Nutrition: For centuries, ginger root has been used as a folk remedy for things like colds and upset tummies. Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found that daily ginger consumption also reduces muscle pain caused by exercise (sports or recreation). Ginger had been showed to exert anti-inflammatory effects in rodents before, and this study has concluded that the root can reduce muscle pain in humans by as much as 25%; it is also believed that heating ginger, as it happens when it is cooked in a soup or sauté, might increase its pain-relieving benefits. The study will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Pain. Read More…
Mind: No time to reap the mental benefits of a workout? No problem. According to a study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, just five minutes of exercise in a park, working in a backyard garden, on a nature trail, or other green space will benefit mental health. So called “green exercise”, physical activity in the presence of nature, has been proven to decrease the risk of mental illness and improve a sense of well-being. But until now, nobody knew how much time people needed to spend in green spaces to get those and other benefits. The study analyzed activities such as walking, gardening, cycling, fishing, boating, horse-riding and farming. All natural environments were beneficial, including parks in urban settings. Green areas with water added something extra, and the researchers noted that a blue and green environment seems to be even better for health. Read More…
Mind: A new study sheds light on the role that dreams play in the important process of learning. The new findings suggest that dreams may be the sleeping brain’s way of telling us that it is hard at work on the process of memory consolidation, integrating our recent experiences to help us with performance-related tasks in the short run and, in the long run, translating this material into information that will have widespread application to our lives. “What’s got us really excited is that after nearly 100 years of debate about the function of dreams, this study tells us that dreams are the brain’s way of processing, integrating and really understanding new information,” explained Robert Stickgold, PhD, senior author of the study and Director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. The study is reported in the online issue of the journal Current Biology. Read More…
Green: Harvesting…electrons? Yes. In an electrifying first, Stanford scientists have tapped the power of plants, as researchers looking for alternate sources of electricity experimented with plugging in to algae cells and succeeded in harnessing a tiny electric current. They found it at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant’s process of converting sunlight to chemical energy. This may be the first step toward generating high efficiency bioelectricity that doesn’t give off carbon dioxide as a byproduct. In the experiment the researchers intercepted the electrons (using gold electrodes) just after they had been excited by the light and were at their highest energy levels. “We believe we are the first to extract electrons out of living plant cells. This is potentially one of the cleanest energy sources for energy generation,” said WonHyoung Ryu, lead author of the paper published in Nano Letters. Read More…
Psychology: Looks like Trevor McKinney was right – paying it forward does work. Much in like the 2000 film with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, a study done by UC San Diego and Harvard has now provided laboratory evidence that cooperative behavior is contagious and that it spreads from person to person. As illustrated by the experiment where strangers played a game, when people benefit from kindness, they “pay it forward” by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network. “The flow of good and desirable properties like ideas, love and kindness is required for human social networks to endure,” said Nicholas Christakis, co-author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “In turn, networks are required for such properties to spread. Humans form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.” Read More…
Cancer: The plant kingdom heroes continue to surface. According to research done in St. Louis University, the extract from bitter melon – a vegetable commonly used in Indian and Chinese cuisine and medicine – attacks breast cancer cells. The study, published in the March 1 edition of the journal Cancer Research, found that bitter melon extract significantly induced death in breast cancer cells and decreased their growth and spread in vitro by triggering a chain of events that kills the cells and prevents them from multiplying. Bitter melon (shown above) is also often used in India and China as medicine for diabetics due to its ability to lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Read More…
Cancer: Eating pomegranates, a fruit that contains anti-aromatase phytochemicals, reduces the incidence of hormone-dependent breast cancer. According to a study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, pomegranate is enriched in a series of compounds known as elllagitannins, which seem to be responsible for the anti-proliferative effect of the fruit by allowing ellagic acid to inhibit aromatase, an enzyme that converts androgen to estrogen and plays a key role in the growth of cancer cells. “Phytochemicals suppress estrogen production that prevents the proliferation of breast cancer cells and the growth of estrogen-responsive tumors,” said Shiuan Chen, Ph.D., lead author of the study. The research was done on isolated cells in vitro; more research needs to be done with humans to determine the exact effect because ellagitannings are not absorbed as well by the blood when provided in the diet. Read More…
