Tag: Harvard University

How to Live Till a 100

[amazon_link asins=’B01GKE4SFM,B01D16HULQ’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’4a1543dd-fa3f-11e6-9fef-53571e7b6b07′]

Want to live till 100 years of age? Well, do regular exercises, be married, wash hands and brush your teeth everyday.

CLICK & SEE

That’s what a new book, ‘The Long Life Equation’, by Dr Trisha Macnair suggests. In the book, the author has listed activities that add years to your life.

Macnair said washing your hands adds two years, and good dental hygiene can add six more years in your life.

But smoking, fast food, no exercise and a stressful life can strip away 20 years.

“There’s no doubt younger people take life and health for granted – more than any generation before, they idle time away watching TV or playing computer games, ignoring the activities that keep them healthy or develop meaning in their lives,” Courier Mail quoted Macnair, as saying.

“As we get older and start to feel the years slipping away, we suddenly realise how precious it is.

“But by then we may have already established habits (smoking, drinking, obesity, lack of exercise, stressful occupations) which take their toll and are difficult to reverse.

“Still, it’s never too late to change. Also, our attitudes to older age are changing so there is more freedom now to do things later in life if we are healthy and able,” she added.

A 2006 study from University of California in Los Angeles showed that men and women live healthier, wealthier, happier and longer lives when they are in a stable partnership

The study confirmed that married couples were more likely to live to an old age than their divorced, widowed or unmarried counterparts.

A stable partnership can actually add on seven years to life.

Regular exercise also adds as much as two or more years to your life.

A Harvard Alumni Study, which took into account more than 71,000 men who had graduated from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania between 1916 and 1954, found that those men who regularly burned 8400kJ a week while exercising lived, on average, two years longer than sedentary types.

But cigarette smoking can actually reduce 8 years from your life

Tobacco smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals, many of which are highly toxic.

A divorce can also strip away 3 years from your life, as it takes longer-lasting, emotional and physical toll on former spouses than virtually any other life stress.

Recent studies indicate that divorced adults have higher rates of emotional disturbance, accidental death and death from heart disease.

The divorced also have higher rates of admission to psychiatric facilities and make more visits to doctors than people who are married, single or widowed.

Sources: The Times Of India

Tags Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Ivy League, Los Angeles, Marriage, Princeton University, Stanford University, Tobacco smoking, United States, University of California, University of California Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University

News on Health & Science

Mediterranean Diet ‘Cuts Cancer’

Post author By Mukul
Post date July 5, 2008
No Comments on Mediterranean Diet ‘Cuts Cancer’

[amazon_link asins=’1940352649,1623151252,1942411170,B071GVSHNS’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’e463a77e-63a1-11e7-b9e4-f15988bf277f’]

Adopting just a couple of elements of the Mediterranean diet could cut the risk of cancer by 12%, say scientists.

CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES

The Mediterranean Pyramid
The Mediterranean diet begins with the same basis of lots of grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Major differences from the USDA pyramid include:
• Using olive oil as the primary fat
• Allowing for only moderate amounts of milk products
• Using fish and poultry, rather than red meat, as the main source of high protein food from animals
• Including wine with meals

The Mediterranean diet is rich in fruit and vegetables

A study of 26,000 Greek people found just using more olive oil alone cut the risk by 9%.

The diet, reports the British Journal of Cancer, also includes higher amounts of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and less red meat.

A separate study found adding broccoli to meals might help men vulnerable to prostate cancer cut their risk.

The Mediterranean diet came under scrutiny after researchers noticed lower rates of illnesses such as heart disease in countries such as Spain and Greece.

They noticed that people living there generally ate more vegetables and fish, less red meat, cooked in olive oil and drank moderate amounts of alcohol.

The latest study is one of the largest yet to look at the potential impact on cancer of the various parts of this diet.

‘No superfood’

Researchers from Harvard University persuaded thousands of Greek people of various ages to record their food intake over an eight-year-period.

Their adherence to the Mediterranean diet was ranked using a scoring system, and the group with the worst score compared with those who followed a couple of aspects of the diet, and those who followed it the most closely.

The biggest effect they found – a 9% reduction in risk – was achieved simply by eating more “unsaturated” fats such as olive oil.

But just two changes – eating less red meat, and more peas, beans and lentils, cut the risk of cancer by 12%.

Dr Dimitrios Trichopoulos, who led the study, said: “Adjusting one’s overall dietary habits towards the traditional Mediterranean pattern had an important effect.”

Sara Hiom, from Cancer Research UK, said the research highlighted the importance of a healthy balanced diet.

“It shows there are a number of things you can do, and there is no one ‘superfood’ that can stop you developing the disease” says Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK

Broccoli benefit

The other study suggesting that food had the power to prevent cancer came from the Institute of Food Research in Norwich.
Broccoli may help ward off prostate cancer:- CLICK & SEE
Scientists compared the effects of adding 400 grams of broccoli or peas a week to the diet of men at high risk of prostate cancer – and in the case of broccoli found differences in the activity of genes in the prostate which other studies have linked to cancer.

Their findings raised the possibility that broccoli, or other “cruciferous” vegetables, such as cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, could help prevent or slow down the disease, particularly if the man had a particular gene variant – GSTM1.

Professor Richard Mithen, who led the research, published in the Public Library of Science journal, said: “Eating two or three portions of cruciferous vegetables per week, and maybe a few more if you lack the GSTM1 gene – should be encouraged.”

Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartnersUK, said the study was the first time in a properly controlled clinical trial that broccoli had been shown to change the expression of specific genes in the prostate gland.

“Although the observation period was too short and the numbers too small to show that the incidence of cancer actually fell, it is the first clear demonstration that broccoli and presumably other cruciferous vegetables may well reduce cancer risk.”

You may click to see:->Mediterranean diet benefits

>Diet Plans & Weight

>The Food Groups and the Food Pyramid

Sources: BBC NEWS:July 2, ’08

Tags British Journal of Cancer, Cancer, Cancer Research UK, Clinical trial, Conditions and Diseases, Disease, Genitourinary, Harvard University, Health, Karol Sikora, Life expectancy, Management of cancer, National Health Service, Queen Mary, United Kingdom, University of London

News on Health & Science

Older Brain May be a Wiser Brain

Post author By Mukul
Post date May 23, 2008
No Comments on Older Brain May be a Wiser Brain

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.

Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit

CLICK & SEE THE PICTURE

The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, Progress in Brain Research .

Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13% of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand.

That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.
When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.

“For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”

Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention may help you assess the speaker’s real impact.

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” Dr Hasher said. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

Sources: The Timers of India

Tags All rights reserved, Alzheimer's disease, Baycrest, Cognition, Harvard University, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Mild cognitive impairment, Old age, Princeton University Department of Psychology, University of Toronto

News on Health & Science

Prolonged Lack of Sleep Affects Brain

Post author By Mukul
Post date May 22, 2008
No Comments on Prolonged Lack of Sleep Affects Brain

[amazon_link asins=’B00KM8ZBUY,B00800NKDQ,B00BGPEZ68,B00NMFUWIU,B00TPU2BDK,B01B4WSEVO,B015QGJ98G,B003BI2EZ2′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’331d79e7-18e0-11e7-b596-db563a5307b3′]

Image via Wikipedia

Brain activity differs significantly in sleep-deprived and well-rested people, according to a new study that uses the latest imaging techniques.

CLICK TO SEE

The study, by Singapore-based researchers, shows that the sleep-deprived experience periods of near-normal brain function – interspersed with severe drops in attention.

“The main finding is that the brain of the sleep-deprived individual is working normally sometimes, but intermittently suffers from something akin to power failure,” said Clifford Saper of Harvard University, an expert unaffiliated with the study.

Findings of the study have been published in the latest issue of The Journal of Neuroscience .

The research team, led by Michael Chee, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain blood flow in people who were either kept awake all night or allowed a good night’s sleep. Researchers tested the same participants in both conditions.

During imaging, participants did a task that required visual attention. Researchers showed them large letters composed of many smaller letters. Participants were asked to identify either the large or small letters and to indicate their responses by pushing a button.

Well-rested and sleep-deprived volunteers showed a range of reaction times. Those participants with the fastest responses, both in sleep-deprived and well-rested conditions, showed similar patterns of brain activity.

However, well-rested and sleep-deprived participants with the slowest responses – also called attentional lapses – showed different patterns of brain activity.

Previous research showed that attentional lapses normally induce activity in frontal and parietal regions of the brain, command centres that may compensate for lost focus by increasing attention.

However, during attentional lapses, Chee and colleagues found reduced activity in these brain command centres in sleep-deprived compared to well-rested volunteers. This finding suggests that sleep deprivation reduces the brain’s ability to compensate for lost focus.

Sleep-deprived people also showed reduced activity in brain regions involved in visual processing during attentional lapses.

Because the brain becomes less responsive to sensory stimuli during sleep, reduced activity in these regions suggests that, during attentional lapses, the sleep-deprived brain enters a sleep-like state.

You may click to see:->Lack of sleep can be fatal

Sources: The Times Of India

Tags Ageing, Alzheimer's disease, Anal sex, Apple Inc., Associated Press, Blood, Harvard University, Tanzania, Thesis, University of Oxford

News on Health & Science

Diabetics Can Reverse Their Atherosclerosis

Post author By Mukul
Post date May 7, 2008
No Comments on Diabetics Can Reverse Their Atherosclerosis

[amazon_link asins=’B00FC4KQ7Q,0323165311,B019ZTVFAU,B000F4WZU4,0128033126,B0130Q8DH2,B01LXE20Q6,1119376017,0443019274′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’cc10f1f8-120c-11e8-93e5-112481428e27′]

Aggressive measures to lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels below current targets can help to prevent — and potentially even reverse — hardening of the arteries in adults with type 2 diabetes. Hardening of the arteries, also known as atherosclerosis, is the number one cause of heart disease.

CLICK & SEE

A three-year study of nearly 500 participants was the first to compare two treatment targets for LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and systolic blood pressure levels in people with diabetes.

To assess the impact of treatments on the participants’ cardiovascular health, researchers used ultrasound to measure the thickness of their carotid (neck) arteries. Ultrasound was also used to measure the size and function of the left ventricle, which is the heart’s main pumping chamber. Among participants who were given aggressive treatment, carotid artery thickness measurements were significantly lower.

Aggressive treatment measures included Food and Drug Administration-approved blood pressure and cholesterol medications. Participants were also encouraged to follow lifestyle approaches — such as following a heart-healthy eating plan, being physically active, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking — to lower their blood pressure and cholesterol.
Sources:
Science Daily April 9, 2008
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) April 9, 2008; 299[14]:1678-1689