Group items tagged

Improved Memory and Brain Function is now suggested by a new report on blueberries by Russell Martin. This research has linked blueberries with improved memory retention and motor coordination that normally accompany aging.

The costs that hospitals incur in treating patients vary widely and do not appear to be strongly associated either with the quality of care patients receive or their risk of dying within 30 days, according to a report in the February 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

A new study by researchers from the University of Miami shows that maternal sensitivity may influence language development among children who go on to develop autism. Although parenting styles are not considered as a cause for autism, this report examines how early parenting can promote resiliency in this population. The study entitled, "A Pilot Study of Maternal Sensitivity in the Context of Emergent Autism," is published online this month and will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

"Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life's work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior. And he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide, proves conclusively that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids -- regardless of their age, sex or culture."

Before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, the average American was sleeping 10 hours per night. Today, the national sleep foundation reports that the average time people spend in bed to sleep is 6 hours and 55 minutes -- with 6 hours and 40 minutes spent actually sleeping.

Washington dumped some more bad news Friday afternoon when the USDA's Office of Inspector General issued a damning and unsettling report on the department's "National Residue Program for Cattle." It found gaping holes in the safety of American beef production, including residue of drugs, poisons and heavy metals in the meat we eat.

Dr. Penelope Leach, author of the 1977 book "Your Baby And Child: From Birth to Age Five," said Thursday that leaving a baby to cry without tending to them causes an increase of cortisol, known as the 'stress hormone.' Leach said too much production of cortisol could damage a baby's brain, the Daily Mail reported.

Ingredients used by Johnson & Johnson in some of the 40 varieties of children's cold medicines recalled last week were contaminated with bacteria, according to a report by the Food and Drug Administration.

It's funny how the universe speaks to me sometimes. A random video link sent by someone I hardly know contains a message that touches me. The next day I read an on line news report that speaks to the same topic and I am once again touched. With all this "universe" talk, I feel compelled to contribute to the conversation concerning nutrition and childhood obesity.

People with a university degree fear death less than those at a lower literacy level. In addition, fear of death is most common among women than men, which affects their children's perception of death. In fact, 76% of children that report fear of death is due to their mothers avoiding the topic. Additionally, more of these children fear early death and adopt unsuitable approaches when it comes to deal with death.

"Fat cancers" usually associated with wealthy countries are becoming more common in the developing world, too, according to new reports.

Of late, vitamin A has been much in the news as a drug that reduces the incidence of certain cancers. Accordingly, for the sake of fair balance, we felt that our readers should be told about a recent report in the Western Journal Medicine.

If you are experiencing bouts of anxiety, excessive moodiness, and irritability or have an inability to concentrate you may be experiencing stress. This is one of the more common health problems reported today. We all feel occasional stress from time to time and this is not a problem. If it is allowed to become chronic however it can have a negative impact on your overall health.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer among women today. There will be nearly a quarter million new cases this year alone. The silver lining that we have here is that the American Cancer Society reports that deaths associated with breast cancer are on the decline.

A new study suggests that a single dose of psilocybin -- the active ingredient in "Magic Mushrooms" -- can result in improved personality traits over the long term. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that individuals who received the drug once in a clinical setting reported a greater sense of "openness" that often lasted 14 months or longer, according to study published this week in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The study defined openness as a personality trait that "encompasses aesthetic appreciation and sensitivity, imagination and fantasy, and broad-minded tolerance of others' viewpoints and values." It is one of five main personality traits that are shared among all cultures worldwide. Of the 51 participants, 30 had personality changes that left them feeling more open. Other personality traits (extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness) were not impacted. Only the participants who said they had a "complete mystical experience" while on the drug registered an increased sense of openness. "The mystical experience has certain qualities," lead author Katherine MacLean said. "The primary one is that you feel a certain kind of connectedness and unity with everything and everyone." Because personality traits are generally considered to remain stable throughout a persons lifetime, researchers are excited about therapeutic implications of the study. "[T]his study shows that psilocybin actually changes one domain of personality that is strongly related to traits such as imagination, feeling, abstract ideas and aesthetics, and is considered a core construct underlying creativity in general," study author Roland R. Griffiths told USA Today. "And the changes we see appear to be long-term."     

The good news is that a new report shows the percentage of American adults with high LDL cholesterol, the "bad" kind that clogs arteries, decreased by about one-third between 1999 and 2006

Meditation may have potential to change the brain's physical structure, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have found. People who meditate have stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy, according to the researchers. Stronger connections influence the ability to rapidly relay electrical signals in the brain. And significantly, these effects are evident throughout the entire brain, not just in specific areas. The study consisted of 27 active meditation practitioners (average age 52) and 27 control subjects, who were matched by age and sex. The meditation and the control group each consisted of 11 men and 16 women. The number of years of meditation practice ranged from 5 to 46; self-reported meditation styles included Shamatha, Vipassana and Zazen, practiced by about 55 percent of the meditators, either exclusively or in combination with other styles. Pronounced structural connectivity The researchers used a type of brain imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a relatively new imaging mode that provides insights into the structural connectivity of the brain. They found that the differences between meditators and controls are not confined to a particular core region of the brain but involve large-scale networks that include the frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital lobes and the anterior corpus callosum, as well as limbic structures and the brain stem. They found pronounced structural connectivity in meditators throughout the entire brain's pathways. The greatest differences between the two groups were seen within the corticospinal tract (a collection of axons that travel between the cerebral cortex of the brain and the spinal cord), the superior longitudinal fasciculus (long bi-directional bundles of neurons connecting the front and the back of the cerebrum), and the uncinate fasciculus (white matter that connects parts of the limbic system, such as the hippocampus and amygdala, wi

In a study published in the June 2011 edition of the American Journal or Epidemiology researchers reported a link between vitamin D levels and the prevention of breast cancer.

ScienceDaily (July 4, 2011) - After evaluating twin pairs in which at least one child has autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers suggest that the shared environment may play a more substantial role in development of the condition than shared genes do, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Because so many people live such hectic and demanding lives these days it is no wonder that stress has become one of the leading health problems being reported. We all experience stress from time to time and this is not a problem. When it becomes chronic it can create problems for our health.