Research

Zinc Boosts Body’s Immune Response, Fights Inflammation

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Natural Society May 5 2013

Immune systemAn estimated 40% of elderly adults are zinc deficient, but the elderly aren’t the only ones at risk. Because zinc plays an important role in immune function and growth, it’s presence is important whether you are over the age of 60, under the age of 20, or anywhere in between. A recent study attempted to determine just how zinc can help fight infections, and its results offer some promising data supporting zinc as a non-Big-Pharma health booster.

A research team from Ohio State University discovered that zinc “gently taps the breaks” on an immune response, helping to prevent damaging inflammation.

The researchers determined zinc is lured into immune cells (monocytes) via a protein. It’s within the cells that the zinc essentially stops the immune system from “doing too much”, preventing excess inflammation.

“The immune system has to work under very strict balance, and this is a classic example of where more is not always better,” explained Daren Knoells, senior author and professor of pharmacy and internal medicine. “We want a robust inflammatory response, which is part of our natural programming to defend us against a bug. But if that is unchecked, and there is too much inflammation, then it not only attacks the pathogen but can also cause much more collateral damage.”

The zinc tells the immune system to exercise some restraint, in other words.

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Creativity Predicts A Longer Life

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Scientific American | Thanks, Ann B

Researchers have long been studying the connection between health and the five major personality traits: agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness. A large body of research links neuroticism with poorer health and conscientiousness with superior health. Now openness, which measures cognitive flexibility and the willingness to entertain novel ideas, has emerged as a lifelong protective factor. The linchpin seems to be the creativity associated with the personality trait—creative thinking reduces stress and keeps the brain healthy.

A study published in the June issue of the Journal of Aging and Health found that higher openness predicted longer life, and other studies this year have linked that trait with lower metabolic risk, higher self-rated health and more appropriate stress response.

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Pottery 20,000 Years Old Found In A Chinese Cave

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Intel Hub | June 28 2012

Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world, archaeologists say.

The findings, which will appear in the journal Science on Friday, add to recent efforts that have dated pottery piles in east Asia to more than 15,000 years ago, refuting conventional theories that the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers.

The research by a team of Chinese and American scientists also pushes the emergence of pottery back to the last ice age, which might provide new explanations for the creation of pottery, said Gideon Shelach, chair of the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at The Hebrew University in Israel.

“The focus of research has to change,” Shelach, who is not involved in the research project in China, said by telephone.

In an accompanying Science article, Shelach wrote that such research efforts “are fundamental for a better understanding of socio-economic change (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) and the development that led to the emergency of sedentary agricultural societies.”

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