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POPS10 Minutes Of Staring at Boobs Daily Prolongs Man's Life by 5 Years... "Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There's no question: Gazing at large breasts makes men healthier. Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half." said Weatherby, who even recommended that men aged over 40 should spend at least 10 minutes daily admiring breasts sized "D-cup" or larger. She said that this was as healthy as going to the gym for 30 minutes daily and prolonged a man's life by five years.
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POPSTransplanted Organs "Remember" Their Donor Where do memories reside? This is so weird! It's actually pretty creepy, I reckon. A 29-year-old lesbian and a fast food junkie received a heart from a 19-year-old woman vegetarian who was "man crazy." The recipient reported after her operation that meat made her sick and she was no longer attracted to women. If fact, she became engaged to marry a man. The whole article is well worth the read.
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POPSPotential Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Cure Found In Century-old Drug Also impressed is one of Dr. Atamna's co-authors, Bruce Ames, PhD, a senior scientist at Children's and world-renowned expert in nutrition and aging. "What we potentially have is a wonder drug." said Dr. Ames. "To find that such a common and inexpensive drug can be used to increase and prolong the quality of life by treating such serious diseases is truly exciting." Dr. Atamna's research is the first to show that low concentrations of the drug have the ability to slow cellular aging in cultured cells in the laboratory and in live mice. He believes methylene blue has the potential to become another commonplace low-cost treatment like aspirin, prescribed as a blood thinner for people with heart disorders.
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POPSMechanism Behind Mind-body Connection Discovered The study reveals how stress makes people more susceptible to illness. The findings also suggest a potential drug target for preventing damage to the immune systems of persons who are under long-term stress, such as caregivers to chronically ill family members, as well as astronauts, soldiers, air traffic controllers and people who drive long daily commutes.
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POPS10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong And the two last ones: IX. We Love Sunlight But Fear Nuclear Power Why "natural" risks are easier to accept. X. We Should Fear Fear Itself Why worrying about risk is itself risky. Though the odds of dying in a terror attack like 9/11 or contracting Ebola are infinitesimal, the effects of chronic stress caused by constant fear are significant. Studies have found that the more people were exposed to media portrayals of the 2001 attacks, the more anxious and depressed they were. Chronically elevated stress harms our physiology, says Ropeik. "It interferes with the formation of bone, lowers immune response, increases the likelihood of clinical depression and diabetes, impairs our memory and our fertility, and contributes to long-term cardiovascular damage and high blood pressure."
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POPSDrug tries to offset 10,000 years of evolution Gene therapies, expected some time between 2015 and 2020, promise to correct this genetic problem caused by nature, but many obese people do not want to wait. They are hoping that Nastech’s new nasal spray can provide a solution now. Within 20 to 35 minutes after taking a whiff, this new drug moves quickly through the nasal lining and into the bloodstream, sending a message to the brain that our tummy is full. So far the drug has had no negative side effects. PYY is undergoing clinical trials now, and is expected to be in drug stores by 2009 or 2010. Obesity is the 2nd leading cause of preventable death in America, so this drug offers a great chance for more people to improve their health and get ready to enjoy our “magical future”.
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POPSNew You By 2018 Therapeutic: Cloning for tissue replacement is already happening, as stem cells have successfully grown new heart tissues in patients. Researchers believe replacing muscle, bone, skin; even neurons, teeth, eyes, and other organs could be in beginning stages by 2018. Augmentation: Procedures expected to be in place by as early as 2015 include improved memory recall, simultaneous language translation, long range and microscopic vision on demand, wide spectrum hearing, distinctive voice projection, and stronger muscles. And by mid-to-late-2020s, “nanobots” monitoring each of our cells could keep us ageless and forever healthy. Designed Evolution: These could include memory, intelligence, speed, agility, and other behavioral and physical attributes. Eliminating undesired genes that might pre-dispose a child to cancer, heart disease or alcoholism could be possible by about 2015.
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POPSCan You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? The good news is that, like all debt, with some work, sleep debt can be repaid—though it won't happen in one extended snooze marathon. Tacking on an extra hour or two of sleep a night is the way to catch up. For the chronically sleep deprived, take it easy for a few months to get back into a natural sleep pattern, says Lawrence J. Epstein, medical director of the Harvard-affiliated Sleep HealthCenters. Go to bed when you are tired, and allow your body to wake you in the morning (no alarm clock allowed). You may find yourself catatonic in the beginning of the recovery cycle: Expect to bank upward of ten hours shut-eye per night. As the days pass, however, the amount of time sleeping will gradually decrease.
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POPSNew Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of Aging A growing number of scientists suspect that the breakdown of mitochondria is among the most important causes of cell-level changes that eventually cause the body's tissues to degenerate with age. The damage accumulates gradually until hitting some critical mass of malfunction, at which point diseases arrive rapidly. That may be why so many diseases first occur during middle age, and become steadily more common afterwards.
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POPSGraphic: What are the odds of dying? This great infographic uses the area of overlapping circles to compare the probability of ways to go in America. You can see at a glance that nothing even comes close to heart disease and cancer in terms of likelihood. (Based on data collected in 2003 by the National Safety Council .)
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POPSEnding Moderate Drinking Tied To Depression The mice were tested for depression-like behavior using a widely recognized method called the Porsolt Swim Test. The mice are placed inside a beaker filled with water and allowed to swim for six minutes. Mice are good swimmers and have no problem completing this task. The amount of time they spend immobile (floating and not swimming) is measured as an index of despair or depression-like behavior. The more time a mouse spends immobile, the more "depressed" it is thought to be. "This research provides the first evidence that long-term abstinence from moderate alcohol drinking -- rather than drinking per se -- leads to a negative mood state, depression," Hodge said.
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POPSMale menopause? Yes, it’s real Andropause is a medical condition, diagnosed with a blood test by a physician that reveals testosterone levels below a certain level. If a diagnosis of andropause is warranted, treatment with testosterone replacement may be an option, depending on a man’s health history. However, the biggest, and most misunderstood, symptom of declining testosterone is a decrease in libido. Testosterone is truly the hormone that stokes the flames of desire. Many men confuse andropause with erectile dysfunction (ED), because they often occur around the same time. These men often turn to an ED medication, such as Viagra, to improve their erectile ability, which works for a time in most cases. However, as men get older, the gap between desire and arousal widens and many men become deeply disappointed when Viagra doesn't give them the desire to have sex. That's because Viagra doesn't boost testosterone levels.<<
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POPSInsults: Physical Harm Maybe this is why so few people participate on the web and why that such a relatively large percent that do insult and attack other participants. It is a stress reaction that kicks up a fight-or-flight response. I try to remember most of those doing the insulting are expressing their own background of verbal abuse and fear. Try to let it slide off your back like water on a duck. That's good karma.
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POPSToo many calories send the brain off kilter The researchers report that that increased activity of the IKKß/NF-?B pathway can be divorced from obesity itself -- infusions of either glucose or fat into the brains of mice alone led to this inflammatory brain reaction. Further studies revealed that this activity in the brain leads to insulin and leptin resistance. Insulin lowers blood sugar by causing cells of the body to take it up from the bloodstream. Leptin is a fat hormone important for appetite control. Moreover, the researchers found that treatments preventing the activity of IKKß/NF-?B in the animals' brains protected them from obesity.
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POPSHow the Personal Genome Project Could Unlock the Mysteries of Life ...You would very quickly begin to see meaningful and powerful correlations between particular genetic sequences and particular physical characteristics, from height and hair color to disease risk and personality. Church has done more than imagine such an undertaking; he has launched it: The Personal Genome Project, an effort to make those correlations on an unprecedented scale, began last year with 10 volunteers and will soon expand to 100,000 participants. It will generate a massive database of genomes, phenomes, and even some omes in between.