Juicing and tooth enamel.

MYTHS OF JUICING PUT TO REST

There are many stories in the media advising of the cons of juicing. Here is some advice in how to overcome the negative effects of juicing.

*        Juicing wears away the enamel of teeth. 

When you drink fruit juices that are high in acids, the acids try to dissolve the outer layer of your teeth (the enamel). This is when the saliva of the mouth comes into play. Saliva is naturally super-saturated with extra calcium and phosphate to prevent the acid from demineralising your teeth. This saliva helps your teeth to harden and absorb more calcium, which then acts like a coat of armour. Waiting to brush for at least 30 minutes gives your mouth time to produce enough saliva to neutralize the acidity. If you were to brush your teeth straight away, the enamel is susceptible to being rubbed away by the bristles of a toothbrush. Waiting a while gives saliva a chance to demineralise the teeth so the brushing doesn’t worsen damage.

I always advise clients to give the mouth a good swirl of water straight after drinking juices and waiting at least 30 minutes before brushing their teeth. Another piece of advice is to drink juices through a straw and aim to toward the back of the mouth. It is important in children that they do not direct the stream through their teeth which rather defeats the purpose of drinking through a straw.
Some groups recommend that you swirl your juice in your mouth, for reasons noted above this is something that I do not recommend for juices high in fruits.

*        Avocado are so expensive and difficult to find all year round

I buy my avocado in bulk during the high season and when they are the correct texture (soft to touch, dark in colour) I cut them in half, peel them and then store them in individual plastic wraps to be stored in the freezer. Only 5% of the enzyme activity is lost in an avocado when put into the freezer. It may be a little brown when you defrost it but once mixed into a smoothie it is delicious and no one can tell the difference.

I also cut up fresh ginger and turmeric root and pop into the freezer so I have a plentiful supply and never run out. They both retain all their medicinal properties if snap frozen.

RECIPE FOR THE DAY (and some info behind the ingredients)

CARROT AND GINGER SHOT

Ingredients:

1 carrot

1 apple

Knob ginger

Carrot: contains beta-carotene which converts to Vitamin A (in the correct amounts, many people can easily overdose on Vitamin A if taken as a supplement). Important for health of eyes and skin and great to assist getting the body back on track after alcohol indulgence.

Apple: natural in pectin, a soluble fibre, forming a get in the intestine that eliminates toxins and decreases blood cholesterol

Ginger: Natural antibiotic, decongestant and anti-histamine. Great a easing any inflammation in the body and helps with any flatulence or nausea. Can increase the ginger if suffering flu-like symptoms.

Part 2:How to Maximise Vitamin D levels this summer.

HOW LONG SHOULD I BE IN THE SUN FOR WITHOUT ANY PROTECTION?

The answer to this is not as simple as a time frame of 10 minutes or 30 minutes. The best advice is what Michael Holick MD recommends. He recommends that you expose 25% of your body for 25-50% of the time it would take for you to turn pink from the sun. You should never let the skin get anything more than the slightest pink tint, and use your ethnicity and past experience to gauge your UV sensitivity. Once you skin turns pink the body absorbs no more UVB rays so the benefits of maximising the absorption of Vitamin D stops once the body starts turning pink.

If you burn easily, consider supplementing your diet with lycopene, a key nutrient that is found in heavy concentration in tomatoes. Studies recently showed that those with high levels of lycopene had a much higher "internal sunscreen," and burned much less easily, than those who did not take in a lot of lycopene. In fact, antioxidants in general may give your skin an edge against UV sensitivity and cut down on burning.

When exposing the skin in the summer time, it is best to expose as much of the body as possible rather than just the face and arms. Your legs and torso are great for making vitamin D. So, make the most of your natural sun exposure and allow the larger parts of your body to be bare.

Researchers know that vitamin D synthesis declines with age -- and so does the concentration of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin. Without 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin, sunlight has nothing to turn into vitamin D. The decreased synthesis of 7-dehydrocholesterol is responsible for the decreased synthesis of vitamin D that comes with age. For the same length of time in the sun a young person will absorb 25-30% more UVB rays than an elderly person.

Next week I will be discussing the differences between UVA and UVB rays. 

Take care this summer

Julie x

How to Improve absorption of Vitamin D.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR VITAMIN D
ABSORPTION THIS SUMMER. BY Julie Dargan RN, ND, BHSc, Juice Therapist

WHAT COULD BE HINDERING THE ABSORPTION OF VITAMIN D ??

When UVB rays strike the surface of your skin, your skin converts a cholesterol derivative in your skin into vitamin D3. However, the vitamin D3 that is formed  on the surface of your skin does not immediately penetrate into your bloodstream. It actually needs to be absorbed from the surface of your skin into your bloodstream. This fat-soluble vitamin is actually more like a hormone, as it is synthesized by the body itself. The action of sunlight on a cholesterol derivative in the skin oils prompts the formation of a precursor, provitamin D, which then is absorbed through the skin back into the body, and goes to the liver for initial processing, and then to the kidneys which produce the active Vitamin D3, also called cholecalciferol, it in its final form, a process that takes about 36 hours. THIS IS WHERE THE CONTROVERSY SETS IN READ MORE FOR THIS THEORY.

The oils on the skin are easily destroyed by soap. A good analogy of this is when we wash dirty clothes or dishes with high oil content we need soap break down the oils. This is what happens if we jump into a shower straight after a run in the sun, day out in the sun etc. We then go crazy and get a good lather up, thus removing all natural body oils and much of the vitamin D3 your skin generated,. There is little evidence to back up this theory but it does make sense. Why are there so many people in Australia with very low levels of Vitamin D? Many people are now washing twice a day and lathering up each time. I receive a lot of scepticism on this theory but what I say to people is what do you have to lose? Do you really need soap all over your body every time you wash?  In reality, you only need to use soap underneath your arms and your groin area. You just want to avoid soaping up the larger areas of your body that were exposed to the sun. Try this out this summer and see for yourself the change in your Vitamin D levels.

One of the precursors for vitamin D is cholesterol. Vitamin D is actually formed by exposing cholesterol found in the skin to sunlight. Cholesterol is the basic building block of vitamin D in the human body. Therefore, low levels of cholesterol can lead to vitamin D deficiency. So if you’re taking drugs to decrease cholesterol or statin drugs, you’ll lower your cholesterol levels. This in turn will decrease your body’s ability to manufacture vitamin D. This is yet another potential reason why so many people’s vitamin D levels may be low, or have trouble optimizing vitamin D levels.

Since cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D, inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol will also inhibit the synthesis of vitamin D. Since sunlight is required to turn cholesterol into vitamin D, avoiding the sun will likewise undermine our ability to synthesize vitamin D. And since vitamin D-rich foods are also rich in cholesterol, low-cholesterol diets are inherently deficient in vitamin D.

Cholesterol-containing body oils are critical to this absorption process. Because the body needs 30-60 minutes to absorb these vitamin-D-containing oils (once it is absorbed from the suns UVB rays), it is best to delay showering or bathing for one hour after exposure. The skin oils in which vitamin D is produced can also be removed by chlorine in swimming pools.

Vitamin D is not produced by the skin, but by the interaction of sunlight with natural oils produced by the skin: the same oils that soap and detergent destroy. Vitamin D will be formed if sufficient oils are present on the skin. Body Electronics: Vital steps for Physical Regeneration. Thomas Chavez. 2005.