Marina T Alamanou
Stories (69/0)
Invest in your Skin
Phyto-antioxidants The kingdom of the plants — the phyto-kingdom — is rich in natural endogenous antioxidants, the phyto-antioxidants, that exhibit a wide range of biological effects, such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-aging and anticancer. These natural antioxidants are mainly terpenes (aromatic molecules responsible for the unique aroma of each plant), polyphenols (phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, lignans and stilbenes), carotenoids (xanthophylls and carotenes) and vitamins (vitamin E and C).
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Longevity
Circadian Clock Genes
Early to bed, early to rise? This would be perfect if your were a farmer. But if you are not a farmer and your biological sleep-wake cycle makes you get up at 5 am in the morning and makes you ready to go to sleep before 9 pm in the evening, then your biological sleep-wake cycle is out of sync with the demands of the modern world.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Longevity
Sleep and how to sleep well
Sleep Sleep is increasingly recognized as a critical component of healthy development and overall health, and is essential for maintaining immune health, restoring energy and memory consolidation, while not sleeping is a risk factor for a variety of significant health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, as well as bad mood and cognitive dysfunction.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Longevity
Healthy aging and edible mushrooms
Healthy aging and diet Aging is an inevitable outcome of life, a process of gradual physiological deterioration that all living beings experience with time, characterised by a progressive decline in tissue and organ function and increased risk of mortality. It is a heterogeneous and heterochronic process.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Potent
Sleep the shutting of the eye: sleep duration and genes
Sleep duration and genes Sleep is nearly ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom and in general a great deal of variation exists in sleep duration among different animal phyla, with animals such as the African Elephant sleeping only 3–4 hrs per day while animals like armadillo sleeping over 18 hrs per day.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Longevity
Marshmallows are actually plants
Althaea officinalis the marsh-mallow plant The first marshmallows date back to 2000 BC. During those times Egyptians made individual marshmallows by hand by extracting sap from the roots of the “marsh-mallow plant” or Althaea officinalis and mixing it with nuts and honey. These marshmallows were considered at the time a delicacy deemed worthy only for gods and royalty. Nowadays things have changed of course and unfortunately the marsh-mallow root is not any more the active ingredient in the marshmallows we eat, since it has been replaced with animal gels and gums.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Longevity
A device for randomness
The Kleroterion The kleroterion was a randomization device (a lottery system) used by the Athenian cities during the period of democracy to select citizens to the city council, to most state offices and to court juries. Athenians were aware of the risks of corruption; they knew that a judge could be bribed but not a crowd, so they used to form big juries (500 people) that were randomly selected shortly before the trial. For that reason each citizen brought his personal ID (a piece of wood or bronze called pinakion), that a justice officer slotted it into a kleroterion, a machine generating randomness.
By Marina T Alamanou3 years ago in Futurism