Healthy Journey » research

Rediscover the Medicinal Properties of Wine

editor — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:17:09 +0000

Wine has always held a reputation for extending and enhancing the quality of life. Although, with the exception of folk healers, the medicinal powers of wine were lost within modern medicine.

In countries that have not suffered the effects of Prohibition as the U.S. has, wine is regarded as a food and a source of nutrition. Only in recent decades has the remarkable amount of research reflecting the health benefits of moderate wine consumption forced the medical profession in the U.S. to revise their stance against wine consumption.

The Framingham Heart Study, which was first begun in 1948 and encompasses three generations of participants, demonstrates that there are 50 percent fewer deaths from coronary disease among drinkers than non-drinkers.

According to studies, one of the natural substances in red and white grape wine associated with longevity, improved cardiovascular health, immune system enhancement and anti-cancer properties is resveratrol. This constituent has been the subject of numerous studies and is most often associated with the health benefits of wine in the collective mind of the public. (...)

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Fruits and Veggies Not Enough to Protect Against Cancer, says the Harvard Health Letter

editor — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:42:12 +0000

Cancer isn’t the only health problem that is influenced by diet, and there’s good evidence that eating fruits and vegetables lowers the risk of having a heart attack, stroke, and other forms of cardiovascular disease.

Fruits and vegetables have been touted for two decades as potent cancer-fighting foods. Although new research has tarnished this image, they still pack a punch against high blood pressure, heart disease, and other chronic conditions, reports the June issue of the Harvard Health Letter.

Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended 20 years ago that people eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to prevent cancer and other chronic diseases, research results have been chipping away at that notion. (...)

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Papaya extract fights 10 different types of cancer say researchers

editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:06:51 +0000

University of Florida researchers are reporting that an extract from dried papaya slows the growth of cancer cells in the laboratory. However, it’s not clear if the papaya extract will have the same effect on cancer in people, however.

According to Dr. Nam Dang, the papaya extract appears to affect the regulation of the body’s immune system without causing adverse side effects to nearby normal cells. The findings reflect the use of papaya by indigenous people in Australia and Vietnam.

“Based on what I have seen and heard in a clinical setting, nobody who takes this extract experiences demonstrable toxicity; it seems like you could take it for a long time — as long as it is effective,” he said.

The researchers report that four strengths of papaya leaf extract slowed the growth of 10 types of cancer cell cultures, including cancers of the cervix, breast, liver, lung and pancreas.

The study was published in a recent issue of Journal of Ethnopharmacology.

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on the various types of cancer.

Can Linoleic Acid Help Sustain Weight Loss?

editor — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:55:07 +0000

Are you a poster child for ‘yo-yo’ dieting, constantly losing the same ten, twenty or fifty pounds? The health consequences are serious and losing / gaining so much weight puts a real strain on your body.

While we all of us strive for sustainable weight loss, not all of us make it, and that’s where various little ‘helpers’ come in. One of these is a supplement called linoleic acid.

European studies show that a daily dose of 3.4 g of linoleic acid helps people maintain weight loss over time. In the study, conducted in Norway last year, 125 people were put on the supplement after having lost an average of nine per cent body fat the previous year. Most people who took the supplement, unlike the control group, sustained their body fat loss. Of course, less body fat and more muscle has some very significant benefits; basically, the more muscle you have on your body, the faster your metabolism. A person with more muscle will burn more calories even if he or she is just sitting still, because muscle burns calories and fat. (...)

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Green Tea May Help Treat Uterine Fibroids

editor — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:00:53 +0000

A new study has found that an extract from green tea may be a useful treatment for uterine fibroids, a condition that affects 40 percent of women of reproductive age, commonly causing vaginal bleeding, anemia and fatigue.

Dr. Ayman Al-Hendy, director of clinical research at Meharry Medical College, and his colleagues found that a polyphenol in green tea known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was capable of killing human leiomyoma cells in tissue cultures and was able to shrink uterine fibroid lesions in lab animals. (...)

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Herbal ingredient, aristolochic, tied to urinary cancer by new research

editor — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:00:32 +0000

New research links a carcinogen known as aristolochic acid, which is found in some Chinese herbal products, including guan mu-tong, to a higher risk of urinary tract cancer.

The findings were reported December 21 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study involved 4,594 people in Taiwan who had just been diagnosed with urinary tract cancer, as well as a random sample of 174,701 people from the country. (...)

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Pre-natal stress may increase asthma risk in children

editor — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:00:20 +0000

Stress during pregnancy may raise the risk of asthma in children, according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. The researchers investigated differences in immune function markers in cord blood between infants born to mothers in high stress environments and those born to mothers with lower stress and found marked differences in patterns that may be associated with asthma risk later in life.

“This is the first study in humans to show that increased stress experienced during pregnancy in these urban, largely minority women, is associated with different patterns of cord blood cytokine production to various environmental stimuli, relative to babies born to lower-stressed mothers,” said Rosalind Wright, M.D., M.P.H., associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The findings have been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. (...)

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Brain study notes that negative words register faster than positive words

editor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:00:25 +0000

Subliminal messages are most effective when they have negative words, English researchers say.

Subliminal messages are images shown so quickly that viewers don’t consciously “see” them, according to background information in the University College London study.

It included 50 volunteers who were shown a series of words on a computer screen. The words appeared for only a fraction of a second, much too briefly for the participants to consciously read them. The words were either positive (for example, cheerful, peace, flower), negative (murder, despair, agony), or neutral (box, kettle, ear).

As the words were displayed, the participants were asked to choose whether they were positive, negative or neutral. Their choices were most accurate when responding to negative words.

“There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words. We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words,” study leader Professor Nilli Lavie said in a Wellcome Trust news release.

“Clearly, there are evolutionary advantages to responding rapidly to emotional information. We can’t wait for our consciousness to kick in if we see someone running towards us with a knife or if we drive under rainy or foggy weather conditions and see a sign warning ‘danger,’” Lavie said.

The findings, published in the journal Emotion, have implications for the use of subliminal marketing in advertising and in public service announcements, such as safety campaigns.

“Negative words may have more of a rapid impact,” Lavie said. “‘Kill your speed’ should be more noticeable than ‘Slow down.’ More controversially, highlighting a competitor’s negative qualities may work on a subliminal level much more effectively than shouting about your own selling points.”

For more on the workings of the brain, see The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Deadly Stomach Bug Making Inroads Outside Hospitals

editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:00:29 +0000

A potentially deadly stomach infection is on the rise outside of hospital settings, especially among the elderly, researchers warn.

The germ that causes the condition, known as Clostridium difficile, can create serious symptoms, including diarrhea and an inflammation of the colon, that can be fatal. The infection can be difficult to treat because the bacteria have become immune to some drugs.

The bacteria have been found mostly in hospitals, nursing homes and similar facilities. (...)

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Traditional and Simulated Acupuncture Relieve Pain, says new Study

editor — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:00:52 +0000

Although acupuncture has long been used to treat pain, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms are not fully understood. The process appears to involve the brain’s ability to produce opioids (pain-reducing chemicals) that bind to neurons in distinct regions of the brain, and the ability of neurons to produce receptors for these endogenous opioids—specifically, ?-opioid receptors (MORs). Recent clinical trials have indicated that both traditional (actual) and simulated (sham/placebo) acupuncture decrease pain, but other studies have suggested that the neural mechanisms involved may be different.

To investigate these neural mechanisms, NCCAM-funded researchers at the University of Michigan randomly assigned 20 women diagnosed with fibromyalgia (a chronic pain condition) to receive either traditional acupuncture or simulated acupuncture treatments in 9 sessions over 4 weeks. (In traditional acupuncture, needles are inserted at specific points on the body. Simulated acupuncture mimics this procedure, but without piercing the skin or using specific points. Participants did not know which treatment they were receiving.) At the initial session and again at the ninth, the women had positron emission tomography scans to analyze MOR binding potential in the brain, and they completed a questionnaire to assess pain intensity.

Traditional acupuncture increased MOR binding potential, in both the short term (right after the first treatment) and the long term (after 4 weeks), in several regions of the brain that process pain. Simulated acupuncture generally resulted in slight reductions in MOR-binding potential. Both traditional and simulated acupuncture groups experienced similar, significant reductions in clinical pain. In the traditional acupuncture group, greater long-term increases in MOR-binding potential were associated with greater reductions in pain.

The researchers concluded that, in fibromyalgia patients, different mechanisms appear to be involved in the analgesic effects of traditional acupuncture and simulated acupuncture. By increasing MOR-binding potential, traditional acupuncture appears to help the brain use endogenous opioids more effectively. The slight reduction in MOR-binding potential suggests that simulated acupuncture increases the brain’s production of opioids. The researchers recommend additional studies to determine whether these differences are related to skin penetration of the acupuncture needles, point location, or both.

Study Confirms Common Sense: Less TV, More Exercise Boosts Weight Loss

editor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:00:07 +0000

If you want to lose weight, exercise and diet are crucial. But a new study says other factors appear to play a role, too — including the number of TVs in your house and the presence of exercise equipment.

“The home environment really came out as a stronger factor than we would have anticipated,” Suzanne Phelan, assistant professor of kinesiology at California Polytechnic State University and lead author of the new study, said in a news release.

Phelan and colleagues looked at the results of surveys of 167 people who lost a big chunk of their body weight — at least 10 percent — and managed to keep the pounds at bay for five or more years. The researchers compared this group to two other groups of people who were overweight or obese. (...)

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Drinking coffee slows progression of Liver Disease in chronic Hepatitis C patients

editor — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:00:04 +0000

Patients with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drink three or more cups of coffee per day have a 53% lower risk of liver disease progression than non-coffee drinkers according to a new study led by Neal Freedman, Ph.D., MPH, from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The study found that patients with hepatitis C-related bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis who did not respond to standard disease treatment benefited from increased coffee intake. An effect on liver disease was not observed in patients who drank black or green tea. Findings of the study appear in the November issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. (...)

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Expert Panel of Pediatric Liver Specialists Publishes Recommendations for Monitoring Children With Chronic Hepatitis B Infections

editor — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:00:52 +0000

An expert panel of nationally recognized pediatric liver specialists convened by the Hepatitis B Foundation is calling for more consistent monitoring and referral of children chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). The panels recommendations for pediatricians and other primary care practitioners stress the need for routine monitoring of children with chronic HBV infections, and timely consultation with a pediatric liver specialist. (...)

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Houseplants — Beautify Your Way To Better Health

Keith Lewis — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:00:19 +0000

Greening your home may be the first step towards improving your health and improving the air quality of your home is possibly the best place to start. Many homes contain irritants that contribute to poor air quality. Older homes may have layers of lead based paints, while any home may contain molds, bacteria, pollen, dust, and pet dander. All of these irritants have been suspected of being connected with or contributing to the development of numerous medical ailments including chronic respiratory diseases.

Recent studies have suggested that household plants provide a viable means for improving the air quality within your home. Introducing houseplants into your living space in affect cleans your homes air by removing a number of the toxins you would have been breathing and absorbing into your body-the result being better health for you and your family.(...)

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The Fight Against Chronic Disease

Barbara Holbrook — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:00:47 +0000

Eli Lilly and Company recently unveiled a small tool aimed at battling a big problem – chronic disease. Lilly’s free pocket-sized health book, A Healthy You! – America’s Guide to Healthy Living, puts useful tips and resources in the hands of Americans to help them lead a healthy life and prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.(...)

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