December 2021

Hello, and welcome to this month's article! Holiday Greetings! It’s about time to wind down another year and gear up for the coming one. Folks who have a little down time during the holidays can mentally prepare for their new year and begin to make some plans.

To help inspire you to focus on your health plans, this month’s issue has excerpts from three articles from studyfinds.org. (If you’ve never visited this website, you’ll be surprised with the variety of interesting studies that are reported here.)

The lead article unveils the results of a recent study that verify how massage can help muscles heal faster; and that’s some good news! The other studies discussed are not massage related, but are good reminders that you can influence your health through your life choices.

Keep in mind that regular massage can support most areas of your health, like helping to normalize blood pressure and to improve overall body function.

If you have any questions on how massage can help you, please be sure to ask.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays, staying in touch with friends, family, and loved ones. See you soon!

Massages can help muscles heal faster after injury

Massages don’t just relax your body, they make your muscles heal faster and stronger, a new study reveals. People have been treating sore and injured muscles with this technique for more than 3,000 years. Today, many athletes swear by the practice to help rehabilitate their bodies after intense exercise. In experiments with mice, researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences found that mechanotherapy* not only helps soothe muscles, it actually improves the healing process after severe injuries.

Using a custom-designed robotic system, the research team delivered a consistent force that mimicked massage strokes into the legs of mice. They found that the robotic system, which delivered the mechanical loading to the bones, rapidly cleared the immune cells, called neutrophils, out of the severely injured muscle tissues. This process also removed the inflammatory proteins, called cytokines, released by the neutrophils from the muscles, which enhanced muscle fiber regeneration — a process that is critical to healing.

“Lots of people have been trying to study the beneficial effects of massage and other mechanotherapies on the body, but up to this point it hadn’t been done in a systematic, reproducible way. Our work shows a very clear connection between mechanical stimulation and immune function. This has promise for regenerating a wide variety of tissues including bone, tendon, hair, and skin, and can also be used in patients with diseases that prevent the use of drug-based interventions,” explains Dr. Bo Ri Seo, first author of the study, in a university release. ...

The findings appear in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Source: studyfinds.org

* Mechanotherapy: the treatment of disease by manual, physical, or mechanical means.

Your brain stays ‘younger’ than your actual age if you’ve got healthy blood pressure
by John Anderer

There are plenty of reasons to prioritize healthy blood pressure levels, but we can now add robust brain health to the list. Researchers from the Australian National University report maintaining optimal blood pressure helps the brain stay at least six months younger than a person’s actual age. Meanwhile, people with high blood pressure, even if it still falls within the normal recommended range, are actually at a higher risk of their brains aging at a rapid rate.

Study authors say participants with high blood pressure had older, less healthy brains and a much higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia. Even those with only slightly elevated blood pressure still showed signs of accelerated brain aging and increased disease risk. ...

These findings are especially concerning in light of another recent research project that concluded the number of people over the age of 30 with high blood pressure on a global scale has doubled.

“It’s important we introduce lifestyle and diet changes early on in life to prevent our blood pressure from rising too much, rather than waiting for it to become a problem,” explains cardiologist and study co-author Professor W. Abhayaratna. “Compared to a person with a high blood pressure of 135/85, someone with an optimal reading of 110/70 was found to have a brain age that appears more than six months younger by the time they reach middle age.”

The study appears in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Source: studyfinds.org

Eating more nuts and seeds linked to a longer life
by Chris Melore

Fatty acids coming from nuts, seeds, and plant oils may be the key to living a longer and healthier life, a new study reveals. An international team finds that a higher intake of alpha linolenic acid (ALA) lowers the risk of death from all causes.

ALA is a type of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid in soybean, nuts, canola oils, and flaxseed. Until now, the connection between ALA and longevity has been unclear. The new report finds a noticeable benefit of eating more nuts and seeds in terms of cardiovascular disease risk and coronary heart disease risk.

Researchers looked at 41 studies published between 1991 and 2021 which examined the health benefits of alpha linolenic acid. These reports analyzed ALA levels in the patients’ blood and examined their risk of death from natural causes, heart disease, and cancer.

These studies included around 120,000 adults between 18 and 98 years-old and monitored their health for two to 32 years. Researchers also accounted for influential factors such as age, weight, smoking habits, alcohol use, and physical activity. The results show that high consumption of ALA has a connection to a 10-percent lower risk of death from all causes. Cardiovascular disease risk dropped by eight percent and coronary heart disease risk dropped by 11 percent. ...

Previous studies have found that consuming more omega-3 may improve heart health, reduce cancer risk, and even stabilize memory ability in Alzheimer’s patients. Other reports have found that omega-3 may also benefit children dealing with asthma.

The findings appear in The BMJ.

Source: Studyfinds.org

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
— Jean de La Fontaine

The content of this article is not designed to replace professional medical advice. If you’re ill, consult a physician.
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