One in three children have dangerous levels of lead in their blood

About 800 million children and young people under the age of 19 around the world are likely to have blood levels of lead at or above 5 micrograms per decilitre (5μg/dl), the levels that are likely to cause significant long-term health damage.

There is no safe level for lead exposure, according to the World Health Organization, because even at very low concentrations it operates as a dangerous toxin, but levels above 5μg/dl are regarded by the US Centers for Disease Control as a cause for action.

Lead is a potent neurotoxin and high exposure can kill, while lower levels cause symptoms ranging from pain, vomiting and seizures to developmental delay, mental difficulties and mood disorders. The lower levels can also cause children to be born prematurely.

Exposure at the levels studied is likely to cause reductions in cognitive ability, higher levels of violence and long term health impacts such as cardiovascular disease.

Children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure because it damages the developing brain and nervous system, building up over time, and the impacts do not show immediately. Lead mimics calcium in the bones, building up in people’s bodies and causing damage to other vital organs, including the kidneys, heart and lungs.

Lead at 5μg/dl of blood is likely to wipe about 3-5 points from a child’s IQ score, and at the levels found in the Unicef report could double the level of violence in society. It is also likely to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, as about 900,000 deaths a year are already linked to lead poisoning.

One of the leading causes of lead poisoning is the improper disposal of car batteries, A further cause of lead poisoning is the use of lead compounds, such as lead oxide and lead chromate, as a food additive to make spices appear more vivid in colour. The compounds are used to make turmeric appear bright yellow, and sometimes used with paprika. 

Children in developed countries are also at risk, from sources including old water pipes, lead paint and contaminated soil. In the US, children living in poorer households and dilapidated accommodation have been found to be at higher risk. In the UK, about 200,000 children are likely to be affected, according to Unicef.

Dark chocolate keeps the heart healthy

A study found that chocolate helps keep the heart's blood vessels healthy. This is because chocolate contains heart healthy nutrients such as flavonoids, methylxanthines, polyphenols and stearic acid, which are antioxidants that help reduce inflammation, increase good cholesterol, improve blood flow and boost mood and concentration.

In fact, a single serving of a cocoa product can contain more phytochemical antioxidants than most foods and more procyanidins -- which block the uptake of bad cholesterol.

Cocoa consumption is associated with significantly lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (death by any cause). It helps keep plaque from building up in the lining of blood vessels and reduces blood pressure. It has been shown to help prevent stroke and heart failure.

Chocolate has also been linked to improving blood flow to the brain, which may help with cognitive function. It might boost oxygen delivery during fitness training. But it does not appear to be so good for the skin -- a recent study found a link to acne.

But if the dark chocolate is highly processed by a manufacturer, the benefit can decline.

This new study looked back over five decades of studies and found eating chocolate more than once a week was associated with an 8% decreased risk of coronary artery disease.

"Moderate amounts of chocolate seem to protect the coronary arteries but it's likely that large quantities do not," Dr. Chayakrit Krittanawong of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas said. "The calories, sugar, milk, and fat in commercially available products need to be considered, particularly in diabetics and obese people." 

Unlike green tea, which degrades with shelf life, chocolate bars maintain their potency over at least 50 weeks.

How old are you?

As we age, we often do not feel as old as the years indicated on the calendar. Propensities to play down our biological age reflect a deep psychological truth.  

How old do you feel?

‘Subjective age’ is the term for how old one feels and can vary over time.  It is distinct from biological or chronological age, which is unwaveringly tied to our birthdate.  Midlife and older adults routinely report feeling 10 or 20 years younger than their biological age.  The discrepancy between subjective and biological age typically grows over the course of adult development. 

Feeling younger than one’s biological age is sign of health and predicts lower mortality, positive expectations, and better cognitive abilities.  Thus, feeling younger means doing better.

Typically, subjective age is assessed by asking persons how old they feel. This varies across life domains. 

In one study, it was found that subjective age was most different from chronological age for aspects of life in which negative stereotypes are greatest.  For example, we tend to think of older adults as less competent at work than younger adults.  And so in the domain of work, subjective age had a large difference from biological age.  

In contrast, subjective age was less different from chronological age for life domains in which we have less negative – or even – positive expectations about aging.  For leisure, subjective age and biological age were fairly close. 

Ideas about how old we feel may be determined – in part – by aging stereotypes, as well as being reflective of positive outcomes.  Thus, how old one feels may be a more important indicator of overall physical and mental health than biological age.

Tension-type Headache

Headaches are often brought about by increased stress levels known as “tension-type” or tension headaches.

Tension-type headaches are defined by the absence of migraine features, so they tend to appear on both sides of the head, feeling like a pressure pain, without the usual migraine accompaniments of nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and worsened by head movement.

According to the US National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus database, tension headaches are the most common type of headache and are described as pain or discomfort in the head, scalp, or neck, often associated with muscle tightness. Tension headaches affect roughly 70% of people, and can last for 30 minutes to 72 hours.

When people are exhibiting stress, physiological changes occur in the body. Increased cortisol levels and our fight-or-flight response gets revved up, triggering a migraine or tension-type headache.

Aside from stress, other triggers of tension headaches include alcohol use, caffeine, illnesses (colds, the flu, etc.), dental problems, eye strain, excessive smoking and fatigue or overexertion.

Depending on the severity and length of your stress headache, it can go away on its own by simply taking a break from whatever activity is causing you stress. Lying down, meditating, or doing some light yoga are all great options.

But if headaches are not the norm for you, especially if you are over the age of 50, you should consider speaking to a neurologist or headache specialist, since this could signal that something else more serious is going on. Some other warning signs to pay attention to include headaches that consistently get worse or more frequent over time, accompanied by any neurological conditions such as double vision, numbness, tingling, paralysis, loss of vision, or accompanied by a fever.

Moderate drinking may improve cognitive health for older adults

A new study found that low to moderate drinking may improve cognitive function for middle-aged or older adults. 

“There is now a lot of observational evidence showing that light to moderate alcohol drinking is associated with better cognitive function and a lower risk of dementia compared with alcohol abstaining,” said senior principal research scientist Karin Anstey, a director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration in Australia. 

When compared with those who said they never drank, low to moderate drinking was associated with significantly higher cognition scores for mental status, word recall and vocabulary over time, as well as with lower rates of decline in each of those areas. 

However, a major global study released last year found that no amount of liquor, wine or beer is safe for our overall health. It found that alcohol was the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016, accounting for nearly one in 10 deaths. 

“What we know for sure is that drinking too much alcohol definitely harms the brain in a major way. What is less clear is whether or not low to moderate intake may be protective in certain people, or if total abstinence is the most sound advice,” said neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson, founder of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical Center. 

 “Further, it’s not just about ‘what and how much’ alcohol, it’s also important to consider ‘when and how’ the alcohol is consumed, Isaacson said. 

For example, having a glass of wine with an early dinner is “more sensible than two glasses late at night on an empty stomach close to bedtime,” he said. 

“Alcohol before bed has the tendency to lead to poorer overall quality sleep, which also impacts dementia risk,” he added. 

“Alcohol consumption, for example, increases the risk of some cancers. If one doesn’t drink, then we would not recommend taking up alcohol drinking.”