The Gary Null Show - 12.27.22

Study links nutrients in blood to better brain connectivity, cognition in older adults

University of Illinois, December 20, 2022

A new study links higher levels of several key nutrients in the blood with more efficient brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tests in older adults. The study, reported in the journal NeuroImage, looked at 32 key nutrients in the Mediterranean diet, which previous research has shown is associated with better brain function in aging. It included 116 healthy adults 65-75 years of age. "We wanted to investigate whether diet and nutrition predict cognitive performance in healthy older adults," said University of Illinois postdoctoral researcher Christopher Zwilling, who led the study with U. of I. psychology professor Aron Barbey in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. The analysis linked specific patterns of a handful of nutrient biomarkers in the blood to better brain health and cognition. The nutrient patterns included omega-3 fatty acids, which are abundant in fish, walnuts and Brussels sprouts; omega-6 fatty acids, found in flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and pistachios; lycopene, a vivid red pigment in tomatoes, watermelon and a few other fruits and vegetables; alpha- and beta-carotenoids, which give sweet potatoes and carrots their characteristic orange color; and vitamins B and D. The researchers relied on some of the most rigorous methods available for examining nutrient intake and brain health, Barbey said. Rather than asking participants to answer food-intake surveys, which require the accurate recall of what and how much participants ate, the team looked for patterns of nutrient "biomarkers" in the blood. The team also used functional magnetic resonance imaging to carefully evaluate the efficiency with which various brain networks performed. The analysis found a robust link between higher levels of several nutrient biomarkers in the blood and enhanced performance on specific cognitive tests. These nutrients, which appeared to work synergistically, included omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, carotenoids, lycopene, riboflavin, folate, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. The analysis also revealed that a pattern of omega-3s, omega-6s and carotene was linked to better functional brain network efficiency. Different nutrient patterns appeared to moderate the efficiency in different brain networks. For example, higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids paralleled the positive relationship between a healthy frontoparietal network and general intelligence. The frontoparietal network supports the ability to focus attention and engage in goal-directed behavior. "Our study suggests that diet and nutrition moderate the association between network efficiency and cognitive performance," Barbey said. "This means that the strength of the association between functional brain network efficiency and cognitive performance is associated with the level of the nutrients."

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Sunlight offers surprise benefit -- it energizes infection fighting T cells

Georgetown University Medical Center, December 20, 2022

Sunlight allows us to make vitamin D, credited with healthier living, but a surprise research finding could reveal another powerful benefit of getting some sun. Georgetown University Medical Center researchers have found that sunlight, through a mechanism separate than vitamin D production, energizes T cells that play a central role in human immunity. Their findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest how the skin, the body's largest organ, stays alert to the many microbes that can nest there. "We all know sunlight provides vitamin D, which is suggested to have an impact on immunity, among other things. But what we found is a completely separate role of sunlight on immunity," says the study's senior investigator, Gerard Ahern, PhD, associate professor in the Georgetown's Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. "Some of the roles attributed to vitamin D on immunity may be due to this new mechanism." They specifically found that low levels of blue light, found in sun rays, makes T cells move faster -- marking the first reported human cell responding to sunlight by speeding its pace. "T cells, whether they are helper or killer, need to move to do their work, which is to get to the site of an infection and orchestrate a response," Ahern says. "This study shows that sunlight directly activates key immune cells by increasing their movement." Ahern also added that while production of vitamin D required UV light, which can promote skin cancer and melanoma, blue light from the sun, as well as from special lamps, is safer. And while the human and T cells they studied in the laboratory were not specifically skin T cells -- they were isolated from mouse cell culture and from human blood -- the skin has a large share of T cells in humans, he says, approximately twice the number circulating in the blood. What drove the motility response in T cells was synthesis of hydrogen peroxide, which then activated a signaling pathway that increases T cell movement. Hydrogen peroxide is a compound that white blood cells release when they sense an infection in order to kill bacteria and to "call" T cells and other immune cells to mount an immune response. "We found that sunlight makes hydrogen peroxide in T cells, which makes the cells move. And we know that an immune response also uses hydrogen peroxide to make T cells move to the damage," Ahern says. "This all fits together."

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Capsaicin molecule inhibits growth of breast cancer cells

Centre of Genomics, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), December 22, 2022 

Capsaicin, an active ingredient of pungent substances such as chilli or pepper, inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells. This was reported by a team headed by the Bochum-based scent researcher Prof Dr Dr Dr habil Hanns Hatt and Dr Lea Weber, following experiments in cultivated tumour cells. The experiments were carried out with the SUM149PT cell culture, a model system for a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer, i.e. the triple-negative type. Chemotherapy is currently the only available treatment for this type of cancer. In the cultivated cells, the team detected a number of typical olfactory receptors. One receptor occurred very frequently; it is usually found in the fifth cranial nerve, i.e. the trigeminal nerve. It belongs to the so-called Transient Receptor Potential Channels and is named TRPV1. That receptor is activated by the spicy molecule capsaicin as well as by helional – a scent of fresh sea breeze. In collaboration with Dr Gabriele Bonatz from the Augusta clinics in Bochum (Brustzentrum), Hatt's team confirmed the existence of TRPV1 in tumour cells in nine different samples from patients suffering from breast cancer. The researchers activated the TRPV1 receptor in the cell culture with capsaicin or helional, by adding the substances to the culture for a period of several hours or days. As a result, the cancer cells divide more slowly. Moreover, the treatment caused tumour cells to die in larger numbers. The surviving cells were no longer able to move as quickly as heretofore; this implies that their ability to form metastases in the body was impeded. Earlier studies had demonstrated that the chemical arvanil – with a chemical make-up similar to that of the spicy molecule capsaicin – was effective against brain tumours in mice; it reduces tumour growth in the animals. Due to its side effects, however, this substance is not approved for humans. In addition to capsaicin and helional, the endovanilloids, produced naturally in the body, also activate the TRPV1 receptor.

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Losing body fat could be facilitated by light evening exercise and fasting

Baylor College of Medicine, December 20, 2022

Making muscles burn more fat and less glucose can increase exercise endurance, but could simultaneously cause diabetes, says a team of scientists from Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions.
Mouse muscles use glucose (carbohydrate) as fuel when the animals are awake and active and switch to fat (lipid) when they are asleep. The team discovered that disrupting this natural cycle may lead to diabetes but, surprisingly, can also enhance exercise endurance. The switch is controlled by a molecule called histone deacetylase 3, or HDAC3. This finding opens the possibility of selecting the right time to exercise for losing body fat but also raises the concern of using HDAC inhibitors as doping drugs for endurance exercise. The study appears in Nature Medicine. Skeletal muscles, the voluntary muscles, are important in the control of blood glucose in the body. They consume most of the glucose, and if they develop insulin resistance and consequently are not able to use glucose, then diabetes likely will develop. To study the role of HDAC3 in mouse skeletal muscle, Sun and colleagues genetically engineered laboratory mice to deplete HDAC3 only in the skeletal muscles. Then they compared these knocked out mice with normal mice regarding how their muscles burn fuel. When normal mice eat, their blood sugar increases and insulin is released, which stimulates muscles to take in and use glucose as fuel. "When the knocked out mice ate, their blood sugar increased and insulin was released just fine, but their muscles refused to take in and use glucose," said Sun. "Lacking HDAC3 made the mice insulin resistant and more prone to develop diabetes." Yet, when the HDAC3-knocked out mice ran on a treadmill, they showed superior endurance, "which was intriguing because diabetes is usually associated with poor muscle performance," said Sun. "Glucose is the main fuel of muscle, so if a condition limits the use of glucose, the expectation is low performance in endurance exercises. That's the surprise." The researchers then studied what fueled the HDAC3-knocked out mice's stellar performance using metabolomics approaches and found that their muscles break down more amino acids. This changed the muscles' preference from glucose to lipids and allowed them to burn lipid very efficiently. This explains the high endurance, because the body carries a much larger energy reservoir in the form of lipid than carbohydrate. The team performed a number of functional genomics studies that established the link between HDAC3 and the circadian clock. "In normal mice, when the mouse is awake, the clock in the muscle anticipates a feeding cycle and uses HDAC3 to turn off many metabolic genes. This leads the muscles to use more carbohydrate," said Sun. "When the animal is about to go to sleep and anticipates a fasting cycle, the clock removes HDAC3. This leads the muscles to use more lipid." Although these studies were done in mice, the researchers speculate that human muscles most likely will follow the same cycle. The study opens the possibility of promoting body fat burning by increasing exercise activity during the periods in which muscles use lipid, which is at night for people. "Losing body fat would be easier by exercising lightly and fasting at night," said Sun. "It's not a bad idea to take a walk after dinner."

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Employees who are open about religion are happier, study suggests

Kansas State University, December 17, 2022

It may be beneficial for employers to not only encourage office Christmas parties but also celebrate holidays and festivals from a variety of religions, according to a Kansas State University researcher. Sooyeol Kim was involved in a collaborative study that found that employees who openly discuss their religious beliefs at work are often happier and have higher job satisfaction than those employees who do not. "For many people, religion is the core of their lives," Kim said. "Being able to express important aspects of one's life can influence work-related issues, such as job satisfaction, work performance or engagement. It can be beneficial for organizations to have a climate that is welcoming to every religion and culture."
Kim said employers might even want to consider a religion-friendly policy or find ways to encourage religious expression. For example, organizations could have an office Christmas party, but also could celebrate and recognize other religious holidays and dates, such as Hanukkah, Ramadan or Buddhist holidays. For the cross-cultural study, the researchers surveyed nearly 600 working adults from a variety of industries -- including education and finance -- in the U.S. and South Korea. The surveyed employees were all Christian, but identified with a variety of denominations, including Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist, among others. Results showed that employees who valued religion as a core part of their lives were more likely to disclose their religion in the workplace. Employees who felt pressure to assimilate in the workplace were less likely to disclose their religious identity, Kim said. But most significantly, the researchers found that the employees who disclosed their religion in the workplace had several positive outcomes, including higher job satisfaction and higher perceived well-being. "Disclosing your religion can be beneficial for employees and individual well-being," Kim said. "When you try to hide your identity, you have to pretend or you have to lie to others, which can be stressful and negatively impact how you build relationships with co-workers." Kim said the research on religion in the workplace plays a part into work-life balance. Research continues to show that individual characteristics -- such as family and religion -- can influence work-related issues.

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New Cannabis Capsule Is So Powerful It’s Going To Completely Replace All Pain Killers

University of Pennsylvania, December 19, 2022  

 In places where medical marijuana is legal, opioid abuse and addiction has fallen by 25%, but the government maintain they are stumped as to why Opioid abuse and addiction is a massive problem all over the US, hence why people are eager to find natural alternatives. The health benefits of cannabis are become more and more accepted in mainstream society, as more studies which support cannaboid use are published. This doesn’t sit well with big pharma, who are desperate to hold on to the monopoly they control. In the U.S. states where medical marijuana is legal to use, deaths from opioid overdoses have decreased by almost 25 percent, according to a new data. The study was done by Bachhuber, of the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues who used state-level death certificate data for all 50 states. According to JAMA Medicine, in states with a medical marijuana law, overdose deaths from opioids like morphine, oxycodone and heroin decreased by an average of 20 percent after just one year. After two years, they continued to decrease to 25 percent. In the mean time, opioid overdose deaths across the country skyrocketed. The cannabis capsules are made from the extract of cannabis flower. The active ingredients are processed without microbials and then packaged with a specific mix of 60 mg of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and 10 mg of CBD (cannabidiol). The combination together creates the perfect effect to relieve pain. The THC helps send happy feelings to the brain, while the CBD helps promote relaxation of the muscles. This helps reduce muscle spasms as well as inflammation.