ClariMind

Want to realize your full Intellectual Potential?

Try a Proprietary Formula for Memory and Concentration based on Ayurveda - the Oldest and Most Holistic, Comprehensive Medical System Available.

If you want to maximize your intellect and reduce chance of short memory span, poor concentration, and mental fatigue, there is proven help available.

India's civilization has been reaping the powerful benefits of Ayurveda for the past 5,000 years! ClariMind is a natural supplement geared towards enriching total mental health, optimizing memory and concentration abilities, and improving intelligence quotient.

It will: Enrich Your Brain Cells. Elevate Your Intelligence Quotient. Enhance Your Memory Capacity. Increase Your Power to Focus. Reduce Your Mental Fatigue. Fight Effects of Aging and Senility. ClariMind is a product of: 5000 years of Ayurvedic wisdom. Modern testing and research. Breakthrough encapsulation technique. Laboratory-controlled potency.

Doctor-approved, carefully calibrated formula.
http://www.clarimind.com/index.htm?aff=dreddyclinic

Immunice

Choose a Proprietary Formula for Immune System Support based on Ayurveda - the Oldest and Most Holistic, Comprehensive Medical System Available.

DOCTORS AND AYURVEDA SCIENCE AGREE ... Immunice's Herbal Formula Gives Safe, Lasting, and Meaningful Results. If you want to enjoy optimal health and eliminate allergies, recurring chest discomfort, exhaustion, weakness and fatigue, aches and pains, and a generally poor immune system, there is proven help available.

India's population has been reaping the powerful benefits of Ayurveda Medicine for the past 5,000 years!

Immunice is a natural supplement geared towards rebalancing your metabolism and rejuvenating and optimizing your immune system to regenerate and grow better and stronger each day naturally.

It will: Fortify Your Immune Cells.
Reduce Your Allergy Symptoms.
Enhance Your Breathing.
Improve Your Sleep.
Elevate Your Energy Level.
Raise Your Confidence.

Immunice is a product of: 5000 years of Ayurvedic wisdom. Modern testing and research. Breakthrough encapsulation technique. Laboratory-controlled potency. Doctor-approved, carefully calibrated formula.

more information:
http://www.immunice.com/index.htm?aff=dreddyclinic

Smoking Dulls Taste for Sweets

(HealthDay News) -- Cigarette smoking and a family history of alcoholism can both affect how a person perceives sweet-tasting foods, U.S. researchers say.

Women who smoked were less sensitive to sweet tastes than women who did not smoke, according to a study in the November issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The study included 27 current smokers (18 with a family history of alcoholism) and 22 women who'd never smoked (9 with a family history of alcoholism), ages 21 to 40. All of the participants were tested for their sensitivity to sweetness.

"Cigarette smoking and having a family history of alcoholism had different effects on sweet-taste perception and food cravings," study co-author Julie A. Mennella, a senior researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said in a prepared statement.

"Women who smoked cigarettes were less sensitive to sweet taste than women who never smoked. This means that women who smoke required higher concentrations of a sweet solution in order to detect sweet taste; we also found that the more years a woman has smoked cigarettes, the less sensitive she will be to sweet taste," Mennella said.

"The study suggests that cigarette smoking dulls sweet-taste detection and is associated with increased food cravings, especially for starchy carbohydrates and foods high in fat," co-author M. Yanina Pepino, a researcher at Monell, said in a prepared statement.

The study also found that women with a family history of alcoholism preferred higher levels of sweetness and craved sweet-tasting foods more often. That confirms previous findings that a pleasurable response to sweet taste is associated with a genetic risk for alcoholism.

"We may now use this knowledge to, one, identify individuals at high risk for alcoholism and, two, study biological mechanisms involved in the development of alcohol-use disorders," said Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoy, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a prepared statement.

Future studies looking at the effects of smoking on food habits and cravings should take into account family history of alcoholism, Mennella and Pepino said.

More information
The American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery has more about taste and smell.

Fall Time Change Could Be Boon for Sleep

(HealthDay News) -- When the clocks go back an hour on the first Sunday in November, you should use that extra hour to make a small payment on your sleep debt, experts say.

Too often, work and family responsibilities take precedence over sleep in our society, noted Dr. Clete Kushida of the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and a member of the board of directors at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).

"It's important to make sleep a priority, particularly since the lack of it results in daytime sleepiness, difficulty concentrating, short-term memory problems, and mood changes, any of which can decrease productivity at work and increase family stress," Kushida said in a prepared statement.

"In addition, there is some scientific evidence that sleep loss may be linked to impairment of the immune system as well as to increased appetite and weight gain. Fortunately, the switch to standard time provides a good opportunity to obtain additional sleep. The key to taking advantage of the time switch is to go to bed earlier," he said.

The extra hour of sleep offered by the time change can help mental and physical rejuvenation, according to Ralph Downey III, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California.

"With the fall time change, we get an extra hour to do with as we please. If we sleep the extra hour, our mind and body will thank us. While we can't save time, we can spend it wisely be spending the extra hour sleeping," Downey said in a prepared statement.

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about sleep.

Chronic Reflux Often Leads to Sleepless Nights

(HealthDay News) -- Along with typical symptoms such as acid reflux, the less typical symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) -- such as coughing, choking, wheezing, choking, snoring, sore throat, and chest pain -- can cause people significant sleep problems, according to a new U.S. survey.

The poll of 701 GERD patients found that sleep impairment was much more common among those with GERD (41.9 percent) than among people without GERD (19.4 percent), and that about half of people with nighttime GERD reported sleeping poorly often or most of the time, compared to 36.7 percent of those with daytime GERD.

Among GERD patients, 74 percent reported at least one nighttime atypical symptom. For almost every atypical symptom in the study, more than 20 percent of GERD patients reported that the symptom occurred frequently -- more than two nights a week.

The survey also found that GERD patients with atypical symptoms were more likely to suffer sleep problems than GERD patients with typical symptoms such as heartburn and acid regurgitation.

The percentage of GERD patients who reported sleeping problems was much higher for those reporting eight out of nine of the atypical symptoms included in the survey than for these without atypical symptoms.

The findings were presented this week at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology, in Philadelphia.

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about GERD.

Health Tip: Got Low Back Pain?

(HealthDay News) -- The effects of low back pain can range from a mild inconvenience to debilitating. Some pain may go away on its own after the back has had a chance to heal, but sometimes surgery may be needed.

Here are potential treatments to help ease low back pain, courtesy of the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke:

• Pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory medications.


• A cold compress immediately after the injury to reduce swelling.


• Heat on the back several days after the injury to help relax muscles.


• A short period of bed rest to allow muscles to heal.


• Gentle exercises to stretch and strengthen back muscles.

Meditation a Quick Fix for Stress

(HealthDay News) -- Meditating for just 20 minutes a day for five days helped to increase energy and decrease anxiety and stress, as measured by levels of stress hormones, a small study found.

Using the so-called integrative body-mind training method, which comes from traditional Chinese medicine, the study participants reported better attention and control of stress than those relying on relaxation training, which is popular in the West.

Although derived from Chinese medicine, integrative body-mind training uses aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training, the study authors said.

"A meditation method developed in China showed remarkably better performance among those who went through the training compared with those who used relaxation training," said lead researcher Michael Posner, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon's Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences.

In the study, published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers assigned 40 undergraduate students from China to either integrative meditation or relaxation therapy.

Posner's group found the students who used integrative meditation for 20 minutes a day for just five days showed greater improvement in conflict scores on a test of stress levels, lower anxiety, depression and anger. Conversely, they displayed more energy, less fatigue, a significant drop in levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and an increase in immunoreactivity, compared with students receiving the relaxation therapy.

Integrative body-mind training was developed in the 1990s, and has been studied in China since 1995. Based on the results from hundreds of adults and children ranging from 4 to 90 years old in China, the practice appears to improve emotional and cognitive performance and social behavior, the study authors said.

Because the study was done in China, Posner said he's not sure if the same meditation method would work in the United States.

"This is a kind of scientific demonstration about the possible advantage of meditation, at least for the Chinese undergraduates," Posner said. "It could be culturally specific."

Posner does think, however, that the study shows it's possible to change the levels of stress hormones with training.

More information
To learn more about meditation, visit the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Hormone May Play Key Part in Creating Memories

(HealthDay News) -- When you experience an emotionally charged event, it's something that is etched into your memory, and now scientists think they know why.

In experiments with mice, researchers found that powerful surges of the hormone norepinephrine -- surges that occur during emotional episodes -- cause a series of events that strengthen the connections between neurons, sealing these events into the memory.

"The question we are addressing is why is it that you can remember some trivial events that occur at a time when there is high emotional arousal," said lead researcher Dr. Roberto Malinow, of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. "For example, everyone remembers where they were when they heard about September 11, even though [they may have been] in some trivial place."

The researchers found that norepinephrine can modify brain cell receptors, making them easier to go into synapses -- the tiny spaces between brain cells -- making it easier to learn and form memories, Malinow said.

In studies with mice, Malinow's group found that norepinephrine, coupled with emotional stress, plays an important role in lowering the threshold for certain brain cell receptors called GluR1.

This, in turn, causes a boost in memory, the researchers said.

When the researchers put lab mice through behavioral tests, they found that exposure to norepinephrine made normal mice remember events more clearly. But, mice with mutations of the GluR1 receptors that were exposed to norepinephrine did not show improved memory.

Norepinephrine is known to play a part in the emotional control of memory. During emotional stress, norepinephrine is released by neurons (brain cells) in many areas of the brain, including the hippocampus and the amygdala -- areas involved with forming emotional memories.

The findings are published in the Oct. 5 issue of Cell.

Malinow thinks this finding could lead to new treatments for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

"It is interesting to find out at the molecular level what emotion is doing," Malinow said. "But there are certain diseases like post-traumatic stress disorder for which we might find targets that have therapeutic benefit. These findings will enhance our knowledge of all diseases that deal with memory."

One expert see this study as an extension of similar work that showed that norepinephrine is involved in the memory of fearful events that can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.

"In our own work, we have demonstrated that norepinephrine controls the ability of synapses in inputs to the amygdala implicated in cued fear conditioning to undergo long-term potentiation," said Vadim Bolshakov, director of McLean Hospital's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, in Belmont, Mass. "This new study complements our work in emphasizing the role of norepinephrine release in the brain in learning and memory mechanisms."

The new research focuses on a different form of learning, Bolshakov said. "The new study nicely demonstrated that norepinephrine enhances a form of learning by facilitating synapses in a region of the hippocampus," he said.

More information
For more on memory, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Fish Safe for Pregnant Women to Eat

(HealthDay News) -- Since 2001, when U.S. health officials warned pregnant women to eat no more than 12 ounces of fish a week because of potential mercury contamination, many women have been confused, and fish consumption has dropped.

Now, a group of experts says that that warning by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was misguided. The potential problems caused by mercury pale in comparison with the harm caused to developing fetuses from a lack of omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in many fish and are essential for brain development. Women should eat at least 12 ounces of fish a week, the group recommends.

"We found that the FDA/EPA advisory was scaring a large number of women away from eating any fish," said Dr. Ashley S. Roman, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University Medical Center and a member of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. "Fish is an important part of a well-balanced diet during pregnancy."

The new recommendations were presented Thursday during a press conference at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C.

The coalition is a nonprofit group whose members include the American Academy of Pediatrics and the March of Dimes, as well as federal agencies such as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There is scientific evidence that fish leads to better outcomes in babies," Roman said. "It leads to better brain development, improved cognitive and motor skills, and some evidence suggests that it might reduce the risk of premature delivery and postpartum depression. Studies have shown that if you eat 12 ounces or more fish per week, you are doing better for your baby than if you eat less than that amount or no fish at all."

Not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids results in health risks to mothers and their children, Roman said. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which shows that 90 percent of women are eating less than the FDA-recommended amount of fish, confirm the women aren't getting enough omega-3 fatty acids, she added.

Another study found that the FDA/EPA warning caused 56 percent of pregnant women to limit their fish consumption to levels below beneficial amounts, out of fear that fish may harm their developing baby.

Roman said that women who want to become pregnant, are pregnant or are breast-feeding should eat a minimum of 12 ounces per week of fish such as salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel, without fear. For women who can't eat fish, the researchers recommended fish oil supplements as a good alternative.

Eating fish is the best way to get the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Roman noted that selenium, a mineral found in some ocean fish, appears to protect against the harmful effects of mercury. "You have to look at fish as a whole, not at just one element in fish," she said.

One expert thinks that not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids is more dangerous for an infant's health than the danger posed by trace amounts of mercury in some fish.

"There is a direct difference between these recommendations and the current FDA/EPA recommendations," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a dramatic difference."

"Based on the data, I would agree with these recommendations," said Mozaffarian, who co-authored a 2006 study that endorsed fish consumption. "The evidence for the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in neuron development is at least as strong as the evidence for harm from mercury. Not getting enough omega-3 fatty acids is dangerous in itself."

Another expert also agreed with the new recommendations.

"I think these researchers follow the science," said Dr. Gary J. Myers, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in New York.

The only time mercury in fish has been shown to be harmful has been in industrial pollution in Japan, Myers said. "There has never been another case reported anywhere else in the world related to fish consumption," he said.

More information
For more on fish and pregnancy, visit the American Pregnancy Association.

Panic Attacks May Hike Heart Disease Risk in Women

(HealthDay News) -- Postmenopausal women who've had at least one panic attack may be at greater risk for heart disease, stroke and even death, new research suggests.

The study found that older women with a history of panic attacks were four times more likely to have heart disease than women who hadn't had a panic attack.

"Women who reported at least one panic attack were at higher risk of having cardiovascular illness and death after an average of five years of follow-up. Even after controlling for other risk factors, a panic attack remained an independent risk factor on its own," said study author Dr. Jordan Smoller, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Symptoms of a panic attack include a sudden feeling of fear, anxiety or extreme discomfort that's out of proportion to your current situation. Panic attacks may also be accompanied by a rapid or irregular heartbeat, sweating, hot flashes, chills, chest pain, difficulty breathing, shaking, dizziness and a feeling that you might die. About one in 10 postmenopausal women has had at least one panic attack, according to the study.

The research, published in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, included 3,369 postmenopausal women between the ages of 51 and 83. All of the women completed questionnaires about the occurrence of panic attacks in the previous six months. A full-blown panic attack was one in which sudden fear was accompanied by at least four other panic attack symptoms. A limited panic attack was one in which fear was accompanied by one to three additional symptoms.

After an average 5.3 years of follow-up, the researchers collected information on heart disease, stroke and death from any cause. The researchers also adjusted the data to account for other known cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as weight, alcohol use, hormone use, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, age, diabetes and smoking history.

After adjusting for all those factors, the researchers found that full-blown panic attacks were associated with a fourfold higher risk of heart disease, nearly twice the risk of stroke, and a 75 percent increase in risk of death from any cause, compared to women who'd experienced no panic attacks. Women who'd had limited panic attacks fared somewhat better. The adjusted risk of heart disease was 65 percent higher, stroke risk was more than doubled, and all-cause mortality was increased by 34 percent.

"Negative emotional states and psychiatric symptoms can be related to adverse medical outcomes," said Smoller, who's also assistant vice chairman of the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"Panic attacks may be having a direct effect on cardiovascular health -- anxiety, panic and other negative emotional states have been related to changes in heart rhythm and changes in cardiac blood flow in previous studies. It may be that stress hormones and other components of the 'fight-or-flight' reactions that accompany panic directly impact the cardiovascular system," he said.

"Or," he added, "it could be that panic attacks are simply a marker for increased risk that is due to something other than the panic attacks themselves. It might be that the women who were experiencing panic might have been experiencing some other unrecognized cardiovascular problem."

Dr. Stephen Siegel, a cardiologist at New York University Medical Center, said the study definitely raises some interesting questions, but more research needs to be done to establish a definite link between panic attacks and cardiovascular health.

In the meantime, Siegel recommended that all women do whatever they can to reduce their cardiovascular disease risk factors. "Control all the known risk factors out there -- hypertension, cigarette smoking, diabetes, elevated cholesterol. We can make changes in these factors and we know they make a difference," he said.

Exercise is another great -- and proven -- option, Siegel said. Not only does it improve your heart health by lowering blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol, but exercise can also help ease anxiety and depression, providing both a physical and psychological benefit.

More information
To learn more about panic attacks and panic disorder, visit the American Psychological Association.