Cell reprogramming breakthrough could mend broken hearts

Heart disease remains one the biggest killers in the Western world. When a heart attack or heart failure occurs, permanent damage often results, destroying live cells and leaving the patient with irreversible scarring. Now scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have discovered a new technique to create healthy beating heart cells from structural cells, opening up the possibility of regenerating damaged hearts. Read More

Received & published by Henry Sapiecha

True Health™ Tip

Boost Your Health With A Super Smoothie

One of the most delicious super foods that provides amazing health benefits is a smoothie made with fresh and frozen fruit, raw nuts, rice milk, ice and one or two of your favorite vegetables thrown in. Why can this be considered a super food? Because these smoothies can provide all the fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, healthy oils and phytochemicals your body should have during the day. Plus, you can get half or more of your daily fruit and vegetable servings in a single meal.

Try a combination of three fresh and one frozen fruit from the following scrumptious choices…

• Strawberries (fresh or frozen)
• Apples
• Oranges
• Mango slices
• Pineapple chunks (fresh)
• Craisins
• Dates
• Pears
• Peaches
• Bananas

Now you could add in half of an avocado for more healthy fat and protein… almonds or macadamia nuts… red pepper for a nice fresh twist… or a handful of fresh spinach leaves to provide you with plenty of chlorophyll. And if you want to add a little extra flavor, put a little stevia natural sweetener into the blender along with your other all-natural ingredients. What a tasty way to do something great for your health

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

Coffee Drinkers Have Slightly Lower

Death Rates, Study Finds

Science (June 17, 2008) — A new study has good news for coffee drinkers: Regular coffee drinking (up to 6 cups per day) is not associated with increased deaths in either men or women. In fact, both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee consumption is associated with a somewhat smaller rate of death from heart disease.

“Coffee consumption has been linked to various beneficial and detrimental health effects, but data on its relation with death were lacking,” says Esther Lopez-Garcia, PhD, the study’s lead author. “Coffee consumption was not associated with a higher risk of mortality in middle-aged men and women. The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on heart disease, cancer, and other causes of death needs to be further investigated.”

Women consuming two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease during the follow-up period (which lasted from 1980 to 2004 and involved 84,214 women) as compared with non-consumers, and an 18 percent lower risk of death caused by something other than cancer or heart disease as compared with non-consumers during follow-up. For men, this level of consumption was associated with neither a higher nor a lower risk of death during the follow-up period (which lasted from 1986 to 2004 and involved 41,736 men).

The researchers analyzed data of 84,214 women who had participated in the Nurses’ Health Study and 41,736 men who had participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. To be in the current study, participants had to have been free of cancer and heart disease at the start of those larger studies.

The study participants completed questionnaires every two to four years that included questions about how frequently they drank coffee, other diet habits, smoking, and health conditions. The researchers then compared the frequency of death from any cause, death due to heart disease, and death due to cancer among people with different coffee-drinking habits.

Among women, 2,368 deaths were due to heart disease, 5,011 were due to cancer, and 3,716 were due to another cause. Among men, 2,049 deaths were due to heart disease, 2,491 were due to cancer, and 2,348 were due to another cause.

While accounting for other risk factors, such as body size, smoking, diet, and specific diseases, the researchers found that people who drank more coffee were less likely to die during the follow-up period. This was mainly because of lower risk for heart disease deaths among coffee drinkers.

The researchers found no association between coffee drinking and cancer deaths. These relationships did not seem to be related to caffeine because people who drank decaffeinated coffee also had lower death rates than people who did not drink coffee.

The editors of Annals of Internal Medicine caution that the design of the study does not make it certain that coffee decreases the chances of dying sooner than expected. Something else about coffee drinkers might be protecting them. And some measurement error in the assessment of coffee consumption is inevitable because estimated consumption came from self-reports.

This study was supported by National Institutes of Health research grants.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha