Probiotics Change Emotional Responses
Researchers from UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine have determined that consuming a milk fermented with probiotics changes the brain activity of women. The UCLA medical researchers divided 36 healthy women into three groups. One group was given a milk fermented with probiotics twice a day. Another group was given a milk without the probiotics. The other group was given no milk product.
Before the study began the women underwent extensive brain MRI studies and brain activity tasking response analyses. Then the women consumed the probiotic or placebo milk for four weeks, followed by repeated testing. Along with the MRI testing, the researchers tested brain responses to emotional faces, as well as during rest. They utilized analyses that tests emotional response.
After the four weeks, those women who drank the probiotic milk had significantly different brain activity changes. Their task-related responses increased, and their activity within the sensory cortex regions changed, which was dramatically illustrated during rest periods. Their midbrain connectivity increased, which the researchers concluded probably explained their task-related response increases. Their altered brain activity also illustrated changes in the brain signaling pathways for emotional responses among the women.
The probiotics in the fermented milk included Bifidobacterium animalis, Streptococcus thermophiles, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Lactococcus lactis. Each of these species has been shown in other clinical studies to improve health among other organs and tissue regions of the body.
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Gratitude is Good for the Heart, Literally
It is well known that mental and physical health are closely intertwined, but new data suggests your attitude may have a major influence on your heart attack risk. The latest science reveals that a "grateful heart" is a healthy heart.
Dr. Paul Mills of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine has been researching the connection between mental health and heart health for decades. A positive attitude is associated with lower heart disease risk because it reduces stress, anxiety and depression, all of which contribute to cardiovascular disease.
But what about gratitude and your heart? To answer this question, Mills designed a study. He recruited 186 men and women with heart disease and came up with a gratitude questionnaire. What he learned was, the more grateful people are, the healthier they are. Mills also performed blood tests to measure inflammation levels. Inflammation strongly correlates with the buildup of arterial plaque and the development of heart disease. Interestingly, the most grateful individuals showed the lowest inflammatory markers.
Mills then dug in deeper with a follow-up study involving gratitude journaling. After two months, individuals with a history heart disease who kept gratitude journals enjoyed a decrease in their overall cardiac risk, whereas a non-journaling group did not. Mills isn't certain how gratitude helps the heart but believes the key may be reduced stress. These results aren't surprising in light of previous studies linking negative emotional states with increased risk of heart attack and stroke. A 2012 review of 200 studies by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that optimism and happiness do indeed reduce cardiovascular risk.
Robert A. Emmons heads up a long-term research project designed to create and disseminate scientific data on the nature of gratitude, its causes and potential consequences for human health and well-being. Neuroscientist Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the science director of Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) at UC Berkeley, works alongside Emmons in the study of gratitude. Simon-Thomas reports:
"After eight weeks of practice, brain scans of individuals who practice gratitude have stronger brain structure for social cognition and empathy, as well as the part of the brain that processes reward."
Simon-Thomas has also seen gratitude relieve symptoms of post-traumatic stress and helps individuals with PTSD recover more quickly. Studies involving trauma survivors (Vietnam vets and 9/11) have found gratitude to be a significant factor in healing from trauma.
QUANTUM HEALTH TIP: We have several mood enhancing formulas that set the stage for feelings and expressions of gratitude. Clean Sweep dissolves away any negative energies in a space including emotions; E-1 addresses anxiety by balancing the hormonal system; and the Meditation Elixirs assist with clearing the blocks to realizing a higher state of being. Gratitude is the attitude!
Good germs we are...
Once considered the cause of most disease, "germs" are now increasingly being recognized as essential to our survival and well-being by extending our genetic capabilities with "supra human" powers.
There are deep-seated "mutations" in our genome, some of which do things like limit the production of the active form of folate (a B Vitamin), known as 5-methylenetetrahydrafolate. These defects can have a are associated with a wide range of health problems related to this type of folate deficiency. There is, however, a well known strain of Lactobacillus helviticus found in fermented dairy products that produces the missing folate metabolite for us in our gut. Examples like this show that the microbiome can fill genetic gaps within our bodies, literally plugging holes with "epigenetic glue" in what would otherwise be the sinking ship of the languid adaptability of the human genome.
Moreover, remarkable research last year shows that there is a human strain of bacteria in the microbiome capable of synthesizing vitamin C, essentially challenging the prevailing view that humans are incapable of producing vitamin C. Also last year, a chlorophyll metabolite found in the gut known as pyropheophorbide-a was found to "super charge" our mitochondria in producing the energy enzyme ATP (without the concomitant increase in free radicals), essentially disproving the long-held assumption that humans can not directly harvest sunlight and convert it into metabolic energy like plants; it turns out we can! So many apple carts are being overturned, thanks to our growing awareness of the seeming miraculous capabilities of the microbiome and its metabolites.
Increasingly, research on the microbiome and its ability to extend our genetic/epigenetic capabilities giving us "supra human" powers, such as profoundly enhanced digestion, assimilation, immunity, synthesis of vitamins, is accumulating in the biomedical literature.
The human genome, after all, contains approximately 23,000 protein-coding genes, while the human microbiome contributes about 42,000,000 such genes by the trillions of bacteria and viruses. Together, they exert far more influence via epigenetic mechanisms than the primary sequences in our DNA. The point, of course, is to humble ourselves to the realization that we are more "germ" than "human" as far as both the number, and genetic capabilities, of these microbes.
QUANTUM HEALTH TIP: We're on the verge of understanding that perhaps the human body's best genius lies in its ability to recruit the bacteria and viruses it needs to adapt to suddenly changing environments. Help it along with our probiotic Plantadophilus formula, and with our E-4 Foundation formula that adds energy to the immune system.
Company & Product News
We Now Have Slenderiiz!
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Gem Elixir for the Month
Garnet
"Stone of Regeneration"
Spiritually: Stimulates expanded awareness and past life recall. Cleanses and reenergizes the chakras. Balances and stimulates the development and movement of the Kundalini.
Emotionally: Inspires love and devotion. Dissolves ingrained behavior patterns. Fortifies, activates and strengthens the survival instinct, inspires love and devotion, alleviates emotional disharmony.
Mentally: Helps to release useless, old, or obsolete ideas.
Physically: May help regenerate the body and stimulate the metabolism. May assist spinal and cellular disorders. May purify and reenergize blood, heart, and lungs, may help regenerate DNA.
Trinity Garnet Elixir is on sale for a month for 30% off with discount code GARNET30 (enter the code in the indicated box as you checkout through the website shopping cart--offer good until 2/15/16).
This Quantum Life
by Boyd Martin, President
Are you "All In"?
Commitment is a complicated and funny concept. On the one hand it represents strict, unbending discipline. On the other it represents a giving up, or letting go--a turning of one's soul totally over to a belief.
The first definition makes me feel tired. Don't we all feel a commitment to working as hard as we can to make our lives happy? We grit our teeth and grimly set forth on the laborious path
to what we believe will create happiness and fulfillment. This brings out the rebel in me. Why not work smart, not hard? Or, maybe it's not a matter of "work" at all?
The second definition of commitment is scary to me. It's the commitment it takes to jump into the abyss; take that leap of faith, or give up all your preconcieved notions, plans and schemes for success, and let the Universe just provide.
Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is where most of us dwell for the short years we have on this planet. We beat ourselves up for not "sticking with it"; but then beat ourselves up because we realize we just can't let go and have a little faith in life. All the while, happiness, contentment and fulfillment seem like bubbles in the wind.
I must say, after 60-plus years of wearing myself out working my ass off, instead of achieving a modicum of happiness for my trouble, I instead have realized the utter futility of it. Over my lifetime I've often glanced over at the Second Way longingly wondering if that would be the fruitful path not taken. I even dabbled in it sometimes when the stakes weren't very high, with mixed results.
Now I'm wondering, what if the Universe is just waiting for me to get out of my own way? What if I'm unconsciously blocking the Universe by making all these plans, cooking up all these schemes, and worrying my pretty little head about outcomes. There's a nagging knowing that this is the true reality of my life, that the ego must demonstrate how powerful it is in creating a life for me. But what if that is all just bullshit? What if the doorway to fulfillment and the actualizing of all my grandest wishes and dreams was as simple as just asking for it?
The Universe sometimes has a way of pointing directly at your self-esteem issues when you ask for something. We jump over into planning and working hard to prove to ourselves we're worthy of what we ask for. "Work hard enough, and you can have everything you want." I think this is mostly a lie. Sure, hard work and slavish commitment to an objective is how most of us get stuff we want, but what if that is the "long way 'round"?
Instead, what if it's more a matter of asking for something and then being completely, and committedly willing to do, be or not do and not be whatever comes up in the actualizing of it, and what if doing and being only those ways of joy and ease was the fastest track to bringing your dreams to fruition?
In other words, you want the joy and ease in your life that your objective would bring. What if the path to that objective was doing and being that joy and ease right now? All the Universe seems to want to know is, Are you committed to the joy and ease your dreams would bring? Can you truly receive that, or are you awash in doubts and self-defeatism? The Universe is all too willing to let you thrash around in those doubts, otherwise how would you become aware of the alternative?
Say it with me: I hereby COMMIT to the joy and ease the actualization of my dreams would bring, vow to become joy and ease in my life right now, becoming a powerful, shining beacon the Universe cannot miss in bringing me everything grand and wonderful I can imagine, and beyond. Are you ALL IN?
To your quantum health,
Boyd Martin,
President
pureenergyrx.com