Clove (Syzygium aromaticum), A common Food Spice that offers A Long List of Traditional Uses

Clove is one of the highly prized spices, native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia. The spice actually is dried aromatic flower buds of an evergreen rainforest tree in the family Myrtaceae, Sygizium aromaticum

It is available throughout the year and commercially harvested primarily in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and Zanzibar. It is widely recognized all over the world for its medicinal properties and culinary qualities.

The spice is widely used in Asian, Middle-East, and African cuisines in the preparation of curries, gravy items, and marinades. It is used along with other spices, including cinnamon, cardamom, and black pepper in the cooking of Biryani (spiced rice).

Clove essential oil is used as an active ingredient in cosmetic products and the healing of many disorders. In the Middle East, it is added to beverages, at times along with cardamom and peppermint.

Clove has been used for thousands of years in India, China, and South East Asia, not only as a spice and condiment but also as a remedial herb for many ailments. Ayurvedic practitioners, for instance, use clove for tooth decay, halitosis, and bad breath, among others. In Traditional Chinese medicine, clove is considered an aphrodisiac.

Scientists have determined and isolated many bioactive compounds from clove, including (but not limited to) phenolic compounds: flavonoids, eugenol, hydroxybenzoic acids, hydroxycinnamic acids, and hydroxyphenyl propene; phenolic acids: gallic acids and its derivatives, hydrolyzable tannins; and other phenolic acids: caffeic, ferulic, ellagic and salicylic acids. Flavonoids found in lower concentration in cloves, including kaempferol, and quercetin and its derivates (glycosylated) .

Clove flower buds contain up to 18% of essential oils, which comprises, eugenol, eugenol acetate, humulene, geranyl acetate, and caryophyllene oxide. Other volatile compounds present in lower concentrations in clove essential oil are beta-pinene, farnesol, limonene, benzaldehyde, 2-heptanone and ethyl hexanoate.

Clove is considered as an important medicinal plant due to the wide range of pharmacological effects owed to its traditional uses for centuries and reports in literature.

Health Benefits 

Digestive: Clove aids digestion by stimulating the secretion of digestive enzymes. It is also used to alleviate flatulence, gastric irritability, dyspepsia, and nausea. Roasted powdered clove is usually taken with honey as a remedy to relief digestive disorders.
Antibacterial: Clove found to have 29 phytochemicals with antibacterial properties against a number of pathogens including specific bacteria that spreads cholera.
Anti-carcinogenic: Clove really attracts the attention of scientists for its anti-carcinogenic properties. A study demonstrated that clove may be helpful in controlling lung cancer in its early stages.
Hepatoprotective: Metabolism, in the long run, results in increased free radical levels. Antioxidants prevent free radical induced tissue damage by preventing the formation of radicals, scavenging them, or by promoting their decomposition. Clove offers a high amount of antioxidants which may be beneficial in protecting organs from the detrimental effects of free radicals, including the liver.
Anti-diabetic: Consuming cloves on daily basis may be beneficial in regulating blood sugar in diabetics. A study has revealed that clove extract imitates insulin in certain ways and help in controlling blood sugar levels.
Anti-osteoporotic: Phenolic compounds in clove such as eugenol and its derivatives, and bioflavonoids including flavones and isoflavones have been particularly found to be helpful in preserving bone density and the mineral content of bone, as well as increasing tensile strength of bones.
Anti-Mutagenic: Mutagens is defined as chemical compounds that change the genetic makeup of the DNA by causing mutations. Biochemical compounds found in cloves such as phenylpropanoids shown to have anti-mutagenic properties. When administered to cells treated with mutagens, they were found to be able to control the mutagenic effects.
Immunostimulant: A study showed that clove essential oil stimulated the immune system by increasing the white blood cell count, thereby improving delayed type hypersensitivity. The study also demonstrated that it restored cellular and humoral responses in cyclophosphamide-immunosuppressed mice in a dose-dependant manner.
Hypocholesterolemic: One clove study found that a daily dose of cloves lowered cholesterol while improving insulin performance.

Antiviral: Dr. James A Duke in his ethnobotanical database shows that clove contains 21 phytochemicals that may act as antiviral. Taking clove tea either alone or combined with other antiviral herbs such as thyme, rosemary, cinnamon or neem may help in shortening of the flu or colds duration.

Reverse atherosclerotic plaque
Speaking about cholesterol-lowering and antioxidant properties of clove, I would like to share a little tip on how to possibly reverse atherosclerotic plaque in arteries in our body especially those located in the brain, heart, penis and feet.
Take 1 teaspoon of clove powder, 1 teaspoon of ghee or pure butter along with 1 teaspoon of pure pomegranate juice. Pomegranate syrup may also be used.
Traditional uses
Clove either alone or combined with other herbs can be used traditionally to treat candidiasis, bad breath, toothache, wounds, dental abscesses, muscle sprains, painful ejaculation, cholera, gingivitis, cold, cramps, cough, bloating, gastroenteritis, emphysema, diabetes, osteoporosis, stye (hordeolum), acid reflux, attitude sickness, typhoid, scanty menses, flu, grey hair, insect bites, entamoeba, schistosomiasis, sore throat, asthma, stomachache, headache, nausea, vomiting, fever, indigestion, and coryza.

Other traditional uses include relieving diarrhea, pneumonia, premature ejaculation, fatigue, lower back pain, sinusitis, phlegm, headache, hematemesis, acid reflux, bronchitis, irritable bowel syndrome, dizziness, and yellow teeth.

Note: Most of the traditional uses of clove in the aforementioned list can be found by browsing various alternative healing websites owned by Indian herbal practitioners or holistic health advocates.

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum), A common Food Spice that offers A Long List of Traditional Uses

Chinese actor Xu Ting dies after choosing traditional medicine over chemotherapy

Confronting photos of the bruised and swollen body of the Chinese actor Xu Ting widely circulated after her death have been used to highlight the dangers of using traditional Chinese therapies over conventional medicine for treating cancer.

In July Xu, 25, announced on the Chinese social media website Weibo she had lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system that best responds to chemotherapy as a first-line treatment.

However, Xu said the high cost of chemotherapy in China and her fears about side effects and pain meant she had decided to treat her cancer with a mix of Chinese therapies instead.

“No matter how long I live, I want to enjoy every day happily,” she wrote, adding that she did not want to “let chemotherapy torment me to the point where there’s no beauty and talent left”. The actress appeared on television in the series Dad Home and acted in the comedy Lost In Macau.

Later in July, Xu posted photos to Weibo of the aftermath of some of the alternative treatments she had undergone, including acupuncture and cupping, which involves placing a flammable substance into a cup, typically a cotton bud, and setting it on fire. As the fire goes out, the cup is placed upside down on the skin, usually the back, creating a vacuum and leaving welts on the body.

Some users begged her to seek chemotherapy. One user wrote on her Weibo page: “You need to rely on modern medicine to save yourself.”

The American Cancer Society guide to complementary and alternative therapies warns of the risk of burns from cupping and states that “available scientific evidence does not support claims that cupping has any health benefits”.

Xu also turned to gua sha, a treatment that involves scraping the skin with a tool, and which is practised by the actor Gwyneth Paltrow and the swimmer Michael Phelps. It left Xu with red marks and bruising down her neck.

“Frankly, traditional Chinese medicine is also painful,” Xu wrote as a caption underneath one of the images of the treatment she posted to her blog.

According to a study published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine, gua sha users in Hong Kong tended to use it mostly to treat respiratory and pain problems.

In August, Xu’s sister encouraged her to undergo chemotherapy as she became more unwell. Xu died on 7 September, shortly after starting chemotherapy.

Her death has sparked a debate in the Chinese media about the use and effectiveness of Chinese therapies. On the Chinese news website people.cn, the head of the traditional Chinese medicine department at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, Dr Feng Li, wrote that Chinese therapies should not be blamed for Xu’s death.

He wrote that “while western approaches like radiology, chemotherapy, and surgery are effective in shrinking the tumour”, Chinese therapies were “effective in reducing symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and pain that comes with western treatment”.

“Moreover, after the tumour is under control, traditional Chinese medicine helps to repair the immune system, accelerate the body’s recovery and minimise the chance of the tumour returning.”

A 2014 review of complementary and alternative medicine for cancer pain found alternative treatments, including Chinese treatments, had “low or moderate” evidence for alleviating cancer pain.

But a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Cancer and Oncology Pain described the barriers some people faced obtaining conventional medical treatment. Led by Dr David Garfield from the ProMed Cancer Centre in Shanghai, the authors wrote that “Mainland Chinese attitudes are different from what we are accustomed to in the west”.

“There is a lack of trust between patients/families and physicians, related in part to there being few urban general practitioners, resulting in no longstanding, physician-patient relationships,” the authors wrote.

“There is a feeling that care is being provided for personal gain, much more so than in the west. When individuals are ill, or think they may be, they go directly to hospitals, including traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, rather than seeing a non–hospital-based practitioner.”

“Anti-cancer drugs, even for patients treated in public hospitals, are costly,” the authors added, writing that proven and effective treatments “although available, are out of reach for all but the wealthy”.

Cost, rather than mistrust, appeared to be a factor for Xu shunning chemotherapy. In one post on her Weibo blog, she wrote about how exhausted she was from trying to provide for her family financially.

“Over the past five years, I worked very hard to support the large family,” she wrote. “I made money to pay for my younger brother’s tuition fees, pay my parents debts and even buy a house. The pressure made me breathless.”

Chinese actor Xu Ting dies after choosing traditional medicine over chemotherapy

Snap, Crackle, And Pop Goes The Traditional Wisdom About Breakfast And Weight Loss

Yet another dietary conviction, born of observational studies and significantly standard wisdom, has been routed in a randomized manage trial. The belief that skipping breakfast is negative for you if you want to shed fat doesn’t hold up when subjected to a more rigorous examine style, according to a a lot more rigorously designed study—“The effectiveness of breakfast recommendations on fat loss: a randomized controlled trial,” published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“We believed it was essential to check this typically held assumption,” stated lead writer Emily Dhurandhar by e-mail, “since short-phrase scientific studies propose that consuming breakfast could assist regulate appetite and metabolism, it has usually been assumed that this would translate to breakfast improving weight loss.”

The moral of the research: by no means assume.

Previously, only one particular randomized management trial published in 1992–Schlundt et al.—had investigated the affect of skipping versus eating breakfast amongst individuals in search of to shed bodyweight. It discovered that the act of switching from breakfast to no breakfast or vice versa appeared to be driving excess weight loss compared to not changing breakfast habits and the a lot more radical the alter in behavior at breakfast time, the higher the bodyweight loss. This examine was extensively reported in the scientific literature as getting proven that consuming breakfast led to bodyweight reduction, even though that is not what the authors concluded. Because Dhurandhar et al. used a significantly bigger sample—they enrolled 309 topics compared to 52 in the earlier research, they have been in a position to do a better occupation of controlling for the results of switching.

Between these folks who were breakfast skippers when they started out the system, the handle group (people who have been advised only “eat healthy” and offered a US Division of Agriculture pamphlet, but not provided any instructions on eating or not eating breakfast) lost an common of .71 kg but the standard deviation was one.16 kg. This implies that about 68 percent of this group experienced anything at all from a excess weight reduction of 1.87 kg (.71+one.16kg), to a excess weight gain of .61 kg (.71 minus 1.16kg).

Similarly, if you were a breakfast skipper assigned to the group that was advised to eat breakfast, you lost .76 kg on regular, but the standard deviation was one.26, so about two-thirds of men and women lost somewhere between 2.02 kg (76+one.26kg) or acquired .50kg (one.26 minus .76kg).

Ultimately, those breakfast skippers who have been informed not to eat breakfast misplaced on average .61kg, but two-thirds of them misplaced as much as one.79kg (.61+one.18kg) or acquired as small as .57kg (one.18 minus .61kg)–or accomplished one thing in between.

An English breakfast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People who have been breakfast eaters had been cast in similar groupings, with the same results: you see no result of getting a breakfast eater and not being informed anything about breakfast (the control group), compared with the getting informed to eat breakfast group and the getting told not to consume breakfast group.

As Dhurandhar put it, their study was all about timing: to consume or not to eat breakfast “didn’t influence weight reduction in free of charge-residing folks making an attempt to drop bodyweight on their personal.” But, she additional, that doesn’t suggest that certain breakfast food items or consuming a big breakfast wouldn’t be useful for other causes. The next step would be to repeat the experiment hunting at effects on metabolic variables over a longer time period of time relative to certain meals, one thing that would be high-priced to do, but could yield essential insights into regardless of whether all breakfast foods are equal, or whether or not there might be other far more subtle alterations associated to skipping or not that are only revealed in excess of a significantly longer duration. 1 may well say, the “most crucial meal of the day”(sic) deserves nothing much less.

Snap, Crackle, And Pop Goes The Traditional Wisdom About Breakfast And Weight Loss

Considerably Traditional Wisdom About The Leads to Of The Obesity Epidemic Might Be Incorrect

An financial perspective suggests that obesity has enhanced in response to the “excess availability and affordability of all types of foods.”

It has turn out to be acquired wisdom that the increase in overweight and weight problems in the U.S. above the previous 3 decades is linked the following:

• An boost in sedentary life style and a lessen in all round physical action

• Enhanced consumption of “junk food” and especially sweetened drinks and refined carbohydrates

• Lack of availability of healthier food items which includes fruits and greens

• Diminished leisure time.

A new standpoint on the causes of the obesity epidemic suggests that several of these extensively cited variables are both incorrect or play only a restricted position. The new evaluation by an economist at the RAND Corporation and health researcher at the University of Illinois appears in the existing situation of CA – A Journal for Clinicians published by the American Cancer Society.

The authors commence by stressing the need to have to search at trends for the complete population more than time, rather than emphasizing distinctions in between groups (defined by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, and sex) at 1 level in time. When a single does this, one sees that the trend toward rising fat is visible in all groups. A single group could be ahead of an additional on the upward slope, but such distinctions are secondary.

A second observation is that the data indicate that the trend toward excess weight achieve in the U.S. population goes back more than the previous four decades, to the 1st half of the twentieth century. This longer time span is in line with the underlying trend that the authors recognize – namely, that the expense of food as a proportion of revenue has decreased significantly in excess of the previous century. They create that, “Americans now have the least expensive foods in background when measured as a fraction of disposable revenue.” In the 1930, Americans spent 1-quarter of their disposable cash flow on foods. The proportion declined to one-fifth in the 1950s and is at present below one-tenth.

Along with lowered cost, the availability of foods has increased drastically. As a outcome, average every day per capita consumption of calories improved from about two,100 in 1970 to over 2,500 in 2010.

In contrast to these powerful trends, alterations in the intake macronutrients (carbohydrates, excess fat, and protein) are weaker and quick-lived – getting been most probably responses to fads, like the emphasis on a lower-excess fat diet regime (to which the foods market responded by changing excess fat in processed foods by sugar) and the Atkins’ diet regime craze.

Between the other often cited aspects that the authors dismiss are: one) that bodily exercise has decreased in the population above recent decades – in truth, it has enhanced 2) that fruit and vegetable consumption has decreased – in reality, it too has enhanced 3) that leisure time has decreased – it also has increased and four) that a lack of supermarkets in poor neighborhoods and traits of the “built environment” market obesity – in reality, offered data do not give sturdy assistance for these linkages.

This evaluation suggests that, rather than one distinct class of meals, what is driving the weight problems epidemic is the sheer quantity of consumption of foods – and calories – that have become regular in our society.

The authors write, “Examining time trends for which there are information, what jumps out are alterations in food availability, in particular the improve in caloric sweeteners and carbohydrates. Common everyday discretionary calories from salty snacks, cookies, candy, and soft drinks now exceed the discretionary calories advisable in the Dietary Recommendations for power balance and important nutrients and the ratio of consumed to advisable discretionary calories is a considerable predictor of BMI in the population.”

They stage out that the advice to eat a lot more fruits and veggies is unlikely to have the wanted impact given that people have a tendency to include these food items to their intake rather than substituting them for high-caloric food items.

Considerably Traditional Wisdom About The Leads to Of The Obesity Epidemic Might Be Incorrect

Reading through Organic, Traditional & GMO Foods Labels

By Jonathan Cho

Posted Monday, December 30, 2013 at 10:58am EST

Keywords and phrases: Standard, Meals Labels, Genetically modified organisms, GMO, GMO Labeling, Grocery Shopping, Labeling, non natural, Organic

Genetically modified foods has permeated the American foods provide, given the prevalent use of corn, soy, and canola, between other individuals, and all their derivatives.  GMOs have designed a stigma in latest many years, but rather than remove these from their items and supplies, a lot of corporations have gone lengths to cover up and confuse buyers with unclear labeling.  Here’s a set of 3 items to look out for to support you make certain GMOs don’t finish up in your diet plan.

Read the Numbers on the Labels:

Standard Fruit Labels: These start with the variety four.

GMO Fruit Labels: These commence with the variety eight, and are typically, but not constantly, five digits in length.

Natural Fruit Labels: These start with the variety 9, and are always only five digits lengthy.

100% Natural Labeling:

Appear for meals that are labeled a hundred% organic.  The bulk of organically-labeled food items are a mixed bag—some of the elements are natural, whilst other folks aren’t.  The labels will highlight the natural facets whilst neglecting to mention the other ingredients that are often genetically modified.

Make Positive It is GMO-Free of charge

We might not constantly be able to consume one hundred% organic, but we can make positive that the worst parts of standard food—GMOs—don’t enter into our diets.  Seem for labels that say GMO-totally free, or non-GMO, and if you’re not certain, steer clear of traditional goods with the substances most probably to be genetically modified—corn, soy, alfalfa (in a lot of green dietary supplements), canola oil, and cottonseed oil (the latter two usually labeled as vegetable oil or shortening).

 

 

 

Sources:

http://naturalsociety.com/how-to-know-if-your-meals-is-typical-natural-or-genetically-modified/

Reading through Organic, Traditional & GMO Foods Labels