If women needed another good reason to get the right amount of sleep for their good health, besides helping them fight arthritis, the perimenopausal interval in a woman's life appears to demand it, according to a British study.

Researchers discovered the anomaly while comparing the health of some 3,000 men and women without cardiovascular disease for any links between sleep duration and hypertension. Unfortunately, the correlation between a lack of sleep -- less than six hours per night -- and hypertension affected only women, not men.

Overall, women who skipped on their sleep were 66 percent more likely to battle hypertension than those who slept more than six hours nightly. Moreover, this problem was experienced more than two-fold among women who were transitioning into menopause than those who were already past their child-bearing years.

All the more reason to check out these tips for improving your waking health by getting more sleep. (By the way, none of the items on this extensive sleep checklist require that you take a drug.)

Journal of Hypertension December 25, 2009

Warwick Medical School (UK) January 11, 2010

Unfortunately, concerns about children not getting the minimum amount of vitamin D they need to build healthy bones were more than warranted, based on the findings of a new study that recommends serious increases in the average daily intake of the sunshine vitamin during the winter months, especially for black men and women.

Scientists from the University of California-Davis made those recommendations after studying 72 patients for up to eight weeks in Northern California during each of the four seasons over the course of a year.

To achieve the right amount of vitamin D, light-skinned people of European ancestry who enjoy high sun exposure require 1,300 IU (international units) every day during the winter months. Conversely, blacks with low sun exposure need anywhere from 2,100-3,100 IU daily throughout the year, according to the study.

NutraIngredients-USA.com January 14, 2010

Seems European researchers have been paying closer attention to all the benefits associated with chocolate than their American counterparts lately. And we're pleased on the blog when we can report about new perks, like protecting your DNA by eating dark chocolate.

Spanish researchers assigned 20 young and healthy patients a balanced diet to follow for four weeks. Midway through the study, scientists divided patients into two groups. One ate white chocolate while the other consumed dark chocolate.

Patients in the dark chocolate group experienced increased levels of catechin in their blood just two hours after consuming it, and decreased levels of DNA damage in mononuclear blood cells based on tests taken at regular intervals.

The benefits of consuming dark chocolate in the short-term were obvious, however, not for the long haul. Some 22 hours after eating dark chocolate, no signs of those recent benefits were detected.

British Journal of Nutrition November 5, 2009

NutraIngredients-USA.com December 4, 2009

If you've become a daily reader of this blog -- our readership exploded in October and continues to grow daily, thanks to your interest -- you've probably noticed the many reminders about our supplement giveaway, first announced during our appearance at the Livestrong Challenge Series last month in Austin.

Koleen, one of many fine folks who filled out our entry forms at the Austin event, was the grand prize winner and will receive $300 in CNCA supplements. Many congratulations Koleen!

Take a minute to be inspired as we were on that picturesque October weekend in Austin by watching snippets of personal stories shared by folks who have been touched in one way or another by cancer like you, captured beautifully on video by the always awesome Amanda Hoel-Green.

With the holiday season around the corner, no doubt, you'll be sharing the nation's highways with senior citizens traveling in cars way too big for them, distracted mini-van drivers on mobile phones attempting without success to shush their loud, crying children into momentary silence and high school students learning the rules of the road for the first time. But, these are not the only species of drivers you need to avoid. In fact, the particular kind of bad driver identified in a recent study may be much harder to identify albeit on the surface.

University of California, Irvine researchers have discovered a gene variant, present in some 30 percent of all Americans, that may responsible for poorer driving habits.

This variant reduces the availability of a brain protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that strengthens memory by supporting communication among brain cells and maintaining optimal functioning. Previous research has shown patients with this BDNF gene variant don't recover as well from strokes and smaller portions of their brains, than normal, are stimulated by doing a given task.

Scientists tracked the results of two simulated driving tests (requiring participants to drive 15 laps on a track programmed with difficult turns and curves) assigned to 29 patients, including seven with the gene variant, within a four-day span. Generally, folks with the BDNF gene variant performed worse than those without it on both driving tests, and recalled fewer details about the track's intricacies the second time out.

Fortunately, there's a silver lining to this genetic predisposition to bad driving: Those who have it hold onto their mental sharpness longer in the presence of MS, Huntington's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Cerebral Cortex September 10, 2009

EurekAlert October 28, 2009

With 2009 coming to a close very soon and the air temperatures changing for the colder, so does the cyclical reappearance of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) for many folks living in the Northern Hemisphere. Researchers may not understand exactly what causes SAD, but they certainly know how to identify its symptoms, among them declines in concentration and energy levels, depression and lethargy. Just as frustrating for most physicians and patients: Determining the best way to treat it.

A University of Vermont psychologist may have discovered the most effective treatment for SAD by assigning 69 patients to one of four groups based on two of the more popular strategies -- light therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) -- a combination of the two or a control wait-list and monitoring their progress, then following up with them a year later.

Despite all the news and the popularity of light therapy products produced to treat SAD, CBT was the clear winner.

For starters, only 7 percent of patients treated with CBT alone had a recurrence of SAD the following winter, compared to some 37 percent of those given light therapy alone. While the failure rate among patients in the group that were treated with both therapies was low (5.5 percent), when accounting for the severity of the depression, CBT was linked to less severe bouts of depression among patients than those treated with a light-cognitive combo or light therapy alone.

One interesting sidenote: Among those in the light therapy group, only four patients used it on their own during the following winter, probably because the treatment requires sitting in front of a light box every day for 30 minutes, which may explain why long-term use of light therapy is rare, according to the report.

Behavior Therapy, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 225-238, September 2009

ScienceDaily October 17, 2009

Elements Behavioral Health October 19, 2009

Many more people are living with Alzheimer's and dementia -- a projected 10 percent increase to more than 35 million worldwide by 2010 -- than experts expected, and the number of patients harmed by this mind-robbing disease is expected to explode by the year 2050, according to the latest World Alzheimer Report released by Alzheimer's Disease International.

Although the report estimates 4.4 million North Americans are harmed by Alzheimer's, the Alzheimer's Association is far less conservative about U.S. estimates, pegging the number of patients affected domestically at more than 5 million. Overall, one out of eight Americans older than age 65 are harmed by Alzheimer's as are almost half of seniors over age 85.

Even more alarming, an estimated 115 million people in the world may be affected by the ravages of Alzheimer's as soon as the year 2050.

New studies assessing the reach of Alzheimer's around the world (nearly 7 million people apiece in Western Europe, and South and Southeastern Asia) prompted the worldwide coalition of some 70 non-profit groups to ask British researchers to rethink their estimates.

One huge problem: Many folks still believe dementia is a normal part of the aging process, not a disease that can be treated.

Alzheimer's Association Free Full PDF Report

USA Today September 21, 2009

MSNBC.com September 21, 2009

If you answered the question posed in the headline above as anything more than a miniscule double-digit percentage, based on Americans faithfully following the five low-risk criteria cited in the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), you may be badly mistaken about the current state of the nation's collective health, not to mention your own.

Fact is, the number of American adults (age 25-74) who don't have the five low-risk factors for heart disease -- taking non-smoking status, no obesity issues, normal blood pressure, cholesterol numbers below 200 and a lack of a diabetes diagnosis into account -- sits at just 7.5 percent, a huge drop from the 10.5 percent reported in the previous NHANES report, collected from 1988-94. In other words, 92.5 percent of all Americans have some elevated risks for heart disease.

Generally, tobacco use is falling, a collective reduction in cholesterol levels appears to be leveling off but BMI, diabetes and blood pressure stats are "headed in the wrong direction," according to the study. And, although the health of both sexes is trending the same, significantly more women than men followed low-risk factors across the board.

Also contributing to the drastic reversal in the latest NHANES survey: An overall imbalance connecting sharp drops in physical activity to the growing amounts of food Americans consume.

Circulation September 14, 2009

Science Daily September 18, 2009

Time.com September 14, 2009

Ever wonder why the California Milk Processor Board keeps producing their got milk? ads, even after nearly 16 years?

An interesting factoid: Less than 40 percent of the world's population retains the ability to digest lactose after childhood. While up to 90 percent of northern European populations can digest milk (particularly in Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden), the numbers are nonexistent -- close to 0 -- among Native Americans, only 5 percent among Asians and 25 percent among Africans and Caribbean groups.

The ability to drink and digest milk may not be normal, according to this interesting USA Today feature. In fact, a patient's inability to drink the white stuff may not truly be a disease (lactose intolerance). Many scientists believe those who consume milk into adulthood possess a genetic mutation -- lactase persistence -- that allows them to do it.

A recent UK study has shown through computer modeling how this mutation first appeared in dairy farmers living between the center Balkans and central Europe some 7,500 years ago.

USA Today September 1, 2009

PLOS Computational Biology August 2009 Free Full Text Study

Baltimore Sun August 21, 2009

EurekAlert August 27, 2009

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology August 10, 2009 Free Full Text Study

The surgical options of Baby Boomers may sharply decline over the next 15 years, thanks to a severe shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons coupled with a health demands of a growing, aging population, according to a new study.

Simply put, experts believe a boom in retirements -- the number of Americans turning age 65 will double to 70 million over the next two decades -- will coincide with a diminishing supply of physicians -- a minimum 21 percent drop in the number of available heart surgeons -- by 2025, creating an increased demand for surgeons nearing 50 percent.

Why the shortfall? Medical residents with training in cardiothoracic surgery had difficulty finding jobs as the number of heart bypass surgeries dropped by 28 percent and the use of stints -- procedures done by cardiologists -- dramatically increased by 121 percent.

Even worse, an immediate increase in cardiothoracic professionals wouldn't be enough to prevent a dire shortage, taking into account the anticipated increase in patients over age 65, because it takes a decade of training to become a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Circulation, Vol. 120, No. 6, pp. 488-494, August 11, 2009

healthfinder.gov July 28, 2009

heartwire July 27, 2009

Ever wonder how squirrels find their nuts and stay well fed, even during the coldest parts of the winter? If you believe it's related to a squirrel's acute sense of smell, guess again...

Fact is, an amateur scientist living in the U.K. won a prize last year from NewScientist magazine for demonstrating how squirrels use their spatial memory, not their sense of smell.

Unfortunately, humans may not be so lucky, as a recent study found most folks reach their cognitive peak as early as age 27. As the flow of blood to the brain slows down, so does the production of receptors on brain cells as well as the gradual loss of receptors on brain cells. Long story short, as many as two-thirds of Baby Boomers over age 50 may have some memory loss.

That said, memory loss isn't a given, and there are a great many things you can do to preserve and improve your memory, without the need for a single drug. Read about them here: Memory Food: The Many Ways to Protect Your Brain.

New Scientist Blogs: The Last Word February 13, 2008

New York Times June 11, 2009

If you've been looking for more natural solutions to cut your cholesterol levels, consider adding walnuts to your diet, according to a recent meta-analysis of 13 studies conducted at Harvard University.

Although researchers were quick to point out longer and larger trials are necessary to evaluate the long-term effects -- good and bad -- of including walnuts in a healthy diet, a review of short-term trials tracking the health of 365 patients from four to 24 weeks -- and with walnuts providing up to 24 percent of a person's total calories -- looks promising.

In comparison to the diets of control subjects, patients whose diets were supplemented with walnuts enjoyed a significantly greater decrease in total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. What's more, walnuts may provide significant benefits beyond lowering cholesterol, researchers said, including no adverse effect on body weight and boosting antioxidant levels.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 90, No. 1, p. 56-63, July 2009

NutraIngredients-USA.com July 2, 2009

For all the talk of preventing Montezuma's Revenge -- the temporary bout of diarrhea that commonly affects travelers on vacations -- you can avoid such gastrointestinal problems, very literally, by not burying your head and body in the sand.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the EPA based their findings on interviews with more than 27,000 patients who visited seven freshwater or marine beaches located within 7 miles of sewage treatment plant discharges (water quality on beaches was judged within acceptable limits). First, folks were questioned about their contact with sand, then contacted 10-12 days later about any health problems they had experienced since their visit.

Although some 13 percent of patients who reported digging in sand and 23 percent of those being buried in it experienced gastrointestinal issues, walking on the beach or swimming weren't associated with any health problems.

The best solutions for avoiding any sandy health problems, according to the EPA, are always the simplest ones: Take a hand sanitizer on your trips to the beach and don't hesitate to wash your hands after playing in the sand.

American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 170. No. 2, p. 164-172, July 15, 2009

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill July 9, 2009

healthfinder.gov July 14, 2009

For all the serious health problems associated with anger, scientists have uncovered an unlikely health benefit that may indicate blockages in blood flow to the neckand brain.

Researchers compared how blood flow to the brain and carotid arteries responds to anger in three sets of patients: 10 healthy young folks (ages 19-27), 20 older healthy people (ages 38-60) and 28 patients diagnosed with essential hypertension.

While patients completed a series of tasks designed to provoke anger and stress, ultrasound imaging measured their effects of this emotional upheaval on blood flow in the carotid artery and an artery in the brain, along with monitoring blood pressure and heart rates.

When exposed to stress, those diagnosed with hypertension experienced no significant change in brain blood flow or vasodilation, which contributes to the beginnings of myocardial ischemia, a disorder typically caused by coronary artery obstruction, also known as atherosclerotic coronary artery disease (CAD), the leading cause of death worldwide. Conversely, healthy patients who blew their tops during the study -- thanks to stress -- experienced increased blood flow to the brain and dilation of the carotid artery.

Cerebral Ultrasound, Vol. 7, No. 32, July 3, 2009 Free Full Text PDF

healthfinder.gov July 10, 2009

Science Daily July 4, 2009

You may be surprised to learn, thanks to a Harvard University study, diets deficient in omega-3 fatty acids like those found in fish oil may be more fatal than those that overdo it on trans fats. Based on 2005 data compiled by the U.S. National Health Center for Health Statistics, the minimum number of American deaths attributed to the lack of omega-3 fatty acids like those found in fish oil (72,000) exceeded the amount blamed on the excessive intake of trans fats (63,000). One caveat: the study failed to consider vitamin D or any other nutrients when determining fatality rates, according to the Council for Responsible Nutrition.

Overall, diets deficient in omega-3 fatty acids like those found in fish oil ranked sixth among risk factors with smoking tobacco (436,000), high blood pressure (372,000), obesity (188,000) and physical inactivity (164,000) heading the list.

Although the study didn't explain why omega-3 fatty acids like those found in fish oil had such an impact on health statistics, it did point out the great need to set a minimum dietary intake for DHA, EPA and other omega-3 components.

Meanwhile, a European Food Safety Authority panel recommended a higher reference intake value for long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (250 mg) than one announced in a previous European Commission report (200 mg).

PLOS Medicine April 2009 Free Full Text Study

NutraIngredients.com July 13, 2009

NutraIngredients-USA.com June 26, 2009