PROTIME-FITNESS HOLISTIC HEALTH AND WELLNESS

  LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE WITH DEEP BREATHING 'Strength training for breathing muscles' holds promise for a host of health benefits. Working out just five minutes daily via a practice described as "strength training for your breathing muscles" lowers blood pressure and improves some measures of vascular health as well as, or even more than, aerobic exercise or medication, new CU Boulder research shows. The study, published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association, provides the strongest evidence yet that the ultra-time-efficient maneuver known as High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) could play a key role in helping aging adults fend off cardiovascular disease -- the nation's leading killer. In the United States alone, 65% of adults over age 50 have above-normal blood pressure -- putting them at greater risk of heart attack or stroke. Yet fewer than 40% meet recommended aerobic exercise guidelines. "There are a lot of lifes...

  MIGRAINE HEADACHES IMPROVED WITH DIET CHANGES The frequency, intensity of monthly migraines declined among those on a higher fish oil diet. According to a new study, a diet higher in fatty fish helped frequent migraine sufferers reduce their monthly number of headaches and intensity of pain compared to participants on a diet higher in vegetable-based fats and oils. The findings by a team of researchers from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), parts of the National Institutes of Health; and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, were published in the July 3 issue of  The BMJ . This study of 182 adults with frequent migraines expanded on the team's previous work on the impact of linoleic acid and chronic pain. Linoleic acid is a polyunsaturated fatty acid commonly derived in the American diet from corn, soybean, and other similar oils and some nuts and seeds. The team's previous smaller studi...

  CHOCOLATE TO THE RESCUE Researchers find the time of day eating milk chocolate can impact the regulation of body weight. Eating milk chocolate every day may sound like a recipe for weight gain. Still, a new study of postmenopausal women has found that eating a concentrated amount of chocolate during a narrow window of time in the morning may help the body burn fat and decrease blood sugar levels. Researchers from Brigham collaborated with investigators at the University of Murcia in Spain to find out about the effects of eating milk chocolate at different times of the day. Together, they conducted a randomized, controlled, cross-over trial of 19 postmenopausal women who consumed either 100g of chocolate in the morning (within one hour after waking time) or at night (within one hour before bedtime). In addition, they compared weight gain and many other measures to no chocolate intake. Researchers report that among the women studied: Morning or nighttime chocolate intake did not le...

  COVID-19 vaccine generates immune structures critical for lasting immunity Vaccines likely induce strong, persistent immunity to COVID-19. The first two COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employed a technology that had never been used in FDA-approved vaccines. Both vaccines performed well in clinical trials, and both have been widely credited with reducing disease. Still, concerns remain over how long immunity induced by the new vaccine technology will last. Now, a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, published June 28 in the journal  Nature , has found evidence that the immune response to such vaccines is both strong and potentially long-lasting. For example, nearly four months after the first dose, people who received the Pfizer vaccine still had so-called germinal centers in their lymph nodes churning out immune cells directed against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-1...

  Triple-drug  asthma therapy safely cuts serious flares. Including the third drug to commonly used dual-drug inhalers can reduce asthma exacerbations. Researchers have found that the inclusion of a third drug to commonly used dual-drug inhalers can reduce asthma exacerbations and improve control over the disease in children, adolescents, and adults with moderate-to-severe asthma. McMaster University and The Research Institute of St. Joe's Hamilton announced their findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis. Data from 20 randomized controlled trials, which included almost 12,000 patients, were analyzed in the study. Dual-drug inhalers used to treat asthma typically contain an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) to reduce inflammation, as well as a long-acting beta-adrenoceptor agonist (LABA) that acts as a bronchodilator. High-certainty evidence showed that the inclusion of a third drug to ICS-LABA combination therapy, known as a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA), redu...

  A new study finds novel evidence that dreams reflect multiple memories, anticipate future events. Dreams focused on future events utilize memories of multiple past experiences. Dreams result from a process that often combines fragments of multiple life experiences and anticipates future events, according to novel evidence from a new study. Results show that 53.5% of dreams were traced to a memory, and nearly 50% of reports with a memory source were connected to multiple past experiences. The study also found that 25.7% of dreams were related to specific impending events, and 37.4% of dreams with a future event source were related to past experiences' specific memories. In addition, future-oriented dreams became proportionally more common later in the night. "Humans have struggled to understand the meaning of dreams for millennia," said principal investigator Erin Wamsley, who has a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience and is an associate professor in the department of ps...

  New research finds ginger counters certain autoimmune diseases in mice. Naturopathic medicine, or herbal medicine, is all the rage, especially among young people. But how much of this is supported by science? Ginger is known to have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects, making it a popular herbal supplement to treat inflammatory diseases. And according to a Michigan Medicine-led study published in  JCI Insight ,  the main bioactive compound of ginger root, 6-gingerol, is therapeutic in countering the mechanism that fuels certain autoimmune diseases in mice. Researchers specifically looked at lupus, a disease that attacks the body's own immune system, and its often associated condition, antiphospholipid syndrome, which causes blood clots since both cause widespread inflammation and damage organs over time. In mice with either antiphospholipid syndrome or lupus, 6-gingerol prevented neutrophil extracellular trap release triggered by the autoantibodies that these d...