Curiously Awesome

Scientists have found new evidence that nuts are healthy for the heart because they improve blood cholesterol levels without drugs. Consumption of nuts has been the focus of intense research because of their ability to reduce coronary heart disease risk and to lower blood lipid levels.

Researchers investigated data from 25 international nut consumption trials involving 583 people with high cholesterol or normal cholesterol levels. The studies compared a control group of research subjects to a group assigned to eat nuts regularly. No one took cholesterol lowering drugs.

The people in the trials who ate 2.4 ounces of nuts each day had a reduction in total cholesterol levels of 5.1 percent.

Researchers concluded the results of the study support including nuts as a natural dietary therapy for improving blood cholesterol levels.

A diet high in turmeric may help reduce weight gain. It suppresses the growth of new fat tissue. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Weight gain is the result of the growth and expansion of fat tissue. This can’t happen unless new blood vessels form. Curcumin appears to suppress this activity in the fat tissues. Curcumin is an antioxidant chemical in the polyphenol family that naturally occurs in turmeric. It is easily absorbed by the body.

Researchers fed two groups of mice an identical high-fat diet, supplementing the diets of the half the mice with 500 milligrams of curcumin per kilogram of body weight. They found that mice in the curcumin group had significantly lower blood cholesterol and significantly less fat tissue than the mice in the control group. This suggests less blood vessel growth and less overall growth of fat tissue. The livers of mice in the curcumin group also had less fat than the control group mice.

Our faltering economy is having far-reaching effects on many people. One such effect is on the health insurance coverage of people (and their families) who have lost their jobs. These people are either ending up uninsured, or are forced to pay for expensive COBRA coverage.

Please visit  www.mnui.com for a free insurance quote today.

There is an affordable option, however. MultiNational Underwriters has a short-term medical plan called Amigo. This is an alternative to COBRA that is affordable and will help keep individuals and their families covered.

If you are outfitting a cruiser and are looking for specific yamaha parts then look no further. This is the place to find all of the accessories you may need for your motorcycle. You can search by brand, by model, by most popular, and more. This is a very well organized site that will help you find exactly what you need.

A recent study has found that people with a higher waist-to-hip ratio are at higher risk of death.

The study was conducted using 359,387 participants over a 10 year period. Initial information included BMI (Body Mass Index) and the location of the excess weight on the body. The participants ranged in age from 25 to 70 years came from nine different European countries. At the end of the 10 year study 14,723 people had died.

The risk of death was at its lowest when the BMI was at 25.3 and 24.3 for men and women respectively. The risk of death increased as the BMI fell below these levels or rose above them. After adjustments it was realized that the waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio played a significant role in the risk of death. It appears that the belly fat could be implicated in the risk of death.

BMI levels were higher among participants who did not currently or had never smoked than it was for current and former smokers.

Even those in comparatively good health could suffer health issues due to belly fat. Maintaining a healthy BMI is a good preventative measure for better health.

Having had many children, something we thought about during several pregnancies was banking cord blood. I’m sorry to say that we never did take the steps necessary to do this with any of our children. I find myself wishing after the fact that we had done this…you just never know if or when you are going to need or want stem cells banked.

If I had it to do over again another time, I would definitely spend some time researching and getting information about banking cord blood.

The benefits are many…here are a few:

Umbilical cord stem cells are known to treat seventy diseases. This includes leukemia, anemia, lymphoma, diabetes and cerebral palsy, to name only a few. Did you know that approximately 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed every year with a disease that could be treated with cord blood stem cells? The thought of treating diseases with stem cells is just such an awesome and exciting idea.

By the year 2015 it is predicted that there will be 10,000 cord blood transplants world-wide every year using publicly banked cord blood. This is amazing! The value of cord blood is an exponential thing that really cannot be measured by anything we can use.

Cryo-cell is one of the world’s largest and most established family cord blood banks. They have over 150,000 clients worldwide.

July is Cord Blood Awareness Month. If you have the opportunity to do this for your family, I hope you will consider it.

I am about to find out! I’ve been using Vista Premium for over a year now and for the most part I like it fine. I have had a few compatibility issues here and there with certain software…and RAM also seems to be an ongoing issue I’ve noticed…but otherwise I’m satisfied.

BUT – thanks to one of the coolest websites I’ve found in a long time, I’m going to be able to try Vista Ultimate and see how much better it is.

I will let you all know what I think of this upgrade.  Stay tuned!

There are many religious traditions that have long believed that burning frankincense incense (made out of resin from the Boswellia plant) is good for the soul. There is now a new study that says it apparently is good for the brain.

The research (published on-line in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal) concludes that burning frankincense activates specific ion channels in the brain. The result? Incense appears to quell anxiety and depression.

According to the National Institutes of Health, major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability in the United States for people ages 15 to 44. This affects about 14.8 million American adults. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million Americans.

To study frankincense’s psychoactive impact, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice and discovered that it significantly impacted areas in the brain that are intricately involved in emotions. Nerve circuits that are targeted by modern-day drugs were also affected.

The discovery of how incensole acetate (purified from frankincense) works on specific targets in the brain should also help us understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides an explanation for ancient spiritual practices that have persisted across time.

Burning incense really does make you feel better.

I’ve been having some back problems lately and I really think it has a lot to do with the way I sit at my laptop (for way too long every day). So, I’ve been looking at different styles and options in office furniture.

I found this chair and I have decided that I am going to own this chair before long. I just think that this chair looks like such a comfortable and ergonomic chair – looks like exactly what I need!
This site that I found has great office furniture, as you can see…but that isn’t all! From furnishing your office to choosing the perfect preschool furniture, this site truly has it all!

Nearly 65 percent of young American women report experiencing disordered eating behaviors. Ten percent report symptoms of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, or binge eating disorder. These statistics are according to new study findings published in HealthDay News.

Over 4000 women participated in an online poll conducted by SELF Magazine in conjunction with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). The women’s ages ranged from 25 to 45.

These eating behaviors cut across racial and ethnic lines and were not limited to any one group. Women whose ethnic backgrounds were Hispanic or Latina, white, black or African American, and Asian were all represented among the women who reported unhealthy eating behaviors.

The most disturbing return was the unexpectedly high number of women who engage in unhealthy purging activities. More than 31 percent of women in the survey reported that in an attempt to lose weight, they have induced vomiting or had taken laxatives, diuretics or diet pills at some point in their lives. More that 50 percent of these women engaged in purging activities at least a few times a week and some reported doing so daily.

Eating habits such as skipping meals, avoiding carbohydrates and, in come cases, extreme dieting, were thought by some women to be normal. But the study finds that these habits may actually be signs of disordered eating. This behavior is often linked with emotional and physical distress.

There is widespread belief that eating disorders affect mostly young women, however the study found that a surprising number of women in their 30s and 40s had about the same rates of disordered eating as younger women.

Additional findings:

* 67 percent of the women are trying to lose weight.

* 53 percent of these dieters are already at a healthy weight.

* 39 percent of the women said concerns about what they eat or weigh interfere with happiness.

* 37 percent of women said they regularly skip meals.

* 27 percent said they’d be very upset if they gained five pounds.

* 26 percent have eliminated entire food groups from their diets.

* 16 percent have consumed only 1,000 calories per day.

* 13 percent smoke to lose weight.

* 12 percent often eat when they’re not hungry and 49 percent sometimes do.