Category Archives: Cancer

The Flat Belly Yoga workout

The Flat Belly Diet! has always promised a flatter belly, no crunches required. We still make good on that promise. In addition to following a diet rich in healthy fats like avocado, nuts and seeds and olive oil, we’ve now added a yoga component to the program with Flat Belly Yoga!  Your Guide to a Flatter Belly The plan takes the “work”out of working out and offers a hybrid yoga approach that incorporates hand weights and a cardio walking schedule to burn belly fat. The bulk of the plan is a 28-day workout, but first, Kimberly has designed a 4-day jump start to prep you for the next 28 days. We're sharing that jump start with you right here! If you like it, we encourage you to try the 28-day plan by joining the Flat Belly Diet! online community or ordering the book or DVD. The jump start combines low-intensity yoga with walking cardio sessions to get you off the couch and moving around. The yoga portion of the jump start, also known as Yoga for Your Core, starts with just a few simple, straightforward moves that happen to be some of Kimberly’s favorite easy stretches. Let's get started! Heart Walks There are two types of walking workouts featured in the Flat Belly Yoga! workout. If you want to lose belly fat, your walks need to be real workouts, which means we need to get your heart rate up. Your aerobic program will include both steady pace and interval walks. The first type of walking is called Fat Blast. That's a fast-paced walk, meaning it's not leisurely. You will increase the distance you walk every week. The second type of walk is called Calorie Torch. This is an interval walk, meaning it shifts back and forth between a fast-paced walk and a series of high-intensity “bursts” in which you will be walking at a brisk pace. You'll start with a steady, fast-paced walk, and then you'll shift gears by moving into what I call a pick-me-up pace, which is your high-intensity pace. The Calorie Torch incorporates intervals because it's unhealthy to maintain an extremely high level of intensity for the entire workout, unless you're a professional athlete. YOUR 4-DAY SCHEDULE Each day's yoga routine is the same, but the walks vary in time and intensity. Day 1 Fat Blast Walk, 20 minutes • 3-minute warm-up • 15-minute fast pace • 2-minute cool-down Yoga for Your Core, 15 minutes Day 2 Calorie Torch Walk, 15 minutes • 3-minute warm-up • 10-minute fast pace with three 1-minute pick-me-ups • 2-minute cool-down Yoga for Your Core, 15 minutes Day 3 Fat Blast Walk, 20 minutes • 3-minute warm-up • 15-minute fast pace • 2-minute cool-down Yoga for Your Core, 15 minutes Day 4 Calorie Torch Walk, 15 minutes • 3-minute warm-up • 10-minute fast pace with three 1-minute pick-me-ups • 2-minute cool-down Warm-Up/Breath Work For the daily yoga part of this workout routine, we start with this pose. Sit in a cross-legged position, using your core to keep your back straight. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let's do this three times. Take a deep breath in and see if you can hold it for a few seconds. Then let it go. Repeat this one more time Easy Spinal Twist A:  Bring your knees together and roll down onto your back. Hug your knees into your chest and gently rock side to side, massaging your lower back. B:  Keep your right knee into your chest and move your left leg straight out on the floor. C:  Take a deep breath in. On your exhale, bring your right knee across your body toward the left side of the room while keeping your shoulder blades on the floor. Then bring your right arm straight out from your shoulder and look to the right. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds, then switch sides. To do this, both knees should come back into your chest. This time your left knee stays in and your right leg goes straight onto the floor. Bring your left knee toward the right side of the room with your left arm straight out from your shoulder. Look out over your left shoulder. Take a second to notice if there was a difference between one side and the other. Hold for 30 seconds, then bring both knees to your chest. Tip: Don't try to force your knee down with your hand. This will lift your shoulder blade off the floor. Rock Up To Standing A:  Lying on your back with both knees at your chest, rock back and forth from your shoulders to your hips. B:  Once you get up the momentum, rock up onto your feet and stand up. This takes a lot of core strength, so you can make it easier by using your hands to push yourself up. 14 Walking Workouts To Boost Energy And Burn Fat Chair Pose From a standing position, bring your legs together with your feet touching. Sink your hips back like you are about to sit on a chair and bring your arms above you, holding them straight up next to your ears. Hold for 45 seconds to 1 minute. If you want to challenge yourself more, try to shift a little more weight onto your heels. This engages your core muscles and works on your balance. Tip: This pose requires a lot of core strength, so if you're having difficulty, you can make it easier by not sinking your hips as far down. To do this, pretend like you are trying to sit on a bar stool instead of a chair. Warrior 1 Starting from the previous Chair Pose, come back up to a standing position. You can shake out your legs if you feel the need. A:  Step your left leg back about 3 feet and bend your right knee to a 90-degree angle. Try to point your back toes slightly forward while keeping your heel pressed down. B:  Then bring your arms up toward the ceiling. The goal in this pose is to have your thigh parallel to the floor. You want to feel as if you are trying to reach the ceiling with your fingertips as you sink down with your lower body. Keep your upper body straight and hold for one minute. Come back up to a standing position. Now step your right leg back 3 feet and bend your left leg to a 90-degree angle. Bring your arms straight up toward the ceiling. Hold for one minute. Take a second and try to notice if there was a difference between one side and the other. One of your goals, besides gaining a flat belly, is to balance out your body to prevent injury and create symmetry. Hero Pose With A Lift A:  Come down to the floor with your knees together and sit on your feet. Rest your hands on top of your thighs. Take a deep breath in. B:  On your exhale, begin to lift your arms as you raise yourself up onto your knees. C:  Once you are on your knees and your hands are pointed up toward the ceiling, slowly lower yourself back down to your starting position. Do this five times Seated Tree—Up And Over Swing your legs out in front of you and shake them out. A:  Bring your right foot to the inside of your left leg. Place your right hand on the mat or floor beside your right hip for support. B:  With your left arm, reach up and over your head toward the right side of your body and then back down to shoulder height. Make sure you're sitting up straight. Repeat this five times, inhaling as you reach up and exhaling as you bring your arm back down. We will be doing this pose with weights during the 4-Week Workout, so I want to make sure you get your form down now. After you have done this five times, switch sides. Your left foot should come to the inside of your right leg. Bring your left hand beside your left hip for support, while your right hand comes up and over toward your left, and then back down to shoulder height. Do this five times slowly. Sitting up straight will help you focus on your core. If you can't sit up straight, you can modify the pose by not reaching up and over so far. Or you can sit up on a folded blanket, which helps to keep you from slouching. Tip: Try to get your foot to the inside of your thigh. If you have trouble, just bring your foot to your knee (or to your calf) to modify the pose. Windshield Wiper A:  Next, bring your knees together and roll down onto your back. Bring your arms straight out so that they are parallel to your shoulders. While keeping your head and neck straight, look up at the ceiling. B:  Take a deep breath in and on your exhale, lower your legs while pointing them toward the right side of the room. Hover your legs about 2 or 3 inches from the floor. C:  Take a deep breath in and on your exhale, switch so that your legs are pointed toward the left side of the room. Do this five times on each side. Be sure to keep your upper back pressed to the floor. This pose works your obliques--the sides of your body. Once you've completed this pose, hug your knees into your chest and rock side to side. Bridge With A Lift A:  While lying on your back, place your feet on the floor with your knees bent, and bring your feet hip-distance apart. Take a deep breath in. B:  On your exhale, push into your feet to lift your hips toward the ceiling. Once your hips are up, bring your arms underneath your body and clasp your hands together. Try to roll your shoulder blades together and raise your chest toward your chin while keeping your hips raised toward the ceiling. Release your arms and slowly lower your hips down to the floor. C:  Repeat, but this time bring your arms over your head. Once the back of your hands touch the floor behind your head, bring them back down to where they started. Really focus on your core/abs when you are doing this pose. Do this one more time. Once you're finished, hug your knees into your chest and rock side to side. Easy Spinal Twist This time, you're going to hold the pose for 45 seconds. A:  Bring your knees together and roll down onto your back. Hug your knees into your chest and gently rock side to side, massaging your lower back. B:  Keep your right knee into your chest and move your left leg straight out on the floor. C:  Take a deep breath in. On your exhale, bring your right knee across your body toward the left side of the room while keeping your shoulder blades on the floor. Then bring your right arm straight out from your shoulder and look to the right. Hold the stretch for 45 seconds, then switch sides. To do this, both knees should come back into your chest. This time your left knee stays in and your right leg goes straight onto the floor. Bring your left knee toward the right side of the room with your left arm straight out from your shoulder. Look out over your left shoulder. Take a second to notice if there was a difference between one side and the other. Hold for 45 seconds, then bring both knees to your chest. Remember: Don't try to force your knee down with your hand. This will lift your shoulder blade off the floor Corpse Take a deep breath in. On your exhale, lie on the floor with your palms facing up and your eyes closed. Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale from your mouth. Take two more deep breaths and just let your whole body relax onto the floor. Hold this pose for two minutes. Then roll onto your right side and push yourself up to a seated position. Take a second to evaluate how you feel. This concludes your series of daily yoga poses for your Flat Belly Yoga 4-Day Jump Start! More Exercises for Flatter Abssource : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/flat-belly-yoga-workout/

Quit-smoking treatments safe, effective, review says

Popular smoking cessation treatments - such as nicotine replacements and antidepressants - improve people's chances of kicking the habit without much risk, according to a review of past research. “It seems very clear that medications can help. They're not the magic bullet but you do improve your chances of quitting - generally - if you try them. And as far as we can tell, they're safe to use,” said Kate Cahill, who led the study. Several reviews have looked at the effectiveness of smoking cessation treatments, but the researchers wanted to put those results into a single large review to help people who want to use medical treatments to stop smoking, Cahill, a senior researcher for the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group at the University of Oxford, UK, said. About one fifth of the U.S. and UK populations are current smokers, according to the researchers. Previous studies have found between 70 percent and 75 percent want to quit, but only about 3 percent accomplish that every year. For the new study, the researchers pulled data from 12 reviews published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international research organization that evaluates medical evidence. Those analyses, which were conducted between 2008 and 2012, included data from 267 studies of more than 101,000 smokers. The studies typically compared smokers trying to quit without the help of a smoking cessation treatment to smokers using nicotine replacement therapies, such as nicotine gum and patches, or prescription drugs. The medications include varenicline (marketed by Pfizer as Chantix or Champix) and bupropion (marketed by GlaxoSmithKline as Zyban or Wellbutrin, but available as a generic). The researchers found that the nicotine replacement therapies and the antidepressant bupropion led about eighteen people to successfully give up smoking for every 10 people who quit without treatments. Varenicline performed even better and led to about 28 people quitting for every 10 who did so without medication. What's more, Cahill and her colleagues found that lesser-known smoking cessation treatments were also effective. Those include the antidepressant nortriptyline and cytisine, a plant-derived supplement available in Eastern Europe. All of the treatments also appeared to be reasonably safe, according to the researchers who published their results on Thursday in The Cochrane Library. Previous reports have found that about 1 in every 1,000 people taking bupropion has a seizure, but the researchers found a lower rate of 1 in 1,500. Also, despite conflicting reports over the safety of varenicline, the researchers didn't find evidence that the drug increased the risk of neuropsychiatric or heart problems. Judith Prochaska, who researches tobacco treatment but was not involved in the new study, said not all smokers will use smoking cessation tools but it's important for them to know they're available. Nicotine replacement therapy is available over the counter in the U.S. and varenicline and bupropion are available with a prescription for about $4 per day - less than a pack of cigarettes, said Prochaska, associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center in California. “They have been shown to pretty much double the likelihood that somebody will quit,” she added. Cahill cautioned, however, that smoking cessation tools won't work for everyone, but “they certainly help some people.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/quit-smoking-treatments-safe-effective-review-says/

Immunotherapy now used to treat cancers beyond melanoma

Diagnosed with advanced lung cancer over a year ago, Gabe Tartaglia was loath to undergo the kind of harsh chemotherapy that had devastated his sister before her death three years earlier from pancreatic cancer. He decided to enter a clinical trial for a new drug designed to trigger the immune system to fight cancer. The results were better than anyone expected. “Everything has shrunk,” said the 62-year-old contractor from Wolcott, Connecticut, who still goes for treatment every two weeks and has regular scans to keep tabs on his progress. “Some of the tumors you can't even see.” Just a few years ago, nobody believed it was possible to harness the immune system to respond to cancer, but drugs like nivolumab, the experimental Bristol-Myers drug Tartaglia receives, are showing promise, even in some patients who have never tried any other treatments. The drugs will be a main focus of this year's American Society of Clinical Oncology five-day meeting in Chicago beginning on May 31. Much of the attention will be trained on agents that disable a protein called programmed death 1, or PD-1, that enables tumors to evade the immune system. In addition to nivolumab, experimental drugs in the class include Merck's lambrolizumab and Roche's MPDL3280A, which work by blocking a partner protein known as PD-L1 (the L is for ligand). PD-L1 in turn works within cancer cells to shut down the immune response. Analysts and investors will be parsing the ASCO data for clues to the market potential for the drugs, which are expected to generate billions of dollars in annual sales. Nivolumab alone is forecast to have sales of $1.2 billion in 2017, according to Wall Street analysts tracked by Thomson Reuters Pharma. 'I GET TO COME HOME AND EAT' Part of the excitement comes from a Phase 1 study last year of nivolumab, which showed lasting response rates among 20 percent to 30 percent of a group of patients with multiple cancers, including lung cancer, a leading cause of cancer death that so far has shown limited response to immune system therapies. The trials are still in the early stages. Researchers are working to understand why most patients do not respond and are exploring combining immunotherapies with other treatments. Aside from the nuisance of frequent blood draws, Tartaglia has had few complaints. “The best part is, I get to come home and eat. I'm all set. Other people are throwing up,” he said of patients at Yale Cancer Center in New Haven who are still getting conventional chemotherapy. Normally, experimental cancer drugs are only used in patients who fail other treatments, said Dr Scott Gettinger, Tartaglia's doctor and an associate professor of medical oncology at the center. “Now we are starting to use immunotherapy drugs as first-line treatments … I know what first-line chemotherapy can do for lung cancer, and it's not great.” Patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer, who are treated with the current standard of care - chemo and Roche's Avastin - have a median survival of about a year, Gettinger said, noting that some of his patients have been on nivolumab for more than three years. “We haven't really realized the potential of this therapy,” he said. “As we learn how to use this drug, we are going to see higher response rates.” Another of Gettinger's patients, 68-year-old Bruce Leonard, tried chemotherapy, but his lung cancer returned after two years, prompting a decision to enter the nivolumab study. “I felt at the time that by just doing chemo again, at best I would see the same result,” the retired commodity buyer said. “About two months after I started (the trial), there was a 30 percent improvement … and it has gotten progressively better, to the point that with my last scan they found absolutely nothing.” Many patients do not respond to the treatments, but for those who do, the responses have been extraordinary; some patients have lived for years. Yervoy, Bristol-Myers' breakthrough melanoma treatment, only benefits about 10 to 15 percent of patients. Newer agents, such as nivolumab, have shown response rates ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent. A small study released earlier this month looking at a combination of the two drugs showed 53 percent of patients had their tumors shrink by at least half after 12 weeks. In 18 percent of patients on the dual therapy, tumors were no longer detectable. Bristol-Myers has three late-stage clinical trials of nivolumab in melanoma, two late-stage trials in lung cancer and one in kidney cancer. Last November, interim results from an early-phase trial of Merck's lambrolizumab in patients with advanced melanoma showed that it shrank tumors in 51 percent of patients after 12 weeks, compared with a typical response rate of about 5 percent for similar patients given conventional treatment. Merck plans to present an update of this study on June 2 at the ASCO meeting. The company also is studying its anti-PD-1 drug in so-called triple-negative breast cancer, a hard-to-treat form of the disease, as well as head and neck cancer, bladder cancer and lung cancer. Last month, lambrolizumab won designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a breakthrough therapy, which could speed its approval. “It's clear now that these medicines do have activity across a broader spectrum of tumors, and they seem to be remarkably potent in very challenging clinical oncology settings,” said Dr Gary Gilliland, a senior vice president who heads the oncology franchise at Merck Research Labs. In April, Roche reported results of a small safety study of its anti-PD-L1 drug MPDL3280A that showed anti-tumor activity against a variety of cancers including lung, kidney, colon and gastric cancers. Roche plans to start a Phase III study in lung-cancer patients. The findings are driving enthusiasm for immunotherapies. “It tells us these are poised to be the most important agents in oncology,” said Dr Antoni Ribas of the University of California Los Angeles' Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Citigroup research analyst Andrew Baum expects immunotherapies to form the backbone of treatments for up to 60 percent of cancers over the next decade, up from less than 3 percent today, transforming the treatment of cancer from a desperate struggle with death into a chronic disease, in which treatments keep patients alive for years. Baum estimates that would generate annual sales of $35 billion. “The current explosion in all ongoing approaches ... to utilize the immune system to seek and destroy cancer cells marks a watershed, analogous to the impact of HIV drugs transforming life expectancy in (patients infected with) HIV,” Baum said in a recent note to investors. YEARS, NOT MONTHS Doctors have been trying for decades to get the immune system to fight cancer with limited, sporadic success. But the disease has developed wily defenses that camouflage tumor cells. “The tide really turned in 2010 with the first presentation of pivotal data about ipilimumab,” said Dr Jedd Wolchok of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of the drug now sold as Yervoy. In 2011 ipilimumab became the first immunotherapy drug to help extend the lives of patients with advanced melanoma. “We're very pleased that Yervoy prolongs survival in one out of five individuals, but there is still room for growth,” said Michael Giordano, senior vice president of global development for oncology and immunology at Bristol-Myers. “Our goal here is to have very long-term durable responses. We're not just trying to increase the patient's disease-free survival for a few months,” said Nils Lonberg, senior vice president of discovery biologics at Bristol-Myers. Lonberg envisions a day when immunotherapy will be as important a tool for oncologists as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Wolchok says the promise for immunotherapies is treatment responses that last. “The immune system is a dynamic organ. It remembers things,” he said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/immunotherapy-is-not-just-for-melanoma-anymore/

Could shedding extra pounds improve psoriasis?

Losing weight may ease psoriasis and improve quality of life for some overweight people with the chronic skin disease, new research from Denmark suggests. But the trial may have been too small to fully flesh out that link, and researchers said future studies will have to follow larger groups of patients for more time to make definitive conclusions. “The results, I would say, are promising,” said Dr. Joel Gelfand, a dermatologist from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. “It's still excellent advice to patients who are overweight with psoriasis to lose weight.” According to the National Institutes of Health, more than three percent of U.S. adults have psoriasis, which is characterized by itchy, painful plaques on the skin. Over the years, researchers have learned that obese people are more likely to develop psoriasis than their thinner peers and tend to have more severe disease. That could be due to more body-wide inflammation among people carrying around extra fat. “It's more than one thing that causes it, but obesity is probably one of the factors that can bring on psoriasis,” Gelfand, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health. Genetics also plays a role. Conversely, Gelfand said there's been some suggestion that losing weight may ease psoriasis symptoms, based on reports of people who had bariatric surgery and saw their skin condition improve. For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Peter Jensen from Copenhagen University Hospital Gentofte wanted to shed more light on how weight loss influences psoriasis. They randomly assigned 30 overweight and obese people with psoriasis to go on a 4-month weight-loss diet of 800 to 1,200 calories per day and another 30 to stick to typical nutrition guidelines. By the end of the study, participants in the diet group had lost an average of 35 pounds, on average, compared to just one pound in the non-diet group. Dieters had a borderline larger improvement in their psoriasis severity and the amount of their body covered by psoriasis plaques. They started the study with an average severity score of 4.8, on a scale of 0 to 72. By 4 months, that had fallen to 2.5. Non-dieters saw only a slight drop in their psoriasis cover and severity, from 5.5 to 5.2. People in the weight-loss group also reported greater improvements in their quality of life during the study period, Jensen and his colleagues wrote Wednesday in JAMA Dermatology. The diet was tied to some mild side effects, including headaches and dizziness. One patient complained of being hungry throughout the study, the researchers reported, and another “consumed large amounts of sugar-free licorice, resulting in hypokalemia (low potassium) that normalized after he was instructed to stop eating licorice.” Gelfand said that because patients started out with mild to moderate psoriasis, they didn't have much room to improve when they lost weight. That, combined with the small group size, limits some of the conclusions that can be taken from the study. “The next step would be to do a much larger study in patients who have more severe psoriasis,” Gelfand said. In the meantime, he said weight loss can have other benefits for heavy people with psoriasis, such as improving how they respond to some medications and lowering their risk of heart disease.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/could-shedding-extra-pounds-improve-psoriasis/

New weapon in fight against cervical cancer

The E7 protein is produced early in the lifecycle of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and blocks the body’s natural defences against the uncontrolled division of cells that can lead to cancer. Researchers at the University of Leeds’ School of Molecular and Cellular Biology have synthesised a molecule, called an RNA aptamer, that latches onto the carcinogenic protein and targets it for destruction, significantly reducing its presence in cells in the laboratory derived from cervical cancers…

Biologists take snapshot of fleeting protein process

The biological "freeze-frame" shows the initial step in the formation of actin, a sturdy strand-like filament that is vital for humans. Actin filaments help cells maintain their shape. The filaments, which are called F-actin, also play key roles in muscle contraction, cell division and other critical processes. "One of the major distinctions between cancerous cells and healthy cells is their shape," said study co-author Jianpeng Ma, professor of bioengineering at Rice and the Lodwick T. …

Prancercise: New eccentric fitness routine mimics dancing like a horse

Move over Richard Simmons.  Johanna Rohrback has arrived, and she has a unique workout routine that is taking the Internet by storm. Known as Prancercise, Rohrback’s workout is described as “a springy, rhythmic way of moving forward, similar to a horse's gait and is ideally induced by elation.” Various YouTube videos showcase Rohrback “prancing” at different speeds – including the Prancercise walk, trot and gallop.   According to her instruction, all you need are a couple of ankle weights and some music to get started.  For the more intense Prancercise box, individuals can strap the ankle weights to their wrists and punch into the air while they prance. Rohrback originally introduced her unconventional routine back in 1989, but the endeavor failed to take off.  Looking to revive Prancercise, Rohrback published a book about the routine in Dec. 2012 titled Prancercise: The Art of Physical and Spiritual Excellence, along with the series of YouTube videos currently circulating the web. The book is described as “a recipe for fitness, health, and self-fulfillment!”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/prancercise-new-eccentric-fitness-routine-mimics-dancing-like-horse/

High blood pressure linked to declining brain function

High blood pressure, particularly in the arteries that supply blood to the head and neck, may be linked with declining cognitive abilities, according to a new study from Australia. Researchers found that people with high blood pressure in the central arteries including the aorta, the largest artery in the human body, and the carotid arteries in the neck performed worse on tests of visual processing, and had slower thinking and poorer recognition abilities. Typically, blood pressure measurements are taken from the brachial artery in the arm, but looking at the health of the central arteries may be a more sensitive way to assess cognitive abilities, said study researcher Matthew Pase, of the Center for Human Psychopharmacology at Swinburne University in Melbourne. The central arteries directly control bloodflow to the brain. “If we can estimate the blood pressure in central arteries, we might be able to better predict cognitive function and cognitive decline,” Pase said. [10 Odd Facts About the Brain] Pase presented the findings here on May 24 at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. How it all works A beating heart pumps blood in spurts, but the central arteries are flexible, expanding and contracting to maintain steady bloodflow to the brain. As people age, the central arteries stiffen, and with less elasticity, the brain receives more high-pressure blood, which may damage cognition, Pase said. [7 Ways the Mind and Body Change With Age] In the study, Pase and his colleagues looked at whether associations between blood pressure and cognition were stronger for measurements taken in the arm, or the central arteries. The researchers examined 493 Australians between ages 20 and 82. The participants were mostly Caucasians, and all were nonsmokers with no history of stroke or dementia, Pase said. Study participants performed tasks to measure various types of cognition, such as visual processing, working memory, recognition abilities and processing speed. The researchers also took blood pressure measurements from the arm and central arteries. Blood pressure and cognition The researchers found that high brachial blood pressure was linked to worse performance on the visual processing test, but high central blood pressure correlated to worse performance across several tests, including visual processing, recognition and processing speed. “This suggests central blood pressure is a more sensitive predictor of cognitive aging,” Pase said. To expand upon these findings, Pase said he wants to look at whether reducing central blood pressure which can be done by quitting smoking, doing regular exercise or limiting salt intake might protect people against mental deterioration. The researchers will detail their results in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/high-blood-pressure-linked-to-declining-brain-function/

Brain capable of making its own version of Valium, researchers find

The oral drug Valium – also known by its generic name, diazepam – was once popular with doctors in the 1970s as a treatment for seizures brought on by epilepsy.  However, the drug, also used to treat anxiety, has fallen out of favor in recent years as it is prone to abuse and often dangerous if taken in high doses. Now, in light of a recent study, the need for Valium to treat epilepsy may be even further diminished.  Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a naturally occurring protein in the brains of mammals that acts like Valium, stopping certain types of seizures from occurring. Researchers hope that if they are able to discover a way to boost this protein naturally, doctors would no longer have a need to prescribe Valium. The protein, identified as diazepam binding inhibitor (DBI), essentially acts like the brain’s very own brake system, sensing when a seizure is about to occur and arresting the process before it can spiral out of control. “Our thinking on brain circuits and epilepsy has been that our brains have their own ways to control seizures, and this is why most of us aren’t having seizures every day,” study author John Huguenard, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford, told FoxNews.com.  “But what happens as a seizure starts, a few cells in the brain may get too active, and you get an avalanche of activity that eventually can take up most of the brain circuitry.  The brain’s own ‘Valium’ is acting as an anti-avalanche method, checking things when they’re first starting.” According to Huguenard, the brain has two main groups of nerve cells.  The first type of cells – excitatory cells – are responsible for stimulating other cells and sending messages from one area of the brain to another.   This messaging process, known as excitation, is responsible for communicating what we see, what we smell, what we do, etc. The other key type of cells are known as inhibitory cells, which are responsible for keeping the brain circuitry under control.  If one area of the brain gets too excited and starts to receive too many signals at once, the inhibitory cells kick into gear and slow the process in order to restore balance. “In terms of this form of epilepsy we’ve been studying, if a certain group of brain cells can’t communicate well through this inhibitory process, then (the animals) have seizures,” Huguenard said. The protein DBI is a crucial component of the inhibitory process, as it boosts the actions of an important neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).  Roughly one-fifth of the inhibitory nerve cells in the brain operate by secreting GABA, which binds to receptors located on excitatory cells, rendering them temporarily unable to fire any more electrical signals.   Without DBI, GABA cannot be enhanced, and the excitatory cells ultimately don’t get the message telling them to calm down.  However, up until now, this function of DBI was not well understood by researchers. To determine exactly how DBI operates in the brains of mammals, Huguenard and his team analyzed a group of bioengineered mice with the DBI gene mutation, meaning their brains were incapable of producing DBI. “When we tested seizures in these animals and tested communication, we found that (the inhibitory process) was ineffective and that the animals had more seizures,” Huguenard said.  “It told us that this gene is producing a product in the brain that is controlling the seizures.” When they re-introduced the DBI-gene back into the brains of these mice, GABA-induced inhibition was restored and the mice suffered from fewer seizures. Benzodiazepine drugs, like Valium, work in a very similar way to DBI by also enhancing GABA-induced inhibition. But they often come at a high cost.  Many who take these medications long-term develop a physical dependence on the drug, experiencing serious withdrawal symptoms if they cease taking it.  Some studies have also found Valium to have an adverse effect on both short-term and long-term cognition. While the researchers only examined the brains of mice, they are optimistic DBI exists similarly in the brains of humans as well.   If the results end up translating to the human mind, Huguenard hopes to find a way to naturally boost DBI in the brain, negating the need for Valium to help control seizures. “The ultimate goal would be to develop new lines of therapy that would take this general approach – taking the brain’s mechanism for dealing with seizures and making them even more effective,” Huguenard said. The research was published May 30 in the journal Neuron.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/30/brain-capable-making-own-version-valium-researchers-find/