February 2024 – Claremont Colonic and Nutrient Resource Clinic

5 Benefits of Drinking Pickle Juice

Pickles are considered a “take it or leave it” addition to a meal for most people. The majority of people either absolutely love pickles or hate them with a fiery passion.

Pickles come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. I might sound a bit like Bubba Gump from the Forrest Gump movie when I say this, but pickles can be sweet, savory, spicy, tangy, crunchy, crinkly, and sour — and the list goes on! Pickles are an affordable, low-calorie snack that can easily be eaten on the go (they even sell little to-go cups of pickles in some grocery stores). Some celebrities, like Selena Gomez, have boarded the pickle train as well. Selena even has pickles delivered to her from her hometown!

Although some people appreciate the tasty benefits of chomping down on pickles, what about the pickle juice that is typically discarded carelessly? Pickle juice may not be on your radar as something worth using, but take a look at the five everyday uses for pickle juice. Number two will surprise you!

1. Ease muscle cramps

Catching a cramp can feel like hell on earth. A bad cramp has made us all revert back to our childhood wailing at some point. Feeling the onset of a muscle cramp will make you immediately grip your body in excruciating pain while you silently berate yourself for not drinking enough water or stretching properly.

Muscle cramps are typically caused when someone doesn’t consume enough water to replace the amounts of water that are lost in everyday activities, such as working out. When you sweat while exercising, you lose a lot of salt from your blood. These salts are called electrolytes. Most people don’t hydrate enough to replace the amount of fluid that is lost during exercise, causing major fluid and electrolyte depletion, which creates sensitization of select nerves resulting in muscle cramps.

Pickle juice can help prevent dehydration during your workout, which will help your body reduce fluid loss, maintain workout performance, reduce heat stress, and fight fatigue. Now that’s a workout booster!

Studies show drinking small amounts of pickle juice relieves muscle cramps within 35 seconds of ingestion. Scientists believe the vinegar in pickle juice helps muscles to stop contracting, which causes the muscles to relax. Next time you feel a horrific cramp coming on, try drinking pickle juice from the jar or give this pickle sports drink a try.

2. Fix your hangover Alcohol can contribute to severe dehydration. When you’re out having a great time, a hangover is probably the last thing on your mind–but once you experience it the next day, a hangover will make you wonder why you decided to ever drink in the first place! Hangovers can cause nausea, headaches, and massive amounts of vomiting. If you’ve ever asked for advice on how to cure a hangover, you’ve most likely been told that water is essential for fighting those dreadful symptoms. Hydrating your body with electrolytes can help significantly reduce the intensity and length of your hangover. When electrolytes are consumed by your body, they dissolve into positive and negative charges. The two charges help regulate the flow of water in and out of cells, and spark nerve impulses.

Some people rely on electrolyte enhanced water, coconut water, or sports drinks to get their daily dose of electrolytes but pickle juice is the underdog that rarely gets recognition for its electrolyte enhanced benefits. Since pickle juice increases plasma electrolytes, it makes the perfect drink to ease your hangover.

3. Reduce PMS symptoms

Pickle juice isn’t just for regular cramps, it can also alleviate PMS complications, like period cramps. The vinegar found in pickle juice has probiotic effects that encourage the growth of good bacteria and flora in your stomach. The brine in pickle juice also helps settle an upset stomach.

An added bonus is that pickle juice might hit the spot for any period related cravings caused by PMS symptoms. A taste of pickle juice could be exactly what you need to banish your period woes.

4. Regulate blood sugar levels

High blood sugars levels can be deadly for people suffering from type 2 diabetes. Drinking a small amount of vinegar has been known to regulate blood sugar levels after a meal. Because pickle juice contains vinegar, it acts as a regulator for blood sugar levels, especially for people with type 2 diabetes, according to research in the Journal of Diabetes Research. The vinegar in pickle juice also helps improve the body’s response to insulin.

The benefits of drinking pickle juice aren’t strictly for post-meal purposes. Drinking pickle juice can also help individuals with type 2 diabetes before bedtime. Pickle juice has an antiglycemic effect due to the vinegar, which reduces starch digestion and delayed gastric emptying.

Lowered blood sugar levels can also help ward off other conditions, such as heart concerns and kidney damage.

5. Eliminates wrinkles

Everyone frets about the idea of getting wrinkles. For most people, it’s a sign of getting old (cue the tears!). That’s why the beauty market successfully sells truckloads of anti-wrinkle beauty products every day. However, you don’t need expensive beauty products to battle the onset of wrinkles.

Vitamins C and E naturally fight wrinkles and are found in pickle juice! Pickle juice contains antioxidants that will keep your skin radiant. Not only will the vitamins found in pickle juice keep you looking youthful, they can also improve your immune system for an overall healthier appearance.

Applying pickle juice directly to your face can serve as rejuvenation therapy due to the high amounts of vitamin c. Ingesting pickle juice can increase your vitamin intake and help cure vitamin deficiencies, which contribute to skin disorders.

Pickle juice probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of beneficial drinks to incorporate into your everyday routine. Although it’s not as popular as other methods, you should consider using pickle juice for its added vitamins, anti-aging benefits and to get rid of painful cramps.

Have you ever used pickle juice before? If so, what was your experience?

Contributor: Laura Jazmin Tolliver – Alternative Daily

Is Your “Emotional Support Water Bottle” Causing Overhydration?

Whether it be the latest prized Stanley cup or that 10-year-old plastic spout bottle you don’t go anywhere without, “emotional support water bottles” seem to be stuck to our sides and not going anywhere.

The term for the self-care accessory has been circling social media for several years, with the hashtag #emotionalsupportwaterbottle at over 18,000 posts on TikTok and thousands on Instagram. The catchphrase seems to embody how most people feel about their trusty sidekick that doesn’t leave their sight.

Always having a sip of water by your side can be great for remembering to stay hydrated, but sometimes forming an attachment to a water bottle can lead to a fixation on hydration that could have serious health consequences if taken too far, according to medical experts.

“It’s not easy to overwhelm your kidneys,” said Dr. Kambiz Kalantari, a nephrologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “But there are situations in which people are obsessed with drinking water. … We’re talking about 10, 15 liters that overwhelm their kidneys.”

Here are tips on gauging how much water you need to put in your drinking cup and what could happen when a hydration habit goes overboard.

Overhydration is hard to achieve but possible The amount of water a person should drink in a day is an age-old question that doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer — it depends on factors such as a person’s health, size, location and types of activities in a day.

The National Academy of Medicine recommends 3.7 liters (125 ounces) of water per day for men and 2.7 liters (91 ounces) for women, which account for water intake from all food and beverages throughout the day, while many stick to the common advice of drinking 8 cups of water a day (1.9 liters or 64 ounces), which is easy to remember and typically keeps a person at a good level of hydration, according to the Mayo Clinic. Some people may need to drink less, while others may need more, the clinic adds.

There isn’t a need to force yourself to drink more water than what you’re thirsting, or carry around a water bottle, unless you are planning to exercise or spend time outdoors exposed to heat, which can cause fluid loss from sweat, Kalantari said.

If a person were to drink too much water, in most cases, the kidneys would excrete the excess fluid, resulting in the person urinating a lot, Kalantari said. If the kidneys cannot excrete the excess water, due either to a chronic condition such as kidney disease or being extremely overwhelmed, that is when problems arise and can require a trip to the hospital in critical cases.

There are also limits to the amount of fluid that kidneys are able to excrete if a person has not eaten enough food that day, Kalantari said.

For most people, drinking enough water to fill two 40-ounce (1.2 liters) water bottles in 10 hours will create a safe range of avoiding dehydration and overhydration, said Dr. Ryan Bober, an internal medicine specialist with Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

“If you start to get to the point where you don’t really have much of a thirst mechanism — you feel like you’re forcing the rest of whatever number of ounces you have left in the bottle down, have started having trouble with how easily you’re swallowing the water — then you’ve kind of pushed yourself into the range of overhydration,” Bober said.

Water intoxication

Water intoxication, also called water poisoning, occurs when there is so much fluid that the excess cannot be removed by sweating or urinating and causes hyponatremia, a condition in which the blood’s sodium level is below normal range.

Besides excess urination, the symptoms of water intoxication can include feeling irritable, lethargic, more easily distractible or confused, vomiting, nausea, and in most critical cases, seizures and comas or even death, Bober said.

Typically, mild cases of overhydration — which occur from drinking too much water in a short amount of time or drinking too much water over a span of a few days, such as 2 to 3 liters in an hour or 10 liters in a day — will resolve once the person stops drinking as much water, as the kidneys will excrete the excess within a few days, Bober said.

Actor Brooke Shields experienced the condition in September when she had a seizure from drinking too much water. Shields went to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with low blood sodium and prescribed a treatment plan by a doctor.

Researchers also theorized that martial artist and actor Bruce Lee died from hyponatremia, according to a March 2022 study. The report cited the actor’s “high chronic fluid intake,” marijuana use that can increase thirst, and prescription drug and alcohol intake that can affect the kidneys.

Benefits of staying hydrated Staying hydrated is important for keeping bodily functions running smoothly, such as the urinary and digestive tracts and the circulatory system, which pumps blood to the heart. Hydration can also help you feel more energized, improve mood, and bolster attention span and short-term memory.

Oftentimes, drinking more water is a goal set for weight loss. In moderation, drinking water before a meal can help to fill up the stomach and cause people to feel fuller, and in turn they will eat less, Bober said.

Drinking water when thirsty can activate dopamine-related pathways, giving people a pleasurable response, Bober said. But without moderation, an overreliance on the feel-good chemical hit could be the factor that leads to an increase in water intake and overhydration. And in situations that can have a serious impact on mental health, such as social isolation or chronic stress and anxiety, the pathways can shift in such a way that the pleasure response can still be activated even at levels close to overhydration, he added.

The emotional support water bottle has its perks, but even drinking water needs to be in moderation — and the reusable bottle should be cleaned regularly, Bober said.

Contributor: Taylor Nicioli, CNN Health

Five Lifestyle Factors That May Help Prevent Dementia

People who live a healthy lifestyle may be more resilient to brain changes that can cause symptoms of dementia, compared to people with the same brain changes who don’t have healthy habits in five key areas, an important new study shows.

The study is particularly compelling because researchers examined people’s brains after death. They looked for Alzheimer’s-related brain changes called beta-amyloid load, phosphorylated tau tangles, and problems related to blood flow in the brain.

Dementia Symptoms

Dementia describes the group of symptoms people have when they lose or injure brain cells.

Published Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology, researchers analyzed data from 586 people who died between 1997 and 2022 and had provided up to 24 years of health data, in addition to their brains, as part of the Rush Memory and Aging Project. Among the people in the study, 78% were female and the average age at death was 91 years old.

The researchers found that having a higher lifestyle score based on a calculation from five lifestyle factors was linked to better overall cognitive functioning as a person aged. The five factors that made up a lifestyle score were diet, physical activity, cognitive engagement, smoking status, and alcohol consumption. People’s cognitive function was measured using 19 tests that the people took regularly as part of the study, and the 19 scores were combined to provide an overall measurement of cognitive function.

Specifically, the study showed that people whose lifestyle included the following traits tended to be resilient to brain changes that may otherwise cause cognitive problems:

Not currently being a smoker
Getting at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week
Limiting alcohol consumption (up to one drink per day for women, two per day for men)
Following a Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet
Engaging in late-life cognitive activities like reading the newspaper, writing letters, going to the library, or playing games like chess or checkers.

Dementia affects more than 55 million people worldwide, with 10 million new cases each year, according to the World Health Organization. It’s the seventh leading cause of death globally, and women are disproportionately affected by the group of progressive diseases that impact people’s memory, thinking, and ability to perform daily activities. There is no treatment to stop or reverse the progression of dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is the most common.

There is an “urgent need” for more examination of how to reduce the risk of developing dementia, an editorial published alongside the study stated, adding that adopting the five lifestyle factors in the study “should be offered in conjunction with [Alzheimer’s disease] medications, similar to the approach in cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment in which medications along with lifestyle strategies are the standard of care.”

Contributor: Lisa O’Mary – WebMD

6 Dirty Secrets That Grocery Stores Don’t Want You to Know

It’s fair to say that modern capitalist ideals are the driving force behind today’s society. All the contemporary luxuries that we now enjoy — from fast, quiet cars to the deliciously comfy beds we rest our weary heads on every night — are the result of that constant corporate push to achieve maximum profits with minimum loss.

When we examine how other manifestos are applied to society, the most infamous of which is communism, it’s easy to see that capitalism is far preferable.

But it also has it’s own teething problems… you have only to look to Trump, that quintessential caricature of a money- and power-hungry capitalist tyrant, to recognize this. Then there’s corporations that destroy whole communities or ruin people’s lives in their push to maximize profits, or a shift away from notions of sharing in favor of hoarding. Sure, capitalism has it’s own issues. When we examine how other manifestos are applied to society, the most infamous of which is communism, it’s easy to see that capitalism is far preferable.

When we examine how other manifestos are applied to society, the most infamous of which is communism, it’s easy to see that capitalism is far preferable. When we examine how other manifestos are applied to society, the most infamous of which is communism, it’s easy to see that capitalism is far preferable.

But it also has it’s own teething problems… you have only to look to Trump, that quintessential caricature of a money- and power-hungry capitalist tyrant, to recognize this. Then there’s corporations that destroy whole communities or ruin people’s lives in their push to maximize profits, or a shift away from notions of sharing in favor of hoarding. Sure, capitalism has it’s own issues.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the well-oiled profit machine of the supermarket. Ever wonder why you’re wandering in a particular pattern around the grocery store? How you planned on staying well away from the candy or potato chip aisle, only to find yourself suddenly strolling along those very aisles in a kind of trance? It’s no coincidence.

The thing is, grocery stores have something of a dilemma. The average supermarket sells more than 50,000 items, a goodly portion of which is perishable foods like meat, dairy and fresh produce. The task of any good grocery store is to get the average customer to walk through as much of the store as possible, in order to increase their chances of selling more products before they expire. In the supermarket, profit reigns supreme. And this means that every little detail in your local grocery store is designed to make you think less and buy more. Here’s how.

1. Water misters in the produce section

If you were under the impression that supermarkets spray their fresh produce with water to keep them fresh, think again. As with most other things in the average grocery store, the name of the game is making things look tastier, rather than actually being tastier. This mandate very much applies to the water misters in the produce section, as the beads of water on that bunch of grapes or bundle of carrots is only there to make them look prettier and to actually add more weight to the produce in question… costing you more at the checkout (it’s not much, but with thousands of customers every day it certainly adds up).

In fact, that water is actually making the produce rot faster! If you’ve ever prepared your home-grown produce for long-term storage, you’ll know what I mean.

2. The fresh produce is actually super dirty

While we’re on the topic of produce at the grocery store, have you ever stopped to think about how clean those fruit and veggies really are? How about when you picked up that apple, saw that it was bruised, and put it back again? Chances are, so did 50 people before you, ensuring that the filth of 50 hands was then rubbed firmly onto the skin of that apple.

And unless you’re rinsing your produce thoroughly under running water and then soaking them in diluted vinegar, do you really think a quick rinse is going to get rid of all that dirt and germs? Don’t be fooled by that tantalizing glisten of water… it doesn’t mean your produce is clean!

3. Shopping carts are also pretty darn filthy

Speaking of dirty, how about those shopping carts? Cleaning each of their hundreds of shopping trolleys every day would be a huge extra expense for your grocery store, so they simply let them get filthy. Thousands of hands will have rubbed their contents all over the cart handle before it ever gets even a perfunctory wipe. It might be in your interests to give your hands a good wash after you shop next time!

4. Checkout areas are cramped on purpose

Ever wonder why checkout aisles are so tiny and cramped? It’s because a) they want you to get up close and personal with the various gums, candy and magazines they have stocked in those tiny shelves and b) they don’t want you to ditch any of the items you have in your shopping cart. If there’s no space to put anything, it’s pretty hard to ditch something you no longer want, right? Sneaky, sneaky.

5. They can remain open even after failing inspections

You often hear about restaurants that failed a food safety inspection and were closed down. But do you ever hear about a supermarket that was closed due to a failed inspection?

It doesn’t really happen, and that’s because supermarkets in the U.S. are under no obligation to close their doors even if they don’t pass a food safety check. And while you can ask to see their inspection scores, grocery stores are also under no obligation to actually show their food safety scores at the entrance.

6. Food that goes bad is just ‘reconditioned’

This is one of those scenarios where the food industry uses an innocent-seeming word to cover up a practice that’s actually downright disgusting. When a grocery store gets sent a batch of food that’s gone bad for whatever reason, it’s sent back to the manufacturer or distributor… not for disposal, but for reconditioning. This essentially means taking something unsightly, expired or visibly rotting and re-processing it so that it can be sold on supermarket shelves again.

A classic example of this is when moldy applesauce was “reconditioned” by blasting it with heat, repackaged and sold as if nothing had ever been wrong with it. Or how about when insect parts were removed from children’s food and then simply repackaged for sale to more unfortunate children? Perhaps some Chlorox to bleach a batch of pork, in order to make it look fresher than it actually was? Nasty stuff.

Nothing is as it seems in your grocery store

Next time you see something a little fishy in your supermarket, you should probably think twice before shrugging your shoulders and buying it anyway; chances are there’s probably an unpleasant backstory behind it. Do your research, practice caution and — for the love of God — wash your hands!

Contributor: Liivi Hess – Alternative Daily