Obesity And Abnormal Sperm
In the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Dr. A Ghiyath Shayeb said that men with a higher body mass index (BMI) have lower volumes of seminal fluid and a higher proportion of abnormal sperm. If you want to be fertile and have babies, you should consider losing some weight, and maintain your body weight to normal BMI. Living a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet, regular exercise are needed to be in the normal BMI range.
Gender Affects Kidney Transplant
According to a analysis of the “Collaborative Transplant Study”, female donor kidneys do not function as well in men, because to their smaller size. Women are at higher risk of rejecting a male donor kidney. Therefore, gender will be considered more in the allocation of donor kidneys in future. Data collected from almost 200,000 kidney recipients from 1985 to 2004 analyzed, and transplanting a female kidney was less successful than a male kidney. This is because of female kidneys have fewer nephrons. Immunological rejection problems occurred most frequently when women received a male kidney as well.
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Reason For Teenage Obesity
Dr. Catherine Berkey and colleagues from Harvard Medical School, Growing Up Today Study (GUTS), surveyed more than 5000 girls, 14 - 21 years from all 50 states, and their weekly habits were recorded. The researchers found that more Internet time, more alcohol consumption, and less sleep resulted in extra weight gain. Girls who consumed 2 or more alcoholic beverages a week or slept less than 6 hours at night gained more weight. Girls who use Internet in addition to alcohol and sleep gain 4 extra pounds a year. Researchers are encouraging adolescent girls to replace recreational Internet time with more sleep, and avoid alcoholic beverage consumption to lose their weight.
Sunlight Helps You Live Longer?
There is a relationship between the low vitamin D levels and deaths from heart disease. Patients with the lowest vitamin D in their blood were two times more likely to die from any cause during the next eight years than those with the highest levels of vitamin D. But largest doses of vitamin D pills or sun exposure can be dangerous and can lead to skin cancer. Low vitamin D levels may be reflected by age due to the lack of physical activity and other lifestyle factors.
Ticking Male’s Biological Clock
More evidence were found that men as well as women have ticking biological clocks that start to tick in mid-30s. A study done on 12,200 couples proved that the chance of a successful pregnancy falls when the man is over 35, and it is significantly lower if he is over 40. The researchers told in a health conference that it was due to the DNA damage in sperm.
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Nature’s Viagara : Watermelon
Citrulline an ingredient in Watermelon,triggers the production of a compound which helps relax the body’s blood vessels, like Viagara does in a man’s body. When consumed in large volume Citrulline reacts with the body’s enzymes and is changed into Arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems. Citrulline is found in the flesh and rind of all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types.
Past Events Control Your Future Planning
Imagine a world where people are punished before committing a crime. Although it is strange, but it allows people to remember things before they happen. According to researchers posterior hippocampus is involved in future planning. Now scientists are discovering that human memory does indeed work forward. Studies show that the your past performances are more important in envisioning your future. The severely depressed patients have difficulty visualizing positive future events.
Researchers recognized that memory can construct, simulate and predict possible future events. These ongoing studies can provide new insights regarding the memory that relates to future-oriented thinking, planning, prediction and remembering intentions.
Peer Pressure To Be Slim
Teenage girls identify themselves according to the peer groups that they belong to. A study done in University of Miami proved that girls’ own definition of normal body weight and their perception of what others consider normal body weight depend on the peer group that they are in.
Dangerous weight control behaviours such as excessive dieting and can lead to serious long-term health implications. Teen girls identifying with athletic peers are less concerned about their weight while girls identifying with non-conformist peers are more concerned about their weight and appearance. Latter group tends to practice dangerous weight losing techniques.
Omega-3 More Important to Girls
Association between higher consumption of Omega-3 fats and intelligence is backed up by several research findings. A new study at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and University of California raises question that this link is stronger in girls than boys. Comparison of consumption of the omega-3 fatty acids with cognitive test scores in 4000 children revealed that omega-3s accounted for twice as much of the improvement in girls as boys. Omega-3 fats are predominantly supplied in the diet from oily fish, walnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, canola oil and soy.
See Also:
Omega 3 and Cognitive development
Amazing Power of Yoga
Yoga is being used as mental health tool by many psychotherapists. Some of the physical poses can lead to unexpected emotional breakthroughs such as urge to weep. The recognition of the body, mind and spirit are important in the cure of trauma victims. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is now practicing Yoga to help soldiers to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Yoga’s also been used for a wide range of situations, including sexual abuse, domestic and family violence, chronic pain, depression, relationship issues, anxiety, grief and eating disorders. It can help cure diseases ranging from asthma, insomnia, heart disease, stress and weight loss.
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Managing Emotionally Challenging Situations Comes With Age
Researchers from University of Alberta and Duke University have concluded that managing emotional situations really comes with age. They have identified brain patterns that can help older people to control emotion better than younger adults. In people with over the age of 60, the two regions in the brain are increased in activity when emotionally challenging situations were presented. Older people are better able to manage how much attention they should pay to negative situations. Therefore they’re less upset by them.
Rare Foreign Accent Syndrome From Stroke
A woman from southern Ontario Canada, recovering from a rare brain syndrome due to stroke, starts to speak with a different accent, and this is the first reported cases in Canada. This woman’s family noticed the accent change while the woman was recovering from a stroke. Her Ontario accent now sounds like Maritime Canadian English.
Researcher Alexandre Sévigny, a cognitive scientist at McMaster University in Ontario said that this women never visited the Maritimes, nor has she been exposed to anyone with an East Coast accent. Karin Humphreys, a psychologist at McMaster University reported that the woman didn’t notice any changes in her accent. As strange as it sounds, the ongoing research at McMaster University will open a new perspective of FAS.
