Allergies got you down? FOUR tips to get you back up!

Summer Allergies

Local Honey and other bee products
Hydration
Fresh fruits and veggies
Herbs, cacao, and medicinal mushrooms

Spring is beautiful as all the trees and plants are starting to grow and bloom. If you, like many others, suffer from allergies you might not see all the blooms with the same enthusiasm. When a foreign substances enters the body that the immune system believes its a threat, even though it isn't, it will take the actions that it would if it where a threat. Allergens are the name given to these foreign substances.The body does by through stimulation of the mast cells to release histamine and other chemical mediators. This is where the runny or congested nose, itchy eyes, scratchy throat, etc... comes in. Going the natural route is looking better with each study showing the complications that can come from antihistamines. (i.e. links to Alzheimer's, dementia, etc...)

Local Honey and Other Bee Products

The history of human honey use dates as far back as human history itself. The gathering of honey even

being depicted in old cave paintings. It's even believed that mead, honey wine, is the oldest alcoholic beverage (its easy to make, just add water). Bees are extremely important to modern society. Its estimated that it would cost approximately $40 billion dollars worth of crops in the US alone if bees went extinct as they are used to pollinate 80% of America's produce. In the last 5 years the nations bee population has dropped an estimated 30%. Some places are a lot worse than others. For example Iowa's bee population has dropped about 70% and California's, a top honey producing state, has only been producing half the amount of honey since 2011. Einstein believed that if bees went extinct that the human race would last about 4 years.

Bee Products and Allergies

Choosing to consume local bee products (this includes honey, bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly) you will get exposed to different allergens in small doses. Bee products have been successfully used to treat allergy symptoms in studies. Choosing bee products also helps supports bee farmers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24188941

In fact in one study, link provided above, where participants ingested in separate doses 1 g/kg body weight of honey daily for 28 days and had there symptoms checked at 4 and 8 weeks. They where compared against a control group eating honey flavored corn syrup and a group on the antihistamine loratadine, the active compound in Claritin. At 4 weeks the control group showed no change, but the honey group and the loratadine group had about the same relief of symptoms. Finally at the 8 week the loratadine group showed no further improvement, but the honey group continued to show improvement even though they where no longer consuming the honey. Furthermore the participants in the honey group reported a relief of symptoms months after they stopped consuming honey.

Crucial FOUR Farms

At Crucial FOUR Farms we have decided to be proactive about the bee population problem, by getting bees! It takes about a year for them to produce enough excess honey for it to able to be extracted from the hive. We currently have two hives that are in the beginning phase of actually colonizing the bee boxes. If you want to follow the progress of our bees there are updates on Crucial FOUR Farms social media.

https://www.facebook.com/Crucial-FOUR-Farms-259183921174495/

Hydration

When the body is dehydrated it takes different actions to get you

to take a drink. One of these actions is the release of histamine. This is because histamine controls where the water ends up in the body to help ration it. With the increase in histamine seasonal allergies will get worse. If you don't have seasonal allergies, dehydration can give you symptoms that make it seem like you do. You can always go by the old adage of drinking eight 8 oz glasses. I personally like to drink water in the morning until my urine is clear. I also add a pinch of our Icelandic salt in my water as it aids in hydration and salt has an antihistamine effect as well.

Fresh Fruits and Veggies

Starting off there are tons of compounds in fruits and veggies that have a beneficial effects when it comes

to histamine. Flavonoids are plant pigments that, among many other things, inhibit histamine release. The flavonoid quercetin has been shown to be particularly effective effect on allergy symptoms as it not only inhibit the release of histamine, but it also down regulates the gene that regulates severity of allergy symptoms (H1R Gene). Flavonoids also emhance the effectiveness of vitamin c, which also has antihistamine properties. Last thing I would like to touch on in this section is capsaicin, the compound in peppers that make them hot. Allergies can cause quite the discharge from the nose and capsaicin prevents excess fluid secretion.

Herbs, Cacao, and Medicinal Mushrooms

Many of the reasons for this category is also the reason for the other category. Chocolate in its raw form is one of the highest, if not the highest, flavonoid containing food there is. It also has a good amount of vitamin c, and as mentioned earlier both have antihistamine effects and flavonoids enhance the effectiveness of vitamin c. Speaking of vitamin c,the camu camu is the highest known source of this vitamin. Camu camu is the sole ingredient in mDefense. White blood cells have 15 times the vitamin c receptors of any other cell. A strong immune system will help alleviate allergy symptoms. This is where the medicinal mushrooms come in. They strengthen the immune system with the beta glucans they contain. Reishi mushroom in particular have been found to be particularly effective against pollen allergies.

If any of these herbs and such mentioned above or have more questions stop by our award winning wellness center in Addison and we can talk. The Cacao and medicinal mushrooms can be found in our meal replacement shake mBreakfast. We also have reishi by itself in the form of spore oil caps in our mTranquil and our mDefense contains camu camu. mDefense comes as a powder or a capsule for your convenience. These can all be found at the online store as well!

https://woo.crucialfour.com/