Topic: Health & Healing

Long-term consumption of antioxidant-rich apples and apple juice may prevent atherosclerosis, according to researchers from France.

A new study shows that apples and apple juice are playing the same health league as the often-touted purple grapes and grape juice. The study was published in the April 2008 issue of Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.

Laughter yoga can really make a difference in your overall health. While it shouldn’t replace other types of exercise, laughter yoga is fun and it can help to reduce stress, enhance the immune system, and even tone muscles, say University of Michigan Health System fitness experts.

“Ho ho, ha ha ha,” students in a fitness class at the University of Michigan Health System chant repeatedly while clapping their hands and walking around the room.

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The laughter yoga course at the University of Michigan teaches students how to re-learn something children already know instinctively: that laughter makes you feel better.

Researchers have detected perfluorinated compounds, used to make Teflon, Scotchgard and grease-resistant food packaging, in human milk samples from 45 nursing mothers in Massachusetts. This is the first study to document levels of these suspected carcinogens in breast milk.

Chemicals used to make nonstick cookware and stain-resistant fabrics are spreading around the world and turning up in surprising places, everywhere from wildlife and drinking water supplies to human blood. Now, a team of researchers including Kathleen Arcaro of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has found these suspected carcinogens in samples of human milk from nursing mothers in Massachusetts.

Thousands of dollars spend on joint rehab every year; thousands of work hours lost; days, months, sometimes years of lost quality of life from painful joint injuries that never heal. Dr. Berg, DC from Alexandria VA says traditional therapy has it backwards and the approach can actually prolong or worsen the injury. He explains that there is a simple, non-invasive approach to joint pain relief and recover that is faster, safer and cost significantly less and demonstrates his point weekly in free public seminars.

Just because insurance pays for it, doesn't mean it's the path to full recovery. Realize that the annual cost of injury in the US is almost $600 billion a year. Seniors suffer daily, and are given drugs and joint replacements as their only hope. Some patients endure months of painful stretching and manipulation of an injured limb or joint, and never regain function and range or motion. (More facts on musculoskeletal injuries at http://www.bjiprc.umich.edu/research/quickfacts.html.)

Most of us probably believe in taking a holistic approach to our health, which means taking a healthy dose of preventative medicine. Dr. Sinett suggests that this preventative approach should apply to our back's as well.

What if we took care of our backs like we do our teeth?

The dentists got it right – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Dentists don’t sit back and wait until a patient needs a root canal before they take action. Instead, they continually monitor, preventatively treat, and educate their patients on ways to take care of their teeth. What would happen if we took the same approach to caring for our spines and backs? It’s surprising more people don’t pose this question, considering how important our backs and spines are to our overall health! The truth is, if more people treated their back like they did their teeth, they’d feel a lot better and be a whole lot healthier.

Today, for the first time in history, working women surpass working men in their frequency and severity of the diseases of toxic stress - heart attack, stroke and some cancers. But there is help out of the quagmire of stress and frustration related survival.

"Working women today are ticking timebombs about to go off. And the scary part is, they can blow any minute, without warning." says Maryam Webster, psychotherapist, author and Director of the Energy Coach Institute. "Women now are often looking after elders singlehandedly in addition to their own children, are sleep deprived, overcommitted, worried and in great danger of developing stress-related diseases such as heart attack, stroke or depression. We've become so enmeshed in extreme high stress as a lifestyle, that we're literally dying from it." she says.

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More than 90 percent of ChiRunning students report the innovative technique has played a role in preventing injuries and improved ease of running.

A recent study conducted by doctors at West Virginia University with more than 2500 respondents, showed that 91 percent of ChiRunning students reported the technique has played a role in preventing running injuries. In fact, 95 percent of the survey respondents said their ease of running has improved.

Studies show that nearly all sufferers of sinusitis will recover without drugs. Even so, many doctors routinely offer prescriptions for antibiotics, despite the fact that sinusitis is usual a viral infection and antibiotics against which antibiotics are not effective.

When suffering through a sinus infection, many people ask for an antibiotic to speed their recovery. However, a recent review of clinical trials found that while antibiotics can provide minor improvements in uncomplicated sinusitis cases, most patients recover without the drugs within two weeks.

In many ways, we have become a world of victims. To overcome our victimhood, we could learn a lesson from the Greek story of Persephone.

There is much at stake. Embracing the patterns of victimhood has cost the human race a great deal. Headlines of terrorism, violence, and disaster assault us with increasing frequency. And the mass of victims grows daily. Individuals blame one another. Communities put up walls. Nations blame nations. How can we turn the victim tide, reaching out to the growing number of hurting individuals, providing the hope and support they need to transform into survivors who seek to fulfill their potential, who aspire to thrive? Can we help ourselves do the same? Will we start reaching out to others, connecting our hardship and theirs? It takes courage and a lot of hard work to turn the tide. It requires letting go of past resentments and bitterness. It means moving forward. I hope, by our example, we can help the world do likewise, building a future with survivors united.

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Recent findings suggest that omega-3 fatty acids can be useful in treating depression, which has led some researchers to hope that they might be used to treat bipolar disorder.

Despite intriguing findings that omega-3 fatty acid supplements could alleviate depression symptoms, there is still not enough evidence to say whether omega-3s are useful treatments for people with bipolar disorder, according to a review of recent studies.