The Wonders of Chocolate

 Here at Osmio Water we like to keep our customers informed of the latest health news available, and we wanted you to be the first to know that eating chocolate can be good for you! That kind of news is too good to keep to ourselves.Naturally occurring compounds in cocoa could help to improve brain function, a study out yesterday has claimed. It is thought that flavanols may act on the brain structure and protect neurons from injury, which improves metabolism and their interaction with the molecular structure responsible for memory.  Writing in the latest edition of Hypertension yesterday (August 13), Dr Giovambattista Desideri, University of L'Aquila, Italy, said his study “provides encouraging evidence that consuming cocoa flavanols, as a part of a calorie-controlled and nutritionally-balanced diet, could improve cognitive function”.A total of 90 elderly participants with mild brain impairment were given either 990 milligrams (high), 520 mg (intermediate) or 45 mg (low) of a dairy-based cocoa flavanol drink to drink daily for eight weeks.  Their diet was restricted to eliminate other sources of flavanols from food and drink, such as tea, grapes, red wine, apples and cocoa products.  Their brain function was tested via a series of neuro-psychological tests, which included testing of executive function, working memory, short-term memory, long-term episodic memory, processing speed and global cognition.  Those who drank high and intermediate levels of flavanol drinks scored much higher when relating visual stimuli to motor responses, working memory, task-switching and verbal memory.Researchers also found that participants who drank higher levels of flavanol drinks had significantly higher overall cognitive scores than those participants drinking lower-levels. Insulin resistance, blood pressure and oxidative stress also reduced in those who took high and intermediate levels of flavanols daily.“The positive effect on cognitive function may be mainly mediated by an improvement in insulin sensitivity,” says Dr Desideri, director of Geriatric Division, Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila.At Osmio Water we would like our customers to remember  that not everyone in the world is as lucky as us to have safe, cleandrinking water. Keep your eyes peeled on the Osmio website to see updates on our fundraising activity for providing filter systems to people in need in developing countries. We would love our customers to get involved in the fund raising enterprises. The following report is a sobering reminder of what can happen when people do not have access to clean water supplies.Tens of thousands of flood-hit North Korean families urgently need clean drinking water to prevent disease outbreaks, UN agencies said Thursday.The agencies and other aid groups reported their assessment a day after state media reported a total of 119 deaths and major crop damage in recent weeks in the food-scarce nation.The UN said wells have been contaminated by overflowing latrines, creating a high risk of a diarrhoea outbreak, while floods had damaged water sources and pumping stations.Citing government figures, it said about 50,000 families in six badly-hit counties would need purification tablets or other help to secure clean water. The UN children's fund UNICEF has ordered 10 million tablets along with other materials. Drugs and IV fluids were badly needed.The report said a hospital in Chonnae county had already seen a fourfold rise in diarrhoea cases. "In general, unless... needs are addressed, rapid increase in diarrhoea, skin infection and respiratory infections could occur."The North late Wednesday reported 31 killed by landslides and lightning during storms on Sunday and Monday and 16 missing, in addition to 88 earlier reported dead in floods and storms last month. More than 21,000 people lost their homes in the latest storms, bringing the total made homeless by the recent bad weather to around 84,000, it said.A total of 45,370 hectares (122,500 acres) of farmland had been submerged or washed away. Coal mines in the Kaechon and Tokchon areas were also hit by "devastating" floods and tens of thousands of tonnes of coal and equipment was washed away. The flooding represents a challenge for Kim Jong-Un, new leader of a nation which has grappled with severe food shortages since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.