It’s time for everyone to have wholesome foods, which contains all nutrition and become healthy. Functional foods supply more than nutrition alone, they also offer health benefits beyond nutrition alone.

Omega Smart Bar is one such product. Omega combines all nutrition and offers it in bar format so that people can have it easily. It does not put artificial preservatives in their bars so the shelf life is shorter than other bars on the market today. Omega feels that it’s a small price to pay to be able to offer you a truly health promoting bar.

Leading health experts have recognized and promote Omega Smart Bars.

• It is wholesome, organic, whole-food balanced nutrition!
• Ideal balance of complex carbohydrates non-isolated proteins and Essential Fats.
• It is a snack bar, an energy booster, or a quick meal replacement

All Omega Smart bars are easily digested, help to manage blood sugar, contain over 2,000 mg. of Omega-3′s and offer an ideal ratio of complex carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy-fats.

Omega wouldn’t think of using any artificial flavors, colors, additives, chemicals, or preservatives – and they bake their bars just long enough at a low temperature to achieve signature texture.

Omega Smart Bars comes in 10 different flavours. Our Youth In A Bar offerings represent cutting-edge science, with ingredients selected for their anti-aging, antioxidant, metabolism boosting, and collagen promoting properties. Each bar in this line represents what some might consider fanatical attention to detail regarding ingredient research and selection. Frankly, Omega thinks that’s great and actually wouldn’t want it any other way! Omega is currently working on Health Bars. To know more about Omega Smart products, click here.

If you are keen to know about the healthy ingredients, visit http://www.omegasmartbar.com/store/ingredients.html

• 100% All-Natural, Whole-Grain Ingredient: Omega Smart sources only the highest quality whole-grain flaxseed, carefully selected from the cool, clean environments of the northern prairies.
• 20% Omega-3s: Omega Smarts whole-grain flaxseed represents one of nature’s richest sources of omega-3 essential fatty acids . Humans convert the omega-3s in flaxseed into the same long-chain omega-3s (EPA and DHA) otherwise obtained from fish and algae. It takes only 1.3g of flaxseed per reference serving size to claim a product to be a “high, rich, or excellent” source of omega-3s, according to the Food & Drug Administration.
• 25%-plus Dietary Fiber: Whole and ground flaxseed offer rich sources of both soluble and insoluble dietary fibers in support of health and well-being. Flaxseed’s soluble fibers also contribute beneficial pre-biotic qualities to foods.
• Rich source of Antioxidants: Antioxidants play very important roles in helping to support cellular and metabolic integrity. 100% whole-grain flaxseed ingredients provide a rich source of dietary antioxidants.
• Rich in Lignans: Lignans are especially powerful polyphenolic antioxidants that also play an important role in health and nutrition.
• Good Source of Protein: Flaxseed contains 20 – 25% protein by weight, making it a rich source of protein comparable to meat, poultry or fish.
• Low-Glycemic (or Net) Carbs: Virtually all of the carbohydrate in flaxseed is dietary fiber, only 3% is in the form of digestible carbohydrates. This makes flaxseed an especially low-glycemic (or “net” carb) ingredient.
• Good Flavor, Good Taste: good nutrition is great, but you need to make a product taste good in order to make people want to eat it! Flaxseed’s good taste and good flavor make it an especially appropriate ingredient for good nutrition, health and well being.

So, Enjoy a bar…and eat to your health!

Virginia Jawidzik
President
Omega Smart Inc

Virginia Jawidzik – A biography

At the age of 20, Ginny began her career as a restaurateur opening numerous restaurants; catering businesses as well as a fine European Bakery over a span of 20 years.

Ginny enjoyed her work. However, her husbands diabetic condition fuelled her determination to find the answers. She had concerning foods ability to cause such debilitating diseases and also foods ability to heal such diseases.

Ginny is devoted to researching the function of foods and disease and formulating the right combination of nutritious ingredients into a health promoting food bar to help those suffering from numerous ailments.

About Omega Smart:

Omega Smart, Inc is a NH company dedicated to formulating nutritious whole food bars that address numerous health issues such as diabetes, autistic spectrum disorder, celiac disease, heart health and weight management to name a few. Omega Smart, Inc is an entrepreneurial NH company at the cutting edge of a growing nutraceutical market intersecting food and medicine.

The target for the company’s product is a consumer interested in maintaining or regaining their health through lifestyle interventions, including refocusing on healthful eating. The company’s mission is to practice evidence-based formulation where scientific and health literature is monitored and evaluated to assure the most wholesome and healthful ingredients to the consumer. The bars are formulated to be the high in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber and phytonutrients (plant based nutrients) and are label-certified organic.

Integrative Medicine refers to healthcare services and education not often found in traditional Western medical centers. The OSU Center for Integrative Medicine incorporates the art and science of caring for the whole person – body, mind and spirit – to treat and prevent disease, encouraging patients to create a condition of optimal health.

Located in Columbus, Ohio, The Ohio State University Medical Center is one of the largest and most diverse academic medical centers in the country and the only academic medical center in central Ohio.

The Center, located at 2000 Kenny Road, provides an evidence-based, patient-centered approach to holistic health care.  Some of the services include:

• Traditional Western Medicine
• Whole Alternative Medical Systems
• Mind-Body Medicine
• Biologically-Based Practices
• Manipulative and Body-Based Practices
• Energy Medicine

Driven by the mission to improve people’s lives through innovation in research, OSMUC saves lives and improves the quality of life by rapidly translating the latest discoveries from the research lab to the bedside. It educates a large percentage of the region’s physicians and provide advanced training and continuing education for clinicians.

Here are some vital statistics and information on “how our nutritional errors affect our health (both mind and body).  This is a known fact and nobody can ignore these. This has been shared by Dr. Glen Aukerman, MD, who is the Medical Director of OSMUC.  Worth reading it.

“It’s not just a matter of following food pyramid guidelines anymore, not plain and simple.”   The 1992 food pyramid originated in 1991 by the USDA based on the 1980’s general knowledge about nutrition but highly influenced by agribusiness interest groups.

The 2005 pyramid embodies the 1980s nutritional errors with little adjustments of food groups, but did add an exercise base to the pyramid from the fitness interest groups, but does not fix the negative nutritional impacts of today’s available foods on our human immune system of:

• Gluten imbedded as filler in most manufactured or processed foods
• Soy imbedded from prenatal lattes, to infant nutrition, to fitness and health promotion companies
• Flax which worsens the toxic omega-6 levels (is only, 0.2% converted as an omega-3)
• Latex-like proteins in foods out of season/out of region due to ethylene gas ripening process
• Deficiencies for 6 nutrients documented by the USDA food data base (published Dec 2004)
• Loss of Magnesium and Calcium from water supply, city, bottled, soft and reverse osmosis

Today’s food pyramids do not account for nutrition impacts of 5 new fields of knowledge:

• Human Genomic Project provides understanding of the power of nutrition on health
• Pharmacogenomics which looks at the impacts on genes of foods(grapefruit juice) on drugs
• Nutrigenomics which studies the impacts of nutrition on the gene and organ functions since food must provide complete nutrients for genes to manifest as healthy functions phenotypically
• Nutrigenetics (USDA)which restores food base crops to their full 1950 nutritional content
• Integrative Medicine, integrating Genomic Nutrition into Health, Prevention and medical treatments by understanding that the underlying cause of most chronic modern diseases begin in the immune system from the Nutrient-gene mismatch of the Food pyramid eating and our ‘casual grazing’ brought about by hurried lifestyles and the agribusiness fast-food marketing

Top opportunities and ways to help us live longer and manage stressful lives:

• Realize that the real cause of most modern chronic illnesses, including stress and fatique, begins with our food’s nutrient gene mismatch affecting the immune system,
• Consult an Integrative Medicine specialist for a Personalized Genomic Nutrition Intake and Evaluation which addresses and corrects the negative nutritional impacts of today’s available foods on our human immune system by correcting the;

o    Gluten imbedded as filler in most manufactured or processed foods
o    Soy imbedded from prenatal lattes, to infant nutrition, to fitness and health promotion companies
o    Flax which worsens the toxic omega-6 levels (is only , 0.2% converted as an omega-3)
o    Latex-like proteins in foods out of season/out of region due to ethylene gas ripening process
o    Deficiencies for 6 nutrients documented by the USDA food data base (published Dec 2004)
o    Loss of Magnesium and Calcium from water supply, city, bottled, soft and reverse osmosis
o    Addition of missing nutrients per USDA food database analysis(calcium, vit C, phosphorus

Reduction of the 20-30 times excess of omega-6 plant oils in the western diet by reducing:

• Poultry and farm-fed fish, due to being corn-fed
• Nuts and nut based products like nut butters
• Chips prepared with omega-6 plant oils from seeds like canola, sunflower etc
• Excessive Corn Products, tortillas, nachos, breads
• Flax, Soy, Trail-mix, grain-based snack products and bars, granola-like
• Garbanzo bean, hummus

Visit http://www.medicalcenter.osu.edu/go/integrative for class schedule and information for restoring your immune system.

From our upcoming workbook, Getting to Your Genomic Diet Plan

For the many who visit the OSU CIM, Integrative Medicine represents the hope for regaining their health. Many believe it stopped their ravages of premature aging, disease and death. Many patients ask me daily at their office visits, on reporting-in phone calls, at our community education lecture series, at the grocery stores, in restaurants, health food stores and even in the parking lot, “Doctor, Why am I not well?   What is wrong with me?  When / how did I get sick?  How can I ever regain the health I had as a child?”

This collection, in addition to the OSU CIM CORE Series of lectures and daily personalized-care research help each of us by “Getting to Your Genomic Diet, Where Everyone has Health” Glen Aukerman, MD

“Why I Am Not Well” is all about the silent food nutrient deterioration, and its Nutritional Impact.

In the beginning with Creation or over time with Evolution (depending on one’s belief system) the very narrowly fixed nutritional requirements of our human genome, its DNA, RNA, and the metabolic enzyme systems were set by foods of those times, leaving little variability in nutritional content of diet (monthly or annually) if one is to be truly healthy, disease free and fully functional today, tomorrow and beyond.

While over the last 10,000 years since our modern human genome is believe to have become fixed,  there have been major shifts in the agriculture and the foods available to our ancestors, it now appears that the most devastating changes have occurred in the last 500 years since the Western hemisphere-based foods began to be introduced to the Eastern hemisphere-based sub-populations (European, Mediterranean,  Asian, African, etc.) for whom corn, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts, and coffee had no genomic experience. Similar nutritional genetic chaos began with the introduction of foods from those Eastern hemisphere regions (wheat, barley, rye and condiments) to the native sub-populations of the Western hemisphere for which they have no genomic experience. While the prior minor sub-continental food exchanges are likely to have occurred many times over the preceding thousands of years, most were likely mere samplings of new-to-the-genome foods and unlikely to have been consumed in amounts large enough on a continuous enough basis to produce the devastating genomic metabolic illness or impacts evidenced in modern day.

Onset of the industrial revolution, agribusiness and expanded commercial shipping, the genomes of the entire planet became exposed to increased dietary complexity issues, toxicity of latex in foods, and the fabulous fakes of the food industry (MSG, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colorings, and flavorings). Starting in about 1909, the food industry began to incorporate ever increasing amounts of omega-6 plant oils (soybean oil at first, then a cascade of other plant oils) into the increasingly complex food base. Only recently have we known that the three essential oils need to be in a 1:1:1 ratio for optimal health, omega (n)-3 from animals (fish, lard, and butter), omega (n)-6 from plants (canola, soybean, corn, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, and coconut) and omega (n)-9 from trees (olive oil). Alterations from this ratio are known to lead to most modern chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, obesity, depression, etc. and even acute conditions such as panic disorder, pain, fatigue, cancers, diabetes, etc.

Loss of Magnesium in Food and Water since the late 1950 as we shifted from the use of animal-based magnesium / trace minerals-rich fertilizers from the manure of animals eating grass for food-crops to mineral deficient commercial fertilizers. This loss of natural magnesium in the soils has led to an increasing deficit of magnesium in the current grocery-based food supply, compounded by shift of western populations’ food sources from the magnesium-rich home garden to become dependent on grocery-based magnesium deficient produce and fruits. Concurrently, western societies have moved away from the magnesium, potassium and calcium rich well-water to magnesium, potassium and calcium depleted city, softened and bottled water which appears to be a major contributing cause for conditions such as osteopenia, osteoporosis, gastroesophageal reflux disorder, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, headaches, insomnia, arthritis, constipation, fatigue, and enhanced pain disorders.

The USDA reports declines since 1950 in Nutrient Content of All 43 US Garden Fruits / Vegetables

• Protein – 6%, leading to protein calorie malnutrition,
• Calcium – 16% / Phosphorus – 9% leading to osteoporosis, osteopenia and muscle bone weakness
• Iron – 15%, leading to anemia,
• Riboflavin decreased by 38%, leading to beriberi symptom complex known at chronic fatigue, irritability, memory problems, insomnia, fatigue, depression, nausea, dermatitis, muscular pains, sleep disturbances, impaired coordination, naso-lateral seborrhea (rosacea), glossitis, pellagra with diarrhea, dermatitis, dementia, growth failure, cheilosis, angular stomatitis, beriberi, polyneuritis, and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome,
• Vitamin C – 15%, leading to immune deficiency disorders / lowered resistance to infections.

These deficits in nutrient content are due to changes in cultivated varieties between 1950-1999, a trade-off of greater yield for less nutrient content, leading to large percentages of the world’s population suffering from deficiency disorders with symptoms of B vitamin deficiency that are devastating to quality of life.

Since Geneticists estimate that we take 10,000 years to adapt our genome to new food introductions.

Here are seven steps to Improved Health and Longevity – by eating more like our ancestors ate:

1. Answer is to move toward those original foods available when the genome became fixed which allowed our ancestors to be healthy enough to survive, flourish, and become our ancestors.
2. Select Original foods match the foods that were responsible for our specific genome surviving, the foods fit for our genome, allowing our DNA and mRNA to work optimally for health and longevity.
3. Avoiding the fabulous fakes of the food industry such as MSG, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colorings, and flavors we have less to be detoxified by our liver.
4. Limiting foods entering the food system in the last 500 years (corn, tomatoes, peppers, peanuts, wheat, barley, rye, condiments and coffee).  Reduce gluten, soy and avoid flax products completely.
5. Avoiding and limit extracted omega-6 plant oils of the last 100 years, such as canola, soybean, corn, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, coconut oils.
6. Avoid and limit  foods that accumulate omega-6 corn oil (chicken, turkey and farm-fed fish)
7. Avoid fruits / vegetables (picked early out of season / out of region) = Latex exposed to ethylene gas =  increased latex-like injury protein in our fruits and vegetables, even by organic suppliers >1959

Dr. Glen Aukerman M.D.
Medical Director
Ohio State University Center for Integrative Medicine

Glen Aukerman – A biography

Dr. Aukerman, M.D. is a tenured Professor of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at The Ohio State University and Medical Director for the University’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Glen Aukerman has served as a professor in the OSU School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine since 1995 and as chair of the department from 1995-1998. He was one of four OSU Family Medicine practitioners named to Best Doctors in America in 2003-2004. He also serves as interim medical director for The Ohio State University Managed Health Care System.

Among other positions, he has also served as chief medical officer at the National Practitioner Data Bank and as deputy director and chief medical officer in the Division of Quality Assurance for the Bureau of Health Professions of the Health Resources and Services Administration in Rockville, Md.

Dr. Aukerman’s other areas of expertise include managed care and medical quality assurance. He served in 1993 on the White House Health Reform Task Force Speakers Panel and is a past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has served on many steering and development committees addressing managed care issues.

Related articles

• US replaces food pyramid with “healthy plate” (beinghealthyhomeandaway.blogspot.com)

Dr. Mullin the Director of GI Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) at Johns Hopkins Hospital joins Craig to discuss the transforming impact of nutrition on your life. His Complementary and Alternative Medicine expertise is in gastroenterology (GI) issues.

There is an increasing trend in the utilization and incorporation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) strategies in the promotion of health and management of disease.

The Food As Medicine Program is a program designed to integrate nutrition into Clinical practice, Medical education, and Community health at the Center for Mind-Body Medicine and is a separate entity.

Over the past 20 years, an explosion of scientific studies has established that our emotions and outlook — our state of mind — can exert a strong influence on the state of our health. In Mind-Body Unity: A New Vision for Mind-Body Science and Medicine.

The newest technology in Capsule Endoscopy such as the Pill Cam, a vitamin-sized video camera a patient swallows which sends images to a data recorder as it travels through the small intestine. It is used after a colonoscopy or gastroscopy has been performed without revealing a diagnosis. This site has great visuals and information.

What is PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy?

PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy enables your doctor to examine the three portions (duodenum, jejunum, ileum) of your small intestine. Your doctor will use a vitamin-pill sized video capsule as an endoscope, which has its own lens and light source. While the video capsule travels through your body, images are sent to a datarecorder you will wear on a waistbelt. Afterwards your doctor will view the images on a video monitor.

Why is PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy Performed?

PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy helps your doctor determine the cause for recurrent or persistent symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, bleeding or anemia after a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy has been performed without revealing a diagnosis. In certain chronic gastrointestinal diseases the method can also help to evaluate the extent to which your small intestine is involved or monitor the effect of therapeutics. Your doctor might use PillCam™ Capsule Endoscopy to obtain motility data such as gastric or small bowel passage time.

The PillCam™ ESO video capsule is specifically designed to view the inner lining of the Esophagus. The capsule is equipped with miniature cameras on both ends and is about the size of a multi-vitamin, which can be swallowed easily.

Three sensor arrays are strategically placed on the patient’s chest and connected to a data recorder, worn on a belt around the waist.

The patient swallows the capsule lying down, and is then raised in a series of inclinations over a total of 5 minutes. The PillCam™ ESO travels through the esophagus by normal peristaltic waves, flashing 14 times per second, each time capturing images of the inner lining of the esophagus.

As it continues down the esophagus, the images captured may identify potential abnormalities, such as Esophagitis – which is inflammation of the lining of the esophagus often caused by Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease or GERD. Severity of symptoms is measured by a Grading system, and in severe cases, esophageal ulcers can appear.

Images captured by the PillCam™ ESO may also identify symptoms of Barrett’s Esophagus, which occurs as a result of abnormal cell growth in the lower esophagus. Columnar cells, typically found in the lining of the stomach, replace the squamous cells in the lining of the esophagus, which can lead to a cancerous condition.

During this five-minute procedure, the PillCam™ ESO captures images, which are transmitted to the sensor arrays. These images then travel from the sensors, along the wires to the DataRecorder™. At this point, the patient is permitted to get up and walk or remain seated for an additional 15 minutes to ensure the capsule has traveled the entire length of the esophagus. After dropping into the stomach, the pill is later excreted naturally.

Once all equipment is removed from the patient, the portable DataRecorder™ downloads the video images to a designated workstation, from which the physician views and assesses the results in order to recommend next steps in the patient’s treatment.

With the increase in mind-body diseases such as, IBS, IBD and Crohn’s Diseases affecting 10-15% of Americans, the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is at the forefront of gastroenterological health care issues.

Medical experts are talking about a new health epidemic — one that most thought was eliminated decades ago. It’s a lack of vitamin D.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble substance (it dissolves in and can be stored by fat deposits in the body). Called the sunshine vitamin because people make their own when sunlight hits the skin, vitamin D is also found in fortified milk, one of the few food sources for this nutrient. With people spending more time indoors, especially as cold weather approaches, and the frequent swapping of milk for soda Americans aren’t getting the vitamin D they need.

Vitamin D (in its active form, which is created after several modifications by the body) functions as a hormone which means it binds to receptors in various tissues to influence the expression of genes, thereby affecting a range of processes, especially the regulation of calcium.Vitamin D deficiency causes muscle weakness, increasing the risk of falling and fractures. Vitamin D deficiency also has other serious consequences on overall health and well-being. There is mounting scientific evidence that implicates vitamin D deficiency with an increased risk of type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, cardiovascular heart disease, and new epidemiologic evidence suggests that vitamin D may be protective against some common cancers. These include colon, breast, and prostate cancer.

The common assumption has been that with the fortification of milk, instituted in the United States in the 1930s, and casual exposure to sunshine, most people get all the vitamin D they need. It has become clear that vitamin D deficiency (usually defined as blood levels of less than 15 ng/mL [or nanograms/milliliter]) and insufficiency (less than 20 or according to most experts probably less than 30 ng/mL) are far more widespread than researchers had expected.

About Dr. Mullin

Dr. Gerard Mullin is an authority on the transformative impact of nutrition on health as well as a leading expert on cutting edge Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He has been recognized as one of “America’s Top Physicians” by The Consumers’ research Council since 2004 and his articles have appeared in numerous medical journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, Gastroenterology and The Journal of Clinical Immunology.

Dr. Mullin is Director of GI Complementary and Alternative Medicine as well as Director of Capsule Endoscopy at The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Disease.

In addition to his work at Johns Hopkins, he is also on the faculty of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s groundbreaking program, Food As Medicine, the nation’s leading nutrition training program for physicians, medical school faculty and other health professionals.

About the Johns Hopkins Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

U.S. News & World Report has ranked The Johns Hopkins Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division as one of the top three GI programs in the United States for the ninth consecutive year. The faculty and staff are nationally and internationally recognized for their achievements in patient care as well as in research.