Religious Traditions Provide Universal Guidance

Research in comparative religion, a study recommended by Edgar Cayce, reveals that regardless of our own personal religion, we can gain from the others. “Knowing about the breadth of spiritual traditions,” writes minister Dr. Sage Bennet in her book Wisdom Walk: Nine Practices for Creating Peace and Balance from the World’s Spiritual Traditions (New World Library), “opens the doors to tolerance and appreciation of others’ religions—and the oneness that runs through them all.”

Her research reveals these practices from the following religions, have universal applicability:

 

To order this book from amazon.com, click here!

 

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Purple Juice is Better than Yellow

Ever since scientists discovered that red wine has healthy antioxidants, there has been a great deal of research on the health value of fruit juices. According to a study conducted at the University of Glasgow and reported in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, red and purple juices (grape, cranberry, pomegranate, blueberry) have more of the healthy providing ingredients than to the yellow juices, such as orange and pineapple. The study found that whether the juice is fresh or prepared from concentrate does not affect the quantity or quality of those ingredients.

A related, longitudinal study found that drinking three glasses of juice weekly reduced the incidence of Alzheimer’s by seventy five per cent.

 

 

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Grape and Berry Juices: Elixers for Long Life?

 Publication Date:  Mar. 17, 2007
Author:  AMMU KANNAMPILLY
Source:  ABC News
Link:  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2959851&page=1

Americans drink half the world's orange juice -- 21 quarts per person each year. Most of them do so because of reasons connected to taste and to the perceived health benefits of a glass of O.J. every day.

But that may change soon. According to a new study by scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, purple grape juice is now your best bet for preventing heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and a host of other chronic ailments.

Elixir for a Long Life

What's the secret ingredient that makes juice such a potent weapon against disease?

Well, all juices contain chemical compounds known as polyphenols -- a variety of antioxidant that, when consumed, helps to remove harmful free radicals from the body. Although exact information about how antioxidants combat illness is not forthcoming, a number of studies place them at the forefront of protecting the body from free radicals, molecules that destroy cells and allow diseases to develop.

The findings from the University of Glasgow come on the heels of the recent U.S.-based Kame project, which suggested that volunteers who drank three or more glasses of juice a week could reduce the risk of Alzheimer's by 76 percent, compared with those who drank juice less than once a week.

In the first comprehensive study of the antioxidant content of various juices, published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, researchers at the University of Glasgow examined 13 different brands of fruit juices from a local U.K. supermarket.

They measured the number as well as the levels of antioxidants in apple, orange, grapefruit, cranberry, pineapple, tomato and grape juice, and found that purple grape juice has the highest concentration of antioxidants among juices. In fact, the more popular orange juice or clear apple juice have the lowest antioxidant content.

The Myth of Freshness

When ABCNews.com interviewed Alan Crozier, professor of plant biochemistry and human nutrition, who led the study, he claimed that "there is absolutely no difference between juice made from concentrate and freshly-squeezed juice, as far as antioxidants are concerned."

What matters is the fruit used to begin with: Purple grapes, cranberries and pomegranates do a good deal more to protect us from disease than oranges and pineapples, according to Crozier.

But some scientists, like Bridget Aisbitt, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, counsel caution about the antioxidant phenomenon.

Aisbitt told ABCNews.com, "These days, 'antioxidant' has become such an over-hyped buzzword, it's used on everything from shampoo to food. People should be careful about jumping onto the bandwagon that because pomegranates are new and exotic, they are a 'good' fruit, whereas more commonly-found fruits like oranges and apples are not."

Purple grapes don't have the same air of exoticism as pomegranates. Then again, this study was funded by the National Grape Co-operative, a consortium of U.S. farmers which is owned by Welch's, the makers of Concord purple grape juice.

Juice or Wine: Take Your Pick

But Crozier shrugged off any talk of Welch's influencing the research, telling ABCNews.com that "purple grape juice does [have] a high concentration of antioxidants, but the study does not promote Welch's at the expense of other healthy juices like cranberry and pomegranate."

But if purple grapes are at the heart of the antioxidant miracle, this begs the question: What about red wine?

After all, a glass of beaujolais red wine contains the same number and level of polyphenols as a glass of purple grape juice. Could one substitute a glass of one for the other?

According to Crozier, "Having a glass or two of a light-bodied wine every day will probably help even further, to up the antioxidant intake. But, just as too much juice is bad for one's sugar levels, I wouldn't recommend too much red wine either, for obvious reasons."

Speaking to ABCNews.com, he declared: "Variety is the spice of life, and that's especially true as far as nutrition is concerned. We tell people to have a mix of colours on their plate, when they are eating. They should think about juice the same way. Try a glass of purple grape one day, cranberry the next, and a glass of red wine won't hurt either."

As for that old staple, orange juice? Crozier says its fine to drink it every week, since it's one of two juices (grapefruit being the other) to contain flavanoids -- a type of antioxidant found in citrus fruit only.

 

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Tough Guy Attitude Promotes Healing

Although some macho attitudes have detrimental effects on health, such as suppression of emotion or feeling, or resistance to seeking help, some attitudes are actually helpful when it comes to recovering from trauma, according to a study conducted at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and published in the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

Researchers interviewed a group of middle-aged rural white men who had experienced traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. They found that men who focused on their careers, success, power and competition reported better relations in their community. These same participants showed greater improvement a year after their hospitalization. The researchers conclude that such men believe, “Yeah there are tough challenges, but nothing will stop me from reaching my goal.” '

 

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Man-Of-Steel Mentality Helps Guys Heal Faster

 Publication Date:   16 March 2007
Author:  JEANNA BRYNER
Source:  LiveScience
Link:  http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070316_tough_guys.html

He doesn’t ask for directions after repeatedly taking wrong turns, and when he’s hurt you’d never know it.

The stereotypical 'tough guy' or 'real man' rarely asks for help or shows signs of weakness, because then he wouldn’t be a guy, right?

While many scientists have considered these masculine tendencies to be barriers to health and recovery, a small study of about 50 men suggests the opposite. The man-of-steel mentality, often associated with military men and those in other high-risk occupations, can boost and speed up a guy’s recovery from a serious and/or traumatic injury possibly.

'It has long been assumed that men are not as concerned and don't take as good of care of their health,' said lead study author Glenn Good of the University of Missouri, Columbia, 'but what we're seeing here is that the same ideas that led to their injuries may actually encourage their recovery.'

The annual incidence of traumatic brain injuries in the United States is greater than that of all cancers, Good writes in his study, and men account for three-quarters of such injuries. The number will increase if the Iraq war continues, he said.

Manly scale

Good and his colleagues examined a group of middle-aged rural white men who had experienced traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. The scientists state that traumatic brain injury is the most common injury experienced by U.S. troops serving in Iraq.

The participants completed questionnaires that measured the degree to which they bought into masculine norms, such as physical strength, sexual performance, independence and successful career achievement.

They also answered questions about how attached they were to rigid gender roles. Each man rated statements from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree), including:

* I strive to be more successful than others.
* I have difficulty telling others I care about them.
* Affection with other men makes me tense.
* My needs for work or study keep me from my family or leisure more than I would like.

Good and bad

The study found that increased masculinity had some negative effects on the recovery of 'manly men.' The participants who believed it was appropriate to hold in their emotions, be self-reliant and have power over women had less favorable views toward seeking psychological help. This 'I can take care of myself' attitude could be detrimental to already injured men.

The researchers also found that men who had strongly believed in male dominance over women were less satisfied with their lives.

But, men who focused on their careers, success, power and competition reported better relations in their community. These same participants showed greater improvement a year after their hospitalization.

Perhaps, the scientists report, an inner narrative is the engine behind the boost in health. For example, a brawny boy might think, 'Yeah there are tough challenges, but nothing will stop me from reaching my goal,' the scientists state in a report of this study published in a recent issue of the journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

Even so, the resistance to psychological help concerned the scientists. 'The immediate message here is to encourage psychotherapy along with traditional methods of healing,' Good said. Therapists trying to help men recover from serious injuries could encourage men's masculine tendency to seek success but discourage them from believing it's appropriate to exert power over women, he wrote.

'This study also can shed some light on what the wounded soldiers from Iraq may be facing,' Good said, in a prepared statement. 'The war in Iraq is the first in which such a large number of soldiers are surviving injuries that would once have been fatal,' he said, 'and we as a nation are going to be living with their care for a while.'

 

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Americans Ignoring Their Vegetables

Even though there’s been ample publicity about the importance of eating fruits and vegetables, Americans are ignoring the advice. By 2010, U.S. health officials want 75 percent of Americans to eat two fruits a day and 50 percent to eat three vegetables a day. We’ve a long way to go, according to recent surveys. Since 1994, the percentage of Americans meeting this goal has held steady at about twenty seven per cent. Whites, college graduates, older adults, and people with higher incomes were more likely to meet the goals for fruit and vegetable consumption, according to an analysis of survey data that was published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.

Given the increasing amount of publicity devoted to the importance of diet to health, it seems surprising that this information has had such little effect upon behavior. Researchers at the Center for Disease Control speculate that we are bombarded with information, much of it conflcting. They also believe that our desire for convenience in food preparation is also a contributing factor to our ignoring our veggies.

 

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Americans Eating Fewer Vegetables

 

Publication Date:  March 19, 2007

Author:  MIRANDA HITTI

Source:  WebMD Medical News

Link:  http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20070319/americans-eating-fewer-vegetables

 

A new report shows Americans are actually getting worse at eating their vegetables.

This is hardly the first study to document dismal diet habits. Last week, the CDC gave U.S. adults poor marks for fruit and vegetable consumption.

Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins University confirm that Americans aren't getting better at eating fruits and vegetables -- even though public health officials urge them to do so.

The Johns Hopkins study shows that, among U.S. adults, fruit consumption is holding steady, but vegetable consumption is headed down -- even if you count french fries.

The study appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Fruit, Vegetable Consumption

 Johns Hopkins University's Tiffany Gary, PhD, and colleagues reviewed data from two national health surveys.

The first survey, conducted from 1988 to 1994, included nearly 15,000 U.S. adults. The second survey, done between 1999 and 2002, included about 8,900 U.S. adults.

In both, participants reported everything they had eaten during the previous 24 hours. Then researchers checked how many people met these goals:

* Two or more servings of fruit, including fresh fruit, dried fruit, and 100% fruit juice
* Three or more servings of vegetables (fried potatoes count).

These goals have been touted since 1991 as part of the national campaign to get Americans to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But apparently, most people aren't heeding the message.
Few Met Goals

In the earlier survey, 27% of participants met the fruit consumption goal vs. 28% in the later survey.

But the percentage meeting the vegetable consumption goal fell from 35% in the earlier survey to 32% in the one started about a decade later.

Fruit consumption basically stayed the same while vegetable consumption dropped slightly, note the researchers.

In addition, vegetable eaters appear to be in a bit of a rut. They tended to eat several servings of the same vegetable, showing little dietary diversity.

In each survey, only 11% met both goals.

Whites, college graduates, older adults, and people with higher incomes were more likely to meet the goals for fruit and vegetable consumption.
New Campaign

Today, the nonprofit Produce for Better Health Foundation launched a national effort to promote fruit and vegetable consumption.

The campaign, called "Fruits & Veggies -- More Matters," encourages Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gives these tips to help you meet your fruit and vegetable goals:

* Keep a bowl of fruit handy.
* Go for variety.
* Serve a salad with dinner.
* Add beans to chili or soup.
* If you're ordering pizza, add some veggie toppings.
* Put chopped vegetables in pasta sauce or lasagna.
* Dip fresh fruit in low-fat yogurt or pudding.
* Dip raw veggies in low-fat salad dressing.

Helping Kids Eat Fruits and Vegetables

It can be a challenge to get kids to eat fruits and vegetables, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. moms conducted as part of the "Fruits & Veggies -- More Matters" campaign.

In the survey, more than 70% of moms gave their children grades of "A" or "B" for eating fruits and vegetables. But nearly 30% gave their kids and teens grades of "C" or lower for fruit and vegetable consumption.

Those mothers said their children were tempted by other foods and weren't interested in eating fruits and vegetables.

If that sounds like your family, here are solutions offered by the USDA:

* Set a good example with your own diet.
* While shopping, let kids pick a new fruit or vegetable to try.
* Kids often like foods served separately, so don't mix vegetables on their plate.
* Offer children a choice of fruits at lunch.
* Top kids' cereal with berries or a smiley face made of sliced bananas for eyes, raisins for a nose, and an orange slice for a mouth.
* Use cut-up vegetables as part of afternoon snacks.
* Let kids decide on the dinner vegetables or what goes into salads.
* If children are old enough, let them help shop for, clean, peel, or cut up fruits and vegetables.

Whether you have kids or not, pay attention to food safety.

Wash your hands before cooking or eating, and wash fruits and vegetables in clean, running water.

Keep fruits and vegetables separate from raw meat, poultry, and seafood, and heed the expiration dates on canned and frozen items.

 

Americans Fail to Heed Advice to 'Eat Your Vegetables'

 

Publication Date:  Fri, Mar. 16, 2007

Author:  DANIEL YEE

Source:  The Associated Press

Link:  http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/16916230.htm

 

ATLANTA -- Fewer than a third of U.S. adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that has remained steady for more than a decade, health officials said Thursday.

That's "well below" the government's goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said Dr. Larry Cohen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The diet survey, part of a federal health survey of every state, is based on responses from 305,000 adults in 2005. It indicates the country is only about halfway toward meeting its healthful- eating goal three years from now.

"We're really concerned with the lack of success in meeting these national goals," said Cohen, who works in CDC's nutrition and physical activity division.

The rate of fruit and vegetable consumption has remained unchanged since 1994, but health officials said the goal is within reach.

"We have more work to do over the next few years," said spokeswoman Rachel Ciccarone.

Specifically, the survey showed that 27 percent of adults ate vegetables three times a day, and about 33 percent ate fruit twice a day. A serving size is a half-cup for most fruits and vegetables, one cup for leafy greens.

Seniors were more likely than others to follow advice to eat more vegetables, with slightly more than a third of that group eating three or more servings each day. Younger adults, ages 18 to 24, ate the fewest vegetables. Nearly four-fifths of that age category fell short.

Likewise, seniors also ate the most fruit, with nearly 46 percent eating two or more servings of fruit daily. People ages 35 to 44 ate fruit the least, with fewer than 28 percent eating the recommended amount of fruit each day.

The federal agency said it doesn't know why people aren't eating more veggies or fruits. Cohen said future surveys will ask people what other foods they are eating.

Susan Krause, a clinical dietitian at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, said people are eating more refined sugars or choosing protein instead of fruits and vegetables.

"There's so much information out there and people get very confused. When they're looking at protein, they feel that's the solution when they're not looking at long-term health benefits," she said. "There's so many fabricated foods now and people are looking at convenience."

Not only are fruits and vegetables lower in calories, they also have minerals and fiber that help guard against chronic diseases and cancer, the CDC says.

The survey relied on people to report what they were eating. Telephone questioners asked how often they consumed fruit juice, fruit and vegetables. Although Latinos ate the most fruits (37 percent) compared with blacks and whites, they ate the fewest vegetables, (about 20 percent). Whites, in contrast, ate the fewest fruits (31 percent) but the most vegetables (28 percent).

Cohen said the CDC has been working on family and community programs to get more people to eat vegetables. The agency is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get more fresh produce into schools.

Krause said health officials should offer people simple options for getting fruits and vegetables in their diets, such as easy recipes in cooking classes and fruit smoothies or shakes in schools.

"If that's a way of getting it in, at least it's in the right direction," she said. "Certainly (whole) fruit is a better choice, but that could be the next alternative."

Eat Your Veggies

• THE SURVEY: One-third of Americans eat fruit twice a day, and 27 percent eat vegetables three times a day, according to a government survey.

• THE GOAL: By 2010, U.S. health officials want 75 percent of Americans to eat two fruits a day and 50 percent to eat three vegetables a day.

• WHAT AMERICANS EAT INSTEAD: Future surveys will try to figure that out, but experts think it's mostly protein and convenient "fabricated foods."

 

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New Benefits Found in Cocoa

Besides being “heart healthy,” cocoa now appears to be brain healthy as well as beneficial for blood vessels, according to new research.

Consumption of a cocoa drink increases blood flow to the brain, according to a study conducted by Dr Ian Macdonald of the UK's Nottingham Medical School and presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He speculated that cocoa could be used to help treat brains with vascular impairment.

Consumption of cocoa without sugar improves the functioning of endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels and affect the arteries ability to relax and expand in order to accommodate increased blood flow. The effect, according to this study, conducted by Dr. Valentine Yanchou Njike at the Yale Prevention Research Center in Connecticut, and presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session in New Orleans, was about twice as strong compared to consuming cocoa with sugar, and four times as effective as a placebo.

 

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Dark Chocolate May Lighten the Load on Arteries

 

Publication Date:  03.25.07, 12:00 AM ET

Author:  

Source:  HealthDay News

Link:  http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2007/03/25/hscout602964.html

 

Delicious nibbles of dark chocolate may also boost the function of vital endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels, a new U.S. study suggests.

 Cocoa is rich in a group of antioxidant compounds called flavonoids, which are also found in fruits and vegetables, wine and green tea. Research suggests that consumption of foods rich in flavonoids may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Yale Prevention Research Center in Connecticut, included 45 healthy people with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 35 kg/m2. The participants were divided into three groups that ate either eight ounces of cocoa without sugar; cocoa with sugar; or a placebo.

 BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. A BMI reading of 25-29.9 is an indicator of overweight, while a reading of 30 or more indicates obesity.

For six weeks, the participants underwent endothelial function testing. This was done by using high frequency ultrasound to measure the ability of the brachial artery (which runs from the shoulder to the elbow) to relax and expand in order to accommodate increased blood flow -- a test called flow mediated dilation (FMD).

The study found that FMD improved significantly (2.4 percent) in the group that consumed cocoa with no sugar, compared with 1.5 percent in the group that ate cocoa with sugar. There was a 0.8 percent decrease in FMD in the group that ate the placebo.

"In this group of healthy adults with BMI between 25 and 35 kg/m2, dark chocolate ingestion over a short period of time was shown to significantly improve endothelial function, leading our team to believe that greater benefit may be seen through a long-term, randomized clinical trial," co-investigator Dr. Valentine Yanchou Njike said in a prepared statement.

"While the findings from this study do not suggest that people should start eating more chocolate as part of their daily routine, it does suggest that we pay more attention to how dark chocolate and other flavonoid-rich foods might offer cardiovascular benefits," Njike said.

 

Some Types Of Cocoa Could Improve Brain Function

 Publication Date:   19 Feb 2007 - 0:00 PST
Author:  
Source:  Medical News Today
Link:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=63368

A number of scientific studies suggest that some types of cocoa contain substances that could enhance blood flow in the brain and improve brain function.

An international panel of scientists presented their findings yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The session was titled "The Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind- Altering Experience?" It was sponsored by Mars Incorporated. The company has been sponsoring research on the nutritional and medical potential of cocoa's naturally occurring flavanols for the last 15 years.

The scientists suggested that a special cocoa could be made to retain the naturally occurring compounds known as flavanols to help keep the brain healthy and to prevent cognitive decline and dementia.

The Chief Science Officer at Mars Inc, Dr Harold H. Schmitz, said that many laboratories are coming to the same conclusion about flavanol-rich cocoa and its beneficial effects on health. He said the discoveries suggest that products containing "this cocoa could be developed to help maintain healthy brain function throughout several life stages. More research examining the potential of this cocoa in this important area of public health need is clearly warranted."

The scientists reported several studies where the flow of blood to the brain was observed in different groups of people after consuming a specially prepared cocoa rich in flavanol. The drink was supplied by Mars Inc.

Dr Ian Macdonald of the UK's Nottingham Medical School looked at changes in regional brain blood flow in participants who drank the flavanol-rich cocoa. He suggested that cocoa flavanols could be used to treate vascular impairments in the brain.

He said the study showed "that acute consumption of this particular flavanol-rich cocoa beverage was associated with increased blood flow to grey matter for 2 to 3 hours."

Dr Macdonald added that the food components like cocoa flavanols could be used to increase blood flow in the brain and enhance "brain function among older adults or for others in situations where they may be cognitively impaired, such as fatigue or sleep deprivation."

Another scientist from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, US, Dr Norman K. Hollenberg, presented the results of his work with the Kuna Indians of Panama. The Kuna drink a type of cocoa rich in flavanols on a daily basis and have unusually low blood pressure and rates of cardiovascular disease.

The study is published in the International Journal of Medical Sciences.

Dr Hollenberg and colleagues used death certificates from 2000 to 2004 to compare cause of death between the Kuna who live on the San Blas islands and those who live on mainland Panama. The Kuna who live on mainland Panama do not drink the flavanol-rich cocoa.

There were 77,375 deaths in mainland Panama and 558 on the islands. Only Kuna live on the San Blas islands.

They found that the island-dwelling Kuna had much lower rates of death due to diseases that cause death in much of the world. For instance on mainland Panama the rate of cardiovasculat disease (the leading cause of death) was 83.4 plus or minus 0.70 age-adjusted deaths per 100,000, compared to 9.2 plus or minus 3.1 for the San Blas dwellers.

The rates for cancer on the mainland was 68.4 plus or minus 1.6 compared with 4.4 plus or minus 4.4 on the islands. Similar contrasts were found for diabetes mellitus. Dr Hollenberg and colleagues concluded that the comparatively lower risk of death from these causes among the Kuna in the San Blas "possibly reflects a very high flavanol intake". But they also stressed that there "are many risk factors and an observational study cannot provide definitive evidence."

The panel of scientists suggested that these various independent observations of the effect on the blood vessels of drinking flavanol rich foods could be because of the increase in circulating nitric oxide, which helps the circulation by dilating blood vessels and keeping them pliable.

Dr Hollenberg also got healthy volunteers who were over 50 to drink flavanol-rich cocoa. He noticed a "striking blood flow response" emerging over several weeks.

"Since this cocoa preparation is so well tolerated, it raises hope that the brain blood flow response it stimulates can result in maintenance of healthy brain function and cognition, which is an issue that unfortunately plagues many older adults today," said Dr Hollenberg.

Most commercially available cocoa is low in flavanol because it imparts a bitter taste. That is why a special flavanol-rich version was used in the tests. Mars Inc are starting to market flavanol-rich versions of chocolate bars and cocoa. Other producers are also following suit.

Another scientist, Dr Henriette van Praag of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies reported on a study of the effect of a particular flavanol, Epichatechin, in mice. She said the compound influenced the hippocampus, a gland in the brain that affects memory.

When the flavanol was added to their food, she said the mice demonstrated improved skill in solving and remembering a maze compared to mice who did not consume the compound.

 

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ESP Lab Closes

Research in parapsychology received a blow with the closing of a prominent laboratory at Princeton University. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab was founded in 1979 by Robert Jahn, former dean of Princeton’s school of engineering and applied sciences. It was aerospace pioneer James McDonnell who funded the beginnings of this lab because he believed that pilot’s mental state affected the performance of aircraft machinery. In the years of its operation, the lab produced solid evidence, in a wide variety of contexts,  that mental events can affect physical events. The effects were small, but definite and repeatable, and some of the most respected among parapsychological researchers. Jahn said he was closing the lab because he had accomplished his purpose.

 

Click here for a copy of one of the published stories on the lab’s closing.

 

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Vegetarians are More Intelligent

Maybe fish is not the best brain food. Vegetables may be better. In a study of eight thousand volunteers over a period of twenty years, children at age 10 were tested for intelligence, and then at age 30 were interviewed to determine if they were vegetarian. It was found that adult vegetarians had an IQ as a child about five points higher than did their meat-eating counterparts. The study, conducted by Dr Catharine Gale of the University of Southampton, and published in the British Medical Journal, found that the higher the IQ of the volunteer at the time of childhood, the greater likelihood of that child growing up to be a vegetarian.

Comparing the IQs of the adults, the study found that it was the meat eating that seemed to be associated with lower IQ, because the IQ of strict vegetarians was identical to those semi-vegetarians who also ate fish and/or chicken. Adult vegans, however, who consume no dairy products, had an IQ as a child that was, on average, five points lower than the average.

 

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Vegetarians are more intelligent, says study

     Frequently dismissed as cranks, their fussy eating habits tend to make them unpopular with dinner party hosts and guests alike.

     But now it seems they may have the last laugh, with research showing vegetarians are more intelligent than their meat-eating friends.

     A study of thousands of men and women revealed that those who stick to a vegetarian diet have IQs that are around five points higher than those who regularly eat meat.

     Writing in the British Medical Journal, the researchers say it isn't clear why veggies are brainier - but admit the fruit and veg-rich vegetarian diet could somehow boost brain power.

     The researchers, from the University of Southampton, tracked the fortunes of more than 8,000 volunteers for 20 years.

     At the age of ten, the boys and girls sat a series of tests designed to determine their IQ.

     When they reached the age of 30, they were asked whether they were vegetarian and their answers compared to their childhood IQ score.

     Around four and a half per cent of the adults were vegetarian - a figure that is broadly in line with that found in the general population.

     However, further analysis of the results showed those who were brainiest as children were more likely to have become vegetarian as adults, shunning both meat and fish.

     The typical adult veggie had a childhood IQ of around 105 - around five points higher than those who continued to eat meat as they grew up.

     The vegetarians were also more likely to have gained degrees and hold down high-powered jobs.

     There was no difference in IQ between strict vegetarians and those who classed themselves as veggie but still ate fish or chicken.

     However, vegans - vegetarians who also avoid dairy products - scored significantly lower, averaging an IQ score of 95 at the age of 10.

     Researcher Dr Catharine Gale said there could be several explanations for the findings, including intelligent people being more likely to consider both animal welfare issues and the possible health benefits of a vegetarian diet.

     Previous work has shown that vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol, cutting their risk of heart attacks. They are also less likely to be obese.

     Alternatively, a diet which is rich in fruit, vegetables and wholegrains may somehow boost brain power.

     Dr Gale said: 'Although our results suggest that children who are more intelligent may be more likely to become vegetarian as adolescents or young adults, it does not rule out the possibility that such a diet might have some beneficial effect on subsequent cognitive performance.

     'Might the nature of the vegetarians' diet have enhanced their apparently superior brain power? Was this the mechanism that helped them achieve the disproportionate nature of degrees?'

     High-profile vegetarians include singers Paul McCartney and Morrissey and actress Jenny Seagrove.

     Past exponents of a meat-free lifestyle include George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Franklin.

     Promoting the cause, Shaw said, 'A mind of the calibre of mine cannot drive its nutriment from cows', while Franklin stated that a vegetarian diet resulted in 'greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension'.

     Liz O'Neill, of the Vegetarian Society, said: 'We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environment. Now, we've got the scientific evidence to prove it.

     'Maybe that explains why many meat-reducers are keen to call themselves vegetarians when even they must know that vegetarians don't eat chicken, turkey or fish!'

 

weblink:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23378331-details/Vegetarians+are+more+intelligent%2C+says+study/article.do

 

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Meditation Helps Movie Director

“The think about meditation is: You become more and more you.” Thus writes three time Oscar-nominated film director David Lynch in his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity (Tarcher/Penguin). Known for his unique moviemaking style, as in Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive. Lynch reports on his thirty some years of personal research into twice daily meditation and its effect on his creativity.

He writes, “I think intuition can be sharpened and expanded through meditation, diving into the Self. There’s an ocean of consciousness inside each of us, and it’s an ocean of solutions.” To catch the “big fish,” as he calls the important creative solutions, you have to “dive deep,” he says, and that is what meditation helps us do.

 

To order this book from amazon.com, click here!

 

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Buddhist Spirituality Helps Drug Rehabilitation

Spirituality and the recovery movement have always been intertwined. Recent research into the development of spirituality based therapeutic intervention strategies has resulted in a new approach based upon Buddhist principles, but applicable to people of most any persuasion. The approach considers addiction to be a complex set of thoughts, feelings and behaviors, called the “addict self.” The Buddhist meditation ideal of “mindfulness” is employed to help the recovering addict break the addict self patterns and adopt new patterns.

The therapy, termed “spiritual self-schema therapy” was developed jointly by the Yale University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. According to an account of this new therapy, described and reported in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, it is delivered via a printed manual that the client may follow, with encouragement and support by a trained therapist. In a preliminary study, the results indicated that the majority of those clients in recovery who attempted to follow the manual decided to continue with the process on their own after a six week training period.

 

See Reflections by Inner-City Drug Users on a Buddhist-Based Spirituality-

Focused Therapy: A Qualitative Study, by Mark Beitel, PhD, and Marla Genova, MA, Yale University School of Medicine, Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD, Harvard Medical School, Ruth Arnold, PhD, S. Kelly Avants, PhD, and Arthur Margolin, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2007, Vol. 77, No. 1, 1–9

 

Or try Googling…

 

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Animals Have Emotions

To the proposition that animals have feelings, and live emotional lives, critics respond by saying that such nonsense is an example of “anthropomorphism,” or the illusion created by projecting human experience onto animals. To answer that criticism, Marc Bekoff, a leading animal behavior expert, in his book The Emotional Lives of Animals (New World Library), argues that the criticism is purely formal, but has little practical value when it comes to understanding animal behavior. He writes, “Animal emotions and mood swings grab us and it is clear that they are real. Nonhuman animals are capable of suffering and they certainly endure horrible suffering at the hands of humans….. We must coexist with other animals. Animals have taught me about responsibility, compassion, caring and the value of deep friendships and interconnections.” That may be more than we learn from most humans.

 

To order this book from Amazon.com, click here!

 

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Brain Scans Know Your Intentions

Brain researchers are helping to bring about just what the movie Minority Report envisioned: the ability to determine if you are about to commit a crime, even before you’ve realized it yourself! Research in the use of functional magnetic imaging resonance to watch brain activity on a real-time basis has advanced to the point that scanning can detect a person’s intentions, according to a report of experiments conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany and reported in The Guardian.

In this preliminary research, researchers showed subjects two numbers on a screen. Prior to the appearance of the numbers, the subject was asked to either add the two numbers together, or subtract the smaller from the larger. Just prior to the appearance of the numbers, the brain scan could detect, in a certain brain region, specific activity that allowed the researchers to predict which action—adding or subtracting—the subjects would pursue.

The results have caused a debate about the ethics of brain scans. Having developed scanning methods that detect lying versus truth telling, this research may help detect potential terrorists. Or it could be abused. The researchers are now planning on learning how to tell the difference between an actual intention which will be acted upon and a mere passing thought which won’t.

 

Source:

 

The Brain Scan That Can Read People's Intentions

 Publication Date:  Friday February 9, 2007
Author:  IAN SAMPLE
Source:  The Guardian (U.K.)
Link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2009229,00.html

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.

The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.

"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University.

The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour and racial prejudice.

The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology. If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a "Minority Report" era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan.

"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be prepared," Professor Haynes told the Guardian.

The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to commit crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now, according to Prof Haynes. "We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it, we are also denying people who aren't going to commit any crime the possibility of proving their innocence."

During the study, the researchers asked volunteers to decide whether to add or subtract two numbers they were later shown on a screen.

Before the numbers flashed up, they were given a brain scan using a technique called functional magnetic imaging resonance. The researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person's intentions with 70% accuracy.

The study revealed signatures of activity in a marble-sized part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex that changed when a person intended to add the numbers or subtract them.

Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of what a person's brain activity looks like when they are thinking something to be able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are already devising ways of deducing what patterns are associated with different thoughts.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge University, said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced scientists in the field to set up their own neuroethics society late last year to consider the ramifications of their research.

"Do we want to become a 'Minority Report' society where we're preventing crimes that might not happen?," she asked. "For some of these techniques, it's just a matter of time. It is just another new technology that society has to come to terms with and use for the good, but we should discuss and debate it now because what we don't want is for it to leak into use in court willy nilly without people having thought about the consequences.

"A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we can't talk about reading individuals' minds, and right now that is very true, but we're moving ahead so rapidly, it's not going to be that long before we will be able to tell whether someone's making up a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty."

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist and director of the Medical Research Council, said: "We shouldn't go overboard about the power of these techniques at the moment, but what you can be absolutely sure of is that these will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to probe people's intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions.

"Some of that is extremely desirable, because it will help with diagnosis, education and so on, but we need to be thinking the ethical issues through. It adds a whole new gloss to personal medical data and how it might be used."

The technology could also drive advances in brain-controlled computers and machinery to boost the quality of life for disabled people. Being able to read thoughts as they arise in a person's mind could lead to computers that allow people to operate email and the internet using thought alone, and write with word processors that can predict which word or sentence you want to type . The technology is also expected to lead to improvements in thought-controlled wheelchairs and artificial limbs that respond when a person imagines moving.

"You can imagine how tedious it is if you want to write a letter by using a cursor to pick out letters on a screen," said Prof Haynes. "It would be much better if you thought, 'I want to reply to this email', or, 'I'm thinking this word', and the computer can read that and understand what you want to do."

· FAQ: Mind reading

What have the scientists developed?

They have devised a system that analyses brain activity to work out a person's intentions before they have acted on them. More advanced versions may be able to read complex thoughts and even pick them up before the person is conscious of them.

How does it work?

The computer learns unique patterns of brain activity or signatures that correspond to different thoughts. It then scans the brain to look for these signatures and predicts what the person is thinking.

How could it be used?

It is expected to drive advances in brain-controlled computers, leading to artificial limbs and machinery that respond to thoughts. More advanced versions could be used to help interrogate criminals and assess prisoners before they are released. Controversially, they may be able to spot people who plan to commit crimes before they break the law.

What is next?

The researchers are honing the technique to distinguish between passing thoughts and genuine intentions.

 

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Christian Movement Endorses Evolution

"For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science," says Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "We're saying you can have your faith, and you can also have science."

Zimmerman and his backers believe, according to a report appearing in the journal New Scientist, that the Biblical account of creation is allegorical. One Sunday in February has been designated as the annual “Evolution Sunday.” In the U.S., 467 congregations celebrated this event the first year, and 530 congregations the second year Over ten thousand Christian clergy from around the world signed the original letter initiating Evolution Sunday. Besides the U.S., congregations from Australia, the UK, Canada and Nigeria are also participating.

 

Source:

 

Christian Faith in the Other Good Book

 Publication Date:  12:56 10 February 2007
Author:  
Source:  New Scientist (U.K.)
Link:  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11145-christian-faith-in-the-iotheri-good-book.html

Flocks of the Christian faithful in the US will this Sunday hold special services celebrating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The idea is to stand up to creationism, which claims the biblical account of creation is literally true, and which is increasingly being promoted under the guise of "intelligent design". Proponents of ID say the universe is so complex it must have been created by some unnamed designer.

Support for "Evolution Sunday" has grown 13 per cent to 530 congregations this year, from the 467 that celebrated the inaugural event last year. Organisers see it as increasing proof that Christians are comfortable with evolution.

"For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science," says Michael Zimmerman, founder of Evolution Sunday and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. "We're saying you can have your faith, and you can also have science."

Zimmerman and his backers believe the biblical account of creation is allegorical. "Creationists fear that if you believe evolution, you're an atheist," he says. But for Zimmerman, attempts to try and "ratify God's existence" through intelligent design signify lack of faith. "If you have enough faith, you don't need science to prove God exists, and science can't prove this anyway," he says.

The event arose from the Clergy Letter Project, a pro-evolution letter signed in 2004 by 10,500 Christian clergy. It is spreading internationally, and this year will also be celebrated in Australia, the UK, Canada and Nigeria. Seven publishers are donating material for the services.

 

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Our Intuition Anticipates Changes

How did the animals and the indigenous natives escape that devastating tsunami that killed so many people? Researchers believe there must be some special capacity to detect subtle changes in the environment that serve as warning clues. To explore this idea, Canadian Ronald Rensink, Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Psychology at the University of British Columbia, created a special experiment. Subjects viewed nature scenes on a computer monitor. The researchers presented the scene, according to the published account of this experiment that appeared in Psychological Science, as a series of quickly flashing identical frames. For some scenes, the experimenter placed in the middle of the sequence a very slightly modified version of the repeated frame. The frames flashed so quickly that it was almost impossible to detect those scenes that included a modified frame. Nevertheless, subjects were instructed to press a button whenever they noticed a flicker from the slight change in the scene. Not only were subjects able to perform this task, but the results indicated that they would press the button microseconds before that modified frame appeared, demonstrating some form of advance “knowing” that the modified frame was about to appear.

Earlier in Psi Research, a similar experiment was reported, where varying pictures were flashed onto the screen. Most of the pictures were pleasant to look at, but a few were emotionally upsetting. In this research, conducted by Dean Radin of the Institute for Noetic Science, the subjects physical reaction to the pictures was recorded. The results demonstrated that the subject’s body anticipated the negative picture before it appeared, whereas the subject had no conscious realization of this effect. Radin called this effect “presentifment.” The newer research indicates that such intuitive anticipation does not require that something bad be coming along, merely something that elicits special arousal.

 

Source:

 

Intuition: The Sense That Defies The Physical

Is Intuition the sixth-sense or merely hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli?

By Leonardo Vintiñi

Epoch Times Argentina Staff

"The only real valuable thing is intuition." — Albert Einstein

"Happy; angry; happy… definitely happy". With an apparatus monitoring the brain and after two cerebral haemorrhages which left the visual processing centre of the brain seriously damaged, "Patient X", at 52 years of age, did not seem to be guessing faces at random.

Though blind, he was being shown photographs of faces expressing fear, happiness, and other emotions, and correctly "perceiving" them at a percentage much higher than would be expected by pure chance. Is this a means of 'sight' that lies outside of regular vision? A mode of receptivity yet to be recognised?

In particular, Dr Alan Pegna from the University of New South Wales in Australia and his investigation team in Geneva, Switzerland, were amazed at the results of this study. The brain of Patient X during the scan showed marked activity in the right amigdala, which gave a reading identical to that made by a person with an undamaged brain engaged in the same activity.

For many neuroscientists, the recent experience with X suggests an exciting possibility—of adding one more sense to the five thus far known. For others, it is no more than science's prelude to investigating the already well-known capacity of intuition.

Though having been met with little scientific recognition over the last century, the idea of the existence of intuition has gained momentum in the field of neurophysiology over recent years. This supposed capacity of "knowing" things that have not yet happened, far-away events, or imminent changes in the immediate environment, has been well known by basically all native peoples across the world for millennia—despite its long-held rejection by skeptical scientific circles.

"The sea has brought up hundreds of human bodies, but there is not a single dead elephant. Nor is there to be found even one cat or hare (…) it is very strange that no animal deaths have been registered." These declarations made after the Asian tsunami in 2004 by a Sri Lankan government official seem to raise some interesting questions.

Notably, do animals have the capacity to sense, by one way or another, imminent danger? How did they escape the tsunami? Only minutes before the sea surged forth, tearing up three and a half kilometers of solid earth, the animal life fled desperately toward the high areas of the island.

At the same time the native tribes in the region, with their sixty thousand years of contact with the natural environment, emulated the animals' behavior, also fleeing to higher grounds. The result was that practically all of the native inhabitants survived the waters' harsh treatment.

But how did they perceive, the indigenous peoples and the animals, the imminent threat? Is it reasonable to posit, or perhaps even to assert, intuition? But how does this enigmatic biological mechanism work?

This is surely not as easy to answer as it is to ask. According to the conjecture of investigators, the native people of the island have, over the years, unconsciously learnt some important lessons. For example, they felt the resonance of the footsteps of the wild elephants as they rushed towards the interior of the island, and also took note of the strange behavior of the dolphins and iguanas, and the wild revolt of the birds. In this way they effectively managed to perceive what our sophisticated radars, which were not functioning on the date of the tsunami, could not.

According to an article in the popular publication "Science", investigators from Washington University, St. Louis, say that the indigenous peoples' key to anticipation lies in an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate, which becomes active in situations of environmental change imperceptible to the conscious mind, but which are, however, necessary for the survival of the individual.

How the animals intuited the danger in the first place may be more difficult to answer. Debbie Martyr, dedicated to animal conservation programs on the island of Sumatra (one of the islands most affected by the tsunami) gives her opinion that "There would have been vibration and there may also have been changes in the air pressure which will have alerted animals and made them move to wherever they felt safer", and she "Wild animals in particular are extremely sensitive… They've got extremely good hearing and they will probably have heard this flood coming in the distance." This may represent strong evidence for the sensibility of wild species to practically imperceptible stimulus.

However, many scientists think, in this case as well as with Patient X, that there must exist a different method through which life-forms may perceive their environment; different to sounds, vibrations, smells, images or taste. It is documented that birds and other animals abandon the area before a volcanic eruption. In the same way, Chinese biologists have made studies that determine that several minutes before an earthquake, the cats, dogs and other domestic species in the area become quite agitated, and in some cases even howl, bark and meow uncontrollably. The investigators describe that during these episodes, snakes abandon their holes, birds flutter in their cages, and rats run around frantically.

The Dormant Capacity

The initial experiment was simple: forty volunteers and one pair of photographers per test. The director of the experiment, Canadian Ronald Rensink, Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Psychology at the University of British Columbia, set out to describe the causes of car accidents in cases where the driver who caused the collision did not see the car he crashed into. The study was published in the journal "Psychological Science."

Initially the volunteers were shown a photo of a road, which refreshed periodically with an identical image. At a random moment during an image refresh, a change to the image was made—items removed, altered or added, for example—these alterations, even when large, were often found to be difficult to perceive.

The test required that the subjects press a buzzer at the moment they noticed the change in the sequence of images. A big surprise to the experiment came when a few of the volunteers asked Rensink if they had to press the buzzer only when they actually saw the change, or if they could press it at the moment they intuited that it was going to come.

The investigation then changed drastically, and Rensink noticed that not only did the majority of the volunteers realize at the exact moment that the change was made, but that one third of them were buzzing immediately before.

These studies seem to demonstrate that intuition could well be an unconscious way of detecting infinitesimal changes in the environment, a capacity to perceive stimuli impossible to detect with our scientific technology. Either that, or it is both an astonishing and useful latent sixth sense, which has slept through years of human technological evolution.

Observing in an experiment that when we do not think too much with the conscious mind on difficult decisions, but take a break, step back and "sleep on it", the results always turn out better, the investigator Ap Dijksterhuis from the University of Amsterdam in Holland concluded that "At some point in our evolution, we started to make decisions consciously, and we're not very good at it. We should learn to let our unconscious handle the complicated things."

 

weblink:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/HP_Administrator/My%20Documents/Psi%20Research2/Epoch%20times%20on%20Intuition.htm

 

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Composers Dream in Music

Many composers have written about their sources of inspiration, including meditation, auditory visions, and other intuitional sources. A recent study indicates that dreams are also a frequent source of inspiration. When composers were asked about hearing music in their dreams, in a study conducted at the University of Florence Sleep Lab and reported in Psychology Today, the results indicated that more than one-forth of the dreams in which the composer heard music, it was unfamiliar music not heard before by that composer.

The frequency with which a composer heard music in dreams was positively related to how young the composer was when first beginning the practice of music.

 

Source: Psychology Today, January/February, 2007.

Psychologytoday.com