Researchers Figure Out Why Coffee Is Good For The Heart

The team focused on a protein called p27, which is known among other things to influence the cell cycle. The team found that caffeine triggered the movement of p27 into the mitochondria of heart cells in mice, and in particular, the migration of the heart’s endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels. How well the endothelial cells were able to migrate, they found, relied strongly on the presence of p27, which again is bolstered by caffeine. 

Read the Forbes article here.

Nutrition 2018: New data confirm health benefits of plant-based diet

We present some top-line findings from these studies below. When reading these summaries, it is important to bear in mind that while the abstracts presented at Nutrition 2018 were evaluated and selected by a committee of experts, the papers have not undergone the same rigorous standard of peer review that is applied to scientific journals.

So, we should consider these findings as “preliminary results,” until they are properly assessed.

Read the abstracts at this link.

People with family history of alcoholism release more dopamine in expectation of alcohol

People with a family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) release more dopamine in the brain’s main reward center in response to the expectation of alcohol than people diagnosed with the disorder, or healthy people without any family history of AUD, reports a new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

This explains a lot.

Read about this small interesting study here.

Early-life obesity impacts children’s learning and memory

A new study by Brown University epidemiologists found that children on the threshold of obesity or overweight in the first two years of life had lower perceptual reasoning and working memory scores than lean children when tested at ages five and eight. The study also indicated that IQ scores may be lower for higher-weight children.

“Excess early-life adiposity was associated with lower IQ, perceptual reasoning and working memory scores at school-age,” Li said.

The authors pointed out that the sample size of their study was limited and that further studies should be conducted to confirm their findings. Future work could also investigate the impact of early-life weight status on school performance, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnoses and special education use.

If these study results hold up in future studies then I’ll know just what the hell happened to me.

 

Social Isolation Transforms the Brain

In mice.

Confirming and extending previous observations, the researchers showed that prolonged social isolation leads to a broad array of behavioral changes in mice. These include increased aggressiveness towards unfamiliar mice, persistent fear, and hypersensitivity to threatening stimuli. For example, when encountering a threatening stimulus, mice that have been socially isolated remain frozen in place long after the threat has passed, whereas normal mice stop freezing soon after the threat is removed. These effects are seen when mice are subjected to two weeks of social isolation, but not to short-term social isolation — 24 hours — suggesting that the observed changes in aggression and fear responses require chronic isolation.

Though the work was done in mice, it has potential implications for understanding how chronic stress affects humans.

Get out of the house.  Socialize with friends and family.  Leave the cell phone at home.

Social media is not social.  It’s a serious public health problem for the brainwashed masses with addictive behaviors.

Read the source article here.