Most Star Wars fans know that the dark side of the force has a negative effect on the user’s body (ok, I’ll admit right now that I’m probably in the camp of those who believe "all I really need to know I learned from Star Wars")

"Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they." Yoda

Interestingly, research out of Duke University Medical Center suggests that men who are hostile and are prone to experience frequent and intense feelings of anger, and depression show activation of the complement system and increased levels of C3.

This pattern of inflammation in your body is "bad" and strongly associated with cardiovascular disease (strokes and heart attacks- both of which play a very large role in determining brain health).

The article was published in the February issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Click here for the abstract.

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I stopped regularly drinking milk years ago for health reasons, and- based on the sheer volume of milk propaganda going around- have always felt the dairy industry has had an unnatural grip on American dietary habits.

From the site www.milksucks.com:

Dairy products are a health hazard. They contain no fiber or complex carbohydrates and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. They are contaminated with cow’s blood and pus and are frequently contaminated with pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Dairy products are linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it can cause anemia, allergies, and insulin-dependent diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease, America’s number one cause of death.

And dairy products may actually cause osteoporosis, not prevent it, since their high-protein content leaches calcium from the body. Population studies, backed up by a groundbreaking Harvard study of more than 75,000 nurses, suggest that drinking milk can actually cause osteoporosis

Came across a very recent study showing that the more milk you drink each day, the more likely you are to get Parkinson’s disease- a horrible degenerative disease of the brain that is surprisingly common in the elderly.

Men who consumed more than 16oz of milk a day were 2.3 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s than those who drank no milk at all.

The study, conducted by researchers at Korea University, was published in the journal Neurology.

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In an earlier post, I mentioned how a large amount of new research shows that chronic stress plays a major role in destroying the memory engine (hippocampus) of your brain.

Additionally, I’ve also pointed out how many studies now implicate stress as playing a major role in:

• Diabetes
• Atherosclerosis (which leads to heart attacks and strokes)
• Cancer

Now new studies suggest it actually causes premature aging of your immune system. From a recent article in Forbes:

Research suggests that stress can shorten the chunks of DNA at the tips of chromosomes in cells, making it harder for them to work properly, according to the Elissa Epel, a psychologist at the University of California at San Francisco. The bits of DNA “are like the plastic caps on the ends of our shoelaces. They prevent the ends from fraying,” she said.

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