“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills… There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind… So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” Marcus Aurelius
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Plant-Based Diets Prevent Obesity
Zhangling Chen et al., from Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, presented new research on diet at this year’s European Congress on Obesity. Their findings were based on a long-term study observing around 10,000 middle-aged and elderly adults from the Rotterdam Study. The results showed that people eating a higher proportion of plant-based foods have…
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Fibre Helps Treat Osteoarthritis By Decreasing Inflammation
It’s well-known that obesity can cause or exacerbate osteoarthritis (OA) through excessive mechanical loading. But another mechanism through which obesity can affect joint health is via inflammation and we now know that our gut microbes play a crucial role. Recent research by Schott et al. has looked into the link between obesity, gut microbes and…
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More Evidence That Low-Calorie Sweeteners Are Bad For Health
Hoffman et al., from Marquette University in Wisconsin, have recently studied the effects of artificial sweeteners on rat physiology. They found that the consumption of aspartame (E951) or acesulfame potassium (E950) can lead to vascular impairment and changes in fat metabolism “that may be important during the onset and progression of diabetes and obesity”.
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Low-Calorie Sweetener Bad For Health
Research by Sen et al. presented at the 100th annual meeting of the Endocrine Society has shown that the low-calorie sweetener sucralose (E955) can have adverse health effects. Sucralose was found to promote more fat deposits within cells. It may cause this by increasing the transport of glucose into cells and overexpressing fat-producing genes. Another…
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“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” Marcus Aurelius
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Acupuncture Reduces High Blood Pressure
A few months ago Terenteva et al. published their research findings on the effect of acupuncture in a group of middle-aged individuals with hypertension. Forty five adults with hypertension were randomly assigned to either an acupuncture group or a control group. The acupuncture group received 3 sessions of acupuncture per week for 8 weeks. The…
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Mechanisms of Intermittent Fasting Unveiled
Intermittent fasting (IF) is proven to have beneficial effects on aging, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. However, it isn’t known whether the benefits of IF are due to caloric restriction (CR), as with fasting, or whether they’re due to changes in eating pattern. Recent studies have discovered that the browning of white fat can…
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Acupuncture Benefits Patients With Tennis Elbow
Earlier this year Ural et al, from Yildirim Beyazit University Medical School in Ankara, studied the effects of acupuncture on patients with lateral epicondylitis/epicondylopathy (LE). Lateral epicondylitis or tennis elbow, as it’s more commonly known, is an overuse injury that leads to pain on the lateral aspect of the elbow and/or forearm. It usually affects people…
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Effects Of Stretching On Fascia
Helene Langevin is a professor at Harvard Medical School and at The University of Vermont College of Medicine. She is also the director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Her lab has conducted a lot of interesting research on connective tissue. I’ve summarised some of the findings that relate to the effects of stretching…