Coffee, Green Tea, May Help Lower Stroke Risk, Research Shows

This is a story that’s been bouncing around the past few days…

The geeks and nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com put us in the picture.

Green tea and coffee may help lower your risk of having a stroke, especially when both are a regular part of your diet, according to research published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“This is the first large-scale study to examine the combined effects of both green tea and coffee on stroke risks,” said Yoshihiro Kokubo, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.H.A., F.A.C.C., F.E.S.C., lead author of the study at Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center. “You may make a small but positive lifestyle change to help lower the risk of stroke by adding daily green tea to your diet.”

Researchers asked 83,269 Japanese adults about their green tea and coffee drinking habits, following them for an average 13 years. They found that the more green tea or coffee people drink, the lower their stroke risks.

• People who drank at least one cup of coffee daily had about a 20 percent lower risk of stroke compared to those who rarely drank it.
• People who drank two to three cups of green tea daily had a 14 percent lower risk of stroke and those who had at least four cups had a 20 percent lower risk, compared to those who rarely drank it.
• People who drank at least one cup of coffee or two cups of green tea daily had a 32 percent lower risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, compared to those who rarely drank either beverage. (Intracerebral hemorrhage happens when a blood vessel bursts and bleeds inside the brain. About 13 percent of strokes are hemorrhagic.)

Participants in the study were 45 to 74 years old, almost evenly divided in gender, and were free from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

During the 13-years of follow-up, researchers reviewed participants’ hospital medical records and death certificates, collecting data about heart disease, strokes and causes of death. They adjusted their findings to account for age, sex and lifestyle factors like smoking, alcohol, weight, diet and exercise.

Green tea drinkers in the study were more likely to exercise compared to non-drinkers.

Previous limited research has shown green tea’s link to lower death risks from heart disease, but has only touched on its association with lower stroke risks. Other studies have shown inconsistent connections between coffee and stroke risks.

Initial study results showed that drinking more than two cups of coffee daily was linked to increasing coronary heart disease rates in age- and sex-adjusted analysis. But researchers didn’t find the association after factoring in the effects of cigarette smoking — underscoring smoking’s negative health impact on heart and stroke health.

A typical cup of coffee or tea in Japan was approximately six ounces. “However, our self-reported data may be reasonably accurate, because nationwide annual health screenings produced similar results, and our validation study showed relatively high validity.” Kokubo said. “The regular action of drinking tea, coffee, largely benefits cardiovascular health because it partly keeps blood clots from forming.”

Tea and coffee are the most popular drinks in the world after water, suggesting that these results may apply in America and other countries.

It’s unclear how green tea affects stroke risks. A compound group known as catechins may provide some protection. Catechins have an antioxidant anti-inflammatory effect, increasing plasma antioxidant capacity and anti-thrombogenic effects.

Some chemicals in coffee include chlorogenic acid, thus cutting stroke risks by lowering the chances of developing type 2 diabetes.

Further research could clarify how the interaction between coffee and green tea might help further lower stroke risks, Kokubo said.

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Co-authors are: Isao Saito, M.D., Ph.D.; Kazumasa Yamagishi, M.D., Ph.D.; Hiroshi Yatsuya, M.D., Ph.D.; Junko Ishihara, Ph.D.; Manami Inoue, M.D., Ph.D.; and Shoichiro Tsugane, M.D., Ph.D.

The study was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Cancer Research and the Third-Term Comprehensive Ten-Year Strategy for Cancer Control from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan.

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When Sexual Thoughts Make You Sneeze Uncontrollably

Thanks to the geeks and nerdlings over at United Academics Magazine for this one!

It seems that sex isn’t that fun for all of us. Some men, for example, suffer terrible headaches during and after orgasm that may last for several hours or even a few days. In addition, there are women who are persistently in a state of sexual arousal and as a consequence may have hundreds of orgasms a day, making a normal life impossible.

Maybe less severe but definitely embarrassing is the condition in which sex triggers uncontrollable fits of sneezing. And this may happen not only when experiencing an orgasm, but also whenever someone just thinks about sex.

Researchers who investigated the link are not yet sure why sex and sneezing are linked in some people, but they suspect it is due to a faulty connection in the autonomic nervous system that controls both the sneeze reflex and sexual responses. This mechanism may also account for other reported unusual causes of sneezing, such as exposure to bright light (aka photogenic sneezing).

Although there are few reported cases of the sneeze reflex in response to sexual thoughts and orgasm, the researchers believe the bizarre phenomenon may be more common than expected. Possibly people are embarrassed and don’t want to talk about it, they argue.

“Further investigation in this field may help us to understand the sneeze reflex in more depth, and also allow us to give explanation and reassurance to the possibly significant number of people affected by this curious phenomenon,” the researchers wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

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Jamie Oliver’s Simple Summer Spaghetti

Saw this over at Jamie Oliver’s website. Sounds wonderful, especially on hot days when you don’t feel like doing a lot of cooking.

A really simple, quick and amazingly tasty pasta dish which always hits the spot and will impress your mates. Try baking some fish filets over the herby tomatoes… it’s fantastic.

 (© David Loftus)

Ingredients

• 500g mixed red and yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
• 150g good black olives, stoned
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• a bunch of fresh lemon basil, leaves picked
• a bunch of fresh marjoram, leaves picked
• 10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 400g spaghetti or linguine
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

In a large bowl, scrunch the tomatoes with your hands to slightly mush them. Mix in the olives, garlic and vinegar. Tear in the basil and marjoram leaves and pour in the olive oil. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Cook your pasta in salted boiling water according to the packet instructions until al dente. Drain and quickly toss in with the tomatoes. Call your guests around the table, then taste the juice at the bottom of the bowl and adjust the seasoning if you feel it needs it. Serve right away.

Stay cool!

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Babies Healthier When There’s a Dog at Home!

I love this article which I read at United-Academics.org.

Babies are healthier when there is a dog at home.

Why? Simple!

Germs!!

New research published in Pediatrics suggests that children living with a dog are significantly healthier than those living without it. The researchers followed up 397 Finnish children, asking their parents to fill in weekly questionnaires about their health until they were 1 year old. Scientists believe that this is so because dog contact helps the babies build up their immune system.

The results showed that children with a dog at home were healthy for about 73% of the time, while the percentage on children without a dog was of 65%. According to the study, the former ‘had fewer respiratory tract symptoms or infections’, as well as ‘less frequent otitis and tended to need fewer courses of antibiotics’ than those without dog contacts, according to Eija Bergroth, the study’s lead author and a pediatrician affiliated with Kuopio University Hospital in Kuopio, Finland.

Moreover, when dogs spent most of their time outside the home, the babies were healthier.

Why? Simple!

Dogs that spend a lot of time outside are likely to bring more dirt and bacteria inside the home compared with dogs that spend more time indoors. Researchers believe that exposure to dirt and bacteria builds up babies’ immune systems.

The study emphasizes the benefits of exposure to animals, at least when it comes to the so-called ‘man’s best friend’. The researchers also analyzed cat contacts, but it seems that the influence of cats on the baby’s health was weaker.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal, Medical Xpress

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Why I Miss The South (Part 2): Extreme Food

Whether it’s Deep-Fried Twinkies…

Bacon Cheeseburgers with Krispy Kreme Donut Buns…

Or Turtle Burgers…

One of the things I miss most about The South is the penchant for extreme food.

This is not to say that all or even most people in The South partake in such culinary excesses. But there is a weird ‘Hey, y’all! Watch this!’ kind of dread fascination with extreme food – a sort of ‘Yew cain’t make this shit up!’ world view that lets you watch it out of a bizarre curiosity.

(The Schnitzel Tower Sandwich!)

How about this… a quadruple-cutlet hash brown sandwich with bacon and cheese: 1 veal, 1 pork and 2 chicken schnitzels (fried breaded cutlets), layered with 4 hash browns, 10 rashers of bacon and mozzarella. I can almost feel my heart valves slamming shut now!

(They call it… The Double-Wide!)

Or this… Chicken fried steak, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, sandwiched between two bacon waffles. Affectionately known as The Double-Wide, the name (like the sandwich) operates on many levels. Is it merely descriptive of the sandwich? Or is it a reference to the famous double-wide trailers popular in The South?

Or is it taking a poke at the kind of person who might order something like this Fourth of July Fireworks Burger?

(Hopefully, this isn’t the result of someone who exploded after eating one of the above dishes)

No matter how you slice it… it’s The South!

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Special thanks to CaveManCircus.com for some of the food ideas and photos.

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The Internet Lowers Self-Esteem in Teen Girls

As set out in a recent article in MedicalDaily.com website, girls who spend more time updating pictures, chatting and surfing the internet are more likely to suffer from negative body image and low self-esteem, says a new study.

Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 girls between the ages of 12 and 16 as part of the The NetGirls Project. They found that 40 percent of girls thought their bodies weren’t good enough and that they were scared about gaining weight.

The study also showed that 96 percent of girls said that they had access to some form of internet connection at home and of these girls, 72 percent said that they uploaded pictures of themselves on the internet.

On an average, girls spend about 3.5 hours on the internet and particularly on sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Just about 30 percent of the girls said that their parents set rules about internet use at home.

“We set out to investigate the role of media in adolescent girls’ self-image. We were interested to find out how adolescent girls were spending their free time and how different activities related to how they felt about themselves and their bodies. Our findings demonstrate a worrying correlation between excessive media use, particularly social media and the internet, and lower self-esteem, body-esteem and sense of identity and higher depression,” said Dr Amy Slater from the School of Psychology at Flinders University, Australia.

Television and magazines are often regarded as factors that influence girls to be thinner .There are hundreds of studies that draw conclusions between media like television and magazines with poor self-esteem or body image.

Researchers of the present study will also be presenting analysis of 600 advertisements in social media directed at young girls, according to a news release.

“A content analysis of adverts found on sites that appeal to adolescent girls showed likely exposure to those reinforcing the importance of beauty and thinness,” Dr Slater explains

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The study was presented at the Appearance Matters 5 conference and should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

(Photo: REUTERS/Michael Dalder)

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I’m Sorry… What’s Your Name Again?

I have memory problems. Specifically, I have a problem remembering people’s names.

Which is why this article at ScienceDaily.com caught my eye.

The article begins, “Most of us have experienced it. You are introduced to someone, only to forget his or her name within seconds. You rack your brain trying to remember, but can’t seem to even come up with the first letter. Then you get frustrated and think, “Why is it so hard for me to remember names?”

All these years, I presumed I had a faulty or weak memory. I was relieved to find that this may not be the case at all.

It appears that lack of interest, not the brain’s ability (or lack thereof) may be why we forget!

According to Kansas State University’s Richard Harris, professor of psychology, it’s not necessarily your brain’s ability that determines how well you can remember names, but rather your level of interest.

“Some people, perhaps those who are more socially aware, are just more interested in people, more interested in relationships,” Harris said. “They would be more motivated to remember somebody’s name.”

This goes for people in professions like politics or teaching where knowing names is beneficial. But just because someone can’t remember names doesn’t mean they have a bad memory.

“Almost everybody has a very good memory for something,” Harris said.

The key to a good memory is your level of interest, he said. The more interest you show in a topic, the more likely it will imprint itself on your brain. If it is a topic you enjoy, then it will not seem like you are using your memory.

This explains a lot, really, since I generally find most people singularly uninteresting.

It’s not that other people are somehow unimportant or that their lives and problems are invalid. It’s just that they don’t interest me, usually. There are exceptions, of course. Rare ones.

The general rule, however, is that most people I meet are a dusk-to-dawn snooze-a-thon.

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City Kids More Likely to Have Food Allergies

I was born and grew up in a small city. [1]

I suppose it was suburban. It’s probably a stretch to call it urban metropolitan living.

My city was/is located in the middle of what was then a sprawling agricultural area, so even while I myself grew up on pavement and asphalt, it was an island of concrete in a sea of strawberries, cherries, peaches and grapes.

As far as I could tell, everyone of my generation loved peanut butter. We couldn’t get enough of it. Everyone liked eggs. Everyone drank milk and lots of it.

(What happened to the Mr Peanut we knew and loved?)

I thought about this as a was reading an article at ScienceDaily.com reporting on a study that found that city kids are more likely to have food allergies than rural children and that population density is a key factor.

Children living in urban centers have a much higher prevalence of food allergies than those living in rural areas, according to a new study, which is the first to map children’s food allergies by geographical location in the United States. In particular, kids in big cities are more than twice as likely to have peanut and shellfish allergies compared to rural communities. [2]

Here are the key findings of the study:

• In urban centers, 9.8 percent of children have food allergies, compared to 6.2 percent in rural communities, almost a 3.5 percent difference.
• Peanut allergies are twice as prevalent in urban centers as in rural communities, with 2.8 percent of children having the allergy in urban centers compared to 1.3 percent in rural communities. Shellfish allergies are more than double the prevalence in urban versus rural areas; 2.4 percent of children have shellfish allergies in urban centers compared to 0.8 percent in rural communities.
• Food allergies are equally severe regardless of where a child lives, the study found. Nearly 40 percent of food-allergic children in the study had already experienced a severe, life-threatening reaction to food.
• The states with the highest overall prevalence of food allergies are Nevada, Florida, Georgia, Alaska, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

When I was in grade school, I don’t recall any of my friends or indeed anyone I knew suffering or dying from food allergies. Did they all die before making it to kindergarten?

In high school, my dear friend Jo McB (and, for all I know, the entire McB clan) had food allergies but I didn’t know it. It just wasn’t on the radar.

Nowadays, it seems like every other kid is allergic to some food or another.

Not sure if it was an urban legend but I recall hearing a story from one city (let’s say it was New York) where it was discovered that one child on a school bus had a peanut butter sandwich. They halted the bus and practically brought in a hazmat team to dispose of the toxic substance.

(The sandwich is secure and has been neutralized)

Sadly, the study, while showing urban living is a key factor in food allergies, doesn’t yet show us why. Further research is required.

Food allergy is a serious and growing health problem. An estimated 5.9 million children under age 18, or one out of every 13 children, now have a potentially life-threatening food allergy, according to 2011 research by Gupta. A severe allergic reaction that can lead to death includes a drop in blood pressure, trouble breathing and swelling of the throat. A food-allergic reaction sends an American to the emergency room every three minutes, according to a March 2011 study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

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[1] About 40,000 at the time. Around 50,000 now

[2] The study will be published in the July issue of Clinical Pediatrics. The study controlled for household income, race, ethnicity, gender and age. It tracked food allergy prevalence in urban centers, metropolitan cities, urban outskirts, suburban areas, small towns and rural areas.

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Neuroscientists Show How Brain Responds to Sensual Caress

Uh huh…

Neuroscientists Show How Brain Responds to Sensual Caress

I can almost hear those little geeks and nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com giggling over this one.

Try to imagine the grant application for this little bit of research!

(Neuroscientist hard at work on caress response research)

Okay, here it goes…

“A nuzzle of the neck, a stroke of the wrist, a brush of the knee – these caresses often signal a loving touch, but can also feel highly aversive, depending on who is delivering the touch, and to whom. Interested in how the brain makes connections between touch and emotion, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the association begins in the brain’s primary somatosensory cortex, a region that, until now, was thought only to respond to basic touch, not to its emotional quality.

The new finding is described in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“The team measured brain activation while self-identified heterosexual male subjects lay in a functional MRI scanner and were each caressed on the leg under two different conditions. In the first condition, they saw a video of an attractive female bending down to caress them; in the second, they saw a video of a masculine man doing the same thing. The men reported the experience as pleasurable when they thought the touch came from the woman, and aversive when they thought it came from the man. And their brains backed them up: this difference in experience was reflected in the activity measured in each man’s primary somatosensory cortex.”

Alright, alright. That’s quite enough, gentlemen, thank you very much.

Straight guys like being touched by girls and don’t like to be touched by other guys. Thanks for the big breakthrough.

Now get your smutty little overdeveloped minds back to work on synaptic gaps or cerebral cortices or whatever it is that you guys do when you’re not trying to swindle money to pay for your grope sessions!

Honestly! Some people.

I mean really!!

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Read the full ScienceDaily.com article here!

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A Chocolate a Day Keeps the Doctor Away??

Judge my surprise when I check out what the nerdlings over at ScienceDaily.com reported!

Dark Chocolate Could Prevent Heart Problems in High-Risk People

Now I am not myself a chocoholic. I can take or leave it, really.

I like it well enough, I suppose but I am not the kind of person who sits around craving it. I can have a tub of chocolate ice cream in my freezer for weeks or even months and not even think of it.

Others, however, will no doubt look at this new development as a licence to scarf down as many chockies as they can!

It behooves cooler heads to look into the details of this remarkable claim.

(Cocoa is rich in flavonoids—the same heart-healthy compounds found in red wine and green tea)

“Daily consumption of dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes), finds a study published in the British Medical Journal.”

So far, so good!

The article continues, “Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Dark chocolate (containing at least 60% cocoa solids) is rich in flavonoids — known to have heart protecting effects — but this has only been examined in short-term studies. So a team of researchers from Melbourne, Australia used a mathematical model to predict the long-term health effects and cost effectiveness of daily dark chocolate consumption in 2,013 people already at high risk of heart disease.”

Aha! The Aussies are on to something, are they? Do tell!

(Dark chocolate containing 100 milligrams of flavonoids relaxes blood vessels, improving blood flow to the heart)

“With 100% compliance (best case scenario), the researchers show that daily dark chocolate consumption could potentially avert 70 non-fatal and 15 fatal cardiovascular events per 10,000 people treated over 10 years.
Even when compliance levels were reduced to 80%, the number of non-fatal and fatal events potentially averted was 55 and 10 per 10,000 people treated over 10 years, and could still be considered an effective intervention strategy.”

The authors stress that only non-fatal stroke and non-fatal heart attack were assessed in their analysis, and that the potential effects on other cardiovascular events, such as heart failure, are yet to be tested.

Also important, they say, is that these protective effects have only been shown for dark chocolate (at least 60-70% cocoa), rather than for milk or white chocolate, probably due to the higher levels of flavonoids found in dark chocolate.

Nevertheless, they conclude that the blood pressure and cholesterol lowering effects of plain dark chocolate “could represent an effective and cost-effective strategy for people with metabolic syndrome (and no diabetes).”

Well, there you have it folks. Don’t bother stocking up (and stuffing up) on those lovely milk chocolate bars. They won’t do the trick, I’m afraid.

Excellent work from down under. Well done. Chalk another one up to good science and research.

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