Your World and You: Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health – Issue 62 (Premium)
Environmental and Nutritional Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health
This feature highlights reports, studies, and feedback on efforts that can positively impact our quest for health. The topics we cover in this issue are listed below. We invite you to share material with us that you think would interest our readers.
Articles in this issue
- Can lymphatic drainage help avoid Lupus flares?
- Dramatic results after school’s mobile phone ban
- Study: Electrical impulses reduce tic symptoms in Tourette syndrome
- Restoring the gut biome after antibiotics improves outcomes for ovarian cancer patients
- Holiday travel tips from “Meatless Mondays”
- Low-dose naltrexone shows promise in treating pain in Inflammatory chronic conditions
- Covid-19 disturbs gut microbes, especially with antibiotics
- Walnuts to the rescue for stressed university students
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After sun exposure, people with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) frequently develop skin rashes, which often are accompanied by a flare of their overall disease. This connection between ultraviolet (UV) light and disease flares in lupus is well known, but the way in which UV exposure actually triggers the disease has been poorly understood.
In a new study being presented at ACR Convergence 2022, the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) report that they have found an underlying mechanism that explains this association: decreased lymphatic drainage, which contributes to both photosensitivity and an immune response in the lymph nodes. The research also suggests that boosting lymphatic drainage may be an effective treatment for lupus photosensitivity and autoimmunity.
What is lymphatic drainage? Learn about this massage technique here.
Dramatic results after school’s mobile phone ban
An experiment in Australia has shown remarkable improvement in student behavior, increased communication, and more physical activity with a ban of cell phones at school. Many parents and school staff might find these results to be expected. The question is, who will implement it—or at least some version of it?
Here’s an excerpt, and there’s a link to the news article at the end:
By Nadine Morton: There has been a dramatic decrease in behavioral issues and a boost in physical activity among students at a Sydney High School after mobile phones were banned. Everyday, students in years 7 to 10 at Davidson High School put their phones in a pouch that, once closed, cannot be opened without breaking the lock. “Classrooms have effectively become phone free, and this has allowed staff to focus on educating students,” principal David Rule said in a school newsletter. “In eight weeks of the policy, there has been a 90 percent reduction in behavioral issues related to phones in the school.”
The ban has also led to students communicating with each other more often and more physical activity during recess and lunch.
Read the whole article in the Canberra Times, Aug 11, 2022 Click here
Study: Electrical impulses reduce tic symptoms in Tourette syndrome
Chemar, our moderator for our Forums on Latitudes.org, shared this study. She wrote: “This interesting research reminded me of how my son’s therapist for his CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) suggested an elastic band on the wrist and gently snapping it when tics (especially Tourettic OCD) became invasive. I recall my son finding it very calming, even though I found it strange at the time. The rationale in this research seems to explain the effect. Anything that can relieve tics without medications is always worth investigating further!”
Research has found that delivering electrical pulses to the wrist can significantly reduce the amount and severity of tics experienced by individuals with Tourette Syndrome (TS), giving new hope for an effective treatment.
Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Psychology and School of Medicine used repetitive trains of stimulation to the median nerve (MNS) at the wrist to entrain rhythmic electrical brain activity – known as brain-oscillations – that are associated with the suppression of movements. They found that rhythmic MNS is sufficient to substantially reduce tic frequency and tic intensity, and the urge-to-tic, in individuals with TS. Their findings have been published in Current Biology.
Nineteen people with TS participated in this study, funded by the charity Tourettes Action and the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre. Participants were observed for random 1-minute periods, during which they were given constant rhythmic pulses of the MNS to their right wrist, and 1-minute periods during which they received no stimulation. In all cases the stimulation reduced the tics, and also the urge-to-tic, and had the most significant effect on those individuals with the most severe tics.
One of the participants was 21 year-old Charlie, from Lincolnshire. Charlie has had TS for three years and found out about the study through Tourettes Action who have been supporting him and his family. He said: “I’ve tried a lot of different medications, therapies, relaxation techniques, support groups and diet changes to try to relieve my Tourette’s and although I was skeptical, I was keen to be involved in this study.
Restoring the gut biome after antibiotics improves outcomes for ovarian cancer patients
Cleveland Clinic: Antibiotics routinely used in ovarian cancer care indiscriminately kill gut bacteria, leading to faster cancer progression and lower survival rates, according to recent Cleveland Clinic research.
The results, published in Cancer Research, challenge the standard of care for ovarian cancer, the deadliest gynecologic malignancy. Antibiotics are essential to treating bacterial infections during cancer treatment, but kill bacteria that may be essential for patients with ovarian cancer to respond to chemotherapy.
Selecting antibiotics or dosages proven to preserve more of the microbiome, the trillions of bacteria that live in the gut, could preserve the balance of gut bacteria and prevent tumor progression or treatment resistance, says Ofer Reizes, PhD, Department of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Sciences and lead investigator on the study.
Physicians need to be “good stewards” for antibiotics use, Dr. Michener says, with this study providing further evidence to support selecting targeted, short-term antibiotics to treat infections and considering when antibiotics for prophylaxis are necessary. Overprescribing antibiotics is already a concern for infectious disease teams because it can lead to development of antibiotic resistant bacteria, he says.
See also Cleveland Clinic Study Links Gut Microbiome and Aggressive Prostate Cancer
Holiday travel tips from Meatless Mondays
Newswise — The holidays can be stressful, but keeping up with a Meatless Monday routine while traveling is not. Thanks to smart phones, dining apps, and some simple planning, you’ll be rewarded with terrific meals, tasty new flavors, and memorable experiences to share with friends and family.
Tip 1: There’s an App for That!
Happy Cow and Vanilla Bean are two great apps that can help you find meatless meals all around the world. Use these apps to locate nearby restaurants and grocery stores with plant-based options, with referrals by other plant-based travelers, just like you.
Tip 2: Reserve a Meatless Meal for the Flight
Don’t get stuck on a cross-country flight eating potato chips and peanuts. Most airlines offer ‘special meals’ including vegetarian, vegan, and dairy-free options that can be requested before your travel date. Give them at least 24 hours notice.
Tip 3: Dining Options at the Hotel
If you’re staying at a hotel, visit their website or call the concierge before you depart, to ensure there are meatless options available.
Tip 4: Explore the Local Meatless Cuisines
Embrace the local culture and cuisine with meatless culinary experiences. Research local delicacies and try unique plant-based foods, dishes, and specialties that you’ve never heard of. You never know when you’ll be making a Meatless Monday memory.
Tip 5: When You’re Back Home for the Holidays
Treat your family and friends to tasty, festive plant-based treats. Check out a variety of recipes at the Meatless Monday website. Happy and healthy travels from the Meatless Monday team!
Use #MeatlessMonday to tag us when you share your fabulous Meatless Monday meals on the go! We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram!
Low-dose naltrexone shows promise in treating pain in Inflammatory chronic conditions
Newswise — Naltrexone was originally used to help treat alcohol and opioid abuse. However, at lose doses, naltrexone has been found to help with chronic pain stemming from various conditions including fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, diabetic neuropathy, axial low back pain, rheumatoid arthritis, and complex region pain syndrome. To better understand this clinical use, researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Study conducted a literature review and determined that naltrexone does show benefit in improving pain, function, and symptom severity, although more research is needed.
Covid-19 disturbs gut microbes, especially with antibiotics
(Editor: The effect of antibiotics on the gut is not news to many Latitudes.org readers, but at least researchers are increasingly looking more closely at this issue.)
From Rutgers University: In an intensive look at the effects of the virus causing COVID-19 on patients’ microbiome – the collection of microorganisms that live in and on the human body – Rutgers scientists found that acute infection disrupts a healthy balance between good and bad microbes in the gut, especially with antibiotic treatment.
The work may lead to the development of probiotic supplements to redress any gut imbalances in future patients, the scientists said:
“We wanted to gain a deeper understanding by looking at specimens that would give us an indication about the state of the gut microbiome in people,” said Martin Blaser, the Henry Rutgers Chair of the Human Microbiome at Rutgers University, director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM) at Rutgers and an author on the study. “What we found was that, while there were differences between people who had COVID-19 and those who were not ill, the biggest difference from others was seen in those who had been administered antibiotics.”
Walnuts to the rescue for stressed university students
Published in Nutrients: Stressed university students might want to add walnuts to their daily diet in the weeks leading up to their next exam.
A new clinical trial of undergraduate students during their university studies has shown positive effects of walnut consumption on self-reported measures of mental health and biomarkers of general health.
The University of South Australia study, published in the journal Nutrients, also suggests that walnuts may counteract the effects of academic stress on the gut microbiota during periods of stress, especially in females.
Eighty undergraduate students split into treatment and control groups were clinically assessed in three intervals, at the beginning of a 13-week university semester, during the examination period and two weeks after the examination period. Those in the treatment group were given walnuts to consume daily for 16 weeks over these three intervals.
“We found that those who consumed about half a cup of walnuts every day showed improvements in self-reported mental health indicators. Walnut consumers also showed improved metabolic biomarkers and overall sleep quality in the longer term.”
Students in the control group reported increased stress and depression levels in the leadup to exams but those in the treatment group did not. The walnut consumers also reported a significant drop in feelings associated with depression between the first and final visits, compared to the controls.
“The Effects of Walnuts and Academic Stress on Mental Health, General Well-Being and the Gut Microbiota in a Sample of University Students: A Randomised Clinical Trial” Read full report
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