Controlling What You Eat

If you feel like you’re in a losing battle with a triple-chocolate cake, a “mental budget” can help, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

“There are some behaviors that consumers try to limit but have trouble doing so,” write authors Parthasarathy Krishnamurthy (University of Houston) and Sonja Prokopec (ESSEC Business School, France). “Even as one aims to curtail consumption of sugars and fat, one ends up consuming the tiramisu or the triplechocolate
cake. Such discrepancies between one’s goals and actual behaviors represent instances of self-control failure.”

About 70 million Americans are attempting to control their food intake. So, how do consumers rein in overeating? In weight-loss systems like Weight Watchers ®, each food is assigned a point value and members are encouraged to limit their total daily consumption to a pre-specified amount of points. The authors conducted several studies where they encouraged some participants to set mental budgets and compared them to people who did not set budgets. They examined their consumption of sweet treats.
They discovered several patterns.

First, having a mental budget alone was not sufficient. Participants also needed to have an active goal of not wanting to consume sweets. Second, the information about the products needed to match the units of the mental budgets. Third, mental budgets succeeded when consumers followed specific numerical recommendations, like the Weight Watchers® points.

“For those who wish to cut out those desserts, our research suggests some simple tips,” the authors write. “First, it is important to have a mental budget. At the very least, it allows you to keep track of how you are doing with respect to your goal. Second, make sure the budget works as a limit rather than a license for the consumption behavior. To do this, it is important to have an active goal of controlling the consumption.”

Parthasarathy Krishnamurthy and Sonja Prokopec. “Resisting That Triple-Chocolate Cake: Mental Budgets and Self-Control.” Journal of ConsumerResearch: June 2010. A preprint of this article (to be officially published onlinesoon) can be found at http://journals.uchicago.edu/jcr).

Can Magnesium Help Tinnitus?

I recently received an email asking me this question. Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, is an extremely annoying complaint. Although there doesn't seem to be any scientific studies showing that a magnesium supplement is beneficial for this problem, there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence, so it may well be worth giving it a try.

It definitely won't be a quick cure, so you will need to take it for about 3 months to be certain whether or not it is helping. The magnesium supplement we sell is of a suitable strength and in a form that is well absorbed.

Supplements for urinary tract infection

I rceently received this enquiry:

Can you tell me if you sell any supplements for urinary tract infections please.

 This is my answer:

Yes, we do. Cranberry extract can be very good.This suplement has been shown to stop harmful bacteria  attaching to the ballder wall, so helping the body get rid of them.

and

I’d also think about taking a probiotics formula designed to support your immune system. This particular product contains the strains thta have been shown to be beneficial for the immune system and also antioxidants that help strenthen the immune system. A great product!

Got a problem? Find a natural remedy solution

We often put up with things, thinking nothing can be done about them, but often there are natural remedies - nutritional supplements, herbal remedies, flower remedies, soothing creams, etc. - that can help us feel a lot, lot better.  The problem is how to find them. We've simplified the process with our natural remedy finder - there are now 59 different problems listed with details of the natural remedies that can help:

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Do take a look and find the right health remedies for you.

Can Christmas be sustainable?

Can Christmas be sustainable? Tricky one. The average family will produce around one tonne of CO2 over the 12 days of Xmas. All that wrapping paper, twinkling lights, piles of food…
Difficult to make it wholly sustainable and still keep all the relatives happy.

But very possible to make it Greener – through smaller actions which really make a difference. Recycled wrapping paper, solar lights, food with low carbon footprints, and presents that promote sustainable lifestyles.

And then there are all the retrofit energy saving appliances that will lower your bills and reduce CO2 emissions.

Check out products to help at Nigel's Ecostore

International Therapist Listing Relaunched

We have revamped and relaunched our international therapist listing. We have over 4000 therapists listed - practitioners of kinesiology, homeopathy, chiropractic, reiki, Bowen, herbalism and many more practicing in the UK, USA, Germany, France, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and lots of other countries.

You can search our therapy listing or, if you're a therapist you can sign up

We do not sell, exchange or give away your details. This is therapist listing exists because I know complementary and alternative therapies work and can make a big difference to people's lives.

Please pass this on to any therapists that you know - thanks

Eat Fast, Eat More, Gain Weight

According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), eating a meal quickly, as compared to slowly, curtails the release of hormones in the gut that induce feelings of being full.  The decreased release of these hormones, can often lead to overeating.

“Most of us have heard that eating fast can lead to food overconsumption and obesity, and in fact some observational studies have supported this notion,” said Alexander Kokkinos, MD, PhD, of Laiko General Hospital in Athens Greece and lead author of the study. “Our study provides a possible explanation for the relationship between speed eating and overeating by showing that the rate at which someone eats may impact the release of gut hormones that signal the brain to stop eating.”

In the last few years, research regarding gut hormones, such as peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), has shown that their release after a meal acts on the brain and induces satiety and meal termination. Until now, concentrations of appetite-regulating hormones have not been examined in the context of different rates of eating.

In this study, subjects consumed the same test meal, 300ml of ice-cream, at different rates. Researchers took blood samples for the measurement of glucose, insulin, plasma lipids and gut hormones before the meal and at 30 minute intervals after the beginning of eating, until the end of the session, 210 minutes later. Researchers found that subjects who took the full 30 minutes to finish the ice cream had higher concentrations of PYY and GLP-1 and also tended to have a higher fullness rating.

“Our findings give some insight into an aspect of modern-day food overconsumption, namely the fact that many people, pressed by demanding working and living conditions, eat faster and in greater amounts than in the past,” said Kokkinos. “The warning we were given as children that ‘wolfing down your food will make you fat,’ may in fact have a physiological explanation.”

Other researchers working on the study include Kleopatra Alexiadou, Nicholas Tentolouris, Despoina Kyriaki, Despoina Perrea and Nicholas Katsilambros of Athens University Medical School in Greece; and Carel le Roux, Royce Vincent, Mohammad Ghatei and Stephen Bloom of Imperial College in London, United Kingdom.

help For Internal Scarring

I received this email query today:

I wonder if you can offer me any advice.  My dad has recently finished chemotherapy and radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer.  Fortunately it was caught early for this sort of cancer and he is doing extremely well.  However, he has internal pains when he turns - especially in bed and after a large meal.  He has been told that is normal and is the result of scar tissue around the internal area blasted with radiotherapy as scar tissue is less stretchy/ flexible etc than normal tissue.

So, is there anything you could recommend to ease this?  I wonder if there's any product that he could take to improve the stretch or condition of internal scar tissue?

This was my reply:

Sorry to hear about your dad. I’d recommend zinc  and vitamin E. It’s not a quick cure though and he might not see nay improvement for a month, but well worth doing. People are often short of zinc anyway and it helps fight infections etc. etc.