Pastor’s Nexus

By Rick Nauert, PhD, Senior News Editor, PsychCentral.com

First we learn about sex addiction, now researchers are studying work addiction and how better to measure the disorder.

In a new study, Spanish researchers have developed a new scale for measuring addiction to work.

According to background information, around 12 percent of all working people in Spain suffer from the disorder. The experts say that 8 percent of the working population in Spain devotes more than 12 hours per day to their job.

“Addiction to work is a kind of psychosocial problem that is characterized by two primary features – working excessively and working compulsively,” Mario Del Líbano, lead author of the paper, said. Continue Reading »

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a rapidly expanding inventory of ailments–including heart disease , cancer and the common cold . A new discovery demonstrates how the vitamin plays a major role in keeping the body healthy in the first place, by allowing the immune system's T cells to start doing their jobs.  [More]

Source: “Another reason vitamin D is important: it gets T cells going”, Scientific American

What you eat affects more than physical health. Two new studies have added to the growing evidence linking the stomach and the brain.

In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers studied how junk food can trigger addiction behaviors. The brain chemical corticotropin-releasing-factor, CRF, is linked to motivation, and plays a role in drug and alcohol withdrawal and relapse. Researchers had rats eat normal food, then binge on sugar and chocolate-flavored snacks. When the rats went off the junk, they expressed CRF, just as do rats going through withdrawal. The rodents also had more anxiety and were less interested in normal food.

[More]

Source: “Diet and the Brain”, Scientific American

The push to prevent skin cancer may have come with unintended consequences–impaired brain function because of a deficiency of vitamin D. The “sunshine vitamin” is synthesized in our skin when we are exposed to direct sunlight, but sunblock impedes this process. And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels–hence its addition to milk–it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient’s hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.

“We know there are receptors for vitamin D throughout the central nervous system and in the hippocampus,” said Robert J. Przybelski, a doctor and research scientist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We also know vitamin D activates and deactivates enzymes in the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid that are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth.” In addition, animal and laboratory studies suggest vitamin D protects neurons and reduces inflammation.

[More]

Source: “Does Vitamin D Improve Brain Function?”, Scientific American

Study indicates marijuana damages genetic material in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

Source: “Marijuana Damages DNA and May Cause Cancer”, LiveScience.com

“THOSE jittery people who suspect their decaf coffee has been laced with that demon caffeine are right.”

“There’s a dose of the devil in your decaf”, NEWS.com.au | Top Stories

Moderate wine consumption a cancer threat: “JUST two large glasses of wine a day can raise the risk of breast cancer by more than half, new research shows.”

News: Fasting May Bolster Healthy Cells’ Resistance to Chemo Toxins: “The old adage ‘feed a cold, starve a fever’ may need be updated to feed a cold, starve a fever–and kill a tumor.”

Source: Scientific American – Official RSS Feed

I never thought that there would be a scientific health reason for fasting, but the above study may provide one. What do you think?

Scientific American Magazine: Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin: “It was called the sunshine cure, and in the early 20th century, before the era of antibiotics, it was the only effective therapy for tuberculosis known. No one knew why it worked, just that TB patients sent to rest in sunny locales were often restored to health. The same ‘treatment’ had been discovered in 1822 for another historic scourge, rickets–a deforming childhood condition caused by an inability to make hardened bone. Rickets had been on the rise in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, coinciding with industrialization and the movement of people from the countryside to the polluted cities, when a Warsaw doctor observed that the problem was relatively rare in rural Polish children. He began experimenting with city children and found that he could cure their rickets with exposure to sunshine alone.”

Meat linked to lung cancer in latest study: “PEOPLE who eat a lot of red meat and processed meats have a higher risk of lung, liver, pancreatic and colorectal cancers, US researchers say.”