farmeric September 13th, 2009
Eating, Drinking Your Way To A Healthy Life
An interview with Dr. Maxima Flavier of UPLB
By VIRGINIA ANN BURGOS
A HEALTHY lifestyle today is associated with the use of natural compounds derived from food crops. Nutraceuticals, the food substances that provide medical or health benefits including prevention and treatment of diseases, and cosmeceuticals, substances that bank on natural ingredients to enhance beauty, are the emerging trend in health and wellness, especially in the US and in Europe.
The use of traditional components is not new to Filipinos. Long before researches on nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals were undertaken, traditional herbs were already being used as health remedies, especially in the rural areas. Some of the most common herbs used in the rural areas include banaba, for urinary tract infection, lagundi, commonly used as expectorant but also has many benefits, and ginger, for arthritis, these herbs are now being developed for commercial consumption by other pharmaceutical companies.
The utilization of natural medicines is one of the advocacies of Dr. Maxima Flavier, director of the Institute of Chemistry (IC) at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños (UPLB). “I prefer to use traditional natural products; you get them by eating their sources,” she told Biolife as she discussed the benefits of natural products like rice bran and siling labuyo.
Dr. Flavier was also the co-adviser of a study undertaken by IC on the health and medicinal benefits of rice bran as an angiogenic. Before this, she stayed in Japan for a year as a visiting professor conducting research on the effective utilization of rice bran.
Their study in UPLB showed that rice bran contains Phytosterols. Phytosterols are now being incorporated in the production of food and beverage, as studies have showed that they help prevent heart diseases by reducing the level of bad Continue Reading »
Tags: Food, Health, healthy diet, natural medicine, rice bran, siling labuyo
