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Daily Dose of Nuts Benefit Heart Health

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A daily dose of nuts—walnuts, almonds, pistachios— can make up for a heart-healthy diet, according to Mayo Clinic researchers.

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Most nuts contain some nutrients that can benefit heart health and help with cholesterol control.

They include unsaturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, 1-arginine and plant sterols. Nuts have been shown to reduce low-density lipoproteins (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol) levels in the blood.

Eating nuts also can reduce the risk of developing blood clots and improve the health of the lining of the arteries.

The above benefits suggest that eating nuts, in limited amounts, may reduce the risk of heart disease, though studies haven’t yet proved this conclusively.

Almost any type of nut is nutritious — and high in calories. It is best to eat nuts in moderation, no more than a handful a day.

Also, choose unsalted or low-salt versions and use nuts as a substitute for saturated fats, such as those found in meats, eggs and dairy products.

Source: The study has been published in the latest issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource.

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Laser Therapy May Help Neck Pain

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So-called low-level laser therapy (LLLT) entails using a laser‘s light — but not its fiercely concentrated heat — to stimulate tissue repair and ease pain.
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Doctors led by Roberta Chow of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Australia‘s University of Sydney carried out an overview of 16 randomised trials that put this increasingly popular procedure to the test.

A total of 820 patients were enrolled in the trials, divided into groups that received either the therapy or a lookalike, dummy treatment. In five trials, patients given LLLT were around four times likelier to have reduced pain compared with a placebo, the paper found.

In the 11 other trials, for which there was a detailed analysis of pain symptoms, LLLT patients reported reductions of chronic pain by around 20 points on a scale of 100 points. The pain reduction continued for up to 22 weeks.

LLLT compares favourably with other drugs and other remedies for effectiveness and its side-effects are mild, says the study, which recommends that it be used in combination with an exercise programme.

Why LLLT works, though, is unclear. The authors suggest it could interfere with pathways of inflammation, muscle tiredness and the transmission of pain signals along nerves.

Between 10 and 24 percent of people suffer from chronic neck pain, inflicting a cost running into the hundreds of millions of dollars and highlighting the need for simple but effective treatent, the authors said.

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Source: The Times Of India

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Meditation

Compassion Meditation: A Great Stress Buster

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Individuals who engage in compassion meditation may benefit by reductions in inflammatory and behavioral responses to psychological stress, a new Compassion  study has found.
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“While much attention has been paid to meditation practices that emphasize calming the mind, improving focused attention or developing mindfulness, less is known about meditation practices designed to specifically foster compassion,” says Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, who designed and taught the meditation program used in the study.

Negi is senior lecturer in the Department of Religion, the co-director of Emory Collaborative for Contemplative Studies and president and spiritual director of Drepung Loseling Monastery, Inc.

The study focused on the effect of compassion meditation on inflammatory, neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress, and evaluated the degree to which engagement in meditation practice influenced stress reactivity.

“Our findings suggest that meditation practices designed to foster compassion may impact physiological pathways that are modulated by stress and are relevant to disease,” said Charles L. Raison, MD, clinical director of the Mind-Body Program, Emory University”s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory School of Medicine, and a lead author on the study.

Sixty-one healthy college students between the ages of 17 and19 participated in the study. Half the participants were randomized to receive six weeks of compassion meditation training and half were randomized to a health discussion control group. Although secular in presentation, the compassion meditation program was based on a thousand-year-old Tibetan Buddhist mind-training practice called “lojong” in Tibetan.

A variety of student participation activities were employed such as mock debates and role-playing. Both groups were required to participate in 12 hours of classes across the study period. Meditators were provided with a meditation compact disc for practice at home. Homework for the control group was a weekly self-improvement paper.

After the study interventions were finished, the students participated in a laboratory stress test designed to investigate how the body”s inflammatory and neuroendocrine systems respond to psychosocial stress.

No differences were seen between students randomized to compassion meditation and the control group, but within the meditation group there was a strong relationship between the time spent practicing meditation and reductions in inflammation and emotional distress in response to the stressor.

Consistent with this, when the meditation group was divided into high and low practice groups, participants in the high practice group showed reductions in inflammation and distress in response to the stressor when compared to the low practice group and the control group.

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Source: The Times Of India

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Why Anti-Depressants Don’t Always Work?

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More than half the people who take anti-depressants seldom get relief. A bnew study says this is because drugs designed to treat depression aim at the wrong target.

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The study led by Eva Redei, psychiatry professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (NUFSM), found powerful molecular evidence that quashes the popular dogma that stress generally triggers depression.

Her new research reveals that there is almost no overlap between stress-related genes and depression-related genes.

Her findings are based on extensive studies with a model of severely depressed rats that mirror many behavioural and physiological abnormalities found in patients with major depression.

“This is a huge study and statistically powerful,” Redei said. “This research opens up new routes to develop new anti-depressants that may be more effective. There hasn’t been an antidepressant based on a novel concept in 20 years.”

She took four genetically different strains of rats and exposed them to chronic stress for two weeks. Later, she identified genes in the brain regions (linked with depression in rats and human), that had increased or decreased in response to the stress in all four strains.

“This finding is clear evidence that at least in an animal model, chronic stress does not cause the same molecular changes as depression does,” said Redei, according to a NUFSM statement.

These findings were presented at a recent Neuroscience conference in Chicago.

Source: The Times Of India

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Anti-ageing Creams Could Cause Cancer

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Anti-ageing creams, which promise to smooth away the fine lines of maturity, could lead to cancer by stripping the skin of its protective top  as explained by exparts.

A leading US professor has said that using these revolutionary creams could expose the skin to dangerous toxins and make it more prone to sun damage.

Dr Sam Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, has said that popular ingredients in anti-ageing creams called alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) were “probably the most dangerous cosmetic products on the market”.

And now, he has urged the American safety body to introduce new regulations to protect consumers and also asked British shoppers to be aware of the risks. “So many women, and even some men, slather these products all over their skin in the naive belief that they have nothing to fear but ageing,” The Daily Express quoted Epstein as saying.

The British cosmetics industry must comply with EU rules on what ingredients to use and what warnings to place on labels.

Currently, there is no requirement for a warning to be placed on creams containing AHAs.
However, Epstein pointed out that in America, the US Food and Drug Administration warned consumers that AHAs “could destroy the upper layers of skin, causing severe burns, swelling and pain”.

But he said that the dangers are equally relevant to British anti-wrinkle creams. “Anything that strips the surface of the skin not only risks sunlight penetrating the exposed layer but also allows other toxic products in. All of the toxic effects are massively increased by AHAs,” he said.

Epstein also expressed concern about other ingredients commonly used in anti-ageing products, such as limonene. “Apart from being an irritant, it is a well documented carcinogen,” he said.

Sources: The Times Of India

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