One cup of blueberries per day helps relieve high blood pressure and hardened arteries

With ancient ties to North America, its no wonder that blueberries are one of America's favorite foods. Called "star berries" by the Native Americans for their five-point star shape, blueberries were an abundant resource, acting as a food and a medicine. The berries were dried to create a type of jerky that could be taken on long trips, similar to today's version of fruit leather. Natives also made dye from blueberry juice, using it to paint textiles and baskets.

Native to the region, blueberries were quickly adopted by the early settlers, who relied upon them when food was scarce. Learning from the Native Americans, early colonists made gray paint out of blueberries by boiling them in milk, using it to paint their homes.

Today, blueberries are still an integral part of our diet, playing an equally important role. Blueberries offer a variety of health benefits, including improving memory, protecting the heart, assisting with digestion and reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Consuming them regularly keeps your brain sharp, and they even help shield us from the effects of toxic heavy metals.

Blueberries help widen blood vessels by 68 percent, study finds

The results of a new study reveal that blueberries may be the key in reducing high blood pressure and arterial stiffness, both of which are linked to cardiovascular disease, according to Newswise.com.

"Our findings suggest that regular consumption of blueberries could potentially delay the progression of prehypertension to hypertension, therefore reducing cardiovascular disease risk," said Sarah A. Johnson, assistant director of the Center for Advancing Exercise and Nutrition Research on Aging.

Published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the paper is called "Daily blueberry consumption improves blood pressure and arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women with pre- and stage 1-hypertension."

Johnson says she was interested in examining how functional foods, like blueberries, prevent and reverse negative health outcomes, particularly in postmenopausal women.

"Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States"

"Once women go through menopause, this puts them at an even greater risk for it. Our findings suggest that the addition of a single food, blueberries, to the diet may mitigate the negative cardiovascular effects that often occur as a result of menopause," explained Johnson.

To test this theory, her team gave 48 postmenopausal women with pre- and stage-1 hypertension either 22 grams of freeze-dried blueberry powder (equivalent to one cup of fresh blueberries) or 22 grams of placebo powder for a period of eight weeks.

Before the study began, participant's blood pressure was taken, and their arterial stiffness measured, as well as select blood biomarkers.

According to the results, participants in the blueberry-treated group had a decrease in systolic blood pressure, or the top number in blood pressure readings that measures the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats.

Diastolic blood pressure, or the bottom number measuring the pressure in the arteries between heartbeats, decreased by 6.3 percent. Additionally, the blueberry-treated group had an average reduction of 6.5 percent in arterial stiffness.

Also, nitric oxide, a blood biomarker known to be involved in the process of widening arteries, increased by more than 68 percent, an important revelation considering that arterial stiffness and the narrowing of blood vessels are both a part of hypertension, according to Johnson.

Previous studies on blueberries that showed positive effects on heart risk factors, including blood pressure, used a much higher dose of blueberries (equivalent to 11 cups of fresh berries) to reach their results.

Future studies will likely consider lower, more realistic dosages to test blueberries' positive health effects.

Sources:

http://www.newswise.com

http://www.andjrnl.org

http://www.2020site.org

http://www.naturalnews.com

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Chelsea: 'I'm happy with my squad' says Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho says he is not expecting any of his squad to leave Stamford Bridge during the January transfer window.

Andre Schurrle and Mohamed Salah have been linked with moves, although Mourinho says both are in the squad for this weekend’s FA Cup fourth round visit of Bradford and expects them to remain with the Premier League leaders for the rest of the campaign.And the Chelsea manager admits it looks very unlikely whether he will be adding to his side before the market closes on February 2.

When asked whether Chelsea will be involved over the next 10 days, he said: "The club doesn't move. We don't move. Our desire is to keep the same squad.

"The window is open but what I can say. I like them, I need them and I trust them. We are happy with the players, we are happy with the work we did in the summer to prepare for the season, and it reflects the trust we have in the group.

"We don't want to be involved in the transfer window. If we have to be it's because somebody pushed us, with some offer for one of our players.

'Nothing should happen'

"Sometimes we have needs, like we had in the past transfer windows where we sold some players. The reality is normally nothing should happen in the next two weeks and we should go to February with the same squad.”

Speaking about Schurrle, who has been linked with a move to Wolfsburg, he added: “He’s selected for Saturday, he played against Swansea last week, wasn’t selected for Liverpool (in midweek) and he’s in for the cup.”

And he said the same applied to Egyptian winger Salah who will also be involved with the cup squad this weekend.

“The reality is nothing should happen in the next two weeks and we should reach February with the same squad," he said.

“And we don’t have any one in place should someone leave,” he added, reacting to a question that Fiorentina's Colombia winger Juan Cuadrado has been spoken of as a potential target.

"I shouldn't make any comments about players from other clubs. You speak about Cuadrado, you can speak about 10, 20 players.

"It's my job to know them all. I think he fits well in Fiorentina's squad and Colombia's squad, not in Chelsea's squad."

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Washington

WASHINGTON –  An Army statistician whose research informed battlefield treatment decisions was quietly forced to resign in January after admitting she did not earn the doctoral degree she had been claiming.

Inquiries by The Associated Press revealed that not only did she deceive the Army about her Ph.D., but she didn't earn the master's degree on her resume either, something Army officials said they had not realized.

Managers at the Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio initially rebuffed the whistleblower who tried to tell them about the degree fraud, according to emails obtained by the AP. But the statistician, Amy N. Apodaca, ultimately quit in January after her bosses confronted her, the Army said in a statement.

Apodaca held a secret-level security clearance, officials said. The case raises questions about how she was able to pass a background check, and about the vetting procedures at the Institute of Surgical Research, the Army's leading laboratory for improving the care of combat casualties. Some of Apodaca's supervisors there endorsed her qualifications on LinkedIn, the workplace networking site.

Apodaca worked as a contract employee at the surgical institute from 2007 to 2008 and from 2010 through most of January. She is currently living in Glasgow, Scotland, according to her Facebook page, and did not respond to requests for comment.

Her duties included performing statistical analyses that were sent to the military treatment facilities in war theaters, where doctors used them to evaluate treatment decisions about injured soldiers, according to documents and interviews. She also contributed to scholarly research published in medical journals. She had access to the military's classified network.

In a statement, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Benjamin Garrett said that after learning of her misrepresentation, the Army reviewed Apodaca's published work, and "it was determined no flaws warranting retraction were identified." No problems were found with her unpublished work either, he said.

Garrett said the surgical institute had strengthened its vetting procedures by reviewing the academic credentials of statisticians prior to hiring, and requiring all contractors to provide proof of a job candidate's degree directly from the educational institution.

In February, the Army contacted medical journals that had published pieces Apodaca co-authored to alert them about the misrepresentation. But even after being duped, the Army failed to fully check Apodaca's credentials. Army officials told the journals she had a master's degree, and some of them published corrections saying that. Based on AP's inquiries, the Army now acknowledges that was wrong, and has been alerting the journals once again.

On a now-defunct LinkedIn page, Apodaca claimed a master's degree in sociology from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2006, and a Doctor of Philosophy in demography and population studies/applied statistics from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Officials at both schools said their records show her registered for classes there, but that she didn't earn any degrees.

Apodaca did earn a B.A. in sociology in 2003 at the University of Texas at Austin, but not a B.S. in biomedical engineering, as she listed on her LinkedIn page, according to that institution.

Despite the Texas and Maryland LinkedIn entries, Apodaca convinced many co-workers she had earned her Ph.D. from Yale, records show. In one case, she put a Yale insignia next to her name in an Army slide show.

A Yale spokeswoman said there is no record of anyone by that name holding any degree from Yale.

Apodaca told co-workers she resigned for family reasons, said the Army, which didn't contradict her publicly.

Asked how Apodaca could have misrepresented her credentials for so long, Army officials said she was technically a contractor, and it was the responsibility of the contracting company that employed her to vet her.

Apodaca worked at an Army facility and took direction from Army officials, but she technically was employed until 2013 under an Army contract held by Muscogee Nation Business Enterprise, at which point she began working under an Army contract with Woodbury Technologies. Neither firm responded to requests for comment.

The failure to properly screen Apodaca is reminiscent of the shortfalls in the case of military contractor Aaron Alexis, a security clearance holder who in September 2013 fatally shot 12 people and injured three others in a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command inside the Washington Navy Yard.

The Army referred questions about Apodaca's security clearance to the federal Office of Personnel Management, which grants clearances for certain contractors. Lisa Loss, a top official at OPM's investigative services division, said the agency could not answer questions about the case because of privacy laws.

Suspicions about Apodaca's degrees were first raised by a former co-worker, who refused to be quoted by name because she feared being labeled a troublemaker in future jobs. On Jan. 21, the whistleblower says, she raised concerns about Apodaca with Dominique Greydanus, a contracting officer representative. He responded by defending Apodaca and calling the co-worker a troublemaker and mud-slinger, the co-worker said.

An Army spokesman did not dispute that, but said, "When Mr. Greydanus was informed of the allegation, he immediately reported the information up the chain of command. Mr. Greydanus' actions were appropriate and no disciplinary action was warranted."

The next day, the whistleblower emailed Mary Ann Spott, deputy director of the Army's Joint Trauma System, which evaluates battlefield care. Spott wrote back, "I have confirmed that Dr. Apodaca did attend Yale and does in fact hold a degree in statistics from that institution," according to emails obtained by the AP.

Four days later, Apodaca admitted degree fraud and resigned.

"Ms. Spott's actions were appropriate," Garrett said.

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