Health updates

The following is information regarding the adverse reactions of sugar in soda drinks and using ginger for treating and preventing ovarian cancer.

What happens within the first hour of drinking a cola:

• 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system, which is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake. You would normally vomit from such an intake, but the phosphoric acid cuts the taste of the sugar.
• 20 minutes: Your blood sugar skyrockets. Your liver attempts to maximize its insulin production in order to convert these high levels of sugar into fat.
• 40 minutes: As your body finishes absorbing the caffeine, your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises and your liver pumps more sugar into your bloodstream.
• 45 minutes: Your body increases dopamine production, tricking you into feeling pleasure and adding to the addictiveness of the beverage.
• 60 minutes: The sugar or glucose crash begins. As the blood sugar drops, the body craves more sugar.

Ginger inhibits ovarian cancer cell growth

According to a new study, ginger may be useful for treating and preventing ovarian cancer. The spicy root not only has antioxidant and cancer-fighting properties, but the study also found that the ginger component gingerol exerts anti-inflammatory effects by mediating NF-KB, a protein complex that regulates your immune system’s response to infection.

In the study of cultured ovarian cancer cells, ginger inhibited growth and modulated the secretion of angiogenic factors, which is a fundamental step in the transition of tumors from a dormant state to a malignant state.

It was found that ginger also inhibited vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin-8 (IL-8), two compounds related to cancer growth.

Resources: Chinese Medicine News, January 2, 2008; BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, December 20, 2007, 7:44; and www.organicconsumers.org.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 27, Number 1, February/March 2008.