Avocado- Green Gold for Skin and Hair care

Many of us enjoy avocados in a bowl of guacamole now and then, but they have more going for them than just delicious taste. For centuries, ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Incan beauties knew the avocado is also a wonderful beauty aid, rich in beneficial oils that rejuvenate the skin, reduce eye puffiness, heal frazzled hair, and much, much more.

Find out the secrets of avocado here. It’s known as “green gold” for some very good reasons!
Avocados are perishable, so be sure to use these formulas as soon as you make them. When buying avocados, look for organically-grown firm fruit with a slight “give” to the flesh. To use, cut the avocado in half lengthwise and remove the pit. Cover the unused half with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Aztec Miracle for Puffy Eyes
This works so well it’s almost scary. Just slice a peeled avocado half into quarter-inch crescent-shapes. Lie down with a few slices under each eye and rest for around 20 minutes. You’ll love the results!

Easiest Facial Mask Ever
Just mash half an avocado and spread evenly on your clean face. Allow to remain for 15 minutes, then rinse off with warm water. This is best for dry skin types.

Shiny Soft Hair Treatment
In a small bowl, mash and combine:
1 avocado (1/2 for shorter hair)
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Apply to hair and allow to remain 30 minutes or longer, then shampoo and condition as usual. Amazingly silky, shiny, soft hair!

Soft, Smooth Hand Trick
This gently exfoliating scrub will make your hands noticeably softer and smoother.

In a small bowl, mash:
1/4 of a peeled avocado
1 egg white
2 tablespoons oatmeal
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine well and apply to your hands. Leave the mixture on for 20 minutes, then rinse in warm water and pat dry.

Appealing Moisturizer
Turns out we’ve been throwing away (or composting) a valuable part of the avocado!! You can use the inside of the peel as a fabulous humectant and oil-rich moisturizer. Just lightly apply the inside of the peel to your clean face, using gentle upward strokes. You can leave the oil on your face all night or rinse after 15 minutes. Makes a great foundation for your foundation or powder!

Oily-Skin Masque
In a small bowl, thoroughly mash and combine:
1/2 avocado
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 egg white

Apply evenly to a clean face and allow to remain 20 minutes, then rinse with warm water and a cloth. Follow with an astringent, if you like.

Soothe your skin- Can borage oil help keep skin healthy?

Borage (Borago officinalis L.), also known as "starflower" (گل گاوزبان in Persian) is an annual herb originating in Syria, but naturalized throughout the Mediterranean region, as well as Asia Minor, Europe, North Africa, and South America. It grows to a height of 60-100 cm (2-3 feet), and is bristly or hairy all over the stems and leaves; the leaves are alternate, simple, and 5-15 cm (2-6 in) long. The flowers are complete, perfect with with five narrow, triangular-pointed petals. Flowers are most often blue in color, although pink flowers are sometime observed. White flowered types are also cultivated. The flowers arise along scorpiod cymes to form large floral displays with multiple flowers blooming simultaneously, suggesting that borage has a high degree of geitomogamy. It has an indeterminate growth habit which may lead to prolific spreading. In milder climates, borage will bloom continuously for most of the year.

Traditionally borage was cultivated for culinary and medicinal uses, although today commercial cultivation is mainly as an oilseed. The seed oil is desired as source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA, 18:3, cis 6,9,12-octadecatrienoic acid), for which borage is the highest known plant-based source (17-28%). The seed oil content is between 26-38% and in addition to GLA contains the fatty acid palmitic (10-11%), stearic (3.5-4.5%), oleic (16-20%), linoleic (35-38%), eicosenoic (3.5-5.5%), erucic (1.5-3.5%), and nervonic (1.5%). The oil is often marketed as "starflower oil" or "borage oil" for uses as a GLA supplement, although healthy adults will typically produce ample GLA through dietary linoleic acid.

Borage production does include use as either a fresh vegetable or a dried herb. As a fresh vegetable, borage, with a cucumber like taste, is often used in salads or as a garnish. The flower, which contains the non-toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloid thesinine, has a sweet honey-like taste and is one of the few truly blue-colored edible things, is often used to decorate dessert. It is notable that the leaves have been found to contain small amounts (10 ppm of dried herb) of the liver-toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids: intermedine, lycopsamine, amabiline and supinine.

Vegetable use of borage is common in Germany and the Spanish regions of Aragón and Navarra. Although often used in soups, one of the better known German borage recipes is the Green Sauce (Grüne Sauce) made in Frankfurt. The leaves and flowers were orginally used in Pimms before it was replaced by mint.

Naturopathic practitioners uses of borage for regulation of metabolism and the hormonal system, and consider it to be a good remedy for PMS and menopause symptoms such as the hot flash. Borage is sometimes indicated to alleviate and heal colds, bronchitis, and respiratory infections in general for its anti-inflammatory and balsamic properties. The flowers can be prepared in infusion to take advantage of its medicinal properties. The oleic and palmitic acid of borage may also confera hypocholesterolemic effect.

Tea made from the dried flowers is a traditional calming drink in Iran. It has a rich purple color that turns bright pink by adding a few drops of lemon juice
Studies show that topically applied borageoil can deliver GLA directlr to cells, where it can provide both immediate and long term improvement for those who suffer
from skin problems resulting from a deficiency of this omega-6 fatty acid.

Biological clock may shut down long-term memory at night

If you crammed for tests by pulling ‘all nighters’ in school, ever wonder why your memory is now a bit foggy on what you learned? A University of Houston professor may have the answer with his research on the role of circadian rhythms in long-term learning and memory.

Arnold Eskin, the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at UH, was recently awarded two grants totaling $2,472,528 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue pursuing his investigations of memory formation and the impact of the biological clock on learning and memory.

Scientists have known for a while that the brain’s biological (or circadian) clock influences natural body cycles, such as sleep and wakefulness, metabolic rate and body temperature. New research from Eskin suggests the circadian clock also may regulate the formation of memory at night. This new research focuses on “Circadian Modulation of Long-term Memory Formation” and “Long-term Regulation of Glutamate Uptake in Aplysia,” with NIH funding to be disbursed over four years.

“There is a lot of research going on in memory,” Eskin said. “How do we remember things given that we don’t have a camera in our brain to record events? What changes take place in our brains that allow us to remember? These grants are about fundamental learning and memory and about modulation of memory.”

For the grant on circadian modulation of long-term memory formation, Eskin will continue studies based on his data that reveal the circadian clock modulates several forms of long-term memory in the marine snail Aplysia.

These studies involved experiments on the defensive reflexes and feeding responses of Aplysia. Eskin’s results showed that Aplysia form long-term memory when they are trained during the day but not when they are trained at night. However, short-term memory of the same behaviors is formed equally well during the day and night, which might explain why all-night cram sessions may have helped you get through certain classes in school, but did not leave you with enough of a lasting impression to become part of your long-term store of knowledge.

“Somewhere in the molecular circuit, in the neural circuit in the brain, the biological clock is shutting that circuit off at a particular time of night. It’s shutting molecules down so that long-term memory can’t happen,” Eskin said.

Lisa Lyons, a research assistant professor at UH, is the primary investigator on this grant and is already investigating molecules involved in memory formation that might be activated during the day but not at night. NIH funding will help advance the pursuit of this line of research.

For the grant on long-term regulation of glutamate uptake in Aplysia, Eskin will focus on the transmitter substance glutamate, which is involved in memory formation.

“The formation of memory happens at places in the brain called synapses, where cells ‘talk’ to one another through the release of chemicals called transmitter substances,” Eskin said. “In order for transmitters to work, once they are released they have got to be cleared away so that others can subsequently act. So, there are not only important mechanisms to release the transmitters, but also mechanisms to get rid of them, and these are called reuptake systems.”

Eskin is studying glutamate reuptake and glutamate transport to understand the mechanism or change that takes place at the synapses of nerve cells (or neurons) that enables people to remember. In previous research, Eskin found that glutamate transport molecules, which act as the brain’s cleaning crew during learning and memory formation, actually increase once the long-term memory-forming process begins. Deficiencies in these glutamate transporters that affect the strength of connections among the neurons associated with memory may explain why memory lapses such as forgetting where you last set down your keys occur.

“This research will provide significant information toward understanding memory and thus diseases that affect memory,” Eskin said.

With the potential to shed light upon neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s - marked by a loss of brain function due to the deterioration of neurons - studying these nerve cells could one day take this research from helping you be better able to find your glasses to providing relief from a debilitating illness.

“At the end of the day, we can’t make memory better or improve it unless we understand how memory works and is modulated,” he said. “That’s what this research is all about.”

He is currently completing the last year of another NIH-funded grant on “Glutamate Transport Regulation and Synaptic Plasticity” that complements these two new grants, but investigates the role of glutamate uptake in associative learning in mammals. This research project on mammals represents a great example of traslational research in which basic findings in a simple system (i.e. Aplysia) were quickly applied to a higher organism (i.e. mammals). They found that glutamate transport increased in the brains of mammals during learning as also found in Aplysia. (See related release at http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/nr/2002/032002/eskinlearning.html.)

Coming to UH more than 25 years ago, Eskin guided the merger of two departments into what is now the Department of Biology and Biochemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. As department chair from 1994 to 2000, Eskin tripled research grants to approximately $6 million per year and developed the department’s research foci of neuroscience, the biological clocks and infectious disease. The author or co-author of more than 150 publications, he has received numerous honors, including the Esther Farfel Award, the university’s highest faculty honor. He is the only faculty member to receive both the Farfel Award and the Moores Professorship in the same year. Eskin earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Vanderbilt University and his doctorate in zoology from the University of Texas.

UH’s Biological Clocks Program is one of the world’s leading centers for circadian rhythms research, with five laboratories and a team of more than 30 scholars. In addition to Eskin, the group is led by four other tenured faculty members in the biology and biochemistry department - Associate Professor Gregory M. Cahill, Professor Stuart Dryer, Professor Paul Hardin and Professor Michael Rea. For more information on the biological clocks program at UH, visit http://www.bchs.uh.edu/research_clocks.htm

23 Ways to Reduce Wrinkles

Whether you're 35 and just beginning to see the first signs of aging, or 55 with skin that isn't exactly keeping your birthday a secret, seeking ways to reduce wrinkles is probably on your agenda.

At the same time, experts say, many of us are losing the wrinkle battle, watching helplessly as the glow of youth goes on the dimmer switch.

"Many women as well as men believe that aging skin is inevitable, but with the information and technologies we have today, you really can look as young as you feel," says Robin Ashinoff, MD, a dermatologist at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.

What follows are 23 ways experts say you can make a difference. While some require a visit to the dermatologist, many are things you can do on your own.

How to Reduce Wrinkles: What You Can Do
1.Avoid the sun. It's the No. 1 cause of wrinkles, with dozens of studies documenting the impact. In one study that looked at identical twins, New York plastic surgeon Darrick Antell, MD, found sun exposure was even more important than heredity. Siblings who limited sun time had fewer wrinkles and looked younger overall than their sun-worshiping twins.

2.Wear sunscreen. If you must go out in the sun, the American Academy of Dermatology says, wear sunscreen! It will protect you from skin cancer, and help prevent wrinkles at the same time.

3. Don't smoke. Some of the research is still controversial, but more and more studies are confirming that cigarette smoke ages skin -- mostly by releasing an enzyme that breaks down collagen and elastin, important components of the skin. Sibling studies done at the Twin Research Unit at St. Thomas Hospital in London found the brother or sister who smoked tended to have skin that was more wrinkled and up to 40% thinner than the non-smoker.

4. Get adequate sleep. Yale dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, MD, says that when you don't get enough sleep, the body produces excess cortisol, a hormone that breaks down skin cells. Get enough rest, Perricone says, and you'll produce more HGH (human growth hormone), which helps skin remain thick, more "elastic," and less likely to wrinkle.

5. Sleep on your back. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) cautions that sleeping in certain positions night after night leads to "sleep lines -- wrinkles that become etched into the surface of the skin and don't disappear once you're up. Sleeping on your side increases wrinkles on cheeks and chin, while sleeping face-down gives you a furrowed brow. To reduce wrinkle formation, the AAD says, sleep on your back.

6. Don't squint -- get reading glasses! The AAD says any repetitive facial movement -- like squinting -- overworks facial muscles, forming a groove beneath the skin's surface. This groove eventually becomes a wrinkle. Also important: Wear sunglasses. It will protect skin around the eyes from sun damage -- and further keep you from squinting.
7. Eat more fish -- particularly salmon. Not only is salmon (along with other cold-water fish) a great source of protein -- one of the building blocks of great skin -- it's also an awesome source of an essential fatty acid known as omega-3. Perricone tells WebMD that essential fatty acids help nourish skin and keep it plump and youthful, helping to reduce wrinkles.

8. Eat more soy -- So far, most of the proof has come from animal studies, but research does show certain properties of soy may help protect or heal some of the sun's photoaging damage. In one recent human study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, researchers reported that a soy-based supplement (other ingredients included fish protein and extracts from white tea, grapeseed, and tomato, as well as several vitamins) improved skin's structure and firmness after just six months of use.

9. Trade coffee for cocoa. In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2006, researchers found cocoa containing high levels of two dietary flavanols (epicatchin and catechin) protected skin from sun damage, improved circulation to skin cells, affected hydration, and made the skin look and feel smoother.

10. Eat more fruits and vegetables. The key, says Kraus, are their antioxidant compounds. These compounds fight damage caused by free radicals (unstable molecules that can damage cells), which in turn helps skin look younger and more radiant, and protects against some effects of photoaging.

11. Use moisturizer. "Women, especially, are so concerned with antiaging products they often overlook the power of a simple moisturizer. Skin that is moist simply looks better, so lines and creases are far less noticeable," says Ashinoff.

12. Don't over-wash your face. According to dermatologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center, tap water strips skin of its natural barrier oils and moisture that protect against wrinkles. Wash them off too often, and you wash away protection. Moreover, unless your soap contains moisturizers, you should use a cleanser instead.

Topical Treatments That Reduce Wrinkles
Studies show the following ingredients can reduce wrinkles. Most are found in a variety of skin-care treatments, both prescription and over-the-counter.

13. Alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs). These natural fruit acids lift away the top layer of dead skin cells, reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, particularly around the eyes. New evidence shows that in higher concentrations, AHAs may help stimulate collagen production.

14. Retinoids (including Retin A). The only FDA-approved topical treatment for wrinkles is tretinoin, known commercially as Retin A. Ashinoff says this prescription cream reduces fine lines and large wrinkles, and repairs sun damage. Retinol is a natural form of vitamin A found in many over-the-counter products. Studies show that in a stabilized formula, in high concentrations, it may be as effective as Retin A, without the side effects, such as skin burning and sensitivity.
15. Topical vitamin C. Studies at Tulane University, among others, have found it can increase collagen production, protect against damage from UVA and UVB rays, correct pigmentation problems, and improve inflammatory skin conditions. The key, however, may be the type of vitamin C used. To date, most of the research points to the L-ascorbic acid form as the most potent for wrinkle relief.

16. Idebenone. This chemical cousin to the nutrient coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)is a super-powerful antioxidant. In one study published recently in the Journal of Dermatology, doctors found that with just 6 weeks of topical use, there was a 26% reduction in skin roughness and dryness, a 37% increase in hydration, a 29% decrease in lines and wrinkles, and a 33% overall improvement in sun-damaged skin. Other studies have found similar results.

17. Growth factors. Part of the body's natural wound-healing response, these compounds, when applied topically, may reduce sun damage and decrease lines and wrinkles, while rejuvenating collagen production, studies have shown.

18. Pentapeptides. The results of a study supported by the National Institutes of Health suggested pentapeptides can increase collagen production in sun-damaged skin. Several subsequent studies (including one presented at a recent national dermatology conference) showed that when topically applied, pentapeptides stimulated collagen production and diminished lines and wrinkles.

Medical/Spa Treatments That Reduce Wrinkles
19. Botox. An injection of this purified version of the Botulinum toxin A relaxes the muscle just underneath the wrinkle, allowing the skin on top to lie smooth and crease-free.

20. Wrinkle fillers. Doctors fill wrinkles with a variety of substances, including collagen, hyaluronic acid, and other synthetic compounds. Popular treatments include Restylane, Juvederm, and ArteFill, among others.

21. Laser/light resurfacing. Here, energy from a light source -- either a laser or a pulsed diode light -- removes the top layer of skin, causing a slight but unnoticeable skin "wounding." This kicks the skin's natural collagen-production system into high gear, resulting in smoother, more wrinkle-free skin.

22. Chemical peels. In this treatment, one of a variety of different chemicals is used to "burn" away the top layer of skin, creating damage that causes the body to respond by making more collagen. You end up with younger-looking, smoother skin.

23. Dermabrasion. A vacuum suction device used in tandem with a mild chemical crystal, dermabrasion helps remove the top layer of skin cells and bring new, more evenly textured skin to the surface. In the process, fine lines and wrinkles seem to disappear.

Ways to Encourage Positive Emotions

Visualize yourself at a time when you were happy, relaxed, and full of energy-try to recall your emotions and reexperience how you felt.

Develop your sense of humour.

Practice looking on your bright side.

Work on closeness.If you are glad to see someone,or grateful for an act of kindness, say so enthusiastically.

Let those who are dear to you know how much you love them.

Learn yoga,qigong, or meditation to help still the mind and focus thoughts.

Altruism is healthy. Do somethng to help pther people, whether voluntary work or visiting a sick neighbour.

Link up your thoughts with feelings. Try writing an account of unpleasant or traumatic events, describing your emotions.