Life-extended Strategy for Primates
I am happy to come across a prescription that may extend life article in my morning reading today that calorie restriction and simple lifestyle make primates live very long and vital lives. It is good to learn from scientific researche that aside from direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in variety of animal species. Other studies also show that calorie restriction can be more effective than exercise at preventing age-related diseases like diabetes, heart problems, Parkinson and cancer, and may slow down the progression rate of Alzheimer’s disease. If restricted calorie diet — eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal and adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients — can make such a difference for primates, I am sure it will make a difference to us humans as well. Richard Weindruch, a gerontologist at the University of Wisconsin who directs reaserch on the monkeys said that the effects are global and calories restriction has a potential to help us identify anti-aging mechanism throughout the body.There are many recent studies on the inter-connections between the biological processes, genetics, nutrition, lifestyle which might also have impacts on human evolution. Talking about human evolution I also read, with interest an article in the magazine “Healthday” about the finding of Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at the Washington University in St. Louis, that there is scientific evidence that modern humans and neanderthals have interbred about 30,000 years ago during the upper Paleolithic era when neanderthals and modern humans were thought to co-exist. Professor Trinkaus believes that there is now solid evidence that neanderthals and humans co-mingled both socially and sexually, and that they may not even have been all that different. His team’s finding from the research of collection of bones in the Pestera Nuierii cave in Romania is published in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the United States National Acedemics of Sciences.
Filed under Environment, Science | Comment (0)Paranoia “a widespread problem”
Clinical psychologists of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London found that one in three people in the United Kingdom regularly suffers paranoid or suspicious fears, Their recent research shows that the levels are much higher than expected.
An amusing example was given on “paranoid thoughts” of a 19 year-old student who says:
“If I’m with a friend and someone rings them on their mobile and they tell the caller they’re with me, well if the caller then says something I can’t hear and the friend I’m with laughs, I always think that the person on the other end of the phone said something horrible about me.”
There are less amusing examples that I can give from what I see happening in the world today by paranoia thoughts/ behavior of National and World leaders who see crisis lurking from every direction aiming to harm them.
The behavior of these leaders namely: the firing and testing of several nuclear missiles into an open sea; and then accusing people of conspiring to overthrow the government; the shutting down of the country’s parliament; the invasion of other country based on false accusations; and the arresting of adversaries who make negative public comments about them are all very dangerous to peace, not only for the people in their own country, but also for all the people in the World.
Psychologists around the world should join force with those in the UK to come up with recommendations of ways to overcome paranoia. This should include leaders at the national and international level.
We should remember history of how a paranoid leader of one country could bring about the mass genocide of WWII.
Dr. Daniel Freeman said that until recently little was known about how to help people overcome their fears. He had suggested several ways, such as cognitive behavior therapy and self-help techniques to tackle the problem of paranoid thoughts.