I became a little bit concerned when I started to experience something at first that I thought might be panic attacks, but then I realized I might actually have somewhat of an arrhythmia of the heart. I’m going to go see a doctor to confirm it is nothing serious, but decided I would also look online to see what natural ways might be an alternative to any sort of undoubtedly expensive and potentially dangerous or side effect laden drugs I might be put on, if anything. I found a few interesting ideas, but one of them that was consistently referred to was a supplement called magnesium citrate.

Magnesium citrate is just a very processable form of the mineral magnesium. It is thought to be great for nerve health, but more importantly, is thought to help improve conditions where the heart beats out of control or has a rapid or uneven beat. It may be that this supplement helps to regulate the heart rhythm by improving the electromagnetic pulses that are responsible for the correct, timely beating of the heart. Now, I’m no expert, so please go out online and do your own research on this, and it certainly should not be used in place of a doctor’s consultation if you think you may have a problem.

This of course came to the forefront after the talented actress Brittany Murphy’s death, of what they said was a full on cardiac arrest – at the age of 32 years old, which is obviously a very young age to have a major cardiac accident that leads to death. She may have had a pre existing condition of course, but one can’t help wonder if she was on some sort of natural remedy or even medication to help her heart beat be more regular, if her death could have been prevented.

There were reports that she had been diagnosed with a slightly irregular heartbeat, but the doctors did not think it was significant enough to be life threatening or to put her on medication for. Of course, there is also speculation that she may have had an eating disorder that may have spurred an already existing condition to become disastrous, or that she had taken some sort of drug that spurred it, but that is all speculation at this point.

This made me think more about my little episodes, which I by and large used to ignore because I thought they were just a fluke. They rarely happened, but I did notice one happened the other day for no reason at all where it felt like my heart was beating out of rhythm and too fast, so it has become a concern for me. I did buy a magnesium citrate supplement to start in the meantime, and I can let you know how that affects me soon.

I recently got into a long research stint online about which vitamins for healthy hair growth I could take to make my hair more lustrous, stronger, and generally healthier and more resilient against breakage. This is because I’ve been noticing that my hair is just not as strong as it usually is, and I’ve been noticing that it seems to have been falling out at a faster rate (I can’t tell you how many times I have gobs of hair in the bottom of the drain in the shower), but I also noticed that my hair just didn’t seem to have a great shine or texture to it either.

Of course, I could relinquish myself to thinking that this is just due to age. After all, as we age, our hair gets much less resistant to breakage. It also loses a lot of it’s luster and color, which makes it look even duller. As the greys creep in, we also start to see a great change in the texture of our hair. This is because grey hair is caused by the increase of peroxide in our hair follicles, which essentially bleaches out the hair. This results in the absence of color, which makes the hair appear not only grey, but also much drier.

I read about what types of products might be able to help me with the decreasing lustre, increased falling out of my hair, and the lack of resilience against breakage, and I found two main vitamins, or nutrients that held promise in that area. One was horsetail, or silca (a digestable form of silicon that helps keep the bonds of the connective tissue together – meaning that it helps prevent wrinkles and also happens to help the hair prevent breakage.)

The other one was biotin, which is also a product that is supposed to help keep the bonds of the skin and the hair together. Biotin is often recommended to women as a vitamin for hair loss, who are having problems with their hair falling out, even chemotherapy patients. It is a derivative of vitamin B. Other ingredients that may help with hair loss are things like copper, other B vitamins, and also vitamin C.

The recession has allowed a lot of businesses to step back and rethink both their mission and their business plan, due to changing spending habits and ideals that tend to come with economic downturns, and Whole Foods, the mega health food store that seems to still be popping up everywhere (I was just hoping today that either Whole Foods or their biggest rival Trader Joe’s would pop up around here, I would love that!)

Whole Foods is no exception. With their stock price plummeting over the past 2 years, which has just now started to get the swagger back in it’s step after it aquired a formal rival Wild Oats stores, and had some subsequent huge dips in profitability, Whole Foods really struggled to prove that their business plan still had solid ground in a changing vista of socieconomic change as well as American’s nutritional awareness and of course the rise in obesity that was happening for a good reason – because people either couldn’t afford to shop at higher end health foods stores, or because they simply didn’t want to.

Well, Whole Foods has fought it’s way back up, and their stock price is now doing much better, but their profits are still a little on the wane, which is to be expected as Americans inch back on decadence and go more for the tried and true bargain stores like Wal-mart, who also incidentally recently stepped into the organic and health food market, albeit with not nearly as much selection.

Whole foods CEO John Mackey has states recently that he intends for Whole Foods to gradually get more back to it’s healthy roots, and to maybe scale back on the higher end imported decadent foods that are more on the fattening side of things. While Whole Foods was known for a place to get healthy, organic foods, it also has gained a reputation for getting the more gourmet, naughty indulgences as well. He wants to change that and start focusing more on the organic, natural, healthy and nutrient rich foods that are life-giving rather than life-robbing.

Along with more food classes and cooking classes and clubs that focus on healthy living, he also wants to get labeling in the stores of all the food products that tells you how nutrient dense these foods are for their weight, so in other words, whether you are eating “empty calories” or not by consuming these particular foods, so that the consumer can make more informed decisions about what food choices to make for weight control and overall healthy promotion.

Hello everyone. It’s Christmas Eve, and no matter if you celebrate Christmas or not, it’s a special time of year here in the US and elsewhere, because the holiday season in its entirety is meant to be a season of togetherness, forgiveness, family, friends, fun and thinking about what we are thankful for. What are you thankful for? I know what I’m thankful for. I’m grateful that I have a home, I’m grateful that I have food on the table, and am able to afford food and supplements that are good for me and that nourish my body instead of deplete it.

I’m thankful that I am healthy and strong, and can get around well. I’m grateful that I do not have any major health problems that might hamper my enjoyment of life or my ability to help my friends and family. I’m grateful for my Herbal News Magazine readers and their health as well. Merry Christmas everyone! Please see us in 2010 for more great reading and sharing in the world of alternative health and wellness.

Every time I hear stories about science manipulating the mind or anything having to do with our inherent personalities or memories, it gives me chills. Not just because it’s obviously messing with mother nature in a way that probably was never intended, but because it reminds me too much of these science fiction movies where most of humanity is totally manipulated by unseen forces, unsure of who they really are.

Yeah, I’m talking things like the Matrix, Stepford Wives, or any other movie where we’re not quite sure who’s actually “human” any more. Oh, and how about the replicants in the first real sci fi movie breakthrough of our lives, Blade Runner!?

Yes, clearly I’ve seen way to many movies, but this story I’m about to tell you reminds me of how easily manipulated our minds and bodies can be now with the advent of modern science. The technique for erasing bad memories or phobias though, isn’t all that invasive as you’d think. Scientists aren’t going into people brains with prying lasers or scary looking surgical instruments or anything of that sort, but rather they are using a form of exposed behavioral therapy.

Basically, without getting into too much detail, they work with a window of opportunity that they think is open for a while after one is exposed to the object of their fear, so if they have a fear of spiders, they expose them to that sort of object, then they use that window to exploit closing off the negative memories. They combine shock therapy with this methodology, and it seems to eradicate permanently that former fear the person harbored.

By making this sort of behavioral therapy work, they have challenged the idea that modern science cannot alter memories permanently, and that people’s long term memories are not erasable or able to be manipulated in any sort of substantial way. Pretty significant. They may be able to help people with serious life altering phobias, which is a good thing, let’s just hope this doesn’t get misused.