The NCAA, the representative body of the American university sport, made a first step towards the possible remuneration of its athletes, a few hours after two players' unions had announced their partnership to advance this issue.

By unanimous vote, the NCAA Board of Governors decided to open the door to the possibility that athletes could "benefit from their name and image".

The vote took place in a meeting at Emory University in Atlanta.

In a statement, the chair of the board of governors, Michael V. Drake, said the members realized he needed to "be open to change so university athletes could have the best experience possible."

"In recent years, we felt more and more a grumbling that existed compared to the old rules. And the situation has changed a lot in recent years when we saw university coaches in basketball, football, and huge salaries, unlike players who did not even have the right to have a free pair of shoes or to accept a coffee from a potential agent, "explains agent Sasha Ghavami, who works mainly with football players.

The NCAA rules currently prohibit athletes from receiving any remuneration in addition to their university scholarship. This is increasingly challenged by several star players, including LeBron James, who advocates for retribution of young players.

We've seen changes to basketball with agents, where athletes now have the right to have an agent to prepare the draft without losing their eligibility.

The announcement of a partnership between the National Association of University Athletes (NCPA) and the NFL Players Union (NFLPA) forced the NCAA to respond.

"The NFLPA and the NCPA are delighted to reveal about their collaboration to explore ways that athletes in all sports can finally receive fair renumeration for the use of their image, their name and their modeling." In video games in particular, says the joint statement of the two organizations.

The collaboration comes one month after the historic decision by California Governor Gavin Newsom to allow university athletes in his state to collect image rights and sign advertising contracts starting in 2023.

"To date, schools and the NCAA are selling license and broadcast rights to university athletes. These organizations derive all the revenues that are the result of the work of the athletes, without recognizing that these athletes deserve their fair share, "argue the NFLPA and the NCPA.

"As part of this new partnership, we will explore all possibilities for derivatives, video games and other officially licensed products. We will also examine the impact of television revenues for reasons of equity," they add.

"We are on the fair track, and we invite NCAA business partners to join us. It's time to make a fresh start, said Ramogi Huma, himself a former football player at UCLA.

"The United States should be a region that allows the citizens to get the best benefit of what we call a free enterprise and where we can guarantee equality of the rights," he said.

For the NCAA, more slings are expected. In the wake of the California Fair Pay Act voted in late September, other states, including Florida and New York, are planning to legislate in turn to allow university athletes to be paid.

Drinking coffee is not bad for your health and could even extend your life expectancy. However, there’s one one condition: do not consume more than five cups a day.

Good news for fans of coffee: drinking coffee is not as bad as it was long thought. The better news is that its consumption is associated with a reduction in mortality and up to two years of life expectancy, provided that it is not abused.

A decrease in the risk of death

This is the conclusion of a recent study published in The European Journal of Epidemiology led by researchers at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea, and by the Department of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston. The study builds on 40 previous studies of the link between mortality and coffee consumption. In total, the data of 4 million participants were screened.

The authors of the study concluded that consuming two to four cups of coffee - even decaffeinated - a reduced risk of death by a day was associated compared to people not drinking coffee. In detail, moderate consumption of coffee reduces the risk of death from heart disease by 17%, the risk of death from diabetes by 24% and the risk of cancer by 4%.

This conclusion is similar to that of a previous meta-analysis conducted in 2017 by researchers at the University of Edinburgh and published in the BMJ. They said that drinking three to four cups of coffee daily reduced the risk of death and heart disease. According to them, this reasonable consumption is also associated with a lower risk of certain cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia. Researchers even tout the benefits of Parkinson's disease, depression and Alzheimer's disease.

Moderate consumption

Be careful, however, not to exceed five cups of coffee a day. In another study, this time conducted by South Australia University and published in early March in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers studied data from 347,077 people aged 37 to 73 years and concluded that drinking more five coffees a day increases the risk of getting involved in various cardiovascular diseases by as much as 22%. It was concluded that excess caffeine promotes high blood pressure.

"If you want to maintain and reach a healthy blood pressure and heart rate, it is important that you limit the use of your coffee and try to never exceed six cups of coffee in a day." According to our data, the critical point was the threshold point where caffeine began to have a negative effect about cardiovascular risk, "explains Dr. Elina, co-author of the work.

In a report, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) advises healthy adults not to exceed the consumption of 400 mg of caffeine per day, throughout the day i.e. about three cups of coffee. In pregnant and lactating women, this caffeine intake should not exceed 200 mg per day.

The greater the amount of processed foods in the diet, the greater the risk of developing cancer in general and breast cancer in particular.

Cancer prevention starts on your plate

The 'highly processed' foods are elaborated by industrial procedures from ingredients that are commercialized for their 'direct' consumption. They should not be cooked – just take them out of the bag or the can to use it. It’s something that can be very useful in the increasingly frenetic 'modern life', to the point that it is estimated that these ultra-processed foods account for up to 50% of all daily calories ingested in many Western countries. But there is a problem: these products cannot be considered 'foods' – they contain very high amounts of salt, fats and sugars and very low vitamins and fiber. At least in theory, they cannot be described as 'too' healthy. According to the research results, these ultra-processed foods are associated with an increased risk of cancer.

Ultra-processed and carcinogenic?

Ultra-processed foods include a wide range of fast-food products, such as snacks, sugary sodas, prepared foods, sugary cereals, industrial pastries and reconstituted meat products. Some 'foods', as some studies have warned, are associated with an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure and hypercholesterolemia. However, it seems that the 'benefits' of these products do not end here. They could also cause cancer.

To carry out the study, the authors followed over a period of five years the evolution of 104,980 adults who, with an average age of 43 years and mostly women, making up to 78% of the total. They had responded to at least two questionnaires designed to quantify your consumption of 3,300 different foods.

The increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods can lead to an increase in the burden of cancer in the coming decades

The results showed that, regardless of other risk factors already known for cancer such as age, family history or level of physical exercise and smoking, the consumption of processed foods was associated with a higher probability of suffering from a disease. Specifically, each 10% increase in the percentage of processed foods in the diet was associated with a 12% increase in the risk of developing cancer in general and 11% in the probability of suffering from a breast tumor.

Osteoarthritis occurs when the cartilage in the joints falls apart. Doctors are seeing that these injections can be very harmful for joints with serious complications.

Osteoarthritis or “wear arthritis” occurs when the cartilage of the joints is damaged, a problem that usually affects the elderly.

In the United States, more than 30 million people suffer from this disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 9 million people in the United Kingdom suffer from osteoarthritis, according to the NHS.

Corticosteroid injections are recommended for those who get no relief with pain relievers. However, studies on their safety suggest that they can cause from joint inflammation to back pain and infections.

To better understand this mechanism, scientists looked at patients with osteoarthritis who received between one and three corticosteroid injections last year. Patients returned 2 to 15 months later for a checkup.

The scanners showed that osteoarthritis had worsened in 6% of patients, compared to their condition before injection, according to research published in the journal Radiology.

0.6% suffered a subchondral fracture due to insufficiency, which occurs when the bone is not strong enough to withstand daily forces.

Another 0.7% presented joint destruction, including bone loss, and the same number of patients suffered "complications such as osteonecrosis," which occurs when bone tissue dies due to lack of blood supply.

Based on these results, scientists are asking that patients be scanned before giving corticosteroid injections to ensure they don't have fractures that can get worse.

According to the authors, “Doctors do not usually inform patients about the possibility that they may suffer a joint collapse or a subchondral fracture due to insufficiency, problems that can lead to a total hip or knee replacement much earlier than expected.

"This information should be included in the informed consent when injecting intra-articular corticosteroids to patients."

Drinking the equivalent of two glasses of sweetened beverage increases the risk of dying prematurely. The details of the study are published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

A study conducted a few months ago in the United States had revealed that the largest consumers of soda and other sugary drinks see their risk of premature death increase by more than 20%. Today, nearly half a million people surveyed and followed over 16 years. The consumption of sweetened beverages was taken into account this time. Like the previous study, the results are not pretty.

For this study, the researchers more specifically tracked the medical records and eating habits of approximately 450,000 people. None at the beginning of the study had cancer, heart disease, stroke, or diabetes. During this survey, 41,700 participants eventually died.

17% higher risk

For the data we are interested in here, we learn that among those who reported consuming at least two sweetened or sweetened beverages per day, 11% died during the study period. Against 9% of those who reported consuming less than one of these drinks per month.

When other risk factors, such as diet, physical activity, smoking, or level of education, are taken into account, the researchers conclude that the risk of death was 17% higher for people who drink two glasses. of soda a day at least. Compared to the risk of death for those who consume less than one soft drink per month:

"Our findings regarding sugary soft drinks support measures to limit their consumption – replacing these drinks with other alternatives that are healthier, such as water, is a good idea." Dr. Neil Murphy stated as one of the primary authors involved in this study.

There are several things to note. On the one hand, the type of drink did not affect the participants in the same way. Those who consumed light sodas were more likely to die from cardiovascular disease. While people who frequently consumed sugary sodas were more likely to die of digestive problems (diverticula, colic or liver disease).

The study also reveals only one association. Researchers cannot prove with certainty that it is indeed the regular consumption of soda that has led to all these premature deaths. Further studies will be needed to isolate the true mechanisms that explain how sweet or sweetened beverages affect our health.

Lack of sleep accelerates the action of the cells responsible for brain cleaning, which end up destroying essential neurological tissue.

In previous research it has already been concluded that a single night of insomnia is enough to produce irreparable brain damage; In the long term, such brain damage even becomes permanent.

Now a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience has gone further, investigating how it is produced and to what extent it affects. In conclusion, it has been discovered that the cells responsible for brain cleaning accelerate can destroy brain connections and even healthy neurons.

Brain cleansing

During a normal sleep habit, glial cells are responsible for cleaning toxins at the brain level i.e. for destroying and digesting worn-out cell debris or potentially harmful metabolic debris.

However, during insomnia, this situation accelerates. In the short term this can even be beneficial, as accelerating the cleanliness and reconstruction of healthy brain connections can be of great help. However, in the long term, insomnia can increase the risk and even trigger neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's or other disorders, as claimed by Michele Bellesi and his colleagues at the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy.

These effects have been discovered for the moment in mice: a group of mice that were allowed to sleep at will was compared with another group of mice that were kept awake for another eight hours. Finally, a third group of mice stayed awake for five seconds to mimic chronic insomnia.

The glial cells of the brains of the mice - the brain cleansing cells - were analyzed. A certain type of these cells, astrocytes, are responsible for cleaning up unnecessary brain connections; On the other hand, the microglia cells are responsible for cleaning the brain of debris and damaged cells.

Insomnia and accelerated brain cleaning

After a normal restful sleep, the astrocytes were in an activity of 6%, while in a brain that suffers from lack of sleep, the activity goes up to 8% and even up to 13.5% if said lack of sleep becomes chronic.

Lack of sleep could cause brain connections to break more than the bill. This could be somewhat beneficial in the short term, as brain connections must be remodeled every so often when they become "old."

However, on the other hand, it was also discovered that microglia cells also increased their activity during sleep deprivation, and that is worrisome: if the activity of this type of cells is accelerated, neurological diseases can be triggered. In fact, microglia cells have already been linked to diseases such as Alzheimer, schizophrenia, depression and even damage caused by chronic marijuana use.

At the moment it is not clear if sleeping more could protect the brain or avoid these harmful effects related to insomnia. According to the researchers, there is much to investigate about it.

In 2014, scientists at the University of California reported that red meat triggers toxic immune response that can lead to cancer. Since then, scientists have been looking for evidence for three years that red meat causes cancer and heart disease, but couldn’t find anything.

Where are we with the red meat in 2019? Among scientists and other nutritionists, a debate erupted over whether or not eating red meat is unhealthy. It's all about a new study of specialists from seven countries. For three years they studied various articles on the dangers of red meat and its effect on heart disease, cancer and other diseases. The authors found no convincing evidence of a link to disease and death, because most nutrition research often does not meet scientific standards. Some experts harshly criticized this article, calling it "irresponsible, unethical and undermining public confidence in science." Others supported the authors and called for a review of research approaches to healthy nutrition. Here are the main points of the new study and gives the arguments of his supporters and opponents.

Medical organizations in different countries and the World Health Organization recommend that people eat less red meat. They believe that it causes heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

However, a new study says that almost all such dietary recommendations are not backed up by reliable scientific evidence. Its authors are a group of scientists from seven countries led by Bradley Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada. Over the course of three years, they have studied over one hundred articles and studies, in which over four million people participated. All of them concerned the connection of raw red meat (beef, pork, lamb, horse meat and goat meat) and processed meat (sausages, sausages, bacon) with various diseases. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the study was conducted without external funding. The authors also warn that they did not address issues of the negative impact of animal husbandry on the environment and the problems of handling animals.

The study is divided into four parts. In the first three, scientists looked at data on how eating different types of red meat affects the risk of developing cardiovascular disease or cancer. They concluded that the association with disease and mortality was small, and the quality of evidence was low or very low. Some results show that eating meat three times a week can be good for your health.

The fourth part talked about why people like red meat and whether they are ready to cut back on it for health. Researchers have found that most research participants are “tied to meat and do not want to limit their use when faced with potentially undesirable health effects.”

The main question that the authors of the new report raise is that nutrition research often does not meet scientific standards. At the heart of most of them is an observational study in which attention is paid to only one component of the diet. Such data do not reveal the cause and effect, however, on their basis, the main principles of healthy nutrition are still being developed.

This study has caused great discussion among scientists, nutritionists and other nutritionists. The American Heart Association and the Cancer Society have severely criticized its findings. Harvard School of Public Health called the study “irresponsible and unethical,” and stated that such findings “damage the authority of nutrition science and undermine public confidence in research.” A panel of doctors on responsible medicine advocating for a plant-based diet filed a petition against the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, which published this article. US officials responsible for healthy nutrition guidelines adhere to the principle that eating less meat is still good, although evidence of its harm is imperfect.

The offensive is reminiscent of the war waged by US authorities against the tobacco industry in the 1990s. In the space of a few years, the number of lawsuits filed by states, municipalities and counties in the United States against laboratories that have manufactured and marketed "opioids" exploded.

Due to lax regulation, these very powerful anti-pain treatments, based on natural or synthetic opiates, have been prescribed for mild pain since the late 1990s – these have been administered to hundreds of thousands of Americans. The epidemic is responsible for the bulk of the 72,000 overdose deaths recorded last year. Its ravages are such that it is suspected of weighing on the life expectancy of Americans, which no longer progresses, unlike other developed countries.

Minimize the risks of dependence

To date, nearly 30 states and hundreds of municipalities and counties have filed lawsuits against laboratories, distributors and pharmacy networks that have marketed these painkillers. "There is almost a new prosecution every day, and I do not see when it will stop," Paul Hanly, a lawyer who has represented several local authorities, said a few months ago. The latest is Colorado, which accuses the Purdue laboratory of deliberately exaggerating the effectiveness of its OxyContin pain reliever and minimizing the risk of addiction and addiction to doctors.

The complaint alleges that representatives of the laboratory visited hundreds of times the same family doctor in Fort Collins, who became the most prolific prescriber of the state with more than 19,000 prescriptions of OxyContin.

A financial challenge

For these communities, the issue is primarily financial – they hope to force laboratories to participate in the management of the social consequences of an epidemic they fed, whose cost is estimated at $79 billion per year according to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).

In some regions, such as Ohio, the epidemic is such that it poses a threat to the public finances of some small communities (in addition to Medicare and Medicaid health coverage, these support emergency and firefighters, as well as children of victims of overdoses, mortuary services etc.).

The Trump administration, which has supported most plaintiffs, is considering joining the prosecution because the subject is also political – since the beginning of the year, television commercials financed by candidates from both parties in the run-up to the mid-term legislative elections have mentioned the issue of opioids more than 50,000 times, compared with 70 four years ago, calculated the "Wall Street Journal".

In the complaints, the offending laboratories are almost always the same: Purdue Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Allergan, Endo and Teva. Refusing the comparison with tobacco, they willingly take shelter behind the green light granted by the federal regulator (FDA) – it’s a point to be misused by patients, or even accuse websites that sell drugs illicitly.

Some are also partially protected: the Purdue laboratory pled guilty in 2007 to an agreement with the Justice Department on OxyContin, and paid $ 635 million to stop the prosecution.

When we are hungry and we eat the food that we love, it does not always give you a feeling of well-being…

Bizarre? Not really! This is simply because some foods contain components that can negatively impact our mood. Here are the five bad mood foods that you should stay away from.

1. The biscuits

Bad news: In addition to being very rich, the chips and other stuff that we love at the cocktail hour contain monosodium glutamate, a 100% chemical feed additive that can cause headaches. Not to mention that as an aperitif, cookies tend to increase and then quickly drop our blood sugar. We can also feel some irritability.

2. The coffee

In the morning, many people need their cup(s) of coffee to wake up and get going. Ok, but be careful about the side effects – if you abuse caffeine (more than 5 cups / day), it can cause increased blood pressure, sweating, difficulty concentrating, mood swings and difficult in sleep.

3. The junk food

Not only are French fries and burgers hyper-caloric, but recent scientific studies have shown that the many trans fats they contain partially inhibit the action of omega-3s in the body. However, when the level of good fats in the body is low, this results in aggressive behavior with a pessimistic or depressive mood.

4. Fries

We sure feel good when we eat fries, nuggets, spring rolls or other fast food. However, you should know that frying food at very high temperatures prevents the release of certain hormones related to well-being (endorphin, serotonin) in the body. So, even if at the moment we feel good, after a meal rich in fries, we will be in a bad mood.

5. The margarine

Often presented wrongly as a healthy alternative to butter, margarine is in fact a product rich in processed lipids. Consumption of margarine can lead to glycemic imbalances and mood swings. Not to mention the risk of weight gain.

Many people think that creating an online store is something simple, easy and does not require a large investment. This is a tendency of thought that we see, and it is usually motivated by the idea of gratuity that many people have on the Internet. Ask how much an online store WooCommerce is an important question to be made before launching into building a business.

What is WooCommerce?

There are different platforms with which you can create an online store. WooCommerce has a series of very competitive advantages over other tools.

WooCommerce is free (the plugin, don't get excited)

WooCommerce is a free plugin developed by Woothemes (although they currently belong to Automattic) with the aim of offering all the features of an online store in WordPress. With its installation you can create an e-commerce with the same facilities that WordPress offers.

How much does it cost to create an online store on WooCommerce?

It is difficult to say an exact figure of the cost of an online store because it depends on many factors and without knowing them exactly, a certain price cannot be offered. The exact price for a WooCommerce online store is determined according to the level of development, the results you want to achieve and the involvement in hours of the web designer.

Once all the information is available and the structure and contents to be included on the web have been previously studied, it usually takes an average of 50 hours to design the entire online store and configure the main aspects (payment gateways, methods Shipping, product attributes etc.) To this we must add the time the designer spends talking to the customer and subsequent changes.

In this way, you only have to multiply the cost by the hours that have been calculated that the web project requires.