Pleasant music restore vision of visual neglect patients

Here is another research which proved that music is the best medicine. Researchers from Imperial College London led by Dr. David Soto studied the effects of listening to music on stroke patients who have developed visual neglect (loss of ability to track objects in the visual field on the side opposite to the part of the brain damaged by stroke).

Visual neglect is a very distressing disability suffered by 60% of stroke patients with extreme cases where victims can only eat only the food on half side of the plate or shave only half of the face.

The researchers gave 3 visual neglect patients various tasks like identifying colored shapes or red lights in the impaired side of vision in 3 circumstances - listening to music they like, music they did not like, and in silence. It was found that the 3 patients could identify more accurately colored shapes and red lights in their impaired side of vision while listening to music they liked.

According to Dr. David Soto, "Music appears to improve awareness because of its positive emotional effect on the patient, so similar beneficial effects may also be gained by making the patient happy in other ways."

The researchers found that listening to pleasant music can restore visions of visual neglect patients.

Opera best medicine for the heart

Photo of Luciano Pavarotti (Opera) courtesy of Pirlouiiiit

This another of the best medicine series. In this case it is the right kind of music is good medicine for the heart.

Dr. Luciano Bernardi led a team of researchers from Pavia University, Italy, in a study of the effects of five random tracks of classical music on 24 healthy volunteer subjects by monitoring how their body respond to the music. The music include selections from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Nessun Dorma, an aria from Puccini's Turandot, Bach's cantata Number 169, Nabucco: Va Pensiero and Libiamo ne'lieti calici from La Traviata.

The researchers found that musical crescendo (gradual volume increase) stimulated the body which caused narrowing of blood vessels under the skin, increased blood pressure and heart rate and increased respiratory rates. On the other hand, diminuendos (gradual volume decreases) caused the opposite, that is, relaxation which led to slowed heart rate and lowered blood pressure. Operatic music which alternates from fast to slow was found to be the best for the heart and blood circulation.

Source: BBC News: Opera 'is music for the heart'

Videos of classical music

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Alcohol caused 1 in 25 deaths

Photo courtesy of Brian Rosner

Alcohol is definitely not "food as medicine". In fact it may be labeled as a drink of death. According to a team from the University of Toronto who published the results of a study in a 3-parts reports at The Lancet, Alcohol: a global health priorit, Action needed to tackle a global drink problem and A case study in how harmful alcohol consumption can be, one in 25 deaths worldwide are linked to alcohol consumption. That is 4% of deaths around the world are related to alcohol consumption. The figures for Europe is worst at 1 in 10 deaths being attributable to consumption of alcohol. Those are figures not to be sneered at.

Not only is 4% of deaths are alcohol consumption related, another 5% of years lived with disabilities are also attributable to alcohol consumption. Looks like the benefits of moderate drinking are overshadowed by its detrimental effects such as liver cirrhosis, mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, depression and stroke, etc.

Be overweight to live longer

Here is good news for those who are overweight. You have better chances of outliving those who are underweight and obese. But first the criteria for classification of underweight, normal, overweight, obese and morbidly obese:

BMI Criteria	status
18.5 or less	underweight
18.5 to <25	normal weight
25 to <30	overweight
30 to <35	obese
35 or greater	morbidly obese

Formula for calculating Body Mass Index (BMI):

BMI (kg/m² = (weight in pounds X 703)/(height in inches)²

Now the report: According to a study by researchers at Statistics Canada, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland State University, Oregon Health and Science University and McGill University published in the online journal Obesity, overweight (extra few pounds) people lives longer. This was based on studying the relationship between the BMI (body mass index) and death among 11,326 Canadian adults, the data extracted from Canadian National Population Health Survey over a 12-year period. The study reported that underweight people has a 70% higher chances of dying than people of normal weight while those morbidly obese people has a 36% higher chances of dying. The surprising finding is that overweight people have 17% lower chances to die as compared with people of normal weight.

Green-lipped mussels fight arthritis

Coastal-dwelling Maori have been observed to have very low incidence of arthritis and related diseases and researchers have attributed this to their consumption of green-lipped mussels found exclusively in the pristine marine waters of New Zealand:



Now a Hong Kong clinical trial led by Prof. CS Lau of University of Hong Kong rheumatology division Department of Medicine have shown that a lipid extract from green-lipped mussels is effective in reducing pain and improving arthritic condition and improvement of joint function. In the clinical trial, 70% of 60 osteoarthritis patients put on a diet of the green-lipped mussels lipid extract were found to have experienced significant improvement in joint tenderness, morning joint stiffness, grip strength and overall have better mobility after four and eight weeks.

In another six month long clinical trial in Glassgow, Scotland, 76% of rheumatoid arthritis patients put on the green-lipped mussels lipid extract reported significant improvement.

Green-lipped mussels products


Products for arthritis

Polyphenon E (green tea) slows prostate cancer

Philadelphia-based researchers led by Dr James Cardelli from the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center in a study on 26 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and scheduled for surgery, found that feeding these patients with 4 capsules of Polyphenon E for 34 days have reduced significantly HGF, VEGF and PSA levels.

HGF (hepatocyte growth factor) and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor are indicators of developing cancer. PSA (prostate specific antigen) is a protein found only in the prostate with increased levels in prostate cancer victims.

Polyphenon E is a chemical compound found in green tea and 4 capsules of Polyphenon E is equivalent to 12 cups of green tea a day.

Green tea books & products

Whole cooked carrots anti-cancer (falcarinol)

When you cook carrots, do not cut it up beforehand. This is according to a research done at the School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development of Newcastle University. It seems when carrots is boiled whole, not cut, it will contains one-quarter more of falcarinol which is an anti-cancer compound.

According to lead researcher Dr. Kirsten Brandt, when you chop up the carrots, you are increasing the surface areas through which more nutrients and falcarinol will be leached out during cooking. By not cutting up the carrots prior to cooking, you will reduce this leaching and thus enable more of the anti-cancer falcarinol to remain in the carrots.

Products with carrots

My daughter is a Herbalife distributor

One day my youngest daughter came up to me and told me she wanted to become a Herbalife Distributor and she wants me to be a guinea pig. She dragged me to her upline so that they can use a machine to scan me for statistics like body fat, body age, etc. Wow, a machine that looks like a weighing machine can tell me all that!!!

If I remember correctly, the machine told me that I am 20 years younger than my chronological age. After the scan, my daughter wanted to put me on a diet of Herbal Life shakes which she said is a complete meal by itself. That is real convenience fast food - scoop the powder into the blender, add soymilk, blend and presto, a complete meal. No cooking. That is fortunate because our kitchen can be described as dysfunctional.

After this dose of Herbal Nutrition, it will be interesting to see what my second scan with that mysterious body scanner that looks like a weighing machine will turn up.

Super cancer fighting tomatoes

Photo of tomatoes courtesy of Ewan

Tesco the supermarket giant has claimed that they have produced a super tomato which has two times more lycopene as normal tomatoes. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant which can prevent cell damages and is touted as being able to reduce risks of prostate, colorectal and breast cancers. They called their super tomato "Healthy Living Tomato on the Vine".

In addition to fighting cancer, lycopene has also been found to reduce LDL (low density lipid) cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and thus fight heart diseases.

Turmeric may prevent dementia

Dementia (meaning "deprived of mind") is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the body beyond what might be expected from normal aging. It is suspected that the spread of amyloid protein plaques (a plaque consisting of tangles of amyloid protein in nervous tissue) together with the tangles of nerve fibers in the brain is the cause of dementia. Professor Murali Doraisamy of Duke Unviversity in North Carolina have found evidences that people who eat curry regularly (about 2 to 3 times a week) are less likely to develop dementia. Evidences showed that curcumin (from turmeric which is the main spice for curry) is likely to be the active ingredient. Curcumin binds to the plaques and dissolves them.

Clinical trial is now being conducted to test curcumin's effects on Alzheimer's patients at the University of California.

Source: Weekly curry 'may fight dementia'