Could too much green tea be harmful to health?

For centuries, green tea has been hailed for its numerous health benefits. But according to a new study, the beverage could do more harm than good if consumed in large amounts.

In a new study published in the Journal of Functional Foods, researchers reveal how exposure to excessive amounts of green tea impaired the reproductive function of fruit flies, as well as the development of their offspring.

While it is unclear whether the beverage has the same impact on humans, the team says their findings warrant caution against consuming large amounts of green tea and other nutraceuticals.

 

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Green tea is made from fresh leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. Because green tea is one of the least processed forms of tea, it retains the majority of its antioxidants and polyphenols, which are known to be largely beneficial for health.

Previous research has suggested green tea can aid weight loss, reduce cholesterol and protect against numerous illnesses, including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

However, some studies have reported negative health effects if the beverage is consumed in large doses; animal studies have linked excessive green tea consumption to dramatic weight loss and impaired embryonic development.

Green tea ‘should be consumed in moderation’

To reach their findings, lead investigator Mahtab Jafari, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California-Irvine, and colleagues exposed embryos and larvae of fruit flies, or Drosophila melanogaster, to varying doses of green tea.

Fruit flies are often used to study human disease because they share 75% of the same genes that cause disease in humans.
The team found that 10 milligrams (mg) of green tea led to slower development of larvae. There was also a significant reduction in the number and size of offspring that emerged.

Female offspring exposed to 10 mg of the beverage showed a reduction in reproductive output, as well as a 17% reduction in lifespan.

In addition, the researchers found 10 mg of green tea led to morphological abnormalities in reproductive organs of the fruit flies, including atrophy in the testicles and ovaries.

Green tea was found to protect the flies against dehydration, but it also increased susceptibility to heat stress and starvation.

While the study did not assess the mechanisms by which green tea affected the development and reproduction of the fruit flies, they hypothesize that high doses of the beverage may trigger excessive apoptosis, or programmed cell death, to produce such effects.

Source: Medical News Today

Too much sleeping and sitting as bad as smoking and drinking

The actress Mae West once said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful!” Unfortunately, in reality, most of the decadent indulgences we pursue — including alcohol and rich foods — are not at all good for us, especially when taken in large quantities.

Now, a new study suggests that indulging in too much sleep and inactivity are also unhealthy. Researchers found that people who spend most of the day sitting and sleeping too much may be as likely to die early as people who smoke or drink too much.

The Sax Institute’s “45 and Up” study included more than 230,000 people in Australia ages 45 and older. For each participant, the researchers counted how many unhealthy behaviors he or she engaged in, including smoking, drinking alcohol, eating unhealthy foods, being physical inactive, exhibiting sedentary behaviors and sleeping too much (which the researchers defined as more than 9 hours per night)

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About 30 percent of the participants reported engaging in two or three of the behaviors. After six years, nearly 16,000 people in the study had died.

The researchers found that people who were not physically active were 1.6 times more likely to die than those who were physically active (defined by the study as “undertaking more than 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity every week.”)

But the study also showed that the combination of physical inactivity with sedentary behavior, or physical inactivity with too much sleep, were as strongly linked to mortality among the participants as the combination of smoking with heavy drinking.

“Physical inactivity alone had a strong association with mortality,” Melody Ding, lead author on the study and senior research fellow at the Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, told Live Science in an email.

And when people combined physical inactivity with long sleep times and extended periods of sitting, the negative effects were even more dramatic, with the combined risk for death increasing by up to four times as much as in those who were sedentary and slept too much, but at least got some exercise, Ding explained.

The researchers noted they did not incorporate other long-term lifestyle practices or conditions that might have played a part in increasing some participants’ mortality risks. And the participants’ interpretations of their own behaviors and its health impacts could have been faulty, skewing the study’s results.

While the study’s conclusion that healthier behaviors could reduce mortality risk seems like an obvious one, linking risky behaviors together could present new strategies for prolonging life.

“Physical activity is the one factor to address first,” Ding said. If certain combinations of risk behaviors pose more of a threat than risk behaviors on their own, eliminating even one of them is a good choice for overall health.

 

Source: Foxnews

Yoga Provides Multiple Benefits for Cancer Survivors

Yoga has long been a form of relaxation, meditation and exercise, dating back to several thousand years B.C. Originating out of India, yoga teaches us to focus on the self: mind, body, spirit. Which is exactly what cancer survivors need to do to heal. So it makes sense that a new study found that yoga can aid survivors with sleep, energy and vitality.

Researchers studied 410 cancer survivors who had difficulty sleeping. Half of the subjects participated in two 75-minute yoga sessions per week, in addition to post-cancer care that the whole group received. The sessions consisted of 18 poses that incorporated breathing exercises and meditation. At the end of a month, sleeplessness improved in the yoga group by 100 percent.

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Before the study started, only 15 percent of participants in both groups were sleeping soundly. At the end of the study, 16 percent of the control group were able to sleep soundly—an increase of only 1 percent—whereas the yoga group doubled their stats to 31 percent. Given the fact that the yoga group had decreased their sleep medication by 20 percent, while the control group increased theirs by 5 percent, there is a strong link between the practice of Yoga and improved sleep ability.

The yoga group also reported an improvement in fatigue. “If you break down the program into its basics—breathing exercises, postures, mindfulness—it’s not entirely clear which component … is most important,” lead researcher Karen Mustian said. “It could be they all work together to improve sleep, fatigue and quality of life … or it could be that one of them is really the most important piece.”

Very little is required to begin practicing yoga:

Attire: loose-fitting pants or shorts that have some give so that you can move freely, along a tank top, t-shirt and/or a sports bra depending on coverage you are comfortable with. No special shoes are required. In fact, most classes are taught barefoot.

Accessories: the only real accessory you should have is a yoga mat, which can be purchased inexpensively at your local Target or fitness store. The mat provides a comfortable, stable surface for movement, and provides traction so you don’t slip during poses. It also protects feet and hands from the harsh, hard nature of the floor. If you find it difficult to stand for any length of time but still want to get a workout in, consider purchasing a yoga ball. Available in a variety of sizes, you can sit and stabilize your body as you go through poses. An added bonus is a core workout while on the ball, as you do need to balance as you sit.

Source: Health news

Herbal Medicine – The Power of Peppermint

Studies have shown peppermint oil to be fairly effective at relieving irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a collection of symptoms that includes abdominal pain and cramping, bloating, constipation and diarrhea that affects 5 to 20 percent of the population.

At the mention of peppermint, candy canes and ice cream comes to mind. But did you know that peppermint is also an age-old herbal medicine that has been used to treat a wide range of abdominal woes? The oil extracted from the peppermint plant contains a host of compounds, but the most abundant and perhaps the most pharmacologically important is menthol.

 

mint leaves

Studies have shown peppermint oil to be fairly effective at relieving irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a collection of symptoms that includes abdominal pain and cramping, bloating, constipation and diarrhea that affects 5 to 20 percent of the population. One explanation is that the oil—especially the menthol—blocks calcium channels, which has the effect of relaxing the “smooth” muscles in the walls of the intestines. Recently, Alex Ford, a McMaster University researcher, concluded that instead of popular over-the counter drugs, peppermint oil should be the first line of defense against IBS.

Peppermint can temporarily allay itching caused by insect bites, eczema and other lesions, including the rash of poison ivy. Peppermint tea can be used as a mouthwash for babies with thrush (yeast in the mouth) or for reducing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, especially for women who want to avoid stronger medications.

Source: Health News

Yoga and meditation in early life cut health care cost

Strengthening your resilience with mindful meditation or yoga can help keep the doctors away, thereby reducing your health care cost, says a new study.

Resilience can be enhanced with practice, starting with the relaxation response — a physiologic state of deep rest induced by practices such as rhythmic breathing, mindfulness meditation, yoga, tai chi or prayer, the study said.

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The researchers found that people who graduated from a resiliency-boosting programme used considerably less health care services in the year following the course compared with the year before.

“We have shown in the past that it works in the laboratory and on the level of individual physiology, and now we can see that when you make people well, they do not want to use health care so much,” said study leader James Stahl from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre in New Hampshire, US.

For the study, the researchers tested the efficacy of eight-week course developed by the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

To measure the effect of this programme called Relaxation Response Resiliency Programme (3RP) on health care utilisation, the study compared health care used by more than 4,400 3RP graduates to that of 13,150 patients who did not take the 3RP course.

In the year after training, use of health care services by the resiliency programme graduates dropped by 43 percent.

The researchers noted that it is possible to build resilience without any formal training.

Resilience comes in part from making meaningful connections with other people, such as through volunteer work, care-taking for aging relatives, and other service work.

In addition, positive psychology research shows that having an optimistic outlook and a sense of connectedness, meaning, and purpose in your life contributes to resilience.

This includes learning how to identify and challenge day-to-day negative attitudes that can undermine health.

“Just like fluorinating your water or vaccinating yourself, these are ways of keeping you healthy with, from a public health perspective, minimal investment,” Stahl said.

The study was published in the journal PLOS One.

Source Zee News

Moderate coffee drinking may be tied to lower risk of death

People who drink coffee daily, even up to four cups per day, are less likely to die from heart disease, neurological disease, type 2 diabetes or suicide than others, according to a new study.

Researchers did not test how upping coffee consumption would change health outlooks, so they cannot conclude that coffee “causes” a decreased risk of death. Rather, they looked at death trends in groups with varying amounts of coffee consumption.

“The main takeaway is that regular consumption of coffee can be incorporated into a healthy diet,” said senior author Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

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“There is no evidence of harm of regular consumption in terms of chronic disease risk or mortality, and consistent evidence that consumption of coffee reduces the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” Hu told Reuters Health by phone.

“People who are already drinking it should continue to enjoy it, but for people who don’t drink it or don’t like it, there’s no particular reason to start for the sole reason of health,” he said.

Hu and his coauthors studied the association of coffee intake – caffeinated, decaffeinated, or both – and risk of death based on self-reported coffee habits of more than 160,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study 2 and 40,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

Every four years, participants in these studies filled out questionnaires on lifestyle factors, including how often they usually consumed caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee, ranging from never to six or more times per day.

The researchers had data on the participants from the mid-1980’s or early 1990’s through 2012. During that time, 19,524 women and 12,432 men died.

Those who reported drinking one to five cups of any type of coffee per day were less likely to have died during follow-up than those who did not drink coffee, the authors reported in Circulation.

Death from heart disease, neurological disease and suicide was less common among moderate coffee drinkers than among others, but there was no relationship with deaths from cancer, the researchers found.

“The benefit in terms of mortality is very small,” and leveled out at four to five cups per day, Hu said.

For diabetes and cardiovascular disease, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee seem to have similar effects, so the benefits may be due to compounds in the coffee other than caffeine, he said.

“Coffee of course is a complex beverage, it’s really difficult or impossible to pinpoint the ingredients that are responsible,” Hu said.

But for neurodegenerative disease, depression and suicide, most likely the benefits are due to caffeine, he said.

 

Source: Foxnews

Simple injection to cure glaucoma

Glaucoma, an eye disease that damages the optic nerve and can result in vision loss and blindness, can now be treated with a simple injection, eye surgeons have said.

Simple injection to cure glaucoma

XenIn glaucoma, eye pressure plays a role in damaging the optic nerve.

A new technology developed by a US-based company relieves the pressure in the eye with a minimally invasive method, thus doing away with the need for scalpels and stitches, the experts noted.

It involves using a hypodermic needle to inject a tiny pliable drainage tube into the eye, allowing excess fluid to flow out, the Daily Mail reported.

The Xen Gel Stent developed by California-based AqueSys Inc is six mm long and about the width of a human hair. It is injected through a small self-sealing corneal incision using a simple, preloaded injector.

It was “quicker and safer” than current methods, Vik Sharma, a consultant eye surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in London, was quoted as saying.

But the XEN Gel Stent is an investigational device, which means it has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yet.

The current approach in the management of patients with glaucoma begins with medications followed by laser surgery, or trabeculectomy, a treatment that frequently involves installing a small rigid tube in the eye to drain it.

This is attached to a metal plate embedded below the eye, which helps draw the fluid away. The eye must be cut to insert these relatively bulky items, and stitched up again, which leads to a high complication rate.

By comparison, the Xen Gel Stent is delivered directly via a hypodermic needle into the eye which has potential to lower complications rate compared to traditional methods.

source: India Medical Times

mHealth market expected to reach $58.8 billion globally by 2020

With growing per capita healthcare expenditure both in developed and advanced developing countries, the mobile healthcare market is projected to reach $58.8 billion by 2020, at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 32.3 per cent from 2013 to 2020, according to a report by Allied Market Research.

The report, titled ‘mHealth Market (Devices, Applications, Services and Therapeutics) — Global Mobile Healthcare Industry Size, Analysis, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2012–2020’, observed that the global mHealth market was valued at $6.7 billion in 2012 and is estimated to reach $8.3 billion by the end of 2013.

“Per capita expenditure on healthcare in developed economies is increasing at a faster rate than inflation and income levels, chiefly due to ageing population and chronic diseases which are lifestyle driven,” note Allied Market Research analysts James Franco and Yojana Jeevane. “However, there has not been corresponding improvement in the quality of healthcare services delivered, especially in developing regions. Additionally, developing economies are even struggling to provide healthcare access at every level to their people.”

On contrary, ubiquitous access of smart mobile devices globally has enabled diagnostic and monitoring devices to render seamless healthcare services. Thus, this market is expected to grow at a significant pace in the next seven years. This projection is backed by the fact such as due to technological advancement integration of wireless technology with the portable healthcare devices is feasible, increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases, cost and convenience factors, government initiatives, affordability of smartphones.

However, weak reimbursement policies, lower adoption due to lack of accuracy and technology infancy and uncertainty in the government regulations is expected to hinder the growth rate. Moreover, untapped markets in developing economies provide a lot of growth opportunities for this market due to increase in adoption of mHealth services to control the spread of communicable as well as non-communicable diseases. Such challenges can be very well taken by adoption of mHealth devices and services as they work irrespective of location and skilled professionals. The only mandatory requirement is the mobile access and a smartphone.

This report segments the global mHealth Market on the basis of devices, services, stakeholders, and therapeutic areas. The global mHealth devices market is forecast to reach market value of over $1.5 billion in 2013 from $0.8 billion in 2011. The contributory factors for this growth is high revenue generated from blood glucose meters, cardiac monitors and BP monitors in descending order. The services market is projected to grow over $6 billion by 2013 from 2011 market values of $4 billion mainly due to increase in revenues generated from monitoring and diagnostic services. In stakeholders market study mobile operators as well as device vendors will account for more than 75 per cent of the overall market share by 2020.

The geography market assessment signifies that Europe along with North America will account for about 55 per cent of the overall market revenue in 2013 and may reduce with growing demand in Asia Pacific region. The study also offers an updated review on the present major market player such as manufacturers of mobile medical devices, and mobile network providers; which also includes description of relevant recent developments activities. Companies profiled in the report includes Philips Healthcare, Omron HealthCare, Bayer Healthcare, LifeWatch, Cardionet, Masimo Corporation, Sanofie, Boston Scientific, AT&T, and Johnson & Johnson.

Drug derived from Caribbean reefs may treat psoriasis, MS

A biotechnology company developing an unusual drug—derived from the venom of a sea anemone to treat autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and multiple sclerosis—reported encouraging results from a phase 1 clinical trial.

Seattle-based Kineta Inc. said it expects early next year to begin recruiting patients for the next stage of the drug’s development, a phase 2 clinical trial. Kineta said the drug, called dalazatide, is intended to block only the white blood cells that cause many autoimmune diseases. Traditional treatments for autoimmune disorders suppress the entire immune system, putting patients at risk for infections.

Phase 1 trials are preliminary, meant to test the safety and tolerability of a new drug in a small group of patients. The bulk of new drugs tested fail to advance to phase 2 trials, which test a product’s efficacy among a larger group.

Autoimmune diseases affect as many as 23.5 million people in the U.S., especially women, according to the National Institutes of Health. Prevalence of the diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body’s own organs, tissues and cells, is increasing, for reasons that aren’t clear. There is no cure.

“The results of this trial indicate an important advance in developing next-generation treatments for autoimmune disease that specifically regulate the immune response without broad immune suppression,” said Dr. Shawn Iadonato, Kineta’s chief scientific officer.

Source: fox news

5 Yoga Poses You Can Do at Your Desk

The mere thought of sneaking out for a lunchtime yoga class may be laughable, especially now that we’re all asked to do more and more on the job. But that doesn’t mean you have to stay stagnant for hours. There are effective moves you can do right at your desk, ones that will help you get a mental breather and make sure your neck, back, arms, hips and wrists remain in good working order.

1.Scale Pose

Sit at the edge of your chair, press your hands down on either side of your hips and raise your legs and butt up off the seat. Engage your deep abdominal muscles and keep the tops of your shoulders down; hold for 3 to 5 breaths. Lower and repeat 2 more times

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2. High Altar Pose
Inhale and lift your arms; clasp your hands and invert your palms. Lean to your left. Hold for 5 to 8 breaths, then switch sides.

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3. Twist
Turn to your left. Use your left hand on the back of the chair to deepen the twist. Hold for 5 to 8 breaths, then twist to the other side.

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4. Cow Face Arms
Bring your left arm behind your back and right arm behind your head. Clasp fingers if you can.  Hold for 5 to 8 breaths; switch sides.

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5. Ankle to Knee
Place your left foot on your right knee, letting left knee drop open. Keep your back straight;  lean forward to stretch deeper. After 5 to 8 breaths, switch sides

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Source: Health.com