What’s so good about fibre that has everyone from grandmothers to doctors and dieticians recommending it? Mim shares some little-known facts about fibre and how to get more fibre in your diet.

Yoga is good for weight loss. Mim outlines the findings of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center findings, from Science Daily (August, 2009). Middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not…

If you have had a consultation with me lately, you’ll know I have a nut fetish. Nuts are truly wonderful. Sigh. They are high protein. Tick. Contain lots of minerals. Tick. Are an excellent source of soluble fibre and have a low glycaemic index. Tick. Tick. They also provide the wonderful essential fatty acids, including the omega 3’s. Did you know that walnuts contain just as many omega 3 fatty acids as fish?

Teenagers often show poor energy and lack of concentration at school. Boys in particular, with their beanstalk-like growth spurts, find it difficult to maintain blood sugar levels for daylong energy of body and mind. Mim provides some solutions.

The premise is that many diseases including cancer, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and others are influenced by the dietary acid-alkaline balance. Naturopath Mim Beim provides advice and a table of foods and their pH.

Tea is one of the largest sources of antioxidants in our diet. It is particularly rich in a type of antioxidant known as phenols. One particular phenol, epigallocatechin gallate, is a whopping 30 times more potent than vitamin E.

Antioxidants are of interest to nutritionists (and naturopaths) because most are found in food, and for medicine because antioxidants help prevent certain diseases including heart disease, cancer and possibly osteo-arthritis and autoimmune conditions.

Alpha Lipoic Acid may not be as well known as other antioxidants, but this is bound to change as medical research reveals its enormous benefits. For instance, in diabetes: high levels of this important nutrient appear to improve the ability of glucose to enter cells from the bloodstream.

Wondering how much water to drink daily? Increasing water intake leads to improvements in all sorts of unexpected areas. For instance, studies show people with dementia, may have drier brains…

You can have too much vitamin C. A little is good for you, helping to to fortress the immune system against colds and infections, it’s effective in hay-fever and allergies, but too much can bring you to ‘bowel tolerance’.