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Magnesium Supplement Helps Boost Brainpower


ScienceDaily
Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:28 UTC
Brain Image
© ScienceDailyIncreasing magnesium intake may be a valid strategy to enhance cognitive abilities. (Credit: iStockphoto/Vasiliy Yakobchuk)
New research finds that an increase in brain magnesium improves learning and memory in young and old rats. The study, published in the January 28th issue of the journal Neuron, suggests that increasing magnesium intake may be a valid strategy to enhance cognitive abilities and supports speculation that inadequate levels of magnesium impair cognitive function, leading to faster deterioration of memory in aging humans.

Diet can have a significant impact on cognitive capacity. Identification of dietary factors which have a positive influence on synapses, the sites of communication between neurons, might help to enhance learning and memory and prevent their decline with age and disease. Professor Guosong Liu, Director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, led a study examining whether increased levels of one such dietary supplement, magnesium, boosts brain power.

"Magnesium is essential for the proper functioning of many tissues in the body, including the brain and, in an earlier study, we demonstrated that magnesium promoted synaptic plasticity in cultured brain cells," explains Dr. Liu. "Therefore it was tempting to take our studies a step further and investigate whether an increase in brain magnesium levels enhanced cognitive function in animals."

Comment: For more information, have a look at this helpful book, Magnesium Miracle.

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Health

Flashback Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny

John Cloud
Time
Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:30 UTC
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© Lars Tunbjork/VUThree generations: Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, with son Magnus and grandson Ludvig in Stockholm
The remote, snow-swept expanses of northern Sweden are an unlikely place to begin a story about cutting-edge genetic science. The kingdom's northernmost county, Norrbotten, is nearly free of human life; an average of just six people live in each square mile. And yet this tiny population can reveal a lot about how genes work in our everyday lives.

Norrbotten is so isolated that in the 19th century, if the harvest was bad, people starved. The starving years were all the crueler for their unpredictability. For instance, 1800, 1812, 1821, 1836 and 1856 were years of total crop failure and extreme suffering. But in 1801, 1822, 1828, 1844 and 1863, the land spilled forth such abundance that the same people who had gone hungry in previous winters were able to gorge themselves for months.
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Family

Rare Ailment Makes Girl, 13, Look Like She's 50

Michael Inbar
TODAYshow.com
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:46 UTC
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© TODAYshow.comZara Hartshorn, 13-year-old, has lipodystrophy, which makes her look old before her time
Zara Hartshorn has lipodystrophy, which makes her look old before her time

For some folks, turning 50 can trigger a midlife crisis. But due to a cruel blow of nature, Zara Hartshorn is forced to deal with it at the tender age of 13.

Though barely a teen, Zara has the appearance of a 50-year-old, something that saps her confidence just when most young people are striving for self-esteem. The Rotherham, England, teen suffers from lipodystrophy, a syndrome that causes the supporting fatty tissue under the skin to crumble even while the skin continues to grow, often at an alarming rate.

The hereditary condition is extremely rare - only about 2,000 people around the world have it - and for Zara, it has devastating social effects.
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Coffee

Coffee Slows Brain Cancer Growth


Times of India
Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:28 UTC
Cup of black coffee
© Tom Grill/Getty Images
A group of scientists has said that caffeine found in coffee and green tea could effectively slow the growth of brain cancer tumours.

According to the researchers at the (South) Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), animal test results showed regular caffeine found in coffee and green tea to have strongly repressed the growth of inositol trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) closely linked to glioblastoma, which is the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumour found in human.

The research team, comprising of scientists from Seoul National University, Gyeongsang National University, and Emory University in Atlanta, said that calcium plays a primary role in spreading glioblastoma tumour cells in humans, and that IP3R directly contributes to the amount of calcium released.

They discovered a sub-type of IP3R, or IP3R3, to be very active among brain cancer patients and that caffeine stymies the spread of such compounds, resulting in less tumour growth in the brain and blocks cancer cells from spreading to other parts of the body, reports Xinhua.
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Magnify

Wakeful Resting Linked To Improved Memory

Catharine Paddock
Medical Health Today
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:00 UTC
New research from the US shows that resting while awake appears to strengthen memory, revealing new insights into how forms of rest other than sleep, affect the memory consolidation process.

The findings suggest that even though it may not look like it, when we rest while awake, our brains are still working, something we may find hard to accept in an information technological world that is on the go 24/7.

You can read about the findings of the study, by Dr Lila Davachi, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science at New York University, and colleagues, in the 28 January issue of the journal Neuron.
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Info

Listen up: hearing loss warning as MP3 users pump up the volume

Pamela Duncan
The Irish Times
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:01 UTC
A new survey shows that more than half of MP3 users are listening to their devices at dangerously high volume levels for up to two hours a day and are running the risk of hearing loss.

Of a sample of 1,000 adults who were interviewed for a Red C poll, 11 per cent of those who owned a personal music device said they had experienced either ringing in their ears or "dull" hearing as a result of listening through headphones.

More than a third of the same group said that they listened to their MP3 or another device for longer than an hour a day through headphones, according to results from the survey, which was commissioned by Hidden Hearing, a hearing aid supplier.

Audiologist Keith Ross said the survey strengthened data from Hidden Hearing centres which indicates that more young people are having their hearing tested than was previously the case.
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Magnify

Radiation Therapy Harms the Brain, Causing Memory and Attention Problems

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00 UTC
Radiation therapy for the treatment of brain tumors may lead to cognitive decline later in life, according to a study conducted by researchers from VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and published in The Lancet Neurology.

Scientists have known for some time that radiation therapy can damage healthy brain tissue, but prior research found no immediate negative effects from the treatment. In the new study, researchers conducted brain function tests on 65 patients who had undergone treatment for low-grade glioma 12 years previously.

Low-grade glioma is one of the most common forms of brain tumor. It is non-carcinogenic, and can often be removed with surgery. However, many doctors use radiotherapy following surgery.
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Magnify

Cocaine, Spices, and Hormones Now Being Found in Drinking Water

Ethan Huff
NaturalNews
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00 UTC
A University of Washington research team recently released the results of a study it conducted on contaminant residue in the waters of Puget Sound in Washington State. Various spices, flavorings and other substances are being identified as making their way out of water treatment plants and back into the world's water supply.

Winter holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas bring extra amounts of cinnamon while chocolate and vanilla are especially popular on the weekends. Likewise, caramel corn residue and waffle-cone pieces are particularly excessive around the Independence Day. The most popular contaminant found in the sound is artificial vanilla flavor which is found at an average of 14 milligrams per liter of water.

Around the world, scientists are finding all sorts of things from pharmaceutical drugs to illegal drugs in water supplies despite rigorous efforts to remove them at water treatment facilities. Piggy-backing a report from last year that found trace levels of pharmaceutical drugs in most U.S. water supplies, this report highlights even further how easily water is being contaminated by various human elements.
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Magnify

Prayer Increases Forgiveness, Study Shows


ScienceDaily
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00 UTC
We have all been guilty of a transgression at one time or another. That's because we're not perfect. We all commit hurtful acts, violate trust, and hope for forgiveness.

That's simply a fact, and here's another one: Nine out of 10 Americans say that they pray -- at least on occasion. Florida State University psychologist Nathaniel Lambert put these two facts together and came up with an idea: Why not take all that prayer and direct it at the people who have wronged us? Is it possible that directed prayer might spark forgiveness in those doing the praying -- and in the process preserve relationships?

Lambert and his colleagues decided to test this scientifically in two experiments appearing in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the first, they had a group of men and women pray one single prayer for their romantic partner's well being. Others -- the experimental controls -- they simply described their partner, speaking into a tape recorder.
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Magnify

Barefoot Running: How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes


ScienceDaily
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Harvard University"Running barefoot or in minimal shoes is fun but uses different muscles," said Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman. "If you've been a heel-striker all your life, you have to transition slowly to build strength in your calf and foot muscles."
New research is casting doubt on the old adage, "All you need to run is a pair of shoes."

Scientists have found that those who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid "heel-striking," and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot. In so doing, these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience.

"People who don't wear shoes when they run have an astonishingly different strike," says Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and co-author of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature. "By landing on the middle or front of the foot, barefoot runners have almost no impact collision, much less than most shod runners generate when they heel-strike. Most people today think barefoot running is dangerous and hurts, but actually you can run barefoot on the world's hardest surfaces without the slightest discomfort and pain. All you need is a few calluses to avoid roughing up the skin of the foot. Further, it might be less injurious than the way some people run in shoes."
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