Well, this news is surprising.
Apparently eating up to TWO bars of chocolate a day reduces your risk of heart disease and stroke.
So all of you that have been given dire medical predictions, repeat after me: omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom.
In the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system, a study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.
Interesting article over at BBC News. The interesting takeaway from it all is this list comparing children of fathers 24 years old with those 20 years older:
In Pakistan, adding Iodine can get you killed though as there has been common stories about how the west is trying to sterilise them to stop future generations...
When you go Pakisan, you will see a lot of people with inflamed necks/throats. This is also due to iodine defficiency and it can be cured for around 5 years from first inflammation. After that it can become permanent.
Having worked as a social worker for the last 8 years in Birmingham, I have come across depression almost on a daily basis. With my experience and real life exposure to this illness, I write the following:
So what is depression?
The general definition of depression is a psychological disorder that affects a person's mood changes, physical functions and social interactions.
Leprosy has officially been eliminated in India, yet 130,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Richard Cookson and Seyi Rhodes report on the plight of the patients shunned by society
Narsappa was just 10 years old when he was told he had leprosy, but the news changed the course of his life forever. People in his Indian village immediately began to shun him and told his parents that he had to leave. He says his mother started grieving for him "as if I was already dead". Shortly afterwards, his father took him to a hospital two hours away from home and left him there. No one ever came to visit him and Narsappa never went home again.
Depression's Evolutionary Roots
Depression seems to pose an evolutionary paradox. Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare — why isn’t depression?
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Smoking a shisha pipe is as bad for people as smoking tobacco, the Department of Health and the Centre for Tobacco Control Research has found.
People who smoke shisha, or herbal tobacco, can suffer from high carbon monoxide levels, its research revealed.
It found one session of smoking shisha resulted in carbon monoxide levels at least four to five times higher than the amount produced by a cigarette.
High levels of carbon monoxide can lead to brain damage and unconsciousness.
Shisha is an Arabic water-pipe in which fruit-scented tobacco is burnt using coal, passed through an ornate water vessel and inhaled through a hose.
Eating fatty food appears to take an almost immediate toll on both short-term memory and exercise performance, according to new research on rats and people.
Other studies have suggested that that long-term consumption of a high-fat diet is associated with weight gain, heart disease and declines in cognitive function. But the new research shows how indulging in fatty foods over the course of a few days can affect the brain and body long before the extra pounds show up.
Read more @ New York Times blog
