Impact of Integrated Amrita Meditation Technique on Adrenaline and Cortisol Levels in Healthy Volunteers

The objective was to find out the effect of Integrated Amrita Meditation Technique (IAM) on the stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. One hundred and fifty healthy subjects were randomized into three groups. Blood was collected at 0 hour, 48 hours, 2 months, and 8 months after the first visit. Adrenaline was analyzed by ELISA and cortisol by Chemiluminescent method. In the IAM, PMR and control groups 44, 44, and 36 came, respectively, for the baseline visit. Within group, cortisol and adrenaline levels reduced in the IAM 48 hours onwards and the fall sustained until 8 months (P < .05). ANCOVA (Repeated measures) on adrenaline taking the four levels of observation showed a highly significant (P = .001) drop in the IAM group. The mean cortisol values between groups were not statistically significant (P = .138). IAM Technique was effective in reducing adrenaline and cortisol levels within group comparisons

The effect of a low GI diet on truncal fat mass and glycated hemoglobin in South Indians with type 2 diabetes—A single centre randomized prospective study

Background: There has been no previous study that has investigated the effect of a low glycemic index (LGI) diet with local recipes of South Indian cuisine on the body fat composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Truncal obesity has been associated with the risk of metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a low GI diet on glycemic control and body composition in people with type 2 diabetes in South India. Method: This was a prospective and randomized controlled study that was conducted over a period of 24 weeks. A total of 40 participants were recruited from the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Outpatient in Kerala, South India. All the patients had type 2 diabetes and were randomly assigned and given advice and instructions to follow either a low GI diet plan (n = 18) or their usual diet, which served as control (n = 18). The advice was reinforced throughout the study period. Dietary compliance was evaluated based on a 24 h dietary recall at weeks 3, 11, 12, 18, 23, and 24. The age of the subjects ranged from 35 to 65 years. Anthropometric, body composition, and cardio-metabolic parameters were measured according to standard procedures. T-tests were conducted to compare differences between intervention and control groups and the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate associations between the variables. Results: There were significant reductions (p < 0.05) in the low GI diet compared to the control group with respect to weight, body mass index (BMI), and triceps skinfold thickness. Similarly, significant reductions were observed in the low GI diet group with respect to region, total fat, android, and gynoid fat mass and the differences between the groups were significant at p < 0.05. There was also a positive correlation between BMI and android fat mass (r = 0.745), total fat mass (r = 0.661), total truncal mass (r = 0.821), and truncal fat (r = 0.707). There was a significant reduction in glycated hemoglobin in the low GI diet group compared to the control group at p < 0.05. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that there was a significant reduction (p < 0.05) of truncal obesity and glycated hemoglobin in patients with type 2 diabetes on a local diet of South Indian cuisine with low GI compared with the control

South Indian cuisine with low glycemic index ingredients reduces cardiovascular risk factors in subjects with type 2 diabetes

Background: Inflammation is considered as a predictor of cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes mellitus. No previous studies have investigated the effect of low glycemic index (LGI) recipes of South Indian cuisine on the risk factors of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes. Aim: The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the improvement in cardiovascular risk factors and blood glucose control, in patients with type 2 diabetes, after intervention with recipes of Kerala cuisine, from locally available whole grain cereals, low in glycemic index. Method: This was a prospective and randomized controlled study that was conducted over a period of 24 weeks. A total of 80 participants were recruited from the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Outpatient in Kerala, South India. All 80 patients had type 2 diabetes, and were aged between 35 and 65 years. Participants were randomly assigned and advised to follow either a LGI diet plan (n = 40) or their usual diet, which served as a control group (n = 40). The advice was reinforced throughout the study period. Anthropometric, biochemical parameters which included glycemic and cardio-metabolic parameters were measured according to standard procedures. T-tests were conducted to compare the differences between intervention and control groups, and the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate associations between the variables. Results: There were significant differences (p < 0.05) between the intervention and control groups with respect to weight, HbA1c, insulin, triglycerides, Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR), high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and apolipoprotein B (ApoB). There was also a positive correlation between weight and blood glucose variables. ApoB was positively correlated with lipid profile and insulin levels. Conclusions: The long-term implementation of LGI diet of Kerala cuisine has been found to promote weight loss, enhance insulin sensitivity and reduce the cardiovascular risk

Topology B-Trees and Their Applications

. The well-known B-tree data structure provides a mechanism for dynamically maintaining balanced binary trees in external memory. We present an external-memory dynamic data structure for maintaining arbitrary binary trees. Our data structure, which we call the topology B-tree, is an external-memory analogue to the internal-memory topology tree data structure of Frederickson. It allows for dynamic expression evaluation and updates as well as various tree searching and evaluation queries. We show how to apply this data structure to a number of external-memory dynamic problems, including approximate nearestneighbor searching and closest-pair maintenance. 1 Introduction The B-tree [8, 12, 14, 15] data structure is a very efficient and powerful way for maintaining balanced binary trees in external memory [1, 11, 13, 18, 19, 21, 22, 2]. Indeed, in his well-known survey paper [8], Comer calls B-trees &quot;ubiquitous,&quot; for they are found in a host of different applications. Nevertheless, there ar..

Methods for Achieving Fast Query Times in Point Location Data Structures

Given a collection S of n line segments in the plane, the planar point location problem is to construct a data structure that can efficiently determine for a given query point p the first segment(s) in S intersected by vertical rays emanating out from p. It is well known that linear-space data structures can be constructed so as to achieve O(log n) query times. But applications, such as those common in geographic information systems, motivate a re-examination of this problem with the goal of improving query times further while also simplifying the methods needed to achieve such query times. In this paper we perform such a re-examination, focusing on the issues that arise in three different classes of point-location query sequences: ffl sequences that are reasonably uniform spatially and temporally (in which case the constant factors in the query times become critical), ffl sequences that are non-uniform spatially or temporally (in which case one desires data structures that adapt to s..

Biased Finger Trees and Three-Dimensional Layers of Maxima

We present a method for maintaining biased search trees so as to support fast finger updates (i.e., updates in which one is given a pointer to the part of the tree being changed). We illustrate the power of such biased finger trees by showing how they can be used to derive an optimal O(n log n) algorithm for the 3-dimensional layers-of-maxima problem and also obtain an improved method for dynamic point location

A Prototype Astronomical Database

In preparation for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a multi-color digital mapping of the northern sky, we have developed a prototype system using simulated astronomical data. The system uses an object-oriented database to store the data, a client-server model for data communication, and supports different types of geometric queries. The prototype system provides a simple and easy-to-use graphical interface, and has excellent response times for all the geometric queries. 1 Introduction High performance data management has emerged as one of the most challenging areas for computer science researchers in recent days. Today computing power is cheaply available and, as a result, data is generated in large amounts, and in various forms: audio and video, financial transactions, medical information, electronic mail, weather information, geographical information, scientific computing, and satellite data and images. The maintenance and Department of Computer Science, The Johns Hopkins Uni..

Meditation induces a positive response during stress events in young Indian adults

Background: Relaxation techniques like meditation have been found to be beneficial in reducing stress. Aim: The aim was to find out the effect of the Integrated Amrita Meditation (IAM) technique on the response to life changes. Materials and Methods: The IAM technique, progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) technique, and the Life Changes Questionnaire (LCQ) were used. LCQ was culturally adapted to the Indian population. One hundred and fifty subjects were randomized into IAM, PMR, and Control groups. LCQ scores were documented in all groups at 0 h, 48 h, 2 months, and 8 months after the training. Statistics Analysis: Within groups, comparison was done by the paired t-test and between groups by ANCOVA. Results: The new LCQ was analyzed using split-half reliability and was found to be having a correlation coefficient 0.96. On within group analysis, the IAM group showed a significant decrease in LCQ scores (P = 0.004) in the second visit which was maintained in the third (P = 0.003) and fourth visits (P = 0.001). Within the PMR group, there was a significant decrease (P = 0.006) in the third visit and fourth visits (P = 0.001). No significant change was seen within the control group in any of the visits. The decrease in LCQ scores in the IAM group was significant at the end of 8 months when compared to the Control group (P < 0.05) whereas the decrease in the PMR group was not significant in comparison with the control group. Conclusion: The IAM technique is an efficient tool in reducing stress as measured by LCQ