Category Archives: Society

Medical, Research, Science, Society

Research reveals a healthy diet helps to stave off dementia

RESEARCH

Dementia fighting foods. Research reveals a diet that is rich in these foods can lead to a bigger brain which reduces the likelihood of contracting dementia.

EATING healthily could ward off dementia and make your brain more than six months younger.

Researchers say people who eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, nuts and fish have bigger brains.

The findings are the latest evidence that ‘what is good for the heart is good for the head.’

A healthy diet, long known to protect people from heart problems, was found to add to brain volume, boosting people’s grey matter and the volume of their hippocampus – the brain’s memory centre. Across more than 4,500 people aged 45 and older, eating well was found to give people an average extra brain volume of two millimetres.

That is the equivalent of a brain being more than six months younger, as it shrinks with age. Having a larger brain is thought to ward off memory loss, which can often be followed by dementia.

Dr Meike Vernooij, co-author of the Dutch study from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said: ‘People with greater brain volume have been shown to have better cognitive abilities, so initiatives that help to improve diet may be a good strategy to maintain thinking skills in older adults.’

He called for more research to ‘examine the pathways through which diet can affect the brain’. A healthy diet is believed to strengthen connections in the brain and ward off inevitable age-related decline.

The latest study, which was first published in the journal Neurology, involved people with an average age of 66 who were dementia-free. They were questioned on their diet, which was ranked with a score of zero to 14. The best were judged high in vegetables, fruit, nuts, whole grains, dairy and fish.

Participants then had MRI scans to determine their brain volume. Even considering brain-shrinking activities such as smoking and failing to exercise, those who ate well had an average of two millimetres more brain volume than those who did not.

Dr Sara Imarisio, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said brain size was a useful indicator of brain health but the study did not allow any ‘firm conclusions’ about how diet quality relates to the development of dementia.

But she added: ‘Research suggests a healthy diet may help to reduce the risk of dementia, and Alzheimer’s Research is supporting pioneering research into ways we can encourage people at risk to adopt a Mediterranean diet.’

. You might also like Research reveals that walking is better for the brain than cycling

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Britain, Government, Politics, Society

The treacherous House of Lords that betrays 17.4million

BREXIT

THE House of Lords is out-of-control. This week peers inflicted their 14th successive defeat on the Government’s Brexit legislation and is exercising political grievance and gerrymandering on a grand scale. The Upper Chamber was never devised to inflict such an appalling level of embarrassment on the ruling government of the day. Even many Remain voters are appalled by the way this anachronistic chamber is over-stepping its powers.

For though most Remainer peers peddle the fiction that they are only performing their duties as a revising chamber, their aims are starkly clear: to overturn the result of the 2016 referendum.

Just look at the amendments so far. These are not adjustments in line with the Lords’ constitutional role of ironing out legislative anomalies. They are bids to derail Brexit.

Take the vote to rule out a ‘no-deal’ withdrawal. This would ban our negotiators from walking away from lousy EU terms and diktats. Yet this robs us of the most powerful card in Britain’s hand and removes any incentive for Brussels concessions. It could also postpone Brexit indefinitely.

Then there are the amendments aimed at keeping us in the customs union and the single market – the latter passed by 29 votes. Both represent assaults on the will of the electorate.

Remainers seek to justify their conduct by saying voters were too ill-informed to understand Brexit. Others claim there’s no contradiction between honouring the referendum result and remaining in the customs union and single market.

But as the Europhiles are aware, both sides in the EU campaign spelt out that withdrawal would mean leaving its two principle institutions.

 

THE REFERENDUM was authorised by a Sovereign Act of Parliament, passed by a majority of six to one in the Commons, with politicians on both sides agreeing the outcome would be binding.

In 2016, 17.4million voted Leave, giving the biggest democratic mandate for any party or policy in British history on a turnout exceeding 72 per cent.

Parliament then began the two-year countdown to Brexit – this time by 498 votes to 114 in the Commons.

The pretence that the Lords is defending the constitution is a cynical sham and is utterly disgraceful.

One might be inclined to ask who are these wreckers who believe their views should carry more weight than those of 17.4million of their countrymen?

If they were distinguished elder statesmen or giants of science or business, their opinions might command respect.

After years of being stuffed to the rafters with third-raters, this bloated legislative chamber has become an object of scorn and derision. Here sit around 100 Lib Dems, one in eight of the total number of peers, representing a party so at odds with public opinion that it boosts less than 2 per cent of elected MPs.

Others owe their ermine to no greater distinction than having shared a property with Tony Blair or by putting vast amounts of cash into party coffers.

 

AT this crucial juncture in our history, the House of Lords has violated its constitutional role. In so doing, it has surely set in motion its abolishment.

If the Conservatives are wise, they will enter the next general election on a pledge to swiftly clear this rabble who have abused the trust placed in them – and ask a Royal Commission to come up with proposals for an elected second chamber.

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European Union, Government, Iran, Middle East, Society, United Nations, United States

Trump condemned as US withdraws from Iran nuclear deal

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

Walking away: Donald Trump announcing that the US is withdrawing from the Iran deal.

DONALD TRUMP has faced global condemnation after the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement.

As the President inflamed tensions in the already volatile region, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel said his decision had been met with “regret and concern”.

In a joint statement, the French, British and German leaders said “the world was a safer place” because of the deal and pledged to remain committed to it.

But Mr Trump said he was walking away from the 2015 pact in order to stop a “nuclear bomb” being acquired by the “world’s leading state sponsor of terror”.

Announcing “powerful” sanctions for Iran, he claimed failing to withdraw from the agreement would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

And he warned that, if Iran developed weapons, Tehran would have “bigger problems then it has ever had before.”

However, Iran’s president responded by saying that if negotiations failed over the nuclear deal, it would enrich uranium “more than before… in the next weeks”.

Mrs May, Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel – who each spoke to the President about the decision over the past few days – said they remained committed to the deal that was “important for our shared security”. They also urged Tehran “to show restraint in response” to the US decision.

In a much anticipated response from the White House, Mr Trump said: “If I allowed this deal to stand there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.

“We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotting structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.

“In just a short period of time the world’s leading state sponsor of terror would be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

Under the agreement, Iran had agreed to limit nuclear activities in return for easing economic sanctions. Tehran claimed at the time it had pursued only nuclear energy rather than weapons.

But Mr Trump said that, since the deal, “Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen” and the pact “didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will”.

The President, who had committed to scrapping the deal during his election campaign, pointed out that Iran had boosted its military expenditure, supported terrorism and “caused havoc” throughout the Middle East and beyond.

He said that he had spoken to France, Germany, Britain and friends across the Middle East who were “unified” in their conviction that Iran must never deliver nuclear weapons. He added: “America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.

“The US no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises I keep them.”

However, the President said he would be open to a new deal in future. Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who signed the deal, said the “misguided” decision could even lead the US into war.

He said: “At a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away… risks losing a deal that accomplished – with Iran – the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans.

“We all know the dangers of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“It could embolden an already dangerous regime; threaten our friends with destruction; pose unacceptable dangers to America’s own security; and trigger an arms race in the world’s most dangerous region.”

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said there was a “short time” to negotiate with the countries remaining in the nuclear deal.

He told Iranian state media: “I have ordered Iran’s atomic organisation that wherever it is needed, we will start enriching uranium more than before.” The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned by the US decision, while the EU’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said Brussels was “determined” to preserve the deal.

Tensions were already heightened after Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu announced that his nations spies had stolen thousands of files on Iran’s nuclear programme. He also said Israel would rather face a confrontation with Iran “now than later”.

 

THE 2015 nuclear deal was signed by Iran, the US, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany.

The agreement lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to its nuclear energy programme, which many feared would be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to slash enrichment levels of uranium to prevent it reaching “weapons grade” and by redesigning a heavy-water nuclear facility it had been building so it would no longer be capable of producing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran also agreed not to engage in activities, including research and development, that it would need to develop a weapon.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was granted greater access and information to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme. It also had powers to investigate suspicious sites.

In return, the lifting of sanctions meant Iran gained access to more than $100billion in assets frozen overseas. It was also able to resume selling oil on international markets and use the global financial system for trade.

The agreement stated that any violation would lead to UN sanctions being put into place for ten years.

. See also Israel, Iran and the tinderbox of the Middle East

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