Staring at screens all day linked to changes in eye secretions
A broker monitors share prices while trading at a brokerage firm in Mumbai May 13, 2014. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/Files
Jun 16, 2014
By Kathryn Doyle
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Office workers who spend long hours looking at computer screens have changes in their tear fluid similar to people with the disease known as dry eye, according to a study from Japan.
The protein MUC5AC, secreted by cells in the upper eyelid, makes up part of the normally occurring mucus layer, or “tear film,” that keeps the eye moist. But study participants with the most screen time had MUC5AC levels nearing those of people with diagnosed dry eye.
“To understand patients’ eye strain, which is one of major symptoms of dry eye disease, it is important that ophthalmologist pay attention to MUC5AC concentration in tears,” said Dr. Yuichi Uchino, an author of the new study.
Uchino is an ophthalmologist at the School of Medicine at Keio University in Tokyo.
“When we stare at computers, our blinking times decreased compared to reading a book at the table,” he told Reuters Health by email.
People staring at screens also tend to open their eyelids wider than while doing other tasks, and the extra exposed surface area in addition to infrequent blinking can accelerate tear evaporation and is associated with dry eye disease, he said.
Dry eye may be chronic for some but can be managed with over the counter or prescription eye drops.
Past research suggests that up to 5 million men and women over age 50 in the United States suffer from dry eye disease, the researchers write in their report. In Japan, tens of millions of people report some dry eye symptoms, often associated with computer work, they add.
The study team tested the tears from both eyes of 96 Japanese office workers, about two-thirds of them men, and measured how much of the total protein content of the tears was MUC5AC.
The Economics Of Marriage
by Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse Blog
May 7, 2014
The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. So why is this happening? Well, the truth is that there are a lot of reasons why so many young people are choosing not to get married today. One big reason is money. Young adults in the U.S. are really struggling to find good jobs, and many are hesitant to take a big step like marriage without achieving a certain level of financial security first. And as you will see below, many young adults (especially women) do not even want to date someone that is not employed. In this harsh economic environment, money makes a big difference in the world of romance. Another big reason for the decline of marriage in America is a seismic shift in cultural attitudes. Americans (especially young people) do not place the same kind of importance on marriage and having children that they once did. Instead, more Americans are choosing to “move in together” than ever before. But if the percentage of Americans that choose to get married continues to decline, what is that going to mean for our future, and what is our country going to look like moving forward?
According to a startling new study conducted at Bowling Green University, the marriage rate in America has fallen precipitously over the past 100 years.
In 1920, there were 92.3 marriages for every 1,000 unmarried women. In 2012, there were only 31.1 marriages for every 1,000 unmarried women.
That is not just a new all-time low, that is a colossal demographic earthquake.
That same study found that the marriage rate has fallen by an astounding 60 percent since 1970 alone.
As a result, U.S. households look far different today than they once did.
Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the U.S. contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.
That is a very troubling sign if you consider the family to be one of the fundamental building blocks of society.
When young people are asked why they are delaying marriage today, one of the things that always seems to get brought up is money. There is a feeling (especially among men) that you should achieve a certain level of financial security before making the big plunge.
And it is a fact that the more money you have, the more likely you are to be married. Just check out the following stats about income and marriage from a recent Business Insider article…
83% of 30- to 50-year-old men in the top 10% of annual earnings are married today, whereas only 64% of median earners and half of those in the bottom 25th percentile are hitched.
Now, compare that to men in 1970, whose marriage rates were 95% (top earners), 91% (median earners), and 60% (bottom 25th percentile of earners), respectively.
A lot of people like to think that “love is the only thing that matters” when it comes to marriage, but the cold, hard numbers tell a different story. In fact, one very shocking survey discovered that 75 percent of all American women would have a problem even dating an unemployed man…
Of the 925 single women surveyed, 75 percent said they’d have a problem with dating someone without a job. Only 4 percent of respondents asked whether they would go out with an unemployed man answered “of course.”
“Not having a job will definitely make it harder for men to date someone they don’t already know,” Irene LaCota, a spokesperson for It’s Just Lunch, said in a press release. “This is the rare area, compared to other topics we’ve done surveys on, where women’s old-fashioned beliefs about sex roles seem to apply.”
Unfortunately for American men, there simply are not enough good jobs to go around. In fact, the number of working age Americans without a job has increased by 27 million since the year 2000, and businesses in the U.S. are being destroyed faster than they are being created.
Due to a lack of economic opportunities, a rising percentage of our young people have been giving up on the “real world” and have been moving back in with Mom and Dad. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “29 Percent Of All U.S. Adults Under The Age Of 35 Are Living With Their Parents“. And when you break down the numbers, you find that young men are almost twice as likely to move back in with their parents as young women are.
But economic factors alone certainly do not account for the tremendous decline in the marriage rate that we have witnessed in this country. Shifting cultural attitudes also play a huge role.
A whole host of opinion polls and surveys show that Americans simply do not value marriage and having children as much as they once did. For example, the Pew Research Center has found that the younger you are, the more likely you are to believe that “marriage is becoming obsolete” and that “children don’t need a mother and a father to grow up happily”.
In fact, an astounding 44 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket now believe that “marriage is becoming obsolete”.
And why should they get married? Our movies and television shows constantly tell them that they can have the benefits of being married without ever having to make a lifelong commitment.
This sounds particularly good to men, since they can run around and have sex with lots of different women without ever having to “settle down”.
But there are most definitely consequences for this behavior. The “sexual revolution” has left behind countless broken hearts, shattered dreams, unintended pregnancies and devastated families.
In addition, the U.S. has become a world leader when it comes to sexually-transmitted disease.
It is hard to believe this number, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approximately one-third of the entire population of the United States (110 million people) currently has a sexually transmitted disease.
So nobody should claim that the “sexual revolution” has not had any consequences.
But most Americans don’t actually run around and sleep with lots of different people at the same time. Instead, most Americans seem to have adopted a form of “serial monogamy“.
In America today, most people only sleep with one person at a time, and “living together” is being called “the new marriage”.
According to the CDC, 74 percent of all 30-year-old women in the U.S. say that they have cohabitated with a romantic partner without being married to them, and it has been estimated that 65 percent of all couples that get married in the United States live together first.
Many believe that by “trying out” the other person first that it will give them a much better chance of making marriage work if they eventually do choose to go down that path. Unfortunately, that does not seem to work out very well in practice. In fact, the divorce rate for couples that live together first is significantly higher than for those that do not.
And when it comes to divorce, America is the king.
For years, the U.S. has had the highest divorce rate in the developed world.
But it wasn’t always this way. Back in 1920, less than one percent of all women in the United States were currently divorced or separated. Today, approximately 15 percent of all women in the United States are currently divorced or separated.
So why are so many people getting divorced?
Of course there are a lot of factors involved (including money), but a big one is cheating. According to one survey, 41 percent of all spouses admit to infidelity. Many Americans simply find it very difficult to stay committed to one person for an extended period of time.
As a result of what I have discussed so far, it is easy to see why people in our society are so lonely and so isolated. Less people are getting married, more divorces are happening and couples are having fewer children. This means that our households are smaller and we have far fewer family connections than we once did.
100 years ago, 4.52 people were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of 2.59 people.
That is an astounding figure.
And the United States has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
But we weren’t meant to live alone. We were meant to love and to be loved.
Often, those that are being hurt the most by our choices as a society are the children. They need strong, stable homes to grow up in, and we are not providing that for millions upon millions of them.
When you look at just women under the age of 30 in the United States, more than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock.
That would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.
And of course when there is no marriage involved, a lot of times the guy does not stick around. At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the United States lives in a home without a father, and in many impoverished areas of the country the rate is well over 50 percent.
In addition, women are waiting much longer to have children than they once did.
In 1970, the average woman had her first child when she was 21.4 years old. Now the average woman has her first child when she is 25.6 years old.
The biggest reason for this, once again, is money…
In the United States, three-quarters of people surveyed by Gallup last year said the main reason couples weren’t having more children was a lack of money or fear of the economy.
The trend emerges as a key gauge of future economic health — the growth in the pool of potential workers, ages 20-64 — is signaling trouble ahead. This labor pool had expanded for decades, thanks to the vast generation of baby boomers. Now the boomers are retiring, and there are barely enough new workers to replace them, let alone add to their numbers.
We are waiting longer to have children and having fewer of them, but those children are needed for the economic future of this country.
Fifteen years from now, one out of every five Americans will be over the age of 65. All of those elderly Americans are going to want the rest of us to keep the financial promises that were made to them. But that is going to turn out to be quite impossible. We simply do not have enough people.
In the end, the economics of marriage does not just affect those that are thinking of getting married or those that are already married.
The truth is that the economics of marriage affects all of us.
So what do you think is in store for the future of the institution of marriage in this country?
Please feel free to share what you believe by posting a comment below…
Poorly Designed Meta-Analysis on Homeopathy Fails to Prove Anything
The Truther Girls’ Blog
Apr 16, 2014
I recently found my friends posting the following article about a meta-analysis ‘proving’ that homeopathy doesn’t work. This was followed by comments like ‘I love science’ and ‘surprise, surprise’, and equating a degree in homeopathy with a degree in baloney. But what has this meta-analysis really proven and where is the real baloney?
The conclusions of the meta-analysis were that:
‘“No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance with no effect on the health condition (placebo), or that homeopathy caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment,” the report’s summary states.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/meta-study-confirms-homeopathy-doesnt-work#JbvdfGJSQxZ17fMD.99
HP versus Pharma: Two Very Different Approaches to Medicine
One key issue here may be what the allopathic scientific community considers to be ‘good quality, well designed studies’. The standard one-size-fits-all methodology used for testing pharmaceutical drugs would inherently be inadequate for a study on any homeopathic drug except for commercial preparations sold for specific ailments, which are known to be the least effective homeopathic treatments.
This is because homeopathy is an entirely different system of medicine, with an approach that is opposite to that of chemical pharmaceutical treatments. Confused? I will try to explain.
In standard clinical trials with pharmaceutical agents, a specific chemical drug is tested in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. This is necessary to determine the specific effectiveness of that product for any given ailment, while eliminating bias in the recipients and those administering the drug. It must be tested against a placebo because the simple act of believing you are taking a remedy can have an effect on your physical condition, so that aspect has to be factored in for consideration. The person administering the drug and studying its effects must not know who has taken it and who has taken a placebo, or they may be subject to biased reporting. It is understood that each drug is being studied for a specific desired effect which, if it is effective, it should have on a substantial proportion of recipients. Everyone gets the same drug for the same illness. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach.
Homeopathy is fundamentally different in that treatment takes into consideration not only a specific, targeted ailment, but also the person as a whole: their constitution, their life and medical history, physical traits, personality, temperament, habits and tendencies and anything else that can be used to build as complete a picture of the individual as possible. There are thousands of remedies to choose from, made from everything in nature from minerals, to plant materials, to animal sources. Many remedies can be used to address a specific ailment such as a skin problem or anxiety, but the homeopath chooses the one that is best matched to the person as a whole. For example, a person whose anxiety comes on with dizziness would receive a different remedy than a person whose attacks come on with sweating. A person with a social, sanguine disposition would receive a different remedy than a shy, withdrawn individual.
Homeopathic Specifics
There are homeopathic remedies known as ‘specifics’, which are used to treat specific ailments such as cocculus for nausea or aconite for fever, but even in the cases where these are used, dosing strength (potency) and frequency are tailored to the individual based on their constitution. A person with a frail constitution would receive a lower potency than a person with a robust one. Some pharmaceutical medications interfere with the effectiveness of HP remedies, and some people do not respond to HP or take longer to respond. Once you understand how this system works, it is easy to see how it would be impossible to judge the value of homeopathy as a whole with a standard one-size-fits all approach for any given homeopathic remedy or administration procedure.
Now let’s look at the new meta-analysis, which you can see here:
The above meta-analysis reviewed a number of meta-analyses and a number of individual conditions for which these had reviewed the effectiveness of HP.
Evidence Shows Homeopathy for Ottitis Media As Effective as Standard Treatment and Better than Placebo- But That’s Still Not Proof Enough
If you look at the data on HP treatment of otitis media (ear infections), you will find that the results were that:
In all studies with comparison to standard treatment with antibiotics, there was found to be no difference in treatment outcomes for pain, duration of illness, and improvement in hearing loss. In other words, HP was as effective as standard treatment. In studies against placebo, evidence was found in favor of homeopathic treatment. Evidence was also found in favor of HP versus standard treatment when it came to a couple of specific outcome measures.
Still, it was concluded that there is not enough evidence to recommend HP treatment. This is not the same as having proven that homeopathy does not work.
Let’s look at one of the contibuting meta-analyses that did not find evidence in favor of HP. Altunc et al (2007) which examined HP treatment of ‘childhood and adolescent ailments’ including ADHD (section 4.2.4 in the document), and concluded that “the evidence from rigorous clinical trials of any type of therapeutic or preventive intervention testing homeopathy for childhood and adolescence ailments is not convincing enough for recommendations in any condition”. (Altunc et al (2007)
What did they actually analyze? They looked at data from 16 studies on nine different ailments and noted that ‘with the exception of ADHD and diarrhoea (three primary studies each), no condition was assessed in more than two double-blind Level II studies.’ In other words, they took together data from studies on nine different conditions, on the majority of which no more than one or two studies had been done, lumped them all together, and concluded that there was not enough convincing evidence that homeopathic practice was effective. It seems to me that, from the outset, the design of this study was bound to fail to produce conclusive results of any kind.
There was one study included each on warts, conjunctivitis, otitis media, post-operative pain-agitation syndrome, two each on asthma, recurrent URTI (upper respiratory tract infections) and adenoid vegetation, and three on asthma and ADHD.
Can you imagine if a meta-analysis examined this number of studies on this number of various conditions, treated with different pharmaceutical agents, and concluded that there is not enough evidence to convince them that pharmaceutical drugs have any effect? It would be laughable.
Let’s look at the data they included on studies with ADHD, which was one of the two condition for which three studies were considered (although I would hardly call an examination of three studies a meta-analysis). These include Frei et al, 2005, Freitas et al, 1995, and Jacobs et al, 2005. Two out of three of these studies showed intergroup differences in favor of the effectiveness of HP over placebo.
Jacobs et al, 2005: This study found no intergroup differences and included ‘43 children with confirmed ADHD diagnosis (computerised Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) with mean age of 9 years. 9 participants were already taking
stimulant medication but still displaying symptoms (n=5 active, n=4 placebo)’. Description is from Cochrane Review.
Stimulants are well-known to interfere with the action of homeopathic treatment for ADHD. Even if the child is not presently on stimulants, having previously been treated with them can affect how well they will respond and how long it will take to get a response. Including some kids who were on Ritalin during the trial would be a bit like including subjects who are on Suboxone in a trial on opiate painkillers, the effects of which this medication is known to nullify.
Smokers three times less likely to light up if they consume fruits and vegetables
by Raw Michelle
Natural News
Apr 19, 2014
(NaturalNews) “We may have identified a new tool that can help people quit smoking,” says Jeffrey P. Haibach, MPH, research author and graduate research assistant in the University at Buffalo Department of Community Health and Health Behavior.
Turns out, those “tools” are sitting right in the kitchens of people everywhere. They are none other than fresh fruits and vegetables. According to research conducted by the university, 1,000 people 25 years of age and older were surveyed about their smoking habits as it related to their fruit and vegetable intake.
There was a clear correlation between people who ate more of these foods and the fact that they smoked less. In fact, smokers who consumed the most fruit and vegetables were three times more likely to not smoke tobacco compared to individuals consuming the lowest amounts of fruits and vegetables.
Not only did smokers who ate more of these foods have fewer cigarettes on a daily basis, but there was also more of a delay in the amount of time they waited before having the first cigarette of the day.
Why fruits and vegetables may quell the urge to smoke
The experts behind the study suggest that the fiber in such foods creates a feeling of fullness that may cancel out a smoker’s desire to fill up on something.
Furthermore, its thought that fruits and vegetables do not enhance the flavor of tobacco, which makes smokers less inclined to light up when ingesting the likes of apples and carrots. Duke University psychologist Joseph McClernon discovered this notion, concluding that fruits, vegetables and dairy products make cigarettes taste bad while other foods like coffee and meat enhance their flavor.
Beyond staving off the urge to smoke, eating fruits and vegetables also helps heal a smoker’s damaged body. Since smoking robs the body of vitamins C and B levels, which means it’s getting sub-par lung, cancer and nervous system protection, it’s important to build the body’s immunity.
Specifically, foods like kiwis, oranges, bananas and leafy greens are essential to help restore health to a smoker’s body.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.naturalnews.com/036712_fruit_stop_smoking_vegetables.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606132426.htm
About the author:
Raw Michelle is a natural health blogger and researcher, sharing her passions with others, using the Internet as her medium. She discusses topics in a straight forward way in hopes to help people from all walks of life achieve optimal health and well-being. She has authored and published hundreds of articles on topics such as the raw food diet and green living in general.
Nano-Particles in Consumer Products Damage DNA Leading to Cancer
Before It’s News
Apr 10, 2014
Terence Newton, Staff Writer
Waking Times
One of the latest trends in manufacturing for today’s consumer products is the use of engineered nano-particles (ENP’s), yet, most people have no idea that they are consuming and absorbing ENP’s. Research is discovering that certain ENP’s may be toxic and extremely harmful to human health, causing cell and DNA damage, potentially leading to the development of cancers.
Nano-particles are microscopically sized particles with at least one dimension less than 100 nano-meters (nm). To put this in perspective, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nm thick, and a strand of human DNA is about 2.5 nm thick. A current trend in research and development, ENP’s are generating widespread interest for their potential to enhance consumer materials and food products, and for their potential applications in the electronic, optical and biomedical fields. “Nanoparticles are of great scientific interest as they are effectively a bridge between bulk materials and atomic or molecular structures.” [1]
In the market place, nano-particles can be found in sunscreens, toys, clothing, food, drugs, candy, cosmetics, ceramics, paints, and many other common products, and are already a ubiquitous part of our toxic consumer environment. Some food activists have already called attention to the dangers of the commonly used nano-particle titanium dioxide, noting that the “form of the common ‘whitening’ agent known as titanium dioxide is capable of inducing “tumor-like” changes in exposed human cells.” [2]
“Nanotitanium is found in products produced by Jello, Nestlé, M&M’s, Mother’s, Mentos, Albertson’s, Hostess and Kool Aid.” [1]
Previous concerns have largely been focused on cell damage in the human body, however, a new study from MIT and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) indicates that certain ENP’s may in fact directly damage human DNA, a concern that should have manufacturers and regulators immediately halting the use of nano-particles in consumer products.
“The researchers found that zinc oxide nanoparticles, often used in sunscreen to block ultraviolet rays, significantly damage DNA. Nanoscale silver, which has been added to toys, toothpaste, clothing, and other products for its antimicrobial properties, also produces substantial DNA damage, they found.” [3]
As worldwide cancer rates continue to rise, these results are extremely alarming, especially in light of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent prediction that human cancer rates will rise a staggering 57% in just the next 20 years. [4]
The MIT And HSPH study zeroed in on just five commonly used nano-particles, shedding some light on how these particles cause disruption and mutations to human DNA:
“The researchers focused on five types of engineered nanoparticles—silver, zinc oxide, iron oxide, cerium oxide, and silicon dioxide (also known as amorphous silica)—that are used industrially. Some of these nanomaterials can produce free radicals called reactive oxygen species, which can alter DNA. Once these particles get into the body, they may accumulate in tissues, causing more damage.” [3]
The study noted that the zinc oxide, used most often in sunscreens, and nano-silver produced the greatest DNA damage:
“…the MIT and HSPH researchers tested the nanoparticles’ effects on two types of cells that are commonly used for toxicity studies: a type of human blood cells called lymphoblastoids, and an immortalized line of Chinese hamster ovary cells.
Zinc oxide and silver produced the greatest DNA damage in both cell lines. At a concentration of 10 micrograms per milliliter—a dose not high enough to kill all of the cells—these generated a large number of single-stranded DNA breaks.
Silicon dioxide, which is commonly added during food and drug production, generated very low levels of DNA damage. Iron oxide and cerium oxide also showed low genotoxicity.” [3]
This study is adds a new dimension to the growing concerns over the use of nano-particles because most prior research has been focused on cell damage, not on the effects that these particles have on DNA.
“Until now, most studies of nanoparticle toxicity have focused on cell survival after exposure. Very few have examined genotoxicity, or the ability to damage DNA—a phenomenon that may not necessarily kill a cell, but one that can lead to cancerous mutations if the damage is not repaired.” [3]
Conclusion
Some researchers, including the author of the MIT/HSPH study paper, are exhibiting concern over the potential of toxic, unregulated nano-particles:
“It’s essential to monitor and evaluate the toxicity or the hazards that these materials may possess. There are so many variations of these materials, in different sizes and shapes, and they’re being incorporated into so many products,” says Christa Watson, a postdoc at HSPH and the paper’s lead author.” [3]
Since nano-particles are already being deployed in many common foods, drugs and products, and we now know that they cause damage to DNA, is simply monitoring and evaluating their toxicity a responsible way to approach this?
Just as with genetically engineered foods, which are already being consumed worldwide, researchers have determined that they can be damaging to human health, yet the status quo for bringing products to market and for removing products from market permits their widespread consumption even in the face of credible research that indicates their dangers.
“According to Tom Philpot, writing for Grist in 2010, ‘As with GMOs, the strategy seems to be: release into the food supply en masse first; assess risks later (if ever).’” [2]
About the Author
Terence Newton is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com, interested primarily with issues related to science, the human mind, and human consciousness.
Sources:
[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/n/nanoparticle.htm
[2] http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/09/25/food-industry-poisoning-us-trillions-nanoparticles/
[3] http://phys.org/news/2014-04-nanoparticles-commonly-added-consumer-products.html
[4] http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/04/health/who-world-cancer-report/
[5] http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size
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Thirdhand Smoke Causes DNA Damage, ‘May Cause Cancer’
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
Apr 14, 2014
Smoking causes health problems—we know this; it’s common knowledge. The dangers of secondhand smoke are similarly understood, but when we start to talk about thirdhand smoke, there is much that we need to learn. A recent talk at the 247th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society indicated that thirdhand smoke isn’t only dangerous, but could lead to DNA changes and even cancer.
The talk was presented by Bo Hang, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who published a study on the topic, “Thirdhand smoke causes DNA damage in human cells”, in a 2013 issue of the journal Mutagenesis.
According to Hang, thirdhand smoke—or the residue from smoking found on surfaces and in dust in a room or area where someone previously smoked—can produce toxicants that undergo chemical changes when they encounter compounds in the air. One of these compounds created by thirdhand smoke is 4-(Methylnitrosamino)-4-(3-pyridyl)-butanal, or “NNA”.
NNA, says Hang and his colleagues, can attach itself to DNA and create a cancer-causing chemical, according to MedicalNewsToday.
NNA and another compound known as NNK break down DNA, damaging it in such a way that leads to uncontrolled cell growth and the possible formation of tumors.
While Hang’s research is still in its early stages, he says we have only begun to understand the full damage that thirdhand smoke can cause. Babies and toddlers may be most at risk of these dangers because they are still developing and because they are most likely to swallow, touch, and inhale these compounds as they crawl around, touching everything in their path and frequently putting their hands in their mouths.
Read: 7 Terrible Effects of Smoking
This isn’t the first such troubling research on the topic. A previous study said that secondhand smoke isn’t the only culprit in sickening children with parents who smoke. Thirdhand smoke, researchers from the University of California-Riverside said, could be as dangerous as firsthand smoke.
“In detail, the thirdhand smoke increased lipid levels and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is a forerunner to cirrhosis, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It also increased collagen production and inflammatory cytokine levels in the lungs, which has implications for fibrosis, pulmonary disease and asthma.” – MedicalNewsToday
Just as it took decades for us to understand the risks of smoking, and decades more to discover how dangerous secondhand smoke was, it will take time for the real effects of thirdhand smoke to become apparent.
“There is still much to learn about the specific mechanisms by which cigarette smoke residues harm non-smokers, but that there is such an effect is now clear,” remarked Professor Manuela Martins-Green of the UCR study.
Can caffeine really affect your memory?
by Arpana Sagwal Chaudhary, Ph.D.
Natural News
Mar 26, 2014
(NaturalNews) Caffeine is a psychoactive drug that is widely used on a daily basis. We know of caffeine as a brain stimulant and consume it to stay active and wakeful. However, lesser known effects of caffeine on memory and cognition have confounded researchers for years. New research has disclosed some interesting and previously unknown influences of caffeine on the human brain.
A study published in journal Nature Neuroscience (Feb, 2014) demonstrated a fascinating effect of caffeine on long-term human memory. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Irvine, conducted a study to investigate the effects of caffeine administration on human learning by taking an uncommon approach. Caffeine was given to the subjects “after” their learning exercise in a double-blind study involving caffeine-naive subjects. Participants were asked to memorize images and then administered with caffeine; salivary samples were collected to analyze for caffeine metabolized products. The subjects were tested for memory performance after 24 hours and were asked to evaluate old/new and similar items as shown to them on previous day.
Conclusions:
Caffeine enhanced memory retrieval performance in the test subjects, which means they were better able to recall the memory acquired on the previous day. Even more interesting, although “basic recognition memory” was unaltered, retrieval of memory improved. This means that the brain of caffeinated subjects programmed and stored the visuals/memories better than the placebo subjects, and they could thus recall better.
Furthermore, a high dosage (200 mg) of caffeine consolidates memory better than lower dosage (100 mg). The authors also concluded that 200 mg is an ideal amount for memory consolidation. However, dosages higher than 300 mg were not studied, and it cannot be said if the consolidating effects increase with dosage. Therefore, there is no evidence to believe that higher dosages necessarily increase memory consolidation. The exact mechanism by which caffeine does so has not yet been deciphered. Scientists believe that it could be due to the role played by caffeine in inhibiting the adenosine function, which has adverse effects on memory functioning.
Caffeine has also been scientifically proven to show neuroprotective effects.
Caffeine showed damage reversal in brain of type II diabetic mice (i.e. neurodegeneration reversal) and restored memory-based performance.
In old and sleep-deprived humans (as well as rodents), caffeine restores memory. Rodents with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) showed reduced dysfunctional memory after consuming caffeine.
Scientists have proposed that consuming caffeine may play a preventive as well as therapeutic role in AD and other memory-related problems.
It is equally important for caffeine lovers not to ignore its downside. Previous studies (covered on Natural News) have shown that caffeine puts adrenal glands in a fight or flight function and stimulates secretion of adrenaline and noradrenaline. It generates an emergency response in normal conditions, which stimulates the central nervous system and increases alertness but eventually leads to stress, exhaustion and fatigue.
Nonetheless, this latest research reveals interesting properties of caffeine — either a cognitive enhancer or a stabilizer. This also suggests the possibility of exploring caffeine or its derived molecules as a potential drug for Alzheimer disease.
Meanwhile, for us to enjoy a guilt-free morning cup of coffee, perhaps the trick lies in finding the right balance.
Sources for this article include:
http://science.naturalnews.com
About the author:
Dr. Sagwal has a Ph.D. in Medicinal chemistry. She has worked on the drug design and discovery of antimicrobial and anticancer agents and has published peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. With a fascination for science, nature and its medicinal powerhouse, it is her passion to share and spread the knowledge from latest scientific discoveries. The information is based upon scientific experiments, facts, analyses and peer-review. We could use it to stay healthy, keep fit, prevent diseases or simply be happy.
Dedicated to all those who want to live an aware and informed life. Cheers!!
PN 