Healthy Inspiration

This morning, ride-sharing service Lyft announced an electrifying plan to clean up our cities.

In 2019, the company will invest in thousands of hybrid and electric vehicles that riders can request to travel in using a new "Green Mode" app feature, which will roll out in Seattle before expanding to the rest of the country. This will be an extension of Lyft's existing Express Drive program, which lets drivers who don't have cars of their own rent from Lyft's corporate fleet. If all goes to plan, EVs should help these drivers save on fuel costs and make a higher hourly salary too.

For Lyft, which announced a separate initiative to make its rides carbon neutral last year, this is just another step in the quest to make cities across the country more livable. "Replacing gasoline-powered cars with EVs is a significant step forward in our efforts to fight climate change and to improve the quality of life in our cities," reads a company news release. "This effort will reduce the amount of emissions created by vehicles on the Lyft platform. Following the commitments we made last year, all EV charging will be covered by 100 percent renewable electricity."

The San Francisco–based company also recently launched Lyft scooters, acquired bike-share service Motivate and integrated public transit routes into select cities' digital maps. Its latest announcement comes at a moment when many other transportation companies are also looking to diversify beyond the traditional vehicle.

The number of bikes available through bike-share programs more than tripled between 2013 and 2016, and scooters are no longer just for kids. Last year, Uber invested in e-scooter company Lime; Razor scooters launched its own ride-share business; and Ford Motors bought e-scooter company Spin as part of its City Solutions program, which works with cities to reduce traffic congestion. Another e-scooter company, Bird, was just named Inc. magazine's most innovative company of the year. It's all a testament to the fact that the future of transport is looking mighty green.

FRANKFURT/MAIN. Die Neuordnung deutscher Aktieninidces zum 24. September beschert mehreren Healthcare-Unternehmen jetzt Doppelmitgliedschaften in TecDax und M- oder SDax: Danach wird die Münchener Medigene AG künftig auch im SDax, dem Index für kleinere Unternehmen, sogenannte "Small Caps", gelistet.

Der Hamburger Forschungsdienstleister Evotec wird zusätzlich in das Mittelstandsregister MDax aufgenommen. Auch die auf therapeutische monoklonale Antikörper spezialisierte Morphosys AG ist künftig im MDax vertreten.

Vierter im Bunde ist der Koblenzer Praxissoftware-Anbieter CompuGroup Medical , der außer im TecDax künftig auch im SDax geführt werden wird. (cw)

Just to be clear: none of this is intended as a substitute for seeing an actual doctor or following a doctor-created treatment plan for any kind of mental health issues. Diet changes are nice, but they aren’t the same thing as seeing an actual medical professional – especially since all of these are just studies showing what helps the average person, not advice tailored specifically to you individually.

But with that in mind, there’s been a huge amount of research on diet and mental health. It’s cool to consider some of these things as potential supplements to a real treatment plan from a doctor, and for people who started Paleo and realized how much better they felt mentally, this might explain a thing or two! Here’s a look at 5 studies on Paleo-friendly diet strategies that reduced symptoms of depression.

(Note that these aren’t all in people who were diagnosed with depression or anything else – it’s all about the symptoms people experienced, not the diagnosis they got. If people tried an intervention and felt less sad or hopeless, regardless of whether they technically had a diagnosis of depression or not, it counts!)

1. Eliminating gluten

This study looked at men with non-Celiac gluten sensitivity – in other words, they didn’t have Celiac disease, but they still cut out gluten from their diet, claiming that they “felt better.” These men didn’t actually have any digestive symptoms in response to a gluten challenge, so the researchers were kind of puzzled by what they meant by “feeling better.” To figure it out, the authors randomly challenged the men with either gluten-free food or foods with hidden gluten, and found that:

“Short‐term exposure to gluten specifically induced current feelings of depression with no effect on other indices or on emotional disposition.”

In other words, even if it doesn’t cause any digestive symptoms, gluten might still cause psychological symptoms in people who are gluten-sensitive.

How does that work?

The study authors suggested that eating gluten might impair the production of brain serotonin. Basically, to make serotonin, you need tryptophan, but the synthesis of tryptophan is very sensitive to food proteins, including gluten – take away the gluten, and those brain chemicals might just work a little better. The opioid peptides in wheat might also be responsible for part of the effect.

2. Probiotics

Probiotics are basically bacteria designed to be good for your gut biome. Here, the patients got either a probiotic supplement or a placebo for 8 weeks – by the end of the 8 weeks, the patients in the probiotic group had significantly lower scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. (As a bonus, they also saw improvements in insulin metabolism.)

A meta-analysis of the issue confirmed the value of probiotics for symptoms of depression, especially for younger people (the effect was clinically significant for people under 60). here’s another review finding the same thing: “The evidence for probiotics alleviating depressive symptoms is compelling.”

How does that work?

Most likely, it’s all in the gut. The vast majority of your serotonin – that’s an important chemical for regulating mood and mental state – is made in the gut, and gut health is huge for overall mental stability and well-being. If your gut is happy, you’ll be happy too, and probiotics tend to make most people’s guts pretty happy.

3. Omega-3 Fats

Another promising nutrient for better mental health is Omega-3 fat – that’s the kind found in fish and seafood. A review of clinical trials found “significant clinical benefit of omega-3 PUFA treatment compared to placebo.”

This review expanded that to look at not just Omega-3 supplements but also actual fish. The study didn’t look at clinical trials, but did analyze observational studies (research where scientists make associations between certain dietary patterns – like eating fish – and health outcomes – like depression). The review and meta-analysis indicated that eating Omega-3 fats was associated with a lower risk of depression, no matter whether those fats came from supplements or from real fish.

How does that work?

The study offered two reasons:

4. Vitamin D

Or, instead of taking supplements, you could go out and get some vitamin D the old-fashioned way!

For vitamin D, the results are more mixed. This review and meta-analysis found that it worked – but only in people with clinically significant depressive symptoms. In people with more mild symptoms, the effect wasn’t noticeable. It also may not be very effective for people with sufficient vitamin D levels at baseline.

On the other hand, this review found that when the authors only analyzed high-quality studies, there was a significant effect. And even more interestingly, some studies suggest that vitamin D might be great for seasonal affective disorder specifically even if it doesn’t do much for depressive symptoms in general. Seasonal affective disorder is when people feel depressed specifically in the winter.

How does that work?

Vitamin D regulates the production of critical brain chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline; it also helps protect the brain against depletion of dopamine and serotonin, according to this review.

5. Zinc

Zinc is a mineral found in oysters, beef, most other meats, and nuts. People diagnosed with depression generally have lower levels of zinc, and a meta-analysis of the effects of zinc found solid evidence that it works as a supplemental treatment to antidepressive drugs. Another study in overweight or obese patients found that zinc supplements significantly reduced depressive symptoms (measured again by the Beck Depression Inventory).

How does that work?

Possibly by increasing the amount of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in the blood – or at least that’s what the last study measured. BDNF is critical for learning and long-term memory, and people diagnosed with depression tend to have lower levels of BDNF, so it’s reasonable that increasing BDNF levels might have some therapeutic benefit.

Diet is more than nutrients

Just to sum it all up, this study has a helpful reminder:

“It is imperative to remain mindful of any protective effects that are likely to come from the cumulative and synergic effect of nutrients that comprise the whole-diet, rather than from the effects of individual nutrients or single foods.”

Absolutely true – everything you eat affects everything else you eat. More general diet interventions have also proven effective: this study in people with diabetes found that an intensive lifestyle intervention including both diet and exercise reduced symptoms of depression. And independently of diet, exercise definitely is good for mental health in all kinds of ways! Eating for better mental health – or any other health benefit – isn’t really about cherry-picking wonder nutrients; it’s about the whole diet and how well it works for you overall. But at least these five suggestions (eliminating gluten, Omega-3 fats, probiotics, zinc, and vitamin D) offer one place to start troubleshooting.

Have you tried incorporating one of the interventions above into your diet for mental health? How did it go? Got any other great tips to share? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!

P.S. Have a look at Paleo Restart, our 30-day program. It has the tools to let you reset your body, lose weight and start feeling great.

+ The Paleo Leap Meal Planner is now also available. Put your meal planning on autopilot!

A drugmaker developing cancer therapeutics based on patient immune responses has raised its latest round of venture capital funding.

Redwood City, California-based Atreca said Tuesday that it had raised $125 million in a Series C round, led by an undisclosed large, healthcare-focused fund based in the US that is also an existing investor. Other existing investors participating in the round included Wellington Management Company and Cormorant Asset Management, along with new investors Aisling Capital, Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group, EcoR1 Capital, Redmile Group, Samsara BioCapital and funds managed by Tekla Capital Management.

The unnamed fund also co-led Atreca’s Series B financing round worth $35 million, which it completed in August 2017, alongside then-new investor Wellington.

Atreca’s pipeline page lists three programs. ATRC-101’s mechanism of action involves driver antigen engagement, and the drug being targeted to breast, lung and colon cancers, with first-in-human studies planned to start next year. ATRC-201 is planned to enter clinical development in 2020 in multiple solid tumors, with directed killing as the mechanism of action. Meanwhile, the company has multiple other solid tumor programs that it plans to initiate in 2021 and beyond.

The company describes its approach as inverting the traditional drug-discovery paradigm. Active patient B-cell responses, it says, provide human antibodies that serve as the foundation of its therapeutic candidates, as well as providing access to novel targets and biology.

Another company that targets patient immune responses, OncoResponse, said Tuesday that it had raised $40 million in a Series B funding round in which one of Atreca’s new investors, Redmile Group, also participated. The approach of OncoResponse, which is based in Seattle, involves screening the adaptive immune systems of patients who have responded well to immunotherapy in order to find antibodies with exceptional reactivity, thereby enabling the company to address the needs of patients who are partial responders or non-responders to immunotherapy.

Photo: Getty Images

Po pierwsze: usuń ciągłe znużenie

 Jeśli nie cierpisz na anemię (zbadaj poziom żelaza we krwi!), prawdopodobnie dopadła cię jesienna depresja. Walcz z nią, podtrzymując stały poziom cukru we krwi. Dzięki temu wszystkie procesy biologiczne i psychiczne w twoim organizmie będą przebiegały prawidłowo. Nie będzie jednak skuteczny cukier z batoników czy ciastek – chodzi o wartościowe cukry, które dostarczają mózgowi energię i są dobrze trawione. Najważniejsze źródła dopalania to: fasola, groch, soczewica, owoce, miód (najlepiej – spadziowy).

Po drugie: ożyw umysł i kreatywność

Nic ci się nie chce? Potrzebna ci cholina, zwana witaminą ożywiającą umysł. Wpływa na prawidłowe funkcjonowanie mózgu i układu nerwowego. Dzięki niej skoncentrujesz się na działaniu, a to spowoduje, że sam będziesz zaskoczony swoją pomysłowością. Cholina obniża też poziom cholesterolu i zapobiega odkładaniu się płytek miażdżycowych w tętnicach. Jej najbogatsze źródła to: surowe żółtka jaj, warzywa zielone (szpinak, brokuły, sałata) i wątróbka.

Strefa chill out: Sprawdzone sposoby na stres

Po trzecie: popraw sobie nastrój

Kiepski humor? – masz za mało serotoniny. To ona reguluje odczuwanie głodu i pragnienia, dzięki niej twoje oddychanie i sen są prawidłowe. Gdy to wszystko szwankuje, humor też się psuje. Serotoniny nie ma w żywności ani w tabletkach, ale za to możesz dostarczyć mózgowi tryptofan, który się w nią przekształca. Najwięcej go znajdziesz w mleku i jogurcie, jajkach, bananach, żółtym serze, drobiu (szczególnie polecamy indyka).

Uważaj jednak, bo – jak zawsze – co za dużo to niezdrowo: nadmiar serotoniny wywoła senność. Nie objadaj się też żółtym serem – zawiera sporo fluoru, który zaburza wchłanianie magnezu, a to kluczowy pierwiastek antystresowy. Wrogiem depresji jest również inozytol, substancja z grupy witamin B. Niedobór inozytolu zdarza się rzadko, bo związek ten występuje praktycznie we wszystkim – mleku, mięsie, warzywach, orzechach. Wreszcie znakomicie poprawiają nastrój kwasy tłuszczowe omega- 3. Jedz ryby.

Po czwarte: złagodź objawy stresu

Przygnębienie „przegryź” selenem i magnezem. To dwa najsilniejsze pierwiastki łagodzące skutki przewlekłego stresu. Magnez znajdziesz w sporych ilościach w gorzkiej czekoladzie, suszonych morelach i figach, orzechach. Selenu z kolei szukaj np. w owocach morza, orzechach, pełnoziarnistych płatkach zbożowych czy kukurydzy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has received a total of 155 reports to date of patients under investigation for acute flaccid myelitis.

The number of suspected cases in Massachusetts is now five, an increase of one over last week, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The polio-like condition, which mainly affects children and manifests as weakness in the muscles and reflexes that can result in paralysis, is rare, but has been on the increase since 2014 in the United States.

Last week in issuing an alert on the increase, the CDC had said this number stood at 127 cases of patients under investigation (PUIs) this year, including 62 confirmed cases in 22 states.

The condition is said to affect the body's nervous system, causing inflammation in the spinal cord and interfering with the transmission of nerve signals to and from the brain. It is partially diagnosis through an MRI.

No predominate pathogen has been found to date among the confirmed cases, according to the CDC, though the presence of non-polio enteroviruses has been associated with a few.

None of the earlier cases the CDC has said it investigated were found to have the poliovirus.

There is no specific treatment, though some hospitals are said to have treated with immunotherapy, including corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin and/or plasma exchange to improve patient outcome on a long-term basis.

The CDC said on its website that it had recently received increased reports for PUIs with onset of symptoms in August and September, and that it would be releasing weekly Monday updates "so people can better anticipate increases in confirmed cases over the coming months."

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health confirmed two cases of acute flaccid myelitis in the state last week.

Parents are urged to ensure their children are up-to-date on vaccination requirements, to engage in proper hygiene when changing diapers and to not send ill children to school or day care or to expose babies to them.

The onset sometimes presents first as a respiratory condition and then progress to muscle weakness, including facial droop or weakness.  Parents are urged to contact their healthcare provider if they notice such symptoms. 

Got it! Please don't show me this again for 90 days.

x

Makia Freeman, Contributor
Waking Times

As the 911 17th anniversary approaches, it is worth casting our minds back to that “catastrophic and catalyzing event”, that new Pearl Harbor (in the words of the PNAC neocons), which has cemented the false idea of a War on Terror into the public mind. More and more researchers and facts have emerged since the first few years after the event. Thanks to the work of people like Dr. Judy Wood and Rebekah Roth, we now have a very good idea of the how and who behind the biggest false flag attack in world history. Below are 17 unanswered questions designed to briefly reacquaint you with the shocking anomalies, inconsistencies and holes in the official narrative during this 911 17th anniversary.

1. If Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11, why was he never formally charged with the crime?

Guess the FBI just plain old forgot or were too busy conducting sting operations (foiling terror plots they themselves orchestrated) to actually charge bin Laden with the grandest crime in history. By the way, what were representatives from the Bush family (ex-CIA chief and President George H. W.) doing meeting with representatives from the bin Ladens (Shafig bin Laden, brother of Osama) the day before 9/11 in New York Ritz-Carlton Hotel? How did everyone seem to know it was bin Laden before the dust had even settled, e.g. former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak speaking on the BBC only 1 hour after the attacks?

2. Why did Netanyahu say 9/11 was “very good for Israel”?

The New York Times quoted Netanyahu as saying: “”It’s very good.” Then he edited himself: ”Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.””Netanyahu was quoted elsewhere as saying, “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” and that the 9/11 event “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

3. Why did 5 Israeli “art students” (i.e. intelligence agents) celebrate by loudly dancing and cheering on a nearby rooftop and thereby attracting attention?

These same “art students” stated to the police: “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”They also claimed in a TV interview that they were there “to document the event”!

4. Why did the Israeli company Urban Moving Systems have a mural of a plane crashing into the Twin Towers painted on its side (remember, it must have been painted before the 9/11 attacks)?

This was the same van associated with the 5 Mossad “art students” …

5. Why did the BBC announce Building 7 had been demolished before it actually had?

Someone went off script and jumped the gun with that report …

6. Why were the 9/11 planes so light that day (carrying a total of 260 passengers in 4 planes instead of the more normal 800 passengers)?

Just a coincidence, right?

7. How could any emergency calls (either by passengers or flight attendants) have been placed from the air when cell phones don’t work in the air?

Rebekah Roth was a former flight attendant herself who caught some of the 9/11 flight attendants in a lie. One of them stated she was on the phone for 27 minutes! Another one stated that the hijackers had sprayed pepper spray (or mace) just in business class, but this is impossible because it would circulate all throughout the plane.

8. Why did there just happen to be 46 drills on the day of 9/11 to confuse everyone?

9. If Mohammad Atta and his team of hijackers were waging a holy war/jihad against the US according to their strict Islamic faith, why were they seen gambling, drinking alcohol, eating pork, smoking cocaine and using hookers in the leadup to the 9/11 false flag attack?

10. Why did NORAD, ultimately commanded by then VP, PNAC member and neocon Dick Cheney, give the order to “stand down” when the US was under attack?

11. Is it just a coincidence that then Secretary of Defense, PNAC member and neocon Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon/DoD couldn’t account for US$2.3 trillion the day before 9/11 happened, thus putting this astonishing fact down the memory hole?

12. Why did NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani immediately ship the fallen metal to China and India, thus destroying the evidence?

According to Dr. Steven Jones, only 250 pieces of structural steel were saved for analysis out of 200,000 tons!

13. Why did then President George W. Bush continue to read a kids’ book, upside down, to a classroom of children right after he was told the first WTC tower had been struck?

By the way, do you think it’s a just a coincidence that the kids were reciting these 5 words for their lesson right then: KITE, HIT, STEEL, PLANE, MUST?

14. Why did Bush tell a public meeting that he saw the first plane strike the WTC and said “There’s one terrible pilot” when video footage shows he was in the classroom not watching a TV at that time?

15. Why did the Israeli company Zim Shipping mysteriously vacate their WTC lease just a week before 9/11 and incur a $50,000 fine to do so?

16. If 9/11 was carried out by 19 Kamikaze Arabs and with the help of no States, was did Saudi Arabia threaten the US when Congress was considering releasing the “28 pages”?

And why does the troika of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US continue to work together, e.g. as in subsequent operations like the Syrian War?

17. Why have so many non-US public officials stated on the record that the 9/11 attack must have been carried out by a State, not a loose group of militants?

Check out these quotes:

“The deathly precision of the attacks and the magnitude of planning would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a loose group like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.” ~Eckehardt Werthebach (Former President of Germany’s Verfassungsschutz Intelligence Service)

“Planning the attacks was a master deed, in technical and organizational terms. To hijack four big airliners within a few minutes and fly them into targets within a single hour and doing so on complicated flight routes! That is unthinkable, without backing from the secret apparatuses of state and industry.” ~Andreas von Bülow (Former Secretary of State of Defense for Germany), Tagesspiegel, 13th Jan. 2002

“[Bin Laden supposedly confessed] to the Qaeda September [attack] to the two towers in New York [claiming to be] the author of the attack of the 11, while all the [intelligence services] of America and Europe … now know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the CIA American and the Mossad with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”

“The mastermind of the attack must have been a “sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.”” ~Francesco Cossiga (Former Italian President and the man who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio)

Conclusion

As more and more years pass from September 11th, 2001, it is important to remember the gross amount of falsehood and fakery surrounding that event. Those lies led to so much draconian regulation, limitation of rights, torture, tyranny and war. May the 911 17th anniversary be an occasion for us to remind ourselves of the vast deception that continues to be perpetrated against us. It’s never too late to pursue and spread the truth. Even after all the hoopla over the JFK files release, Trump still bowed down to his military-intelligence masters and kept many files classified. Will history repeat itself and will 9/11 truth be held to the same fate?

Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com (FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance. Makia is on Minds, Steemit and FB.

**Sources embedded throughout article.

This article (17 Unanswered Questions on the 17th Anniversary of 9/11) was originally created and published by The Freedom Articles and is re-posted here with permission. 

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If you've ever searched how to lose weight, you've probably come across general advice saying to exercise, eat clean, and eat in a calorie deficit. These tips have helped people lose weight, but Sarah Rufo decided to follow a different route to lose the weight she gained from her pregnancy.

Sarah's workouts never changed — she did CrossFit throughout her entire pregnancy and still does it. Instead, she tweaked her nutrition; with hard work and consistency, she lost 50 pounds in a year. Continue reading to find out more about Sarah's weight-loss story.