Drinking tea reduces the risk of glaucoma

A daily cup of tea slashes the risk of developing a serious eye condition. People who drink a cup of hot tea at least once a day are 74 per cent less likely to be diagnosed with glaucoma - a severe eye problem. But coffee, iced tea and soft drinks don't seem to make any difference, the researchers found.

The University of California team found a significant link between tea and glaucoma. Glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness, causes fluid pressure to build up inside the eye, damaging the optic nerve.

The scientists believe the antioxidants and natural anti-inflammatory chemicals in tea may play a role in protecting against this process. Glaucoma becomes more common with age, and is a significant cause of blindness.

Tea is a healthy drink, rich in antioxidant polyphenols such as tea catechins and other flavonoids. However, in this research it wasn't the type of tea or its strength that appeared protective, rather the temperature at which it was drunk.
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Wi-fi and cellphones increase the risk of miscarriage

Wi-fi and cellphones increase pregnant women's risk of suffering a miscarriage by nearly 50 percent, new research reveals. Magnetic field (MF) non-ionizing radiation, which is also given off by power lines and cell towers, has been found in past studies to put a stress on the body, leading to genetic damage that can cause pregnant women to miscarry. Those exposed to the highest levels of MF radiation are 48 percent more likely to lose their baby than women exposed to the lowest amounts, the US study found.

MF radiation, which everyone is exposed to at some extent, has previously been linked to cancer
and has been recommended by the World Health Organization to be studied for its effect on pregnancies. Miscarriages affect between 15 and 20 percent of pregnancies in the US. They are defined as losing babies less than 20 weeks into their gestation.

Pregnant women can reduce their magnetic field (MF) non-ionizing radiation exposure by - Keeping cellphones away from their abdomens and not keeping them in clothes pockets. Turning Wi-Fi off when it is not in use, particularly while sleeping. Keeping cellphones on airplane mood when they are not in use. Talking on speakerphone when making calls and keeping them as brief as possible.

Not using appliances that give off MF non-ionizing radiation when in the car, as levels are already increased. Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California,  analyzed 913 pregnant women at varying stages of their gestation. Some of the study's participants had previously suffered at least one miscarriage. All of the participants carried an EMDEX Lite meter, which measures MF-radiation exposure, for 24 hours on a typical day. Their pregnancy outcomes were followed for the duration of their gestation.

High-radiation exposure increases the risk by up to 48%. Results reveal pregnant women with the highest MF-radiation exposure have a 48 percent greater risk of miscarrying than those with the lowest exposure. Among pregnant women exposed to the highest levels of MF radiation, 24.2 per cent had a miscarriage compared to 10.4 per cent of those exposed to the lowest amounts. This risk occurs regardless of whether women have suffered miscarriages in the past and are therefore more likely to lose another baby before its birth. This study provides evidence from a human population that magnetic field non-ionizing radiation could have adverse biological impacts on human health.
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Kidney disease increases the risk of diabetes

Diabetes is known to increase the risk of kidney disease, kidney dysfunction also increases the risk of diabetes. The two-way relationship between kidney disease and diabetes is urea. The nitrogen-containing waste product in blood comes from the breakdown of protein in foods.

Kidneys normally remove urea from the blood, but it can build up when kidney function slows down. The findings are significant because urea levels can be lowered through medication, diet-for example, by eating less protein-and other means, thereby allowing for improved treatment and possible prevention of diabetes.

When urea builds up in the blood because of kidney dysfunction, increased insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion often result. Researchers evaluated the records of different adults without diabetes over a five-year period, blood test that measures the amount of urea nitrogen found in the blood showed that some of them had elevated urea levels, signaling poor kidney function.
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Effects of smoking on facial beauty

The latest evidence shows that smoking actually makes you less attractive to the opposite sex. Telltale wrinkles from puffing on a cigarette may be to blame for people judging non-smokers to be better-looking.This was the result of a study asking people to pick the most attractive of twins where one smoked and the other did not. Men found female non-smokers the most attractive in two-thirds of cases, while women chose non-smoking men as the most attractive.

Smoking can speed up the normal ageing, even after only a decade. Nicotine causes narrowing of the blood vessels in the outermost layers of the skin, while the chemicals in tobacco smoke damage collagen and elastin, fibres which give the skin its elasticity. The wrinkles this causes are added to by facial expressions made when smoking- such as pursing the lips when inhaling or squinting to keep smoke out of your eyes.

To test if smokers did look worse, the researchers asked more than people to pick the smoker and non-smoker from sets of twins. After finding smokers were easily identified, they created prototype pictures to make sure the twins’ facial expressions or poses could not alter the results. Using these images, tweaked by a computer to standardise how smokers and non-smokers looked, they asked which people found ‘more attractive’. The results show men and women both found the opposite sex more attractive when they did not smoke. But women also judged other females who did not smoke as more beautiful.
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Diabetes in pregnancy affects fetus heart

Researchers have discovered how high glucose levels-whether caused by diabetes or other factors keep heart cells from maturing normally, this shows the reason why babies born to women with diabetes are more likely to develop congenital heart disease. When developing heart cells are exposed to high levels of glucose, the researchers found, the cells generate more building blocks of DNA than usual, which leads the cells to continue reproducing rather than mature.

High blood sugar levels are not only unhealthy for adults; they're unhealthy for developing fetuses.  the leading non-genetic risk factor for congenital heart disease is a mother having diabetes during pregnancy. Babies born to women with high levels of glucose in their blood during pregnancy are two to five times more likely to develop the disorder than other babies. However, researchers have never been able to define the precise effect of glucose on the developing fetus.

Researchers used human embryonic stem cells to grow heart cardiomyocin and then exposed them to varying levels of glucose. Cells that were exposed to small amounts of glucose matured normally. But cardiomyocytes that had been mixed with high levels of glucose matured late or failed to mature altogether, and instead generated more immature cells. The researchers discovered that, when exposed to extra glucose, the cardiomyocytes over-activated the pentose phosphate pathway -a cellular process that, among other things, generates nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA.

In cells with high glucose levels, the pentose phosphate pathway made more nucleotides than usual. The scientists showed that the excess of building blocks kept the cells from maturing. By depleting glucose at the right point in development, we can limit the proliferation of the cells, which coaxes them to mature and makes the heart muscle stronger, The same thing occurred in pregnant mice with diabetes-the heart cells of fetuses divided quickly but matured slowly.
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Action games broaden cognitive abilities

The human brain can learn and adapt. Numerous research studies have focused on the impact of action video games on the brain by measuring cognitive abilities, such as perception, attention and reaction time. The research has resulted in two meta-analyses, it reveal a significant improvement in the cognitive abilities of gamers. Psychologists have been studying the impact of video games on the brain ever since the late 80s, when Pacman and arcade games first took roots.

The present study focuses on one specific video game genre, action video (war or shooter) games that have long been considered as mind-numbing.
Some participants between the ages of 6 and 40, including action gamers and non-gamers, took a number of psychometric tests in studies conducted by laboratories across the world with the aim of evaluating their cognitive abilities. The assessments included spatial attention (e.g. quickly detecting a dog in a herd of animals) as well as assessing their skills at managing multiple tasks simultaneously and changing their plans according to pre-determined rules. It was found that the cognition of gamers was better by one-half of a standard deviation compared to non-gamers.

The psychologists proceeded to analyze intervention studies as part of the second meta-analysis. People (men and women) who played for a maximum of one hour a week were first tested for their cognitive abilities and then randomly divided into two groups: one played action games (war or shooter games), the other played control games (SIMS, Puzzle, Tetris). Both groups played for at least 8 hours over a week and up to 50 hours over 12 weeks. At the end of the training, participants underwent cognitive testing to measure any changes in their cognitive abilities.

The aim was to find out whether the effects of action gaming on the brain are causal.This active control group ensures that the effects resulting from playing action games really do result from the nature of this kind of game. In other words, they are not due to being part of a group that is asked to undertake an engrossing task or that is the center of scientific attention (placebo effect). Participants playing action videos increased their cognition more than those playing the control games with the difference in cognitive abilities between these two training groups being of one-third of a standard deviation. The research, which was carried out over several years all over the world, proves the real effects of action video games on the brain and paves the way for using action video games to expand cognitive abilities.

Despite the good news for avid gamers, it is worth highlighting that these beneficial effects were observed in studies that asked individuals to space their game play out over a period of many weeks to months rather than to engage in a large amount of gaming in a single sitting. As is true in any learning activity, short bouts of repeated practice is much preferred over binging!
The two meta-analyses, which covered fifteen years of research, underline the importance of sharing data between different laboratories in order to validate results on an international level without suffering from biases specific to each experiment and working group. Moreover, these meta-analyses help to further improve our understanding of the brain's plasticity and potentially create games specifically designed to develop attention or spatial cognition.
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Good sleep for weight loss

Having a good night's sleep helps people to lose weight most effectively, dieters who had regular sleep patterns found it easier to shed pounds from their waistline.

The most effective dieters sleep between seven hours thirty minutes and eight hours a night. It also allows 90 minutes for the most restorative non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep which is best achieved before midnight.

Throughout the night, human pass through four stages of sleep several times. The majority of  dreaming during the fourth stage, called the 'rapid-eye movement' (REM) phase.

 Research found that about one in three don’t get enough sleep in general. Missing out on dreaming that occurs during REM-sleep can have particularly dire consequences on mental and physical health.

Poor sleepers (those sleeping for less than seven hours a night) were found to have the most chaotic eating patterns. They were also more prone to diet lapses and were more likely to exceed their weekly limits for alcohol consumption.
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