Vegetable Juicing for Weight Loss

“Would juicing vegetables really help me lose weight? I’m thinking about all the juice you’d have to drink to feel satisfied and all the sugar you’d be consuming in the process.”

Well, according to some recent studies, drinking 8 oz. of fresh vegetable juice a day may help you lose weight. One of the most recent studies was presented in April 2009 at a medical convention in New Orleans. It found that study volunteers who drank one glass of vegetable juice every day lost an average of 4 lbs in 3 three months. Study participants who ate the same foods but didn’t add juice to their diets lost only 1 pound, on average.

Juicing is also a great way to get a little extra nutrition. In this study, for example, people who drank the juice had significantly higher intakes of minerals and vitamins—especially Vitamin C.

Oddly enough, the juice drinks actually had lower carbohydrate intakes than the non-juicers. Unfortunately, I can’t find details about what exactly was in the juice used in the study but if I had to guess, I would guess that these were pure vegetable juices that were most likely not make with fruit. Most of the serious “juicers” I know practice this—they’ll make the juice with vegetables like beets and carrots and then add just enough fruit to sweeten it enough to get it down.

So, to answer your question, yes, vegetable juice may help you lose weight. And, as always, if you’d like a medical opinion on juicing, talk to your doctor.

Cranberry Juice for UTI

“I know women use cranberry juice as a home remedy when they have a UTI but I don’t understand what you mean about bacteria sticking. I also don’t understand why sweetened cranberry juice would be better.””

Well, let’s take those questions one at a time and see if we can’t help you understand cranberry juice and UTI a little better.

In your digestive tract lives a germ known as E. coli. Even though nearly all of us have E. coli living in our digestive tracts, it can make us very, very ill if it gets to some other part of the body. In fact, if you watch a lot of news, you’ve probably seen stories about E. coli getting into water reservoirs or wells and making a lot of people sick.

What many people don’t realize about E. coli, though, is that it’s also the main germ in a urinary tract infection, or UTI. It causes about 85% of all cases. BUT—and this is the part that is really important—even if the bacterium gets into your urinary tract, it can’t cause an infection if it can’t stick to the walls of your bladder or the tubes that carry urine to or from it. In other words, the bacteria need a place to live before they can start to cause an infection.

What cranberry juice does is prevent the germs from grabbing hold and hanging on. Doctors used to think that cranberry juice worked by changing the pH of your urine but now we know that this isn’t true. Cranberry juice can’t really make your urine acidic enough to make a difference so now doctors believe it works by preventing adhesion.

So that’s how cranberry juice works to prevent an infection. But what about the debate over sweetened or unsweetened juice? Well, the reason I said sweetened cranberry juice is OK for people is that most of the studies that looked at cranberry for UTI actually used regular old grocery store brands of sweetened cranberry juice cocktail. If sweetened cranberry juice really “fed” the bacteria that causes an infection, the women in those studies would get more infections—not fewer.

Another reason why sugar can’t feed a bladder infection is that by the time the cranberry juice reaches your bladder, there isn’t any sugar left in it. Your body’s already used it all. In other words, there’s nothing left to “feed” bacteria because your body has already removed all the sugar. If you DID have sugar in your urine, it would mean that your kidneys were not working properly and you’d have much bigger problems than a simple bladder infection.

Ultimately, there’s just no evidence that the sugar in cranberry juice cocktail “feeds” an infection, despite what a lot of “natural” writers like to claim. Until someone can actually prove that the sugar in cranberry juice feeds an infection, I’m going to keep on saying that sweetened cranberry juice is just fine.

References:

Pinzón-Arango, P., et al. (2009). Role of Cranberry on Bacterial Adhesion Forces and Implications for Escherichia coli–Uroepithelial Cell Attachment. Journal of Medicinal Food.

Jasmine Essential Oil for Depression

“Does jasmine essential oil really help with depression?”

It’s one of the most common themes in all of aromatherapy—using jasmine oil for depression. Unfortunately, the scientific evidence for it is scant, at best. I think every do-it-yourself aromatherapy book I’ve ever read recommended jasmine oil for mild to moderate depression and much of that use seems to be based on a long history of folk use. But when I began to examine the scientific evidence for a client, I was surprised (and quite disappointed) to find that jasmine oil really hasn’t been studied for depression or much of anything else.

As far as I know, only one peer-reviewed study has looked at jasmine for depression. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a study of clinical depression but a study of depression related to menopause. And the study used jasmine in combination with other oils. And, it used them not as aromatherapy oils but in massage.

While the women in this study did report significantly fewer symptoms, it was impossible for researchers to say whether the effect was related to the oils or the massage itself. And, of course, since they studied the oils in combination, there’s no way to tell how “effective” the jasmine was.

Speaking from a strictly personal opinion, I am more than a little uncomfortable with people using aromatherapy as a first-line approach to depression. What evidence there is is scant—at best—and there are just far too many “natural” antidepressants that are proven. (And, of course, there’s the whole issue of people self-medicating in the absence of legitimate medical supervision.)

Now, you know what comes next: Only your doctor can give you medical advice. To get the facts you need to separate the folklore from the legitimate advice about using jasmine oil for depression, talk to your doctor.

Reference:

Hur, M, et al. (2008). Aromatherapy massage affects menopausal symptoms in korean climacteric women: a pilot-controlled clinical trial. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.