Digestive Care, Stomach Ulcers, Dyspepsia

Laboratory Studies
In laboratory tests the UMF antibacterial property present in UMF Manuka Honey has been found to inhibit, in vitro, the growth of the bacteria helicobacter pylori.
Helicobacter Pylori is believed to cause most stomach ulcers, dyspepsia and peptic ulcers.
The peroxide antibacterial activity of other honeys (including ordinary manuka honey) was found not to be effective against helicobacter pylori.
Studies are also showing that the good bacteria in the stomach are not affected by the UMF property.

Shirley in England beats h.pylori. Read Shirley's story.
* Click Here to Order Genuine UMF16+ Manuka Honey

Anecdotal Testimonies.
Anecdotal testimonies People from many parts of the world who have used SummerGlow UMF16+ Manuka Honey for stomach ulcers and gastric problems have reported feeling much better after having the honey.
Many also found that a very high UMF level (such as SummerGlow UMF16+) is much more effective than lower UMF levels which just meet the UMF standard or manuka honey which does not have UMF.

Shelly in USA says "Thank you for helping my husband to be healthy again." Read Shelly's testimony

How to Have SummerGlow UMF16+ Manuka Honey For Digestive Health.
*Try having a teaspoon to a tablespoon of SummerGlow UMF16+ Manuka Honey three to four times a day, ideally one hour before meals and again at bedtime.
*Try to have nothing to drink immediately after having the honey so as not to dilute the honey.
*Having the honey on bread, toast or cracker biscuit holds the honey in the stomach for as long as possible.
*Many people have experienced good results if they have the honey straight from the teaspoon.
*SummerGlow UMF16+ Manuka Honey is pure honey so it does not interfere with regular medications.
*Adjust the amount and frequency to suit your own needs. Most people have a generous amount of the honey initially, then reduce it as they feel warranted.
*A little discomfort was experienced by a few for a very short period.

Stinging Trees

Arguably the most painful plant in the world, the giant stinging tree grows in the rainforests of coastal Queensland and New South Wales, eastern Australia. They like to grow in areas near river courses, especially in clear or disturbed areas. They are supposed to gow to about 40 metres high, but the largest ones at Barrington Tops National Park grow to about 20 metres high, with a trunk about 0.5 metres in diameter. The bark is light in colour, and older trees, you can touch the trunk without being stung.

The leaves, however, are covered in silica - glass - spikes, and when touched causes immediate pain which can last for days. The young trees grow rapidly. They are a rainforest pioneer species. The wood is very soft and if a tree is felled it will rot away within months.

The leaves of the tree are heart shaped and usually have large gaping holes in them caused by beetles. The leaves are covered in dense hairs which the tree uses to sting it predators. Each tiny silicon hair contains neurotoxin and on touch they break off and inject the venom. Even dead leaves can sting. My wife was severely stung by a dead leaf at the bottom of a shallow pool at Dorrigo National Park. It took days for the sting to subside.

There are only male flowers or female flowers on a giant stinging tree. Giant stinging trees are easily recognised from the six other species of Australian stinging tree. For starters, they are big. The tree is easily identified by its large, heart shaped leaves, covered with dense hairs. The leaves are often full of holes; this is caused by a beetle which eats the leaves. Flowers are yellow-green, and the fruit is a small nut on an expanded fleshy stalk resembling a mulberry in colour and texture. These stalks are an important winter fruit for the Green Catbird and the Regent Bowerbird.

Stinging trees grow right along the east coast of Australia. They grow only if they get both strong sunlight, and protection from the wind. Stinging trees play an important part in the ecology of a rainforest. Many native Australian animals, birds and insects are not bothered by the sting, and happily devour the leaves and fruit. Red legged pademelons - small fat wallabies about the size of a small dog, reportedly love eating the leaves. They are certainly endemic in locations where stinging tress grow.

You need thick gloves to stop a stinging tree. Cotton or denim is not sufficient to ward off a sting. The silicon hairs penetrate your skin, and then break off. They're so tiny, that often the skin will close over the hairs. So sometimes, once you've been stung, you can't remove the stinging hairs. What's worse is that you can get stung even after the leaf is dead. My wife once stepped on an almost completely rotted leaf at the bottom of a river bed, and was severely stung by the dead leaf. There are reports that the stinging hairs can be potent for decades after the leaf has died.

Eastern Water Dragons

A colony of about 15 Eastern Water Dragons live in my backyard in Sydney Australia. The back yard is steep, very rocky, has a swimming pool, and is full of small caves - perfect lizard territory.

Eastern Water Dragon males can grow to about one meter long. The length is mostly tail - their bodies are fairly short and stout. They are striped in a similar way to Sydney Blue Tongue lizards, but are immediately differentiated because of their very long toes and spiky crest which starts at the head and extends down the back. The females are much smaller - often only about one third to one half the size of the males.

The males are territorial after a fashion. They'll chase each other all day, and can be quite aggressive to each other, especially during the mating season. However, at night I've often found two competing males lovingly curled up with each other in the swimming pool filter box - one of their favourite haunts.

Eastern Water Dragons are not called Water Dragons for nothing - they love water, and at the first sign of danger - such as a neighbour's cat - they will all head for the swimming pool and dive to the bottom. Other places on the internet say they can stay underwater for up to half an hour. That's not true, they can stay underwater for at least three hours, and probably a lot longer. On cool autumn mornings I have often found a lizard or two, eyes tightly closed and in a stupor at the bottom of the pool - they look like they have been there for hours, and won't come up for air until two or three hours have elapsed from the time I've found them. I think the lizards use the pool as a sort of heat sink - when the air temperature is cooler than the water, they'll stay in the pool all day. Often when cleaning the pool I'll have to remove several lizards from the filter box. They act like they are in a state of suspended animation - there's no reaction at all when you touch them, but the second their skin comes in contact with the air (as you drag them out of the filter box), they'll wake up and struggle out of your hands. They seem to be very strong.

Feeling Seasick?

Oceans cover most of our planet, yet we know very little about marine ecosystems and even less about their pathogens and how they might infect us. When virologist Alvin Smith was working as a veterinarian for the U.S. Navy, he found that one marine virus called Vesivirus was causing a multitude of symptoms in a very wide range of animals - and could also spread from animals to humans. More recently, along with a team of researchers from Oregon State University, Eastern Virginia Medical School and AVI BioPharma, he has been studying how prevalent Vesivirus is in the general human population.

Vesivirus can infect a broad range of species due to an adaptive trait that has developed based on its replication mechanisms. Part of a family of viruses called Calciviruses, its genetic information is coded with RNA, not DNA. RNA replication lacks the proofreading inherent in DNA replication, making it very error-prone. Every virus replicated will have one to ten mistakes in the genetic code. Thus, the children from a single parent will virtually all be unique variants.

Although Vesivirus is present in the ocean, it can easily get to the surface. Much like the spray that comes off a freshly poured glass of soda, it can become airborne by erupting in bubbles at the surface of the water. "If you think about it, the ocean is a much easier place for a virus to get around anyway," says Smith. "When the viruses are shed, they're in basically a big bag of saline, so they can move around pretty freely and don't decay nearly as rapidly as they might on land."

Smith's theory was that many people could be unknowingly infected by the virus. It does not have a specific set of symptoms and can sometimes manifest itself simply as a blister - as exemplified by two scientists a few years ago who contracted the virus, one in the lab and one by working with marine mammals in the field. "If you don't know it's there, and you don't know to test for it, then it simply doesn't exist," says Smith.

Herbal Remedies Reviewed

Many people are now choosing to cut out the middleman by treating their medical problems themselves with herbal supplements. The face of herbal medicine, once dominated by patchouli-scented hippies and gauzy New Age types, is changing. Soccer moms are treating their children's colds with chicken soup and echinacea and college students fuel all-night study sessions with energy drinks boasting ginkgo and ginseng. Even in your local convenience store, snacks and drinks touting herbal ingredients are slowly encroaching on traditional junk food territory.

Every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conduct a health survey of American households and a variety of other groups may request supplemental surveys as well. In 2002, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which studies everything from yoga to acupuncture, sponsored a supplemental survey to measure herbal and dietary supplement use.

What the Survey Said

Jae Kennedy of Washington State University used this information to provide the first detailed national portrait of herbal medicine in the U.S., which was published in Clinical Therapeutics in January 2006. He found that echinacea, ginseng, ginkgo and garlic were, in that order, the most common herbs regularly taken by Americans. Nearly one fifth of Americans (38.2 million people), regularly took at least one type of herbal or dietary supplement. This number had doubled in only three short years since the previous survey in 1999 and is likely to be even higher now.

Kennedy found that regular herbal and dietary supplement use was higher among women, middle-aged adults, and college graduates. People with multi-racial, Asian, or Native American backgrounds also reported a higher usage. Using herbs and dietary supplements seems to be part of a concerted effort to improve health: generally, herbal supplement users exercise regularly, no longer smoke cigarettes, and report being in good or excellent health.

Kennedy's findings also show that most people use herbal medicine to complement conventional medicine, not to replace it. "For some conditions like depression and chronic pain, herbs might be a less toxic, less extreme kind of solution," says Kennedy. "These kinds of conditions are tough to treat effectively with conventional drug treatment."

What's In A Breath of Fresh Air?

When ocean waves crash onto a beach, they could be doing more than entertaining beach goers. Moving water, moving air and sunlight all cause air molecules to break apart, releasing charged atoms, or ions, into the atmosphere. Some scientists claim that there is an abundance of negatively charged ions in sea air and that they could have health benefits which range from better circulation to improved moods. A lot of people have enough faith in these effects to purchase negative ion generators for their homes. But have these curative claims ever been satisfactorily verified?

Ocean air contains a high percentage of ions which a surfer will inevitably encounter in their quest to find the perfect wave. These mainly come from ions of sodium, magnesium, chloride and sulphate present in sea water.

Sodium, the main positive ion found in sea water, is also found in extra-cellular fluids in our bodies. These fluids, such as blood plasma, bathe cells and carry out important transport functions for nutrients and waste. Positive magnesium ions are also used by the body and are an ingredient of some medicines like Epsom salts, which are commonly used to treat aches and pains. Negative chloride ions also play an important physiological role in the central nervous system and in transporting protein around the body.

But do these ions actually change the way we feel? The theories advocating the medicinal properties of ions tend to focus on the effects of breathing them in. It is thought that the extra charge helps our bodies take in oxygen and thus increases oxygen flow to the brain.

Ecological niche

More formally, the niche includes how a population responds to the abundance of its resources and enemies (e.

g., by growing when resources are abundant, and predators, parasites and pathogens are scarce) and how it affects those same factors (e.

g., by reducing the abundance of resources through consumption and contributing to the population growth of enemies by falling prey to them).

The abiotic or physical environment is also part of the niche because it influences how populations affect, and are affected by, resources and enemies. The description of a niche may include descriptions of the organism's life history, habitat, and place in the food chain.

According to the competitive exclusion principle, no two species can occupy the same niche in the same environment for a long time..