Health Update: potential liver damage caused by popular antifungal medication
Nizoral a popular drug used to treat fungal and yeast infections has been banned in Europe and Israel due to dangerous side effects. (See attached article for details). There are many natural options available for treating fungal infections with herbs, homeopathy, and essential oils. Email us at [email protected] with any questions.
[button link=”http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Sale-and-use-of-Nizoral-against-fungal-infections-barred-331016″ type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] Click here to read full articles [/button]Weighed down by guilt: Research shows it’s more than a metaphor
Ever feel the weight of guilt?
Lots of people say they do. They’re “carrying guilt” or “weighed down by guilt.” Are these just expressions, or is there something more to these metaphors?
Princeton researcher Martin Day and Ramona Bobocel, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, recently published the results of a series of studies that begin to offer answers to that question.
In an article titled “The Weight of a Guilty Conscience: Subjective Body Weight as an Embodiment of Guilt” in the journal PLOS ONE, Day and Bobocel find evidence that the emotional experience of guilt can be grounded in subjective bodily sensation.
Day, a postdoctoral research associate at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Bobocel discuss their findings and how they can contribute to the broader understanding of how humans perceive guilt:
“Embodied cognition is an emerging field in psychology that examines how our thoughts and emotions interact with our bodies to guide behavior. Guilt is important because it plays a role in regulating our moral behavior. It can help us correct our mistakes and prevent future wrongdoing. Of course, people know that guilt feels unpleasant and is sometimes associated with feelings of tension and regret. However, we know less about the broad nature of guilt — such as how it interacts with the body and our beliefs about the body.
“People often say guilt is like a ‘weight on one’s conscience,’ and we examined whether guilt is actually embodied as a sensation of weight. In a series of studies we asked students and members of the public to recall a time that they did something unethical. People recalled a variety of wrongdoings, such as lying, stealing or cheating. Afterward, in a separate task, we asked them to rate their subjective feeling of their own body weight as compared to their average. That is, did they feel less weight than usual, about the same weight, or more weight? We compared these responses to participants in control conditions who recalled an ethical memory, a memory of someone else’s unethical actions or who were not asked to recall a memory.
“From an embodied cognition framework, we predicted that recalling personal unethical acts would imbue feelings of guilt that would be embodied as greater sensations of weight.
“Is this theoretical perspective correct? Did people actually report a sensation of more weight? We found that recalling personal unethical acts led participants to report increased subjective body weight as compared to recalling ethical acts, unethical acts of others or no recall. We also found that this increased sense of weight was related to participants’ heightened feelings of guilt, and not other negative emotions, such as sadness or disgust. Although people sometimes associate importance with ‘heaviness,’ we found no evidence that importance could explain this finding. For example, ethical deeds were rated just as important as unethical actions, but only unethical, guilt-inducing memories led to increased reports of weight.
“In a final study we also explored a perceptual consequence of the weight of guilt. Using the same materials, we tested whether recall of unethical memories would affect perceived effort to complete a variety of helping behaviors as compared to a control condition. Importantly, some of these behaviors involved physical effort, such as carrying groceries upstairs for someone, whereas other behaviors did not, such as giving someone spare change. We found no differences between conditions for the perceived effort of the nonphysical actions. However, those who recalled unethical memories, which can be accompanied by sensations of weight, perceived the physical behaviors to involve even greater effort to complete compared to ratings provided by those in a control condition. This research demonstrates our initial investigation into the consequences of this phenomenon.
“Overall, it was exciting to find these patterns of results, which are consistent with an embodied theory of emotion. However, this is still relatively new research, and we are still exploring how to more fully characterize the experience of guilt. There are also very recent and complementary findings on this topic from independent research labs. For example, simulating the experience of the weight of guilt, such as with a heavy backpack, seems to be tied to regulating moral behavior. Such results are encouraging, and hopefully this emerging line of research will lead us to a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of guilt.”
Article by Michael Hotchkiss, Office of Communication at Princeton University
Stress Linked To Diabetes
We are all aware of the epidemic in America of type two diabetes as a result of poor diet and lack of exercise. An article this week in JPost.coms showed how acute stress as well as chronic long-term stress in certain individuals leads to an increase in blood sugar levels. This is not a surprise to those of us in the health community who do a lot of work on patients with adrenal fatigue and adrenal exhaustion and understand how stress affects the adrenal gland brain and nervous system.
Supplements To Keep Your Body In Balance
We’re excited to distribute Thorne Researches new branched-chain amino acid supplement called DaxibeQOL. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein which is required by every cell in the body. The body does not store protein as it does fats and carbohydrates. Protein digestion requires a lot of energy and can be impaired due to gut dysfunction as we approach middle and old-age. This supplement increases mitochondrial activity as well as increasing the number of mitochondria per cell. This results in increased energy, stamina, strength and balance, and lean muscle mass. Studies have shown type two diabetics can also be helped due to improved glucose handling resulting in lower hemoglobin A-1 C blood levels. The supplement can also help those on chemo or radiation therapy to maintain strength and muscle mass. The difference between Thornes amino acids versus similar products on the market is the ratio of branched-chain amino acids to the other amino acids in the formula. The ratios of amino acids in this formula have been studied for over 20 years and Thorne has the exclusive rights to distribute this product in United States. For more information on this product, you may follow the link bellow to view a video that goes into more detail about this product.
Acupuncture Supports Immune System In Cancer Patients
Acupuncture Stimulates Natural Killer Cells that Attack Cancer
Vol 15 Issue 54
A unique new study by researchers at the Department of Medicine, University of California, strongly suggests that Acupuncture may stimulate the production of “natural killer” cells, called NK cells, that attack and kill cancer cells.
The study approach is unique because it examined earlier studies, and then applied current biological science to explain the findings.
First, the study surveyed an enormous body of earlier research that has already shown how Acupuncture is helpful in many different aspects of cancer treatment.
Research has demonstrated that Acupuncture reduces the incidence of chemotherapy-induced acute vomiting, for example. Other findings show acupuncture can manage some cancer-related pain. Promising evidence suggests that acupuncture relieves fatigue in cancer patients and survivors. Evidence is also accumulating that acupuncture alleviates cancer-related neurological issues, breathlessness, hot flashes and “dry mouth”.
“In sum,” say the researchers, “there are substantial empirical grounds to assume that clinicians could use acupuncture to help patients better tolerate conventional cancer therapies by reducing associated side-effects. Further, the evidence is very strong that acupuncture is an extremely safe therapy. In short, the research implies that acupuncture is a helpful, versatile and safe treatment modality for patients with cancer.”
Despite all these apparent benefits, the authors state, the conventional oncology community “has shown itself reluctant to integrate acupuncture and other complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities into their treatment plans for patients with cancer.”
One reason has been a concern that symptomatic relief is due to “spontaneous remission” rather than the CAM intervention. Another is that the scientific community “lacks both the scientific evidence and biomedical understanding” to consider that CAM procedures would work.
However, this new study applied accepted cellular immunology and molecular biological theory to interpret and synthesize the evidence from earlier animal and human studies and the findings clearly suggest that Acupuncture can help.
Results indicate that clinicians should use acupuncture to promote NK cell activity to enhance anticancer immune function.
SOURCE: National Center for Biotechnical Information, from Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Volume 2011. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3135660/?tool=pubmed