Sunday, February 24, 2008

10 FOODS TO SOLVE ANY HEALTH WORRY


Your Kitchen is a Medicine Cabinet...

1. You've got insomnia.Eat a handful of almonds. They contain massive amounts of magnesium, which helps your body relax.

2. You're hungover.Blend an orange-flavored smoothie. This liquid meal fights alcohol-induced dehydration. It's loaded with vitamin C to help combat binge-related cell damage, and the fructose in the fruit juice helps speed the metabolism of liquor.

3. You're worried about garlic breath.If the ingredient list for dinner includes garlic, add some fennel seeds to the dish, too. The active compound in fennel—anethol—speeds the rate at which you produce saliva. Saliva inhibits microbial overgrowth and clears the bad-breath-causing sulfur compounds released by garlic.

4. Your throat is sore.Forget the sugar content and add some honey to your tea. The sweet stuff's antibiotic properties are soothing and healing.

5. You're tired and stressed.Stress sucks potassium, vitamin C, and manganese out of your body, resulting in fatigue, sore muscles, difficulty concentrating, and a rise in blood pressure. Get those nutrients back with just one papaya.

6. You've got a toothache. Place a whole clove on the gum of the tooth and rub it to release the oils. It burns like hell, but relieves the pain.

7. You've got a headache.Just a dash of Tabasco sauce will turn your eggs into ibuprofen. That's because the red peppers in hot sauce are the top source of capsicum, a natural painkiller. In one small study, it eliminated the headaches of nearly half of the subjects.

8. You're nauseous.Chew on a stick of ginger or pop a thick slice of fresh ginger into a mug of boiling water and drink like tea. Ginger helps settle your stomach, whether you're sick because of some bad pad Thai or because you had one too many last night.

9. You feel like you have poor circulation.A sulfur compound in garlic reacts with red blood cells, causing the blood vessels to relax and allowing for greater dilation. Your blood will flow better and your blood pressure will lower. But reread No. 3 to freshen your breath.

10. You're feeling ... um ... gassy.Either too much or too few of specific bacterial species in the intestines can cause flatulence. Yogurt with probiotics may help to balance these bacterial levels.


information retrieved from Men's Health

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