Health in the Press Friday 24th Jan
Daily Mail: Eating more fish could give you a bigger brain – and greater protection against diseases such as Alzheimer’s, claim researchers. They found people with higher levels of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil may also have larger brain volumes in old age. This would be the equivalent to preserving one to two years of brain health, says a new study published in the journal Neurology. Study author James Pottala, of the University of South Dakota in Sioux Falls and Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. in Richmond, Virginia, said lower levels of fatty acids were linked to smaller-sized brains. He said: ‘These higher levels of fatty acids can be achieved through diet and the use of supplements, and the results suggest that the effect on brain volume is the equivalent of delaying the normal loss of brain cells that comes with aging by one to two years. Fish oil supplements are recommended as protection against heart attacks and sudden death, with regular fish eaters a third more likely to survive a heart attack.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2544287/Fish-oil-help-prevent-Alzheimers-bigger-brain.html
Daily Mail: ‘Eggs contain formaldehyde and bananas have ethene gas’: Teacher reveals the ingredients of normal foods to de-bunk the myth of ‘chemical-free living’. He says the aim of the project was to dispel the fear that has become associated with the word ‘chemicals’. He told MailOnline: ‘As a high-school chemistry teacher, I made these posters for my students as a visual introduction to our Organic Chemistry course. ‘I wanted to erode the fear that many people have of ‘chemicals’, and demonstrate that nature evolves compounds, mechanisms and structures far more complicated and unpredictable than anything we can produce in the lab. ‘These posters aim to show that chemistry isn’t artificial and dangerous; but that chemistry is natural and everywhere. ‘The constituent ingredients were found on a nutritional analysis website; the color and preservative components were from old botany books; and the flavour compounds were found in published, peer-reviewed gas spectroscopy analyses of the volatile aromatic compounds in each fruit. ‘
