Your World and You: Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health – Issue 13 (Premium)

Environmental and Nutritional Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health

This feature highlights reports, studies, and feedback from families on efforts that can make a positive impact in our quest for health. Topics we cover in this issue are included below. We invite you to share material with us that you think would be of interest to our readers.

Topics featured in this article:

1. Fight toxins with broccoli?
2. Finding healthy stuff for the home when the toxins are hidden.
3. Expert Dr. Tamar Chansky answers questions on stress and anxiety
4. Organic food proven more nutritious than conventional counterparts.
5. Why the “birds and the bees” are in big trouble.
6. Now scientists say kids are getting phthalates from their food, not just plastics!
7. Recommended substitutions for gluten-free baking

1) Fight toxins with broccoli?

Whether you are a broccoli lover or not, this research should grab your attention. A study of 300 Chinese adults found that drinking a beverage made with broccoli sprouts led to a high rate of excretion of the harmful chemicals benzene and acrolein. An article in NPR explains: “Benzene and acrolein are pretty common. If you’re pumping gas at a gas station, you’ll breathe in a little benzene, and if you’re smoking or around smokers, you’ll take in acrolein (and some benzene, too). If you live in a place with heavy pollution, you may get a big enough dose of benzene to make you sick — though that can be tough to prove.” Lately, scientists have been zeroing in on a compound called glucoraphanin that seems to have a protective effect against these and other toxins. Eating Broccoli May Give Harmful Chemicals The Boot