I find it interesting how similar topic news always seems to cluster around each other. Two separate alcohol studies released today showcase the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.

First, a summary review of thousands of previous studies found alcohol consumption indicated a 25% reduction in cardiovascular disease, 29% for coronary heart disease, 25% for coronary heart disease mortality rates and a 13% reduction in mortality overall.

"The public health messages should (and in many countries do) acknowledge the reduced risk of incidence and mortality of coronary heart disease associated with moderate drinking. However, we should not expect official recommendations of light drinking on a par with exercise, vegetables, and not smoking. The caveats would be too many, and official recommendations should be based on prospective, randomized studies. The role of alcohol drinking is best discussed in a scenario of a patient taking medical advice from his personal physician."

Second ...

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Right on the heels of my previous post about mind-body connections, I got e-mailed this inspiring article by CNN.

We all know THE KING'S SPEECH is a fabulous movie. What we didn't know was that David Seidler, who won an Academy Award for best original screenplay, suffered the same cancer as King George VI did.  

However, David Seidler survived. How did he do it? I pasted a long quite below, but its worth it.

"I know it sounds awfully Southern California and woo-woo," he admits when he describes the visualization techniques he used when his bladder cancer was diagnosed nearly six years ago. "But that's what happened."

Seidler says when he found out his cancer had returned, he visualized a "lovely, clean healthy bladder" for two weeks, and the cancer disappeared. He's been cancer-free for more than five years.

"When I was first diagnosed in ...

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Don't mind me, Ladies. I'm just trying to maintain a healthy heart. German researchers studied 500 men over the course of 5 years. Half were told to avoid staring at women's breasts, the other half told to stare.

The result? The men who stared had healthier hearts, lower blood pressure and lower resting heart rates. The German researchers recommend that all men should stare at breasts for 10 minutes a day.

I don't think it's the breasts in all honesty. The article dovetails nicely with other research that in essence says emotionally feeling good promotes better health.

Oh you Germans, what have ye unleashed??

Study: Staring at breasts increases heart health: MyFoxBOSTON.com

New research from Tel Aviv University in Israel has found that common ingredients in Indian curry, namely Turmeric, can strongly enhance the anti-inflammatory drugs used to fight colon cancer.

The active ingredient within Turmeric, called Curcumin, was found not only to enhance the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs, but it also reduces toxic side effects because of the lower doses needed to treat colon cancer patients, side effects that include heart attacks and strokes.

Since chronic inflammation can cause several of the cancers related to the digestive system, the Curcumin/Turmeric alone can aid prevention when added to food.

A review of 160 different studies found a striking correlation between a positive state of mind and overall health and longevity. In fact, the connection between happiness and health/longeveity was found to be even stronger than trying to link health to obesity. 

This isn't any surprise.  A few years ago I had to deal with anxiety-related health issues which led me to honestly believe that 99% of all diseases are actually caused by chronic, long-term stress over many, many years.  As your basic high school Health Ed. class taught, stress activates "fight or flight" and shuts down your body's natural regenerative abilities. 

Logic-Cool also posted another article here describing how belief was actually a near-mandatory requirement for pain-killers to even work at all.

These latest results are published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, which is one of two official journals run by the International Association ...

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Japan leads the way once again in crazy lifestyles. People in the city of Nagoya now have the option of going to an "IV bar" for a refreshing "cocktail" of nutrient supplements delivered straight to the bloodstream. The most popular drink is a combination of Vitamin C, amino acids and five other supplements priced at 12,000 yen. There is a catch, of course. The IV bar is run by a fully licensed medical clinic, which probably sets a regulatory high bar for entrepreneurs wishing to enter the IV bar business.

Mmmmmm, yummy!

Actually, the new "fountain of youth" is not the tap water itself, but the lithium it likely contains. This new research conclusion is the result of two independent joint studies between German scientists in Jena, and Japanese colleagues in Oita and Hiroshima. They found a direct correlation between low-concentration doses of lithium in drinking water and "significantly" lower mortality rates in humans.  

The team analyzed healthcare statistics in 19 adjacent Japanese urban areas to arrive at their conclusions. They also consider lithium to be an anti-aging supplement to some degree.  You can download their full research article here.

Lithium can also be ingested through vegetables. Once again, I guess science validates the ancient common sense of mothers.  But, the next time I see my mom and she tells me, "Eat your vegetables."  I'll reply, "No...ingest your lithium."

Scientists from Jena University conducting anti-aging studies

Photo: Jan-Peter Kasper/University ...

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In an amazing breakthrough, brain researchers at Lund University led by Tadeuz Wieloch have discovered a substance that reverses at least some brain damage caused by strokes. Previously, only 10% of stroke victims are able to receive anti-clotting medication in time to prevent permanent brain damage. This new research has opened up the possibility for treating stroke victims two whole days after the attack. Their new substance stimulates the brain's own ability to regenerate.

This project reflects the most recent culmination of 15 years of research and has already found its way into clinical human trials in Japan.

 

  

USC cell biologist Valter Longo believes a small Ecuadorian village contains the genetic key to resisting chronic disease. In a study released by the journal Science Translational Medicine, Long claims that none of the 100 villagers ever develop any illnesses associated with aging.

There's one catch. All the villagers share a gene mutation that suppresses a critical growth hormone. They're all dwarves. Any relatives of the villagers who grow to normal heights are all susceptible to normal human diseases. Just how healthy are these little people?

"Their obesity prevalence is higher. . . and yet in 23 years of direct monitoring, not a single one of them ever developed diabetes..One of them got cancer, that we know of, in the last 100 years...They opened her up and decided to give her chemo thinking she was going to die of this. Three years later there was no evidence of ...

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Pregnancy is no laughing matter...or is it?! Apparently, the use of Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) is making a comeback in the U.S. for easing childbirth. As a geeky male, naturally I had no clue such a thing was even possible. The treatment makes sense though, because the list of health benefits from laughter reads quite extensively. During labor, the the use of laughing gas relieves pain. 

Here in the U.S., nitrous oxide was abandoned in favor of using epidurals, pain blockers applied to the area around the mother's spinal cord. Because the epidurals can only be administered by an anethesiologist, they're also much more expensive. Nitrous oxide will only blunt the pain of childbirth, not eliminate it. However, it can be a highly convenient alternative in situations where an anethesiologist isn't at hand, particularly in rural hospitals. Laughing gas can be self-administered late in ...

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I can't believe I didn't catch this earlier, but...better late than never! Australian researchers accomplished a break through in biotech by restoring the hearing in mice using nasal stem cells. Their work promises to be applicable as well to treating Parkinson's disease and heart attacks.

In fairness, the article words the research with far less sarcasm. Stanford psychologists have discovered that sharing a few things in common facilitated all emotional interactions not just love and affection. Basically, if you like Lady Gaga, and you meet someone else on a park bench who also likes her, both of you are more prone to transfer your emotional states to each other...including stress and anxiety.

After shared interests were established with a "confederate", test subjects suffered a 28% increase in stress/anxiety when exposed to stressful behavior by that confederate. The same test subjects were much less prone to mentally suffer in the presence of someone they thought of as a pure stranger.

Even so, don't we just call this basic human trait "empathy"?

Researchers at UC Irvine have published a study finding many toxic materials in LED's, one of the primary candidates to replace incandescent light bulbs.  LED's (Light-Emitting Diodes) are commonly used as Christmas lights, as well as inside the control displays of many electronic produces, such as TV's, DVD players, calculators, phones and so forth. In particular, they've found lead, arsenic among many other cancer-causing substances.

"Ogunseitan said that breaking a single light and breathing fumes would not automatically cause cancer, but could be a tipping point on top of chronic exposure to another carcinogen. And – noting that lead tastes sweet – he warned that small children could be harmed if they mistake the bright lights for candy."

I'm simply presenting the article "as is" since I have nothing to add. Readers might consider staying on top of the subject of light bulb alternatives, since all incandescent ...

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...and in only two hours. Chemotherapy drugs normally take 2 days to concentrate on tumors. Research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society reported that gold nanoparticles injected into the bloodstream quickly accumulate within cancer cells. When loosely coated with chemotherapy drugs, the gold particles (each one less than 1/10,000th of the width of human hair) prove extremely lethal to tumors. After delivering their drug payloads, the gold harmlessly passes out of the body through the kidneys.  

This breakthrough promises not only to prevent chemotherapy from harming the rest of the body, but may also reduce the amount of chemotherapy drugs needed by at least a factor of 10.

Purdue University has published a fascinating article on the upcoming entrance of motion detection technology into hospital surgery rooms that will enable doctors to perform their tasks quicker with more precision. I'm one of the firm believers that Microsoft's Kinect has opened up new paradigms of thinking in our overall culture regarding the liberating effects of gestural commands from our physical environment. While Microsoft certainly didn't originate the idea, their invention opened the floodgates of motion detection to the public interest. 

In this case, the new technology would allow a surgeon to call up patient records and retrieve needed medical tools quickly.

"Surgeons routinely need to review medical images and records during surgery, but stepping away from the operating table and touching a keyboard and mouse can delay the surgery and increase the risk of spreading infection-causing bacteria.

The new approach is a system that uses a ...

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Researchers at Columbia University have successfully used a "bio-scaffold" infused with growth materials to regenerate bone cartilage in test rabbits. This is the first such attempt that didn't require a surgical transplant, where the body part was grown inside the patient (In Vivo). Previously, researchers had to grow the body part outside of the body, and then surgically implant it when ready (In Vitro).

 All animals recovered full weight-bearing ability within 4 weeks of their treatment, making a complete recovery in 4 months. Human trials will be next.

(RNHRD NHS Trust/Getty Images)

I gotta get this article to my wife FAST. Our health depends on it!

"Research suggests that adults who begin their day this way are healthier and happier than those who simply opt for a cup of tea and some toast before heading out of the door. 

Not only does it make them less likely to catch a cold or flu, it can also improve the quality of their hair, skin, and nails. Dr Debby Herbenick, an American research scientist and sex advice columnist, said: ‘Having sex in the morning releases the feel-good chemical oxytocin, which makes couples feel loving and bonded all day long."

Good. "Presuming Consent" of any person is Orwellian no matter the topic, though in terms of organ transplants it wouldn't be the end of free civilization as we know it, were it to occur in the U.S.

With Obamacare still acting as a massive public distraction, organ donor legislation was one of the health topics flying under the radar last year. Most European countries currently use some form of "presumed consent" of their citizens to be organ donors.

Hopefully, advances in Biology will make the entire discussion moot in the near future. Researchers are already growing cloned organs from stem cells, which would be far superior to a transplanted organ anyway.

There's nothing really geeky or techy about berries...except that I love them.  So, that trumps all other considerations. Next month, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition will publish the results of the very first large scale study following the effects of berry flavonoids upon health. The test pool included 134,000 women and 23,000 men over 14 years.

These are the same family of flavonoids in red wine and dark chocolate that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The berry flavonoids have an added benefit: reduced high blood pressure and hypertension.

The king of all berries?  (drum roll)

Blueberries.

Camera lenses projecting images or a heads-up display (HUD) onto a field of view are already becoming prevalent in smartphones. Smart contact lenses have always been a staple of Sci-Fi, right behind cybernetic eye implants. The big hurdle with contact lenses continues to be the size. However, this article by the New Scientist summarizes the current players in the game and what they've managed to do. The contact lenses closest to becoming realities in the market are those that monitor health, such as diabetes and glaucoma.

(h/t dvice.com)