Can vitamin D boost fertility?

The small intestine is as wide as your thumb and around 5.5m long.  It is both a food blender and assimilator as it digests more of your food than your stomach.  Food stays in the small intestine  for 1 - 4 hours before moving on to the large intestine for further processing. Maintaing a healthy small intestine is all about controlling your bacteria levels and mucus build-up on your intestinal walls which can cause havoc and deplete your energy levels.  If you have bloating, gas and loose bowel movements you may have a small intestine issues such as:

• Candida
• IBS
• SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth

1. Cut out imflammatory drugs e.g. asprin, paracetamol and avoid alchol.
2. Take L-glutamine and butyric acid both of these can help heal the gut, but check with a nutritionalist first as dosage is important.
3. Drink slippery elm tea which calms inflamation of the small intestine and helps relieve IBS.
4. Up your intake of vitamins A and D - liver is an excellent sourch of these vitamins which protect the mucus membrane of the gut.
5. Eat more antibacterial foods such as garlic, honey and sauerkraut which preven the growth of Candida, fungus and yeast infections.
6. Take oregano oil (Oregnano Vulgaris) which has been shown to stop Candidan in its tracks.
7. Take probiotics daily - look for a count of 50 billion or more in each dose.
8. Take prebiotics daily - to feed the probiotics.  Or eat food prebiotic foods such as sauerkraut or kimchi.
9. Go gluten free.  Cut out gluten for an entire week and keep a food diary to check if your symptoms improve.
10. Mimosa pudica an ayurvedic herb is brilliant at wiping out parasites.
11. Eat more ant-parasitics such as garlic, thyme, chilli, tumeric and ginger.

In part 1, I shared details of supplements that may help alleviat ethe winter blues.  In this blog post I want to share other lifestyle tips. 1. Exercise If you suffer from winter blues it is likely that your GP would perscribe a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).  This is the standard drug to treat depression and one of medicines all time bestsellers.  Researches compared aerobic exercise aginst the Lustral (SSRI sertaline) foudn that exercise and the drug were equally effective at reducing depressive symptioms.  But only exercise had long lasting effects.  Of the patients declared free of depression at the end of the study, those who had been in the exercise only-group were less likely to see their depression return during the next 6 months. 2. Eat Fish If you love fish like I do, then science says you are less likely to get depressed.   In one study women who ate fish two or more times per week where less likley to get depressed than those who ate fish less often.  It is thought the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are responisble for lifting mood.  A number of studies have found that omega-3 supplements have a significant antidepressant effect. 3. St John's Wort A herb commonly used in Germany to treat mild depression.  Scientists have established that not only better is the herb better than a placebo its as effective as an antidepressant. References Blumenthal JA, Babyak MA, Moore KA, Craighead WE, Herman S, Khatri P, Waugh R, Napolitano MA, Forman LM, Appelbaum M, Doraiswamy PM, Krishnan KR. Effects of exercise training on older patients with major depression. Arch Intern Med. 1999 Oct 25;159(19):2349-56. Blumenthal JA, Babyak MA, Doraiswamy PM, Watkins L, Hoffman BM, Barbour KA, Herman S, Craighead WE, Brosse AL, Waugh R, Hinderliter A, Sherwood A. Exercise and pharmacotherapy in the treatment of major depressive disorder. Psychosom Med. 2007 Sep-Oct;69(7):587-96. Babyak M, Blumenthal JA, Herman S, Khatri P, Doraiswamy M, Moore K, Craighead WE, Baldewicz TT, Krishnan KR. Exercise treatment for major depression: maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months. Psychosom Med. 2000 Sep-Oct;62(5):633-8.

In our day to day lives, during the times when we are deciding what to eat or whether to watch TV or take a walk, who is more likely to be around us, our family, friends, flat mates or a doctor?  Even for individuals living with a chronic condition who will probably only spend a few hours a year with medical professionals compared to the thousands of waking hours with family and friends. Recently researches discovered that women are more likely to survive breast cancer if they have a strong social network of friends and family, whereas those who are more isolated are twice as likely to die of the disease. University of Pennsylvania have found that good health is more likely if people see fewer doctors and more of their family and friends especially if they get their support and help.  They discovered that people are more likely to make healthier choices - like going for a walk over watching TV if they are around family and friends.  In addition people are more likely to go to the gym if they have someone to go with. Being part of a group e.g. family, friends, book club, tennis club, social group, religious/spiritual practice seems to aid our motivation to be healthier in terms of diet, exercise, smoking or drinking.  This could be because being part of a group enhances your sense of meaning in life, which in turn leads you to better take care of yourself.  Or it could be down to feeling a sense of responsibility towards other or even just wanting to fit in. References D A. Asch, and R Rosin, Engineering Social Incentives for Health, N Engl J Med 2016; 375:2511-2513 Kroenke, C. H., Michael, Y. L., Poole, E. M., Kwan, M. L., Nechuta, S., Leas, E., Caan, B. J., Pierce, J., Shu, X.-O., Zheng, Y. and Chen, W. Y. (2017), Postdiagnosis social networks and breast cancer mortality in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project. Cancer, 123: 1228–1237. doi:10.1002/cncr.30440 Tarrant, M., Warmoth, K., Code, C., Dean, S., Goodwin, V. A., Stein, K., & Sugavanam, T. (2016). Creating psychological connections between intervention recipients: development and focus group evaluation of a group singing session for people with aphasia. BMJ Open, 6(2), e009652.