Okra! An Amazing, Natural, Extremely Effective Herb That Improves Your Health!

This flowering herb goes by the name bhindi or even ladies fingertips. Due to its seeds pods, it is often highly valued. Abelmoschus esculentus is the actual scientific title of the flower.

Many people utilize okra within the daily meals. Due to its distinctive taste as well as feeling whenever being chewed, the children do not like this.

Okra is very rich in nutrients such as zinc, iron, potassium, magnesium, calcium mineral and supplement such as A, C, and the large quantity of fiber.

You can reach almost all it’s many benefits and nutrition by placing it in clean drinking water and eating it the next early morning along with the drinking water. This natural but extremely effective home remedy will undoubtedly boost your general health and supply the following health advantages:

SKIN WELLNESS

The presence of anti-oxidants and nutritional vitamins it the content which neutralizes totally free radicals in your body, okra guards the health of the skin, reduce the look of marks, promote quicker healing, get rid of wrinkles as well as acne.

EYESIGHT BOOSTER

Okra is full of lutein, xanthene, beta-carotenes and Supplement A that significantly the vision. The actual implementation of the plant within your diet will indeed protect your vision through different problems such as cataracts and ancillary degeneration.

CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH AND HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Okra is full of considerable amounts of potassium. To stability the salt in your body and keep proper liquid balance, potassium is essential. It decreases any risk of strain on the heart, reduces high blood pressure, and calms arteries as well as blood vessels.

IMMUNE SYSTEM

Okra may significantly transform your immunity. The top amounts of supplement C in the content combat different pathogens and generate more white-colored blood cells.

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM HEALTH

The actual fiber within this plant assists with moving meals through the digestive system. It decreases gastrointestinal problems such as cramping pains, bloating as well as diarrhea.

Drink up: Scientists find health benefits in 3-4 cups of joe a day

People who drink three to four cups of coffee a day are more likely to see health benefits than harm, experiencing lower risks of premature death and heart disease than those who abstain, scientists say.

A team that collated the findings of more than 200 previous studies also found coffee consumption was linked to lower risks of diabetes, liver disease, dementia and some cancers.

Three or four cups a day confer the greatest benefit, the scientists said, except for women who are pregnant or who have a higher risk of suffering fractures.

Robin Poole, a public health specialist at Britain's University of Southampton, led a research team in an "umbrella review" of 201 studies based on observational research and 17 studies based on clinical trials across all countries and all settings.

"Umbrella reviews" synthesize previous pooled analyses to give a clearer summary of diverse research on a particular topic.

"Coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption," Poole's team concluded in its research, published in the BMJ British medical journal this week.

Drinking coffee was consistently linked with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease. The largest reduction in relative risk of premature death is seen in people consuming three cups a day, compared with non-coffee drinkers.

Drinking more than three cups a day was not linked to harm, but the beneficial effects were less pronounced.

Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout, the researchers said. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions such as cirrhosis.

Poole's team noted that because its review included mainly observational data, no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. But the findings support other recent reviews and studies of coffee intake.

E-cigarettes have their own set of dangers

If you are trying to quit smoking, should you try vaping?

Just over 36 million Americans smoke cigarettes, despite evidence that tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of disease and early death.

Many times, people continue to smoke because it’s difficult to quit, according to doctor Humberto Choi of Cleveland Clinic, some folks who want to quit turn to e-cigarettes.

One recent study says e-cigarettes do not come without risks.

"In the group that used the e-cigarettes with nicotine, there was an increase in heart rate, an increase in blood pressure, and it did find a transient increase in the stiffness of the blood vessels," Choi said.

Researchers looked at a group of young adults with an average age of 26 and found that those who used e-cigarettes with nicotine not only had cardiovascular symptoms, but also asthma symptoms.

The doctor says there are still some unanswered questions about the long-term effects of e-cigarettes, but that one thing is for sure:  e-cigarettes, like regular cigarettes, deliver nicotine, just in a different way.

He says when someone is ready to quit, it's best to stick to tried and true methods, rather than turning to e-cigarettes.

"The best way is a combination of counseling, and probably one-to-one, the best way to offer the counseling. We can offer nicotine replacement therapies that can be used with gums, lozenges, patches or even a nasal spray. and also medication."

There are a lot of resources and support groups as well as a Michigan Tobacco Quitline: 1-800-784-8669 or 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

From pills to psychotherapy, treating depression often lies in a gray zone

Depression afflicts an estimated 16 million Americans every year, many of whom go to their doctors in despair, embarking on an often stressful process about what to do next. 

These visits may entail filling out forms with screening questions about symptoms such as mood changes and difficulty sleeping. Doctors may ask patients to share intimate details about such issues as marital conflicts and suicidal urges. Some patients may be referred to mental-health specialists for further examination.

Once diagnosed with depression, patients frequently face the question: “Are you interested in therapy, medications or both?”

As a resident physician in psychiatry, I’ve seen many patients grapple with this question; the most frequent answer I’ve heard from patients is “I’m not sure.” Deciding between different types of medical treatment can be challenging, especially amid the fog of depression. Moreover, patients rely on doctors to help guide them, and we’re often not sure ourselves which is the best approach for a specific patient.

People commonly associate psychotherapy with Freud and couches, but newer, evidence-based treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy have become prominent in the field. CBT helps patients develop strategies to address harmful thoughts, emotions and behaviors that may contribute to depression.

There are many proposed explanations for how specific psychotherapies treat depression. These possibilities include giving patients social support and teaching coping skills, and researchers are using neuroimaging to study how these treatments affect depressed patients’ brains.

Antidepressant medications are thought to work by changing chemical signaling in our brains. For example, one class of commonly used drugs — selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — is designed to alter levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. These antidepressants may be effective for treating depression in some patients, but the neurochemistry of depression remains poorly understood, and we’re still not entirely sure how these drugs alleviate depressive symptoms.

A number of recent studies highlight the uncertainty involved with these treatment decisions. Researchers have dedicated considerable effort to studying the relative effectiveness between psychotherapies and antidepressants, frequently without finding much difference. For instance, a study published in 2012 reviewed data from more than 100 prior trials and included more than 10,000 patients; although psychotherapies and antidepressants each worked better than placebo in blinded trials at reducing depressive symptoms, neither of these treatments was more effective than the other. Furthermore, psychotherapies and antidepressants did no better overall than alternative therapies such as exercise.

In 2014, research presented at the European Congress of Psychiatry suggested that CBT was just as good as, if not better than, antidepressants for the acute treatment of depression. A 2015 systematic review of randomized trials similarly found that antidepressants were no better than CBT across multiple measures for managing depression. And this year, a meta-analysis looking at dozens of studies found psychotherapies and medications were fairly alike at improving quality of life and functioning in people with depression.

If psychotherapy and medication are both used to treat depression, could using them together work even better?

This is a valid question, and one often brought up by patients. But the efficacy of combining these treatments is controversial in medical circles: Studies have come to different conclusions about it. As a result, many patients still receive one or the other first.

In 2016, the American College of Physicians released guidelines about using antidepressants as opposed to non-pharmacologic therapies for depression. After reviewing decades of evidence, a committee concluded that CBT and newer-generation antidepressants are “similarly effective treatments” for adults with major depression. The guidelines recommend that “clinicians select between either cognitive behavioral therapy or second-generation antidepressants” for treating patients with depression.

The authors of these guidelines also raise an important point: Doctors commonly turn first to antidepressants when treating patients with depression, even though evidence suggests alternate therapies are just as effective. The medications can also have side effects including nausea and vomiting as well as dangerous interactions with other drugs.

Antidepressants rank among the top-prescribed types of medications in the United States, and surveys suggest that more than 250 million antidepressant prescriptions are filled annually nationwide. A 2015 JAMA study found that 13 percent of American adults took antidepressants in 2012, a figure that nearly doubled since 1999.

Does this mean antidepressants are overprescribed?

It depends on how you interpret the question. Antidepressant use has risen considerably in recent years, while psychotherapy use appears to be stable or declining, because these treatments are often equally effective in managing depression, this might suggest we’re relying more on these drugs.

Some patients may prefer to take medications for depression. Many people do not have the time to participate in psychotherapies like CBT or psychodynamic therapy — a type of talk therapy that explores the interplay between unconscious feelings and distressing symptoms — which can span multiple hour-long sessions over months. Others may not have access to mental-health specialists who can provide appropriate therapy. Then there are patients who would rather take a pill in the comfort of their own home, instead of opening up about intimate experiences in a doctor’s office.

The structure of our health-care system may also be a factor. Higher insurance reimbursements for medications rather than psychotherapies may make physicians quicker to pull out the prescription pad. The crunched time and administrative burdens of today’s medical practice can lead to pressured patient visits that are more conducive to quick check-ins and pills than to in-depth conversations.

Patients should be aware that there are treatment options in addition to therapy and medication. Several studies have shown that exercise may be helpful in managing mild to moderate depression. For patients with more severe depression, transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy — approaches that use brief electric currents to influence brain activity — can be lifesaving treatments.

As the ACP guidelines recommend, providers should discuss “treatment effects, adverse effect profiles, cost, accessibility, and preferences with the patient” when treating depression. But in today’s hurried medical environment, completing that task in a thorough and comprehensive manner can often be difficult, if not impossible.

Researchers are developing tools including brain imaging and genetic testing to help guide this decision-making. Such individualized treatment has long been sought in mental-health care.

These technologies have shown promise, but they remain far from standard clinical practice. And adding more tests to doctors’ visits may ignore the central issue when treating depression: Do we have enough time to truly talk with our patients about their options?

Morris is a resident physician in psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine

Eating Nuts May Strengthen Some Brain Waves

New research has found that eating nuts on a regular basis strengthens brain wave frequencies associated with cognition, healing, learning, memory, and other key brain functions.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in California found that some nuts stimulated some brain frequencies more than others.

Pistachios, for instance, produced the greatest gamma wave response, which is critical for enhancing cognitive processing, information retention, learning, perception, and rapid eye movement during sleep.

Peanuts, which are actually legumes, but were still part of the study, produced the highest delta response, which is associated with healthy immunity, natural healing, and deep sleep.

While researchers found variances between the six nut varieties tested, all of them were high in beneficial antioxidants, with walnuts containing the highest antioxidant concentrations of all, according to the study’s principal investigator, Lee Berk, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., associate dean for research at the LLU School of Allied Health Professions.

Previous studies have demonstrated that nuts benefit the body in several significant ways: protecting the heart, fighting cancer, reducing inflammation, and slowing the aging process.

But Berk believes too little research has focused on how they affect the brain.

“This study provides significant beneficial findings by demonstrating that nuts are as good for your brain as they are for the rest of your body,” he said, adding that he expects future studies will reveal that they make other contributions to the brain and nervous system as well.

For this study, Berk assembled a team of 13 researchers to explore the effects of regular nut consumption on brainwave activity.

The research team developed a pilot study using subjects who consumed almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts.

Electroencephalograms (EEG) were taken to measure the strength of brainwave signals. EEG wave band activity was then recorded from nine regions of the scalp associated with cerebral cortical function, the researchers explained.

An abstract of the study, which was presented in the nutrition section of the Experimental Biology 2017 meetings, was published in The FASEB Journal.

First Successful Head Transplant Carried Out In China

The world's first human head transplant has been carried out on a corpse in China, according to an Italian Professor Sergio Canavero.

Dr Xiaoping Ren, who grafted a head onto the body of a monkey in 2016, carried out the operation, which took 18 hours.

Italian Professor Canavero, who is the director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, announced the success in a press conference in Vienna.

The professor said: "The first human transplant on human cadavers has been done.

"A full head swap between brain dead organ donors is the next stage and that is the final step for the formal head transplant for a medical condition which is imminent."

It had previously been hoped that 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov would be the first human to undergo the operation but the Russian decided he did not want to experience the surgery.

Spiridonov had volunteered because he suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which causes severe spinal muscular atrophy, and he was willing to try anything to prolong his life.

There had been an angry backlash to the potential surgery from religious groups, who said it was going against God.

Spiridonov was fully prepared for the body to reject his head but it was also possible that fusing his head with another body - including the spinal cord and jugular vein - might result in never-before experienced levels of insanity.

Doctor Canavero said before the operation that he was anticipating it to be a 36-hour procedure that would involve 150 doctors and nurses.

Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, had previously said that the bodies of head transplant patients "would end up being overwhelmed with different pathways and chemistry than they are used to and they'd go crazy".

Credit: PA. Valery Spiridonov 

In 1970, a head transplant was successfully performed on a monkey. Well, it was sort of successful. The monkey lived, but only for eight days.

The body rejected the new head and the monkey was left unable to breathe or move because the spinal cord of the head and body weren't properly connected.

Hopefully, technology has advanced enough in the past 45 years.

Gong Shou Dao (GSD) Features the Top 3 Martial Arts Choreographers

Gong Shou Dao (GSD), a new short film produced by Jet Li, features the top three Chinese martial arts choreographers. The film is expected to demonstrate the most astonishing and sophisticated aspects of Chinese martial arts.

A movie poster published on Jack Ma’s blog made a big splash in the fields of action movie-making industry and Chinese martial arts.

GSD is a short film made for promoting the culture of Taiji. Jack Ma will play the role of the leading actor in this movie together with 11 other famous Kung Fu icons representing different martial art disciplines. The short film is made as a tribute to all master kung fu predecessors and for promoting the excellence of traditional Chinese culture.

Participation of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, in the cast will undoubtedly maximize the understanding and value of Taiji culture throughout the world due to Ma’s worldwide influence. Since all the stars performing in the film are well trained in martial arts, the super cast guarantees the quality of the movie.

For most of the fans of action movies, the beauty and the strength of actions presented through a film are the main attractions. As a result, the martial arts choreography serves as the key in the success of an action movie.

Currently the top three master-level Chinese martial arts choreographers in

 the world are Yuen Woo-Ping, Sammo Hung, and Tony Ching. In the filming of GSD,

 the expertise of these top three Chinese martial arts masters were integrated.

Sammo Hung is a Chinese kung fu actor who has a solid foundation in the practice of kung fu. He is noted for the choreography of kung fu sparring with a touch of occasional humor

 and imagination. The master’s top action movies include “Ip Man“, “Detective Dee

 and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame“, and “Once Upon a Time in China and 

America” etc.

Yuen Woo-Ping served as the martial arts choreographer in classical action films

 including “Once Upon a Time in China II”, “The Tai-Chi Master“,  “Fist of Legend”

 and Hollywood classic “The Matrix”. His choreography of actions is known for its 

reflection of reality. His design of actions is characterized by swiftness, exactness,

 and ruthlessness. Yuen’s brand of actions delivers visual punch to the audience.

Tony Ching is well-known for his martial arts choreography of the classical movie

 “New Dragon Gate Inn“. His choreography features beauty and elegance. He used slow motions to magnify many graceful actions which helped form the image of martial art

 characters and classical actions. Ching’s other signature works include 

“Swordsman II” and “Hero” both starring our founder Jet Li.

The three master choreographers worked out different stereotypes of legendary

 martial art masters Zhang Sanfeng, Ip Man, and Ling Wu Chung, respectively. 

By integrating the various creative styles of these three directors, the resulted 

film is expected to showcase scenes of ruthless sparring, standard martial

 art techniques, and seamless elegance. The fans may expect a creative 

work featuring seemingly familiar feelings and ultimate duels.

According to Jet Li, all actors and directors worked pro bono in the making 

of this film as a tribute to Chinese culture and all the Chinese martial arts

 masters past and present. The film is made as an endeavor to share Chinese 

culture with the world.

Jack Ma said, “No further development will be made for a society or individual if there is no pursuit of culture or innovation.” The responsibility and obligation of this generation is to let the world know about the excellence of the Chinese culture and share the thoughts and strength contained in traditional Chinese philosophy, Ma stated. “This cultural heritage not only belongs to China, but also to the world,” Ma added.

The three Chinese martial arts choreographers have been making extraordinary contributions to the promotion and interpretation of martial arts. The collaboration of the three masters marked a milestone in Chinese action movie making industry. They are determined to produce a legendary new generation martial arts film.