to Bee Pollen should consult their doctor and refrain from taking Bee Pollen because it could cause itching, dizziness or even some difficulty swallowing. Small doses for anyone should be taken at the beginning.