Sunday, February 28, 2010

Yoga May Help Seasonal Affective Disorder

If you feel foggy, fatigued and depressed during the winter months, you may be among the 10 to 20 percent of adults who experience mild seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Symptoms include anxiety, weight gain, oversleeping, and social withdrawal. Although SAD is linked to lack of sunlight, in addition to supplementing with Vitamin D, try yoga. Yoga poses involving the crown chakra, or the top of the head, may stimulate the pineal gland, which produces the feel-good hormones serotonin and melatonin, and helps regulate circadian and seasonal rhythms.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Mediterranean Diet May Lower Risk of Developing Thinking and Memory Problems

A Mediterranean diet may help people avoid the small areas of brain damage that can lead to problems with thinking and memory, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010. The study found that people who ate a Mediterranean-like diet were less likely to have brain infarcts, or small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems.

The Mediterranean diet includes high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, fish, whole grains, and monounsaturated fatty acids such as olive oil; low intake of saturated fatty acids, dairy products, meat and poultry; and mild to moderate amounts of alcohol.

For the study, researchers assessed the diets of 712 people in New York and divided them into three groups based on how closely they were following the Mediterranean diet. Then they conducted MRI brain scans an average of six years later. A total of 238 people had at least one area of brain damage. Those who were most closely following a Mediterranean-like diet were 36 percent less likely to have areas of brain damage than those who were least following the diet. Those moderately following the diet were 21 percent less likely to have brain damage than the lowest group.

The relationship between this type of brain damage and the Mediterranean diet was comparable with that of high blood pressure. In other words, not eating a Mediterranean-like diet had about the same effect on the brain as having high blood pressure.

Previous research by Scarmeas and his colleagues showed that a Mediterranean-like diet may be associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and may lengthen survival in people with Alzheimer's disease. According to the present study, these associations may be partially explained by fewer brain infarcts.