Omega 3 acids could protect from blindness

Increasing the dietary intake of Omega 3 fatty acids, found in certain kinds of fish, nuts and vegetable oils, may protect one from blindness, suggests a study conducted on mice.

Scientists in Boston found that they have a protective effect against blindness resulting from abnormal blood vessel growth in the eye, according to the study published in the online journal Nature Medicine.

Human clinical trials will soon begin at a children's hospital in Boston to test the effects of Omega 3 supplementation in premature babies who are at risk for vision loss, the researchers were quoted as saying by science portal EurekAlert.

Omega 3 fatty acids are already known to be beneficial for heart and brain functions. Short-term studies have indicated that taking dietary supplements of Omega 3 could also lower blood pressure in people with hypertension.

Abnormal vessel growth is the cause of retinopathy - an eye disease that leads to the eventual loss of vision. It begins with a loss of blood vessels in the retina, which becomes oxygen starved, sends out alarm signals and spurs new vessel growth. But the new vessels grow abnormally and are malformed, leaky and over-abundant.

The abnormal vessels finally pull the retina away from its supporting layer, and this retinal detachment ultimately causes blindness.

The researchers, led by Lois Smith and Kip Connor of Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School, and John Paul SanGiovanni of the National Eye Institute (NEI) studied retinopathy in mice, feeding them a diet rich in Omega-3 fatty acids.

Mice on the Omega 3 diet had less initial vessel loss in the retina than those fed with Omega 6 fatty acids. The area with vessel loss was 40-50 percent smaller.

'Our studies suggest that after initial loss, vessels re-grew quickly and efficiently in the Omega 3-fed mice,' Connor said.

'This increased the oxygen supply to retinal tissue, resulting in a dampening of the inflammatory 'alarm' signals that lead to pathologic vessel growth.'

Green Blood! Not Only on Cartoons but for Real!!!

While reading for health news and health information updates, I came across to

Achieving optimal health requires eating a balanced diet rich in vegetables and some fruits. But, if you're like an estimated 91% of Americans, you don't even come close to the recommended daily amounts of 5-9 servings.

• Contains spirulina to support healthy immune function.*
• Is packed with live probiotic cells to promote digestive health.*
• Possesses more greens per serving than other leading green food formulas
• Contains algae and cereal grasses that provide a natural source of alkalizing minerals.
• Contains natural vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene and natural vitamin C, too.

The 45-second Meditation: Is Meditation Too Much Time And Trouble?

If you haven't meditated before, you might think it's too much trouble to learn. If you do meditate, you know it can be difficult to find the time to do it consistently. So is there really a meditation you can learn right now that can be done in 45 seconds? There is.

Three Deep Breaths

Try this: breath through your mouth, and notice how your chest expands; then breath through your nose and you'll notice how your abdomen goes out more. You see, breathing through the nose causes the diaphram to pull the air to the bottom of your lungs. This delivers a good dose of oxygen into your bloodstream, and into your brain. It also tends to relax you.

This is why meditators breath through their noses. It's healthier, and it is the basis of this forty-five-second meditation. You simply close your eyes, let go of your thoughts (to the extent possible), and take three slow, deep breaths through your nose, paying attention to your breathing.

The Rest Of The Story
Now, this won't get you into a deep meditative state, especially if you've never meditated before. Is this a reason not to do it? Not at all. You'll get what you get out of it, and that almost certainly includes a clearer mind and a reduction in stress.

Make it a ritual. For example, each time you get into your car, quietly do your three deep breaths. Having a regular "trigger" like this to remind you will keep you from procrastinating so often that you eventually forget to meditate altogether (isn't this typical when we don't make a habit out of the things we want to do?).

Want it to be a deeper experience? There's nothing wrong with just enjoying the relaxation created by three deep breaths, but you can go further, if you wish. Longer meditation will help, of course, but that isn't the only way.

If, when you have more time, you learn mindfulness, how to relax more fully, or better ways to let go of distractions in your mind, you can more effectively use that forty-five-seconds. You may even be able to get to that "alpha" state (brain wave frequecy of 8 to 12 hertz) during your short meditation.

Don't worry if some say this isn't "real" meditation. We walk before we run, and not everything has to be difficult to be of value. Why not do a forty-five-second meditation right now?

Apple might keep cancer at bay

Apple peel may either inhibit or kill cancer cells, a Cornell University research has found.

Cornell researchers analyzed the peel from 230 pounds of red delicious apples and isolated their individual compounds.

After identifying the structures of the promising compounds in the peel, the researchers tested the pure compounds against cancer cell growth in the laboratory.

They identified a dozen compounds -- triterpenoids -- in apple peel that either inhibit or kill cancer cells in laboratory cultures, according to the research published this month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Three of the compounds have not previously been described in the literature.

Lead researcher Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science, said three of the compounds have not previously been described in the literature.

'We found that several compounds have potent anti-proliferative activities against human liver, colon and breast cancer cells and may be partially responsible for the anti-cancer activities of whole apples,' said Liu.

In previous Cornell studies, apples had been found not only to fight cancer cells in the laboratory but also to reduce the number and size of mammary tumors in rats. The Cornell researchers now think that the triterpenoids may be doing much of the anti-cancer work.

'We believe that a recommendation that consumers to eat five to 12 servings of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables daily is appropriate to reduce the risks of chronic diseases, including cancer, and to meet nutrient requirements for optimum health,' said Liu.

Women cause of infertility in men!

Mothers too are responsible for certain types of infertility in men. Thus far, onlyfathers have been held responsible for infertility in the male offspring. This is so because it is the father who transmits the Y or male sex-determining chromosome tothe son and the mother does not transmit any male sex chromosome to the male child.But a study, by the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, on Indian men from different linguistic and geographical backgrounds shows that motherstoo play a key role in transferring the infertility genes to sons. Mothers, however,do not themselves get affected by these infertility genes.

The CCMB study revealed that mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited by sons frommothers, is contributing to increasing male infertility around the world,particularly in men from the Indian sub-continent. The mitochondrial or mDNA is found to be undergoing mutations affecting the motility of sperm as well as itscount."Sperm quality is also greatly influenced by mutations in the components of therespiratory chain of the mitochondrial DNA. Although mDNA has been studied extensively for the past two decades, very few studies have investigated theinvolvement of mDNA mutations in male infertility. There are 37 genes in mDNA,encoding 13 proteins, which are essential components of respiratory-chain complexes involved in the production of adenosine triphosphate," says Dr Kumarasamy Thangarajof Evolutionary and Medical Genetics Laboratory of the Centre for Cellular andMolecular Biology.As part of the study, the CCMB team analysed the mitochondrial DNA of 34 men suffering from oligoasthenozoospermia (low sperm count with poor motility) alongwith 150 normozoospermic (fertile) men. The team noticed a novel missense mutationin ND4 gene. A missense is a mutation that converts a codon coding for one amino acid to a codon coding for another amino acid. In the case of oligoasthenozoospermicmen, the mutation in the ND4 gene replaced threonine with isoleucine. But this wasnot observed in normozoospermic or fertile men who served as a control group for purpose of the study.Dr Thangaraj points out that abnormal semen is one of the major factors that isassociated with male infertility. The quality and quantity of sperm production maybe affected greatly by both environmental and genetic factors.

Karyotypic (chromosomal) abnormalities and Y-chromosomal microdeletions are the most frequentgenetic abnormalities associated with abnormal semen profile, particularlyoligozoospemia (less than 20 million sperm per ml but still a measurable level) nonobstructive azoospermia (a condition with complete lack of measurable sperm).Explaining how the mitochondrial DNA from mothers is responsible for infertility insons, he says spermatozoa are heavily dependent on mitochondria for respiratory energy for motility. The mature mammalian spermatozoon contains about 72 to 80mitochondria in the mitochondrial sheath of the midpiece (area below the sperm headwhich serves as a motor of the sperm).Analysis of blood samples from both oligoasthenozoospermic (infertile) and normozoospermic (fertile) control men revealed the presence of several sequence variants but one variant at nucleotide position was found to be present in all 10samples. Interestingly the T allele (C11994T) never before has been reported, either as a polymorphism or in association with a disease, anywhere in the world."We screened for the presence of this mutation in the remaining 24 samples.Amazingly, we also found this mutation in all the remaining 24 samples, although none of the 150 proven-fertile (normozoospermic) men carried it. The C11994Tmutation is located in the second base of a codon, resulting in an amino-acid changefrom threonine to isoleucine at amino-acid position 412 of the ND4 gene. The ND4 gene is an essential subunit of complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain,and ND4 mutations have been implicated in mitochondrial diseases such as Leigh'ssyndrome and Leber hereditary optic neuropathy," he observed.

Because none of the fertile men analysed in this study or in other studies aroundthe world has been found to contain this C11994T mutation, the possibility of itbeing a neutral polymorphism was ruled out by the CCMB team.

"There is interesting evidence that mDNA variation is an important contributor tothe motility variation of sperm. Mutations of mDNA have been well documented inseveral disorders, either independently or in association with nuclear mutations," Dr Thangaraj says.

Source : greatandhra