Alcohol and the development of adolescent brain

Binge drinking, defined as more than five drinks on one occasion, has become a common and more extreme pattern of drinking among young Australians.
Recognising that adolescence is a critical period for brain development, we are conducting research into how excessive drinking affects the teenage brain. This research will be crucial to informing our alcohol licensing laws and public health advice.

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About our research 

In adolescence, the brain undergoes active rewiring of circuitry that is necessary for successful development of ‘adult’ adaptive patterns of behaviour and cognitive functioning, with particular focus on the frontal lobe and its connections. Prof Lindy Rae is examining this connectivity in the brains of binge drinkers and comparing these ‘tracts’ to those from control (abstaining) participants. We are also studying the size of brain regions known to be affected by alcohol, such as the hippocampus, to see whether brain structure is altered by binge drinking.
We are using questionnaires, cognitive testing and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look for changes in structure and connectivity as well as chemical differences in the brain.
Alcohol is thought to induce a state where the glutamate system – the major excitatory system in the brain – becomes unbalanced. We have found significant elevations in frontal lobe glutamate in boys who binge drink. Binge drinkers showed impaired neuro-cognitive function, with significantly slower responses and greater errors on the tests of inhibition and poorer emotional face recognition compared to non drinkers. These changes were positively correlated with binge drinking episodes and alcohol consumption.

We already know this but it's a lifesaver--read it again

Adding sugar to the diet equals not-so-sweet results in mouse study

Tuesday, August 20, 2013.

Sugar.

It's in everything from catsup to cornflakes. Americans have been stirring it into their coffee or gulping it down in oversized sodas for decades. We know it can cause cavities and lead to weight gain, but it can't be that bad . . . or can it?

In an article published on August 13, 2013 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Utah reveal that a diet providing 25% of its calories from added sugar-- an amount equivalent in humans to three cans of soda per day--doubled the rate of death of female mice and impaired territoriality and reproduction in males.

University of Utah biology professor Wayne K. Potts and his associates fed mice a nutritious control diet or the same diet with 25% of its calories in the form of a mixture of half glucose and half fructose (which is similar to the composition of table sugar) for 26 weeks. Animals caged separately according to gender were given the diets prior to being housed together for 32 weeks in large pens that allowed them to more easily establish territories and compete for mates. Since mice often live in human habitations they "happen to be an excellent mammal to model human dietary issues because they've been living on the same diet as we have ever since the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago," Dr Potts noted.

The researchers observed that females given the higher sugar diet died at a rate that was twice that of the control animals and had a lower reproductive rate by the end of the study. Male mice on the sugary diet controlled 26% less territories and produced 25% fewer offspring. The adverse effects observed in the animals given the sugar-enhanced diet were of the magnitude as that which occurs among the offspring of inbreeding.

The National Research Council recommends that no more than 25 percent of calories in the human diet should be from added sugar. "They don't count what's naturally in an apple, banana, potato or other nonprocessed food," Dr Potts explained. "The dose we selected is consumed by 13 percent to 25 percent of Americans."

"These findings represent the lowest level of sugar consumption shown to adversely affect mammalian health," the authors write. "Clinical defects of fructose/glucose-fed mice were decreased glucose clearance and increased fasting cholesterol."

"This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels," Dr Potts stated. "I have reduced refined sugar intake and encouraged my family to do the same."

Hypnosis Works! ...and it could be free!

Michael Grassel is now a certified Service Provider for most Private Health Funds in Australia. 
This is a fantastic development for clients, as they only end up paying their gap, if anything. Some programs will be able to be completed with no costs to the client!   Tell your friends and neighbours that it's easy to quit smoking, lose weight, ban anxiety, quit biting fingernails, and get over that nervous tic!

Relativity

		The earth is	24901	miles in circumference.
			One complete spin per 24-hour day
			so, people standing still, on the equator
			are traveling at a rate of
			1038	miles  per hour.
			If they were facing east they could put their arms out
			like in the Titanic movie and feel the wind in their face
		The earth is	90	million miles from the sun
			Pi R squared to calculate circumference of circle or orbit
		makes	25434	million miles in the orbit
		divided by	365.25	days in a complete orbit /year
		makes	70	million miles a day  OR
		earth traveling at a rate of	2.90	million miles an hour
So here we are, traveling almost 3 million miles an hour, spinning through space
Standing on a planet where we're spinning a thousand miles an hour
and, as exciting as that can be, most humans... right... now... are... watching TV.