Reducing Exposure to Biological Contaminants

Use exhaust fans that are vented to the outdoors in kitchens and bathrooms. Vent clothes dryers outdoors.

These actions can eliminate much of the moisture that builds up from everyday activities. There are exhaust fans on the market that produce little noise, an important consideration for some people. Another benefit to using kitchen and bathroom exhaust fans is that they can reduce levels of organic pollutants that vaporize from hot water used in showers and dishwashers.

Ventilate the attic and crawl spaces to prevent moisture build-up.

Keeping humidity levels in these areas below 50 percent can prevent water condensation on building materials.

If using cool mist or ultrasonic humidifiers, clean appliance according to manufacturer’s instructions. Refill with fresh water daily.

Because these humidifiers can become breeding grounds for biological contaminants, they have the potential for causing diseases such as hypersensitivity pneumonitis and humidifier fever. These diseases are serious, so don’t be lazy about cleaning those units and changing the water daily. Evaporation trays in air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and refrigerators should also be cleaned frequently for the same reasons.

Thoroughly clean and dry water-damaged carpets and building materials (within 24 hours if possible) or consider removal and replacement.

Water-damaged carpets and building materials can harbor mold and bacteria. It is very difficult to completely rid such materials of biological contaminants, because they settle deep in the nap in the padding or even underneath the padding.

Keep the house clean. House dust mites, pollens, animal dander, and other allergy-causing agents can be reduced, although not eliminated, through regular cleaning.

People who are allergic to these pollutants should use allergen-proof mattress encasements. Wash bedding in hot (130o F) water. Avoid room furnishings that accumulate dust, especially if they cannot be washed in hot water. Allergic individuals should also leave the house while it is being vacuumed because vacuuming can actually increase airborne levels of mite allergens and other biological contaminants. Using central vacuum systems that are vented to the outdoors or vacuums with high efficiency filters may also be of help.

Article from: How to Survive a Toxic Planet, by Dr Steve Nugent

Vibrant health is no longer a certainty. For many it is intermittent at best. This realization has triggered a global Wellness Revolution, and it's changing the lives of people around the world. Mannatech is on the cutting edge of new technologies that provide what every body needs to stay healthy.

Why won't they eat their vegetables?

If there is one common complaint from parents about their child's eating habits, it is that they do not eat their vegetables! Nutritionally, vegetables are an integral part of a well-balanced diet, as they contain few calories; provide a significant proportion of our dietary fibre as well as a number of important vitamins and minerals. Children need one to two cups of vegetables or salad every single day in order to get these vital nutrients.

The most important thing for parents to remember when they are dealing with a vegetables refuser, is that the more you beg, cajole and request your child to eat the food they are refusing, the less likely it is that they will eat it. The best thing for parents to do in this instance is to indirectly ignore their child's refusal of the food. Simply acknowledge the refusal offhandedly, before changing the direction of the conversation. For example, when a child says "I hate broccoli, I'm not eating it", redirecting the conversation to, "That's fine; you don't have to eat it. Why don't you have some more of the chicken instead, you love that?" This diverts the negative energy away from the offensive broccoli and diffuses the potential argument. For this scenario to work, having a range of foods served on a child's plate, some of which you know your child likes is the key to success.

Another option is to actively involve your child in the food preparation process and ask for their input when choosing vegetables, but within limits. For example, asking your child which one, out of two or three vegetable choices they would like, works well. If they answer your question of, "Would you like beans, peas or carrots tonight?" with, "None of them, I hate them all", simply say, "Well if you don't pick one, I will and that may not be the one you like best". In this example, getting angry at the child would have only strengthened his or her resistance, as opposed to negotiation, where you both stand to gain.

Finally, making sure that the vegetables or salads are served to your child's taste and appeal is a key component of making vegetables and salads child-friendly. Soggy, boiled broccoli is not appealing to anyone so it is no wonder kids refuse it! Add light cheese sauce to broccoli and cauliflower, honey to carrots, dry bake pumpkin and serve with light sour cream or simply serve vegetables raw to make them an appealing part of the meal.

Offering a solution for overall wellness is Mannatech's commitment. Mannatech’s products help to build and maintain total health by balancing chemistry, nutrition and development through cell-to-cell communication. These individual units work together to promote optimal health. This disruptive-technology creates a unique opportunity for optimal health.

Why won't they eat their vegetables?

Ideas on ways to increase your kid’s vegetable intake:

• Try char-grilling vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, and capsicum under the grill. Simply brush the vegetables with olive oil and bake for 20 minutes. They taste amazing. These types of vegetables can also be added to sandwiches or foccacias as great lunch fillers.
• If your children hate all cooked vegetables, remember that vegetables can also be replaced with salad. Salad can be added to most meals but goes exceptionally well with pasta and meat dishes. Look out for the low-fat salad dressings including mayonnaise that are available in supermarkets and add extra flavor to a range of salads. Alternatively make it your child's job to make the salad.
• An excellent after-school snack can be made from cut up raw vegetables such as carrot, capsicum, and celery teamed with low fat dips that are available in supermarkets. Baby tomatoes, cucumber sticks, sliced carrot, mushrooms, beetroot wedges are all colorful and look appealing on a plate.
• Try adding small, chopped pieces of tomato, capsicum, zucchini and carrots to dishes such as spaghetti bolognaise, stir fried rice or sauces. These vegetables do not have much flavor and only very determined children will pick out all the pieces.
• Add tomato, mushroom, eggplant, onion, capsicum and tomato to homemade pizzas. Try involving your child in decorating their own pizzas. Children are more likely to eat foods they have had some role in making.
• Look for low-fat sauces to serve with vegetables — such as cheese based sauce or gravy, which can give vegetables extra flavor.
• Tomato goes well with everything. Try it with cheese or vegemite on toast or crackers.
• When making cakes or slices look for varieties that include different types of vegetables. Zucchini bread, pumpkin scones and carrot cake are all good choices.
• Grated carrots and zucchini can be added to salmon or vegetable patties and served with a side salad.
• Young children will often eat frozen peas while dinner is being prepared.
• If you have kids complaining of being hungry before dinner, leave out fresh, chopped carrots, celery, cucumber and capsicum. You will be surprised how much they will eat when they are hungry and these vegetables are fresh and readily available.

Validated science is at the heart of every Mannatech product. Since introducing their first nutritional breakthrough, Ambrotose® complex, in 1994, Mannatech has maintained a leadership position in the worldwide dietary supplements industry. Mannatech offers naturally derived patent-pending and proprietary nutritional products that no other company can offer.

Bleach and Cancer

Chlorine (Sodium hypochlorite) is found in paper products, such as toilet paper and paper towels. Bleaching paper products with chlorine bleach causes the formation of dioxin, and extremely toxic and persistent chemical known to cause cancer and disrupt the endocrine system.

Dioxin is everywhere in the environment and presents a broad spectrum of threats to you and your family.

· Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical and accumulates in our environment, our food and bodies. According to the EPA, the average adult already has enough dioxin in their bodies today to cause adverse health effects.

· Dioxin is highly persistent in the environment and is extremely resistant to chemical or physical breakdown.

· Dioxin is a family of 75 chemical technically known as “chlorinated dibenzo dioxins.”

Health Concerns

· The World Health Organization upgraded Dixon from a “probable” to a “known human carcinogen” in February 1997, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health followed suit in October 2000.

· Exposure to dioxin in linked to diabetes, attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, weakened immune systems, infertility and endometriosis.

· On May 23, 2002 the EPA reported in its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) that 99,814 grams of dioxin were released into the environment in the year 2000. One gram of dioxin is enough to exceed the acceptable daily intake for more than 40 million people for one year, according to the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign.

Sources and exposure

· Dioxins are never manufactured deliberately (except for laboratory research) and are unintentionally created in two major ways:

1. Heating plastic releases dioxin. You should never cook in plastic containers. Dioxins are released when materials such as household garbage or toxic waste, including hospital waste, leaded gasoline, plastic, paper and dioxin – contaminated wood are burned. Do not microwave unless you want your body to work overtime fighting cancer cells. Remove the food first from plastic and put it into glass cookware that is designed for oven, microwave or stove tops.

2. Manufacturing processes create dioxins. These processes are used to make certain pesticides, preservatives, disinfectants, and paper products.

Article from: How to Survive a Toxic Planet, by Dr Steve Nugent

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Active kids are healthy kids.

What can I do now?

· Be a role model – be active when you’re with children.

· Include physical activity in family outings.

· Support active play, recreation and participation in sport.

· Encourage and support walking and cycling to school.

· Think of active alternatives when you hear “I’m bored”.

· Be prepared – have a box at home and in the car with balls, a frisbee or a kite etc, and you will be always ready for action.

· Encourage children to replace time spent surfing the net, watching TV and playing computer games with more active pursuits.

· Negotiate a limit on time spent surfing the net, watching TV and playing computer games.

· Work with your child’s school to increase physical activity opportunities.

· Work with Local Government to support walking, cycling and physical activity in you neighbourhood and community.

· Walk and talk – practice spelling, multiplication or other homework with your child while walking.

· Give gifts or toys that promote physical activity such as bats, balls, skipping ropes, skates or bikes.

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Home Eating Helps

Increasing how often you eat, and ensuring you consume breakfast, appears to help people avoid gaining excess weight - and may even help prevent obesity.

This is the case even after controlling for total energy intake and physical activity, a study has shown.

But the increase in the number of eating episodes needs to happen at home as the same study found that frequently eating breakfast or dinner away from home increased the risk of obesity.

The study, by the University of Massachusetts Medical School's Ma Yunsheng and colleagues, suggested that eating patterns are independently associated with obesity.

The researchers concluded: "In addition to energy intake and nutrient composition, future studies of diet and obesity should also explore the frequency of eating and the location of meals".

The researchers used data from a large study, the Seasonal Variation of Blood Cholesterol Study, and analysed the eating habits of 499 participants.

Forty-eight per cent of the men and 33 per cent of the women were overweight, and 27 per cent and 20 per cent were obese, respectively. The study participants were predominantly white (87.7 per cent), married (78.1 per cent), educated (39.8 per cent with a bachelor's degree or more), never smokers (84.8 per cent) and employed in white-collar occupations (37.4 per cent).

Compared with participants who reported eating three or fewer times a day, subjects who ate four or more times a day experienced a significantly lower risk (45 per cent!) of obesity.

On average, participants ate 3.92 times daily.

Higher education was significantly associated with lower risk of obesity; relative to those with a high school education or less.

Physical activity was inversely associated with obesity.

In contrast, age, race/ethnicity, gender, smoking status, occupational status and total energy intake were not appreciably associated with the risk of obesity.

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Walk and Talk

If you’re not doing any regular exercise, how about starting your own walking club? Walking is one of the best and simplest ways to increase your cardiovascular health, reduce body fat, relieve stress and tone muscles. To get the full benefit, you need to walk regularly, and that’s where a walking group can keep you on track. By having a commitment to a group of fellow walkers, you’re more likely to stay faithful to the exercise.

You can start by promoting your first walk in your local newspaper, community centre, library and health club. You can organize other detail such as date, times, length and duration of the walk while you’re out walking. Your walking activities can be as involved as you want or as straightforward as putting one foot in front of the other. Whatever you do, it’s all good exercise.

Getting started… Be consistent with time, location and duration of your walks. Set up communication networks, such as an email list or phone tree, to keep in touch.. Make social events part of your walk. End a morning walk at a coffee shop or go for a light lunch after a stroll. Plan for bad weather – look for good indoor routes such as shopping mall. Invite expert speakers to talk about training, correct footwear and combating injuries like back and knee pain. Vary the terrain to prevent boredom and, most importantly, have fun.

Mannatech’s GlycoLEAN® Body System is not just another line of diet products. It is a fat-loss, weight-management system designed to help you optimise your body’s composition and performance by focusing on losing fat, not just pounds.

The waiting game

By teaching children to stop eating when they’re full rather than when they’re stuffed, you’ll find they’ll become much more in tune with their bodies. If kids have had a second helping, but they’re still hungry, tell them they need to wait 20 minutes before they eat more. Explain that while they might not feel full fight now, if they wait, they probably will. In the meantime, keep kids distracted by having them help you clear the table and do the dishes. More often than not, they’ll be off and running and will forget all about another helping. However, if they’re still hungry after the 20 minutes are up, then let them eat more.

Mannatech's glyconutrient and phytonutrient supplements are especially formulated for children in their growth years - and they supply the nutrients missing from life in the fast-food lane.

Build a Beach-Ready Body

Ditch the gym with this go-anywhere fitness plan

Nobody likes logging hours in the gym when it's beautiful outside. The solution: Replace fat with muscle using this outdoor alternative to traditional cardio. The varying intensities will shake up your metabolism and boost endurance, and the agility and throwing involved also improve athleticism.

Perform one exercise after another for the specified length of time or number of repetitions. Rest for 15 seconds after each exercise and 60 seconds after the circuit. Repeat the circuit twice.

Jumping Rope
Jump rope for 90 seconds. Try hopping on one leg to increase balance, alternating between legs. So you'll jump once on your right foot, once on your left, twice on your right, twice on your left, and so on, until you're alternating every 10 jumps between right-leg hops and left-leg hops.

Shuttle Run
Position five small objects -- agility cones, tennis-ball cans -- in a row approximately 10 to 15 yards away from you. Sprint toward the objects and retrieve them one by one. The drill is complete once you've brought all five objects back to the starting line as quickly as possible.

Squat Thrust
From a standing position, bend at the hips and knees to lower yourself into a deep squat. Place your hands on the floor in front of you, then kick your legs back so you're in pushup position. Immediately bring your legs forward again so you're back in squat position and stand up. Perform 10 squats.

Football Rundown
On a large field, throw or kick a football as far as you can. Run to retrieve it, then repeat. Do six to eight reps. No ball? Do stairwell sprints: Sprint up five to 10 flights, jog back down to the starting point, then repeat once.

Mannatech’s GlycoLEAN® Body System is not just another line of diet products. It is a fat-loss, weight-management system designed to help you optimise your body’s composition and performance by focusing on losing fat, not just pounds.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and supplementing your diet are your best game plan! Feeling terrific and preserving youthful vitality may be less difficult than you ever imagined it could be. Let Mannatech's Optimal Health System be the nucleus of your lifetime health program. It will help you feel more confident, energetic, alert and less stressed-ready to make every day a great day!

Does it matter what breakfast you feed your children?

The brain represents about 2% of body weight of an adult but it consumes 20% of the oxygen and glucose the body produces, even at rest. Glucose is the brain’s main fuel supply and is therefore necessary for mental performance.

Despite the well established fact that increased levels in glucose are associated with better cognition 10-30 % of people in Europe skip breakfast - the first opportunity to replenish the glucose levels in the blood after a long night of fasting.

We all know breakfast is important, but does it matter what type of breakfast? One scientist and a classroom full of schoolchildren were enlisted to find out.

On two consecutive days the children to tested two different types of breakfast - an English breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, and an American one of waffles and maple syrup.

After waiting three hours for the breakfasts to take effect the children were give a frustrating game of swing ball to play. The aim of the test was not swing ball skill, but rather the ability to stay focused on the task in hand and not get frustrated with losing.

So which breakfast proved a winner? Staying power was more prominent after the English breakfast. Why? Because foods like eggs, toast, and oats have a low GI content which means the glucose is released more slowly into the blood keeping you focused for longer.

Validated science is at the heart of every Mannatech product. Since introducing their first nutritional breakthrough, Ambrotose® complex, in 1994, Mannatech has maintained a leadership position in the worldwide dietary supplements industry. Mannatech offers naturally derived patent-pending and proprietary nutritional products that no other company can offer.

For the Best Benefits, Don't Boil Vegies!

Boiling vegies like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage robs them of their cancer-fighting properties, according to new research.

Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are known as "cruciferous" vegetables because their four-petal flowers resemble crosses. All these vegetables have good records as cancer fighters because they’re rich in plant chemicals called phytochemicals.

These chemicals are thought to help prevent, stop or reverse the development of cancer cells.

Eating these cruciferous vegetables can help decrease the risk of cancer. But, before this latest study, it wasn’t known how the cancer-fighting substances in vegetables were influenced by different methods of storing and cooking.

Off the boil
Researchers bought broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and green cabbage from a local store and transported them to their lab within 30 minutes. They then studied the effect of boiling, steaming, microwave cooking or stir-frying the vegetables, on their cancer-fighting qualities. Boiling robbed the vegetables of their cancer-fighting ability more than any other method.

After boiling for 30 minutes the loss of total cancer-fighting substances was:
• broccoli 77 per cent;
• Brussels sprouts 58 per cent;
• cauliflower 75 per cent; and
• green cabbage 65 per cent.

Other cooking methods were: steaming for up to 20 minutes, microwave cooking for up to three minutes and stir-frying for up to five minutes. None of these methods resulted in a loss of the cancer-fighting substances in the vegies over these cooking times.

Storing the vegetables at room temperature or in a normal refrigerator did not result in a loss of their cancer-fighting ability. Finely shredding the vegetables reduced the cancer-fighting substances by up to 75 per cent in some cases.

The take home message for households is that in order to get the maximum benefit from eating the recommended five portions of vegetables everyday, then don’t boil your vegies! To preserve their cancer-fighting properties, stir-fry, steam, or microwave them instead.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle and supplementing your diet are your best game plan! Feeling terrific and preserving youthful vitality may be less difficult than you ever imagined it could be. Let Mannatech's Optimal Health System be the nucleus of your lifetime health program. It will help you feel more confident, energetic, alert and less stressed-ready to make every day a great day!