Curiously Awesome

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A new report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine concludes that the more television three-year-olds watch, the more aggressive they are.

Approximately 65 percent of families participating in a study reported their three-year-olds watched over two hours of television every day. In addition to this personal viewing, the children were also exposed to an additional 5.2 hours of general household TV use each day. The researchers determined that both direct watching of TV and general household TV use were significantly connected to childhood aggression.

One explanation is that homes with higher rates of TV use most likely have fewer restrictions about what children can watch — so children are probably being exposed to unregulated television content.

The conclusion of the researchers: “Current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations mainly suggest limitations for direct child exposure to TV and other media; however, our findings suggest that additional household TV use may also be an important predictor of negative childhood outcomes, such as early childhood aggression.”

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Grapefruit extract…naturally present in grapefruit…may help prevent the physiological changes that produce the condition known as metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Earlier studies have found that something present in grapefruit might be helpful to the body in regulating blood fats and sugars.

One recent study has found that people who ate one red grapefruit per day may reduce their cholesterol levels by 15% and their triglycerides by 17%. The grapefruit may also act to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Another study has determined that the naturally-occurring flavonoid naringenin may work similarly to the sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Naringenin appears to work by causing the liver to burn excess fat instead of storing it. This decreases the ability of liver cells to make cholesterol and thereby reduces insulin levels.

There are 14 billion hamburgers consumed each year in the US. Current USDA regulations openly allow beef that is contaminated with E. coli to be repackaged and then cooked and sold as ready-to-eat hamburgers.

Another interesting fact…USDA regulations also allow chicken feces to be used as feed for cows. Do you see how this might be significant?

Farmers feed their cattle between 1 million to 2 million tons of chicken feces every year. Critics are concerned that this practice may lead to an increased risk of mad cow disease contaminating beef products. Many people are pushing for a ban of this practice of feeding of chicken litter to cows.

McDonald’s has actually joined this fight to ban the practice. CSPI and the Consumers Union have also joined the fight.

How could chicken feces create a mad cow infection risk to cows? Chickens are fed ground up parts of other animals, including cows, sheep and other animals. Some of this chicken feed spills during the feeding process and gets swept along with the chicken feces…and then fed to cows.

Make sense now?

So we have a situation where dead cows, sheep and other animals are fed to chickens, the chicken feed spills onto the floor where it is mixed in with chicken feces, it then gets swept up and manufactured into a cow feed and fed to cows. Spin this out and know then that some of those cows may even eventually get ground up and fed back to the chickens.

Grossed out yet?

Overfishing of smaller fish species is leading to widespread famine and even starvation among the ocean’s larger predators.

Scrawny dolphins, sea bass and whales are appearing on coastlines all over the world.

Fish-eating birds and other large mammal predators like seals and sea lions have also been found lacking food.

The starvation problem is being blamed to human depletion of these predators’ food stocks. Over the past several decades, fisheries around the world have collapsed, making it nearly impossible for large fishing operations to catch the large fish that most consumers want to eat.

Approximately 80 percent of all prey fish caught are not eaten by humans. Instead they are ground up into fish oil or meal as food for larger species in fish farms. It takes 11 pounds of food for a large fish to gain one pound of its own.

Home-use whitening products may deplete teeth’s protective enamel.

Researchers tested five different tooth whitening products for either 10 or 21 days. They then measured any changes to hardness or elasticity and compared these findings with tests of five tooth samples that had not been exposed to whitening products.

Some of the tooth whiteners were over-the-counter products and others were prescription products. All are intended to be used at home.

Teeth treated with whitening products had lost between 1.2 and 2 nanometers of thickness and between 6 and 18.8 percent elasticity. Elasticity is a measure of the enamel’s ability to recover from an applied force.

Untreated teeth lost only 0.4 nanometers of thickness, and had less of a decrease in elasticity.

Because enamel is translucent, it reflects the yellow color of the dentin underneath. Teeth whitening products use either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide to bleach the organic pigment of the enamel.

Some side effects of tooth bleaching include gum irritation and tooth sensitivity.

A new study just published has documented that breastfeeding makes women with a family history of breast cancer 59 percent less likely to develop a breast malignancy themselves.

The study did not find this difference among women who didn’t have a family history of breast cancer.

Among women with a family history of breast cancer, the scientists found that those who breastfed were less than half as likely to develop pre-menopausal breast cancer as those who had not breastfed. This lowered risk with breastfeeding was similar to taking an anti-estrogen drug for five years. Anti-estrogen drugs cause many side effects including dizziness, mood swings, leg swelling, difficulty seeing and heart attack-causing blood clots.

How long a woman breastfeeds appears to be less critical than whether she breastfeeds at all.

Why does breastfeeding reduce the risk of breast cancer? The study states that the explanation is still unknown, It is suspected that when women do not breastfeed, inflammation and engorgement shortly after birth produces changes in breast tissue that may increase the chances of breast cancer.

Sweet potatoes are rich in antioxidants and contain beneficial anti-inflammatory properties. Sweet potatoes have a positive effect on some health conditions, including asthma, allergies, and arthritis. Sweet potatoes are also high in fiber and calcium. They contain high amounts of potassium, folate, vitamin c, and beta carotene.

Sweet potatoes are also beneficial for a diabetic diet. They are naturally sweet but only release their natural sugars in the form of glucose. This means they release into the body at a much slower rate. Foods like these allow diabetics to better manage their blood sugar levels.

Sweet potatoes are easy to prepare as well. Add sweet potatoes to your list of autumn vegetables and you will have a superfood on your menu. Sweet potatoes will increase your fiber and calcium intake, increase your vitamins, level your blood sugar, improve arthritis symptoms, and may improve eyesight problems.

Researchers have discovered that diesel fumes can increase malignancies. Diesel exhaust causes new blood vessels to grow that feed cancerous tumors.

Researchers discovered that three types of blood vessel development takes place after exposure to the diesel fumes. There are three different processes that occur that are associated with the growth of cancerous tumors. Of these three, angiogenesis is the most lethal one that helps malignancies spread.

Exhaust exposure levels that are roughly equal to the levels that humans regularly receive if they reside in cities and/or commute in heavy traffic have been found to be potentially lethal. A tiny size of inhaled diesel particles is enough to allow the material to penetrate into the human circulatory system, organs, and tissues. This is enough to potentially causing damage to the sensitive human body.

Bottom line: bad air is bad for the babies’ developing brains and might even contribute to the dumbing down of Americans.

Scientists have determined that an expectant mother’s exposure to chemicals called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) may adversely affect a child’s intelligence level. PAHs are released into the air from burning coal and tobacco. The main source of PAHs is cars that run on diesel, oil and gas. A new study found that children exposed to high levels of PAHs in New York City had IQ scores that were over 4 points lower than children with less chemical exposure.

A 4-point difference on intelligence tests is thought to make a significant difference on school performance and standardized tests.

This is the first study to correlate PAH exposure and IQ. It should warn us of the need to reduce environmental exposures for everyone