8 Natural Remedies to Get Rid of a Headache

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

How to Naturally Get Rid of a Headache

Whether it’s waking up to a pulsing headache or getting hit with a migraine in the middle of a workday, the typical solution is to either power through or break out the painkillers.

If you’re tired of buying pills and worrying about potential side effects, you can turn to these natural remedies to alleviate your pain instead. The stressful situations of modern life aren’t going away anytime soon. That means you need a plan in place to stop headaches when they arise, or better yet, prevent them from occurring in the first place.

You could keep paying for pain medication. But the cost adds up over the years. Suffering through headaches can even have a negative impact on your mood and productivity – something that starts to take a toll on your body.

8 Natural Headache Remedies

All-natural remedies, on the other hand, have been used for thousands of years. Some of them help prevent headaches from happening while others ease symptoms after the fact. By combining natural treatments, you can put yourself in the best position to avoid pain – and minimize it when it does come.

Best of all, these natural remedies don’t raise concerns about adverse side effects like pain medications do. They’re safe and effective.

Here are eight great ones to get you started:

1. Magnesium

Magnesium plays a role in over 300 enzyme systems. These systems regulate diverse biochemical reactions ranging from synthesizing protein and controlling blood glucose to maintaining proper muscle and nerve function and a normal heart rhythm.

Unfortunately, magnesium deficiency is extremely common, affecting around 48 percent of the United States population.  Soil depletion (which lowers the magnesium available in crops), digestive disorders that limit absorption of magnesium in the gut, and high rates of antibiotic and prescription medication use all play a part.

Magnesium deficiency is especially common among women who suffer from menstrual migraines. Magnesium deficiency may be the cause of your headache.

Bulk up on broccoli, beets and squash!

Multiple scientific studies have revealed that people who are magnesium deficient are more likely to get headaches. The good news: supplementing with between 200 and 600 milligrams of magnesium daily helps reduce migraine frequency.

Magnesium works best as a preventive measure, requiring daily supplementation. Magnesium supplements are generally extremely safe. Side effects might include abdominal cramps and/or diarrhea, which you can alleviate by reducing your supplement dose.

Besides taking magnesium supplements, you can emphasize eating more magnesium-rich Paleo foods. Those include: broccoli, beets, squash, leafy greens, bananas, seafood, and all kinds of nuts and seeds.

2. Essential Oils

Of all the essential oils available, peppermint and lavender oils create a calming effect that makes them great for treating headaches.

Lavender oil is often used in aromatherapy to help you relax or wind down before bed. Research has also confirmed that it is effective in treating migraines.

A study published in European Neurology had people suffering from headaches inhale lavender oil and track the effects every half hour. 92 out of 129 participants responded favorably to the lavender oil treatment.

Peppermint oil stimulates blood flow to the forehead, helping to relieve that migraine.

Peppermint oil also works well, thanks to its cooling effect on the skin. This oil inhibits muscle contractions and stimulates blood flow to the forehead when applied topically.

Several studies from the 1990s (I would love to see more recent research here!) found that topical application of peppermint oil was effective in reducing symptoms of tension headaches, which are characterized by moderate pain and tightness or pressure around your forehead and the back of your forehead or neck. 

You can inhale essential oils or apply them topically. If you’d like to inhale them, just add two to four drops into a few cups of boiling water and inhale the vapors to ease your headache. To apply topically, just put a few drops on your hands and rub them into your forehead, temples, and the back of your neck.

Tip: One of my favorite ways is to dab a few drops onto my upper lip, just beneath my nose. If you want, you can add some oils into your next bath and really relax.

3. Feverfew

Herbs taste great and provide a host of health benefits. There are even a few herbs that effectively reduce headache pain – though you might have never heard of them!

The first is the feverfew plant, also known as Tanacetum parthenium. This plant has yellowish-green leaves and yellow flowers. It actually looks a bit like chamomile.

People have used feverfew for thousands of years for medicinal purposes. What is feverfew? It looks like chamomile, and can help ease the pressure of headaches.

When you get headache pains, blood vessels in your head expand and press on nerves. Feverfew helps relax constricted blood vessels, easing the pressure.

Feverfew is most effective when used as a regular prophylactic. One study found that people who took it had significantly less painful and severe headache symptoms than a placebo group. A systematic review of six clinical trials concluded that it was effective in preventing migraines without any major safety issues.

4. Butterbur

The second is butterbur (Petasites hybridus), a perennial from the daisy family found in Europe, Asia, and North America. It’s also been used for centuries as an herbal remedy to treat things like pain, fevers, and allergies.

In a trial conducted in the United States and Germany on 245 migraine patients, those who took butterbur supplements twice daily reduced their headache attacks by 58 percent over a four-month period. It seems to work best as a long-term solution, as the peak results were achieved three months into the study.

A Word of Caution About Butterbur: you should never ingest any part of the raw, unprocessed butterbur plant because it contains chemicals linked to liver toxicity.

Here is one of the few situations where processing is key. Manufacturers remove dangerous chemicals like pyrrolizidine alkaloids, making butterbur safe to consume.

You can find both of these herbs for a reasonable price at your local health food store, vitamin shop, or online.

5. Ginger

The ginger root offers all kinds of awesome health benefits – everything from preventing infections and increasing insulin sensitivity to reducing cholesterol and inflammation.

These anti-inflammatory effects can translate into decreased headache pain, as they help relax constricted blood vessels in the head.

Bonus points: ginger has also been shown to alleviate nausea, so if you’re dealing with a headache so serious that it’s making you feel queasy, ginger can help. The anti-inflammatory properties of ginger makes it a great cure for headaches, nausea and heartburn.

One study found that just one-eighth teaspoon of powdered ginger worked just as well as Imitrex (a top-selling anti-migraine drug) without the potential side effects like heartburn and vertigo. It also worked just as quickly to ease symptoms.

Another study found that a combination of ginger and the herb feverfew (see above) taken sublingually (beneath the tongue) was safe and effective as a first-line treatment for people who frequently experience mild headaches before moderate to severe ones.

You can always use more ginger to season your foods or consider ginger supplements. But the most convenient way to use ginger when those headaches strike is to brew up some ginger tea.

You can buy some ginger tea and keep it on hand, or make your own by slicing up a few quarter-sized slices of raw ginger and simmering them in boiling water. Once it cools down a bit, sip slowly and breathe in the steam. You can even make a paste out of ginger powder and water and apply it directly to your forehead for immediate relief.

6. Cayenne Pepper

Most of us think of cayenne pepper as a tasty spice for our foods, but it’s much more than that. Various cultures around the world have relied on it for centuries for a multitude of health benefits.

Believe it or not, cayenne pepper stimulates blood flow and reduces pain and inflammation. Most of the key benefits come from a compound called capsaicin. Capsaicin depletes substance P, a neuropeptide that acts as one of the main elements in our perception of pain.

This goes for headaches as well. Multiple studies found that when you apply cayenne pepper topically, there’s a significant decrease in headache severity.

Applying cayenne topically might be uncomfortable, but it’ll thwart your headache pains.

One of the easiest ways to apply cayenne powder topically is to dilute a tiny amount (around one-quarter teaspoon) into a few ounces of warm water.

Use a cotton swab to swirl it around and collect some of the diluted powder, then gently rub it on right outside each nostril until you feel a slight burning sensation. It might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s a small price to pay to alleviate nasty headache symptoms.

Avoid Your Eyes: If you decide to apply cayenne powder topically, proceed with caution. The last thing you want to do is accidentally rub some of that stuff in your eyes!

If the topical treatment is too uncomfortable, you can also pick up some capsaicin (the active ingredient in cayenne pepper) supplements at your local health food shop or online. These are pretty affordable, so you could take them daily for a preventive effect.

7. Vitamin B2

Vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, helps your body build red blood cells, converts food to energy, and supports other cellular functions that give you energy. It also has an antioxidant effect.

While we can find vitamin B2 in many different foods, it’s usually present in small amounts. If we aren’t careful, we might find ourselves deficient in this key vitamin. Vegans, vegetarians, and others who don’t eat a significant amount of animal protein are especially at risk of developing a deficiency.

Supplementing with vitamin B2 can also decrease headache symptoms. A study published in the European Journal of Neurology gave migraine sufferers 400 milligrams of riboflavin capsules daily. After tracking the effects for six months after treatment began, the researchers found that headache frequency decreased significantly, as did reliance on conventional anti-migraine medications.

An earlier study found that of 55 patients who took vitamin B2 daily for three months, around 60 percent of them experienced at least a 50 percent reduction in migraine frequency and the number of headache days. Vitamin B2, found in egg yolks and red meat, helps your body build red blood cells.

Vitamin B2 supplements are inexpensive and easy to find, whether you decide to purchase B2 specifically or a B complex (which might not contain as concentrated a dose of B2 but carries other benefits). Side effects are extremely rare, but can include diarrhea, urine turning a yellow color (as excess B2 is eliminated), or an increase in urine.

Rich Paleo food sources of vitamin B2 include: egg yolks, red meat, organ meats, salmon, tuna, almonds, and green vegetables.

8. Coenzyme Q10

Coenzyme Q10 (also called CoQ10) is often described as a “pseudo-vitamin”, or a vitamin-like substance. Like Vitamin B2, it plays an important role in improving energy metabolism.

CoQ10’s similarities to vitamin B2 inspired researchers to explore the possible headache-easing effects.

A study published in the journal Neurology of 42 migraine patients found that CoQ10 was more effective than a placebo treatment in reducing migraine attack frequency, headache days, and days with nausea. The supplements were also “well-tolerated”, meaning patients were able to take them without experiencing adverse side effects.

Another study found that while COQ10 is effective in treating headache symptoms, it takes some time to experience the benefits. Here, researchers gave 32 migraine headache patients a 150 milligram CoQ10 supplement daily and found that over 61 percent of them reduced their number of migraine days by more than 50 percent without any side effects. The results suggest that CoQ10 starts working within four weeks, but it takes longer (between five and 12 weeks) to significantly reduce migraine frequency.

To boost your CoQ10 intake through diet, focus on oily fish (like salmon and tuna) and meats – organ meats in particular.

CoQ10 supplements are widely available, but they tend to be more expensive than other more common supplements, like vitamin B2. One option might be to try B2 supplements first and see if you experience any improvement. If you are still struggling, consider making the investment in CoQ10.

Watch this video – A Scientific Way to Cure a Headache Without Painkillers

The Bottom Line

Unfortunately, you can’t avoid all the stressful situations that trigger headaches. Things like bad traffic, tight deadlines, and a busy schedule are hallmarks of modern life. But daily activities like meditation and yoga are simple ways to help de-stress after a long day.

So whether it’s drinking a warm cup of ginger tea or unwinding with lavender oil, you can take action to stop a headache in its tracks – without resorting to prescription pills.

Written by Corey Pemberton

Author Bio:

Corey Pemberton is a freelance writer, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, and Paleo health enthusiast. Ever since he discovered the ancestral health movement five years ago, he has explored different ways to incorporate ancestral wisdom into his nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle at large. One of his favorite topics is challenging long-held nutrition myths. Feel free to stop by his website or say hello on Twitter.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

What Foods to Eat to Prevent Brain Fog

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

7 Foods You Eat That Cause Brain Fog & What to Eat Instead

Brain fog is a murky symptom that can cause trouble with focusing, remembering, learning, and even really feeling connected to daily life.

It can be a short-term feeling or one that seems to constantly stick around.

While brain fog can have a number of different causes, like being stressed, having unbalanced blood sugar, or being low in iron, there are also dietary causes of brain fog.

If you remove these offending trigger foods, you might just swap a fuzzy brain for a mentally alert one that is on top of its game.

1. Gluten

Even if you don’t have celiac disease, gluten can still be problematic. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity can cause an inflammatory response in the body when gluten is ingested. Over time, regular consumption of gluten can lead to low or high levels of inflammation, which can impact the way that the brain functions.

Since part of the nervous system lives in the gut, when a food you’re eating aggravates your intestinal lining or some other aspect of digestion, it won’t be long before symptoms start trickling out to different parts of the body – the brain included.

Eat this instead: Swap gluten with Paleo-friendly flours like cassava or almond flour. They replace one-for-one in traditional baking, and come with a higher level of nutrient benefits. Cassava flour is a great option for people who are allergic to nuts, since it comes from a root plant that is neither nut, legume, or grain.

2. Refined Carbs and Sugar

While people may initially fall into eating sugar because it helps to stimulate and wake up the brain, long-term and chronic intakes of refined carbs, “white” flours, refined sugars, and corn syrup can lead to glucose problems as well as systemic issues with yeast overgrowth, also known as candida albicans.

Two of the main issues associated with yeast problems can be fatigue and brain fog, and whether they’re specifically caused by yeast or not, the brain typically responds better to diets with balanced levels of protein and healthy fats, and not those that are dependent on huge amounts of refined and empty carbs.

Eat this instead: Instead of refined sugars, choose sweets that use natural sweeteners instead, like raw honey or coconut sugar, which have less of a glycemic impact than cane sugar.

Limiting sugar is also essential, but sugar cravings will diminish or lessen when protein is eaten with every meal. If you must have carbs, choose vegetable, fruit, and nut-based carbs so that you’re balancing them with fiber and plenty of other nutrients.

3. Histamines

Histamines are often associated with seasonal allergens, but several foods contain histamines. In sensitive individuals, high histamine foods can have a similar hazy reaction that one might feel at the height of pollen season.

High histamine foods include alcohol, fermented foods, dairy products, shellfish, legumes, nuts, and chocolate.

While many foods contain some levels of histamines, high-histamine foods can induce symptoms quickly or produce low-level brain fog over a long period of time. If other histamine-related allergies are present, food histamine sensitivity could play a role, and brain fog may improve after some time spent on a low histamine diet.

Eat this instead: Meat, poultry, eggs, and salmon are all low in histamines, especially when they’re cooked fresh. Histamines can build in leftover foods, so prepare your foods fresh and don’t reheat. Most fruits and vegetables (with the exception of tomatoes, spinach, avocado, and eggplant) are low in histamines.

4. Caffeine

While coffee is the pick-me-up that many people like to start their day with, it can also cause a vicious cycle of dependence that can lead to increasing levels of brain fog as caffeine wears off.

The kicker is that the more caffeine you drink, the more likely you’ll be to experience brain fog, which could lead you to drink even more caffeine to clear your head. So the cycle of caffeine addiction goes, and eventually, the cycle might need to be broken.

If brain fog is a perpetual problem for you and you regularly consume more than 100 mg of caffeine daily, it might be time to switch to decaf.

Eat this instead: If you’re a coffee drinker, you have the option of decaf, and going with a darker roast will make the brew taste as strong as a typical cup of caffeinated coffee. You can also opt for energizing herbs and roots to help wean you off coffee.

If you’re a soda drinker or you get your caffeine from other sources, try sparkling water or kombucha, which can give a fizzy taste that is reminiscent of soda without the caffeine or sugar.

Coconut water is also a great way to keep energized throughout the day, as it includes replenishing electrolytes, potassium and vitamins.

Also, keep in mind that having a full night’s rest (about 7-8 hours of sleep) will reduce the need for using coffee (and caffeine in general) as a crutch to stay alert throughout the day.

5. Alcohol

Alcohol can contribute to brain fog, and not just if you happen to be hungover. Many forms of alcohol, especially beer, contain gluten, which, as already mentioned, can be a big brain fog trigger. Even without celiac disease or known non-celiac gluten sensitivity, certain genetics will make alcohol or gluten sensitivity more likely.

Compounding alcohol’s brain impairing effects, it is also extremely high in histamines, which, for people who are prone to allergies or general food sensitivity, can result in either immediate or delayed brain fog results – and sometimes both.

Eat this instead: If you’re looking for a fermented brew that won’t give you a gluten-y buzz, try kombucha. It’s rich in natural probiotics thanks to the fermentation process.

But if histamines are your issues, kombucha will make you feel just as bad since fermented foods are high in histamines, too. In this case, skip fermented brews altogether and focus on sparkling water infused with fruits or vegetables of choice for a delicious drink that will feel fancy without making your brain pay the price.

6. Artificial Sweeteners

Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners can have a profound effect on the body, whether it’s causing gut imbalances or increasing headaches and brain fog. Not only can aspartame suppress neurotransmitter production, like dopamine, it can cause inflammation in the brain and can actually wear down the brain’s blood brain barrier.

When that happens, aspartame can enter the brain and lead to the destruction of brain cells and the release of free radicals.

While that’s an extreme situation (in which brain fog is literally being caused by damage to the brain), it’s important to understand that the brain is not impervious to damage, and that dietary sources of inflammation can have significant and long-term impacts on health.

Eat this instead: Skip artificial sweeteners altogether since they’ve also been linked with cancer and focus on eating whole foods. If you want a zero-calorie sweetener that won’t cause weird side effects, use pure stevia leaf. It’s only needed in small amounts to increase sweetness, and has none of the toxic side effects of aspartame or other “fake” sugars.

7. Dairy

While most people associate dairy or lactose issues with digestive symptoms, subtler signs of food sensitivity can include brain fog. In more severe cases, allergy or long-term sensitivity can actually lead to mood disorders and autoimmunity.

If you’re already following a Paleo diet, you’ve already eliminated dairy. But if that’s been a big stumbling block for you, keep in mind that eliminating a food for a short time doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to eat it again.

While there are benefits to being dairy-free, especially if allergy or sensitivity is present, there are also some easy swaps to lessen the struggle of living a cheese-less life.

Eat this instead: Thanks to some ingenious Paleo and dairy-free recipes, there is such a thing as cashew cheese. When thrown into classic cheese-filled recipes, the texture and the taste is so close to the real thing and so much better for you. There are also numerous dairy alternatives to things like ice cream, yogurt, and even drinking milk, so a dairy-free life doesn’t have to be boring.

Watch this video – How To Cure “Brain Fog” | 3 Tips for Mental Clarity

Bottom Line: Brain fog can be a life-altering symptom and while the causes can vary, sometimes the fix is as simple as making some dietary changes. Even when you’re altering your diet for health reasons, it doesn’t have to be boring or deprived.

Written by Aimee McNew

Author Bio:

Aimee McNew is a Certified Nutritionist who specializes in women’s health, thyroid problems, infertility, and digestive wellness. She ate her way back to health using a Paleo diet, lost 80 pounds, and had a healthy baby after numerous miscarriages. She focuses on simple nutrition practices that promote long-lasting results.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

Here’s how to Personalize Your Nutrition Based On Genetics?

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

Nutrigenomics – Discovering What Your Genes Want to Eat

Nutrigenomics is an emerging field of study that shows how genes interact with lifestyle. Here’s how it can help you eat and live to maximize your health.

Your body isn’t just a static set of DNA and cells. Our bodies are biologically active, with genes that can be switched on or off based on environment, lifestyle, diet, and other factors.

So how do your genes really affect you, and how, in turn, can your diet, lifestyle, and behaviour influence what your genes are doing?

Nutrigenomics can help you discover the best nutritional plan for your unique body. Read on to see how it works.

What is Nutrigenomics?

Nutrigenomics is the study of the way food, diet, and nutrients impact genetic expression, and in turn, how specific genetic mutations dictate the way the body uses food.

It’s still an expanding field of research, but what has been discovered so far with nutrigenomics is life-changing. We have learned that diet plays a major role in risk factors for many diseases, and can even act on genes and change their expression.

Because everyone has a unique genetic makeup, one person might be more genetically prone to disease or sickness than another. However, simply having the gene for certain conditions doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to get them.

This is where nutrigenomics and epigenetics step in. Epigenetics is the study of how the environment – which includes diet, exercise, and lifestyle – can influence gene activity and effectively turn them “off” or “on”.

Nutrigenomics asserts that taking a personalized approach to diet and lifestyle based on genetics can prevent, treat, and even cure chronic disease.

Personalizing Diets to Decrease Risk of Disease

People mistakenly blame their genes when it comes to health and longevity, but only about 25 percent of longevity is based on cut and dried genetic factors. Most of it is determined by lifestyle, nutrition, mental health, stress levels, inflammation, and more – all factors that influence how genes work within the body.

The same is true for disease. For example, some people are more prone to autoimmunity than others, and the type and severity that develops is decided both by genes and external factors.

By understanding how your genes interact with the foods and nutrients that you take in, you’ll be able to shift your dietary and lifestyle choices away from those that negatively affect genetic expression and focus on the ones that have positive and protective results.

This is the ultimate in a personalized dietary program, the antithesis of “one size fits all” eating and the future of nutrition. As more advances in research are made, it will become easier for the everyday person to plug their genetic profile into an app of some sort and learn which foods and nutrients are protective and which should be avoided. Until that day comes, however, we’re limited to what research tells us at the moment.

Sifting through genetic results and determining which nutrients help or hurt expression is a time-consuming process. While there are hundreds of genetic mutations, only a few of them are well understood, both in how they impact health conditions and in the sorts of nutritional support they require.

This article will not prescriptively describe how to address specific mutations but will talk about the potential for diet customization that exists both currently and as the subject of ongoing research.

3 Ways Your Genes Determine What’s Good for You

Your body consists of a complex series of genes that exist as a unique switchboard. All individual switches must be turned on or off – there is no neutral state for genetic expression.

Your “master switchboard” is in a constant state of flux, and how you eat, live, sleep, move, and think all affect the current state of your switchboard.

While much in the field of nutrigenomics isn’t fully understood, we know that the following three areas are highly influenced by genetics.

1. The Way Your Body Uses Nutrients

Macronutrients and micronutrients are used differently by people based on many factors, including genetics. For example, some people can digest fat more easily than others, while others have a higher tolerance for carbs and sweets.

Not only do our genes need specific nutrients to function, but the foods that we digest are regulated in part by the genes that we have.

Take the mutation MTHFR C677T, perhaps the most well-known of all genetic building blocks. This genetic variant can reduce the body’s ability to use folate, which means the body needs extra folate to offset this genetic problem.

Whole foods like spinach and broccoli can provide more bioavailable forms of folate, which in turn can help the gene to better function. This same process is true for many genetic mutations, with many forms of macronutrients and micronutrients.

While tying specific nutritional support to everyone’s individual genetic set is an impossible task at the moment, most research indicates that the starting point to good genetic health and gene expression is eating a diet free from “fake” foods and nutrients.

Bottom line: Genes influence the way that the body uses macronutrients and micronutrients. Opting for real, unprocessed food is the starting point for good genetic health and gene expression.

2. Gut Health and Allergies

Allergies are another common way that genetics can have a huge say in what you can and can’t eat. People with immune-driven and anaphylactic allergies understand that, for whatever reason, they’re so sensitized to foods that they can’t eat them without endangering their lives. This is predominantly driven by underlying genetics.

While not all food allergies are genetic, those that involve the immune system typically are. Food sensitivity, on the other hand, can either be genetic or can be a result of gut health or other problems.

While not all allergies are passed from parent to child, all allergies are involved with gene expression.

Take lactose intolerance, for example. Although it’s not a true milk allergy, it’s a disorder caused by a genetic lack of the enzyme needed to break down lactose. Without a sufficient amount of this enzyme, the undigested lactose travels through the gut, wreaking havoc on your digestive system.

Still, this doesn’t mean that everyone who has a family history of lactose intolerance won’t be able to digest milk. Some will have the gene and it will be turned “on,” while others will have the gene and it will be turned “off,” aka not expressing.

It has long been thought that genetics largely shaped the type and amount of bacteria found in the microbiome, but recent research has shown that lifestyle and epigenetic factors, like diet, has a bigger role in determining what the gut landscape looks like.

The microbiome, in turn, has a large role in genetic expression, which is one major way that how we eat and live can directly influence how our genes work – either for us or against us.

Bottom line: Allergies are genetic, but just because a gene is present doesn’t mean a tangible allergy will exist.

3. Disease Development

Whether it’s looking to prevent obesity or to reduce a risk of developing cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, or more, nutrigenomics is being studied as a way to boost longevity by reducing the incidences of chronic and deadly diseases.

Many diseases are complicated by obesity, leading researchers to seek new ways to treat weight loss problems. Unsurprisingly, customized nutrition programs that take a person’s genes into account have proven to be more successful than one size fits all approaches.

Genetically personalized diets are also superior when it comes to maintaining a healthy glucose level, which can also be instrumental in optimizing body weight.

Cardiovascular and metabolic disorders are also well-researched in nutrigenomics, placing direct focus on how environmental and lifestyle factors interact with a few key genes, including the aforementioned gene variant C677T.

Heart disease risk is still going to dramatically increase when basic risk factors are present, like smoking, heavy alcohol intake and lack of exercise.

Inflammation is also strongly influenced by genetic expression, as shown by examples of people who live the same risky lifestyle, where one develops heart disease and the other outlives even healthier people. This shows that even people who don’t live pristine lifestyles can still have inactivated dangerous genes and activated protective genes.

Research will focus on epigenetics and nutrigenomics for a long time to come, but it will never be able to fully account for every aspect of a person’s lifestyle.

Bottom line: The way our lifestyle, nutrition, and overall environment interacts with our genes plays a huge role in our risk of getting diseases.

Should You Get Personalized Genetic Testing?

While there are definite upsides to understanding your genetics and being able to customize your lifestyle and diet to your exact needs, some people find the information overwhelming and even scary.

Knowing that you have a genetic potential for certain types of cancer or other chronic diseases, can feel like a doom-and-gloom experience. While the presence of a gene doesn’t mean it will express, it can be a lot of information to process at once. There are also concerns about the risk of this data being used someday to determine health or eligibility for insurance.

Still, some feel that the empowerment achieved through understanding their genetic risks and being able to take a proactive approach to their lifestyle makes them feel more in charge. This is especially true for people who already have a family history of disease and assume they’re at greater risk, too.

Options exist for personalized genetic testing that typically involve collecting a saliva sample and sending it off to a lab where it may take 2-8 weeks to get results. You may choose to share results with your healthcare providers.

Companies like Livewello and Promethease will analyze your genetic raw data for you and provide information to help distill the overwhelming amount of data. Certain practitioners also specialize in creating lifestyle programs according to your genetic health, many of which can be found by searching the practitioner database on Livewello.

The pros of testing are that it’s relatively inexpensive (less than $150 for most labs) and available for anyone to order. The cons are that you could find out that you have genetic tendencies toward chronic diseases which might be scary although working with a practitioner will help to hedge this fear.

Remember, you’re not just the sum total of your genes, and possessing a gene doesn’t mean you’ll automatically develop those disorders.

Watch this video – How to Personalize Your Nutrition Based On Genetics

Written by Aimee McNew

Author Bio:

Aimee McNew is a Certified Nutritionist who specializes in women’s health, thyroid problems, infertility, and digestive wellness. She ate her way back to health using a Paleo diet, lost 80 pounds, and had a healthy baby after numerous miscarriages. She focuses on simple nutrition practices that promote long-lasting results.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook