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healthbriefs


A Cup of Peppermint Tea Boosts Alertness R


esearchers from Northumbria University, in England, have discovered that drinking peppermint tea can improve working and long-term memory. After 180 healthy adults filled out questionnaires about their mood, they were selected at random to consume one of three drinks—peppermint tea, chamomile tea or water—and then rested for 20 minutes. The subjects were then tested for memory and other


cognitive factors and given a second mood questionnaire. Those that drank pep- permint tea exhibited improvements in both types of memory and were more alert than the other two groups. The participants that drank chamomile tea displayed reductions in both memory and attention functions compared to the others. Researcher Mark Moss, Ph.D., notes, “The enhancing and arousing effects of peppermint and the calming, sedative effects of chamomile observed in this study are in keeping with the claimed properties of these herbs and suggest beneficial effects can be drawn from their use.”


Fracking Linked to Asthma Attacks R


Bright Lights Encourage Healthy Eating R


esearch published in the Journal of Marketing


Research links bright light to healthier food choices. The study observed 160 diners at four separate metropolitan locations of a chain dinner restau- rant between 6 and 8 p.m. Two of the restaurants used bright lighting (250 lux luminance) and the other two locations had dim lighting (25 lux luminance). The researchers found that diners at the well-lit locations were more likely to choose healthy options such as baked or grilled fish and chicken than the patrons at the dimly lit restaurants. These results were replicated in a


laboratory test of 700 college students where scientists attributed students’ healthier choices to the alert feelings that being in a bright room elicits.


esearchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health have found that individuals living close to a


natural gas hydraulic fracking site have a significantly higher occurrence of asthma attacks. The study exam- ined health records from the Geisinger Health System, a healthcare provider in Pennsylvania, where the fracking industry has experienced incredible growth of more than 9.000 natural gas wells in the past decade. The records of more than 35,000 Geisinger asthma patients between the ages of 5 and 90 were studied between 2005 and 2012. Patients that reported attacks were mapped and studied in relation to the fracking well locations, and the results compared with other patients not reporting attacks in the same year. The research- ers discovered that those that lived in close proximity to multiple or larger active natural gas wells were 1.5 to four times more likely to experience asthma attacks. Brian S. Schwartz, a medical doctor and a professor in the Department of


Environmental Health Services at the Bloomberg School, in Baltimore, Maryland, was the senior author of the study. He states, “We are concerned with the growing number of studies that have observed health effects associated with this industry. We believe it’s time to take a more cautious approach to [fracking] well develop- ment with an eye on environmental and public health impacts.”


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Don’t let the past steal your present. ~Taylor Caldwell


natural awakenings December 2016 7


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