Natural Way Health Blog

Prostate Cancer and Stress

Although more men may be saved from dying of prostate cancer due to advances in screening and treatment, a new study suggests that emotional stress (which causes an increase of metabolic acid in the blood and then tissues) from being diagnosed with the disease carries deadly risks. A study of more than four million Swedish men over the age of 30 found that the diagnosis of prostate cancer, which occurred in more than 168,000 of them during the study period, amplified the risk of fatal heart problems and suicide.

In men who were diagnosed before 1987, the risk of a fatal heart attack during the week following diagnosis increased 11-fold, and the risk of suicide increased 800 percent. After 1987, the risks of suffering a non-fatal heart attack during the first week of diagnosis fell to 300 percent. But the risk of suicide, although small, held steady. During the year following diagnosis, the risk of both heart attacks and suicide diminished but did not disappear.

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Red – Means Go

Tomato-y Treats That Are Truly Tops

Whether it’s revving up our veggie burgers or toning down our barbecue sauces, ketchup is one condiment few people could live without.

So squeeze more out of it by going organic. Organic ketchup packs three times more lycopene than the regular stuff and almost twice the level of flavonoids. Here’s what all that extra nutrition means for your body. Lycopene gives fruits (like tomatoes!) and veggies a rich red color, and it may give your body a leg up on loads of diseases — from cancer to clogged arteries.

Here are a few more tricks for getting more lycopene from your tomatoes with less effort:

1. Slice, dice, or puree them. Processing tomatoes helps unleash the lycopene.

2. Eat them with a bit of fat. Lycopene must latch on to fat (so you might as well make it healthy, like olive oil) to be absorbed by the intestinal wall.

3. Heat ’em up. Heat converts the lycopene in red tomatoes into a form that’s easier for your body to absorb.

And what about that superfood synergy we were talking about creating…

Well, here is an easy way to boost the power of another favorite tomato-y food: salsa. Just because good things are in your salsa doesn’t mean you’re getting all the good out of it. If you toss some avocado chunks into the spicy red stuff, you’ll absorb 400 percent more lycopene from the tomatoes.