Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that one substance can have many benefits. As with statins, however, omega-3 fatty acids are one such substance.
 Beginning with 1970 studies showing that Eskimos who ate a lot of fish had low cardiac disease risk, omega-3s in fish oil have been recommended for heart health.

 New research shows omega-3s to be beneficial in many more ways. Unfortunately, only a quarter of the U.S. population consumes any omega-3 on any given day. Benefits include:
 Heart: In addition to already-known heart benefits, a study reported by Tufts University links fish consumption and omega-3s to improved electrical function in heart cells. They protect against abnormal heart rhythms.
 Brain: The DHA in fish oil is the most prominent fatty acid in the brain, especially in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for memory, language, and thinking.
 Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease: The USDA Human Nutrition Research Center reports their study subjects with the highest DHA levels reduced their risk of dementia by 47 percent and of Alzheimer’s by 39 percent.
 Eyes: According to the Archives of Ophthalmology, dietary omega-3 intake is associated with a 39 percent reduction in age-related macular degeneration. Those who take fish oil supplements for dry eye may be able to cease other medications.
 Joints: It has been known for some time that omega-3s can reduce joint tenderness  and the need for corticosteroids in people with rheumatoid arthritis.
 A daily fish oil supplement could be helpful for the heart, brain, joints, and eyes.

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

Despite these events, schools remain a very safe place for children to spend their days. In fact, the vast majority of children and youth homicides occur outside school hours and property. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has assembled a collection of resources on violence prevention to help parents, students, and school personnel cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event.

Tips for Parents

It’s natural for kids and teens—no matter where they go to school—to worry about whether this type of incident may someday affect them. Talking with kids about these tragedies, and what they watch or hear about them, can help put frightening information into a more balanced context. The CDC offers parents these suggestions to help children through their questions:

1. Reach out and talk. Create opportunities to allow your child to talk, but do not force him or her. Try asking questions like, what do you think about these events or how do you think these things happen, to get the conversation started. After an incident of school violence, it’s important for kids to feel like they can share their feelings and to know that their fears and anxieties are understandable.

2. Watch and listen. Be alert for any change in behavior. Are kids sleeping more or less, or withdrawing from friends or family? Are they behaving in any way out of the ordinary? This may show that they’re having trouble coming to terms with this event. Recognizing even small changes in behavior can give you an early warning that something is troubling your child.

3. Share information with other parents. Get to know your children’s friends and their parents. Make an on-going effort to check in and talk to other parents about any issues or stress. You don’t have to deal with problems alone—the most effective connections you have are parents, schools, and health professionals working together to provide on-going monitoring and support for the health and well-being of your child.

4. Keep it going. Ask your child how he feels about the event in a week, then in a month and so on. Each child has her own way of coping under stressful situations and the best thing you can as a parent is to listen and allow children to express their concerns and fears.

link: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/SchoolViolence/

School shootings are sobering and tragic events that cause much concern about the safety of children.

Listen to / Watch Podcast: “Coping With Traumatic Stress” (2:16 min)

A better understanding of how memory works is emerging from a newfound ability to link a learning experience in a mouse to consequent changes in the inner workings of its neurons. Researchers, supported in part by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), have developed a way to pinpoint the specific cellular components that sustain a specific memory in genetically-engineered mice.

“Remarkably, this research demonstrates a way to untangle precisely which cells and connections are activated by a particular memory,” said NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D. “We are actually learning the molecular basis of learning and memory.”

For a memory to last long-term, the neural connections holding it need to be strengthened by incorporating new proteins triggered by the learning. Yet, it’s been a mystery how these new proteins — born deep inside a neuron — end up becoming part of the specific connections in far-off neuronal extensions that encode that memory.

By tracing the destinations of such migrating proteins, the researchers located the neural connections, called synapses, holding a specific fear memory. In the process, they discovered these synapses are distinguished by telltale molecular tags that enable them to capture the memory-sustaining proteins.

Mark Mayford, Ph.D., and Naoki Matsuo, Ph.D., of the Scripps Research Institute, report on their findings in the February 22, 2008 issue of the journal Science.

The Scripps researchers have been applying their new technique in a series of studies that focus on progressively finer details of the molecular machinery of memory.

“Inside neurons involved in a specific memory, we’re tracing molecules activated by that learning to see how it ultimately changes neural connections,” explained Mayford.

In a study published in the August 31, 2007 Science, Mayford and colleagues showed the same neurons activated by a learning experience are also activated when that memory is retrieved. The more neurons involved in the learning, the stronger the memory.

The researchers determined this by genetically engineering a strain of mice with traceable neurons in the brain’s fear center, called the amygdala. Inserted genes caused activated neurons to glow red when the animals learned to fear situations where they received shocks, in a process known as fear conditioning — and to glow green when the memory was later retrieved. The researchers then chemically prevented further expression of those neurons, so that resulting neural and behavioral changes could be confidently attributed to that learning experience at a later time. The study revealed which circuits and neurons were involved in the specific learning experience.

In the new study, Mayford and Matsuo adapted this approach to discover how fear learning works at a deeper level — inside neurons of the brain’s memory hub, called the hippocampus.

Evidence suggested that proteins called AMPA receptors (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2007/faster-acting-antidepressants-closer-to-becoming-a-reality.shtml) strengthen memories by becoming part of the synapses encoding them. To identify these synapses, the researchers genetically engineered a strain of mice to express AMPA receptors traceable by a green glow. After fear conditioning had triggered new AMPA receptors deep in the neuron’s nucleus, they chemically suppressed any further expression of the proteins. This allowed time for the receptors to migrate to their appointed synapses. Hours later, green fluorescence revealed the fate of the specific AMPA receptors born in response to the learning.

As expected, the newly synthesized AMPA receptors had traveled and become part of only certain hippocampus synapses — presumably the ones holding the memory. Synaptic connections are made onto small nubs on the neuron called spines. These spines come in three different shapes called thin, stubby and mushroom. While little was known about the function of these differently shaped spines, the fact that they are altered in various forms of mental retardation, like Fragile-X syndrome, suggests a critical importance in mental function.

The researchers discovered the synapses that received the AMPA receptors with memory were limited to the mushroom type. The mushroom spines also figured prominently in the same neurons when the fear conditioning was reversed by repeatedly exposing the animals to the feared situation without getting shocked — a procedure called extinction learning. This indicated that the same neurons activated when a fear is learned are also activated when it is lost. The surge in mushroom spine capture of the receptors appeared within hours of learning and was gone after a few days, but appeared to be critical for cementing the memory.

The Respiratory System

The respiratory system is a group of organs and tissues that help you breathe. The main parts of this system are the airways, the lungs and linked blood vessels, and the muscles that enable breathing.

The Respiratory System

Figure A shows the location of the respiratory structures in the body. Figure B is an enlarged image of airways, alveoli, and the capillaries. Figure C shows the location of gas exchange between the capillaries and alveoli.

Airways

The airways are pipes that carry oxygen-rich air to your lungs and carbon dioxide, a waste gas, out of your lungs. The airways include your:

• Nose and linked air passages called nasal cavities
• Mouth
• Larynx (LAR-ingks), or voice box
• Trachea (TRA-ke-ah), or windpipe
• Tubes called bronchial tubes or bronchi, and their branches

Air first enters your body through your nose or mouth, which wets and warms the air. (Cold, dry air can irritate your lungs.) The air then travels through your voice box and down your windpipe. The windpipe splits into two bronchi that enter your lungs.

A thin flap of tissue called the epiglottis (ep-i-GLOT-is) covers your windpipe when you swallow. This prevents food or drink from entering the air passages that lead to your lungs.

Except for the mouth and some parts of the nose, all of the airways have special hairs called cilia (SIL-e-ah) that are coated with sticky mucus. The cilia trap germs and other foreign particles that enter your airways when you breathe in air.

These fine hairs then sweep the particles up to the nose or mouth. There, they’re swallowed, coughed, or sneezed out of the body. Nose hairs and mouth saliva also trap particles and germs.

Lungs and Blood Vessels

Your lungs and linked blood vessels deliver oxygen to your body and remove carbon dioxide. Your lungs lie on either side of your breastbone and fill the inside of your chest cavity. Your left lung is slightly smaller than your right lung to allow room for your heart.

Within the lungs, your bronchi branch into thousands of smaller, thinner tubes called bronchioles. These tubes end in bunches of tiny round air sacs called alveoli (al-VEE-uhl-eye).

Each of these air sacs is covered in a mesh of tiny blood vessels called capillaries. The capillaries connect to a network of arteries and veins that move blood through your body.

The pulmonary (PULL-mun-ary) artery and its branches deliver blood rich in carbon dioxide (and lacking in oxygen) to the capillaries that surround the air sacs. Inside the air sacs, carbon dioxide moves from the blood into the air. Oxygen moves from the air into the blood in the lungs.

The oxygen-rich blood then travels to the heart through the pulmonary vein and its branches. The heart pumps the oxygen-rich blood out to the body. (For more information on blood flow, see the Diseases and Conditions Index “How the Heart Works” article.)

The lungs are divided into five main sections called lobes. Some people need to have a diseased lung lobe removed. However, they can still breathe well using the rest of their lung lobes.

Muscles Used for Breathing

Muscles near the lungs help expand and contract (tighten) the lungs to allow breathing. These muscles include the:

• Diaphragm (DI-a-fram)
• Intercostal muscles
• Abdominal muscles
• Muscles in the neck and collarbone area

The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle located below your lungs. It separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity. The diaphragm is the main muscle used for breathing.

The intercostal muscles are located between your ribs. They also play a major role in helping you breathe.

Beneath your diaphragm are abdominal muscles. These help you breathe out when you’re breathing fast (for example, during physical activity).

Muscles in your neck and collarbone area help you breathe in when other muscles involved in breathing don’t work properly, or when lung disease impairs your breathing.

Loans for higher education can be costly so take the time to research your options The cost of college has risen faster than the general inflation rate for many years. So, it’s no surprise that many parents borrow to pay for higher education and that many college graduates owe tens of thousands of dollars on student loans and related debt. Here are strategies for keeping college financing costs down.

Make saving, not borrowing, your first choice for paying for college. “Planning and saving for college should be something parents begin when their son or daughter is still in diapers,” said Kirk Daniels, a supervisor in the FDIC’s consumer affairs section. “College loans can be costly, and the easiest way to avoid those costs is to have your own college savings fund.”

Starting a college savings account, such as a state-sponsored “529 Plan,” allows families to maximize growth in a tax-advantaged account and reap the benefits of compounding small amounts of money into a large sum when the child graduates from high school. Investment advisers also recommend setting up an automatic investment plan through your bank account or paycheck to encourage systematic savings.

Take the time to research your options for a loan. If you think you need a loan, do your homework and ask lots of questions before settling on one. Among the many options are federal government loan programs, including “PLUS” loans for parents and Perkins and Stafford loans for students (usually with fixed interest rates and some form of deferment on repayment until after graduation). Also available are loans from private financial institutions and state government agencies.

Of course, you’ll want to know whether a loan is fixed- or variable-rate and what could trigger a rate increase. But student loans may have unusual features to consider. In particular, ask about any options for delaying payment until after graduation and any policies on “forbearance” (temporarily reducing or postponing payments from a borrower in financial distress). Also find out about any rebates for on-time payments and other incentives for good performance.

“There are often substantial differences between private loans and student loans guaranteed or insured by the government,” noted Luke Reynolds, an FDIC Community Affairs Specialist. “A private lender likely will offer both types of loans, so be sure to ask questions to fully understand the pros and cons of any loan product.”

Your state’s department of education and the college’s financial aid department may be good resources. Don’t depend on your school to pick the right loan or lender, though. Some colleges and private lenders have been scrutinized for conflicts of interest in steering students toward “preferred lenders.”

Think twice before borrowing against your home or retirement accounts. Parents who do not qualify for a tax deduction on loans for higher education may want to consider using a home equity loan if they qualify for a tax break on the interest. But remember, a home loan puts your house at risk. Another option is to borrow from your retirement savings, but most investment advisers recommend against that approach because it may reduce your future earnings and make it tougher for you to retire when you want.

“Given the many ways to borrow for college at competitive interest rates, ask yourself if you really want to put your house at risk with a home equity loan or reduce your hard-earned retirement savings just to pay tuition,” Daniels said.

Shop for a good price on a college, not just on the college financing. “For most families, the price of tuition and room and board should be an important part of the decision process, just like buying a home, a car or any other major purchase,” said Daniels. “The cost should be considered along with the academic programs of a school.”

For many families, the comparison shopping should include options such as two-year community colleges and schools close to home, which can help save on room and board, Daniels said.

Youth is no excuse for defaulting on a loan. At some point, perhaps after graduation, the loan payments will begin. How a young person manages student debt can be crucial. “Other loans, such as credit cards, and high living expenses can make it tough for a student or graduate to pay off college loans,” Daniels cautioned. “The non-payment of a student loan is a bad way to start your career because your credit report will be damaged and the ability to obtain new credit or even qualify for certain jobs may be jeopardized.”

To help stay out of trouble, he recommends getting a job, setting and sticking to a budget that includes money for loan payments, and building an emergency savings fund (see Build your own rainy-day fund and borrow from yourself). But what if your good intentions fail and you have no way of making a payment? Contact the lender immediately. “Many lenders would rather work out some modified payment plan than have the borrower stop making payments completely,” Daniels said.

For more information, start at www.students.gov, a comprehensive Web site with information from the U.S. government and other sources on topics such as paying for college.