News by Natre – News by Nature

Dry Skin on the Face? The Causes and Remedies to Treat It

10Apr

By CatherineNo Comments

Remedies

Dry Skin on the Face? The Causes and Remedies to Treat It

Some people are more prone than others to dry skin on the face. Gentle treatments and home remedies can relieve dry facial skin and prevent it from coming back. People may experience dry skin on their face as a result of many factors, including changes in temperature or humidity, using soaps with harsh chemicals, and skin conditions, such as eczema. In most cases, people can get rid of dry skin using home remedies and over-the-counter (OTC) treatments. What causes it? A person can moisturize daily to treat dry skin on their face. The skin naturally produces an oil called sebum. When the skin produces too much oil, this can lead to pimples. However, having some sebum on the skin is important for keeping it hydrated and protecting the cells from infection. Skin that is not cre...

Gene-edited Foods are Safe, Japanese Panel Concludes

19Mar

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Gene-edited Foods are Safe, Japanese Panel Concludes

Japan will allow gene-edited foodstuffs to be sold to consumers without safety evaluations as long as the techniques involved meet certain criteria, if recommendations agreed on by an advisory panel yesterday are adopted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. This would open the door to using CRISPR and other techniques on plants and animals intended for human consumption in the country. “There is little difference between traditional breeding methods and gene editing in terms of safety,” Hirohito Sone, an endocrinologist at Niigata University who chaired the expert panel, told NHK, Japan’s national public broadcaster. Now, Japan appears set to follow the U.S. example. The final report, approved yesterday, was not immediately available, but an earlier draft was posted on the ...

You Sound How You Eat: Speech Evolved As Diet Changed

18Mar

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

You Sound How You Eat: Speech Evolved As Diet Changed

A surprising new study has revealed that diverse sounds produced by human speech not only evolved after Neolithic times but also stem from biological alterations in the human bite as a result of eating softer diets. The findings contradict the theory that the range of human sounds has not changed since Homo sapiens emerged about 300,000 years ago. Linguistic diversity was also commonly thought to evolve independently of biological changes. In 1985, linguist Charles Hockett suggested that labiodentals – the class of speech sounds including ‘f’ and ‘v’ in English – might have evolved as diets became softer with the move away from hunting and gathering towards agriculture and industrialized food processing. These changes, he said, altered the human bite so that new sounds were easier...

How Diet Became The Latest Front in the Culture Wars

17Mar

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

How Diet Became The Latest Front in the Culture Wars

The latest study warning us to eat less meat has brought angry skeptics out in droves. But who should we believe? Food, how to cook it, what it does to you and what growing or rearing it does to the planet are issues that crowd the media. And yet, as the clamor grows, clarity recedes. An estimated 820 million people went hungry last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. A third of all people were vitamin-deficient. Two billion were classified as overweight and 600 million as obese. It’s also estimated that 1bn tonnes of food is wasted every year – a third of the total produced. A plethora of academic reports concerning food consumption and production have been published in recent years. The latest and arguably the most far-reaching is Food in the Anthropocene: ...

Boosting Your Levels Of Exercise May Also Improve Your Diet

4Feb

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

Boosting Your Levels Of Exercise May Also Improve Your Diet

A new US study suggests that individuals who want to make healthier diet choices may find that starting an exercise regime could help, as results indicated that regular exercise is linked to better eating habits. The findings, published in the International Journal of Obesity, showed that despite being told not to make any diet changes, after several weeks of exercise participants naturally started to opt for healthier food, such as lean meats, fruits, and vegetables. Their preferences for fried foods, sodas and other unhealthy options also decreased. “The process of becoming physically active can influence dietary behavior,“ said corresponding author Molly Bray. “One of the reasons that we need to promote exercise is for the healthy habits it can create in other areas. That combinat...

Note to Parents: Most ‘Home Remedies’ for Children’s Colds Don’t Work

25Jan

By CatherineNo Comments

Remedies

Note to Parents: Most ‘Home Remedies’ for Children’s Colds Don’t Work

Vitamin C tablets or regular hand-washing? And is echinacea a better cold treatment than a tall glass of water? Your answer matters. More than half of parents may be using non-evidence–based methods of helping prevent or treat their children’s colds, a new survey from the University of Michigan suggests. Those methods included vitamin C supplements, echinacea, supplements marketed as “immune system boosters,” and zinc, among others, according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health shows. What Parents Are Doing Right Colds are viruses, so the main way to prevent them is to prevent kids from coming into direct contact with the virus. That means staying away from mucus droplets spread through the air from someone coughing or sneezing, or f...

Plant-Focused Diet Won’t Save The Planet

18Jan

By CatherineNo Comments

Diet

Plant-Focused Diet Won’t Save The Planet

Richard Vernon says population reduction would do more for the planet than a change of diet, Stuart Roberts and John Davies extol the benefits of British farming, Dr. Michael Antoniou calls for balanced scientific information and Paul Faupel on meeting his dietary needs with chocolate-enrobed brazil nuts. Damian Carrington gives us a fine review of the “planetary health diet” in his article (New plant-focused diet would ‘transform’ planet’s future, say, scientists, theguardian.com, 16 January). It’s clear that this diet offers both better health than the current norm of a high-meat diet and a more environmental food production system with its emphasis on plant rather than animal production. However, I doubt the validity of some claims in the report. Moreover, population reduction sho...

Opposed to G.M.O.s? How Much Do You Know About Them?

15Jan

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Opposed to G.M.O.s? How Much Do You Know About Them?

Most scientists agree that genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s, are safe to eat. But a new study suggests that the people who are most extremely opposed to them know the least about them. Researchers surveyed 501 randomly selected adults, testing their knowledge of G.M.O.s with a series of true/false questions — for example, the cloning of living things produces genetically identical copies (true), or it is not possible to transfer animal genes into plants (false). The study, in Nature Human Behaviour, also tested how strongly the participants opposed G.M.O.s by measuring on a seven-point scale the desire to regulate them, the willingness to eat them, and the inclination to actively oppose them by participating in protests or donating to anti-G.M.O. organizations. “This sho...

15Jan

By CatherineNo Comments

Remedies

Home Remedies To Ease A Hangover

A hangover can leave someone with fatigue, nausea, and muscle aches. People swear by certain hangover cures, but do home remedies really help? Home hangover cures aim to treat these symptoms. There is no specific food, drink, or magic pill to cure a hangover, though certain remedies can ease the symptoms in some people. 1. Medication 2. Drinking plenty of water 3. Eating breakfast 4. Antioxidants 5. Drinking coffee or tea Some people may even have a genetic disposition for worse hangovers than others. Scientists have to rely on people's self-reported hangover symptoms, which may vary between people and depend on day-to-day factors, and these are very difficult to control scientifically. The lack of research has left room for a wide range of myths to develop the best ways...

Are Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs) Safe?

9Jan

By CatherineNo Comments

Genetically Modified Foods

Are Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs) Safe?

Recently, in the news media, there have been various reports about the introduction of certain Genetically Modified, GM, crops, and seeds into the country. Examples of such include: the release of genetically modified cowpeas to farmers in the country; the release of two transgenic cotton hybrid varieties into the Nigerian Seed Market; the granting of permits by the Federal Government for confined field trials on genetically modified maize, rice, cassava, sorghum and cowpea to ascertain ability to resist insect attack; etc. All these despite growing opposition by a coalition of Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, against the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, in the country. GMOs, according to the World Health Organisation, WHO, are organisms (i.e. plants, animals or m...