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By : Lisa Rapaport

(Reuters Health) – Women who eat lots of fruits and vegetables may experience fewer physical and mental health symptoms of menopause than those who prefer to dine on sweets, fats and snacks, an Iranian study suggests.

Researchers surveyed 400 women who had already gone through menopause about their eating habits as well as their recollection of how often they experienced symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, muscle and joint problems and bladder issues.

The study team also identified three distinct eating patterns: some women’s diets were abundant in fruits and vegetables; others consumed plenty of mayonnaise, oils, sweets and desserts; and a third group favored a wide variety of fatty foods and snacks.

Then, researchers sorted women into groups according to how closely they adhered to one of these three dietary patterns. Compared to women who consumed the fewest fruits and vegetables, women who had the most greens in their diets found menopause had a much smaller impact on their general wellbeing and physical and mental health.

By contrast, women who ate the most fatty foods and snacks were much more likely to suffer menopause symptoms that impaired their quality of life and impacted their physical and mental health than those who ate the most greens.

“The high-fat and -sugar dietary pattern has high amounts of simple carbohydrates and unhealthy fats, especially saturated and trans fats, and a relatively low content of fiber, which can increase the levels of inflammatory biomarkers and body weight, all of them are related to menopausal symptoms,” said senior study author Gity Sotoudeh of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

“On the other hand, fruits and vegetables are low in fat, are a good source of micronutrients, antioxidants, as they help the body to lower the inflammation and maintain a healthy body weight during the menopause,” Sotoudeh said by email. “Fruits and vegetables are also rich in fiber, which can modify the estrogen metabolism and decrease the fluctuation in levels of estrogen, which all decrease the risk of symptoms.”

Women go through menopause when they stop menstruating, typically between ages 45 and 55. As the ovaries curb production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone in the years leading up to menopause and afterward, women can experience symptoms ranging from vaginal dryness to mood swings, joint pain and insomnia.

Obesity, inactivity, smoking and alcohol consumption have all been linked to an increased risk of more severe or frequent menopause symptoms, the study authors write in the journal Menopause.

Some previous research has also linked diets low in fat and high in whole grains, fruits and vegetables with fewer hot flashes and night sweats, the authors also note.

In the current study, participants were in typically in their mid- to late-50s and had gone through menopause around 7 to 9 years earlier. They were generally obese or overweight, and most were married, widowed or divorced.

The study can’t prove whether or how specific eating habits might directly impact menopause symptoms. Another limitation is that the group of women in the study was too small to draw broad conclusions about how diet might influence menopause symptoms, the researchers note.

Still, eating fats and sweets in moderation can have other health benefits, Sotoudeh said.

“We suggest that women cut down or avoid fast food, sweet and sugary food as much as they can, and start adding foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, especially colorful and green leafy vegetables and whole grain into their diet if they are not getting enough of them,” Sotoudeh advised. “Because it not only helps them to have lower menopausal symptoms, it would help with preventing of weight gain and some diseases that menopausal women are at a higher risk of.”

SOURCE:  Menopause, online October 22, 2018.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have shown that a low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet may be the key to healthy brain ageing and longevity.

By Sally Robertson, B.Sc.

Nov 20 2018

Reviewed by Kate Anderton, B.Sc.

In a mouse model, Devin Wahl and colleagues showed that an unrestricted diet low in protein and rich in carbs not only improved overall health, but also brain health, learning and memory.

Given the current lack of drugs for dementia, it is exciting that researchers are starting to identify diets that can affect how the brain ages.

The research, which was recently published in the journal Cell Reports, is the first study of its kind to demonstrate that the diet provides similar protective brain benefits to calorie-restricted diets, which have proven longevity benefits, but are difficult for most people to sustain.

It shows a lot of promise that we have been able to replicate the same kind of gene changes in the part of the brain responsible for memory that we also see when we severely restrict calories.”

Devin Wahl, Lead Researcher

Senior author David Le Couteur says the benefits of a low-protein, high-carb diet have already been appreciated by many cultures, with people in Okinawa in Japan an many Mediterranean regions having long adopted the mix:

”The traditional diet of Okinawa is around nine percent protein, which is similar to our study, with sources including lean fish, soy and plants, with very little beef. Interestingly, one of their main sources of carbohydrate is sweet potato.”

In the current study, mice were fed complex carbohydrates derived from starch and the protein casein, which is present in cheese and milk.

To gauge the benefits to brain health, the team focused on the hippocampus, which is the brain region involved in learning and memory.

The researchers performed a series of spatial awareness and memory tests, which showed modest improvements in learning and memory among both young and old mice.

Couteur says that, usually, the hippocampus is first region of the brain to start deteriorating in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

However, the low-protein high-carbohydrate diet appeared to promote hippocampus health and biology in the mice, on some measures to an even greater degree than those on the low-calorie diet.”

David Le Couteur, Senior Author

Full Article : Link

Sadiq Alam

A landmark study linking belief to health was reported recently by Gail Ironson, MD, PhD, a leading mind-body medicine researcher, and professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Miami. Dr. Ironson runs the Positive Survivors Research Center at the university, and has been awarded several grants from the National Institutes of Health. It is one of the first studies to link particular beliefs with specific changes in the immune system.

Dr. Ironson measured several indicators of health in HIV patients over a four-year period. Once measure was their viral load – the quantity of the AIDS virus in a sample of blood. She also counted the concentration of a type of white blood cell responsible for killing invading organisms. The concentration of these “helper Tcells” (also know as CD4 cells) in he blood is one measure of the progression of AIDS. If the concentration of helpder Tcells drops, our bodies are less able to fend off other diseases like pneumonia. That’s why the I and D in AIDS stand for Immune Deficiency; as AIDS patients lose their Tcells and their immunity to disease drops, they are more susceptible to the kinds of invading organisms – opportunistic infections – that healthy immune systems easily fend off.

Studies like those conducted by Dr. Ironson are especially meaningful to physicians and biologists because they identify key biological markers of illness, as opposed to subjective measures such as the patient’s level of depression, the number of doctor visits, and the dosage of medication required.

In her studies, Dr. Ironson found that there were two particular interesting predictors of how fast HIV progressed in the bodies of her research participants. The first was their view of the nature of God. Some believed in a punishing God, while others believed in a benevolent God. She observes that, “People who view God as judgmental God have a CD4 (helper T) cell decline more than twice the rate of those who don’t see God as judgmental, and their viral load increases more than three times faster. For example, a precise statement affirmed by these patients is ‘God will judge me harshly one day.’ This one item is related to an increased likelihood that the patient will develop an opportunistic infection or die. These beliefs predict disease progression even more strongly than depression.”

Dr. Ironson was surprised to find that many people reported a spiritual transformation subsequent to their diagnostic. This transformation was characterized by a sense of self that was profoundly changed, and resulted in different behaviors. Many kicked their habits of street drugs like cocaine and heroin, or legal ones like alcohol. Some went through such a transformation only after hitting rock bottom.

A common gateway to spiritual transformation was having a spiritual experience. After helping a drunk white man in distress, John, a gay African-American man with a college education, described the following experience:

I felt like I was floating over my body, and I’ll never forget this, as I was floating over my body, I looked down, it was like this shriveled up prune, nothing but a prune, like an old dried skin. And my soul, my spirit was over my body. Everything was so separated. I was just feeling like I was in different dimensions, I felt it in my body like a gush of wind blows. I remember saying to God, “God I can’t die now, because I haven’t fulfilled my purpose,” and, just as I said that, the spirit and the body, became one, it all collided, and I could feel this gush of wind and I was a whole person again.

That was really a groundbreaking experience. Before becoming HIV-positive my faith was so fear based. I always wanted to feel I belonged somewhere, that I fit in, or that I was loved. What helped me to overcome the fear of God and the fear of change was that I realized that no one had a monopoly on God. I was able to begin to replace a lot of destructive behavior with a sort of spiritual desire. I think also what changed, my desire to get close to God, to love myself, and to really embrace unconditional love.

“Chloroplasts bear chlorophyll; they give the green world its color, and they carry out the business of photosynthesis. Around the inside perimeter of each gigantic cell trailed a continuous loop of these bright green dots. They spun . . . they pulsed, pressed, and thronged . . . they shone, they swarmed in ever-shifting files around and around the edge of the cell; they wandered, they charged, they milled, raced . . . they flowed and trooped greenly . . . All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts . . . If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring’s center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish’s tail.”

― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Date : October 19, 2018

Source : University of Illinois at Chicago

Summary : If you’re a parent, you may be concerned that materialism among children has been on the rise. But there’s some good news. A new study suggests that some parenting tactics can curb kids’ materialistic tendencies.

Full Article

If you’re a parent, you may be concerned that materialism among children has been on the rise. According to research, materialism has been linked to a variety of mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, as well as selfish attitudes and behaviors.

Original Article : Science Daily

Reference : The impact of gratitude on adolescent materialism and generosity. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2018; 1 DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2018.1497688

October 1, 2018, American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The collaborative study indicated relative toxicity of six artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, saccharine, neotame, advantame, and acesulfame potassium-k) and 10 sport supplements containing these artificial sweeteners. The bacteria found in the digestive system became toxic when exposed to concentrations of only one mg./ml. of the artificial sweeteners.

“We modified bioluminescent E. coli bacteria, which luminesce when they detect toxicants and act as a sensing model representative of the complex microbial system,” says Prof. Ariel Kushmaro, John A. Ungar Chair in Biotechnology in the Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, and member of the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev. “This is further evidence that consumption of artificial sweeteners adversely affects gut microbial activity which can cause a wide range of health issues.”

Artificial sweeteners are used in countless food products and soft drinks with reduced sugar content. Many people consume this added ingredient without their knowledge. Moreover, artificial sweeteners have been identified as emerging environmental pollutants, and can be found in drinking and surface water, and groundwater aquifers.

“The results of this study might help in understanding the relative toxicity of artificial sweeteners and the potential of negative effects on the gut microbial community as well as the environment.

Furthermore, the tested bioluminescent bacterial panel can potentially be used for detecting artificial sweeteners in the environment,” says Prof. Kushmaro.

 Explore further: Why zero-calorie sweeteners can still lead to diabetes, obesity

More information: Dorin Harpaz et al, Measuring Artificial Sweeteners Toxicity Using a Bioluminescent Bacterial Panel, Molecules (2018). DOI: 10.3390/molecules23102454

ChooseLife Reflects : When our daughter (after her extreme premature arrival) was in hospital, it was relayed that they routinely gave Sucralose after taking bloods, as an Australian study had shown benefits to the babies emotional wellbeing afterwards.

This shocked me as I am strongly against their use (personally), so I relayed that I would rather they did not.

The day following the Consultant, several Doctors and Nurses came to see us to relay that they were not not happy with my/our refusal. My response was to break the compound down chemically and relay that it is not found in nature, so I did not want it for our daughter, that it was an adjunct to a treatment which did not have any effect on the efficacy of the procedure (therefore optional). The Consultant acknowledged that I had researched things and this was therefore fine.

It is my belief that staff were drawn to it’s use, as they noted smiles and the like from the babies, ignoring the potential biochemical issues which may also ensue. The nurses felt better about stabbing these little babies to withdraw blood, as they left with babies appearing happier, with less tears and crying, ignoring the wider picture.

Here is a DuckDuckGo link to a search for = Sucralose Thyroid

Weed killer’s microbiome effects could contribute to honey bee decline, researchers say

Glyphosate is among the most widely used agricultural chemicals in the world, and the companies that make it describe it as safer and more environmentally-friendly than other herbicides.

But a group of researchers in Texas now report that the weed killer, sold as Roundup, could harm honeybees indirectly by disrupting the bacteria in their guts (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2018, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1803880115). The scientists think the findings could help explain the decline in honeybees observed over the past decade or so.

The team, led by Nancy Moran, an expert in bee biology at the University of Texas, Austin, treated hundreds of worker bees with glyphosate at concentrations they might encounter while foraging near agricultural fields, reintroduced them into their hive, and then analyzed the gut bacteria of treated and untreated bees in the hive. After three days, the researchers found that the abundance of some of the eight predominant species fell in treated bees compared with untreated ones, suggesting that exposure to glyphosate changed the composition of the bees’ guts. When challenged with a common bee pathogen, the worker bees exposed to glyphosate died at higher rates than unexposed bees, suggesting that the bacterial shake-up made the insects more vulnerable.

The conclusions match previous reports demonstrating that honeybees with compromised gut flora are malnourished and susceptible to infection. Those findings, along with data showing that glyphosate can affect soil bacteria and accumulate in bee honey and hives, indicate that researchers should explore whether possible off-target effects of the popular herbicide have played a role in honey bee decline, Moran says.

About 10 years ago, there was a noted die-off of honeybees, later termed colony collapse disorder. Mortality rates have continued to be high, Moran says, but the die-offs haven’t been as sudden. Researchers have been looking at the role of pesticides and fungicides in the decline, as well as infection. But glyphosate hasn’t really been part of those earlier conversations, says Fred Gould, an entomologist and plant pathologist at North Carolina State University. The field, he says, is “getting better at looking for subtle off-target effects,” such as those described in the new study.

As an herbicide, glyphosate works by blocking an enzyme called EPSP synthase in plants and microbes needed to create aromatic amino acids like phenylalanine and tryptophan. Glyphosate doesn’t kill microbes, but it keeps them from growing, and most bacteria found in bee guts carry the gene for the enzyme.

But while some species of bacteria in bee guts were susceptible to glyphosate, others were less so, either because they carried a gene for a glyphosate-resistant version of EPSPS, or because of other unknown mechanisms, Moran says. Her group next plans to repeat their experiments on whole hives, and to explore the nonEPSPS resistance mechanisms.

The environmental impact and health effects of glyphosate form a contentious issue, Gould says, so whole hive studies could shed light on the herbicide’s effects on a critical species for agriculture.

These studies also could help guide how to avoid possible negative effects of glyphosate on honeybees. The likely outcome will be some sort of best practices on when and where to spray glyphosate, says Juliana Rangel, an entomologist at Texas A&M University. Pollination via honeybees is an approximately $15 billion per year industry, she says, and “a lot of times, these tragedies can be avoided with a better understanding of the system.”

Source : cen.acs.org

PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE

Source : https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/pcfr-hdl092418.php

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