Posts Tagged ‘Toronto’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Toronto, Feb 6 (IANS) Most athletes would swear by the pain-relieving, muscle recovery-promoting benefits of massaging, which has now been validated by scientific evidence.
On the cellular level, massage reduces inflammation and promotes the growth of new mitochondria (cellular powerhouse) in skeletal muscle, says a new study.
Inflammation is a localized physical condition in which part of the body becomes reddened, swollen, hot, and often painful, especially as a reaction to injury, an immune response to protect the body from infection, the journal Science Translational Medicine reported.
Mark Tarnopolsky from McMaster’s University, who led the study, said: “The potential benefits of massage could be useful to a broad spectrum of individuals including the elderly, those suffering from musculoskeletal injuries and patients with chronic inflammatory disease.”
McMaster’s Buck Institute faculty member Simon Melov, who conducted the genetic analysis of the samples, said pain reduction linked with massage may involve the same mechanism as those targeted by conventional anti-inflammatory drugs.
The study relied on the genetic analysis of muscle biopsies taken from the quadriceps of young males after they had exercised to exhaustion on a stationary bicycle, said a university statement.
One of their legs was randomly chosen to be massaged. Biopsies were taken from both legs prior to the exercise, immediately after 10 minutes of massage treatment and after a 2.5 hour period of recovery.
About 18 million individuals undergo massage therapy annually in the US, making it the fifth most widely used form of complementary and alternative medicine.
Tags: Canada, Toronto
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Written by admin on 03 February 2012
Toronto, Feb 3 (IANS) Heart failure could also be linked to thinning of bones (osteoporosis), an offshoot of old age.
“Our study demonstrates for the first time that heart failure and thinning of bones go hand in hand,” said Sumit Majumdar, University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who led the study.
“Understanding the mechanism between heart failure and osteoporosis might lead to new treatments for both conditions,” added Majumdar, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism reports.
“Part of screening for osteoporosis should involve looking at chest X-rays of patients with heart failure,” he said, according to a university statement.
“Heart failure patients get a lot of X-rays and they often incidentally show many fractures of the spine that would automatically provide an indication of severe osteoporosis and need for treatment.”
Researchers conducted a population cohort study comprising 45,509 adults undergoing bone mineral density testing for the first time and followed them for up to 10 years. Of them, 1,841 had recent onset of heart failure.
After adjusting for traditional osteoporosis risk factors, researchers found that heart failure was associated with a 30 percent increase in major fractures.
Tags: Canada, Toronto
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Written by admin on 31 January 2012
Toronto, Jan 31 (IANS) Do white and red wine, the latter touted for its many health benefits, really stave off heart disease? The jury is still out on that one.
“It’s complicated,” says Juergen Rehm, director of social and epidemiological research at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), who conducted the meta-analysis into the link between alcohol consumption and heart disease.
“While a cardioprotective association between alcohol use and ischaemic heart disease exists, it cannot be assumed for all drinkers, even at low levels of intake,” says Rehm, the journal Addiction reports.
Ischaemic heart disease (reduced blood supply to heart) is a common cause of illness and death in the Western world, according to a CAMH statement.
Symptoms include angina, heart pain, and heart failure. Based on 44 studies, the analyses used 38,627 ischaemic heart disease events (including deaths) among 957,684 people.
“We see substantial variation across studies, in particular for an average consumption of one to two drinks a day,” says Rehm. The protective association may vary by gender, drinking patterns, and the specific health effects of interest.
Even at low levels, alcohol intake can have a detrimental effect on many other disease outcomes, including on several cancers.
“Even one drink a day increases risk of breast cancer, for example,” says Rehm. “However, with as little as one drink a day, the net effect on mortality is still beneficial. After this, the net risk increases with every drink.”
“If someone binge drinks even once a month, any health benefits from light to moderate drinking disappear.”
Binge drinking is defined more than four drinks on one occasion for women, and more than five for men.
“Findings from this study support current low-risk drinking guidelines, if these recognize lower drinking limits for women.”
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Written by admin on 30 January 2012
Toronto, Jan 30 (IANS) Attentiveness in kindergarten (KG) is the key to developing “work-oriented” skills in school children later as adults.
“Children who are more likely to work autonomously and harmoniously with fellow classmates, with good self-control and confidence, are more likely to continue such productive behaviours into the adult workplace,” said Linda Pagani, professor and researchers at the University of Montreal, who led the study.
The study is based on the observations by elementary school teachers of attention skills in over 1,000 KG students, the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology reports.
All the children attended KG in the poorest neighbourhoods of Montreal, and their teachers used a carefully constructed observational scale to score them on their attentiveness skills, according to a Montreal statement.
Over time, the researchers identified the evolution of three groups of children: those with high, medium, and low classroom engagement. Researchers found that boys, aggressive children, and children with lower cognitive skills in kindergarten were much more likely to belong to the low trajectory.
“There are important life risks associated with attention deficits in childhood, which include high-school dropout, unemployment, and problematic substance abuse,” said Pagani.
“Universal approaches to bolstering attention skills in kindergarten might translate into stable and productive pathways toward learning,” added Pagani.
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Written by admin on 29 January 2012
Toronto, Jan 29 (IANS) Having supportive friends can mitigate the effects of bad experiences and confer psychological benefits.
“Having a best friend present during an unpleasant event has an immediate impact on a child’s body and mind,” says study co-author William M. Bukowski, psychology professor and director of the Concordia University Centre for Research in Human Development.
“If a child is alone when he or she gets in trouble with a teacher or has an argument with a classmate, we see a measurable increase in cortisol levels (hormone produced by the adrenal gland in response to stress) and decrease in feelings of self-worth,” says Bukowski.
“Excessive secretion of cortisol can lead to significant physiological changes, including immune suppression and decreased bone formation. Increased stress can really slow down a child’s development,” adds Bukowski, the journal Developmental Psychology reports.
A total of 55 boys and 48 girls from grades five and six in local Montreal schools took part in the study. They kept journals on their feelings and experiences over the course of four days and submitted to regular saliva tests that monitored cortisol levels, according to a Concordia statement.
This study is the first to definitively demonstrate that the presence of a friend results in an immediate benefit for the child undergoing a negative experience.
These results have far-reaching implications. “Our physiological and psychological reactions to negative experiences as children impacts us later in life,” explains Bukowski.
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Written by admin on 29 January 2012
Toronto, Jan 29 (IANS) It is quite possible that depression in adulthood could spring from a parent’s level of education, a Canadian study suggests.
Amelie Quesnel-Vallee from McGill University and co-author Miles Taylor, assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University, found that higher levels of parental education meant fewer mental health issues for their adult children.
“However, we also found much of that association may be due to the fact that parents with more education tend to have children with more education and better paying jobs themselves,” explained Quesnel-Vallee, the Journal Social Science & Medicine reported.
“What this means is that the whole process of climbing up the social ladder that is rooted in a parent’s education is a crucial pathway for the mental health of adult children,” said Quesnel-Vallee, who with Taylor based their study on 29 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79).
These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing educational opportunities for all, regardless of social background, may help break the intergenerational cycle of low socio-economic status and poor mental health (depression), according to a university statement.
“Children don’t get to choose where they come from. I think we have a responsibility to address health inequalities borne out of the conditions of early childhood,” added Quesnel-Vallee.
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