Anger and hostility can give heart attacks

Master your anger if you want to avoid heart attacks. 12.986 peoples were followed in a six-year period. Each participant was classified into one of three groups, depending on how "angry they were." High-anger (8%), mean angry (55%) or a little anger (37%). 1 over the 6 years got 256 people heart attacks. The people there were classified in group ' high anger ' was 2.7 times greater chance of heart attack compared to people in the group ' a little angry '.

In a second study has shown that people who are often angry, have a higher concentration of homocysteine in the blood than more laid-back people. An elevated level of homocysteine is associated with increased risk of heart attacks.

What is the role of acids and bases in our nutrition

A healthy and well balanced diet has too many people very great importance-and yet we eat predominantly bad foods. We may go often eat fast-food, lunches and a dinners with a high protein and low mineral content, and our body thus exposed all the time that are bad for us and that we cannot digest. In order to maintain the natural acid balance in our sotmach that will help us digest food better in the long run we need a higher intake of alkaline mineral and only trace elements of salts.

Since we are constantly subjected to a varying amount of acids and bases, the body has developed a mechanism which can keep acid-/base balance in a natural balance. This equilibrium with healthy people on is ideally situated on 20% acid and 80% base. But our diets are often complex, so the ratio is counter-productive. Therefore, the body is constantly working to counter this displacement in the natural equilibrium.

Lavender the fungi killer

Fragrant kills
Lavender can be anything other than just smells good. In laboratory experiments have distilled lavender oil: proved to be an effective fungi killer.

Professor Lígia Salgueiro from the University of Coimbra in Portugal used for his experiments of lavender oil from Lavandula viridis L'Hér, which grows in southern Portugal. Lavender oil was poured into petri dishes with cultures of mushrooms among other Candida-species, which grows naturally in and on our bodies, as well as dermatophytes, there is a kind of mold, which can cause, among other things, foot and nail fungus. And here showed lavender oil as an effective fungi killer.

Now that's good news for people with fungal infections, for other effective antifungal drugs can have unwanted side effects including abdominal pain, vomiting, and nausea. These might be avoided if we can develop a treatment for fungus based on lavender oil.

Lavender oil makes the cabbage on the mushrooms by breaking down cell walls, and thus die the fungus. But there is a long way from the successful experiment in a petri dish, for that one can begin to use lavender oil to combat fungal infections in humans. The next step is to test on animals, how lavender oil works on living organisms with a fungal infection.

Walnuts are a good source of melatonin

Walnuts are a good source of melatonin
There has been much research into the health-promoting properties of Walnut's, but new studies have shown that the nuts also are a source of it antioxi-dante hormone melatonin. The results suggest that Walnut-who can give blood levels of melatonin and antioxidants a push.

Melatonin is a hormone produced naturally in the pineal gland in humans. It is most often associated with sleep regulation, since it is produced in the course of the hour, where it's dark. In the United States, melatonin supplements often use by individuals with an irregular sleep pattern, shift work or jet-lag. The new tests were conducted at the University of Texas Health Science Center and published in the september issue of Nutrition.

The researchers wanted to see whether there is melatonin in walnuts, and on intake of walnuts have a impact on the levels of melatonin and antioxidants in the blood.

First turned to melatonin from walnuts and amount of specific substance by a method called liquid chromatography (HPLC, high-performance liquid chromatography). It was thus that there were between 2.5 and 4.5 nanograms per gram of melatonin walnut. Then the researchers gave either val-nuts or regular food for rats after having regulated their feed prior to the study. We also measured rotternes blood levels of melatonin and their "total antioxidant strength".

Three walnuts seemed to increase blood concentration of melatonin to the triple with the rats that got the walnuts in the diet, compared with the group that was commonly used as animal feed. Blood anti-oxidant content also increased.

Research Director Russel Reiter says: "Our research shows that walnuts contain melato-nin, that it is absorbed into the body by ingestion, and it improves the ability to withstand oxidation caused by harmful molecules called free radicals".

Although it is not yet clear how many walnuts a human must eat in order to achieve the beneficial effect.

The body's production of melatonin decreases with age. The study raises the question whether there may be a link between declining production of melatonin and the development of diseases related to free radical damage later in life.

Walnuts content of Omega 3 fatty acids have already been shown to help reduce the risk of heart disease. Reiter claims that the synergistic effect of Omega 3, melatonin and other nutrients do walnuts more efficient than the supplements that contains only one of these factors. "I believe that the wlanuts nutritional value lies in their combination of ingredients," he says. He is planning further research activities on the interaction between melatonin and Omega 3.

Reiter's research received financial support from the California Walnut Industry.