The Great Shampoo Sham

You don't need to shampoo daily. And the "no poo" movement suggests you don't do it at all. But if not washing your hair sounds flat-out gross, and yet you want to avoid some iffy chemicals, there are many all-natural shampoos. Image credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

Shampooing can be complicated. First, there are the convoluted instructions: Lather, rinse, repeat. It doesn't say anything about stopping. And now there's a movement afoot, called the "no poo" movement, advocating no shampooing whatsoever.

Shampoo is indeed a modern invention, as the no-poo'ers attest, developed roughly around the end of the 19th century. And few of us need to be shampooing every day, dermatologists say. That said, the necessity for shampoo varies from person to person, depending on your hair type and what you put in to your hair each day.

Forgoing shampooing completely, if that concept even appeals to you, ultimately could be rough on your hair and rougher on your social interactions.

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Study Finds 4 Things That Keep Old Minds Sharp

From Live Science:

Some people seem to be able to keep their wits well into old age. But what's their secret?

New research reveals a host of factors that may contribute to a sharper mind late in life, including exercise, education, non-smoking behavior and social activity.

While other research has shown that genetics play a role in whether people get dementia, the study adds to a growing body of research that is uncovering ways you can up the odds of keeping your brain healthy and your memory sharp now and later.

The study tested the cognitive ability of 2,500 people aged 70 to 79 over eight years. More than half of the subjects showed normal age-related decline in mind function and 16 percent had a considerable decline during the course of the study. But 30 percent of participants did not show a change in their cognitive skills, and some even improved on the tests.

The researchers then looked to see what could account for this difference.

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American Diets Getting Worse

From Live Science:

Eat your vegetables. Exercise. Don't drink so much beer. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Even fewer Americans in their middle and later years adhere to this healthy lifestyle advice than they did two decades ago.

Despite the well-known benefits of a lifestyle that includes physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, moderate alcohol use and not smoking, only a small proportion of older adults follow this healthy lifestyle pattern, a new survey finds.

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Is It Safe To Exercise In Your 70s?

From Live Science:

This Week's Question: I've been told I should exercise more, but I'm afraid that at my age (73) I might damage something. Am I safer as a couch potato?

All the current scientific evidence shows that geezers should exercise, even though many older people think it could harm them. Study after study demonstrates that seniors hurt their health a lot more by being sedentary.

If you're inactive, you deteriorate. Physical activity can help restore your capacity. Most older adults, regardless of age or condition, will benefit from increasing physical activity to a moderate level.

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Sports Drinks Trumped By Cereal and Milk

From Live Science:

Wheaties may very well be the breakfast of champions, according to a new study that finds that eating an unassuming bowl of any whole-grain cereal with milk is superior to chugging a designer sports drink after a workout to replenish muscle fuel and protein.

The study, published last week in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, demonstrates how sports drinks are largely unnecessary for recreational athletes.

Don't expect milk and cereal to replace sports drinks anytime soon, though. Mass marketing of these sweet sweat drinks ensures they will remain the beverage of choice for the Ironman wannabe in all of us.

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Milk And Cereal As Good As Expensive Sports Drinks In Boosting Performance, Claim Scientists

The milk helps reduce lactic acid levels in the blood,
the compound that causes stiffness after exercise Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Milk and cereal help to speed up recovery after exercise as much as expensive sports drinks, new findings from the University of Texas suggest.

Researchers found that athletes were just as replenished after exercise with a bowl of wheat flakes and skimmed milk as they were with many modern sports drinks which claim to rehydrate and re-energise the muscles.

They found that the traditional breakfast was just as good at replenishing blood sugar and insulin levels and that protein production was even better than with the so-called energy drinks.

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Nicotine Takes Edge Off Anger

From Live Science:

Smoking to relieve stress is nothing new, but now a brain imaging study shows just how nicotine can blunt our anger response.

People who received half a nicotine patch dose proved less likely to rise to provocation, compared to when they took a placebo. This may support the idea that angry or stressed-out individuals can more easily become addicted to cigarettes, researchers say.

"The findings suggest that people in anger provoking situations may be more susceptible to the effects of nicotine," said Jean Gehricke, a psychiatry researcher at the University of California in Irvine.

This also represents the first study to identify a brain system that is most reactive to nicotine and has the strongest connection with anger response, Gehricke told LiveScience.

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My Comment: I need a cigarette.

Study: Energy Drinks Boost the Brain, Not Brawn

From Time Magazine:

The promise of energy drinks is pretty irresistible — push your body, work hard, sweat buckets, and if you need an extra boost, down a bottle or two of liquid fuel to drive you through the rest of your workout.

Makes sense, since the drinks provide your body with carbohydrates in the form of sugars — the fuel that cells and tissues like muscle need to keep working. But exercise experts say that despite what you may think, energy drinks have no effect at all on your tired muscles. Instead, when your energy is petering out, a swig of an energy drink works on the brain to keep you inspired and motivated to push on.

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Laughter Is Indeed Good Medicine

From Live Science:

Nobody can say if laughter is the best medicine, but it certainly seems to help. So suggests a new but very small study of diabetes patients who were given a good dose of humor for a year.

Researchers split 20 high-risk diabetic patients —all with hypertension and hyperlipidemia (a risk factor for cardiovascular disease)— into two groups. Both groups were given standard diabetes medication. Group L viewed 30 minutes of humor of their choosing, while Group C, the control group, did not. This went on for a year of treatments.

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Jet Lag Caused By Out-Of-Synch Brain

From Live Science:

The droopy-eyed jet lag that comes after a cross-country plane trip could be caused by two groups of cells at the base of the brain falling out of synch, a new study suggests.

The body has a built-in time-keeping system, known as a circadian rhythm, that helps us keep track of when it's time to eat, sleep, wake up and perform other body functions. This system is partly governed by the cycle of day and night.

Changing time zones or working the late shift can throw off the body's sense of timing because it changes the timing of our exposure to light.

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Got Nature? Why You Need to Get Out

A little time spent in a green space can improve psychological and physical health, researchers are finding. Credit: stock.xchng

From Live Science:

NEW YORK — In our increasingly urbanized world, it turns out that a little green can go a long way toward improving our health, not just that of the planet.

That could mean something as simple as a walk in the park or just a tree viewed through a window. It's not necessarily the exercise that is the key. It's the refreshing contact with nature and its uncomplicated demands on us.

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Dance Your Way To Successful Aging

New research shows that older people can dance their way towards improved health and happiness. (Credit: iStockphoto/Georgy Markov)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2009) — Older people can dance their way towards improved health and happiness, according to a report from the Changing Ageing Partnership (CAP).

The research, by Dr Jonathan Skinner from Queen’s University Belfast, reveals the social, mental and physical benefits of social dancing for older people. It suggests that dancing staves of illness, and even counteracts decline in ageing.

Recommendations include the expansion of social dance provision for older people in order to aid successful ageing and help older people enjoy longer and healthier lives.

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Brown Fat: A Fat That Helps You Lose Weight?

From Time Magazine:

For most people, fat is a burden. It doesn't really matter whether it appears as cellulite on our thighs or cholesterol in our veins — we just don't want it.

But it turns out that our bodies also make a unique form of fat tissue that behaves remarkably unlike any other: rather than storing excess energy, this fat actually burns through it.

It's called brown fat (as opposed to the more familiar white fat that hangs over belt buckles and swings from the backs of arms), and a series of papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirm for the first time that healthy adults have stores of this adipose tissue, which researchers hope to study further as a potential new weight-loss treatment.

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Beverage Consumption A Bigger Factor In Weight, Study Shows

When it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be more important
than what you eat. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2009) — When it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be more important than what you eat, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined the relationship between beverage consumption among adults and weight change and found that weight loss was positively associated with a reduction in liquid calorie consumption and liquid calorie intake had a stronger impact on weight than solid calorie intake.

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Source Of Major Health Benefits In Olive Oil Revealed

Scientists have pinned down the constituent of olive oil that gives greatest protection from heart attack and stroke. (Credit: iStockphoto/Leslie Banks)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2009) — Scientists have pinned down the constituent of olive oil that gives greatest protection from heart attack and stroke. In a study of the major antioxidants in olive oil, Portuguese researchers showed that one, DHPEA-EDA, protects red blood cells from damage more than any other part of olive oil.

"These findings provide the scientific basis for the clear health benefits that have been seen in people who have olive oil in their diet," says lead researcher Fatima Paiva-Martins, who works at the University of Porto.

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Coffee Lessens The Pain Of Exercise

Former competitive cyclist Robert Motl, now a professor of kinesiology and community health, is studying the effects of caffeine on pain during exercise. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

From Live Science:

That cup of coffee that many gym rats, bikers and runners swill before a workout does more than energize them. It kills some of the pain of athletic exertion, a new study suggests. And it works regardless of whether a person already had a coffee habit or not.

Caffeine works on a system in the brain and spinal cord (the adenosine neuromodulatory system) that is heavily involved in pain processing, says University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Robert Motl. And since caffeine blocks adenosine, the biochemical that plays an important role in energy transfer and thus exercise, he speculated that it could reduce pain.

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Why Some People Shake Off The Flu In A Couple Of Days, While Others Suffer Longer, Or Die

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2009) — For some people it is a certainty: as soon as the annual flu season gets underway, they are sure to go down with it. It is little comfort to know that there are other people who are apparently resistant to flu or overcome the illness after just a couple of days. It is this phenomenon that is now being investigated by researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, using various strains of mice.

"Where there are many scientific works dealing solely with the flu virus, we have investigated how the host reacts to an infection," says Klaus Schughart, head of the Experimental Mouse Genetics research group. In infection experiments the researchers have now discovered that an excessive immune response is responsible for the fatal outcome of the disease in mice. This overreaction has genetic roots.

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Perfect Running Pace Revealed

The kinematics of walking (left) and running are quite different. © Nature

From Live Science:

Most regular runners can tell you when they reach that perfect equilibrium of speed and comfort. The legs are loose, the heart is pumping and it feels like you could run at this pace forever.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now have an explanation for this state of running nirvana, and we can thank our ancestors and some evolutionary biology for it.

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Anger And Hostility Harmful To The Heart, Especially Among Men

New research shows that anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease. (Credit: iStockphoto/Vasko Miokovic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease, according to the first quantitative review and meta-analysis of related studies, which appears in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Management of anger and hostility may be an important adjuvant strategy in preventing CHD in the general public and treating CHD patients, according to authors.

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Why Is Obama Going Gray?

Barack Obama in January 2008, a few days after he became president. Credit: White House

From Live Science:

News reports today point out that President Obama is going a little gray at the temples. Is it the stress of the job, or is he due to go gray about now anyway?

We saw it happen to George Bush, and in dramatic fashion with Bill Clinton. Obama saw his own grayer self coming.

"Seniors, listen up. I'm getting gray hair myself," Obama said at a campaign stop in Indiana last spring, according to The Washington Post. "The gray is coming quick," he said a few months later. "By the time I'm sworn in, I will look the part."

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