The Seventh Billion. Stanford Study Shows Neural Stem Cells In Mice Affected By Gene Associated With Longevity. A gene associated with longevity in roundworms and humans has been shown to affect the function of stem cells that generate new neurons in the adult brain, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The study in mice suggests that the gene may play an important role in maintaining cognitive function during aging.
“It’s intriguing to think that genes that regulate life span in invertebrates may have evolved to control stem cell pools in mammals,” said Anne Brunet, PhD, assistant professor of genetics. She is the senior author of the research, which will be published Nov. 6 in Cell Stem Cell. Unlike your skin or your intestine, your adult brain doesn’t make a lot of new cells. But those it does are critical to learning, memory and spatial awareness. To meet these demands, your brain maintains two small caches of neural stem cells, which can both self-renew and give rise to neurons and other cells known as oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. On the Net: Vegetarian Organic Life. Beyond Vegetarian Organic I've been writing and publishing the Vegetarian Organic Life newsletter since May, 2003.
Sharing my ideas, recipes and discoveries with my wonderful readers has been the great joy of my life. I hope you have enjoyed my newsletter and have gained something of value from my recipes, tips, opinions, observations and advice. But I'm about to take it all to the next level. Will you join me? I have spent the past two years developing a completely new approach to diet. Some time in Greece where we researched and became inspired by the Mediterranean diet, ancient Greek foods and ancient Spartan culture. We call the Spartan Diet the "healthiest diet in history" because it takes everything mankind has learned about food, diet and health from ancient times to today, and -- most importantly -- brings that knowledge into actual daily practice. The Spartan Diet is the culmination of my search for an optimum diet that promotes maximum wellbeing for a lifetime of vibrant health.
Pricey telomerase supplements, touted as longevity boosters, are unproven - latimes.com. We all know what aging looks like from the outside: wrinkled skin, gray hair, a growing need to turn up the volume on "Jeopardy. " But in recent years, scientists have made some breakthrough discoveries about how we age on the inside, right down to our genes. The science of aging has created a glimmer of hope that we could someday slow the process — a dream that has already spread beyond the lab to the marketplace. Anti-aging research used to be mainly about finding new ways to get lab mice to take their vitamins. But if you visited a lab today, you'd be more likely to hear scientists talking excitedly about telomeres, protective strands of DNA at the end of chromosomes that seem to play an important — some would say crucial — role in aging. Whenever a healthy cell divides, the telomeres get a little shorter.
At a time when people are willing to spend big bucks to look and feel younger, it's not surprising that telomeres have become a buzzword in the supplement industry. Claims. Just Warm Enough. A Chemical to Grow Brain Cells. Since the discovery that the adult brain can birth new neurons, researchers have been avidly searching for chemicals or other treatments that can enhance the process and hopefully boost brain power.
Exercise appears to have potent stimulating effects on the growth of new neurons, as does social interaction and some drugs, such as the antidepressant Prozac. Scientists ultimately hope that drugs developed to generate and protect new neurons will also protect against the cognitive deficits of dementia and other neurological diseases of aging. In a new study published today in the journal Cell, researchers screened 1000 molecules in mice to see which ones enhanced production of new neurons in a brain area involved in learning and memory. This region, known as the hippocampus, is one of two spots known to birth new neurons in the adult mammalian brain.
The researchers found that one compound, dubbed P7C3, protected these newborn neurons from dying. I For One Welcome Our Microbial Overlords | The Loom. Can the bacteria in our bodies control our behavior in the same way a puppetmaster pulls the strings of a marionette? I tremble to report that this wonderfully creepy possibility may be true. The human body is, to some extent, just a luxury cruise liner for microbes. They board the SS Homo sapiens when we’re born and settle into their assigned quarters–the skin, the tongue, the nostrils, the throat, the stomach, the genitals, the gut–and then we carry them wherever we go.
Some of microbes deboard when we shed our skin or use the restroom; others board at new ports when we shake someone’s hand or down a spoonful of yogurt. It’s important to bear in mind that you can carry this galaxy of microbes around and enjoy perfect health. In fact, our microbial passengers may actually help out the cruise liner’s crew. To understand the human microbiome better, scientists have been cataloging the microbes in and on people’s bodies, and they’ve been sequencing their DNA. First some background. Slow Movement with Awareness: Better than Exercise? Cardiovascular exercise is now known to be essential for health and well-being. If exercise is your only form of movement, however, it is not a very balanced diet .
There is mounting evidence that slow movement, with awareness, has astounding health benefits by itself and in combination with regular exercise routines. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles times , there are a growing number of pain clinics and integrative medicine centers that offer slow movement, awareness-based therapies (like hatha yoga and tai chi) for pain in a wide variety of conditions including "pain caused by cancer and cancer treatments, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia , multiple sclerosis, and other diseases and conditions.
" Throw away the pills? Stop getting injections? Compared to a standard care control group, people with chronic low back pain who took 12 weeks of hatha yoga classes had less pain, depression, and disability and reported greater overall improvement in quality of life. High intake of fruits and veggies prevents premature death--study. According to researchers, alpha-carotene are plant pigments and nutrients known as carotenoids, a group that also includes beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, astaxanthin, and zeaxanthin. Alpha-carotene, like beta-carotene and around 50 other carotenoids are called 'provitamin A' compounds, because the body can convert them into an active form of vitamin A. The new study suggests alpha-carotene shields the body’s cells from oxygen-related damage that can trigger lethal diseases such as heart problems, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, macular degeneration, and other serious conditions.
Lead researcher, Dr. Chaoyang Li, from the U.S. The study found that the risk of death in subjects who had blood alpha-carotene levels ranging from 2 and 3 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) was 23 percent lower compared to those who had concentrations between 0 and 1. In order to evaluate the contribution of alpha-carotene in the reduction of fatal illnesses, the researchers conducted a study. Health / Medicine & Research : Turmeric could prevent liver damage. The Hindu Anping Chen of Saint Louis University has tested the effect of curcumin, contained in turmeric, on the role of high levels of leptin in causing liver fibrosis in vitro, or in a controlled lab setting.
File Photo: K.K. Mustafah A new Saint Louis University study has revealed that a chemical that gives curry its zing holds promise in preventing or treating liver damage from an advanced form of a condition known as fatty liver disease. The chemical, curcurmin, is contained in turmeric, a plant used by the Chinese to make traditional medicines for thousands of years. The recent study has highlighted its potential in countering an increasingly common kind of fatty liver disease called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
“My laboratory studies the molecular mechanism of liver fibrosis and is searching for natural ways to prevent and treat this liver damage,” said Anping Chen of Saint Louis University. A hallucinogen called ibogaine has helped addicts kick heroin, meth and everything in between. Is it the trip that does the trick? - Page 1 - News - Dallas. Ron Price needs his milkshake. It's 10 o'clock on a Monday morning and the baldheaded, barrel-chested former bodybuilder is shuffling around the kitchen of a posh rehab clinic in Tijuana, wearing slippers and a blue Gold's Gym T-shirt. Price had been employed as a stockbroker in New Mexico, but his training regimen left him with debilitating injuries that forced him to undergo 33 surgeries in less than a decade.
His doctor prescribed Oxycontin, and Price quickly became dependent on the potent painkiller. More recently, he started snorting cocaine and chugging booze to numb the pain. Clare Wilkins, the vivacious 40-year-old director of Pangea Biomedics, pops the lid of the blender to check the consistency of the concoction Price craves: peanut butter, soy milk, agave syrup, hemp protein powder and a few scoops of chocolate-flavored Green SuperFood. Oh, and a half-teaspoon of root bark from the tabernanthe iboga plant.
Ramzi Dreesen Details Related Stories More About It was Hunter S. Dr. Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls. IQs and Zs Night owls are smarter than other people, and now we may know why. The modern world contains many features our slow-to-evolve brains still find unfamiliar—cars, TVs, hot dogs on a stick. But the world has always thrown new stuff at us, and brighter humans may adapt more ably. Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at The London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that, while we have specialized mental modules for navigation, social interaction, and other age-old tasks, general intelligence is its own module handling only evolutionarily novel circumstances.
A previous study found that evening people are smarter than morning people. Night Lights. People with moles less prone to ageing. THE secret of supermodel Cindy Crawford's ageless allure may be out as British scientists have discovered that people with lots of moles are genetically protected from many of the ravages of time. New research suggests they may not only develop fewer wrinkles in old age, but also have stronger bones and tauter muscles. Moles or beauty spots - for which Crawford is famous - are formed by rapidly dividing cells that start producing dots of dark pigment on children as young as four, but which usually vanish from about the age of 40. In some people, however, they continue to spread as they grow older, producing a smooth and wrinkle-free complexion that can make a woman look at least seven years younger than her real age.
A study of 1200 identical and non-identical female twins, aged 18-79, showed that those with more than 100 moles on their bodies also have tougher bones and are therefore 50 percent less likely to develop osteoporosis than women with fewer than 25 moles. Got Allergies? Take a Worm. How to Live Longer Part II. Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious. How To Take Care of Your Brain. Update from Stephen: There is a new book out by Eric Braverman that I suggest you take a look at: Younger Brain, Sharper Mind: A 6-Step Plan for Preserving and Improving Memory and Attention at Any Age from America’s Brain Doctor Your brain is about 3 pounds of fatty, gelatinous tissue.
It’s about 2% of your total body weight. If you held it in your hands, you would probably be surprised at how small it seemed. Despite its size, it consumes about 25% of the oxygen you breath into your lungs. About 25% of the blood pumped from your heart flows to your brain. Around 40% of the nutrients your body uses are utilized by your brain. At first scientists thought there were only a few neurotransmitters; dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and GABA. Why It Matters Your brain is like a vacuum cleaner sucking up the energy and nutrients entering your body. The food you eat affects your brain just like it affects the rest of your body. Yikes, I’m a little scared now.
Imagine This What do you think? Size of protein aggregates, not abundance, drives spread of prion-based disease. Mad Cow disease and its human variant Creutzfeldt -- Jakob disease, which are incurable and fatal, have been on a welcome hiatus from the news for years, but because mammals remain as vulnerable as ever to infectious diseases caused by enigmatic proteins called prions, scientists have taken no respite of their own. In the Oct. 29 edition of the journal Science, researchers at Brown University report a key new insight into how prion proteins -- the infectious agents -- become transmissible: In yeast at least, it is the size of prion complexes, not their number, that determines their efficiency in spreading.
"The dogma in the field was that the misfolding of the protein is sufficient to cause disease, and the clinical course of the infection depended on the amplification of the misfolded protein," said Tricia Serio, associate professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry. "In this paper we changed the transmissibility just by shifting the size," Serio said. NewMadCowboy Home Page. 20 Useless Body Parts (Why Do / Did We Need Them?) » The WVb. This list was found on the net and was originally drafted by Jocelyn Selim. VOMERONASAL ORGAN A tiny pit on each side of the septum is lined with nonfunctioning chemoreceptors. They may be all that remains of a once extensive pheromone-detecting ability. EXTRINSIC EAR MUSCLES This trio of muscles most likely made it possible for prehominids to move their ears independently of their heads, as rabbits and dogs do.
We still have them, which is why most people can learn to wiggle their ears. WISDOM TEETH Early humans had to chew a lot of plants to get enough calories to survive, making another row of molars helpful. Only about 5 percent of the population has a healthy set of these third molars. NECK RIB A set of cervical ribs—possibly leftovers from the age of reptiles—still appear in less than 1 percent of the population. THIRD EYELID A common ancestor of birds and mammals may have had a membrane for protecting the eye and sweeping out debris. 1. Via Wikipedia [wpramazon asin="1619491303"] The 18 Best Supplements for Men. If you condensed your most recent meal down to a few pills, would they be tiny dynamos, or the nutritional equivalent of Tic Tacs? If you're like most men, what's on your plate falls somewhere in between—that is, leaving plenty of room for improvement. "If men start to favor certain foods—meat and potatoes, for example—they may develop nutritional blind spots as a result," says Kristie Lancaster, Ph.D., an associate professor of nutrition at New York University.
This can be a problem, because your body needs a basic roster of vitamins and minerals to run properly. If your regular diet comes up short, you may need a multivitamin to reach this nutritional baseline. But to actually boost your health, you need to consider moving beyond a multi by folding in some less common elements. The right supplements can help your heart, sharpen your immune system, and even improve your sex life.
Try these 10 everyday tips to boost brainpower! Do more for your ticker: 6 ways to beat high blood pressure. Understanding the Lymphatic System.