Health & WellnessS


Bulb

Diet And Intestinal Bacteria Linked With Healthier Immune Systems

Alison Heather
Medical News Today
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:21 UTC
Insoluble dietary fibre, or roughage, not only keeps you regular, say Australian scientists, it also plays a vital role in the immune system, keeping certain diseases at bay.

The indigestible part of all plant-based foods pushes its way through most of the digestive tract unchanged, acting as a kind of internal broom. When it arrives in the colon, bacteria convert it to energy and compounds known as 'short chain fatty acids'. These are already known to alleviate the symptoms of colitis, an inflammatory gut condition [1].

Similarly, probiotics and prebiotics, food supplements that affect the balance of gut bacteria, reduce the symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, also inflammatory diseases. Until now no-one has understood why.

Published in Nature, breakthrough research by a Sydney-based team makes new sense of such known facts by describing a mechanism that links diet, gut bacteria and the immune system.
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Smiley

No pain, no gain: Mastering a skill makes us stressed in the moment, happy long term

Elaine Bible
San Francisco State University
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:14 UTC
No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online this week in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.

"No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something," said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University. "People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what's striking is that you don't have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being."
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Fish

Why Fish Oils Help And How They Could Help Even More


redOrbit news
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:43 UTC
New research from Queen Mary, University of London and Harvard Medical School has revealed precisely why taking fish oils can help with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.

In a paper published in Nature today, researchers describe how the body converts an ingredient found in fish oils into another chemical called Resolvin D2 and how this chemical reduces the inflammation that leads to a variety of diseases.

The research also suggests that Resolvin D2 could be the basis for a new treatment for diseases including sepsis, stroke and arthritis. Unlike other anti-inflammatory drugs, this chemical does not seem to suppress the immune system.

The researchers, who were funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign, the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, looked at a particular ingredient of fish oils called DHA. They were able to show how the body converts DHA into Resolvin D2 and discover its exact chemical structure.
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Magic Hat

Breakthrough documentary "House of Numbers" challenges conventional thinking on HIV, AIDS

Mike Adams
Natural News
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:25 UTC
Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung isn't winning any friends in the pharmaceutical industry these days. His breakthrough documentary "House of Numbers" features jaw-dropping interviews with doctors, researchers and even the co-discoverer of HIV himself (Luc Montagnier), all of whom reveal startling information calling into question the "official" explanation of HIV and AIDS.

An exclusive trailer from House of Numbers:


More information about the film is available at HouseOfNumbers.com

The film isn't publicly available yet, as it's been screened in film festivals around the world. Check the available screening events at the film's website.
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Magnify

Eating animals is making us sick

Jonathan Safran Foer
CNN.com
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:10 UTC
Editor's note: Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. His latest book, the nonfiction Eating Animals, (Little, Brown and Co.) will be published November 2.

Like most people, I'd given some thought to what meat actually is, but until I became a father and faced the prospect of having to make food choices on someone else's behalf, there was no urgency to get to the bottom of things.

I'm a novelist and never had it in mind to write nonfiction. Frankly, I doubt I'll ever do it again. But the subject of animal agriculture, at this moment, is something no one should ignore. As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.
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Magnify

When Cancer Spreads to the Brain

Shari Roan
The Los Angeles Times
Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:50 UTC
Doctor
© Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles TimesA doctor stands by images of a CT scan showing a brain with cancer.
The first set of guidelines dealing with cancer that has spread to the brain calls for treatment with both surgery and radiation therapy instead of just radiation alone.

The document, released today at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons meeting in New Orleans, is designed to clarify the best treatments for brain metastases and identify areas where more research is needed, said Dr. Steven Kalkanis, co-director of the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and a member of the panel of experts who developed the guidelines.

Braincancer Among 1.4 million individuals with cancer in the United States, 30% to 40% will develop brain metastases -- tumors that travel to the brain from other areas in the body, such as the breast or lung. It's common practice to treat patients with whole brain radiation. However, a review of medical literature shows that the best results are obtained when patients have surgery to remove the brain tumors followed by whole brain radiation, Kalkanis said.
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Magnify

A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task

Natalie Angier
The New York Times
Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC
Dopamine
© Serge Bloch
If you've ever had a problem with rodents and woken up to find that mice had chewed their way through the Cheerios, the Famous Amos, three packages of Ramen noodles, and even that carton of baker's yeast you had bought in a fit of Ladies of the Canyon wistfulness, you will appreciate just how freakish is the strain of laboratory mouse that lacks all motivation to eat.

The mouse is physically capable of eating. It still likes the taste of food. Put a kibble in its mouth, and it will chew and swallow, all the while wriggling its nose in apparent rodent satisfaction.

Yet left on its own, the mouse will not rouse itself for dinner. The mere thought of walking across the cage and lifting food pellets from the bowl fills it with overwhelming apathy. What is the point, really, of all this ingesting and excreting? Why bother? Days pass, the mouse doesn't eat, it hardly moves, and within a couple of weeks, it has starved itself to death.

Behind the rodent's fatal case of ennui is a severe deficit of dopamine, one of the essential signaling molecules in the brain. Dopamine has lately become quite fashionable, today's "it" neurotransmitter, just as serotonin was "it" in the Prozac-laced '90s.
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Family

This Is Your Brain Without Dad

Shirley S. Wang
The Wall Street Journal
Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00 UTC
Rat
© Matt Collins
Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun's work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.
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Magnify

Is Childhood Sexual Abuse Linked to Inability to Express Emotions in Adulthood?


Medical News Today
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:00 UTC
An investigation published in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics explores the link between child sexual abuse and inability to express emotions in adulthood.

Alexithymia, a clinical condition typified by a reported inability to identify or describe one's emotions, is associated with various forms of psychopathology, including depression. Highly alexithymic (HA) outpatients are more likely to be female, less likely to have children and are characterized by more somatic-affective symptoms of depression and interpersonal aloofness.

The Authors of this investigation extended these findings by examining personality traits and childhood sexual abuse history. Participants were 94 depressed patients [57.45% with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD), 37.23% with single-episode MDD, 5.32% with depressive disorder not otherwise specified] 50 years of age and older recruited from psychiatric treatment facilities in Upstate New York. Individuals completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders. Alexithymia was assessed with the 20-item self-report Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Its 3 subscales measure difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations (DIF), difficulty describing and communicating feelings (DDF) and externally oriented thinking (EOT), the latter being a tendency to focus on concrete details of external events rather than on aspects of inner experience.
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Family

Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'


British Broadcasting Corporation
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:44 UTC
Image
The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour
An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.

Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
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