Thursday, April 4, 2019

How would you like to avoid buying bottled water for your home or on the go? Save the planet and drink one of the best water products available.


Don’t Take Water for Granted


When I was growing up in Taiwan, boiling water was an activity 365 days of the year. Every night, we would boil lots of water and fill glass bottles for cooling. By the next morning, the water would be ready either to refrigerate for drinking or left at room temperature for cooking. It would get reboiled for brewing tea or coffee as well as poured into ice trays to make ice cubes.
When I lived in Canada, I appreciated the cold water that came out of the faucets. No boiling was required and the running water tasted better than any bottled water I had ever had. Ironically, many indigenous populations—First Nations in Canada—now must boil water in order to decontaminate it for drinking, the same way residents of Flint, Michigan have had to for years now. Even in industrialized countries, contamination and water scarcity are more prevalent than we think. In areas of the arid Southwest in the United States, for example, populations are facing a threat to their drinking and irrigation water supply as rivers dry up..1
People often take their drinking water for granted, but when you’re traveling, the tap water may not be safe to drink. With diarrhea, giardia, hepatitis A, typhoid and cholera among the illnesses that can be transmitted with bad water, it pays to know which parts of the world guarantee clean, safe tap water, and where you should be sourcing bottled water instead.
The water you need to be most concerned about is water that might contain microorganisms that will make you sick, and in less developed countries, you are more apt to run into water that contains a variety of microorganisms you want to avoid.  To make untreated or badly treated water safe, boil for 60 seconds. Boiling in rolling water for one minute should kill 100% of pathogens. At high altitudes of 2,000 meters or 6, 562 feet, boil for three minutes.2
If the water is unsafe to drink, don’t brush your teeth with water from the tap. Check that natural bodies of water are safe before you swim, keep your mouth closed in the shower and don’t accept ice in your drinksRemember that with canned beverages, such as soda and beer, the outside of the can may have been contaminated too if it was chilled in ice..3 Also, if you can’t drink the water, don’t eat the salad either. Only eat food which has been cooked or that has a peel, which you can remove. Salads are generally washed with local water when being prepared, so always ask if it has been purified if you’re unsure.4
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides guidelines for removal of some or all of the bacteria that may be present in drinking water. Boiling is ranked with a high effectiveness as is using a combination of filtration and disinfection. The recommendation is to use a 0.3 micron filter with NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated “cyst reduction/removal.”5
If you decide to purchase bottled water wherever you go, make sure it is sealed. In impoverished nations, bottles are often refilled with tap water, which is unsafe for drinking. Please remember to dispose of your plastic water bottles responsibly. Non-biodegradable items cause a huge problem throughout the world.
Nikken Water Technology Products help you access PiMag® water at home and on-the-go. Traveling with the PiMag® Sport Bottle with patent-pending nano-filtration technology and alkalization media is easy and convenient. It exceeds reduction standards for cyst, lead, bacteria and much more. Fill it with potable water wherever you are, and know that you are contributing to the well-being of the local ecology as you practice Active Wellness everywhere you go.

If you are at risk for Type 2 Diabetes, please take time to read this post

Are You at Risk for Type 2 Diabetes?

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), diabetes affects about 30.3 million Americans or about 9.4% of the U.S. population, and nearly one in four living with diabetes don’t know they have it.1 Additional statistics show that another 84 million Americans have prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.2Since nine out of 10 adults with prediabetes don’t know they have it,3 they may not take precautions.
How do you know if you’re at risk? Just as with most diseases, if you have a family history of diabetes, you have a greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Other risk factors include being older than 45, being overweight or leading a sedentary lifestyle.4
Since diabetes can cause other health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, impaired sight and foot issues, taking adequate preventative measures is prudent. Delaying diabetes by even a few years may benefit your health.5 The NIDDK even has an annual Diabetes Alert Day to inform the public how diabetes can be prevented or delayed—tomorrow, March 26, 2019 is this year’s special day.
According to the Diabetes Prevention Research Group, there are some things you can do to lower your risk, which coincide with practicing Active Wellness:
  • If you are overweight, losing weight and keeping it off may help prevent or delay diabetes. The rule-of-thumb is to lose 5 to 7 percent of your starting weight. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, your goal would be to lose about 10 to 14 pounds. About 12% of diabetics are normal weight or thin—their insulin resistance may be caused by genetic factors, fat around their organs (known as visceral fat) or high cortisol levels resulting from stress.6
  • Exercise regularly. Get at least 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week. If you have not been active, talk with your health care professional about which activities are best. Start slowly to build up to your goal. For example, if you can only walk for five minutes at a time, you can start by taking mini-walks several times a day.
  • Eat healthy foods most of the time.Choose foods that are nutrient-dense and have a low glycemic load.You don’t have to memorize a list of foods if you stick largely to a Mediterranean diet with lots of green vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, and low-sugar fruits like berries, kiwi, oranges, and melon. Eating in a healthy way not only helps heavier diabetics lose weight, but it also helps normal-weight diabetics control their blood sugar levels.
  • Drink water instead of sweetened beverages. Many people eat well but are not aware that drinking so-called healthy juices or energy boosters often results in unnecessary intakes of sugar.
  • Stay away from refined and processed foods as much as possible. Replace “white” foods such as rice, pasta, bread and cereals with whole grains that are high in fiber. The worst foods are those with added sugar, fried foods, foods with trans fat and processed meats. 8
Whether you need help maintaining or losing weight,Kenzen Vital Balance Meal Replacement  Mix contains no added sugar, has MCTs for your brain and organic pea protein that even vegans can enjoy. 
To help break the coffee and tea with sugar and cream habit,Kenzen Ten4 Energy Drink Mix   is the perfect pick-me-up. It’s made with organic matcha green tea and New Zealand kiwi, and naturally sweetened with stevia extract and organic brown rice solids.

Relax, Renew and Regenerate this Spring Season!

Relax, Renew and Regenerate this Spring Season!

In North America the official start of spring this year is on March 20. Even as the spring season is physically a time of rebirth and renewal, it’s also a challenging time for both the body and the mind.
Noted psychiatrist and substance abuse specialist Dr. McCance-Katz points out that researchers have discovered a greater incidence of depression and anxiety in the spring months. As it turns out, lengthening daylight may discombobulate people’s chemical regulatory system. “There are these different neurotransmitters that have been implicated in mood disorders,” she says. “It could be that people also have imbalances in serotonin, in melatonin, that are affected by day length and can also affect mood.”These imbalances are also suspected to cause that general feeling of lethargy, commonly referred to as spring fever.
In fact, “the suicide rate goes up in the spring.”2 Not only are taxes due, final exams take place in many universities and secondary schools, certain sports resume intense practice and stress levels increase during the season for filing taxes. Spring presents specific challenges, so here are a few tips for combating the basic three:
  1. As much as you look forward to the warmer spring weather, you also have to cope with the accompanying winds and sporadic rain, which can wreak havoc on the skin. Your skin may get dehydrated, itchy and red. Be particularly gentle while cleansing and conscientiously hydrate throughout the day and especially at night, because skin cells renew best during rest. Antioxidant-rich vitamins E, A and C are particularly helpful in regenerating the skin. 3
  2. Spring fever begone! Use your diet to help obtain that extra boost you need. Eat seasonal foods. They are fresher and therefore have higher nutritional value. 4 To make sure you aren’t eating or drinking anything that may cause inflammation (pesticides, artificial coloring, chemical preservatives), stay with organic fruits and vegetables.
  3. Stress can virtually be a killer, so exercise both physical and mental health care. Make sure to incorporate exercise into your busy spring days, as physical activity is a known stress reliever. Massage is also a way to practice Active Wellness as the muscles are coaxed into relaxation for sense of overall well-being.
Nikken can help you combat the three basic challenges of spring, so you can relax, renew and regenerate.Kenko Touch takes the “ouch” out of expensive massage sessions with a convenient hand-held device that is designed with patented DynaFlux® magnetic technology.Kenzen Ten4 Energy Drink Mix  gives you 80 mg of natural caffeine from superior quality matcha green tea powder to supercharge your body and to keep your mind alert.  Since it is so important to keep skin moisturized during the spring season, we recommend using True Elements® Youthful Face Cream, (link to shopping cart) as it may help all skin types replenish moisture.

Consider this approach to helping our planet without government intervention...a novel idea.


Are You Going Green?


As we become more educated about how to help sustain planet Earth, our habits and even the language we use, evolve. Going “green” is being redefined as we learn about alternatives and possibilities.
The terms “green” or “sustainable” often refer to products, services or practices that allow for economic development while conserving for future generations.  A product is considered green if it has “less of an environmental impact or is less detrimental to human health than the traditional product equivalent.” 1
No product is 100% green, since everything we trash will eventually impact the environment in some way. According to Sustainable Earth, green products are:
  • Energy efficient, durable and often have low maintenance requirements.
  • Free of Ozone depleting chemicals, toxic compounds and don’t produce toxic by-products.
  • Often made of recycled materials or content or from renewable and sustainable sources.
  • Obtained from local manufacturers or resources.
  • Biodegradable or easily reused either in part or as a whole.
We each can contribute to sustainability in small ways. Most of us know about the 3Rs: REDUCE, RECYCLE, REUSE. Practicing the 3Rs means we are going green by decreasing wastefulness, minimizing the accumulation of consumables and sharing with our communities.
Aspects of going green are in lock-step with practicing Active Wellness: walking more and eating organic.2 Typically, informed consumers eat organic to avoid pesticides and other chemicals used in traditional forms of farming. But eating organic is much more than that, because how crops are grown impact the environment on a massive scale. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has implanted the National Organic Program, which indicates whether an agricultural product was produced in such a way that integrates biological, cultural and mechanical processes to conserve biodiversity and foster cycling of natural resources. In general, this means synthetic fertilizer, irradiation or genetic engineering practices will not be used.3
Other ways of going green include using energy saving light bulbs, improving house insulation, installing solar panels, driving hybrid cars, eating less beef, composting and using less plastic. We can purchase from bulk bins, carry water bottles and limit packaging to glass, metal and paper, as these materials can be more easily recycled, reused or biodegraded.And, we can pay attention to ingredient lists, so we commit to buying products that are more naturally sourced.
Businesses can lead the way and change consumer behavior by producing more green products and helping to educate the masses. Nikken Consultants can spread the word about our company’s commitment to going green. The PiMag Sport Bottle and PiMag Waterfall Water Filter   are eco-friendly and many Nikken Wellness Products are certified organic. In addition, True Elements Organic Skin products are certified by EcoCert.