Healthy Pathways

06/17/2025

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Voice for the Black Bears , to help share awareness , love, & respect for our innocent black bears

06/17/2025

Just imagine the ability to render solid stone transparent. Giovanni Strazza possessed this incredibly rare artistic talent. His masterpiece, "The Veiled Virgin," carved from flawless Carrara marble, stands as one of the most astounding achievements in the history of sculpture.

Strazza's mastery of the "wet drapery" technique carried on the tradition of other Italian sculptors like Giuseppe Sanmartino, who, a century earlier, had crafted mesmerizing marble veils, exemplified by the renowned "Veiled Christ."
This artistic tradition can be traced back to earlier sculptors, including renowned Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, as well as the ancient masters from Greece's Hellenistic era, who were celebrated for their intricate depictions of fabric folds.

However, in the mid-19th century, Strazza pushed this technique to its limits. The delicate, layered effect he achieved allows the observer to distinctly perceive Mary's facial features through the translucent veil while simultaneously creating the illusion of weightlessness.

The process of how he transformed solid stone into something so soft and fluid, using only basic hand tools, remains a profound mystery.

06/17/2025

What you eat dramatically affects your gut health, and ultimately, your immune system.

Recent studies show that 70% of our immune system is in the gut. This means when our gut is healthy, we are too.

Ultraprocessed foods in the U.S. are stripped of nutrients and fiber…

Packed with artificial thickeners…

Man-made emulsifiers…

And sweetened with refined sugar, sugar alcohols, and artificial sweeteners.

These processed ingredients are known to alter good bacteria in the gut and can lead to gut inflammation.

Besides stomach pain, diarrhea, and bloating…gut inflammation can lead to serious health issues like IBD, insulin resistance, colon cancer, and obesity over time.

Get my free 54-page guide to protect yourself from harmful food additives: https://foodbabe.com/subscribe

I reveal why ingredients matter the most and challenge you to take a closer look at what’s really in your favorite foods. You’ll get a clear list of additives to avoid - plus, I’ll guide you on exactly what to do next.

06/17/2025

One farmer in rural Texas says none of his employees have wanted to come to work out of fear of being picked up during an ICE raid, "whether they are legal

06/17/2025

The “No Kings” protests in every state may have been the biggest day of demonstrations in American history, a data analyst has suggested. “Based on hundred

01/23/2025

New research links ultra-processed foods to increased colorectal cancer risk! Are we fueling our health concerns? Let's rethink our plates!

https://www.drweil.com/blog/bulletins/ultra-processed-foods-tied-to-colorectal-cancer-risk/

01/03/2025

Mediterranean diet was once again the most highly-rated diet across many categories, earning the spot of top banana in the 2025 edition of Best Diets.

Talk about la creme de la creme. US News & World Report analyzed 38 diets for the new year, revealing on Friday which takes the cake for overall well-bein

09/28/2024

We need to start thinking out of the box to develop and manufacture hurricane safe, floatable homes

With 4,350 square feet of indoor and outdoor living space, the cool factor is off the charts. But so is the price.

09/25/2024

High Intake of Plant Omega-3 Lowers HF Death Rates
Patients with heart failure (HF) who are in the highest two quartiles for circulating levels of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)—a plant-derived omega-3 fatty acid—had a 39% lower risk of HF-associated hospitalization and death than those in the lowest quartiles.

Iolanda Lázaro and colleagues at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Barcelona, used gas chromatography to study serum ALA levels—measured as a percentage of total serum phospholipids—in a cohort of 905 ambulatory HF patients. The subjects had a mean age of 67, and roughly two-thirds were male. The primary endpoint was a composite of all-cause mortality, HF-specific death, and HF-associated hospitalization during a median follow-up of 2.4 years.

Brown flax seed, and flax oil–a rich source of alpha-linolenic acid (Photo: Geo-graphica/Shutterstock)
Compared with patients in the lowest ALA quartile, those in the top two quartiles had a 49% lower rate of death due to HF, and a 42% lower rate of HF-related hospitalizations (Lázaro I, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022).

Surprisingly, they found no such correlations between HF outcomes and fish-based omega-3s (EPA and DHA), suggesting that ALA—found in flax seed, walnuts, chia, h**p, and purslane–has different modes of action from the marine-derived omegas. The authors suggest that patients with low ALA levels “might be a target population in whom to test dietary ALA-rich interventions to promote quality of life.”

In an editorial accompanying the Lázaro paper, heart failure expert Abdallah Al-Mohammad, of the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, UK, postulated that ALA confers its benefits by mitigating the inflammation that exacerbates HF. He views the Lázaro study as “hypothesis-generating,” but not as definitive proof that ALA interventions would lower HF morbidity and mortality.

Research on medicinal herbs and phytochemicals continues to surge worldwide. Here are summaries of a few of the recent studies that grabbed our attention here at Holistic Primary Care. Horsetail Extract Matches Thiazide for BP Regulation A standardized extract of Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) produc...

09/21/2024

Rosemary Compound Blocks Viral Adhesion
Carnosic acid, a phytochemical produced in abundance by the culinary herb Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) can block the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins from attaching to ACE2 receptors on human epithelial cells, according to researchers at the Tokyo University of Technology, and Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA.

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) Photo: Topotishka/Shutterstock
Classified as a phenolic diterpene, carnosic acid exerts direct anti-inflammatory effects, potentially quelling the NLRP3 inflammasome activation that drives much of the tissue damage associated with Covid-19.

CA can downregulate inflammation via several other mechanisms as well: it inhibits macrophage expression of inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)), and it minimizes production of LPS-induced nitric oxide (NO) reactive nitrogen species.

Since it can pass the blood brain barrier, and is able to reach the brain parenchyma, CA may be neuroprotective against the neurodegenerative sequelae of long Covid.

“CA appears to inhibit the manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection by two mechanisms, one at the point of viral entry, possibly through covalent binding to the ACE2 receptor protein, and the other by ameliorating cytokine storm through the inhibition of NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Thus, CA represents a potential therapeutic for COVID-19,” write Takumi Satoh and colleagues.

They add that CA might also be beneficial for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. (Satoh T, et al. Antioxidants, 2022)

Research on medicinal herbs and phytochemicals continues to surge worldwide. Here are summaries of a few of the recent studies that grabbed our attention here at Holistic Primary Care. Horsetail Extract Matches Thiazide for BP Regulation A standardized extract of Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) produc...

09/21/2024

“After adjusting for confounding factors, a decreased risk of PAD was observed in hypertensive patients with dietary fiber intake greater than 21 g per day,” reported lead investigator Yingnan Liu. The risk of PAD was approximately 33% lower among those with fiber intake over 21 grams compared with those eating less than that amount of fiber. The study was published in the Journal of Health, Population, and Nutrition, in August.

Everyone knows that dietary fiber is essential for digestive health, and that fiber-rich diets reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. A new cross-sectional analysis of data from more than 4,600 Americans indicates that high intake of dietary fiber may also lower the risk of peripheral artery dis...