Health & WellnessS


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Naps With Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Increase Receptiveness to Positive Emotion


Science Daily
Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:27 UTC
Naps with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep refresh the brain's empathetic sensitivity for evaluating human emotions by decreasing a negative bias and amplifying recognition of positive emotions, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Wednesday, June 10, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Results show that the emotional brain is not stable across the day, resulting in marked changes in emotional reactivity. Naps with REM sleep objectively and bi-directionally modify specific emotions. Individuals who took a 60 to 90 minute nap with REM sleep displayed increased receptiveness to happy facial expression following sleep. People who did not take a nap during the day displayed an amplified reaction to anger and fear.

Lead author Ninad Gujar, senior research scientist at the University of California in Berkley, said that findings of the study emphasize the importance of sleep for the most basic yet psychologically and socially important brain process.
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Fats to Avoid: The Polyunsaturated Oil Epidemic

Elizabeth Walling
Natural News
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:46 UTC
They sit on the grocery store aisles, appearing rather innocent. They are clear and odorless - mainly because they have been bleached and deodorized with chemicals after high-heat processing has turned them rancid. And, interestingly enough, they are touted as a health food that can save your heart.

They are polyunsaturated oils like soybean, canola and corn oil. They are industrialized oil, and they have reared their ugly heads at the health of modern society.
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Alarm Clock

Artificial Sweeteners May Contaminate Water Downstream Of Sewage Treatment Plants And Even Drinking Water


Science Daily
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:07 UTC
Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What's more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water. Thanks to their new robust analytical method, which simultaneously extracts and analyses seven commonly used artificial sweeteners, Marco Scheurer, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Frank Thomas Lange from the Water Technology Center in Karlsruhe, Germany, were able to demonstrate the presence of several artificial sweeteners in waste water.

Their findings are published online this week in Springer's journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.
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Fish

What You Need to Know Before You Ever Order Fish at a Restaurant


Mercola.com
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:41 UTC
In this video, Jean-Michel Cousteau explains why the common practice of farming carnivorous fish like salmon is devastating marine life, and why fish farming in general is a bad idea.

Farmed fish is now so common, if you bought fish in the supermarket recently or ordered one in a restaurant, chances are it was born in a pen. About the only ones that don't use farmed fish as their primary fish source are specialty fine-dining fish restaurants. But these oceanic feedlots, acres of net-covered pens tethered offshore that were once considered a wonderful solution to over-fishing, may in fact not be such a great idea after all.
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Pills

Painkiller ban has cut suicides


BBC News
Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:00 UTC
Co-proxamol tablets
© unknownCo-proxamol is linked to fatal overdoses
The controversial withdrawal of a common painkiller has dramatically cut suicides, say researchers.

A gradual phase-out of co-proxamol led to 350 fewer suicides and accidental deaths in England and Wales, a study in the British Medical Journal reports.

Regulators removed the drug's licence in 2007 after fears about the risk of overdose but the move proved unpopular with some patients and doctors.

Arthritis Care says some patients now struggle to control their pain.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency announced the withdrawal in 2005.
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Attention

Flashback One More Link in the Mercury-High Fructose Corn Syrup Chain: Autism

Paula Crossfield
Huffington Post
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:41 UTC
Until now, parents of children with autism who have spoken up about their fears that their child's disorder came on the heels of vaccination have been given the status of heretic. But it turns out that the increase in autism we have been witnessing over the last few decades could also be a result of the over-all increase in the body burden caused by mercury in our air and water, and by proxy the fish we eat, our vaccines and dental fillings, and now, in our high fructose corn syrup, a substance marketed and consumed most often by those most at risk: children.

It is a matter of record that our fish populations are accumulating mercury; and as the top of their food chain, we too are accumulating the toxin. The neurological effects of mercury have been widely documented. On the EPA's website, for example, it lists the primary health effect of methylmercury on fetuses, infants, and children, as being impaired neurological development.
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Sheeple

The Psychology of Slot Machines

Jim Martino
Santa Ynez Valley Journal
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:40 UTC
Eighty to 85 percent of the profits in any gambling casino come from slot machines. They have sometimes been called the "crack cocaine" of the poor and uninformed. The machines are always colorful and provide visual and sound stimulation to the players

More importantly to the casino, they provide a hope or expectation that the player can win something while they are being amused by spinning wheels or flashing screens.

There is often a promise of a big jackpot, perhaps a progressive one of four-to-six figures in size, and the face of the machines are covered with all the various winning combinations available. That is because the psychology of slot machines is that they are designed to create a feeling of winning while over time the player keeps losing.
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Roses

Natural Remedies for Anxiety and Depression

Christopher Hobbs
Inner Rewards
Mon, 18 May 2009 01:18 UTC
One in ten women suffer from depression, defined in medical terms as a mood disorder in which your mood takes control of your life. Beyond being sad or having the blues, depression typically causes feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and self-doubt. Just as there are many levels of depression and anxiety, there are many levels of treatment using antidepressants and psychotherapy. There are also lots of natural healing strategies, including dietary and herbal remedies.
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Syringe

Teenage Girls Develop Degenerative Muscle Diseases After HPV Vaccine Injections

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:10 UTC
The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have launched an investigation into a potential connection between the Gardasil vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) and a rare degenerative muscle disease.

Concern over a connection between Gardasil and the rare disease -- known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease -- was first raised by Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers on their blog. Shortly after receiving the Gardasil vaccine two years ago, their daughter Jenny began to lose motor strength and control, eventually becoming completely paralyzed before dying on March 15. Doctors suspect that she suffered from a rare juvenile form of ALS, which affects one out of every two million children.
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Study Suggests Memory Repression May Help the Traumatized


Medical News Today/Geisinger Health System
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:38 UTC
Geisinger Health System senior investigator and U.S. Army veteran Joseph Boscarino, Ph.D., is proud of his military service, yet he doesn't like to talk much about his combat experiences.

Before becoming a renowned researcher of psychological trauma, Dr. Boscarino served a tour of duty with an artillery unit in Vietnam from 1965-66, during which he witnessed heavy combat and its aftermath. To this day, he tries hard not to reflect on those battlefield memories.

New research by Dr. Boscarino and Tulane University investigator Charles Figley, Ph.D., shows that for some people exposed to traumatic events, repressing these memories may be less harmful in the long run.

"Going back to the days of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrists and mental health experts have suggested that repression of traumatic memories could lead to health problems," Dr. Boscarino said. "Yet we have found little evidence that repression had an adverse health impact on combat veterans exposed to psychological trauma many years later."

In a study that appears in the June issue of the research publication Journal of Nervous & Mental Diseases, Drs. Boscarino and Figley examined the long-term mortality rates of Vietnam veterans who were evaluated in 1985 with follow up in 2000.
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