Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/832257
healthy living By Laura G. Owens Rock Body YOUR FASTING BEFORE EXERCISE BURNS FAT SUMMER TRIGGERS CLUSTER HEADACHES LOW-FAT DAIRY DECREASES DEPRESSION R esearchers with Tohoku University found an association between depres- sive symptoms such as hopelessness, helplessness, anxiety, sadness, and exhaustion and low-fat dairy consumption. Subjects in the study completed a depression and a dairy consumption questionnaire. Results suggest that people who ate low-fat dairy products one to four times a week were less depressed. The correlation continued even after researchers accounted for critical factors such as age, sex, health status, nutrition status, and lifestyle. There wasn't however, an association between whole-fat milk consumption and depression symptoms. Researchers suggest the trans-fatty acid in whole fat milk, which is associated with depression, cancels out the anti-depressive effect of another milk component, tryptophan. S ummer means sun and fun but for nearly one million people affected by cluster headaches it means debilitating pain. A cluster headache (often misdiag- nosed as migraine or sinus headaches) is a neurological disorder that can be trig- gered by earth's rotational shift during summer months. Symptoms include severe pain behind or near the eye on one side of the face, eye swelling or wa- tering, and nasal congestion. Unlike mi- graines which affect more women, clus- ter headaches are four times more likely to occur in men. Treatment for cluster headaches is generally trial and error but the following may help: • Avoid drinking alcohol or smoking during an attack. • Take melatonin to regulate sleep-wake cycles to restore imbalances that can trigger cluster headaches. • Try high-fl ow oxygen inhala- tion therapy. • Take magnesium. Those who suffer with cluster headaches often have low magnesium. • Add Vitamin B2 to decrease the frequency and severity. • Try ginger tea, peppermint oil, and regular exercise. • Consider Kudzu extract. This 2,000-year-old herb may help with the frequency, intensity, or duration. • Try capsaicin cream. A bit of a burn, but the cayenne pep- per in capsaicin works to block nerve pain signals. • Eat psilocybin mushrooms. Un- conventional, but when noth- ing else works, some sufferers fi nd relief in this psychedelic, according to Harvard Medical School studies. A 2017 study published in American Journal of Physiology—Endocrinology and Metabolism found that fasting before exercise burns more stored fat than eat- ing beforehand. Adipose tissue (a kind of fat) explains Dylan Thompson, an author on the study, "is busy responding to the meal and a bout of exercise at this time will not stimulate the same [benefi cial] changes in adipose tissue. This means that exercise in a fasted state might provoke more favorable changes in adipose tissue, and this could be benefi cial for health in the long term." 14 wholelifetimes.com