What Everyone Ought to Know About Protein Diets

All experts are now agreeing: include more protein in your diet and it will help to improve your wellness and wellbeing, as well as reach your fitness goals. This latest nutrition news confirms what scientists have been saying for a long time, and that is that the government RDA for protein is not enough to keep you healthy.

 

Protein actually comes from the word ‘proteios’, which means primary, and this ought to give you some indication of how important it is. In fact, it is one of three macronutrients – the other two are carbohydrates and fats. It is vital to keep your hormonal, cellular and immune systems functioning properly. It’s also really important for the maintenance and repair of tissues, including muscle tissues.

 

The Food Standards Agency recommendation is that you eat just 55g of protein per day if you are a man aged between 19 and 55. However, all recent research seems to suggest that this is too small an amount if you are a physically active man. Instead of following a ‘one size fits all’ approach, instead you should work out how much you need based on your fitness goals, weight and body composition.

 

If you want to slim down and look lean and athletic rather than skinny, preserving your muscle is really important. If you increase your protein intake, the body will use this for muscle repair, and this is especially important if you are following a low-calorie diet, otherwise you will burn muscle to make up the deficit.

 

If you actually want to build muscle, many people assume that you need to significantly increase your protein intake. Unfortunately, more protein doesn’t necessarily mean more muscle. Scientists recommend around 1.2 – 2.2g of protein per kg of bodyweight if you want to build muscles.

Categories: build, diet, fitness goals, Food, Muscle, nbsp, Protein, protein intake, scientists

What Do Rising Sea Levels Really Mean For The Planet?

Although the most recent U.N climate report significantly increased its projections for the sea level rise for this century, some scientists warn that even those estimates are extremely conservative. The only thing we know for certain is that predicting sea level rise for the future is an incredibly difficult task. When the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met to discuss the sea level rise for this report, they found it a far harder task that initially anticipated. Sea level forecasts were arguably the most controversial part of the previous report, issued in 2007, and scientists and the public alike have found the estimate of under 60 centimetres to be incredibly low, which doesn’t even include the possibility of rapid ice flow from Greenland or the Antarctic into the sea. These two ice sheets hold the ability to raise sea levels by an astonishing 65 metres, compared to just 0.4 metres in all of the world’s mountain glaciers. Because such things have been neglected, we can’t determine an accurate projection from the figures released.

However, things today look slightly more certain. In the latest report, the IPCC said they could finally put a number on the ice flow from the poles. The result of the estimate was the belief that the sea level rise would be in the region of 28 to 98 centimetres, with a maximum of more than three feet, by 2100  over 50 per cent higher than the 2007 projections. However, this doesn’t mean that sea level rise problems are now fully understood. In fact, far from it – scientists are still battling big questions surrounding the fate of the ice sheets and this could greatly increase the recent projections by a vast majority. Researchers still don’t know how quickly these predictions will become a reality, and there are many more smaller factors still being contended with.

 

The oceans don’t rise steadily like water being poured into a bathtub; instead there are splashes and movements as it rises. Patterns in the weather, such as with El Nino can shove tens of centimetres of water onto the shores of countries at a time, much like they did in California in 1998. Take the floods in 2010 in Australia as an example. And with the ocean growing, the land also shifts. The ground rises where it was once pressed down by glaciers, and then the river deltas sink as the sediments compact. So what looks like the sea levels rising on first glance may actually be the result of the land falling. Unravelling what the oceans are doing currently is a difficult thing to do, and predicting their behaviour is even harder. Everyone is committed to sea level rise, but no-one knows exactly what that means or when it’s likely to happen. Whichever way we look at this issue, the results of the studies are cause for concern. Scientists are even suggesting that people who live under three feet sea level, they should be concerned for the next 100 years.

 

People are able to adapt to a certain extent but we have a difficulty in the fact that people aren’t planning for the reality. There need to be many changes to the way people live in order to cut their carbon footprint drastically in order to lower the increasing risk of sea levels rising, and other environmental effects of global warming. When people make these changes, researchers can begin to look into the ways we can adapt our lifestyles accordingly.

Categories: Environmental Wellness, Global Warming, ice flow, ice sheets, level, level rise, levels rising, rise, scientists, sea level, sea levels

New Cream Could Completely Reverse The Signs Of Ageing

A new wrinkle cream called MitoQ could be a revolution in the anti-ageing market, as it is thought to both soften the skin and actually reverse the signs of ageing. This was discovered by scientists Rob Smith and Mike Murphy from Cambridge University, who stumbled across the blend of ingredients by accident. It is thought that the cream floods the cells with antioxidants and that these destroy any lurking free radicals.

 

If proved, this discovery will join a whole host of accidental medical breakthroughs which have occurred when scientists are looking for something else altogether. These include Botox, Quinine and Viagra, which were all discovered by accident.

 

In this case, the scientists at Cambridge University were working towards a cure for liver damage, and in the course of this they accidentally created a cream which they now feel sure will work as a powerful reversal for the signs of ageing.

 

Naming their product MitoQ, the scientists have patented the product which they say floods cells which the health-giving molecules and send them straight to the mitochondria, to eliminate the free radicals that cause tissue damage. The team claims that this discovery could massively enhance the body’s antioxidant capacity and restore ageing cells to their optimal function.

 

Other accidental discoveries include Viagra, which was discovered when scientists were looking for a medicine for angina. When the medication, designed to relax blood vessels, was tested on trial volunteers, the results for angina were disappointing. Then, the volunteers started to report that the side effect of the drug was that they were experiencing more erections. At this time, there was no treatment for erectile dysfunction and so this discovery was incredibly exciting.

 

Ritalin was also discovered by accident. It was originally intended to medicate depression in adults and is now used to tread ADHD in children.

Categories: ageing, aging, cambridge university, cream, discovered, Free Radicals, nbsp, reverse, scientists

Dramatic Loss of Coral Reef Stirs Scientists Into Action

Scientists are aiming to complete a survey of the coral reefs of the Caribbean, in order to assess how much climate change, pollution, overfishing and degradation has affected the well-being of one of the world’s biggest and most important reserves of coral. The Catlin scientific survey will be the most comprehensive survey of the state of the region’s reefs ever undertaken; as it will give experts give a more accurate picture of where the losses have had most effect and on the causes.

 

As much as 80% of Caribbean coral is reckoned to have been lost in recent years, which is a matter of worrying financial wellness, as well as environmental. Not only do coral reefs provide a vital home for marine creatures, but large populations of people in the Caribbean depend on these reefs for fishing and tourism. Stephen Catlin, chief executive of the Catlin Group, noted, ‘It is not only important that scientists have access to this valuable data, but companies such as ours must understand the impact that significant changes to our environment will have on local economies.’

 

According to Richard Vevers, director of the project, the new survey will have a very important role; describing a new “baseline” to establish how far such problems have taken their toll on environmental wellness so far. Although the research will have other goals, this one is significant because it will help scientists in to judge how degradation – or conservation – progresses in the future. Another task of the team of scientists will be to look for the underlying reasons as to why such degradation has occurred, so that they can relate back this information, and make conservation efforts as effective as possible.

 

To assess the reefs, the researchers will use satellite data, as well as their own direct observations. Using a specially constructed camera, the team will also develop software as part of the survey, so that marine scientists can apply it to other reefs across the globe. Vevers commented, ‘The Caribbean was chosen to launch the global mission because it is at the front-line of risk. Over the last 50 years 80% of the corals have been lost due mainly coastal development and pollution. They now are also threatened by invasive species, global warming and the early effects of ocean acidification — it’s the perfect storm.’

Categories: Caribbean, coral, Coral Reef, coral reefs, loss, reefs, Research, scientists, Survey