Roller Coasters Can Change Your Life: Health Benefits With These Rides

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From asthma, kidney stones, and deafness – these are the major controversial health issues associated with roller coaster rides.

The Benefits

The incidents with Wartinger’s patients passing kidney stones after their rollercoaster rides bewildered us all. That girl who was temporarily deaf got her hearing back after riding the Rita, Queen Of Speed roller coaster at Alton Towers. Twenty-five asthmatic women got temporary relief from their shortness of breath when they rode the roller coaster. These are the incredible positive results of riding a roller coaster.

If you are familiar with the pain associated with kidney stones, Dr. Wartinger’s news about his study probably came as a big surprise.

The Rollercoaster-Kidney Stone Experiment

Scientists from Michigan State University revealed the findings about the kidney stone experiment.  There were patients who testified that after riding Walt Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, it let them pass the stones.

These stones are developed when there’s too much waste residue in the blood. Some examples are uric acid and calcium. These tend to turn into solid stone-like crystals. Usually, people who don’t drink enough fluids are the ones who are likely to experience this condition.

There are stones that are quite small (4mm in diameter or less) and can be passed in urine. However, the larger stones are the ones that can’t be passed and they need to be broken up through ultrasound or laser technology.

The Michigan researchers conducted an experiment which involves riding the roller coaster all day and carrying a replica of the patient’s kidney (the one who passed stones after riding Walt Disney’s Mountain Railroad). The replica was loaded with urine and stones.

The ride’s movement displaced the stones – the rattles, turns, ups and downs caused the stones to dislodge. Another factor to consider: the location of your seat. The researchers found that where you sit during the ride affects the number of stones passed. If you sit at the back, this is where it shifts the most. 

This is quite a factor to consider. Rides, especially roller coasters, are more known to cause injury or accidents. However, the list of benefits doesn’t really end here.

The Roller Coaster-Tumour Incident

Based on a report from the dailymail.uk, a British woman on a family holiday in Florida rode the roller coaster, The Incredible Hulk. Sally Dare experienced headaches and blurred vision after the ride. She says, “It was a pretty forceful ride and I was thrown about and my head was banged quite a lot. I felt awful afterwards, but the headaches just seemed like others I’d had, so I thought nothing of it.”

It took a serious turn though when her arms tingled, she became really dizzy, her eyesight got worse, and she couldn’t remember some words. Sally’s doctor told her to consult a neurosurgeon. She was then diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, 2cm in size. It was removed immediately.

Sally states, “Usually, they can go undetected until they are inoperable and the size of a tangerine.”

She added, “Who would have thought a holiday would trigger something like this? Going on the rollercoaster helped me. But I don’t think I will ever set foot on one again.” The ride dislodged the tumor which then put pressure on her brain and caused the symptoms to appear early.

This is a surprising turn of events. Who would have thought roller coasters could help people with tumours?

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How Much Protein Do You Need Every Day? Based On Your Lifestyle

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According to CNN Health, the minimum amount of protein intake based on the Recommended Daily Allowance, is 0.8 grams per kilogram (0.36 grams per pound) of body weight per day. This means that for an average woman, the amount should only be 46 grams which can only take as little as 10% of your calories for the day. This is okay if you’re not a gym rat and you’ll hit the mark if your meal plans are based on a Western diet. 

RDA Calculation

In order to calculate your protein RDA, get your actual weight in pounds and multiply it by 0.36. A sedentary 120-pound woman should have a required protein RDA of 43.2 grams. You can double this if you are quite active in your daily activities or if your target is to lose weight or maintain muscle bulk as you age.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey say that American women consume 68 grams per day. Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy says, “There’s no reason to go out of your way to get protein. Just eat a variety of fish, nuts, beans, seeds, and dairy, including yogurt.”

Though this is the ideal case, there are those who need an increased amount of protein because of their lifestyle choices:

The Active Gym Rat

Nancy Rodriguez, PhD, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Connecticut, said to cnn.com that if you are someone who goes to the gym three to five times a week and you workout for at least 40 minutes, then the daily recommended intake for you should be 1.2-2 grams protein per kilogram (0.5 to 0.9 grams per pound) of body weight each day. This is the right amount that would be beneficial in rebuilding muscle tissue.

The Lose-More-Weight Dieter

It takes a longer time for the body to digest protein so having this in your daily meals helps you feel full. It encourages your body to produce the hormone, peptide YY. This is responsible for reducing hunger.

Lauren Slayton, RD, says, “When you bring protein to about 30% of your daily calories, you’ll naturally eat less.” Slayton is the author of The Little Book of Thin and founder of Foodtrainers, a nutrition practice in New York City. She adds, “Protein decreases appetite and also, in my experience, helps you manage cravings.”

Protein is responsible for retaining lean muscle as you lose fat. If you want to increase the amount in your meals, just a note: simply cut back on carbs to balance the calories from adding protein in your diet.

Hitting the Middle Age

When you hit the middle age, increasing your intake may help you out in maintaining your muscle mass. Rodriguez says it can let you “stay stronger and more functional.”

When you double the recommended amount, it gives you “optimal protein.” This is composed of about 15-25% of your daily calories. It’s still pretty low compared to the level recommended by other high-protein diets – a total of 90 to 105 grams daily.

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Balance Exercises for Seniors: Simple Ways To Stay Active And Fit

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As people get older, it becomes a challenge to maintain the ability to stand firmly or to move about. The trick here is balance and we’re going help address mobility issues to make you active again.

Let’s start with somuchyoga.com’s poses. Jenna Lorraine Parnigoni provided detailed instructions how to do these 6 poses. Rest assured, once you’re done, you will absolutely show signs of improved balance and posture.

These exercises bring your body into proper positions that may correct your alignment and improve your strength.

6 Balance Exercises For Seniors: Improve Your Balance With These Yoga Poses

The loss of our ability to balance is an especially frustrating aspect of getting older – and a potentially scary one. When a fall could easily result in a trip to the doctor, or even require surgery, staying upright on your own two feet becomes a rather pressing issue. Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors working against our balance system as we age – from our vision to the muscles which support our bodies, everything takes a hit. Read more…

Judy Wilson, health writer, talks about the good effects of physical activities for the elderly. She focuses on the four important tasks for senior citizens.

Endurance exercises prioritize your heart and circulatory system. Strengthening activities improve metabolism whereas stretching exercises increases flexibility. Last, balance is key to improving posture and minimizing risky falls.

Exercises for Senior Citizens

Exercise can have profound effects on a senior citizen’s vitality and overall well-being. Staying active can help to reduce pain and stiffness, improve energy levels and increase strength. Older adults who exercise are more mobile and independent. Senior citizens need to get a mix of four types of exercise: endurance, strengthening, stretching and balance. Your routine can be simple and does not have to involve elaborate or expensive equipment. Read more…

These activities involve aerobic, strengthening and muscle-building exercises for older adults. These are easy and you can ultimately execute these on a daily basis.

Here’s a summary from everydayhealth.com, which enumerates the easy workouts that you can perform every day.

11 Easy Exercises You Can Do Today

Staying active can keep you feeling and looking your best — at every stage of your life. An active lifestyle is especially important for senior health because regular exercise can help prevent heart disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer, and it can also reduce pain associated with arthritis. By improving balance, flexibility, endurance, and strength, older adults can stay healthier longer. Read more…

Want more exercises for older adults? Let’s take a look at this video from Anne Pringle Burnell:

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Games To Make You Smarter: Brain Games May Not Be As Effective

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Many of us get excited when we see an ad about improving our cognitive capabilities especially our logical thinking or problem solving skills. For a fact, we get interested immediately as we’re seeing an opportunity to be better.

However, and sorry to be the dream-crusher here, a report from NPR.com says a recent scientific evaluation has come to the conclusion that brain training games and programs do not have enough evidence to prove that these can change your cognitive abilities. It was released in the journal, Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

Daniel Simons, an author of the article and a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says: “It’s disappointing that the evidence isn’t stronger.” 

He continued, “It would be really nice if you could play some games and have it radically change your cognitive abilities. But the studies don’t show that on objectively measured real-world outcomes.”

The scientific evaluation was conducted by seven scientists. This was done in response to a public disagreement concerning two opposite opinions about brain games.

Two years ago, in October 2014, an open letter was published by 70 scientists saying that they do not agree with the marketing claims made by brain training companies. Then, another group of scientists opposed this move saying there is a scientific basis to the brain training claims.

Simons and six other scientists looked into 130 brain games studies as well as other cognitive-related materials in an attempt to clear things up.

Simons states, “We went through each paper and tried to look at the kind of evidence it provided.” This meant they analyzed the population of the study, the control group, and the results. 

In the end, they discovered that most of the studies did not follow the regulations or adhere to the best practices in conducting research. There were some discrepancies in the data – there were only a few participants, lacked appropriate control groups or did not consider the placebo effect (people tend to do better on tests because they have motivation or they are more confident).

Though this is the case for most, Simons found that there were some notable studies and they depicted results that people really improve in doing certain tasks with the help of these games. He says, “You can practice, for example, scanning baggage at an airport and looking for a knife, and you get really, really good at spotting that knife.”

In this case though, there was not enough evidence to support that people improve at related tasks like noticing other suspicious items. Strong evidence is needed to prove that mastering this kind of skill can lead to a progressive result in cognitive abilities. 

The results of the evaluation got a good reaction from the scientists who defended the science behind brain training. George Rebok said, “The evaluation was very even-handed and raised many excellent points.” He has been doing brain training research for the past 20 years and is currently a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. “It really helped raise the bar in terms of the level of science that we must aspire to.”

Rebok is still positive that the correct program of brain activities can cause a significant improvement in mental capacities and delay aging effects. He says that one of the reasons why brain games haven’t exhibited clear results is that these do not maximize the full capacity of the brain or they don’t have a long-lasting effect on the brain. He says, “It takes mental effort and practice to be able to see results. If we can implement that long range, I think that there will be a big dividend eventually.”

Meanwhile, it appears that the brain training companies are facing heat from the Federal Trade Commission. Lumosity settled FTC charges and agreed to pay $2 million concerning the claims about the brain training program.

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Nobel Prize Given For Research In Recycling Of Cellular Components

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He is a Japanese biologist who discovered one of the most important key mechanisms of our body’s defense system. This is related to the degrading and recycling parts of the cells also known as autophagy. The process proved to be very important in diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, as well as other prevalent diseases.

According to The Washington Post, Ohsumi conducted an experiment involving baker’s yeast. The Stockholm committee said that he was able to discover how a cell reacts to situations such as starvation and infection. The biologist studied thousands of yeast mutants and he recognized 15 genes which are crucial for autophagy. It just happened that the same systems exist within the human cells too.

The Nobel committee wrote, “His discoveries opened the path to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as in the adaptation to starvation or response to infection. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease.”

In Greek, autophagy means “self-eating”. This involves cell renewal which in turn removes the damaged proteins and organelles in a system. If this fails, it results to faster cell aging and diseases related to the aging process. On the other hand, if “too much” autophagy occurs, it advances tumour cell growth in cancer and develops a treatment-resistant system.

The 71-year-old biologist calls the Nobel Prize, “greatest source of joy and pride” for a scientist.  In an interview with NHK, a Japanese network, he said: “Looking into bodily processes, I found that we have an ongoing renewal process without which living organisms can’t survive.” Ohsumi continued, “This recycling process did not receive as much attention as it deserved, but I discovered that we should be paying more attention to this autophagy process.”

The Nobel committee stated that the process of autophagy has been in existence for 50 years. It’s just that its medical importance only became distinguished after Ohsumi’s ground-breaking research. 

The prestigious award was founded by Alfred Nobel 115 years ago. The laureate will receive a prize worth almost a million dollars.

Image Credit: Tokyo Institute Of Technology  

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Possible Cure for HIV: British Man Shows No Signs After Treatment

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A clinical trial being conducted by Britain’s top five universities has announced that after subjecting the British man to treatment, he has not shown any signs. UK scientists say that this has been a remarkable improvement as reported by iflscience.com.

However, it is too early to tell if the technique actually worked. Because of the dormant cells that inhibit the symptoms, it might take years for doctors to finally say that the patient is cured.

The treatment proves to be promising though. It involves the three phases.

First, the patient will be introduced to anti-retroviral drugs to stop T-cells from spreading the virus. Second, they purposely infect the patients with a virus that strengthens the immune system thus giving them the ability to kill the infected T-cells. Last, they perform the “kick and kill” strategy. They administer vorinostat which activates the dormant T-cells and in turn, forces them to exhibit HIV-associated proteins. This is detected by the enhanced immune system and it destroys them.

It is expected that this new technique will be able to eliminate the existence of the virus from the patient’s body. This also includes the dormant cells. However, because these are inactive cells and they often remain dormant for years, the scientists won’t be able to determine if the patient has been truly cured of the condition.   

The 44-year-old participant told The Sunday Times, “It would be great if a cure has happened. My last blood test was a couple of weeks ago and there is no detectable virus. However, that could be the anti-retroviral therapies, so we have to wait to be sure.”

Doctors will have to face the waiting game. In the event that they can prove the treatment to be a success, it can definitely give hope to the 37 million people in the world who are affected by this condition.

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Target Your Major Muscle Groups And Get The Job Done Right

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Target your major muscle groups and get to know the mechanics of those big bad boys to let you in on their secret to staying health hand getting big.

Target your major muscle groups the right way

Your workouts need to target the major muscle groups in your body to be able to provide it with the best physical activity needed to stimulate muscle recovery and growth.

Working them appropriately should always be your ultimate goal and once you are able to strategically do it, you would be sure enough to the good benefits out of your workouts.

Muscles that make- up the upper body.

The body is like a map- a network of muscles fibers and tissue that connect the body to together to work just like an engine with all parts working in harmony.

Arms

The arm muscles are composed of the biceps, which are the muscles locate in the front of the upper arm and the opposite is called the biceps, which are the back of your upper arms.

Working to tone and strengthen them would mean having curls and push ups for the biceps, while triceps extensions are ideal for the back arm muscles.

Shoulder

Also known as the deltoids, these muscles are located at the cap of the shoulder. These muscles can be strengthened by doing push ups and bench presses.

The muscles that are found between the shoulder blades are called the rhomboids. You stimulate these muscles by doing chin-ups and dumbbell bent rows.

Chest

The Pectoralis Major, also known as the pecs, make up the large muscles that cover the entire chest. Push ups and pull-ups are ideal workout routines, along with several routines on the incline bench.

Back

The traps or the trapezius muscles are situated at the upper back and can be stimulated by performing upright rows and shoulder shrugs using resistance bands or weights.

The latisimus dorsi is often the symbolic epitome of the back as it is the muscle group at the middle portion that gives the back the “V” shape. Pull-ups and chin-ups can help do the trick for that enviable back physique.

The upper body muscles can also benefit from squats and dead lifts to help enhance endurance and strength and in preparation for the midsection area.

The muscles that make up the midsection

The abdominals muscles are one of the most popular muscle groups, it is this muscle that when toned and strengthened gives you the famous ‘six-pack’ abs.

Then there are the gluteals muscles or the glutes. These are the large muscles that make up the buttocks. These can be worked out with leg presses and squats

The lower body muscles

The quadriceps or the quads are the muscles that form the front of the thighs. Proper exercising in the morning by doing walks will help, The ideal exercises include squats and lunges.

The back of the thighs also have the muscles called the hamstrings. They are worked out by doing squats, lunges and leg curls.

The muscles on the found on the inner hips are called adductors and abductors. Ideal workouts are the leg lifts and cables.

So by now you know the major muscle groups in the body and you just might be able to have the idea of you can effectively implement for better results.

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