(Photo: vintage prom dresses)A new study has revealed that high-fat diet alters behavior and produces signs of brain inflammation.
High-fat diets have long been known to increase the risk for medical problems, including heart disease and stroke, but there is growing concern that diets high in fat might also increase the risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders.
The study at Louisiana State University raises the possibility that a high-fat diet produces changes in health and behavior, in part, by changing the mix of bacteria in the gut, also known as the gut microbiome.
The human microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms, many of which reside in the intestinal tract. These microbiotas are essential for normal physiological functioning. However, research has suggested that alterations in the microbiome may underlie the host’s susceptibility to illness, including neuropsychiatric impairment.
Non-obese adult mice were conventionally housed and maintained on a normal diet, but received a transplant of gut microbiota from donor mice that had been fed either a high-fat diet or control diet. The recipient mice were then evaluated for changes in behavior and cognition.
The animals who received the microbiota shaped by a high-fat diet showed multiple disruptions in behavior, including increased anxiety, impaired memory, and repetitive behaviors. Further, they showed many detrimental effects in the body, including increased intestinal permeability and markers of inflammation. Signs of inflammation in the brain were also evident and may have contributed to the behavioral changes.
John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said that this paper suggests that high-fat diets impair brain health, in part, by disrupting the symbiotic relationship between humans and the microorganisms that occupy the gastrointestinal tracks.
Indeed, these findings provide evidence that diet-induced changes to the gut microbiome are sufficient to alter brain function even in the absence of obesity.
Further research is necessary, but these findings suggest that the gut microbiome has the eventual potential to serve as a therapeutic target for neuropsychiatric disorders. Read more here:blue evening dresses
(Photo:plus size prom dresses uk )While healthy individuals find it very difficult to resist the temptation of a mouth-watering delicacy, especially when they are hungry, anorexics face no such trouble as hunger does not increase their intensity of food rewards, says a new study.
The study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, sheds new light on the brain mechanisms that may contribute to the disturbed eating patterns of anorexia.
“Hunger is a motivating drive and makes rewards more enticing,” said Christina Wierenga, associate professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Diego.
“We have long been puzzled by the fact that individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) can restrict food even when starved,” Wierenga noted.
They examined reward responding in relation to metabolic state (hungry or satiated) in 23 women recovered from AN and 17 healthy women without eating disorder histories (e.g., the comparison group).
The healthy women, when in a state of hunger, showed increased activity in the part of the brain that motivates the seeking of reward, but the women recovered from AN did not.
Women who have recovered from anorexia nervosa showed two related patterns of changes in brain circuit function that may contribute to their capacity to sustain their avoidance of food.
First, hunger does not increase the engagement of reward and motivation circuits in the brain. This may protect people with anorexia from hunger-related urges.
Second, they showed increased activation of executive ‘self-control’ circuits in the brain, perhaps making them more effective in resisting temptations.
“This study supports the idea that anorexia nervosa is a neurobiologically-based disorder,” Wierenga noted. Read more here:blue formal dresses
(Photo:red prom dresses )Anticipating pleasant weather, we begin our mental list of outdoor projects: paint the porch, prepare the flowerbeds and perhaps build a patio or sit out.
A new patio, a freshly painted porch or the addition of a sunroom can be exciting projects. However, once the construction is completed, the new project of furnishing it begins. After the monsoon you may need to repair some things as well. How do you go about the task of making this area of your home functional, comfortable and inviting?
First of all, these areas need to be treated as a room. Porches, screened porches, decks and patios are outdoor rooms. Sunrooms help us to bring the outdoors into our homes. The following survey is a guide to help you determine how to arrange and decorate your new ‘room’.
Yasutoshi Ezumi sent out a hybrid-heavy collection inspired by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his “less is more” design principle. Masculine peacoats and biker jackets were reworked and softened with a feminine A-line silhouette; architectural dresses contained panels of pleats; and knits that looked simple on the upper body jutted down a leg into an asymmetrical form. This was Ezumi’s most pared-down collection yet, and while we’ve seen this territory explored by other Japanese labels (Sacai comes to mind), it was nonetheless a step in the right direction.
(Photo:prom dresses for women )Later in the day, Ato’s “Urban Rider” show was a road trip on horses, motorcycles, and skateboards—one that didn’t disappoint fans of designer Ato Matsumoto’s techy, modern men’s tailoring and sneaker range. Plaid shirts were paired with sleek nylon jogging pants and city hiking boots that any guy would become an outlaw for. Prominent outerwear ranged from Western-influenced camel coats that dusted the floor to a suit jacket-meets-outdoorsy down vest mash-up. Leather pants with zipper accents that reached mid-thigh also made appearances.
The final and most anticipated show of the night was Yoshio Kubo’s. Kubo has a knack for crafting real clothes for real guys, and he’s good at creating original fabrics and textiles with a couture touch. “What would it be like to play sports in the desert?” was the designer’s starting point, and his presentation showed just how global his perspective is, featuring gangs of guys of multiple races and ages wearing color- and print-coordinated looks. Kubo’s troops were outfitted in desert uniforms that combined references to sand, the sun, animals, and nomadic textiles interrupted with modern techy elements. He added fox-fur trim to the front of pants or unusual fasteners to jackets. Even if they look effortless walking down the streets of fashion-conscious Tokyo, when they’re presented in a show format, Kubo’s clothes can seem rather full-on. Pick an outfit apart, though, and each piece is wearable with a touch of something special. Read more here:evening dresses online cheap
(Photo: white prom dresses)Barbara Taylor Bradford isn’t often thought of as a literary subversive. Yet, judging from her 30th novel, she’s become one of the world’s bestselling authors despite refusing to follow virtually any of the traditional rules for successful writing.
Take the plot, for example. The Cavendon Women isn’t short of incident exactly, but it contains almost none of the “jeopardy” so prized by all those guides to storytelling. The book is a sequel to last year’s Cavendon Hall, which was set in a Yorkshire country house before, during and after the First World War, in what seemed a fairly transparent attempt to appeal to fans of Downton Abbey. Now Bradford picks up the story in 1926 with the Ingham family, led by the 6th Earl of Mowbray, facing a world in which, as the son and heir rather vaguely puts it, “many aristocratic families are suffering because of the heavy taxes imposed on us by the government. And for many other reasons.”
Happily for the Inghams, though, what this means in practice is that they worry about money while enjoying a series of lavish meals served by adoring staff. At one point, the Earl does make the shock discovery that his estranged wife has run off with the Ingham jewels — but the crisis is solved when his children come up with the cunning plan of asking her to give them back. At another, it appears Cavendon might have to be sold — but five pages later, it’s been triumphantly saved. Even when a daughter wakes up to find her lover dead beside her, it’s not long before we receive the good news that “things were looking up”, with the daughter “recovering slowly from her soul-destroying anguish”.
As for the rule about making sure your characters have more than one characteristic each, Bradford ignores it so utterly that the Inghams end up having one between them: they’re all completely lovely. The Earl himself is “the personification of decency”. His oldest daughter Deidre is “a beautiful young woman … with a shapely head of shining blonde hair” — and, as such, not to be confused with her siblings Daphne (a “lovely blonde woman… a true beauty”); DeLacy (“staggeringly beautiful… Golden hair, the deepest of blue eyes”); or Dulcie (“a girl of incomparable beauty… Golden hair, blue eyes like a summer sky”).
Given that the sisters are all as nice as they look, it’s perhaps not surprising that they should spend so much time hymning one another’s appearance — or that Bradford herself should be so obviously smitten with them. (Something we know largely because she doesn’t bother with that silly show-don’t-tell business either.) None the less, the result often feels like an enormously long feature in the Twenties equivalent of Hello! magazine.
Meanwhile, Bradford also flouts the rule about not giving us information by means of the characters telling each other what they already know. “You look gorgeous,” Daphne’s husband says to her before one of the lavish meals. “And the sapphire earrings I gave you, when we were married, match your eyes.” In fact, about the only rule she does observe is to wear your research lightly — although this may be because she doesn’t always have much of it to wear. “There’s rather a lot to do,” explains Dulcie when planning to open an art gallery. “Finding the art, that sort of thing.”
Even so, the novel’s most baffling flaw is the sheer amount of repetition. Some writers might have been content merely to have several scenes in which the same material is discussed in the same way by different people — or to supply a few rib-nudging reminders of how the characters are feeling. On page 203, we’re told that DeLacy “was still upset about her divorce”; on page 205 that “since the divorce, DeLacy had become nervous and easily upset”; and on page 206 that “DeLacy seemed bewildered and lost since the break-up of her marriage”.
Bradford, however, takes the repetition much further. Not only do many of the paragraphs serve up several mild variations of the same simple point, but, more impressively still, she manages to incorporate tautology into the shortest of individual sentences. The Earl’s “constant anxiety about Cavendon Hall”, for instance, “was ever present”; a pair of cousins “could easily be taken for brothers, so alike were they in appearance”; and best of all, “Hats off to them, he thought, and with admiration”.
None of which, I suspect, will prevent The Cavendon Women from providing Bradford with her 30th bestseller. Read more here:long prom dresses
