What are the health benefits of lycopene?

Lycopene is a phytochemical and comes under the group of carotenoids. Although chemically it is a carotene, it has no vitamin A activity. It is a safe food coloring agent. The eleven conjugated double bonds present in lycopene are responsible for its antioxidant activity. Lycopene is the most powerful quencher of singlet oxygen free radical. It is 100 times more powerful than vitamin E in experiments.

The health benefits of lycopene include:

• Heart protective
• Good antioxidant to control free radicals
• Supports bone health
• Important for eye health
• Reduces the risk of prostate, lung, stomach and breast cancer
• Good for anti aging
• Good antioxidant to treat male infertility

More research is needed to understand the value of lycopene for human health.

Tomato is the rich source for lycopene. Lycopene is present in tomato skin and so the bioavailability is bad from fresh tomato. Tomato juice and processed tomato have the highest amount of lycopene.

Foods rich in lycopene include:

• Tomatoes
• Processed tomato products such as tomato juice, tomato soup, tolmato sauce, tomato paste, tomato ketchup
• Watermelons
• Pink grapefruits
• Pink guavas
• Apricots
• Papaya

Lycopene is useful with other micronutrients and plant chemicals present in the food. Therefore, as a food supplement it may not have all the benefits that you get from tomato or other fruits.

Can you explain me the difference between vitamin A and beta-carotene?

There are two forms of vitamin A, the preformed original vitamin A and as carotenoids. These carotenoids are called provitamins and the most well known is beta-carotene.

Beta carotene is converted into vitamin A once digested. Vitamin A is found in fats such as butter and margarine, but beta-carotene rich in fruits and vegetables which have bright colours.

Beta-carotene is an antioxidant. It can reduce the risk of heart disease and few cancers. It is very healthy if you take this from your fresh foods. Synthetic beta-carotene supplements can increase the risk of cancer. It is noted particularly among smokers.

What is gout?

Gout, also called metabolic arthritis, is a complex disorder which can affect men and women, but more men are affected. Women are more susceptible to gout after menopause. Gout usually affects the large joint of your big toe, but also in your feet, joints, knees, hands and wrists. Gout is treatable and there are ways to reduce the risk also.

The symptoms are always acute, occurring suddenly at night and without any warning, intense joint pain and inflammation with swollen, tender and red joints.

Gout is caused by an accumulation of uric acid in joints, tendons, ligaments causing excruciating pain in the respective areas. The source of uric acids is:

It is our body’s natural antioxidant when food source of antioxidants are low and if necessary the body produces its own uric acid.
As a bye product of the metabolism of purine and pyrimidine bases of high protein foods and drinks

Side effects of drugs in the increase of uric acid:

If you are on diet, then uric acid is elevated and this could be used to control the persons about their diet.

The important risk factors are the intake of food that is extremely rich in proteins, e. g. persons who eat everyday three times lot of fish and the side effects of the drugs which produce excess of uric acid.

Inform your doctor everything about your other sicknesses as well as the drugs including the over-the-counter drugs because the drugs to reduce uric acid concentrations in the blood may for e. g. increase blood pressure or blood sugar as their side effects. Your doctor has to decide which drug is good in which dose.

The best life style to reduce the risk is to reduce your consumption of animal protein, avoid alcoholic beverages and drink plenty of water, four to five litres where 70% must be normal, pure drinking water.

Coffee and vitamin C can lower the uric acid level in blood, cherries can also help to reduce, it may be because these dark cherries have lot of antioxidants, and thus our body need not produce more uric acid as an antioxidant to safeguard it.

Excessive uric acid in the blood may create urate kidney stones also. It is also one of the main reasons to kidney failure.

What is the effect of onion on asthma?

Onion contains at least three naturally occurring anti-inflammatory substances which act at the basic cause of asthma. Persons who drank onion juice had only 50% bronchial asthma attack when exposed to irritants. Sulphur containing anti-inflammatory agent makes this possible.

Onions are also rich in quercetin, another powerful anti-inflammatory agent which can relive allergies. Moreover, it is a strong antioxidant, seems to stabilize cell membranes that releases histamine. Onions have the capacity to destroy the bacteria from the inflammation.

Hot chillies, spicy mustard, garlic and onions make breathing easier by opening up the air passages and they have also mucus moving activity which thins the mucus that otherwise plugs up the small airways, making breathing difficult for persons with asthma.

Capsaicin, the hot substance in chillies, onions and garlic has anti-inflammatory properties.

What are the Rainbow Colour Antioxidants and Phytochemicals?

Antioxidants and phytochemicals rich food lower the risk of heart diseases as well as cancer. We must eat enough vegetables and fruits everyday.

The colour of fruits and vegetables are coing from the antioxidants and phytochemicals and the are

• Red colour – Lycopene, food rich is tomato, watermelon, pink grapefruit etc.
• Orange colour – Beta-carotene, rich in carrot, mango etc.
• Yellow colour – Beta-cryptothanxin, rich in pineapple, peach, orange etc.
• Green colour – Indoles, rich in cabbage, broccoli, kale etc.
• Purple colour – Anthocyanins, rich in grapes, blueberries, egg plants etc.
• White colour – Allicin, rich in garlic, onion, chives etc.

Eating everyday the vegetables and fruits containing these antioxidants and phytochemicals are very healthy.

What are the natural antioxidants in our body?

Cholesterol, bilirubin and uric acid are the natural antoxidants in our body. If somebody is eating only junk, fast and processed food, te intake of antioxidants are minimum from their food.

Antioxidants are very important in the detoxification and in the management of dangerous free radicals. Free radicals are the weapons to destroy the bacteria and virus which enter inside our body, but in excess they destroy our healthy cells, joints and organs.

In this extreme case the levels of cholesterol, bilirubin and uric acid are increased to do the antioxidantal functionsa also. 25 years before we had no explanation for that, but today these are well understood.

Fresh vegetables and fruits are very important for our health. Our food must contain always vegetables and fruits. I could understand the argument that sometimes without processed food it is not possible to adjust. But, there will be always time and place for carrots, cucumbers, apples and other vegetables and fruits. With this good action the bad effects from the processed are not completely eleminated, but you give the body the necessary antioxidants so that the natural antioxidants from the body need not do this work also.

My cholesterol level is high; can I eat grapes, bananas or mangoes?

Normally, you can eat these fruits. If you have overweight and sugar, you can eat moderately but intake of other carbohydrates must be correspondingly reduced.

These are very healthy fruits, if I say avoid them; I am doing psychologically bad for you. I can allow you to eat and 2 idlys or one dosai or two chapattis can be reduced from your daily meals. You feel well, you are motivated and with the help of your good mood I can achieve better results for your health and this is our goal.

We eat at first with our eyes, so nothing is banned.

These fruits are very healthy food because they contain not only minerals and vitamins but also many antioxidants and phytochemicals.

The exemption is allergy and intolerance, where you must completely avoid these foods, otherwise it may be dangerous. These are fortunately very rare.

My husband has high cholesterol value; can I use sesame oil for cooking?

You can use sesame oil for cooking without any problem because sesame oil also contains monounsaturated fatty acids and it has got the capacity to reduce cholesterol also.

Because of its good antioxidants sesame oil is very heat stable compared to olive oil and is thus suitable for our Indian way of cooking.

In its health qualities sesame oil is equally good as olive oil.

If your husband has overweight then the amount used should not be too high because 100 g sesame or other oils have 900 calories.

Is there any scientific proof for the role of garlic in cholesterol reduction?

There many studies which say there is a good effect and others which say no effects.

From my observation 2 or 3 cloves of garlic per day with a proper individual diet, reduces cholesterol. There are many persons who expect that I eat as usual junk, fast and processed foods, take garlic and the cholesterol can come down. It is a mistake; in this case, the level of cholesterol can go up only.

The sulphur content of garlic is responsible for its medicinal value.

Some people prefer to take garlic pills to avoid garlic breath.

There are several other uses of garlic and they include:

• Used to treat acne
• A natural mosquito repellent
• It is a powerful natural antibiotic
• Strong anti-oxidant to protect the body against damaging free radicals.

Avoid raw garlic; eating too much could produce problems – irritation of the digestive tract.

There are few who are allergic to garlic. The symptoms include skin rash, high temperature and headache.

Garlic can interfere with medicines like anti-coagulants and so it must be avoided before surgery. If you are taking more medicines consult with your doctor.

Which are the foods rich in vitamin E? Are we often deficient in vitamin E?

Vitamin E is available in all vegetables, vegetable oil and in other foods. We have analysed tens of thousands of blood samples for vitamin E, very few have low vitamin E amount in the blood.

It is the pharmaceutical industries which want to sell more vitamin E as diet supplements. They are sold as capsules or mixed in soft beverages and in other products. Of course, it is important for our health and we can have it easily from our food. It is an important antioxidant in your body.

But the dose makes the poison and everything in excess is not good to our health.