Overturning Traditional Wisdom - Exercise Now Shown to Slowdown Multiple Sclerosis

We all know some of the obvious benefits of exercise - lowering blood pressure, cardiovascular health, losing weight, and improving your mood - but now studies are showing that exercise can do even more. It’s been recently found that exercise can slow down the progression of multiple sclerosis.

The degenerative disease damages the brain and spinal cord, causing effects including: loss of muscle control, vision, balance, sensations, and cognitive abilities.

It’s unknown what causes MS, but genetics is one common factor. MS is an autoimmune disease, which means that the nerves of the brain and spinal cord are damaged by a person’s own immune system.

The two most common forms of the disease, according to WebMD, are:

• Relapsing-remitting MS: characterized by unpredictable acute attacks, called ‘exacerbations,’ with worsening symptoms, followed by full, partial, or no recovery of some function. These attacks can evolve over several days to weeks. Recovery from an attack can take weeks and sometimes months. In most people, this pattern usually occurs early in the course of MS.
• Primary-progressive MS: characterized by a gradual but steady progression of disability, without any obvious relapses and remissions. This form of disease occurs in just 15% of all people with MS, but it is the most common type of MS in people who develop the disease after the age of 40.

To understand exactly how exercise helps slow down the progression of MS, first you have to understand a little bit more about how the disease works.

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Icelandic Eruption to Have Far Reaching Health Consequences

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has now been erupting for nearly a month - intensifying over the last week, with no end in sight. As the ash plume continues to spread across Europe, those affected will go far beyond the airlines and travelers.

The ash plume will also affect all those that breath the air it saturates - people and animals alike, especially if it falls as acid rain. The World Health Organization says that “as long as the ash remains in the upper atmosphere, there will not likely be an increased risk of health effects, but people with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma, emphysema, or bronchitis may be more susceptible to irritation if the ash is in the lower atmosphere in high concentrations.”

“If people are outside and notice irritation in their lungs, a runny nose, or itchy eyes, they should return indoors and limit their outdoor activities,” said Dr. Maria Neira, director of the public health and environment department at WHO.

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Above Average Hurricanes and Flooding Expected for U.S. in 2010, Say Experts

Photo courtesy of CHICAGOLAND TELEVISION.

Water has awesome power. As we’ve often seen it can either be the bringer of life or its ultimate destroyer. Hopefully, not too much of the latter happens this year, as researchers at Colorado State University forecast “an above average 2010 Atlantic basin hurricane season.”

They’re basing this on the projection that El Nino conditions (warm ocean currents, often brining rain) will dissipate by this summer, but that warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures will continue.

“Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 69 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent. While patterns may change before the start of hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above average season,” said William Gray, head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State.

The Atlantic hurricane season is officially from June 1 to Nov. 30. During this time, university researchers are predicting 15 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin, with eight expected to be hurricanes, and four developing into major hurricanes (categories 3-5, with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater).

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Indonesia’s Fight: Commercial Farming vs. Rainforest Preservation

Indigenous hunter in Papuan rainforest. Photo by buzzine.com.

Expanding farm lands to feed ever growing human populations and livestock, or conserving rainforests that many consider the lungs of the Earth?

It’s always a hard question in itself, and in the situation of Indonesia’s Papua province, it’s even more complicated.

As the Rainforest Information Centre puts it - “Rainforests have been called the “Lungs of the Earth,” but the term is misleading. Although rainforests do release vast amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, they absorb just as much through the decay of organic matter. However, they do play an important role in regulating the Earth’s atmosphere by storing carbon in their biomass. When forests are destroyed, the carbon they contain is released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.”

Scientists are forever debating whether global warning is real. Even for those that don’t believe that global warming is real, rainforest deforestation also destroys the habitats of untold numbers of species that make them home. And, lets not forget all the natural medicines that have been discovered and that those that never will.

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Busting the Clean Drinking Water Illusion - EPA Lagging Behind Polluters

Graphic courtesy of DestinationKnowlton.com.

Americans often worry about drinking water quality when visiting other countries. Well, it might be time to start worrying just as much about our own drinking water.

Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson acknowledged in a speech that her agency is finding it difficult to keep up with new pollutants that are constantly entering our drinking water supplies. The speech was given at the annual conference of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies.

“While we’ve cut the flow of many conventional pollutants into our tap water sources, we face challenges from other pollutants from less conventional sources. Not the visible oil slicks and industrial waste of the past, but the invisible pollutants that we’ve only recently had the science to detect.

“There are a range of chemicals that have become more prevalent in our products, our water, and our bodies in the last 50 years. We also face serious issues of deferred maintenance in our infrastructure,” said Ms. Jackson.

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