The bergamot, or bergamot orange, is a citrus fruit that mostly grows in the Calabria region of southern Italy. According to Wikipedia, the tree blossoms in winter and the juice is less sour than a lemon but more bitter than a grapefruit.

It looks like the primary use for this fruit is to create essential oils, like for aromatherapy, and is thought to help with depression, stress, tension, fear, hysteria, infections, anorexia, psoriasis, and eczema. Bergamot is also used to flavor Earl Grey tea.

More importantly for us, extracts of the bergamot fruit also have beneficial effects for our cardiovascular health. Clinical tests have shown that bergamot extract can help to maintain levels of triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol.

Here is an abstract I found on PubMed:

Bergamot juice produces hypolipemic activity in rats though the mechanism remains unclear. Here we investigated on the effect of bergamot extract (BPF) in diet-induced hyperlipemia in Wistar rats and in 237 patients suffering from hyperlipemia either associated or not with hyperglycaemia. BPF, given orally for 30 days to both rats and patients, reduces total and LDL cholesterol levels (an effect accompanied by elevation of cHDL), triglyceride levels and by a significant decrease in blood glucose. Moreover, BPF inhibited HMG-CoA reductase activity and enhanced reactive vasodilation thus representing an efficient phytotherapeutic approach in combating hyperlipemic and hyperglycaemic disorders.

“produces hypolipemic activity” in plain English means that it reduces fat, or cholesterol, in the blood. “combating hyperlipemic and hyperglycaemic disorders” means that it helps helps people who are dealing with problems of high blood fat and high blood sugar.

Here is where I get my bergamot juice extract.

Wayne Woodworth

PS. You can safely assume that any links on this site are affiliate links and that I make some income from orders placed on the sites that I link to. I only link to and endorse products that I use myself and have found supportive.

I have been sleeping under a far-infrared blanket for five years now and I sleep great. Actually, my whole family has and the biggest benefit that we have noticed so far is that the far-infrared blankets help to regulate body temperature.

I did a quick search on the internet to see what other benefits people claim for far-infrared energy, and this is what I found.

• far-infrared waves attract calcium ions to the cell membrane
• promote osmosis of water to the cell membrane
• stimulate enzyme activity
• reduce soreness
• improve lymph flow
• remove toxins
• reduce muscle spasms
• increase blood flow

These are some pretty amazing benefits. If all it did was improve lymph flow then that would make far-infrared blankets worth their weight in gold. The lymph system is the body’s sewer system. The trash, waste products and used up white blood cells, is collected and carried through the various nodes and finally eliminated from the body. Improving lymph flow will reduce your chances of getting sick,and if you did get sick, it would reduce the length of your illness.

Nikken sells the far-infrared blankets that my family uses. I cannot say that you will get all of those benefits from using a Nikken comforter because that would be making a medical claim and I am not a doctor, and Nikken’s infrared blankets are not medical devices. All the same, my family has used them for 5 years and you cannot part us from them.

You can see Nikken’s far-infrared blankets here.

Wayne Woodworth

One complaint I often hear about Nikken and their nutritional supplements is that they don’t highlight all of the benefits of the products like other companies do. The main reason is because it is illegal for them to do so. One reason that Nikken has been around for more than 35 years is because they work to stay conservatively legal.

Many of the Nikken nutritional supplements haven’t been available in Canada this year until recently because Canada changed some of their label requirements for nutritional supplements. Nikken pulled all of the affected items from the Canadian market to revise the labels and get them re-approved. I think there are only a couple supplements that are still not available yet.

In the US, the rules for what Nikken can and cannot say about nutritional products is set by the DSHEA – Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994.

Under this provision, any claims to prevent, treat, or cure a specific disease are expressly prohibited (unless approved by the FDA). For example, a claim linking folic acid and the reduced risk of neural tube birth defects may be allowed, but a product label that claims the product “cures cancer” or “treats arthritis” is not allowed. Manufacturers, however, can make statements about nutrient deficiency diseases, as long as these statements disclose the prevalence of the disease in the United States. Also, statements describing the supplement’s effects on the “structure and function” or general “well-being” of the body are allowed, as long as they are truthful and bear the statement “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” The product label must identify the product as a dietary supplement (ie, “Powdered Garlic Dietary Supplement”).

That pretty much covers it.

Click here for more information about Nikken’s nutritional supplements. Regardless of what the FDA and DSHEA allows Nikken to say, they are excellent supplements and most of them are organic, whole food, and Kosher. You really can’t beat that.

Wayne Woodworth

Last week Nikken put up something on their website about using sweet potatoes to show the benefits of PiMag water, so I decided to do it and post about it here.

The demonstration requires 2 sweet potatoes, one set up in PiMag water and the other set up in the water from your tap. After 2 or 3 weeks you should see a difference between the two potatoes.

I decided to use 3 sweet potatoes because my tap water comes from a well and is already pretty good, just doesn’t taste that great. So I have one potato in PiMag water from our Nikken Aqua Pour, the second potato in the water from our well, and the third potato in the chlorinated water from my son’s preschool.

Today is day 1 of the test and there isn’t much to see. At this point they’ve been in the water for about 5 minutes. My expectation is that the potato in the PiMag water from our Aqua Pour will sprout the fastest and look the best. The one in our well water will do almost as well and maybe lag behind in development to the PiMag potato. Since the purpose of chlorine in water is to kill things, I don’t expect the “city” potato to do very well at all.

I plan to update this in 3 days or so and see if anything has happened yet. I will also try to find a better background so that the potatoes stand out a little better.

UPDATE DAY 4

I took some pictures today to show you how the potato test is going. The one in the well water hasn’t had any changes that I can see, so I didn’t take any of that one and focused on the other two. The potato in the chlorinated water from my son’s pre-school has been peeling a little bit as you can see in the picture to the left. I don’t know if that is a result of the chlorine drying the potato out or not but the other potatoes aren’t doing that. You can click on the picture to get a larger size and see the peel.

I was surprised when I looked at the potato in the Pi water from our Aqua Pour. It has 2 roots that have started to grow from it. I knew that it would eventually but I didn’t expect them to start growing after only 4 full days of soaking in that water. I know that it doesn’t mean anything conclusive, but it is exciting to see. Again, you can click on the picture for a larger view.

I will update again in a few days.

Wayne Woodworth

Have you heard about The Emotion Code and Dr. Bradley Nelson? He uses magnets, usually either the Magboy or the Mag Creator to release trapped emotions.

Magnets have many uses. They can help us find our way by pointing to the magnetic north pole in far northern Canada. They turn the refrigerator into a gallery for our kids’ artwork. If we spin them fast enough inside a coil of wire we can generate electricity. They also allow us to find and pick up some metal objects. We also know that magnets can help us to read the magnetic fields in our body by using a medical device like an MRI. If you are familiar with magnets like the Nikken magnets then you believe like I do that magnets can help they body heal and function better.

Magnets can help us get rid of our emotional baggage.

A year or so ago someone told me about Dr. Bradley Nelson’s book The Emotion Code and pointed me to where I could read the first 5 chapters online. The first thing I looked for was mention of the Nikken magnets, specifically the Magboy and the Mag Creator, and they are mentioned several times. I thought it was interesting but didn’t pursue it much until this past October when my customers started asking me about it.

I finally decided to order the book and read it for myself. The theory is straight forward and I think it is believable, especially when you take into account the success that Dr. Nelson talks about in the book and that I have heard about from some of the other people I have talked to. The theory is that trapped emotions from earlier in our life can get trapped in the body and cause physical pain and emotional problems to develop later. They can also prevent us from achieving the things that we want to accomplish in our lives.

The process is really very simple. You use muscle testing, a technique from applied kinesiology, to question your subconscious mind about any trapped emotions that you have then use a magnet to release the emotion. He says in the book that when working on yourself you can use the Magboy to roll from your forehead over the top of your head and as far down your neck as you can easily reach. When working on someone else you can use the Mag Creator and roll it down their back. You can get the actual details of the process in the book.

In the following videos Dr. Nelson talks about trapped emotions and demonstrates how he can release them. The trapped emotion discussion starts about 3 minutes into the first video.

Click here for more information about the Nikken Magboy and Mag Creator.

Do you have experience with the Emotion Code? I would love to hear about it in a comment below.

Wayne Woodworth

I read today that the liver is involved in over 500 bodily functions that are critical to our health. That’s a lot of functions. There is one that I know of that is absolutely critical – the liver cleanses the blood making sure that anything toxic gets removed before it can cause harm. Anything that you eat or drink passes through your liver before the nutrients can be delivered to the cells in your body.

People who consume to much alcohol develop liver disease because the liver is taxed with trying to remove the alcohol before it gets into the blood. That is also why you have to get your liver enzymes checked when you take some medications for extended periods of time.

The liver produces bile which aids in digesting fat, so it is also involved in healthy digestion and removing excess cholesterol. Because the liver stores fat it can help the body process the fat-soluble vitamins. The fat-soluble vitamins are A, D, E, and K.

You can probably tell by now that it is important to do what you can to keep your liver healthy. Artichoke and sarsaparilla root are two foods that are packed with the nutrients that the liver needs to stay healthy.

Artichoke and Sarsaparilla Help the Liver

Artichokes have proven to enhance liver function and boost the production of bile to break down fat. Artichoke can also lower the bad cholesterol and increase the good cholesterol in the blood.

Sarsaparilla root is an herb that is known as a blood purifier and helps to protect the liver.

Dr. Charles Cochran wrote in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients that the combination of artichoke and sarsaparilla root were extremely effective in detoxifying the liver, normalizing liver metabolism, and preventing further liver damage and there are double-blind studies to support that claim.

Nikken’s Kenzen Liver Support formula (or Kenzen Artichoke/Sarsaparilla in Canada) is a proprietary blend of extracts from the artichoke bud and the sarsaparilla root without artificial additives, preservatives, or stabilizers. You can find out more about Nikken’s Liver formula here.

If you have used Nikken’s Liver Support let me know how it worked in a comment below.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and Nikken’s products are not approved by the FDA to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. If you think you may have liver problems please consult a medical professional.

Wayne Woodworth

I was looking through the search phrases that people have used in the past month to get to my website and found this one: “are nikken magnetic mattress safe for toddlers”. I think that is a really good question because we want to keep our kids safe and give them the best quality sleep that we can.

The short answer is yes, they are safe to use for toddlers.

When we got involved in Nikken our daughter was 2 years old and our son was 6 months and starting to cut his first teeth. When our daughter was going through that she was sometimes up twice during the night and probably 3 nights a week. It was miserable. So we immediately got our son on a magnetic pad. It was actually the Nikken Magnetic Pet Pad which just happens to be the perfect size to fit in a crib. It think he woke up during the night twice the entire time he was cutting his teeth. We were sold on magnetic pads right there and that remains to this day my most telling story about the benefits of magnetic pads.

Now our kids are 7 years old and 5 years old and sleep every night on a complete magnetic sleep system, which consists of a magnetic mattress pad, magnetic and far-infrared comforter, and a magnetic pillow. They sleep great and wake up rested and usually in a good mood in the morning.

Why I Believe Nikken Magnetic Sleep Systems are Safe

For one, I have met some of the people behind the Nikken products and I know people who know them pretty well. These are people with families and children and only want the best for them, which is part of the reason that they are with Nikken. I have also heard Anthony Bove, the person who developed many of Nikken’s magnetic products, speak about the magnets and his beliefs about how strong the magnets should be based on time-tested electromagnetic science. Nikken’s magnets are not exactly the strongest magnets on the market.

Nikken’s older magnetic mattress pads had magnets that were about 800 gauss compared to other companies that make magnetic pads rated at up to 10,000 gauss. Anthony Bove determined that 800 gauss was the right amount of magnetic energy to support the body and not over-stimulate it. The newer Naturest pads and pillow use 3200 gauss magnets and decided that the increased magnetic strength was needed because they sit deeper into the pad. The magnetic strength at the surface of the pad is about 800 gauss, the same as for the older pads.

The thing to keep in mind about Nikken’s products is that they are not intended to cure diseases. They are intended to support the body so that it can function at its best. Basically, all of Nikken’s products and technologies are designed to take the natural energies that our ancestors experienced in our natural habitat, the great outdoors, and bring them inside where we spend too much of our time.

So again, yes, the Nikken magnetic mattress pads are safe for babies, toddler, kids, adults, and the elderly. My kids sleep on a magnetic sleep system and so do my wife and I. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Click here to find out more about Nikken’s sleep systems and the individual components. By the way, I’m offering a 20% discount on complete sleep systems until January 31, 2011. You can get the discount code on the sleep page linked above.

Wayne Woodworth

I haven’t talked in a while about Nikken’s magnetic insoles, the Magsteps and Magstrides. Magnetic insoles are an important item for Nikken because that is where it all started for them 36 years ago in Japan. That’s right, Nikken has been making magnets in the form of magnetic insoles for 36 years. That’s a long time and is a good testament to their effectiveness. Products that don’t work don’t last 36 years on the market.

What Do Magnetic Insoles Do?

People often ask me what magnetic insoles do. The short answer is that they sit in the bottom of your shoes and create a magnetic field above the surface of the insoles. The real question is what kind of benefits can your body create while the bottom of your foot is bathed in a magnetic field. I believe that the magnetic field helps to relax your feet and to improve energy flow. There is a double-blind study demonstrating that magnetic insoles can help diabetics with peripheral neuropathy and you can see more about the study here. While studies are nice,they don’t really tell you if magnetic insoles are going to work for you. I think that actual personal experience is much more telling.

I like my Nikken Magsteps and I feel that they work very well for me and I don’t have any serious issues with my feet that I need them to “fix”. What they do for me is keep my feet feeling good when I have to spend time on my feet. I can spend 2 long days on my feet at an event and only at the end of the second day will they start to get tired. Imagine what that could mean for someone whose job requires them to be on their feet, like a server at a restaurant, an employee at a store, or someone who works at a spa or beauty shop.

Magsteps are a great introduction to Nikken’s magnetic products. They are fairly inexpensive and should last you for several years. And like I already said, they have been around for 36 years. I don’t generally recommend the Magstrides only because most people don’t have enough room in their shoes for the extra thickness of the Magstrides. Click here to learn more about Nikken’s Magsteps and Magstrides magnetic insoles.

Wayne Woodworth

I’m a big fan of the Nikken Sleep System. Sure, you can find a lot of people who will tell you about how it helped their back pain, restless leg syndrome, fibromyalgia, or any of a number of other problems. I can’t really talk much about specific conditions and whether the magnetic sleep system will help with them or not because I’m not a doctor and it would be illegal for me to do so. What I can tell you about is how well I sleep on it.

I have had my sleep system for almost 5 years now and it has been amazing. My family is fortunate to not have any kind of sleep condition but we are normal people and did used to have trouble sleep some nights. And I do mean “used to” have problems, as in I don’t anymore. I can’t think of a single night in the past 5 years that I have had trouble getting to sleep or sleeping through the night, unless I was sick (which is also very rare thanks, I believe, to Nikken).

In my family we all sleep on a Nikken sleep system. We go to bed at night, sleep through the night, and wake up rested in the morning. As you know, you don’t always get to sleep in as late as you would like. My cat gets me up early to be fed and to go outside then I have to get my daughter up and my wife gets up to get her ready for school. My son is the only one who gets to sleep in during the week. While we do have to get up earlier than we would like, we are still rested and ready for the day because the magnets pull us down into a deep, rejuvenating sleep.

For some people, a “Nikken Sleep System” sounds like something scary, like one of those machines used by people with sleep apnea or something. It isn’t. A system is just a number of components that work together to produce a desired result. In the case of a Nikken Magnetic Sleep System, we are talking about a magnetic mattress pad, a magnetic and far-infrared comforter, and 1 or 2 magnetic pillows. So, you already sleep on a sleep system, just not a magnetic one, and all that remains is to ask whether it works for you or not.

One nice thing that Nikken does for us is price the sleep system at 10% less than the price of the individual components, so it is already a good savings. I’m writing this on January 12, 2011 and I have decided to offer an additional 20% discount on the magnetic sleep system until the end of this month, January 31, 2011. In case you are curious, that results in a net 28% off the price of the individual components. Savings like that can help you sleep better at night too. You can get the discount code on my Nikken Sleep System page then click on one of the 2 sleep pack pictures to order your great night’s sleep.

Wayne Woodworth

I live north of Atlanta, GA and we are currently weathering our 4th snow fall of the season. So much for the “sunny South” and “Global Warming”. Two very real possibilities during a winter storm, especially in the South where we are not as well equipped for such weather, is power outages and frozen pipes. To prepare for these you want to make sure that you have a supply of drinking water to get you through. They say that you should fill your bath tub with water, but I’m not drinking water straight from my bath tub.

We have an Aqua Pour, and that provides great assurance against being without water. The Aqua Pour has a 2.6 gallon supply tank to store filtered water that will get you through for a little while. It also doesn’t require electricity, so you can take that water that you filled your bath tub with and filter it before you actually drink it.

So, having a well maintained Aqua Pour can be a part of good winter storm preparedness.

Wayne Woodworth