Power of Fibers

Fiber is normally closely linked in assurance of proper functions of digestive tract. When we go deeper as far as dietary fiber is concerned, they can even go as far as in heart diseases, certain cancers, and also diabetes prevention, many thanks to rich antioxidants they contain. Now, a new study even suggests that consuming the sufficient amount of dietary fiber can even save you from death!

US researchers from National Cancer Institute examined food survey completed by participants who joined the study in 1995 and 1996. The mentioned participants were consisted of 219,123 men and 168,999 women ages 50 to 71 years of age. After nine years, there were about 11,000 people died and so, these researchers further investigate the reasons behind the deaths according to their food patterns throughout those nine years.

Softening stool is the most common effect of fiber known by the public. But specifically, how does that happens? Dietary fiber basically can be categorized into soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. As such, soluble fiber has the ability to absorb water (as how its name indicates), and thus become gelatinous and further fermented by bacteria in the digestive tract. Whereas insoluble fiber is the one which increases bulk and soften stool, in turn shorten transit time in the intestinal tract.

From the results of the study, it is found that people who ate at least 26 grams of fiber per day were 22% less likely to die compare to those who ate less amount of the same thing, which was ranged 13 grams or less. What is more, researchers found out that getting fibers from grains can have biggest impact on that.

Energy-Draining Mobile

In the past, or even to this day, when mobile is being put into the frame of discussion topic, what people would regard the excessive utilization of mobile is about the growth of brain tumor. Is that true? Past researches did not really indicate that brain tumor could grow statistically in such a way when a person very much depends on the utilization of a mobile phone, but another evidence which can be ascertain, is that when a person is using mobile phone (listening to another party over the phone by sticking the phone towards the ear, such as how the picture illustrated), the utilization of brain energy is very great.

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of National Institute on Drug Abuse, has led a team of researchers in conducting such study. According to Dr. Nora, certain chemicals are involved when one is talking over his or her mobile phone near the head. Fifteen minutes of phone call actually increases the utilization of brain glucose, and thus also increase the rate of brain glucose metabolism.

In the brain, there are structures which are known as neurons. Neurons are components that demand for great amount of glucose as they are always in an active state even when we are sleeping. When we enter our dreamland, what neurons do is to work repairing and rebuilding their worn out structures. Other than that, brain cells are also known to consume two times more energy compare to cells in other parts of our body.

Such study produced certain results to an extent where great utilization of brain glucose is confirmed when we are on call, though no statistic results are showing that brain tumor would appear due to that, but the growth of brain tumor often use up brain glucose. Hence, the use-up of brain glucose in such rate is not a good thing. These days, the category of people who uses mobile phones inclines to the younger side, even as young as small kids. Still-developing brains might be damaged and might face an increase risk from the radio frequency emission.

Listen to Your Legs

Next time whenever you move your legs, whenever you are walking, whenever you are using your legs to do certain movements, listen attentively. Do they cry out to you, scream in agony where painfulness can be felt all of a sudden? If they tell you so, beware that some other parts of yours might be in trouble!

A recent investigation about legs and heart had been conducted, and the results showed somewhat positive about certain association between the two parts of our body. In the United States, there are approximately nine million Americans who raised concerns about their leg problems are associated with heart complications as well. And unluckily, normally heart diseases of theirs are difficult to be discovered.

Researchers referred to such heart disease as PAD (Peripheral Arterial Disease). PAD plays a role as a silent killer as they lurk within the human body without any visible symptoms. Its existence is now being closely linked with leg complications which are experienced by many today. Studies show that when one feel that his or her legs become painful while walking, or due to other factors such as disability, sometimes such circumstances happened due to the narrowed arteries in legs, which causes blood clogged or blood blockages. When arteries in legs are blocked, it also means there are arteries blocked somewhere else in the body and it is strongly related to the blockage of arteries near the heart.

Being a silent disease, PAD nonetheless is sometimes associated with the following symptoms:

- Fatigue, heaviness, tiredness in certain parts of legs, such as calf or thigh.

- Foot as well as toe pain which directly disturbs sleeping patterns.

Fish for Folks

Fish oils are said to be edible stuffs to be eaten by people who have heart related diseases. With the presence of Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oils, fish oils certainly hailed as one of the most effective foods which ought to be consumed in the long run as far as the health of heart is concerned. But for now, just ignore the heart part, but focus on Alzheimer's instead.

Fish oil, as referred by many people previously, as the effective food in treating or maintaining great health of heart, is now also considered as the essential foods in improving Alzheimer's Disease. Prof. Daniel Michaelson of Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences mentioned that one of the five molecules (scientists believed that there are five molecules which determine the occurrence of Alzheimer's Disease), which is known as APOE plays an important role as far as Alzheimer's Disease comes into the picture.

APOE comes in two different forms, good and bad genes; just like LDL (bad cholesterol) and HDL (good cholesterol). The bad gene is called APOE4. APOE4 is now being held responsible as one of the main factors which cause Alzheimer's Disease, as researchers found out that APOE4 appears in 50% of all Alzheimer's patients. The good news is, by adapting to diet which is high in Omega-3 and low in cholesterol, it somehow significantly reduce the negative outcomes of APOE4 in mouse models.

Watch Your Body

This week has been a week of pains in GTF Infozone. The previous post was all about how tart cherry does wonders in muscles recovery. But for today, you are about to see another amusing fact, which it might come in very handy for yourself whenever you feel painful in certain parts of your body.

Scientists from UCL (University College London) and University of Milano-Bicocca from Italy did a research recently about how to reduce pain without using any medications or consumptions of any edible things. What they found in their study was pretty amazing. They claimed that by looking at the body parts which are painful, somehow it has an effect where it can reduce the pain of the person.

What they did on the study, was they picked a number of participants (18 of them) and had a heat probe on their left hand. The idea behind this study was to increase the heat temperature very gradually. When the participants feel that they began to experience pain, the foot pedals provided play an important role, when this pedal was activated, the whole process comes to a halt. Throughout the process, scientists used mirrors to manipulate what the participants saw during the experiment.

Results showed that those who looked closely to their left hand could sustain the pain for as much as 3 degree celcius higher than those who did not look at their left hand, or those who looked at the wooden box which was placed near their left hand. The effect appeared to be even clearer when scientists next started to use convex or concave mirrors to show the hand, where it can enlarge or reduce the size of what the participants see during the process. When the picuture of the hand as enlarged, participants could tolerate up to even greater levels of heat before feeling pain. But when the picture was reduced in size, participants reported feeling pain compare to the moments where they were looking at their hands at normal size.

Researchers thus suggested that the pain is closely associated with brain maps of the skins. Hence, if pain strikes you in the future, if allowed, please remember to look at the parts which trouble you, so that your biological painkiller can be put into good use!

Cherry & Muscles

Recognize this little fruit you see above? It's cherry (or some people call it tart cherry, or just simply tart) ! Though cherries are small in size, but it contains a spectacular substance which helps in human health, a substance called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are substances which acquire high content of antioxidants, and various studies showed that such substance has the ability to reduce inflammation in rats. Recently, there was another study which shows how such substance worked in human instead!

As we all know, athletes are individuals who often work extra hard, and they too always try to push their limits to a higher level. When such are the requirements in being a great athletes, they tend to suffer certain "side effects". At times, they would experience muscles pain after a few rounds of strength training.

One of the latest article which was published in the American College of Sports Medicine's journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise showed that tart cherries can offer great outcomes against such problems. In order to make such study valid, researchers from UK given 10 trained athletes an ounce of tart cherry juice. and they were asked to drink twice daily in seven days. Such process was carried out two days prior and after the training session.

Results showed that these athletes experienced even quicker muscle recovery after they consumed the tart cherry juices. According to the researchers, the recovery of muscles appeared to be at about 85% overnight. But after the consumption of tart cherry juices with the mentioned frequency, the athletes seemed to have their muscles recovered for as much as 90%, a significant increment in percentage.

In Memories of Metabolic Syndromes

Older people would sometimes tell the young ones about their stories in the past, and in many times, they would tell them how their health conditions are, lamenting that the older you get, the less useful you become to the society. What actually interests us in their lamenting, is about how they put those words into phrases. Sometimes they just mention that the diseases they are fighting against, are like "abang dan adik" (siblings), as they like to come together all at the same time.

When people think that these diseases are besieging the individuals who suffer, they are very likely have poor health and various problems. For people who have high blood pressure, they should not experience any excessive external impacts from others, for those who have diabetes, they should not consume foods which contain high sugar content. For arthritis sufferers, they should not push themselves into doing certain exercises which could worsen their conditions. This list can go on forever. But, there is one common effect of all these metabolic syndromes, and it relates to our memory.

According to a study published in the online issue of Neurology this month (February, 2011), older people who have any of these metabolic syndromes which include high blood pressure, larger waistlines, would possibly experience higher risk of memory loss.

In the study, more than 7,000 participants in France had been gathered and investigations were conducted on these people. These participants came from three different cities in France and they were senior citizens with age of 65 years or above. Among these individuals, 16 percents of them were metabolic syndrome sufferers. They were given three types of memory tests after two and four years respectively. These test included normal memory test, visual memory test, as well as word fluency test.

As expected, the results showed that those who had metabolic syndromes were 20 percents of declination in memory test. To top it all, they were also 13 percents more likely to experience cognitive visual memory decline, compare to those who were relatively healthier (those who had no metabolic syndromes). This definitely sheds new light to the researchers to look for the root of the problems.

Metabolic syndromes are infamous problems in GTF Worldwide Sdn Bhd. Every distributor from our company would tell you that the only way to curb and improve the condition, is to consume GT&F Products, as they were formulated to specifically treating metabolic syndromes and diabetes. So what are you waiting for? Impeding memory loss? GTF is the answer for you!