Silvie+Maryl – Holistic Living, Plant-Based Diet, Recipes, Love & Relationship, Healthy LifestyleTips

Honey: Sweet news for those who need antibiotics – new research published in the FASEB Journal confirms the antimicrobial property of honey and explains for the first time how it kills bacteria. “We’ve known for millennia that honey can be good for what ails us, but we haven’t known how it works,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the journal. The study shows that bees make a protein that they add to the honey, called defensin-1, which could one day be used to treat burns and skin infections, as well as potentially help combat synthetic antibiotic-resistant infections. The protein is part of the honey bee immune system and is added by the bees to the honey in the process of making it.

Weight: Go metro – and lose weight, says a study. According to research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, construction of a light-rail system (LRT) resulted in increased physical activity (walking) and subsequent weight loss by people served by the LRT. The findings suggest that improving neighborhood environments by facilitating use of public transit systems can generate positive health impacts by encouraging greater numbers of users to walk to station stops and in that way help them maintain more physically active lives. Using surveys collecting data from before and after the Charlotte, North Carolina LRT was built, investigators found that using light rail for commuting was associated with reductions in body mass index by an average of 1.18 kg/m2 compared to non-LRT users. The study also estimated that LRT users were 81% less likely to become obese over time.

Organics: The benefits of organic produce go far beyond health – right back to the farm and the ecosystem. A team of researchers from Washington State University and the University of Georgia have found that organic farming increases biodiversity among beneficial, pest-killing predators and pathogens. In potato crops, this led to fewer insect pests and larger potato plants. “It’s always been a mystery how organic farmers get high yields without using synthetic insecticides,” says study co-author Bill Snyder, associate professor of entomology at WSU. “Our study suggests that biodiversity conservation may be a key to their success.” Ecosystems with more total species, and more beneficial species that are relatively evenly distributed, are thought to be healthiest. The study, published in the journal Nature, shows that organic farming practices lead to the production of many equally-common beneficial species, and that this is far more effective at killing pests than conventional pest-control practices like broad-acting insecticides.

Mercury: If you eat fish, salt-water varieties may be more toxic if mercury is involved, a study says. Even though freshwater concentrations of mercury are far greater than those found in seawater, it’s the saltwater fish like tuna, mackerel and shark that end up posing a more serious health threat to humans who eat them. The problem is in the salt. The potentially harmful version of mercury – known as methylmercury – latches onto dissolved organic matter in freshwater, while in seawater, it tends to latch onto chloride – the salt itself. “Because sunlight does not break it down in seawater, the lifetime of methylmercury is much longer in the marine environment,” explains Heileen Hsu-Kim, lead author of the study and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin that can lead to kidney dysfunctions, neurological disorders and even death.

Blood Pressure: The nitrate content of beetroot juice is the underlying cause of its blood pressure lowering benefits, according to research from Queen Mary University of London. The study, published online in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, found that blood pressure was lowered within 24 hours in both people who took nitrate tablets and people who drank beetroot juice. The news will be welcome by people with high blood pressure who seek a natural approach to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The researchers found that, not only is beetroot equally effective with blood pressure as nitrate capsules, but also only a small amount of juice is needed for an effect – 250 ml.

Green: Looks like the methane problem is much worse than we thought. The approach the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural anaerobic lagoons that treat manure contains errors and may underestimate methane emissions by up to 65%, according to scientists from the University of Missouri. A close evaluation of the EPA and International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approach to estimate greenhouse emissions found errors in the specific approach – uncovered anaerobic lagoons were more efficient at converting waste to methane than had been predicted by the environmental teams using the anaerobic digesters method – as well as mistakes in the equations used for measurements. The findings were published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.