Doctors Health Press

The Tree Bark That Fights High Blood Pressure
—A Special Report from the Doctors Health Press Board

One in 10 adults suffers from kidney (or renal) disease, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Here is something not many people might have known: high blood pressure (hypertension) is a leading cause of that kidney disease.

When you have chronically high blood pressure, it damages the kidneys and impairs the organ's ability to filter waste and remove excess fluids from the body.

A new study in the "Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics" shows that pine bark extract can counteract the kidney damage caused by hypertension and improve the blood flow to these all-important organs. The pine bark extract tested was the trademarked "Pycnogenol" brand, which is leading the charge on these studies.

The possibilities surrounding the extract of a French maritime pine tree have been increasingly recognized over the past decade. It is a herbal remedy definitely on the upswing. Kidney disease is an interesting new possibility. It is a common problem for people with hypertension, with both being silent threats to the body.

The randomized, controlled study conducted in Italy investigated 55 hypertensive patients who showed early signs of impaired kidney function. The early signs were high levels of proteins in their urine. Both groups were treated with a common drug for hypertension, but one group of 29 patients took pine bark extract as well. Urine was collected during a 24-hour period at the beginning of the study, and again six months later.

All patients had an average protein level of 89 mg at first. This is far higher than 30 mg, a sufficient level for kidney function. After six months of the drug, average protein levels decreased to 64 mg per 24-hour period. But the group adding in pine bark had an average of 39 mg per 24-hour period. That would be a nearly doubled decrease.

What's more is that pine bark also led to a significant decrease in blood pressure. Pine bark lowered both systolic and diastolic levels up to six percent further than the antihypertensive drug alone. And the herbal extract also lowered levels of inflammation known to raise the risk for cardiovascular events such as heart attack.

Talk to your doctor about pine bark extract and what it could mean for your blood pressure levels, should they be high.

How Does Your Supermarket Keep Produce?
—by Jeff Jurmain, MA

Your health is in part dependant on the quality of fruits, vegetables and other foods offered by your local grocery stores. Judging by the results of a new U.S. study, it may be worth asking the manager of your preferred supermarket a few questions about how they store their vegetables. Because your nutrients levels depend on it.

Researchers have just discovered that the lights inside supermarkets help keep spinach fresh. And more than that: the lights help the leafy green vegetable keep producing new vitamins.

The study was published in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry" and could lead to new strategies in grocery stores. But now, with such information in hand, any consumer is free to inquire about the lighting surrounding fresh produce -- not only when the store is open, but when it is closed as well.

Most importantly, the experiment suggests ways to boost the level of nutrients found in fresh foods. And that doesn't mean in a modern chemical way, but in simply keeping the plant's natural evolution active.

In grocery stores, spinach is often displayed in clear containers, at a temperature just under 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and under fluorescent light all day and night. The new study came about simply to answer the question of whether this was good or bad for the produce.

Spinach was selected because it is routinely found across the nation and is an absolute reservoir of essential nutrients. As a dark leafy green, spinach is a member of the cruciferous family of vegetables, the most nutritious in the world.

In a lab, they tested fresh spinach leaves under non-stop light or darkness for between three and nine days.

They found that spinach kept under lights had much higher levels of folic acid, vitamins C, E and K, as well as the nutrition powerhouse natural chemicals lutein and zeaxanthin (known famously for their ability to protect our eyesight from decline).

That spinach left in the dark? Those green leaves lost nutrients, and it's clear why that happened. Even after harvested, salad greens don't stop with photosynthesis, the natural process involving light and gas that helps plants live. If we deprive leafy greens of light, we deprive them of photosynthesis.

So ask around your supermarket. Do they turn the lights off at night?

"Wii" video gaming has become popular with kids and adults alike. It's fun and entertaining and can help pass an hour after a busy day at work or school. But who would have thought that gaming would ever have any health benefit -- and a pretty significant one at that!

According to Toronto researchers, recovering stroke patients whose physical therapy regimen is built around Wii video games appear to improve better than patients treated with standard therapies.

In case you haven't yet had a chance to play Wii, the Nintendo gaming system allows you to interact physically in real time with images displayed on TV screens through the use of wireless motion-detection remote controls.

Researchers at the University of Toronto recruited 20 stroke survivors, average age 61, all of whom were recovering from mild to moderate strokes. The stroke survivors were randomly divided into two groups. One group was assigned to standard recreational therapy for impaired arms, involving the playing of card games or the block-stacking game Jenga. A second group was assigned to Wii-based therapy, either playing virtual tennis or cooking virtually (through "Wii tennis" or "Wii Cooking Mama").

The Wii-based therapy required participants to use movements that mimic the arm strokes required in a tennis match or those needed for cutting potatoes, peeling onions, slicing meat and shredding cheese. Both the recreational and Wii-based therapies were administered in eight 60-minute sessions spread over two weeks.

The researchers found that, after two weeks, patients' affected arms in the Wii group showed greater improvements than in the recreational group, as measured in terms of the speed and grip strength necessary for normal motor function. The Wii therapy group produced a 30% better improvement than recreational therapy in the time it took for the Wii patients to execute a task, and in how well they were able to execute that task.

The researchers commented on the promise of Wii being an effective rehabilitation program in terms of time invested and money spent. It seems that traditional rehabilitation is time- consuming and it's not always available to all patients, based on cost and insurance constraints. But the high-intensity, repetitive nature of Wii therapy seems to offer quick benefits, and it's widely available.

The researchers caution that more clinical trials should be performed before Wii gaming is adopted as an accepted rehabilitation therapy. But they are excited by their research findings, as Wii therapy would be much more convenient than normal therapy, because patients could do it at home.

The Tree Bark That Fights High Blood Pressure
Press release, "Study shows pine bark reduces blood pressure,
counteracts kidney damage caused by hypertension," MWW
Group, March 3, 2010.

How Does Your Supermarket Keep Produce?
Lester, G., et al., "Relationship between Fresh-Packaged
Spinach Leaves Exposed to Continuous Light or Dark and
Bioactive Contents: Effects of Cultivar, Leaf Size, and Storage
Duration," Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2010; 58 (5): 2,980-2,987.

This Game Is Helping Stroke Patients Recover
Mamdani, M., et al., "Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exercises
in STroke Rehabilitation (EVREST): rationale, design, and
protocol of a pilot randomized clinical trial assessing the Wii
gaming system," Int. J. Stroke, Feb. 2010; 5(1): 47-51.

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