IN PAIN? TRY MEDITATION
S
cientists at England’s University of Manchester have confirmed how
some people suffering from chronic pain might benefit from meditation- based therapies. They concluded that people that are more advanced in meditation practices (up to 35 years) are likely to anticipate and experience pain less than less-advanced meditators or non-meditators. “Meditation trains the brain to be
more present-focused, and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events,” comments Christo- pher Brown, Ph.D., who conducted the research. When testing the pain tolerance of study participants using a noninvasive laser, the researchers noted unusual activity during anticipation of pain in part of the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain known to be involved in controlling attention and thought processes when potential threats are perceived, but more study is needed. Participants had a diverse range
of experiences with various medita- tion practices, spanning from months to decades. All of them perform some form of mindfulness meditation—such as that which is the basis of the Mindfulness- Based Cognitive Therapy recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for recurrent depres- sion, because up to 50 percent of people with chronic pain experience depression. “The importance of developing
new treatments for chronic pain is clear,” says Brown. “Forty percent of people who suffer from chronic pain report inadequate management of their pain problem.”
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MORE BENEFITS FROM VITAMIN D N
ew research from the Emory/Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute sug-
gests that a lack of vitamin D, even in gener- ally healthy people, is linked with stiffer arteries and an inability of blood vessels to relax. The finding adds to evidence showing that insufficient vitamin D leads to impaired vascular health, contributing to high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease. The body naturally manufactures vita-
min D when it is exposed to sunlight. Foods like vitamin-D-fortified milk or cereals and oily fish also are good dietary sources to help provide sufficient amounts of this essential nutrient.
DITCH THE CHEMICALS W
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences indicates that eating blueberries may help prevent athero- sclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. When researchers spiked the diet of 15 lab mice with freeze-dried blueberry powder (comparable to a half-cup of the berries) for 20 weeks, they found that the size of harmful lesions (plaque) measured on two sites in their aortas were 39 and 58 percent less than for 15 mice in a control group.
Blueberries Assist Artery Function A
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture July 2011 11
omen that report they frequently use air fresh- eners and products for mold and mildew control
appear to be at more than double the risk of contracting breast cancer than those who say they use such products sparingly. The researchers interviewed 1,500 women.
Source: BioMed Central’s Environmental Health
study conducted by the Agricultural Research Ser- vice’s Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center and the
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