by Mae Chan, PreventDisease.com

Mushrooms are known for their immune system boosting properties as well as treatments for anxiety and anti-cancer capabilities.

For centuries, mushrooms have been used as medicinal plants, and, more recently, have been a growing component of a healthy diet. Mushrooms are low in sodium and are good sources of fiber, bioactive compounds, selenium, potassium and vitamin D, all which may contribute to a healthy heart through anti-inflammatory and anti-atherogenic activities. While several types of mushrooms have been studied for their effects on serum lipid profiles, few studies have demonstrated edible mushrooms’ effects on atherogenesis.

Scientists from Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research on Aging at Tufts University report that supplementing the diets of lab mice with the mushroom powders had lower body weight gains, compared to animals fed an unsupplemented high-fat diet.

by Jen Reviews

Fasting is the practice of abstaining or reducing consumption of food, drink, or both, for a specific period of time. Everyone fasts for at least some part of the day, generally the eight or so hours that one spends sleeping every night. Physiologically, fasting can refer to a person’s metabolic status after not eating overnight, or even the metabolic state after the complete digestion of a meal. Once you’ve gone eight to 12 hours without eating, the body enters a state of “fasting.”

The practice of fasting can lead to a number of metabolic changes within the body. These changes typically begin approximately three to five hours after eating, when the body enters a “post-absorptive” state – rather than the state on ongoing digestion, where eating frequent meals means the body is always involved in some sort of digestive activity.

Whether you practice more long-term fasting for health reasons or for spiritual reasons, most people will have to fast at some point for medical reasons. Patients undergoing surgery or other medical procedures that require a general anaesthetic will usually fast prior to the treatment, but fasting is also practiced before a number of other medical tests, including cholesterol testing, blood glucose measuring, or a lipid panel. This enables doctors to achieve accurate results and establish a solid baseline to inform future testing, if necessary.

by Alice Klein, PreventDisease.com

Openness to experience is one of the "big five" traits often used to describe personality. It is characterised by curiosity, creativity and an interest in exploring new things. Open people tend to do well at tasks that test our ability to come up with creative ideas, such as imagining new uses for everyday objects like bricks, mugs or table tennis balls.

There's some evidence that people with a greater degree of openness also have better visual awareness. For example, when focusing on letters moving on a screen, they are more likely to notice a grey square appearing elsewhere on the display.

Now Anna Antinori at the University of Melbourne in Australia and her team are showing that people who score more highly when it comes to the openness trait "see" more possibilities. "They seem to have a more flexible gate for the visual information that breaks through into their consciousness," Antinori says.

Patchwork Pictures

Antinori and her colleagues asked 123 university students to complete a binocular rivalry test, in which they simultaneously saw a red image with one eye and a green image with the other eye for 2 minutes.

by Margie King, GreenMedInfo

Menopause can seem like torture. Women at midlife suffer with mood swings, stubborn weight gain, hot flashes, and low energy.  At the same time they can develop anxiety, depression, and trouble sleeping. This natural remedy may provide a perfect solution...

The problem is hormones run amuck. 

The ancient Celts had a natural solution - red clover (Trifolium pretense).  They considered red clover magical and sacred. It wasn’t just superstition. 

Modern research explains why this folk remedy is so effective in helping women at midlife. Red clover contains gentle hormone-balancing plant compounds called isoflavones.  These natural chemicals weakly attach to estrogen receptors in the body’s tissues. And they mimic the effects of estrogen. 

Isoflavones are also adaptogenic.  They sense what the body needs, and adapt their response.

If estrogen levels are low, they act like estrogen.  But if estrogen levels are too high, they take up space on the receptors. They block stronger estrogens. 

Red clover is so powerful it may be a safe and natural alternative to pharmaceutical hormone replacement therapy. 

by James Holbrooks, The Anti-Media

Following up on a report published in December of last year, Reuters ran a piece this week that shed light on the alarmingly high rate of lead poisoning among children across the state of California. One rate in Fresno was almost three times higher than that of Flint, Michigan.

From Wednesday’s article:

“Dozens of California communities have experienced recent rates of childhood lead poisoning that surpass those of Flint, Michigan, with one Fresno locale showing rates nearly three times higher, blood testing data obtained by Reuters shows.

“The data shows how lead poisoning affects even a state known for its environmental advocacy, with high rates of childhood exposure found in a swath of the Bay Area and downtown Los Angeles. And the figures show that, despite national strides in eliminating lead-based products, hazards remain in areas far from the Rust Belt or East Coast regions filled with old housing and legacy industry.”