Coffee Research and Info

Two Simple Owls: Coffee is usually associated with waking people up in the morning, but it can also perk up your skin. The caffeine in coffee has a number of benefits for your skin, from treating redness and inflammation, to reducing the appearance of under-eye circles, to getting rid of cellulite. By incorporating caffeine into your skin care routine, you can reveal evenly toned, smooth skin all over your body.

Reduces Inflammation
Caffeine has potent anti-inflammatory properties that make it ideal for reducing inflammation and redness in your skin. In a 1981 study performed at the Seoul National University, researchers found that caffeine is able to reduce inflammation almost as well as aspirin; in a 1978 performed at the University of Tennessee, researchers found that adding caffeine to anti-inflammatory creams significantly increased their effectiveness. Overall, use of skin care products containing caffeine will reduce and prevent inflammation and redness, leaving you with a beautiful, even skin tone.

Helps Get Rid of Under-Eye Circles
Dark under-eye circles can be caused by a number of factors, including dehydration, allergies, lack of sleep or genetics. Although caffeine cannot completely erase hereditary dark circles, applying caffeine under your eyes will reduce the puffiness and inflammation associated with dark circles. Additionally, caffeine reduces the build-up of blood under your eyes which contributes to dark shadows. Several eye creams contain caffeine, or you can apply moist tea bags to your eyes for five minutes to reduce puffiness and give you a more alert appearance.

Gets Rid of Cellulite
Caffeine can also reduce the appearance of cellulite. In a 2008 study performed at the University of São Paulo, researchers found that an application of skin cream containing caffeine to cellulite reduced the size of cellulite fat cells by 17 percent. In addition, a 2007 study performed at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro found that caffeine cream applied to cellulite decreased the hip’s diameter in almost 70 percent of participants. A number of anti-cellulite creams have been developed to reduce the appearance of cellulite, or you can take advantage of the power of caffeine by adding ground or instant coffee to your regular body scrub at home.

Info obtained from Livestrong.com

Photo courtesy of www.alexandraresort.com

Technorati Tags: Coffee,Research,Cellulite,Inflammation,Caffeine

What If Buying Coffee Was Like Buying ObamaCare ????

Video: What If Buying Coffee Was Like Buying ObamaCare ????

Cross-Posted at the NoisyRoom  and AskMarion  -  h/t: Tom Elia – The New Editor 

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Constitution,Financial,Politics,Survival,Taxation,Buying Coffee

What If Coffee Were Like ObamaCare? CoffeeCare: The Affordable Coffee Act

Video: What If Coffee Were Like ObamaCare? CoffeeCare: The Affordable Coffee Act

RealityAlwaysWins - Cross-Posted to AskMaron - h/t to MJ:

Published on Jan 13, 2014:

While the video above seems like it is a joke, here are the actual quotes from the healthcare.gov website:

From the penalty page:

If someone who can afford health insurance doesn’t have coverage in 2014, they may have to pay a fee. They also have to pay for all of their health care.

Fantastic. I get to pay for my healthcare, which is fine, but then also a fee on top of that. Why would I have to pay a fee if I already am paying for my own healthcare?

The fee is sometimes called the “individual responsibility payment,” “individual mandate,” or penalty.

Wouldn’t paying for your own healthcare mean taking responsibility for your own healthcare? The fee doesn’t seem to do anything other than not go to your own healthcare.

When someone without health coverage gets urgent—often expensive—medical care but doesn’t pay the bill, everyone else ends up paying the price.

Because we are forced to….by the government.

That’s why the health care law requires all people who can afford it to take responsibility for their own health insurance by getting coverage or paying a fee.

But if they pay for their own healthcare then they are taking responsibility for their own healthcare.
Paying a fee to a doctor for an individual’s own healthcare makes sense as the individual is exchanging their money to the doctor in return for the doctor’s service. The individual is responsible for their own healthcare. This is how capitalism works – a voluntary mutual exchange of value.

Paying a fee to the government means that individual is being forced to pay for someone else’s healthcare. This is how socialism works – from each according to ability, to each according to need.

People without health coverage who pay the penalty will also have to pay the entire cost of all their medical care. They won’t be protected from the kind of very high medical bills that can sometimes lead to bankruptcy.

Do you mean the extremely high medical bills that are the result of…..government intervention into the healthcare market? Such as the case of medicare reimbursements that don’t cover the cost of administering those treatments so hospitals are forced to shift those costs to individuals who want to pay out of pocket? Or other cases where insurance companies are legally required to provide minimal coverages that people don’t want, such as maternity care for single men?

  The penalty in 2014 is calculated one of 2 ways. You’ll pay whichever of these amounts is higher:

Great, I always like getting the worse of two options.

• 1% of your yearly household income. The maximum penalty is the national average yearly premium for a bronze plan.
• $95 per person for the year ($47.50 per child under 18). The maximum penalty per family using this method is $285.

The fee increases every year. In 2015 it’s 2% of income or $325 per person. In 2016 and later years it’s 2.5% of income or $695 per person. After that it is adjusted for inflation.
If you’re uninsured for just part of the year, 1/12 of the yearly penalty applies to each month you’re uninsured. If you’re uninsured for less than 3 months, you don’t have a make a payment.

Learn more about the individual responsibility payment from the Internal Revenue Service.

Why is the IRS involved in my healthcare decisions?

Enroll by March 31, 2014 and you won’t have to make the individual shared responsibility payment

Notice how it went from “individual responsibility payment” to “individual shared responsibility payment”?
Why don’t they just drop the individual word and go with ”shared responsibility payment”.

If you pay the penalty, you’re not covered

It’s important to remember that someone who pays the penalty doesn’t have any health insurance coverage. They still will be responsible for 100% of the cost of their medical care.

Yes, thank you for repeating that someone paying the fee receives nothing of value in return as they are already paying for their healthcare as well.

Minimum essential coverage

To avoid the fee you need insurance that qualifies as minimum essential coverage.

Shouldn’t an individual choose what that person deems essential?

And now from the minimal essential health benefits page (numbers added out for easier reading):

The Affordable Care Act ensures health plans offered in the individual and small group markets, both inside and outside of the Health Insurance Marketplace, offer a comprehensive package of items and services, known as essential health benefits. Essential health benefits must include items and services within at least the following 10 categories:

1) ambulatory patient services;
2) emergency services;
3) hospitalization;
4) maternity and newborn care;
5) mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment;
6) prescription drugs;
7) rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices;
8) laboratory services;
9) preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management;
10) and pediatric services, including oral and vision care

What if a 30 year old single male is purchasing health insurance? Why should he have to pay for “maternity and newborn care”? What if he doesn’t want chronic disease management? What if he doesn’t want substance abuse care?

Here’s a hint.  It really isn’t about healthcare…..it’s about money.  Specifically money from you to be redistributed to someone else.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare Essential Health Benefits Page,ObamaCare,ObamaCare Surprises,Health Insurance Marketplace,Tea Party,CoffeeCare,ACA

,

CoffeeCare

Video: CoffeeCare 

Perspective: New Law – "The Affordable Boat Act" 2014

Great news for coffee drinkers - Men–Have another cup of coffee!

Sometimes it seems like the only kind of news I bring you is bad news. So, today we’re shifting our focus to a couple of pieces of VERY good news. Grab a cup of coffee — you’ll see why in a second — and get to reading!

Sometimes it seems like the only news I write about is bad news. So, today we’re shifting our focus to a couple of pieces of VERY good news.

Grab a cup of coffee — especially you men — and read on.

The first piece of good news comes from a study published in the journal Diabetic Medicine. Researchers in Hong Kong have added another item to the list of reasons you should be getting plenty of omega-3s, and this one is especially good news for diabetics.
Because it turns out that those wonderful fatty acids may actually improve your kidney health if you have diabetes. People who supplemented with omega-3s saw a big drop in creatinine levels in their blood, a common measure of kidney damage.

In the 12-week study, participants received either 4 grams per day of fish oil or a placebo—olive oil. (Side note: When’s the last time you saw the contents of a placebo disclosed by a Big Pharma drug study?)
At the end of the study, those who had taken fish oil had significantly lower creatinine levels than those who had been taking olive oil. So there’s one more reason to keep taking that fish oil — as if you really needed another one!

The second piece of good news gets us back to that cup of coffee. Men, this is particularly welcome news for you. Especially if you can’t get through the day without several cups of Joe.

Recently, a 20-year study involving 50,000 men showed that coffee-drinkers are at a lower risk for prostate cancer.

And the more coffee you drink, the lower the risk…For men who drank the most coffee (six or more cups a day), the risk fell a whopping 60%. Even men who drank only one to three cups per day had a 20% lower risk.

Now, what if you’re a decaf drinker? That doesn’t seem to matter — guys who drank decaffeinated coffee saw the same benefits. Researchers say that coffee impacts insulin, glucose metabolism, and sex hormones — all of which play a role in the development of prostate cancer.

They want to do more research to determine what component of coffee gives this protection, but in the meantime you can harness the benefits with a hot, steaming cup of coffee every morning.

This article from Dr. Jonathan V. Wrigth, MD website www.wrightnewsletter.com

Sources:
“Be a Java Junkie: New Study Reveals Coffee May Prevent Deadly Prostate Cancer,” Alternative Health Journal (www.insidershealth.com)

“Omega-3 may boost kidney health in diabetics: Study,” NutraIngredients (www.nutraingredients-usa.com)

How Many Red Bulls Would Kill You??

How many Red Bulls would it take to kill me?

How Many Red Bulls Would Kill You?

Image via Wikipedia

The folks at Energy Fiend have developed an online calculator called “Death by Caffeine” that tells you roughly how many Red Bulls, Monsters, Rock Stars, etc you’d have to drink to keel over. The number of drinks you can choose from on the killer-drink drop down menu is staggering, but upon closer inspection it looks like they include regular sodas like Pepsi, Coke and the like along with the amped up drinks (and even energy mints and coffee ice cream).

I’m going to enter my information, choosing Red Bull as my initial poison. Here’s the result:

It would take 204.75 cans of Red Bull to put you down.

Comparatively:

Gulp down 474.78 cans of Coca-Cola Classic and you’re history.

You could drink 297.82 cans of Mountain Dew before croaking.

It would take 109.20 cups of Starbucks Tall Caffe Americano to put you down.

If you eat 341.25 Cups of Haagen-Dazs Coffee Ice Cream, you’ll be pushing up daisies.

By the way (and I say this as a die-hard coffee drinker), imbibing caffeine to stay awake is one of the silliest things we humans do. The reason is this: in the brain, caffeine acts as an antagonist (a blocker) of adenosine–the neurotransmitter that pushes us closer and closer to sleep until we nod off–and it’s very good at accomplishing this. The problem is that with less exposure to adenosine, we become even more sensitive to the neurotransmitter’s effects. If we reduce our intake of caffeine, or simply become more tolerant of it, we actually find ourselves becoming more tired. So then we jack up the caffeine to counteract the withdrawal, but that just increases our tolerance.

Takeaway: you can only fool your brain into not sleeping for so long before succumbing to the inevitable crash.

HT: MindHacks

Better Than Coffee...

Rain Forest Herb Gives You Lasting Energy -
Without the Crash!*

Dear Health Conscious Reader,

When I was hiking through the Amazon Rain Forest last year, I had a first-hand experience with a remarkable healing herb...

Sacred to the nearby Guarani tribe, it was literally a gift from the gods. According to tribal folklore, the Indians of the Amazon River Basin have been using it to prevent fatigue and increase physical endurance since before recorded history.

I took it in the early morning before we hit the trail. After 18 hours through the jungles of Peru my mind was crystal clear and I had no feeling of fatigue. Looking back, I had covered 15 miles of rugged terrain without feeling tired or worn out.

I realized that combining this ancient herb with cutting edge brain nutrients would create a powerful new formula. Not only would it give you more energy without crashing, it would help your memory too.*

But the story gets better... After I got home, I started putting the pieces together. Working nights and weekends I had a trial formula within the first six weeks. Using myself as a test subject, I gave it a try.

Right from the start I knew I was on to something. I tapped into a deep source of mental energy, heightened memory and a laser-like focus throughout the day.

All the individual components of my formula are backed up by modern clinical studies. And now for the first time, you can feel the startling results for yourself.

My name is Dr. Al Sears. I have a private medical pratice in South Florida. But I've been around the world in search of healing herbs and traditional medicines.

What I discovered during my trek through the Amazon will send your energy to new heights...it has the power to boost your memory and power of recall too.

Here's how it works.

Kick Start Your Morning Without Feeling Nervous or Jittery

The Amazon herb that kept me alert yet relaxed comes from a seed called Paullina cupana. The active compound is guaranine, a member of the caffeine family. But unlike regular caffeine, it's full of healthy fatty acids.

The good fat gives guaranine a slow release. Its effect will gradually increase over a period of hours. It doesn't pick you up and throw you down like quick release caffeine. There's no crash with this stuff... and you don't get any of the nervous, jittery energy you do with caffeine.

Caffeine gets a bad rap sometimes but it's the most widely used drug in the world. And it's a proven mental performance booster. The studies number in the hundreds. One published in Neurology found that three cups of coffee a day cuts your risk of mental decline by over 50%.1

But there's a catch. Coffee gives you a short burst of energy, but overheats and excites your body. Guaranine has a cooling action that revitalizes and relaxes. The end result is more beneficial to your body. You get all the energy and alertness but remain calm, cool and collected.*

A team of Brazilian scientists studied the effects on rats. Their results were not surprising. Guaranine increased their physical activity, increased their physical endurance under stress and improved their memory.2*

But like I said, the story gets even better...

Give Your Brain the Power of Total Recall and Extreme Alertness

The effect of the Paullina cupana seed was amazing. It me gave the endurance to trek through the Amazon and left me with a wonderful feeling of clarity. But I was starting to see the bigger picture.

The Rain Forest herb works its magic by releasing acetylcholine in your brain. Acetyl-choline is a neurotransmitter. It's the brain chemical that lets your nerve cells fire through the synapse or gap that exists between the trillions of neurons in your brain.

If you have lots of acetylcholine, your mind is sharp and your memory is clear. When you drink coffee in the morning, the release of acetylcholine gives you the buzz that gets you going.*

But there's a problem... coffee will burn you out because it depletes your reserve of acetylcholine. Guaranine is slow acting with none of the caffeine side effects but it works in the same way. Eventually you lose your reserve of acetylcholine.

But if you trigger a release of acetylcholine and then rebuild your reserves you can sustain the amazing rush of clarity over the long term.*

That's The Realization I Had While Hiking Through The Forest...

I knew I could get the best of both worlds if I combined guaranine with powerful brain nutrients. One of them is choline, the building block required for the synthesis of acetylcholine. Introduce choline into the mix and you give your body the ability to manufacture this incredibly powerful neurotransmitter.

When you combine choline and guaranine you get a bigger release of acetylcholine - even more than taking guaranine on its own. That's what gives you the feeling of energy and mental power. But instead of depleting your reserves and burning out, you build them up.*

That means you can take my formula every day and get the same effect every time.

Getting More Choline is Essential - 
Your Brain Needs it for Thinking and Remembering

Your brain has a huge appetite for choline. It's the primary building block for acetylcholine. You burn it up 24/7 as your brain uses it to maintain clear communication between trillions of neurons.

You need it for all the basics like thought, memory and sleep. It even controls how you move. Your muscles receive commands from your brain via acetylcholine. That means your sense of balance and stability is controlled by this key transmitter.

Like many nutrients, your supply of choline drops as you get older. As this happens, you can expect some or all of these symptoms:

• Poor recall and memory loss

• Fatigue or lack of energy

• Brain fog and/or a sense of confusion

• Problems falling asleep, tossing and turning

• Unable to catch on, or learn new things

• Feeling distracted or irritable

• Walking with a wobbly or shaky gait, unable to stay balanced

When Your Brain Doesn't Get Enough Choline
It Starts to Destroy Itself...

To survive, your body will scavenge materials from other sources when it can't get enough from its main supplier. When choline levels drop off, your brain goes on a scavenger hunt and extracts choline from nerve cell membranes. This last resort is called "auto-cannibalism" and it's very dangerous.

In the short term, your brain will use this technique to keep your memory and other functions up and running. But in the long run, your nerve cells end up badly damaged.

In the graph below, you can see how the nutrients DMAE and choline turn into the key neurotransmitter acetylcholine. DMAE is another powerful brain nutrient I will tell you about a little later. It's also in my formula. First, I want you to see the direct connection choline has to its end product acetylcholine.

As you can see, choline is one small step away from acetylcholine. Put more choline into your body and your brain gets more of the neurotransmitter that keeps your mind alert and your memory fresh.*

Clinical Studies Prove Connection Between Choline and Memory

It's very possible you've never heard of choline. Most people haven't. But it's one of the most important nutrients on the planet. And it's well researched. There are dozens of studies testing both animals and humans.

Here are just a few:

• Researchers who gave rats a choline supplement found they developed a sharper and longer memory than rats that didn't have extra choline. On day one, both groups of rats were performing their tasks successfully. This included avoiding electric shock as they moved through a maze.

On day two, the rats that didn't have the extra choline forgot about the electric shock and got zapped. But the rats that had the extra choline remembered the booby traps and successfully avoided getting shocked.3

• In a human study, researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago tested people with a choline deficiency. They gave them a series of memory tests and found below average scores. In the next stage, they divided the same people into two groups. One group received extra choline, the other didn't.

After 24 weeks, both groups repeated the memory tests. Not surprisingly, the group with the extra choline performed with flying colors and their results showed a dramatic improvement over the first round. The group that received no extra choline performed poorly. Their results showed no improvement over the first round.4*

Burn through Your Crossword with Lightning Speed...

My unique blend of choline and guaranine is like rocket fuel for your brain. Not only does it give you a better boost than your morning cup of coffee, it gives you the clarity of a mental giant.

You'll notice the lift right away. If you do crosswords you'll finish them in a fraction of the time. Things like organization, recall and comprehension just fall into place.

When you read something, you "get it." When someone is explaining something, you understand what they're getting at before they even get to the point. You move into a feeling of extreme alertness. You're aware of everything and it's all so clear.

The processing speed of your brain gets a twin-turbo boost. It's like stepping up to one of those super-computers NASA uses for space flight.

One of the experiences I appreciate most is the "alert but calm" feeling. Your mind can relax and let go. Your focus becomes almost laser like. And it lasts throughout the day. It's not a short-lived spike like coffee or other caffeine drinks.

I could have stopped there... choline and guaranine are enough to repair and rejuvenate your aging brain. But there's another key brain booster essential to my formula.*

This Nutrient Works So Well it Even Caught the Attention
Of the Bumbling Bureaucrats at the FDA...

A little earlier I mentioned DMAE. It's a natural, brain-stimulating nutrient found in anchovies, sardines and other fish. Studies show it increases levels of acetylcholine. As you know, acetylcholine is critical for learning and memory.5 

I've been following the story of DMAE for decades. It works so well the FDA finally took notice and planned to approve it.

So what happened? The FDA discontinued it in the late 1970s after the manufacturer didn't agree to the expensive retesting required. Since the manufacturer wouldn't pay, the FDA dropped DMAE like a hot potato.

What a shame. DMAE provides a safe and non-addictive solution to a variety of cognitive and behavioral problems.

DMAE can also support learning and promote a healthy mood.* In one study, 50 kids showed improvement in just 10 weeks.6 In another study, children did better in concentration and skill tests with this nutrient.7 And there were no side effects like jumpiness, or an increase in heart rate.8*

It's easy to see why I added DMAE to my formula. It's one of the best memory boosters available. In combination with choline and guaranine, it's unbeatable. It has a synergistic quality that makes the three ingredients more than the sum of their parts.

Clinical studies show DMAE can:9*

• Boost IQ

• Accelerate mental speed and your ability to process thoughts and ideas

• Improve your concentration and eliminate early morning "fogginess"

• Promote a healthy mood

• Decrease irritability and over activity 

• Increase attention without causing drowsiness

 Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Health

There's one more thing you need to know about this formula... It has a very unique and clinically proven "side effect": It supports your heart and brain health.*

How is this possible?

Boosting the level of choline in your blood has a powerful effect on homocysteine and C-reactive protein (CRP). If you're a regular reader you've probably heard about these powerful markers. They are both better indicators for heart and brain health than anything else - including cholesterol.

Research has demonstrated that homocysteine causes oxidative stress to the vascular endothelium and that maintaining healthy levels of homocysteine is important for heart health.*

Your body produces C-reactive protein as part of its overall defense. When part of your body is injured, it sends signals to the rest of your body for help. Your immune system then sends out white blood cells and inflammatory molecules including CRP to the injured area.

Once there, the defense cells try to fix damaged areas and fight off the intruder. But this defensive response causes inflammation. The inflammatory response needs energy in the form of oxidative "fire" which can damage surrounding tissues.

Spikes in CRP levels are an early sign of inflammation in your body. That's why CRP is such a good indicator. We can evaluate heart health using CRP levels better than with cholesterol levels.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a massive study on CRP. Almost 28,000 people participated in the trial. Researchers discovered that CRP predicted cardiovascular health better than LDL cholesterol.10

Here's the good news: The choline in my formula brings down your levels of both homocysteine and CRP.* 

Here are a few of the studies that back this up:

• An experiment published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition followed two groups of men. One group ate a diet with no choline. The other group took a choline supplement. The men with no choline saw a steep rise in homocysteine. After just 10 days, their homocysteine went up by 35%.11*

• Researchers discovered that people who consume higher amounts of choline have lower levels of homocysteine and CRP. The study followed two groups of people. One group averaged less than 250-mg of choline a day. The other group averaged more than 310-mg of choline a day. The group who averaged above 310-mg saw their CRP drop by 22%.12*

Not only does choline ramp up your mental energy and protect your memory, it helps wipe out the two predictors of coming disaster.*

Here's Another Mental Boost: Confidence

If this is the first time you've heard about choline, you may be surprised to hear it does so much. But once you feel the results for yourself you'll understand.

After taking my choline formula, many of my patients tell me they feel more confident about the future. Instead of sitting around the house worrying about what might happen, they feel like they're back in the driver's seat. That's what happens when you have real options.

Knowledge is power. But I wouldn't be surprised if sometimes you feel like you're being kept in the dark. Many doctors make their patients feel like children or fools. Or both. They hand out prescriptions and give you an attitude if you ask questions. I've always believed real medicine is about empowerment. Not secrecy.

With this blend of super nutrients, you have the power to keep your mind clear and strong as you age. It keeps your brain young and well fed. And when it's working in peak condition your risk of problems drop dramatically.*

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, M.D.

Drinking Coffee Slashes Risk of Alzheimer’s

Drinking coffee during midlife can slash your risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A Finnish study found that those who drank coffee at midlife had a lower risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease in late-life than those who drank no coffee at all. Those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk by 65 percent.

“We aimed to study the association between coffee and tea consumption at midlife and dementia/AD risk in late-life, because the long-term impact of caffeine on the central nervous system was still unknown, and as the pathologic processes leading to Alzheimer’s disease may start decades before the clinical manifestation of the disease,” says lead researcher, associate professor Miia Kivipelto from the University of Kuopio, Finland and Karloinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

Coffee-drinking was categorized into three groups: low (0 to 2 cups daily), moderate (3 to 5 cups) and high (more than 5 cups). Tea-drinking was categorized into two groups: those not drinking tea and those who drank at least one cup daily. While all coffee drinkers had a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than non-drinkers, those who drank moderate amounts of coffee lowered their risk by a surprising 65 percent. Drinking tea had no impact on the risk of developing dementia.

“Given the large amount of coffee consumption globally, the results might have important implications for the prevention of or delaying the onset of dementia/AD. The finding needs to be confirmed by other studies, but it opens the possibility that dietary interventions could modify the risk of dementia/AD,” wrote Kivipelto. “Also, identification of mechanisms of how coffee exerts its protection against dementia/AD might help in the development of new therapies for these diseases.”