Weblog – News – Views – Reviews

By: Royane Real
Viewed: 984 Times
Approximate Word Count: 950

If you’re still alive, you’re growing older every day.

You may not notice it, but you are.

When we make that great shift out of our teenage years into our twenties, most of the changes we encounter about growing older are good.

Whe we are in our twenties, growing older means a lot more freedom and a lot of adventure. Physically, we are at our peak of perfection.

In our thirties, we are starting to enjoy many of the benefits of growing older as we accumulate more wisdom and in most cases, continue to have a body and a brain that’s still in great shape.

But there comes a time, perhaps in our fifth decade, or in our sixth, when growing older starts to have some negative effects we don’t really like.

We may not be as physically fit as we used to be. We start to get sags and bags. We get aches and pains. We may be showing some forgetfulness.

Our beautiful perfection of youth is gone.

Why do we age?

Over the centuries, people have often wondered how it is that our bodies grow and develop from a tiny fertilized egg, to a newborn baby, to a young child, then a teenager and, finally, a young adult. A huge number of very complex changes within our bodies must happen perfectly in order to achieve this.

Once we grow into our adult perfection, why can’t we just stay there? Why do we have to age?

And can we stop it?

Doctors and scientists used to take aging for granted. Scientists used to think that because aging was a natural process, there was no need to investigate it.

Now, as increasing numbers of baby boomers are turning fifty, anxious to hang on to some semblance of youth, more and more research is being devoted to the topic of aging.

Scientists are trying to find out how and why we age, and they are investigating possible ways to slow down the aging process, or perhaps even stop it altogether.

If new ways are found to extend physical and mental health for the aging population, the benefits to society will be enormous..

Although all of us want to live a long time, none of us wants to spend our final years in physical pain or suffering from mental decline.

Scientists have been able to identify some of the factors that influence the process of aging, and new knowledge is accumulating at a rapid rate. Dozens of theories to explain aging have been proposed, but it seems that aging is a very complex, and several processes are interlinked.

Here are some of the current theories about why we age:

Hayflick Limit Theory – Two scentists in the 1960s noticed that many human cells would divide a limited number of times, then stop. If the cells were well fed, they divided faster. Body cells may have a built-in genetic program that tells them not to reproduce anymore.

Free Radical Theory – Free radicals are molecules or atoms that have an unpaired electron. In order to be electrically balanced, these molecules or atoms will grab an electron from a nearby atom, thereby creating another free radical, eventually resulting in a cascading chain of damage to cells and organs.

Free radical formation may not account for all the symptoms of aging, but it probably does play an important part in accelerating cellular damage. Free radicals are unavoidable. They are an inevitable consequence of living in a physical body. However, there are steps we can take to slow down free radical damage, such as avoiding pollutants, and eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Telomerase Theory – Telomeres are special types of chemicals that seem to have some ability to protect the chromosomes inside our cells. Every time our cells divide, the telemeres become shorter and less able to protect the chromosome. This may explain why the cells eventually become damaged and die. Scientists are currently trying to find out how to repair telomeres and stop the damage to the cells.

Glycation – When proteins in your body react with excess blood sugar, the proteins become damaged. This process is known as “glycation”. These sugar-damaged proteins may contribute to the breakdown of many other systems in the body. People who have diabetes or problems with insulin resistance are particularly vulnerable to glycation damage because of abnormalities in their blood sugar levels.

If it turns out to be true that glycation plays a major part in causing the negative effects of aging, we may be able to slow it down by making sure we avoid excess blood sugar levels.

Here are some other factors that play a part in aging:

- We experience a steep decline in hormone production in our later years
- Our body becomes less efficient at detoxifying
- The DNA in our cells becomes damaged
- A life time of exposure to stress and environmental toxins in our air, food and water overwhelms our bodys’ repair systems.

These are some of the explanations for why we age, but it’s not a complete picture. At the present time, we don’t yet know all the reasons for this process.. And so far, there is no single magic bullet to stop it.

If scientists can learn how to slow down the process of aging, we will be able to spend many more happy years enjoying our lives while maintaining our peak of physical perfection.

This article was written by Royane Real, author of the Book “How To Be Smarter — Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative” Sign up for her free newsletter filled with life improving tips at http://www.royanereal.com.

By: Sylvia Riley
Viewed: 874 Times
Approximate Word Count: 958

Wouldn’t we all like to age gracefully (if at all for that matter!) and ward off the wrinkly signs and ill symptoms for as long as possible. Keys to longevity may be more accessible than we think, and it appears our diets play a critical role. Antioxidants are the knights in shining armor that subjugate the attack of free radicals in the body, the hazardous molecules that damage cells and procure aging and disease. Though antioxidants are produced naturally in the body, these decline with age, hence an increasing need to acquire them from the foods in our diet.

Before examining antioxidants more closely, it is important to take a look at the free radicals they serve to neutralize.

Free Radicals

Free radicals are created as by-products in our use of oxygen during metabolism such as the burning of food for energy. They are essentially oxidant molecules that are missing an electron and seek to restore themselves by targeting nearby cells in an attempt to recover this electron, potentially harming enzymes, DNA, proteins and cell membranes in the process. This damage can mutate cells and alter cell function, increasing the risk of numerous diseases and chronic conditions including arthritis, diabetes, cataracts, cancer, heart disease and stroke. Free radical damage is implicated in the onset of aging and its degenerative symptoms and diseases.

As well as generated within the body, free radicals come from environmental sources such as pollution, radiation, unhealthy foods, bacteria, viruses, cigarette smoke and UV light.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants serve to mitigate the harmful effect of free radicals by giving up an electron and stabilizing them in the process. Although we produce many of our own antioxidants within the body, food provides an essential source for these key players of our defense system. Vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients all have antioxidant properties. The most common examples include vitamins A, C and E, selenium and zinc, carotenoids, flavonoids, co-enzyme Q10, alpha-lipoic acid and glutathione.

As there are many different types of free radicals in the body a variety of antioxidants are required to protect against them. Antioxidants function best as a team, with each other and other nutrients and phytochemicals, which is why incorporating a wide range of plant foods into your diet is recommended. Phytochemical groups such as flavonoids and carotenoids correspond to the colour, taste and smell attributes of plants, hence eating a rainbow array of vegetables and fruits can offer a diverse selection of these potent antioxidants.

Antioxidant Rich Foods

Foods especially high in antioxidants include berries, plums, pomegranates, oranges, spinach, green tea, avocado, kale, broccoli, peas, onions, grapes and pure chocolate.

Scientists at the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) have developed a rating scale that measures the total antioxidant capacity of a given food. This is known as the ORAC score (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity).

Of 40 common fruits and vegetables measured by the USDA, top ranking scores were those of prunes(5770), raisins (2830), blueberries (2400 — highest of all fresh foods with other berries close behind), kale (1770), spinach (1260), Brussels sprouts (980), plums (949), alfalfa sprouts (930), broccoli florets (890), beetroots (840), oranges (750 ), red peppers (710 ) and red grapes (739).

Pure cocoa surpasses all these foods with a whopping score of 26,00 units, more than 10 times the prestigious blueberry (though one is likely to eat far less in quantity). The extraordinary goji berry from Tibet also has outstanding antioxidant capacity with a score of 18,500 units; hardly surprising as they contain 500 times more vitamin C than oranges and even more beta-carotene than carrots!

According to studies on animals and human blood at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts in Boston, high-ORAC foods may slow aging processes in the body and brain. Results found that high ORAC foods such as blueberries and spinach could increase the antioxidant power of human blood by 10-25%, prevent loss of long-term memory and learning ability in middle-aged rats, and protect rat blood vessels against oxygen damage.

Antioxidants and Aging

As we age, free radical levels rise and yet the body falls short in producing necessary amounts of antioxidants to meet this challenge. For example, cells generate more of the oxidants hydrogen peroxide and superoxide, yet levels of the necessary antioxidant glutathione required to neutralise these decline. The Free Radical Theory of Aging, first proposed by Harman in 1954, is supported by cross-species examination of animals with regard to life span, free radical damage and antioxidant defence. For example, the white-footed mouse lives about twice as long as the house mouse (8 versus 4 years), and is found to generate less oxidants and have higher levels of antioxidants. As Beckman and Ames write in The Free Radical Theory of Ageing Matures (1998), “Together, interspecies comparisons of oxidative damage, antioxidant defences, and oxidant generation provide some of the most compelling evidence that oxidants are one of the most significant determinants of life span.”

Very recent evidence comes from a study on dogs at the University of Toronto by Dr. Dwight Tapp and colleagues who found that “old dogs that were on an antioxidant diet performed better on a variety of cognitive tests than dogs that were not on the diet. In fact, the dogs eating antioxidant-fortified foods performed as well as young animals”.

Additional research by Dr. Rabinovitch and his team, studying aging at the University of Washington, Seattle, found that mice engineered to produce high levels of an antioxidant enzyme (catalase) lived 20 per cent longer and had less heart and other age-related diseases than controls.

In light of the role free radicals play in the onset of aging and disease, it is important to ensure our diets include a rich and diverse supply of antioxidants. These protective agents can be found abundantly in vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and are particularly high in superfoods.

By: Alfred Jones
Viewed: 895 Times
Approximate Word Count: 847

Many of you will have heard of Paget’s Disease, which is a serious bone disease, but many of you will not have heard of Paget’s Disease of the breast, so I am hoping that the ladies out there reading this article will take notice of the content, because they could come in touch with this disease at some time in their life.

What Is Paget’s Disease Of The Breast?
It is an eczema type change in the skin of the nipple, and most women that develop it, will have an underlying breast cancer.
Paget’s Disease occurs in about 1 or 2% of women that have breast cancer, it appears firstly as a scaly, red rash affecting the nipple and the areola. It can be very sore, may bleed and it will not go away.

The disease can be difficult to diagnose, because it can be very similar to other skin problems like eczema or dermatitis, but this disease usually affects the nipple first then spreads to the areola, whereas the other skin problems usually start in the surrounding areas, first before spreading to the nipple.

I have been asked to include the following in this article, it is taken from an actual case, where the person with the disease wanted this message passed on by you, to all the ladies in your life, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Aunts and Friends.

“A lady developed a rash on her breast, similar to that of young mothers who are nursing. Because her mammogram had been clear, the doctor treated her with antibiotics for infections.
After two treatments it continued to get worse, her doctor sent her for another mammogram, and this time it showed a mass.

A biopsy found a fast growing malignancy. Chemotherapy was started in order to shrink the growth; then mastectomy; then a full round of Chemotherapy; followed by radiation treatment.

After about 9 months of intense treatment, she was given a clean bill of health. She had one year of living each day to its fullest. Then the cancer returned to the liver area. She took four treatments and decided that she wanted quality of life, not the after effects of Chemotherapy.
She had 5 great months, and she planned each detail of the final days.

After just a few days of needing morphine, she slipped away saying she had done what God had sent her into the world to do.”

PLEASE be alert to any thing that is not normal.

Her message is shown below:

“Paget’s Disease: This is a rare form of breast cancer, and is on the outside of the breast, on the nipple and areola. It appeared as a rash, which later became a lesion with a crusty outer edge. I would not have ever suspected it to be breast cancer, but it was. My nipple never seemed any different to me, but the rash bothered me, so I went to the doctor for that. Sometimes, it itched and was sore, but other than that it didn’t bother me.
It was just ugly and a nuisance, and could not be cleared up with all the creams prescribed by my doctor and dermatologist for the dermatitis on my eyes just prior to this outbreak.

They seemed a little concerned. Mine started out as a single red pimple on the areola. One of the biggest problems with Paget’s disease of the nipple is that the symptoms appear to be harmless. It is frequently thought to be a skin inflammation or infection, leading to unfortunate delays in detection and care.

What are the symptoms? The symptoms include:

A persistent redness, oozing, and crusting of your nipple causing it to itch and burn. (As I stated, mine did not itch or burn much, and had no oozing I was aware of, but it did have a crust along the outer edge on one side.)

A sore on your nipple that will not heal. (Mine was on the areola area with a whitish thick looking area in center of nipple).

Usually only one nipple is affected. How is it diagnosed? Your doctor will do a physical exam and should suggest having a mammogram of both breasts, done immediately.
Even though the redness, oozing and crusting closely resembles dermatitis (inflammation of the skin), your doctor should suspect cancer if the sore is only on one breast. Your doctor should order a biopsy of your sore to confirm what is going on.

This message should be taken seriously and passed on to as many of your relatives and friends as possible; it could save someone’s life

My breast cancer has spread and metastasized to my bones after receiving mega doses of chemotherapy, twenty eight treatments of radiation and taking Tamaxofin.
If this had been diagnosed as breast cancer in the beginning, perhaps it would not have spread”.

TO ALL READERS: This is sad as women are not aware of Paget’s disease.

As we all know, early diagnosis is so important with all kinds of diseases, so if you are in any doubt about any medical problem, for goodness sake, make an appointment to see a Physician, soon as possible.

Article by Alfred Jones, Information Advisor for http://www.RUsweetEnuf.com – Glyconutritionals, The Eight Essential Sugars that Heal.

NEW YORK – Adam Lambert showed his softer side on “American Idol,” earning a standing ovation for his smooth performance of “The Tracks of My Tears.”

Guest mentor Smokey Robinson, who originally performed the classic song with the Miracles, rose to his feet after watching the 26-year-old theater actor hit all the right notes during Wednesday’s Motown-themed installment of the “Fox” singing competition.

Lambert, who’s from Los Angeles, ditched his rocker duds for a sleek silver suit and smoothed his black hair back into an Elvis-style pompadour.

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RIO DE JANEIRO - The number of people infected with both tuberculosis and HIV is twice what researchers previously thought, top health officials said Tuesday. The World Health Organization’s annual report on TB, presented in Rio, indicates that there were 1.37 million cases of people with both TB and HIV in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available. About 700,000 people were infected with both in 2006, according to a report released by WHO last year.

Researchers attribute the numbers mostly to more widespread testing and reporting. They say direct information on the HIV status among TB patients is now available from 64 nations – up from just 13 nations in recent years. More reporting is also coming from Africa, where 79 percent of the dual-infection cases were reported.

In 2007, 1.3 million people died from TB, while another 465,000 people who had both TB and HIV died. About 1.5 million people died in 2006 from TB, according to WHO’s report last year. It was not clear how many of those who died also were infected with HIV.

WHO researchers said the new data means HIV-positive people are about 20 times more likely than HIV-negative people to develop TB in countries where HIV is at epidemic levels, and between 26 and 37 times more likely to develop TB where HIV prevalence is lower.

In a message to mark World TB Day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the epidemic is continuing to decline “but the rate of decline is far too slow, and TB still takes a life every 20 seconds.”

“Millions of people are benefiting from treatment through coordinated national efforts, but millions more are still missing out,” he said in the message released at U.N. headquarters in New York. “Unless we accelerate action, the numbers of those falling ill will continue to grow.”

The WHO’s annual report had other pessimistic points: an expected $1.6 billion gap in funding needed to fight the disease this year and an increase in the number of cases of drug-resistant TB.

“We have a situation with very little progress, particularly in Africa and Eastern and Central Europe,” said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, who was attending the TB conference. “There is no room anywhere in this report for congratulations.”

The survey estimates that 9.27 million people around the globe had TB in 2007 – slightly up from 9.24 million in 2006.

That amounts to a per capita rate of 139 per 100,000 people globally, the report states. That pace, a drop of less than 1 percent a year, has continued for the past several years, said Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO’s Stop TB program.

He said it would take millennia to wipe out the disease at that rate.

Multiple-drug-resistant cases of TB also rose in 2007 to 500,000. Such cases are more difficult to treat and have a higher rate of deaths.

Aggravating the fight against TB is the global financial crisis.

Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said funding for programs to fight TB will fall $1.6 billion short in 2009, a gap he estimates will reach at least $4 billion in 2010.

“The crisis is severely affecting developing nations,” he said. “But countries should realize health costs are an investment for development and not just a strain on budgets.”

Asia registered the most TB cases in 2007, with 55 percent, while Africa had 31 percent. Among nations, India had the most cases with 2 million, China had 1.3 million and Indonesia 530,000.

Source

LOS ANGELES – It was time, says The Dead’s Bob Weir, to give charitable causes a boost while directing a kick to the hindquarters of ticket scalpers.

So he and his bandmates announced Tuesday they have held back some of the best seats for their forthcoming spring tour, and are putting them up for bid in an online auction.

Want to sit in the third row, center-stage-right, for the tour’s opening show April 12 in Greensboro, N.C.? The bidding starts at $250 at charityfolks.com.

Proceeds will benefit a number of charities the group has supported for years, including its Rex Foundation, which was established by the Grateful Dead in 1983 and provides grants to support the arts, science, education and other causes.

“Needless to say, like any charity these days, their revenues are down right now. They’re hurting,” Weir said Tuesday in a phone interview. “We want to do what we can to keep these folks up and running and in business.”

Successful bidders won’t be able to collect their tickets until the day of a show to minimize scalping, Weir said.

Weir said he hoped the auction would raise at least $250,000. Other charities the group is supporting include the Further Foundation, which works for environmental and social causes; the Unbroken Chain Foundation, which supports community service projects; and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is dedicated to protecting oceans and marine life.

Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann is an avid supporter of the latter.

“I live in Hawaii and right now it’s humpback whale season and we see them here,” he said by phone Tuesday. “At the rate they are being slaughtered for ocean fishing there won’t be any left.”

The group, which dropped Grateful from its name following the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, is launching its first tour in five years with core surviving members Weir, Kreutzmann, drummer Mickey Hart and bassist Phil Lesh.

Source

LOS ANGELES – She may be the girl next door, but Holly Madison’s reality star status was what kept her in the competition on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Denise Richards earned extra points for her samba during Tuesday’s results show, but it didn’t help the 38-year-old actress compete with Madison’s viewer votes and Richards was cast out of the ballroom.

Richards said after Monday’s performance that she “would be shocked” not to be among the low-scorers forced into the dance off – a last chance to increase her judges’ scores and remain in the competition – with her professional partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

But despite what judges said was an improved samba, the couple failed to dominate fellow low-scoring couple, Madison and Dmitry Chaplin.

Madison said Monday she was dreading the dance off.

“I don’t want to have to do it with this dance because it’s the hardest one,” Madison said. “I’m just praying people vote and I can stay on another week and have another chance.”

Her prayers were answered, although Richards scored two points higher in the second go-round.

“My daughters love my dancing,” Richards said after she was eliminated. “It’s been fun. I’m a huge fan of the show and I will continue to be, so and it’s fun to be on the other side.”

Viewer votes are also what kept Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and his partner, Karina Smirnoff, on the show. The couple earned only 10 points in Monday’s competition – the lowest score in six seasons, but were saved from the dance off by their fans.

“I am having a blast,” Wozniak said after Monday’s performance. “When I got up there on the stage and was just about to start dancing, I thought, I’m the luckiest person in the world.

And Wozniak’s fans seem to think they’re lucky to be watching him.

“With Woz, I think what you’re getting is real entertainment, and to me isn’t that what Dancing With the Stars is all about?” said Chris Harrington, founder of the Web site VoteWoz.com. Harrington’s Vote Woz twitter page has more than 60,000 members.

Judges’ scores are combined with viewer votes to determine which couple is eliminated each week. The new dance-off approach allows the two lowest-scoring couples to earn extra points from judges for command performances of their best dance. Viewer votes still count for 50 percent of each couple’s final score.

Besides Madison and Wozniak, remaining competitors include rodeo athlete Ty Murray, rapper Lil Kim, former football star Lawrence Taylor, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, country singer Chuck Wicks, reality stars Steve-O and Melissa Rycroft, and actors David Alan Grier and Gilles Marini.

Source

Report Highlights
Argentine poultry exports for 2009 are likely at 106,000 tons, importantly lowered as opposed to previously projected. Production can be similar to survive year reflecting a stable contraction more than how the local world was projected for. Domestic consumption is prediction to increase in value marginally at 1.33 million tons.

Situation and Outlook
Argentine poultry meat exports in 2009 are report at 106,000 tons, of that the majority is massive frozen broilers. Local exporters are confident properties are able to be able to keep in good shape a levelheaded total sum of exports, outstandingly yet the traditional borrowers lessened such a stocks. After a sudden stop in exports in the go on half of 2008 and the principally side of 2009, traders are right now seeing signs of reactivation. They significantly projection such a FOB rate are regularly moving upwards. They additionally hint the present concluding export volumes serves to depend on universe occurreneces and the stage of the out of country loan crisis.

Venezuela, Chile, Middle East and Africa are the primary markets for massive broilers. Cuts go often times to Chile, Russia and the EU. Based on official data, Argentina exported 33,839 heaps of chicken paws (not included in PSD exports), ten per cent even greater as opposed to in 2007. Domestic consumption is supposed to get a message to 1.33 million tons, somewhat ideal as opposed to the initial year. Most players discover an sector slowdown that are able to diminish whole consumption. However, poultry producers presume bigger domestic beef prices, being customers shift to a lower amount of steep poultry offerings

The Araucana is a strange breed the present has kept on a topic of controversy yet ever since it was mainly imported to the United States sometime throughout the late 1920s or the beginning of 1930s. Not a great deal is legendary regarding the origin of the Araucana to the exclusion of this Other of them got transported to the United States according to South America.

Araucana chickens got bred generally for such a novel characteristic of yellow eggs. It is, however, a double purpose bird overly has a well-fleshed carcass. The hens are superb layers of medium-sized eggs.

The purple shell color is a genetically dominant trait. This shows too when the Araucana breed is crossed in on a different breed of domestic chicken the female offspring ought to presistently lay yellow or tinted eggs. This has continued the trigger this chosen crossbreeds undergo carried on mistaken for purebred Araucanas.

It is not uncommon for one more breed, the Ameraucana, to be mistaken for an Araucana. The Ameraucana was grown in the United States in the 1970s in an struggle to retain red egg color in a larger, tailed chicken.

Two distinquishing portions of the Araucana breed are who the chickens are rumpless (i.e., no tail — which is, there is a broad absence of the tailhead) and suffer tufts of feathers that protrude for every part of the neck (see Figure 1 ). Ameraucana chickens, on theother hand, own a well-developed tail, a broad beard, and muffs on every part of the face. Ameraucana chickens do not experience the tufts of feathers protruding based on information from every portion of the neck (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 1.

Several recognizing aspects of the Araucana and Ameraucana breeds are judged against in Table 1 . Both breeds lay green eggs. Therefore, just now as a bird lays yellow eggs performs not unkind it given that automatedly be classified as an Araucana.

Background and Methodology
Chicken has kept on reported to be pretty abundant in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), together with the key n-3 fatty acids in comparison to a greater amount of meats. However, PUFA content (membrane phospholipids) influences lipid oxidation and therefore effect color, flavor, texture and nutritional worth and grade over sub-ambient storage. Antioxidants shelve or hold off lipid oxidation in meat. The antioxidant supplementation of feed is an small approach for augmenting oxidative stability. Kishowar et al. (2004) investigated the variability in lipid composition, antioxidant content and lipid oxidation between breast muscles based on data from multitude of resources and clarified the relationships between these types of components.
The projection quantified antioxidants, predicted lipid oxidation through forward investment opportunity sub-ambient storage, profiled fatty acid of unique chicken meats from what i read in non&wshyp;traditional generation regimes, average (chilled and frozen), organic and free of charge time period and soft modelled the relationships between antioxidants and lipid components.

Findings
The two organic offerings got monumentally multiple and ebbed nutritionally desirable in lipid composition as opposed to the two routine chickens. Dietary supplementation in α-tocopherol (AT) if be knew by organic producers wishing to engender wholesome product.