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Eating too much sugar can eat away at your brainpower, according to U.S. scientists who published a study Tuesday showing how a steady diet of high fructose corn syrup sapped lab rats' memories. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles fed two groups of rats a solution containing high fructose corn syrup — a common ingredient in processed foods — as drinking water for six weeks. One group of rats was supplemented with brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid, while the other group was not. Before the sugar drinks began, the rats were enrolled in a five-day training session in a complicated maze. After six weeks on the sweet solution, the rats were then placed back in the maze to see how they fared.
Sugar can make you dumb, scientists warn
Mummy CT scans show preindustrial hunter gatherers had clogged arteries
Mar. 10, 2013 — Like nearly 4.6 million Americans, ancient hunter-gatherers also suffered from clogged arteries, revealing that the plaque build-up causing blood clots, heart attacks and strokes is not just a result of fatty diets or couch potato habits, according to new research in the journal The Lancet . The researchers performed CT scans of 137 mummies from across four continents and found artery plaque in every single population studied, from preagricultual hunter-gatherers in the Aleutian Islands to the ancient Puebloans of southwestern United States. Their findings provide an important twist to our understanding of atherosclerotic vascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the developed world: while modern lifestyles can accelerate the development of plaque on our arteries, the prevalence of the disease across human history shows it may have a more basic connection to inflammation and aging.
July 25, 2012 — For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain. Extremely high levels of fluoride are known to cause neurotoxicity in adults, and negative impacts on memory and learning have been reported in rodent studies, but little is known about the substance’s impact on children’s neurodevelopment. In a meta-analysis, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang for the first time combined 27 studies and found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. Based on the findings, the authors say that this risk should not be ignored, and that more research on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain is warranted. The study was published online in Environmental Health Perspectives on July 20, 2012.
HSPH News » Impact of fluoride on neurological development in children
“ You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy. In that case, you should sit for an hour. ” –Zen Proverb I’ve spent the past week taking care of two sick children.
Mindful Parenting: We Can Always Begin Again | Mindful Parenting
“A playful brain is a more adaptive brain,” writes ethologist Sergio Pellis in The Playful Brain: Venturing to the Limits of Neuroscience. In his studies, he found that play-deprived rats fared worse in stressful situations. In our own world filled with challenges ranging from cyber-warfare to infrastructure failure, could self-directed play be the best way to prepare ourselves to face them? In self-directed play, one structures and drives one’s own play. Self-directed play is experiential, voluntary, and guided by one’s curiosity. This is different from play that is guided by an adult or otherwise externally directed.
A More Resilient Species
While treatment for HIV has become more successful than ever before at evading AIDS, AIDS remains a threat. In fact, the majority of people infected with HIV will not progress to AIDS for 10 to 15 years, according to Avert , and antiretroviral therapy can delay it even further. However, antiretroviral therapy is expensive and has a multitude of side effects. One team of researchers from the Queensland Medical Institute in Australia believes that they may have found a cure for the syndrome by turning the virus against itself. (Photo : REUTERS/Dadang Tri )
Australian Researchers Believe They Have Found Cure for AIDS
Many chronically depressed and treatment-resistant patients experience immediate relief from symptoms after taking small amounts of the drug ketamine. For a decade, scientists have been trying to explain the observation first made at Yale University. Today, current evidence suggests that the pediatric anesthetic helps regenerate synaptic connections between brain cells damaged by stress and depression, according to a review of scientific research written by Yale School of Medicine researchers and published in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Science. Ketamine works on an entirely different type of neurotransmitter system than current antidepressants, which can take months to improve symptoms of depression and do not work at all for one out of every three patients. Understanding how ketamine works in the brain could lead to the development of an entirely new class of antidepressants, offering relief for tens of millions of people suffering from chronic depression.
scientists explain how ketamine vanquishes depression within hours
Eating Lots of Carbs, Sugar May Raise Risk of Cognitive Impairment, Mayo Clinic Study Finds
Tuesday, October 16, 2012 ROCHESTER, Minn. — People 70 and older who eat food high in carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment , and the danger also rises with a diet heavy in sugar, Mayo Clinic researchers have found. Those who consume a lot of protein and fat relative to carbohydrates are less likely to become cognitively impaired, the study found. The findings are published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: : For audio and video of Dr.
Smoking is the most preventable risk factor for cardiac and lung disease and is expected to cause 1 billion deaths during the 21st century.
ESC | About the ESC | ESC Press Office | ESC Press Releases | Electronic cigarettes do not damage the heart
What if Saturated Fat is Not the Problem?<br /> > Fats > What Can I Eat? > Food & Fitness
A professor of biochemistry provides perspective.
How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death
Photo illustration by ClangWe support Occupy Wall Street because the private health insurance industry exemplifies the OWS movement’s central tenet: its unchecked corporate greed tramples human need. We support OWS because economic and social inequalities make our patients sick. We support OWS because we reject a system that forces us to treat patients differently based on the types of insurance they have and what kinds of treatments they can “afford.”
Physicians for a National Health Program
LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
8 March 2012 Last updated at 21:44 ETMind & Brain :: Feature Articles :: November 23, 2010 :: :: Email :: Print See Inside