Health & WellnessS


Life Preserver

Magnesium Is Crucial to the Proper Functioning of a Healthy Body

Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Natural News
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:48 UTC
The following is an excerpt from the book Transdermal Magnesium Therapy by Dr. Mark Sircus, AC., OMD which introduces an innovative way to increase our magnesium levels through completely natural means, and in much faster ways than oral products do.

Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body and is essential to good health. Magnesium (Mg), atomic number twelve, is an element essential for normal function of the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Unfortunately, magnesium deficiency is one of the most common nutritional problems in the industrialized world today. This deficiency is the result of agricultural practices, food preparation techniques, and dietary trends. The current Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for the U.S. is 6 mg/Kg/day, which translates to 420 mg for a 70 Kg man. Despite this, it has been estimated that adults average much less than this requirement. The health implications are nothing short of catastrophic. Magnesium is necessary for the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and amino acids. It is essential for the functions of muscles and nerves and for the formation of bones and teeth. Generally it counteracts and regulates the influence of calcium.
Read More...
Bulb

Neuroscientists discover a sense of adventure


Wellcome Trust
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:06 UTC
Wellcome Trust scientists have identified a key region of the brain which encourages us to be adventurous. The region, located in a primitive area of the brain, is activated when we choose unfamiliar options, suggesting an evolutionary advantage for sampling the unknown. It may also explain why re-branding of familiar products encourages to pick them off the supermarket shelves.

In an experiment carried out at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London), volunteers were shown a selection of images, which they had already been familiarised with. Each card had a unique probability of reward attached to it and over the course of the experiment, the volunteers would be able to work out which selection would provide the highest rewards. However, when unfamiliar images were introduced, the researchers found that volunteers were more likely to take a chance and select one of these options than continue with their familiar - and arguably safer - option.
Read More...
Bulb

Flashback A study lays the scientific foundations to distinguish the different human ways for paying attention


University of Granada
Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:01 UTC
Is it possible to compensate attention problems through other attention ways? Does it produce the same effects to direct someone's attention in a voluntary (endogenous) or in an involuntary way (exogenous)? These are the questions answered by a research work of the Department of Experimental Psychology and Behaviour Physiology of the University of Granada carried out by doctor Ana Belén Chica Martínez, and supervised by Professor Juan Lupiáñez Castillo.

The study of attentional orientation carried out by the UGR researchers is especially relevant for the rehabilitation of patients with attention disorders, as well as for attention training in healthy children, children who suffer attention deficits (hyperactivity), and in anyone normal aging. In the case of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, different recent studies point out that it affects more than 4% of the schoolchildren, which proves the importance of the work carried out by the UGR.
Read More...
Bulb

Mixed feelings not remembered as well as happy or sad ones


University of Chicago Press Journals
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:54 UTC
Imagine you're about to step onto a rollercoaster at an amusement park. You are filled with apprehension and joy, mixed emotions that last beyond the dizzying ride. How will you remember the experience?

According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people tend to underestimate the intensity of their recalled feelings if those feelings were mixed, as opposed to purely happy or sad.

Authors Jennifer Aaker (UC-Berkeley), Aimee Drolet (UCLA), and Dale Griffin (University of British Columbia) conducted a series of studies that tested participants' emotions when they faced scenarios such as taking tests and moving, events that are typically associated with mixed emotions.

"We conducted two longitudinal experiments which show that the intensity of mixed emotions is underestimated at the time of recall - an effect that appears to increase over time and does not occur to the same degree with happy or sad emotions," write the authors. The underestimation increases over time, to the point that people sometimes don't remember having felt ambivalent at all.
Read More...
Coffee

Morbid thoughts whet the appetite


University of Chicago Press Journals
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:51 UTC
Can watching TV news or crime shows trigger overeating? According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more.

Authors Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) and Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands) conducted several experiments in Europe and the United States where participants wrote essays on their feelings about their own deaths. They then checked off items on a grocery list or ate cookies. Consumers who wrote about their own deaths wanted to buy more and ate more than those who wrote about a painful medical procedure (the control group).

"People want to consumer more of all kinds of foods, both healthy and unhealthy, when thinking about the idea that they will die some day," write the authors.
Read More...
Health

Child food poisoning cases rise to 70 in East Siberia


RIA Novosti
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:28 UTC
The number of children hit by a relatively uncommon stomach infection in the East Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk since last week has risen to 70, the region's chief sanitary doctor said Wednesday.

A total of 46 children from the Solnechny summer camp were hospitalized on June 20 with the symptoms of yersiniosis, which is a bacterial infection usually contracted through the consumption of undercooked meat, milk, water or vegetables.

Sergei Kurkatov said on Wednesday that 65 children and one adult are currently in hospital while another four children from the same camp are receiving outpatient treatment.
Read More...
Evil Rays

Bridgend Suicides Linked to Cell Phone Towers

Lucy Johnston
The Daily Express
Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:44 UTC
The spate of deaths among young people in Britain's suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims' homes.
Read More...
Info

Switching languages can also switch personality: study


Reuters
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:25 UTC
People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a U.S. study.
Read More...
Star

Another study shows benefits of sunshine vitamin

Michael Kahn
Reuters
Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:15 UTC
People with a vitamin D deficiency are likely to die sooner than people whose blood contains higher amounts of the so-called sunshine vitamin, Austrian researchers said on Monday.
Read More...
Pills

UK: NHS approves weight-loss drug banned in America over suicide fears

Daniel Martin
The Daily Mail
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:35 UTC
A weight-loss drug banned in the U.S. over fears it can heighten the risk of suicide has been given the go-ahead in Britain.

Acomplia will be available to overweight or obese patients who cannot take, or who have had no success with, the two other weight-loss drugs available on the Health Service.

But a series of scientific studies have raised concerns that it can induce suicidal thoughts in those already suffering from depression.

The drug, taken orally as a pill once a day, has not been authorised in the U.S. because of safety fears, although it is available in France and Germany.

obese
©Daily Mail
Obese patients in Britain will be offered Acomplia despite its known unsafe side-effects
Read More...