Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/522093
healthy living By Laura G. Owens SUDS ZAP BBQ CARCINOGENS Rock Body YOUR Summer is the season to fi re up your grill, but before you charcoal any meats, marinate them in beer. A 2014 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that beer lowers carcinogens called PAHs (TiPolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) created by cooking meat at very high temperatures. PAHs are also found in car exhaust and cigarette smoke, and have been linked to cancer in lab animals. Of the three types of beer tested, black, Pilsner and non-alcoholic Pilsner, black beer was the most impressive, reducing the eight major PAH levels by more than half, compared with unmarinated meat. LIVE LONGER WITH REISHI Every day another anti-aging "secret" promises to turn back time and fi ght disease. This one actually delivers. Decades of research on the medicinal reishi mushroom, known in Eastern medicine as the "mushroom of immortality," reveals this remarkable fungi's unique life-extending properties. A 2011 mice study found a 9- to 20 percent increase in life expectancy (in human terms, seven to 16 more years of life). Reishi was found to boost immunity, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, protect against cancer, prevent abnormal blood vessels from forming and support the liver. Scientists have long known the benefi ts of a nurturing parent, but it turns out loving care can quite literally grow a child's brain. Not only does early nurturing have an impact on a child's ability to adapt socially and psychologically, and to perform well in school, it also enlarges a region of the brain called the hippocampus, an area involved with learning, memory and stress management. Scientists in a 2012 study ran brain scans on children ages 7 to 10 who, years earlier, had been assessed as mentally healthy. Scans revealed that the mentally healthy children who had nurturing mothers had nearly a 10 percent larger hippocampus. "This study, to my knowledge, is the fi rst that actually shows an anatomical change in the brain, which really provides validation for the very large body of early childhood development literature that had been highlighting the importance of early parenting and nurturing," wrote lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, professor of child psychiatry. "[It] validates something that seems to be intuitive, which is just how important nurturing parents are to creating adaptive human beings." Although nearly all parents involved in the nurturing study were mothers, researchers noted that the positive effects in the brain would likely come from any primary caregiver—father, grandparent or adoptive parent. NURTURED KIDS GROW BIGGER BRAINS june/july 2015 15