Health & WellnessS


Life Preserver

Money Won't Buy Happiness, Study Finds; Poverty-reduction Programs Need To Also Look At Improving People's Well-being


Science Daily
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:26 UTC
There is more to life satisfaction than money, and public policy programs aiming to tackle poverty need to move beyond simply raising people's income to also improving their quality of life in other areas.

These findings by Professor Mariano Rojas from Mexico's Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales are published online in Springer's journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life.

The reduction of poverty is one of the main considerations in the design of both domestic and foreign-aid programs. To date, the focus of these programs has been to get people out of poverty by increasing their buying power and there has been an assumption that raising people's income translates into greater well-being. Professor Rojas challenges this assumption and argues that measures of life satisfaction should also be taken into account when designing and evaluating poverty-abatement programs.
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Life Preserver

Why Cry? Evolutionary Biologists Show Crying Can Strengthen Relationships


Science Daily
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:17 UTC
Image
© iStockMedically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now an evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.
Medically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now a Tel Aviv University evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.

New analysis by Dr. Oren Hasson of TAU's Department of Zoology shows that tears still signal physiological distress, but they also function as an evolution-based mechanism to bring people closer together.

"Crying is a highly evolved behavior," explains Dr. Hasson. "Tears give clues and reliable information about submission, needs and social attachments between one another. My research is trying to answer what the evolutionary reasons are for having emotional tears.
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Cheeseburger

Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us

Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:29 UTC
Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.

The effects of climate change, especially with widespread droughts in Australia, Africa, California and the Midwest, coupled with the rising cost of fossil fuels, have already blighted the environments of millions. The poor can often no longer afford a balanced diet. Global food prices increased an average of 43 percent since 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. These increases have been horrific for the approximately 1 billion people - one-sixth of the world's population - who subsist on less than $1 per day. And 162 million of these people survive on less than 50 cents per day. The global poor spend as much as 60 percent of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.
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Camera

Picturing Yourself - On Facebook And Elsewhere


Physorg.com
Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:34 UTC
Geeky, cheeky, serious or plain? What's the reasoning behind the photo you choose to place on the social networking site Facebook - or the photo you give to friends and family?

It's just one topic to be explored by Judy Weiser, a world authority on the emotional content of photographs, when she visits the University of Derby this month for a public workshop on Phototherapy.

Judy Weiser, a globally renowned psychologist and art therapist, who has been using photos to assist her therapy practice for more than 30 years, is visiting the UK this autumn to take part in a series of international lectures and teach two workshops in this subject area.
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Che Guevara

What's really in your shampoo

Bill Bunn
Salon.com
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:51 UTC
There are two types of ingredients in shampoo. One type cleans your hair. The other type strokes your emotions. I'm holding a bottle of Pantene Pro V, one of the world's most popular shampoos. Of the 22 ingredients in this bottle of shampoo, three clean hair. The rest are in the bottle not for the hair, but for the psychology of the person using the shampoo. At least two-thirds of this bottle, by volume, was put there just to make me feel good.

The world spends around $230 billion on beauty products every year. Of this figure, $40 billion go to shampoo purchases. North Americans blow almost $11 billion on shampoo and conditioner each year. So most soap manufacturers aren't willing to rely on a product that merely works. The bigger job is convincing the consumer that their soap is adding value to the consumer's life. So shampoo bottles include extra concoctions aimed at convincing the man or woman in the shower that the soap is more "luxurious" or "effective." Because beautiful hair doesn't just happen.
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© salon
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Bulb

To gossip is fundamental to being human

Richard Alleyne
Telegraph.co.uk
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:08 UTC
Dr Nicholas Emler, a social psychologist, said it was fundamental to being human and was the reason we developed our unique ability to talk. He believes it is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Speaking at the British Science Festival, he claimed that language was developed to allow us to share social information, effectively to gossip.

But despite its "dismal reputation" this was not a bad thing as it allowed us to build far bigger, richer and complex societies than other creatures.
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Magnify

High Blood Pressure Linked to Mental Decline for Young and Old

Deanna Dean
Natural News
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:00 UTC
Researchers from the University of Maine reported in a journal published by the American Heart Association, Hypertension, that mental function is measurably affected by high blood pressure in otherwise healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 83. The study was begun in 1974 by Merrill Elias and David Streeten, Professor of Medicine, of the Health Sciences Center, State University of New York at Syracuse and spanned 20 years.

In the same issue of Hypertension, an editorial from medical researchers in Belgium and the Netherlands said the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS) of the last 20 years breaks new ground and has far reaching public health implications. Other studies have measured high blood pressure, hypertension and high pulse pressure in older adults and found worse cognitive performance than those having normal readings, but none had examined both younger and older individuals over an extended time period.

A more recent study conducted on participants over the age of 45 underscores the association between high blood pressure and reduced mental ability. For every 10-point increase in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number in a blood pressure reading), the odds of mental impairment increase by 7 percent, though it's not clear why.
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Magnify

Brains are Shrinking in the Overweight: A Look at Why

Kim Evans
Natural News
Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:00 UTC
A new study found that obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal weight individuals, and those who are classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue.

Researchers called this "severe brain degeneration" and they found these brains were not only smaller, but that they had aged prematurely as well. The brains of the obese and overweight looked 16 and 8 years respectively beyond the brain age of normal weight individuals.

Bad diet and an increasing reliance on processed foods were cited as the primary cause of obesity. But, have you ever thought about why a bad diet is a bad diet? Largely, it's due to all of the man-made chemicals in it.
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Magnify

Alzheimer's Society Research Finds Link Between Infection and Memory Loss


Medical News Today
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:00 UTC
People with Alzheimer's disease who develop an infection need to be treated as soon as possible to prevent it worsening their dementia, according to research conducted by Alzheimer's Society

The research found a link between common infections, such as a cold, stomach bug or urine infection and an increase in inflammation like reactions in the brain which led to an increased rate of cognitive decline.

Researchers at the University of Southampton investigated how inflammatory proteins released during an infection might affect the brain. Results showed that people who got an infection had twice the rate of cognitive decline as people without infections.
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Pills

Shape of Brain Cells Influences Sensitivity to Cocaine


Medical News Today
Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:00 UTC
The learning ability of mice and their sensitivity to cocaine are influenced by the shape of their brain cells, Yale University researchers report in the Sept. 7-13 issue of the journal of Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

Researchers had previously shown that cocaine can affect the shape of brain cells in mice, but it was unknown whether the change in the structure of neurons influenced behavior.

They do, according to findings of the Yale team of Jane Taylor, professor of psychiatry, Anthony Koleske, a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and neurobiology and Shannon Gourley, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry.
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