energy

Health benefits of Jackfruit

Jackfruit, one of the tropical fruits available is both delicious to eat and even has a sweet taste. It is also rich in energy, dietary fiber, minerals, vitamins making it one of the most healthy summer treats to relish.

Jackfruit has many health benefits. Here are some:

Immunity: The fruit contains an excellent source of Vitamin C antioxidants which helps in building immune system in order to protect against common diseases such as cough, cold and flu.

Energy: It contains a good amount of carbohydrate, calorie and simple sugar like fructose and sucrose, providing a quick boost of energy. Also, it has no cholesterol content which makes jackfruit a healthier food option.

Maintains Blood Pressure: The good amount of potassium contained in the fruit helps to lower high blood pressure and also reduces the risk of stroke and heart attacks.

Improves Digestion: Jackfruit is good for digestion and prevents constipation because of the good amount of dietary fiber in it, making it bulk laxative.

Colon Cancer: The dietary fats contained in the fruit helps to clean toxins from the colon. Thus, it reduces the effects of toxin in the colon and protects from colon cancer.

Good for Eyes: Jackfruit contains Vitamin A, an important nutrient for eye health. It increases vision and protects from free radicals. As this fruit is a rich source of antioxidants, it is highly effective in preventing degeneration of the retina.

Source: zee news

7 tips to be more energetic

Do you feel drained out and completely exhausted during the day no matter what you do?

Sometimes, it’s just the simple lack of energy that could be causing exhaustion and the over-tired feeling. All you need to do to correct the problem and keep your energy levels high is follow these energy boosting tips.

7 tips to be more energetic

Never skip breakfast: Being the first meal of the day, breakfast is the key determinant of your overall energy level throughout the day. When you skip your breakfast, your body slows down your metabolism to conserve energy. And without any readily available source to derive energy from, the brain signals various energy-related processes to slow down, making you feel energy-deprived. Therefore, it is extremely important that you eat a heavy breakfast packed with carbohydrates and proteins.

Have a balanced diet: Having a heavy breakfast doesn’t mean you should skip your lunch or any other meal for the day. But you need to control portion size and type of food you eat. Apart from carbohydrates and proteins, ensure that you include a lot of fruits like bananas, apples and berries in your diet. In fact, there are a lot of energy boosting foods like eggs, whole cereals, oats and nuts that you cannot afford to miss out if you constantly keep feeling low on energy.

Exercise: Without boosting your metabolism with physical activity, no matter what you eat you’ll feel lethargic. Whether it’s an early morning jog or an evening stroll in the park, any form of physical activity is good for your health and can boost your energy.

Drink more water: Sometimes, not drinking enough water could make you feel drained out and even dizzy. Water is required by all metabolic reactions of the body. So if the cells do not get enough water, the brain will automatically not allow you to be energetic. It is suggested that 7-10 glasses of water must be consumed by everyone. But, your water requirement will vary depending on your daily physical activity.

Don’t be stressed: Stress has the ability to lower both physical and mental energy, so lowering stress is the most crucial strategy you need to implement if you want elevated energy levels. Deep breathing, listening to good music, watching a good movie or meditating are some good ways to de-stress that you can try.

Cut down the vices: Alcohol and cigarettes might rev up your mood and energy levels for a short period of time but that state will not persist forever and it will instead make you feel even more energy-deprived the next day. So, quit smoking and drink moderately, if you cant avoid it completely.

Surround yourself with cheerful people: We all know that negative emotions like anger, jealousy, fear and frustration just adds up to stress, blocking the positive energy flow. But what we forget is that just as there are people around us who bring our energies down, there are people who can help us regain them. Instead, we just cut ourselves from people who actually boost our energy. So the next time you’re feeling tired and exhausted, meet your friends, plan a short trip with them or just talk to them, and you’ll feel much better.

Source: the health site

Swinging arms most efficient way to run

Swinging arms most efficient way to run

Ever tried running without swinging your arms? New research has shown that the swing in your arms counter balances the movement of your legs and saves energy at the same time.

“We know from the literature that arm swinging plays an important role in balancing the motion of the swinging legs,” said Christopher Arellano from the Brown University.

Arellano studied 13 runners and measured their oxygen consumption rates and carbon dioxide that they exhaled.

He asked them to run without swinging their arms by holding the arms loosely behind the back, crossing the arms across the chest, and holding the hands on the top of the head.

He found that swinging the arms reduced the runners’ energy costs by three percent (as compared to when they held their arms behind their backs).

Arm swinging also saved energy an impressive 13 percent compared with when they held their hands on their heads.

“I think everyone conceded that the most challenging run was the one with the hands on the top of the head,” Arellano added, recalling how runners complained about how tired their arms were at the end of the session.

The study appeared in the journal of Experimental Biology.

Source: darpan magazine

Men burn brown fat for energy only when they’re chilled

Men burn brown fat for energy only when they’re chilled, researchers have found.

Scientists and drug companies are interested in finding way to increase the amount of brown adipose tissue, also called brown fat, in adults in the hopes of fighting obesity.

They knew that rodents and newborn babies burn calories from brown fat to keep warm. Animals and newborns don’t shiver.

Adults are now known to also carry brown fat, but a big question for obesity researchers was whether that fat actually burns energy.

Scientists in Quebec designed an experiment to find out.

André Carpentier at Sherbrooke University and Denis Richard at Laval University in Quebec City studied six healthy men aged 23 to 42 who wore a water-cooled suit. The experimental set-up was meant to minimize shivering.

When the investigators exposed the men to a radioactive chemical, they found the radioactivity disappeared from the brown fat in just minutes, but the radioactivity wasn’t metabolized in the warm subjects.

Based on the radioactivity findings, the researchers concluded all of the men showed cold-induced activation of brown fat metabolism.
“However, it remains to be demonstrated whether chronic and frequent bouts of cold exposure may contribute to increase [brown fat metabolism] and/or activity and may be a viable adjunct therapeutic strategy to other lifestyle interventions to prevent or treat obesity and its metabolic complications,” they concluded in Tuesday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

In a journal commentary published with the study, Barbara Cannon and Jan Nedergaard at Stockholm University in Sweden said that increasing the amount of brown fat a person has is unlikely to make him or her slimmer. Instead, what’s needed is a way to make that brown fat actively burn calories.

“What we have to wish for is not only more brown adipose tissue in adult humans — but that it would actually be ‘on fire’ when we eat,” the commentators said.

The researchers acknowledged drawbacks of the study. For example, they were unable to tell whether brown fat was metabolically active during cold conditions in other internal organs such as the heart because of the limited view of the PET/CT scanner.

The scientists took body mass index and diabetes into account, but they said the wide differences in brown fat metabolism they observed suggests that other unknown factors could be important, too.

The study was funded by the Canadian Diabetes Association.

Source: Cbc health