Material Submitted on April 1, 2011

What Makes for a Long Life May Surprise You

“Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest."

That was the conclusion of one of the lead researchers in the 80 years long study on longevity, recently published as a book, The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study (Hudson Street Press). Conducted at the University of California at Riverside, and building on data first collected at Stanford University, the research compared personality characteristics of individuals with their health histories and mortality. The researchers explained the surprising results for positive thinkers: Kids who are more optimistic take greater risks with their lives. While optimism is good for dealing with crises, it is less advantageous in the long run.

Other findings from this study:

Marriage is more of an advantage to men’s health than to women, and women’s health survives divorce better than does men’s.

Working hard in the later years, being committed to productivity, was associated with a longer life, for both men and women.

Health and Longevity gains associated with social relationships are greatest when the person is involved and helping others.

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Keys to long life: Longevity study unearths surprising answers

March 11, 2011

Cheer up. Stop worrying. Don't work so hard. Good advice for a long life? As it turns out, no. In a groundbreaking study of personality as a predictor of longevity, University of California, Riverside researchers found just the opposite.

"It's surprising just how often common assumptions – by both scientists and the media – are wrong," said Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology who led the 20-year study.

Friedman and Leslie R. Martin , a 1996 UCR alumna (Ph.D.) and staff researchers, have published those findings in "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study" (Hudson Street Press, March 2011).

Friedman and Martin examined, refined and supplemented data gathered by the late Stanford University psychologist Louis Terman and subsequent researchers on more than 1,500 bright children who were about 10 years old when they were first studied in 1921. "Probably our most amazing finding was that personality characteristics and social relations from childhood can predict one's risk of dying decades later," Friedman concluded.

The Longevity Project, as the study became known, followed the children through their lives, collecting information that included family histories and relationships, teacher and parent ratings of personality, hobbies, pet ownership, job success, education levels, military service and numerous other details.

"When we started, we were frustrated with the state of research about individual differences, stress, health and longevity," Friedman recalled. "It was clear that some people were more prone to disease, took longer to recover, or died sooner, while others of the same age were able to thrive. All sorts of explanations were being proposed – anxiety, lack of exercise, nerve-racking careers, risk-taking, lack of religion, unsociability, disintegrating social groups, pessimism, poor access to medical care, and Type A behavior patterns." But none were well-studied over the long term. That is, none followed people step-by-step throughout their lives.

When Friedman and Martin began their research in 1991, they planned to spend six months examining predictors of health and longevity among the Terman participants.

But the project continued over the next two decades – funded in part by the National Institute on Aging – and the team eventually involved more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students who tracked down death certificates, evaluated interviews, and analyzed tens of thousands of pages of information about the Terman participants through the years.

"We came to a new understanding about happiness and health," said Martin, now a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside. "One of the findings that really astounds people, including us, is that the Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest."

Part of the explanation lies in health behaviors – the cheerful, happy-go-lucky kids tended to take more risks with their health across the years, Friedman noted. While an optimistic approach can be helpful in a crisis, "we found that as a general life-orientation, too much of a sense that 'everything will be just fine' can be dangerous because it can lead one to be careless about things that are important to health and long life. Prudence and persistence, however, led to a lot of important benefits for many years. It turns out that happiness is not a root cause of good health. Instead, happiness and health go together because they have common roots."

Many of the UCR findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom. For example:

• Marriage may be good for men's health, but doesn't really matter for women. Steadily married men – those who remained in long-term marriages – were likely to live to age 70 and beyond; fewer than one-third of divorced men were likely to live to 70; and men who never married outlived those who remarried and significantly outlived those who divorced – but they did not live as long as married men.
• Being divorced is much less harmful to women's health. Women who divorced and did not remarry lived nearly as long as those who were steadily married.
• "Don't work too hard, don't stress," doesn't work as advice for good health and long life. Terman subjects who were the most involved and committed to their jobs did the best. Continually productive men and women lived much longer than their more laid-back comrades.
• Starting formal schooling too early – being in first grade before age 6 – is a risk factor for earlier mortality. Having sufficient playtime and being able to relate to classmates is very important for children.
• Playing with pets is not associated with longer life. Pets may sometimes improve well-being, but they are not a substitute for friends.
• Combat veterans are less likely to live long lives, but surprisingly the psychological stress of war itself is not necessarily a major health threat. Rather, it is a cascade of unhealthy patterns that sometimes follows. Those who find meaning in a traumatic experience and are able to reestablish a sense of security about the world are usually the ones who return to a healthy pathway.
• People who feel loved and cared for report a better sense of well-being, but it doesn't help them live longer. The clearest health benefit of social relationships comes from being involved with and helping others. The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become – healthy or unhealthy.

It's never too late to choose a healthier path, Friedman and Martin said. The first step is to throw away the lists and stop worrying about worrying.

"Some of the minutiae of what people think will help us lead long, healthy lives, such as worrying about the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the foods we eat, actually are red herrings, distracting us from the major pathways," Friedman said. "When we recognize the long-term healthy and unhealthy patterns in ourselves, we can begin to maximize the healthy patterns."

"Thinking of making changes as taking 'steps' is a great strategy," Martin advised. "You can't change major things about yourself overnight. But making small changes, and repeating those steps, can eventually create that path to longer life."

Web link: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-keys-life-longevity-unearths.html

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Researchers find Atlantis in Spain

Researchers believe they have found evidence for a tsunami buried Atlantis in some marshland near Cadiz, Spain. Using a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to survey the site, an international team of archaeologists led by the University of Hartford, Connecticut, have been investigating the area, and their results are going to be shown on a special edition of National Geographic Channel. The investigation began with the discovery of several "memorial cities," presumably built in Atlantis' image by its refugees after the city's likely destruction by a tsunami.

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Lost city of Atlantis, swamped by tsunami, may be found

NORTHAMPTON, Mass (Reuters) – A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.

"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher Richard Freund told Reuters.

"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, a University of Hartford, Connecticut, professor who lead an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis.

To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multi-ringed dominion known as Atlantis.

The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to survey the site.

Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of "memorial cities," built in Atlantis' image by its refugees after the city's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said.

Atlantis residents who did not perish in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.

The team's findings will be unveiled on Sunday in "Finding Atlantis," a new National Geographic Channel special.

While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain in Atlantis, Freund said the "twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats on Spain's southern coast.

"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archeology, that makes a lot more sense," Freund said.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,600 years ago, describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity. Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city.

Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says. One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November, 1755.

Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis "in a single day and night... disappeared into the depths of the sea."

Experts plan further excavations are planned at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in central Spain 150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts.

Web link: http://tinyurl.com/4byfho4

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Brain Feedback Game Improves Happiness

If happiness is a brain event, then can we train our brain to spend more time in its happy state? Apparently so. Researchers from the University of Louisville have developed a brain biofeedback system that rewards the person’s brain when it emits more happiness-related behavior (“prefrontal gamma” waves) by showing the person enhanced photos with pleasant music. The study won an award from The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback where the system was demonstrated.

The training required a total of five hours over twelve sessions. Afterwards, the researchers measured significant gains in the person’s happiness and improvements in memory. The gain in overall happiness remained constant when measured after four months. No plans for the commercialization of the system was mentioned, but is anticipated.

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Simple Training Produces Long-Lasting Happiness

Louisville, KY, March 7, 2011:  A prize-winning study performed at the University of Louisville showed that a simple

form of brain training can produce long-lasting happiness. The initial training, which took a total of five hours over 12

sessions, resulted in a significant gain in a measure of happiness and improvements in memory. The happiness measure

was repeated nearly four months later and the gain was exactly the same. 

The study was performed by Dr. Estate (Tato) Sokhadze, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, in collaboration with Dr.

Jonathan Cowan, the CEO of Peak Achievement Training. Dr. Sokhadze administered the twelve training sessions and

the evaluations to a group consisting of 11 poly-drug users and controls. Dr. Cowan developed the Peak

BrainHappiness Trainer, which was used in this study. It combines a unique form of brainwave biofeedback, called the

Neureka! protocol, with viewing DVDs that create positive emotions. As the trainee's Neureka! increases, the DVD's

picture gets bigger and the audio gets louder. The trainee soon learns how to increase the output of Neureka! by

producing a subtle shift in brain functioning that also makes them feel better. In a series of previous studies, Drs. Sokhadze and Cowan have shown that enhanced output of the Neureka! brain rhythm is associated with positive feelings such as happiness, love, satisfaction, joy, pleasure, gratitude, mindfulness, and anticipation of something good. 

The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback awarded a Citation for this paper, which will be

presented at their Annual Meeting at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel in New Orleans. Dr. Cowan will be presenting the

paper, titled "Prefrontal Gamma Feedback Improves Emotional State and Cognitive Function", at the end of the 1:00 PM

to 2:30 PM paper session on Saturday, March 12.

Dr. Cowan has hypothesized that there is a functional system in the brain he named Neureka!, that is responsible for

processing new learning and then rewarding the learner by making them feel good, so that they continue their efforts to

learn. These positive feelings and the improvements in memory are probably due to the release of the brain chemical,

dopamine, in the Prefrontal Pleasure Center, located behind the middle of the forehead, in coordination with enhancement

of a specific 40 Hertz brain rhythm. The Peak BrainHappiness Trainer clarifies the 40 Hertz brain rhythm by using the

Neureka! protocol and displays this to the trainee. 

Dr. Cowan commented "This outcome is particularly promising because it suggests that people can be trained to be

happy in a short time, creating a lasting impact.  We also know that happy people generally are healthier and live longer. 

In fact, one of the major researchers in positive psychology, Dr. Ed Diener, just published a research review (co-

authored by Micaela Chan) that reached this conclusion on the basis of 160 studies.  With appropriate funding, we

should be able to design a program that improves happiness and memory, enhances health, and decreases health care

costs."

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If you'd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with JD Starman or Dr. Jon Cowan. Please contact JD Starman at 217-414-6541or jstarman@peakachievement.com

See http://www.peakachievement.com/products.htm

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China Bans Reincarnation Without Government Permission

China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a new law, forbidding Tibetans to reincarnate without formal government permission. In what the government called "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation," they spelled out specific procedures and circumstances that will govern reincarnation. In actuality, the move is meant to give the Chinese government the say in choosing the next Dalai Lama. Although the Buddhist monks will appoint the successor by interviewing children about their memories of past lives, the government will be able to proclaim the next “official” Dalai Lama, someone whose reincarnation meets with government approval.

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China Bans Reincarnation Without Government Permission

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

Web link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/22/china-bans-reincarnation-_n_61444.html?ref=fb&src=sp

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Pole Shift Resulted from Japan Earthquake

The shifting of the earth’s magnetic poles is one of the themes associated with projections of earth changes and other possible planetary calamities. The recent earthquake in Japan, registering a record 9.0, caused the earth’s poles to shift about 6 to seven inches, according to a report by NASA. It was enough of a change to require airplane pilots to compensate for the new heading of their destination airport.

The shift in the earth’s poles, according to NASA, also caused that day to be shorter, by about 2 microseconds. Researchers at NASA also pointed out, for the purposes of comparison, that during a normal year, the earth’s axis shifts here and there about 3 and a half feet, a much greater distance than that caused by the Japan earthquake. Also noted that during the year, the length of a day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, which is more than five hundred times the amount of shortening caused by the earthquake. Conclusion: recent events on our planet amount to just another day on Mother Earth.

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NASA: Japan quake shortened Earth’s day, shifted axis

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that ravaged Japan also shortened Earth's day by just over one-millionth of a second (1.8 microseconds to be exact), according to NASA. It also shifted the Earth's axis by about 6.5 inches.

By changing the distribution of the planet's mass, the quake likely caused the Earth to spin a tiny bit faster, says research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., thus shortening the time the planet takes to rotate each day.

The quake also shifted the position of the Earth's "figure" axis (which is different from the planet's north-south axis). This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it won't cause a shift of the Earth's axis in space -- only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets could do that.

Gross says a change in Earth's mass and rotation isn't cause for alarm, and isn't unusual:

"Earth's rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents," he says. "Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake.

"The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about 3.3 feet over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake."

Gross said the changes in Earth's rotation and figure axis caused by earthquakes should not have any impacts on our daily lives. "These changes in Earth's rotation are perfectly natural and happen all the time," he says. "People shouldn't worry about them."

Web link: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/03/japan-earthquake-shifted-earth-axis-shorter-day-nasa/1

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Fiber Can Prolong Life

The average American doesn’t get enough fiber in the diet, and now research indicates that such a shortage can cut the life span as well as create health problems along the way. A new study by the National Institutes of Health found that the difference in mortality between folks with low fiber and folks with high fiber diets is quite significant—a high fiber diet cuts the death rate by twenty five per cent! This same study found that a high fiber diet was associated with significantly reduced chances of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory ailments.

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Daily Fiber Boosts Longevity

Fiber, the edible part of plants that resist digestion, has been suggested to lower risks of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, and certain cancers, as the substance reduces blood cholesterol levels, improves blood glucose levels, lowers blood pressure, promotes weight loss, reduces inflammation and binds to potential cancer-causing agents to promote excretion.  Yikyung Park, from the National Cancer Institute (Maryland, USA), and colleagues analyzed data from 219,123 men and 168,999 women enrolled in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. Participants completed a food frequency questionnaire at the beginning of the study in 1995 and 1996, and causes of death were determined by linking study records to national registries. Participants' fiber intake ranged from 13 to 29 grams per day in men and from 11 to 26 grams per day in women. Over an average of nine years of follow-up, 20,126 men and 11,330 women died. Fiber intake was associated with a significantly decreased risk of total death in both men and women—the one-fifth of men and women consuming the most fiber (29.4 grams per day for men and 25.8 grams for women) were 22% less likely to die than those consuming the least (12.6 grams per day for men and 10.8 grams for women). As well, the risk of cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases was reduced by 24% to 56% in men and 34% to 59% in women with high fiber intakes. Dietary fiber from grains, but not from other sources such as fruits, was associated with reduced risks of total, cardiovascular, cancer and respiratory disease deaths in men and women. Reporting that: “Dietary fiber may reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases,” the researchers urge that: “Making fiber-rich food choices more often may provide significant health benefits.”

Web link: http://www.worldhealth.net/news/daily-fiber-boosts-longevity/

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Romania Haunts Witches with New Laws

It’s a hard time for witches and seers these days in Romania. First the government officially recognized witches, seers and psychics as legitimate professions. That recognition also required that the government institute taxes on the income of this trade group. That was bad enough, leading some witches, according to an Associated Press report, to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube in an attempt to put a hex on the government officials. The new law also requires witches to have a permit, to provide their customers with receipts and bar them from practicing near schools and churches, with the threat of fines or jail time if their predictions don’t pan out.

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Romania may get even tougher on witches

By ALISON MUTLER

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches.

A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country's soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don't come true.

Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

Witches argue they shouldn't be blamed for the failure of their tools.

"They can't condemn witches, they should condemn the cards," Queen Witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone.

Critics say the proposal is a ruse to deflect public attention from the country's many problems. In 2009, Romania needed a euro20 billion ($27.31 billion) International Monetary Fund-led bailout loan to pay salaries and pensions when its economy contracted more than 7 percent. Last year, the economy shrank again. However, this year a slight recovery of 1.5 percent growth is forecast.

European Union and Romanian officials say local authorities are hampered by political bickering and bureaucracy. The centrist government is unpopular, the opposition is weak, the press thrives on conspiracy and personal attacks, and EU officials say the justice system needs to be reformed. Romanians are jaded and mistrustful.

"The government doesn't have real solutions, so it invents problems," said Stelian Tanase, a well-known Romanian political commentator. "This is the government that this country deserves."

In January, the government changed labor laws to officially recognize the centuries-old practice of witchcraft as a taxable profession, prompting angry witches to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube in an attempt to put a hex on them.

The latest bill was passed in the Senate last week, but must still be approved by a financial and labor committee and by the Chamber of Deputies, the other house of Romania's parliament.

Bratara called the proposed bill overblown. "I will fight until my last breath for this not to be passed," she said.

Sometimes, she argued, people don't provide their real identities, dates of birth or other personal details, which could skew a seer's predictions. "What about when the client gives false details about themselves? We can't be blamed for that."

The new bill would also require witches to have a permit, to provide their customers with receipts and bar them from practicing near schools and churches.

Tanase has a solution.

"Maybe they should put a spell on (Prime Minister Emil) Boc and (President Traian) Basescu, so they can find the solutions," he said.

Web Link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110208/D9L8LR4G1.html

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Men Respond to Scent of Fertile Woman

Aroma has the most powerful effect on a person of all sensory modalities, according to Edgar Cayce. Research reported here over the years has provided some amazing corroborative evidence for the (usually subliminal) effect of odor.

The latest study comes from the field of evolutionary psychology and its study of “relationship management,” which asks questions about how the sexes choose each other for mating and how do they maintain that relationship. In this study, conducted at Florida State University, men were left in a room with a woman who, unknown to the men, was either in the fertile or infertile stage of her cycle. Later, researchers asked the man to rate the woman for her attractiveness.

Past research has shown that when a woman is in the fertile stage of her cycle, men will rate her as more attractive than they will at other stages of her cycle. In this new study, that same effect was observed. However, the researchers had invited two types of men into this study. One type was already involved in a committed romantic relationship, while the other type was not. The results indicated that only the men not already in a relationship rated the fertile woman as more attractive. The men already in a relationship rated the fertile woman as less attractive. The researchers interpreted this result in an evolutionary context, suggesting that the negative reaction to the scent of a fertile woman supported the men’s ability to maintain their current relationship by making them feel less attracted to someone who might pose a threatening invitation to mate.

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Web Link: Courtesty of schwartzreport.net

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Less Education Means Higher Blood Pressure

It’s been known for some time that health is related to socio-economic status, which in turn is related to educational attainment. Folks with higher levels of education have overall better health. Recent research has pinned down one factor that could be the cause of this relationship—blood pressure.

Average blood pressure among adults is inversely related to level of education attained, according to a recent study published in the journal BMC Public Health. Those with lower levels of education have higher blood pressure, which is related to several types of health concerns. The researchers noted, "Low educational attainment has been demonstrated to predispose individuals to high strain jobs, characterised by high levels of demand and low levels of control, which have been associated with elevated blood pressure."

Web Source:

Education Reduces Blood Pressure

Publication Date:  27 February 2011
Author:  
Source:  BBC News (U.K.)
Link:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12577353


Despite exam stress, a long stint in education is good for people's blood pressure, according to researchers in the US.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is linked to heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure.

The study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, shows the link is stronger in women than in men.

The British Heart Foundation said the findings supported the link between deprivation and heart disease risk.

Higher levels of education have been linked to lower levels of heart disease. The researchers suggest that blood pressure could be the reason why.

The study looked at 30 years of data from 3,890 people who were being followed as part of the Framingham Offspring Study.

People were divided into three groups, low education (12 years or less), middle education (13 to 16 years) and high education (17 years or more).

The average systolic blood pressure for the 30 year period was then calculated.

Women with low education had a blood pressure 3.26 mmHg higher than those with a high level of education. In men the difference was 2.26 mmHg.

Other factors, such as smoking, taking blood pressure medication and drinking, were taken into consideration and the effect on blood pressure remained, although at a much lower level.

Writing in the journal, the researchers says: "Low educational attainment has been demonstrated to predispose individuals to high strain jobs, characterised by high levels of demand and low levels of control, which have been associated with elevated blood pressure."

Professor Eric Loucks, who conducted the study at Brown University, said: "Women with less education are more likely to be experiencing depression, they are more likely to be single parents, more likely to be living in impoverished areas and more likely to be living below the poverty line."

Natasha Stewart, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "These findings support existing evidence about the link between socio-economic deprivation and heart disease risk.

"However, the study only showed up a small blood pressure drop among women and an insignificant decrease among men.

"Action is needed across all parts of society to give children the best possible start in life and reduce health inequalities."

Web Link: Courtesty of schwartzreport.net

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Optimism Helps Heal the Heart

Optimism is a heart healthy attitude, past research reported here has shown. New research shows also that optimism helps heal a heart confronted with coronary heart disease. The study, Conducted at Duke University Medical Center, followed almost three thousand heart patients for fifteen years. At the beginning of the study, researchers measured a patient’s level of optimism by asking for true/false responses to statements such as “I expect my lifestyle will suffer; I can still live a long, healthy life; I doubt that I'll ever fully recover.”

At the end of the study, the histories of these patients were compared and correlated with their initial attitude about their heart and future prospects. The results, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, indicated that those with the most optimistic attitudes experienced a more successful recovery and lived longer than those with less optimism.

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Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Upon Us

Scientists have determined that there have been five mass extinctions in the history of our planet. They were created by natural causes and wiped out as much as seventy five per cent of life each time. According to a study recently published in the journal Nature, we may be in the midst of a sixth mass extinction This one, according to the study, is man-made. Habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases are the sources of this slow scourge. Except for the mass extinction caused by an comet colliding with earth which killed quickly, the other four extinctions have occurred over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, caused by global warming or cooling. This sixth extinction, which began perhaps two hundred years ago, is happening rapidly, completing itself in from five hundred to two thousand years.

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Exercise Can Inhibit Aging

It’s possible that exercise can keep you young. We know its good for our health and mental outlook. It may be good for more than that, according to some new research conducted at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It may slow aging.

In their study, the researchers employed mice who had a genetic defect that caused the mitochondria (living processes within a cell that combine oxygen and nutrients to create energy) to deteriorate quickly, leading to aging and an early death. One group of these mice lived a normal lab life, while the other group of mice enjoyed a regimen of intense exercise on an activity wheel. Three times a week for 45 minutes, these mice would run the wheel at a speed equivalent to a human running six miles in an hour. The mice that didn’t exercise began to show aging effects as early as three months. By one year, all these mice were dead. However, all the exercising mice were still alive, with very few gray hairs. Fitness expert Jack LaLanne had nothing on these mice! More research is planned to determine if such intense exercise is needed for this effect and to determine the exact mechanism of its operation.

Web source:

Can Exercise Keep You Young?

Publication Date:  March 2, 2011, 12:02 am
Author:  GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
Source:  The New York Times
Link:  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/can-exercise-keep-you-young/?hp

It gets clearer and clearer what it takes to maintain good health.
We all know that physical activity is beneficial in countless ways, but even so, Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, was startled to discover that exercise kept a strain of mice from becoming gray prematurely.
Getty Images

But shiny fur was the least of its benefits. Indeed, in heartening new research published last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exercise reduced or eliminated almost every detrimental effect of aging in mice that had been genetically programmed to grow old at an accelerated pace.

In the experiment, Dr. Tarnopolsky and his colleagues used lab rodents that carry a genetic mutation affecting how well their bodies repair malfunctioning mitochondria, which are tiny organelles within cells. Mitochondria combine oxygen and nutrients to create fuel for the cells - they are microscopic power generators.

Mitochrondria have their own DNA, distinct from the cell’s own genetic material, and they multiply on their own. But in the process, mitochondria can accumulate small genetic mutations, which under normal circumstances are corrected by specialized repair systems within the cell. Over time, as we age, the number of mutations begins to outstrip the system’s ability to make repairs, and mitochondria start malfunctioning and dying.

Many scientists consider the loss of healthy mitochondria to be an important underlying cause of aging in mammals. As resident mitochondria falter, the cells they fuel wither or die. Muscles shrink, brain volume drops, hair falls out or loses its pigmentation, and soon enough we are, in appearance and beneath the surface, old.

The mice that Dr. Tarnopolsky and his colleagues used lacked the primary mitochondrial repair mechanism, so they developed malfunctioning mitochondria early in their lives, as early as 3 months of age, the human equivalent of age 20. By the time they reached 8 months, or their early 60s in human terms, the animals were extremely frail and decrepit, with spindly muscles, shrunken brains, enlarged hearts, shriveled gonads and patchy, graying fur. Listless, they barely moved around their cages. All were dead before reaching a year of age.

Except the mice that exercised.

Half of the mice were allowed to run on a wheel for 45 minutes three times a week, beginning at 3 months. These rodent runners were required to maintain a fairly brisk pace, Dr. Tarnopolsky said: 'It was about like a person running a 50- or 55-minute 10K.” (A 10K race is 6.2 miles.) The mice continued this regimen for five months.

At 8 months, when their sedentary lab mates were bald, frail and dying, the running rats remained youthful. They had full pelts of dark fur, no salt-and-pepper shadings. They also had maintained almost all of their muscle mass and brain volume. Their gonads were normal, as were their hearts. They could balance on narrow rods, the showoffs.

But perhaps most remarkable, although they still harbored the mutation that should have affected mitochondrial repair, they had more mitochondria over all and far fewer with mutations than the sedentary mice had. At 1 year, none of the exercising mice had died of natural causes. (Some were sacrificed to compare their cellular health to that of the unexercised mice, all of whom were, by that age, dead.)

The researchers were surprised by the magnitude of the impact that exercise had on the animals’ aging process, Dr. Tarnopolsky said. He and his colleagues had expected to find that exercise would affect mitochondrial health in muscles, including the heart, since past research had shown a connection. They had not expected that it would affect every tissue and bodily system studied.

Other studies, including a number from Dr. Tarnopolsky’s own lab, have also found that exercise affects the course of aging, but none has shown such a comprehensive effect. And precisely how exercise alters the aging process remains unknown. In this experiment, running resulted in an upsurge in the rodents’ production of a protein known as PGC-1alpha, which regulates genes involved in metabolism and energy creation, including mitochondrial function. Exercise also sparked the repair of malfunctioning mitochondria through a mechanism outside the known repair pathway; in these mutant mice, that pathway didn’t exist, but their mitochondria were nonetheless being repaired.

Dr. Tarnopolsky is currently overseeing a number of experiments that he expects will help to elucidate the specific physiological mechanisms. But for now, he said, the lesson of his experiment and dozens like it is unambiguous. 'Exercise alters the course of aging,” he said.

Although in this experiment, the activity was aerobic and strenuous, Dr. Tarnopolsky is not convinced that either is absolutely necessary for benefits. Studies of older humans have shown that weightlifting can improve mitochondrial health, he said, as can moderate endurance exercise. Although there is probably a threshold amount of exercise that is necessary to affect physiological aging, Dr. Tarnopolsky said, 'anything is better than nothing.” If you haven’t been active in the past, he continued, start walking five minutes a day, then begin to increase your activity level.

The potential benefits have attractions even for the young. While Dr. Tarnopolsky, a lifelong athlete, noted with satisfaction that active, aged mice kept their hair, his younger graduate students were far more interested in the animals’ robust gonads. Their testicles and ovaries hadn’t shrunk, unlike those of sedentary elderly mice.

Dr. Tarnopolsky’s students were impressed. 'I think they all exercise now,” he said.

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Naps Make You Smarter

We know Thomas Edison took naps to help his work and we’ve since learned that naps improve our health, our mental outlook, and our memory. A recent study published in Current Biology has shed light on what happens in naps that create these effects.

In this study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, recruited volunteers to come to the lab to learn a memorization task, connecting faces with names. Afterwards, half the volunteers got a ninety minute nap that afternoon, while the rest were assigned other laboratory activities for the afternoon. Early that evening, the researchers re-tested everyone’s memory for the first task. Those who napped did much better at remembering what they had learned earlier that day. The researchers then gave the volunteers a second memorization task. Those who had not napped did about twenty per cent worse than they had done earlier in the day. Those who napped improved their performance relative to their earlier work.

The researchers concluded from this work that napping helps both to help retain what has been learned, and helps with learning afterwards. When the researchers studied the EEG recordings of each volunteer’s nap time, they found that there were “sleep spindles” occurring in non-dream sleep. They speculate that these spindles reflect the brain moving information from short term memory to long term storage. This movement into long term storage would explain why the nappers remembered their learning better than the non-nappers. The reseaerchers also speculate that when information is moved from short-term to long-term memory, it relieves a burden on short-term memory, clearing it for better work, as evidenced in the nappers outperforming their counterparts on a new learning exercise. The researchers concluded that napping helps both after learning and before learning.

Web Source:

Why Naps Make You Smarter

Publication Date:  08 March 2011 | 12:06 PM ET
Author:  STEPHANIE PAPPAS
Source:  LiveScience
Link:  http://www.livescience.com/13125-sleep-naps-boost-memory.html


A good night's sleep is crucial to storing knowledge learned earlier in the day - that much was known. Now, a new study finds that getting shut-eye before you learn is important, too.

Volunteers who took a 100-minute nap before launching into an evening memorization task scored an average of 20 percentage points higher on the memory test compared with people who did the memorization without snoozing first.

"It really seems to be the first evidence that we're aware of that indicates a proactive benefit of sleep1," study co-author Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

"It's not simply enough to sleep after learning," Walker said. "It turns out you also need to sleep before learning."

Refreshing naps

Earlier research has found that dreams boost learning2, with one study suggesting a 90-minute nap3 may help lock in long-term memories. But Walker's research, published this week in the journal Current Biology, finds that another phase of sleep, called nonrapid eye movement (NREM) is most closely linked to the learning boost provided by a nap.

Walker and his colleagues recruited 44 volunteers - 27 women and 17 men - to come to the sleep lab at noon. First, the volunteers were given a task in which they had to memorize 100 names and faces. Then they were tested for how well they recalled the face-name matches.

Next, the researchers tucked half of the volunteers in for a nap between 2 p.m. and 3:40 p.m. The scientists measured the napping volunteers' brain waves as they slept. The other group of participants stayed awake and did daily activities as they normally would. At 6 p.m., both groups memorized another set of 100 faces and names and were tested on their memory. (The experiment was set up so nappers had more than an hour to shake off any remaining fuzziness before the test, Walker said.)

The first major finding, Walker said, was that learning ability degrades as the day wears on. Volunteers who didn't nap did about 12 percent worse on the evening test than they did on the morning test. (Walker presented preliminary findings of this effect4 at a conference in February 2010.) But shut-eye not only reversed those effects, it provided a memory boost: Napping test-takers did about 10 percent better on the evening test than they did on the morning test. In all, the difference in scores between nappers and non-nappers was about 20 percent, Walker said.

Secondly, the brain-wave monitoring turned up a likely culprit for the memory upgrade: a short, synchronized burst of electrical activity called a sleep spindle. These sleep spindles last about one second and can occur 1,000 times per night during NREM sleep. People who had more of these spindles, especially people who had more over a frontal area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, showed the most refreshment in learning capacity after their nap, Walker said.

Uploading memories

Walker and his colleagues suspect that the sleep spindles are working to transfer information from the hippocampus, a small area deep in your brain where memories are made, to the prefrontal cortex, which serves as long-term storage. That frees up the hippocampus to make new memories, Walker said.

"It's almost like clearing out your informational inbox of your e-mail so you can start to receive new e-mails the next day," he said.

NREM sleep and sleep spindle frequency change throughout a person's life span, Walker said. Older people, for example, have a decline in sleep spindles, suggesting that sleep disruption could be one reason for the memory loss prevalent in old age5. The volunteers in the current study were young, but the researchers hope to investigate the effect of sleep spindles on learning in older adults, Walker said.

The research also draws attention to the importance of sleep, Walker said. Sleep spindles happen more frequently later in the night, precisely the time people cut short when they rise early for work and school, Walker said.

"Somewhere between infancy and early adulthood, we abandon the notion that sleep is useful," Walker said. That needs to change, he said: "Sleep is doing something very active for things like learning and memory. I think for us as a society to stop thinking of sleep as a luxury rather than a biological necessity is going to be wise."