Veggie, yoga regimen reverses signs of aging: Study. Bloomberg Sep 18, 2013, 06.10AM IST (Comprehensive lifestyle…) The fountain of youth may simply be a healthy diet and reduced stress after all, not a magic pill or expensive cosmetics. Comprehensive lifestyle changes, including more fruit and vegetables as well as meditation and yoga, were shown to reverse signs of aging at the cellular level for the first time in a study.
Adopting a diet rich in unprocessed foods combined with moderate exercise and stress management over five years increased the length of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes linked to aging, according to a study of 35 men published in the Lancet medical journal. No previous study has shown the effect of lifestyle changes on telomere length, the authors said. The research, led by Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, adds to evidence of the benefits of healthy habits. Ornish's Lifestyle Heart Trial, published in 1998, showed a reversal of coronary heart disease over five years. Health | Starch 'fuel of human evolution'
Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet, genetic work suggests. Compared with primates, humans have many more copies of a gene essential for breaking down calorie-rich starches, Nature Genetics reports. And these extra calories may have been crucial for feeding the larger brains of humans, speculate the University of California Santa Cruz authors. Previously, experts had wondered if meat in the diet was the answer.
Brain food However, Dr Nathaniel Dominy and colleagues argue this is improbable. "Even when you look at modern human hunter-gatherers, meat is a relatively small fraction of their diet. "To think that, two to four million years ago, a small-brained, awkwardly bipedal animal could efficiently acquire meat, even by scavenging, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
" They discovered humans carry extra copies of a gene, called AMY1, which is essential for making the salivary enzyme amylase that digests starch. Survival benefit. Red Meat Consumption and MortalityResults From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies. Correspondence: Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 655 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (frank.hu@channing.harvard.edu). Accepted for Publication: December 20, 2011. Published Online: March 12, 2012. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287 Author Contributions: Drs Pan and Hu had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Study concept and design: Pan, Willett, and Hu. Financial Disclosure: None reported. Funding/Support: This study was supported by grants DK58845, CA55075, CA87969, HL34594, and 1U54CA155626-01 from the National Institutes of Health and by career development award K99HL098459 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (Dr Sun).
Role of the Sponsors: The funding sources were not involved in the data collection, data analysis, manuscript writing, and publication. JAMA Network | JAMA Internal Medicine | Red Meat Consumption and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies. Drug-Resistant Staph Bacteria Found in Meat, Poultry Nationwide. FRIDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Meat and poultry sold in the United States is widely contaminated with drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacteria that can cause serious illnesses in humans, a new study contends. The types of health problems linked to S. aureus range from mild skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, sepsis and heart infection. In the new nationwide study, researchers analyzed 136 samples of 80 brands of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased at 26 retail stores in five cities: Chicago; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Los Angeles; and Washington, D.C.
The results showed that 47 percent of the samples were contaminated with S. aureus, and that 52 percent of the bacteria were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. The study was published in the April 15 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Exactly what this means in terms of consumer risk is still unclear, experts say. More information The U.S.