How to make Black Garlic

Black Garlic is the latest addition to my daily arsenal. Yasumi Gojo of Healing Seitai gave me a few heads of black garlic and asked me to try them. Her husband made them in an old rice cooker and she was sharing it with her clients. Some of them reported better blood pressure and better health. Pal Ryuko who is in the beginning stages of Parkinson’s says it makes her feel stronger. I think that it is making my grey hair black again!

I began to eat one clove a day in the morning and increased to 3 cloves a day. I do like the taste of garlic and the only difficult part of it is peeling the paper off – but it is easy enough to do.

Yasumi taught me how to make this great health supplement with a rice cooker, and I now make my own black garlic with a lot of extra to share.

The recipe

  • Peel off most of the paper from each head of garlic (actually, this step is not necessary). I use the Christopher Ranch bag of raw garlic from Costco because it is grown in California. I can fit about 18 heads of garlic in the 5 cup rice cooker.
  • Lay down a layer of wooden chopsticks or popsicle sticks on the bottom of the rice pot so the garlic is not resting on metal. Cover the sticks with a paper towel, then pile in the garlic heads. Try to keep the garlic away from the side of the pot so it doesn’t burn. Cover the pile of garlic with another paper towel.
  • Close the lid, plug in the rice cooker, and set it on “warm”. Leave the rice cooker on warm for 10 days. The smell is quite strong during the first few days so I keep it in the garage. Unplug the cooker and remove the bulbs when cool enough to handle.

And that’s it! I store the blackened bulbs in a bowl on my kitchen counter and peel and eat 3 cloves every morning. When my supply starts to get small, I start a new batch in the rice cooker. Actually, I am constantly making batches of black garlic because I like to share with others who are interested and may have some issues that it could help, just as Yasumi Gojo shared with me.

Costco also sells black garlic. I like the bottle it comes in, and each bulb has only one round clove in it! However, it is rather pricey and it is also from China. Pal Wandaful said she looked up “black garlic from China” and didn’t like how sketchy their practices are with bleach and questionable fertilizers.

I think that I am having more benefits from taking black garlic than my hair getting darker, but I can’t say for sure. It is a natural remedy that has and entourage effect. I just learned about that while researching the benefits of CBD and cannabis. It is the effect on one’s body that doesn’t just treat one thing. It treats everything.

And for that, I am more than willing to have garlic breath in the morning until I brush my teeth. And since we still wear face masks, nobody really notices anyway.

Like an Ohmmmmmmmm, for your lungs

Aunty is not a doctor of medicine so this is not medical advice.  Aunty must say that as a disclaimer, and also because Aunty sometimes tries weird (and wonderful) stuff.

Decades ago, in my twenties,  I attended a workshop on iridology (the study of the eyes) from the renown Dr. Bernard Jensen.  He stressed diet (you are what you eat), herbs and healthy lifestyles, attitudes and choices.

He did not like the choices of the traditional medical doctors which were dominated with 2 therapies – drugs and surgery.  He, and Dr. Richard Schulz (HerbDoc.com) were constantly criticized for their radical and risky therapies of nutrition, cleansing and herbal remedies.  Their retort was to ask: what is more radical and risky:   a) cutting or interchanging parts out of the body and/or bombarding the body with chemicals that have the ability to blast through and destroy cells and systems; or b) clean out and flush toxins from the colon and other body parts and then use natural plants and herbs to aid in the healing process?

Choices

Aunty feels that the main difference in modern vs alternative (sometimes referred to as pseudoscientific) medicine is that modern medicine treats the symptoms and the subsequent side effects and natural alternative medicine treats the causes.  To be a believer in alternative medicine, one must also believe that the body is capable of healing itself.

This is not to say that Aunty does not believe in modern medicine at all.  Because of the dedication, research, and the leaps and bounds of medical discoveries, modern medicine helps and is sometimes the reason we live long and well.  It’s also faster – take a pill and your headache goes away, put a stent in your arteries and your blood flows again, get a pace maker and your heart beats the way it should.

It is also the standard of choice for most people, and an easy way out.  Going the all natural route of diet or cleansing, changing one’s lifestyle and actually exercising and revamping attitudes takes a lot of effort, and it goes against the mainstream way of life, subjecting the ones who do the “radical” naturopathic route to ridicule and condemnation sometimes, “Oh yeah, so-and-so didn’t believe in going to a regular doctor, did only natural stuff and he died.”  A question to ask then is, has anyone ever died due to the intervention of modern medicine?  Drug overdose, mistakes and misdiagnosis, surgical errors, etc.?

It doesn’t hurt

So, in a roundabout way, Aunty comes back to the “Ohmmmmmmmmm” of this subject, for this “self healing of lungs” is neither naturopathic or modern medicine.  It’s other realm kind of stuff from Master Sha.  Whether or not you believe him to be a healer or not, this leap of faith into a different kind of exercise may make you a believer in your self, and your body’s power to heal.

Basically, it is: Sitting up straight, contracting the perinium (down there, ahem), placing a hand over the lower chakra (just below the belly button) and the other hand over the lungs, imagining golden light while chanting “Compassion”.  It sounds weird but very do-able.  Aunty’s doctors will probably not think much of it, but if it works for even one person, the weirdness is worth it.  Greater lung capacity and removing blockages is a good thing, right?

This Normal Aunty still goes to the doctor and sometimes (but not always) takes his advice.  Naturopathic Aunty takes nutritional supplements and herbal formulas for elimination (tmo, lol).  Weird Aunty is always looking at other methods for cures and maintenance of good health and wellness, because Aunty believes there is so much more that we do not yet understand until we search or take notice of what is revealed.

And thus, I share, for truly, I wish you good health, great lungs, and a long and prosperous happy life.

Your normally weird Aunty

 

 

Rat Lungworm Alert!

Parmarion martensi

Parmarion martensi

Do you have “symptoms that are flu-like and usually start with a headache, most often severe, and stiffness in the neck?  There may be fever, joint pain, fatigue and nausea. The skin may feel itchy, like something crawling under it, and then become extremely sensitive to touch.

Aunty has a little garden that is somewhat successful and sometimes not.  Currently there are 3 kale “trees”, chili plants, Thai basil, and a crop of manoa lettuce.  The other day we harvested 3 heads of lettuce and had a fresh salad with dinner.

Rosie’s boyfriend had a little cute slug on his leaf and we threw it out.  Daughter #1 had rinsed the leaves off minimally in a colander and was chided to carefully wash each leaf next time.

Serendipity

The very next day, Aunty’s good friend Bocho sent an email about the invasion of Rat Lungworms in Hawaii.  Yeow!!  That cute little slug kinda looked like the one in the picture…

The good news for Honolulu folks is that problem seems endemic to the Big Island, the carriers are rats and flatworms.  It is not so much the species of slugs and/or worms that are the problem.  It is the parasite that they contain, even in their slime trails.

Information shared

Aunty sent off the link to the Rat Lungworm article to the kids, and daughter #3 reported having a headache and swollen gums.  Yikes!

Fortunately swollen gums are not listed as a symptom, BUT, better to be safe and treat it as a possibility of disorder.

Parasites, parasites, everywhere

We ALL have parasites.  Some scientists that believe that parasites cause all diseases.  When our bodies are in balance with a strong immune system, parasites are kept at bay.  Sometimes, parasites can become invasive to the point of disease.

When Aunty was a little girl growing up in Palolo Valley, Mother used to make us take a powdered concoction in a paper envelope whenever “worms” were suspected.  The telltale signs were skin trails that showed up under our skin.  Not sure what kind of worms we had – possibly ring worms from running around barefoot, climbing trees and wading in streams – but we downed the powder, and worms be gone.

Boost and Blast

Aunty has a cabinet full of herbs and supplements waiting for their day of usefulness.  Daughter #3 will be de-wormed and de-parasited with a product called “Paratox”.  Her immune system will be boosted with echinacea and other immune boosting supplements.  She will be detoxified with teas and drink a lot of water.

This protocol will have the effect of blasting, cleansing and boosting, which is good in any situation.

Nature

Our bodies are amazing creations of complex workings.  Nature is amazingly marvelous, and simple.  Living in Hawaii, Aunty’s only beef with Nature is, why do we have mosquitos and flies?

Humans are both productive and destructive.  Wonderful man made discoveries are sometimes re-engineered, warped, or overused.   Antibiotics fit this description.

IAO (in Aunty’s opinion), we are straying too far away from nature for our problems.  But, that is a post that will fill another page in the future.

To do

For now, Aunty will ask that you make sure you wash each leaf of lettuce thoroughly before eating.  If you have any of the above symptoms, please seek treatment.

Update

The link to the rat lungworm article is no longer working.  Not sure what happened.  It may be that the number of cases is very limited – seems like there was one bad case in 2009 and 9 more in 2011, all of them from the Big Island – so the powers that be decided to pull the article.

Anywho, here’s a link to a health alert article from a Public Health LabLog about Hawaii’s rat lungworm problem.

 

Warts and Aunty

I used to have warts on my fingers. Everyone was polite to me and no one (except one of my kids) would say “Yewww, you have warts!” so I would nonchalantly treat them from time to time with prescription wart medicine, over the counter wart medicine, and even getting them burned off at the doctor’s office.

It would look like the black hole of Calcutta for a while and seem to go away…… then they would return and grow to a stronger wart colony, happy to be back on my hands, left index finger, and right calf.

I started to think I would have warts the rest of my life like familiar slightly gross pets to torture from time to time with ineffective treatments.

Then, one day I read about one that was like an old wives tale – kind of like duct tape on warts (you can try that but my warts were super warts and not affected by the duct tape at all).

The therapy was as simple as castor oil and baking soda. Yup, castor oil and baking soda.

Wash area with soap and water, pat dry but allow wart to remain moist. With a clean sterilized needle, scratch the surface of the wart or mole only, concentrating on the center. Then, use an emery board to file the wart or mole smooth – a few strokes should do it. Make a paste with the castor oil and baking soda – just enough for one application (because you will make a fresh mixture each time.) Apply to wart or mole, it might sting a little. Let it sit for a while, then put a little extra dab on it and cover with a bandaid to keep it from getting messy as well as keeping it castor oil moist.

Repeat at least 3 times per day for as long as it takes – make sure you wash the area with soap and water and pat dry before applying paste. You do not need to scratch or sand the surface again. It will look quite ugly, like an eruption of ugly the way Compound W makes it look. It may take weeks, so don’t get discouraged. Mine took 6 weeks, and I was determined to see it through.

It seemed to get bigger and stay bigger at first, and then slowly the wart started to get a little smaller. All the while it was ugly! White dead looking skin and lots of oil soaked bandaids.

A smaller one that I had on my leg came off after just 2 weeks, and each day I thought the bigger ones on my finger would fall off, but they held on and held on for weeks longer, and then one day, I peeled off the bandaid, and the last vestiges of those familiar warts fell off, and I was left with a wrinkled wounded looking finger without warts! It was almost concave where the warts used to be, and it was beautiful!

I have been wart free ever since. Free at last, free at last. Maybe not as huge a milestone as Martin Luther King, but it did feel and look great.

I have heard for external genital warts (yikes! I didn’t have those) you skip the baking soda and scratching and just use a cotton swab to apply castor oil.

Did you know that warts are highly contagious? I hope I didn’t infect anyone while I had warts. If I did, I owe them a bottle of castor oil.

Egg Whites for Burns

This from my sister in law:

A young man sprinkling his lawn and bushes with pesticides wanted to check the contents of the barrel to see how much pesticide remained in it. He raised the cover and lit his lighter; the vapors inflamed and engulfed him. He jumped from his truck, screaming. His neighbor came out of her house with a dozen eggs, yelling: “bring me some eggs!” She broke them, separating the whites from the yolks. The neighbor woman helped her to apply the whites on the young man’s face. When the ambulance arrived and when the EMTs saw the young man, they asked who had done this. Everyone pointed to the lady in charge. They congratulated her and said: “You have saved his face.” By the end of the summer, the young man brought the lady a bouquet of roses to thank her. His face was like a baby’s skin.

Healing Miracle for burns:

Keep in mind this treatment of burns which is included in teaching beginner fireman this method. First aid consists to spraying cold water on the affected area until the heat is reduced and stops burning the layers of skin. Then, spread egg whites on the affected are.
One woman burned a large part of her hand with boiling water. In spite of the pain, she ran cold faucet water on her hand, separated 2 egg white from the yolks, beat them slightly and dipped her hand in the solution. The whites then dried and formed a protective layer.
She later learned that the egg white is a natural collagen and continued during at least one hour to apply layer upon layer of beaten egg white. By afternoon she no longer felt any pain and the next day there was hardly a trace of the burn. 10 days later, no trace was left at all and her skin had regained its normal color. The burned area was totally regenerated thanks to the collagen in the egg whites, a placenta full of vitamins.

Vertigo

Uggghh.  Aunty has recently had bouts with vertigo.  I try to “ride” it out – the way you ride a rollercoaster and try to just go with the flow of the ride rather than jump off.  I know it will stop soon, and then I can relax.

The wonder of our bodies is that it gives us signals when something is not right.  I usually don’t go to the doctor, but this made me go get a checkup.  Dr. Lana Arakaki (great new doctor) did a simple test in the room, and yup, I had BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) on one side.  The good news is that it is treatable with exercise (the exercise that makes it happen will help it go away) and she gave me little pills that help with motion sickness.

I always have had anemia, and thought that was the problem.  However, my blood sugar and cholesterol levels are now quite high.  I also have horrible calcium levels of an old lady with osteoporosis.  Very strange – could it be my poor eating and exercise habits as well as my near addiction to chocolates, cheetos, and coca cola are wearing on my poor body?  Boohoo.  It is time to pay attention.

One of the BEST suggestions was to get massages to reduce the stress in my body.  I went to Dick Murakami of Hikari Massage on King Street.  955-5125.  OMG, he is absolutely the best shiatsu masseuse I have ever had.  I plan on returning, and making massage a part of my life not only for the benefits, but for the sheer and wonderful pleasure of it.  Heaven on the floor.

My TaiChi sensei sent me info from Master Hong.  According to Master Hong , vertigo is due to lack of oxygen to the brain. One should check sugar level.  Kidney and Liver – imbalance.  Kidney- on the physical level –affects bone marrow–bone–oxygen to the bain. Liver -is in excess (migranes) deficiency – dizziness.  Recommended exercise : Liver, Gallbladder and Kidney Healing Qigong exercises.  I shall be looking into these.

I will now dig out my Nikken machine that whirls water into a tornado and oxygenates water.  I used to drink that all the time, but stopped for a few years.  There may be a lot of truth in my body and brain needing oxygen.  The oxygenated water makes me fart for the first week or so, and then it gets used to it.  Good stuff.

Dietary changes, exercise, oxygen, and massage.  It’s about time I started doing what is good for me, not just what I like to do.  For this, too, shall pass.  Thank you body, for the wake up call.

[after about a week, I feel back to normal with just slight episodes of vertigo when I turn a certain way on the bed or get up from the bed or chair.  It feels great to be near normal again.  It is like being given a second chance to do what needs to be done.]

Here is my daily regime.  I still have my coffee with cream (a little less cream now) and my bowl Honey Bunches of Oats cereal for breakfast like I have for the last 20 years.  I now eat fruit if it is on the table that Uncle cuts.  With my breakfast, I take one tablet of Super Food 100 from the American Botanical Company.  This provides me with the good green nutrients that I lack because of my lack of vegetables in my diet, as well as vitamins.  Very natural stuff.

I need to do more exercise, so I shall, though I am taking a little break from TaiChi right now until I feel 100% stable.  TaiChi and Master Hong’s Body Pyramid exercises are my kind of speed, since I am not a aerobics kind of person (though it would be good if I were).

Midday, I take one tablet of Protect, again from the American Botanical Company.  Protect is for people like me who do not eat the proper diet, and don’t exercise as much as they should.  It is cheating in a way, but it suits the situation for now.  We also give the dogs some of it sprinkled on their food every day.  I have noticed that they seem to be younger – more spring in their step, more alertness, less sluggishness.

In the afternoon, I take another Super Food tablet (if I remember).  I also try to eat healthier – less fatty stuff, cut down on my Coca Cola addiction, eat more vegetables, limit my candy eating.  I am not doing it cold turkey, but just cutting back and improving my habits a little.  Maybe a little more next time if my physical exam does not show enough improvement.

I also go out and water my grass and garden more – good to get away from the computer and workroom and gets some sunshine and fresh air.  A daily walk shall become part of my life soon.

At dinner, I take a capsule of Intestinal Correctional #1, again from the American Botanical Company. This is one of the absolute best thing I have found that has probably kept me healthy for all these years of poor eating, pooping and exercise habits.  I have adjusted the daily dose down to one capsule – and I am good to go every morning.  You know what I mean when I say “go”.  I go to the toilet.  Good stuff.

I still have to figure out what to do for my very low calcium levels (-3.9) which is osteoporosis.  I shall start to drink black tea from Master Hong to lower my cholesterol. [I have also discovered Strontium, recommended by Aunty’s professor of nutrition friends.]

Update:  Aunty’s vertigo has gone away.  Massages every three weeks have made Aunty feel pampered and spoiled.  I do believe the vertigo was brought on by a slight cold and a stressed out body.  My routine massages are the solution, and I am sticking to that story with pleasure!

Cuts and Wounds

Anti Infection formula is a small little bottle of tincture that will send you screaming in pain upon initial contact, and then make you glad to be alive.  My kids hate and love the stuff.  The baby in the family is an aggressive soccer player.  In the middle of the high school season, she did a slide tackle to remove the ball from a player.  In the process she scraped the entire side of her right thigh and knee.  At first it looked like a scratched up mass of leg with some deep cuts in the knee.  I treated her knee cuts with Anti Infection (she screamed) and let her use the trainer’s standard treatment of ointment and light bandages.  After the first day, her knee wounds began to scab and heal.  The entire outside of her thigh was bleeding and beginning to pus.  After a week of the standard treatment not working, she was ready for the real stuff.

I must give her a lot of credit.  She was already in intense pain.  The entire skinned area was oozing pus, and she had to scrape the ointment and pus off before I would apply the Anti Infection.  I put the tincture in a small spray bottle, and sprayed the entire area.  The poor baby screamed and cried.  Anti Infection stings like crazy if the wound is infected.  If it is clean and not infected, it does not hurt at all.

Within an hour, you could see a difference.  The bleeding stopped, there wasn’t any pus, and slowly the scabbing commenced.  I would spray more on during the next few days and it was really amazing to see how quickly her scraped up leg healed.  Her deeper knee wounds which were originally treated with Anti-I had already healed within the first week.

I have used this formula every single time I get a cut or wound.  Works every time, the wounds never get infected, and the healing is complete in a very short period of time.

Digestion and Elimination

This is important.  Really really important.

Aunty could have been the poster child for constipation, but it was so normal not to go, I didn’t know I was constipated!  Imagine never having the inconvenience of going to the bathroom while on trips, camping, in school or out in public.  I thought it was terrific and didn’t even give it a thought as to where all that waste in my body disappeared after each meal.  I don’t know what woke me up, but I did wake up.  I needed to poop, and I needed to poop every day.

Intestinal Correctional Formulae #1! to the rescue.  I don’t leave home without it.  I am as regular as an alarm clock.  Just a bit of caution with this stuff.  It has cayenne in it, so the first few times you use it, you have “hot shit” as BF Patricia would say.

Dr. Titchenal’s Bone Health for Aunty

2013-05-05_10-19-08Here’s my edited email from good and wise professor friend, Dr. Alan Titchenal when I asked him about my very low bone density, and what my options were since I didn’t want to take Fosomax:
As always, it was great to see everyone again, catch up a bit, and cover lot’s of territory on what’s interesting us or bugging us.  I guess we are getting older, because the topic got into health challenges a bit.  To follow up on our conversation about bone loss, osteoporosis, and treatment/prevention alternatives, below are a few articles on bone health that include information about the strontium drug (used in Europe) and supplements (sold in the U.S.).   Here are a few articles:  by Dr. Alan Titchenal and his lovely wife Dr. Joannie Dobbs, both highly qualified Professors of Nutrition at the University of Hawaii Manoa.  They write weekly articles on health and nutrition for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

European Strontium Drug Spurs Supplement Sales in U.S.
Living a long and healthy life requires keeping the body in good condition, including the skeleton. After age 50 the risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures increases greatly.

European drug helps bone loss
Living a long life greatly increases a person’s risk of experiencing the pains of excessive bone loss.

Healthy bones are important for senior citizens
ONE OF THE GREATEST health challenges for those who live a long life is to maintain healthy, strong bones.

Supplement helps bones grow stronger
Age greatly increases a person’s chance of experiencing the pain of excessive bone loss.

If you decide to try this option, bear in mind that some of the products on the market did not have the labeled amounts in their product (mentioned in the second article).  A widely available product that did test out well is called “Doctor’s Best Strontium Bone Maker.”

Here’s a link to one of many sources of this product on the Web:
http://www.vitacost.com/Doctors-Best-Strontium-Bone-Maker

The Power of Natto

2013-03-31_21-49-40

Reasons why we should all eat natto. So what if it is stinky and slippery. Read the part about preventing senility.

Our #1 killer has now been hunted down and stopped by Dr. David Williams.

Dr. David Williams has scoured the planet and returned with solutions to virtually every common health problem.

High cholesterol does not cause heart attacks or strokes, and lowering your cholesterol will not give you an ounce of protection from either one.

Until now, if you had a heart attack or stroke, and if you were fortunate enough to make it to a hospital within a few minutes, the emergency room staff could often help. They could immediately inject you with a very expensive clot-busting super-drug to temporarily alleviate the blockage and hopefully limit the damage. But at $20,000 per catheterized I.V. dose, this miracle drug isn’t in every hospital…and you won’t know whether yours has it until it’s too late. Dr. Hiroyuki Sumi of Japan and his team of researchers recently made a ground-breaking discovery:

They found that a 100 gram dose of a traditional Japanese food called “natto” exhibits the same clot-busting activity as a $20,000 therapeutic dose of that super-drug. But while the drug is effective for only 4 to 20 minutes, the enzyme in natto maintains its activity for 4 to 8 hours.

They have discovered the world’s only natural clot buster. And that, my friend, makes natto, The Discovery of the Century.

Heart attacks and strokes are caused by blood clots. Plaque plays a huge role, but the most current research shows that plaque leads to blood clots, which are the real heart stoppers.

Here’s what happens.

Despite having the same name, the plaque in your arteries is not at all like the crust your dental hygienist scrapes off your teeth. Arterial plaque is made up of oxidized LDL and other fats that glob together and penetrate the inner lining of your artery wall.

New research also indicates that plaque doesn’t actually coat the artery wall, it resides inside the wall. As it grows it can eventually rupture, causing a blood clot. If the clot floats downstream and blocks the flow of blood to your heart you have a myocardial infarction, aka a heart attack. If it hits your brain, you have a stroke. Natto stops both cold.

Plaque is a toxic mixture of fats that festers and grows beneath a thin layer of cells. As it grows it gradually impedes blood flow. When it becomes inflamed it ruptures, causing a blood clot. When a clot gets lodged in a vessel in your heart or your brain, it blocks the blood flow and causes a heart attack or stroke.

Natto increases circulation even through restricted arteries, breaks up clots, and keeps this from happening.

The Japanese Secret for Heart Disease

So, why haven’t you heard of natto? Because a simple, inexpensive, unpalatable Japanese remedy has no chance of breaking through the medical establishment’s iron curtain.

For years, the pharmaceutical companies have been getting millions of people hooked on ineffective and downright dangerous blood thinners and cholesterol-lowering drugs– and getting millions of doctors hooked on the profits and perks that come from prescribing these drugs.

What would they get for prescribing natto? Nothing but a lot less business from a lot healthier patients.

Historically, the Japanese have had dramatically less heart disease and greater longevity. These statistics have been used to illustrate the benefits of eating more fish. But this recent research on natto shows
what is probably an even greater factor in Japanese longevity.

The potent enzyme in natto prevents clots from forming. Not only major clots caused by ruptured plaque, but the thousands of tiny clots and blood-sludge that are the result of a natural, age-related decrease in your body’s production of clot-busting enzymes.

But what’s even more astonishing, it not only prevents future clots, it dissolves existing clots–safely, naturally, and effectively. Dr. Sumi’s research has given us the “magic bullet” clot buster we’ve all been praying for.

I hope you’re beginning to see the staggering implications of this.

Never before have you been able to boost your circulation so safely and naturally, restoring it to the healthy pace of an 18-year-old’s. Now, rather than waiting for an emergency infusion of a clot-busting super-drug, a very inexpensive daily amount of natto will keep you out of the emergency room in the first place.

Plus, it will help protect you from a host of other problems related to impaired circulation, including macular degeneration, senility, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and others too numerous to name here.

Circulation is the single biggest factor in determining your lifelong health or early demise, and natto is your #1 best method for keeping your blood flowing as strong as the Nile until the day you die of something other than any circulatory disease.

Googled it –

Medical benefits

It is often said in Japan that natto is good for one’s health, and these claims can be backed by medical research. One example is Pyrazine contained within natto. Pyrazine is a compound which, in addition to giving natto its distinct smell, reduces the likelihood of blood clotting. It also contains aserine protease type enzyme called nattokinase which may also reduce blood clotting both by direct fibrinolysis of clots, and inhibition of the plasma protein plasminogen activator inhibitor 1. This may help to avoid thrombosis, as for example in heart attacks, pulmonary embolism, or strokes. An extract from natto containing nattokinase is available as a dietary supplement. Studies have shown that oral administration of nattokinase in enteric capsules leads to a mild enhancement of fibrinolytic activity in rats and dogs. It is therefore plausible to hypothesize that nattokinase might reduce blood clots in humans, although clinical trials have not been conducted. Another study suggests the FAS in natto is the substance which initiates fibrinolysis of clots, which accelerates the activity of not only nattokinase but urokinase.

Natto also contains large amounts of Vitamin K, which is involved in the formation of calcium-binding groups in proteins, assisting the formation of bone, and preventing osteoporosis. Vitamin K1 is found naturally in seaweed, liver and some vegetables, while vitamin K2 is found in fermented food products such as cheese and miso. Natto has very large amounts of vitamin K2, approximately 870 micrograms per 100 grams of natto.

According to a study fermented soybeans, such as natto, contains Vitamin PQQ, which is very important for the skin. PQQ existing in human tissues is derived mainly from diet.

According to the recent studies, polyamine suppresses excessive immune reactions, and natto contains a much larger amount of it than any other food.Dietary supplements containing the substances extracted from natto such as polyamine, nattokinase, FAS and vitamin K2 are available.

Natto also contains many chemicals alleged to prevent cancer, as for example daidzein, genistein, isoflavone, phytoestrogen, and the chemical elementselenium. However, most of these chemicals can also be found in other soy bean products, and their effect on cancer prevention is uncertain at best. Recent studies show natto may have a cholesterol-lowering effect.

Natto is also said to have an antibiotic effect, and its use as medicine against dysentery was researched by the Imperial Japanese Navy before World War II.

Natto is claimed to prevent obesity, possibly due to a low calorie content of approximately 90 calories per 7-8 grams of protein in an average serving. Unverified claims include improved digestion, reduced effects of aging, and the reversal of hair loss in men due to its phytoestrogen content, which can lower testosterone that can cause baldness. These conjectured physiological effects of eating natto are based on biochemically active contents of natto, and have not been confirmed by human study.

Natto is also sometimes used as an ingredient of pet food, and it is claimed that this improves the health of the pets.