If you have no time to exercise, this excuse will not really work anymore because the researchers have initiate that short-term high-intensity interval training is a time proficient way of exercising.

The study conducted by the scientists at Canada’s McMaster University, adds to the increasing evidence for the benefits of short-term high-intensity interval training (HIT) as a time-efficient but safe unconventional to traditional types of moderate long term exercise.

HIT means doing a number of short bursts of intense exercise with short recovery breaks in between. This method may work well for people (the older, less fit, and slightly overweight among us) whose doctors might have worries about them exercising ‘all-out’. It has been known for years that repeated moderate long-term exercise tunes up fuel and oxygen supply to muscles and aids the removal of waste products. The study was published in the Journal of Physiology.

Stress not only hurts your brain, but also has a bad effect on teeth, claims a new study.

Boffins writing in BioMed Central’s open access journal Head & Face Medicine studied the causes of ’sleep bruxism’, gnashing teeth during the night, finding that it was especially common in those who try to cope with stress by escaping from difficult situations.

Maria Giraki, from Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany, worked with a team of researchers to study the condition in 69 people, of whom 48 were ‘bruxers’.

She said, “Bruxing can lead to abrasive tooth wear, looseness and sensitivity of teeth, and growth and pain in the muscles responsible for chewing. Its causes are still relatively unknown, but stress has been implicated. We aimed to investigate whether different stress-factors, and different coping strategies, were more or less associated with these bruxism symptoms”.

Tooth grinding was measured by thin plates that were placed in trial participants mouths’ overnight, while stress and coping techniques were assessed by three questionnaires. Bruxing was not associated with age, sex or education level, but was more common in people who claimed to experience daily stress and trouble at work.

Giraki adds, “Our data support the assumption that people with the most problematic grinding do not seem to be able to deal with stress in an adequate way. They seem to prefer negative coping strategies like ‘escape’. This, in general, increases the feeling of stress, instead of looking at the stressor in a positive way”.

According to an investigator in Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, an urine test that can concurrently measure the extent of a potential carcinogenic process and a marker of garlic consumption in humans has been studied, the test suggested that the more garlic people consumed, the lower the levels of the potential carcinogenic process were.

The research is all about body processes associated with nitrogen-containing compounds, scientists say.

“What we were after was developing a method where we could measure in urine two different compounds, one related to the risk for cancer, and the other, which indicates the extent of consumption of garlic,” said Earl Harrison, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Human Nutrition at Ohio State, an investigator in Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center and senior author of the study.

“Our results showed that those were inversely related to one another – meaning that the more we had the marker for garlic consumption, the less there was of the marker for the risk of cancer.” He added further.

Scientists at UMass Lowell have discovered a new contrivance by which a key protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease can spread within the human brain. According to the researchers, the finding gives new hope that the disease may someday be cured.

“My team has discovered two different ways in which tau is secreted by neurons, or brain cells. This might explain how tau-containing lesions seem to propagate between adjacent, interconnected parts of the brain during the development of the disease,” UMass Lowell biological sciences professor and study’s lead author Garth Hall said.

Until very recently, it was universally assumed that tau is never secreted from or transferred between neurons, and that CSF-tau only appears after many neurons have died and irreversible harm has been done to the brain.

The findings were published in the February issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Prostate cancer is treated by diminishing male hormone testosterone from the patient- but while this kills most of the cells, the few that remain lead to recurrent, incurable disease.

Now, scientists have come up with an astonishing way to treat the disease, by using estrogen, a hormone normally associated with women.

According to them, the research provides proof of the controversial concept that estrogens could be good for men and can be used medicinally to treat prostate cancer.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago determined that there is a strong relationship between healthy eating and prolonged survival among ovarian cancer patients.

According to a report in March 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, “The subjects included 351 women diagnosed with incident epithelial ovarian cancer who participated in a previous case-control study. The original study collected demographic, clinico-pathologic, and lifestyle-related variables including diet. Each subject completed a food frequency questionnaire where they were asked to report their usual dietary intake over the three to five years prior to their diagnosis.

To translate the diet estimates into a meaningful way, the FFQ items were assigned to the major food groups reflected in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 (DGA) including fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, dairy, fats and oils, sweets, and alcohol. Grains, meats, and dairy were further subdivided to “suggested” and “other” groups. The “suggested” subdivisions included healthier food choices, whereas the “other” subdivisions contained less desirable selections.

The authors found that higher total fruit and vegetable consumption, and higher vegetable consumption alone led to a survival advantage. Likewise, a statistically significant improvement in survival was observed for the healthier grains. Higher intakes of less-healthy meats were associated with a survival time disadvantage.”

1. Do not sneeze or cough into your hands. Instead, sneeze or cough into your elbow or a tissue.

2. If you are sick, stay home until your temperature is normal for 24 hours so that you do not spread the viruses everywhere.

3. Vaccination is an effective way to prevent from getting flu.

4. Eat healthy, get enough sleep, exercise regularly and manage your stress well. All these will keep your immune system strong.

5. Some herbs may have antiviral effect, such as ginger, licorice, garlic, ginseng and eleuthero.

6. Antiviral drug Tamiflu, which is derived from Chinese star anise, may alleviate flu symptoms.

7. Take adequate amount of daily vitamin D may lower your risk of getting upper respiratory infections.

If you have severe symptoms like difficulty breathing, chest or abdominal pain, severe vomiting etc, you should seek medical attention.

Source: www.MotherEarthNews.com

Recent studies show that, even at a low level that is legal on our food, Roundup can cause DNA damage, hormone disruption and cell death.

Exposure to Roundup can cause infertility. It can also affect sexual differentiation in fetus if the mother is exposed during pregnancy.

The “active” ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is not as toxic by itself as when it is mixed with other “inert” ingredients, such as solvants and surfactants.

These “inert” chemicals help glyphosate penetrate into a plant as well as into the skin. Surfactant and glyphosate enhance each other’s effect.

Although the EPA is launching new tests on some hormone disruptors, the current EPA requirements to test inert ingredients only cover a very small range of health problems, which do not include birth defects, cancer and genetic damage.

Source: www.MotherEarthNews.com

Another manufacturer, Novartis, in February recalled five lots of seasonal flu vaccine packed in pre-filled syringes under similar circumstances. Sanofi Pasteur bills itself as the No. 1 manufacturer of flu vaccines in the world. It makes flu vaccine at sites in France and in Pennsylvania.

1. Diabetes

Atherosclerosis often develops earlier and more extensively in patients with diabetes. These patients tend to have atherosclerosis not only in big arteries, but small blood vessels as well.

2. High blood pressure

High blood pressure increases damage to the lining of arteries and is associated with inflammation reaction.

3. Obesity

Abdominal obesity raises the risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, which can cause damage to the arteries. Obesity itself also increases the risk of having atherosclerosis in the arteries supplying blood to the heart.

4. Smoking

Smoking injures the inner lining of the arteries, raises LDL (bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL (good cholesterol). It has been linked to the progression of atherosclerosis.

To prevent or slow down the development of atherosclerosis, keep blood pressure, cholesterol, weight and diabetes under good control.

Source: webmd.com

Also see: Atherosclerosis (1) — How does it develop?