Whole Home Living - Helping Your Family & Your Home

Concerned About Environmental Toxins?

Protection from environmental toxins begins with minimizing your exposure - avoiding smoking and secondhand smoke, eating organic, pesticide-free foods, and reducing your contact with toxic chemicals are a good start. The herb milk thistle may also have beneficial, detoxifying effects: it has an excellent reputation for protecting and enhancing the function of the liver (the main organ responsible for processing toxins). Anyone who uses alcohol regularly, who takes drugs or medications that can harm the liver, who has abnormal liver function for any reason, or who works with solvents or has a history of toxic exposures should consider taking milk thistle. Look for extracts standardize to 70-80 percent silymarin, the active fraction, and take two capsules twice a day or as the label directs. Milk thistle is nontoxic and can be used for extended periods.

Allergy-Proof Your Home This Spring

Spring allergies are upon us already, and with one out of every four Americans suffering from Allergies or Asthma, many of us are in for a rough couple of months. Here are a few quick tips to help keep allergy symptoms at bay this season:

• Add front door mats to the outside and inside of your home. This decreases the likelihood that your family will track allergens inside on the bottoms of their shoes. In fact, consider making yours a “no shoes allowed” home.
• When vacuuming, be sure to use a modern vacuum cleaner fitted with a HEPA filter. Also be sure you’re getting all the particles up off the floor. It takes seven or eight passes over the same area to effectively remove all the dirt and dust trapped in your carpet. Most people don’t vacuum one spot long enough.
• Wash bed linens in hot water once a week. Washing laundry in hot water (140 degrees) kills 100% of dust mites and their eggs. Washing the same items in warm water…kills only 7% of dust mites!
• Trap allergens by installing a high efficiency filter on your heating and air conditioning system. Whole home solutions are more effective than in-room styles.

Asthma Prevention: Nutrition

Asthma is a common disorder that afflicts both children and adults. It is often viewed as mysterious in nature and frustrating to treat. If you have asthma - or allergies that aggravate it - try these four lifestyle changes to help reduce the number and severity of attacks.

1. Decrease protein to 10 percent of daily caloric intake. Replace animal protein as much as possible with plant protein
2. Eliminate milk and milk products, substituting other calcium sources.
3. Eat organically grown fruits and vegetables as much as possible.
4. Eliminate polyunsaturated vegetable oils, margarine, vegetable shortening, all partially hydrogenated oils that might contain trans-fatty acids, all foods that might contain trans-fatty acids (such as deep-fried foods).
5. Use extra-virgin olive oil as your main fat.
6. Always drink plenty of water to keep your respiratory tract secretions more fluid.
7. Experiment with eliminating (one at a time) wheat, corn, soy and sugar for six to eight weeks to see if the condition improves.

Preventing Asthma: Supplements

For acute asthma attacks, Dr. Weil recommends lobelia, or Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflate). Mix three parts tincture of lobelia with one part tincture of capsicum (red pepper or cayenne pepper ). Take twenty drops of the mixture in water at the start of an asthmatic attack. Repeat every thirty minutes for a total of three or four doses.

For long-term treatment of asthma, increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids (consider a high quality fish oil supplement) for their anti-inflammatory effects.
 

If you are looking for a whole home health consultant in Tennessee, then please call us today at 1-888-884-6299 or complete our online service request form.