Category Archives: Body, Mind & Spirit

Michael Beckwith on Super Wisdom

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Extended Awareness

by MICHAEL BECKWITH

There is an inner impulsion within the human being which is commonly interpreted as the engine that drives personal success, that earns credentials and accolades which result in magnificent acquisitions—the external more, more, more of which there is never enough to satisfy.  For even when we have succeeded in meeting many or most of our outer goals there remains an awareness of an illusive “something,” an emptiness that is yet unfilled.

Is there any validity to this awareness?  Is there something woven into the fundamental fabric of our being that urges us to seek fulfillment beyond the offerings of the external world?  Affirmative evidence is offered by Andrew Newberg, M.D., in his book on brain science and the biology of belief, Why God Won’t Go Away:

“As Gene and I sifted through mountains of data on religious experience, ritual, and brain science, important pieces of the puzzle came together and meaningful patterns emerged.  Gradually, we shaped a hypothesis that suggests that spiritual experience, at its very root, is intimately interwoven with human biology.  That biology, in some way, compels the spiritual urge.”

According to both ancient and contemporary spiritual traditions, there is a passageway into an extended awareness of our true nature, that aspect of ourselves that can be accessed when the preoccupations of the conscious mind are quieted. As we enter through this passageway, we lift the veil that hides the inner paradise in which we truly live, move, and have our being.  India’s great philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, aptly describes it this way:

“The full delight of being is intrinsic, self-existent, automatic; it cannot be dependent on things outside itself. In the spiritual knowledge of self, the first step is the discovery of the soul, the secret entity, the divine element within us.”

From this wisdom we can conclude that there is no permanent or ultimate fulfillment from anything outside of our essential Self, our soul-self. This leaves little wiggle room for us to postpone seeking out spiritual practices by which we may evolve an extended awareness of our at-onement with First Cause, which some call God, Brahma, Spirit, or no name at all.

Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the rational, time-oriented left side of her brain. Within a four-hour time span she lost the ability to walk, talk, read, or write. Her knowledge of how the brain works allowed her to recognize that she was having a stroke and seek immediate help.  At the very outset of her eight-year recovery period, her consciousness shifted into the right brain where she experienced a state of nirvana, what she described as an extended awareness of herself being “at one with the Universe.” Andrew Newberg explains this extended awareness:

“… various key brain structures and the way information is channeled along neural pathways leads us to hypothesize that the brain possesses a neurological mechanism for self-transcendence.”

The degree to which we activate this innate capacity to self-transcend, so do we cultivate an extended awareness of the Self.

As we progress in self-transcendence, the sense of separation or involvement with the personal mind expands into an awareness of the unique emanation that each of us is as an individualized expression of the One Mind that is everywhere in its fullness.  That which is happening cosmically begins to happen through us locally.  In such a state of awareness the plenitude, beauty, peace, joy, bliss, compassion—these transcendent yet eminent qualities of being are activated within us.  It is a process of awakening to our true nature which places us in harmony with the fundamental order of Existence. Modern Zen master Huang Po describes the ultimate state of being he calls One Mind in this way:

“All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but One Mind, beside which nothing exists. Only awake to the One Mind.”

This One Mind is the very life force that animates and sustains existence, the evolutionary impulse within the universe and each individual.

The personal mind—predominantly the left side of the brain—wants to figure out how all of this happens. The demand to know “how” is actually a delay tactic of the ego, a defense mechanism so that our sense of being a separate self doesn’t dissolve right on the spot!  Self-transcendence is our birthright.  Everything that we need is already within us, announcing itself through the inner impulsion to grow, develop and unfold.  How do we cultivate an extended awareness of Self?  First by an identity shift which acknowledges our at-onement with the One Mind. We then grow confidence in our capacity to become a fully enlightened being.  As an enlightened being, we live from a state of cosmic consciousness, a conscious awareness of our oneness with all life.

When we consider current scientific studies of the brain relative to the field of quantum consciousness, the evolutionary possibilities for the individual and our global family are limitless.  A genuine state of cosmic awareness expressing through an individual or a whole nation is distinguishable as scientific knowledge of life, life lived in attunement with cosmic laws.  Living from such a state of consciousness holds the potential for governing our world by a kind of super-wisdom which results in cooperation rather than competition, in unity rather than division, in oneness rather than separation.

from:    http://ervinlaszlo.com/forum/2010/06/13/extended-awareness/

Sleep, Metabolism, Weight Gain

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Is Your Alarm Clock Making You Fat?

Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 10 May 2012
Alarm Clock
CREDIT: Alarm clock image via Shutterstock

In the industrialized world, a conflict between two opposing forces — biology and the alarm clock — is helping to make people fat, new research suggests.

A discrepancy between the natural timing of sleep and work or school schedules leads to sleep deprivation, since people forced into schedules unnatural to them don’t get enough sleep. And survey data indicates people with larger discrepancies are more likely to carry extra weight, according to the researchers.

“We are biological beings, and we have a biological clock, and what society — and I don’t mean the bad guys, I mean all of us — is ignoring is the biological clock,” said study researcher Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich. “We think we can do whatever we want with the social clock.”

There is a well-established link between sleep and metabolism. Previous studies have linked shorter sleep to obesity, and some have even linked longer sleep to obesity, although this link is less well established, said Jamie Zeitzer, an assistant professor at Stanford University who studies circadian rhythms and sleep. Zeitzer was not involved with the current study.

Different people need different amounts of sleep; this is a separate phenomenon from discrepancy in sleep timing, or as Roenneberg calls it, social jetlag. He and colleagues measured the timing discrepancy by looking at changes in the timing of the midpoint of a person’s night sleep between work and free days.

Other research has pointed to health hazards, from accidents to diabetes and obesity, associated with shift-work schedules, which move work into the nighttime hours.

“If you are awake at night, there is a good reason from an evolutionary perspective, something has to be going on,” Zeitzer said.

As a result, the body behaves as if it is going to need more energy, and people who are awake at night crave higher-fat and sugary foods, and have a greater appetite, he said.

Roenneberg points out that a gene linked to the amount of sleep people need, ABCC9, also plays a role in energy metabolism, or how fast our body uses energy from the food eaten and, in turn, a person’s appetite.

Alarming results

Roenneberg and his colleagues drew on survey data from more than 65,000 people, primarily in central Europe, on their waking and sleep behavior during work and free days. The results were published online May 10 in the journal Current Biology.

Their analysis indicated that for each hour of sleep discrepancy someone experienced, they were 33 percent more likely to have a high body mass index (BMI, or an indicator of body fatness), Roenneberg said. (Someone with a BMI of 25 is considered overweight,greater than 30 is considered obese.)

However, the effect wasn’t uniform. Sleep discrepancy did not explain variations in body mass among those with a normal BMI; however, it was positively associated with increasing weight among those with a higher-than-normal body mass, in the overweight and above range.

This split doesn’t interfere with the overall conclusion that more discrepancy is associated with more weight, Zeitzer said.

An owl’s world

The survey showed that the weekly loss of sleep is worse for some people, namely, the “night owls” who wake up and go to sleep later. But while work times have stayed relatively constant, the modern world is shifting our natural body clocks later, Roenneberg said.

Our body clocks use light to set themselves; however, the indoor light under which many of us spend most of our days is much dimmer than natural light. As a result our body clocks are pushed later, causing us to wake up and go to sleep later in the day, he said.

To address the problem, Roenneberg, who is also the author of “Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired” (Harvard University Press, 2012), recommends making work times more flexible, a move he said could make employees happier and more productive, while reducing health-care costs.

Roenneberg said he coined the term “social jetlag” to compare the discrepancy between social and biological time. However, unlike travel jetlag, social jetlag doesn’t go away with time, he points out. Zeitzer takes issue with the term, because it implies a biological change not addressed in the research.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/20229-social-jetlag-sleep-obesity.html

Norma Gentile on the Navel Chakra

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FROM HEART TO NAVEL CHAKRA – Where we are going is where we have been

By Norma Gentile

In the western world we are taught to think and psychically perceive Spirit with our brains. But it is through the Body Center, the Navel Chakra,that Spirit speaks most strongly to us while we are in physical form.

A friend recently asked me about the heart-centered world into which many believe we are moving. The comment that one of my guides made was to notice that people from the developed or Western world are moving down from their heads into their hearts. They have yet to reach anywhere near their navel or body center. For this reason the journey into the heart that many in the New Age movement anticipate will bring something to completion may actually be the final step. After the Heart, we Westerners will need to begin the journey into the Body.

Many people joke about the practice of sitting in meditation as being something akin to ‘navel gazing’. My own sense is that rather than looking down from our heads at our navels, we need to know how to go down into the navel center itself, and look out from there at our world.

I have come to this conclusion based on my own experience. After moving more and more into my own heart, I began to move further down, passing through my heart and into a space that I feel is my navel chakra or body center. It is a place of great stillness, where I can feel the slightest motions of my body’s natural functions as well as motions from all that is around me. Yet at the same time I feel an intense and utter stillness. From this place of deep stillness all else seems a bit silly – it’s like relaxing in the warm sunshine watching fruit flies swarm a piece of fruit. You can enjoy your relaxation while the incessant motions of the fruit flies remind you of how still you are. What they are doing is harmless to you. While it may be a lot of activity, they are simply doing what it is that is within their nature to do. And you are choosing to do something different.

That is not to imply that all you or I do outside of meditation is equivalent to being a buzzing fruit fly! Day to day life, represented by the fruit flies in my little metaphor, is necessary to my continued physical body being in form. I believe that when I access my body center or navel in meditation it gives my personality a perspective around the true balance of priorities that my soul has. I do find that I can better choose and organize my activities after a little navel meditation.

I realize for most people the idea that our soul or spirit would speak to us through our body rather than our brain is very odd. Our western culture has taught us to live in the uppermost region of our body, basically the upper three inches of our head, not in the remaining 60 or so inches that tend to carry our head around.

Our western culture has also taught us to fear what we do not know. And since few of us had parents who could set an example of being fully embodied, it is not surprising that we have an innate fear of delving into the unknown regions beneath the level of our eyes and brain. In order to identify where our navel is, most of us have to move our hands down and touch it. Few of us simply feel and know its location in our torso. This means that there is a great learning curve ahead of us around how to connect our soul or spirit into our own bodies.

Awareness of any body part by ‘feeling’ it from the inside is an indicator of how strongly connected we are to the consciousness that is related to that body part. Each and every toe, finger, muscle, bone, tendon, organ, etc. processes energetic patterns for us. Illness is merely a sign that the spiritual, mental and emotional levels of our aura were unsuccessful in processing a pattern. In order to bring it more fully to our attention the pattern naturally moved into the etheric level of our aura, which is the blue print for our physical body.

Healing the physical issue then becomes a matter of addressing the issue at all the levels through which the pattern has come. For this reason when issues have reached the physical level I often suggest that people consult physical doctors such as Naturopaths, Chiropractors and Acupuncturists. These modalities understand that health is a result of balance, and illness is a result of imbalance. Once balance is restored, the body’s own systems will restore the physical body.

In my own energetic healing work, I find that the information I get for people is usually right on the edge of what they already know or suspect. In some cases their guides simply point out to me certain moments in their lives that are inter-related and magnifying a current emotional or physical symptom of illness. Sometimes it is also about what I call “upgrading” a belief.

I find that we are all pretty good at healing ourselves. But it is hard to find that deep place of stillness where you can feel all that is in motion around you when you are overwhelmed by fatigue, anxiety, physical pain or chatter in the mind. It just helps to have someone outside of yourself point out what they are able to see, so you can see it more clearly.

There are certainly different styles of healing, and for me I prefer to help people see for themselves what it is that they are ready to change, and hold space for that change to occur. As I spend more and more time within the deep stillness of my own body, I feel the great potential each of us has to access this same space of spiritual connection inside of our own bodies.

Ultimately, I might say that I have less interest in trying to organize how the fruit flies buzz around the fruit and more curiosity about why I left the fruit out for them to buzz around. An odd metaphor, but the closest I can get to my experience of this moment.

And this brings me back to the motionless depth of spirit I find within my own body. This, to me, is a point of creation that each person will learn about in their own time.

My best to each of you.
Norma

 

About Norma Gentile

Norma Gentile

 

Norma Gentile, sound shaman, is a natural intuitive and channel for Mary, Archangel Michael and the Hathors. She maintains a private healing practice, offering sessions in English and Spanish, as well as singing healing concerts and teaching workshops. Her CD of live sound healings, Songs of Spirit, is available in the Maat Shop. To see and hear her sound healings, articles and podcasts at her website www.healingchants.com.

PO Box 971020, Ypsilanti, MI 48197

info@healingchants.com or             734-330-3997

from:    http://www.spiritofmaat.com/may12/from_heart_to_navel_chakra.html

Amazing Garlic

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Scientists: Garlic Fights Common Illness Better than Antibiotics

7th May 2012

By Anthony Gucciardi

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Scientists at Washington State University are now confirming once again what natural health experts have known for years — garlic fights one of the most common food-borne illnesses much more effectively than antibiotics. Garlic has built a strong reputation in fighting infections, a benefit that is but one of many.

Campylobacter bacterium, the name for the common bacteria that often results in intestinal illness, affects around 2.4 million Americans per year and is often treated with illness-linked antibiotics, but maybe not anymore.

 

According to the researchers, the information ‘opens the door’ to the many benefits of garlic when it comes to preventing and fighting infections. This means treating certain food items, cleaning, and use as a healing food substance. Once again, however, these mainstream scientists are simply re-discovering what many cultures have known (and have been utilizing) for centuries! It’s no secret that garlic is really a nutritional powerhouse, a superfood that can boost overall immunity and combat diseases — even superviruses that have the medical community in a frenzy.

Even Greek athletes used garlic to boost their physical performance in the arena due to the deep knowledge of the food’s empowering properties. Leading expert Dr. David Kraus explains:

“People have known garlic was important and has health benefits for centuries,” said Dr. David W. Kraus, associate professor of environmental science and biology at the University of Alabama. “Even the Greeks would feed garlic to their athletes before they competed in the Olympic games.”

Garlic even has a role in the prevention of cancer — the disease that is currently ravaging the population. In fact, it is a role that is quite notorious among cultures who have been using garlic in their dishes for countless years. Scientists believe that the role of garlic in cancer prevention quite possibly has to do with the way that garlic boosts the production of something known as hydrogen sulfide. It is this very substance that also protects the heart. Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that directly injecting hydrogen sulfide into mice almost completely stopped damage to heart muscles as a result of heart attack.

The benefits of garlic are many, and the mainstream scientific community is just catching on to how important of a role garlic plays in the diet

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/05/07/scientists-garlic-fights-common-illness-better-than-antibiotics/

“Trance-Formation” Flick by Max Egan

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Interesting Video.  Take a look.  Make your own decisions.  Do the research:

“TRANCE – FORMATION” – a feature length film from Max Egan

A few days before our May deadline our good friend Cynthia sent us a link to this film; it came with a note that said: “YOU HAVE TO POST THIS!” After checking it out we understood why Cynthia was so insistent. “Trance Formation” addresses issues and questions that have to do with how our perceptions have been transformed to the point where it is now next to impossible for the average human being to know or understand the truth. All of us have been unwittingly programmed to believe everything we are told. As the secrets behind this state of affairs begin to unravel we are not just waking up to the way things really are, we are being transformed in the process. If you’re interested in taking an in depth look at why and how life on planet Earth, and the simple task of being human got so totally complicated, Max Egan’s “Trance Formation” will not only open your eyes to the facts, it will give you a clear sense of how important it is for us to change our tune.

 

Pane Andov on 2012 Changes, Consciousness, etc.

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Pane Andov on cosmic expectations and consciousness rising – at the 2011 Nexus Conference in Queensland Australia (Deutsch)

From the Conscious Media Network

In a remarkable presentation delivered at the 2011 Nexus Conference in Queensland, Pane Andov, otherwise known as “Astral Walker”, talks about the mega event that will take place at the end of 2012 and at beginning of the year 2013. Pane introduces us to this possibility by explaining that thousands of years ago, from the galactic centre of the Milky Way, there was a powerful release of an enormous amount of energy which, like a huge, shining, circular wave has slowly spread across the galaxy from its centre to its edges.

The released energetic pulse is already affecting the whole galaxy including the little dot we call our solar system. Very soon it will reach us and hit us with full strength. Among other things, this talk discusses the implications that this spreading wave of energy will have on our solar system, especially to our star and our planet, and how it will affect the DNA of life.

The way that Pane connects the dots makes it clear what our planet will face soon and what we as humans can do about it. Pane is also a contactee and delivers important messages which he backs up with scientific data. For the record, his DNA was changed when his biological body was only seven years old, enabling him to utilize abilities such telepathy, remote viewing, astral travel, along with the ability to make contact.

Pane claims that from time to time numerous ET races communicate and deliver important messages to him as a result of alternations to his DNA that occurred in his early childhood. One of those races is the positive race that is delivering the genuine crop circles, and they explained to him what the complex geometries mean. That’s how Pane was able to translate the complex geometric designs which contain the solution to the equation regarding what humanity is facing, when it’s going to happen, and what can be done about it.

 

For more references to Pane Andov and his research please visit his website:

http://www.paneandov.com

http://www.paneandov.com/2012-pdf/

http://www.paneandov.com/sun-goes-red-giant-23-dec-2012/

from:    http://www.spiritofmaat.com/may12/cosmic_expectations_and_consciousness_rising.html

Epigenetics & DNA

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The Science Of Epigenetics – How Our Minds Can Reprogram Our Genes

By Konstantin Eriksen

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

How much control do we have over our own lives? Are we really controlled by our genes, trapped in our own selfishness, like some modern authors want us to believe? Just how much power do we have to shape our lives and those of others?

Contrary to what many people are being led to believe, a lot of the emphasis placed on genes determining human behaviour is nothing but theory and doctrine. The “selfish gene” model is an assumption, it is not a scientific fact.

What Is The Central Dogma?

The central dogma is the doctrine that information in our cells flows only in one direction – from DNA to RNA to proteins. Simply put, it is a dogmatic belief in absolute determinism.

Let’s take a quick look at its history. Back in 1990, a huge, international research program began – the human genome project. Its stated goals were to map out all human genes and their interactions using computer software and then to convert that knowledge into (profitable) “benefits” for mankind, such as finding cures for the most horrible diseases.

They sure made it sound good and they spent a lot of taxpayers’ money on it, but was the whole project used for good? Personally, I don’t think so.

In essence, what the central dogma says is that since it is proteins that carry out the essential life-processes inside our cells, and their functions can only do what our genes say (this is what the medical establishment and certain fanatical branches of evolution theory want us to believe), then we humans are nothing more than the calculated, deterministic expression of our genes. We’re little robots whose biology, emotions, health and beliefs are not of our choosing. We’re humatons!

This is the theory that is being taught in medical schools and universities all over the world today. Fortunately for all conscious people, this disempowering belief has been proven to be false.

Is Evolution Deterministic?

Fifty years before the publication of Darwin’s The Origin Of Species, frenchman Jean Baptiste Lamarque postulated that living beings must have an innate perception of their environment in order to evolve, and that they evolve in response to changes in their surroundings. His idea was that genetic mutations are definitely notrandom. There is an inherent intelligence at play in life that we can’t even begin to understand.

The response of the “scientific community” at the time was not favourable. They ridiculed Lamarque’s theory and eliminated him from the history books, giving Darwin the sole credit for discovering evolution, even though, in reality, Darwin published his book fifty years after Lamarque and his book based a lot of its theory on the work of yet another man, Alfred Russel Wallace, many of whose ideas Darwin copied.

According to Lamarque, there is an interplay of forces between living beings and their environments. According to the Darwinian model, evolution is strictly deterministic and is based on random mutations.

So, who got closer to the truth? Luckily for us, Lamarque was right about at least one thing: cells have consciousness.

The Emerging Science Of Epigenetics.

Plenty of highly intelligent biologists have proven beyond a doubt that the determinism of the central dogma is false. Genes do not determine human outcomes – it is our responses to our environment that actually determine the expression of our genes.

This was proven definitively in 1988 by British molecular biologist John Cairns. Cairns took bacteria whose genes did not allow them to produce lactase, the enzyme needed to digest milk sugar, and placed them in petri dishes where the only food present was lactase. Much to his astonishment, within a few days, all of the petri dishes had been colonized by the bacteria and they were eating lactose. The bacterial DNA had changed in response to its environment.

This experiment has been replicated many times and they have not found a better explanation than this obvious fact – that even primitive organisms can evolve consciously.

So, information flows in both directions, from DNA to proteins and from proteins to DNA, contradicting the “central dogma.” Genes can be activated and de-activated by signals from the environment. The consciousness of the cell is inside the cell’s membrane. Each and every cell in our bodies has a type of consciousness. Genes change their expression depending on what is happening outside our cells and even outside our bodies.

What Does This Mean For Us?

We are free to make decisions that impact our lives and those of others. We are not robots carrying out the commands our genes. Our beliefs can change our biology. We have the power to heal ourselves, increase our feelings of self-worth and improve our emotional state. Every aspect of our lives can be improved with the right intention.

The worst thing we can do as thinking and feeling people is to get cut off from our deep, positive emotions and let fear and anger take over our lives. When we allow ourselves to be taken over by negativity, we are putting ourselves in a mental-biological state of fear akin to the fight or flight response.

In order to grow positively as human beings, we need to express positive emotions such as love, affection, joy and a will to conquer ourselves and our own lives. When we change our beliefs, we change our emotional states. When that happens, we change our lives.

First we have to believe. Only then do we give ourselves the opportunity to achieve.

About the Author

Konstantin Eriksen is a former stock-trader. After quiting his job, he studied biochemistry and got into natural health and the internal martial arts.

from:  http://wakeup-world.com/2012/03/26/the-science-of-epigenetics-how-our-minds-can-reprogram-our-genes/

I Knew There Was A Reason I Love Tahini

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Sesame Seeds – Ten Amazing Health Benefits Of This Super-Seed

29th April 2012

By Sayer Ji – Wake Up World

Sesame (Sesamun indicum) is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, prized as an oilseed for at least 5,000 years. While it is beginning to regain favor due to its exceptionally high calcium and magnesium content, few realize it is also one of the most potent medicinal foods still commonly consumed today.

In fact, its history as a medicine goes back 3600 years to Egyptian times where it was listed in the scrolls of the Ebers as a favored medicine.  Also, women in ancient Babylon were believed to use a mixture of honey and sesame seeds (havla) to prolong youth and beauty, and Roman soldiers ate the mixture for strength and energy.

In the past twenty years, a glut of scientific information has poured in demonstrating that sesame seed, and its components, have over three dozen documented therapeutic properties  Given these new revelations, it would seem that sesame would be just as at home in a medicine cabinet as it would be a kitchen cupboard.

Here are just 10 evidence-based medicinal properties of this food-medicine:

  1. Diabetes: A study published in 2011 in the Clinical Journal of Nutrition showed that sesame oil improved the effectiveness of the oral antidiabetic drug glibenclamide in type 2 diabetic patients. [1]  Another study published in 2006 in the Journal of Medicinal Foods showed that the substitution of sesame seed oil as the sole edible oil lowers blood pressure and glucose in hypertensive diabetics. [2]
  1. High Blood Pressure: A study published in 2006 in the Yale Journal of Biological Medicine showed that sesame seed oil has a beneficial effect in hypertensive patients on either diuretics or beta-blockers. Substitution of all dietary oils with sesame oil brought down systolic and dystolic  blood pressure to normal, in addition to decreasing lipid peroxidation (bodily rancidity) and antioxidant status. [3] One of the compounds identified behind sesame seed’s antihypertensive effects are peptides that act as angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitors.[4]
  1. Gingivitis / Dental Plaque: Sesame seed oil has been used for oral health for thousands of years in the traditional Indian medical tradition known as Ayurveda in a process known as “oil pulling.” It involves swishing sesame seed oil in the mouth for prolonged durations and has been said to prevent teeth decay, halitosis, bleeding gums, dry throat, and for strengthening the teeth, gums and jaw. Clinical research now confirms that it compares favorably to chemical mouthwash (chlorhexidine) in improving plaque-induced gingivitis, [5] and that it is capable of reducing Streptococcus mutans growth associated with oral plaque formation. [6]
  1. Infant Health/Massage Oil: A study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research in 2000 showed that massaging infants with sesame oil improved both their growth and post-massage sleep, in comparison to control oils such as mineral oil.[7]
  1. Multiple Sclerosis (MS): In the animal model of MS, also known as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, sesame seed oil protects mice from developing the disease by reducing IFN-gamma secretion, a key factor in initiating autoimmune inflammation and injury in the nervous system.[8] It has also been research for its potential beneficial role in another neurodegenerative condition, Huntington’s disease. [9]
  1. Antibiotic-Induced Kidney Damage: Sesame seed oil protects against gentamicin-induced kidney damage in rats by reducing oxidative damage caused by the antibiotic. [10]
  1. Atherosclerosis: Sesame seed oil prevents the formation of atherosclerotic lesions in mice fed an atherogenic diet. [11]  The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory lignan found within sesame seeds known as sesamol has been identified to be partially responsible for its anti-atherogenic properties. In fact, sesamol has been shown to possess over two dozen beneficial pharmacologically active properties, many of which may contribute to improving cardiovascular health.
  1. Depression: The sesame lignin sesamol was shown to exert an antidepressant-like effect in behavioral despair in chronically stressed mice, specifically by modulating oxidative-nitrosative stress and inflammation. [12]
  1. Radiation-Induced DNA Damage: Sesamol has been shown to protect against gamma radiation-induced DNA damage, likely through its antioxidant properties.  [13] It is capable of reducing mortality in radiation treated mice, in part through preventing intestinal and spleen damage. [14]   When compared to another powerful antioxidant, melatonin, it was found 20 times more effective as a free radical scavenger. [15]
  1. Cancer: Sesame contains a fat-soluble lignin with phytoestrogenic properties known as sesamin, and which has been studied for inhibiting the proliferation of a wide range of cancer cells, including:
  • Leukemia
  • Multiple Myleoma
  • Colon Cancer
  • Prostate Cancer
  • Breast Cancer
  • Lung Cancer
  • Pancreatic Cancer
  • Lung Cancer

Sesamin’s anticancer effects have been linked to the NF-kappaB signaling. [16]

Sesame deserves to be recognized, along with garlic, honey, turmeric and a select few other substances,  as an easily accessible and affordable food-medicine that, if consumed regularly, could quite possibly save lives.

for more information, footnotes, etc,. go to:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/04/29/open-sesame-10-amazing-health-benefits-of-this-super-seed/

Body Satisfaction and Confidence

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Big Girls Don’t Cry: Overweight Teens Who Are Satisfied With Their Bodies Are Less Depressed, Less Prone to Unhealthy Behaviors

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2012) — A study to be published in the June 2012 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health looking at the relationships between body satisfaction and healthy psychological functioning in overweight adolescents has found that young women who are happy with the size and shape of their bodies report higher levels of self-esteem. They may also be protected against the negative behavioral and psychological factors sometimes associated with being overweight.

A group of 103 overweight adolescents were surveyed between 2004 and 2006, assessing body satisfaction, weight-control behavior, importance placed on thinness, self-esteem and symptoms of anxiety and depression, among other factors.

“We found that girls with high body satisfaction had a lower likelihood of unhealthy weight-control behaviors like fasting, skipping meals or vomiting,” said Kerri Boutelle, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Boutelle added that the positive relationship shown in this study between body a girl’s happiness with her body and her behavioral and psychological well-being suggests that improving body satisfaction could be a key component of interventions for overweight youth.

“A focus on enhancing self-image while providing motivation and skills to engage in effect weight-control behaviors may help protect young girls from feelings of depression, anxiety or anger sometimes association with being overweight,” said Boutelle.

Additional contributors included first author Taya R. Cromley, PhD, of UCLA; Stephanie Knatz and Roxanne Rockwell, UC San Diego; and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD and Mary Story, PhD, RD, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

This study was supported by a University of Minnesota Children’s Vikings Grant.

from:    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120428000103.htm

On Maintaining Brain Health As One Ages

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Maintain Your Brain: The Secrets to Aging Success

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2012) — Aging may seem unavoidable, but that’s not necessarily so when it comes to the brain. So say researchers in the April 27th issue of the Cell Press journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences based on counterintuitive evidence that it is what you do in old age that matters when it comes to maintaining a youthful brain rather than what you did earlier in life.

“Although some memory functions do tend to decline as we get older, several elderly show well-preserved functioning and this is related to a well-preserved, youth-like brain,” says Lars Nyberg, Professor of Neuroscience at Umeå University in Sweden.

Education won’t save your brain — PhDs are as likely as high school dropouts to experience memory loss with old age, the researchers say. Don’t count on your job either. Those with a complex or demanding career may enjoy a limited advantage, but those benefits quickly dwindle after retirement. Engagement is the secret to success. Those who are socially, mentally and physically stimulated reliably show greater cognitive performance with a brain that appears younger than its years.

“There is quite solid evidence that staying physically and mentally active is a way towards brain maintenance,” Nyberg says.

The researchers say this new take on successful aging represents an important shift in focus for the field. Much attention in the past has gone instead to understanding ways in which the brain copes with or compensates for cognitive decline in aging. The research team now argues for the importance of avoiding those age-related brain changes in the first place. Genes play a role, but life choices and other environmental factors, especially in old age, are critical.

Elderly people generally do have more trouble remembering meetings or names, Nyberg says. But those memory losses often happen later than many often think, after the age of 60. Older people also continue to accumulate knowledge and to use what they know effectively, often to very old ages.

“Taken together, a wide range of findings provides converging evidence for marked heterogeneity in brain aging,” the scientists write. “Critically, some older adults show little or no brain changes relative to younger adults, along with intact cognitive performance, which supports the notion of brain maintenance. In other words, maintaining a youthful brain, rather than responding to and compensating for changes, may be the key to successful memory aging.”

from:    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120427163335.htm