Posts Tagged ‘Research’

Another reason to get a good amount of sleep – protection against colon cancer

Getting a good amount of sleep (for most people, between 7 and 9 hours of sleep) has been advocated for a number of health reasons. Sleep is the time when the body gets to recharge itself, and is the time when the brain gets time to get back to a good working condition (various studies have shown that when a person does not get enough sleep, the brain becomes slower in operation, and in extreme conditions, if the brain has not get rest for 2 days or more, it starts shutting down to ensure that some amount of sleep is available). In addition, getting an inadequate amount of sleep is also associated with a higher risk for health problems such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and so on.
Researchers are always on the quest to find out linkages between diseases and various factors that can contribute to such problems, through statistical methods (since these statistical methods enable the finding out of linkages between cause and effect, and provide an entry point to more clinical investigation). In a similar such investigation, researchers have found out that getting less than six hours of sleep had led to an increase in the risk of developing colorectal adenomas (link to article):

Researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine found that individuals who averaged less than six hours of sleep at night had an almost 50 per cent increase in the risk of colorectal adenomas compared with individuals sleeping at least seven hours per night.
Adenomas are a precursor to cancer tumours, and left untreated, they can turn malignant. “A short amount of sleep can now be viewed as a new risk factor for the development of the development of colon cancer,” said Li Li, the study’s principal investigator.
The patients with adenomas were found in general to have reported sleeping less than six hours compared to those patients without adenomas (control) patients.

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Connection between diabetes and depression, both deadly – Research

Diabetes is a modern lifestye disease / affliction, that can cause huge amounts of trouble for anybody who is suffering from diabetes. Unless the sugar level is controlled, it leads to a high degree of impact on the body, on various parts of the body such as the nerves in the leg, in the eye, on the heart, and on the blood system. Depression can lead to a person losing the urge to live, to suicidal tendencies, and to change the way of living to become more unhealthy. So what happens when both of these get combined ? Well, there is research underway that seems to suggest that the link between diabetes and depression is 2 way; so somebody who has depression is actually at a higher risk for developing diabetes; and somebody who has diabetes is at a higher risk of getting into a depression.
This is derived from ongoing research, which does not delve into medical reasons for the same, but is based on studies of people over a period of time; which detects that statistically, there is a linkage between depression and diabetes. This is bad news for people afflicted with diabetes or depression, since either of these 2 problems is bad enough, but if one leads to the other, it is a major problem (refer article):
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Research – Watermelon can reduce the chances of developing cardiovascular disease

Watermelon is recommended as a food for the health conscious. Because of the high water content of watermelon, it is meant for people in hot countries to use as a snack that replenishes the water content of the body and really does not cause harm. The sugars present in watermelon are easily absorbed by the body and are a simple form of sugar (very much unlike the complex sugars used in processed foods and sugary foods). However, are there other benefits of this simple fruit ? There is research conducted on whether the watermelon has any other benefits, and it turns out that the research moves to the area of blood pressure, prehypertension, and eventually to cardiovascular disease (link):

A pilot study led by food scientists at The Florida State University suggests that watermelon can be an effective natural weapon against prehypertension, a precursor to cardiovascular disease. This is the first investigation of its kind in humans.
“These findings suggest that this ”functional food” has a vasodilatory effect, and one that may prevent prehypertension from progressing to full-blown hypertension, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. “Given the encouraging evidence generated by this preliminary study, we hope to continue the research and include a much larger group of participants in the next round,” he said.

This does not mean that you can reduce blood pressure problems by earing more watermelon, but it does mean that you can cause yourself no harm by making sure that watermelon is a part of your regular diet.