The Gary Null Show - 08.25.22

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2. Mark Steyn questions why young healthy people are dying across the UK

 

Tea, flavonoid intake associated with lower fracture risk
University of Western Australia, August 14 2022

An article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition adds more evidence to a protective effect for tea drinking against the development of osteoporotic fractures in women.

The study included 1,188 women over the age of 75 years enrolled in the Calcium Intake Fracture Outcome Study, which evaluated the effect of calcium supplementation in the prevention of osteoporosis. Tea intake was assessed at the beginning of the study and at two and five years. The subjects were followed for ten years, during which 288 women developed an osteoporotic fracture, including 212 major fractures and 129 hip fractures.

Among women whose intake of tea was three cups or higher per day, there was a 30% decrease in the risk of any osteoporotic fracture in comparison with those whose intake was a cup or less per week. Subjects whose flavonoid intake from tea and foods was among the highest one-third of subjects had risks of osteoporotic fracture, major osteoporotic fracture and hip fracture that were 35%, 34% and 42% lower than those whose intake was among the lowest third. When individual flavonoids were analyzed, higher consumption of flavonols, flavan-3-ols and flavones was significantly associated with a protective effect against osteoporotic fracture risk.

“The current study found that flavonoid intake was associated with a reduced risk of hip, major, and all osteoporotic fractures in elderly women,” write authors Gael Myers and colleagues. “The major flavonoids found in tea, flavan-3-ols, and flavonols were also associated with a reduced fracture risk, providing evidence for the role of tea flavonoids in promoting bone health.”

Skipping breakfast may increase chance of kids and teens developing psychosocial health problems
University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), August 23, 2022

Young people who eat healthy breakfasts at home have better psychosocial health, shows a recent study in Frontiers in Nutrition. While previous research has reported the important role of a nutritious breakfast, this is the first study to look at the reported effects of whether kids eat breakfast, as well as where and what they eat. These results provide valuable insights and recommendations for parents and their children.

“Our results suggest that it is not only important to eat breakfast, but it’s also important where young people eat breakfast and what they eat,” said first author Dr. José Francisco López-Gil of the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Cuenca, Spain. “Skipping breakfast or eating breakfast away from home is associated with increased likelihood of psychosocial behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Similarly, consumption of certain foods/drinks are associated with higher (eg, processed meat) or lower (eg, dairies, cereals) odds of psychosocial behavioral problems.”

Among the most important results, López-Gil and the team found that eating breakfast away from home was nearly as detrimental as skipping the meal entirely. The authors suggest that this may be because meals away from home are frequently less nutritious than those prepared at home.

The results also showed that coffee, milk, tea, chocolate, cocoa, yogurt, bread, toast, cereals, and pastries were all associated with lower chances of behavioral problems. Surprisingly, eggs, cheese, and ham were linked with higher risks of such issues.

Amla Tea in Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19
Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (Iran), August 14, 2022
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate whether the addition of Phyllanthus emblica (amla) tea to standard protocols affects lung function, symptomology, and length of hospital stay in a population of hospitalized patients with Covid-19
While amla tea did not reduce the severity of lung involvement nor significantly affect the reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results, it did lessen severity of symptomology and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Duration of hospital stay was significantly shorterin those taking amla versus placebo.
First-line therapy for all patients consisted of hydroxychloroquine tablets (200 mg) and lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) every 12 hours after meals for 7 to 14 days. Phyllanthus emblica (Linn), Euphorbiaceae, known as Indian gooseberry or amla or Emblica officinalis, 2 grams of powder in a sachet for 10 days was the intervention, and the placebo was starch, 2 grams of powder daily for 10 days. Both treatments were taken as 100 mL tea every 12 hours. Hospital nurses administered the treatments every 12 hours for 10 days, and the study team tracked the patients with daily phone calls.
Key Findings

Lymphocytes decreased significantly in the intervention group but increased significantly in the control group (P=0.001).
There was no significant difference in hemoglobin, polymorphonuclear (PMN) count, platelets, or erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) between the intervention versus placebo groups.
CRP was significantly less in the intervention group versus the control (P=0.004).
Fever decreased in both groups, with a significantly greater reduction in the intervention group (P<0.001).
Chills, sore throat, and weakness decreased significantly in both groups.
Cough severity was reduced in both but became significantly less than in the control group (P<0.001).
Myalgia decreased significantly in both groups, with a more significant reduction in the intervention group (P=0.005).
Hospital length of stay was significantly shorter in the intervention group (4.44 days) compared to the control group (7.18 days; P<0.001).
Phyllanthus emblica, known as Indian gooseberry for its fruit, or amla, is famous in Buddhism as the small tree under which the 21st Buddha found enlightenment. The fruit is eaten raw or cooked; the inner bark is used in Sumatra, Indonesia, as an astringent or bitter in fish dishes; and the dried fruit is used in Ayurvedic medicine.1 The fruit contains ascorbic acid, ellagitannins (emblicanin A and B, punigluconin, pedunculagin), punicafolin, phyllanemblinin A, phyllemblin, polyphenols, flavonoids, kaempferol, ellagic acid, and gallic acid.

Traditional uses include immune modulation for degenerative processes, digestion, constipation, fever regulation, cough, asthma, heart conditions, vision, hair growth, and intellectual function.1 In mice with Dalton’s lymphoma ascites, P emblica enhanced natural killer cell activity, antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, and life span by 35%.1 In mice, P emblica prevented bacterial colonization by Klebsiella pneumoniae when given for 30 days rather than 15 days, decreased malondialdehyde, increased phagocytic activity, and increased nitrate levels in bronchioalveolar lavage fluids.

P emblica is effective against bacteria, especially gram-positive; viruses; and some fungi.3 It can inhibit herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2 due to phenolic content, and coxsackie virus due to phyllaemblicin B from the roots.3 In patients with end-stage renal disease with uremia, it reduced markers of oxidative stress.

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and Anti-Inflammatories Boswellia & Curcumin
University of Bahrain and University of Pavia (Italy), August 19, 2022
Randomized controlled trial to determine if supplemental phytosomal Boswellia serrata and curcumin will improve bloating and other secondary symptoms related to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in IBS patients with suspected small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) who are already following a low-FODMAP (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols) diet
For 30 days those in the intervention group received 500 mg of a liposomal Boswellia and curcumin supplement while also following the low-FODMAP diet. The control group followed the low-FODMAP diet only, and no placebo pill was used.
For bloating and abdominal pain (, a key difference was seen in the Boswellia-curcumin phytosomal group as compared to the control.

Compared to the control group, there was a 40% decrease of the urinary indican levels compared to the control group

As far as global assessment of efficacy, 57.58% of subjects in the treatment group rated the treatment as very effective/as good as no symptoms compared to 0% in the control.

Further, 36.6% of treatment-arm subjects rated the treatment as effective/marked improvement in symptoms compared to 14.71% in the control group; and 6.1% rated the treatment moderately effective/slight improvement of complaints, compared to 35.29% of subjects in the control group.

Finally, 50% of subjects in the control grop, compared to 0% in the treatment group, rated the treatment ineffective.

In cell studies of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), terpenoids from Boswellia serrata were shown to preserve intestinal epithelial barrier from oxidative and inflammatory damage.6 Additionally, in previous in vitro and in vivo studies, Boswellia serrata extract demonstrated the ability to directly inhibit intestinal motility with the mechanism involving L-type Ca2+ channels, thus preventing experimental diarrhea in animal models without slowing the rate of transit.7 So, in addition to being anti-inflammatory, perhaps Boswellia also acts as an antispasmodic.

Curcumin has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties specifically by suppressing cytokine production (interferon-γ, interleukins, and TNF) and inhibiting the inducible nitric oxide synthase, as well as nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB).8 Curcumin has also been shown in Western-diet-fed mice to increase the gut-barrier protective enzyme intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP). Interestingly, IAP regulates bicarbonate secretion, dephosphorylates lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and regulates gut microbes, and it has been proposed as a target for regulating intestinal barrier integrity.

‘Tickling’ your ear could be good for your heart

University of Leeds, August 19, 2022

Stimulating nerves in your ear could improve the health of your heart, researchers have discovered. A team at the University of Leeds used a standard TENS machine like those designed to relieve labour pains to apply electrical pulses to the tragus, the small raised flap at the front of the ear immediately in front of the ear canal. The stimulation changed the influence of the nervous system on the heart by reducing the nervous signals that can drive failing hearts too hard.

Professor Jim Deuchars, Professor of Systems Neuroscience in the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, said: “You feel a bit of a tickling sensation in your ear when the TENS machine is on, but it is painless.

The researchers applied electrodes to the ears of 34 healthy people and switched on the TENS (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machines for 15-minute sessions. They monitored the variability of subjects’ heartbeats and the activity of the part of the nervous system that drives the heart. Monitoring continued for 15 minutes after the TENS machine was switched off.

Lead researcher Dr Jennifer Clancy, of the University of Leeds’ School of Biomedical Sciences, said: “The first positive effect we observed was increased variability in subjects’ heartbeats. A healthy heart does not beat like a metronome. It is continually interacting with its environment — getting a little bit faster or a bit slower depending on the demands on it. An unhealthy heart is more like a machine constantly banging out the same beat. We found that when you stimulate this nerve you get about a 20% increase in heart rate variability.”

The second positive effect was in suppressing the sympathetic nervous system, which drives heart activity using adrenaline.

Dr Clancy said: “We measured the nerve activity directly and found that it reduced by about 50% when we stimulated the ear. This is important because if you have heart disease or heart failure, you tend to have increased sympathetic activity. This drives your heart to work hard, constricts your arteries and causes damage. A lot of treatments for heart failure try to stop that sympathetic activity — beta-blockers, for instance, block the action of the hormones that implement these signals. Using the TENS, we saw a reduction of the nervous activity itself.”

Sleepless and selfish: Lack of sleep makes us less generous
University of California – Berkeley, August 23, 2022

Humans help each other—it’s one of the foundations of civilized society. But a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals that a lack of sleep blunts this fundamental human attribute, with real-world consequences.

Lack of sleep is known to be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, hypertension and overall mortality. However, these new discoveries show that a lack of sleep also impairs our basic social conscience, making us withdraw our desire and willingness to help other people.

In one portion of the new study, the scientists showed that charitable giving in the week after the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, when residents of most states “spring forward” and lose one hour of their day, dropped by 10%—a decrease not seen in states that do not change their clocks or when states return to standard time in the fall.

The study, led by UC Berkeley research scientist Eti Ben Simon and Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, adds to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that inadequate sleep not only harms the mental and physical well-being of an individual, but also compromises the bonds between individuals—and even the altruistic sentiment of an entire nation.

“Over the past 20 years, we have discovered a very intimate link between our sleep health and our mental health. Indeed, we’ve not been able to discover a single major psychiatric condition in which sleep is normal,” Walker said. “But this new work demonstrates that a lack of sleep not only damages the health of an individual, but degrades social interactions between individuals and, furthermore, degrades the very fabric of human society itself. How we operate as a social species—and we are a social species—seems profoundly dependent on how much sleep we are getting.”

The new report describes three separate studies that assessed the impact of sleep loss on people’s willingness to help others.

In the first study, the scientists found that areas of the brain that form the theory of mind network, which is engaged when people empathize with others or try to understand other people’s wants and needs, were less active after a sleepless night.

In a second study, they measured the quality of their sleep—how long they slept, how many times they woke up—and then assessed their desire to help others, such as holding an elevator door open for someone else, volunteering or helping an injured stranger on the street. “Here, we found that a decrease in the quality of someone’s sleep from one night to the next predicted a significant decrease in the desire to help other people from one subsequent day to the next,” Ben Simon said.

The third part of the study involved mining a database of 3 million charitable donations in the United States between 2001 and 2016. Did the number of donations change after the transition to Daylight Saving Time and the potential loss of an hour of sleep? They found a 10% drop in donations. This same dent in compassionate gift-giving was not seen in regions of the country that did not change their clocks.