In a recent randomized placebo-controlled trial of 17 heavy-drinking American men, for example, they found that taking kudzu cut alcohol consumption by between 34% and 57%.
But before you rush out to buy kudzu extract, there's a sting in this particular tale. Our test, and those carried out in the US, involved each person taking 500mg of the active ingredient. But we looked hard and we couldn't find any brands of kudzu available in the UK that have the government's THR mark, which guarantees that they actually contain what they say on the label.
Most problem drinkers eat badly and generally lack sufficient levels of vitamins (particularly B and C) and amino acids (the building blocks of protein). Excessive alcohol itself is toxic. The vitamins, herbs, and other supplements in our list can restore depleted nutrients and also aid in dealing with the effects of withdrawing from alcohol.
Recovering alcoholics may confuse feelings of hunger for alcoholic cravings and need encouragement to return to normal dietary patterns. A healthy diet for recovery includes vitamin-rich protein, complex carbohydrate and high-fiber foods. Vitamin supplements aid in restoring proper nourishment.
Vitamin B Depletion
The most common deficiencies from alcoholism include thiamine, pyridoxine and folic acid, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Thiamine, a B vitamin found in meat, grains and yeast, helps metabolize carbohydrates. Fish, liver, cereals and yeast contain pyridoxine, or vitamin B-6. Green vegetables, fruit and liver contain folic acid, also a B vitamin. B vitamin foods also include poultry, nuts, brown rice and dairy products. Broccoli, asparagus, potatoes, bananas, apricots and figs contain B vitamins.
L-glutamine
500-1,000 mg L-glutamine twice a day between meals
Vitamin C
1,000 mg 3 times a day
Milk Thistle
120-175 mg 3 times a day between meals
Chromium
200 mcg twice a day
Kudzu
The Chinese Pharmacopoeia states that an effective dose of dried kudzu root is 9-15g taken prior to drinking (1 hour minimum) if you are trying to cut down on your drinking. Take 10g, 3 times a day if you are abstaining from alcohol.
Kudzu root compounds can affect the same neurotransmitters (including serotonin, GABA, and glutamate) as alcohol consumption can.
According to A Holistic Approach to Health in Early Recovery article:
In double-blind research, alcoholics treated with DLPA (D, L-phenylalanine) combined with L-tyrosine, L-glutamine, prescription L-tryptophan, plus a multivitamin, had reduced withdrawal symptoms and decreased stress. One study suggests that kudzu, used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat alcohol abuse, might help reduce cravings and the patients that I’ve treated with it respond with fewer cravings [1].
1). Benlhabib, et al. “Kudzu root extract suppresses voluntary alcohol intake and alcohol withdrawal symptoms in P rats receiving free access to water and alcohol.” J Med Food. 2004 Summer; 7 (2): 168-179.
According to thethe new study, which was published this month in the Journal of Physiology, researchers at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland found that:
Those rats that had jogged on wheels showed robust levels of neurogenesis. Their hippocampal tissue teemed with new neurons, far more than in the brains of the sedentary animals. The greater the distance that a runner had covered during the experiment, the more new cells its brain now contained.
There were far fewer new neurons in the brains of the animals that had completed high-intensity interval training. They showed somewhat higher amounts than in the sedentary animals but far less than in the distance runners.
And the weight-training rats, although they were much stronger at the end of the experiment than they had been at the start, showed no discernible augmentation of neurogenesis. Their hippocampal tissue looked just like that of the animals that had not exercised at all.
Amazon’s web services arm has updated its terms of service with a special clause that kicks in in the event of corpses consuming human flesh and the like fall of civilisation.
Clause 57.10 of the AWS terms of service states: “This restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organised civilisation.”
“The original workers that were not paid anything by their employers were newly freed slaves,” she tells Quartz. “This whole concept of not paying them anything and letting them live on tips carried over from slavery.”
Many Americans in post-slavery America initially resisted tipping, a custom that originated with European aristocrats. To tip was patronizing, Jayaraman writes in her book; it was seen as “despicable, undemocratic and wholly un-American.”
It could be useful. You can drive it right into a lake.
David Bowie died recently. You may have heard. I wasn't a full-tilt fan and in consequence thereof didn't rend as many garments as some. As might be put by someone within hailing distance of youth, the dude was okay. He occupies a small amount of real estate on my playlist. One of them, "Putting out Fire with Gasoline," the theme from the 1980s remake of "Cat People," I went considerably out of my way to get.
Why do I bring it Bowie up now? Because in all the public mourning and celebration-of-life in print over the past week or so I don't recall seeing much about Bowie's super-legendary introduction to "New York's large and influential counter-culture, most of whom had never heard of David Bowie," as put by the site "The Ziggy Stardust Companion." That would have been September 28, 1972, his Carnegie Hall debut, which was the mightiest display of the power of the hipper-than-thou ever seen in the City that Doesn't Understate.
Das Wetter in geschlossenen Räumen (2015) or "Weather in Closed Spaces"
Set at a luxury hotel in a conflict zone. Development aid worker Dorothea begins an affair with a young Arab drifter, Alec. A literal take on the humanitarian aid.
Imagine, if you will, the following scene. I pop into the National Gallery to view the 2014 BP National Portrait Award and look in bemusement at the exhibition, which is mostly comprised of rather old-fashioned paintings. It’s an uninspiring show, a hotchpotch, as are most exhibitions drawn from open submissions. Inexplicably enraged by this, I rush home and pen an article claiming that painting is dead and that it looks anachronistic, indeed stupid, on a gallery wall in the 21st century. Not only that, but I then extrapolate that all painting is dull and stupid – Caravaggio, Rubens, Picasso, Hockney, Richter, the lot.
Spui, Amsterdam. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Carl Zeiss Planar, Kodak Porta 160
The photos above were taken in Amsterdam on vintage Rolleiflex 2.8F (Model K7F) Carl Zeiss Planar 2.8 80mm lens using Kodak Ektar 100 film.
The mayor is backing the redevelopment of South Park’s eyesore neighbourhood into ‘SoDo SoPa’ – but Kenny’s father is not impressed. Kids, it’s time to get with the gentrification programme
By virtue of its location south of downtown South Park, the new zone will, the mayor announced, be named SoDo SoPa. “Sleek, sexy ... so SoDo SoPa.” Just listen to all those sexy single sibilant syllables. But acronyms are just the beginning: new retail opportunities can also have earthy, muscular names like Steed, the Stag and Brighton’s. One restaurant in Sodo Sopa is called Vernacular.
According to the latest study, giving your body enoough time to digest food is critical for optimal health and a good sleep. It is the case even if you eat all fat diet, versus have access to food at all times.
Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California recently published a study in the journal Cell Metabolism that investigated one important aspect of this problem. Their question: which is more important—what you eat or when you eat? For example, what would happen if you could only eat between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm? Would you gain less weight and be healthier overall even if you ate a high fat diet? Their answer was “yes.”
Mice were given free access to either a standard, nutritionally-balanced chow or a chow that was high (61% of calories) in fat. Some mice were allowed total access to the food at all times. Some mice were only allowed access to their assigned diet for an eight hour window during the early phase of their normal active period. As anyone would have predicted, the mice given total all-day access to a high fat diet (the standard American diet) developed obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome and altered sleep-wake rhythms.
The President of Russia Vladimir Putin is submerging in submarine to inspect the sea floor.
Reaffirming interview with Michael Houellebecq about the current events in the wake Charly Hebdo attack and nearly 100% coverage on Islam in French media.
Houellebecq’s main target in Submission is what he believes is France’s limp and cowardly intellectual and political class. In Paris, the most visible change when he returned from self-exile three years ago was the number of homeless “that had really exploded in the 10 years I’d been away”, but in the nation as a whole he noticed the media obession with Islam (“it really wasn’t talked about before I left”) and, most importantly, he says: “the people’s great contempt for its elite: politicians, bosses, journalists ... it was really very big.”
Here it is. My i-Phone WiFi selection went grey and not selectable. In short WiFi stop working. After spending numerous days resetting Networks, resetting entire i-Phone and following official instructions from Apple Discussion Board, and nothing worked. The i-Phone WiFi was dead.
What worked for me is not for a faint of heart. I found this instruction on the web and thought it was a prank.
1) Take a blow drier and turn the heat on.
2) Take your i-Phone and aim the heat towards the speaker ear piece. Continue to blast heat until you can't hold the phone in your hands any longer and the message comes up "The device needs to be cooled off before it can be used".
Turn the phone off! You probably will need to hold it in the towel by that time.
3) Put the turned off phone in the fridge and forget about it for about half an hour.
4). Turn the phone on. In my case the WiFi came back ON.
I can't vouch that it will work on your phone, as it did on mine, but if you are about to put it in the trash, it is worth a shot.
Here are the original instructions that worked for me.
Solo free tight rope walk record. Do not try it at home!
A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is an imaginary community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is literally translated as "not-good place", an antonym of utopia.
Synonym: kakotopia