“Falling down is responsible for the bulk of humerus fractures. People with osteoporosis, whose bones have been made thin and porous through mineral loss, are especially vulnerable to humerus fractures.”

Northwell Health (northwell.edu.)

“We don’t have stems and we don’t flower, but our body parts, like those of plants, are controlled by circadian clocks.  Clocks operate more or less the same way in all organisms, but some aspects of clock function are easier to study in plants.”

Laurie Tompkins-NIH geneticist, (National Institute of General Medicine Sciences).

Lavender:

Lavender oil is known for its calming and relaxing properties, and has been used aromatherapeutically for alleviating insomnia, anxiety, depression, restlessness, dental anxiety, and stress. It has also been proven effective for nearly all kinds of ailments, from pain to infections.

It is particularly fascinated by its oil potential in fighting antifungal-resistant skin and nail infections. Scientists from the University of Coimbra found that lavender oil is lethal to skin-pathogenic strains known as dermatophytes, as well as various Candida species. Lavender oil can also be used to:

Relieve pain. It can ease sore or tense muscles, joint pain and rheumatism, sprains, backache, and lumbago. Simply massage a small amount of lavender oil onto the affected area. Lavender oil may also help lessen pain following needle insertion.

Treat various skin disorders like acne, psoriasis, eczema, and wrinkles. It also helps form scar tissues, which may be essential in healing wounds, cuts, and burns. Lavender can also help soothe insect bites and itchy skin (lavender oil can help ward off mosquitoes and moths. It is actually used as an ingredient in some mosquito repellents).

Keep your hair healthy. It helps kill lice, lice eggs, and nits. The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (NMCB) says that lavender is possibly effective for treating alopecia areata (hair loss), boosting hair growth by up to 44 percent after just seven months of treatment.11

Improve your digestion. This oil helps stimulate the mobility of your intestine and stimulates the production of bile and gastric juices, which may help treat stomach pain, indigestion, flatulence, colic, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Relieve respiratory disorders. Lavender oil can help alleviate respiratory problems like colds and flu, throat infections, cough, asthma, whooping cough, sinus congestion, bronchitis, tonsillitis, and laryngitis. It can be applied on your neck, chest, or back, or inhaled via steam inhalation or through a vaporizer.

Stimulate urine production, which helps restore hormonal balance, prevent cystitis (inflammation of the urinary bladder), and relieve cramps and other urinary disorders.

Improve your blood circulation. It helps lower elevated blood pressure levels and can be used for hypertension.

Thyme:

Thyme is a fragrant herb that makes a wonderful addition to your cooking, in part because it is rich in antioxidants. Thyme contains health-boosting flavonoids including apigenin, naringenin, luteolin, and thymonin, and has been shown to protect and increase the percentage of healthy fats found in cell membranes.  As reported by the George Mateljan Foundation:12 “In particular, the amount of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid) in brain, kidney, and heart cell membranes was increased after dietary supplementation with thyme.”

Thyme is also nutrient dense, containing vitamin C, vitamin A, iron, manganese, copper, and dietary fiber. When used in cooked dishes, thyme may also help inhibit glycation and the formation of dangerous advanced glycation (meaning glucose broken down) end products (AGEs) in your food, making thyme a potential preventer of heart disease and premature aging. Due to thyme oil’s antibacterial, antispasmodic, anti-rheumatic, expectorant, hypertensive, and calming properties, it also has a long list of topical uses, including:

Home remedy – Thyme oil is used to relieve and treat problems like gout, arthritis, wounds, bites, and sores, water retention, menstrual and menopausal problems, nausea and fatigue, respiratory problems (like colds), skin conditions (oily skin and scars), athlete’s foot, hangovers, and even depression.

Aromatherapy oil – The oil can be used to stimulate the mind, strengthen memory and concentration, and calm the nerves.

Hair product – It is said that thyme oil can prevent hair loss. It is used as a treatment for the scalp and is added to shampoos and other hair products.

Skin product – Thyme oil can help tone aged skin and prevent acne outbreaks.

Mouthwashes and herbal rinses – Like peppermint, wintergreen, and eucalyptus oils, thyme oil is used to improve oral health.

Insecticide/insect repellent – Thyme oil can keep insects and parasites like mosquitoes, fleas, lice, and moths away.

Chamomile:

Chamomile is most popular in tea form for use to calm upset stomach and help support restful sleep. Germany’s Commission E (a government organization) has even approved the use of chamomile for reducing swelling on your skin and fighting bacteria. Chamomile is a powerful anti-inflammatory that also has antibacterial, anti-spasmodic, anti-allergenic, muscle relaxant, and sedative properties. It is used to treat psoriasis, eczema, chickenpox, diaper rash, slow-healing wounds, abscesses, and gum inflammation, and according to Herb Wisdom may also be useful for the following conditions:

The oil serves many medicinal purposes, but one of the best-documented uses is for relaxation. The oil has a calming effect on people, and can be used to help induce sleep, ease frayed nerves, and promote a general sense of calmness and well being. It is great for those with nervousness or anxiety problems.

Aside from having mental calming properties, chamomile is also good at relaxing sore muscles and tight joints.

It can ease menstrual cramps and back aches, as well as relax the digestive system to ease upset stomach or indigestion issues.

When applied topically to the skin, it soothes redness and irritation. For this reason, it is a common ingredient in skincare. It also eliminates itchiness and is good for those with allergic reactions. Sometimes chamomile is used on rashes. Because of its anti-inflammatory properties, it can work to take down swelling caused by rashes or skin irritants.

Dandelion:

Dandelion, a plant, has traditionally been used as a liver tonic, useful for detoxification and improving liver function. Dandelion is known as a stimulant that is typically used for kidney and liver disorders. It is also traditionally used to reduce the side effects of prescription drugs, as well as to treat infections, gallbladder problems, water retention and swelling.15 Dandelion greens, which you can prepare simply by blanching them in boiling water for 20 seconds to help remove their bitter flavor (they can also be added to vegetable juice), contain many nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin B6, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, iron, potassium, and manganese. They are a particularly good source of vitamin A and may also have cancer fighting properties.

So believe it or not plants enhance our lives and with technology it will further expand in helping human lives.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

“We don’t have stems and we don’t flower, but our body parts, like those of plants, are controlled by circadian clocks,”.  Clocks operate more or less the same way in all organisms, but some aspects of clock function are easier to study in plants.

Laurie Tompkins-NIH geneticist, (National Institute of General Medicine Sciences).

“Plant compounds present in carrots and parsley may one day support more effective delivery of chemotherapy treatments, new research has found. Specific plant compounds are able to inhibit transport mechanisms in the body that select what compounds are absorbed into the body, and eventually into cells. These same transport mechanisms are known to interfere with cancer chemotherapy treatment.”

Cureourchildren.org

“Phytic acid is a natural plant antioxidant constituting 1–5% of most cereals, nuts, legumes, oil seeds, pollen and spores. By virtue of forming a unique iron chelate it suppresses iron-catalyzed oxidative reactions and may serve a potent antioxidant function in the preservation of seeds.”

Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors. ScienceDirect® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V.

Look at medical proof, in July 2011 by online publication of Nature, investigated why Arabidopsis does its major stem-growing in the dark—a pattern common to most plants. Biologist Steve Kay and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, report that a specific trio of proteins regulates the rhythm in Arabidopsis stems.  Arabidopsis thaliana helped scientists not very long ago too unearth new clues about the daily cycles of many organisms, including humans. This is the latest in a long line of research, much of it supported by the National Institutes of Health, that uses plants to solve puzzles in human health.  While other model organisms may seem to have more in common with us, greens like Arabidopsis provide an important view into genetics, cell division and especially light sensing, which drives 24-hour behavioral cycles called circadian rhythms.

Some human cells, including cancer cells, divide with a 24-hour rhythm. One of the main human circadian rhythm genes, cryptochrome, has been associated with diabetes and depression. Both of these discoveries grew from work with plants.

The Arabidopsis Thaliana Plant

T group of proteins, called the evening complex, interacts in the early evening to silence two genes that usually promote plant growth. When the evening complex’s activity trails off a few hours before dawn, proteins release the brakes on growth and plants enter their nightly phase of rapid stem elongation.

When Kay’s team mutated the three genes that code for the evening complex, they noticed that this made the Arabidopsis biological clock run out of sync—stems grew unusually long and flowered early.

Scientists aren’t yet certain why night is the best time for stems to grow, but Kay speculates it has to do with using resources efficiently. Plants pick up carbon and nitrogen during the day, then store these essential nutrients as starch and proteins. “In the later night, they can release these resources in a coordinated fashion to provide the building blocks for stem growth,” says Kay.  “

Our understanding of human health and the role of clocks in health and disease can greatly benefit from studying how clocks work in plants,” he adds.

Scientists like Kay are interested in answering basic biological questions, but others who work with plants have their eyes on future disease therapies. Plant-based molecules, for instance, are being used to target reservoirs of HIV that hide out in their hosts. At the University of California, Berkeley, chemist Jay Keasling is looking for simple ways to get microbes to produce greater quantities of these plant-based molecules at lower cost.

How plants like Arabidopsis suppress harmful genes may also help improve HIV therapies. A team of biologists led by Craig Pikaard at Washington University in St. Louis is investigating RNA polymerases, chemicals important in determining which genes get switched on, to learn how plants silence harmful virus-derived genes. Similar silencing pathways could be harnessed for HIV therapies.

More generally, scientists are looking toward plants as a medicinal source. Chemist Sarah O’Connor at MIT is genetically engineering periwinkle plants, the natural source of the anticancer drug vinblastine, to produce variations of the drug with halogens attached. Halogens make some medicines last longer in the body, meaning that probing periwinkle’s capabilities could make cancer treatments more effective.

Plant compounds present in carrots and parsley may one day support more effective delivery of chemotherapy treatments, new research has found. Specific plant compounds are able to inhibit transport mechanisms in the body that select what compounds are absorbed into the body, and eventually into cells. These same transport mechanisms are known to interfere with cancer chemotherapy treatment.

Some further examples of good compounds coming from plants for human lives are:

Flavonoids are one class of secondary plant metabolites that are also known as Vitamin P or citrin. These metabolites are mostly used in plants to produce yellow and other pigments which play a big role in coloring the plants. In addition, Flavonoids are readily ingested by humans and they seem to display important anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic and anti-cancer activities. Flavonoids are also found to be powerful anti-oxidants and researchers are looking into their ability to prevent cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Flavonoids help prevent cancer by inducing certain mechanisms that may help to kill cancer cells, and researches believe that when the body processes extra flavonoid compounds, it triggers specific enzymes that fight carcinogens. Good dietary sources of Flavonoids are all citrus fruits, which contain the specific flavanoids hesperidins, quercitrin, rutin, berries, tea, dark chocolate and red wine that includes many of the health benefits attributed to these foods come from the Flavonoids they contain.

Phytic acid is the main method of phosphorus storage in plant seeds, but is not readily absorbed by many animals (only absorbed by ruminant animals). Not only is phytic acid a phosphorus storage unit, but it also is a source of energy and cations, a natural antioxidant for plants, and can be a source of mycoinositol which is one of the preliminary pieces for cell walls.

Phytic acid is also known to bond with many different minerals, and by doing so prevents those minerals from being absorbed; making phytic acid an anti-nutrient. There is a lot of concern with phytic acids in nuts and seeds because of its anti-nutrient characteristics. In preparing foods with high phytic acid concentrations, it is recommended they be soaked in after being ground to increase the surface area. Soaking allows the seed to undergo germination which increases the availability of vitamins and nutrient, while reducing phytic acid and protease inhibitors ultimately increasing the nutritional value. Cooking can also reduce the amount of phytic acid in food but soaking is much more effective.

Phytic acid is an antioxidant found in plant cells that most likely serves the purpose of preservation. This preservation is removed when soaked, reducing the phytic acid and allowing the germination and growth of the seed.

Atropine is a type of secondary metabolite called a tropane alkaloid.

Alkaloids contain nitrogens, frequently in a ring structure, and are derived from amino acids. Tropane is an organic compound containing nitrogen and it is from tropane that atropine is derived from. Atropine is synthesized by a reaction between tropine and tropate, catalyzed by atropinase. Within Atropa belladonna atropine synthesis has been found to take place primarily in the root of the plant. The concentration of synthetic sites within the plant is indicative of the nature of secondary metabolites.

Gossypol has a yellow pigment and is found in cotton plants. It occurs mainly in the root and/or seeds of different species of cotton plants.  Gossypol can have various chemical structures. It can exist in three forms: gossypol, gossypol acetic acid, and gossypol formic acid. All of these forms have very similar biological properties. Gossypol is a type of aldehyde, meaning that it has a formyl group. The formation of gossypol occurs through an isoprenoid pathway. Isoprenoid pathways are common among secondary metabolites.  3Gossypol’s main function in the cotton plant is to act as an enzyme inhibitor. An example of gossypol’s enzyme inhibition is its ability to inhibit nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-linked enzymes of Trypanosoma cruzi. Trypanosoma cruzi is a parasite which causes Chaga’s disease.

For some time it was believed that gossypol was merely a waste product produced during the processing of cottonseed products. Extensive studies have shown that gossypol has other functions. Many of the more popular studies on gossypol discuss how it can act as a male contraceptive. Gossypol has also been linked to causing hypokalemic paralysis. Hypokalemic paralysis is a disease characterized by muscle weakness or paralysis with a matching fall in potassium levels in the blood. Hypokalemic paralysis associated with gossypol in-take usually occurs in March, when vegetables are in short supply, and in September, when people are sweating a lot. This side effect of gossypol in-take is very rare however. Gossypol induced hypokalemic paralysis is easily treatable with potassium repletion.

Believe or not, plants enhanced our lives.

Tune in tomorrow of specific names of compounds in foods we eat to help your health derived from plants.

“People who train to be cooperative extension Master Gardeners report that they stay with the program because it improves self-esteem, offers continued learning opportunities, the chance to help and feel a connection to other people, to feel a sense of purpose, and a way to develop skills for employment .”

Schrock, D.S., M. Meyer, P.Ascher-Reasons for becoming involved as a Master Gardener. HortTechnology.

Plants by 20% can improve memory, attention span and concentration outside in wildlife.  Studies have even shown that tasks performed while under the calming influence of nature are bettered performed (from sitting with our pets to being outdoors with mother nature in pleasant weather to that individual’s mind—from rain to a pleasant sunny day with birds chirping or even by a rain fall dropping near the person).

Keeping ornamental plants in the home and in the workplace increases memory retention and concentration. The calming influence of natural environments is conducive to positive work environments by increasing a person’s ability to concentrate on the task at hand. Work performed under the natural influence of ornamental plants is normally of higher quality and completed with a much higher accuracy rate than work done in environments devoid of nature. Going outside or being under the influence of plants can increase memory retention up to twenty percent, a recent University of Michigan study showed (Sewach). The effect of nature in the home and in the workplace serves to stimulate both the senses and the mind, improving mental cognition and performance. (Bisco Werner 1996; Brethour 2007; Frank 2003; Pohmer 2008; Serwach 2008; Shibata, 2001, 2004; Yannick 2009).

Even take parks or places like botanical gardens that both often play as a host to educational programs and special events, which do contribute to the awareness of culture and education of the community, especially children.  The better the environment the better the effect.  Example take a highly criminal area as opposed to a lesser one. Installing a park or botanical garden in a community has many direct benefits to residents, but an auxiliary benefit of having such a naturalized landmark in the community is the special events and cultural opportunities it brings to people who might not otherwise be exposed. Botanical gardens and zoos often create educational programs for children in order to teach them how the value of being environmentally-conscious and conserving the environment. They can also impact adults in the community as well, creating a cultural awareness of the importance of natural environments. Parks and gardens foster an appreciation for nature that often instills in residents a sense of responsibility for the caring of and protection of the environment. (Appleseed, Inc. 2009, Dubey 2007, Nadel 2005, Phipps Botanical Gardens and Conservatory 2010)

Parks and urban green spaces impact people’s health by providing them with an inexpensive (often free) and convenient recreational service. There is a positive correlation between the presence of a park in a neighborhood and the level of physical activity of the residents; people are much more likely to exercise when there is a no-cost, aesthetically pleasing area or facility for them to use.  Many are more out to do simple (walking) or more intense (running) outside to even handball or basketball do just mental exercise (reading) all outdoors in nice parks as opposed to a high urban area of just warehouses and buildings with no park or in a work out place with all just nautilus and weights all over the public place that has high probability of picking up cold, flu, infections.  Why?  In high probability your exposed to much more germs and bacteria as opposed to a park or your own home in or outside.   Less host build up of germs and bacteria.  Public places are high percentage in where you pick up germs and bacteria.

Believe it or not is helps in the healing process.  Shrubs, trees, and flowers have a practical application in hospitals.  Whether the the presence of plants are in the patients hospital rooms or viewed outside the room seeing beautiful parks via their window greatly reduces the time necessary to heal. The soothing effects of ornamental flowers and plants are so great that simply having daily views of flowers and other ornamental plants in landscaped areas outside patient recovery room significantly speed up recovery time; now if unfortunately the patient is terminal it’s a much greater atmosphere to be around than just four walls.

Ornamental plants affect the levels of compassion that people feel for others. Studies have shown that people who spend more time around plants are much more likely to try and help others, and often have more advanced social relationships. People who care for nature are more likely to care for others, reaching out to their peers and forming shared bonds resulting from their common interests.

Spending time in nature gives people an increased feeling of vitality, increasing their energy levels and making them feel more animated. Their performance levels are, in turn, increased by this improved state of mind. Natural environments induce a positive outlook on life, making people feel more alive and active. When people experience increased vigor, they put more of themselves and their energy into their work.  People who spend more time outside in nature have a significantly more positive outlook on life than people who spend a great deal of time indoors, based on the majority.

One of the more obvious benefits of plants and trees is that many of them have valuable medicinal properties. Cultivating plants helps humanity because it provides opportunities for additional scientific studies of the possible positive medicinal values of plants. Natural herbal remedies are simple and holistic methods for treating common illnesses and maladies.

Simply regarding STRESS, plants help people with dealing with it in a positive way.  How you ask; by helping many people transform their stress into a more positive emotion, this can be done commonly done in America in a pent house, back yard to farming, gardening-it gives people an excellent coping mechanism for their daily frustrations. Plants to even nurturing them helps reduce stress levels and gives people a way to cope with their negative feelings, in letting them release rather than build up.   Gardening can have therapeutic effects on people who have undergone trauma, either mental or physical. The act of nurturing a plant can provide victims with a way to work through their issues and heal their wounds, whether they are on the surface of the skin or deeper. Cultivating plants also improves their mental states and helps to put them in a better place for recovering. Gardening is a therapeutic tool.

Beautifying traffic medians not only improves the aesthetics of the roadways, it also affects driver attitudes. Studies show that drivers are more at ease on roadways with natural landscaping, and are much more inclined to think positively about the community that they are driving through if the roadways are beautiful. Furthermore, adding trees to roadways creates a sort of natural obstruction which could reduce the likelihood of cars crossing medians into oncoming traffic lanes. This improves driver safety and makes the community a safer place for everyone to live in.

Believe it or not plants enhance our lives!

“First your doctor would do a thorough medical exam with blood/urine tests searching for clues of high protein where it shouldn’t belong or certain liver or thyroid abnormal findings.”

The Amyloidosis Foundation

Diagnostic Tests for Amyloidosis:

*1.  First your doctor would do a thorough medical exam with blood/urine tests searching for clues of high protein where it shouldn’t belong or certain liver or thyroid abnormal findings.  The MD will follow with further diagnostic tooling especially if these findings show up in blood/urine tests.  Common blood exams used are BNP (basic natriuretic peptide).  BNP is a substance secreted from the ventricles or lower chambers of the heart in response to stress and changes in pressure that occur when to heart failure develops and worsens.  The level of BNP in the blood increases when heart failure symptoms worsen, and decreases when heart failure condition is stable.  It is not so much elevated over the norm but more with this disease patients the MD will see where the BNP level was at last visit & compare.

Another blood test is troponin and this gets released into the bloodstream when your heart is affected by amyloids.

*2.  Second your MD may want to further diagnose for this disease through getting a tissue biopsy where the MD’s intent is to check for signs indicating this is highly possible for amyloidosis.  The biopsy could be taken from your abdominal fat, bone marrow, or an organ such as your liver or kidney.  Tissue analysis can help determine the type of amyloid deposit.

*3.  Imaging Tests.  Images taken of the organs that are affected by amloidosis can help the MD establish the intensity or stage your disease is at.  There are 2 most commonly imaging tests used and can diagnose the disease early.  There is the echocardiogram test, sound wave imaging of the heart, that will be used to assess the size and functioning capability level of the heart.  Another test is a MRI of the heart (magnetic residence imaging).  Other imaging tests can evaluate the extent of amyloidosis in the liver or spleen.

When the heart chambers become filled with amyloids it thickens the walls of those chambers especially the lower chambers which can be picked up by the echocardiogram through the different angles of sound waves that go via the heart during this exam.  Another thing that can be measured through the echocardiogram is your diagnostic function; that represents a measure of how stiff your heart is and how well is your heart actually functioning.

Another technique that can be used is strain imaging.  This is also done through echocardiogram.  This tells the doctor in more detail how much the muscle fibers in the heart are actually shortening and contracting.  It measures certain parts of the heart in actually contracting and function.  This is actually better in help diagnosing compared to just looking at ejection fraction, which is the amount of blood pumped out of the left ventricle chamber upon contraction of the heart (When he hear lub dub of the heart with a stethoscope that is the heart actually contracting.  First the upper chamber on lub is contracting and on dub is the lower chambers contracting).  This test is a specializing test and is not widely used but it is available in certain hospitals.

Ending line amyloidosis is a group of diseases in which one or more organ systems in the body accumulate abnormal proteins known as amyloid.  The name amyloidosis was first used more than 150 years ago, but cases were described over 300 years ago.  However, only in the past ¼ of a century have MD’s understood the specific make up and structure of amyloid proteins.  Although amyloidosis is not a cancer but it is a serious condition.  It is disabilitating and gets to life threatening.  However, growing aware- ness of the condition seems to be leading to substantial new research and Rx alternatives.

There’s no cure unfortunately for amyloidosis. But treatments can help you manage your symptoms and limit the production of amyloid protein.

Treatment is usually aimed at eliminating the source of the abnormal precursor protein.

Primary amyloidosis (AL, amyloid light chain) is associated with a clonal plasma cell disease and the immunoglobulin light chains made by the abnormal plasma cells. AL also occurs in amyloidosis associated with multiple myeloma. Treatment involves chemotherapy or stem cell transplantation to eliminate the plasma cells (the source of the abnormal light chains).

Familial amyloidosis (AF) is associated with a genetic abnormality that can be inherited. AF causes the liver to make an abnormal form of a protein called transthyretin. The treatment for AF is liver transplantation.

Secondary amyloidosis (AA) is associated with inflammation and elevated levels of serum amyloid A caused by inflammation. Treatment involves elimination of the source of inflammation.

Through “The Amyloidosis Foundation” they provide over the world medical facilities/hospitals that major in this disease at http://www.amyloidosis.org/PatientPrograms/physiciansusa.html.

Hope this article has helped you in some way for yourself or family or friend in better understanding about the disease, knowing tests for it, and places majored with this unfortunate disease an expert can treat in a medical facility.