A good night’s sleep is so important for maintaining overall health and well-being, but recent research suggests that it can also have a critical impact on your risk of developing dementia. A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has linked three indicators of sleep disturbance – sleep-initiation insomnia, sleep-maintenance insomnia, and the use of sleep medications – with the likelihood of developing dementia. People who experience sleep-in...

Recent research has discovered that Scutellaria barbata (SB120), a herb used in Chinese Medicine, may possess chemopreventive properties that can be used as adjuvant for cancer ttherapy. In a recent study, male mice were randomly divided into 4 groups and given oral feedings of 8, 16, or 32mg SB or sterilised water. The control group developed palpable tumours by 19 weeks, however the respective treatment groups showed delayed tumour development by 2, 4, or 7 weeks, and 22, 30, or 38% of th...

Burnout is a state of mental and physical exhaustion that can zap the joy out of your career, friendships, and family interactions. Continual exposure to stressful situations, like caring for an ill family member, working long hours, or witnessing upsetting news related to politics and school safety can lead to this stress condition. Burnout, however, isn’t always easy to spot. With that in mind, we’ve put together a guide to help you identify the signs of burnout, as well as way...

Withania Somnifera, also known as Ashwagandha, Winter Cherry and Indian Ginseng, is one of the “SUPER” Adaptogens coming to us from Ayurvedic Herbal Medicine with 8,000 years of recorded use1. It is what I call a “Super Adaptogen” because, along with a few other herbs like Korean Ginseng, Rhodiola and Siberian Ginseng, all have very powerful effects on virtually every system in the human body in addition to their adaptogenic effects and it sets them apart from the many...

Zonulin is a protein that modulates the permeability of tight junctions between cells of the wall of the digestive tract. It was discovered in 2000 by Alessio Fasano and his team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. As the mammalian analog of zonula occludens toxin, secreted by cholera pathogen Vibrio cholerae, zonulin has been implicated in the pathogenesis of celiac disease and diabetes mellitus type 1. Type 2 diabetic patients have shown increased zonulin. “The amazing...

Obesity promotes breast epithelium DNA damage in women carrying a germline mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30, is an established risk factor for breast cancer among women in the general population after menopause. Bhardwaj et al., (2023) show that DNA damage in normal breast epithelia of women carrying a BRCA mutation is positively correlated with BMI and with biomarkers of metabolic dysfunction. In addition, RNA sequencing showed obesity-ass...