Pistachios are a great way to start the day – because it protects the heart and lowers bad cholesterol.

Pistachios are well-loved nuts, not just in the United States but around the globe. We have even more reasons to love this health nut: researchers from Pennsylvania State University  concluded that pistachios are ideal for controlling cholesterol levels because it’s natural packed with nutrients and good fats which helps the cardiovascular system work more efficiently.

The study involved 28 respondents (adult males and females) who were given pistachios during the research period. The nuts had a marked effect on the LDL or bad cholesterol level of the test respondents.

Other benefits of pistachios

Pistachios are packed with lutein and other organic compounds that serve as anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants reduce cell damage and further protects cells from the ravages of free radicals.

Coupled with the right diet and exercise, a heart-healthy meal plan consisting of pistachios, vegetables and lean meat can significantly contribute to decreasing cardiovascular problems and even cancer. It’s all about synergy – the components of a fitness plan must be synergistic with each other to work well.

In addition to being loaded with anti-oxidants, pistachio nuts are also great sources of vitamins and minerals. Minerals like iron, which are present in pistachios, are heart protectors. In the long term, eating foods similar to pistachios will enhance the protective effect of a heart-healthy diet.

Tips for lowering LDL cholesterol

1. As much as possible, stick to lean, white meats and avoid red meats. Red meats are packed with bad cholesterol (LDL) and only make things worse.

2. Moderate consumption of red wine (and other wines with resveratrol) may reduce LDL and protect your heart, too. Note that a small quantity of wine, drank regularly every week is sufficient. Do not overdo alcohol consumption.

3. Eat foods high in fiber like fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes

4.Cold water fishes packed with omega-3 fatty acids are also ideal in combating high cholesterol levels.

5. 42.5 grams of healthy nuts like pistachios and even walnuts can help lower your cholesterol over the long term.

Summary: Pistachios are a great way to start the day – because it protects the heart and lowers bad cholesterol.

Sources:
webmd.com
mayoclinic.com
cholesterol.about.com

Exercise doesn't just benefit people by reducing weight and making muscles stronger – it can also help cancer patients by reducing the side effects of cancer treatment.

According to Eleanor Walker, a division director from the Henry Ford Hospital, exercise may well be the missing ingredient in cancer care for the longest time.

According to Dr. Walker, introducing exercise alongside the usual cancer care offered to patients offers both physical and psychological advantages.  It appears that exercise also reduces the side effects commonly associated with cancer treatment.

ExCITE-ing

In addition to reducing the side effects of the various treatments for cancer, exercise is also a great energizer and is also capable of combating nausea – an all too common problem for cancer patients undergoing treatment.  The testing was done using an program called ExCITE, which was designed by researchers from the Cancer Center at the Henry Ford Hospital.

The patients were given the usual tests and specific diets and exercise programs were recommended to them, based on the initial test results.  One of the respondents, a breast cancer patient, reported that the usual side effects of treatment like nausea and even vomiting were eliminated after she joined the ExCITE program.

According to the patient, Cheryl Fallen, the ExCITE program is a very holistic approach to mitigating problems associated with cancer treatment because the exercise routines are able to strengthen the immune system and also improves the blood circulation of the patients.  Fallen also views the program as a positive aid for cancer patients; and it makes her feel good, too.

…And even more reasons to exercise

1. Exercise lowers your blood sugar levels, energizes you and improves your physical and psychological condition.  It’s all a matter of investing time and energy into it; the rewards of finally becoming physically fit are endless.

2. Exercises increases the capacity of cells to utilize sugar.  During exercise, the muscles in the body are forced to pump out energy and utilize the raw substrate used for work – glucose.  If you exercise on a daily basis, the cells in the body use sugar more efficiently, effectively lowering insulin resistance.

3. Exercising is a great way to deal with stress. Stress isn’t just a frame of mind. It’s the body’s reaction to worries and anxieties. Resting is not the best solution to stress- exercise is.  The more you exercise, the more the body heals and recovers from the physical and mental burdens of stress.  With less stress, you will be able to perform better at work or school and you will instantly feel better. After a workout (like walking or running), the body releases endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. Endorphins allow the body to cool down and relax – naturally.

Sources
rd.com
exercise.about.com
sciencedaily.com

From the SENS Foundation: "Aggregates of beta-amyloid (Abeta) and other malformed proteins accumulate in brain aging and neurodegenerative disease, leading progressively to neuronal dysfunction and/or loss. The regenerative engineering solution to these insults is therapeutic clearance of aggregates, extracellular (such as Abeta plaques) and intracellular (such as soluble, oligomeric Abeta). Immunotherapeutic Abeta clearance from the brain is a very active field of Alzheimer's research, with at least seven passive, and several second-generation active, Abeta vaccines currently in human clinical trials ... One challenge to optimal vaccine design is matching the specificity of antibodies the range of Abeta aggregates that form in vivo ... agents that sequester one Abeta species may leave other species intact, and in some cases a shift in assembly dynamics can actually promote the formation of one species while clearing or reducing the formation of others ... Although in very early in vivo testing, a new approach has emerged that may offer that promise. This is the use of an Abeta-targeting affibody, i.e., a novel non-immunoglobulin binding protein generated through combinatorial protein engineering."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/785

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Via EurekAlert!: "excess abdominal fat places otherwise healthy, middle-aged people at risk for dementia later in life. ... [The study] included 733 community participants who had a mean age of 60 years with roughly 70% of the study group comprised of women. Researchers examined the association between Body Mass Index (BMI), waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, CT-based measures of abdominal fat, with MRI measures of total brain volume (TCBV), temporal horn volume (THV), white matter hyperintensity volume (WMHV) and brain infarcts in the middle-aged participants. ... Our results confirm the inverse association of increasing BMI with lower brain volumes in older adults and with younger, middle-aged adults and extends the findings to a much larger study sample. ... Prior studies were conducted in cohorts with less than 300 participants and the current study includes over 700 individuals. ... More importantly our data suggests a stronger connection between central obesity, particularly the visceral fat component of abdominal obesity, and risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease ... the association between VAT and TCBV was most robust and was also independent of BMI and insulin resistance. Researchers did not observe a statistically significant correlation between CT-based abdominal fat measures and THV, WMHV or BI."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/w-afa051910.php

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Another paper looks at some of the consequences of becoming obese. In a more fair and productive world, medical costs would be an individual responsibility rather than being socialized as they are at present: "The prevalence of adult obesity has increased in recent decades. It is important to predict the long-term effect of body weight, and changes in body weight, in middle age on longevity and Medicare costs in older ages. ... We predicted longevity and lifetime Medicare costs via simulation for 45-year-old persons by body weight in 1973 and changes in body weight between 1973 and 1983. ... Obese 45-year-olds had a smaller chance of surviving to age 65 and, if they did, incurred significantly higher average lifetime Medicare costs than normal-weight 45-year-olds ($163,000 compared with $117,000). Those who remained obese between ages 45 and 55 in 1973 to 1983 incurred significantly higher lifetime Medicare costs than those who maintained normal weight. ... Chronic obesity in middle age increases lifetime Medicare costs relative to those who remained normal weight. As the survival of obese persons improves, it is possible that Medicare costs may rise substantially in the future to meet the health care needs of today's obese middle-aged population."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://pmid.us/20473195

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

From the Technology Review: "Support cells in the brain called astroglia can be turned into functioning neurons. ... Researchers found that they could transform the cells into two different classes of neurons, and that the neurons could form connections with one another in a dish. Although the research is at an early stage, the finding suggests that scientists could someday recruit existing cells in the brain to repair the brain and spinal cord after a stroke, injury, or neurodegenerative disease. ... The addition of one specific gene generated excitatory neurons, which promote activity in other cells. By adding a different gene, they generated inhibitory neurons, which dampen cell activity. In principle, [you] could generate other types of neurons if you choose the appropriate factors ... The study adds to growing evidence that certain cell types can be transformed directly into other cell types without first being converted into stem cells. ... one of the next challenges is to determine whether these reprogrammed neurons can survive and function in a living brain. Fortunately, the brain seems to have a ready source of astroglia. When the brain is injured, these cells proliferate, similar to the way the skin repairs itself after a wound. The researchers found they could also derive neurons from injury-induced astroglia taken from the brains of adult mice."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25353/

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

From h+ Magazine: "A new study [sheds] some light on how 'memory disturbances' in an aging mouse brain are associated with altered 'hippocampal chromatin plasticity' - the combination of DNA, histones, and other proteins that make up the chromosomes associated with the hippocampus. Specifically, the study describes an acetyl genetic switch that produces memory impairment in aging 16-month-old mice. Because the acetyl wasn't present in young 3-month-old mice, the study concludes that it acts as a switch for a cluster of learning and memory genes. ... when young mice are learning, an acetyl group binds to a particular point on the histone protein. The cluster of learning and memory genes on the surrounding DNA ends up close to the acetyl group. This acetyl group was missing in the older mice that had been given the same tasks. By injecting an enzyme known to encourage acetyl groups to bind to any kind of histone molecule, [researchers] flipped the acetyl genetic switch to the 'on' position in the older mice and their learning and memory performance became similar to that of 3-month-old mice. ... [Researchers hope] that the study of hippocampal chromatin plasticity and gene regulation in mice will help them to identify therapeutic strategies to encourage neuroplasticity (the formation of new neural networks in the brain), to improve learning behavior, and to recover seemingly lost long-term memories in human patients."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/switch-memory

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Via EurekAlert!: "Two methods of extending life span have very different effects on memory performance and decline with age. ... While the nematode C. elegans is already well known for its utility in longevity research, previously it was not known how the memory of C. elegans compares with that of other animals, or whether longevity treatments could improve learning and memory. To answer these questions, [researchers] designed new tests of learning and memory in C. elegans, then used these tests to identify the necessary components of learning, short-term memory, and long-term memory. They found that the molecules required for learning and memory appear to be conserved from C. elegans to mammals, suggesting that the basic mechanisms underlying learning and memory are ancient. The authors also determined how each of the behaviors declines with age, and tested the effects of two known regulators of longevity - dietary restriction and reduced Insulin/IGF-1 signaling - on these declines. Surprisingly, very different effects on memory were achieved with the two longevity treatments: dietary restriction impaired memory in early adulthood but maintained memory with age, while reduced Insulin/IGF-1 signaling improved early adult memory performance but failed to preserve it with age. These results suggest not only that longevity treatments could help preserve cognitive function with age, but also that different longevity treatments might have very different effects on such declines."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/plos-pmw051210.php

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

A headline reporting a new Harris Poll survey stated that “Very few Americans find statements by financial institutions completely believable.”  One specific item of interest was that 51 percent of the respondents said that a statement made by someone who works for a health insurance company was believable (2 percent completely believable, 49 percent somewhat believable) while 49 percent answered not at all believable.  Banks, investment firms and government agencies that regulate financial institutions all fared poorly in the believability research. 

These results are not shocking in light of the health care debate and economic stresses that reverberate throughout the economy.  However, the survey shows the depth of the difficulty people have with companies and government agencies that are indispensible to their financial well being. 

This is a good time for intermediaries, whether they are trusted authors, financial advisors, academics and others to fill the void that is obviously missing in the public’s confidence in key industries.  Changes in health care, for example, are sure to cause people to have to rethink sometimes decades old strategies to financing coverage.  The health insurance industry will play a key role in the implementation of health reform, so designing a system in which the public has a basic level of trust is not a trivial matter.

Researchers here demonstrate that comparatively simple stem cell transplants may be effective in regenerating lung injuries: "Human stem cells administered intravenously can restore alveolar epithelial tissue to a normal function in a novel ex vivo perfused human lung after E. coli endotoxin-induced acute lung injury (ALI) ... ALI is a common cause of respiratory failure in the intensive care units, often leading to death. It can be caused by both direct injury such as aspiration and pneumonia, and indirect injury such as sepsis and from trauma. ... Yearly, ALI affects approximately 200,000 patients in the US and has a 40 percent mortality rate despite extensive investigations into its causes and pathophysiology. Innovative therapies are desperately needed. ... we found that intravenous infusion of [stem cells] preferentially homed to the injured areas of the lung, which means that the cells find their way from the bloodstream to the sites in the lung of injury. ... In addition to having restored function of alveolar epithelial cells, lungs treated with [stem cells] showed a reduction in inflammatory [cytokine] levels suggesting a favorable shift away from a proinflammatory environment in the injured alveolus."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/ats-scr051010.php

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/