Music Training Improves the Aging Process.

"Music is the quickening art" - Kant 

May 07--EVANSTON, Ill. -- Music training has a lifelong good impact on the aging process, says a new study out of Northwestern University.

Researchers in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern measured the automatic brain responses of younger and older musicians and non-musicians to speech sounds. Researchers discovered that older musicians had a distinct neural timing advantage. Researchers concluded that age-related delays in neural timing are not inevitable and can be avoided or offset with musical training.

"The older musicians not only outperformed their older non-musician counterparts, they encoded the sound stimuli as quickly and accurately as the younger non-musicians," said neuroscientist Nina Kraus. "This reinforces the idea that how we actively experience sound over the course of our lives has a profound effect on how our nervous system functions," she said.

Kraus, professor of communication sciences in the School of Communication and professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is co-author of "Musical experience offsets age-related delays in neural timing."

The data, with recent animal data from other research centers suggest that intensive training even late in life could improve speech processing in older adults and improve their ability to communicate in complex, noisy acoustic environments, said Don Caspary, a researcher on age-related hearing loss at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. "They support the idea that the brain can be trained to overcome, in part, some age-related hearing loss,"Caspary added.

Using Qi gong to counteract negative stress, and boost immune function.

In a recent lecture in Phoenix, AZ at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) Fellowship, integrative medicine pioneer Isaac Eliaz, M.D., L.Ac. discussed how negative emotions hinder immune response and fuel cancer formation and metastasis. He followed by sharing research on mind-body therapies such as meditation, yoga and Qigong which work to counteract the negative effects of stress and boost health in numerous ways. Highlighting an array of published studies, Dr. Eliaz showed how chronic stress can be deadly to lymphocytes and DNA integrity, and conversely, how mind body therapies and emotional support can ramp up immunity and provide numerous health benefits.

"The contrasts are amazing," says Dr. Eliaz. "Chronic stress significantly reduces the immune response, while something as simple as family support or mindful meditation can boost it just as dramatically."

The negative effects of stress have been studied in a variety of cancers including breast, ovarian, and digestive tract. In one study cited by Dr. Eliaz, breast cancer risk doubled for women after a divorce, separation or the death of their spouse.

In addition to reducing our body's resistance to cancer, stress, depression and isolation also increase metastasis and tumor vascularization. While these facts may be daunting, there are solutions that can make a substantial difference.

In his presentation, Dr. Eliaz discussed a variety of mind-body techniques, including meditation, yoga and Qigong -- an ancient Chinese system of mindful exercises -- that can calm stress and restore the body's healthy balance. In particular, meditation reduces cortisol levels, pro-inflammatory cytokines, systolic blood pressure, anxiety, depression and stress. It also has been proven to increase multiple areas of cognitive function, including information processing, memory and decision making.

"Study after study shows that reducing stress, and its associated negative effects, boosts the immune system and enhances brain function," says Dr. Eliaz.

Read more here: 

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=13390&Section=DISEASE

For More information about Qi Gong classes in the Tampa Bay Area contact Classical Medicine 

Kudzu herbal pill may cure binge drinking?

For many suffering from alcohol additction, any option for help is one worth persuing. But what if a herbal supplement that could help those in binge drinking is literally growing all around? 

...kudzu may also prove helpful in cutting something else—alcohol consumption. Studies of the impact of kudzu on drinking alcohol have been conducted in the past, and this new study focused on puerarin, a specific component of the Chinese herb, to determine if it could reduce the amount of alcohol individuals consumed.

Ten twenty-something men and women participated in the study, which consisted of four 90-minute sessions. The sessions took place in simulated “apartments” which were equipped with a TV, DVD player, and a refrigerator stocked with the participant’s favorite beer and non-alcoholic beverages.

The participants were allowed to consume as many beers as they wanted (up to six) during the first session. After the session, they were each given either placebo or a pill containing puerarin and told to take it daily. They then returned for a second session.

Two weeks later, the subjects completed a third session, but after this occurrence they were given the pill they did not get the first time. After they took their assigned pills for one week, they returned for the fourth and final session.

When the subjects took puerarin, they drank significantly fewer beers (decline from 3.5 to 2.4). In addition, “we noted that their rate of consumption decreased, meaning they drank slower and took more sips to finish a beer,” explained lead author David Penetar, PhD, of the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, which indicated an impact on binge drinking.

Read More: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/chinese-herb-kudzu-may-reduce-binge-drinking-alcoholism

The ongoing conversation about the positive effects of Homeopathy...

The ripple effect of the Swiss government's decision to honor insurace claims for Alternative medicine treatment continues via various studies and positive results. 

After assessing all the available data, the Swiss team concluded that the high quality investigations of pre-clinical basic research proved that homeopathic high-potency remedies induce “regulative and specific changes in cells or living organisms”.

The report also found that homeopathy treatment costs at least 15 per cent less than conventional medicine, even though those seeking homeopathy tended to have more chronic or serious ill health.

Homeopathy also led to less dependency on drugs. For example, in more than 500 patients with rheumatic disease, nearly one third were able to stop taking conventional medication, and another third reduced their use of drugs.

Homeopathic fertility treatment for women offered one of the largest cost savings of all, compared with standard medical treatments. It also saved on hospital bills, as well as indirect cost savings such as fewer days off sick when patients opted for homeopathy.

Importantly, homeopathy users reported fewer side-effects and better doctor-patient relationships.

When comparing patient satisfaction with homeopathic vs. conventional therapies in more than 3,000 subjects, significantly more homeopathic patients were “completely satisfied” with their results and treatment in comparison. (BMC Complement Altern. Med., 2008).

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120520/health-fitness/Homeopathic-results.420496

Meditation: Increases Brain Mass And Function, Offers Health Benefits.

New studies continue to provide insite into the positive benifits of meditation on health and wellbeing. The latest study concentrates on analyzing the differences in brain function between a group of people who practice meditiation and those that do not.  (The subjects — 28 men, 22 women — had a median age of 51 and had all been practicing meditation of various types for 20 years on average. The oldest subject was 71; the longest practitioner had been meditating regularly for 46 years.) 

The results of meditation were noted to be an increased area of grey and white matter in the brain; literally inceasing brain function; while the calming benefits were found to ease complications of coronary arterial diseases. 

The role that meditation plays in brain development has been the subject of several theories and a number of studies. One of them, conducted at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that long-term meditators like Ms. Splain had greater gyrification — a term that describes the folding of the cerebral cortex, the outermost part of the brain.

Published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal in February, the study is the latest effort from the U.C.L.A. lab to determine the extent to which meditation may affect neuroplasticity — the ability of the brain to make physiological changes. Previous studies found that the brains of long-term meditators had increased amounts of so-called gray and white matter (the former is believed to be involved in processing information; the latter is thought of as the “wiring” of the brain’s communication system.)

It follows other studies examining possible links between meditation and physical benefits. In 2009, for example, a study presented at an American Heart Association meeting suggested that the mental relaxation produced by meditation has physiological benefits for people with established coronary artery disease.

The U.C.L.A. study, like previous ones, is inconclusive but intriguing. “You could argue that more folds mean more neurons,” said Dr. Eileen Luders, the recent study’s lead author, who practices meditation herself. “These are the processing units of the brain, and so having more might mean that you have greater cognitive capacities.”

Read more of this fascinating story here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/business/retirementspecial/meditation-as-brain-builder-gains-scientific-support.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss