In The Swim of Things

IN THE KNOW

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Get up-to-date with these latest research findings.

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There’s another reason to eat more fish. A study done by the University of Pittsburgh found that eating fish three to five times a week may protect you from developing Alzheimer’s.

The catch? The fish has to be cooked in a method that preserves Omega-3 fatty acids. This means that fish such as mackerel, trout, salmon, sardines and tuna should be baked or grilled.

Omega-3 fatty acid is a key nutrient that helps to increase blood flow to the brain, reduce inflammation and limit the spread of brain plaques which precede Alzheimer’s.

On the fast track If you can’t find the time to exercise, how about setting aside just 20 minutes a day for an intensive work out? Scientists at McMastersUniversity in Ontario, Canada, have developed a gentler form of high-intensity interval training (HITT) to encouraging results.

The modified routine involves one minute of strenuous exercise at about 90 per cent of a person’s maximum heart rate, followed by one minute of easy recovery. Repeated 10 times for a total of 20 minutes, results revealed “significant improvements” in the functioning of blood vessels and the heart, the creation of more cellular proteins for the production of energy and oxygen, and lowering the risk of diabetes by improving insulin sensitivity and blood sugar regulation.

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WELLNESS FOR ALL

HEAVY GOING Is your child’s school bag weighing him or her down? New research from Spain shows — perhaps unsurprisingly — that heavy backpacks might be the cause of back pain in children.

The study surveyed over 1,400 students aged between 12 and 17, and they found that those carrying the heaviest backpacks had a 50 per cent higher risk of back pain and a 40 per cent higher risk of chronic back ailments. So parents, take care that your kids wear backpacks that are well-designed, appropriately adjusted, and worn over both shoulders to balance out the weight.

HELP FROM KELP Eating kelp could help improve your hearing ability, doctors in South Korea say. A type of large seaweed that is popular in South Korean cuisine, kelp contains the substance fucoidan, which is used medicinally for a variety of medical purposes such as treating cancer.

According to doctors at Chung Ang University Medical Center and Severance Hospital, fucoidan in kelp promotes revival of damaged fibres in the ear that are essential for hearing.

Hearing disability is hard to cure, but the doctors believe that the discovery of the new use of fucoidan will, according to them, help “open [a] new era of auditory sense treatments”.

“HONEY, I FROZE THE TOYS” Don’t do a double take if you open your freezer and discover that your spouse has taken to freezing the children’s toys. He or she could have read that medical scientists from Taiwan’s Changhua Christian Hospital and the University of Otago in New Zealand have discovered that freezing toys will kill almost all house dust mites (HDM) — microscopic bugs associated with the development of asthma and other allergies. Freezing toys for at least 16 hours at -15°C or soaking them in a mixture of eucalyptus oil and detergent saw a 95 per-cent reduction of HDM, while tumbling them in a hot dryer for an hour reduced mites by 89 per cent.

Just remember to wash the toys in a cold wash to remove allergens after freezing them overnight.

Curry on!

A curry a day might not really keep the doctor away — but the turmeric in it might. A recent study carried out by researchers from Linköping University in Sweden tested the effects of curcumin (a chemical found in the bright yellow spice) on fruit flies. They found that genetically-engineered fruit flies with Alzheimer’s disease lived longer and were more active when they were fed curcumin! It’s too soon to tell if the effects can be replicated in humans but previous studies have also suggested that curcumin may help reduce the build-up of toxic proteins that occur in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

THE ILLS OF RICE The verdict is in: white rice is bad for you. A new study published in the British Medical Journal has found that the more white rice you eat, the more likely you are to develop Type 2 Diabetes. Scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital examined over 350,000 participants from Asia and the West. When they separately analysed the two Asian studies (conducted in China and Japan) and the two Western studies (conducted in the United States and Australia), they found that Asian subjects who ate four portions of rice a day had a 55 per cent greater risk of developing diabetes compared to Asian subjects who ate less rice. No such link between eating white rice and diabetes was found in the two Western populations where the majority of participants consumed less than five servings of rice a week.

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