Health & WellnessS


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Benefits of Maca Root: Find More Energy and Hormonal Balance

Kim Evans
Natural News
Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00 UTC
Find yourself depending on coffee for a boost in the morning? Why not try maca instead? Maca is a root from Peru; it's a tuber, like a potato, and offers an amazing energy boost for those with low energy. Maca however, unlike coffee, offers energy in a non-caffeinated way that supports the body.

Maca is a nutritionally dense super-food that contains high amounts of minerals, vitamins, enzymes and all of the essential amino acids. Maca root is rich in B-vitamins, which are the energy vitamins, and maca is a vegetarian source of B-12. To boot, maca has high levels of bioavailable calcium and magnesium and is great for remineralization.

Maca root helps balance our hormones and due to an over abundance of environmental estrogens, most people's hormones are a bit out of whack. Maca stimulates and nourishes the hypothalamus and pituitary glands which are the "master glands" of the body. These glands actually regulate the other glands, so when in balance they can bring balance to the adrenal, thyroid, pancreas, ovarian and testicular glands.
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Disability May Be on the Rise Again After 20-Year Decline


ScienceDaily
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:00 UTC
Disability rates among non-institutionalized older Americans increased between 2000 and 2005, a trend that could seriously impact the quality of life of seniors in the coming decades if it continues, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley.

The findings are troubling, said the authors, because they suggest that the steady decline since the 1980s of disability rates among older adults may have ended. Adding to the concern is the expected doubling between 2000 and 2030 of the number of Americans over 65 as the Baby Boom generation continues to age.

"The combination of increasing disability rates plus a growing population of older adults emphasizes the importance of prevention of the many chronic conditions giving rise to disability in the first place," said the study's lead author, Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor of social work at the University of Toronto. "There is evidence, for example, that the doubling of obesity rates over the last three decades may be linked to rising disability in older people, yet the obesity problem is largely preventable."
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Einstein

Brain Training Can Help Improve Specific Abilities in Older People


ScienceDaily
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:00 UTC
Many brain training products claim to be able to keep us mentally fit. Some products even claim that brain training can prevent dementia in old age. But there is no scientific proof that games or other brain exercises can have this effect. That is what the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has discovered.

Brain training can lead to an improvement, but only in the specific ability it is aimed at

As we get older our thinking gets slower and it is harder for us to learn new things. Many people try to stay mentally fit by, for example, learning a new language or doing crossword puzzles. Computer games that aim to keep the brain active are also becoming increasingly popular. "Doing exercises like trying to find symbols on a computer screen as fast as possible can actually improve your reaction time," explains Professor Peter Sawicki, the Institute's Director. "But scientific studies have shown that brain training only leads to an improvement in the specific ability that it is aimed at. So if you learn to find symbols quickly, it does not mean that you will be able to remember names better too."
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Sherlock

Gene for Devastating Kidney Disease Discovered


ScienceDaily
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:00 UTC
Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women's Hospital have identified an important genetic cause of a devastating kidney disease that is the second leading cause of kidney failure in children, according to The NephCure Foundation.

The study, published online December 20 by Nature Genetics, may provide clues to developing treatments for the disease, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), which currently forces children and young adults onto dialysis and often requires a kidney transplant. No effective treatments are known, and years of research have failed to uncover the underlying disease mechanism.

FSGS attacks the kidney's filtering system, causing proteins to be lost into the urine and reducing the kidney's ability to filter wastes from the blood. According to NephCure, which helped fund the study, 26 million Americans suffer from chronic kidney disease, of which FSGS is one of the most common forms.
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Brain Controls Formation of Bone, Researchers Find


ScienceDaily
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:00 UTC
The brain acts as a profound regulatory centre, controlling myriad processes throughout the body in ways we are only just beginning to understand. In new findings, Australian scientists have shown surprising connections between the brain and regulation of bone mass.

One of the key functions of our skeletons is to provide mechanical support. In order to fulfil this role, bone tissue is modified throughout our lives, in response to changing activity levels and body weight. Bone mass increases as we gain weight and decreases as we lose it.

The new findings show that bone formation, far from being a straightforward mechanical process dependent on body weight, is delicately orchestrated by the brain, which sends and receives signals through the body's neural and hormone systems.
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Alarm Clock

The 'Choking Game' Can Be a Deadly One

Amina Khan
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:28 UTC
Some physicians don't even know the activity exists, but, due in part to YouTube videos, more and more children are playing it.

Risk-taking adolescent behavior: It's not all sex, drugs and alcohol. There's also the choking game -- otherwise known as "space monkey," "sleeper hold" and "funky chicken."

The game consists of two main variants. One can be a solo operation, using a necktie, belt or other type of binding to put pressure on the carotid artery in the neck. The other method involves a partner, who can apply pressure to the neck or chest until the subject passes out, cutting off blood flow to the brain.

The resulting rush of oxygen once pressure is released generates a pleasurable sensation, or "natural high." And though the practice seems to be slightly on the upswing, it's rare enough that it could slip under a physician's radar. Dr. Nancy Bass, a child neurologist at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, said she recalls only four cases of choking game-related deaths in her 15 years of practice.
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Target

The High Costs of So-Called "Cheap Food"

Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:38 UTC
Over the past 65 years, chemical agriculture, factory farms, and now genetic engineering have devastated public health, wrecked the environment, and destabilized the climate. The U.S. public now spends $2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care, $800 billion of which is directly attributable to consuming chemical-laden junk food. In only 15 years unregulated and unlabeled genetically engineered foods and crops (GMOs) have been planted on millions of acres of farm land, on soil which is then repeatedly doused with toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. GMO corn, cotton, canola and soy are currently laced into 80% of (non-organic) supermarket foods and restaurant items. The bodies of the majority of American adults and children are bloated and contaminated with so-called agricultural commodities: high fructose corn syrup (GMO corn), trans-fats (GMO cotton, canola and soy oil), and meat and dairy foods derived from factory farmed animals fed and reared on GMO and pesticide tainted grains, antibiotics, hormones, and slaughterhouse waste.
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UCLA Study Says Drinking Soda Causes Obesity

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00 UTC
Regular soda consumption significantly increases a person's risk of obesity, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).

"We drink soda like water," said Harold Goldstein of the Center for Public Health Advocacy, which also took part in the study. "But unlike water, soda serves up a whopping 17 teaspoons of sugar in every 20-ounce serving."

Researchers interviewed 40,000 adults on their beverage consumption habits, finding that adults who drank one sugary beverage per day were 27 percent more likely to be classified as overweight than those who drank sugary beverages less frequently.

Drinking one soda per day involves the consumption of 39 pounds of sugar per year.
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Prescription Narcotics Cause More Deaths than Both Heroin and Cocaine

Mike Adams
Natural News
Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00 UTC
On the heels of the sudden death of celebrity actress Brittany Murphy, people are once again raising the question of just how dangerous prescription drugs might really be.

Some are arguing, however, that street drugs are the real danger, not prescription drugs. But the following study demonstrates why prescription drugs are far more dangerous than illegal recreational drugs.

According to a new study conducted by physicians at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto, the number of deaths due to prescription opioid use has doubled between 1991 and 2004. Following the introduction of oxycodone into Toronto's drug formulary in 2000, there has been a 500% increase in deaths due to the drugs.
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Palette

On Memory: Recalling music

Joseph Brean
The National Post
Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:39 UTC
elderly hands playing piano
© Unknown
Scientists are only beginning to understand the peculiar relationship music has with our memories. Peter J. Thompson/National Post Scientists are only beginning to understand the peculiar relationship music has with our memories.

As a trigger for memories, music is a uniquely powerful medium. There is hardly a person alive who cannot be cast back to a childhood joy, or a teenage heartache, by hearing a familiar song.

Other senses, such as smell, can do the same thing. Wine enthusiasts, for example, are forever conjuring the past through their tasting notes, and the French author Marcel Proust is widely cited in memory studies because he based an entire memoir, Remembrance of Things Past, on the smell of tea biscuits.

But music is different.
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