Category: Health

{Sleep is very important, and for optimal function of the body, you need good sleep.}

Stress and other 21st century problems make it hard for people to find sleep these days.

These foods would help you sleep better

{{1. Oatmeal }}

Oatmeal isn’t only one of the most nutritious foods there is, it’s also good for sleep. Oatmeal contains calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium, which is known for its sleep qualities. However, it’s best to avoid sugar at night, as it could have an anti-calming effect.

{{2. Milk }}

Research has found that calcium deficiency is linked with poor sleep quality, and milk is rich in melatonin-boosting calcium. Milk also has these soothing effects that could make you have a good night sleep.

{{3. Banana }}

Bananas are packed with potassium and magnesium — two well-known minerals that boost muscle relaxation. They could help you have a better sleep at night.

{{4. Fish }}

Fish is rich in tryptophan, a natural sedative that helps you sleep better. Fish also contains vitamin B6 which boosts melatonin production, a sleep inducing hormone.

5. Also, foods rich in protein such as chicken and turkey contain tryptophan, an amino acid that boosts melatonin, a sleep inducing hormone.

6. Also, to have a better night sleep, avoid caffeinated drinks

{Are you having problems with your marriage and has it stopped you from having sex with your spouse or maybe you focusing so much on your career means you no longer have time for sex with your spouse.}

Below are 6 things that happen to your body when you stop having sex

{{1. You increase the likelihood of erectile dysfunction }}

According to a 2008 study published in the American Journal of Medicine, men who reported having sex once a week were half as likely to develop erectile dysfunction when compared to men who had less sex frequently. The study showed that regular sex preserves a man’s potency.

{{2. Difficult in getting wet}}

Having regular sex means blood flows to a woman’s privates, helping her get wet. This is according to a report by Mayo Clinic. When you stop having sex for awhile, it might take you awhile to get wet down there because the lubrication process of a woman’s privates benefits from having regular sex.

{{3. Your heart might suffer }}

According to a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology, men who had sex at least twice a week were less likely to develop heart diseases when compared with men who have sex only once a month.

{{4. You risk having prostate cancer }}

According to a study presented to the American Urological Association, men who have regular sex have a 20% drop in their risk for prostate cancer. Having regular sex helps remove potentially harmful substances from the prostate.

{{5. Your immune system is weakened }}

According to researchers at Wilkes-Barre University in Pennsylvania, people who have sex once or twice a week enjoyed a 30% boost in immunoglobulin A (IgA) when compared to people who rarely had sex or never.

{{6. You won’t handle stress well }}

According to a study published in Biological Psychology, blood pressure reactivity to stress is better for people who recently had sex when compared with people with no sexual activity.

This is no reason to engage in casual sex. Get married and enjoy the many benefits of sex with your partner. Lol.

{Testosterone shortage isn’t good for any man it could reduce your sex drive, increase your risk of prostrate cancer and heart disease too.}

No need to worry, the tips below would help you boost your manpower

{{1. Eat foods high in monounsaturated fats }}

According to a study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, men who consumed the most fat also had the highest testosterone levels.This isn’t no excuse to consume any type of fat; you should go for foods like fish and nuts which are high in monounsaturated fats.

{{2. Watch your waist size }}

To boost your manpower, you need to ensure you watch your waist size. Your testosterone levels go down as your waist size increases. So reduce those fats around your waist.

{{3. Reduce stress }}

Stress causes havoc to your testosterone level by causing cortisol to surge which then limits your body’s ability to make testosterone. So ensure you reduce both mental and physical stress.

{{4. Strengthens you muscles }}

You might be surprised this is on the list. According to a Finnish research, strengthening your muscles causes a 49 percent boost in free testosterone levels. So it’s time to lift some weights regularly.

{{5. Limit your alcohol intake }}

I know you love hanging out with friends at the bar every evening to take some bottles of beer but if you want to boost your manpower, you need limit your alcohol intake.

It’s time to get back that stamina and drive you really need.

{The number of youths smoking weed today is on the rise with many talking about some benefits they get from smoking weed. No matter the benefit you think you derive from smoking weed, the negatives of smoking weed overshadows the little benefits you think you get from it.}

Here are 5 ways smoking weed damages your body

{{1. Smoking weed destroys your brain cells }}

A 20-year study on the effects of weed to the human body which was published in the journal Addiction found that smoking weed decreases cognitive function while also increasing the risk of psychotic symptoms and disorders.

{{2. Smoking weed damages the blood vessels }}

Smoking weed also damages the blood vessels. This is according to a research from the American Heart Association. The researchers also found that long-term exposure to weed may increase the chances of developing hardened and clogged arteries.

{{3. Smoking weed hinders creativity }}

So many people especially musicians believe smoking weed helps boost their creativity and give them inspiration but this is false. A study by researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands found that smoking weed hinders creativity.The study which was published in the journal Psychopharmacology noted that the improved creativity weed smokers claim they experience is an illusion.

{{4. Smoking weed increases risk of testicular cancer }}

Researchers from the University of Southern California found that people who smoke weed have a higher risk of getting testicular cancer.

{{5. Smoking weed impacts short-term memory }}

Another danger of smoking weed is that it makes people become forgetful. Researchers from the Northwestern University found that people who smoke weed developed brain abnormalities in regions associated with short-term memory.The researchers also found that the brains of people who smoke weed were abnormally shaped.

{Limiting weight gain may help to reduce risk of these cancers.}

There’s yet another reason to maintain a healthy weight as we age. An international team of researchers has identified eight additional types of cancer linked to excess weight and obesity: stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, ovary, meningioma (a type of brain tumor), thyroid cancer and the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

Limiting weight gain over the decades could help to reduce the risk of these cancers, the data suggest.

The findings, published Aug. 25 in The New England Journal of Medicine, are based on a review of more than 1,000 studies of excess weight and cancer risk analyzed by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Cancer on Research (IARC), based in France.

“The burden of cancer due to being overweight or obese is more extensive than what has been assumed,” said cancer prevention expert Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who chaired the IARC Working Group. “Many of the newly identified cancers linked to excess weight haven’t been on people’s radar screens as having a weight component.”

The findings could have a significant bearing on the global population. Worldwide, an estimated 640 million adults and 110 million children are obese, including one-third of adults and children in the United States.

In 2002, the same group of cancer researchers found sufficient evidence linking excess weight to higher risks of cancers of the colon, esophagus, kidney, breast and uterus.

“Lifestyle factors such as eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising, in addition to not smoking, can have a significant impact on reducing cancer risk,” Colditz said. “Public health efforts to combat cancer should focus on these things that people have some control over.”

“But losing weight is hard for many people,” he added. “Rather than getting discouraged and giving up, those struggling to take off weight could instead focus on avoiding more weight gain.”

For most of the cancers on the newly expanded list, the researchers noted a positive dose-response relationship: the higher the body-mass index, or BMI, the greater the cancer risk.

The cancer risks associated with excess weight were similar for men and women and, when data were available, were consistent across geographic regions — North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

There are many reasons why being overweight or obese can increase cancer risk, the researchers noted. Excess fat leads to an overproduction of estrogen, testosterone and insulin, and promotes inflammation, all of which can drive cancer growth.

“Significant numbers of the U.S. and the world’s population are overweight,” Colditz said. “This is another wake-up call. It’s time to take our health and our diets seriously.”

{Study finds altered expression of genes regulating cell energy and metabolism in infants born to overweight women.}

Researchers now have demonstrated that umbilical cells from children of obese or overweight mothers show impaired expression of key genes regulating cell energy and metabolism, compared to similar cells from babies of non-obese mothers.

Scientists have long known that infants born to women who are obese show higher risks of obesity, but they don’t fully understand what boosts those risks. Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center now have demonstrated that umbilical cells from children of obese or overweight mothers show impaired expression of key genes regulating cell energy and metabolism, compared to similar cells from babies of non-obese mothers.

Such findings may help to pave the way toward improved healthcare, both before and after birth, for children at heightened risk of obesity, says Elvira Isganaitis, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Investigator and Staff Pediatric Endocrinologist at Joslin Diabetes Center and Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and corresponding author on a paper about the work published in the International Journal of Obesity.

The Joslin study also suggests that the increased risks of obesity may be driven by boosted levels of certain lipids (fats and other substances that are not soluble in water) in the maternal blood that flows through the umbilical cord, says Isganaitis. A research associate and staff endocrinologist at Joslin, she is an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Suzana Maria Ramos Costa, M.D., Ph.D., of Joslin and the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, who is co-first author on the paper, began the research by gathering umbilical cords after birth from healthy Brazilian women without diabetes. Costa recruited 24 overweight or obese women (with a body mass index over 25 before pregnancy) and 13 women who were not overweight for the study.

The scientists collected umbilical cells from the vein that carries oxygen and other nutrients from the placenta to the embryo. “These samples give a window into the nutrients and metabolites that are coming from the mom into the infant,” says Isganaitis.

The Joslin team discovered that in these cells, increased obesity in the mothers correlated with lower expression of genes regulating mitochondria (which act as the cell’s powerhouses) and of other genes regulating the production and metabolism of lipids.

“This suggests that already at birth there are detectable metabolic perturbations resulting from maternal obesity,” she says. Changes in these cells were similar to some known to occur in obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, she adds.

When the researchers followed up by analyzing fetal blood from the umbilical cord vein, “we found that the infants of obese mothers had significantly higher levels of many lipids that are known to be metabolically deleterious, like saturated fatty acids,” Isganaitis says. Fat tissues in the obese mothers may shed fatty acids that make their way into the fetal blood and create a kind of “fuel overload” for the embryo, she remarks.

Isganaitis and her colleagues will carry out further research on umbilical cells and blood among Boston newborns to see if the study results are confirmed in this population. She also plans similar analyses for children born to mothers who have either gestational diabetes or type 1 diabetes.

Additionally, Isganaitis is examining how such prenatal exposures may encourage certain stem cells found in umbilical cords, which can differentiate into various types of tissues, to preferentially turn into fat cells.

She hopes that eventually it will be possible to use blood markers to identify embryos at risk for obesity or related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, and to follow up with suitable medical interventions.

“Pregnant women engage often with their healthcare providers, and you can really tap into their motivation,” she says. “If we could come up with tailored interventions — if we could say, take this vitamin, exercise regularly and you can minimize obesity or diabetes risk in your child — I’m sure mothers would do it.”

Isganaitis adds that mothers and healthcare providers also could carefully monitor the growth patterns and nutrition of children at risk of obesity, both in the first two years of life and afterwards. “Your risk of chronic diseases isn’t set in stone at birth; there are many different periods in which your lifelong disease risk can be modulated,” she emphasizes.

{Most men still think infertility is a female problem and they are so wrong. Males just as females can have infertility issues and its important males know what can cause these infertility problems.}

Below are 7 common causes of male infertility

{{1. Diet:}}

Your diet can affect your infertility so it’s important you eat the right foods. Deficiency in vitamin C and zinc can affect a man’s fertility. So if you want to protect your fertility, daily exercise and a nutrient-rich diet will help.

{{2. Environmental factors:}}

Environmental factors can also affect a man’s infertility. Exposure to mercury, pesticide, second-hand smoke and radiation can wreck a man’s fertility. Working safely around these exposures is important.

{{3. Lifestyle habits:}}

Your lifestyle can have an adverse effect on your fertility. You should ensure you live a healthy lifestyle if you want to avoid male infertility. Use of recreational drugs, excessive drinking, smoking can decrease a man’s sperm count and mobility of sperm cells. Use of laptops on your laps can affect your sperm production due to the temperature the laptop generates. Being a vegetarian can also affect a man’s fertility according to research.

{{4. Age:}}

Age can also affect a man’s fertility. Even though males have longer fertility period than females, it doesn’t last for ever. As males age, the quality of their sperm is affected.

{{5. Medical conditions:}}

Some medical conditions can affect a man’s fertility. Obesity, kidney disease and a condition known as immunological infertility where a man’s body attacks his sperm for unknown reasons.

{{6. Abnormalities in the sperm :}}

Abnormalities in a man’s sperm can affect his fertility. If the sperm count of a man is lower than 20 million/mL, the chances of his sperm fertilising an egg decreases. If the sperm is too slow, it could also be a problem as it would have difficulties fertilising an egg.

{{7. Hormonal issues:}}

Deficiency in testosterone can lead to infertility in men. Problems with hormones such as LH, FSH and androgens can affect a man’s infertility.

{Congenital Zika virus infection is mentioned as responsible for a wide array of brain malformations visible on CT, MRI and ultrasound.}

A recent study published by Brazilian researchers indicates brain malformations induced by Zika virus congenital infection. More than microcephaly, the research indicates other neurological changes such as reduction in brain volume, cortical development abnormalities and ventriculomegaly.

A recent study published by Brazilian researchers from the D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Institute for Research Professor Amorim Neto (IPESQ), alongside Tel Aviv University and the Boston Children’s Hospital in the US, indicates that microcephaly, a very usual feature in cases of Zika virus gestational infection, is just one of several observed brain changes. The results are extremely important as they describe which areas of the brain are most affected and the severity of such damages.

The research, published in the scientific journal Radiology, assessed pregnant women, fetuses and newborns infected by zika virus through computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound. According to Dr. Fernanda Tovar-Moll, correspondent author of the study and researcher at IDOR and UFRJ, the study was essential to identify the severity of the neurological changes induced by the viral infection in the developing central nervous system. Dr. Deborah Levine, coauthor of the study, also stresses the importance of describing different malformations in the brains of fetuses and newborn babies caused by zika virus.

Unlike observed in other infections such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus and herpes, the fetuses’ and babies’ brains infected by zika virus showed cortical malformations and changes located at the junction of the brain’s white and grey matter. The researchers also identified reduction in brain volume, cortical development abnormalities and ventriculomegaly, a condition in which the brain cavities (spaces filled with fluids) are larger than normal. Notwithstanding the fact that almost all babies have shown abnormalities in head circumference, cases of normal circumference in babies with severe ventriculomegaly were also found.

The results also pointed out abnormalities in the corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibers that allows communication between the brain’s left and right sides and further in neuronal migration, i.e., the neurons didn’t move to its correct destination in the brain.

The research team will undertake further research correlating morphological changes observed in this study with clinical and immunological data, in addition to information from the environment where mothers and babies were infected. “We are developing a follow-up study to investigate how the congenital infection by zika virus can interfere not only in the prenatal period but also in the postnatal brain maturation. Microcephaly is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Fernanda Tovar-Moll.

{Getting some sleep in between study sessions may make it easier to recall what you studied and relearn what you’ve forgotten, even 6 months later, according to new findings from Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.}

“Our results suggest that interleaving sleep between practice sessions leads to a twofold advantage, reducing the time spent relearning and ensuring a much better long-term retention than practice alone,” explains psychological scientist Stephanie Mazza of the University of Lyon. “Previous research suggested that sleeping after learning is definitely a good strategy, but now we show that sleeping between two learning sessions greatly improves such a strategy.”

While studies have shown that both repeated practice and sleep can help improve memory, there is little research investigating how repetition and sleep influence memory when they are combined. Mazza and colleagues hypothesized that sleeping in between study sessions might make the relearning process more efficient, reducing the effort needed to commit information to memory.

A total of 40 French adults were randomly assigned to either a “sleep” group or a “wake” group. At the first session, all participants were presented with 16 French-Swahili word pairs in random order. After studying a pair for 7 seconds, the Swahili word appeared and participants were prompted to type the French translation. The correct word pair was then shown for 4 seconds. Any words that were not correctly translated were presented again, until each word pair had been correctly translated.

Twelve hours after the initial session, the participants completed the recall task again, practicing the whole list of words until all 16 words were correctly translated.

Importantly, some participants completed the first session in the morning and the second session in the evening of the same day (“wake” group); others completed the first session in the evening, slept, and completed the second session the following morning (“sleep” group).

In the first session, the two groups showed no difference in how many words they could initially recall or in the number of trials they needed to be able to remember all 16 word pairs.

But after 12 hours, the data told another story: Participants who had slept between sessions recalled about 10 of the 16 words, on average, while those who hadn’t slept recalled only about 7.5 words. And when it came to relearning, those who had slept needed only about 3 trials to be able to recall all 16 words, while those who had stayed awake needed about 6 trials.

Ultimately, both groups were able to learn all 16 word pairs, but sleeping in between sessions seemed to allow participants to do so in less time and with less effort.

“Memories that were not explicitly accessible at the beginning of relearning appeared to have been transformed by sleep in some way,” says Mazza. “Such transformation allowed subjects to re-encode information faster and to save time during the relearning session.”

The memory boost that participants got from sleeping between sessions seemed to last over time. Follow-up data showed that participants in the sleep group outperformed their peers on the recall test 1 week later. The sleep group showed very little forgetting, recalling about 15 word pairs, compared to the wake group, who were able to recall about 11 word pairs. This benefit was still noticeable 6 months later.

The benefits of sleep could not be ascribed to participants’ sleep quality or sleepiness, or to their short-term or long-term memory capacity, as the two groups showed no differences on these measures.

The results suggest that alternating study sessions with sleep might be an easy and effective way to remember information over longer periods of time with less study, Mazza and colleagues conclude.