[lou_lou]

Eat Your Orange Peel!

Everyone knows that citrus fruits -- oranges,
lemons, and grapefruits -- are a healthy food.
Packed with vitamin C and bioflavonoids,
citrus fruits are to many of us the fresh,
sunny taste of good health. But while many
people may enjoy the flesh of oranges as a
regular part of their healthy diet, few of us
eat the intensely-flavored peels of these fruits.
That might turn out to be a major error in
judgement. New research suggests that we
may have been throwing away the best part
of the fruit!

For some years now, scientists have been
quietly investigating limonene, the major
component of the essential oil in orange
peels, as a potential anti-cancer nutrient.1 In
animal models, limonene powerfully
prevents tumors of the breast, liver,
stomach, skin, and lung, whether given
before exposure to a cancer-causing agent, or
even after the first cancerous cells have
formed.

Partly, limonene seems to work by
enhancing the body’s phase II
detoxification enzymes, which make
cancer-causing chemicals more readily
excreted by the body in the urine or bile; as
well, limonene appears to induce
programmed cell suicide (apoptosis) and
to block a step (isoprenylation) required for
the proteins made by cancer genes
(oncogenes) to wreak their havoc. Most
excitingly, limonene appears to somehow
induce “redifferentiation,” forcing rogue
cancer cells to settle down and return to their
normal functions in the body.

Studies are under way to
see if limonene can be
used by people with
cancer.

Citicoline Heals Brain Damage:

Cytidine diphosphate choline, or Citicoline
for short, is an orthomolecule with a vital job
to play in manufacturing the brain’s
phospholipids (like phosphatidylserine
[PS] and phosphatidylcholine [PC]). In a
recent article (see “PS: Remember Your
Citicoline!” in The Holistic Lifestyle 1[5]), we
reviewed some of the evidence that
Citicoline provides powerful nutritional
support in many serious disorders of the
brain, as well as in the loss of memory
associated with “normal” aging.

Much of the research on Citicoline has
focussed on its ability to help restore healthy
brain function after a stroke. Animal studies4
show that Citicoline reduces the size of
the brain injury which results when an
experimental stroke cuts off the brain’s
oxygen supply. The question is, how?
Experiments on animals5.6 have suggested
that Citicoline has both preventative and
regenerative effects on the brain injuries which
follow a stroke. On the one hand, strokes
usually force brain cells to release some of
the fatty acids out of their membranes, a
process which can increase the damage
inflicted on neurons by free radicals. Animal
studies have shown that Citicoline reduces
this release of free fatty acids, preventing
excess free radical damage during a
stroke.
PDF
http://www.aor.ca/int/magazines/pdf/...range_Peel.pdf