Body & Mind – Page 123 – Things Are Good

Greenest City in Toronto

Greenest City is a charity that grows organic food and helps educate the leaders of tomorrow in Parkdale, a community within Toronto. I’ve been to their HOPE garden and I have to say that it is very impressive and everything they’re growing looks delicious.

A Toronto blog took a close look at the organization:

Yonge Street’s videographer Rose Bianchini went to Parkdale to see what Greenest City is up to in that neigbourhood. Working in urban argriculture, “Greenest City is an award-winning charitable organization that grows local organic food, youth leaders and healthy, sustainable communities with a focus on Toronto’s Parkdale-High Park neighbourhood.”

Click here to go to the video.

Vegetarians are Happier than Meat Eaters

I’m a vegetarian and I think I’m pretty happy most of the time; I thought it was constantly sharing good news that made me happy, but it might be my diet.

If you still eat a lot of meat, you might want to reconsider your diet and get a little happier. 🙂

The researchers found the vegetarians reported diets significantly lower in EPA and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acids that we get from eating fish, and which many studies have found are a key factor in improving both physical and mental health. So they expected to find the vegetarians would have higher incidences of issues like depression, anxiety, and mood problems. Instead, they found the opposite result. Vegetarians scored lower on depression tests and had better mood profiles than their fish- and meat-eating peers. “While dietary intake of EPA and DHA has an important role in brain function, we found no evidence that the absence of direct intake of these fatty acids in vegetarians adversely affects mood state,” the study reports. “These results challenge what is known about the link between dietary fats and brain function and suggest an unrecognized benefit of vegetarian diets.”

A Shrew Spit Solution

Shrew spit may help in the screening of prostate, ovarian, and breast cancers. I don’t understand this one, so here it is from the CBC:

The northern short-tailed shrew, a mouse-like mammal with a long snout, is one of the world’s few venomous mammal species. With one bite, its saliva can paralyze prey.

Biochemist Jack Stewart of Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., set out to find out how.

Stewart spent several years luring the animals with pepperoni and trapping dozens of shrews in his rural backyard before he eventually identified the chemical in shrew saliva that causes paralysis. Researchers then purified and synthesized it.

At first, Stewart thought the chemical â€” called soricidin â€” might be a potential painkiller, because it blocked nerve transmission. When he tested it on a random cell culture that happened to be ovarian cancer cells, however, he found the cells died â€” which was initially a source of annoyance to him.

“Then a light bulb came on,” Stewart recalled. “Oh, they died,” he said with a laugh. “That’s a good thing in cancer.”

Vegetarians are Smart

Today’s good news is about me being smart because I’m vegetarian, OK, that’s a stretch, but the higher your IQ the greater the chances are that your vegetarian. Smart people eat well and being vegetarian is a healthy diet for you and the planet.

British researchers have found that children’s IQ predicts their likelihood of becoming vegetarians as young adults — lowering their risk for cardiovascular disease in the process. The finding could explain the link between smarts and better health, the investigators say.

“Brighter people tend to have healthier dietary habits,” concluded lead author Catharine Gale, a senior research fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre of the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital.

Recent studies suggest that vegetarianism may be associated with lower cholesterol, reduced risk of obesity and heart disease. This might explain why children with high IQs tend to have a lower risk of heart disease in later life.

Using YouTube to Study Effects of Drugs

Researchers have noted that people like to get high and post video of themselves doing drugs. As a result some researchers are looking at YouTube videos to understand what salvia does to the brain and body. Strange, I know, but apparently these people sharing their drug trips can help us understand a little more about pharmacology.

They created a systematic coding scheme which researchers used when watching the videos. This allowed them both to categorise the effects and check that each viewer was agreeing on what they saw.

After watching 34 videos, each of which was selected to show an entire trip from the initial hit to when the effects wore off, the team categorised the effects into five main groups:

(1) hypo-movement (e.g. slumping into a slouched position, limp hands, facial muscles slack or relaxed and falling down), (2) hyper-movement (e.g. uncontrolled laughter, restlessness, touching or rubbing the face without apparent reason or thought), (3) emotional effects included being visibly excited or afraid, (4) speech effects (unable to make sense, problems with diction, problems with fluency, inability to speak, and having problems recalling words) and finally (5) heating effects related to being hot or heated (e.g. flushed, or user makes a statement about being hot or sweating).

Read the rest at Mind Hacks.

Thanks Trevor!