Health & WellnessS


Health

Study: Lifting Weights Slims Down Belly

Jamie Stengle
Livescience
Sat, 04 Mar 2006 12:00 UTC
Dallas -- By just lifting weights twice a week for an hour, women can battle the buildup of tummy fat that often takes hold with aging, a new study suggests. And they didn't even diet.

The study focused on intra-abdominal fat, the deep fat that wraps itself around organs and is the most unhealthy because it's linked with heart disease.
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Health

Destination detox

Caroline Wyatt
BBC News
Tue, 28 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
spa building in Bad Ems
© BBCThe health centre boasts more than 10,000 satisfied customers
Caroline Wyatt checks into a German spa which offers a taste of Eastern asceticism and a minimalistic menu.

There is nothing, it seems, that European women would rather spend a great deal of money on than getting away from it all at a spa or health farm and as correspondent Caroline Wyatt discovers, the bill is often as painful as the rather intrusive treatments.

The brochure had a photo of a luxurious hotel, and all the buzzwords: revitalising, rejuvenating.

A detox. Well, I was not sure about a detox.

I like to tox, and I think my liver and kidneys do an admirable job, considering the challenges.

Apparently, the Maharishi Ayurveda spa offered daily full-body massages, with hot oil dribbled over the entire body, rubbed in by two people simultaneously.

I booked straightaway.
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Magnify

The Age of Senescence

Karen Hopkin
The Scientist
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
Senescent cells not only exist in vivo but also accumulate in aging tissue. Cultured, these nonreplicating cells are far from inert. They produce a plethora of unpleasant proteins that can, among other things, destroy the structural integrity of the tissue that surrounds them.

It was hormones that drew Judith Campisi to study science: her own hormones, that is. I went to an all-girl Catholic high school, she laughs, and I decided I'd had enough of the girls. I wanted to be where the boys were, and the boys were in the sciences. But it was the excitement of lab life that kept her there. Science is always challenging, it's never dull, says Campisi, now a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs and the Buck Institute for Age Research.
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Attention

Soldiers Face Debilitating Diseases


NBC
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
They served their time in the military in places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most returned in good health.

But an NBC 30 investigation has found that for some soldiers, their service has meant a long and debilitating death sentence with mysterious diseases.

"I have good days, I have bad days," said M. Sterry, of New Haven. "There were eight of us that served together. Six of my friends are dead."

She looks healthy, but Sterry is a very sick woman who has no idea how much longer she will live.
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Magnify

Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease

Gina Kolata
NY Times
Wed, 08 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.
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Syringe

Flu Shots and Alzheimer's Disease


mercola.com/royalfire
Wed, 08 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
According to Hugh Fudenberg, MD, the world's leading immunogeneticist and 13th most quoted biologist of our times (nearly 850 papers in peer review journals): If an individual has had 5 consecutive flu shots between 1970 and 1980 (the years studied) his/her chances of getting Alzheimer's Disease is 10 times higher than if he/she had one, 2 or no shots. Dr. Fudenberg said it was so and that it was due to mercury and aluminum that is in every flu shot. The gradual mercury and aluminum buildup in the brain causes cognitive dysfunction.
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Family

Stress 'Fueling Early Puberty'!


BBC
Wed, 08 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
KIds walk
© BBCChildren's bodies are maturing faster
Unhealthy lifestyles and unstable family environments may be contributing to a fall in the age that girls reach puberty, research suggests.

Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman found girls are reaching puberty 18 months earlier than their mothers, and almost two years earlier than their grandmothers.

He found girls currently start puberty at an average of 10.25 years of age.

His findings echo previous research suggesting 'precocious puberty' is a growing trend.
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Book

Mental Exercise Nearly Halves Risk of Dementia


LiveScience
Tue, 07 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
Staying mentally and physically active throughout life is the best way to keep the mind sharp and reduce the risks of developing dementia, two recent studies show.

One large group study found that staying mentally active reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia by nearly half by building and maintaining a reserve of stimulation.

Comment: Well, that leaves out Dubya...

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Evil Rays

Chronic Pain Shrinks People's Brains

Robert Roy Britt
Livescience
Tue, 07 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
Pain causes an unexpected brain drain, according to a new study in which the brains of people with chronic backaches were up to 11 percent smaller than those of non-sufferers.

People afflicted with other long-term pain and stress might face similar brain shrinkage, said study leader A. Vania Apkarian of Northwestern University.

The results suggest those with constant pain lose gray matter equal to an oversized pea for each year of pain. Gray matter is an outer layer of the brain rich in nerve cells and crucial to information and memory processing.
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Health

Hormone Transforms Fat Cells from Foes to Friends, Rat Study Suggests

Sarah Graham
sciam.com
Fri, 03 Feb 2006 12:00 UTC
Set against the backdrop of an increasingly overweight population, the 1994 discovery of the fat-regulating protein leptin was widely heralded as a boon for obesity research. The hormone continues to be a focus of investigation. Findings published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicate that increasing leptin levels in the body can fundamentally change the nature of fat cells—from idle storage containers to fat-burning machines.
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