The Plain Truth's: Your Health Today ONLINE

Green tea isn't just good for your heart, it's good for your brain too

Sipping green tea is not just good for you heart - it could boost the memory as well, say researchers.

A study from China found that the chemical properties of the healthy beverage promotes the generation of brain cells, providing benefits for memory and spatial learning.

Study leader Professor Yun Bai from the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China, said: 'There has been plenty of scientific attention on its use in helping prevent cardiovascular diseases, but now there is emerging evidence that its chemical properties may impact cellular mechanisms in the brain.'
Professor Bai's team focused on the organic chemical EGCG that is found in green tea.

'We proposed that EGCG can improve cognitive function by impacting the generation of neuron cells, a process known as neurogenesis,' said Prof Bai.
'We focused our research on the hippocampus, the part of the brain which processes information from short-term to long-term memory.'

The team found that ECGC boosts the production of neural progenitor cells, which like stem cells can adapt into various types of cells. The team then used laboratory mice to discover if this increased cell production gave an advantage to memory or spatial learning.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2199128/How-green-tea-boost-brain.html#ixzz25mkmM2Qn

How LOW Cholesterol Can Harm Your Health

Sayer Ji, Contributor
Activist Post

You've heard for decades about the dangers of high cholesterol, but did you know that LOW cholesterol can lead to violence towards self and others, and has been linked to premature aging, death and other adverse health effects?

In a world gone mad with anti-cholesterol anxiety, and where gobbling down pharmaceuticals designed to poison the body into no longer synthesizing it is somehow considered sane behavior, it is refreshing to look at some of the research on the health benefits of cholesterol, or conversely, the dangers of low cholesterol.

Benefits of Cholesterol...

13 Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Coconut Oil

Sayer Ji, Contributor
Activist Post

While coconut oil has dragged itself out of the muck of vast misrepresentation over the past few years, it still rarely gets the appreciation it truly deserves. Not just a "good" saturated fat, coconut oil is an exceptional healing agent as well, with loads of useful health applications.

Some examples of "good" saturated fat include

Fat-burning: Ironic, isn't it? A saturated fat which can accelerate the loss of midsection fat (the most dangerous kind). Well, there are now two solid, human studies showing just two tablespoons a day (30 ml), in both men and women, is capable of reducing belly fat within 1-3 months.
Brain-Boosting: A now famous study, published in 2006 in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, showed that the administration of medium chain triglycerides (most plentifully found in coconut oil) in 20 subjects with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment, resulted in significant increases in ketone bodies (within only 90 minutes after treatment) associated with measurable cognitive improvement in those with less severe cognitive dysfunction.[i]
Clearing Head Lice: When combined with anise spray, coconut oil was found to be superior to the insecticide permethrin (.43%).[ii]

Secrets Of 'SuperAger' Brains - Elderly SuperAgers Have Brains That Look And Act Decades Younger Than Their Age

English: Portrait of old woman sitting by a window. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Researchers have long chronicled what goes wrong in the brains of older people with dementia. But Northwestern Medicine researcher Emily Rogalski wondered what goes right in the brains of the elderly who still have terrific memories. And, do those people - call them cognitive SuperAgers - even exist?

Rogalski's new study has for the first time identified an elite group of elderly people age 80 and older whose memories are as sharp as people 20 to 30 years younger than them. And on 3-D MRI scans, the SuperAger participants' brains appear as young - and one brain region was even bigger - than the brains of the middle-aged participants.

She was astounded by the vitality of the SuperAgers' cortex - the outer layer of the brain important for memory, attention and other thinking abilities. Theirs was much thicker than the cortex of the normal group of elderly 80 and older (whose showed significant thinning) and closely resembled the cortex size of participants ages 50 to 65, considered the middle-aged group of the study.

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Another reason why breast is best: Mother's milk promotes a healthier gut

English: Breastfeeding an infant Português: Um recém-nascido em aleitamento (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The benefits of breast milk have long been appreciated, but now scientists have found yet another reason why mother's should try and use their own milk rather than formula.

A team at Duke University Medical Center found newborns fed breast milk develop a healthier gut compared to those on infant formula.

This is because lab tests revealed a mother's milk fosters unique colonies of microbiotic flora that aid nutrient absorption and boost immune system development.

Study leader Dr William Parker, said: 'This study is the first we know of that examines the effects of infant nutrition on the way that bacteria grow, providing insight to the mechanisms underlying the benefits of breast feeding over formula feeding for newborns.

'Only breast milk appears to promote a healthy colonization of beneficial biofilms, and these insights suggest there may be potential approaches for developing substitutes that more closely mimic those benefits in cases where breast milk cannot be provided.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2194613/Another-reason-breast-best.html#ixzz24s8zcK7N

Researchers Find Mysterious New AIDS-Like Disease

English: HIV attachment process Legend: Attachment from the gp120 loop to the CD4+ receptor Attachment of a variable from the gp120 to a co-receptor (CCR5 or CXCR4) and fixation of the gp41 to the cellular membrane Invading of a HIV viron into the cell Српски / Srpski: Prišvršćivanje virusa HIV za T-limfocit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.
The patients’ immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn’t known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.
This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn’t spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. More>>>>>>>>>>

Do Energy-Saving Bulbs Cause Skin Cancer?

Energy Saving Light Bulb taken by C Ford, 29 June 2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the United States bakes under the summer sun, dermatologists often warn of cancer risks posed by ultraviolet (UV) sunlight. But research now points to a new and ubiquitous indoor source of these harmful rays: eco-friendly compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Scientists say they found widespread chipping or cracking in the phosphor surface coating of nearly all the compact fluorescent bulbs they examined, allowing UV rays to escape.

Most of the bulbs "have cracks in the phosphor coating, probably due to the fact that the coating is brittle and has trouble making the tight bends required to make these bulbs compact," explained study lead author Miriam Rafailovich, a professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Garcia Center for Polymers at Engineered Interfaces at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y. "As a result, we observed, by eye, defects in nearly all the bulbs that we studied."

Read more: Do Energy-Saving Bulbs Cause Skin Cancer?
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.