PROTIME-FITNESS HOLISTIC HEALTH AND WELLNESS

MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH LINK FOUND IN NEW STUDY Psychiatric patients are almost twice as likely to have multiple physical ailments.         A new study published in BMJ Mental Health has found that individuals with severe mental illness are almost twice as likely to report physical multimorbidity, emphasizing the critical importance of addressing the intersection between psychological and physical health. The research, led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in collaboration with the University of Cambridge's Biomedical Research Centre, involved an extensive analysis of 19 different studies, encompassing data from 194,123 psychiatric patients across the world, with a comparison to 7,660,590 individuals in control groups. Multimorbidity is when a person is affected by any combination of chronic disease with at least one other physical health condition, and the researchers found that psychiatric patients were 1.84 times more likely to report multimorbidity than the co...

  LOWER SALT INTAKE AND LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE Everyone can lower blood pressure by reducing salt, even those on BP drugs.         Nearly everyone can lower their blood pressure, even people currently on blood pressure-reducing drugs, by reducing their sodium intake, reports a new study from Northwestern Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "In the study, middle-aged to elderly participants reduced their salt intake by about 1 teaspoon a day compared with their usual diet. The result was a decline in systolic blood pressure by about 6 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), which is comparable to the effect produced by a commonly utilized first-line medication for high blood pressure," said Dr. Deepak Gupta, associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and co-principal investigator. "We found that 70-75% of all people, regardless of whether they are already on blood pressure medications or ...

  VITAMIN B-12: TISSUE REPAIR AND CELL RE-PROGRAMMING Vitamin B12 is often touted for its role in supporting nerve function, producing red blood cells, and facilitating DNA synthesis. But a research team at IRB Barcelona, led by Dr. Manuel Serrano, has uncovered another side to this micronutrient: it’s crucial for cellular reprogramming and tissue repair. Their findings, published in Nature Metabolism, suggest that B12 may play a more significant role in regenerative medicine than previously realized. The study zoomed in on cellular reprogramming—a process that mimics how tissues repair themselves. When the IRB team examined mice, they noticed that this reprogramming process consumed a surprising amount of vitamin B12. Run out of B12, and things start to stall: the process slows down and doesn’t work as well. Even though mice usually obtain enough vitamin B12 from their standard diet, simply adding a bit more vitamin B12 made the reprogramming process much more effic...

  BROCCOLI SPROUTS AND OTHER CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES PROTECT AGAINST IBD . High-fiber diets, like those that include broccoli sprouts or other cruciferous vegetables, may reduce disease symptoms and improve the quality of life in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a study conducted in mice. The study was published in  mSystems , the American Society for Microbiology journal. In the study, the investigators used a popular interleukin-10-knockout (IL-10-KO) mouse model of Crohn's to investigate the interactions between mice and their immune systems, as well as the broccoli sprout diet, microbes within the Crohn's-afflicted gut, and how those microbes would use an inactive compound in the broccoli sprouts to make an anti-inflammatory compound in the gut. They also wanted to determine if, and by how much, a diet containing broccoli sprouts alleviates Crohn's symptoms, given the anti-inflammatory metabolites innately present in the sprouts. The researche...

    A SYSTOLIC BLOOD PRESSURE LESS THAN 120 mm Hg  MAY HELP PREVENT STROKE, HEART ATTACK OR DEATH         An intensive three-year intervention to lower the top blood pressure number to less than 120 mm Hg was more effective at preventing death, heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular events in adults at high risk for cardiovascular disease, compared to the standard treatment target of under 140 mm Hg, according to late-breaking science presented today at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2023. The meeting, Nov. 11-13, in Philadelphia, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science . "Our study provides evidence to support targeting systolic blood pressure to less than 120 mm Hg in hypertensive patients with high cardiovascular risk and normal or mild-reduced kidney function, regardless of their diabetes status (Type 1, Type 2 or...

  WHY DOES WARMING UP ENHANCE MUSCLE PERFORMANCE?         Everybody knows the importance of warming up your muscles before a workout. But what is actually going on when we warm our muscles up, and are all muscles the same? You might be surprised to find out that the science behind this routine activity hasn't always been clear. Now, in a study recently published in the  Journal of General Physiology , a multi-institutional research team, led by Osaka University, The Jikei University School of Medicine and National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, has revealed how heating affects the contraction of different muscles, and how this might benefit populations in need of improved exercise performance. Skeletal muscle contracts in response to electrical signals from the nervous system, which activate proteins in muscle cells and allow us to move. The team previously explored how cardiac muscle contractions are affected by temperature, determining tha...

  NEW GEL DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR TREATING SOLID CANCER TUMORS         Intratumoral therapy -- in which cancer drugs are injected directly into tumors -- is a promising treatment option for solid cancers but has shown limited success in clinical trials due to an inability to precisely deliver the drug and because most immunotherapies quickly dissipate from the site of injection. Collaborating with colleagues at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, a team of researchers from Mass General Brigham has developed a gel delivery system that overcomes these challenges. The gel is injectable but solidifies upon delivery, contains an imaging agent for visualization under a CT scan, and can hold a high drug concentration for slow, controlled release. In a paper published in  Advanced Healthcare Materials , the team reports that using gel-delivered imiquimod (an immune-stimulating drug) in combination with checkpoint inhibitor therapy-induced tumor regressi...