Nature's Health :: Health Library

MSM: Best Known for Joint Support and also Enhances Skin Softness

Saturday, 25 December 2010 16:10 |

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When you think of essential minerals, sulfur probably isn’t the first item that comes to mind. But organic forms of this bright-yellow element shine within every single cell and none more brightly than Methylsulfonylmethane, commonly abbreviated to MSM. MSM helps form a vital connective tissue component and thus is best known as a joint supplement par excellence. But skin is made of same basic stuff – a strong, protein-based substance called collagen – so it isn’t surprising that MSM provides cosmetic benefits as well.

Prostate Protection: How Saw Palmetto Helps Protect Your Prostate

Thursday, 16 December 2010 10:57 |

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You’ve watched your dad struggle with a pesky prostate and you’re sure you don’t want that kind of trouble: those night-time trips to the bathroom, the anxiety about cancer. Who needs that kind of grief? Still, you’ve read the headlines about Saw Palmetto, but you don’t know how much about them. But you certainly don’t want to spend half your time at movie theater in the men’s room and, most of all, you don’t want to lose your prostate, the gland whose function is extremely important to you.

Certainly the prostate tends to provoke problems. A walnut-sized gland that surrounds the urethra at the neck of the bladder, one of the prostatic duties is to secrete fluid for sperm. When a man ejaculates, 90% of his ejaculate consists of prostate fluid, which protects sperm.

Calcium May Prevent Colon Cancer

Thursday, 16 December 2010 10:52 |

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Calcium supplements may help prevent colon cancer by forestalling colorectal polyps (benign tumors in the large intestine that can turn cancerous). Research shows that calcium supplements may slow recurrence of polyps in those who have had them removed and prevent the development of polyps in people who have never experienced them before. Colon cancer is the third most common cancer in US and accounts for about one in ten cancer deaths.

In a study published in the January issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, studied more than 800 people whose average age was in the early 60s. These folks had each had at least one polyp removed from the large intestine. Researches divided study participants into two groups – those taking daily calcium supplements and those taking placebo (dummy) pills.