The hormone melatonin has traditionally been regarded as the hormone of darkness, because of the nightly surge in production that is associated with the sleep cycle.  It is also associated with seasonal cycles. Research over the past two decades found high levels of melatonin in the body during daytime, far too high levels to have come from the nightly production of melatonin by the tiny pineal gland in the brain.   Scientists also found more sources of melatonin in the body, with one of them linked to sunlight. What is melatonin? Melatonin is a neurohormone that is commonly known to prepare the body for sleep.  It plays a crucial role in regulating the body’s circadian rhythm, also known as the biological

From time to time, we all experience the feeling that one’s brain is unable to think clearly, especially when having a cold or flu, or one’s thinking became sluggish due to jetlag, or becomes fuzzy for a few hours after taking antihistamine or some other medication.  Normally this effect will wear off as you recover from illness, jetlag, or the effects of the medication.  But what if your thinking did not return to normal, or if for no apparent reason your thinking becomes fuzzy or sluggish as if a dense fog has descended on your brain? What is brain fog? This cloudy-headed feeling is referred to as mental fog or more commonly as brain fog.  Brain fog is characterized by

They say if an idea or a theory is repeated long enough, people will start to believe it and accept it as fact. This seems to be especially true of the hypothesis from the 1960’s that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, due to low levels of serotonin.  Doctors at the time used mood enhancing medications, which they believed worked by increasing serotonin levels in the brain.  This idea stuck as a simple explanation for depression. This consequently resulted in the widespread use of antidepressants, boosted in the 1990’s with the development of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) type of antidepressants, such as Prozac, Lexapro, and Zoloft.  Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen dramatically since the

Blood is essential to life. This constantly circulating fluid provides the body with nutrition, oxygen, and waste removal.  It is made up of four components, namely red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma.  Plasma: Plasma is the light, amber colored liquid component, which makes up about 55% of the volume of blood, with the remaining 45 % made up of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, all suspended in the plasma.  Plasma makes the blood a fluid and consists of about 90-92% water.  It contains solutes which are critical for sustaining health and life, including electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, and bicarbonate.  Within the plasma are about 7% vital proteins such as albumin, gamma

The human brain is regarded as the most sophisticated, complex system in the known universe.  It stands to reason that such a precious system, your internal mainframe computer, should be well protected.  To this end the brain is encased in the 7mm thick skull, surrounded by protective cerebrospinal fluid and a protective membrane, the meninges, to protect it from external physical injury. However, internal damage may occur when damaging substances, such as toxins or disease-causing pathogens, gets transported in the blood stream to the brain.  To protect the brain from internal damage, it has its own border control, consisting of a very sophisticated and tightly regulated barrier system that regulates which substances are allowed to enter the brain. This primary

Cryotherapy is also known as cold therapy and refers to the use of low temperature in medical therapy.  It is commonly used to relieve sprains, muscle pain, and swelling due to soft tissue damage.  It is a well-known remedy to accelerate recovery in athletes after exercise.  As cryotherapy in its simplest form is utilized to decreases the temperature of tissue surface to minimize hypoxic cell death (when oxygen demand exceeds oxygen supply), edema (excess fluid) accumulation, and muscle spasm, it helps to alleviate discomfort and inflammation. Types of cryotherapies: Cryotherapy is used in a variety of applications, ranging from ice packs, immersion in ice baths, cold chambers, to cryosurgery. External cryotherapy: Ice pack therapy is the simplest form of cryotherapy,

The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, but short on its heels is the intricate biochemical factory that regulates the functioning of the body – a variety of individual chemical processes that work together in prefect harmony.  One of these chemical processes originates in the pancreas by producing insulin. Insulin: The pancreas is a gland located near the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) which makes a few hormones, with insulin one of two principal hormones, the other being glucagon.  When insulin is excreted into the bloodstream, it acts like a key in a lock to open the cells in the muscle, fat, and liver, to allow the transport of glucose into the

A specifically formulated diet, called the MIND diet, is aimed at preventing mental decline, while bolstering brain health and reducing the incidence of brain disease.  Recent research indicates that the MIND diet may lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease significantly when participants in the study adhered to the diet rigorously.  Even when the diet was followed only moderately well, a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s was found amongst participants. What is the MIND diet? Based on information that has accrued of years of research about what foods and nutrients have good and bad effects on brain functioning over time, the MIND diet was developed by a research team at the Rush University in Chicago.  It is linked to findings that two

The way the human body functions can be compared to a large chemical factory, where many individual biochemical processes are interlinked to function as a complete organism.  These amazing biochemical processes are designed to create life, to grow, to heal, to repair, and is some cases, to create something new in a genesis-like way. The word “genesis” was borrowed from Latin and derived from Ancient Greek, meaning origin, beginning.  The Mirriam-Webster dictionary describes genesis as “the origin or coming into being of something”. “Coming into being of something” also applies to some of the biochemical processes in the human body, where “-genesis” is used as a suffix to describe certain genesis-like processes in our bodies. Genesis-like processes in our bodies: