Yearly Archives: 2017

Rosemary is one of those herbs with a thousand uses. It’s extremely hardy and therefore easy to grow and maintain inside or out.  It is prepared as a dried whole herb or a dried powdered extract, useful as a tea and magic as a medicinal herbal liquid extract for increasing alertness, reducing tension headaches and increasing phase II liver metabolism. But my interest lies with rosemary’s ursolic acid content.

Rosemary is rich in ursolic acid (U.A) also found and in the wax-like coatings of apples, pears and prunes. In Shanmugam et al., (2013) review, they investigated the many possible pathways that U.A has proven to be anti-carcinogenic. All studies mentioned in the review are in vitro and in vivo, but success in multiple types of cancers including lung, colorectal, skin, leukemia, reproductive, hepatic and pancreatic are documented.

Considering an estimation that 1/3 of all cancer related deaths in the USA can be prevented through dietary modification (Venugopal & Lui 2012), the consumption of phytochemicals such as rosemary and ursolic acid containing fruits can create ample hope in the reduction and prevention of world-wide cancer rates – how cool is that!

A Breakfast to combat environmental toxins –  Leafy greens such as spinach, eggs, on organic wholemeal bread is a breakfast for raising champions especially for pregnant mothers.  Environmental toxins such as Bisphenol A (BPA) are commonly ingested and it is affecting our gene expression!

BPA is found in many consumer products, including water bottles and tin cans. Reports questioning the safety of BPA came out in 2008, prompting some manufacturers to stop using the chemical but it is still widely found in our environment.

Prenatal exposure to BPA changes our baby’s epigenome responsible for activating or silencing certain genes and so it has been found that BPA exposure increases the risk of obesity and diabetes later in life. But just as toxins can negatively affect gene expression we can also positively counteract this commonly found environmental toxin by eating foods rich in folic acid, B12, choline and betaine.

Foods such as leafy greens, egg yolk, sunflower seeds, beets, Tofu (organic and non-GMO of course) and animal protein sources, are high in methyl donating nutrients which positively effect healthy gene expression and in this case, help our future generation grow into healthy strong individuals.