Day: February 13, 2007

“An herb called danshen — traditionally used in China as a medicine for high blood pressure — has been shown to reduce hypertension in hamsters, according to a study published in the American Journal of Physiology. Researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey administered danshen’s active ingredient — the chemical tanshinone IIA — to hamsters with hypertension. The hamsters’ blood vessels dilated in response, and their blood pressure decreased as a result. Researchers hypothesize that danshen causes this effect by increasing the body’s production of nitric oxide. Danshen, known by the scientific name Salvia miltiorrhiza, is a variety of sage. David Kim, author of the study and assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, is a licensed acupuncturist who prescribes danshen to his own high-blood-pressure patients. ‘Traditionally, we knew this was working for high blood pressure,’ he said, ‘but we didn’t know what the mechanism was.’ Kim says he wants to further study how long danshen’s effects last after it is administered. ‘In Western medicine, [a treatment] works fast but doesn’t last long,’ he said. ‘In Oriental medicine, it works slowly, but it lasts.'”

Chinese herb lowers blood pressure, reduces hypertension

As it is with most Naturopathic and Natural Health remedies… it takes a while to see a difference, but the effects are long lasting, and have fewer, or no, side effects! So, patience, good, natural approaches… lead to better health!

And otherwise cut down on stress. That’s the message from a new study… at least three 30 minutes naps a week can cut the risk of dying from a heart attack by 37%!

Researchers find a nap is just what the heart needs

“People who take at least three daytime naps a week lasting 30 minutes or longer cut their risk of dying from a heart attack by 37 percent, according to a study by a team of U.S. and Greek researchers. Regular siestas apparently lower stress, which is frequently associated with heart disease, the scientists report in Monday’s edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, a leading medical journal. ‘If you can take a midday nap, do so,’ advised co-author Dimitrios Trichopoulos, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Trichopoulos and a colleague, Androniki Naska of the Athens Medical School, followed 23,681 originally healthy men and women in Greece for more than six years. Of these, 792 died, 133 of them from coronary heart disease. Slightly more than half the study group took regular midday naps — a mark of siestas’ popularity in Mediterranean societies. The nappers’ death rate was about two-thirds the rate among Greeks who stayed awake all day, the study found. The reasons for napping’s life-saving merits aren’t definitely known, but a number of studies have found links between heart troubles and physical or emotional stress.”