Another reason why you really don't want to live a lifestyle that makes you overweight: "For individuals 65 years of age and older, obesity, excess body fat around the waist and gaining weight after the age of 50 are associated with an increased risk of diabetes. ... Adiposity [body fat] is a well-recognized risk factor for type 2 diabetes among young and middle-aged adults, however, the relationships between different measures of body composition and diabetes in older adults [65 years of age or older] are not well described ... [researchers] examined the relationship between measures of overall body fat, fat distribution, changes in these measures, and diabetes risk among 4,193 men and women 65 years of age and older. ... The researchers found that BMI at baseline, BMI at 50 years of age, weight, fat mass, waist circumference, waist-hip ratio, and waist-height ratio were all strongly related to the risk of diabetes. ... For each measure, there was a graded increase in the risk of diabetes with increasing quintiles of adiposity. Participants in the highest category of adiposity had an approximately 2- to 6-fold increased risk of developing diabetes compared with those in the lowest category."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-06/jaaj-owg061710.php

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A review paper from Italian researchers who have been working on understanding inflammaging for a number of years: "Ageing is an inexorable intrinsic process that affects all cells, tissues, organs and individuals. Due to a diminished homeostasis and increased organism frailty, ageing causes a reduction of the response to environmental stimuli and, in general, is associated to an increased predisposition to illness and death. Actually, it is characterized by a state of reduced ability to maintain health and general homeodynamics of the organism. A large part of the ageing phenotype is explained by an imbalance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory networks, which results in the low grade chronic pro-inflammatory status of ageing, 'inflamm-ageing'. It is strictly linked to immunosenescence, and on the whole they are the major contributory factors to the increased frequency of morbidity and mortality among elderly. Inflamm-ageing is compatible with longevity; even if centenarians have an increased level of inflammatory mediators in comparison to old subjects and they are very frail, they also have high level of anti-inflammatory cytokines together with protective genotypes. Actually, data on case control studies performed in Italian centenarians suggest that a pro-inflammatory genotype is unfavourable to reach extreme longevity in good health and likely favours the onset of age-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's disease."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20549353

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Nuts can generally lower your chances of suffering from cardiovascular maladies if eaten regularly throughout the week.

In the endless battle against heart disease and bad cholesterol, one type of food is standing out from the crowd of ‘would be’ super foods in terms of performance: nuts.

Several studies in the US and around the world have already attributed the power of nuts to lower LDL (or “bad cholesterol”) and generally improve a person’s cardiovascular profile.   According to a more recent investigation of the health benefits of nuts, headed by Loma Linda University researchers, consuming more than two ounces of nuts everyday for a few weeks produced long-lasting, positive effects.

The study involved more than five hundred respondents (males and females), none of which were taking any medications to control their blood pressure or cholesterol levels.  After approximately two months of natural “nut therapy”, the findings are as follows:

• 5.1% total cholesterol reduction
• 7.4% LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol reduction
• 10.2% reduction of triglycerides
• 8.3% improvement of bad cholesterol & good cholesterol ratios

Who will benefit the most from eating nuts?  The researchers have pointed out three key groups that will benefit the most, based on the respondent profiles and the results of the actual study:

• Individuals who are generally slim or of normal weight
• Individuals who already have a high level of “bad cholesterol” or LDL cholesterol
• Individuals whose main diet is composed mainly of high-fat foods

As can be seen from the three profiles, nearly everyone can benefit from consuming nuts on a regular basis.  And there are even more reasons to love this health food: according to Joan Sabate MD, one of the key researchers of the Loma Linda University study, nuts are packed with essential nutrients such as protein and fiber, which makes it an ideal snack.

If you like the idea of lowering your LDL cholesterol, you will not be stuck with oatmeal-based snacks anymore – you have a potent, alternative choice in the form of nuts.  All nuts will provide the same heart-healthy benefits.  So whether you love pecans or macadamias, your heart is still getting much needed help from the natural compounds found in nuts.

More reasons to love nuts

Need more reasons to start munching on nuts more often? Here they are:
1. Eating at least 1 ounce of nuts everyday can reduce your risk for developing coronary heart problems by a whopping forty percent.  That is almost half the total risk for this devastating group of cardiovascular diseases.

2. As early as 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration has already recognized the efficacy at which walnuts can lower blood cholesterol levels.  According to studies, walnuts contain lots of omega-3 fatty acids.  In addition to the heart-healthy fatty acid, walnuts also come with a healthy dose of fiber and vitamin E, which can help reduce cell damage due to free radicals.

Fiber on the other hand, encourages a healthy digestive process by helping ’sweep away’ the solid waste.  Getting enough fiber everyday is becoming a problem in modern society because many modern diets are high in fat and animal protein but low in roughage.  Eating walnuts and other nuts packed with fiber can help reduce the problems associated with low-fiber diets.

3. What about peanuts?  Peanuts are not really nuts; they come from plants that are part of the legume family.  Fortunately, peanuts have the same chemical compounds as most nuts.  So when you are eating peanuts (a type of legume) you are still getting the advantages of eating ‘true nuts’.

4. According to studies on pistachios, the nut can slightly reduce the LDL cholesterol in the body and raise the good cholesterol level.  I’m actually snacking on some pistachios right now as I’m writing this article!

5. Plan to get pregnant anytime soon?  If you do, eating nuts gives you access to a healthy source of folic acid. Folic acid is an important compound that prevents fetuses from developing physical and neurological abnormalities.

6. According to a study performed by researchers from the Physician’s Health Study, people who ate nuts at least twice a week are at less risk of dying from heart attacks than those who did not.

7. Peanuts contain the heart-healthy compound resveratrol which has been linked to the decreased incidence of heart disease in French society.  Though you get less resveratrol with peanuts, consuming peanuts regularly can supply you enough of the compound to ward off heart problems.

Tips for healthy munching

While nuts offer a lot of health benefits, it still has calories and some amount of fat.  Here are some tips for healthy munching:

1. Avoid eating salted nuts; the sodium used for flavor enhancement can raise your blood pressure.  Go for plain or unsalted commercial nuts.  Salt doesn’t really add much depth to a nut’s natural flavor.

2. If you are eating more nuts, you have to reduce your intake of other snack foods like potato chips and sodas.  (As an added note, if you like soda with your snacks, try substituting it with water or natural fruit juices).

3. If you like fresh greens, chop some nuts and add them to your salads. The texture and crunchiness of nuts will greatly improve your salad.  Also, you are getting even more fiber from eating fresh greens!

Sources:
aolhealth.com
heartdisease.about.com
cholesterol.about.com
cholesterol.about.com
http://www.vegan.org.nz
http://www.healthcastle.com

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Exposure to secondhand smoke produces psychological stress and predisposes individuals to a higher risk of being hospitalized due to psychiatric illnesses.

In a study performed by researchers from the University College London, it was found that individuals who were exposed to secondhand smoke were more likely to suffer from psychological distress than people who were not exposed. The risk of psychological distress from secondhand smoke exposure is a staggering 50% – a significant risk percentage.

In addition to psychological stress, it was also found that people who regularly inhaled other people’s smoke were 3 times more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric facility in less than 7 years.  Smokers on the other hand, are four times more likely to be hospitalized due to psychological distress and other psychiatric problems.

The dangers of passive smoking

The researchers were able to measure the degree of a person’s exposure to nicotine by marking and measuring the compound cotinine, which is the chemical byproduct of nicotine after it has been metabolized/processed by the body.  The compound cotinine can be found in a person’s saliva.  The UK study tracked more than 5,000 smokers and 2,000+ non-smokers; all respondents of the study had no prior history of mental illnesses.

Within six years of the study, forty-one individuals from both the groups were admitted to a psychiatric facility.  More than fourteen percent of all the subjects of the UK study reported some degree of psychological stress.  After filters were applied, the researchers stated that despite differences in social circumstance, the risk factors still applied to both smoker and non-smokers. The study made use of a general questionnaire, which allowed the researchers to measure the exposure of secondhand smoke.

Based on the study, “passive smoking” or mere exposure to secondhand smoke increases  a person’s risk for psychological stress by more sixty percent. Prior to the more recent UK study, earlier animal studies showed that tobacco can alter an animal’s mood, which suggested a link between tobacco use and clinical depression in humans.

Tobacco: a poor stress reliever

This study shows that tobacco use is not a good coping strategy – instead of providing stress relief, it actually produces psychological stress. In a study published by the Journal of Pediatric Psychology (Oxford University Press) it was found that younger individuals are more prone to using tobacco as a coping strategy against stress.  It was found that smoking did not provide any significant stress relief to the respondents.

Sources:
reuters.com
archpsyc.ama-assn.org
jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org

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Every year something on the order of 50 million people die, and the fine structure of the brain that houses their minds is allowed to decay, destroying them forever. It does not have to be this way: the technology exists to plastinate and store the newly deceased, preserving the data of the mind until such time as medical technology can work a restoration. "The Open Letter on Brain Preservation seeks to raise awareness regarding the science, ethics and legality surrounding the emerging scientific process of chemical, whole-brain preservation. ... We, the undersigned, hereby publicly profess our human right to undergo a high-quality elective chemical brain preservation procedure immediately upon our physical death, and demand that such a procedure be made legal and accessible within the existing medical system in our countries of residence. We further demand that if medical evidence exists that an individual's brain is being substantially damaged by Alzheimer's, tumors, or other disease processes that elective brain preservation be available prior to that individual's natural death."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://brainpreservation.org/index.php?path=letter

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A Newsweek article runs through some of the standard foolish objections to greater human longevity. There is no change so beneficial that people will refrain from protesting it - it is the human nature to be vehemently against a new idea before being grudgingly for it: "When we consider the problem of aging, and imagine that we might be able to cure it, that alternating current we feel consists of longings and dread. We are afraid of what we wish for; and most of our fears, like our hopes, have always cycled in us. Dreams of immortality have led to terrible nightmares of boredom ever since people began writing down their thoughts. ... What happens when we have real antiaging pills that pass the tests of clinical trials? As bioethicists have begun to note, this is a problem that would make all our bioethical debates to date look small. What are the bioethical problems that have exercised us in the last 10 or 20 years? Stem cells. Cloning. Gene therapy. The privacy of genetic information. Steroids. All these problems matter in themselves, but all of them would be subsumed in the transformations of society and human nature that would be wreaked by a significant success with the human life span. And then will come the option of changing the genome itself. We will add or subtract genes to lengthen our lives, until there is no going back, because no human beings alive (however long they may live) will ever be human in the same way again. If we are going to survive to enjoy a good portion of the future, our health and happiness depend on a great deal of luck. The trouble with immortality is endless." There is no objection to longevity that comes close to touching the present horror of aging - the more than 100,000 people who die each and every day.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://services.newsweek.com/id/238720/output/print

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An opinion paper by researchers who feel that too much emphasis is placed on the discovery of longevity mutations: "The biological reasons for ageing are now well known, so it is no longer an unsolved problem in biology. Furthermore, there is only one science of ageing, which is continually advancing. The significance and importance of the mutations that lengthen the lifespan of invertebrates can be assessed only in relationship to previous well-established studies of ageing. The mutant strains of model organisms that increase longevity have altered nutrient signalling pathways similar to the effects of dietary restriction, and so it is likely that there is a shift in the trade-off between reproduction and maintenance ... To believe that the isolation and characterisation of a few invertebrate mutations (as well as those in yeast) will 'galvanise' the field and provide new insights into human ageing is an extreme point of view which does not recognize the huge progress in ageing research that has been made in the last 50 years or so." I believe that the focus on longevity mutations is not the most effective use of resources, but for different reasons: it's a part of the metabolic manipulation school of slowing aging, which is a slow path to a poor end result in comparison to repair strategies.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20549352

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From BusinessWeek: "Patients blinded in one or both eyes by chemical burns regained their vision after healthy stem cells were extracted from their eyes and reimplanted ... The tissue was drawn from the limbus, an area at the junction of the cornea and white part of the eye. It was grown on a fibrous tissue, then layered onto the damaged eyes. The cells grew into healthy corneal tissue, transforming disfigured, opaque eyes into functioning ones with normal appearance and color ... The stem-cell treatment restored sight to more than three-quarters of the 112 patients treated. ... The key to success is to be certain that when the stem cells extracted from the limbus are grown in culture they have the right mix of stem cells and the differentiated cells that form the corneal tissue ... If there are too few stem cells in the transplant, the improvement won't last because there will be no reservoir to form the new corneal cells needed with the normal recycling of cells over time. ... Depending on the depth of the injury, some patients regained sight in as little as two months. ... Others with deeper injuries needed a second procedure and waited a year before sight was restored."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-18/stem-cells-from-own-eyes-restore-vision-to-blinded-patients.html

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