Daily Archives: May 1, 2013

Milk Thistle Benefits

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Milk Thistle Benefits

Milk Thistle is unique in its ability to protect the liver and has no equivalent in the pharmaceutical drug world. In fact, in cases of poisoning with Amanita mushrooms, which destroy the liver, milk thistle is the only treatment option. It has been so dramatically effective that the treatment has never been disputed, even by the traditional medical community.

Milk thistle acts in a similar fashion to detoxify other synthetic chemicals that find their way into our bodies, from acetaminophen and alcohol to heavy metals and radiation.

Milk thistle was approved in 1986 as a treatment for liver disease and it is widely used to treat alcoholic hepatitis, alcoholic fatty liver, cirrhosis, liver poisening and viral hepatitis. It has also been shown to protect the liver against medications such as acetaminophen, a non-aspirin pain reliever.

The active ingredient, or liver-protecting compound in milk thistle is known as silymarin. This substance, which actually consists of a group of compounds called flavonolignands, helps repair liver cells damaged by alcohol and other toxic substances by stimulating protein synthesis. By changing the outside layer of liver cells, it also prevents certain toxins from getting inside. Silymarin also seems to encourage liver cell growth. It can reduce inflammation (important for people with liver inflammation or hepatitis), and has potent antioxidant effects. Antioxidants are thought to protect body cells from damage caused by a chemical process called oxidation. Our Milk Thistle is not standardized to an exact amount (as it is made from pure dried natural herbs. Milk Thistle naturally contains about 70 – 80% Silymarin (and many other constituents thought to work in harmony).

This herb benefits adrenal disorders and inflammatory bowel syndrome, and is used to treat psoriasis (increases bile flow).

Milk thistle has some estrogen-like effects that may stimulate the flow of breast milk in women who are breast-feeding infants. It may also be used to start late menstrual periods. Milk thistle’s estrogen-like effect may also have some usefulness for men with prostate cancer.

In animal studies and one small study in humans, milk thistle produced modest reductions in total cholesterol. However, these results have not been demonstrated in larger human studies.

This herb is a must for cleansing and for anyone with any sort of liver dysfunction or exposure to toxins.

Liver disease from alcohol

A comprehensive review by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently identified 16 scientific studies on the use of milk thistle for the treatment of various forms of liver disease. A European standardized extract of milk thistle was used in most of the trials. Problems in study design (such as small numbers of participants, variations in the causes of liver disease, and differences in dosing and duration of milk thistle therapy) made it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions. However, five of seven studies evaluating milk thistle for alcoholic liver disease found significant improvements in liver function. Those with the mildest form of the disease appeared to improve the most. Milk thistle was less effective for those with severe liver disease such as cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is characterized by scarring and permanent, non-reversible damage to the liver. It is often referred to as end-stage liver disease.

Viral hepatitis

Despite the fact that milk thistle is widely used in the treatment of hepatitis (particularly hepatitis C), results from four viral hepatitis studies were contradictory. Some found improvements in liver enzyme activity while others failed to detect these benefits. None of the studies compared milk thistle with interferon or other medications for viral hepatitis.

Cancer

Preliminary laboratory studies also suggest that active substances in milk thistle may have anti-cancer effects. One active substance known as silymarin has strong antioxidant properties and has been shown to inhibit the growth of human prostate, breast, and cervical cancer cells in test tubes. Further studies are needed to determine whether milk thistle is safe or effective for people with these forms of cancer.

High cholesterol

One animal study found that silymarin (an active compound in milk thistle) worked as effectively as the cholesterol-lowering drug probucol, with the additional benefit of substantially increasing HDL (“good”) cholesterol. Further studies in people are needed.

Marketing Monday: Social Media Ad Spend to Hit $11 Billion – How You Take Advantage

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Marketing Monday: Social Media Ad Spend to Hit $11 Billion – How You Take Advantage

Social media ad spendingSocial media use continues to increase, on both the consumer and marketer side.

According to a report by BIA/Kelsey, social media advertising revenues will hit $11 billion within 4 years, up from $4.7 billion in 2012.  That’s in the US alone. (Tweet this stat!)

Another new study from Vizu found that 64% of US advertisers will increase their spend on paid advertising on social media sites in 2013.

Related: Get help with your business’s online marketing from professional vendors.

As more consumers become active on social media, social media ad spending is bound to increase. Social media networks are places for businesses to connect with consumers on a more personal level. Here are three reasons social media ad spend will continue to increase year after year.

Loving the Locals

Business owners can reach local customers with geographic targeting and this is just one of the reasons local ad targeting is becoming more popular. Small businesses want to reach locally based customers who are able to actually visit their brick-and-mortar stores. Larger businesses want to create more segmented ad campaigns so they can reach and connect with the customers near specific stores and create tailored content for each ad.

BIA/Kelsey expects social advertising’s local penetration to steadily increase as social networks continually improve the ease of onboarding, local targeting and campaign management for both brands and SMBs.

  • They predict that locally targeted social ad revenues will grow at a 26.4% CAGR, from $1.1 billion in 2012 to $3.6 billion in 2017. (Tweet this stat!)

As a small business, you have the best insight into the type of information and products locals in your area want. Use this information to serve up the most locally-targeted ads possible.

Related: Managing Employee Contributions to Your Social Pages

Crazy for Keywords

Businesses target consumers using keywords on sites such as Bing, Google and Yahoo!. Social media platforms are getting on board with the relevance of keyword targeting.

Last week, Twitter unveiled its most recent changes to its advertising system for businesses and marketers. Advertisers can now tailor their ad messages based on what keywords users are tweeting about in their posts. This feature makes the Twitter advertising platform a lot more appealing, especially to those working within a niche.

Anthony Ha at Tech Crunch explains that users won’t see more ads and that the new system is “just an extra way to target those users.” Twitter still stands by its ability and goal of trying to show only relevant content that’s “engaging to users.” Keyword targeting boosts the likelihood your ad is relevant to the person viewing it.

Ads that Engage

If content is king, relevance is queen and engaging ads ask for both in order to be successful. By 2017, the percentage of display ads will dip to 58% of total social media ad spending, the report says. “Social networks are evolving their ad products and features to improve performance,” said Jed Williams, director of consulting and senior analyst, BIA/Kelsey. “Native social formats, including video and mobile-social advertising, will be the principal market growth drivers.”

Vizu found that fewer advertisers and agencies used social ads as a pure direct-response tool to drive site visits or other actions, but 54% of agencies and 39% of advertisers reported using social ads to do some mix of branding and direct response.

Related: Selling on Social: Are You Influential in the Right Networks?

As social ad products become more sophisticated, more advertisers, including small businesses, will be drawn to social ad products. Connecting with consumers is the ultimate goal and when target audiences are active on social networks, businesses need to find ways to advertise effectively on those platforms. Social media ad spending is increasing and small businesses can take advantage of the local and keyword targeting segmentations to compete and win with larger corporations.

Developing an IP Strategy

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Developing an IP Strategy

Obtaining intellectual property (IP) protection is important for anyone wanting to maintain rights to their inventions, designs or creative work. Many business owners, inventors and creators know protecting their creative work under intellectual property law is important, but they often don’t realize a sound IP strategy is a crucial first step. Intellectual property law allows owners, inventors and creators of intellectual property to protect themselves from unauthorized use of their property. The primary forms of intellectual property are patents (utility and design), trademarks and copyrights.

Patents protect an inventor’s creation, while trademark protection safeguards distinctive words, names, symbols, sounds and colors used to distinguish products and services of one business from another. Property that qualifies for copyright protection include literary works such as books and computer programs; dramatic works and the accompanying words; pictorial, graphics, photographs and sculptural works; motion pictures and audiovisual works; and sound recordings and musical works, including music from plays and dramatic readings, and recordings on tapes, cassettes and CDs. 

Steps to Develop Your Company’s IP Strategy

Inventing a product or service is an important first step for any company, but obtaining intellectual property protection is a process that needs planning ahead. With a well-developed IP strategy, you can protect your or your company’s inventions and creative work, keeping tabs on how to allocate resources and when to explore new research and development opportunities. Here are five steps that can help you develop your own IP strategy:

1. Let your company’s size guide you

First, your company’s size and structure should guide your IP strategy. If you have a small company with only a few employees working on an invention, for example, you might not need a formal IP strategy. But larger companies, on the other hand, would be wise to develop a detailed IP strategy. One of the most important areas to clarify are ownership rights and publication policies. The strategy should take into account previous agreements between the company and employees (or contractors).

Larger companies may want to outline the roles and responsibilities of managers and employees in managing and disseminating the company policy regarding intellectual property use to ensure everyone follows the proper procedures that will maintain the company’s intellectual property rights. 

2. Establish guidelines for creating intellectual property

There are many questions you’ll need to answer as you develop your IP strategy. First is to differentiate exactly how the intellectual property will be created. You should list each person involved in creating the work, then outline exactly what type of intellectual property protection you are seeking.

As you determine what type of intellectual property protection to seek, you’ll want to conduct a comprehensive search of existing work to ensure you don’t infringe on someone else’s trademark, invention or copyrighted material. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to search for trademarks, patents and copyrights online, but there are many sources you will need to consult, so having professional help to conduct a search might be a better option for you. You don’t want to develop products that are not protectable or plan to market a product that the creator isn’t free to develop. Your IP strategy should take into account whether or not the company can afford this preliminary intellectual property search.

In addition, you should hold regular meetings to devise a plan of attack for creating your intellectual property.

You’ll want to address the timeline for the entire process. Certain forms of research will have a longer development time than others. You should take this into consideration when creating your budget. If a product development takes too long to be market-ready, you might miss important intellectual property filing deadlines, which could further compound costs.

3. Analyze your competitive advantage and barriers to entry

One of the first questions you should answer before you invest in creating any kind of intellectual property is whether or not you can reap the rewards of your work in the marketplace. Would your invention, brand or creative work give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace? You’ll need to do your research to see what’s out there and evaluate if you could capitalize on your work. The market climate for your product or service will dictate how and if you develop intellectual property as well as which kinds of intellectual property to develop. Some questions to ask yourself include: 

  • What’s the value of the product or service you are wanting to protect? 
  • In the current market, would you be able to make a good return on your investment?   
  • What is the competitive market?
  • How do competitors market their product or service? 
  • Are there complementary industries in the market you might be able to tap into? 

 

Answering each of these questions will help alleviate any freedom to operate issues that may arise between you and your competitors. You can gain a competitive edge by understanding and overcoming any barriers to entry, which include the following:

  • Are there key personnel who might impede the process? 
  • Is the product or service designed for a niche market?
  • Will the product or service require regulatory approval?
  • Are there any competitors who offer a product that’s similar to yours or are you the first to offer this type of product?

 

4. Analyze third-party interactions

Problems and misunderstandings that may arise from third-party relationships are one of the surest ways intellectual property can be lost. Any third parties who could potentially be involved in any portion of the development of the product or service being protected should be considered in developing your IP strategy. Third parties can include employees, suppliers, partners, contractors and even customers. Your IP strategy should dictate any employee contracts, supplier and contractor agreements, confidentiality agreements and licensing options.   

5. Audit your intellectual property

Conducting an audit of your existing intellectual property materials should be a part of your IP strategy development. Be sure to include utility patents, trademarks, copyrights and design patents and the ownership and historical relationships related to these properties. The scope of protection of the intellectual property should also be included in the intellectual property audit to determine whether there may be any gaps in protection or risks in the development and intellectual property protection process. Finally, a formal exit strategy should be determined in case problems arise at any stage of the development process.    

In Summary

Companies of all sizes should focus time and energy on having a strong understanding of the intellectual property process, which can help you save time and money when developing a product or service and obtaining intellectual property protection. By determining your goals and evaluating your IP strategy for future success, you will have a better understanding of the environment your company is entering. A company can spend a lot of time on developing a product or service. An equal amount of time should be spent on developing your IP strategy to ensure the maximum return on your intellectual property investment.