Why eating dark meat good for heart?

What is Dark Meat -

Without getting too scientific, myoglobin is the hemoprotein (an oxygen-carrying protein) responsible for giving dark meat its reddish colour. The more myoglobin, the darker the meat and the richer the nutrients. Myoglobin provides muscles with the oxygen they need during exercise or movement. Since chickens are flightless birds, they use their legs and thighs to get around, making

 them darker than the breast or wings. As good as this sounds, dark meat is richer in nutrients than white meat and contains more iron and zinc. Zinc is a trace mineral that is found in every cell of your body and is necessary for growth and reproduction. It also supports immunity, wound healing and helps maintain your sense of taste and smell. The best sources of zinc are foods of animal origin such as poultry, meat, liver and seafood. Dark meat is also rich in vitamins A, K, B6, B12, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid and minerals like selenium and phosphorus.

Source-

Cows and pigs are both sources of dark meat, though pig is often called "the other white meat." Pigs' muscles do contain myoglobin, but the concentration is not as heavy as it is in beef. Chickens have a mixture of both dark and white meat, and fish is mainly white meat.

A nutrient found in the dark meat of poultry may provide protection against coronary heart disease (CHD) in women with high cholesterol, according to a study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center. The study, published online in the European Journal of Nutrition, evaluated the effects of taurine, a naturally-occurring nutrient found in the dark meat of turkey and chicken, as well as in some fish and shellfish, on CHD. It revealed that higher taurine intake was associated with significantly lower CHD risk among women with high total cholesterol levels. The same association was not seen in women with low cholesterol levels, however.

There is very little information available about taurine, said principal investigator Yu Chen, PhD, MPH, associate professor of epidemiology at NYU School of Medicine, part of NYU Langone Medical Center. While there have been some animal studies that indicate taurine may be beneficial to cardiovascular disease, this is the first published prospective study to look at serum taurine and CHD in humans, she explained. “Our findings were very interesting. Taurine, at least in its natural form, does seem to have a significant protective effect in women with high cholesterol.”

Coronary heart disease is the leading killer of American men and women, causing one in five deaths. Also known as coronary artery disease, it is caused by the buildup of plaque in the arteries to the heart. Large prospective epidemiologic studies have provided evidence that nutritional factors are important modifiable risk factors for CHD.

Dr. Chen and colleagues conducted their study using data and samples from the NYU Women’s Health Study. The original study enrolled more than 14,000 women, 34 to 65 years of age, between 1985 and 1991 at a breast cancer screening center in New York City. Upon enrollment, a wide range of medical, personal and lifestyle information was recorded and the data and samples continue to be utilized for a variety of medical studies.

For the serum taurine study, funded by the American Heart Association, the researchers measured taurine levels in serum samples collected in 1985 – before disease occurrence – for 223 NYUWHS participants who developed or died from CHD during the study follow up period between 1986 and 2006. The researchers then compared those samples to the taurine levels in serum samples collected at the same time for 223 participants who had no history of cardiovascular disease.

The comparison revealed serum taurine was not protective of CHD overall. However, among women with high cholesterol, those with high levels of serum taurine were 60 percent less likely to develop or die from CHD in the study, compared to women with lower serum taurine levels. If future studies are able to replicate the findings, taurine supplementation or dietary recommendations may one day be considered for women with high cholesterol at risk for CHD.

“It is an interesting possibility,” she said. “If these findings are confirmed, one day we might be able to suggest that someone with high cholesterol eat more poultry, specifically dark meat.”

Dr. Chen explained that Caucasian women comprised more than 80 percent of the study population and, therefore, the results may not at this time be generalized to men or other races, but suggested that future studies should be conducted in these populations. In addition, she explained, it is unclear whether synthetic taurine as an additive in food and drink products will have the same benefit observed in this study, and health effects of these products should be investigated separately. “We studied taurine found in the blood that originated from natural sources,” Dr. Chen said. “The nutrient being added to energy drinks or supplements is man-made and is added in unstudied amounts. These products also often contain not only very high amounts of taurine, but a multitude of other ingredients as well – such as caffeine and ginseng – that may influence CHD risk.”

The researchers are currently using NYUWHS data to evaluate the effect of taurine on the occurrence of stroke in another study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

(Source- European Journal of Nutrition)

How eating fish is good for your brain and Meditation Helps Memory Loss

How Meditation Helps Memory Loss Patients

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit.

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine reports that researchers from the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital have discovered that adults with memory impairment and memory loss may benefit from mantra-based meditation, which has a positive effect on people's emotional responses to stress, fatigue and anxiety.

For their study, the researchers enrolled 15 older adults with memory problems that ranged from mild age-associated memory impairment to mild impairment, with Alzheimer's disease on a Kirtan Kriya (KK) mantra-based meditation course, that involved 12 minutes of meditation, per day, for a period of eight weeks, and a control group to listen to classical music for the same amount of time over 8 weeks. Preliminary findings revealed a substantial increase in cerebral blood flow in the patients' prefrontal, superior frontal, and superior parietal cortices, and also better cognitive function.

The findings demonstrated that participants in the meditation group showed some improvement in fatigue, tension, anger, confusion and depression, and whilst the researchers noted a substantial improvement in tension and fatigue, compared with the control group, they did not observe significant changes with regard to spirituality scores.  They examined the participants' brains and other regions of interest (ROI) by using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans at baseline and at 8-weeks. The location of the scans was based on regions that the researchers earlier found were affected during the meditation tasks, and that are involved in various cognitive and affective responses.

The results showed an important relationship between the change in CBF and the change of the patients' reported mood states. For instance, whilst regions like the amygdales, which impact


memory formation and storage linked to emotional events, as well as the caudate, which is thought to be strongly involved in learning and memory related to depression scores, areas like the prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal lobe, parietal region, and cingulate cortex were related with tension.

The fact that researchers observed substantial associations between improved scores for confusion, depression and change in verbal memory indicates that improvements of depression and confusion are linked to cognitive improvement.

(Source-The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine)

How eating fish is good for your brain

A new study by UCLA researchers shows that a diet lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, which are commonly found in fish, may cause your brain to age faster and lose some of its memory and





thinking capabilities. The research demonstrated that people with lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids have lower brain volumes — equivalent to approximately two years of structural brain aging. The 1,575 dementia-free study subjects (average age 67) underwent MRI brain scans and were given tests measuring mental function, body mass and omega-3 fatty acid levels in their red blood cells. Omega-3 fatty acids include the nutrients docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).



Researchers found that those whose DHA levels were in the bottom 25 percent had lower brain volumes than those with higher DHA levels. In addition, those whose levels of all omega-3 fatty acids were in the bottom 25 percent scored lower on tests of visual memory and executive function, including problem-solving, multi-tasking and abstract thinking.

IMPACT:

Higher fish intake has been associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality and stroke. And while some studies have shown an association between eating fatty fish and a lower risk of dementia, others have failed to confirm such a protective association. This study was focused on middle-aged to elderly subjects who were free of any clinical stroke and dementia.  

(Source-the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology)