Research suggests that people with diabetes can reap some benefits from regular yoga practice.

Type 2 diabetes is quickly becoming one of the most common, and debilitating, diseases in the United States. As more and more people develop diabetes, they've started turning to complementary and alternative therapies, such as yoga, to treat the disorder, but not all those therapies work. A study published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine last year analyzed all the available research looking at yoga's influence on diabetes and complications of diabetes (for instance, kidney problems and high blood pressure) and found that, although not enough evidence exists to support the idea that yoga leads to long-term improvements, the authors did find that regular yoga practice led to short-term improvements in fasting glucose and cholesterol levels.

That's not surprising, says Patricia M. Hansen, a certified Ayurvedic practitioner and lifestyle consultant in Denver who sits on the advisory board of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. "Yoga stimulates the organs, and that improves metabolic activities," she says. "That's going to make a person's metabolism function more efficiently."

You are what you eat, the saying goes. And, according to two new genetic studies, you are what your mother, father, grandparents and great-grandparents ate, too.

Diet, be it poor or healthy, can so alter the nature of one's DNA that those changes can be passed on to the progeny. While this much has been speculated for years, researchers in two independent studies have found ways in which this likely is happening.

The findings, which involve epigenetics, may help explain the increased genetic risk that children face compared to their parents for diseases such as obesity and diabetes.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics refers to changes in gene expression from outside forces. Different from a mutation, epigenetic changes lie not in the DNA itself but rather in its surroundings - the enzymes and other chemicals that orchestrate how a DNA molecule unwinds its various sections to make proteins or even new cells.

Recent studies have shown how nutrition dramatically alters the health and appearance of otherwise identical mice. A group led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University demonstrated how mouse clones implanted as embryos in separate mothers will have radical differences in fur color, weight, and risk for chronic diseases depending on what that mother was fed during pregnancy.

That is, the nutrients or lack of thereof changed the DNA environment in such a way that the identical DNA in these mouse clones expressed itself in very different ways.

A contaminant found in two common soda brands could be causing 15,000 cases of cancer in people a year, a new analysis finds.

If you were to make caramel food coloring at home, you'd melt sugar in a saucepan. Soda manufacturers, however, do things much differently, often creating sugar-ammonia interactions under high pressure and temperatures. The result? An unlabeled cancer-causer in your soda can. At issue is 4-MI, a contaminant found in the cheap artificial "caramel coloring" that makes sodas brown. It's a known chemical carcinogen found at various levels in Coke and Pepsi products.

In government lab-animal experiments, the ingredient has been shown to cause leukemia, as well as lung, liver, and thyroid cancers. Although a safer alternative is available, it's four times more expensive, a price most beverage manufacturers aren't willing to pay.

Labeling laws are stricter in California, so faced with an order to start carrying a cancer warning on its drink cans, Coca-Cola instead reformulated its caramel coloring to ensure it has much lower levels of the contaminant. The rest of the world isn't as lucky, though, according to a new analysis by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that shows dangerous 4-MI levels in sodas sold in states and counties with more lax labeling laws. "Now that we know it's possible to almost totally eliminate this carcinogen from colas, there's no excuse for Coca-Cola and other companies not to do so worldwide, and not just in California," says CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson.

Lack of sleep can influence the way you perform certain tasks.

Anyone that has ever had trouble sleeping can attest to the difficulties at work the following day. Experts recommend eight hours of sleep per night for ideal health and productivity, but what if five to six hours of sleep is your norm? Is your work still negatively affected? A team of researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have discovered that regardless of how tired you perceive yourself to be, that lack of sleep can influence the way you perform certain tasks.

This finding is published in the July 26, 2012 online edition of The Journal of Vision.

"Our team decided to look at how sleep might affect complex visual search tasks, because they are common in safety-sensitive activities, such as air-traffic control, baggage screening, and monitoring power plant operations," explained Jeanne F. Duffy, PhD, MBA, senior author on this study and associate neuroscientist at BWH. "These types of jobs involve processes that require repeated, quick memory encoding and retrieval of visual information, in combination with decision making about the information."

Although demand for organic is up, new GMO threats still linger, including a crop designed to be sprayed with a toxic chemical used in warfare.

While you were hastily baking cookies and celebrating the holiday season, chemical companies were quietly asking the government to approve a dangerous new genetically engineered crop designed to withstand heavy sprayings of an old chemical used in warfare decades ago.

Despite the big push for organic, Dow Agrosciences is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to allow farmers unrestricted use of a new genetically engineered corn seed created to withstand heavy sprayings of the herbicide 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange, the toxic compound used to defoliate forests and croplands during the Vietnam War. The product is also linked to lymphoma and other cancers.

Sometimes people eat a piece of cake even though they know they have gluten sensitivity, gut dysbiosis, or systemic inflammation. It's one piece, right?

Latest research shows that the smallest amount of gluten can trigger inflammation and autoimmune reactions lasting for up to six months in gluten sensitive individuals. Coffee also has been found to be the most harmful food for those with gluten intolerance.

Effects Last Longer Than You Think

Bloating, gas, cramping, and old injury flare-ups are responses that indicate inflammation. And each of these symptoms is more significant to your overall health than you may realize.

If there is pain anywhere in the body, such as joint pain or an exacerbation of a pre-existing autoimmune condition, you know that the food-induced inflammation originating in the gut is systemic. If you experience fatigue or brain fog after eating a piece of cake, you know the inflammation is systemic and that your blood-brain barrier (BBB) is likely compromised.

Harvard University researchers' review of fluoride/brain studies concludes "our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children's neurodevelopment." It was published online July 20 in Environmental Health Perspectives, a US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' journal (1), reports the NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF)

"The children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ than those who lived in low fluoride areas," write Choi et al.

Further, the EPA says fluoride is a chemical "with substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity."

Fluoride (fluosilicic acid) is added to US water supplies at approximately 1 part per million attempting to reduce tooth decay.

Water was the only fluoride source in the studies reviewed and was based on high water fluoride levels. However, they point out research by Ding (2011) suggested that low water fluoride levels had significant negative associations with children's intelligence.

Choi et al. write, "Although fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in animal models and acute fluoride poisoning causes neurotoxicity in adults, very little is known of its effects on children's neurodevelopment. They recommend more brain/fluoride research on children and at individual-level doses.

"It's senseless to keep subjecting our children to this ongoing fluoridation experiment to satisfy the political agenda of special-interest groups," says attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President. "Even if fluoridation reduced cavities, is tooth health more important than brain health? It's time to put politics aside and stop artificial fluoridation everywhere," says Beeber.

According to the study conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago, out of the 14,000 pregnant women who participated in the study, those who were tested positive for signs of depression delivered early. While 14 percent of them delivered before the 37th week of pregnancy, only 10 percent of women with no depression delivered around the same time.

The study does not establish a cause and effect relation between depression and preterm birth, rather it only links them.

All children will be offered annual flu vaccinations on the NHS.

Ministers believe that preventing youngsters from spreading the virus could save 2,000 lives a year.

But the vaccination programme will not begin until 2014 at the earliest to allow the manufacturer enough time to produce supplies.

And it has also emerged that ordinary members of the public could be drafted-in to immunise children at school due to a shortage of nurses.

Taking ecstasy - even in relatively small amounts - can damage memory, scientists have warned.

Worryingly, the memory lapses are similar to those that occur in the early onset of dementia.

Even ten pills a year - less than one a month - caused problems, says the journal Addiction.

Ecstasy, also known by its chemical name MDMA, is a Class A drug.

But there are disagreements over how dangerous it is.

Government chief drugs advisor Professor David Nutt was fired three years ago after claiming taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse.

Although the drug's effects on memory have been studied before, results have been muddied by the possibility that users already had memory problems.

To avoid this, researchers from the University of Cologne focused on young people who had tried the drug in the past and expected to use it more in future.

They were tested on their memory, learning, brain processing speed and attention at the start of the study and a year on.

At the end of a year, 23 had become regular ecstasy users, having taken between ten and 62 ecstasy pills since the start of the study.

Those who had become regular users showed a clear deterioration in episodic memory in comparison with the others.

This memory details personal experiences, combining information about what happened with when and where - such as remembering not only the last film you saw but who you went with and where you sat.

Lapses in it are seen as an indicator of the first stages of dementia.

Even low numbers of pills still caused memory problems.

Importantly, users of ecstasy, which is also known as MDMA, may not realise their brain is being affected until the damage was done.