Health – Page 20 – Things Are Good

Vegan Medicine

carrot Recent studies show that people with type 2 diabetes can experience dramatic improvements in their health if they switch to a low fat, vegan diet. Research in Canada and the U.S has been done on two separate groups of patients with diabetes, with about half on the vegan diet, and the other half on the traditional diabetes regimen.

In close to 6 months the results were quite astounding, showing those who ate vegan losing nearly twice as much weight as people on oral medications alone. Not only that, but the people eating vegan were able to ignore other suggested health precautions usually required for stable weight and blood sugar, such as a decrease in carbs and portion size. They could literally eat what they wanted when they wanted so long as it was meat and animal free. Subjects also found a significant reduction in both their cholesterol and blood sugar levels after adopting a vegan diet.

Vegans are typically slimmer than meat and dairy consumers and have much lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, lung cancer and osteoporosis. Many health problems associated with saturated fats and other apparently ‘toxic’ foods can also be eliminated through switching to a more veggie friendly lifestyle. Perhaps this is why many fantastic athletes are vegan, such as 9 time Olympic Gold Medallist Carl Lewis, and and six time Iron Man Triathlon winner Dave Scott.

Greenpeace’s McVictory

mcvictory Greenpeace is reporting great success in their campaign to get McDonald’s to better respect the environment. This is really great for the rainforest!

“In recent years, the seemingly unstoppable expansion of soya farming in the Amazon had become one of the main threats to the world’s largest rainforest. The soya wasn’t being used to feed the world; instead it was used to feed farm animals destined for fast food and supermarket chains across Europe.”

The campaign to get McDonald’s to change their destructive was launched only in April of this year. The name of the campaign is rather witty – Eating up the Amazaon.

“The result is that McDonald’s and other big food retailers have worked with us to develop a zero deforestation plan. The plan will also help bring an end to the land-grabbing and social injustice that is rife in the Amazon.”

Scientists Regrow Damaged Nerve Cells in Rats

In an amazing new discovery (ScienceDaily), Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan have been able to regrow damaged nerve cells in lab rats. The researchers used an enzyme called sialidase from bacteria to treat the rats’ spinal cords.

There is hope that the proceedure will also work on other types of spinal cord injuries.
Continue reading “Scientists Regrow Damaged Nerve Cells in Rats”

Organic Farming Degree Offered

Washington State University has started accepting students for their organic farming degree program. This is a first in the USA, sure two other universities offer courses in organic farming, Colorado State and Michigan State, but offering a degree is new.

“WSU has high hopes for its new organic-agriculture major, both to attract new students and meet a growing demand for experts in organic farming. In the new Organic Agriculture Systems major, students will study subjects like weed science and entomology, work on the organic farm and can specialize further in areas such as organic farm economics.

The major, announced last month, drew a handful of students immediately; a university study predicts the program eventually will have about 40 people enrolled at any one time.”

Twofer of Machine/Brain Interfaces

A man named Matt Nagle controls a computer cursor by ‘thinking’ about it much like you would ‘think’ about moving your arm, despite being totally paralyzed. A brain implant the size of a pill with 96 electrodes allows the man to control the computer or a robotic arm through a system developed by the company Cyberkinetics.

The ever quickening pace of technology is leading to more and more good news! The first bit is a great story from New Scientist.

The second bit of good neuroscience news comes from Wired magazine, and is all about a wild new DARPA project called the “cortically coupled computer vision system” or C3 Vision. The system uses an electrode cap to pick up the ‘aha!’ signal that your brain generates when it sees something interesting. As images flicker past the user, the ones that generate the ‘aha!’ signal are saved for later inspection by the user.

There are many commercial applications in military and law enforcement/security sectors, but one could imagine all sorts of other novel uses for the technology such as culling good designs from bad ones.

Readers of TAG will remember the story last month about Japan’s bionic hand