Researchers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences
reduced heart failure risk in two weeks.
One of the great medical research vehicles is the Framingham
Heart Study. Originally created in 1948 to study cardiovascular disease,
researchers from Boston University assembled a group of volunteers who were
monitored in detail and examined every two years. Researchers have used data from the
Framingham Heart Study to create a cardiovascular risk evaluation tool called
the Framingham Risk Score (FRS). The FRS is used to assess someone’s chance of
developing cardiovascular disease in the next ten years. Risk groups are: low-less
than a 10 percent risk; intermediate- 10-20 percent risk; and high-over 20%.
Recently, a research team at the All India Institute of Medical
Sciences in New Delhi analyzed the effectiveness of a yoga and meditation-based
lifestyle to determine if it would result in a lower FRS. Yadav Rashni, PhD and
the research team recruited 386 healthy participants for the study. The
participants engaged in a program that did yoga poses, prayanama breathing
techniques, meditation, stress
management and relaxation along with individualized coaching on nutrition and
other health topics. After ten sessions over a two-week period, participants
had significant improvement in their FRS. That is, they had measurably reduced
their risk of cardiovascular disease in the next decade in a mere two weeks! Link to the
underlying research here.
In Case You Missed It
Last week we reported a study that light levels in your home
and place of work can affect your brain. Lily Yan, MD, PhD and a team from
Michigan State performed experiments to evaluate the impact of lower light
levels on the brain. Key finding: “When the animals were housed in dim light
during the day, mimicking the cloudy days or typical indoor lighting,
the animals had a ~30% reduction in the dendritic spines, which make the
connection between the brain cells, within the hippocampus, a brain region
critical for learning and memory.”
(Emphasis mine). Importantly, long dendritic
spines are linked to resilience against Alzheimer’s Disease. Link to the study here.
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