Category: Silvia Bürkle

Hypertension under Control

According to studies, 55% of all 35-64-year-old Germans suffer from arterial hypertension (high blood pressure). From the age of 65, the figure is as high as 60-80%. The number of unreported cases is estimated to be much higher, as about 50% of those affected have no knowledge of their disease.

High blood pressure does not initially cause pain or other symptoms and thus remains undetected for a long time. This is problematic because undetected high blood pressure can cause damage to organs such as the kidneys, eyes or heart over a period of years.

How blood pressure develops

In order for blood to flow through the blood vessels to all organs and tissues, force and pressure are required. The pumping of the heart and the elasticity of the vessel walls ensure that this pressure is created. With each beat, the heart powerfully pumps blood into the blood vessels. The blood transported in this way exerts pressure on the vessel walls, which resist this pressure. Together, these two factors account for the level of blood pressure.

When do we talk about hight blood pressure?

Blood pressure is considered to be increased if the first, systolic value exceeds 140 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) or the second diastolic value exceeds 90 mmHg – or both values are higher. Based on these reference values, specialists classify high blood pressure into different degrees of severity:

  • mild hypertension: 140-159 / 90-99 mmHg
  • moderately increased: 160-179 / 100-109 mmHg
  • severe: more than 180 / more than 110 mmHg

Risk of high blood pressure

In medicine, a distinction is made between two forms of hypertension – essential or primary hypertension and secondary hypertension.

Primary hypertension is present in 90% of hypertensive patients. Several factors can affect the regulation of blood pressure. In addition to age and hereditary predisposition, the main factors that increase blood pressure are obesity, a nutrition with too much salt, alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of exercise, stress or even medication.

In secondary hypertension, an underlying disease such as a circulatory disorder of the kidneys, narrowing of the renal artery, hormonal disorders or the so-called sleep apnea syndrome is the cause of the elevated blood pressure.

Permanently elevated blood pressure can damage blood vessels and cause hardening of the vessel walls. If, in addition, the cholesterol in the blood is elevated, this can lead to deposits and a narrowing of the vessels, which causes the blood pressure to rise further. High blood pressure always damages the kidneys. Due to the high pressure, the tiny filtering devices in the kidney die off. As a result, the kidneys are severely impaired in their filtering functions and the metabolic end products are not excreted by the organism at all or only insufficiently.

Hypertension and overweight

A major cause of high blood pressure is obesity. From an excess weight of about 10 kg, the blood pressure increases by about 2.3 mmHg diastolic and leads to a strain on the heart and the circulation, since a larger body mass must be supplied with blood. In addition, the abdominal fatty tissue produces increased angiotensinogen in the body. Angiotensinogen is a tissue hormone that docks to the receptors of the vascular muscles, stimulating the contraction of the vascular muscles, thus contributing to a narrowing of the blood vessels and increasing blood pressure.

In addition, overweight people often also produce too much insulin. Insulin not only regulates blood sugar levels alone, but also influences a special protein, ANP (atrial natriuretic peptide), which helps regulate blood pressure in the body by stimulating increased excretion of fluid via the kidneys when there is high pressure in the vessels. Scientists have found that insulin promotes the breakdown of ANP in adipose tissue, and as a result, overweight people have low levels of ANP, and so this pathway to blood pressure regulation is absent in them.

Hypertension and salt consumption

Sustained high salt consumption can lead to high blood pressure. This also increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. The intake recommendations for table salt range from 3.75 g (American Heart Association) to 5 g/day (WHO) and 6 g/day (Deutsche Hochdruckliga – German Hypertension League) to 6.25 g/day (European Society of Cardiology). In fact, according to a DEGS study (Study on the Health of Adults in Germany), the daily intake of table salt in Germany is 8.4 g/day for women and 10 g/day for men.

Sodium chloride, the main component of salt, is essential for life and performs numerous tasks in the body. For example, it controls the water balance and coordinates the transmission of stimuli to muscle and nerve cells, participates in bone building and activates metabolic processes. In addition, chloride is an important component of gastric acid and therefore necessary for the digestion of protein in the stomach.

Every single cell in the body needs sodium and chloride to allow nutrients to enter the cells. This is because these two substances ensure a permanent exchange of water and nutrients at the cell membranes. The salt concentration before and in the cell is decisive for this. If there is a higher salt concentration outside the cell than inside the cell, water flows out of the cell to compensate for the difference. Conversely, water from the environment flows into the cell as soon as the salt concentration outside is lower than inside.

According to the same principle, sodium chloride can also have an effect on blood pressure: The more salt is absorbed through food and gets into the blood, the higher the fluid content must be there. Therefore, if a lot of salt is eaten, more water is extracted from the cells and incorporated into the blood – the blood volume increases. If the salt intake and thus also the blood volume are increased in the long term, the blood vessels subsequently react by contracting, i.e. they become narrower and the blood pressure rises.

However, how sensitively blood pressure responds to an increase in salt concentration seems to depend on various factors such as genetic predisposition, body weight and age, and is not the same for everyone. This is referred to as salt sensitivity.

The majority of the salt intake is generally through processed foods. However, these are not always just the classic ready-made products. Important sources of salt are primarily bread and bakery products, meat and sausage, dairy and salty snacks.

Metabolic Balance – Regulating hypertension without medication

With the Metabolic Balance nutrition program, we have a tool at hand with which we can have a positive influence on high blood pressure in a very short time and possibly even reduce blood pressure medication. Therefore, regular monitoring of blood pressure is urgently needed in hypertensive clients, especially in the first phase of the nutrition program. This is because during the preparation phase we at Metabolic Balance already start a detoxification program for the body by preparing it for the upcoming dietary change with light food based on vegetables, fruit, potatoes or whole grain rice and with sufficient fluid intake. At the beginning, plenty of water is washed out, which relieves the organs and blood pressure.

In the further course of the Metabolic Balance program, a moderate blood sugar and insulin level is achieved through the selection of foods, i.e. the ANP level in the body also gradually rises again, thus fulfilling its task of helping to regulate blood pressure. At the same time, fat cells produce less angiotensinogen with increasing weight loss.

Studies have shown that blood pressure can be reduced by about 2 mmHg per kilogram (about 2 lbs) of weight loss.

Similarly, salt consumption is greatly reduced in the Metabolic Balance nutrition program. This is not because Metabolic Balance explicitly recommends using less salt, but because there are no processed food products and foods with a high salt content on the menu. The salt from the typical household salt we add to our food ourselves is usually only a fraction of the amount we consume daily through processed foods.

Sources:

  1. Thomas Semlitsch, et.al.: “Long-term effects of weight-reducing diets in people with hypertension” -02/März/2016 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26934541/
  2. https://www.zavamed.com/de/bluthochdruck-uebergewicht.html
  3. Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen (IQWiG) (2019): Den Blutdruck ohne Medikamente senken, https://www.gesundheitsinformation.de/den-blutdruck-ohne-medikamente-senken.2083.de.html?part=behandlung-ne#zh6a zuletzt aufgerufen am 12.01.2021.
  4. https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Gesundheitsmonitoring/Gesundheitsberichterstattung/GBEDownloadsK/2015_4_bluthochdruck.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

The Intestine and its Inhabitants

The intestine is an important part of the digestive system – it transports the food bolus, absorbs nutrients and water, produces vitamins and short-chain fatty acids, and removes indigestible food components. With a length of about eight meters, a surface area of up to 400 square meters and a diameter of only a few centimeters, it is the main transport artery from the food supply in the supermarket to the bloodstream.

With our food, we not only absorb vital nutrients that enter the bloodstream via the intestine, but also many foreign substances and pathogens. A healthy intestine that is equipped with a good intestinal flora and whose intestinal wall barrier is intact can catch, destroy and excrete toxins and pathogenic germs in advance, so that they no longer pose a risk to the body.

Unfortunately, the “interior equipment” of the intestine is massively disturbed by today’s modern nutrition and lifestyle. Often the intestinal mucosa is damaged, e. g. by nutrition low in fiber and too much sugar or by abundant additives that are added in large quantities to many processed foods. It is estimated that about 8 kilograms (17.6 lbs) of preservatives pass through the intestine over the course of an adult life. This is unfavorable, since the preservatives do their job in the intestine just as they do as an additive in food: They destroy bacteria and do not distinguish between disease-causing or health-promoting intestinal bacteria.

The intestinal mucosa as a border post

Nutrients and water are supposed to reach the body from the intestine. However, this does not apply to undigested food components, toxins and pollutants. Therefore, the intestinal mucosa must form an effective barrier. Normally, the cells in the intestine are located close together and the intercellular spaces are sealed with a kind of “Velcro” tape, i. e. membrane protein complexes, the so-called „tight junctions“. In addition, the intestinal mucosa is supported by a variety of different intestinal bacteria, which settle on the intestinal mucosa like a “thick fluffy carpet”, creating an impermeable barrier to blood circulation.

The tight junctions can be opened to allow larger molecules and larger quantities of water to pass through.

Disruptive factors such as stress, medications, alcohol, pathogenic germs and various additives can alter the intestinal flora and damage the intestinal mucosa. The pathogenic bacteria primarily benefit from a changed intestinal flora, because they can adapt very quickly to the changed environment and multiply accordingly quickly. As a result, inflammation of the intestinal mucosa may occur and the intestinal epithelium gradually becomes permeable (leaky gut syndrome) to allergens, pollutants and pathogens that harm the body. Allergies, diabetes mellitus type 2, skin diseases and fungal infections are also associated with a damaged and altered intestinal flora.

Food for the intestinal cells

Lactobacilli (lactic acid bacteria) and bifidobacteria, which settle sufficiently in the intestine, can protect and strengthen the intestinal mucosa. Studies have impressively demonstrated that lactobacilli can repair defects caused by harmful bacteria.

The broadest possible bacterial colonization in the intestine is therefore more than desirable. This ensures that the intestine is well supplied and the intestinal cells are optimally nourished. The intestinal cells receive all vital nutrients directly from the intestinal content. The intestinal content can be partially metabolized by some intestinal bacteria from the group of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria, forming short-chain fatty acids. Short-chain fatty acids provide energy, stimulate intestinal peristalsis and the circulation of the intestinal wall. Particular attention is paid to butyric acid, which promotes the metabolism of the intestinal mucosa and the growth of blood vessels in the intestinal wall. It also has anti-inflammatory and anticancerogenic effects.

Propionic acid and acetic acid play an important role in gluco- and lipogenesis. Furthermore, propionic acid supports the glucose balance in addition to building up the intestinal flora. It throttles the release of glucose and stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. At the same time, the sensitivity of the body cells to insulin is increased.

It is therefore beneficial if sufficient lactobacilli and bifidobacteria colonize the intestine. With a nutrition rich in fiber, especially vegetables, legumes, whole grains and fruits, the bacterial population can be increased. But just as important are foods that provide probiotic bacterial strains, which are mainly found in fermented foods such as sauerkraut, yoghurt, kefir, buttermilk and many more.

Intestinal bacteria against obesity

Obesity is still mostly induced by high calorie food intake and lack of exercise. However, numerous studies have shown now that there is also a significant difference between normal and obese people with regard to the composition of the intestinal microbiome. Thus, the two bacterial strains Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes occur in different populations – in normal-weight individuals, in the majority, Bacteroidetes strains were detected, while Firmicutes predominated in overweight individuals. The higher the percentage of Bacteroidetes, the lower the body weight was.

Currently, scientists are increasingly interested in the significance of the bacterial species Prevotella and Bacteroides in connection with the clinical picture of obesity and the corresponding nutritional recommendations. In studies, subjects were divided into different enterotypes depending on which bacterial species dominated – Prevotella or Bacteroides. They were able to show that this classification had a decisive influence on dietary success. If Prevotella dominated, the subjects responded successfully to a nutrition characterized by abundant dietary fiber, especially fiber from whole grain products. If the bacterial strain Bacteroides had the upper hand, then this nutrition was less successful. Instead, a nutrition that promoted bifidobacteria, i.e. foods rich in inulin (parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, salsify, and many others), was better able to positively influence metabolism and support weight loss.

Conclusion

Our intestine and its functionality has an immense influence on our health and well-being. For this reason, it is important to do everything possible to maintain intestinal health and take good care of the intestinal inhabitants. This is best achieved with a nutrition that is above all varied and rich in fiber and vital substances (vegetables, herbs, whole grains, legumes) and largely avoids processed foods and products. With a colorful mixture of these foods, as they are also compiled in the Metabolic Balance nutrition plan, the health-promoting intestinal bacteria receive plenty of nourishment and the opportunity to settle diligently in the intestine. In addition, high-quality fats (cold-pressed vegetable oils) and proteins (sea fish, nuts, dairy products, eggs) should not be missing. While fats support the energy production of intestinal cells, proteins (amino acids) are important components for building and repairing damaged intestinal cells.

The Metabolic Balance nutrition plan takes all these criteria into account. Nevertheless, it may well be that participants with long-standing intestinal problems need support at the beginning of the nutritional change due to a very weakened intestinal flora. In this case, pre- and probiotics can be very useful and good.  But – “Keep your eyes open when shopping” – many of these pre- and probiotics contain, in addition to a variety of bacterial strains, plenty of additives, which in turn cancel out the positive effect of the bacterial strains and have an unfavorable effect on the intestinal flora.

For example, Metabolic Basics Probiotics B.26 is recommended. With 26 bacterial strains (100 billion germs) and 24 herbal, spice and fruit extracts, it offers a high concentration and bacterial diversity. At the same time, the herbal and spice extracts have an anti-inflammatory effect on the intestine and facilitate the settlement of important intestinal bacteria in the intestine.

Source:

  1. Yu Q et al. Lactobacillus protects the integrity of intestinal epithelial barrier damaged by pathogenic bacteria. Front Cell Infect Mircobiol. 5:26.
    Doi: 103389/fcimb.2015.00026.
  2. Schumacher B. “Störungen im Darm machen krank“. Ärzte Zeitung 2014 Oct 10; 03:05.
  3. Wehkamp J, Götz M, Herrlinger K, Steurer W, Stange E „Chronisch entzündliche Darmerkrankungen“; Deutsches Ärzteblatt 2016 Feb 5; 113/5
  4. Fischer S. „Genom, Proteom und Mikrobiom – Ein mikrobiologischer Blick in den menschlichen Organismus. Die Naturheilkunde 5/2015
  5. Francesco Asnica et. Al: Microbiome connections with host metabolism and habitual diet from 1098 deeply phenotyped individuals; Nature Medicine (2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-01183-8)
  6. Christensen L., Roager H. m., astrup a., Hjorth m. f. (2018): microbial enterotypes in personalized nutri-tion and obesity management. am J Clin nutr 108 (4): 645–651
  7. Hjorth m. f., Roager H. m., Larsen T. m., Poulsen S. K.,Licht T. R. Bahl m. I., Zohar Y., astrup a. (2018): Pre-treatment microbial Prevotella-to-Bacteroides ratio, determines body fat loss success during a 6-month randomized controlled diet intervention. Int J Obes 42 (3): 580–583

Empower Yourself with Personalized Nutrition!

Metabolic Balance is grounded in science. But it’s also grounded in a real passion to help people get well and most important be able to be empowered to stay well. There are many programs around and we feel it’s vitally important to understand the foundations of a company / program / product to grasp the value. This is why we want to introduce our founders to you.

Metabolic Balance was established in 2002 in a small Bavarian town called Isen which lies about 40km East of Munich in Germany. It was masterminded by a German doctor and nutritionist team. Dr Funfack was passionate about helping his metabolically challenged patients and was frustrated by the standard hospital approach, which, in his opinion, did very little for both short and long term health. Together with his naturopath wife Birgit and nutritionist sister-in-law Silvia Bürkle, they studied, tested, revised and ultimately developed a highly complex nutritional system which took a patient’s blood test results and matched it to the German food database. It could be described that Metabolic Balance is both a highly scientific creation and a kitchen table one too! In essence, it was developed from passion, drive and a determination to make people genuinely healthier and happier.

Since it’s launch nearly 20 years ago, Metabolic Balance has grown to be available in over 35 countries, translated into 18 different languages and has now helped over 1 million people learn their personal foods and change their health futures. When you remember that all Metabolic Balance is, is a detailed analysis that provides someone with a meal plan and food list tailored to them and does not involve any products or supplemental sales, this is a truly formidable legacy.

Credits for text and picture to Metabolic Balance Australia

Time for Garden Vegetables! Goodies from Your Own Backyard …

MB (2019-06-19)

Peas directly from the shrub, carrots from your own garden and the small cucumber along the way – it can’t be tastier!  Why is it that way? Why does the carrot from your own garden taste so much sweeter and more delicious than the freshly bought one from the market?  We asked Mrs. Silvia Bürkle and she explains in depth: This is because this extremely fresh product contains more nutrients and, above all, considerably more flavors. Harvesting, storage and transport cause many vitamins and flavorings to be lost within the shortest time and this has its effect. In addition, the enzymes in the food are still active immediately after harvesting. They break down and alter nutrients, but also contribute to the food “decaying”.  Fresh food that we buy in the supermarket is often already a few days old and has traveled far. In this case the taste suffers. Maybe psychology also plays a role, allowing us to enjoy home-grown vegetables even more. Now is the best time to grow vegetables at home – depending on the type, harvesting season will start soon. We wish all hobby gardeners to enjoy their meal!

 

Staying Mentally Fit and Healthy into Old Age with the Right Nutrition

Recent research suggests that the classic Western diet with its many industrially-processed, fatty foods causes an increasing number of depressive and anxiety disorders. Unhealthy eating promotes inflammatory processes in the body and may contribute to a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. A study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh with 247 participants showed that with a diet consisting mainly of tuna, salmon, olive oil, avocado and sweet potatoes, the participants showed far fewer depressive symptoms than the other group of test subjects, most of whom preferred industrially-processed foods.

More and more neuroscientists are recognizing the complex ways in which our food intake is related to brain health. A large number of studies have already been conducted and the list of foodstuffs that are supposed to be the right “food” for our brain is getting longer and longer – fish and the Omega 3 fatty acids, for example, are at the top of the list when it comes to preventing psychoses and depression. Lactic acid bacteria in fermented foods such as yogurt, pickles and sauerkraut appear to help alleviate anxiety and worry, while foods rich in antioxidants such as green tea and fruit can help keep dementia and Alzheimer’s at bay. One or two comparative studies are of course still required to clarify and supplement these findings. However, the most certain evidence to date is that the so-called Mediterranean diet of fruit, vegetables, fish, lean meat, olive oil and a glass of red wine every now and then is refreshment for the brain. In Western cuisine, on the other hand, frozen pizza, packaged soups and canned food are often on the table. According to a representative survey by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 20% of German households cook their own meals “actually never” or “at most once a week” – and 47% of German men and 22% of German women eat meat every day, which the experts also regard as being problematic.

In a study published in 2015, scientists even found evidence that poor nutrition “shrinks” the brain. The psychiatrist Felice Jacka, together with colleagues from Deakin University and the University of Melbourne in Australia, analyzed data from a longitudinal Australian study on mental health. At the start of the study, the subjects were between 60 and 64 years old, gave detailed information about their eating habits and underwent a brain scan. Their brains were scanned again four years later, and the focus was on the hippo-campus – which is considered the center of our memory. We also know that the hippo-campus shrinks with increasing age. The study results clearly showed that the left hippo-campus had become much smaller in the test persons who preferred hamburgers, steaks, french fries and soft drinks and declined fruit and vegetables, compared to those of test persons of the same age group who mostly preferred Mediterranean food.
The researchers are still not quite sure exactly which mechanisms are behind these findings. According to science, inflammatory processes could be one of the triggering factors. A high sugar content diet in particular promotes metabolic changes and inflammation in the body and several studies have shown that these inflammatory processes play an important role in brain diseases.

Epidemiologist Martha Morris and her team at Rush University in Chicago established similar relationships between nutrition (Mediterranean and low-salt) and cognitive decline in old age. In the observational study, 960 older people were asked about their eating habits and their mental fitness was regularly checked. Five years later, participants who said they often ate vegetables, berries, nuts and olive oil and little fried, fast food and red meat were less frequently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In the mental test, they also scored as well as subjects who were 7.5 years younger, but who had eaten unhealthy food.

Conclusion: A healthy diet combined with exercise and mental activity can help keep the “grey matter” fit longer in old age.

Silvia Bürkle
Metabolic Balance

Source:
1.    Jacka, F.N. et al.: Western Diet is Associated with a Smaller Hippocampus: A Longitudinal Investigation. In: BMC Medicine 13,215, 2015
2.    Morris, M.C. et al.: MIND Diet Associated with Reduced Incidence of Alzheimers’s disease. In: Alzheimers’s & Dementia 11, P. 1007-1014, 2015
3.    Sarris, J. et al: Nutritional Medicine as Mainstream in Psychiatry. In: Lancet Psychiatry 2, P. 271-274, 2015

Intestinal Bacteria do not like Salt!

Salt flavors your food nicely – but at the same time it also provides valuable minerals and plays an important role in regulating the water balance in the human organism. Sodium chloride, a component of salt, is also needed for the nervous system, digestion and bone formation – but you should use it sparingly. It has long been known that an excess of table salt in foosalt-1778597_1920d can cause high blood pressure – but what very few of us know is that the course of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease, can also be negatively influenced by salt.
The normal daily requirement is two to three grams, but this is often exceeded, since most people not only use salt to season their food, they also consume it in many salty processed products.
A team of researchers led by Dominik Müller at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin investigated the effect of high salt consumption on the intestinal flora. The composition of the intestinal flora is becoming more and more important in a wide range of diseases – and is increasingly becoming the focus of research.
The intestinal mucosa is the main habitat of the immune cells, which produce a large army of antibodies, neurotransmitters and defense & scavenger cells to protect the body from foreign substances. Earlier studies have shown that too much table salt in food increases the number of immune cells called “Th17 helper cells”. These cells then produce increased levels of the Interleukin-17 messenger substance, which triggers inflammatory reactions in the blood vessels. Blood pressure increases, and the development of autoimmune diseases can be stimulated as a result.

In the Berlin study, the research team investigated the extent to which the intestinal flora changes due to excessive salt consumption. For two weeks, mice were given 0.3 grams of table salt every day with their food. Examination of the feces samples for the composition of the bacterial species showed that the number of some bacterial species was reduced and that some of them had disappeared completely from the digestive tract – the intestinal bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus, for example, could no longer be detected after 14 days of increased salt intake.

So, to what extent is this result transferable to humans? In a pilot study with twelve healthy men, the researchers tested the composition of bacteria in the digestive tract. The men were given six grams of table salt for 14 days in addition to their normal food. They consumed an average of 12-14 grams of table salt per day. The intestinal bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus also reacted in the test persons – and could not be detected at the end of the test.

Another interesting result of the study was that significantly fewer Th17 helper cells were formed in mice that had been fed a salt-rich diet and probiotic lactobacilli – and their blood pressure also decreased. It is not clear whether lactobacilli, which are mainly found in fermented foods such as sauerkraut, yogurt and cheese, have an effect like that of the probiotic lactobacilli that were added to the food – particularly since the researchers cannot rule out the possibility that there are other salt-sensitive bacterial species that have an important influence on health.

Further studies are necessary to shed more light on this – and the results of these studies may enable us to counteract autoimmune diseases with an individually-adapted probiotic therapy. This is something to look forward to!

Silvia Bürkle
Metabolic Balance

Rose Hip – more than just Tea!

Everyone knows the rose-hip! As an “itchy powder”, it made life difficult for many kids! In Germany, they even sing about the rose-hip: August Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a nursery rhyme about it, which goes, “A little man stands in the woods, with a black cap on and clothed in beautiful orange-red, who can it be? Ah, it must be a rose-hip” and so on (very freely translated). However, scirose-hip-2687207_960_720ence today knows better than ever that the rose-hip has much more to offer. The rose-hip is known to be one of the native plants that’s richest in vitamin C – only the acerola cherry or the exotic Camu fruit have a higher content. Our ancestors also appreciated the rose-hip and its ingredients – it was considered to be a medicinal plant for various illnesses in ancient times. It usually has a permanent place in the kitchen too, because its refreshing taste makes it ideal for the preparation of jams and liqueurs, but our best-known form of the fruit is rose-hip tea.

This little reddish fruit, often referred to as wild rose, is usually found in bushes and hedges. The rose-hip variety Rosa Canina was used in the monastic medicine of the Middle Ages, when it was considered useful for treating colds and complaints in the gastrointestinal tract. Its ingredients, such as vitamin C, pro-vitamin A, B vitamins, minerals, trace elements, secondary plant substances and galactolipid, which are all present in significant quantities in the fruit, are at the root of its healing effects.

Clinical studies conducted by the Danish physician and biochemist Dr. med. Kay Winther, have proven the effects that wild rosehip ingredients can have. In their research, the scientists focused on the ingredient galactolipid. Galactolipid is composed of fatty acids and sugars and is an important substance for relieving joint pain. It mitigates inflammatory joint diseases by inhibiting the migration of the white blood corpuscles into the inflamed region, preventing more cartilage tissue damage. Galactolipid is also capable of blocking inflammatory parameters, such as the CRP (C-reactive protein), which promotes inflammation.

As a further positive side effect, the scientists were also able to prove that LDL cholesterol, which is responsible for the formation of deposits in blood vessels, was significantly reduced by the regular intake of rosehip powder.

To obtain enough of the active ingredients, especially galactolipid, the whole rose hip must be carefully processed, i.e. the fruits must be dried at a maximum of 40° C. But rosehip tea or jam alone can’t improve inflammatory symptoms – the whole fruit, with skin and kernel, must be ground up. This is the only way to obtain a high-quality rosehip powder with a high galactolipid content. Picking and eating the rosehip raw straight from the shrub won’t taste too great either, because the rosehip has a very high proportion of tannins. It’s best to mix up the rosehip powder with your muesli and take it in juices, yoghurts or smoothies. The daily recommended intake is between 5 and 10 grams.

Rose-hip powder isn’t the only rose-hip product that has a pronounced positive effect on our health – rose-hip seed oil is also very healthy for us. It’s a popular oil in the cosmetics sector, because it can be easily incorporated into creams, soaps and ointments. The oil of the rose-hip seeds also stimulates the healing process of skin injuries, and it can even provide fast relief for itchy, cracked and brittle skin. Transretionary fruit acid in the oil is responsible for this healing property. It stimulates the skin to regenerate itself and builds up new collagen at the same time.

Silvia Bürkle