KIDS GET TO RUN AROUND SCHOOL FOR 15 MINUTES A DAY AND IT'S IMPROVING THEIR HEALTH

These kids get to run around school for 15 minutes every day and it's improving their health pic.twitter.com/dSiXwFqA9C

— Mashable (@mashable) December 8, 2018

You'll need the right gear.

"WHAT MAKES UP THE THINKING BOXES IN OUR SKULL"

from CNET via Drudge Report

Thirty years ago, George Paxinos noticed an unusual assortment of cells lurking near the brain stem--but he didn't think much of it.

Going over the region in 2018, he was once again struck by it. Now Paxinos' new research suggests that the cluster of cells is definitely important. In fact, it appears to be a completely unknown region of the human brain. The early suggestion is that this bundle of neurons may be responsible for fine motor control, dictating our ability to strum the guitar, write and play sports.

Professor Paxinos is one of the world's most respected "brain cartographers". He creates atlases of human and animal brains that allow neuroscientists, brain surgeons and clinicians to get a better grasp of just what makes up the thinking boxes in our skull.

Coming back to the region that he was originally interested in before publishing his first atlas 28 years ago led to the discovery of the tiny grouping of brain cells. He's crowned the new region "the Endorestiform nucleus" because of its location at the base of the brain in the restiform body.

"One intriguing thing about this endorestiform nucleus is that it seems to be present only in the human, we have not been able to detect it in the rhesus monkey or the marmoset that we have studied," he explained.

It's location, between the brain stem and the spinal cord, is the only inkling we currently have about the brain cells function. As Paxinos has been unable to locate the same region in other apes, he guesses that it must be useful in the fine motor control that humans are so uniquely good at.

You can hear professor Paxinos discuss the finding in the video below.

However, while the structure does appear to be important, further work will be required to understand how its function relates to its form. Paxinos only journeys into the brain to craft a map so it will be up to other intrepid brain explorers to journey back to the center of the neural bundle and learn more. 

The oft-repeated line about our brains containing as many neurons as there are stars in the galaxy doesn't quite ring true--but with some 86 billion neurons pulsing away upstairs, improving our understanding of the brain is still a mammoth task. Discoveries like this allow scientists and researchers to understand normal brain physiology, providing great insight on how or why things go wrong in pathologies such as Alzheimer's or motor neuron disease. 

By the way, if you're concerned about the fears of Alzheimer's, be sure to read Bill Sardi's work [here, here, and here] on the one molecule that is poised to eradicate that disease.

ADDED SUGARS & CARBS . . . ARE AS ADDICTIVE AS OPIOD DRUGS

It is said if foods with added sugar are removed from a grocery store, only 20% of foods would remain.  Added sugars and carbohydrates that turn to sugar in the body are as addictive as opiod drugs.  Bill Sardi

In 1998, I began reading Dr. Barry Sears' Zone Diet books, and a lot impressed me about Dr. Barry Sears' Zone Diet and his recommendation of fish oil supplements.  In addition to the great science that he provided, I also appreciated his terrific insights on eating behaviors. One thing that he noticed was that, with the exception of vegetables, kids will eat anything their parents put in front of them.  And I thought that's because parents, as individuals themselves, never recognized the purpose of certain foods beyond satisfying pangs of hunger or cravings for taste.  Put a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal with milk in front of a kid, and the parent feels like their service to their child for that one meal is done.  But there was no science, no systematic approach, no knowledge of the kinds of foods one should eat or serve, or even of nutritional value itself, forget foods that promote weight gain or set the stage for metabolic catastrophe.  One of the first books I'd read on nutrition recommended olive oil for headaches.  So I tried it, and immediately my headaches were alleviated as though I'd never suffered from them.  I'll never forget growing up how certain foods were put in front of me that passed for quick energy foods.  Inevitably, these were chocolate bars, like Powerhouse, Chunkie, Snickers, etc.  Will never forget how Snickers began pitching their candy bar as a nutritional snack packed with protein from all of the peanuts.  Well, if Snickers was healthy, wouldn't that make a PayDay bar even healthier?  So advertising can be funny; nutrition, on the other hand, is a deadly serious regime.  Then I remember being addicted to Corn Nuts.  During the morning break period at school, called Nutrition, I'd consume, as would my friends, a large Coke poured from the fountain paired with a HoneyBun.  I don't know how much honey it had in it.  But these were our nutritional foods.  One of my enduring memories of high school came from sports.  I ran cross country and track.  There was often downtime waiting for the race to start or waiting for your friend's race to finish.  Well, some of the kids would inevitably find a bush grown over with fruit, hanging over a fence.  And one kid would start in by grabbing an orange or a cumquat, peel it, and consume its fruit.  To this day when I bite into an orange, I am transported back to when I was 15 enjoying a "free, fresh-picked orange or the tartness of a cumquat.  It was moments like that I had my greatest nutritional awakening: in this case vitamin C and perhaps some Hesperidine from the fruit's skin.  Even when we were called to the Christian Breakfast Club at Pasadena's Lake Avenue Congregation Church, they served French Toast, sausage, milk, and orange juice, and coffee to anyone who asked for it.  Why not eggs and bacon?  Nutrition information in the public sphere was predicated more on fear than any positive information.  I heard only about nitrates in bacon, cholesterol in eggs and to limit your intake of them, ignoring completely the nutritional value of cholesterol, the protein in each one of them, or the benefits of saturated fats for young, growing brains and vital organs.  And then if you grew up into adulthood in the 1980s, as I did, then you'll recall the craze or insistence with the low fat, high carbohydrate diets.  Eat lots of pasta said the nutritional experts.  That instruction set the nutritional trends for the 1980s.  Again, if you were young and had a healthy metabolism, you could survive the onslaught of highly refined, high-glycemic starches.  I ate my pasta with butter and pesto sauce.  Not a bad combination.  And so I was on the pasta bandwagon.  Talk about your metabolic disaster waiting to present itself.  Fatty liver is one of the damages from such a diet.  Bill Sardi points this out:

Fatty liver was a rarity decades ago.  But now that so much refined sugar and carbohydrates (bread, pasta and rice) are consumed, 35% of Americans have a fatty liver condition that is related to over-consumption of alcohol.  

I assert that what physicians have been treating with cholesterol-lowering drugs over recent decades is only indirectly arterial disease and more directly liver disease.  And while statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are widely used to treat fatty liver disease, they are not particularly effective and they are a liver toxin.  [Medical Science Monitoring Dec 2009]  Some statin drugs actually increase deposition o fat in the liver. [Journal Physiology Pharmacology June 2013] 

Know what eradicates fatty liver?  Eggs.  [See the list of references under "The Single Nutrient that Eradicates Fatty Liver Disease."  Sardi also points out that Choline, Inositol, Betaine, IP6 Rice Bran, Garlic (or the allicin in garlic), and Resveratrol eliminate fatty liver.

We've learned, too, that limiting your intake of food actually extends life, but I don't think that the scientific and government community proposing restrictions on bacon or eggs actually had your longevity in mind.  A lack of healthful nutrition ran through every meal.  Does nutrition, or lack thereof, have an effect on us as adults?  It seems so.  Dr. Barry Sears did say that any one of us can turn things around with our next meal.  So, if you've got kids, try to steer them clear of junk food.  A junk food diet on kids can generate erratic feelings and thought, including behavior, you know--those actions that our friends and coworkers remember quite easily.  Some can do it, but try getting your child on task with productive habits at home after feeding him a whole day of junk food--French Fries, donuts, pizzas, etc.  And if one's feelings are erratic, then he's not going to have the wherewithal to make smart or beneficial decisions; instead, he'll automatically hand that over to those in authority in his environment.  Imagine if your son's breakfast consisted of pancakes, bacon, syrup made with HFCS, and lunch is a cheeseburger, and dinner is a Swanson's TV dinners in the form of a Salisbury steak?  Not the best, but the protein contained therein isn't horrible for young, growing kids.  

Large Study Reveals That Junk Food Really Does Increase Your Risk for Cancer

Natural News, November 21, 2018, from Intellihub via What Really Happened? (November 21, 2018: 19:40)

We all know that junk food is terrible for us, but there may be occasions when you’re tempted to give in. Perhaps the vending machine is the social center at your office and you find yourself chatting and snacking more often than not, or you’ve given in to your kids’ requests that you buy the same trendy chips their friends eat. Or maybe you think that you can get away with eating junk food because you’ve got your weight under control. If you believe that eating some junk food can’t do that much harm, you need to know that a sizable European study recently found that eating such food raises your risk of cancer.

The study used a system that was developed by the British Food Standards Agency known as the Nutri-Score, in which foods are scored based on their nutritional quality, with A representing the most nutritious and E signifying the poorest quality in terms of nutrition.

Under the guidance of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, the scientists used the scale to grade the diets of almost half a million people in ten different European countries. Then they looked for trends by comparing the rates of cancer noted among participants during a follow-up period that spanned roughly 15 years.

They made adjustments for other factors that can influence your risk of cancer, such as family history, BMI, and smoking, and they found a link between a diet of nutritionally-poor food and higher risk of developing some types of cancer.

In particular, those who ate the most junk food had a higher risk of stomach, respiratory tract, and colorectal cancer. In men, a diet of junk food was strongly associated with lung cancer; in women, it was linked to higher risks of post-menopausal breast cancer and liver cancer.

Consumers need to be more informed and make better choices

The Nutri-Score and similar systems can be handy tools for helping consumers quickly determine the nutritional quality of food so they can make better choices. It uses colors and grades to show foods that are high or low in sugar, saturated fat, salt, and other ingredients. It has been used in the U.K. since last year to regulate food advertisements.

Although the Nutri-Score has gained the official support of French and Belgian health authorities, EU labeling regulations mean that its application can’t be made compulsory. Nevertheless, 33 food manufacturers have already voluntarily adopted the system. The EU plans to review and debate implementing a standard nutritional labeling system for its member countries, the study’s authors say that similar discussions are taking place in North America, South America, and Australia.

The study is supported by different research that was recently published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that showed a link between a high-calorie diet that is devoid of nutrients and a high risk of cancer – especially in women older than 50 of a normal weight. After examining the data of more than 92,000 women and following them for 15 years, they found that those who ate a lot of junk food had higher risk of cancer.

Even if you’re blessed with a fast metabolism and weight isn’t a concern, you should still avoid junk food like the plague. Cancer is a devastating illness that will strike many people in their lifetime, and nutrition is one of the biggest risk factors that you can control. You owe it to yourself and your family to cut junk food out of your lives right away.

Read JunkFood.news for more science about junk, processed food.  

For behavioral addictions, try NAC or N-Acetyl L Cysteine.

2 FACTS: 1) EXCESSIVELY LOW SALT DIET DAMAGES THE HEART; 2) ADULTS ARE ADVISED TO CONSUME 4,700 MG OF POTASSIUM TO LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE

In an effort to keep my glycemic index low, following my readings of Dr. Barry Sears' Zone Diet, I had all but eliminated bananas from my diet.  I knew they provided a percentage of daily requirements of potassium but I didn't know how much, nor did I know how many bananas I needed to eat to get the daily amounts of potassium.  And to get the right answers on anything related to nutrition, we don't even know the relation of one nutrient to another or in conjunction with another or as a cofactor to another.  Biology is a bear.  So I rely on a lot of sources.  But one source, in particular, that I've found beneficial is Bill Sardi's Knowledge of Health.  And if you're not familiar with the nutritional products that he's designed, you should be.  

First, the banana.  One medium banana packs about 422 milligrams of potassium, about 11% of the 4,700 milligrams adults should aim to get daily.  So to get the daily requirement of 4.7 grams, what do we do, eat 10 bananas a day?  Who could sustain such a diet?  Imagine what so many bananas, nay, half of that, say 5, would do to our glycemic load!  Bill Sardi puts this dilemma into a clear context.  "The lesson is that sodium must be balanced with potassium."  Sodium?  Well, how much do we need of each?  Read on.

So the latest news headline now says it is okay to salt your foods.  Well, that needs a little explaining.  What the latest study says is health risks increase at 5,000 milligrams of sodium per day and above.  At 7,000 milligrams a day health risks really rise.

But get this: if salt intake drops below 3,000 milligrams a day, there is an increased risk of cardiovascular events and mortality in people with or without hypertension!

So, now the public learns something new.  Salt is not as bad as previously thought and too low sodium intake is a problem just as much as too much salt is a problem.

In fact, excessively low salt diet damages the heart by increasing heart rate and elevating adrenal and kidney hormones (renin, angiotensin, aldosterone, adrenaline). 

. . . 

There is yet another important lesson to learn about salt.  The lesson is that sodium must be balanced with potassium.  Americans consume about 4,000 mg of sodium per day and just ~2,000 mg of potassium.  A higher sodium-over-potassium ratio is associated with a higher risk of stroke (brain damage from hemorrhage due to excess blood pressure).  In fact, the sodium-to-potassium ratio appears to be more strongly associated with blood pressure outcomes than either sodium or potassium alone in hypertensive adult populations.

According to a 2004 Institute of Medicine report, adults are advised to consume at least 4,700 milligrams (4.7 grams) of potassium each day in order to lower blood pressure.  This level of consumption, they say, will diminish the effects of salt and reduce kidney stone risk as well.

This was stunning.

It is impossible to augment the American diet with potassium supplements because some time ago the Food & Drug Administration, covering for problematic potassium-sparing diuretics that killed people, blamed potassium supplements on the problem.  So it is now forbidden for manufacturers to make anything more than a 99mg potassium pill.  So you have to eat a log of apricots, avocados, spinach, pomegranate seeds, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, and yogurt to make up for the shortage.  Some of these foods are big-time carbohydrates that pose other health problems.  So be aware.  

UPDATE: One caveat on taking 4.7 grams of potassium: some have found that it increases the urgency to urinate. Our daily diet already provides about 2 grams of potassium, so it seems unlikely that people can get too much potassium from diet.  Simply monitor it.  If you don't like the effects from 4.7 grams of potassium, back off of it or stop it altogether. 

Table courtesy of Bill Sardi.

GERMAN RESEARCHERS FIND THAT SANDALWOOD STIMULATES HAIR GROWTH AFTER 6 DAYS

"Studies have already shown that exposing human skin cells to sandalwood in the lab causes the protein keratin to multiply, which speeds up wound healing."  That's neat.  So sandalwood oil has wound-healing capabilities in addition to stimulating hair follicles.  But the article ends with a funny insertion at the end.  In a kind of non-sequitur, it describes how lab animals were treated with a micro-lasers to reactivate hair follicles. 

This comes after research released earlier this week showed that a wearable device made up of 900 micro lasers stimulated hair growth in rats with alopecia.

Wearing the 20mm thick patch for just 15 minutes a day for less than three weeks caused the rodents to grow longer hair faster than those who received a standard hair growth injection. 

Although interesting, not completely sure of the relevance of lasters to oils except in the greater subject on the treatment of baldness.

Going bald? Rubbing sandalwood oil on your scalp may stimulate hair growth https://t.co/n7TojfoMEo

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) September 19, 2018