5 Activities for Longevity

1. Laugh out loud! Research shows that laughter and joy boost immune functions, especially the production of the natural killer cells that help protect the body from illness and cancer. Laughter also increases the release of endorphins, compounds that give you a sense of well-being, in your brain. Without a doubt, joyful people live longer and healthier lives.

2. Drink it up--tea, that is. Besides being anti-cancerous and cholesterol lowering, the antioxidant-rich tea leaves also protect your brain from free-radical damage, strengthen your bones against osteoporosis and according to studies published in the Journal of American Medical Association, lowers risks of death from all forms of cardiovascular diseases. So drink tea to your heart's content!

3. Unwind with meditation (not medication). Stress is the root cause of most of the diseases that shorten our life span. In our modern society stress will continue to increase - unless you find techniques to manage it. Meditation is the best way to release tension and revitalize your being. It also quiets your mind, lowers your stress hormones, and teaches self-discipline, which is a necessary attribute to achieving your health and longevity goals.

4. Massage. Countless studies have shown benefits of massage to include relieve pain and stiffness, boost immunity, reduce anxiety and depression, lower stress and blood pressure, and increase circulation that you wouldn't want to skip out on a good thing.

5. Climb the stairs instead of using elevator. The health benefits of a daily exercise program cannot be stressed enough. Regular exercise can help promote physiological well-being, strengthen the immune system, maintain joint mobility, increase energy - and the list goes on. Look for opportunities all through your day to work in physical activity. Power-walk, run, or ride your bike instead of driving.

Cancer & Lifestyle Choices

This year, the message for World Cancer Day, 4th February, is "Cancer can be prevented too", with experts suggesting that 40 per cent of the 12.4 million cancersdiagnosed and 7.6 million cancer deaths worldwide could be prevented if we applied what we know about avoiding infections and changing lifestyles. The International Union Against Cancer (UICC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) who are marking World Cancer Day, said such reductions could be within our reach were we to apply "evidence-based cancer prevention strategies".

If someone came up with a single vaccine or drug that was proven to cure 40 per cent of all cancers we would all be dancing in the streets, yet in effect this is what we have says the UICC, except it isn't in one tablet, it's in lots of different bits of knowledge and strategies, we just need to apply them effectively and comprehensively.

The UICC said cancer prevention strategies include simple things like:

• Quitting use of tobacco and avoiding second-hand smoke,
• Limiting consumption of alcohol,
• Avoiding too much sun,
• Keeping to a healthy weight through healthy diet and exercise, and
• Protecting against infections that cause cancer.

To coincide with World Cancer Day, the UICC has prepared a report titled "Cancer can be prevented too: protection against cancer-causing infections" that highlights 9 infections that can lead to cancer: including cervical and liver cancers, which can be prevented by vaccines. The nine infection areas covered in the report are: Hepatitis B virus (causes liver cancer); Hepatitis C virus (a growing threat that also causes liver cancer); HPV (certain strains cause cervical cancer); Epstein Barr virus (causes Burkitt'slymphoma, especially high incidence in children in equatorial Africa); HIV (Kaposi's sarcoma and AIDS-related lymphomas); Helicobacter pylori (a bacterium that can cause stomach cancer); Liver flukes and cancer of the bile ducts; Schistosomiasis and bladder cancer; and HTLV-1 and adult T-cell leukaemia.

The report explains that over the last three decades infections have emerged as an important risk for cancer, and suggests that current cancer research should focus on their prevention, detection and treatment.

Co-author Harald zur Hausen, who won the Nobel prize for his discovery of human papillomaviruses (HPV) causing cervical cancer, wrote that:

"Globally, efforts to identify agents involved in human cancers and to study the mechanisms of how they lead to cancer are still remarkably underrepresented."

information taken from:

Medical News Today

Sitting Kills

Here's a new warning from health experts: Sitting is deadly. Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for prolonged periods – even if you also exercise regularly – could be bad for your health. And it doesn't matter where the sitting takes place – at the office, at school, in the car or before a computer or TV – just the overall number of hours it occurs.

Research is preliminary, but several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die. In an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting. "After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down. Figures from a U.S. survey in 2003-2004 found Americans spend more than half their time sitting, from working at their desks to sitting in cars.