Drink your tea straight
Plenty of studies have suggested that tea is a cardiovascular boon, but new research has found that adding milk negates those benefits.
According to the study authors, the culprit in milk is a group of proteins called caseins that interact with tea, decreasing the concentration of the flavonoids in tea that are responsible for its protective effects against heart disease.
In the study, 16 healthy postmenopausal women drank either half a liter of freshly brewed black tea, black tea with 10 percent skim milk, or simply boiled water on three occasions under similar conditions. The researchers then measured the function of the cells lining the brachial artery in the forearm, using high-resolution ultrasound before and two hours after tea consumption.
The team found that black tea significantly improved the ability of the arteries to relax and expand. “But when we added milk, we found the biological effect of tea was completely abolished,” said lead researcher Dr. Verena Stangl, professor of cardiology at the Charite Hospital in Berlin.
Alcoholism warning in kids
A lack of impulse control may be a warning sign for an increased risk of alcoholism, a new study suggests.
The researchers say they substantiated their finding by showing reduced inhibitory activity in the frontal lobes of the brains of alcoholics.
The study, by scientists at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, was published in the January issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
“We have been finding that alcoholics have a low amplitude of a particular brain wave,” said Bernice Porjesz, a professor and director of the Henri Begleiter Neurodynamics Laboratory at the center. “We have also found it in their offspring, even though they have not had any exposure to alcohol.”
Porjesz notes that in children, signs of problems controlling impulses can signal a risk of substance abuse, behavior and learning problems. The brain signal in question is linked with the inability to inhibit matters that are irrelevant, and it appears to be present in people who become alcoholics.
It’s like a miracle therapy
What if one therapy could help ward off addiction, depression, stress and even Alzheimer’s, all the while keeping you slim and feeling great?
That mental-health “treatment” is as close as your own two feet: exercise.
“Exercise improves blood flow to the brain, it helps the body detoxify, it puts you on a better cycle of physical behavior, and it leads to decreased stress. It also improves thinking and mental function and decreases your tendency toward addiction,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist at New York University Medical Center and an associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine in New York City.
With each new study, experts are getting a better understanding of the intimate connection between the health of the body and that of the mind. And exercise–the body’s key method of staying healthy–appears to be crucial to mental health too.
“There’s evidence that exercise is maybe the best non-pharmacological antidepressant we have; studies have shown that it works better than some drugs. It’s also a great anti-anxiety intervention,” said James Maddux, a professor of psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and an expert on the mind-body health connection.
Aerobic exercise can lead to release of stress-busting neurochemicals called endorphins.
“Stress is a build-up of inactivity, of overthinking without release,” Siegel said. “But exercise gives you a physical release that diminishes that psychic frustration.”
