Strong link yet between high blood pressure and diabetes

Well here’s another good reason to keep an eye on your blood pressure for as a major study just showed:

People who have high blood pressure are almost 60% more likely to develop diabetes, according to research on 4.1 million people.

The Oxford University study provides the strongest evidence yet of a link between the two conditions.

Experts behind the study said more research was needed to see whether using drugs to lower blood pressure would help prevent people developing type 2 diabetes.

Prof Kazem Rahimi, deputy director of the George Institute for Global Health UK at Oxford, which carried out the study, said: “This is potentially a game changer in the understanding and treatment of diabetes.

“Diabetes affects more than 400 million people worldwide and we know that diabetics are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, such as heart attacks, stroke and heart failure.

“We can’t say for certain that one causes the other, but this study helps to connect the dots, showing that if you have high blood pressure there is a significantly greater chance of developing diabetes.

“Understanding the link will help us better communicate risks to patients and can provide another motivation for patients and doctors to aim for tight blood pressure control.”

The research on UK adults was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

All the adults were free of diabetes and cardiovascular disease at the start of the study.

The result showed people were at almost 60% higher risk of diabetes if they had high blood pressure…

Read on here

New Drugs Prove More Effective in Treatment of Kidney Cancer

Good news from the cancer treatment front: The New York Times just published an article about a new study which you can find here below:

New studies of two drugs, showing that each works better than the standard treatment for advanced kidney cancer, should lead to changes in patient care, researchers said on Friday.

One study, of the drug nivolumab (sold as Opdivo), was stopped ahead of schedule because safety monitors found that patients receiving the drug were living longer than those in a comparison group taking the usual treatment, everolimus (sold as Afinitor). The study was halted for ethical reasons, to offer the comparison group nivolumab.

The other drug, cabozantinib (sold as Cometriq), was also tested against everolimus, and proved more effective at slowing the cancer’s growth. But that study has not gone on long enough to determine whether cabozantinib also prolongs survival.
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Dr. Robert J. Motzer, one of the leaders of both studies, said the findings on nivolumab were a major advance that would change the field and affect most patients worldwide with advanced kidney cancer. Dr. Motzer specializes in kidney cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

About 61,560 new cases of kidney cancer, and 14,080 deaths, are expected in the United States in 2015, according to the American Cancer Society. Exact causes are not known, but risk factors include smoking, certain chemical exposures, obesity, high blood pressure, genetic mutations and heredity.

Since 2005, Dr. Motzer said, seven new drugs have been approved for kidney cancer. Before that, patients with advanced disease lived 10 to 12 months on average, but the drugs brought survival up to about 30 months.

Dr. Padmanee Sharma, the senior author of the nivolumab study, from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said, “We think this gives patients renewed hope.”….

Read on at this link

How to Cancel Out the Bad Effects of Sitting All Day

Working from home on my computer is probably the reason I’m sitting behind my desk far more than I probably should, that being said I do get up every hour or so to walk around the apartment and I even try to force myself to go out once a day to walk around the block for 15 minutes or so. How about you?

Well here’s a story that just appeared in TIME magazine that I recommend you read about a new study on this very subject that was published recently:

Finally, some good news for those of us who sit for a living

Sitting is basically the new smoking.

An ever-growing body of research is showing that being sedentary and sitting for long periods of time are linked to poor health consequences, including a laundry list of risks for conditions ranging from obesity to heart disease. Even exercising doesn’t make up for the negative health effects of being stuck in your seat.

But before you beg your boss for a standing desk, a new study suggests that moving a little throughout the day—also known as fidgeting—can actually counteract the problems that come with sitting for extended periods of time.

The new study, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that women who sat for long periods of time have a lower mortality rate if they considered themselves moderately to very fidgety, compared to women who said they only fidgeted occasionally. Women who sat for long periods of time without fidgeting had an increased risk of death that wasn’t seen among other groups. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, the researchers didn’t find a difference in mortality risk between women who sat more versus those who were more active—as long as the sitters were fidgety.

The data came from surveys of 14,000 women from ages 35 to 69 living in the U.K., and the women were followed for an average of 12 years. “The current study…provides important information that though longer time spent sitting may have negative consequences, simple behaviors may have the potential to offset this,” the study authors write in the report…

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Research shows passive smoking raises risk of type 2 diabetes

Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse with regard to the effects of smoking or passive smoking a new study published by the Lancet journal shows passive smoking actually increases risk of  getting diabetes type 2, you can read an excerpt of the story here:

How The ‘Right’ Amount Of Sleep Boosts Heart Health

Are you sleeping enough? I try to get at least 7 hours and when I somehow don’t get that amount of sleep I just don’t feel all that great and so I recommend that you have a look at the results of this new study that shows how important it is for your overall health and than you might just wnat to change your sleeping habits too:
Providing even more evidence that sleep is an essential activity for bodily health, a new study finds that an improper amount of it is linked to markers of heart disease. Previous studies have certainly suggested similar results, but this new one measures the health of the arteries in a couple of different ways, and suggests some possible mechanisms for the connection. Like other studies have found, there seems to be a Goldilocks effect for the right amount of sleep: Seven hours per night seems to be the sweet spot. But sleeping much less or much more than this both seem to pose some problems.

The new study, published in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, looked at data from 47,000 people in Korea who filled out questionnaires about their sleep habits. They’d also all had tests to measure calcium buildup in the coronary arteries, and other tests to measure arterial stiffness.

It turned out that people who slept five or fewer hours a night had 50% more calcium buildup in their arteries compared to those who slept seven hours. And sleeping more was not necessarily better: Those who slept an average of nine or more hours had 70% more calcium buildup, again compared to those who slept for seven. And finally, the quality of sleep is also important as its quantity: People who said they had poor sleep quality (waking up multiple times throughout the night) had 20% more calcium compared to seven-hour-a-night’ers.

Similar effects were found for blood vessel stiffness. ”We also observed a similar pattern when we measured arterial stiffness,” said study author Yoosoo Chang. “Adults with poor sleep quality have stiffer arteries than those who sleep seven hours a day or had good sleep quality. Overall, we saw the lowest levels of vascular disease in adults sleeping seven hours a day and reporting good sleep quality.”..

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Five Ways You Can Get More Restorative Sleep

Want more energy? Then the very simplest and most effective way to accomplish this is to sleep better and to sleep more. Of course this is somewhat easier said than done however if you’re someone who struggles with their sleep, or if your sleep hasn’t been as deep or as rewarding as it should be.

If you find yourself in that situation, try these five tips that should help you considerably with the quantity and quality of your rest:

1- Go for a Run

Not when you’re about to go to bed but earlier in the day. This will help you to burn more energy, thus making you more tired when you hit the sack. At the same time, if you take your run outdoors, then you should find that the combination of fresh air and daylight also help you to sleep better as well as to regulate your internal body clock.

2- Have the Window Slightly Open

Commonly people make the assumption that they will sleep better if they are warm. While you want your body temperature to be warm though, the ideal surrounds are actually slightly cool. This emulates the way we would have slept in the wild and helps us to better regulate our temperature.

3- Take a Hot Shower

Taking a hot shower right before bed will help you to relax your muscles and at the same time will stimulate the release of sleep hormones like melatonin. It also increases the production of growth hormones, also associated with better sleep and recovery.

4- Have Half an Hour to Relax

Half an hour before bed, take your phone into another room and plug it in. At the same time, turn off the TV and make a conscious effort to relax and to do something that you will enjoy. This will help you to unwind and to let go of the stresses of the day. What’s more, the lack of bright screens will help you to avoid stimulating the production of cortisol.

5- Take ZMA

ZMA is a supplement containing zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6. It is used by a lot of bodybuilders as a means to increase their testosterone levels to enhance muscle building and recovery. At the same time though, it also has the added benefit of encouraging deeper and more restful sleep. Take two capsule half an hour before sleep on an empty stomach and you might notice an improvement.

Sometimes you might need a little help by taking a quality supplement like Nature Sleep by Vita Balance which is a special blend of natural ingredients, designed to calm the brain activities and aid in falling and staying asleep

How Gut Flora Can Upgrade Your Energy Levels

If you’ve ever seen an advert for probiotic drinks and yogurts like Activia or Yakult, then you might remember how they portray the effects. After taking their morning scoop of yogurt/probiotic drink, the characters in these ads normally find themselves full of life, energy and optimism. So then the question is: is this really how it plays out? And if so, how?

What is ‘Gut Flora’?

Perhaps a better place to start would be by answering what precisely gut flora is. Specifically then, gut flora refers to the bacteria that all of us have living in our guts – and in our large intestines/colons particularly. Here, bacteria can collect over time but it’s actually good bacteria, in that it does good for the body.

Our body in fact is made up of trillions of bacteria – we have more individual bacteria in our body than we do human cells! Fortunately, the majority of this bacteria is good for us and actually helps to perform a number of functions, including:

• Combating bad bacteria by producing lactic acid
• Producing essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin K
• Helping to break down food in the colon

As such, the right balance of bacteria in the gut will not only help to give you energy by helping your immune system to combat diseases but it will also enhance your energy levels by aiding with the production and absorption of powerful nutrients.

Will this result in you leaping around in the mornings with tons of energy and a huge smile on your face like in the adverts? Probably not. However it can certainly give you a boost and is definitely a worthwhile pursuit!

How to Improve Your Good Bacteria

So with that in mind, how do you go about improving your good bacteria and getting more energy as a result?

One obvious strategy is to eat probiotic foods. These are foods that contain pre-existing cultures of good bacteria and which can thus instantly support the good bacteria in your stomach.

Another tip is to eat more fibrous carbohydrates such as green vegetables. These have a better chance of making it through your digestive system and into your colon where they can act as a source of ‘food’ for that bacteria.

Eating fermented foods can also help to support good bacteria. Fermented milks for instance are very good for your digestive system.

Finally, avoid antibiotics unless they are absolutely required. While these will kill off bad bacteria, they can also be just as harmful for your good bacteria.

How to Give Your Brain More Energy

Our entire body runs on energy, just like any of the many electrical appliances that we rely on on a daily basis. Nowhere is this truer than in the brain where our cells fire millions of tiny electrical impulses every second to help us experience the world around us, think about what we’re doing and even daydream.

And if you could find a way to give your brain more energy, you would find you were smarter, more disciplined and more motivated.

So how precisely do you do this? Read on and we’ll look at how you can upgrade your brain’s energy levels…

Introducing Cognitive Metabolic Enhancers

This objective falls under the heading of nootropics and biohacking. Biohackers are constantly trying to upgrade their performance by understanding the systems that keep their body running and nootropics are one of the crucial tools in this regard – these are supplements designed to help us become smarter, more focused and more disciplined.

Unfortunately, most of them don’t have much benefit. But one area that is quite successful is the use of ‘cognitive metabolic enhancers’. Cognitive metabolic enhancers are nootropics that work by focusing not on neurotransmitters (as many nootropics do) but instead on pure energy.

Here are some of the best and most effective…

Garlic Extract

Garlic extract gives the brain more energy because it is a vasodilator. This means that it widens the blood vessels, thereby allowing more blood and oxygen to find its way around the body – and crucially to the brain.

MCT Oil

MCT Oil is ‘medium chain triglyceride’ oil. This is the type of oil found in coconuts and has the ability of hitting the blood stream very rapidly rather than being slowly released. This results in a sudden surge of energy and in the release of ketones – a type of energy source that works differently to glucose and is particularly useful for specific functions within the brain.

Vitamin B6

Vitamin B6 is crucial for energy and especially within the brain. Vitamin B6 helps us to get energy from the carbohydrates we eat. It is also used in the creation of numerous key neurotransmitters (acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and melatonin) and has been linked to brain plasticity (learning).

CoEnzyme Q10, PQQ, L-Carnitine

All of these substances, many of which can be found in red meat, are able to increase the function of the mitochondria. This in turn leads to more efficient cells, including more efficient brain cells.

The Dehydration Energy Drain

Suffering with low energy? Before you take up an intense new training regime or completely overhaul your diet, consider another much simpler solution: dehydration.

Dehydration can have profound impacts on your mood, your energy and your general health. When you consider that the water makes up 85% of our brain, 80% of our blood and 70% of our lean mass, it’s easy to see why this is the case. Tragically though, a whopping 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and are running at sub-par performance as a result.

How Dehydration Impacts Energy

So how precisely does dehydration affect your energy levels?

There are a great number of ways. Having a lack of water can impact on your electrolyte balance for instance, leading to aching muscles and cramps. At the same time, it can reduce the production and usage of enzymes including digestive enzymes. Headaches are also common and especially in the morning. Inflammation increases leading to joint pain. Your eyes and throat can also feel scratchy and generally you end up lethargic, grumpy and low.

If we look at the effects of acute dehydration these include:

• Dry mouth and swollen tongue
• Weakness of the muscles
• Dizziness
• Heart palpitations
• Fainting
• Confusion
• Lack of sweat
• Sluggishness

When you have ‘low level’ dehydration on a chronic basis, you simply experience all these same symptoms but to a slightly lesser extent.

How to Combat Dehydration

So what can you do to combat dehydration?

One obvious tip is to keep water around and to drink regularly. A good aim is to drink about 7 glasses of water a day but really the best guide is to listen to your body.

Another tip is to avoid things that dehydrate you. Alcohol dehydrates you for instance, as does caffeine. The reason for this is that both are diuretics, causing you to lose almost as much fluid as you gain.

Something else that can help and that many people don’t at first consider, is that we actually get the majority of our hydration from food. Eating more frequently then can help you to stay hydrated too – and especially if you pick things like oranges which are very juicy.

You can also consider using certain supplements and special foods to improve your hydration further. Some runners for instance will use chia seeds which have the ability to absorb and hold water, then release it slowly over time to keep you constantly hydrated.

Plug Energy Drains With Vitamins

Are you losing energy fast? Like a sinking ship, this can often be caused by ‘leaks’ and drains. In the case of a ship these are physical holes in the body of the boat which you need to plug with some kind of bung. In the case of your body and energy, the drains are the things you’re forgetting – the aspects of your lifestyle that you haven’t yet honed and perfected.

And often the best way of plugging these holes is to change some aspect of your lifestyle, of your behavior, or of your diet.

A great place to start? Getting more vitamins.

How Vitamins Give You Energy

Vitamins supply us with energy in all kinds of ways and also help us to combat some of the most damaging things that can otherwise rob us of energy. Simply having a smoothie at the start of your day is a great way to find the missing pieces of your energy puzzle then and to plug the gaps in your diet and routine.

Specifically, let’s take a look at some of the things that vitamins can do for your energy levels and how they can impact your general health.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is one of the most powerful and common antioxidants and is highly effective at boosting the immune system. If you’ve ever been fighting a cold, then you’ll know what an effect a low-level infection can have on your energy levels and so by reinforcing your immune system you can win back a lot of energy.

Vitamin B6

Vitamin B6 is one of the single most important nutrients for energy and health. Among many other things, it aids the mitochondria (the energy factories of the cells) in getting energy from our food. What’s more, it also boosts brain performance by helping us synthesize neurotransmitters.

Vitamin B12

Along with iron, vitamin B12 is needed to help us create the red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. Seeing as oxygen is so vital for performing all manner of tasks, this is closely related to our energy levels.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is mostly produced in the body in response to direct sunlight. However, it can also be obtained through diet if we eat foods fortified with it. Vitamin D is one of the reasons that we feel so much more alert and awake when it’s sunny and can help us to regulate our internal body clock and avoid symptoms of seasonal affective disorder.

Feeling Drained? BOOST Your Energy with ATHLETIC GREENS