Body of Wealth

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said that the anti-tobacco law would be broadened to curb smoking at workplaces.

Cultures which are meant to protect women can land up endangering them - especially their health, keeping aside the ever-controversial question of suppression or liberation.

To provide privacy to women belonging to the Muslim societies, or to screen shelter her, they are made to wear a veil called ‘hijab’ throughout their lives, especially when going out of their homes or moving in public places.

It may help protect their privacy and meet the conservative cultural traditional-needs, but not their ‘health’. Yes, staying under veils through life can risk them with serious illness - due to insufficient exposure to the sun.

Doctors warn that women who cover their skin are suffering with bone deficiencies over a lack of vitamin D by an alarming number.

Do the Muslim law-makers know that ‘rickets’ - the disease of the bones - develop from the lack of vitamin-D, which is produced by the body from the sunlight?

Very little of the body’s rickets-preventing vitamin-D comes from food or diet. This bone disorder disease has now broken out in young Muslim children, as their mothers’ breast milk cannot provide them with enough calcium.

If the cultural reasons can’t be compromised for the mothers’ and hence their children’s health, it is necessary for Muslim women, especially the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Somalis to increase their vitamin D intake.

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The chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines — Crohn’s disease ‘ is not contagious and thus affects 1 in 1000 people.

Affecting approximately 500,000 to two million people in the United States, the disease primarily causing ulcerations of both the small and large intestines, can also affect the digestive system anywhere from the mouth to the anus.

But, what causes the disease?

The cause of the Crohn’s disease though remained unknown to date; some scientists suspect certain bacteria as the cause of the infection.

Not convinced by the prevailing evidence leading to the disease, it is recently thought to be some unusual bacteria ‘ from gut — that have borrowed a few nasty genes from ‘plague!’

Though the gut bacteria were to be blamed for the disease, researchers could not be sure which. What led to the confusion is the study of people’s gut bacteria, in which they found no evidence of MAP — a bacterium blamed for Crohn’s by some.

However, the scientists still bank on the ‘common gut bacteria’ — E. coli — due to its higher find than normal levels in more inflamed areas.

So, the salmonella, cholera and bubonic plague-carrying bacteria seem to be the culprit also behind causing diseases inside the gut.

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The plaques in Alzheimer’s disease are formed due to weakening immune system against amyloid beta - the plaques-triggering peptide.

To reduce the deterioration process of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s, these plaques need to be cleared, which means clearing of the amyloid beta.

Researchers up with arms for decades to battle the debilitating disease have come up with a new achievement. They have successfully isolated bisdemethoxycurcumin - an active ingredient of curcuminoids (a natural substance found in turmeric root), which is capable of boosting the immune system helping it clear the amyloid beta.

Reasons for their applause do not end here - they have also identified the immune genes — MGAT III and Toll-like receptors — as well that are linked with this activity.

Thus, providing more insight into the immune system’s role in Alzheimer’s disease, the study bolsters approaches in to a new treatment for the disease.

The new study also provides hope for our dear ones affected by the disease, who may have now to suffer less towards the debilitation process.

Via: dvorak
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It is well known that stress and a change in routine as well as worry can affect a woman’s menstrual cycle. But, at times, correcting all these may not restore the cycle back and this in turn, leads to further worries and tension - only to worsen the cycle.

In that case, just check in once if your diet is in order. Yes, ‘eating disorder’ is another factor that leads to a woman’s tendency to develop irregular menstrual periods.

The three factors that are most strongly associated with menstrual dysfunction are:
• a person’s body mass index (BMI),
• her calorie intake,
• her level of exercise.

Menstrual irregularities, till date, were linked only to ‘anorexia nervosa,’ the only eating disorder subtype. And it is only after the absence of menstrual periods for at least three months, a woman is diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.

But, this is injurious, as missing such periods risk a woman of both osteoporosis as well as fertility impairment.

But, the new study provides you with the opportunity to correct your diet and check out once with the irregularity in your cycles yourself.

Thus, in turn, it reduces the risk of developing the other two diseases - osteoporosis and fertility impairment.

Via: womenshealth

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It is a well known fact that alcohol and aggressiveness go shoulder to shoulder. Under the control of the liquid, especially in poor countries, many people practice revelry and violence, who otherwise is a different person - making it a taboo for many.

But, a present study has surprisingly come up with the evidence of just the “opposite impact” of alcohol on a man! I mean, it has been found possible to calm an aggressive person under the influence of alcohol.

Given a rewarding task testing their powers of concentration, he can win over his own normal self.

The study found the highest level of aggression was seen in people who drank and zapped but didn’t take part in the memory task. But, the lowest aggression level was found in those who drank with the added distraction.

University of Kentucky psychologist Peter Giancola said,

Drinking restricts our ability to pay attention, so we misbehave once our attention is narrowed to the most salient, attention-grabbing thing.

Though now, you have all reason to take that extra peg, — yet, having the tendency to develop that aggressive nature under alcohol’s influence — make it a point that you stay in a salient, non-hostile environment, so that you can well justify your sips and sobriety.

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Do you know, if the insulin levels in the brain cells can be kept low, you can live a longer life? — And that too, a healthy one! Who would not want so?

But, the question arises, how to go about it?

No, for this, neither do you have to spend heavy bucks for any sort of treatment, nor go for any rigorous and drastic change in your body system.

The key to it lies in your daily lifestyle as well as your weight - these must be ‘healthy’. That’s all.

So, keeping the insulin level reduced is majorly in your hand and once proven to be successful in dictating the lifespan, will be one after the genes that can influence the span of one’s life.

Where it differs from a previous research, is that the previous one suggested reducing of the hormone insulin’s activity i.e. regulating blood sugar levels, can increase lifespan. But, in the present study, it is claimed that a protein — IRS2 — carries the insulin signal in the brain, which affect one’s lifespan.

Though the advice of eating healthy and exercising is no new a concept — coming from a mother’s advice book - this new finding would definitely draw many people’s attentions, who otherwise have always neglected eating habits and ignored exercising.

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Recent studies have shown that childhood brain infections may considerable affects on a person in adulthood. The results were presented at the World Congress of Neuroscience in Melbourne, Australia, by Krister Kristensson .The studies were carried on by Kristensson and her colleagues of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Statistics were taken for around 1.2million individuals born in Sweden between 1973 and 1985.
It was concluded that those children who have had mumps with complications regarding inflammation of brain before the age of 12 have an increased risk of schizophrenia in adulthood. The risk factor can be as high as 3 times the normal. Studies have also shown that children affected by cytomegalovirus infection in their childhood, may have the factor of increased risk of schizophrenia around 17 times more.

On the other hand, other diseases like bacterial or fungal infections etc, which do not invade the brain, have not been found to have any affect on the brain afterwards.

Courtesy: New Scientist

If you have been religiously popping all those Vitamin C pills in the belief that it boosts your immune system against the common cold, then think again.

A recent review of 30 studies conducted by several researchers in the past few decades and published now by The Cochrane Library has shown that Vitamin C, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t really help guard the common man against cold. Vitamin C, they concluded, is really effective only when used by people who are used to activities that result in a high degree of physical strain such as marathon runners or avid trekkers. For people falling under this bracket, taking Vitamin C helped reduce the chances of catching a cold by a whopping 50%.

In almost everyone else who popped the pill daily, and who were not subject to such high degree of physical stress, the effects of Vitamin C in helping to thwart colds and reduce its duration were practically negligible. According to medical correspondent of The Early Show Dr. Emily Senay, it appears now that it’s hardly worth the cost and effort in taking Vitamin C pills to prevent the common cold. However, she cautions that this study should not be taken to mean that Vitamin C is useless for the human body. The vitamin is essential in ensuring the normal growth and repair of tissues, and acts as an antioxidant. So don’t discard this vital vitamin from your nutritional diet, Senay warns.

So, are researchers any closer to finding a cure for the common cold? Senay says that instead of a cure common sense methods such as washing our hands often would go a long way in preventing colds.

Via: CBS

For long, we have been hearing health experts suggesting aerobic exercises like jogging and running to keep up good cardiovascular health. Now adding another chapter to this theory, they come out propounding weight lifting as a key to cardiovascular health.

According to statement released by the American Heart Association, if weight lifting is applied along with some guidelines, then it could open avenues to several health benefits for the people with heart disease.

Resistance training shores up the benefits accrued by aerobic training by increasing functional capacity and independence. Several other studies have also shown how resistance training glints up other spheres of our lives too, ushering new changes into our lives. Following are some of the radical benefits that creep into your life, when you start resistance training:-

• Reduces body fat

• Boosts metabolism, burning more kilojoules when at rest.

• Improves balance and stability

• Increases muscle-to-fat ratio

• Lowers heart rate and blood pressure after exercise

• Boosts up endurance.

• Keeps the risk of developing diabetes at bay.

Interestingly, it also helps us performing our various other daily activities in a much better way. Pointing out some of these benefits Dr. Mark A. Williams from Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, remarks:

...It helps people better perform tasks of daily living — like lifting sacks of groceries.

However, experts also suggest some guidelines for the patients with health problems while going for resistance training. Guidelines go like this:-

• Exercise using a slow and moderate speed.

• Make sure that there is no suffocation in the gymnasium.

• Don’t go out of breath, while doing resistance training.

• Limit the workout to a single set, 2 days a week

Interestingly, benefits mentioned above are not only for patients with heart disease but also for people without heart disease. So, I am planning to pump up my life with these benefits, what about you.

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