Drinking a nice tall glass of green tea can have alot more benefits then we realize.  Not only is green tea an excellent antioxidant but according to RealAge when you drink green tea prior to working out you will burn 17% more tummy fat. Green tea is a natural metabolism booster and when you drink it before hitting the gym it uses your fat as fuel.  Now that’s cool!  For the full article click here: http://www.realage.com/ct/eat-smart/food-and-nutrition/tip/6651

Summer is a time of travelling and taking fun vacations with the family or just going solo.  Packing is the not so fun part but taking along ready to go kits like the GOSmile GOTravel Kit will keep your mouth clean and fresh and make packing alot easier.  The kit contains a lemonade smile toothpaste, travel size toothbrush, mouthwash rinse and 6 easy to use teeth whitening ampoules.  Also included is a compact mirror so you can view your pearly whites. Comes in a stylish vinyl zip bag.

Here’s some good news for anyone looking to flight off their wrinkles - start eating the papaya fruit.  I received a newsletter from Realage.com today and they mentioned that papaya has loads of Vitamin C that helps to keep skin smooth, supple and best of all wrinkle free. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant and essential in collagen production which keeps our skin elastic. The high concentrations of Vitamin C in Papaya make it a great snack choice - it tastes great and won’t be difficult to incorporate into our daily eating routine. So stock up on this amazing anti-aging food and see those wrinkles fade away!

For some reason a couple of weeks ago I gave up my morning coffee and swapped it for a cup of green tea instead.  I’m not sure how or why this transition took place, I’ve always loved a cup of joe first thing in the morning.  The smell of coffee brewing can make it more addicting then the actual caffeine but for some reason i just didn’t like the taste anymore. This is not to say i will never have a cup again but i find it strange that after years of being an avid coffee drinker the switch to tea happened so easily. 

I am happy to hear however, that switching to drinking green tea has many health benefits such reducing the risk of many cancers.  Antioxidants such as various polyphenols that are high in green tea make this possible.  Green tea also keeps your heart strong and your blood pressure normal and it can takes years off your life by keeping your arteries healthy which will prevent heart disease and stroke.  For those of you who need a metabolism boost drinking 2-3 cups of green tea a day will help to increase calorie burning so you lose weight.  So even if you still want to drink your coffee maybe throw in a couple of cups of green tea.  My favorite - Jasmine Green Tea.  It can only do your body good.

Aesthetics doesn’t just refer to skincare but can also include mouth care.   In the last post I mentioned the Mouth Facial created by Dr. Gerry Curatola.  A great new treatment to keep our gums, mouth and teeth feeling fresh and sparkling clean. 

Now, let’s go a step further and check out Dr. Joseph Zelig, a NYC board certified periodontist who has just introduced a form of periodontal surgery called the Gum Lift at his practice “The Smile in the City Dental Group”. Face it, if your gums aren’t healthy first why spend money on fixing or whitening your teeth? 

Dr. Zelig refers to the gums as the “frame of a perfect picture”.  A smile is usually one of the first things a person notices about someone.  We flash our teeth and gums daily so why shouldn’t we give extra attention to caring for them? Not only can the Gum Lift restore gums infected by gingivitis but with a laser can also fix uneven gums or use of soft tissue grafts to build up receding gums.

Also something a friend of mine just mentioned to me last night, for anyone with toothaches, gingivitis and gum disease… try applying a little oregeno oil that is know for it’s antiseptic healing properties to the area for fast relief.  For long term results visit Dr. Zelig for the Gum Lift.

Yes, there is a fountain of youth and it arrived at my front door today in a canister with big black letters that read TOKI.  A japenese product developed by Lanelabs, TOKI means porcelain-like skin and all the women in Japan have it and the women in america want it. 

Toki is unlike other anti-aging products we use since most are a topical cream or serum and cannot penetrate deep into the dermal or lower layers of the skin. 

TOKI is rather a powdered lemon flavored collagen drink that you mix into a hot or cold beverage and drink up to 3 times per day.  It contains Active collagen, Calcium and Mucopolysaccharides that include hyaluronic acid which is produced by the body naturally and gives our skin it’s volume and elasticity, but as we age we do not produce as much.  By taking internally in the form of a drink, essential nutrients are able to travel through the blood stream and into the dermis layer improving your skin’s texture and appearance.  Clinical studies have shown that TOKI can actually diminish fine lines, wrinkles and age spots.  It can also improve overall elasticity of the skin resulting in a more youthful appearance and of course porcelain skin. Sounds good to me - well here I go my first TOKI experience added to my morning green tea… tastes good.  I will keep you posted on my results.  In the meantime click here for before and after pictures as well as additional information.

We all know the importance of consuming enough fish in our diet, especially the fish high in Omega 3 and low in mercury such as wild salmon and tuna and the advantages this will have to our overall health.  The problem is most of us don’t eat our 3-4 servings of fish per week and this can wreak havack on our bodies causing heart disease, diabetes, joint pain, learning disorders and skin problems to name a few.  Omega 3 fatty acids are  important for us since our bodies do not produce this source on it’s own.  By eating enough fish or supplementing with Omega 3 we can avoid alot of unnecessary health problems. 

PharmaOmega makes this easy for us.  They have created different formulations of Omega 3 for specific needs like keeping our heart healthy, fighting inflammation, for pregnancy, children, focus etc.  Omega 3 is great for children of school age who have difficulty with concentration.  It helps to improve their behaviour and attention span. For mom’s it ensures a healthy pregnancy and after. Omega 3 is great for aches and pains and it’s also called “brain food” for a reason, it helps to keep our minds healthy.  Omega 3 has also been known to inhibit cancer and diabetes.  The list goes on… you’ve heard the benefits now make sure you get your daily dose.

So as i mentioned in my last post I was going to expand a little on each of the network antioxidants that were mentioned in the book “The Antioxidant Miracle” by Lester Packer, Ph.D.  Dr. Packer focused many years of his research on the powerful effects of Lipoic Acid as an antioxidant. His findings on lipoic acid have shown incredible protection against aging including stroke, heart disease and cataracts.  The levels of lipoic acid in our bodies decline as we age and therefore cause the aging process to occur but supplementing with lipoic acid the levels of the entire antioxidant network - vitamin C, Vitamin E, CoQ10 and Glutathione were increased. Lipoic acid in fact has been able to turn off the bad genes that can cause premature aging as well as cancer.   Also an interesting fact about lipoic acid – the other network antioxidants are either water soluble or fat soluble.  Lipoic acid is both which means that it is not only able to recycle the other antioxidants that have conquered free radicals but also itself keeping our cells healthy and free from damage.  No wonder it is called the superantioxidant. 

Moving on to CoQ10 — Coenzyme Q10 offers protection against the harmful UVA and UVB rays therefore protecting us from skin cancer and skin damage or premature aging.  COQ10 helps to rejuvenate brain cells, regenerates vitamin E and is used in treating gum disease… so anyone who has bleeding gums you need to take this.  It’s available in toothpaste and mouthwash as well. 

Vitamin C another network antioxidant is water soluble and not produced by the body so you need to either get enough from fruits and vegetables or take a daily supplement.  Vitamin C aides in the production of collagen which helps to keep our skin looking youthful. It is also beneficial in boosting our immune system so colds are kept to a minimum and also works by increasing levels of Vitamin E. 

Taking daily supplements of Vitamin E helps to protect skin from UV radiation and ozone and keep it looking healthy as we age.  Vitamin E is beneficial for arthritis sufferers and for men at risk for prostate cancer and in women it may stop the growth of breast cancer cells. Vitamin E is also good for the heart.

The last network antioxidant is Glutathione.  Produced in the body and is a water soluble antioxidant. It’s important for healthy liver function and a strong immune system.  Instead of supplementing with Glutathione, taking daily doses of lipoic acid will increase your levels of this antioxidant.

It’s really amazing to see how each of these antioxidants can have an effect on the other and i’ve only mentioned the basics.  For more detailed information on the Packer Network Antioxidants pick up a copy of The Antioxidant Miracle. It might do your body good.

I picked up an excellent book a couple of weeks ago at the drugstore that I couldn’t put down called The Antioxidant Miracle by Lester Packer, Ph.d.  Dr. Packer is a scientist who specializes in antioxidants and how they function in our bodies.  He is the director of the Packer Lab at Berkley, California State University, and who for the last few decades has focused on 5 key antioxidants that when combined produced increased effectiveness than when just taken by themselves. The network antioxidants include Lipoic acid, CoQ10, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and Glutathione. 

If you are interested in reversing or preventing the signs of aging, keeping skin supple and wrinkle free, preventing cancer, diabetes, gum disease, increasing your energy, not to mention your sex life! as well as reversing bad genes you need to read this book.  Even though it’s been years since it’s been written the information still holds true and knowledge is power and if taking antioxidants will keep you healthy and strong way into your older years then we all need to know about it.

Lester Packer goes on the explain the benefits of each antioxidant in the antioxidant network.  His main focus was on the effects of lipoic acid and even though I won’t go into too much detail here on each I will touch upon what he mentions… sorry too much information to write in one post.  Firstly, in order to understand antioxidants you need to understand their opposite side “free radicals”.  Free radicals are in all of us and they are necessary - they can be helpful or hurtful.  When free radicals attack we need antioxidants to neutralize their effects.  Antioxidants are basically stopping the free radicals from destroying your healthy cells.  Now since the antioxidant has stopped the free radicals and eaten it up it is able to recycle and regenerate itself with the help of other network antioxidants. I find this completely amazing.  With age our body does not produce enough antioxidants to do this therefore it is necessary to supplement.  Certain antioxidants are not even produced by the body such as Vitamin C so taking a daily dose is recommended especially if you are not getting it from nutritional sources. 

Through Dr. Packer’s work, Lipoic acid was shown as being the most powerful antioxidant in the entire network - it actually helped to increase the levels of effectiveness of Glutathione, Vitamins C and E and CoQ10.  In another post we will go on to discuss each of these antioxidants, their importance and how it affects the other network antioxidants.  But I highly recommend picking up a copy of The Antioxidant Miracle since the information is so vast but easily read and understood.

I am all about fast, immediate results and that includes detoxing my body.  I write about detox products alot… detox foot pads, detox foot bath, detox diet, and only because I use them and am a big believer in different ways to detox your body so it’s in prime optimal condition.  This liquid detox is a new one available from Verseo - the 48 Hour Cleanse.  A purifying and revitalizing formula made with natural antioxidants that offers a fast acting way to cleanse your body of waste and regenerate it with powerful nutrients.  This natural colon cleanse is fortified with fruits and vegetables.  The perfect aid to your new diet or to just detoxify and cleanse your body.  Feel healthy fast. Visit Verseo for more info.

The things we do to our hair, anywhere from coloring, perming, straightening and not to mention our eyelashes from tinting, to curling, to eyelash extensions can sure use some extra nourishment to keep them healthy. Taking a daily dose of Phytophanere Dietary Supplements that contains super nutrients like carotene, wheatgerm oil and brewer’s yeast will keep hair looking radiant and lashes long and strong.