Does any particular food help?

[Ben_Ellis]

Thank you very much for the warm welcome.

To abide by the rules of the forum, I won't post a link to any websites but I encourage the members here to research moringa oleifera for themselves. You'll find numerous studies and articles about it once you start looking. The National Institutes of Health database is a good place to start.

As an introduction, this single tree is shown to contain:

The following vitamins:
Vitamin A (Alpha and Beta-Carotene) B, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, Folate (Folic Acid), Biotin This is apparently not an all-inclusive list. According to my resource, these are just the most significant.

The following minerals:
Calcium, Chloride, Chromium, Copper, Fluorine, Iron, Manganese, Magnesium, Molybdenum, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Selenium, Sulfur, Zinc

All 8 essential amino acids:
Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Valine

10 additional amino acids:
Alanine, Arginine, Aspartic Acid, Cysteine, Glutamine, Glycine, Histidine, Proline, Serine, Tryosine

As well as a bunch of other nutrients:
Chlorophyll, Carotenoids, Cytokinins, Flavanoids, Omega (3,6,9) Oils, Plant Sterols, Polyphenols, Lutein, Xanthins, Rutin Also not an all inclusive list.

So in all that's 46 antioxidants, 36 anti-inflammatories, 18 amino acids, and all the vitamins and minerals listed plus more in just one tree.

I have taken the time to research the tasks that each of these nutrients perform in the body and it's made me realize why so much of the population is unhealthy. Without all these nutrients our bodies are merely surviving and definitely not thriving.

And not only are we not getting the good stuff, we're consuming all kinds of bad stuff. High fructose corn syrup, aspartame, bromine in many breads, fluoride in tap water, just to name some of the worst that come to mind.

What I've come to realize as I've delved into nutrition more deeply too is that nutrition provides a much better answer to a whole host of health problems than drugs ever could. Drugs are given out like candy and often cause more side effects and symptoms than they treat. I'm sure FM patients can relate to that more than most.

The question I asked myself was why not stick with nature? At least for everyday maintenance of our body. After all, most drugs are loosely derived from plants or at least try to mimic a natural source. And there are no side effects with nature.

What I see from my very short study of fibromyalgia is that it seems very much to be a "whole-body" condition for most. More than anything I've found, this tree is a whole body remedy. It removes the need to identify what particular deficiencies an individual might have and elects isntead to sort of flood the body with all the ingredients that are needed. That's not to say it replaces every food, but the list of nutrients speaks for itself.

If you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of this tree ha ha.

I'd be happy to provide more information for anyone.

 

[1sweed]

Thank you. Does it come in pill form like a vitamin? Cause we can't go out and chew on the tree. lol I think this sounds interesting. There are so many good things that nature has provided, the hard part often is in the amount of the item to take. Somethings are good up to a certain point and then taking too much can do more harm then good.

I was reading recently about the use of green tea in ones diet and how good it is for you in limited quanities, but anything over 7 cups a day can cause kidney problems. So that is why I was curious about this tree of yours. Do you take it as a probiotic supplement?

 

[Ben_Ellis]

Well the products I take do include capsules (not compacted tablets), but the main product actually comes in powder form that is mixed with water. It comes in single serving packets so it's easy to get the right amount daily.

Compacted pills actually are not very efficient at delivering the benefits of their ingredients because of the binders that are used to hold them together. Many actually pass through your body intact. It's all related to surface area available for interactions to take place. Also the binders are often not very soluble to start with. It's very easy to literally flush the money you've spent on these tablets down the toilet while receiving basically zero benefit from them. So it's easy to see the advantage of a powder.

Of course none of this matters if the tree isn't delivered in a way that has preserved all these nutrients. The main things that kill the nutritional value are sunlight, oxygen, overheating, and of course any unnatural chemicals that might be used in the processing. There are several moringa products available, but most are dried artificially to increase production speed and make the products cheaper, and care is not taken to minimize exposure to oxygen. This of course means you are buying a dead tree!

Sunlight crosslinks the vitamins and minerals rendering them inert. Everyone has heard of oxidative stress, and the same thing applies to this. Oxidation converts the nutrients to less potent or unusable compounds. Excessive artificial heating increases the rate of oxidation, compounding the issue.

Lastly, to get the most from the tree, the products need to contain all the beneficial parts of the tree. The leaves, seeds, and fruit of the tree all offer differing amounts of the different nutrients, so it's important to harvest all of them. Most products only contain the leaves.

As far as the green tea goes, I agree that it might be possible to overdo a good thing, but it's a sure thing that us Americans overdo bad things every day. Don't get me started on our soda consumption and refined, overprocessed foods ha ha. I'm no doctor for sure, but I would imagine that the kidney issues that might crop up from excessive green tea intake would be more related to a problem with waste removal and body system functions overall. Your kidneys have a massive excess capacity (that's why people can easily live with only one, my mother does), so if you get them performing at a prime level (which is achievable), I would say you wouldn't have to worry much about over-consuming the good stuff. Detoxification is critical here.

 

[Trellum]

This is my first post and honestly I'm a little apprehensive about putting it up. I don't suffer from fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue so I can't exactly relate to anyone here. This seems to be a sore spot for fibromyalgia sufferers when someone tries to help. What I've battled and successfully defeated however is being 100lbs overweight, so a few things might translate as it relates to food and nutrition.

A good friend of mine described fibromyalgia to me, so I have been just researching it a little lately. What I am seeing is people that need help in whatever way they can find it! What a terrible condition!

But seeing as this thread is in the alternative medicine/therapies section I hope my post will be well received since supplements and nutrition are relevant topics.

My question is, is anybody here familiar with the moringa oleifera tree?

The reason I think it might offer some help is its extensive nutrient profile which includes things already mentioned like anti-inflammatories and the omega oils.

Hey there! My mom was taking a moringa extract some years ago, it was a juice with the extract of this tree. It was marketed as some sort of miracle juice, so I never paid a lot attention to it in the first place. But it seems this tree really is a miracle one, because apparently it is capable to treat several diseases. I found a list of the diseases it can treat:

TAKEN BY MOUTH

“Tired blood” (anemia).
Arthritis.
Asthma.
Cancer.
Constipation.
Birth control.
Diabetes.
Diarrhea.
Epilepsy.
Stomach pain (gastritis).
Stomach and intestinal ulcers.
Headache.
Heart problems.
High blood pressure.
Kidney stones.
Swelling (inflammation).
Thyroid disorders.
Infections.
Increasing breast milk production.
As a nutritional supplement.
Stimulating immunity.
Increasing sex drive.
Other conditions.

APPLIED TO THE SKIN

Athlete’s foot.
Dandruff.
Warts.
Skin infections.
Snakebites.
Gum disease (gingivitis).
Other conditions.

Apparently a lot of the symptoms caused by those diseases can be aleviated. I'd say this is worth checking

 

[Diamondgirl]

I have done extensive food allergy testing and got pretty scared to find out that everything I am eating, I am allergic to or building an allergy to. I began to wonder if one day I would not be able to eat anything a be stuck with an IV for nutrition. So, that led to extensive research and having a leaky gut (permeable gut) is the reason for the allergies. It's all being released into my blood stream and my blood is waging a war that I don't need it to wage. I read a quote that calmed me down quite a bit and I decided to focus on it: "When the body heals, it does not heal one thing and then the other, it heals everything at once." Or something like that. So, I am focusing on healing my gut with the knowledge that it all starts there. If molecules remain in my intestinal tract, I will be on a really good path for healing. So, my diet is a "gut" diet and I take a very good strain of a probiotic, along with some excellent supplementation to aid digestion. Just wanted to share the permeable gut problem with you all in hopes it could help someone else too.

 

[Ben_Ellis]

Hey there! My mom was taking a moringa extract some years ago, it was a juice with the extract of this tree. It was marketed as some sort of miracle juice, so I never paid a lot attention to it in the first place. But it seems this tree really is a miracle one, because apparently it is capable to treat several diseases. I found a list of the diseases it can treat:

TAKEN BY MOUTH

“Tired blood” (anemia).
Arthritis.
Asthma.
Cancer.
Constipation.
Birth control.
Diabetes.
Diarrhea.
Epilepsy.
Stomach pain (gastritis).
Stomach and intestinal ulcers.
Headache.
Heart problems.
High blood pressure.
Kidney stones.
Swelling (inflammation).
Thyroid disorders.
Infections.
Increasing breast milk production.
As a nutritional supplement.
Stimulating immunity.
Increasing sex drive.
Other conditions.

APPLIED TO THE SKIN

Athlete’s foot.
Dandruff.
Warts.
Skin infections.
Snakebites.
Gum disease (gingivitis).
Other conditions.

Apparently a lot of the symptoms caused by those diseases can be aleviated. I'd say this is worth checking

Hi Trellum,

Yes it is definitely worth checking out. It's honestly such a powerful source of nutrition that talking about what it is proven to help does in fact make it sound too "miraculous". Incidentally it is nicknamed the "miracle tree" ha ha. All I know is I've been using moringa for over two years and have never in my life felt so good and healthy. I put in bold the items on your list that are all potential players in fibro to the best of my knowledge and all I've read.

The one thing to be aware of is that you have to be very picky about what moringa products you purchase. They are definitely not created equal. Most only contain ground leaf and often is not the right varietal of moringa to start with which means the nutrient content is not the highest available. And if it is brown, it is dead nutrient-wise. To get the full benefits, the leaves, seeds, and fruit of moringa oleifera need to be included and must be naturally shade dried and have as little exposure to sun and heat as possible in the processing. If anybody is serious about giving themselves every chance to overcome fibromyalgia, they won't ignore this tree.