Donating blood is as good for YOUR health as it is for the receiver
We all know giving blood provides an essential lifeline to those in need, but a growing body of research demonstrates that it could have health benefits for the donor too.
Findings have shown that donating blood reduces the risk of heart attacks and even cancer. It even burns 650 calories for every pint given.
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It is thought that the benefits arise from lowering high iron levels. Iron affects how thick and sticky the texture of the blood is. High iron levels causes the blood to be thicker. Raised iron levels also accelerate the oxidisation process of cholesterol.
This can affect blood consistency and create increased friction as it travels through blood vessels. As this increases wear and tear to the lining of arteries it could then contribute to cardiovascular disease. Because donating blood removes some of its iron content, it may therefore have a protective benefit if done on a consistent basis by helping thin the blood.
Immune Protein Could Stop Diabetes in Its Tracks, Discovery Suggests
Melbourne researchers have identified an immune protein that has the potential to stop or reverse the development of type 1 diabetes in its early stages, before insulin-producing cells have been destroyed.
The discovery has wider repercussions, as the protein is responsible for protecting the body against excessive immune responses, and could be used to treat, or even prevent, other immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
A simple vinegar test slashed cervical cancer death rates by one-third in a remarkable study of 150,000 women in the slums of India, where the disease is the top cancer killer of women.
Are high heels worth it? Most women are in pain in just over an hour and 90% have suffered problems from ill-fitting shoes Study found that half of women put up with pain of high heels to look good. Podiatrists say nearly all foot conditions are caused by poorly fitting shoes.
Slathering on sunscreen really works shows a study of 900 Australians. They had noticeably more resilient and smoother skin. Sunscreen can slow or prevent wrinkles and sagging skin
It took cancer surgery to see a more profound dimension of life
Suddenly–I don’t know if this was the result of my new diet–ordinary things I’d paid little or no attention to all my life sparkled with meaning. They made sense, seemed suddenly alive. I walked around the house smiling like an idiot.
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In this symphony, I was both instrument and player, sound and listener, individual and collective. I felt awake to a world that had always been there, but that I couldn’t access under ordinary circumstances.
I avoided examining or questioning this enthralling condition, for fear I’d see it dissolve under the microscope of rationality. I knew that I’d been granted not a religious experience but what formal religion often claims for itself: a sense of spiritual wonderment.
With great anxiety, a general internist goes to the House of Death for the first time.
IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family
In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
Two-Thirds of Americans Don't Know If They Will Insure Under Obamacare
In Forbes, Coming Soon To America: A Two-Tiered, Canadian-Style Health Care System
The evolution toward a two-tiered system was already under way before Barack Obama became president. But ironically, the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is accelerating the pace of change. It is doing so in four ways….
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These four changes add up to one big problem: we are about to see a huge increase in the demand for care and a major decrease in the supply. In any other market, that would cause prices to soar. But government plans to control costs (even more so than in the past) by vigorously suppressing provider fees and the private insurers are likely to resist fee increases as well. That means we are going to have a rationing problem. Just as in Canada or Britain, we are going to experience rationing by waiting.
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Waiting times are going to be especially lengthy for anyone in a health insurance plan that pays providers below-market fees. The elderly and the disabled on Medicare, low income families on Medicaid, and (if the Massachusetts precedent is followed) people who acquire health insurance in the new health insurance exchanges will find they are financially less desirable to providers than other patients. That means they will be pushed to the end of the waiting lines.
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Those who can afford to will find a way to get to the head of the line. For a little less than $2,000 a year, for example, seniors on Medicare can contract with a concierge doctor. These doctors promise prompt access to care and usually talk with their patients by telephone and email. They serve as an advocate for their patients, in much the same way as an attorney is an advocate for his client.
But every time a doctor becomes a concierge doctor, he (or she) leaves an old practice serving about 2,500 patients and takes only about 500 patients into the concierge practice. (More attention means fewer patients.) That means about 2,000 patients now must find a new physician.
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Because the two tiers of health care will compete with each other for resources, the growth of the first tier will make rationing by waiting even more pronounced in the second tier.
Michael Barone, Another enormous ObamaCare ‘Oops’
Would you like to have a “skinny” health insurance policy? Probably not. But if you’re employed by a large company, you may get one, thanks to ObamaCare.
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That’s the conclusion of Wall Street Journal reporters Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews, who report that insurance brokers are pitching and selling “low-benefit” policies across the country.
Wonder what a “skinny” or “low-benefit” insurance plan is? The terms may vary, but the basic idea is that policies would cover preventive care, a limited number of doctor visits and perhaps generic drugs. They wouldn’t cover things such as surgery, hospital stays or prenatal care.
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As Weaver and Mathews explain, ObamaCare’s requirement that insurance policies include “essential” benefits such as mental-health services apply only to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. But larger employers “need only cover preventive service, without a lifetime or annual dollar-value limit, in order to avoid the across-the-workforce penalty.”
Low-benefit plans may cost an employer only $40 to $100 a month per employee. That’s less than the $2,000-per-employee penalty for providing no insurance.
“We wouldn’t have anticipated that there’d be demand for these type of Band-Aid plans in 2014,” the Journal quotes former White House health adviser Robert Kocher. “Our expectation was that employers would offer high-quality insurance.”
Oops.
Vegan couple sentenced to life over baby's death
Malnourished baby was fed soy milk and apple juice, weighed 3 ½ pounds.
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“No matter how many times they want to say, ‘We’re vegans, we’re vegetarians,’ that’s not the issue in this case,” said prosecutor Chuck Boring. “The child died because he was not fed. Period.”
Astounding Technology 3-D printer helps save dying baby
Those Generic Drugs May Not Have Been What You Thought They Were
Years of abuses at Ranbaxy raise worries about the FDA's oversight of the generics market….Indian generic giant Ranbaxy has been selling generic “drugs” that didn't actually work.
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Complaining that generic drugs from abroad are nothing but cheap fakes has long been a staple of free-trade opponents, and of course, pharmaceutical manufacturers trying to protect their products from foreign competition. While it's long been clear that there was some truth to the horror stories—don't buy drugs on the Internet, OK?—I've been pretty dismissive of complaints about Indian generics giants like Ranbaxy and Cipla. These guys are huge companies with brands to protect. Moreover, they're inspected by the FDA. Why would they risk it all by adulterating their product?
Well, the fact is they did, and the answer is presumably “to save money.”
Five stroke victims have shown small signs of recovery following pioneering stem cell therapy.
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The trial involved injecting stem cells directly into the damaged parts of the patients' brains, with the hope that they would turn into healthy tissue or 'kick-start' the body's own repair processes. Professor Muir said he had seen people who now have the ability to move their fingers after 'several years of complete paralysis.
The study involved patients who suffered strokes some time ago and had shown no signs of making any further spontaneous improvement.
The energy-boosting supplement that could HALVE the number of deaths from heart failure
Coenzyme Q10 is first drug shown to reduce heart failure deaths in a decade. CoQ10 levels are decreased in the heart muscle of patients with heart failure
Known as CoQ10, it is a vitamin-like supplement sold in health food shops. The pill - which is 'a natural and safe substance' - can be taken with statins and 'should now be added to conventional treatment, say experts
It's not teenagers' fault they are grumpy: 'Growing up drains their energy from the age of nine'
Pre-eclampsia is the potentially fatal high blood pressure that affects one in 20 first-time mothers towards the end of pregnancy.
Man forces pre-teen rape victim to abort at Planned Parenthood
A Washington state man who impregnated a 12 year-old girl forced her to have an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in order to cover up his sexual assault on the girl.
The Bellingham Herald reports that Luis Gonzalez-Jose, 31, of Everson, Washington must serve a sentence of six years in jail, then leave the United States, after raping the young girl in her home while her mother was in the shower, according to documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.
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The documents indicate that, six weeks after the abortion, the girl told a police detective the truth--that Gonzalez-Jose had impregnated her and had insisted that “it would be best for her” not to have the baby.
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Mark Crutcher of pro-life organization Life Dynamics told LifeNews that it is not unusual for Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics to serve as places where sexual predators can hide the evidence of their crimes, when sexual assaults on minors end up in pregnancy.
“The abortion lobby is engaged in a pedophile protection racket and protecting pedophiles who rape underage girls,” Crutcher said. “These abortion clinics receive money from the federal government. We are literally paying for the rape of our young daughters.”
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Crutcher’s analysis of several hundred circumstances in which older men were convicted of sexual crimes against minor girls showed that, in an alarming number of these cases, the victims were taken for birth control, pregnancy tests, STD treatments, and abortions--usually by the perpetrator himself--with no mandatory report made by those who provided the service.
In almost every case, according to Crutcher, the sexual abuse resumed after the “service” at the clinic, and would often go on for years afterward.
“You have to remember what’s happening right there,” Crutcher added. “You have an adult in a state talking to what they perceived to be a 13 year-old child who was a victim of sexual abuse by an older man and telling that child to lie about his age in order to conceal the crime. If you’re a parent, especially if a father and you’re not outraged then you don’t have a pulse.”
New Way to Stop Planned Parenthood et al from Abetting Pedophiles?
Now Jill Stanek is reporting that another prolife organization, Life Dynamics – upon conducting research of their own, and discovering that in many cases of convicted sexual abuse the victim had been taken to a Planned Parenthood or other abortion clinic at some point — is trying a new tactic.
After contacting more than 800 clinics and finding that 91 percent were willing to conceal the age of a sexual partner for an underage girl, Life Dynamics then contacted 53,000 personal-injury lawyers to apprise them of this illegal activity.
Life Dynamics’s president Mark Crutcher told Stanek that his phone has been ringing off the hook. He said, “I’m spending night and day talking to these people, and they’re catching the vision about what this is about and the hundreds of thousands of potential clients.”
Pro-life group Life Dynamics has launched an ambitious campaign to educate all of the nation’s personal injury attorneys of an enormous opportunity to file civil lawsuits on behalf of child sex abuse victims and their families against abortion clinics that did not report the crime.
Abortion clinic personnel in all 50 states are mandated reporters who must notify designated state agencies of suspected child sex abuse.
A minor girl coming to a clinic for an abortion, contraception, or STD testing/treatment is evidence that a potential sex crime has been committed against that child. Abortion clinics are not to investigate themselves, they are simply to report.
If it turns out abortion clinics did not comply with the mandatory reporting statute, and the abuse continued afterward, they and individual employees are liable, as are any and all who caused the girl to go there – school districts that gave a referral, relatives, etc.
Life Dynamics has mailed this dvd to 53,000 personal injury attorneys across the country explaining the law and opportunity…
Should you be taking vitamin B to protect against Alzheimer's? Vitamins B6 , B12 and folic acid
Research published yesterday in the top journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which showed that people in the trial who got the B vitamins were almost entirely protected from the brain shrinkage suffered by those who only got a placebo pill.
A rapidly shrinking brain is one of the signs of a raised risk for Alzheimer’s. Those taking the B vitamins had 90 per cent less shrinkage in their brains.
And the research showed the areas of the brain that were protected from damage are almost exactly the same Alzheimer’s typically destroys. This ‘Alzheimer’s footprint’ includes areas that control how we learn, remember and organise our thoughts, precisely those that gradually atrophy as the ghastly disease progresses.
‘I’ve never seen results from brain scans showing this level of protection,’ says Paul Thompson, professor of neurology and head of the Imaging Genetics Center at UCLA School of Medicine, California.
He’s a leading expert in brain imaging, and his centre has the largest database of brain scans in the world. ‘We study the brain effects of all sorts of lifestyle changes — alcohol reduction, exercising more, learning to handle stress, weight loss — and a good result would be a 25 per cent reduction in shrinkage,’ he says.
In other words, the 90 per cent reduction seems really impressive. So, could the simple answer to memory problems be to take B vitamins?
New CPR technology breathes life into patients dead 40 to 60 minutes
New CPR technology put to the test at an Australian hospital has passed with flying colors after a man — clinically dead for 40 minutes — was brought back to life. And he later was discharged with a clean bill of health, absent any disability…..The machinery, called AutoPulse, performs constant chest compressions while sending a nonstop flow of oxygen and blood to the patient’s brain and vital organs,
New Cancer Drugs Harness Power of Immune System
Two early-stage drug studies from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Roche Holding provided fresh evidence that harnessing the power of the immune system is emerging as a promising weapon against cancer.
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Patients with advanced lung, kidney and skin cancer were among those who responded favorably, said Roy Herbst, an oncologist at Yale University, who headed the Roche study. That suggests immunotherapy, as the strategy is called, may have broad application across many types of tumors.
The three drugs in the studies essentially work by releasing the brakes on the immune system to allow it to recognize and go after tumor cells.
new research suggests that the painful and unsightly bulges that develop at the base of the big toe are nothing to do with fancy footwear, and are in fact hereditary.
The Framingham Foot Study led by a team from Harvard Medical School looked at genetic data and foot examination results from 1,370 participants. They concluded that the condition is 'highly heritable.'
The tea contains a chemical, apigenin, which takes away some of the ‘superpowers’ of cancer cells.
Scientists at Ohio State University found apigenin can block the ability of breast cancer cells to live far longer than normal cells, halting their spread and making them more sensitive to drug therapy.
Camomile tea, parsley and celery are the most abundant sources of apigenin but it is also found in many fruit and vegetables common in a Mediterranean diet.
These links were saved for posts I never got around to, but they are still worth sharing.
How listening to 'sad songs' heals the blues
Listening to sad songs is best way to get over a break up as it has same soothing effect as a sympathetic friend, researchers find
Heartbreak is 'worse in the digital age'
Heartbreak is worse in the digital age because the history of the relationship lingers in photographs and messages posted on social networking websites, researchers claim…. The pervasiveness of content stored on computers, tablets and mobile phones "creates problems during a break-up" because the reminders of their relationship are ever-present.
To Save The Job Market, Reduce The Medicare Eligibility Age To 55
Here we have the older workers, hobbling to the finish line, but unable to end the race. And here we have young workers, itching to get started, and they can't because there are no jobs, or no middle class jobs, for them.
And the one thing that would cause the many older workers who have saved for retirement to be able to leave the workforce, and clear the way for those frustrated younger workers, is guaranteed medical care.
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If you really and truly want to make a dent in the persistent employment problem facing younger workers, allow anyone age 55 or above to buy into Medicare. Charge them annual premiums equal to what they would have to pay into Medicare at their same wage or salary until age 65 if they continued to work.
Green Jobs. U.S. Government spent $11 Million per 'Green Job' Created. reports The Global Warming Policy Foundation
The Top 50 Things That Disappear from Stores During an Emergency
Pepper's history spiced with dark moments
The pepper trade was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, the enslavement of countless others, the establishment of the opium trade in India and the extinction of the dodo…..Columbus didn't sail from Spain looking for Ohio; he was seeking the Far East and its spices, i.e., pepper
What to say to a sick friend. For a Sick Friend: First, Do No Harm
1. Rejoice at their good news. Don't minimize their bad news.
2. Treat your sick friends as you always did—but never forget their changed circumstance.
4. Don't assume, verify
9. Let patients who are terminally ill set the conversational agenda.
10. Don't pressure them to practice 'positive thinking.'
Nation Creating New STIs Faster Than New Jobs or College Grads
The 19.7 million new STIs in 2008 vastly outpaced the new jobs and college graduates created in the United States that year or any other year on record, according to government data. The competition was not close.
How America's Credit Reporting System Gets Away With 40 Million Errors
According to the FTC, between 20 million and 40 million consumers could have errors on their credit reports that could hurt their credit score.
Fish Oil and a Lesson in Happiness From Iceland
Bacteria in your gut may be influencing your thoughts and moods, raising the possibility that probiotics could be used to treat psychiatric illnesses
Study: Reading for Pleasure Make Your Brain Grow, Literally
Ross Douhat: The Man in the Google Glasses might feel like a king of infinite space. But he’d actually be inhabiting a comfortable, full-service cage.
The silver lining to imploding retirement savings.
BBC reports : Retirement 'harmful to health', study says
Retirement has a detrimental impact on mental and physical health, a new study has found.
The study, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, found that retirement results in a "drastic decline in health" in the medium and long term.
The IEA said the study suggests people should work for longer for health as well as economic reasons.
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The study, which was published in conjunction with the Age Endeavour Fellowship, a charity, compared retired people with those who had continued working past retirement age, and took into account possible confounding factors.
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The study suggests there is a small boost to health immediately after retirement, before a significant decline in the longer term.
Retirement is found to increase the chances of suffering from clinical depression by 40%, while you are 60% more likely to suffer from a physical condition.
The effect is the same for men and women, while the chances of becoming ill appear to increase with the length of time spent in retirement.
There are only 238 physician-owned hospitals in the country. Yet, when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services did a study on what hospitals offered the best value for care, No 1 was a physician-owned hospital in Boise. Nine of the top 10 performing hospitals were physician-owned as were 48 of the top 100.
Obamacare bans these facilities from expanding and prohibited any new physician owned hospitals.
Physician-owned hospitals seize their moment
“The government says, 'You are the best of the best, but we don't want you to compete in the community.' It's an oxymoron,” said Nicholas Genna, CEO of Treasure Valley Hospital. “I would like to see the moratorium on growth lifted, because we are one of the examples of low cost and high quality.”
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With 30 million people expected to gain health insurance in the years after the ACA goes into full effect in 2014, there is no justification to hold back physician-owned hospitals, said orthopedic surgeon John W. Dietz Jr., MD, chair of the board of managers for Indiana Orthopaedic Hospital in Indianapolis. His hospital ranked in the top 10 of Medicare's value-based purchasing program list.
“We are getting more work done for less cost,” he said. “When physicians own and operate the hospital, there is a driving sense of responsibility for the outcomes.”
Anti-cocaine vaccine that eats drug up 'like Pac-man' could be used on humans within a year
An anti-cocaine vaccine that ‘eats up cocaine like a Pac-man’ has come a step closer to being used in humans. The new vaccine that could help treat cocaine addicts has just passed preliminary tests in primates and could be trialled on humans soon.
The vaccine works by preventing the active compound reaching the brain before it can produce the dopamine-induced high.
The study, published online by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, used a radiological technique to demonstrate that the anti-cocaine vaccine prevented the drug from reaching the brain.
Last month the Annals Of Internal Medicine reported that 20 per cent of those on statins suffered a significant side effect – muscle pains, stomach complaints and memory disturbance – far higher than the one per cent that was first suggested by drug companies.
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My advice to John was to follow a Mediterranean diet. The evidence shows that for those who have suffered a heart attack, consuming olive oil, nuts, oily fish, plenty of fruit and vegetables and a moderate amount of red wine is almost three times more powerful a lifesaving tool than statins.
Could eating WALNUTS be the key to good heart health?
Eating a handful of walnuts could provide near-instant protection from heart disease.
Scientists found ‘significant’ improvement in cholesterol levels and blood vessel flexibility, which helps blood flow smoothly, just four hours after people consumed either the shelled nuts or walnut oil.
Walnuts can also cut your risk of diabetes, ease stress, help prevent Alzheimer's and protect against breast and prostate cancer.
A leading scientist says modern life is causing dementia to develop earlier than ever.
Experts have found that more people are developing the symptoms of mental decline of dementia and scientists have blamed PCs, mobile phones, chemicals and electronic devices for the shift.
The study, carried out by Bournemouth University, found that deaths as a result of neurological illness rose in all 16 countries covered by the research.
Researchers found a sharp rise in the deaths from dementia and other neurological disease in under-74s, and believe that the figures cannot be explained away by the fact we live longer. The US topped the list of Western countries with the highest increase in all neurological deaths between 1979 and 2010.
Apart from helping with bowel health, magnesium is critical to a host of vital processes in the body. It helps keep heart rhythm steady, and is vital for healthy bones and teeth, muscle function, the nervous system and the production of energy. It also has an impact on psychological health.
But many of us — particularly young people — aren’t getting enough of the mineral.
Magnesium is found in green leafy vegetables such as spinach, wholegrain bread, brown rice, dairy products, some nuts and seeds, meat, seafood and fish. The recommended daily intake is around 250-300mg (more than 300mg may have a laxative effect
'Excessive intake of certain macronutrients, the refined sugars and saturated fats found in junk food, can lead to weight gain, disrupt metabolism and even affect mental processing.
'These changes can be seen in the brain's structure, including its ability to generate new nerve cells, potentially linking obesity to neurodegenerative diseases.
'Research, however, has suggested that omega-3 fish oils can reverse or even prevent these effects.
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But it appears - in studies with animal models - that omega-3s restore normal function by interfering with the production of these inflammatory molecules, suppressing triglycerides, and returning these nerve growth factors to normal.
Dr Pickavance added: 'Fish oils don't appear to have a direct impact on weight loss, but they may take the brakes off the detrimental effects of some of the processes triggered in the brain by high-fat diets.
IRS sued for stealing the 60 million medical records of 10 million Americans
The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.
“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search.
“IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.
According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, "it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter," the complaint read.
The class action lawsuit against the IRS seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages "per violation per individual" in addition to punitive damages for constitutional violations. Thus, compensatory damages could start at a minimum of $250 billion
105-Year-Old Texas Woman Reveals Bacon as her Secret behind Long Life She outlived 3 of her 7 children and her husband and attributes her long life to eating bacon every day. Bacon.
$763 billion. The One Number You Need to Know in O’s Budget. That's the amount we'll be paying in interest payments in 2023 if Obama's budget is enacted. According to Kevin Williamson,
Under Obama’s budget, in 2020 interest payments alone would amount to more than national-defense spending in that year. By 2023, interest payments alone would amount to more than all nondefense discretionary spending in that year.
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Politically and economically unsustainable. Not one person in Congress voted for it.
It does not stand a chance of being ratified into law, but it is worth noting the fact that the president of the United States has just proposed a budget that amounts to a national economic suicide pact. And he couldn’t even be bothered to do that on time. There may be a political case for his having done so, but as national economic leadership, this budget is grossly irresponsible.
Pew research reports US gun homicide rate down 49% over last 20 years
Two takeaways from the WSJ piece on The Crucial Years for Protecting Your Eye Health: By age 40, the lens of the eye gradually loses the ability to focus. If you're buying off-the -shelf reading glasses, don't select the ones that appear to make things clearest. It's probably a stronger prescription than your eyes need which can encourage their loss of focus to go faster. Don't wear your reading glasses while using the computer because it may encourage your eyes to weaken faster.
Insurers predict 100% to 400% Obamacare rate explosion
New regulations, policies, taxes, fees and mandates are the reason for the unexpected "rate shock," according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which released a report Monday based on internal documents provided by the insurance companies. The 17 companies include Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser Foundation.
Iran is now chairing the UN Council on Disarmament. Tossup as to whether that's more outrageous than Syria as chair of the UN Human Rights Committee
Americans are ditching driving Young people no longer see driving as freedom because they've only known driving as congestion.
A study of cancer patients and their doctors in the Annals of Internal Medicine a year later found that many doctors didn’t quite tell patients the truth about their prognosis. Doctors were up front about their patients’ estimated survival 37 percent of the time; refused to give any estimate 23 percent of the time; and told patients something else 40 percent of the time. Around 70 percent of the discrepant estimates were overly optimistic.
This optimism is far from harmless. It drives doctors to endorse treatments that most likely won’t save patients’ lives, but may cause them unnecessary suffering and inch their families toward medical bankruptcy.
And yet studies have shown that patients almost universally prefer to be told the truth. If physicians cannot deliver the hard facts, not only do they deprive their patients of crucial information, but they also delay the conversation about introducing palliative care.
Medical Test Uses Fingers To Predict Heart Disease
Dr. Chris Renna of LifeSpan Medicine in Santa Monica shows in a video how the test works by checking blood vessel health.
NYTimes reports No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Salt, Panel Finds. The report by the Institute of Medicine here. The national dietary guidelines are very low 1500 milligrams of sodium per day for anyone at risk.
“As you go below the 2,300 mark, there is an absence of data in terms of benefit and there begin to be suggestions in subgroup populations about potential harms,” said Dr. Brian L. Strom, chairman of the committee and a professor of public health at the University of Pennsylvania. He explained that the possible harms included increased rates of heart attacks and an increased risk of death.
The takeaway (assuming this holds up in people, which it will) - Americans eat too much sugar, which contributes to obesity, diabetes, Alzheimers, and other mental deterioration. Fish oil supplementation can help; cutting way, way back on sugar can help more.
Doctor Calls Stem-Cell Surgery on Toddler Revolutionary
Were it not for the surgery, “Hannah would have been a prisoner in a hospital bed, requiring frequent suctioning of her saliva to prevent herself from drowning in her own secretions or developing pneumonia,”
Because Hannah’s procedure uses her own cells, it reduces any risk of donor rejection and upholds Catholic doctrine, which is essential to the hospital’s mission, Holterman said.
Angela Jolie explains her preventative double mastectomy in an op ed piece for The New York Times My Medical Choice
Her mother died at 56 of cancer and Angela carries the "faulty" gene BRCA1 gene. Her doctors estimated she had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. With the double mastectomy, her chances of getting breast cancer are now 5%. A loving and supportive partner like Brad Pitt helps too.
Good gut bacteria could provide new treatment for obesity and diabetes
Study found that Akkermansia muciniphila bacteria helped burn fat and improve blood sugar levels
Experts now hope that discovery will help pave way for new medical treatments for obesity and diabetes
If you suffer from any lung conditions, singing will vastly improve the quality of your life. Britain’s top hospitals are using singing lessons to treat patients.
How back pain can be beaten with antibiotics: Breakthrough could cure 40% of sufferers
Hundreds of thousands of people living with crippling back pain could be cured - by a simple and inexpensive course of antibiotics.
In a breakthrough described as being worthy of a Nobel prize, scientists have shown that many cases of severe, long-term back ache are caused by bacteria – and the bugs can be zapped by a three-month course of pills costing just £114.
Patients who were in so much pain that they had to give up work have thanked the researchers for giving them their life back.
Hanne Albert, the Danish scientist who made the discovery, said almost half of those with chronic lower back pain could benefit.
Could GUT bacteria be responsible for thousands of heart attacks each year?
Study has found that bugs in gut are responsible for converting food into harmful compound called TMAO, a compound responsible for cholesterol building up on artery walls and hardening the arteries.
The Hordes of Microbes Inside Your Body Are Your Friends
An interview with the synthetic biologist Christina Agapakis
Sleep divorce. Sleeping apart may be a solution to sleep disorders like insomnia or restless slumber.
The end of stitches? Surgeons pioneer 'human welding' technique using lasers and gold
The gold-based solder is wrapped in material that is elastic and can move with the body
It creates a 'liquid-tight' seal that could prevent harmful internal fluid leaks
The second generation iPad can, in some cases, interfere with implanted defibrillators because of the magnets built into the tablet's casing.
So reports a study by a 14 year-old student. Warnings are being played down by manufacturers who claim there is 'no risk'.
Redheads are at increased risk of skin cancer even if they DON'T spend time in the sun
Scientists have discovered that the production of red hair pigment causes an increased risk of melanoma.
Until now it was believed that people with red hair were more prone to skin cancer simply because of their fair skin, however, the new research suggest that there is more to it.
Live Science Belief in God May Boost Treatment of Mental Illness
Individuals who described themselves as having strong faith reported having a better overall response to treatment, said David Rosmarin, a clinician and instructor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
"We found that patients who had higher levels of belief in God had better treatment outcomes — better well-being, less depression and less anxiety,"
"It's embarrassing that there's such a disparity between what we know about patient spirituality, and how to handle it," Rosmarin said. "It's an area that's relevant to us as a people, but we have no clue what to do about it."
The power of prayer: Believing in God can help treat depression
New research has found that people who believe in a higher power respond better to psychiatric treatment. That benefit is not confined to a specific religion
Suicide Rate Rises Sharply in U.S.
More people now die of suicide than in car accidents reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is a 30% surge in suicides among middle-aged Americans (35-64).
Boomers account for the largest increase. For men in their 50s, suicide rates jumped nearly 50% and women in their early 60s, the increase was nearly 60%. Some explanation lies in the economic downtown and the increased availability of opioid drugs. Maybe it's the increased stress of caring for aging parents while still providing financial and emotional support to adult children. I expect life just didn't pan out the way they expected or wanted, and, having discarded religion, they had no source for hope.
Men Thirty to Fifty Less Likely to Marry
Among never-married adults ages 30 to 50, men (27%) are more likely than women (8%) to say they do not want to marry. That's a very great gap. As one commenter pointed out, marriage holds no real benefits for men any more.
The Real Problems With Psychiatry Hope Reese interviews Gary Greenberg
A psychotherapist contends that the DSM, psychiatry's "bible" that defines all mental illness, is not scientific but a product of unscrupulous politics and bureaucracy.
Nobody can define mental illness.
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one of the issues with taking these categories too seriously is that it eliminates the moral aspect behind certain behaviors.
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The American Psychiatric Association owns the DSM, (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its 5th edition) They aren't only responsible for it: they own it, sell it, and license it. The DSM is created by a group of committees. It's a bureaucratic process. In place of scientific findings, the DSM uses expert consensus to determine what mental disorders exist and how you can recognize them….
Dr. Joy Bliss, another MD Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, comments
I tend to think that the whole thing is a pseudo-medical charade, designed for the drug industry and for the insurance industry's convenience.
If "mental health" cannot be defined, how can you draw lines to define "mental illness"? You can, at the extremes, but otherwise you can't. Everybody is a little nuts.
The Oregon Trial A new study exposes Medicaid's flaws, but liberals call it success.
On Wednesday the New England Journal published the results from year two of the Oregon project, which "showed that Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes" versus being uninsured. If Medicaid were a new drug, in other words, the FDA would reject it.
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Medicaid in Oregon did nearly eliminate catastrophic medical expenses, compared to 5.5% of the uninsured control group that experienced a ruinous illness or injury. But that sure sounds like an argument for reforming Medicaid to extend basic catastrophic coverage to more poor people, instead of holding Medicaid lotteries.
Extending Medicaid benefits to the poor did not improve their health whatsoever. It did improve their mental health and reduce their financial strain and hardship. Megan McArdyle explains why this study is a big, big deal.
Government health insurance unquestionably functions as income protection. What's less clear is whether it functions as health protection.
The drugs that kill Americans: How half of the 80,000 overdoses a year are caused by MEDICINES
Balloon that could end dowager's hump pain: Thousands of women could be saved from pain by revolutionary new treatment
Procedure uses balloon-like device to create space between fractured bones and so strengthens bone and reduces curvature of spine, leaving patients pain-free. The procedure called balloon kyphoplasty has been given the go-ahead by the NHS in the U.K.
Most office KITCHENS are dirtier than the toilets, with kettles and microwaves the germiest places
Half of kitchen surfaces are contaminated with dangerous levels of coliforms - the bacteria in feces that can cause gastrointestinal diseases. Also contaminated 25 per cent of draining boards, 30 per cent of microwaves, 40 per cent of kettles.
In the pipeline, Drugs to Lift Depression in Hours Rather Than Weeks
The new fast-acting drugs act on the brain in an entirely different way than the current popular antidepressants. Ketamine and the new compounds from AstraZeneca and Naurex all act on the brain's N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, which are involved in learning and memory. These receptors interact with the neurotransmitter glutamate, the levels of which seem to be out of balance in depression. Scientists believe glutamate is a much more direct target for depression than serotonin, a neurotransmitter affected by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs like Prozac and Paxil.
Good news: Americans are breathing cleaner air .
Best tip: Clenching fists 'can improve memory'.
Clenching the right hand for 90 seconds helps in memory formation, while the same movement in the left improves memory recall, say US psychologists.
Beer's taste triggers dopamine release in brain
The taste of beer, without any effect from alcohol itself, can trigger dopamine release in the brain.
Just thinking about having a cold beer can sometimes have that effect on me.
Marijuana pill is MORE effective at relieving pain and less harmful than smoking the drug
American study has found that pill dronabinol blocks pain for two hours longer than smoking marijuana. Participants reported less pleasure from pill than smoking so there is less scope for abuse, say experts. Fundings could undermine U.S. medical marijuana market, estimated to be worth $1.3 billion
But Big Pharma will find a way to make a lot of money.
Being surrounded by gloomy people can make you prone to illness.
We all know that instinctively.
Gluten-free, vegan, organic new breakfast cereal Holy Crap becomes an award-winning business success.
Given that it's much cheaper to stay in a hotel then a hospital, recuperating patients who can not go home either because they live alone or their spouse is too elderly or frail to take care of them, the NHS is looking at hospital hotels to save the NHS money and the elderly their dignity
Mistakes diagnosing patients are the most common, costly and dangerous errors made by doctors in the U.S. and result in permanent injury or death for as many as 160,000 patients annually, a new study found.
Study Links Autism With Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy. From a cautiously worded study based on data collected in Sweden and an earlier, smaller study in California.
Doctor's Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day
Integrative medicine programs including meditation are increasingly showing up at hospitals and clinics across the country. Recent research has found that meditation can lower blood pressure and help patients with chronic illness cope with pain and depression. In a study published last year, meditation sharply reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke among a group of African-Americans with heart disease.
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Murali Doraiswamy, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., says it isn't clearly understood how meditation works on the body. Some forms of meditation have been found to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which stimulates the body's relaxation response, improves blood supply, slows down heart rate and breathing and increases digestive activity, he said. It also slows down the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol.
Dr. Doraiswamy says he recommends meditation for people with depression, panic or anxiety disorders, ongoing stress, or for general health maintenance of brain alertness and cardiovascular health.
I bet praying for 20 minutes twice a day would have the same effect.
Eating walnuts twice a week could slash the risk of type 2 diabetes by a quarter
Eating walnuts just two or three times a week can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by almost a quarter, according to new research.
A study of nearly 140,000 women in the U.S. showed that regular helpings of a small portion of nuts can have a powerful protective effect against a disease that is threatening to become a global epidemic. Women who consumed a 28 gram packet of walnuts at least twice a week were 24 per cent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who rarely or never ate them.
Eat more bananas and fewer chips. Increase potassium and cut salt to reduce blood pressure and stroke risk according to research in the British Medical Journal.
Taking aspirin just once a month 'can cut risk of cancer by a quarter'
Taking aspirin weekly or even monthly could help ward off tumours of the head and neck, researchers say
Study showed a 'significant' reduction in risk among 55 to 74-year-olds taking regular dose
Academics noted a 'significant' reduction in the risk of head and neck cancer among 55 to 74-year-olds regularly taking aspirin. A regular dose of aspirin in middle age is already recognised as helping to reduce people's risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Why Are Boomers Getting S.T.D.s? The same way everyone else gets them
Walter Russell Mead Med Tech Roundup: Eight-Day Cancer Cure and other Quick Fixes
A new gene therapy has been found to cure leukemia in eight days. Five patients with a fatal diagnosis received the treatment, and only one of them succumbed. A doctor from Sloane-Kettering will now lead a second trial with fifty patients.
That isn’t the only good news for the fight against cancer. The WSJ recently reported on a new attempt to compile information on “hundreds of thousands” of cancer patients into a searchable database. Doctors consulting the database could see how patients similar to their own responded to various treatments. It’s such a good idea, one wonders why it hasn’t happened already:
“Some 1.6 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year, but in more than 95% of cases, details of their treatments are ‘locked up in medical records and file drawers or in electronic systems not connected to each other,’ said Allen Lichter, chief executive office of ASCO. ‘There is a treasure trove of information inside those cases if we simply bring them together.’
Zapping the brain with magnets could cure cocaine addiction
Cocaine addicts could be cured using a technique that stimulates the brain with magnets. Experiments on mice addicted to cocaine found they were weaned off the drug after laser beams were used to change neurons in a particular part of the brain.
Scientists who report their study in the journal Nature say a similar strategy using magnets could work on human drug abusers - and clinical trials should start soon to see if it works. They showed by stimulating a region called the pre-frontal cortex with light they could wipe away addictive behaviour in the lab animals - or conversely turn non-addicted rats into compulsive cocaine seekers.
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Prof Bonci, of California University in San Francisco, said it also suggests a new therapy that could be tested immediately in humans.
Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, you should be horrified at the conditions of these abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood. Unlike hospitals or medical clinics, abortion clinics are not subject to periodic health and safety inspections. Sadly, it's the poor and minorities who suffer the most from this unconscionable lack of oversight.
Two Planned Parenthood nurses quit their jobs because of dirty and dangerous work conditions and what they called 'a meat-market style of assembly-line abortions'. The former employees of the Delaware branch have spoken out about what allegedly takes place behind its closed doors and said that a rush to get patients in and out leaves the operating tables soiled and unclean and that doctors don't wear gloves.
Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, former employee said:
'It was just unsafe. I couldn't tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was. 'It's not washed down, it's not even cleaned off. It has bloody drainage on it.'
Another former employee, Joyce Vasikonis told Action News: 'They were using instruments on patients that were not sterile. They could be at risk of getting hepatitis, even AIDS.'
Both nurses quit their jobs to protect their medical licenses and because they did not want to be held liable if a patient was harmed.
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In Delaware, abortion clinics are not subject to routine inspections and the state only steps in when they have a patient complaint. This year, one doctor and two more nurses have left. Several patients have lawsuits pending against the clinic.
Susan B Anthony..Planned Parenthood Nurses Quit, Citing ‘Ridiculously Unsafe,’ Filthy Clinic Conditions
“Planned Parenthood cannot claim to be truly concerned for women’s health while at the same time opposing laws aimed at securing women’s safety inside abortion clinics. America’s number one abortion business cannot claim that the Kermit Gosnell ‘house of horrors’ is an isolated incident while their own employees expose them for conditions they call ‘ridiculously unsafe,’” said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser. “The abortion industry cannot be relied upon to police themselves and repeatedly opposing efforts to strengthen health and safety standards in abortion clinics does not reflect true concern for women and girls.”
“Delaware has a grisly history on abortion. Kermit Gosnell, now on trial in Philadelphia for the murder of infants born-alive, practiced in Wilmington at the Atlantic Women’s Medical Center for years, as did two of those testifying against him,” said Ellen Barosse, founder of the Delaware pro-life group A Rose and A Prayer. “It is a tragedy that in the state where we have the highest abortion rate in the country, these abortion clinics are not even subject to routine inspection. ‘Safe, legal, and rare’ has long been the mantra of the abortion industry and its supporters. It’s clear that in Delaware only legal matters—patient safety is not a concern.”
How chewing gum can boost your brain power
Most of us don’t think twice about it, but chewing — mastication — has implications for our health.
The way we chew, for instance, can alter our digestion, teeth and even our face shape. And new research suggests how often we chew could even affect our brain power.
Read to learn what scientists and medics know about chewing and chewing gum.
One drug to rule them all: Researchers find treatment that kills every kind of cancer tumor
Researchers might have found the Holy Grail in the war against cancer, a miracle drug that has killed every kind of cancer tumor it has come in contact with.
The drug works by blocking a protein called CD47 that is essentially a "do not eat" signal to the body's immune system, according to Science Magazine.
This protein is produced in healthy blood cells but researchers at Stanford University found that cancer cells produced an inordinate amount of the protein thus tricking the immune system into not destroying the harmful cells.
With this observation in mind, the researchers built an antibody that blocked cancer's CD47 so that the body's immune system attacked the dangerous cells.
So far, researchers have used the antibody in mice with human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver and prostate tumors transplanted into them. In each of the cases the antibody forced the mice's immune system to kill the cancer cells.
"We showed that even after the tumor has taken hold, the antibody can either cure the tumor or slow its growth and prevent metastasis," said biologist Irving Weissman of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.
Could a 'gastric bypass in a pill' spell an end to diets and be the key to tackling obesity?
Shedding the pounds without dieting, exercising or resorting to surgery sounds impossibly far-fetched.
But it could one day become a reality, thanks to probiotic tablets full of friendly bacteria – a ‘gastric bypass in a pill’.
The idea was developed from the observation that gastric bypass operations led to changes in bacteria in the gut, as well as quelling hunger and cravings for unhealthy food.
US researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University report that it works in mice.
3 scientific breakthroughs plagued by uncoolness
Obamacare official: “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience”
With time-running out before the major provisions of President Obama’s health care law are set to be implemented, the official tasked with making sure the law’s key insurance exchanges are up and running is already lowering expectations.
ObamaCare Turns Three: 10 Disturbing Facts Americans Have Learned
The bulk of ObamaCare doesn't take effect until next year. That's when the so-called insurance exchanges are supposed to be up and running, when the mandate on individuals and businesses kicks in, and when the avalanche of regulations on the insurance industry hits.
Boost insurance costs a 3.5% surcharge on insurance plans sold through federally run exchanges. There's also a $63 fee for every person covered by employers. And the law adds a "premium tax" that will require insurers to pay more than $100 billion over the next decade. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation expects insurers to simply pass this tax onto individuals and small businesses, boosting premiums another 2.5%.
Push millions off employer coverage. In February, the Congressional Budget Office said that 7 million will likely lose their employer coverage thanks to ObamaCare — nearly twice its previous estimate. That number could be as high as 20 million, the CBO says.
Cause premiums to skyrocket. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said ObamaCare will likely cause premiums to double for some small businesses and individuals.
And a more recent survey of insurers in five major cities by the American Action Forum found they expect premiums to climb an average 169%.
Cost people their jobs. ….human resources consulting firm Adecco found that half of the small businesses it surveyed in January either plan to cut their workforce, not hire new workers, or shift to part-time or temporary help because of ObamaCare.
Tax the middle class …. much of the $800 billion in tax hikes imposed by ObamaCare will end up hitting the middle class...
Add to the deficit. The Government Accountability Office reported in January that Obama-Care will likely add $6.2 trillion in red ink over 75 years…..
Cost more than promised….GAO reported in January that Obama-Care will likely add $6.2 trillion in red ink over 75 years
Be a bureaucratic nightmare. Consumers got their first glimpse of life under ObamaCare when the Health and Human Services Department released a draft insurance application form. It runs 21 pages. "Applying for benefits under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul could be as daunting as doing your taxes," the AP concluded after Exacerbate doctor shortages.
Exacerbate doctor shortages. Last summer, a study by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than its needs by 2015, thanks in large part to ObamaCare
Leave millions uninsured. After 10 years, ObamaCare will still leave 30 million without coverage, according to the CBO. As IBD reported, that figure could be much higher if the law causes premiums to spike and encourages people to drop coverage despite the law's mandate.
Three Years of Obamacare: $31 Billion in Regulation Costs, 71.5 Million Hours in Compliance
It would take more than 35,000 full-time employees working year round to fully comply with the monstrous Red Tape Tower the law has become.
The study links roughly 180,000 deaths annually to sugar-sweetened beverages, including soda, sports drinks and fruit drinks.
Specifically, sugary drinks are linked with 133,000 deaths from diabetes, 6,000 deaths from cancer, and 44,000 deaths from heart disease worldwide.
In the U.S. alone, the research shows that about 25,000 deaths in 2010 were linked to drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, said Gitanjali M. Singh, Ph.D., co-author of the study and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study was presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Heart Association.
NYU super-student invents instant blood-clotting gel
Joe Landolina, a bachelor's student of bio-molecular chemical engineering who is also studying for a masters in biomedical engineering, used his scientific savvy to recreate naturally occurring polymers in the body that clot blood on contact.
Initially intended for veterinarian practices, Mr Landolina told MailOnline that he hopes Veti-Gel will soon be used by the armed forces in the field to treat major trauma victims and stops wounds bleeding out until they can get to hospital.
Still only a junior at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the brainy student developed the science in 2010 and along with fellow student Isaac Miller, formed a company around the product, then called Medi-Gel, in 2012 as a bid to enter a business competition.
Stand up straight to stay fighting fit: From raised blood pressure to a bloated stomach, the surprising effects of bad posture
Poor posture can
Electronic Sensors Printed Directly on the Skin New electronic tattoos could help monitor health during normal daily activities.
Study links gum disease with heart disease and diabetes. Regular dental treatment can cut the risk of heart disease.
Feeling anxious or depressed 'dramatically increases' the risk of dying from a heart attack
Death rates among those with heart disease who also suffer from anxiety and depression are tripled, one study found.
A separate team showed that moderate or severe depression increased the risk of death among patients with heart failure four-fold.
Almost 1,000 patients with an average age of 62 took part in the heart disease study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Sweet! Just in time for Easter, scientists find chocolate cuts risk of stroke
New research shows that eating just a single chocolate bar has a direct effect on the brain and may cut the risk of stroke.
Previous research has shown eating dark chocolate in moderation could be good for you. But the latest study, in the journal Neurology, shows for the first time how chocolate affects blood vessels.
Researchers at Glasgow University measured the speed of blood flowing through the biggest artery in the brain while subjects ate chocolate lying down.
They found that the chocolate had an effect on carbon dioxide levels which affected blood vessels, improved blood flow and, in turn, impacted on brain cells.
The long-term effects of stress may be the biggest cause of Alzheimer's Disease.
When we are stressed, our blood pressure rises as a result of our heart beating faster, and the levels of cortisol in our blood stream also increase.
Dr Nima Kivipelto and his colleagues from the University of Kuopio in Finland found that patients with both high blood pressure and high cortisol levels were more than three times as likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease than patients without these symptoms. In patients with either high blood pressure or high cortisol levels, the risk was more than twice as likely.
Experts believe that once cortisol enters the brain it starts to kill off brain cells, leading to Alzheimer's. This suggests that stress is one of the largest causes of the condition. In fact, cases of Alzheimer's in the United States are now starting to appear in people in their forties and fifties - much younger than the expected age group to be affected by Alzheimer's.
The New Symptom Of Alzheimer's Disease.
Too much tossing and turning could be a sign of trouble to come.
Restless nights may signal the onset of Alzheimer’s disease years before memory loss .
One in three elderly have dementia when they die
Deaths from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia have increased 68% from 2000 to 2010, according to the report being released today by the Alzheimer's Association, an advocacy group. Meanwhile, deaths from heart disease, HIV/AIDS and stroke have declined. The numbers are taken from Medicare and Medicaid reports.
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The report says dementia is the second-largest contributor to death, after heart failure. Other findings:
Payments for health care, long-term care, and hospice care are expected to increase from $203 billion to $1.2 trillion by 2050 for patients ages 65 and older.
Medicare costs for an older person with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia are nearly three times higher than for seniors without dementia. Medicaid payments are 19 times higher. The stress on caregivers is estimated to result in the more than $9 billion in increased health care costs.
The number of people with Alzheimer's disease is expected to rise from 5.2 million to 13.8 million by 2050, putting an increasing burden on medical costs and caregivers.
Megan McArdle New FDA Proposal May Someday Save Your Brain It's hard to test Alzheimers Drugs. But the FDA is going to make it a little easier. Instead of the standard 8-10 years of testing, the FDA is
going to use performance on cognitive tests to evaluate drugs tested on early stage Alzheimer's patients, rather than "impairment of everyday function". Which is to say, you no longer have to stick a very early-stage Alzheimer's patient in a trial and wait for the years that it would ordinarily take them to develop serious impairment. Now you can look for earlier, more subtle signs, speeding the approval process up.
This does elevate the risk that we'll end up with a few drugs of dubious efficacy, or that don't prevent the most troublesome ravages of the disease. On the other hand, given just how awful Alzheimers is, this strikes me as the right choice. Better to risk approving a less-effective drug than take the chance of missing one that is effective . . . and thereby losing more and more minds to the ravages of Alzheimers.
Aspirin Linked to Lower Risk of Deadly Skin Cancer
Aspirin, a drug famous for fighting pain, may also guard against melanoma -- the deadliest form of skin cancer, a new study found.
The study of nearly 60,000 post-menopausal women found those who used aspirin regularly were 21 percent less likely to be diagnosed with melanoma, while aspirin use for five years or more was tied to a 30 percent reduction in melanoma risk.
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Aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid, is an ancient painkiller dating back to 400 B.C., when people used salicin-containing willow tree bark to treat pain and inflammation. The drug also interferes with blood-clotting thromboxanes, leading some people take a daily dose to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
The new study adds to mounting evidence that the over-the-counter staple may help prevent cancers of the colon, liver, breasts, lungs and skin. A May 2012 study found that men and women who used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs such as aspirin were 15 percent less likely to develop the non-melanoma skin cancer squamous cell carcinoma, and 13 percent less likely to develop malignant melanoma.
Italian neurologist finds improbable cure for Parkinson's Disease in Irish dancing
Therapeutic effect of Irish set dancing for those with the brain disease discovered - VIDEO
The revolutionary new scanner that can spot cancer in SECONDS
Improved version of MRI could detect life-threatening diseases when they are at their most treatable
Uses mathematical formulas to figure out in a matter of seconds if a patient has anything to worry about
Uses unique fingerprints of each individual body tissue and disease to quickly diagnose problems
Count me very skeptical on this one. Subjects were given descriptions of 4 imaginary people with different personalities. Brain scan that shows researchers what you are THINKING about
Brain scans now allow researchers to know exactly what a person is imagining.
The latest breakthrough comes after scientists used brain scans to decode images directly from the brain.
Researchers have been able to put together what numbers people have seen, the memory a person is recalling, and even reconstruct videos of what a person has watched.
You won't bee-lieve it! Could manuka honey beat drug-resistant superbugs?
It is a natural medicine used for thousands of years to clean wounds and fight bacteria.
Now, however, honey could hold the key to combating the very modern threat of drug-resistant superbugs.
A study has shown that manuka honey can fight back on two fronts. Not only can it help to kill MRSA and other superbugs, it can also prevent bacteria from becoming resistant to antibiotics.
This week it's Prof Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, who has very sensibly pointed out that resistance to antibiotics is a "ticking time bomb": unnecessary use of antibiotics, and the failure of drug companies to come up with new ones, could lead to a situation in which all the boring little infections that we thought we'd beaten suddenly become dangerous again. “If we don’t act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics," she says, entirely accurately. It's the reason you really don't want a creationist GP.
But it's the comparison with terrorism that I find interesting. The World Health Organization estimates that multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) causes about 150,000 deaths worldwide; the Office for National Statistics blames methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for 1,652 deaths in 2006 in Britain alone, almost all of them in hospitals. By comparison, in the worst ever year for terrorist deaths – 2001, obviously – there were 3,547 deaths worldwide, according to the Patterns of Global Terrorism report.
Sleep problems can be an earlier indicator of the disease than memory loss
Researchers say effect can go both ways: Alzheimer's plaques in the brain disrupt sleep, and a lack of sleep promotes Alzheimer's plaques. Those with early signs of the disease got less sleep, but napped more often
Slipped disc? The jab even surgeons say is better than an operation a simple steroid jab.
There is good evidence that steroid injections can be effective in sparing patients surgery, according to a review of studies published in 2009. In around 80 per cent of cases, a steroid injection can end the pain — and the remaining 20 per cent can still be offered surgery.
‘I find many disc herniations lasting over six weeks can be simply treated using spinal injection,’ says Mr Ishaque.
Short-bursts of exercise boost your self-control and could be used as treatment for ADHD and autism
Scientists found that concentrated bouts of activity improved self-control in children, teenagers and adults aged up to 35 years old.
This may be because working out increases blood and oxygen flow to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. This area is responsible for 'executive' functions and is particularly important for children and teens as it plays a vital role in concentration and learning.
Exercise could therefore provide a useful treatment for conditions involving impaired higher brain functions, such as autism and ADHD (attention hyperactivity deficit disorder).
"Only 13 percent of people said they were in excellent health compared with 33 percent a generation ago, and twice as many said they were in poor health," King says. "And that's by their own admission."
King says the reasons are pretty clear: big increases in obesity and big decreases in exercise.
"About half of people 20 years ago said they exercised regularly, which meant three times a week, and that rate now is only about 18 percent," he says. "That's an astonishing change in just one generation."
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Despite all this, baby boomers are living longer than their parents. But along the way, they're having a lot more knee operations and taking a lot more pills for blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes.
New Book Shows Adult Stem Cells as Medical ‘Paradigm Shift’
Its co-author says the success of adult stem cells has been so great that there is no reason to continue embryonic stem-cell research.
The Healing Cell is the fruit of collaboration between the Stem for Life Foundation and the Pontifical Council for Culture. In November 2011, the two organizations held a conference at the Vatican promoting adult stem-cell research.
Following up on my post, National Health Care in Britain Responsible for 40,000 Preventable Deaths, Pays 15 Million Pounds to Silence Whistleblowers, I want to point to what Richard Fernandez writes about in The Hospital of Death
The man at the center of the scandal was Sir David Nicholson, the Chief Executive of the NHS.
Nicholson is a man who never held a job in his life outside of government and activism. “Nicholson joined the NHS on graduation, and then the Communist Party of Great Britain”. Nor was he just a casual, student Red. Nicholson, according to the Guardian, was a “tankie”, a “term referring to those members of the Communist Party of Great Britain that followed the Kremlin line, agreeing with the crushing of revolts in Hungary and later Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks; or more broadly, those who followed a traditional pro-Soviet position.” And rung by rung this compassionate man climbed the ladder of the NHS until he reached its pinnacle.
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One of the biggest concentrations of deaths was at an “elite” hospital, the Mid-Staffordshire hospital which triggered an investigation by the “apparently high mortality rates in patients admitted as emergencies”. Too many people were turning up dead. A study subsequently showed that up to 1,200 patients may have died due to negligence in the “elite” hospital, which has since become so notorious it may now be placed under new management.
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when the report touches on what actually happened to the patients it is the stuff of war-crimes. It is not an exaggeration to say that nothing suggested by the most rabid critics of Guantanamo is half so bad. Baldly put what really happened in the hospital was that thousands of old Britons were left to starve, die of thirst, stew in their waste for extended periods, lie neglected and unmedicated or cast out of the wards at the slightest opportunity.
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For strange as it may seem, NHS head Sir David Nicholson, of whom nobody may have previously heard, ran the fifth largest organization in the world. The NHS is far bigger than the British Army, larger than the Indian Railways and the Chinese state-owned energy network. Sir David Nicholson’s fiefdom is actually exceeded only by McDonald’s, Walmart, the US Armed Forces, the Chinese Army and the Chinese railway and may have inflicted more deaths than all of these organizations combined.
It's the unaccountability of these government ministers that rankles me the most. Nicholson will find a way to absolve himself of any responsibility much as the way no one in the U.S. government is responsible for the debacle in Benghazi.
By contrast, look at what happened when the management was turned over to a private firm. Transformed: The failing NHS trust taken over by private firm has one of the highest levels of patient satisfaction
Hinchingbrooke, a hospital in Cambridgeshire with 160,000 patients, was on the verge of going bust when it was taken over by Circle last year.
But NHS figures show it is now ranked as one of the highest for patient happiness and waiting times.
Patient satisfaction: Hinchingbrooke Hospital, the first NHS trust to be run entirely by a private firm, is ranked as one of the highest for patient happiness and waiting times
The company running the trust has slashed losses at the hospital by 60 per cent and will soon begin to pay off burgeoning debts built up over years of mismanagement. The takeover deal, which saved the hospital from closing down, is seen as a blueprint for the future of many NHS trusts.
For the Elderly, Medical Procedures to Avoid
The Choosing Wisely campaign, an initiative by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation in partnership with Consumer Reports, kicked off last spring. It is an attempt to alert both doctors and patients to problematic and commonly overused medical tests, procedures and treatments.
It took an elegantly simple approach: By working through professional organizations representing medical specialties, Choosing Wisely asked doctors to identify “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question.” The idea was that doctors and their patients could agree on tests and treatments that are supported by evidence, that don’t duplicate what others do, that are “truly necessary” and “free from harm” — and avoid the rest.
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Both the American Geriatrics Society and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine agreed on one major “don’t.” Topping both lists was an admonition against feeding tubes for people with advanced dementia.
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You can read all the Five Things lists (more are coming later this year), and the Consumer Reports publications that do a good job of translating them, on the Choosing Wisely Web site. There are now 90 tests in all to avoid .
How three minutes of exercise a week could change your life
But a growing number of studies — from proper scientists, not wacky weirdos — suggest that the benefits of exercise could be achieved in much less time if you go in for very short bursts of very high-intensity exercise.
How short? Well, just one minute, three times a week. Yes, you read that correctly.
Three minutes a week. Those three minutes can be split into six bursts of 30 seconds over the week, or nine bursts of 20 seconds. But they must be totally full-on.
So-called High Intensive Training (HIT) has been bubbling around for a number of years — since at least 2005, when ground-breaking researchers at McMaster University in Canada referred to it as ‘sprint interval training’.
But now, argue its proponents, it’s on the verge of becoming mainstream thinking.
Gel manicures can increase the risk of SKIN CANCER as well as wreck your nails.
UV light from lamps used to set the gel manicures cause similar skin damage to sun-beds. Treatment also causes nail to thin and hides infections.
Involves using sensors to detect tiny chemical particles exhaled on breath which are given off by tumors and can indicate presence of cancer.
Much better test than having a tube passed down the throat.
Child born with HIV virus is now free of infection after 'miraculous' treatment
The mother was only diagnosed as HIV positive after going into labor. Because of the high infection risk, the baby was given an accelerated dose of medication.
She received three standard HIV drugs instead of the usual one when she was just 30-hours old. This prevented the virus from taking hold in the baby's cells
Two years after beginning treatment, tests show no virus in the child’s blood
The REAL way to predict a baby's sex.
Women carrying girls develop larger breasts during pregnancy than women carrying boys (their bust increases by 8cm on average compared with 6.3cm for women carrying boys). Male fetuses produce more testosterone and require more energy from their mother — because they will grow to be bigger — and these conditions may suppress breast growth.
emerging evidence suggests not all saturated fat should be tarred with the same brush — one type of saturated fat, known as stearic acid, may actually protect the heart against disease. Stearic acid, which is found in beef and pork, skinless chicken, olive oil, cheese, chocolate and milk, is one of many saturated fatty acids found in food. ...
.unlike other saturated fatty acids, repeated studies have shown stearic acid has no adverse effect on blood cholesterol levels or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Indeed, it appears to be beneficial — suggesting that red meat and chocolate are not the heart-health disaster zones we assume they are.
When one study published in a recent edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition revealed that eating lean beef on a daily basis improved cholesterol levels, it was the stearic acid in the meat that was said to be responsible for the positive changes.
A Medical Lab in Your Smartphone - A new app is "trying to democratize healthcare" -- in this case, through urinalysis.
More than 150 FBI agents and local cops have raided the Texas headquarters of The Scooter Store, the nation's largest supplier of mobility vehicles, after the company allegedly defrauded Medicare by $100 million.
The company is accused of harassing doctors with constant phone calls and surgery visits in order to wear them down to prescribe their vehicles to patients who do not need them.
Doctors don't trust their own hospitals. 40% of doctors would NOT recommend their own workplace to friends or family
Nearly 40 per cent of doctors would not recommend their own hospital to friends or family, startling new figures reveal.
A further one in three do not believe NHS managers act on the concerns of patients.
The Department of Health’s own survey also found that a third of NHS staff had witnessed medical blunders or near misses at least once in the last month.
In reality it is the NHS, not James Bond, who has the real government license to kill. writes Richard Fernandez
The NHS, which its creators boasted would be the ‘envy of the world’, has been found to have been responsible for up to 40,000 preventable deaths under the helm of Sir David Nicholson, a former member of the Communist Party of Britain. “He was no ordinary revolutionary. He was on the hardline, so-called ‘Tankie’ wing of the party which backed the Kremlin using military action to crush dissident uprisings” — before he acquired a taste for young wives, first class travel and honors.
The stories of the pathetic deaths of the elderly under his care — 1,200 in one hospital alone — have scandalized the British public, especially when it emerged he spent 15 million pounds in taxpayer money to gag and prosecute whistleblowers — often doctors and administrators who could not stomach his policies.
The public money spent on stopping NHS staff from speaking out is almost equivalent to the salaries of around 750 nurses.
The figures were revealed after a two year battle by Conservative MP Steve Barclay, who eventually obtained them after tabling a number of Parliamentary Questions.
The figures show a total of £14.7m of taxpayers’ money was spent on almost 600 compromise agreements, most of which included gagging clauses to silence whistleblowers.
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A whole generation is finished. Like their counterparts a hundred years ago, the European young are being sent to their professional death in millions. The carnage at both ends of the age spectrum — with the old being killed off and the young’s professional lives essentially buried — is a sign that the welfare state, the future on offer to “Julia” and Sandra Fluke, is now an empty box.
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The current elite has abused, as very few elites have abused in the past, the power of trust. They’ve taken legitimacy built by generations of competence and used it to paper over mediocrity and madness. The trust they had to squander was immense; and they squandered it.
When the crash happens the disillusionment will be tremendous. It won’t be the kind of disillusion that loses elections or topples a government. It will the kind of disgust that pulls down a civilization.
The Science Behind Coffee and Why it’s Actually Good for Your Health. Lifehacker summarizes the reasons and links to the scientific studies.
Coffee Can Make You Smarter
Bottom Line: Caffeine potently blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, leading to a net stimulant effect. Controlled trials show that caffeine improves both mood and brain function.
Coffee Can Help You Burn Fat and Improves Physical Performance
Bottom Line: Caffeine raises the metabolic rate and helps to mobilize fatty acids from the fat tissues. It can also enhance physical performance.
Coffee May Drastically Lower Your Risk of Type II Diabetes
Bottom Line: Drinking coffee is associated with a drastically reduced risk of type II diabetes. People who drink several cups per day are the least likely to become diabetic.
Coffee May Lower Your Risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
Bottom Line: Coffee is associated with a much lower risk of dementia and the neurodegenerative disorders Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Coffee May be Extremely Good For Your Liver
Bottom Line: Coffee appears to be protective against certain liver disorders, lowering the risk of liver cancer by 40% and cirrhosis by as much as 80%.
Coffee May Decrease Your Risk of Dying
Bottom Line: Coffee consumption has been associated with a lower risk of death in prospective epidemiological studies, especially in type II diabetics.
Coffee is Loaded With Nutrients and Antioxidants
Bottom Line: Coffee contains a decent amount of several vitamins and minerals. It is also the biggest source of antioxidants in the modern diet.
Take Home Message
Even though coffee in moderate amounts is good for you, drinking way too much of it can still be harmful. I'd also like to point out that many of the studies above were epidemiological in nature. Such studies can only show association, they can not prove that coffee caused the effects. To make sure to preserve the health benefits, don't put sugar or anything nasty in your coffee! If it tends to affect your sleep, then don't drink it after 2pm. At the end of the day, it does seem quite clear that coffee is NOT the villain it was made out to be. If anything, coffee may literally be the healthiest beverage on the planet.
Just ONE WEEK of disrupted sleep could play havoc with your health
Scientists say that just one week of poor sleep can disrupt hundreds of genes, increasing the risk of a host of life-threatening illnesses linked to stress, immunity and inflammation.
The discovery could explain why lack of sleep is so bad for the health, they say.
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The researchers wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: ‘Insufficient sleep is increasingly recognised as contributing to a wide range of health problems.
'Multiple studies have shown self-reported short sleep duration - defined in most studies as less than six hours - is associated with negative health outcomes such as all-cause mortality, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and impaired vigilance and cognition.' Indeed, sleep deficiency is associated with a host of conditions including obesity, heart disease and mental impairment.
Lack of sleep 'switches off' genes
One week of bad sleep can "switch off" hundreds of genes and raise the risk of a host of illnesses including obesity and heart disease, scientists claim.
Oily fish 'could help protect against skin cancer'
Regularly taking fish oil supplements could help protect against skin cancer, according to a study that suggests omega-3 fats help boost the immune system.
Eating nuts and olive oil can reduce the risk of a heart attack as much as statins
Eating a Mediterranean-style diet can cut heart attacks, strokes and death rates in people at high risk of heart disease by as much as a third, research shows.
Changing the balance of foods in a diet can lessen the risk even before heart-related illness strikes, according to a major clinical trial.
Previous studies have compared the effects of the diet on people after they have suffered a heart attack or stroke – with many showing improved heart health.
But this research was the first to rigorously test the effects on a high-risk group. In fact, the study of around 7,500 people was halted early, after almost five years, because the results were so clear it would have been unethical not to recommend the diet to all those taking part.
Mediterranean Diet Shown to Ward Off Heart Attack and Stroke. Finding publishes in the New England Journal of Medicine
About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study has found.
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“Really impressive,” said Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “And the really important thing — the coolest thing — is that they used very meaningful endpoints. They did not look at risk factors like cholesterol or hypertension or weight. They looked at heart attacks and strokes and death. At the end of the day, that is what really matters.”
No Vitamin D and Calcium for Older Bones
The United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts in prevention and primary care, based its recommendations on extensive reviews of more than a hundred studies. They characterized low doses as 400 international units or less of vitamin D and 1,000 milligrams or less of calcium.
Taking those amounts daily, the task force wrote in its recommendations, “has no net benefit for the primary prevention of fractures.” But there is good evidence, the group said, that taking them could increase the likelihood of kidney stones.
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The recommendations, however, do not apply to people with osteoporosis or vitamin D deficiencies, the task force said.
Much discussed is Steven Brill's piece on A Bitter Pill, Why Medical Bills are Killing Us
I got the idea for this article when I was visiting Rice University last year. As I was leaving the campus, which is just outside the central business district of Houston, I noticed a group of glass skyscrapers about a mile away lighting up the evening sky. The scene looked like Dubai. I was looking at the Texas Medical Center, a nearly 1,300-acre, 280-building complex of hospitals and related medical facilities, of which MD Anderson is the lead brand name. Medicine had obviously become a huge business. In fact, of Houston’s top 10 employers, five are hospitals, including MD Anderson with 19,000 employees; three, led by ExxonMobil with 14,000 employees, are energy companies. How did that happen, I wondered. Where’s all that money coming from? And where is it going? I have spent the past seven months trying to find out by analyzing a variety of bills from hospitals like MD Anderson, doctors, drug companies and every other player in the American health care ecosystem.
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One example The $21,000 Heartburn Bill
One night last summer at her home near Stamford, Conn., a 64-year-old former sales clerk whom I’ll call Janice S. felt chest pains. She was taken four miles by ambulance to the emergency room at Stamford Hospital, officially a nonprofit institution. After about three hours of tests and some brief encounters with a doctor, she was told she had indigestion and sent home. That was the good news.
The bad news was the bill: $995 for the ambulance ride, $3,000 for the doctors and $17,000 for the hospital — in sum, $21,000 for a false alarm.
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Overuse of technology like CAT scans
“We use the CT scan because it’s a great defense,” says the CEO of another hospital not far from Stamford. “For example, if anyone has fallen or done anything around their head — hell, if they even say the word head — we do it to be safe. We can’t be sued for doing too much.”
His rationale speaks to the real cost issue associated with medical-malpractice litigation. It’s not as much about the verdicts or settlements (or considerable malpractice-insurance premiums) that hospitals and doctors pay as it is about what they do to avoid being sued……. When Obamacare was being debated, Republicans pushed this kind of commonsense malpractice-tort reform. But the stranglehold that plaintiffs’ lawyers have traditionally had on Democrats prevailed, and neither a safe-harbor provision nor any other malpractice reform was included.
Follow the Money
Put simply, with Obamacare we’ve changed the rules related to who pays for what, but we haven’t done much to change the prices we pay. When you follow the money, you see the choices we’ve made, knowingly or unknowingly.
Over the past few decades, we’ve enriched the labs, drug companies, medical device makers, hospital administrators and purveyors of CT scans, MRIs, canes and wheelchairs. Meanwhile, we’ve squeezed the doctors who don’t own their own clinics, don’t work as drug or device consultants or don’t otherwise game a system that is so gameable. And of course, we’ve squeezed everyone outside the system who gets stuck with the bills.
We’ve created a secure, prosperous island in an economy that is suffering under the weight of the riches those on the island extract.
And we’ve allowed those on the island and their lobbyists and allies to control the debate, diverting us from what Gerard Anderson, a health care economist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says is the obvious and only issue: “All the prices are too damn high.”
Red wine isn't just good for your heart - now experts say it may even prevent HEARING LOSS . Red wine appears to reduce the damage caused by loud noise, an effect attributed to resveratrol, the chemical found in red grapes and red wine.
Silence is golden when dealing with jerks. Ignoring obnoxious people is more effective at shutting them up than than speaking to them or trying to engage them in a discussion,. Plus it's healthier and less mentally draining on you .
What Will Happen If I Consume Too Much Calcium? The same thing as if you don't get enough. You'll be more likely to die sooner. if you consume a lot of dairy in milk, yoghurt, and cheese, don't take calcium supplements.
The cure for arthritis? Fish oil AND aspirin, according to a breakthrough discovery The two work together to combat inflammation that causes pain of arthritis.
Flu vaccine protected barely HALF of Americans who got it… and only 9% of seniors
The flu vaccine protected just 56 percent of Americans who received it and completely failed to shield the elderly against the most deadly strain of the virus, the U.S. government announced today.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the findings underscore the need for more effective weapons in the fight against influenza, which kills between 3,000 to 50,000 people a year, depending on the severity of the flu season.
'We simply need a better vaccine against influenza, one that works better and lasts longer,' CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden said in a statement Thursday.
Experts generally estimate the effectiveness of flu vaccines to be between 50 percent and 70 percent, but this vaccine appears to have fallen on the low side of that range.
New hi-tech devices for the elderly. Home monitors, lifeline devices that sense falls, mobile alert systems, and devices to help old people deal with medication management
The Doctor’s In…Your Computer - Walter Russell Mead
Patients may soon get cheap, fast, and effective health care right from their desks, according to recent experiments with virtual doctor visits.
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So far Virtuwell has handled about 40,000 cases, so its success is big news. Virtual visits are an example of how technology can enable new care distribution systems to bring down the skyrocketing cost of health care. No single innovation will be a panacea, and every new development has its own costs and complications. But we need to make the most of potential breakthroughs like this. The status quo is unsustainable.
New 'alcohol busting' drug that sobers you up in seconds being developed by scientists
Party animals could soon be able to sober up in an instant just by popping a pill.
Researchers have developed a cocktail of alcohol metabolizing enzymes that speedily reduces blood alcohol levels in drunk mice. The treatment, which has been compared to having 'millions of liver cells inside your stomach,' could have far-reaching implications for drinkers.
MIT Technology Review: Nanocapsules Sober Up Drunken Mice
Wrapping alcohol-digesting enzymes in a nanoscale polymer allows them to quickly reduce blood alcohol content.
The Bank Where Doctors Can Stash Your Genome
A new company offers a “gene vault” for doctors who want to add genomics to patient care.
Bionic Eye Implant Approved for U.S. Patients
The sight-restoring implant made by Second Sight is the most advanced prosthetic to date.
Authority Nutrition claims an evidence-based approach, so here goes with their Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition with footnotes to published studies.
1. Eggs Are Unhealthy
There’s one thing that nutrition professionals have had remarkable success with… and that is demonizing incredibly healthy foods.
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Bottom Line: Eggs do not cause heart disease and are among the most nutritious foods on the planet. Eggs for breakfast can help you lose weight.
2. Saturated Fat is Bad For You
A massive review article published in 2010 looked at 21 prospective epidemiological studies with a total of 347.747 subjects. Their results: absolutely no association between saturated fat and heart disease (6).
The idea that saturated fat raised the risk of heart disease was an unproven theory that somehow became conventional wisdom (7).
Eating saturated fat raises the amount of HDL (the “good”) cholesterol in the blood and changes the LDL from small, dense LDL (very bad) to Large LDL, which is benign (8, 9).
Meat, coconut oil, cheese, butter… there is absolutely no reason to fear these foods.
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5. Low-Fat Foods Are Good For You
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Bottom Line: Low-fat foods are usually highly processed products loaded with sugar, corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. They are extremely unhealthy.
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7. Carbs Should Be Your Biggest Source of Calories
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Bottom Line: The low-fat, high-carb diet is a miserable failure and has been proven repeatedly to be vastly inferior to lower-carb, higher-fat diets.
Check out how Modern Nutrition Policy is Based on Lies and Bad Science which has several YouTube videos supporting the title's claim.
Pouring granulated sugar on wounds 'can heal them faster than antibiotics'
A study found granulated sugar poured directly into bed sores, leg ulcers and even amputations promotes healing when antibiotics and other treatments have failed.
The study is headed by Moses Murandu, a senior lecturer in adult nursing at Wolverhampton University, who grew up in Zimbabwe where his father used sugar to heal wounds and reduce pain when he was a child.
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So far 35 patients receiving treatment have seen their condition improve, with no adverse effects reported, compared with 16 patients who did not have the treatment. The treatment works because bacteria need water to grow, so applying sugar to a wound draws the water away and starves the bacteria of water. This prevents the bacteria from multiplying and they die.
Honey works too. Honey heals wounds and it's not bad on toast.
Research shows that sending youngsters to music classes from age seven will speed the development of motor skills - the part of your brain that plans and carries out movement. There is a special window of learning between the ages of six and eight when musical training interacts with motor development, producing long term changes to the brain, according to the study.
'Learning to play an instrument requires coordination between hands and with visual or auditory stimuli,' said lead researcher Virginia Penhune, professor of psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. 'Importantly, the younger a musician started, the greater the connectivity.
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The findings were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Pregnant women who take folic acid could reduce their child's risk of autism by 40%
Women who take folic acid supplements early in their pregnancy may reduce their child’s risk of autism by 40 per cent, a study found.
But mothers-to-be should start taking them four weeks before conceiving and eight weeks afterwards to get the full benefit for their unborn child. The timing of taking prenatal supplements is critical, scientists warn.
Folic acid - Vitamin B9 - is required for DNA synthesis and repairs. It’s naturally occurring form, folate, is found in leafy vegetables, peas, lentils, beans, eggs, yeast, and liver. Folic acid is known to protect against spina bifida and other neural tube defects in children but the latest research, which looks at more than 85,000 babies born in Norway between 2002 and 2008, shows that it may offer protection against Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
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The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Unborn babies get taste for fruit and vegetables from their mothers
The parental crusade to get children to eat fruit and vegetables should begin before birth, researchers said.
Babies are more accepting of foods their mothers eat often while pregnant Study indicates they get also get a taste for novel foods through breast milk.
The research was carried out by the Monell Centre in Philadelphia
Children with controlling 'helicopter parents' are more likely to be depressed
Researchers warn that the overbearing parenting style, known as 'helicopter parenting' - where parents hover over their children and become too involved in their lives - affects a child's ability to get on with others.
While some parental involvement helps children develop, too much can make them more likely to be depressed and less satisfied with their lives, they say. The findings also suggested that children of over controlling parents feel less competent and less able to manage life and its stressors.
The research, from the University of Mary Washington in the U.S., involved 297 American graduate students aged 18 to 23.
Drinking three cups of tea a day can keep you mentally alert in old age
Analysis of six different studies found drinking tea helped the brain to stay sharper
Scientists believe some compounds such as theanine could protect against Alzheimer's
Low intensity exercise improves insulin sensitivity and blood lipid levels, which are indicators of diabetes and obesity
Taking vitamin C DOES reduce the risk of a cold - but only if you exercise
But in those who work out, it can HALVE the risk of a cold and help speed up recovery, say Finnish experts
Children are more responsive to the vitamin than adults
Women with high levels of calcium are at twice the risk of dying from heart disease
New research adds to evidence that calcium supplements could be doing more harm than good in people with adequate intakes by overloading the body
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Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden studied 61,443 Swedish women aged 50 and over for an average of 19 years, including their calcium intake from diet and supplements….women with calcium intakes at least double the recommended level are at high risk of death from all causes, particularly cardiovascular disease.
Saved by the drug she helped to develop, the 39-year-old researcher suffering from cervical cancer
Dr Hayley Farmer, 39, works for Cancer Research UK as part of a team responsible for clinical trials on new medicines and vaccines.
She was part of the office that was working on Cisplatin - a chemotherapy drug being tested on different types of cancer.
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But as she carried out her work, Dr Farmer had no idea she might need the treatment herself - until a routine smear test in 2007 revealed she had cervical cancer. The cancer was already too advanced for surgery and Dr Farmer was treated with radiotherapy followed by Cisplatin. Dr Farmer, from Bristol, was given the all clear from cancer last year thanks to the pioneering drug.
Forget energy drinks - TOMATO juice could be the key to recovering from a workout
Tomato juice could be better than energy drinks at helping the body recover from exercise, new research suggests.
Experts say tomatoes provide vital chemicals to help muscles recover and blood levels return to normal after being stretched and strained. Experts from a number of health institutions in Greece conducted tests on 15 athletes over a period of two months, looking at vital signs before, during and after exercise….Those drinking tomato juice had quicker levels of muscle recovery and their glucose levels returned to normal faster after strenuous exercise.
The study, led by researchers at the General Chemical State Laboratory of Greece, was published in journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.
And a pint of beer is better for you after a workout than water say scientists
Their research has shown that a glass of beer is far better at rehydrating the body after exercise than water….Researchers suspect that the sugars, salts and bubbles in a pint may help people absorb fluids more quickly. …Professor Manuel Garzon, of Granada's medical faculty, made his discovery after tests on 25 students over several months.
Better than gatorade, chocolate milk is great after a workout. Men's Health says
Nutritionists have long touted milk as a magical muscle-building drink—by ingesting protein after a strength training workout, your muscles have the proper fuel to recover and grow. Add sugar to the mix (in this case, chocolate) and protein is digested even faster, meaning your muscles bounce back—bigger and stronger than ever—even more quickly than after drinking regular milk.
Can YOU see the dancing gorilla? New study reveals 83% of radiologists FAIL to spot it.
A new psychological study from Brigham and Women's Hospital has demonstrated how 83 percent of radiologists fail to spot the gorilla that is in the image below - despite running their eyes over it four times on average.
Demonstrating the potentially life-threatening consequences of 'inattentional blindness' - missing something that is right in front of you - the gorilla test was conducted on 24 credentialed radiologists at the world-famous Boston hospital.
I tried to see it, but couldn't until it was pointed out to me. Now, of course, I see it every time I look at it. Click on the link to see where it is.
The shocking invisible damage done to a woman's face after 14 years of sunbed use.
A UV scanner shows the sun damage in stark detail. Using a sunbed just once a month increases risk of skin cancer by 50%
Originally used as a blood pressure medication, Prozac has been prescribed for depression for 25 years. The Jekyll and Hyde happy pill: It's brought relief to millions but is linked to suicide, low libido and birth defects, and we still don't know how Prozac works.
It may be the artificial sweeteners. Diet carbonated drinks make you 60% MORE likely to get diabetes than regular, 'full fat' version
Findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Diet mixers also make you drunker. Sugary mixers slow the passage of alcohol into the bloodstream
Study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Swapping the butter for margarine 'may be bad for your health'. U.S. scientists claim polyunsaturated fat 'doubles heart risk'
Study reanalyzed data from the 60s and 70s in Sydney Australia and published in the British Medical Journal.
Taking vitamin C every day DOUBLES the risk of painful kidney stones
The findings appear in the journal JAMA Internal medicine.
Watching TV for too long 'cuts male fertility by half'. Laziness leads to a drop in sperm quality
Study from the Harvard School of Public Health.
In the near future
A gold and silk tattoo that calls for help when you fall ill
The tech-savvy tats come embedded with antennae that would wirelessly alert nearby computers to your malady and help you receive prompt help.
The key to better health care may lie in smartphones
Dr. Eric Topol is the chief academic officer of Scripps Health, a prominent cardiologist and the foremost figure in the field of wireless medicine. He believes the future of health lies in our own hands, namely in our smart phones and other portable electronic devices. According to Topol, “the smart phone will be the hub of the future of medicine. And it will be your health-medical dashboard.” “These days, I’m prescribing a lot more apps than I am medications,” he continued.
Topol points to a growing number of apps and devices, none of which he is paid for using or endorsing, that are capable of measuring vital signs and then transmitting that data to smartphones. Whether it’s your blood sugar levels, your heart rate or your sleep habits, Topol believes we should track our own conditions through our phones and use that data to see patterns and warning signs of illness.
Breath test could diagnose TB in minutes instead of weeks/
A simple breath test could be used to diagnose lung infections such as TB in minutes instead of weeks, say scientists.
They managed to identify the 'fingerprints' of different types and strains of bacteria by testing the breath of mice.
A scaled up version of the technique could reduce the time it takes to diagnose lung infections in humans from days and weeks to just minutes, it is claimed.
A Mediterranean diet WON'T stave off dementia or boost concentration in old age
No evidence that eating plenty of fruit, veg and oily fish boosts concentration in old age, say French experts. Until now, theory has been that diet prevents the blood vessels that supply the brain becoming blocked.
But academics from Paris Sorbonne University say there is no evidence for such a link.The researchers tracked the diets of 3,000 middle-aged adults for more than a decade and divided them into three groups depending on how ‘Mediterranean’ their diet was.
When the adults were 65 and over, they took six tests which checked their concentration and memory.
The results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found no difference between the scores of the three groups.
Lead researcher Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot said: ‘Midlife adherence to a MedDiet was not associated with global cognitive performance [brain power assessed 13 years later].’
Here It Comes: Super Gonorrhea . The CDC announced that we're down to our last effective antibiotic.
Did you know gonorrhea can kill you? It can, and it's also tragically effective at making women infertile.
Go ahead, eat your eggs. Analysis of eight studies that included 263,938 people show There's no evidence that an egg a day increased the risk of heart disease or stroke. That is unless you are diabetic. According to Mary Katherine Ham, the New York Times has been writing that story since 1993. So why does everyone think eggs are so bad for you? Because the New York Times also has run stories in the same time frame to say how bad eggs are for you.
Jack Andraka from Maryland, only 15, has developed a sip dip-stick test for a biomarker for early stage pancreatic cancer found in blood and urine. It promises to revolutionize treatment of the disease, which currently kills 19 out of 20 sufferers after five years - largely because its so difficult to detect until its final stages. ….His novel patent-pending sensor has proved to be 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive, and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests. Thanks to the test, pancreatic cancer patients could now get an early earning to seek medical help when it still has a chance of working, which could, he claims, potentially bump up survival rates to 'close to 100 per cent'.
I've long been fascinated by the placebo and wondered why more study was not being to see how they work.
Well, at Harvard, they are doing just that. An acupuncturist by training, Ted Kaptchuk, is an unlikely leader in the halls of academia, but he's an ingenious researcher in the search for the real ingredients of 'fake"'medicine.
researchers have found that placebo treatments—interventions with no active drug ingredients—can stimulate real physiological responses, from changes in heart rate and blood pressure to chemical activity in the brain, in cases involving pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and even some symptoms of Parkinson’s.
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Last year, he and colleagues from several Harvard-affiliated hospitals created the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS), headquartered at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center—the only multidisciplinary institute dedicated solely to placebo study. It’s a nod to changing attitudes in Western medicine, and a direct result of the small but growing group of researchers like Kaptchuk who study not if, but how, placebo effects work. Explanations for the phenomenon come from fields across the scientific map—clinical science, psychology, anthropology, biology, social economics, neuroscience. Disregarding the knowledge that placebo treatments can affect certain ailments, Kaptchuk says, “is like ignoring a huge chunk of healthcare.” As caregivers, “we should be using every tool in the box."
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The study’s results shocked the investigators themselves: even patients who knew they were taking placebos described real improvement, reporting twice as much symptom relief as the no-treatment group. That’s a difference so significant, says Kaptchuk, it’s comparable to the improvement seen in trials for the best real IBS drugs.
Another upside of reaching 75. You CAN have your cake and eat it as a poor diet makes no difference to your health
Women who have their ovaries removed are more likely to suffer mental decline in old age
Removal of a woman's ovaries leads to an increased risk of mental decline in older age, new research suggests.
The procedure, which triggers a 'surgical menopause', is most often carried out on younger women because of cancer. It usually accompanies removal of the womb, known as a hysterectomy.
Scientists studied 1,837 women aged between 53 and 100, a third of whom had experienced a surgical menopause.
The women were given tests to measure thinking skills and memory.
These showed that having a surgical menopause at an earlier age was associated with faster declines in thinking ability and certain kinds of memory. Long-term memory relating to concepts and ideas and episodic memory of events were both affected.
'While we found a link between surgical menopause and thinking and memory decline, women on longer hormone replacement therapies had slower declines," said study author Riley Bove, MD, with Harvard Medical School in Boston and a member of the American Academy of Neurology.
Children can GROW OUT of autism: Controversial research suggests not all youngsters have the same fate. It's a small study that confirms what many parents have observed.
Scientists have said only high blood pressure was a bigger indicator of a stroke or heart attack than migraines with aura, as the condition is known when accompanied by vision problems including flashing lights. The 15-year study followed 27,860 women, of who 1,435 had migraine with aura.
Eating blueberries and strawberries year round cuts a woman's risk of a heart attack by a third. It's the flavonoids
'This simple dietary change could have a significant impact on prevention efforts.' The findings appear in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Scientists believe the protective effect could be linked to anthocyanins, a type of flavonoid that may help open up arteries and counter the build-up of fatty deposits on blood vessel walls.
Just a 15 minute stroll four times a week can reduce the risk of an early death by 40%
Fresh air and exercise can boost the immune system, strengthen bones and reduce obesity
Regular walking also means better physical health, better strength and a reduced risk of injuries from falls
Simple blood test that predicts if breast cancer is likely to return
Test detects genetic changes in DNA that could signal return of most common form of breast cancer.
Early warning could spare some women unnecessary treatment with grueling anti-cancer drugs.
Stem cell treatment left woman with bone growing around one eye
In a recent report in Scientific American, the doctor described how the woman "could not open her right eye without considerable pain and that every time she forced it open, she heard a strange click - a sharp sound, like a tiny castanet snapping shut."
As it turned out, the woman had received a new-fangled "stem cell treatment", whereby her own mesenchymal stem cells were extracted by liposuction from her abdomen and injected into her face. Her cosmetic surgeons in Beverly Hills had told her new tissue would replace the old and that the therapy would prompt a release of chemicals that would reverse the signs of aging.
We do not know if her skin improved but she did end up with bits of bone and tooth growing around one eye. This is the reason why: mesenchymal stem cells are "multipotent", which means they can grow into different types of cells, including fat, cartilage and bone.
Well, this is going to change everything. Scientists link obesity to gut bacteria
Obesity in human beings could be caused by bacterial infection rather than eating too much, exercising too little or genetics, according to a groundbreaking study that could have profound implications for public health systems, the pharmaceutical industry and food manufacturers.
The discovery in China followed an eight-year search by scientists across the world to explain the link between gut bacteria and obesity.
Researchers in Shanghai identified a human bacteria linked with obesity, fed it to mice and compared their weight gain with rodents without the bacteria. The latter did not become obese despite being fed a high-fat diet and being prevented from exercising.
The bacterium – known as enterobacter – encourages the body to make and store fat, and prevents it from being used, by deregulating the body’s metabolism-controlling genes.
A Common Blood Pressure Drug May Lower Your Risk Of Getting Alzheimer's - beta blockers
Men get the most health benefits from dark chocolate
Chocolate gives men more protection against heart attack and stroke than women for some reason. The dark chocolate helps by preventing fatal blood clots.
Basic errors killing 1000 NHS patients a month a study has revealed -
First cases of 'incurable' antibiotic resistant gonorrhea found in North America as CDC warns of public health nightmare. Predictable.
Justin Binik-Thomas in Obamacare and my daughter explains why he's lucky she wasn't born two years later.
We have met with various medical professionals to discuss treatment options. There were several possibilities discussed, and we were able to weigh these options for the best fit: Zoe’s surgery is scheduled for the day after Christmas.
We knew that surgery was likely in the near future and chose to select a top-notch full coverage insurance plan this year.
The hospital informed us that this is a fairly new operation perfected over just the last five years. However: this surgery will “cease to be available in two years for insurance patients due to ObamaCare.” This is a quote from the flustered nurse at the hospital.
This plan pays all costs incurred after the deductible, provided the services are provided in-network. The plan goes away in 2014 as a result of the health law. The best new plans to replace this will pay for 90% after deductible, and will cost more. If our daughter was born just two years later we would pay more for insurance, have inferior treatment options, and be triaged (meaning delayed) for treatment. That, in my mind, is regressive. It is not progressive as many would have us believe.
World first as scientists create cancer-killing cells that can be injected into patients
Scientists have created cells capable of killing cancer for the first time. The dramatic breakthrough was made by researchers in Japan who created cancer-specific killer T cells. They say the development paves the way for the cells being directly injected into cancer patients for new cancer and HIV treatments.
It's hoped injecting huge quantities back into a patient could turbo-charge the immune system.
Pill developed that could help paralyzed patients walk again. It works on mice with no side effects.
Most astonishing medical news of the week, Doctors Save a Little Girl's Life by Reprogramming the HIV Virus to Fight Cancer Cells
Drug company Novartis is betting $20 million on a cancer treatment that seems to have saved a little girl's life…. Just last spring, six-year-old leukemia victim Emma Whitehead was "near death," having gone through chemotherapy twice without success.
But then her parents put Emma through an experimental treatment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They infected her with a version of HIV, reprogrammed to attack cancer cells.
Whitehead almost died, but the treatment worked and now she's in remission — and doing cartwheels all over her house.
Grady says the treatment hasn't worked for all patients.
It worked completely on three adults. Four treated adults have merely improved. A child relapsed. The treatment failed two adults completely.
The full story in The New York Times, A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells
“Our goal is to have a cure, but we can’t say that word,” said Dr. Carl June, who leads the research team at the University of Pennsylvania. He hopes the new treatment will eventually replace bone-marrow transplantation, an even more arduous, risky and expensive procedure that is now the last hope when other treatments fail in leukemia and related diseases.
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Despite the mixed results, cancer experts not involved with the research say it has tremendous promise, because even in this early phase of testing it has worked in seemingly hopeless cases. “I think this is a major breakthrough,” said Dr. Ivan Borrello, a cancer expert and associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
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Dr. Michel Sadelain, who conducts similar studies at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, said: “These T-cells are living drugs. With a pill, you take it, it’s eliminated from your body and you have to take it again.” But T-cells, he said, “could potentially be given only once, maybe only once or twice or three times.”
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So far, her parents say, Emma seems to have taken it all in stride. She went back to school this year with her second-grade classmates, and though her grades are high and she reads about 50 books a month, she insists impishly that her favorite subjects are lunch and recess.
“It’s time for her to be a kid again and get her childhood back,” Mr. Whitehead said.
Mad-Cow Disease May Hold Clues To Other Neurological Disorders and it all has to do with a misfolded protein.
Is there anything beer can't do? Beer May Have Anti-Virus Properties reports a Sapporo Brewery-funded study.
Researchers at Sapporo Medical University found that humulone, a chemical compound in hops, was effective against the respiratory syncytial (RS) virus, AFP reports. In addition, humulone was also found to have an anti-inflammatory effect …"The RS virus can cause serious pneumonia and breathing difficulties for infants and toddlers, but no vaccination is available at the moment to contain it," Jun Fuchimoto, a researcher from the beer company, told AFP.
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Since only small quantities of humulone can be found in beer, researchers say a person would have to drink about 30 12 oz. cans of the alcoholic drink to benefit from the anti-virus effect, ….Sapporo Breweries now hopes to create humulone-containing food and (non-alcoholic) beverages that both adults and children can consume.
Heart surgeon operates with inflammation on his hands, staph outbreak ensues at Cedars -Sinai Medical Center. He wore gloves but they developed microscopic tears The doctor no longer performs surgeries though he's still on the medical staff said the hospital who refused to release his name.
For Second Opinion, Consult a Computer?
Professionals in every field revere their superstars, and in medicine the best diagnosticians are held in particularly high esteem. Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal, 39, a self-effacing associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is considered one of the most skillful clinical diagnosticians in practice today.
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To observe him at work is like watching Steven Spielberg tackle a script or Rory McIlroy a golf course. He was given new information bit by bit — lab, imaging and biopsy results. Over the course of the session, he drew on an encyclopedic familiarity with thousands of syndromes. He deftly dismissed red herrings while picking up on clues that others might ignore, gradually homing in on the accurate diagnosis.
Just how special is Dr. Dhaliwal’s talent? More to the point, what can he do that a computer cannot? Will a computer ever successfully stand in for a skill that is based not simply on a vast fund of knowledge but also on more intangible factors like intuition?
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When working on a difficult case in front of an audience, Dr. Dhaliwal puts his entire thought process on display, with the goal of “elevating the stature of thinking,” he said. He believes this is becoming more important because physicians are being assessed on whether they gave the right medicine to a patient, or remembered to order a certain test.
Without such emphasis, physicians and training programs might forget the importance of having smart, thoughtful doctors. “Because in medicine,” Dr. Dhaliwal said, “thinking is our most important procedure.”
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An expert clinical diagnostician like Dr. Dhaliwal might make a decision without being able to explain exactly what is going on in the back of his mind, as his subconscious continuously sifts the wheat from the chaff.
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Isabel, the diagnostic program that Dr. Dhaliwal sometimes uses, was created by Jason Maude, a former money manager in London, who named it for his daughter. At age 3, Isabel came down with chickenpox and doctors failed to spot a far more dangerous complication — necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating infection. By the time the disease was identified, Isabel had lost so much flesh that at age 17 she is still having plastic surgery.
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He added that Isabel was aimed not so much at the Dr. Dhaliwals of the world, but at more typical physicians.
Dr. David J. Brailer, chief executive of Health Evolution Partners, which invests in health care companies, agreed. “If everyone was a diagnostic genius, we wouldn’t need these decision support tools,” he said.
Obamacare Jumps the Shark in its Premiere. Walter Russell Mead explains
One of the reasons blue programs jump the shark is that over time more and more special interests lobby politicians to get special features added. The small add-ons and tweaks make programs more expensive and complicated to administer—and much, much harder to reform. This process begins when the laws are written; the lobbyists are there to tuck special little surprises between the pages of the bill. It continues as the regulations necessary to implement the new laws are written; once again, lobbyists are on hand to mold the regs to their liking. And it persists year after year after year, as lobbyists look for ways to amend the existing laws or add new requirements by inserting language into other bills.
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The law is a blunt instrument; fixing the health care system by government fiat is like neurosurgery with a hammer. It’s going to hurt more than you think, and will harm more than it helps. Let’s hope politicians figure that out before too much damage is done.
A Physician's New Reality: Patients Ask Me to Break the Law
I have now posted a notice in my office and each exam room stating exactly what Obamacare will cover for those yearly visits. Remember Obama promised this as a free exam — no co-pay, no deductible, no charge. That’s fine and dandy if you are healthy and have no complaints. However, we are obligated by law to code specifically for the reason of the visit. An annual exam is one specific code; you can not mix this with another code, say, for rectal bleeding. This annual visit covers the exam and “discussion about the status of previously diagnosed stable conditions.” That’s the exact wording under that code — insurance will not cover any new ailment under that code.
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Private doctors are becoming a thing of the past. By 2014, less than 25% of physicians will be in private medicine. Obama was right in stating you can keep your doctor if you want to — the problem is he or she will rarely be available.
On top of all of that, doctors will be obligated — that’s right, obligated — to talk to you about things you may have no interest or need to talk about. You may just want to have a pap smear or check your cholesterol. However, I am now mandated by the government to talk to you about your weight, exercise, family life, smoking, sexual abuse(!), and even to ask if you wear seat belts. And I am mandated to record your answers.
Low Vitamin D Level Tied to Type 1 Diabetes
"Type 1 diabetes “has all the hallmarks of the kinds of diseases — rickets, scurvy, pellagra — that we prevent with vitamin supplements.”
Multiple Sclerosis Linked to Vitamin D Levels, Study Says
People with high levels of vitamin D in their blood have shown a lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis, according to results of a Swedish study released Monday. The new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting a link between vitamin D and MS, an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord that is believed to afflict more than a quarter-million Americans. The research will be published in Tuesday's edition of the medical journal Neurology.
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Researchers have speculated that low vitamin D levels increase risk for developing a number of chronic health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, various cancers—and MS.
Infected but oblivious: Young Americans with HIV often don't know
More than a quarter of new HIV infections in the U.S. occur among people ages 13 to 24, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What's more, about 60% of those young people with HIV don't know they have the virus. ...According to the CDC, about 12,200 young Americans became infected with HIV in 2010, with African Americans representing more than half of those newly infected. Young gay and bisexual people were also hit particularly hard.
The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like
"What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can," says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. He's even developed a metric for monitoring your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day. From there, he says, "If you drink that much, it's not going to do you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot."
Asperger's Gone and other Changes to the Bible of Psychiatric Disorders
1.Autistic disorder will become autism-spectrum disorder.
2. Binge-eating disorder moves from a category of … proposed conditions that require “further study” — to a full-blown illness .
3. The definition for depression expands by removing the exception for bereavement from the definition of depression will be removed, which means psychiatrists will be able to diagnose depressive disorder even among those who have just lost a loved one. For years, skeptics have criticized the APA for its expansive meaning of depression; now that definition is even broader.
4. Tantrums more than 3 times a week can be diagnosed as “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD),”
Anti-depressants could help stroke patients recover more quickly by 'rebuilding' the brain
'The results of this meta-analysis are extremely promising. We do not yet fully understand how anti-depressants could boost recovery after stroke, but it may be because they promote the growth of new nerve cells in the brain, or protect cells damaged by stroke.' ….by preventing depression, the drugs may help patients to be more physically active which is known to aid overall recovery.
'We now need to carry out a number of much larger clinical trials in order to establish exactly if, how and to what extent antidepressants can help stroke survivors recover.'
The revolutionary new breath test to diagnose bowel cancer
The test, which works by identifying chemicals associated with cancer tumors, is said to be 76 per cent accurate.
The 'pacemaker' implanted in the brain to prevent Alzheimer's patients losing their memory
The device, which uses deep brain stimulation, has already been used in thousands of people with Parkinson’s disease as possible means of boosting memory and reversing cognitive decline.
Why getting a good night's sleep will keep you slim, get you promoted and save your marriage. Do you believe Penelope Cruz gets an average of 14 hours of sleep a day?
Stop slouching. It could be making you sad and depressed. Just by sitting or standing upright, you better your mood and increase your energy.
It just may be that Exercise can protect the brain from fatty foods. Exercise seems to stimulate the production of certain biochemical substances that prevent free fatty acids from infiltrating the brain resulting in fewer plaques and better memory. It does on mice and rats anyway.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that more than 1 million women who have had mammograms have been unnecessarily treated for breast cancer over the past three decades.
Could Whole-Genome Testing Increase Insurance Costs? Yes. Genetic testing can also make it harder to buy life insurance, disability insurance and long-term care insurance.
There's still time to get your flu shot and protect yourself against a heart attack at the same time. Flu shot can protect against heart attacks
Getting vaccinated cuts risk for a heart attack or stroke by up to 50 percent, according to two studies presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress…. The findings suggest “that flu vaccine is a heart vaccine", -- Researchers report that up to 91,000 Americans a year die from heart attacks and strokes triggered by flu. --- Another surprising benefit of getting a flu shot is reduced risk for pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lungs) and deep vein thrombosis (a clot in the legs).
Other vaccines that reduce heart attack risk is you're over 65: the herpes zoster vaccination against shingles and the vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia.
Hope for cancer victims as scientists develop drug that sends cells to sleep to stop them spreading
A new drug called Aflibercept tricks tumors into becoming dormant by flipping molecular switches in the structure of the cancer so it cannot spread. Positive results are being seen already in the UK, where trials have seen patients enjoy a 'significant' extension of life.
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A report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology said Aflibercept had a 'statistically significant survival benefit' compared to conventional drug regimes treating bowel cancer that had spread after initial treatment.
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Maybe they will find other cancers where it may be more effective.' Aflibercept is administered as a 30-minute infusion alongside chemotherapy. It is available in the US, and European approval is expected soon.
Men: Put down that soft drink. Just one soft drink a day increases your risk of aggressive prostrate cancer by 40 per cent
Men who drink fizzy drinks are not just ruining their teeth and waistlines - they could be at risk of aggressive prostate cancer as well.
A Swedish study has found just one soft drink a day could increase the risk of developing more serious forms of the cancer by 40%.
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The study, which will be published in the upcoming edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, examined more than 8,000 men aged between 45 and 73 for an average of 15 years.
Why a breakfast of grapefruit and marmalade on toast could be lethal for people taking medication
Both grapefruit and Seville oranges contain chemicals that can interact with certain drugs such as statins and antidepressants.
Adverse effects can include acute kidney failure, respiratory failure, internal bleeding and sudden death.
There’s a new drink that could not only help you lose weight, but could also treat epilepsy, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer’s. It might also be an incredible energy booster. When a group of international rowing champions took it, one of them beat a world record.
It sounds far too good to be true, but the drink’s scientific credentials are impeccable.
It’s been developed by Kieran Clarke, professor of physiological biochemistry at Oxford University and head of its Cardiac Metabolism Research Group, at the behest of the U.S. Army.
Equally amazing is that the drink doesn’t involve a new drug. It contains something our bodies produce all the time. This key ingredient is ketones — the tiny, but powerful sources of energy our bodies make naturally when we start using up our fat stores for energy because there are no carbs around.
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Professor Clarke had been working on ketones as a high energy source for more than a decade when she approached DARPA, who funded the research that allowed her to discover a way to make ketones in the lab.
‘No one had done it before,’ she says. ‘We called it DeltaG, which is the biochemical name for energy, but also has a military ring to it — Delta Force and all.’ She tried the new compound on rats and found it boosted physical and mental performance.
But that wasn’t all. The rats became much healthier. They lost body fat, had lower levels of triglycerides (fatty acids) in their blood and lower blood sugar levels. There were no signs of harmful side-effects.
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So why haven’t we heard about this before? It’s because ketones are a natural product that can’t be turned into a top-selling treatment, so no drug company is interested.
‘We have a problem raising the money just to produce enough of it to run trials cheaply,’ says Professor Clarke (which is why you won’t see it in shops for some time).
Alzheimer’s Precursors Evident in Brain at Early Age
Scientists studying Alzheimer’s disease are increasingly finding clues that the brain begins to deteriorate years before a person shows symptoms of dementia.
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The studies, published this month in the journal Lancet Neurology, found that the brains of people destined to develop Alzheimer’s clearly show changes at least 20 years before they have any cognitive impairment.
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“The prevailing theory has been that development of Alzheimer’s disease begins with the progressive accumulation of amyloid in the brain,” Dr. Reiman said. “This study suggests there are changes that are occurring before amyloid deposition.”
Alzheimer’s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response
The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.... The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer’s risk substantially in older people. …The other gene found to raise the odds that a person will get Alzheimer’s, ApoE4, is much more common and confers about the same risk as the mutated version of TREM2
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I was of the opinion that the immune system would play a fairly small role, if any, in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Stefansson said. “This discovery cured me of that bias.”
For Alzheimer’s, Detection Advances Outpace Treatment Options
“The scan was floridly positive,” said her doctor, Adam S. Fleisher, director of brain imaging at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix.
The Jimenezes have struggled ever since to deal with this devastating news. They are confronting a problem of the new era of Alzheimer’s research: The ability to detect the disease has leapt far ahead of treatments. There are none that can stop or even significantly slow the inexorable progression to dementia and death.
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Many insurers, including Medicare, will not yet pay for the new scans, which cost several thousand dollars. And getting one comes with serious risks. While federal law prevents insurers and employers from discriminating based on genetic tests, it does not apply to scans. People with brain plaques can be denied long-term care insurance.
An Outcast Among Peers Gains Traction on Alzheimer's Cure
Some people collect stamps, others vintage cars. As a young Ph.D. student at Cambridge University in the 1980s, Claude Wischik was on a mission to collect brains.
It wasn't easy. At the time, few organ banks kept entire brains. But Dr. Wischik, an Australian in his early 30s at the time, was attempting to answer a riddle still puzzling the scientific community: What causes Alzheimer's disease? To do that, Dr. Wischik needed to examine brain tissue from Alzheimer's patients soon after death.
He also embraced an idea that, if he is right, could ultimately spin Alzheimer's research on its heels—and raise new hopes for the roughly 36 million people world-wide afflicted with Alzheimer's or dementia.
The 63-year-old researcher believes that a protein called tau—which forms twisted fibers known as tangles inside the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients—is largely responsible for driving the disease. It is a theory that goes against much of the scientific community: For 20 years, billions of dollars of pharmaceutical investment has supported a different theory that places chief blame on a different protein, beta amyloid, which forms sticky plaques in the brains of sufferers. But a string of experimental drugs designed to attack beta amyloid have failed recently in clinical trials
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A key moment came in 2008, when Dr. Wischik and Elan presented results of their studies at an Alzheimer's conference in Chicago. The Elan drug failed to improve cognition any better than a placebo pill, causing Elan shares to plummet by more than 60% over the next few days.
The TauRx results Dr. Wischik presented were more positive, though not unequivocal. The study showed that, after 50 weeks of treatment, Alzheimer's patients taking a placebo had fallen 7.8 points on a test of cognitive function, while people taking 60 mg of TauRx's drug three times a day had fallen one point—translating into an 87% reduction in the rate of decline for people taking the TauRx drug.
Researchers report potential new treatment to stop Alzheimer's disease
Molecular 'tweezers' break up toxic aggregations of proteins in mouse model
Answers About Alzheimer’s, Part 1. Answers Part II. Answers Part III
Readers recently submitted more than 100 questions about Alzheimer’s and memory loss to this week’s expert, Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a psychiatry professor at Duke University Medical Center and an author of “The Alzheimer’s Action Plan.”
Detective Work: The False Alzheimer's Diagnosis
More than 100 other conditions, from vitamin and hormone deficiencies to rare brain disorders, can mimic Alzheimer's disease, experts say. Some are readily treatable.
Meds that Mimic Alzheimer's
Over 100 different drugs have side effects that can mimic Alzheimer's in some people. Among the most common:
Antihistimatines (Benadryl, diphenhydramine)
Sleeping pills (Ambien, Sonata)
Painkillers (Darvon, Toradol, Demerol, Naproxen, Aleve)
Anti-anxiety drugs (Valium, Librium, Halcion, Xanax)
Anti-psychotic drugs (Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa)
Cholesterol drugs (Lipitor and other statins)
Older antidepressants (Elavil, Miltown, Tofranil)
Incontinence drugs (Detrol, Ditropan, Toviaz)
Acid-reflux drugs (Zantac)
Blood pressure drugs (Procardia, Adalat)
Tranquilizers (Serentil, Thorazine, Mellaril)
Heart drugs (Norpace, Lanoxin, Aldoril, Vasodilan, Cardura, Aldomet)
Stomach drugs (Bentyl, Levsin, Donnatal, Librax)
Parkinson's drugs (benztropine, trihexyphenidyl)
Source: American Geriatrics Society; Public Citizen; FDA
Helping people with strokes or deafness Grandfather left mute after a stroke speaks again with help of revolutionary glove that turns gestures into words
73-year-old has so far learnt to articulate 20 different words and phrases
Glove has integrated sensors and computer and is programmed to express 1,000 words
This testing on animals will benefit many humans. Time for walks! Pet dogs paralyzed by spine damage are able to walk again following pioneering treatment
One owner described her previously paralyzed pet 'whizzing around the house' following the treatment.
What's the best time of day to take your medication? Gene that predicts what time of day we'll die: Discovery could help determine when stroke or heart patients should take medication
Scientists have discovered a gene variation that affects the human body clock so profoundly that it even predicts the time of day when an individual is most likely to die. Researchers hope the findings could eventually be used to determine when heart or stroke patients should take medication to make it most effective, or when hospital patients should be monitored most closely.
The US team discovered the gene variation by accident when they were investigating the development of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Strange but true, a lot of people don't take their medication. New technology develops A Pill That Tells When It's Taken
It took the team seven years to create the centerpiece of the Feedback System, a pill that doubles as a radio. “The biggest question was, What types of materials would the FDA allow us to use?” Zdeblick says. “So we decided to use [ones from] a vitamin.” Small amounts of copper and magnesium conduct enough electricity (1.5 volts) to power a one-millimeter chip. When a pill containing the chip hits the stomach, the metals interact with stomach fluid to generate a current. The current transmits to a 2.5-inch patch on the patient’s torso, which relays the signal as binary code to his phone over Bluetooth. An app will determine the pill’s serial number, manufacturer, and ingredients, and saves that data to the cloud. Doctors will eventually be able to set up automatic alerts when adherence problems arise.
Who knew cancer cells had their own stem cells? Found: The cells that make cancer run riot. Kill them and you could destroy the disease...
The traditional view among oncologists is that cancerous tumors are the result of genetic mutations within ordinary cells that cause them to divide uncontrollably and then spread.
However, evidence has been mounting that small numbers of stem cells within tumors actually orchestrate their growth and proliferation. But these types of cell are difficult to eradicate with traditional chemo and radiotherapy — they actually come equipped with pump-like mechanisms on their surface that filter medicines away — and they can re-grow even after the primary tumor has been destroyed or removed.
--- ‘We’ve found both types of cell in head and neck tumors, and others have found them in breast, colon and several other types of cancer. 'If we could find ways to target them, we might have an elegant solution to the problem of cancer and its growth.
‘The question is, how can you target cancer stem cells without damaging normal stem cells? We don’t know yet.
EMR (Electronic Medical Records) has finally passed the 50% adoption mark; yet "fully functional" usage is still in the teens. So why is there an almost 4-fold discrepancy between “any EMR” and “fully functional EMR”?
Don’t get me wrong, EMRs (electronic medical records) are inevitable. Over the long-run they are almost certainly good for physicians, patients and the healthcare industry. However, their origin and the ulterior motives currently driving their adoption is sowing the seeds of their failure.
If EMRs are so great, why does the government have to essentially “bribe” physicians to adopt them through incentives such as the meaningful use incentive program? Why is this so important to them that they didn’t even wait for the healthcare affordability act to implement this “incentive”? (They put it in the stimulus package after Obama had only been in office a few months.)
Why EMR is a dirty word to doctors
One reason that incentives and threats of decreased payment are necessary for EMR adoption is that the industry and physicians have known for years that EMRs do not improve productivity and that it is highly questionable that EMRs lead to better patient outcomes. So why is all this taxpayer debt being accrued by throwing borrowed money at the healthcare industry to drive EMR adoption, if the end users are so disenchanted?
As Jonathan Bush, the Founder-CEO of AthenaHealth (a major EMR supplier) famously said, “It’s healthcare information technology’s version of cash-for-clunkers,” and because it is actually all about control.
The goal of EMRs is to wrestle control of healthcare away from the doctor-patient relationship into the hands of third parties who can then implement their policies by simply removing a button or an option in the EMR. If you can’t select a particular treatment option, for all intents and purposes the option doesn’t exist or the red tape to choose it is so painful that there is little incentive to “fight the system.”
For patients, this means that they will only be able to consume the healthcare that they “qualify” for or be forced to find another way to obtain the care that they want and need. It is the second outcome that is the most intriguing, because as “shoppers,” patients will want to be informed and have choices as they take on more responsibility for the cost and quality of their own care.
For physicians … well, it isn’t hard to figure out where this is all heading. EMRs are quickly becoming the instrument by which we are controlled and managed. As an example, many organizations are already starting to restrict diagnostic testing and therapies via EMR.
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Having left the guidelines vague and largely written by a small group of industry insiders, most products have become a Tower of Babel with atrocious user interfaces and user experiences that … well, I don’t blame my fellow physicians for not wanting to use them. In addition to being expensive, they are complex, inefficient, and do not make physicians or their staff more productive.
Taking up sport in middle age boosts brain power
‘You can give someone a cholesterol-lowering pill, you can give someone blood sugar-lowering medicine, but they have no impact on cognitive function. But exercise can do all of that – and more.’
Exercise Prevents Dementia in Some Seniors
Older people who are living independently but have signs of cerebral damage may lower their risk of having progressive cognitive impairment or dementia if they remain physically active, researchers found.
Everyday drugs 'can help fight dementia as developing new medicines is too costly and slow
Experts believe antibiotics, acne pills and other routine treatments already in bathroom cabinets could double as dementia drugs. They said it is time to re-examine medicines already in circulation as cheaper, quicker alternatives to new treatments.
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Professor Clive Ballard said: ‘Defeating dementia is one of the biggest challenges facing both medicine and society as a whole. Developing new drugs is incredibly important but it comes with a huge price tag and, for those affected by dementia, an unimaginable wait. Everyday drugs will have passed multiple tiers of expensive safety tests and so could be prescribed for dementia in five to ten years."
Some of the drugs they are looking at.
• Diabetes medications eventide and liraglutide, which have been shown to stimulate the brain.
• Minocycline, an antibiotic for acne, and acitretin
• Acitretin, a drug used to treat psoriasis which researchers found modifies the way proteins linked to dementia form.
• High blood pressure medications including Nilvadipine, from the calcium channel blockers family.
Pill that halts Alzheimers could be here in four years
A pill said to halt the devastating onset of Alzheimer’s disease could be on the market within four years, scientists said yesterday. Believed to be more than twice as good as anything already available, it could greatly slow or even halt the progression of the cruel illness. Given early enough, it could stop Alzheimer’s from ever developing, an international dementia conference was told yesterday.
A version of the twice-a-day pill – developed by British scientists – has already been tested on patients, with ‘unprecedented’ results. Its inventor, Professor Claude Wischik, of Aberdeen University, said: ‘It flatlines the disease. If you get in early, you can pull people back from the brink.’
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The new drug, known only as LMTX, works in a different way to current treatments and to many of the Alzheimer’s tablets and jabs in development, which target the brain’s chemistry or the build-up of a brain-clogging protein called beta-amyloid. LMTX, in contrast, dissolves the ‘tangles’ of protein that are a hallmark of the disease and spread through the brain like an infection, stopping them working from within.
An earlier version of LMTX, called Remember, has already been tested on patients with promising results. Given to men and women with mild to moderate dementia, the Remember capsules slowed the progression of the disease by 90 per cent for two years.
A groundbreaking device that can diagnose cancer in just 20 minutes is being developed by British scientists. The world's first tumor profiler, as it is known, will allow doctors, nurses and pharmacists to quickly identify all known types of cancer while the patient waits.
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Scientists say the Q-Cancer device will have a dramatic impact on the rapid and accurate diagnosis of cancer….The device makes use of advanced nanotechnology, analyzing submicroscopic amounts of tissue to work out the type of cancer, its genetic make-up and how far it has developed.
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'As far as we are aware, QuantuMDx’s current underlying technologies, which can break up a sample and extract the DNA in under five minutes represents a world first for complex molecular diagnostics.
Redheads at a higher risk of melanoma even without the sun
It is well-known that redheads and others with fair skin have a higher risk of developing skin cancer, because they have less natural protection against the damaging effect of the sun. Now researchers have found another cancer risk factor apart from being sensitive to UV radiation. Redheads have a pigment in their skin that can actively contribute to the development of melanoma.
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The study, published in the journal Nature, explains that several types of the pigment melanin are found in the skin. A dark brown or black form called eumelanin is usually found in people with dark hair or skin while a blond-to-red pigment called pheomelanin is predominant in people with red hair, freckles and fair skin.
Could eating too much junk food give you Alzheimer's?
Scientists increasingly believe Alzheimer’s is linked to type 2 diabetes — so closely linked, in fact, it’s even being called ‘brain diabetes’ or type 3 diabetes. This surprising new theory holds out hope that treatments already available for diabetes may also be able to help dementia sufferers, slowing down or stopping the progression of the disease.
When it comes to type 2 diabetes, there’s no mystery about what’s behind the soaring rates — eating too much, especially junk food that’s packed with sugar, refined carbohydrates and fat.
Raised insulin levels also affect the brain.Recent research has found this hormone plays a much more important role in the brain than once thought — protecting cells and helping to lay down memories. The key to diabetes, and very possibly to Alzheimer’s, is insulin resistance.
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For instance, insulin resistance is being linked with formation of the plaques — deposits of damaged protein — that are a classic sign of Alzheimer’s.
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Scientists are still finding out what happens when insulin levels in the brain rise.
‘But we know it is much more important than we thought,’ says Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, a biochemist at the University of Sydney and world authority on insulin (she helped develop the glycaemic index). High levels of insulin could also be having a damaging effect on neurons, she says. ‘This is because insulin comes partnered with another hormone, amylin, which makes the same sort of plaques as those found in the brains of dementia patients, except in the pancreas.
'It could be contributing to plaque formation in the brain.’ High sugar levels don’t just push up insulin — they can also damage the brain directly.
Don't give anti-depressants to women of childbearing age, warns leading psychiatrist
Drugs such as anti-depressants could have serious side effects for pregnant women or their child. Antidepressants should be avoided by all women of childbearing age as half of pregnancies unplanned
Prozac pregnancy alert: Mothers-to-be on anti-depressants are putting babies at risk, warn scientists
The widely prescribed pills have been found drastically to raise the odds of miscarriages, premature birth, autism and life-threatening high blood pressure, they say. Harvard researchers believe far too many women are taking the drugs during pregnancy because their GPs are not aware of the dangers. They also suspect that drug companies are trying to play down the risks because anti-depressants are so lucrative to them. They focused on the complications linked to a group of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include Prozac and Seroxat.
But the researchers have found that they increase the risk of a miscarriage by 17 per cent and more than double the likelihood of pre-eclampsia – high blood pressure during pregnancy – which can be fatal. They also double the chances of the baby being born premature, or developing autism. In addition, the researchers say, the babies are more likely to suffer from heart defects and problems with their bowels.
Combining popular supplements with prescription drugs could cause heart problems
Herbal supplements such as echinacea and St John's Wort could make medication dangerous….The research suggest combining the popular alternative remedies may cause mild-to-severe heart problems, chest pain, abdominal pain and headache, particularly among people receiving medication for problems with their central nervous or cardiovascular systems.
Those taking Warfarin, insulin, aspirin, digoxin and ticlopidine had the greatest number of reported adverse interactions with the remedies or supplements.
Dangerous herbal pills used to treat menopausal symptoms leave woman suffering liver failure. Black cohosh to blame in 53 adverse reports in Britain, the majority involving liver problems.
Another reason to make sure you get your flu shot. Flu jab 'can halve heart attack risk': Vaccine 'also cuts cardiac deaths and chances of stroke'
Researchers found that the jab can reduce the risk of a heart attack by 50 per cent and cardiac deaths by 40 per cent.
Cancer Patients Too Optimistic About Chemo
The finding suggests that many patients with stage IV disease misunderstand what they can expect from chemotherapy, "which could compromise their ability to make informed treatment decisions that are consonant with their preferences," the researchers argued.
Previous small studies, most confined to a single center, have suggested that patients overestimate how long they are likely to live and mistakenly think palliative chemotherapy has a curative potential.
Scientist discover why statins aren't effective in 40% of patients.
40 per cent of people taking statins are resistant to their cholesterol-lowering effect. High levels of the protein resistin in the blood could stop statins from working effectively.
What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You About Your DNA
The test results were crystal clear, and still the doctors didn’t know what to do. A sick baby whose genome was analyzed at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia turned out to possess a genetic mutation that indicated dementia would likely take root around age 40. But that lab result was completely unrelated to the reason the baby’s DNA was being tested, leaving the doctors to debate: Should they share the bad news?
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When it comes to scanning DNA or sequencing the genome — reading the entire genetic code — what to do with unanticipated results is one of the thorniest issues confronting the medical community.
Why you should see your dental hygienist at least twice a year. The Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm found that dental plaque can increase the risk for premature death by cancer by 79%
Of course free isn't free; in fact, free is expensive which is why so many health benefits for women will be CUT by Obamacare.
the US Preventive Services Task Force, will evaluate preventive health services like contraception and decide which benefits must be part of the coverage that insurance plans offer — indeed, which services must be covered in full, with no co-pays.
Dozens of screening tests and treatments that directly benefit women are likely to be dropped from any coverage.
Here’s a sampling of what the Preventive Services Task Force dings: chlamydia screening in most women over 25; cervical-cancer screening in those over 65; breast-cancer screening using digital mammography or MRI instead of the traditional plain film.
Screening for ovarian cancer and the genes that raise a women’s risk of breast cancer also don’t make the cut. Same for clinical breast exams in women older than 40.
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Americans first became familiar with the Preventive Services Task Force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to advocate that women ages 40-49 shouldn’t get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine use of tests for detecting the viruses that can cause cervical cancer. And now it’s calling the shots for what benefits must be included and what can be nixed from our plans.
This is what happens when benefits are defined in Washington, rather than by a marketplace of competing plans that cater to patient preferences. This is what happens when you put an insular committee of academics in charge, let them meet in secret and devise their own rules — and insulate them from appeals or lawsuits.
I've been touting fish oil since I began this blog, but I never imagined fish oil as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury, but it is. Fish oil helped save our son
It was March 2010. Bobby Ghassemi had been driving fast along a winding road in Virginia when his car barreled off the road. By the time paramedics arrived, he was in a coma and barely alive. "For all intents and purposes, he was dead on the scene," said Dr. Michael Lewis, a physician who later advised the family. "I'm looking at the reports, and they report a Glasgow Coma Score of 3. A brick or a piece of wood has a Glasgow Coma Score of 3. It's dead."
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That's the theory behind using omega-3 fatty acids to heal brain injury. The human brain, which itself is a fatty mass, is about 30% composed of omega-3 fatty acids, according to Lewis. In his words, high doses of omega-3 fatty acids, since they mirror what is already in the brain, could facilitate the brain's own natural healing process.
"It really gets down to what I would call my brick wall analogy," Lewis said. "If you have a brick wall and it gets damaged, wouldn't you want to use bricks to repair the wall? And omega-3 fatty acids are literally the bricks of the cell wall in the brain."
Even fit people can be suddenly scared to death. It's called stress cardiomyopathy, rare but real.
Doctors around the world are increasingly identifying an unusual heart problem even in otherwise healthy people who have suffered a severe fright, a traumatic experience or loss of a loved one. Frightening experiences, including natural disasters, muggings and even some amusement-park rides, can cause the heart suddenly to malfunction. Victims often have the same symptoms as a heart attack, but show no sign of blocked arteries.
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While many of these patients survive, others don't. Martin A. Samuels, chairman of the neurology department at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, has collected hundreds of reports of people who have died suddenly in frightening situations. These include victims of muggings and break-ins whose assailants never touched them; children who died on amusement-park rides; car-accident victims who sustained only minor injuries and a man who jumped off the roof of Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1980 but suffered severe heart damage before hitting the ground.
Exercise Might Beat Puzzles For Protecting the Aging Brain
In a study published in the journal Neurology of almost 700 people born in 1936, researchers found physically active people showed fewer signs of brain shrinkage and other deterioration than those who got less exercise. At the same time, social and intellectual activities such as visiting family and friends, reading, playing intellectually stimulating games or learning a new language did nearly nothing to ward off the symptoms of an aging brain, the study said.
"People who exercise more have better brain health," said Alan Gow, one of the study's researchers and a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
The researchers noted, however, that "the direction of causation is unclear," meaning they couldn't tell if a healthier brain was a result of physical activity, or if people showing signs of cognitive decline weren't able to exercise. Other studies have also suggested exercise can improve brain health. Exercise increases circulation in the body and helps bring more oxygen, glucose and other needed substances to the brain.
Getting Physical Ups Seniors' Brain Volume
Older individuals who engage in regular physical activity are less likely to experience loss of brain volume and other changes in brain structure, a study found. Note that the study found no support for a beneficial effect of more intellectually challenging or socially oriented activities on structural MRI parameters.
Panel Calls Hormone Replacement Too Risky
In the new study, the task force, convened by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, found that estrogen and progestin therapy is of "moderate benefit" in reducing the risk of fractures and can create a "small reduction" in risk of invasive breast cancer. But it found this plus was outweighed by "moderate harms" such as an increase of risk for stroke, dementia, gall bladder disease and urinary incontinence, and a small increase in the risk for deep-vein blood clots.
"There are pluses and there are minuses to this therapy," said Michael LeFevre, vice chairman of the task force and a professor at University of Missouri School of Medicine. "For an asymptomatic woman, the benefits do not outweigh the harms."
High-carb diets may raise the risk of Alzheimer's
Older people who eat a diet high in carbohydrates are four times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment - a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease.
New research from the prestigious Mayo Clinic in America has found the risk is also higher with a diet high in sugar.
On the other hand, proteins and fats appear to offer some protection – people who consumed plenty of them are less likely to suffer cognitive decline.
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If we can stop people from developing MCI, we hope we can stop people from developing dementia. Once you hit the dementia stage, it's irreversible,’ Professor Roberts told USA Today.
‘A high-carbohydrate intake could be bad for you because carbohydrates impact your glucose and insulin metabolism. 'Sugar fuels the brain, so moderate intake is good. However, high levels of sugar may actually prevent the brain from using the sugar - similar to what we see with type 2 diabetes.’
She added that high glucose levels might affect the brain's blood vessels and play a role in the development of beta amyloid plaques, proteins toxic to brain health that are found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. It’s thought these plaques are a leading cause of the disease.
People whose diets were highest in ‘good’ fats, such as those found in nuts and healthy oils were 42 per cent less likely to get cognitive impairment. Those with a high intake of protein (such as meat and fish) had a reduced risk of 21 per cent.
Drinking a litre of mineral water every day 'can prevent Alzheimer's memory loss'
Silicon-rich mineral water can help remove aluminum which is linked to dementia
Taking a daily multivitamin pill 'can lower the risk of cancer'
Regular use for more than a decade cuts men’s chances of developing the disease by 8 per cent, say researchers. They cannot identify a single vitamin or combination that works, but claim the benefit comes from a broad combination of low dose vitamins.
The US study involved only men so the same effect cannot be assumed for women, but experts believe it is likely to be similar. Almost 15,000 doctors took part in the survey at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, and Harvard Medical School.
It is significant as the first trial of its kind, said Michael Gaziano, chief of the Boston hospital’s ‘division of aging’. He said: ‘Despite the fact that more than one-third of Americans take multivitamins, their long-term effects were unknown until now.’
Computer Viruses are "Rampant: on Medical Devices in Hospitals
Software-controlled medical equipment has become increasingly interconnected in recent years, and many systems run on variants of Windows, a common target for hackers elsewhere. The devices are usually connected to an internal network that is itself connected to the Internet, and they are also vulnerable to infections from laptops or other device brought into hospitals. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that manufacturers often will not allow their equipment to be modified, even to add security features.
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Kevin Fu, a leading expert on medical-device security and a computer scientist at the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst says "I find this mind-boggling, Conventional malware is rampant in hospitals because of medical devices using unlatched operating systems. There's little recourse for hospitals when a manufacturer refuses to allow OS updates or security patches."
When the possibility of competition between insurance carriers is excluded, the only way to control Medicare costs is through rationing.
Obamacare’s IPAB: When Government Takes Over Health Care, You Become A Budget Item
IPAB is a board consisting of 15 unelected, appointed bureaucrats whose task it is to cut the growth of Medicare spending, and the cuts they are mandated to make will be deep.
The decisions IPAB makes behind closed doors can only be overturned by a supermajority of Congress, something almost impossible to achieve.
So, the politicians have set up a system where they can say to seniors, “It was those bureaucrats that cut your Medicare, not me.”
How does IPAB achieve these cuts? The supporters of the law say, “It says right in the statute IPAB cannot ration.” But what IPAB can do, and in fact is their only option for controlling costs, is to cut reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. They decide what procedures are important, not your doctor, and they decide what Medicare will pay for them.
When services are no longer available to seniors because reimbursements for those procedures have been drastically cut, that’s rationing.
UPDATE: How $716 million is cut from Medicare to fund Obamacare
Each Patient Has a Unique Breath 'Fingerprint' That Doctors Could Use to Diagnose. What Your Breath Reveals
The concept goes back to Hippocrates, who wrote a treatise on breath aroma and disease around 400 B.C. For centuries afterward, doctors noticed that patients with liver and kidney disorders had distinctive smells to their breath.
Now, scientists are identifying thousands of chemical compounds that create those telltale odors. Tools called mass spectrometers can detect them in quantities as minute as parts per trillion, the equivalent of finding a single ping-pong ball in a thousand baseball fields filled with ping-pong balls.
And researchers are developing tests that can diagnose and monitor not just liver and kidney disorders, but also asthma, diabetes, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal infections—even the rejection of transplanted organs—by analyzing biomarkers in exhaled breath.
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Breath tests are also painless, faster to return results and potentially less expensive than blood tests—and easy to repeat as often as needed, even while patients are sleeping or exercising.
And some go well beyond what blood tests can do. In a study in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology this month, researchers from Israel and Colorado reported that breath analysis could distinguish between benign and malignant pulmonary nodules in a group of 72 patients with 88% accuracy; the test could also assess the specific type and stage of the lung cancers.
Tomato Helps Cut the Risk of a Stroke, Study Shows
A new study shows that men who had the highest levels of lycopene—an antioxidant found in tomatoes—had fewer strokes than men who had the lowest level of lycopene in their blood. Overall, the risk of strokes was reduced by 55%…. Lycopene is found in the highest concentrations in cooked tomato products like paste, puree and sauce.
Scientists a step closer to preventing heart attacks as they identify high cholesterol genes, paving the way for targeted drugs
Scientists have identified 21 new genes linked to cholesterol levels, further paving the way for dedicated drugs and treatments for heart disease. In the largest-ever genetic study of cholesterol, they found these genetic variations were associated with changes in ‘good’ HDL and ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol. One of the most striking findings was that some variants were more likely to appear in men, others in women. The genetic mutations of more than 90,000 people were analyzed in the study, which was published in The American Journal of Human Genetics.
How a vitamin a day helps boost memory
A daily multivitamin tablet may boost the memory and slow mental decline. According to new studies, taking supplements has a beneficial effect on memory and may work by increasing efficiency of brain cells. One study showed that after just four weeks there were measurable changes in electrical activity in the brain when carrying out memory tests, not seen in a comparison group taking a placebo pill.
Magnets that cause tumors to 'self-destruct' could be a revolutionary new weapon in the fight against cancer. Scientists in South Korea have developed the method, which uses a magnetic field to trigger the cells to effectively kill themselves. The researchers have demonstrated that the process works in bowel cancer cells and living laboratory fish. They now plan to test the technique on a range of cancers to see if it can destroy other tumors.
Smallpox virus may help treat deadly form of breast cancer
A relative of the small pox virus may be an effective weapon against one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer, researchers say. Laboratory tests showed that more than 90 per cent of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells treated with the vaccinia virus were destroyed within four days.
In mice with the disease, one strain of the virus cleared away 60 per cent of tumors while the extent of those left was dramatically reduced.
Scientists say the 'terrible teens' may not be a child's fault after all. A new study shows fear is hard to extinguish from the developing teenage brain, which researchers say may explain why anxiety and depression spike so obviously during adolescence.
The new study by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers shows that adolescents' reactions to threat remain high even when the danger is no longer present. According to researchers, once a teenager's brain is triggered by a threat, the ability to suppress an emotional response to the threat is diminished - which may explain why they often seem permanently anxious and stressed.
That baby aspirin you take every day to help your heart could also slow down memory loss
Research published in the online journal BMJ Open found regular low-dose aspirin did slow cognitive decline.The five-year study at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, involved 681 women aged 70 to 92. The majority of women were at high risk of heart disease and stroke. Decline in brain power was found to be considerably less among those who took aspirin every day over the entire period.
Scientists have discovered a keen sense of taste boosts immunity - a breakthrough that could lead to nasal sprays to ward off illness. ..Bitter taste receptor gene TAS2R38 found to activate an immune response.
What's inside a doctor's bag, then and now
1. A pocket ultrasound machine which allows a great view of the heart, and adds volumes to what the stethoscope can discern.
2. The PanOptic ophthalmoscope, an instrument that looks a bit like a large revolver; it allows a beautiful view of the retina, and especially its blood vessels, far better than my conventional ophthalmoscope. One look in an eye and I have a sense of the status of the arteries in the kidney, the heart. The PanOptic can also be hooked up to an iPhone to take great pictures.
3. An iPad
Hope for new anti-aging drug after scientists reverse muscle wastage in old mice
Drugs could one day be used to reverse the muscle-wasting effects of aging, new research suggests. Scientists have identified a key process responsible for muscle weakening in old age and used a chemical to block it in mouse studies. The findings could pave the way to body-building anti-aging drugs that keep people strong and fit near the end of their lives
A team of British and US researchers looked at the way stem cells in muscle repair damaged tissue by dividing and developing into numerous new muscle fibers. Strenuous activity, such as lifting weights, results in minor damage that triggers this response and builds up muscle. The end result is bulging biceps and rippling torsos.
But as people age, muscle loses its ability to regenerate itself, leading to limbs that are puny and weak. Studying old mice, the researchers found that the number of dormant stem cells in muscle reduces with age. They traced the effect to excessively high levels of FGF2 (fibroblast growth factor 2) - a protein that stimulates cells to divide. In aging muscle, the protein was continuously awakening the dormant stem cells for no reason. The supply of stem cells depleted over time, so not enough were available when they really were needed. As a result, the ability of muscle to regenerate was impaired.
The scientists found that a drug that inhibits FGF2 prevented the decline of muscle stem cells. Treating old mice with the drug, called SU5402, dramatically improved the ability of aged muscle tissue to repair itself. SU5402 is purely manufactured for laboratories and not licensed for therapeutic use.
But scientists hope the research, published in the latest online issue of the journal Nature, will lead to future treatments. Senior researcher Dr Albert Basson, from King's College London, said:
'Preventing or reversing muscle wasting in old age in humans is still a way off, but this study has for the first time revealed a process which could be responsible for age-related muscle wasting, which is extremely exciting. The finding opens up the possibility that one day we could develop treatments to make old muscles young again. If we could do this, we may be able to enable people to live more mobile, independent lives as they age.'
Diagnosing Parkinson's disease very early on and over the phone
Leaving a simple phone message could help spot the early signs of Parkinson’s years before serious symptoms develop, say scientists.
Researchers have discovered they can detect the disease through voice recordings with initial studies already showing a 99 per cent accuracy rate.
A team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a computer program me that is able to recognize the tremors, breathiness and weakness in the voice, which are thought to be early indicators of the condition.
The breakthrough technology could alert doctors to prescribe early treatment, which could slow the progress of the disease. The current approach to a Parkinson’s diagnosis can take years, as there is no blood test that detects it.
Dr Kieran Breen, director of research at Parkinson’s UK described the study as an 'exciting prospect'.
He said: 'The Parkinson’s Voice Initiative could lead to voice recognition tests that can diagnose and monitor Parkinson’s.
'We know that speech is often affected in people with Parkinson’s - so developing a test that can spot the earliest subtle changes is an exciting prospect. At the moment we don’t have a definitive test to diagnose Parkinson’s, and no reliable way to monitor the development of the condition - which is a massive barrier to finding a cure.
The Rise of Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea.
Now, however, public-health experts view the Kyoto case as something far more alarming: the emergence of a strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to the last drug available against it, and the harbinger of a sexually transmitted global epidemic. . . . ‘This is what we have feared for many years.’”
Instapundit comments on Sex and the Superbug
I sound like a broken record, but we need new antibiotics, and, even more, new therapies that aren’t based on antibiotics at all. Why aren’t we seeing more action on phage therapy?
Phage therapy? Never heard of it. Here's the absolutely fascinating article on The Next Phage.
How to heal an infection that defies antibiotics? Another infection. Doctors in Eastern Europe have used lab-grown viruses to safely cure millions of wounds. So why can't we do the same here?
Short answer: THE FDA
As viruses go, phages are relatively benign. They're the most abundant naturally occurring organisms on Earth. They can be found virtually everywhere—-in soil, drinking water, sewage. In fact, each one of us naturally has billions of them in our bodies. They prey only on bacteria, never human cells, they rarely spread from person to person, and, perhaps most important, bacteria have trouble becoming immune to them. As living organisms, phages are constantly changing and adapting in tandem with their host bacteria to kill them more effectively. Phage therapy could therefore eliminate the vicious cycle in which bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics, necessitating the development of new, even more powerful drugs, at which point the process begins all over again.
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Eliava the "mother ship of phage research," a worldwide Mecca for people suffering from antibiotic-resistant infections. Only it doesn't look like the sort of place you'd want to go with a health problem. When Wolcott visited to hunt down alternatives for his patients, the four-story facility bore a closer resemblance to a neglected sanatorium. The walls were unpainted, the rooms were dark, and the equipment looked like museum pieces. "The conditions were abysmal," he says. "Yet the science is amazing."
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What surprised him most, aside from the dreary decor, was the painstaking way each prescription was custom-tailored for the patient. Phages are species-specific—-different strains attack different bacteria. Since some wounds can harbor hundreds of different types of bacteria, physicians there first culture a tissue sample of the infection to determine its precise bacterial composition. The next step is to brew a custom cocktail of sometimes hundreds of phages selected from the institute's vast library of thousands. This whole process can take up to four days. The treatment—often administered through an IV bag that drips phage liquid directly into patients' wounds for 24 hours a day—can last up to two weeks.
As inconvenient as the procedure sounds, few people complain about it. The results are spectacular.
Emotionally neglected children 'more likely to suffer strokes in old age'
The study found that the risk of stroke was nearly three times higher in those who reported a moderately high level of childhood emotional neglect than those who reported a moderately low level. Dr Wilson said the results stayed the same after considering factors such as diabetes, physical activity, smoking, anxiety and heart problems. The study was published in the online issue of the medical journal Neurology.
The magnet to cure a migraine: Can this device mean the end of excruciating pain for Britain’s eight million sufferers? How will the FDA deal with it, as a medical device?
The idea that a neurological explanation could exhaust the meaning of experience was already being mocked as “medical materialism” by the psychologist William James a century ago. And today’s ubiquitous rhetorical confidence about how the brain works papers over a still-enormous scientific uncertainty.
Paul Fletcher, professor of health neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, says that he gets “exasperated” by much popular coverage of neuroimaging research, which assumes that “activity in a brain region is the answer to some profound question about psychological processes. This is very hard to justify given how little we currently know about what different regions of the brain actually do.” Too often, he tells me in an email correspondence, a popular writer will “opt for some sort of neuro-flapdoodle in which a highly simplistic and questionable point is accompanied by a suitably grand-sounding neural term and thus acquires a weightiness that it really doesn’t deserve. In my view, this is no different to some mountebank selling quack salve by talking about the physics of water molecules’ memories, or a beautician talking about action liposomes.”
'Neuro-flapdoodle' I'll have to remember that
Sexual differences are biological and consequential and there's no point in denying it. Especially when doing research in Alzheimer's.
They are questioning why so much research into Alzheimer’s focuses on male brains — despite women being twice as likely to get the disease, and their brains having a fundamentally different make-up.
New studies show female hormones could be the reason women are more at risk, suggesting hormone replacement therapy could have a protective effect.
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It’s well known that victims of Alzheimer’s have clumps of damaged proteins — called plaques and tangles — in their brains. Less well known is that depending on your sex, the tangles are found in very different places, according to Larry Cahill, professor of neurobiology at the University of California.
About 90 per cent of male sufferers have them in the hypothalamus, a central area of the brain controlling hunger, eating and sex — but only 10 per cent of women do, he says. Women have them in a nearby area involved in controlling production of a neurochemical called acetylcholine.
But why this is or what difference it makes to symptoms and behavior hasn’t been researched properly. Wherever the plaques or tangles are, men seem to be able to handle them better — women can have worse symptoms, even though they have much less damaged protein in their brains.
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researchers from the University of Hertfordshire reported that women suffering from Alzheimer’s deteriorate faster than men — even when they are apparently at the same stage of the disease, suggesting men’s brains are better at coping with the ravages of the disease.
Furthermore, research from Kansas University found that if your mother had Alzheimer’s, that doubles your risk of developing the disease compared with having a father who had it.
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‘Women with a certain variant of a gene called ApoE4 are 50 per cent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s,’ says Dr Pauline Maki, a psychiatrist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, with a special interest in brain-hormone links. ‘That was discovered 15 years ago and affects around 20 per cent of the population, but it has never been followed up.’
Could a simple eye test spot the early stages of Alzheimer's?
Researchers found sufferers of the disease struggled with light tracking part of eye test Potentially exciting' results could lead to new screening process
But what help is early detection if Drug giants give up on Alzheimer's cure Research too difficult and costly.
The world's leading pharmaceutical companies are downgrading the search for new treatments for Alzheimer's disease after the failure of a series of high-profile drugs trials.
The human and financial costs of the disease are growing rapidly as the population ages, but the prospects of treatments to halt it, or slow its progress, are receding as at least five trials in the past five years have delivered disappointing results.
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At least 12 times as much was spent on cancer research as dementia research, yet dementia cost the country twice as much as cancer, he said.
Suicide is now the leading cause of injury deaths. Too many people are living lives of despair as the miserable economy takes its toll.
More people commit suicide than die in car crashes. A report in the American Journal of Public Health says suicide ranks first followed by car crashes, poisoning, falls and murder.
"Suicides are terribly undercounted; I think the problem is much worse than official data would lead us to believe," said study author Ian Rockett, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University…. For the study, Rockett's team used data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics to determine the cause of injury deaths from 2000 to 2009.
Deaths from intentional and unintentional injury were 10 percent higher in 2009 than in 2000, the researchers noted. And although deaths from car crashes declined 25 percent, deaths from poisoning rose 128 percent, deaths from falls increased 71 percent and deaths from suicides rose 15 percent, according to the study.
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In 2009, more than 37,000 Americans took their own lives, and more than 500,000 were at risk of suicide, according to Pamela Hyde, administrator of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
How to Stop Hospitals from Killing Us.
Medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week. A surgeon with five simple ways to make health care safer.
All of them have to do with transparency
A staggering 94 million Americans exposed to potential identity theft through breaches in government agencies. And it's probably much worse.
Furthermore, out of 268 breach incidents reported since 2009, the 67 of the public agencies responsible (and I use that term loosely) couldn't even figure out how many records were lost. That fact alone will tell anyone with basic math skills and a lick of common sense that this epidemic is much worse than we know. …..
Premeditated attacks by hackers accounted for only 40 breaches since 2009, a mere 15 percent of the total….Plain and simple stupidity and negligence caused most of the rest.
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the sad truth is that our own government's security policies -- or lack thereof -- have put us all at risk. …The GAO's report found that out of 24 major government agencies, 18 had inadequate information security controls….the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services, each of which have met just over 50 percent of the law's requirements.
Robert Morgenthau: The Death of Peter Wielunski
For every soldier killed in combat, 25 veterans are dying by suicide. It's time to broaden efforts against PTSD.
A First: Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells
Middle age begins at 55 years, survey suggests
And Britons do not see themselves as elderly until they are nudging 70, the survey of 1,000 UK adults aged 50-plus for the Love to Learn online learning website says. Previous studies have pinpointed the start of middle age as early as 36.
The research suggests that as the population ages, new cut-off points are being drawn.
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However, a sizable minority, nearly one in five, thought middle age did not begin until after the age of 60. But almost one in five (19%) said that being middle age is a state of mind, rather than something that begins at a certain age. The research also asked the panel at what age they thought middle age ends. The average came in at 69 years and 277 days. This suggests middle age itself now spans 14 years and goes well beyond the government's planned state pension age of 66.
Marijuana fights cancer and helps manage side effects
Cannabis plant extract 'could stop aggressive breast cancer from spreading'
A compound found in cannabis could halt the spread of many forms of aggressive cancer, scientists say.
Researchers found that the compound, called cannabidiol, had the ability to 'switch off' the gene responsible for metastasis in an aggressive form of breast cancer. Importantly, this substance does not produce the psychoactive properties of the cannabis plant. The team from the California Pacific Medical Center, in San Francisco, first spotted its potential five years ago, after it stopped the proliferation of human breast cancer cells in the lab.
The pair teamed up to see if they could treat a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called 'triple negative.' This form, which affects 15 per cent of patients, doesn't have three hormone receptors that the most successful therapies target. Cells from this cancer have high levels of ID-1.
When they exposed cells from this cancer to cannabidiol they were shocked to find the cells not only stopped acting 'crazy' but also returned to a healthy normal state. They discovered that the compound had turned off the over expression of ID-1, stopping them from traveling to distant tissues.
Other potentially treatable cancers are forms of leukemia, lung, ovarian and brain cancers, which also have high levels of ID-1.
Far from being the non-partisan advocate for seniors, the AARP, as newly released show, took a distinctly partisan if stealthy role in co-ordinating with the Obama Administration to pass Obamacare.
Kimberly Strassel on The Love Song of AARP and Obama
Thanks to just-released emails from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we now know that AARP worked through 2009-10 as an extension of a Democratic White House, toiling daily to pass a health bill that slashes $716 billion from Medicare, strips seniors of choice, and sets the stage for rationing. We know that despite AARP's awareness that its seniors overwhelmingly opposed the bill, the "nonpartisan membership organization" chose to serve the president's agenda..
The 71 pages of emails show an AARP management taking orders from the White House, scripting the president's talking points, working to keep its board "in line," and pledging fealty to "the cause." Seniors deserve to know all this, as AARP seeks to present itself as neutral in this presidential election.
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AARP had long lambasted cuts in fees to Medicare doctors because reduced payments would mean fewer doctors who accept patients with the insurance. Yet in its campaign for ObamaCare, it argued the money the health law strips from Medicare—by imposing price controls on hospitals—would improve "care."
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In August 2009, AARP had already unveiled a national advertising blitz for ObamaCare, to ensure that "every member of Congress knows the 50-plus community wants action to fix what's wrong with healthcare." The group made this claim despite weeks of daily tracking showing its members in revolt against the president's plan.
UPDATE: I thought this was a useful chart to understand just where the $716 billion cuts are in Medicare.
The chart comes from Deroy Murdock in The Corner who comments:
Democrats will find it difficult to refute the below chart by Heritage Foundation research assistant Alyene Senger. It very clearly shows the $716 billion that Democrats swiped and delineates exactly from where in Medicare they stole it. This is as close to a police report of a home burglary as one will find in public policy, a graph is based on irrefutable data from the Congressional Budget Office. Democrats can run but cannot hide from these numbers:
UPDATE 2: Paul Ryan speaks to the AARP and Yuval Levin was there.
Be sure to read Paul Ryan’s speech to the AARP’s national convention today—a clear and forthright elucidation of the case for saving Medicare and the federal budget through market-based reforms and against doubling down on failed central planning and price controls through Obamacare.
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The AARP sometimes presents itself as a kind of membership organization consisting of senior citizens, but it is basically a huge financial-services company with an enormous stake in the current design of the Medicare system (it makes about half a billion dollars in revenue each year endorsing and selling Medicare supplemental, Medicare Advantage, Medicare prescription drug, and long-term care insurance policies). It profits in particular from higher-premium Medicare supplemental coverage (because it receives a royalty fee on every dollar seniors spend on premiums for AARP-endorsed products), and so would be a major loser in a premium-support reform. The organization has therefore worked closely with Democrats to oppose such a reform, and in return has also been helpful to them in the broader health-care debate—lobbying in favor of Obamacare, for instance, despite the fact that it made major cuts in Medicare and despite the very evident opposition of AARP members.
UPDATE 3: An analysis shows AARP made $2.8 billion off of Obamacare and stands to make billions in the future
Sunny-side up In Defense of Eggs
Recent research on the dangers of egg consumption is misleading and unnecessarily alarming. The dangers of cholesterol are over-hyped, and we can't underestimate the value of unprocessed, high-mineral foods.
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Most people should be eating more eggs, particularly the yolks.
Great news. Scientists close to creating single-dose cure for all strains of malaria.
New treatment should enter clinical trials in 2013
Malaria killed 655,000 people in 2010.
Organic no better than produce grown with pesticides, say Stanford University scientists. Biggest study yet.
Red skin condition rosacea could be caused by mite feces in your pores. Yuk
Brush-like layer pushes out sticky mucus and the unwanted matter it contains
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The researchers used imaging techniques to examine what was actually happening within the lungs - and found a dense meshwork of human bronchial epithelial cell cultures. The brush-like layer consists of protective molecules that keep sticky mucus from reaching the cilia and epithelial cells, thus ensuring the normal flow of mucus.
Dr Michael Rubinstein, who led the study, said: 'The air we breathe isn't exactly clean, and we take in many dangerous elements with every breath. 'We need a mechanism to remove all the junk we breathe in, and the way it's done is with a very sticky gel, called mucus, that catches these particles and removes them with the help of tiny cilia.' 'The cilia are constantly beating, even while we sleep. 'In a co-ordinated fashion, they push mucus, containing foreign objects, out of the lungs, and we either swallow it or spit it out.
It is hoped the findings will help scientists understand more about lung diseases such as asthma
Doctors zap high blood pressure with radio waves> Procedure could be a permanent cure
A radical therapy that zaps the kidneys with radio waves could provide a permanent cure for high blood pressure, research shows.
Super Gonorrhea The CDC announced that we're down to our last effective antibiotic.
The Woman Who Needed to Be Upside-Down A doctor is baffled: Why did a giant man walk into the ER holding a tiny woman by her feet?
Daily aspirin 'cuts the risk of dying from any type of cancer' - 16% lower overall risk of cancer mortality
How stress and depression can shrink the brain
Severe depression and chronic stress can shrink the brain by blocking the formation of new nerve connections, a study has shown. The effect disrupts circuits associated with mental functioning and emotion.
It could explain why people with major depressive disorder (MDD) suffer from concentration and memory loss, as well as blunted emotional responses.
Should a frail, elderly person receive CPR?
In his 33 years as an emergency room doctor ... Dr. David Davis estimates he has resuscitated 600 people. CPR, he likes to point out, was developed during the Korean War to help wounded soldiers — otherwise healthy young men — stay alive until they reached field hospitals. Doing chest compressions on fragile old people disturbs him.
“It is violent,” Dr. Davis told me in an interview. “If you don’t do it hard enough, you can’t move any blood.” But if you do thrust hard enough, “you’re going to break the ribs and maybe the sternum.”
“If older people and their families knew all that was involved, the manipulation, the tubes, the drugs and the low chances for a good outcome, they’d opt for comfort care instead,” Dr. Davis said. He’s 66, and tattooed on his own chest is an informal advance directive: “Shock Thrice,” meaning that after three attempts at defibrillation, the team should stop resuscitation and allow him to die.
Nice cup of tea to beat bioterrorists? Tea ingredients can kill micro-organisms and inactivate toxins, expert says.
… a principal component of black tea can neutralize ricin, a highly toxic substance which has been at the center of a number of attempted terrorist attacks. Dr Richardson says: "One cup of char won't cure you if you have been poisoned, but compounds extracted from tea could, with further research, provide an antidote to poisoning following a terrorist attack
Dealing with the frustration of tracking medical expenses and keeping your health care records safely online with
Simplee
Doing Medicaid Reform Right A pilot program in Florida shows the way.
Under the pilot program, Medicaid recipients are given the choice of a wide variety of plans created by multiple insurers. The insurers are allowed to escape the vast majority of mandates on coverage, and instead just have to meet an actuarial value for the plan.
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Medicaid recipients get to choose among a dozen different plans with different offerings – one hospital, multiple, HIV-positive, etc. The plans are competing on benefits, copays, and provider networks, even above traditional Medicaid FFS. There's a default plan, but the engagement is huge – 70% of recipients in the pilot choose a plan other than the default. (This is because, as Jeb was fond of saying, they're poor, not stupid.)
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The outcome, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, is 64% better health vs. managed care, with 83% higher satisfaction from those in the program. And they've saved money, too: Florida is currently saving roughly $118 million a year on Medicaid in the five counties, with better outcomes for the people in it. The state will be approved soon for a statewide expansion of the program, and expects to save almost a billion dollars per year.
My Health-Care Alternative for the Old and Poor by Devon Nunes
Replacing Medicare and Medicaid with a simple debit card will result in better-quality care, for less.
One germ liable for 30,000 deaths
Clostridium difficult, or C. diff, that ravages the intestines. The bacteria preys on people in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities — the very places patients trust to protect their health.
A USA TODAY investigation shows that C. diff is far more prevalent than federal reports suggest. The bacteria is linked in hospital records to more than 30,000 deaths a year in the United States — about twice federal estimates and rivaling the 32,000 killed in traffic accidents. It strikes about a half-million Americans a year.
If you don't floss daily, maybe this news will get you going. Women who look after their teeth and gums 'have lower risk of dementia'
Inflammation triggered by gum disease has already been implicated in heart disease and diabetes
Obesity and high blood pressure 'speed up mental decline' for those aged over 50
Green tea extract 'eradicates skin cancer with no side-effects' - but drinking it doesn't work
A chemical found in green tea has been used to treat two types of skin cancer, scientists say.
The extract is too weak to make an impact when consumed in tea. However, when applied to cancer cells in the lab it made two-thirds of tumors shrink or disappear.
Scientists at the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, who carried out the research, found the extract, known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), had no side-effects on other cells or tissue. They created a cell with EGCg and transferrin, a protein that naturally targets and latches on to the surface of cancer cells, and applied it to tumors.
Tests were done on two types of skin cancer: epidermoid carcinoma which forms scales on the surface of the skin and melanoma which often develops in people who have moles on their skin. In both studies, 40 per cent of tumors vanished, while 30 per cent of tumors in carcinoma cases and 20 per cent in melanoma cases shrank. A further 10 per cent of melanoma tumors were stabilized, so did not grow or shrink.
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'This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the biggest killer diseases in many countries.'
The research is published in the medical journal Nanomedicine.
Do I need the shingles vaccine?
What if there was an infection that can cause permanent nerve damage and pain? What if the virus could affect the eye and cause blindness or affect the brain and cause meningitis? What if the burning rash attacks almost half of all Americans sometime in their life? If you knew there was a vaccine which could protect you from that malady, would you get the shot?
The disease is called shingles or herpes zoster and despite a successful vaccine being available only five (5) percent of eligible adults have been inoculated.
If you are over 60, get inoculated and save yourself grief
We can only hope. A Daily Dose of Chocolate May Stave Off Dementia.
Researchers found that consuming cocoa every day helped improve mild cognitive impairment – a condition involving memory loss which can progress to dementia or Alzheimer's – in elderly patients.
90 people aged 70 or older diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment were split into three groups of 30 and given either a high, medium or low dose of a cocoa drink daily
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Researchers found those who drank the high and medium doses daily had significantly better cognitive scores by the end of the eight-week study in a number of categories, including working memory.
Larger studies are needed to confirm.
How to eat like your favorite authors Nabokov, Hemingway, Collette and Jonathan Frazen. Recipes included. I'm going to try Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake.
Something I was glad to learn, The Milk You Drink is Free of Antibiotics
On a traditional farm, sick cows on antibiotics are milked into a separate container, and the milk is dumped until the antibiotics are out of the cow's system.
If a trace of antibiotics is found in a tank delivered to a processing plant, the entire load is dumped—yours and whatever other farms' milk is in the tank. You don't get paid and you are fined. The tainted milk never reaches the processing plant's tank. Consumers can be assured that all milk, traditional and organic, is antibiotic-free.
Best of all In honor of Julie Child's 100th birthday, PBS Digital Studios has released Julia Child Remixed: Keep on Cooking - Bring on the roasted potatoes.
A long and fascinating read Big Med by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker
Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?
David Luz, regional manager for the eight Cheesecake Factories in the Boston recounts the story of his 78-year-old mother who had early Alzheimer's disease and required a caretaker at home….
"Getting her adequate medical care was, he said, a constant battle….“It is unbelievable to me that they would not manage this better,” Luz said. I asked him what he would do if he were the manager of a neurology unit or a cardiology clinic. “I don’t know anything about medicine,” he said. But when I pressed he thought for a moment, and said, “This is pretty obvious. I’m sure you already do it. But I’d study what the best people are doing, figure out how to standardize it, and then bring it to everyone to execute.”
John Wright, an orthopedic surgeon has spent the past 10 years in an experiment to standardize joint-replacement surgery
“Customization should be five per cent, not ninety-five per cent, of what we do,” he told me. A few years ago, he gathered a group of people from every specialty involved—surgery, anesthesia, nursing, physical therapy—to formulate a single default way of doing knee replacements. They examined every detail, arguing their way through their past experiences and whatever evidence they could find. Essentially, they did what Luz considered the obvious thing to do: they studied what the best people were doing, figured out how to standardize it, and then tried to get everyone to follow suit.
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\Wright has become the hospital’s kitchen manager—not always a pleasant role. He told me that about half of the surgeons appreciate what he’s doing. The other half tolerate it at best. One or two have been outright hostile. But he has persevered, because he’s gratified by the results. The surgeons now use a single manufacturer for seventy-five per cent of their implants, giving the hospital bargaining power that has helped slash its knee-implant costs by half. And the start-to-finish standardization has led to vastly better outcomes. The distance patients can walk two days after surgery has increased from fifty-three to eighty-five feet. Nine out of ten could stand, walk, and climb at least a few stairs independently by the time of discharge. The amount of narcotic pain medications they required fell by a third. They could also leave the hospital nearly a full day earlier on average (which saved some two thousand dollars per patient).
My mother was one of the beneficiaries.
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And we are seeing glimpses of this change. In my mother’s rehabilitation center, miles away from where her surgery was done, the physical therapists adhered to the exercise protocols that Dr. Wright’s knee factory had developed. He didn’t have a video command center, so he came out every other day to check on all the patients and make sure that the staff was following the program. My mother was sure she’d need a month in rehab, but she left in just a week, incurring a fraction of the costs she would have otherwise. She walked out the door using a cane. On her first day at home with me, she climbed two flights of stairs and walked around the block for exercise.
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We’ve let health-care systems provide us with the equivalent of greasy-spoon fare at four-star prices, and the results have been ruinous. The Cheesecake Factory model represents our best prospect for change.
A molecule that causes Alzheimer’s disease could reverse paralysis caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), a study has found. The much-maligned molecule, known as A-beta, has until now been known as the chief culprit behind Alzheimer’s.
But it is also found in multiple-sclerosis lesions, which occur when immune cells invade the brain and spinal cord and attack the insulating coatings of nerve cells. The nerve signals then get mixed up leading to blindness, loss of muscle control and difficulties with speech, thought and attention.
Scientists from Stanford University in the United States wanted to investigate the role the molecule played in MS. They used a mouse model that mimics several features of the disease - including the autoimmune attack on myelinated sections of the brain. They then injected A-beta into the rodent’s belly. The scientists had suspected the injection would exacerbate the MS, but the opposite happened.
In mice whose immune systems had been 'trained' to attack myelin, which usually results in paralysis, A-beta injections delivered before the onset of symptoms prevented, delayed and even reversed paralysis.
This shows that when A-beta is injected outside the brain it moderates and can even reverse symptoms of MS and does not cause Alzheimer’s in the mouse.
The researchers believe the startling discovery will open new avenues in the fight against MS, a hugely debilitating condition which affects around 100,000 people in the UK. Laboratory tests also showed that A-beta countered not only visible symptoms such as paralysis, but also the increase in certain inflammatory molecules that characterizes multiple-sclerosis flare-ups.
Post menopause: Daily glass of wine 'is as good as drugs for protecting women's thin bones'
One or two glasses of wine a day could work as well as drugs at protecting older women from thinning bones. Regular moderate intake of alcohol after the menopause helps to maintain bone strength, according to an international review team.
In comparison, they say, abstaining from alcohol leads to a higher risk of developing osteoporosis.
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Experts from the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research analyzed a study by researchers at the University of Oregon that showed while women were drinking 19g of alcohol a day – about two small glasses of wine – they had a drop in loss of old bone that improved the balance between old and new bone, maintaining strength.
When the women were asked to stop drinking, their 'bone turnover' went up.
One reviewer said: 'The results suggest an effect of moderate alcohol consumption similar to the effects of bisphosphonates.'
Johannes Vermeer, A Glass of Wine
Very good news on the health front.
Replacement skin may soon be easily available for burn victims and sufferers of other skin-related conditions following a break-through in the laboratory.
Scientists have been able to engineer skin on a large-scale - growing centimeters at a time, a huge step-up from previous techniques which could grow just microns at a time.
Alzheimer’s stopped by pine cones: Brain disease pill breakthrough
A NEW pill that harnesses a chemical found in PINE CONES is tipped to become the first to prevent and delay Alzheimer’s disease.
Tests showed the once-a-day tablet — given to patients when they first show symptoms — can stop the degenerative brain condition in its tracks.
It also appeared to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s among patients who had been long diagnosed.
The pill, whose potent chemical is also found in pine tree bark, stops the body producing so-called “amyloid” proteins. These coat brain cells and cause the disease, which hits more than 820,000 Brits.
Code-named NIC5-15, the drug has been rigorously analyzed in animal tests, where it showed astounding results.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff. I like the real stuff.
Artificial Butter Flavoring Ingredient Linked to Key Alzheimer's Disease Process
A new study raises concern about chronic exposure of workers in industry to a food flavoring ingredient used to produce the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma of microwave popcorn, margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products. It found evidence that the ingredient, dactyl (DA), intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease.
The study appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
Some interesting articles that you may have missed.
When Hyphen Boy Meets Hyphen Girl, Names Pile Up "We had the potential of being the McKenna-Thomas Camera-Smith household. Which sounded too much like a law firm, really."
PJ Tatler What Obama could learn from West Wing
The president’s speech calls to mind a second-season West Wing episode, in which speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) explains to the staff of some liberal house members why he won’t insert a line in President Bartlet’s upcoming speech. They want the president to attack Republican tax cut proposals as financing “private jets and swimming pools” for the wealthy. As Seaborn argues:
Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said, “It’s time for the rich to pay their fair share,” I hid under a couch and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year, which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in income tax. I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other people. And I’m happy to ’cause that’s the only way it’s gonna work, and it’s in my best interest that everybody be able to go to schools and drive on roads, but I don’t get twenty-seven votes on Election Day. The fire department doesn’t come to my house twenty-seven times faster and the water doesn’t come out of my faucet twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let’s not call them names while they’re doing it, is all I’m saying.
The CEO of Peregrine Financial, a futures trading brokerage firm in Iowa, is accused of stealing over $200 million of the customers' money over a 20 year period. This is one mistake that Russ Wasendorf made.
The bigger mistake was trying to commit suicide and leaving notes for his business partners and his wife. That leaves no question he was trying to commit suicide. He made the mistake of hooking his tailpipe exhaust to a hose into his car as his suicide method.
Being a successful CEO he undoubtedly has a new car. In order to asphyxiate yourself with carbon monoxide you must use an automobile dating before 1992. Since then catalytic converters have been so successful that there is not sufficient carbon monoxide to commit suicide.
The Washington Post admits that Dan Quayle was right 20 years ago about Murphy Brown; single parenthood should be discouraged.
Why you should 'grin and bear life's problems - it's good for the heart. Your grandma was right again.
Ed Driscoll, Reality, What a Concept . For example, what the liberal Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam discovered about ethnic diversity.
...as communities become more ethnically diverse they in fact become socially frayed. In a survey that included interviews with over thirty thousand people, Putnam found that as a community becomes more ethnically and socially varied, social trust plummets. People tend to “hunker down,” in Putnam’s words banding together with a shrunken and shrinking group of friends or alone in front of the TV. Trust in political leaders, the political process, and even voting decline precipitously. Volunteerism, from charitable giving to carpooling, deteriorates. Political activism increases as people look to government to solve problems that once might have been solved by a simple conversation across a coffee table or a shared fence between neighbors.
Note: Putnam did not find that diversity fuels racism; the vast bulk of the people interviewed for the study were not bigots. What he found was that diversity promotes alienation, disengagement, and social isolation. This all runs counter to a host of prevailing clichés and pieties.
In Nature, The mind reader
Adrian Owen has found a way to use brain scans to communicate with people previously written off as unreachable. Now, he is fighting to take his methods to the clinic.
Walter Kirn Confessions of an Ex-Mormon. A very affecting personal history of America’s most misunderstood religion.
IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk
Hidden behind this seemingly routine update on bureaucratic processes is an astonishing and entirely unreported story. The IPCC is the world's most prominent source of alarmist predictions and claims about man-made global warming. Its four reports (a fifth report is scheduled for release in various parts in 2013 and 2014) are cited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. and by national academies of science around the world as "proof" that the global warming of the past five or so decades was both man-made and evidence of a mounting crisis.
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In 2010, we learned that much of what we thought we knew about global warming was compromised and probably false. On June 27, the culprits confessed and promised to do better. But where do we go to get our money back?
Diesel won't save you money. Great diesel myth: They DON'T save you money and petrol models 'are more economical for most makes of car'
"Totally re-writing" fashion history is the discovery of medieval bras and bikini panties from the 15th century
Doctors hail jab that can stop Alzheimer's in its tracks for three years. Bad news: it won't be on the market for years. Extensive human trials are next
I don't bee-lieve it! Man, 62, cures painful eye infection with 99p jar of honey
A man who spent eight years searching for a cure for a chronic eye condition was amazed when he finally found the remedy in a 99p jar of Tesco Value honey. Frank Dougan, 62, lost his left eye when he was shot with a bow and arrow in a childhood accident and he later developed a painful infection called blepharitis. He visited doctors and eye specialists and spent a fortune on different drops over the years but nothing worked.
But he was finally cured when he cut his hand while on holiday in Jerusalem and he was advised to put honey on it. Surprised by the results, when he returned home to Glasgow he bought a jar of Tesco Value Honey and tried it on his eyelid - and within weeks the infection had cleared.
He said yesterday: 'It’s unbelievable. It’s incredibly effective. I have spent a fortune on prescription eye drops over the years, I have a fridge full of them.
'It’s funny that at the end of it all the cure would come in the form of a 99p jar of honey from the supermarket. And it’s not bad on toast either.'
Everyone should have a jar or more of honey stored away for emergencies.
The FDA quietly acknowledged the benefits of honey when it approved a line of honey-based wound dressings.
Using honey to treat wounds is nothing new; even ancient civilizations used it in this manner. However, this is the sort of thing that usually gets relegated to "folk healing". It seems scientifically obvious: honey is very acidic (antibacterial), and it produces its own hydrogen peroxide when combined with the fluid which drains from a wound! The extremely high sugar content of honey means it contains very little water. So, it draws the pus and fluid from the wound, thereby speeding the healing process. Furthermore, the honey contains powerful germ-fighting phytochemicals from the plants that produced the pollen harvested by the honeybees.
All you want to know about the Benefits of Honey
A Phase I trial assessing the drug's safety in human patients is under way
One pill with the potential to treat conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and strokes has been unveiled by scientists. Given early enough, it may even be able to stop full-blown Alzheimer’s from taking hold.
It works by dampening down the inflammation thought to be at least partly to blame for many degenerative brain conditions, as well damage caused by head injuries and strokes. Animal tests have been encouraging and the pill has been given to humans for the first time, although the results have yet to be released. Early results from animal studies suggest it could be effective against a plethora of devastating brain conditions.
They include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), motor neuron disease, frontotemporal dementia, and complications from traumatic brain injury.
Two of the drugs, known as MW151 and MW189, have been patented by US scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago. They work by blocking excess production of damaging immune system signaling molecules called pro-inflammatory cytokines. New research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience showed how early treatment with MW151 prevented the development of full-blown Alzheimer's in laboratory mice. Scientists say the drugs offer a completely different approach to treating the disease to others currently being tested. These target the accumulation of beta amyloid protein deposits in the brain which are a key feature of Alzheimer's.
'Fake tan can cause fertility problems'. Users are warned that lotions could harm unborn babies and trigger cancer.
Women who use fake tan could put themselves at an increased risk of fertility problems and having babies with birth defects, according to experts.
Although seen as a safe alternative to sun beds, the products can contain a ‘cocktail’ of chemicals which may pose a risk to health – and can even cause cancer. Among the dangerous ingredients found in fake tan are hormone-disrupting compounds, which can affect the healthy development of babies.
The products often also contain carcinogens, including formaldehyde and nitrosamines, as well as skin irritants and chemicals linked to allergies, diabetes, obesity and fertility problems. The potentially dangerous effects of fake tan are thought to be more worrying than for other cosmetics as it is applied over the whole body regularly.
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The active ingredient in fake tanning products is dihydroxyacetone, which reacts with the amino acids on the skin to turn it brown. When it is sprayed on to the body, it is often inhaled and absorbed into the bloodstream. Scientists say it could damage DNA and cause tumors. They also claim the chemical may worsen asthma and other lung problems, such as emphysema.
Doctors hail jab that can stop Alzheimer's in its tracks for three years. Bad news: it won't be on the market for years. Extensive human trials are next.
Another reason I'm glad I stocked up on incandescent bulbs. Those curly energy-saving light bulbs can fry your skin
Researchers at Stony Brook University in New York State examined the impact of the efficient compact fluorescent bulbs - or CFL bulbs - on human skin cells prompted by a similar study undertaken in Europe.
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Cells exposed to CFLs experienced the same trauma as sun burnt skin, they found. Ms Rafailovich said incandescent light of the same intensity had no effect on healthy skin cells at all.
Fabulous news. Nanoparticle Completely Eradicates Hepatitis C Virus As Instapundit says 'Faster please."
Contemptible. Striking SEIU workers intentionally endangered CT nursing home patients says company. Union negotiations on a new contract collapsed, so workers walked out.
HealthBridge Management Health Care Centers alleged that union employees in at least three of its facilities intentionally mixed up or removed patient name plates, photos, medical bracelets and dietary advisories as they began their strike. Additionally, the police reports include allegations of both vandalism and larceny.
Too Much Water Bigger Threat Than Too Little Athletes pay attention.
Nearly 18,000 cases of whooping cough have been reported in the U.S. so far this year, the AP reports, setting the country on pace for the highest number of cases of the contagious and sometime fatal disease since 1959.
The CDC is recommending that adults — especially pregnant women — get vaccinated to keep kids from getting the bacterial disease.
Gut check. What do heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, stroke and cancer have in common? Belly fat.
Inflammation can spiral out of control and increase the risk for disease. ...When inflammation becomes chronic it can damage heart valves and brain cells, trigger strokes, and promote resistance to insulin, which leads to diabetes. It also is associated with the development of cancer.
"We've learned that abdominal fat tissue is a hotbed of inflammation that pours out all kinds of inflammatory molecules,"
Fiber and dairy foods can help.
What Clementines Can Teach Surgeons
Consumer Reports Extends Its Ratings to Doctors
The economic impact of the increased oil production in North Dakota over the last year is the equivalent to more than 1,000 new $8-10 million small businesses being created in the state, which have created 7,000 new direct jobs in the oil business over the last year, and more than 26,000 new jobs in total throughout the state.
Via, Kottke's The fall and rise of the baguette, comes Time to Rise, how an amateur baker learned the secret of artisan bread in Paris. Baguettes are my favorite bread ever since my junior year abroad. Alas, I'm not in Paris, but I do buy very good baguettes at nearby Wilson's Farm.
Over at bookofjoe are some beautiful Camouflaged Self-Portraits by Cecilia Paredes
Atheists have the lowest retention rate of any "religious" group
According to a new survey by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, Black Women are more religious than any other group
when respondents were asked how much of a role God or faith plays when they are trying to get through tough times in life – 86 percent of black women said it was very important, compared to 66 percent of white women, 79 percent of black men, and only 51 percent of white men, who turned out to be the least religious group among the respondents to the poll.
Norway is one of the richest countries in the world with no deb; in fact ,the government runs a surplus but The Norwegian 'Miracle' may be attributable to reasons you wouldn't imagine.
Measurements stretching back to 138BC prove that the Earth is slowly cooling due to changes in the distance between the Earth and the sun.The finding may force scientists to rethink current theories of the impact of global warming.It is the first time that researchers have been able to accurately measure trends in global temperature over the last two millennia. … Over that time, the world has been getting cooler - and previous estimates, used as the basis for current climate science, are wrong. Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun. …The finding was based on semi-fossilised tree rings found in Finnish lapland.
Researchers reveal how much money you need to be happy which may be less than you think. Don't Indulge. Be Happy.
The Great Indoors of Childhood's End. Phenomenal graphic showing the mobility of 8 year-olds over 4 generations.
In 1919, George, the great-grandfather of the family, was allowed to walk six mile by himself to go fishing at Rother Valley. In 1950, Jack, the grandfather, was allowed to walk one mile by himself to go play in the woods nearby. Like his father, he walked to school. In 1979, Vicky, the mother, could walk by herself to the swimming pool, half a mile away. In 2007, Ed, the son, was only able to walk to the end of the street on his own - a mere 300 yards. He was driven to school, and even to a place where he could ride his bike safely.
A glass of wine a day 'protects women against brittle bones'
Researchers in the US found the bones of women used to having one or two drinks a day several times a week grew weaker once they stopped for two weeks. Even more surprising was that less than a day after they resumed their normal regular drinking their ‘bone turnover’ rates - a measure of density - returned to previous levels.
Fat is Officially Incurable (According to Science
The number of people who go from fat to thin, and stay there, statistically rounds down to zero. Every study says so. No study says otherwise. None.
Obamacare is driving away doctors according to a poll by he recent Doctor Patient Medical Association
90% say the medical system is on the WRONG TRACK
83% say they are thinking about QUITTING
61% say the system challenges their ETHICS
85% say the patient-physician relationship is in a TAILSPIN
65% say GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT is most to blame for current problems
72% say individual insurance mandate will NOT result in improved access care
49% say they will STOP accepting Medicaid patients
74% say they will STOP ACCEPTING Medicare patients, or leave Medicare completely
2 out of 3 say they are JUST SQUEAKING BY OR IN THE RED financially
Hubble captures bubble of gas blasting out of dying star as its nuclear heart burns out. The eye in the sky.
In a couple of years, you'll be looking for Keep 32 in the toothpaste and mouthwash you buy.
New chemical makes teeth 'cavity proof' - and could do away with dentist visits forever
A new chemical could make human teeth 'cavity proof' - and do away with the need for visits to the dentists forever. The molecule has been called 'Keep 32' - after the 32 teeth in a human mouth.
The chemical was designed by dentists in Chile, and wipes out all the bacteria that cause cavities in just 60 seconds in tests. The chemical could be added to any current dental care product, turning toothpaste, mouthwash and chewing gum into 'super cleansers' that could get rid of the underlying cause of tooth decay.
The chemical targets 'streptococcus mutans', the bacteria that turns the sugar in your mouth into lactic acid which erodes tooth enamel. By exterminating the bacteria, 'Keep 32' prevents the damage to teeth before it happens. Using a product containing the chemical keeps your teeth 'cavity proof' for several hours.
The product has been under test for seven years, and is now going into human trials. It could be on the market in 14 to 18 months, say researchers José Córdoba from Yale University and Erich Astudillo from the University of Chile.
Human trials are being carried out on a Virus that could wipe out cancer in double blow by killing tumor cells while triggering immune system.
A cancer-detecting breathalyzer was unveiled last week at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology. A far-cheaper alternative to CAT scans and mammograms.
Statins Sap Energy, Study Affirms. 40% of women are more tired and fatigued on simivastin. They should be prescribed with more care.
Autism research may be set back by as much as 10 years because a freezer failure at the Harvard-affiliated McLean hospital severely damaged one-third of the world's largest collection of autism brain samples.
The Farm Effect: Contact with animals and dirty environments may be one reason why farm kids have far fewer allergies.
Old people smell different not worse. In fact, much better than young or middle-aged men.
How a Pfizer CEO and Big Pharma colluded with the White House at the public's expense to pass Obamacare. Crony capitalism.
Poor brushing of teeth linked to premature cancer deaths as bacteria increase risk by up to 80%. Infection and inflammation passes from the gums into the bloodstream. Flossing is a habit everyone should acquire.
Over 100 trillion good bacteria in every human body. The results from the Human Microbiome Project. make the federal deficit seem small.
"The gut is not jam-packed with food; it is jam-packed with microbes," Proctor said. "Half of your stool is not leftover food. It is microbial biomass."
'Germs occupy every nook and cranny of your body. Health people have over 10,000 species of bacteria lining in or on them.
I know a lot of people who stopped drinking coffee because they thought caffeine was bad for them. Yet there's no evidence that that is the case.
In fact the evidence shows that moderate coffee drinking and caffeine intake seems to be a preventative against of many diseases of aging. The New England Journal of Medicine published earlier this year a study showing coffee drinkers reduced their risk of Parkinson's, stroke, type II diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and breast cancer..
Now there's a new study from the University of South Florida that coffee intake is associated with a reduced risk of dementia or late onset.
Coffee Cuts Alzheimer's Disease Risk
The reason seems to be that coffee and some other component of coffee act to boost cytokines in a way we still don't understand.
I think I'll have another cup of joe. 
The word “hospice” usually evokes a shift, a pivot from trying to cure to providing comfort and support at the end of life. Hospice workers help people through the final weeks and months of terminal illness, easing dying people’s pain and fear, bolstering their exhausted families.
But in one case I heard about recently, the word served a different function: It became a kind of magic shield. Simply saying it could protect against unwanted medical treatments for a vulnerable old woman who possibly wasn’t dying at all.
Dr. Sei Lee, a geriatrician and palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who told me the story, described this use of hospice as “an amulet to ward off overly aggressive care.” He put that potent word to use a few weeks ago; the woman in question was his mother.
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Once he wielded the amulet, “the change was fairly instantaneous.” And well-timed: The next day, as his mother awaited discharge, nurses noticed flecks of blood when she vomited, which sometimes signals internal bleeding. The normal procedure would have involved a naso-gastric tube (something Dr. Lee had tried on himself as a medical student and found intensely uncomfortable), then sedation and insertion of a second tube through her esophagus, into her small intestine. “But they didn’t do it,” Dr. Lee explained, with relief, “because she was under the care of a hospice.”
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The way to ensure the most personalized, least invasive care for Mrs. Lee was to say, in effect, “We’re taking her home to die.”
What’s wrong with this picture?
Hurrah! Groundbreaking Alzheimer's vaccine could cut cases by half and be first step towards finding cure
A groundbreaking vaccine that could cut cases of Alzheimer's disease by half has been discovered. The jab developed by scientists in Sweden could delay the onset of the debilitating illness and be the first step towards finding a cure.
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and attacks nerves, brain cells and neurotransmitters that carry messages to and from the brain. The vaccine, known as CAD10, helps patients create protective antibodies to defend against deposits that develop in the brain of sufferers.
Researchers from Karolinska Institute in Sweden and from the Swedish Brain Power Network claimed in the Lancet Neurology journal that their discovery could help people with mild to moderate versions of Alzheimer's. They found no serious side effects during the tests, which took place over three years on people aged between 50 and 80.
One in 14 people over 65 years old is affected by the disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. The risks increase with age, with around one in six people over 80 years old developing the condition. Scientists hope CAD106 can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by five years.
As a beer and milk drinker, I like this study.
Beer may contain a vitamin which can fight obesity and improve muscle strength, scientists claim. The ‘miracle molecule’, which has been found in milk and may also be present in beer and some foods, has no side effects and could even lengthen lifespan, they say.
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The snag is that the molecule, called nicotinamide riboside (NR), is extremely small, difficult to find and expensive to synthesize.
Johnan Auwerx, head of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland, said experiments using mice revealed the molecule’s potential. In an article in the specialist journal Cell Metabolism journal, Mr Auwerx called the results 'impressive' 'NR appears to play a role in preventing obesity,' said Mr Auwerx.
Working with Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, his team found mice on a high-fat diet that were fed NR gained significantly less weight – 60 per cent – than mice eating the same diet without NR supplements. Mice which were fed NR supplements over a ten-week period had better endurance performance than those who were not. They were also in better shape – and this was confirmed by observations of their muscle fibres under the microscope. The molecule works by becoming trapped in cells where it boosts the metabolism, much like resveratrol, which is found in wine. No side effects were discovered during the experiments. 'It really appears that cells use what they need when they need it, and the rest is set aside without being transformed into any kind of deleterious form,' said study author Carles Canto in a statement.
Dieters desperate to get rid of that spare tyre can finally let it all hang out. That muffin-top could actually help to regulate the immune system and provide a first line of defense against infection and viruses.
A hard-to-shift beer belly could even help regenerate damaged tissue after an injury.
The fatty membrane in the belly, called the momentum, has never seemed to serve much of a purpose.
But now the research by scientists in Chicago has shown it can be a health benefit - and their discovery could lead to the development of new drugs for organ transplant patients with auto-immune diseases such as Lupus and Crohn’s disease.
The momentum lines the abdominal cavity, covering most abdominal organs, and is where fat tissue is stored.
The research team found that cells from this membrane can differentiate into lung-type cells and bone cells.
They now believe the momentum may be assist tissue healing and regeneration.
'We now have evidence that the momentum is not just fat sitting in the belly,' said Dr Makio Iwashima, from the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.
The team also found that the cells can suppress the immune system's response to an infectious agent.
Ignored by dieters because they are 'fattening', few would class the potato as a 'wonder food' packed full of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.
But the spud is actually better for the body than traditional super foods - such as bananas, broccoli, beetroot, nuts and avocado, a study has found.
The researchers said people are wrong to shun it in favor of modern and more expensive alternatives.
A jacket potato has five-and-a-half times as much fibre as the average banana - and is packed with more vitamin C than is found in three avocados, the Daily Express reported.
Last year a separate study discovered that eating spuds twice a day can lower blood pressure - and contrary to popular perceptions it won't make you put on weight.
The new research also found that the potato contains more of the mineral selenium than the average child gets from all the seeds and nuts they consume.
The study was completed by the independent nutritionist Sigrid Gibson on behalf of the Potato Council.
The researchers analyzed the food intake of 876 children and 948 adults for the study.
Sigrid Gibson added: ' We think of bananas as being a good source of potassium, and they are, but potatoes make a more significant contribution to the diet.'
If you're depressed, don't delay getting treatment;
A Kaiser Permanente analysis shows Subjects Who Were Depressed in Middle Age Had an Elevated Risk of Dementia
The findings, published in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, add to the evidence that late-in-life depression is a likely early sign of Alzheimer's disease and suggest that chronic depression appears to increase the risk of developing vascular dementia. Adequate treatment for depression in midlife could cut the risk of developing dementia.
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To look at links between depression and dementia, Dr. Whitmer and other researchers looked at 13,535 long-term Kaiser Permanente members who had enrolled in a larger study in the period from 1964 to 1973 at ages ranging from 40 to 55 years old. Health information, including a survey that asked about depression, was collected at the time.
Eat plenty of strawberries and blueberries.
Strawberries and blueberries could delay cognitive decline among the elderly (over 65) by up to two and half years. Researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School says its all in the flavonoids which are extremely powerful anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory substances.
And find new purpose in life.
Purpose in Life May Protect Against Harmful Changes in the Brain Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease. Researchers at the Rush University Medical Center explain
“Our study showed that people who reported greater purpose in life exhibited better cognition than those with less purpose in life even as plaques and tangles accumulated in their brains,” said Patricia A. Boyle, PhD.
“These findings suggest that purpose in life protects against the harmful effects of plaques and tangles on memory and other thinking abilities. This is encouraging and suggests that engaging in meaningful and purposeful activities promotes cognitive health in old age.”
Making organ donation a thing of the past - the British lab growing human spare parts
'This is a nose we’re growing for a patient next month,’ Professor Alexander Seifalian says matter-of-factly, plucking a Petri dish from the bench beside him. Inside is an utterly lifelike appendage, swimming in red goo. Alongside it is another dish containing an ear.
‘It’s a world first,’ he says smiling.
Seifalian leads University College London’s (UCL) Department of Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine, which he jokingly calls the ‘human body parts store’. Seifalian and his team are focusing on growing replacement organs and body parts to order using a patient's own cells
As he takes me on a tour of his lab I’m bombarded with one medical breakthrough after another. At one desk he picks up a glass mould that shaped the trachea – windpipe – used in the world’s first synthetic organ transplant. At another are the ingredients for the revolutionary nano material at the heart of his creations, and just beyond that is a large machine with a pale, gossamer-thin cable inside that’s pulsing with what looks like a heartbeat. It’s an artery.
‘We are the first in the world working on this,’ Seifalian says casually.
‘Other groups have tried to tackle nose replacement with implants but we’ve found they don’t last,’ says Adelola Oseni, one of Seifalian’s team. ‘They migrate, the shape of the nose changes. But our one will hold itself completely, as it’s an entire nose shape made out of polymer.’
Looking like very thin Latex rubber, the polymer is made up of billions of molecules, each measuring just over one nanometre (a billionth of a metro), or 40,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Working at molecular level allows the material itself to be intricately detailed.
‘Inside this nano material are thousands of small holes,’ says Seifalian. ‘Tissue grows into these and becomes part of it. It becomes the same as a nose and will even feel like one.’
When the nose is transferred to the patient, it doesn’t go directly onto the face but will be placed inside a balloon inserted beneath the skin on their arm. After four weeks, during which time skin and blood vessels can grow, the nose can be monitored, then it can be transplanted to the face.
At the Mayo Clinic, similar exciting work is going on as they as also Growing Your Own Organs, in this case, heart tissue.
As more evidence piles up, Vitamin D is truly a miracle vitamin
Vitamin D supplements 'could cut blood pressure as effectively as some drugs'
Taking vitamin D supplements could cut blood pressure by as much as some drugs, claim researchers.
A new study shows supplements lowered blood pressure in patients diagnosed with hypertension - high blood pressure - compared with those taking ‘dummy’ pills.
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked with high blood pressure, but until now there has been little scientific evidence that topping up levels of the vitamin in the blood makes a difference.
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High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
Study leader Dr Thomas Larsen said ‘Probably the majority of Europeans have vitamin D deficiency, and many of these will also have high blood pressure.
‘What our results suggest is that hypertensive patients can benefit from vitamin D supplementation if they have vitamin D insufficiency.
Check: A high blood pressure reading is one that exceeds 140/90 millimeters of mercury
‘Vitamin D would not be a cure for hypertension in these patients, but it may help, especially in the winter months.
A physician writes Before You Ditch The Hospital, Don't Forget To Do These 5 Things
The day we get to go home from the hospital after a surgery or sickness …[is] a major step from illness to recovery, but it is also a potential disaster for the ill-prepared.
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Hospital stays are getting shorter every year and discharge doesn't occur when you are healed, but instead at a point where you can go to a less expensive location to recover. Most commonly, that place is your home. The only guaranteed aspect of your transition home is that it will not go as planned. You will be bombarded with more information than you can keep straight.
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1. MEDICATIONS: It seems obvious, but this is the greatest source of confusion. …. You need to have your nurse or doctor carefully go over your old and new list [of medications] to make sure everyone is on the same page. Another tip: Only use one pharmacy, so that the pharmacist will have a record of all your medicines and can identify any potential problems. Have the hospital or pharmacy fax your final list of medications to your primary doctor. So often the doctor who takes care of you in the hospital is not the doctor who will follow you once you go home.
2. RED FLAGS:…Don't settle for the computer-generated form that the hospital hands out to patients. Ask your doctor for your specific condition's red flags. How much pain is too much pain? How long will it continue to hurt when you urinate? How much longer will I be coughing? Is there anything special that should make me run to the hospital, rather than call my doctor?
3. WHO TO CALL: Get the specific phone numbers of who to call if there is a problem. My wife had surgery on a Friday, so I asked the doctor for the name of who would be on call that weekend, and if he would let them know that we were out there. Make sure that someone at the hospital you are leaving lets your primary care doctor know that you are loose on the street. I always give patients a copy of their entire lab and x-ray reports to carry back to their main doctor. If they get into trouble before a scheduled appointment, then they have the critical information with them.
4. FOLLOW-UP: One of the main causes of readmission to the hospital is that the patient has not had appropriate follow-up after they leave the hospital. You may be told to see your regular doctor in 10 days, but when you call, they cannot see you for six weeks. Have the nurse or case manager at the hospital you are leaving call and make the appointment. Insist on it.
5. START A NOTEBOOK: . As a rule, when you come home from the hospital you have bundles of papers, some important and others destined for the recycling bin. Stick the important ones in a notebook or folder….. Take your notebook with you to each doctor's visit so you have a list of your medicines, doctor's names, laboratory results, and instructions all in one place.
If you cannot get all of these questions answered yourself, then assign one family member to be in charge of the process. It is our -- your healthcare providers' -- responsibility to make sure you get the information, but ultimately, it is going to be your responsibility to remember everything, and make sure you have all of your facts straight. Whether you believe it is fair or not, no one is going to organize all this for you -- it is your responsibility, and in your best interests, to get it together.
Breast cancer is effectively ten different diseases, according to breakthrough research that could revolutionize treatment.
The biggest study of its kind in the world has classified the country’s most common cancer into ten separate types.
The finding brings doctors closer to the holy grail of tailoring treatments to individual women. The rewriting of the rule book on breast cancer could also lead to new drugs and better diagnostic tests.
Dr Julia Wilson, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: ‘This is incredibly exciting research which has the potential to change the face of breast cancer; from how we diagnose and treat it, to how we follow it up afterwards.’
However, the need for more research means it will be three to five years before women with breast cancer can start widely reaping the benefits of the shake-up in treatment.
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The painstaking analysis of the genetics of 2,000 tumors, including many from women in London, Cambridge and Nottingham, has revealed there to be ten sub-types of the disease. Each tumor within a particular group shares similar genes and different women with the same type have similar odds of survival.
The ‘exquisitely detailed’ analysis also revealed several new genes that drive the growth and spread of the disease. This opens the door for the development of drugs that counter their effects. Knowledge of the genetics of each type of the disease will also speed the development of drugs, allowing women to have treatments tailored to their tumor. A handful of such ‘wonder-drugs’, including Herceptin, are already in use.
New treatment for prostate cancer gives 'perfect results' for nine in ten men: research
A new treatment for prostate cancer can rid the disease from nine in ten men without debilitating side effects, a study has found, leading to new hope for tens of thousands of men.
It is hoped the new treatment, which involves heating only the tumors with a highly focused ultrasound, will mean men can be treated without an overnight stay in hospital and avoiding the distressing side effects associated with current therapies.
A study has found that focal HIFU, high-intensity focused ultrasound, provides the 'perfect' outcome of no major side effects and free of cancer 12 months after treatment, in nine out of ten cases.
Traditional surgery or radiotherapy can only provide the perfect outcome in half of cases currently.
Experts have said the results are 'very encouraging' and were a 'paradigm' shift in treatment of the disease.
How aspirin might inhibit the spread of cancer
Aspirin and other household drugs may inhibit the spread of cancer because they help shut down the chemical "highways" which feed tumours, Australian researchers announced on Tuesday.
Scientists at Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said they have made a biological breakthrough helping explain how lymphatic vessels -- key to the transmission of tumours throughout the body -- respond to cancer.
"We've shown that molecules like the aspirin... could effectively work by reducing the dilation of these major vessels and thereby reducing the capacity of tumours to spread to distant sites," researcher Steven Stacker said.
Anorexia is a terrible disease and one very hard to overcome. So attention must be paid to this method that worked for one woman.
Aged 20, Ashley Ransley was severely anorexic, and despite her 6ft frame she weighed the same as a 12-year-old.
Doctors warned her she could have a heart attack at any moment as her body gradually shut down, and following years of failed treatments she resigned herself to a slow suicide.
But now the student from Fenton, Michigan, tips the scales at a healthy 1 1st albs and claims the experience of feeding up a malnourished cat helped her to overcome her long-term eating disorder.
Ashley, now 25, weighed just 7st 10lbs when she rescued the stray feline that had wandered onto her family’s property.
At first she thought it was a kitten because of it was so small, but vets later confirmed it was a fully grown female and extremely malnourished, weighing just three pounds.
While she helped the little animal, which she named Riley, regain weight, Ashley found she was also able to heal herself of the mental illness that had blighted her since school.
She said: 'As I worked on rehabilitating her to a healthy weight, I was focusing less and less on my eating disorder.
I began to eat when she ate, share some of my food with her, and if I got anxious and wanted to purge or over-exercise, I would use her as a distraction.
'Both malnourished and slowly regaining our health, our connection grew to more than just pet-owner attachment.
'I didn’t really want to die, and I was getting better. I called her my recovery kitty.'
Astonishing visualization from Alexander Tsiaras at TED, Conception to Birth
Here is his profile
Another beautiful image of the heart glowing in an open chest cavity at JAMA, Art from the Heart
His mission: "We want to change how people think about health, think about their bodies. The way to do that is by telling stories--beautiful, compelling, visual stories that show what an amazing thing the body is."
His company is Anatomical Travelogue is "a pioneer in illustrating the intricate details of the human body in images that are at once high-tech, anatomically faithful and artistically striking—the ultimate "insider art," he jokes."
From a feature article at Business Innovation Factory
Tsiaras isn't a doctor; he's a photographer, technologist and visionary with an expert knowledge of anatomy and a passion for the human form. The books he has produced—including From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed, The InVision Guide to a Healthy Heart and The InVision Guide to Sexual Health — have spawned educational videos and exhibits at the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
The images are 'visualizations' that Tsiaras and his team create using full-body scans, ultra-powerful microscopes and molecular modeling tools that allow him to illustrate the body in vivid detail, for both 3-D pictures and animations. He has described his work as "'Fantastic Voyage' meets the TIME-LIFE book series."
Some see Tsiaras as a digital-age Leonardo da Vinci, whose anatomical renderings set the standard for centuries. But Tsiaras describes himself in more prosaic terms.
"Most of this is just about information," he says. "I look at myself as a storyteller who works with artists and technologists."
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Anatomical Travelogue is growing rapidly—it's now at 60 employees and has amassed what Tsiaras says is the largest library of high-resolution volume data on the body in the world—and Tsiaras believes its future is limitless.
One project from the Anatomical Travelogue is The Visual MD. Anyone who is at risk for a heart attack should watch the video on Understanding Heart Attacks.
If you are used to getting a dental x-ray every year at your annual dental exam, you may want to reconsider. Maybe every other year or every third year is enough.
Study links dental X-rays and risk of benign brain tumor - frequency pivotal
Frequent dental X-rays are associated with an increased risk of developing the most common, noncancerous brain tumors, according to a new study, a finding that researchers say should serve as a reminder that even dental X-rays may be harmful if ordered too often.
Far from suggesting that people should skip dental X-rays, the researchers said that the new information should become part of the conversation people have with their dentists, especially since the American Dental Association’s guidelines suggest that healthy patients without cavities and free of risk factors should get bitewing X-rays once every one to three years, depending on their age.
The over-prescription of antibiotics to both humans and animals may well spell the end of modern medicine that we expect and feel entitled to.
Life won't be the same without antibiotics
The antibiotics used to treat even minor wounds when they become infected – as well as far more serious conditions – are rapidly losing their effectiveness, in the face of ever more resistant germs. There’s also a lack of new ones to take their place. We face the horrifying prospect of returning to the dark medical age before the discovery of penicillin, thanks both to the over-prescribing of antibiotics by doctors and – as a new report makes clear – by their virtually indiscriminate use in factory farms.
Typical journalistic scaremongering? No, but don’t take it from me. Here’s Dr Margaret Chan, who as head of the constitutionally cautious World Health Organisation (WHO) is humanity’s premier guardian of public health, speaking recently at a Danish Government conference.
“A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it,” she warned. “Things as common as a strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill. Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of pre-term infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake.”
Dr Chan described how the world is “losing” its present antibiotics, while “the pipeline is virtually dry” for new ones. Drug companies are not bothering to research or develop replacements, partly because they make much more money out of treatments for conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure – which are taken for life, rather than in short courses – and partly because they fear they will not recoup their investment before bacteria develop resistance and render the new drugs useless.
Already 25,000 Europeans die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections, while worldwide there are some 650,000 annual cases of multi-drug-resistant TB, half of which can’t be cured even with the best care. “Many common and life-threatening infections,” warns the WHO, “are becoming difficult or even impossible to treat.”
In the much touted national health service of Great Britain, life-saving treatment is denied to the elderly. Even palliative surgery!
When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat.
Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age.
His distraught daughter Michele Halligan accepted the sad prognosis but was determined her father would spend his last months in comfort. So she paid for him to seen privately by a second doctor to discover what could be done to ease his symptoms.
Thanks to her tenacity, Kenneth got the drugs and surgery he needed — and as a result his cancer was actually cured. Four years on, he is a sprightly 82-year-old who works out at the gym, drives a sports car and competes in a rowing team.
‘You could call his recovery amazing,’ says Michele, 51. ‘It is certainly a gift. But the fact is that he was written off because of his age. He was left to suffer so much, and so unnecessarily.’
Health news that will make you happy.
Popcorn has 'more antioxidants that fruit and vegetables'
Popcorn was found to have a high level of concentrated antioxidants because it is made up of just four percent water while they are more diluted in fruits and vegetables because they are made up of up to 90 percent water.... one serving of popcorn has up to 300mg of antioxidants - nearly double the 160mg for all fruits per serving..... the crunchy hulls of the popcorn have the highest concentration of antioxidants and fiber.
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Researcher Joe Vinson said: 'Those hulls deserve more respect. They are nutritional gold nuggets.'
Eating lots of chocolate helps people stay thin
The study found that people who frequently ate chocolate had a lower body mass index (BMI) than people who didn't. ... published in the March 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine,
Rubbing toothpaste on your toothpaste on your teeth 'quadruples protection against decay'. Do this after lunch or when you are away from home. This is in addition to morning brushing and evening brushing and flossing. If you fail to brush properly twice a day, fatal heart problems may be in your future.
Bacteria that loiter in the mouth can cause life-threatening blood clots which could trigger the rare condition infective endocarditis. Researchers will describe how the streptococcus gordonii bug can enter the bloodstream through bleeding gums at the Society for General Microbiology’s conference today.
A drug that helps the immune system to break down cancerous tumors has been developed.
It has worked on breast, bowel, prostate, ovarian, brain, bladder and liver cancers, while previous studies show it can also be used to fight some blood cancers.
The antibody has so far been tested only on mice, but researchers hope to give it to people within two years....the need for extensive proof that the drug is safe as well as effective means that its widespread use is about a decade away.
Aspirin, of course.
An Aspirin a day cuts cancer risk after just three years
The cheap drug not only appears to stop cancers developing in the first place, but also prevents them from spreading to other parts of the body, the new work shows.
Those who start taking low dose (75mg) aspirin daily in their 60s appear to benefit just as much as those who start taking it earlier.
The studies, presented today in The Lancet, add to the argument that low-dose aspirin should be taken widely from middle-age, said the lead author, Professor Peter Rothwell, of Oxford University's Stroke Prevention Research Unit.
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Prof Rothwell said the new research showed that aspirin had a far greater effect on reducing cancer than reducing heart attacks and strokes. Nine out of 10 deaths it prevented were "non-vascular", according to one of the studies.
Aspirin really deserves the name 'wonder drug'.
The news that a daily dose of aspirin can reduce the risk of certain cancers and prevent cancer spreading is only the latest in a long series of discoveries showing the drug's extraordinary potential.
Aspirin is a real wonder drug: its usefulness (as willow-bark extract, for fever and pain) was known to the ancients; it seems to have myriad benefits; and yet its mechanisms remain mysterious. When it was first synthesised, as acetylsalicylic acid, in the 1850s, it was used as to relieve the pains of "rheumatism", but no one had any idea how it worked.
It's still a mystery about how it works.
When the patient is no condition to lie for himself
if you’ve been in medicine for a while you’ll know that most times, the reason a patient says he is about to die is because he is in fact about to die. i believed him. my blood went cold. it just didn’t fit.
If you know of any young people with a spinal injury, tell them to watch ReInventing the Wheelchair.
It just might change their lives.
Timothy Cardinal Dolan on Protecting Health Care for Women and Children
When it comes to the health of women, their babies, and their children, the Catholic Church is there, the most effective private provider of such care anywhere around.
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I could go on and on: if you want to see creative, daring, lifegiving healthcare for women and their children, look at what the Church is doing.
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We’re on the offensive when it comes to women’s health, education, and welfare, here at home, and throughout the world. We hardly need lectures on this issue from senators.
We just want to be left alone to live out the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for others. We cherish this, our earthly home, America, for its enshrined freedom to do so. Those really concerned about women’s health would be better off defending the Church’s freedom to continue its work.
A couple of years ago I visited a woman’s prison. The warden asked me if I wanted to visit the expectant and new mothers’ healthcare center. It then dawned on me that, of course, some women would enter prison pregnant. I was so happy to see the expectant moms, getting good health care for themselves and their unborn babies, and to see the moms with babies under two getting classes in childrearing and parenting skills, with the babies receiving tender care right next to their moms. When I told the warden how grateful I was to see such excellent care for these women and children, he replied, “Thank yourself. Catholic Charities runs it.”
We can not grasp the degree of social chaos that will result if Catholic schools, hospitals and charities are forced to shut down because of the HHS mandate.
The Anchoress comments
The lie that the church “hates” women and wants to keep them down is an an old one and a lazy one and a convenient one, and — unsurprisingly, it’s the lie the media and folks with an agenda will run with. Reality, of course, is quite different and can’t be explained in a slogan or with a bumper sticker:
A don't miss video that can't be embedded. Rita Hayworth Dancing to Stayin' Alive.
A wonderful piece, Simcha Fisher's A Little Proof of a Large Thing.
If she looks down and then moves her eyes in a sweeping motion across the floor it almost certainly means that she is attracted to someone. But an instant stare into a man's eyes or over his head on meeting is very bad news for a suitor
'Pink slime' sounds gross, but how does it taste?
The pink slime burger also was perfectly seared and drew me in with an equally alluring aroma. But no juices collected on the plate. Or dribbled out. Or were apparent in the meat in really any way. The taste was - OK...t was not bad. But nor was it good. It was flat. I added more salt. No. It was simply one-dimensional....And then there was the texture. Unpleasantly chewy bits of what I can only describe as gristle, though they were not visible, seemed to stud the meat of the pink slime burger. The result was a mealy chew that, while not overtly unpleasant, didn't leave me wanting another bite.
Menopause 'brain fog' is real, study confirms No surprise to millions of women.
The less you sleep, the fatter you become. Tiredness makes us eat more, about 500 calories more on average.
You can see how white the cliffs of Dover are when a part collapses. Thousands of tons of chalk crash into sea after frost and drought.
The extraordinary hyper-realistic pencil drawings of Paul Cadden PENCIL!
So many accounting tricks were used to 'reduce' the apparent cost of Obamacare so that it could be pushed through Congress, we are only now beginning to learn its true costs as Philip Klein points out.
President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
That's twice as expensive as we thought. If a car dealer did this, he would rightly be accused of "bait and switch".
Of course, these numbers are so large, it's impossible to grasp them.
My faith in the inherent soundness of the American citizenry is strengthened when 75% of Americans are against Obamacare and a clear majority think it's a bad thing, according to a CNN/Gallup poll.
One example of a very bad thing that's received too little attention: the unaccountable, unelected Central Committee of Obamacare, the IPAB, will not be required to tell us what regulations they plan to enact and whatever regulations they do promulgate will not be reviewable either in administrative proceedings or in the courts. The IPAB is the rationing board, the ultimate in government price control.
Last week, 24 medical organizations representing 350,000 doctors urged Congress to repeal Medicare’s new Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). That’s the right prescription for improving American health care and protecting access to innovative treatments for seniors.
Getting rid of the health care rationing board
The IPAB is the ultimate backstop to try to reining in the costs of the gigantic new entitlement...If the IPAB survives, it’s predictable what will occur: It will try small steps and then larger and more onerous ones aimed at reining in costs. And when all those fail, the reimbursement rates will be slashed. The Democrats may declare “rationing” isn’t in the cards, but when health-care providers can’t be adequately reimbursed, they limit or eliminate certain treatment options.
Even Democrats are joining the Independent Payment Advisory Revolt
The vehicle is a bill from Tennessee Republican Phil Roe that would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, the new ObamaCare bureaucracy with vast powers to control health care and health markets starting next year. A straight majority of the House has joined Mr. Roe as co-sponsors—some 234 Members, including 20 Democrats.
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This turn is remarkable because the IPAB really does embody ObamaCare's innermost I values and beliefs—to wit, that health decisions are too important to leave to the people receiving the care (patients), the people providing the care (doctors and hospitals), the people paying for the care (taxpayers), or even the people who got the government involved in the first place (politicians).
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The irony is that the White House is expanding the government-run health care that it says the government can't be trusted to run by itself, even as its unaccountable, unelected board undermines democratic consent. The IPAB was relieved of the normal checks and balances of notice-and-comment rulemaking, and its edicts aren't subject to administrative or even judicial review. Consumers have far more rights of legal recourse under the private health plans that Mr. Obama deplores.
Walter Russell Mead, 50% of UK Nursing Home Patients Abused By Government Health Care
Fans of government health care keep telling us that government can do the job, and they point to countries like the UK as examples where single payer, government run health care systems deliver high quality, compassionate care.
They are either grossly ignorant or they are lying through their teeth.
A recent study by a British healthcare regulator finds that half of all elderly people in Britain’s nursing homes are being denied basic health services.
Half.
And you can't fire them.
Quite apart from the encroachment on religious freedom that the government mandate that all employers must offer free birth control, abortifacients and sterilization to their employees, comes the issue of birth control. The way Democrats are talking about it, birth control is an unqualified good and ought to be given away free. They call it a "women's health issue" but let's take a look at just how healthy birth control pills are. Not that I would outlaw birth control pills, but I believe that just as we put warning signs on cigarette packages, women should know the truth about the risks they take when they begin taking the pill.
The Pill Is Not Good for Women
Women on the whole disproportionately bear the burden of the new sexual regime. They are expected to dose themselves with a Group 1 carcinogen for approximately two-thirds of their fertile years. They sustain greater emotional costs from casual sex. They are at greater risk of contracting STDs and disproportionately suffer from their long-term consequences, such as cervical cancer and fertility loss.And even after 50 years with the Pill, as many as half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Women, not men, must make the heart-wrenching choice between abortion, reckoned a tragic outcome even by its supporters, and bearing a child with little to no paternal support. After all, since children were negotiated out of the bargain by the availability of contraception and abortion, men have secured a strong rationale to simply ignore or reject pregnancies that result from uncommitted sexual relations. Nobel-laureate economist George Akerlof predicted nearly two decades ago that this would lead directly to the feminization of poverty, as it ruefully has.
hormonal contraceptives have been declared a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO). A carcinogen is a substance that causes cancer, by causing changes in the DNA structure of cells. Estrogen-progestogen contraceptives have achieved the dubious distinction of sharing this carcinogenic ranking with such toxic substances as arsenic, asbestos and plutonium. But unlike arsenic, asbestos, plutonium this is one carcinogen the government will recommend for perfectly healthy women.
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The carcinogenic information about the pill is itself a bitter pill for doctors to swallow. Dr. Lanfranchi said:“25 years down in my career, when I hear that I’ve been handing out a Group 1 carcinogen for the last 25 years, I’m going to be resistant to that."
Since 1975, there has been a 400 percent increase in breast cancer among pre-menopausal women. This mirrors the increased use of birth control over these same years.
A Mayo Clinic study confirms that any girl or woman who is on hormonal birth control for four years prior to her first full-term pregnancy increases her breast cancer risk by 52 percent.
Women who use hormonal birth control for more than five years are four times more likely to develop cervical cancer.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, classifies all forms of hormonal contraception as Group 1 carcinogens. This group of cancer-causing agents also includes cigarettes and asbestos. How is it that the Food and Drug Administration can require cigarette manufacturers to place warning labels and photos of corpses on cigarette packages to warn consumers of the health dangers while they take the equally harmful substance of hormonal birth control and force companies to give it away free to women of all ages?
No religious organization, Business Insider writes Time to Admit It. The Church Has Been Right on Birth Control
Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It's given us some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it's not that they're a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.
The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That's it. But it's pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it's probably never been as salient as today.
Today's injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:
• General lowering of moral standards
• A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy
• The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men.
• Government coercion in reproductive matters.
Does that sound familiar? Because it sure sounds like what's been happening for the past 40 years.
So why are these facts so little known? James Taranto writes about Unthinkable Thoughts or how feminism deforms intellectual culture.
Rick Santorum's view that advances in birth control have had deleterious social consequences, most notably in contributing to the breakdown of the family. To our surprise, a not-insignificant number of our readers have pushed back against this idea, which some find counterintuitive and others downright unthinkable.
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The Food and Drug Administration approved the pill for contraceptive use in 1960. Over the next half-century, the marriage rate declined and the illegitimacy rate skyrocketed,
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Santorum's argument is not really all that counterintuitive. It posits that the availability of birth control changed the culture in ways that encouraged illegitimacy. There is scholarly support for this hypothesis, in the form of a 1996 study in The Quarterly Journal of Economics
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Santorum is doing a service to American intellectual culture by giving voice to ideas the feminist elite would like to decree unthinkable.
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But when a decent young man professes a desire to marry an old-fashioned girl and take financial responsibility for his family, Yoffe treats him as a deviant. She denounces him as "sexist" even though he is careful to affirm that women have every right to work outside the home if they choose to do so. He mentions nothing about politics, yet she feels compelled to bring Santorum, the feminists' Emmanuel Goldstein, into the mix.
Within a day of his eczema being infected Marc was dead
One Wednesday night last February, Marc Franks, a fit, 38-year-old company director, mentioned a patch of eczema on his right arm.
As his wife Barbara recalls: ‘I’d given birth to our fourth child three months before, so I didn’t really pay much attention. Marc said the eczema was cracked, dry and probably infected. But he said the pain wasn’t too bad — he’d had eczema before and it always cleared up, so we weren’t too worried.’
The next morning, he said he felt fine and went off to work, leaving Barbara, 38, at home in Didsbury, Manchester, with daughters Ashlea, seven, and Rowan, four, and sons Thomas, five, and Owen, now 15 months.
But Marc felt so unwell that he returned home to spend the day in bed. The couple assumed he’d picked up the winter vomiting bug that had affected the rest of the family. He had an upset stomach and Barbara made sure he kept well hydrated.
He died of sepsis that same day.
Do you know the warning signs of sepsis? Would you mistake it for the flu?
There are 102,000 cases of sepsis (previously known as blood poisoning or septicaemia) each year in Britain and it kills 37,000 people — more than breast, bowel and prostate cancer combined. Sepsis is also the biggest killer of pregnant women, who are particularly susceptible because their immune systems are suppressed in pregnancy. However, it can strike any age.
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What few realise is that there doesn’t have to be a cut or wound to get blood poisoning. ‘Any type of infection — including chest infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, burst ulcers, appendicitis, bites and skin infections such as eczema can trigger sepsis,’ says Dr Daniels.
‘And it can kill rapidly — within 24 hours in some cases — so spotting it early is vital.’
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says Dr Daniels. ‘The problem is that symptoms can be similar to flu and be non-specific — but there are key symptoms that set it apart.’
These are a rapid heart rate, a high or very low temperature (below 36c or above 38.3c), shallow rapid breathing and confusion or slurring. Dr Daniels says patients with two or more of these symptoms should seek medical advice.
‘If a patient also has cold, pale or mottled skin, loses consciousness or has not passed water for more than 18 hours, they need to be taken to hospital as an emergency as soon as possible.’
Instapundit points to an article in the MIT Technology Review about Personalizing Cancer Drugs from Foundation Medicine, a company that is offering a test that helps oncologists choose drugs targeted to the genetic profile of a patient's tumor cells.
“Starting this spring, for about $5,000, any oncologist will be able to ship a sliver of tumor in a bar-coded package to Foundation’s lab. Foundation will extract the DNA, sequence scores of cancer genes, and prepare a report to steer doctors and patients toward drugs, most still in early testing, that are known to target the cellular defects caused by the DNA errors the analysis turns up. Pellini says that about 70 percent of cases studied to date have yielded information that a doctor could act on—whether by prescribing a particular drug, stopping treatment with another, or enrolling the patient in a clinical trial.”
If this article doesn't encourage you to start getting enough Vitamin D, you're a hopeless case.
Sunshine, Vitamin D and Death by Scientific Consensus
The "consensus" on sunlight exposure has badly misled us towards massive vitamin D deficiencies
The “scientific consensus” that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old “settled science” is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient....
Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.
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In truth, however, sensible sun exposure and vitamin D3 supplementation would do far more for our national health than the current health care bill. Even better, the benefits to society could be achieved without spending hundreds of billions of dollars. If an “Army of Davids” took it upon itself to spread the word, they could achieve what government is apparently incapable of achieving.
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Though Holick began documenting the connection between vitamin D insufficiencies or deficiencies thirty years ago, the scientific floodgates have opened in the last year or two. Word of this massive body of evidence has only really begun to permeate the scientific community in the last few months.
Optimal vitamin D serum blood levels, attained through sunlight or supplementation, dramatically reduce the risk of many diseases other than bone maladies. Many of the most serious are ameliorated by an astonishing 50 to 85 percent. These diseases include cancers, from breast and colon to deadly melanoma skin cancers.
Yes, that’s right. The really nasty skin cancers can be prevented by getting moderate, sensible sunshine or through vitamin D supplementation. Non-melanoma skin cancers do increase somewhat with sun exposure, especially with sun burns. These skin cancers, however, are relatively benign as they tend not to spread into other parts of the body. They are easily detected and removed because they appear on skin exposed to the sun.
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The big killers and most expensive diseases respond similarly to adequate D. I’m talking about hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. So do type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes (to a lesser extent), rheumatoid arthritis, peripheral vascular disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, autoimmune diseases, and apparently even viral diseases such as H1N1 and AIDS.
I predict that other diseases will also be linked to vitamin D insufficiencies as more studies are performed. Even conditions such as autism and schizophrenia may be directly related to prenatal or infantile vitamin D deficiency.
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Many of the benefits of D, incidentally, appear rapidly. Holick and others who prescribe D in clinical situations report that patients often experience dramatic improvements in quality of life within months. Not only do hypertension and bone density respond quickly, the neuromuscular impact of D is such that many of those who experience body pains and muscular weakness are relieved quickly when their serum blood levels are adjusted. Depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and various other maladies can respond extremely quickly to the sunshine vitamin.
How a diagnosis of stage III stomach cancer profoundly changes an oncologist
By the reckoning of my physicians, survival was a percentage, and a horrible one — fifteen to seventy percent if I completed the treatment regimen. That seemed to be an incredibly wide spread. More and more I found myself thinking about percentages. If I completed the regimen and the disease returned, there were seemingly no other viable treatment options. It was morphine and palliative care. I was 39 years old. Death was a 100 percent certainty, eventually. So did it matter?
During one particularly desperate moment, I decided that I had had enough. I refused further treatment. I lay in my bed without anxiety, comfortable that I had made the correct decision. I watched the events around me, including the distress of my husband, Brian.
My doctors couldn’t override it or persuade me to change my mind, but, luckily, my husband, Brian, could and did. From my mental cocoon, Brian was by my side convincing me to finish treatment.
My dreams of dying were not the products of anxious moments of terror. I was simply incapable of making the right decision for myself. My doctors were professional but ultimately could not decide for me. When neither doctor nor patient can make the right decision, it is vital to have a caring family member advocate on your behalf. Without Brian, and his tireless commitment to my recovery, I wouldn’t be here today.
While I am still battling cancer and have not yet returned to work nor am I leading a normal life, my illness has changed me profoundly as a physician. No amount of doctoring can prepare you for being a patient. During the past year, I have endured multiple treatment methods, metastasis, and most recently the discovery of a brain tumor that threatens my eyesight. The past year has been full of the most vulnerable moments in my life.
If anything, it’s that recognition of vulnerability as well as expertise that makes me a better doctor today.
Carbonated drinks what we call Soda is linked to lung disease
More bad news for soda lovers: in addition to obesity and heart disease, the sugary drinks may be tied to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Australian researchers found.
People who consumed at least a half a liter of soft drinks a day were more than twice as likely to develop either lung condition compared with those who didn't partake at all (OR 2.33, 95% CI 1.51 to 3.60), Zumin Shi, MD, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, and colleagues reported in Respirology.
The cross-sectional study, however, couldn't prove causality, and researchers not involved in the study suspect an overall unhealthy diet effect might be at play.
"High soda intake is a good marker for poor overall diet, and poor overall attention to health," David Katz, MD, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.,
Ovarian cancer is one of the most feared diseases, as it hard to detect and often leads to death.
And efforts to concoct a solution have been futile, as the cure rate has only been bumped up by two percent in the last three decades.
But a research team at McGill appears to have made a breakthrough by learning that the cancer actual begins in the fallopian tubes.
"We were barking the wrong tree. the name we got it wrong, we got the origin of ovarian cancer wrong. We got the test that we should be using for this wrong," said Dr. Lucy Gilbert, the MUHC oncologist who lead the research.
The revelation has led to better screening of the hard-to-detect condition, which is frequently overlooked because its first symptoms appear benign, they include bloating and more frequent urination.
Cancer Drug reverses Alzheimer's in Mice
A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer’s disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.
Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing their Alzheimer’s started to disappear within hours, said the research in the journal Science.
“We were shocked and amazed,” lead author Gary Landreth of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio told AFP.
“Things like this had never, ever been seen before,” he said.
The drug works by boosting levels of a protein, Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), that helps clear amyloid plaque buildup in the brain, a key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
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Six hours after mice got the drug, soluble amyloid levels fell by 25 percent, ultimately reaching 75 percent reductions. The effect lasted up to three days, said the study.
Soon after taking the drug, mice performed better on tests of mental ability and showed improved responses to odors.
via Instapundit who writes "Faster, Please".
Gut microbe imbalance is catching, study finds
A study from Yale University found that both obesity and liver disease can be triggered by a family of proteins called inflammasomes that alter the balance of microbes in the stomach.
Amazingly, this altered intestinal environment can be passed on - making obesity an infectious condition.
The finding came to light during a study on stomach bacteria in mice.
Senior study author Professor Richard Flavell,said: 'When healthy mice were co-housed with mice that had altered gut microbes, the healthy mice also developed a susceptibility for development of liver disease and obesity.'
NAFLD is the result of metabolic syndrome, a collection of disorders that includes obesity and diabetes, and is the leading cause of chronic liver disease in the western world.
It is estimated that up to 30 million people suffer from NAFLD in the United States alone.
Professor Flavell said the next step will be to extend the research to see if the same effect can be seen in humans.
'We found, in mice, that targeted antibiotic treatment brought the microbial composition back to normal, and thus eased the liver disease. Our hope is that our findings may eventually lead to a treatment for humans.'
For all those who just can't get going without a Coke in the morning or in the afternoon, you better reconsider. You're far better off with coffee or tea, hot or iced.
A daily can of diet fizzy drink 'increases risk of heart attack or stroke'
Those who drink diet soft drinks daily are '43 per cent more likely' to have heart attacks
Carbonated drinks can cause long-term liver damage similar to that of chronic alcoholism
Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center claim those who drink diet soft drinks are 43 per cent more likely to have heart attacks, vascular disease or strokes than those who have none.
Previous analysis of soft drinks has shown that the soft drinks, which have a substantial amount of artificial sweeteners, can cause liver disease similar to that caused by chronic alcoholism.
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The U.S. research team studied the soft drink and diet soft drink consumption of 2,564 study participants over a 10-year period - along with their risk of stroke, heart attack and vascular death.
They found those who drank diet soft drinks every day were 43 per cent more likely to have suffered a 'vascular' or blood vessel event than those who drank none, after allowing for pre-existing vascular conditions such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure.
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The latest study appears in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
If you live and work in the northern half of the country, it's almost impossible to get enough vitamin D in the winter from sunshine alone. So take a supplement. The RDA for adults according to the National Institutes for Health is 600 IU.
Colds, heart disease, even cancer: Why the weather could be to blame
Low levels of the ‘sunshine vitamin’ have been linked to conditions ranging from colds to heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
Last week, it was reported low levels may be linked to cot death.
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Vitamin D not only helps the body absorb calcium (vital for healthy bones), but also plays a part in the immune system by helping reduce inflammation in the body.
This may explain the link with disease — chronic inflammation is thought to trigger heart disease and cancer. Vitamin D also regulates cell growth, which might explain any possible cancer link.
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It's been well known for years that low levels of the nutrient are linked to weak bones in adults and children. But there has been a spate of studies linking it to a range of major health problems, many of which are on the rise.
These include diabetes — one study last year found obese children with low levels of vitamin D were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as adults.
Another found adults with low levels had a 57 per cent increased risk of developing the disease. There could also be a link to the auto-immune condition Crohn’s disease. Researchers found patients may have a reduced ability to absorb the vitamin.
Vitamin D has been linked to cancer. A study in the BMJ showed those with the highest levels of the vitamin in their blood had a 40 per cent lower risk of bowel cancer compared to those with the lowest levels of the vitamin.
Researchers have also suggested a link between vitamin D deficiency and multiple sclerosis. Low levels have even been linked to rheumatoid arthritis.
Drinking just one glass of milk a day could boost your brain power
Milk has long been known to help build healthy bones and provide the body with a vitamin and protein boost. But now it’s being hailed as a memory aid after a study found those who regularly have milk – and other dairy products such as yoghurt, cheese and even ice cream – do better in key tests to check their brainpower.
Scientists asked 972 men and women to fill in detailed surveys on their diets, including how often they consumed dairy products, even if only having milk in their tea and coffee. The subjects, aged 23 to 98, then completed a series of eight rigorous tests to check their concentration, memory and learning abilities.
The study, published in the International Dairy Journal, showed adults who consumed dairy products at least five or six times a week did far better in memory tests compared with those who rarely ate or drank them
The researchers said: ‘New and emerging brain health benefits are just one more reason to start each day with low-fat or fat-free milk.
I get my milk in glass bottles from Crescent Ridge Dairy delivered to my front porch each week by my milkman Sean. It's the most delicious milk I've ever tasted. Maybe it's the small batch milk that makes the difference.
This is what your brain on really looks like
The MRIs of your brain on psilocybin, alcohol, marijuana and cigarettes do not look like this.
Fried food won't kill you - ask any Spanish chef
Now, a new study, published in the British Medical Journal hints at a “Spanish conundrum”. They love a bit of fried food, the Spaniards, and consume so much olive oil that one’s inclined to wonder if they think it’s one of their five-a-day.
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The BMJ study of Spanish adults finds that “the consumption of fried foods was not associated with coronary heart disease or with all cause mortality”. Nor is this some half-hearted piece of research. It's a meaningful sample of 40,000 people.
So what is their secret? Well, to start with, you won’t find deep-fried Mars Bars going down in the tapas bars of Seville and Granada. The study also makes the point that cooking is done in fresh oil.
Why a mother's love really is priceless: It prevents illness even into middle age
Tender loving care in childhood was found to reduce a person’s risk of conditions including diabetes and heart disease in adulthood, according to researchers at Brandeis University in Boston.
They examined 1,000 people from low-income backgrounds, which has been shown by a wealth of previous research to be related to poorer health in later life and lower life expectancy.
However, they found some people from disadvantaged families managed to buck this trend – and they tended to have had a loving mother.
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Psychology professor Margie Lachman said events in childhood seem to leave a ‘biological residue’ on health during adult life.
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The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.
Mark Twain, the American author and humorist once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Myths and misses about Alzheimer's Disease
1. There’s no difference between Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Dementia is the umbrella which covers all diseases that cause cognitive decline in adulthood, including Alzheimer’s disease which accounts for 60%
2. Alzheimer’s disease occurs only in the elderly. Sadly no, although it is much more common in the elderly
3. Alzheimer’s disease can be diagnosed with certainty only at autopsy. Multiple studies comparing patients’ examinations and behavior with autopsy findings have demonstrated that patients can be diagnosed with accuracy approaching 90% by physicians familiar with the disease.
4. Because there’s no cure, there’s no reason to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease early in its course. This myth may account for the sobering and distressing estimate that only about half of all individuals with Alzheimer’s disease have been diagnosed, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. ...Alzheimer’s patients benefit from early diagnosis in multiple ways,
5. There’s no treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. This is perhaps the most pernicious myth. While there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, it is not true that there is no treatment. Drug treatment can slow the inexorable decline of this disease. But treatment entails more than just drug therapy
The happy hospitalist gives you some Insider tops to surviving your hospital stay
10. Bring your own pillow. Trust me.
9. Bring a laptop computer or request one from the hospital. Hospitals all have free wireless these days and many will actually provide you with a laptop if you just ask.
8. Bring an accurate and updated medication list with you. Nothing leaves you more vulnerable to hospital errors than to have your doctor give you medication you haven’t taken in months or for you to miss medications that haven’t been updated by your five outpatient doctors since they bought their worthless EMR three years ago.
7. Write down all your questions early. Your doctor will only come to your room once a day (because they only get paid by Medicare to come once in a day) and any unanswered questions will have to wait until the following day.
Tequila Can Be Turned into Diamonds
“We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, ” the study’s co-author, Lius Miguel Apåtiga, told PhysOrg. “It turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds.”
Now that they know the process works, scientists can use the tequila-made diamond film substance for everything from semiconductors to radiation detectors.
10 Surprising Health Benefits of Beer
1. Stronger Bones
Beer contains high levels of silicon, which is linked to bone health. In a 2009 study at Tufts University and other centers, older men and women who swigged one or two drinks daily had higher bone density, with the greatest benefits found in those who favored beer or wine. However, downing more than two drinks was linked to increased risk for fractures.
2. A Stronger Heart
A 2011 analysis of 16 earlier studies involving more than 200,000 people, conducted by researchers at Italy’s Fondazion di Ricerca e Cura, found a 31 percent reduced risk of heart disease in those who quaffed about a pint of beer daily, while risk surged in those who guzzled higher amounts of alcohol, whether beer, wine, or spirits.
3. Healthier Kidneys
4. Boosting Brain Health
A beer a day may help keep Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia at bay, researchers say.
5. Reduced Cancer Risk
A Portuguese study found that marinating steak in beer eliminates almost 70 percent of the carcinogens, called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) produced when the meat is pan-fried. Researchers theorize that beer’s sugars help block HCAs from forming.
6. Boosting Vitamin Levels
A Dutch study, performed at the TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute, found that beer-drinking participants had 30 percent higher levels of vitamin B6 levels in their blood than their non-drinking counterparts, and twice as much as wine drinkers. Beer also contains vitamin B12 and folic acid.
7. Guarding Against Stroke
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that moderate amounts of alcohol, including beer, help prevent blood clots that block blood flow to the heart, neck and brain—the clots that cause ischemic stroke, the most common type.
8. Reduced Risk for Diabetes
Drink up: A 2011 Harvard study of about 38,000 middle-aged men found that when those who only drank occasionally raised their alcohol intake to one to two beers or other drinks daily, their risk of developing type 2 diabetes dropped by 25 percent. The researchers found no benefit to quaffing more than two drinks. The researchers found that alcohol increases insulin sensitivity, thus helping protect against diabetes.
9. Lower Blood Pressure
Wine is fine for your heart, but beer may be even better: A Harvard study of 70,000 women ages 25 to 40 found that moderate beer drinkers were less likely to develop high blood pressure—a major risk factor for heart attack—than women who sipped wine or spirits.
10. Longer Life
In a 2005 review of 50 studies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that moderate drinkers live longer. The USDA also estimates that moderate drinking prevents about 26,000 deaths a year, due to lower rates of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
Why a government-run health service is so problematic.
Cristina Odone in the Telegraph Visiting a patient in a British hospital? Then take them food and water, just to be safe
While GPs are preparing to go on strike, and consultants and nurses ratchet up their attacks on the Coalition's proposed reforms to the NHS, four Britons are dying of dehydration and malnutrition in hospital each day. Few deaths can be as agonising as those caused by lack of liquids and nutrients, yet few deaths are as preventable.
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Critics (and I'm often one) of NHS staff complain usually about their indifference, self-righteousness, and us-against-them mentality. Now there is another charge to add to that list: letting patients die of hunger and thirst. No wonder family members insist on staying by their loved ones' bedsides in the ward: they fear for their lives. The problem is some of the most vulnerable patients have no family visiting them: who then looks after their welfare? The sad answer is no one.
It's a shameful "first" for Britain: the NHS comes first in Europe when it comes to the percentage of hospital patients suffering malnutrition: a whopping 58%, compared to 24% in the Netherlands and just over 30% in Denmark. You have to go to Vietnam to find a similarly horrific number of malnourished hospital patients.
The stories told by the commenters would make you weep.
My father died recently in horrible circumstances at Southampton General. In a ward of 8 or 9 distressed old men it was like a scene from Bedlam. At night a West African nurse frightened the old boys by not displaying one iota of sympathy or care. The noise in the ward was unbelievable . Buzzers and alarms going of constantly for no apparent purpose. Nurses striding around skilfully avoiding eye contact like workers at B&Q.
My mother who had been married to my dad for 60 odd years was constantly harassed for being in the ward to look after him, trying to make him eat and trying to wet his parched mouth. When my sister and I finally found a nurse who would stop and talk to us she explained he was on the 'Liverpool Pathway' hardly a user friendly term of explanation. It certainly went over my mother's head.
I have many posts on the Liverpool pathway.
“My mother was going to be left to starve and dehydrate to death. It really is a subterfuge for legalised euthanasia of the elderly on the NHS. ”
It really does seem that the Liverpool pathway has become a protocol to deal with all elderly patients and thus the reason to give minimum care and so hasten their deaths.
For the life of me, I can not understand how doctors or hospitals, even under the guise of 'policy' or 'protocol', can deny anyone who wants food and water no matter how old or sick.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."
The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS.
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He said: “I have been practising palliative medicine for more than 20 years and I am getting more concerned about this “death pathway” that is coming in.
“It is supposed to let people die with dignity but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for “significant” amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.
National MS Society Convenes Summit to Explore Vitamin D Trials to Prevent MS
Background: Research is increasingly pointing to a reduced level of vitamin D in the blood as a risk factor for developing MS. Years ago, MS researchers wondered why MS occurs less often in regions of the world where exposure to sunlight is high. Dr. Hayes – a professor of biochemistry and microbiology – and colleagues suggested that vitamin D, which is made by cells in the skin in response to sunlight, may suppress the immune response involved in MS. She and others have since shown that in lab mice, vitamin D can reduce the effects of EAE, an MS-like disease.
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“We are people from all over the world and we have one common purpose – to stop this disease,” noted Dr. Hayes. “The research that has been done by the people in this room and others provides us with strong evidence that vitamin D may help.”
The Army Has An Amazing Breast Cancer Vaccination That Cuts Recurrence In Half
Military researchers have developed a cancer vaccine that is cutting recurrence rates in cancer survivors in half, according to American Forces Press Service.
The vaccine, dubbed E-75, targets a protein commonly over-expressed in breast cancer cells called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, or HER2/neu.
“The idea is to train the immune system to recognize that protein or piece of protein that’s highly expressed on cancer cells, but not on normal cells,” said Army Colonel George E. Peoples, director and principal investigator for the Cancer Vaccine Development Program at the San Antonio Military Medical Center. “That way the immune system can differentiate what’s abnormal and normal. If the immune system can recognize it, it marks it for death, basically.”
People's team took a unique approach to developing their version of a cancer vaccine by testing its effectiveness on cancer survivors, who are currently disease free but are at risk for recurrence. Most often cancer vaccines are tested on end-stage cancer patients. Peoples pointed out that it's not surprising that the vaccines have not been found helpful in these cases seeing as a vaccine is supposed to stimulate the immune system and a healthy immune system is not found in end-stage patients.
The outcome of the 200-patient trial that started in 2001 is very promising, said Peoples. The cancer survivors, who received an injection once a month for six months, saw a recurrence rate of 10% as compared to 20% recurrence rate in the control group.
There have always been people who drank too much, but binge drinking seemed to be limited to college frat parties. Today it seems binge drinking is the only way some people know how to drink.
“It’s not just the usual suspects who are binge drinking,” said Dr. Robert Brewer, who leads the C.D.C.’s alcohol program. “This is not just a problem of high school kids and college students. It’s a problem across the lifespan.”
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Binge drinking accounts for more than half of the alcohol consumed by adults and 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by youths.
More than 38 MILLION U.S. adults binge drink on a weekly basis
College-age drinkers average nine drinks when they get drunk, government health officials said Tuesday.
That surprising statistic is part of a new report highlighting the dangers of binge drinking, which usually means four to five drinks at a time.
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Health officials estimate that about half of the beer, wine and liquor consumed in the United States by adults each year is downed during binge drinking.
'I know this sounds astounding, but I think the numbers we're reporting are really an underestimate,' said Dr. Robert Brewer, who leads the alcohol program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC report is based on telephone surveys last year of more than 450,000 adults. They were asked about their alcohol drinking in the past month, including the largest number of drinks they had at one time.
CDC Vital Signs
Combining binge drinking with starvation is the next dangerous step . Drunkorexia is the act of skipping meals to have more calories to binge drink.
Combining starvation and binge drinking puts young women at risk of developing more serious eating disorders or alcohol abuse problems, as well as in danger of alcohol poisoning, risky sexual behavior and chronic diseases in later life. Women are more vulnerable to liver damage and cirrhosis at lower levels of alcohol consumption than men. Alcohol also increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer and the risk rises with the level of alcohol consumed.
Sadly, too many young people are going to be in the position of Matt Maded with cirrhosis of the liver and no liver donors to be found. He stopped drinking when he was 21, now he's looking at a very early death.
He was drinking 16 cans and a bottle of spirits as a teenager and was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis when he was 21
He only has a 20 per cent chance of getting the donor liver he needs.
Why I've resolved to walk more during the new year.
Go forth, open the mind and just walk
Your Appendix Could Save Your Life
You may have heard the appendix is vestigial, a relict of our past like the hind leg bones of a whale. Parker heard that too, he just disagrees. Parker thinks the appendix serves as a nature reserve for beneficial bacteria in our guts. When we get a severe gut infection such as cholera (which happened often during much of our history and happens often in many regions even today), the beneficial bacteria in our gut are depleted. The appendix allows them to be restored. In essence, Parker sees the appendix as a sanctuary for our tiny mutualist friends, a place where there is always room at the inn. If he is right, the appendix nurtures beneficial bacteria even as our conscious brains and cultures tell us to kill, kill, kill them with wipes and pills.
From the link I learned Scientists Discover That Antimicrobial Wipes and Soaps May Be Making You (and Society) Sick
Most people who use antibiotic soap are no healthier than those who use normal soap. AND those individuals who are chronically sick and use antibiotic soap appear to get SICKER.
Fish oil has long been touted for its heart, neurological, and cancer risk-lowering health benefits. Now, an ingredient that can be extracted from fish oil may lead to a cure for leukemia.
According to Penn State researchers, a compound called delta-12-protaglandin J3 (D12-PGJ3) appears to target leukemia stem cells. The compound killed the stem cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in mice, said Sandeep Prabhu, Penn State associate professor of immunology and molecular toxicology in the Department of Veterinary and Medical Sciences.
The potentially curing compound comes from Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA), an omega-3 fatty acid found in fish and in fish oil.
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The researchers have applied for a patent and are also preparing to test the compound on humans.
I've been touting the benefits of fish oil for a long time. Its wonders keep growing.
A fish-rich eating plan 'could help prevent Alzheimer's disease' by stopping brain from shrinking
Study reveals those with diets high in omega-3 fatty acids are less likely to lose brain capacity later in life
U.S. researchers found that elderly people with high levels of omega 3 found in oily fish and vitamins common in fruit and vegetables did better in memory tests than those with a less healthy diet.
Brain scans confirmed those with the highest levels of vitamin D and omega 3 and vitamins B, C and E, also had a significantly larger brain volume. Conversely people whose blood had higher levels of trans fats - found in cakes and fried foods, as well as red meat - had the worst scores and less brain tissue.
This is thought to be the first study to investigate nutrient levels through blood tests rather than looking at food diaries or questionnaires.
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The scientists, from Oregon Health & Science University, say this gives a more accurate picture because it does not rely on memory or honesty, and because in old age some people’s blood absorbs more of the nutrients they eat than others.
Study author Dr Gene Bowman said: “It is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet.”
The discovery could save millions from the misery of the illness, which robs sufferers of their memories and their ability to care for themselves, with everyday tasks from eating to washing becoming almost impossible.
A landmark project by the Mayo Clinic.
Doctors store patients' genetic code in revolutionary step towards personalising care
U.S. doctors will start working out what drug or therapy works best for a patient using their genetic code, it emerged today.
The revolutionary step of personalising their care will be taken by mapping a patient's entire genetic code in advance to make prescriptions more effective.
It is hoped thousands will take part in the landmark project run by the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Volunteers will have all 23,000 genes in their genetic code sequenced and stored with their medical records from early next year.
It is part of an ambitious move towards an era of 'proactive genomics' that puts modern genetics at the centre of patient care.
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The Mayo Clinic's director of the Centre for Individualised Medicine, Dr Gianrico Farrugia, said the cost of sequencing a person's whole genome – some 23,000 genes – has fallen so rapidly that it was now comparable to the price of a single gene test.
The project will help managers at the clinic decide whether it makes sense to read and store a patient's whole genome early on, instead of ordering single genetic tests as and when the need arises.
He told the Guardian: 'We are convinced that whole genome sequencing is going to radically change the way we practice medicine.
Why You Always Have Room for Dessert.
No matter how stuffed you are after the main course you always have room for a little dessert. Here’s a scientific explanation for the phenomenon some people call the “dessert stomach”.
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The sugar in sweet foods stimulates a reflex that expands your stomach, writes senior researcher Arnold Berstad and assistant doctor Jørgen Valeur from Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital in the latest issue of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.
Via Instapundit,
It's a small study granted, but it seems to show that walking clears fatty foods from the bloodstream.
That Christmas afternoon stroll really does work.
Working off Christmas dinner with a festive family walk might be healthy advice, according to new research.
Scientists believe exercise helps to clear harmful fatty food molecules from the bloodstream.
Experts who studied 12 overweight and obese men on treadmills found that activity appeared to alter the structure of lipid blood fats.
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Winter Stroll in Westmount Park by Ingrid Harrison
Study leader Dr Jason Gill, from the University of Glasgow, said: 'We can think of the level of lipids in our blood as being like the level of water in a bath.
'To reduce the water level you can either turn off the tap, or increase the size of the plughole to let it drain out.
'For blood lipids this is equivalent to producing less, or breaking them down more. 'Our research suggests that exercise works at the 'plughole' end of the process, increasing the body's ability to break down the fats faster. We think this might occur through structural changes to the lipid particles making them more amenable to clearance from the blood.'
The research is published today in the American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism.
A new wonder vaccine against cancer using our immune system to fight against "rogue" sugars in tumors. It could be on the market by 2020
New super vaccine could tackle 70% of lethal cancers and is better than 'wonder drug' Herceptin
A vaccine that could deal a serious blow to seven in ten lethal cancers has been developed by scientists.
In tests, it shrunk breast tumours by 80 per cent, and researchers believe it could also tackle prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers. Even tumours that resist treatment with the best medicines on the market, including the ‘wonder drug’ Herceptin, may be susceptible to the vaccine
The experiments done so far have been on mice, but researchers hope to pilot the drug on people within two years.
If all goes well, the vaccine – one of the first to combat cancer – could be on the market by 2020.
More than 300,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed in Britain each year and the disease kills around half this number annually.
Rather than attacking cancer cells, like many drugs, the new treatment harnesses the power of the immune system to fight tumours. The search for cancer vaccines has until now been hampered by fears that healthy tissue would be destroyed with tumours.
To get round this, researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in the United States focused on a protein called MUC1 that is made in bigger amounts in cancerous cells than in healthy ones. Not only is there more of it, but a sugar that it is ‘decorated’ with has a distinctive shape. The vaccine ‘trains’ the immune system to recognise the rogue sugar and turn its arsenal against the cancer.
‘It activates all three components of the immune system to reduce tumour size by an average of 80 per cent.’
The misshaped MUC1 sugar is found in 90 per cent of breast and pancreatic cancers and around 60 per cent of prostate cancers, as well as many other tumours.The researchers believe more than 70 per cent of all cancers that kill may be susceptible to the vaccine. Despite their excitement, the work is still only at an early stage.
Just in case you thought an artificial heart was as good as the real thing, Peter Houghton tells the truth about what it does to a person as a person, The Cold Reality of an Artificial Heart
Houghton is the first permanent lifetime recipient of a Jarvik 2000 left ventricular-assist device. Seven years ago, it took over for the heart he was born with. Since then, he has walked long distances, traveled internationally and kept a daunting work schedule.
At the same time, he reports, he's become more "coldhearted" and "less sympathetic in some ways."
He doesn't feel like he can connect with those close to him. He wishes he could bond with his twin grandsons, for example. "They're 8, and I don't want to be bothered to have a reasonable relationship with them and I don't know why," he says.
He can only feel enough to regret that he doesn't feel enough.
It's a fascinating read.
Catching up on the news after almost three weeks away from the Internet, politics was less interesting than ever, but other stories were more shocking than ever. In particular, this story about the brain surgeon who went to Washington to be briefed on how Obamacare would effect advanced neurosurgery for people over 70.
I just returned from Washington, DC, where we were reading over what the Obama health care plan would be for advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70, which we all found quite disturbing. As our population gets older, the majority of our patients are getting over 70. They'll require stroke therapy, aneurysm therapy, and basically what the document stated is that if you're over 70 and you come into an emergency room... if you're on government-supported health care, you'll get "comfort care".
ML: Wait a minute... what’s the source for this?
Jeff: This is Obama’s new health care plan for advanced neurosurgical care.
ML: And who issued this? HHS?
Jeff: Yes. And basically they don’t call them patients, they call them units. And instead of, they call it “ethics panels” or “ethics committees”, would get together and meet and decide where the money would go for hospitals, and basically for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.
ML: So it’s generally going to be denied?
Jeff: Yes, absolutely... If someone comes in at 70 years of age with a bleed in their brain, I can promise you I’m not going to get a bunch of administrators together on an ethics panel at 2 in the morning to decide that I’m OK to do surgery.
ML: Is this published somewhere where the general public could get a hold of it?
Jeff: Not yet.
I assume that government-supported health care includes Medicare that everyone over 65 must join.
The conclusion I draw is that if you have a stroke and you're 70 or older, you're out of luck.
Over In the U.K., in the National Health Service, doctors are failing to inform up to half of families that their loved ones have been put on a scheme to help end their lives, the Royal College of Physicians has found.
In addition to the withdrawal of fluid and medication, patients can be placed on sedation until they pass away. This can mean they are not fed and provided with water and has led to accusations that it hastens death.
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The Liverpool Care Pathway was intended for use in hospices but was given approval by the Department of Health in 2006 leading to widespread use in hospitals. Concerns about the pathway were raised first in The Daily Telegraph in 2009 when experts warned that in some cases patients have been put on the pathway only to recover when their families intervened, leading to questions over how people are judged to be in their “last hours and days”.
Jane Brody says It Could Be Old Age, or It Could Be Low B12
It is an important question. As we age, our ability to absorb B12 from food declines, and often so does our consumption of foods rich in this vitamin. A B12 deficiency can creep up without warning and cause a host of confusing symptoms that are likely to be misdiagnosed or ascribed to aging.
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A severe B12 deficiency results in anemia, which can be picked up by an ordinary blood test. But the less dramatic symptoms of a B12 deficiency may include muscle weakness, fatigue, shakiness, unsteady gait, incontinence, low blood pressure, depression and other mood disorders, and cognitive problems like poor memory.
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In its natural form, B12 is present in significant amounts only in animal foods, most prominently in liver (83 micrograms in a 3.5-ounce serving). Good food sources include other red meats, turkey, fish and shellfish. Lesser amounts of the vitamin are present in dairy products, eggs and chicken.
That baby aspirin you've been taking every day because your doctor it's good for your heart may also be cutting your risk of cancer by 60%
Aspirin every day can cut cancer risk by 60%: British scientists find first proof of preventative effect
Increasing numbers of doctors are taking painkiller for insurance against the disease
Taking aspirin regularly can cut the long-term risk of cancer, according to the first major study of its kind.
British researchers found it can reduce the risk by 60 per cent in people with a family history of the disease.
The landmark research covering 16 countries is the first proof that the painkiller has a preventive action that is likely to benefit anyone using it every day.
Great news for the hearing impaired, A Hearing Aid That Cuts Out All the Clatter
And it all has to do with a hearing loop.
The technology, which has been widely adopted in Northern Europe, has the potential to transform the lives of tens of millions of Americans, according to national advocacy groups. As loops are installed in stores, banks, museums, subway stations and other public spaces, people who have felt excluded are suddenly back in the conversation.
A hearing loop, typically installed on the floor around the periphery of a room, is a thin strand of copper wire radiating electromagnetic signals that can be picked up by a tiny receiver already built into most hearing aids and cochlear implants. When the receiver is turned on, the hearing aid receives only the sounds coming directly from a microphone, not the background cacophony.
The response of one composer, Richard Einhorn, who had lost much of his hearing.
“There I was at ‘Wicked’ weeping uncontrollably — and I don’t even like musicals,” he said. “For the first time since I lost most of my hearing, live music was perfectly clear, perfectly clean and incredibly rich.”
Good news for everyone. Blood pressure drugs can lower Alzheimer's risk by up to 50 per cent
Taking newer blood pressure drugs cuts the risk of Alzheimer's by up to 50 per cent, British scientists say.
Patients on these new drugs are also less likely to develop vascular dementia – a condition caused by problems in blood supply to the brain – than those on older medication.
The first study of its kind opens the door for a treatment that might delay, slow or even prevent dementia.
Details at the link.
Largest study on cellphones, cancer finds no link
Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you're concerned about your cellphone: Don't worry. Your device is probably safe.
The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns.
The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade and those who did not.
The Cheap Generic Medication You Bought Online Is Probably Fake
the World Health Organization estimates that half of all online discount drug websites sell counterfeit or fake drugs. These medications are not checked for quality, and they may contain a lower dosage than required by the actual prescription.
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Coincidentally this past week The National Post published an article titled Drug Scams: A Billion Dollar Industry for Russian Gangs.
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The Russian Drug scam has reached 79 countries and has sold over 2.5 million doses of counterfeit drugs
Coming to market are a number of products aimed at the chronically ill and their caregivers.
First off, A Shoe for Wanderers, GPS tracking devices embedded in shoes for seniors suffering Alzheimers or dementia. A boon for adult children who want to know where their parents are.
Springwise looks at A dedicated social network and web portal for the chronically ill that plans to rollout in 2012 after its trial and service to patients with congestive heart failure
The web portal is called Wellaho
By using the Wellaho web portal, patients can connect with a community of people who suffer from conditions similar to theirs, to share stories, thoughts and advice. Meanwhile, a dashboard allows patients to monitor their progress against key statistics given by their physician, as well as enabling them to set goals and note symptoms which can be viewed by their doctor and support network. The software also enables patients to set up emails, texts and phone calls as reminders for medical appointments, or to remind about the correct dosages and times for medications...... Additionally, online resources containing the latest news and information on clinical trials, research, and treatments specific to the patient’s condition are available through the service.
Two other sites noted by Springwise. The first a web app to tap medical crowds for personalized cancer treatment The app is Cancer commons. The second is a medical site that helps patients find the most promising new treatments. The site is Medify
For caregivers there is Caregiver Village and if you register they will donate $1 to the organization of your choice that supports caregivers. It's a virtual village where you can play a game and solve a mystery and in so doing learn valuable self care techniques. There are tip sheets, online training courses and my favorite, book clubs, where you can connect and share with other caregivers. There are even apps for your iPhone and iPad.
Most older women are well nourished and don't need vitamins yet they take them anyway.
Now with researchers finding a link between vitamin use and higher death rates among older women, they should just skip them. Except for vitamin D.
And, most likely, Omega-3-fatty acids.
But then, I've always been a fan of Splendid Salmon. Growing up, I and my brothers and sisters had to take a spoonful of cod liver oil every day during the winter and we never got colds or got sick.
Now, I mainly get my Omega-3-fatty acids with MegaRed 'made from pure Antarctic krill' because the pills are very small and don't taste fishy. I am convinced that's why I have no aches or pains to complain of.
Just about all menopausal women develop osteopenia, a decrease in bone density and a normal sign of aging. That's quite different from osteoarthritis, a degenerative arthritis or a degenerative joint disease which you want to do everything to avoid.
Omega-3 fatty acids shown to prevent or slow progression of osteoarthritis
According to the University of Bristol study, funded by Arthritis Research UK and published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, omega-3-rich diets fed to guinea pigs, which naturally develop osteoarthritis, reduced disease by 50 per cent compared to a standard diet.
The research is a major step forward in showing that omega-3 fatty acids, either sourced from fish oil or flax oil, may help to slow down the progression of osteoarthritis, or even prevent it occurring, confirming anecdotal reports and "old wives' tales" about the benefits of fish oil for joint health.
Lead researcher Dr John Tarlton, from the Matrix Biology Research group at the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences, said classic early signs of the condition, such as the degradation of collagen in cartilage and the loss of molecules that give it shock-absorbing properties, were both reduced with omega-3.
"Furthermore, there was strong evidence that omega-3 influences the biochemistry of the disease, and therefore not only helps prevent disease, but also slows its progression, potentially controlling established osteoarthritis," he said.
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On the back of the results of his study, Dr Tarlton said that following government guidelines on dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids could be effective in reducing the burden of osteoarthritis. Fish oil is far more effective than the flax oil based supplement, but for vegetarians flax oil remains a viable alternative.
"Most diets in the developed world are lacking in omega-3, with modern diets having up to 30 times too much omega-6 and too little omega-3. Taking omega-3 will help redress this imbalance and may positively contribute to a range of other health problems such as heart disease and colitis."
In Fish Oil: Known Benefits, Little Risk. I admit to being a bit of a nut on the benefits of coffee, tea, beer, chocolate, Vitamin D and Omega 3. I link to a series of posts on the value of Omega 3 before and after heart attacks, to lessen the risk of cancers of the breast, colon and prostate, to fight asthma, to lose weight faster, to treat depression, to feed the human brain and to lower the murder rate.
Who would have thought that Up to 40% of cancers 'are caused by viruses': Discovery offers hope of vaccines and new therapies
It has been known for decades that viruses cause some types of cancer but it was thought to be only 10 to 20 per cent of cases.
The best known are the hepatitis B and C bugs, which can cause liver cancer, and the human papilloma virus (HPV) which can cause cervical cancer.
Last week scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found a viral link with medulloblastoma, the most common form of childhood brain tumour
It follows the discovery two years ago that Merkel cell carcinoma, an aggressive skin cancer, often follows infection by the polyomavirus which is common among animals and can spread to humans.
It is also claimed that prostate cancers could be caused by viruses.
News this week is that Two Cancer Studies Find Bacterial Clue in Colon
The new tools of genomic analysis offered an opportunity to look for a connection. What Dr. Holt and another group of researchers, working independently, have found is completely unexpected and puzzling. One particular species of bacterium never particularly prevalent in the colon seems to have a disturbing affinity for colon cancers.
The two research groups discovered the link by analyzing genetic material in tumor samples. They then subtracted human genes from the mix. What remained were microbe genes.
An analysis of these microbial genes showed that a type of bacterium, Fusobacterium, was abundant in the tumors although it normally is not among the more prominent species in the gut. Not only were the bacteria lurking around the cancer cells, but Dr. Holt found in subsequent experiments that they actually were burrowing into tumor cells — “which is kind of creepy,” he said. An ability to invade cells, he said, is often what distinguishes a disease-causing microbe from one that is harmless.
Of course, that doesn’t prove that Fusobacteria are causing tumors. They might just find the cancer cells a good place to live.
I believe that all women, particularly young ones, should be aware of all the risks for breast cancer, even if it runs counter to the prevailing beliefs.
The pink awareness campaign is packaged, quite profitably, as an expression of genuine concern about women’s health. So surely it is reasonable to expect that such concern be matched by an accurate presentation of all the known risk factors, and by an insistence upon the very best corresponding prevention recommendations, right? After all, early detection measures such as screening are not nearly the same thing as solid prevention.
Indefensibly, however, most awareness efforts fail to feature some factors known to reduce breast cancer risk: having children, avoiding induced abortions, and refraining from oral contraceptives (OC). True, there is no guaranteed way for anyone to dodge or develop breast cancer, but that does not mean there are not risk factors. Women today are delaying childbirth as never before, and having fewer children. Younger women are using OC for longer periods of time. And well over a fifth of all pregnancies in America end in abortion – hardly the rarity its “safe, legal and rare” advocates say it should be. If you suspect that these reproductive risk factors might have something to do with the 40 percent increase in the incidence of breast cancer over the last 30 years, you have spotted the elephant in the room.
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The steroids taken by more than 100 million women around the world to prevent pregnancy -- oral contraceptives – are known human carcinogens, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In 2006, the Mayo Clinic concluded that a woman who takes OC before her first full-term pregnancy stands a 44 percent greater chance of contracting breast cancer prior to menopause, compared with those who don’t take OC before giving birth. Using OC for four of more years prior to first full-term pregnancy is even more risky.
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Induced abortion is also a major risk factor. A recent (2007) multi-country study found that having had an abortion was the greatest predictor of subsequent breast cancer. Going back decades, study after study (with only a few exceptions) has demonstrated the connection; a methodologically sound review of the available evidence determined that it raises the risk of breast cancer by approximately 30 percent.
Study Finds Vitamin B12 May Prevent Memory Loss
A new study has found a link between poor nutrition and cognitive problems in older adults. The study, published Monday in the journal Neurology, found that adults over 65 with a vitamin B12 deficiency are more likely to have lower brain volumes and cognitive impairment than those with adequate B12.
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“We showed that four out of five markers of B12 deficiency were strongly associated with poor cognitive performance overall, and more specifically, poor episodic memory and perceptual speed,” said Christine Tangney, Ph. D., the study’s lead author and associate professor of clinical nutrition at Rush.
The researchers also found that brain volume was significantly lower in those with high levels of markers for B12 deficiency.
The Institute of Medicine recommends 2-6 micrograms of vitamin B12 for adults over 50.
Foods rich in vitamin B12 are fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk and milk products
From MIT 's Technology Review Why Doctors Don't Like Electronic Health Records
Jerome Groopman, a Harvard internist, wrote in How Doctors Think, "Clinical algorithms can be useful for run-of-the-mill diagnosis and treatment ... but they quickly fall apart when doctors need to think outside their boxes, when symptoms are vague, or multiple and confusing, or when test results are inexact."
The computer is oversold as a tool to improve health care, implement reform, cut costs, and empower patients. The reasons are obvious to anyone who treats patients. You cannot look a computer in the eye. You cannot read its body language. You cannot talk to an algorithm. You cannot sympathize or empathize with it.
We physicians are not Luddites or troglodytes. We are savvy about using the Internet, technology applications, and social media. For us, medicine mixes art and science. What we seek from patients are clues, constellations of signs and symptoms, and stories. We choose not to be reduced to data-entry clerks sorting through undigested computer bytes.
A string of numbers containing demographic, laboratory, and other patient information, no matter how systematically assembled or gathered, is not narrative. It does not tell a story. It contains "just the facts," as Sergeant Joe Friday used to say. That is why an ophthalmologist told me that when he gets an EHR summary, he ignores it: "It does not tell me the patient's story. It does not tell me why the patient is here, what troubles the patient, and what the referring doctor wants me to do."
Could a daily pill stop or even reverse multiple sclerosis?
Doctors have made an 'exciting' breakthrough that could lead to a new treatment to stop - or even reverse the symptoms - of multiple sclerosis.
Researchers have discovered that people with MS have significantly lower levels of brain chemicals called neuro-steroids.
Neuro-steroids help build brain cells and maintain their function, connecting different areas of activity in the brain.
Scientists and neurologists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada believe that it would be possible to replace the missing chemical with a daily pill that would represent a completely different way of dealing with the disease that affects more than 85,000 people in the UK.
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Dr Chris Power announced the discovery in a research paper in the latest issue of Brain.
He said: 'This frankly is an exciting breakthrough and has huge potential. The role of neurosteroids in the brain has been known for some time but no one thought - until now - that they might play a role in MS.'
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'We are talking about it being at least six or seven years away as a treatment but I am optimistic about our chances even though there are a number of hurdles to overcome.'
Low-fat yoghurt 'child asthma risk' during pregnancy
Pregnant women who eat low-fat yoghurt can increase the risk of their child developing asthma and hay fever, a study says.
At the European Respiratory Society conference, researchers will suggest this could be due to an absence of protective fatty acids in yoghurt.
The diets of more than 70,000 Danish women were analysed and their children followed until the age of seven.
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But the results showed that milk intake during pregnancy was not linked to any increased risk of asthma.
In fact, milk was shown to protect against asthma development.
Yellow markings on eyelid warn of heart attack
Yellow markings on the eyelids are a sign of increased risk of heart attack and other illnesses, say researchers in Denmark.
A study published on the BMJ website showed patients with xanthelasmata were 48% more likely to have a heart attack.
Xanthelasmata, which are mostly made up of cholesterol, could be a sign of other fatty build-ups in the body
One disabled man in New Jersey did and earned $15.4 million.
In the U.S. a "qui tam" action can be brought by any individual under the False Claims Act with knowledge of past or present fraud against the federal government to bring suit on its behalf. Whistleblowers, called "relators" , the person filing under the act stands to receive 15-25% of any recovered damages. With at least $87 billion a year lost to Medicare/Medicaid fraud, there exists the potential to make a
great deal of money for enterprising individuals or groups employing all the technological tools and information at hand to ferret out fraud.
Disabled New Jersey Man Earns $15 Million Exposing Largest Medicaid Fraud In History
Richard West was shocked when he went for some dental work and found his Medicaid benefits had maxed out.
Pulling up his Medicaid record, he totaled the care he'd received, the bills submitted by his provider -- and found the problem.
According to The Star-Ledger, West, 63, found the company arranging his nursing care, Maxim Healthcare, was over-billing the government for hundreds of hours of service from people he'd never seen.
After calling several government hot-lines and receiving no help, he got a lawyer of his own. That phone call unraveled a fraud stretched across 40-states and resulted in a $150 million settlement -- the largest for healthcare fraud in history. Monday, Maxim agreed to return $121.5 million in state and federal claims; $8.4 million to the VA, and pay a $20 million fine.
For exposing the fraud West will receive $15.4 million.
Tuckerton man's resolve helps uncover multimillion-dollar health care fraud
A one-time auto mechanic, truck driver, commercial fisherman and carpenter before his disease — a genetic disorder that prevents muscles from functioning — put him in a wheelchair, West gets 16 hours of nursing and home health care a day. He said he brought his case only because no one would listen to him.
He said it was not hard to figure out what was going on. "The hard part was turning them in," he remarked. West, who lives in Tuckerton, said he tried going through a county social worker, to the state Medicaid waiver office, and then the Medicaid hot line for fraud. "No one ever did anything," he complained.
Robin Page West, his attorney (and no relation to him), said winning will be a mixed blessing. "He no longer qualifies for Medicaid," she noted with a smile.
"The three most salient characteristics of Medicare and Medicaid fraud are: It’s brazen, it’s ubiquitous, and it’s other people’s money, so nobody cares," writes Michael Cannon in Entitlement Bandits.
Judging by official estimates, Medicare and Medicaid lose at least $87 billion per year to fraudulent and otherwise improper payments, and about 10.5 percent of Medicare spending and 8.4 percent of Medicaid spending was improper in 2009. Fraud experts say the official numbers are too low. “Loss rates due to fraud and abuse could be 10 percent, or 20 percent, or even 30 percent in some segments,” explained Malcolm Sparrow, a mathematician, Harvard professor, and former police inspector, in congressional testimony.
The GAO reports that Medicare Fraud is Four Times Greater than the profits of all the health insurers in the country!
Great advances on the Alzheimer's front
Daily Vitamin B pill can help stave off Alzheimer's
A daily vitamin pill could dramatically slow the onset of memory loss in old age and even protect against Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found.
The tablet, containing high doses of B vitamins and folic acid, reduced memory decline by 70 per cent in some elderly people.
It also halved the rate of brain shrinkage in some patients - a physical symptom associated with forgetfulness that can lead to full blown Alzheimer's disease.
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In future people could be tested for vitamin B levels in middle age and alter their diet to boost their chances of remaining healthy, researchers said.
A full scale national trial to establish whether the breakthrough can actually delay the slide into Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia is expected to begin within the next year.
Insulin may slow Alzheimer's, study finds
Inhaling it through the nose twice daily seems to slow symptoms of memory loss. More study is needed, but researchers are encouraged.
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Dr. Jacobo Mintzer, an Alzheimer's expert at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston who was not involved in the study, hailed the research as "a new way of thinking" about treating dementia.
"As a clinician, I would not tell my patients to get their hopes up," he said. "But as a scientist, I always get very encouraged when the paradigm shifts," as he said it has here.
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"A safe, easy delivery system — those are things we'd love to see for any kind of treatment for Alzheimer's disease," said Laurie Ryan, a neuropsychologist who directs clinical trials involving dementia at the National Institute on Aging, which funded the pilot study.
And the benefits of dark chocolate every day keep adding up, making it a far superior health food than soy or tofu.
Chocolate 'as good for you as exercise' or so experiments with mice show.
Scientists found that small amounts of dark chocolate may improve health in a similar way to exercise.
The researchers focused on the mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses in cells that generate energy, and discovered that a plant compound found in chocolate, called epicatechin, appeared to stimulate the same muscle response as vigorous activity.
Dr Moh Malek, from Wayne State University in Detroit, who led the US study on mice, said: ''Mitochondria produce energy which is used by the cells in the body. More mitochondria mean more energy is produced the more work can be performed.
''Aerobic exercise, such as running or cycling, is known to increase the number of mitochondria in muscle cells. Our study has found that epicatechin seems to bring about the same response - particularly in the heart and skeletal muscles.''
FORTY may be the new 30, but try telling that to your ovaries.
In the New York Times, Fertility is a Matter of Age No Matter How Young a Woman Looks
Advances in beauty products and dermatology, not to mention manic devotion to yoga, Pilates and other exercise obsessions, are making it possible for large numbers of women to look admirably younger than their years. But doctors fear that they are creating a widening disconnect between what women see in the mirror and what’s happening to their reproductive organs.
“Somewhere between 30 and 40 your internal organs are aging but you don’t feel it, and now you don’t even see it,” said Dr. Karyn Grossman, a dermatologist with practices in Manhattan and Santa Monica, Calif. “At least you used to get some visual feedback.”
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“Everyone in my life told me how young I looked for my age,” she said. “I assumed it was the same on the inside as it was on the outside.”
Why it's time to regulate the IVF industry. It should have been done years ago. Creepy: One sperm donor, 150 kids
As more women choose to have babies on their own, and the number of children born through artificial insemination increases, outsize groups of donor siblings are starting to appear. While Ms. Daily’s group is among the largest, many others comprising 50 or more half siblings are cropping up on Web sites and in chat groups, where sperm donors are tagged with unique identifying numbers.
Now, there is growing concern among parents, donors and medical experts about potential negative consequences of having so many children fathered by the same donors, including the possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely through the population. Some experts are even calling attention to the increased odds of accidental incest between half sisters and half brothers, who often live close to one another.
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“We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.
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Although other countries, including Britain, France and Sweden, limit how many children a sperm donor can father, there is no such limit in the United States.
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“Just as it’s happened in many other countries around the world,” Ms. Kramer said, “we need to publicly ask the questions ‘What is in the best interests of the child to be born?’ and ‘Is it fair to bring a child into the world who will have no access to knowing about one half of their genetics, medical history and ancestry?’
“These sperm banks are keeping donors anonymous, making women babies and making a lot of money. But nowhere in that formula is doing what’s right for the donor families.”
Want super strong bones? How a handful of prunes a day could help prevent fractures
They may be known for helping you over an embarrassing episode of constipation but prunes have another very useful effect.
Scientists have found that post-menopausal women can protect themselves against osteoporosis and bone fractures by simply eating around 10 of them a day.
Florida State and Oklahoma State academics proved that dried plums are far better than figs, dates, dried strawberries, dried apples, and raisins for improving bone density.
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'Over my career, I have tested numerous fruits, including figs, dates, strawberries and raisins, and none of them come anywhere close to having the effect on bone density that dried plums, or prunes, have,' said Bahram H. Arjmandi, Florida State professor and chairman of the U.S. Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences.
'All fruits and vegetables have a positive effect on nutrition, but in terms of bone health, this particular food is exceptional.'
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'Don't wait until you get a fracture or you are diagnosed with osteoporosis and have to have prescribed medicine,' he said.
'Do something meaningful and practical beforehand. People could start eating two to three dried plums per day and increase gradually to perhaps six to 10 per day. Prunes can be eaten in all forms and can be included in a variety of recipes.'
A glass or two of wine or beer a day can help to stave off Alzheimer's, biggest ever study finds
A glass or two of wine each day can help reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's, the biggest ever study has found.
Researchers discovered those who indulged in light to moderate social drinking were 23 per cent less likely to develop forms of dementia and cognitive impairment.
'It is well accepted that a glass of wine is good for your heart and reduces coronary artery and cardiovascular diseases,' said Edward J Neafsey, a co-author of the study carried out at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.
He added that moderate alcohol consumption had the same effect on the brain.
If you sit all day before a computer and then go home and sit before the tube, you are risking a premature death especially if you are a woman.
Excessive sitting linked to premature death in women
Research released last fall found that women who sat for more than six hours a day had a 37 percent increased risk of premature death, compared to 18 percent for men. Those results stayed the same, even when factors such as an individual's diet, amount of physical activity and smoking were taken into account.
Dr. Alpa Patel, senior epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, is the lead author of that study, the largest on how sitting affects mortality. The study was based on information from surveys of 123,000 people who participated in the study between 1992 and 2006.
TV shortens life by 22 minutes per viewing hour after age 25 says study out of Queensland, Australia.
Only 15 minutes of daily exercise makes a big difference
The study found those who exercised just 15 minutes a day — or 90 minutes a week — cut their risk of death by 14 percent and extended their life expectancy by three years compared with those who did no exercise. Both men and women benefited equally from the minimum activity.
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In a study published in Circulation earlier this month, Lee and colleagues found that people who engaged in 15 minutes a day of moderate physical activity had a 14 percent lower risk of heart disease compared with inactive people.
Wonderful news about a new broad spectrum anti-viral therapy dubbed DRACO
New drug could cure nearly any viral infection
Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.
In a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.
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Rider drew inspiration for his therapeutic agents, dubbed DRACOs (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers), from living cells’ own defense systems.
Long-living people don't necessarily lead healthier lives says study
People who live to be older than 95 don't necessarily eat any better, exercise any more or booze any less than the rest of us.
According to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, a long life is in the genes.
ObamaCare's Most Frightening Consequence: Not Enough Doctors
ObamaCare’s defenders promised the law would increase patient access to care, but a closer look shows that increased regulations combined with higher demand for health services could cause many physicians to give up practicing medicine.
The Doctor shortfall In 2016 will be 63,000 doctors, in 2020, 91,500 doctors say The Associations of American Medical Colleges.
Dr. Bob is selling his practice. This is his perspective
The past year or so has been one of the most challenging in many a season, on a number of fronts. Professionally, the passage of Obamacare has made it abundantly clear that the independent private practitioner is a dying breed, and likely will disappear — with the exception of cash-only, concierge-style arrangements — within the next few years. The administrative burden is crushing — unfunded mandates, such as pay-for-performance, compliance programs, HIPAA, mandated “government certified” EMRs (even though existing, non-certified ones are fully functional), and intrusive, abusive audits by the Feds and third party carriers. Such mandates and regulatory excesses place, or will soon place, such an overwhelming burden on the solo physician or small group as to make their continued existence unsustainable, even in the near term — and the full implementation of Obamacare will put roses on their grave. Reimbursements are dropping precipitously (my income dropped about 25% last year), as expenses spiral upward (employee health insurance rates are up 25%; malpractice rates up 15%, etc., etc.). The small business model of solo practice or small medical group is rapidly becoming extinct: its executioner, Big Government and Big Insurance.
The medical-legal environment remains as hostile and capricious as ever — I have endured two lawsuits in the past three years, both resolved with decidedly mixed outcomes while taking an enormous toll both in time wasted and emotional sobriety. I hope to share some insights thus gleaned on this horrendously dysfunctional system in the not-too-distant future.
Personally, although my health remains good, the exhaustion borne of these and other struggles had taken much of the joy and energy from life. The time for renewal was long overdue.
And so, big changes are in store: my practice will be sold in the next few months to a large medical group affiliated with a nearby hospital, and I will have as a primary responsibility inpatient hospital care, with a much diminished office practice focusing primarily on my specialty of male infertility and vasectomy reversal. I have decidedly mixed feelings about this change — I anticipated going to my deathbed as a private, solo practitioner, loving the independence and rich patient relationships which this brings.
But I am weary. After nearly 30 years in private practice, I am not sure which straw broke the camel’s back, but it is most surely broken. It is a weariness born of 14 hour days; of dictating charts and finishing paperwork until 8 or 9 pm each night, after starting the day at 7 am; of endless audits by the insurance industry and Medicare; of the constant threat of litigation; of the crushing burden of one more federal requirement mandated but never recompensed; of a host of ever-expanding administrative burdens having nothing to do with patient care, and everything to do with bureaucratic micromanagement of the profession. And this before we have even begun to see the nightmare which Obamacare will inflict. Camels weren’t designed to carry such a load.
Well, Isn't THAT Special is his comment to the news that hedge funds are financing medical malpractice cases to the tune of $10 billion in 2010.
It is medicine’s holy grail, eluding doctors and scientists for centuries. But remarkably, the cure for the common cold could be no more complicated than a mineral supplement.
Taking high doses of zinc can cut the length of colds by almost half, according to research. The evidence emerged from the combined results of 13 trials which tested the ability of zinc lozenges, which dissolve in the mouth and are widely available, to fight off colds.
Three of the studies showed taking daily doses of zinc acetate higher than 75 milligrams – seven times more than is generally recommended – as soon as symptoms began, shortened colds by an average of 42 per cent.
Five others, using other types of zinc salt at doses greater than 75mg, resulted in a 20 per cent reduction. But five studies of doses lower than 75mg showed no benefit at all.
The idea that zinc lozenges might be effective against colds stems from an accidental observation in the early 1980s. Doctors saw that the cold of a three-year-old girl with leukaemia vanished when she dissolved a zinc tablet in her mouth.
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Zinc deficiency is very common, with less than half of Britain’s population eating even half the recommended daily allowance.
It is not stored in the body, although can be found in tissue and bones. It aids the immune system, helps wounds heal, is important for proper taste and smell, and vital for male fertility. It may slow sight loss caused by age-related macular degeneration. Rich sources include shellfish, lamb, liver, steak, pumpkin seeds and wholegrains.
Broken Promises: How the AIDS establishment has betrayed the developing world.
Harvard University researcher Edward Green rose to prominence in the AIDS controversy with his 2003 book, Rethinking AIDS Prevention. His new book, Broken Promises: How the AIDS Establishment has Betrayed the Developing World, chronicles the continuing battle over how to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Green, a key player in the struggle, documents how two radically different strategies have competed for funding and support.
One is a risk elimination strategy: abstinence, faithfulness to one partner with condom used only if one partner in a couple is already infected. The other is the sex-positive condom code with no need to change sexual behavior if condoms are used.
The evidence for the failure of condom marketing and distribution programs and the success of fidelity/delay was clear, yet many of western experts and those funding prevention programs continued to insist that condoms were the only solution and all Africa needed was more condoms. Not only was the money spent on these programs wasted, but money to deal with Africa’s other health care needs dried up.
Through his first book, Rethinking AIDS Prevention, Green had been able to convince some key leaders that behavior change was more effective than condom promotion. Others were convinced by their own research that prevention should focus on fidelity/delay, with condoms used only as a back-up.
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Green was facing an entrenched AIDS establishment run by gay AIDS activists, population controllers, and suppliers of condoms, all committed to the sexual revolution and determined to impose that revolution on Africa. Green was appalled by the racism he found among those involved in condom promotion. They commented privately that AIDS spread in Africa because African men are incapable of controlling their sexual urges and therefore the only answer is condoms. This in spite of research which showed that Africans when faced with the facts about HIV transmission are able to substantially change their behavior.
The Pope got it right.
In spite of mounting evidence of the failure of condom programs, the AIDS establishment ridiculed as anti-scientific anyone who did not support their strategy. When Pope Benedict XVI was asked about AIDS in Africa, he said that “… if Africans do not help by responsible behavior, the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics. On the contrary, they increase it.” For this he was roundly condemned, but according to Green, “He had summarized the best current research on AIDS prevention in Africa.”
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HIV has infected some forty-six million people in Africa and eighteen million have died. Green believes this could have been brought under control two decades ago, had ABC been employed, but because it was not “we are now experiencing the greatest avoidable epidemic in history.”
Some things I learned last week.
At last. House turns off light bulb standards by voice vote thus pleasing 67% of Americans who were opposed to the light bulb ban that was to begin next January. Remember when Energy Secretary Chu said,
"We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money."
Mozart Probably Died Young From Not Getting Enough Sun
A new theory suggests legendary composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 35 due in part to a vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is produced when the body is exposed to natural sunlight and Mozart spent his life in high-latitude Austria, working at night and sleeping during the day
The Equality Principle is not what you think according to some judges.
A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down Proposition 2, Michigan’s 2006 initiative banning racial preferences in education, public employment, and contracting. Employing the Orwellian reasoning that so often characterizes such decisions, the panel’s 2–1 ruling held that in passing a measure mandating that all citizens be treated equally by the state, Michigan’s electorate had violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
The Toronto District School Board decrees that Only White People Are Racist
Reuters reports that Black men survive longer in prison than out.
Boston is the #1 city for meanness.
Father and son at first and last shuttle watch, bookends to America's space age
Matt Labash on Keeping America Mediocre or embracing the new dumbness.
The University of Iowa’s MBA program has just announced a $37,000 scholarship based on one application Tweet, as opposed to an essay. “We want {applicants} to show us more about themselves,” the director for the Tippie School of Management said. “This would give us a lot more depth and show us a lot more about a candidate than an essay would show.” Seriously? Sometimes, there are no words
U.S. Department of Education report suggests that "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests,” While FBI estimates that half of the priest cases were exaggerations or fraud. That means that there may have been as many as two hundred times as much abuse by teachers than priests in the same time period.
A hundred times as many, as much as Two hundred times? Sure, kick the priests around but they're pikers compared to teachers. They aren't even in the same league.
Experts train bacteria to restore 17c frescoes in Spain.
The Trillions of Microbes That Call Us Home and Keep Us Healthy
LaTuga is one of several medical researchers at Duke working with microbial ecologists to study the development of the human microbiome—the enormous population of microbes, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses, that live in the human body, predominantly in the gut. There are 20 times as many of these microbes as there are cells in the body, up to 200 trillion in an adult, and each of us hosts at least 1,000 different species. Seen through the prism of the microbiome, a person is not so much an individual human body as a superorganism made up of diverse ecosystems, each teeming with microscopic creatures that are essential to our well-being.
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Khoruts and his colleagues reported last summer that they were able to use a fecal transplant to treat and apparently cure a woman with a life-threatening Clostridium difficile infection, which causes severe inflammation of the colon. The patient had an extremely poor prognosis: Suffering from chronic diarrhea, she had lost 60 pounds over eight months. “All antibiotics were failing, and she was in really bad shape,” Khoruts says. In a last-ditch effort to improve her condition, he mixed a small sample of the patient’s husband’s stool with saline solution and injected it into her colon. Within 24 hours her diarrhea had stopped. After a few days, the symptoms were gone.
In studying this patient’s progress, Khoruts was initially surprised to find that there was a nearly complete replacement of the woman’s microbial flora with her husband’s microbes. “By the time these patients get to this desperate treatment point, they’ve taken so many antibiotics that their microbiome has been decimated,” he says. “So when we transplant the new bacteria, they simply move in to occupy the empty space.” Before Khoruts and his team performed the procedure, no research had been done on how fecal transplants work or how they impact the microbiome. “Since then we’ve done another 23 patients,” he reports, “all with dramatic stories.”
Aspirin a day 'could reduce risk of lethal skin cancer by 40%'
Taking a daily aspirin could protect people from developing melanoma, a study has revealed.
Scientists found those who regularly took painkillers and especially aspirin over five years cut their melanoma risk by 40 per cent.
A team led by Dr Clara Curiel-Lewandrowski of Harvard Medical School, analysed and compared the medical records of 1,000 people and asked them to recall their use of painkillers.
'Our data at least supports the hypothesis that long-term steady aspirin use has an effect,' study co-author Dr Robert Stern told MSNBC. The latest study appears in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
Fair-skinned people, of course, should always wear sunscreen and stay out of the sun when it is at its height. But for the millions, like me, who had severe sunburns when they were young, this study is encouraging news. I'm already on a daily dose of baby aspirin to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Eating an ultra low-calorie diet can cure Type 2 diabetes in just eight weeks, dramatic new research has shown.
Even people who have suffered from the condition for years found the drastic diet could jump-start their body’s production of insulin.
The breakthrough is good news for the nearly 2.5million people in Britain who have this type of diabetes, which is caused by the pancreas not producing enough insulin to break down glucose in the blood.
It could revolutionise the treatment of what has always been seen as a lifelong problem.
Professor Roy Taylor, of Newcastle University, who led the research, said: “To have people free of diabetes after years with the condition is remarkable – and all because of an eight-week diet. For many years it has been assumed that Type 2 diabetes is a life sentence. It’s chronic, it’s progressive, people need more and more tablets, and eventually they need insulin. It’s a downhill slope. However, we have been able to show that it is in fact reversible.
“We have been able to put diabetes into reverse by a very low-calorie diet over a short period of time.
“What is really important and very new is the changes in the body that go along with this. Specifically, the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas have gone to sleep in Type 2 diabetes, they are not really doing very much.
“As the level of fat in the pancreas has reduced, we have seen these insulin-producing cells come completely back to normal, and that is truly remarkable.”
What happens when big, important bills are not only not debated, they're not even read, but steam-rollered through Congress. In the words of then speaker Nancy Pelosi, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."
The latest mishap with Obamacare. Medicaid for the middle class?
President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.
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Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.
Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.
"I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense," Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.
What Obamacare wants to make mandatory.
[T]he rule for Accountable Care Organizations that are supposed to be the crown jewel of cost-saving reform. One problem: The draft rule is so awful that even the models for it say they won't participate.
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The American Medical Group Association, a trade association of multispeciality practice groups and other integrated providers, calls the rule recently drafted by the Department of Health and Human Services "overly prescriptive, operationally burdensome, and the incentives are too difficult to achieve." In a survey of its members, 93% said they won't enroll.
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Incredibly, the ACO teams won't know in advance which patients they're supposed to manage. Seniors will be "retrospectively assigned" to an ACO at the end of every year, based on an arbitrary algorithm, for the purposes of calculating costs.
Late stage patients with melanoma have very few options until now.
Skin cancer 'wonder' drugs that could offer years more life in biggest breakthrough for 30 years
Two ‘wonder’ drugs significantly increase the chances of surviving advanced melanoma – the most dangerous and aggressive form of skin cancer, it was revealed today.
It is the biggest breakthrough in the fight against the disease for more than 30 years, say doctors, with patients getting extra months and sometimes years of life.
Trials show the drugs ipilimumab and vemurafenib both prolong survival.But the best results suggest that, using ipilimumab, the number of patients alive three years after diagnosis is almost twice that of those receiving standard treatment.
In the U.S. there were an estimated 68,000 new cases of melanoma in 2010, with 8,700 reported deaths.
Healthline has a new and fascinating to visualize the various layers of human body, called BodyMaps
Check it out.
My favorite among the 15 Ten-Second Health Tips via Instapundit
1. Eat Bacon and Eggs for Breakfast
Regularly skipping breakfast increases your risk of obesity by 450 percent. Moreover, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that people who regularly ate a protein-rich, 600-calorie breakfast lost significantly more weight in 8 months than those who consumed only 300 calories and a quarter of the protein.
Lots of news on the genetic front that promise new drugs in the future based on your personal genetic profile.
Scientists, in two separate studies, find genetic link to depression - 3p25-26
“In a large number of families where two or more members have depression we found robust evidence that a region [of chromosome 3] called 3p25-26 is strongly linked to the disorder,” said Gerome Breen, lead author of the King’s study. “These findings are truly exciting as possibly for the first time we have found a genetic locus for depression.“
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Many genes – probably more than 100 – contribute to a greater or lesser extent to depression. But unlocking the mechanism of just one, even if it is responsible directly for only a small part of the genetic risk, could make an important contribution to understanding the disease, said Lefkos Middleton, Professor of Clinical Neurology at Imperial College London.
Scientists find "master switch" gene for obesity - KLF14 gene
Scientists have found that a gene linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a "master switch" that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.
In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples' susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.
"This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes," said Tim Spector of King's College London, who led the study.
In Britain, a blood test that tells you how long you'll live will go on sale to the general public this year. Call it Telomere testing
The controversial test measures vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes, called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is ageing.
Scientists behind the €500 (£435) test said it will be possible to tell whether a person's "biological age", as measured by the length of their telomeres, is older or younger than their actual chronological age.
Manhood is Now the Biggest Risk Factor for Early Death
Even the average man will shorten his life span like a Cro-Magnon. Compared to women, Mahalik finds, guys are less likely to wear sunscreen, take their pills, accept bed rest, administer self-exams, develop a network of emotional support, mix in some healthy food, or exercise safely. Alternatively, he is vastly more likely to snuff himself out by smoking and drinking, drinking and driving, drugging and sexing, committing suicide or getting killed, or dying in virtually every conceivable way except childbirth. The reason for all this "stupid stuff," says Mahalik, is men "don't want to be seen as pussies or wimps."
But can society change these ideas? ....Mahalik says, envisioning a campaign that raises awareness of terminal male idiocy the same way prior efforts have addressed anorexia in women.
All those new Men's Health Commissions springing up in states have to make good health be seen as manly.
Remember that WHO study that ranked the health care systems of nearly 200 nations that showed the US way down on the list?
In October 2008, candidate Obama used the study to claim that “29 other countries have a higher life expectancy and 38 other nations have lower infant mortality rates.” On June 15, 2009, as he was beginning to make the case for his health-care bill, the new president said: “As I think many of you are aware, for all of this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured, the quality of our care is often lower, and we aren’t any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend substantially less than we do are actually living longer than we do.”
Turns out it could be The Worst Study Ever
In fact, World Health Report 2000 was an intellectual fraud of historic consequence—a profoundly deceptive document that is only marginally a measure of health-care performance at all. The report’s true achievement was to rank countries according to their alignment with a specific political and economic ideal—socialized medicine—and then claim it was an objective measure of “quality.”
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At its most egregious, the report abandoned the very pretense of assessing health care. WHO ranked the U.S. 42nd in life expectancy. In their book, The Business of Health, Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider of the University of Iowa demonstrated that this finding was a gross misrepresentation. WHO actually included immediate deaths from murder or fatal high-speed motor-vehicle accidents in their assessment, as if an ideal health-care system could turn back time to undo car crashes and prevent homicides.
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What we have here is a prime example of the misuse of social science and the conversion of statistics from pseudo-data into propaganda. The basic principle, casually referred to as “garbage in, garbage out,” is widely accepted by all researchers as a cautionary dictum. To the authors of World Health Report 2000, it functioned as its opposite—a method to justify a preconceived agenda. The shame is that so many people, including leaders in whom we must repose our trust and whom we expect to make informed decisions based on the best and most complete data, made such blatant use of its patently false and overtly politicized claims.
Medicare as we known it isn't an option. Betsy McCaughey
Medicare as we've always known it is already gone. It was eviscerated by President Obama's health law.
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The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years and spends the money on other programs, including a vast expansion of Medicaid. In 2019, Medicare spending under the Obama health law is projected to be $14,731 per senior, instead of $16,162 if the law had not passed, according to Medicare actuaries (Health Affairs, October 2010).
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The fact is that Mr. Obama's law raids Medicare. Mr. Ryan's plan, on the other hand, stops the Medicare heist and puts the funds "saved" in this decade toward health care for another generation of retirees.
Beginning in 2022, the Ryan plan offers each new Medicare enrollee a choice of private health plans and a premium paid to the plan they choose. The key is that the premium will be equivalent to what Medicare is projected to spend under the Obama health law: $15,000 a year on average, more for the oldest enrollees, less for the youngest, all inflation adjusted.
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The Ryan proposal also includes a $7,800 annual medical savings account to help low-income seniors with out-of-pocket costs.
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So what can retiring Americans count on in 2022 and after? The Obama health law leaves that up to an unelected board of presidential appointees called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a cost-cutting panel.
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Will Americans now in their 40s and 50s choose to put their health care in the hands of this cost-cutting board, or pick their own health plan when they retire? Whatever decision the nation makes should not turn on the false claim that President Obama has protected Medicare.
More on just how dangerous those compact fluorescent bulbs are.
A compact fluorescent light (CFL) on the ceiling burst and started a fire in a home in Hornell, N.Y. December 23, 2010. "Those are the lights everybody's been telling us to use," said Joe Gerych, Steuben County Fire Inspector. "It blew up like a bomb. It spattered all over." Fire Chief Mike Robbins said the blaze destroyed the room where the fire started and everything in it, and the rest of the house suffered smoke and water damage. The Arkport Village Fire Department as well as the North Hornell Fire Department required about 15 minutes to put out the fire
And this from England: Energy saving light bulbs 'contain cancer causing chemicals'
Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.
Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”
Remember that acronym. It stands for the Independent Payment Advisory Board. It is the single biggest difference between the President's plan and Paul Ryan's Plan.
In his speech on the deficit, Obama pointed to IPAB as an answer to Paul Ryan’s plan. In Ryan’s vision, competition among insurers will force efficiencies and lower prices. Under Obama’s plan, in contrast, health-care prices for the elderly would be controlled by IPAB. Ryan’s plan puts consumers in the driver’s seat, but also exposes them to the risk of bad choices and limited subsidies. While Obama’s plan offers government-guaranteed care, IPAB’s price controls will lead to one-size-fits-all rationing. As IPAB caps Medicare payments for various services, the elderly will be unable to obtain many kinds of care, or will experience de facto rationing via long treatment delays and sharp declines in the quality of care. And by the way, IPAB rationing will hit many current seniors, whereas Ryan’s reform of Medicare will never affect anyone now 55 or older.
Stanley Kurtz has more on IPAB, Obama and Socialism
Blueberries can slash body's fat cells by up to three-quarters
Slimmers should start snacking on blueberries, as they slash the number of fat cells in the body by up to three-quarters, say scientists.
Researchers found the fruit can break down existing fat cells and prevent new ones from forming, making them a potentially powerful weapon in the fight against rising obesity.
Blueberries, which have already been lauded as a superfood for their ability to help prevent heart disease and Type-2 diabetes, contain high levels of polyphenols – groups of chemicals with potential health benefits.
Tests revealed polyphenols can cut the number of fat cells in the body by 73 per cent with a large dose and 27 per cent with the smallest dose, the American Society for Nutrition’s Experimental Biology
Apple a day does keep the doctor away
It found that women on an 'apple diet' saw their cholesterol drop by almost a quarter in six months, while they also lost weight.
Dr Bahram Arjmandi, of the department of nutrition, food and exercise sciences at Florida University, described the results as "incredible"
In the study, 80 women aged 45 to 65 were asked to eat 75 grams of dried prunes a day for a year, and the other 80 were asked to eat the same amount of dried apple, in addition to their normal diets.
Blood samples were taken at the start of the study and at three, six and 12 months. Dr Arjmandi said that "incredible changes in the apple-eating women happened by 6 months- they experienced a 23 per cent decrease in LDL cholesterol, which is known as the 'bad cholesterol'."
This is the first case I know of where an umbilical cord was preserved for its stem cells and, in fact, saved a young girl's life.
Cord blood stem cells used to help cure girl of brain cancer in Spain
A four-year-old girl has become the first patient in Spain to recover from brain cancer after being treated with stem cells from her own umbilical cord blood.
Alba was born healthy in 2007, but at age two she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. Her treatment consisted of extracting the majority of the tumor from her brain. She was then given chemotherapy to reduce and eventually eliminate the remainder of the tumor.
Alba's blood system was destroyed during the final round of chemo, thus requiring a transplant of cord blood stem cells.
The procedure was carried out in 2009 by Dr. Luis Madero of the Department of Oncology and Hematology at the Nino Jesus Hospital in Madrid.
Today, four year-old Alba is a healthy girl.
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Alba’s father, Santiago, who is a computer engineer, and her mother, Teresa, a literature professor, agreed that keeping the blood from Alba’s umbilical cord was the “best investment” they ever made.
Santiago said he had previously seen a report “on the treatment for Parkinson’s using stem cells … and was sympathetic to the idea of using stem cells to treat degenerative diseases.”
“Keeping the umbilical cord is a wager for the future, a life insurance policy that you don’t know if you will need but that could save a life,” Teresa added.
Well worth reading. Epidemiology: Study of a lifetime
In 1946, scientists started tracking thousands of British children born during one cold March week. On their 65th birthday, the study members find themselves more scientifically valuable than ever before.
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All told, the results from the 1946 birth cohort — now known as the National Survey of Health and Development and run by the Medical Research Council (MRC) — have filled 8 books and some 600 papers so far. Perhaps more than anything else, the survey has shown that early life matters — a lot. "Ultimately, where you get to in early adulthood is strongly influenced by where you come from," says Michael Wadsworth, who led the study for nearly 30 years,
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the study is lending a touch of immortality to all its participants, whether men and women, born into comfort or poverty. Traces of them will live on in preserved DNA, cell lines frozen in liquid nitrogen — and in their records, now all transferred from punch cards to computers. "You're very aware that your memory is going," says Ward. "But you also know that in the archive is a version of you."
After reading this
In 2007, Charles P. Gerba, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona, swabbed airplane bathrooms and tray tables on eight flights to see what bugs might be lurking onboard. Four out of six tray tables tested positive for the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and norovirus, the highly contagious group of viruses that can cause a miserable one- or two-day bout of vomiting, diarrhea and cramping, was found on one tray. Most of the bathrooms he swabbed had E. coli bacteria. Thirty percent of sinks, flush handles and faucet handles had E. coli, as did 20 percent of toilet seats, according to his research.
I'm going to take more seriously the Practical Traveler's advice How Not to Get Sick From a Flight
Wash your hands before touching your face and before eating and drinking. Looks like I'll be carrying one of those hand sanitizers.
UPDATE
And I'm going to start using those disinfectant wipes offered at the grocery store before using a grocery cart .
Gerba says 72% of the carts had a positive marker for fecal bacteria. When they examined some of the samples, they found Escherichia coli, also known as E. coli, on half of them.
Researchers say they actually found more fecal bacteria on grocery cart handles than you would typically find in a bathroom, mainly because bathrooms are disinfected more often than shopping carts.
Since most stores do not routinely wash and disinfect their carts, it's up to you to do it.
The Top Five Medical Information Websites
When looking for reliable medical information, don't fall for sponsored links.
Marvin M. Lipman, the chief medical advisor of Consumers Union, listed the following five health-related websites as providing the most "up-to-date, reliable and understandable information."
1. cancer.gov for information about cancer
2. cdc.gov for information about infectious diseases, travel medicine and epidemiology
3. fda.gov for information about drugs
4. medlineplus.gov for information about diseases
5. usp.org for information about medicine and nutritional supplements
HT Book of Joe from whom I stole the graphic
Part of my job is dealing with chemical addictions and the addicts who have them. One definition of chemical dependency that I particularly like and have seen validated over and over again is this: "Chemical dependency is essentially a committed pathological love relationship to a mood altering chemical substance."
I thought of that definition when I saw these photos posted by a sheriff in Portland Oregon that show more vividly than anyone can describe the destructive effects of meth. Scared straight: Drugs before and after.
You can see a whole gallery here.
The human ability to adjust and be happy even with extreme disability is extraordinary and reassuring.
Many locked-in syndrome patients happy
You are awake, aware and probably unable to move or talk — but you are not necessarily unhappy, says the largest study of locked-in syndrome ever conducted.
A surprising number of patients with the condition say they are happy, despite being paralyzed and having to communicate mainly by moving their eyes. Most cases are caused by major brain damage, often sustained in traumatic accidents.
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Sixty-five patients used a scale to indicate their sense of well-being, with 47 saying they were happy and 18 unhappy. They were also asked a variety of questions about their lives, including their ability to get around or participate in social functions, or if they had ever considered euthanasia.
Only a handful of patients said they often had suicidal thoughts. The patients responded to questions largely by blinking.
Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said of the results: "We cannot and should not presume to know what it must be like to be in one of these conditions."
"Many patients can find happiness in ways that we simply cannot imagine," he said via e-mail. He was not linked to the study.
As a long time proponent of napping, I relished this post from the Art of Manliness. For all my jobs, I always kept a straw basket that held a mat, a blanket and a small down pillow so that I could nap under the desk when I had to.
But in reality, the nap stigma is incredibly misplaced. Naps can be one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement; they can increase not only our health and well-being but our intelligence and productivity as well. This is something great men have known all along. Famous thinkers and leaders like Edison, JFK, Churchill, and Napoleon were all ardent nappers. We’ll cover the specific napping habits of famous men in a future post.
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While the pace of modern life may keep us from being the biphasic sleepers we were meant to be, the urge for a daytime snooze is still hardwired into our biology. Studies have shown that when people are put into an environment that lacks any indication of time, they will fall into the long sleep at night/shorter nap during the day pattern. Thus most of us are daily fighting tooth and nail against our body’s natural circadian rhythm, and this is wreaking havoc on our well-being, turning us into a horde of zombies that crave espresso instead of brains.
The authors list the benefits of napping
More candor urged in care of dying cancer patients
WASHINGTON – Patients don't want to hear that they're dying and doctors don't want to tell them. But new guidance for the nation's cancer specialists says they should be upfront and do it far sooner.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology says too often, patients aren't told about options like comfort care or even that their chemo has become futile until the bitter end.
To help families broach the topic, too, the group developed an easy-to-read booklet about those choices, from standard care to symptom relief, and advice about what to ask to maximize remaining time.
"This is not a 15-minute conversation, and it should not happen in the back of the ambulance on the way to the ICU at 3 in the morning," says ASCO chief executive Dr. Allen Lichter. "When everyone is well and has their wits about them, it's time to start the process."
The guidance and booklet — available at http://www.cancer.net — mark an unusually strong push for planning end-of-life care, in a profession that earns more from attacking tumors than from lengthy, emotional discussions about when it's time to stop.
"This is a clarion call for oncologists . to take the lead in curtailing the use of ineffective therapy and ensuring a focus on palliative care and relief of symptoms throughout the course of illness," the guidance stresses.
I love it when a common weed is found to have surprising benefits, especially for people with fair skin like me who are especially prone to sun damage and all that entails as one grows older.
Common garden weed 'cures skin cancer' say scientists
The sap from a plant known as petty spurge or milkweed - found by roadsides and in woodland - can 'kill' certain types of cancer cells when applied to the skin. It works on non-melanoma skin cancers, which affect hundreds of thousands of Britons each year. They are triggered by sun damage and, although not usually fatal, can be disfiguring without treatment .
...a team of scientists in Australia has carried out a clinical study of sap from Euphorbia peplus, which is related to Euphorbia plants grown in gardens in the UK. The study of 36 patients with a total of 48 non-melanoma lesions included basal cell carcinomas (BCC), squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) and intraepidermal carcinomas (IEC), a growth of cancerous cells confined to the outer layer of the skin. Patients had failed to respond to conventional treatment including surgery, or they refused or were unsuitable for surgery because of their age.
The patients were treated once a day for three consecutive days by an oncologist using a cotton bud to apply enough of the E.peplus sap to cover the surface of each lesion. The initial results were impressive, says findings to be released this week in the British Journal of Dermatology. After only one month 41 of the 48 cancers had completely gone.Patients who had some of the lesions remaining were offered a second course of treatment. After an average of 15 months following treatment, two thirds of the 48 skin cancer lesions were still showing a complete response.
In Europe, researchers followed 12,000 volunteers over 6 years to analyze their diets and lifestyles.
They discovered that those who ate a lot of junk food with trans-fats, like pastries and fast food had a 48% increase in the risk of depression.
Bad eating can give you depression.
The report, published in the online journal PLoS ONE, noted the research was performed on a European population that enjoys a relatively low intake of trans-fats -- making up only 0.4 percent "of the total energy ingested by the volunteers."
"Despite this, we observed an increase in the risk of suffering depression of nearly 50 percent," said researcher Miguel Martinez.
"On this basis we derive the importance of taking this effect into account in countries like the US, where the percentage of energy derived from these fats is around 2.5 percent."
--- This rise is attributable, according to the authors, "to radical changes in the sources of fats consumed in Western diets, where we have substituted certain types of beneficial fats -- polyunsaturated and monounsaturated in nuts, vegetable oils and fish -- for the saturated and trans-fats found in meats, butter and other products such as mass-produced pastries and fast food."
John Tierney in Heavy Doses of DNA Data with Few Side Effects
When companies tried selling consumers the results of personal DNA tests, worried doctors and assorted health experts rushed to the public’s rescue. What if the risk assessments were inaccurate or inconsistent? What if people misinterpreted the results and did something foolish? What if they were traumatized by learning they were at high risk for Alzheimer’s or breast cancer or another disease.
The what-ifs prompted New York State to ban the direct sale of the tests to consumers. Members of Congress denounced the tests as “snake oil,” and the Food and Drug Administration has recently threatened the companies with federal oversight. Members of a national advisory commission concluded that personal DNA testing needed to be carefully supervised by experts like themselves.
But now, thanks to new research, there’s a less hypothetical question to consider: What if the would-be guardians of the public overestimated the demand for their supervisory services?
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“Up until now there’s been lots of speculation and what I’d call fear-mongering about the impact of these tests, but now we have data,” says Dr. Eric Topol, the senior author of a report published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. “We saw no evidence of anxiety or distress induced by the tests.”
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That may be the self-empowered future, but for now residents of New York still can’t be trusted to buy these tests directly. It’s paternalism run amok, says Lee Silver, a professor of molecular biology and of public policy at Princeton, who is developing another variety of genetic test for consumers. “It seems like a no-brainer,” Dr. Silver says, “that any competent adult should be free to purchase an analysis of their own DNA as long as they have been informed in advance of what could potentially be revealed in the analysis. You should have access to information about your own genome without a permission slip from your doctor.”
Cheers.
Study: Abstaining from alcohol significantly shortens life
A newly released study shows that regular drinkers are less likely to die prematurely than people who have never indulged in alcohol. You read that right: Time reports that abstaining from alcohol altogether can lead to a shorter life than consistent, moderate drinking.
Surprised? The tightly controlled study, which looked at individuals between ages 55 and 65, spanned a 20-year period and accounted for variables ranging from socioeconomic status to level of physical activity. Led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin, it found that mortality rates were highest for those who had never had a sip, lower for heavy drinkers, and lowest for moderate drinkers who enjoyed one to three drinks per day.
-- A possible explanation for this is that alcohol can be a great social lubricant, and strong social networks are essential for maintaining mental and physical health. Nondrinkers have been shown to demonstrate greater signs of depression than their carousing counterparts, and in addition to the potential heart health and circulation benefits of moderate drinking (especially red wine), it also increases sociability.
Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds
A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.
"It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data."
This is a big deal
Blood test to spot cancer gets big boost - Johnson and Johnson announce plans to bring "liquid biopsy" to market
BOSTON — A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor's office.
Boston scientists who invented the test and health care giant Johnson & Johnson will announce Monday that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year.
Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.
Insights Give Hope for New Attack on Alzheimer's
The first sign the disease is developing — before there are any symptoms — is a buildup of amyloid. And for years, it seemed, the problem in Alzheimer’s was that brain cells were making too much of it.
But now, a surprising new study has found that that view appears to be wrong. It turns out that most people with Alzheimer’s seem to make perfectly normal amounts of amyloid. They just can’t get rid of it. It’s like an overflowing sink caused by a clogged drain instead of a faucet that does not turn off.
Is lenalidomide the fountain of youth?
Eureka! Now scientists discover the drug that could give you a longer and healthier life
Until now it has merely been the stuff of fairy tales and science fiction.
But a ‘fountain of youth’ drug which could help pensioners stay fit and healthy long into old age has been unveiled by doctors.
In tests, tiny amounts of the drug lenalidomide massively boosted immune system chemicals key to fighting off invaders from bugs to tumours.
Concentrations of one of the protective compounds rose more than 100-fold.
---And the minuscule amounts of the drug needed mean that treatment is likely to be side-effect free, the doctors behind the breakthrough believe.
Image is a detail from the painting Fountain of Youth by Lisa Zwerling
The Economist interviews Oliver Sachs who is face-blind and writes that 2.5% of the population is like him, suffering from prosopagnosia.
One can react and respond in all sorts of different ways to blindness. Some people will avoid embarrassment and confusion and all social contact. Others will become extremely attentive to matters of dress and movement and voice, so much so that they become tuned automatically to how people are dressed and how they move. For my part I think I’m good at recognising posture and movement. I’m a little bit on the reticent side—that’s a primary characteristic of face blindness. People should perhaps "out" themselves. In the book I tell a story where a man goes to a physician and says he can't recognise people, and so his life has become "a round of apology and offence". The matter must be aired. If people know you're face blind you don't have to apologise.
"The Mind's Eye" (Oliver Sacks)
My mother used to call aspirin "the wonder drug" because it worked so effectively and nobody really knew how. All they knew was this extract from willow bark reduced fever and treated pain.
Aspirin, acetyl salicylic acid, we learned prevents strokes and heart attacks. Now new studies show that Daily aspirin 'can cut cancer death rate by 50 per cent'
The study has led to the 100-year-old painkiller – costing just 1p a tablet – being hailed as ‘the most amazing drug in the world’. Experts say healthy middle-aged people who start taking low-dose aspirin around the age of 45 or 50 for 20 to 30 years could expect to reap the most benefit, because cancer rates rise with age.The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, looked at eight trials where heart patients were allocated daily aspirin or dummy treatment for five years.
The heart benefits had already been reported – this time the researchers wanted to discover what happened to death rates from cancer. They found dramatic results, with aspirin linked to fewer deaths from a host of cancers.
After five years of taking aspirin, death rates fell by 34 per cent for all cancers and 54 per cent for gastrointestinal cancers.
Aspirin was the trade name registered in 1899 by the German Company Bayer, but, as part of the war reparations specified in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, it lost its status as a registered trademark in France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Aspirin crystals as seen in a color-enhanced electron micrograph by Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy
Could schizophrenia be caused by a virus? A tantalizing thesis explored in The Insanity Virus by Douglas Fox in Discover Magazine
Schizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says a growing group of psychiatrists. The real culprit, they claim, is a virus that lives entwined in every person's DNA.
The facts of schizophrenia are so peculiar, in fact, that they have led Torrey and a growing number of other scientists to abandon the traditional explanations of the disease and embrace a startling alternative. Schizophrenia, they say, does not begin as a psychological disease. Schizophrenia begins with an infection.
The idea has sparked skepticism, but after decades of hunting, Torrey and his colleagues think they have finally found the infectious agent. You might call it an insanity virus. If Torrey is right, the culprit that triggers a lifetime of hallucinations—that tore apart the lives of writer Jack Kerouac, mathematician John Nash, and millions of others—is a virus that all of us carry in our bodies. “Some people laugh about the infection hypothesis,” says Urs Meyer, a neuroimmunologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. “But the impact that it has on researchers is much, much, much more than it was five years ago. And my prediction would be that it will gain even more impact in the future.”
Most people have somewhere between 30 and 40 moles on their bodies, but some have hundreds. According to the research, the more moles you have, the less wrinkles and blemishes. Another study showed that the mole-heavy were also less susceptible to osteoporosis and other bone problems associated with aging: People with over 100 moles got osteoporosis half as often as those with less than 25.Researcher Dr. Veronique Bataille believes that an abundance of moles is an indicator of a factor to do with an individual’s DNA code. People with many moles have longer telomeres – a section of the DNA strand that determines how many times a cell will divide over its lifetime. The longer the telomeres, the more moles someone will have – and, the more youthful the appearance.
A moving story that illuminates and chills, Children Ease Alzheimer's in Land of Aging because it's a glimpse into our future.
It is part of a remarkable South Korean campaign to cope with an exploding problem: Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. As one of the world’s fastest-aging countries, with nearly 9 percent of its population over 65 already afflicted, South Korea has opened a “War on Dementia,” spending money and shining floodlights on a disease that is, here as in many places, riddled with shame and fear.
South Korea is training thousands of people, including children, as “dementia supporters,” to recognize symptoms and care for patients. ----
Hundreds of neighborhood dementia diagnostic centers have been created. Nursing homes have nearly tripled since 2008. Other dementia programs, providing day care and home care, have increased fivefold since 2008, to nearly 20,000. Care is heavily subsidized.
And a government dementia database allows families to register relatives and receive iron-on identification numbers. Citizens encountering wanderers with dementia report their numbers to officials, who contact families.
So the authorities promote the notion that filial piety implies doing everything possible for elders with dementia, a condition now called chimae (pronounced chee-may): disease of knowledge and the brain which makes adults become babies. But South Korea’s low birth rate will make family caregiving tougher.
“I feel as if a tsunami’s coming,” said Lee Sung-hee, the South Korean Alzheimer’s Association president, who trains nursing home staff members, but also thousands who regularly interact with the elderly: bus drivers, tellers, hairstylists, postal workers. “Sometimes I think I want to run away,” she said. “But even the highest mountain, just worrying does not move anything, but if you choose one area and move stone by stone, you pave a way to move the whole mountain.”
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The dementia caregiving program had made him “wonder why I wasn’t able to do that with my own grandma, and I think I should do better in the future to compensate for all my wrongdoing,” he said. “I could have taken care of my grandmother with a grateful feeling. If only I could have.”
New Surgery Drops Blood Pressure 30%
A new surgical technique can lower blood pressure by up to 30% by destroying tiny nerves in the arteries leading to the kidneys. These nerves regulate blood supply, but can be overactive in some patients, dangerously boosting blood pressure. This new procedure inserts a small probe through a catheter in the renal arteries and produces heat sufficient to kill off the nerves.
The surgery can be completed in about 40 to 60 minutes and only requires an overnight stay in the hospital. Only 10% of patients were unresponsive to treatment, according to research being published in The Lancet, compared to almost 50% who are unresponsive to traditional blood pressure medications. Furthermore, meds often only reduce blood pressure by 10%, making the new method almost three times better.
A California company has shown how to dramatically lower blood pressure in hard-to-treat patients by destroying tiny nerves in the kidney.
The nerves are located inside the main arteries leading to the kidney. They affect blood pressure by controlling the release of sodium and an enzyme called renin, and by managing blood flow from the kidneys themselves.
The procedure was developed by Ardian, a medical device company based in Mountain View, California. Previous studies have shown that these nerves are overactive in many people with high blood pressure, says Murray Esler, who led the new research. By destroying these nerves in about 50 people, Esler could reduce those patients' uncontrolled high blood pressure by nearly 30 percent. A study describing the work was presented today at the American Heart Association, and the work is published in The Lancet.
Good news if you have a 'spare tire' around your middle because stem cells taken from the fat around your waistline may be just the treatment you need when you get your first heart attack.
'Spare tire' could save lives: belly fat helped heart attack patients
Stem cells taken from waistline fat could be used as a treatment for heart attacks.
Scientists injected stem cells derived from waistline fat tissue into the hearts of coronary patients and found the cells reduced levels of damage, increased blood flow and improved the organs' pumping ability.
Eleven men and three women who had suffered recent heart attacks took part in the pioneering pilot study, given the name Apollo.
Ten patients were treated with stem cells while four received a dummy 'placebo' infusion.
Liposuction - a cosmetic procedure commonly used to reduce people's waistlines - was used to remove up to 250 cubic centimetres of fat from the patients' bellies.
From each sample, the researchers isolated and extracted 20 million adult stem cells - regenerative cells with the potential to become more than one kind of tissue.
It took nine to ten minutes to infuse the stem cells into a patient's heart.
Six months later members of the treated group showed a 3.5 per cent improvement in heart perfusion, the heart's ability to receive oxygenated blood.
Compared with the placebo patients, they also experienced a 5.7 per cent increase in the amount of blood pumped out by the heart's left ventricle chamber.
On average, the amount of damaged heart muscle in the treated patients was halved from 31.6 per cent to 15.4 per cent. In the non-treated group, levels of heart damage remained the same.
A follow up trial will recruit 375 patients from around Europe
The childhood disease rickets is a softening of the bones that can lead to fractures and deformity. The predominant cause is vitamin D deficiency. Famine in developing countries often results in severe malnutrition of young children leading to rickets. When you see a child with bowed legs, the child probably has rickets.
In most cases, rickets is easily cured with milk, sunshine and exercise. In the absence of vitamin D, either from sunshine or from supplements, calcium can not be absorbed by the body.
Rickets was a scourge in the 19th century when young children were sent to work long days in factories and now it looks as if it will be a scourge in the 21st century as well.
Too little milk, sunshine and exercise: It's an anti-bone trifecta.
But cases of full-blown rickets are just the red flag: Bone specialists say possibly millions of seemingly healthy children aren't building as much strong bone as they should - a gap that may leave them more vulnerable to bone-cracking osteoporosis later in life than their grandparents are.
"This potentially is a time-bomb," says Dr. Laura Tosi, bone health chief at Children's National Medical Center in Washington.
In England, middle class children are suffering rickets as parents cover them in sunscreen and limit time outside in sunshine
It is thought extensive use of sunscreen, children playing more time on computer games and TV rather than playing outside and a poor diet are to blame.
Professor Nicholas Clarke, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Southampton General Hospital and professor of paediatric orthopaedic surgery at the University of Southampton, said
“We are facing the daunting prospect of an area like Southampton, where it is high income, middle class and leafy in its surroundings, seeing increasing numbers of children with rickets, which would have been inconceivable only a year or so ago.”
Nutritional ignorance in the US among middle-class families is also leading to rickets according to a professor of pediatrics. Parents on vegetarian diets mistakenly believe that their child is allergic to milk and switch to soy-based or rice-based drinks.
"Soy and rice beverages may look like cow's milk, but these products may not contain the amount of calcium and vitamin D that's needed for proper growth and development,"
A quick round-up on health and medical news this week.
Very good news on the medical front as Scientists Turn Skin Cells Directly into Blood Cells.
In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin.
The discovery, published Nov. 7 in the journal Nature, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.
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The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of person.
The potential of this discovery is enormous. In 5 years time, we may be donating patches of our own skin before surgery or treatment of cancer.
University of Toronto scientists have found that many paper food packages, like microwave popcorn bags, are popping dangerous chemicals into the products they contain.
And significant levels of those chemicals and the products they break down into are now in human blood, the study’s co-author says.
“We found these food contact paper chemicals in human blood in high concentrations,” says Scott Mabury, an environmental chemist at the U of T.
Indeed, he says that a large portion of the so-called Perfluorinated carboxylic acids — or PFCAs that have been worrying doctors and global regulatory agencies for a decade likely come from paper junk food wrappers.
“The normal example is popcorn bags and pizza boxes, but the fact of the matter is it’s much more widespread than that,” says Mabury.
“Many, many papers that are used in the food packaging industry contain these (chemicals).”
The best course of action is to take frozen food out of its wrappers and cover with paper towels before microwaving.
As for popcorn, it tastes much better if you use a popcorn popper.
C. Edmund Wright lowered his health care costs for himself and his family and his premium went down 11%.
Health Care 101: How We Lowered Our Costs
Now I am not an Ivy League grad; nonetheless, I figured out how to dramatically lower my health care costs two years in a row. And by costs, I mean both insurance premiums and overall expenditures for health care -- without sacrificing anything.
In other words, I have succeeded in "bending down the cost curve" for our family.
Moreover, I submit that this case study -- of my rather typical family of five -- is a valid microcosm of how our country can address most of our nation's health care cost issues. And again, it is by doing the very opposite of what our government is trying to force down our collective throats.
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And this is something that almost everyone could do. It is common sense and not hard to understand. By taking insurance companies out of the mix of routine services, we have reduced the cost of routine services -- and saved a ton of money on the insurance premiums. The bureaucratic involvement in every transaction is a huge cost that no one seems to calculate when trying to reduce costs.
In fact, ObamaCare infuses even more bureaucratic involvement in every aspect of our life. How can this possibly work? It cannot, of course, not to mention the fact that it is offensive and totalitarian.
A Greek mathematical genius, who is also an American-trained physician, becomes a "meta-researcher" and discovers that much of medical research is "misleading, exaggerated or flat-out wrong".
Described as " neat and compact 45-year-old with a trim mustache, he presents as a sort of dashing nerd—Giancarlo Giannini with a bit of Mr. Bean", Professor John Ioannidis is profiled by David Freedman in the Atlantic, Lies, Damned Lies and Medical Science
In poring over medical journals, he was struck by how many findings of all types were refuted by later findings. Of course, medical-science “never minds” are hardly secret. And they sometimes make headlines, as when in recent years large studies or growing consensuses of researchers concluded that mammograms, colonoscopies, and PSA tests are far less useful cancer-detection tools than we had been told; or when widely prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil were revealed to be no more effective than a placebo for most cases of depression; or when we learned that staying out of the sun entirely can actually increase cancer risks; or when we were told that the advice to drink lots of water during intense exercise was potentially fatal; or when, last April, we were informed that taking fish oil, exercising, and doing puzzles doesn’t really help fend off Alzheimer’s disease, as long claimed. Peer-reviewed studies have come to opposite conclusions on whether using cell phones can cause brain cancer, whether sleeping more than eight hours a night is healthful or dangerous, whether taking aspirin every day is more likely to save your life or cut it short, and whether routine angioplasty works better than pills to unclog heart arteries.
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Ioannidis laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the well-known tendency to focus on exciting rather than highly plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time.
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He zoomed in on 49 of the most highly regarded research findings in medicine over the previous 13 years -- that helped lead to the widespread popularity of treatments such as the use of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women, vitamin E to reduce the risk of heart disease, coronary stents to ward off heart attacks, and daily low-dose aspirin to control blood pressure and prevent heart attacks and strokes -- thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated. If between a third and a half of the most acclaimed research in medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and impact of the problem were undeniable.
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We could solve much of the wrongness problem, Ioannidis says, if the world simply stopped expecting scientists to be right. That’s because being wrong in science is fine, and even necessary—as long as scientists recognize that they blew it, report their mistake openly instead of disguising it as a success, and then move on to the next thing, until they come up with the very occasional genuine breakthrough. But as long as careers remain contingent on producing a stream of research that’s dressed up to seem more right than it is, scientists will keep delivering exactly that.
What a stupendous achievement this is.
Boy Born Without Ears Receives Gift of Sound
Diego Neumaier Ortiz, a 12-year-old boy from Puebla, Mexico, was born with a condition called microtia, which left his ears almost completely undeveloped. Even with a hearing aid, sound was almost completely muffled for the young boy.
So Diego threw himself into a sport where he didn’t need to be conscious of his teammates’ calls: gymnastics. He learned to master the arts of vaulting, balance bars, and backflips. Recently, he became the junior gymnastics champion in all of Mexico. A visiting American doctor was watching from the bleachers, amazed by the child’s skill. He also noticed that Diego was deaf—and thought that something could be done to fix that.
The doctor contacted a well-known specialist in ear reconstruction, Dr. John Reinisch. He offered to take Diego’s complicated case for no charge.
In the operation, Dr. Reinisch and another surgeon, Dr. Joseph Roberson, created an outer ear for cosmetic purposes, then drilled a hole to access the inner ear and build an ear canal. The operation took nine hours, and the ear would require two weeks to heal.
When the doctors finally pulled back the gauze on Diego’s new ear, his mother praised the good work they had done. That was the first time Diego had heard her voice.
In return for the gift of hearing, Diego presented the doctors with a present of his own: his championship medals for his gymnastics wins.
“I don’t have anything to give them, but this is so valuable to me,” Diego told CBS. “I want to give them to Dr. Reinisch, because he is giving me something greater: two ears.”
It's astonishing to contemplate how much we depend on people we do not know. Trauma surgeons are a good example. Imagine working 100 hours a week for 20 years in the midst of "blood, guts, death and chaos" with such responsibility for the lives of so many people.
A night in a Detroit trauma ward
My old friend from journalism school Charlie LeDuff, who writes for the Detroit News, spent the night hanging around one of the city hospital's trauma wards. His host was chief surgeon Dr. Pat Patton, 46. Among patients with stab and gunshot wounds, Charlie gains some insight into the consequences of a crap economy, health insurance, and a routine evening for a surgeon who has regularly worked 100 hours per week in the ward... for the last twenty years.
From the Detroit News:
The trauma surgeon — perhaps the most knowledgeable about the workings of the entire human body — is considered something of a butcher among the cutting class: a brute who is the jack of all trades, the master of none. A general surgeon like Patton may not understand the intricacies of neurosurgery, but he is able to cobble together the shattered pieces of a gunshot victim in a late-night marathon of surgery.
Patton’s most important tool appears to be his right index finger. That digit acts as his probe, his periscope, his divining rod, his cork. He can remember on more than one occasion saving the life of a gunshot victim who arrived at the hospital in the back of a sedan. He simply plugged the hole with his finger.
Hats off for Dr. Patton.
if you’re keen on tamping down your own cold, “boosting” your immunity may be the last thing you want to do.
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Here was a new insight in cold science: the symptoms are caused not by the virus but by its host — by the body’s inflammatory response. Chemical agents manufactured by our immune system inflame our cells and tissues, causing our nose to run and our throat to swell. The enemy is us.
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It seems counterintuitive, but there it is: People with more active immune systems may be especially prone to cold symptoms. So getting a cold may be a positive sign that your biochemical defenses are working normally — a glass-half-full view of getting the sniffles.
Rediscovering the First Miracle Drug
Every few months some miracle drug or other is rolled out with bells and confetti, but only once or twice in a generation does the real thing come along....
the birth of the first one is almost forgotten. It was injectable insulin, long sought by researchers all over the world and finally isolated in 1921 by a team of squabbling Canadians. With insulin, dying children laughed and played again, as parents wept and doctors spoke of biblical resurrections.
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But the miracle went only so far: insulin was not a cure. In 1921, New York City’s death rate from diabetes was estimated to be the highest in the country, and today the health department lists diabetes among the city’s top five killers. Now though, it is adults who die, not children. What insulin did was turn a brief, deadly illness into a long, chronic struggle,
Via Instapundit who commented
The Insta-Wife’s great grandmother died of diabetes just a few months before insulin came out. A reminder that for every miracle drug, there’s a “faster, please.”
The real struggle came after the discovery - producing the drug and getting it from here to there.
Meanwhile, the notion of allowing patients to test their own urine for glucose and calculate their own insulin doses was outlandish to most doctors. Diabetes was the first illness which forced them to cede some medical authority to the patient, said Jean Ashton, one of the exhibit’s curators. With insulin, diabetics suddenly acquired both the right and the responsibility to maintain their own health.
The author of the piece, Abigail Zuger MD, tells the story of little Elizabeth Hughes, the daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evan Hughes, very sick and frail who survived long enough to be one of the first Americans to take the new drug.
The few dozen of her letters that survive from her six-month stay in Toronto, as she exuberantly regained health and strength, emphasize how desperately she wanted to stop being a patient forever.
It was a great day when she injected herself with insulin for the first time: “I can do it perfectly beautifully,” she wrote to her mother. “Now I feel so absolutely independent.”
Now they tell us.
Women's Brains on Steroids: Birth control pills appear to remodel brain structure
here are millions of cases of steroid use that occur daily with barely a second thought: Millions of women take birth control pills, blithely unaware that their effects may be subtly seeping into and modulating brain structure and activity.
It is a huge experiment whose resolution will not be known for a while, but a new study in the journal Brain Research demonstrates that the effects are likely to be dramatic. It found that birth control pills have structural effects on regions of the brain that govern higher-order cognitive activities, suggesting that a woman on birth control pills may literally not be herself -- or is herself, on steroids.
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What happens, then, when the female brain gets a significant and artificial dose of steroid hormone, either progesterone, estrogen or both? We know what happens below the waist, the pregnancies prevented. What happens above the neck, as this steroidal tsunami washes over the neural coastline?
It appears that the brain, that sensitive organ replete with steroid receptors, reacts to its hormonal milieu with startling structural modifications
Scientific American also reported that Birth Control Pills Affect Women's Taste in Men.
Women on the pill are developing differently than nature intended and choosing mates they otherwise would not have chosen.
With little research on the long term effects, millions and millions of women have taken hormones for decades, but the evidence of the consequences is beginning to appear.
We've already learned that post-menopausal women should stop taking hormones.
"An awful lot of breast cancer was caused by doctors' prescriptions," said Larry Norton of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
More and more evidence is revealing the disastrous effects of synthetic hormones in our water supply that has led to deformed wildlife and the alarming rise in male infertility. But, despite the evidence, there is almost total denial. The pill is sacrosanct, the sacred cow of the sexual revolution.
A new form of CPR - Continuous Chest Compression - can double a person's chances of survival who collapses from sudden cardiac arrest.
It's easier to learn, easier to perform and more effective than traditional CPR that recommended rescue breathing.
Continuous Chest Compression does not require certification or mouth-to-mouth and because of Good Samaritan laws in, I think, every state, you are not at legal risk.
Who knows? Someday you may be in a position to save someone's life. Watch and learn how to do it in this six-minute video.
HT: Ace
‘"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.” said Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary, objecting to the claims by health insurers that increased costs imposed by Obamacare will force them to raise premiums. Then she went on to threaten them, “We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014.”
Now I'm not looking forward to premium increases any more than you are, but I was startled and then outraged that any public official would dare say such a thing.
Michael Barone calls it "Gangster Government going after Obamacare critics"
”Congress shall make no law,” reads the First Amendment, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Sebelius’s approach is different: “zero tolerance” for dissent.
The threat to use government regulation to destroy or harm a business because the owners disagree with government officials is thuggery. Like the Obama administration’s transfer of money from Chrysler bondholders to its political allies in the United Auto Workers, it is a form of gangster government.
This is deeply alarming abuse of power. From the Morning Bell of the Heritage Foundation
Never before in the history of our republican form of government has an administration threatened to extinguish individual firms for merely communicating with their customers. But such are the dictatorial powers Obamacare grants to Secretary Sebelius. There are over 1,000 instances in the more than 2,700 page bill where Congress granted Secretary Sebelius new powers to regulate the health care industry. For example, her power to “determine” what does or does not count as a medical expense alone will decide the fate of many health insurance firms.
In Get Ready for Your Health Care 'Re-Education' we learn about some of the new requirements of the law placed on all insurers.
Under ObamaCare, insurers must now offer dozens of services for “free,” including various forms of cancer screening, vaccinations, and AIDS testing. But of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch — instead the costs must be shifted to other customers. Hence, many insurers have started raising their rates, explaining that it is due to these new regulations.
But, according to Secretary Sibelius, they can't say a word about it or the power of the federal government will destroy their business.
Thuggish indeed.
10p pill to beat Alzheimer's disease: Vitamin B halts memory loss in breakthrough British trial
A simple vitamin pill could prevent millions from suffering the agony of Alzheimer's.
The tablet, costing as little as 10p a day and made up of three vitamin B supplements, cut brain shrinkage linked to memory loss by up to 500 per cent.
Oxford University researchers behind the landmark study said it offered the 'first glimmer of hope' in the battle to find a drug that slows or stops the development of Alzheimer's.
10p is about 16 cents.
Professor David Smith, one of the study leaders, said: 'This is a very striking, dramatic result. It is our hope this simple and safe treatment will delay the development of Alzheimer's in many who suffer from mild memory problems.'
Co-researcher Professor Helga Refsum added: 'Here we have a very simple solution: you give some vitamins and you seem to protect the brain.'
It will take about 5 years for all the drug trials to take place but Professor Smith said he
would not hesitate’ to take the cocktail of 20mg of vitamin B6, 0.8mg of vitamin B9, or folate, and 0.5mg of vitamin B12, himself, if he were diagnosed with MCI.
The Alzheimer’s Research Trust, which part-funded the study, said that delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years could halve the number of those who die with the condition.
Press on your gums to stop a nosebleed.
Cough during an injection to beat pain.
Wiggle your head to end pins and needles.
Blow on your thumb to stop palpitations.
Fingers in your ears for a sore throat.
Suck on an ice cube to soothe toothache.
Swallow sugar to stop hiccups.
Put pressure on a burn.
Wear bed socks to beat insomnia.
Use duct tape to remove a wart.
Grunt to stop a stitch.
Sprinkle black pepper on a cut.
Eat coconut to relieve diarrhea.
Medical specialists explain why they might work and how.
Tai Chi Reported to Ease Fibromyalgia
Best of all, you can do Tai Chi no matter what your age. I know in my town, they offer free classes to seniors.The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi may be effective as a therapy for fibromyalgia, according to a study published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
A clinical trial at Tufts Medical Center found that after 12 weeks of tai chi, patients with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, did significantly better in measurements of pain, fatigue, physical functioning, sleeplessness and depression than a comparable group given stretching exercises and wellness education. Tai chi patients were also more likely to sustain improvement three months later.
“It’s an impressive finding,” said Dr. Daniel Solomon, chief of clinical research in rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the research. “This was a well-done study. It was kind of amazing that the effects seem to carry over.”
An experimental therapy that targets the protein that feeds certain types of advanced skin cancer has successfully shrunk tumors in up to 80 percent of test patients, a study has indicated.
The orally-administered medication, called PLX4032, "shuts off" tumors by neutralizing a mutated gene called "BRAF" that feeds the cancerous growths.
"We have never seen an 80 percent response rate in melanoma, or in any other solid tumor for that matter, so this is remarkable," said Paul Chapman, senior author of the study and a doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
"Metastatic melanoma has a devastating prognosis and is one of the top causes of cancer death in young patients," said Keith Flaherty of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and a lead author.
"Until now, available therapies were few and unreliable, so these findings can really change the outlook for patients whose tumors are fueled by this mutation."
The study, published in the August 26 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, grew out of the discovery that BRAF mutations, which occur in roughly half of patients with melanomas, effectively feed and grow the tumors.
From Wired, Secret of AA: After 75 Years, We Don’t Know How It Works
Lots more at the link.“Doesn’t matter how much snow we get—a foot, 10 feet piled up in front of the door,” he says. “I will leave my apartment tomorrow and go find a meeting.”
He clasps his hands together and draws them to his heart: “You understand me? I need this.” Daily meetings, the man says, are all that prevent him from winding up dead in the gutter, shoes gone because he sold them for booze or crack. And he hasn’t had a drink in more than a decade.
The resolve is striking, though not entirely surprising. AA has been inspiring this sort of ardent devotionfor 75 years.
------It’s all quite an achievement for a onetime broken-down drunk. And Wilson’s success is even more impressive when you consider that AA and its steps have become ubiquitous despite the fact that no one is quite sure how—or, for that matter, how well—they work. The organization is notoriously difficult to study, thanks to its insistence on anonymity and its fluid membership. And AA’s method, which requires “surrender” to a vaguely defined “higher power,” involves the kind of spiritual revelations that neuroscientists have only begun to explore.
What we do know, however, is that despite all we’ve learned over the past few decades about psychology, neurology, and human behavior, contemporary medicine has yet to devise anything that works markedly better. “In my 20 years of treating addicts, I’ve never seen anything else that comes close to the 12 steps,” says Drew Pinsky, the addiction-medicine specialist who hosts VH1’s Celebrity Rehab. “In my world, if someone says they don’t want to do the 12 steps, I know they aren’t going to get better.”
------One thing is certain, though: AA doesn’t work for everybody. In fact, it doesn’t work for the vast majority of people who try it. And understanding more about who it does help, and why, is likely our best shot at finally developing a system that improves on Wilson’s amateur scheme for living without the bottle.
___There’s no doubt that when AA works, it can be transformative. But what aspect of the program deserves most of the credit? Is it the act of surrendering to a higher power? The making of amends to people a drinker has wronged? The simple admission that you have a problem? Stunningly, even the most highly regarded AA experts have no idea.
There is evidence that a big part of AA’s effectiveness may have nothing to do with the actual steps. It may derive from something more fundamental: the power of the group....after a review of nearly 200 articles on group therapy, a pair of Stanford University researchers pinpointed why the approach works so well: “Members find the group to be a compelling emotional experience; they develop close bonds with the other members and are deeply influenced by their acceptance and feedback.”
There are many hidden financial and privacy traps that Karen Blumenthal in the Wall St Journal warns parents about in Packing for College, 2010 Style
Among them:
1. Not reading what the college health insurance policy covers and doesn't.
2. Not having your college student sign a health care power of attorney as well as a HIPAA release form.
3. Not getting insurance riders for that brand new computer for college.
4. Not getting clear about how money will get to the student.
In a short time, I will qualify for Medicare and here are some things I am learning that does not make me feel confident.
1. Medicare is going broke even faster than we thought.
In an unprecedented dissent, the chief actuary of Medicare rejects the rosy projections from the 2010 Medicare Trustees Report.
He couldn't, in good conscience, sign the report, so he issued an alternative memo.
The memo claimed that the estimates used by the White House and its allies underestimated costs by a whopping 68% and could not possibly be seen as a good-faith projection of the program’s future
2. Medicare's policy for covering drugs is not uniform across the country.
If you have stage 4 breast cancer or ovarian cancer, are on Medicare, and your only hope is treatment with Avastin, you can't get Avastin in Colorado even with health insurance, though you can in California, New York and all other states. Why Avastin matters.
3. Medicare limits hospital readmissions.
The Deadly Pact: How Obamacare will 'save' money
....To clarify, the above provision gives the Health Secretary the discretion to remove life-extending treatment from the reach of seniors and place them in state wards for the purposes of making the "transition" to death as painless as possible. This "transition" can be activated for virtually any reason, including "a history of multiple readmissions" or "risk factor." Both of these qualifiers describe more than half the country, making this provision a transparent attempt by government to cut costs by forcibly cutting lives short.
I cancelled my gym membership a few months back when my favorite yoga teacher, Michael Preston, a politically incorrect fifty-year-old male who not only understood what aging bodies could do and couldn't do and made laugh at once in every session, moved away. With him gone, the gym just seemed boring and I just go very much once Spring arrived and I could begin working in my garden and taking long walks.
Just as well after reading in the New York Times the ease with which, even at the best gyms, one can pick up serious skin diseases and irritating, even horrific, infections. In sum, one in three people have a skin disease that is communicable.
The advice one athletic trainer and co-author of the report gives may be good advice, but it sure takes the steam out of any desire I might have had to find a new gym.
If you plan to work out in a gym or use a locker room, Mr. Foley suggested that before choosing a facility, you quiz the management about the cleaning agents used (they should be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency) and daily cleaning schedule for all surfaces and equipment. If exercise mats are not cleaned between classes, he suggested bringing your own. Antibacterial wipes or spray bottles should be provided and used by everyone to clean equipment after a workout.
Be Sure Exercise is All You Get at the Gym
A powerful video on how the effects of AIDS can be reversed.
Via Brutally Honest
It must be acknowledged that President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief begun in 2003, the largest U.S. foreign aid program in history, the bulk of which has been invested in people who already infected has saved and will save millions of lives.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said
In my annual medical mission trips to Africa during the Bush administration, I saw the cost of treatment for HIV with life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs) drop from $4,000 a year to $125. The number of Africans on ARVs jumped from 50,000 to 2.1 million.
Obamacare Only Looks Worse Upon Further Review writes Kevin Hassett
68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.
Getting that massive enterprise up and running will be next to impossible. So Democrats streamlined the process by granting Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the authority to make judgments that can’t be challenged either administratively or through the courts.
Via The Corner, comes this portrait of Obamacare with PDF, if you can bear looking more closely here
"We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” Nancy Pelosi
The chart was developed by Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee.
Brownback, the committee’s ranking member, added, “This updated chart illustrates the overwhelming expansion of government control over health choices and the bewildering complexity facing everyone affected by this law."
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In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:
$569 billion in higher taxes;
$529 billion in cuts to Medicare;
swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;
17 major insurance mandates; and
the creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.
Brady admits committee analysts could not fit the entire health care bill on one chart. “This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this.”
After ten years spent on sequencing the human genome, genetic scientist Craig Venter admits to Der Spiegel, "We have learned nothing from the Genome."
Venter: That's what you say. And what else have I learned from my genome? Very little. We couldn't even be certain from my genome what my eye color was. Isn't that sad? Everyone was looking for miracle 'yes/no' answers in the genome. "Yes, you'll have cancer." Or "No, you won't have cancer." But that's just not the way it is.
SPIEGEL: So the Human Genome Project has had very little medical benefits so far?
Venter: Close to zero to put it precisely.
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SPIEGEL: Why is it taking so long for the results of genome research to be applied in medicine?
Venter: Because we have, in truth, learned nothing from the genome other than probabilities. How does a 1 or 3 percent increased risk for something translate into the clinic? It is useless information.
Obesity and alcoholism may be bad for your health, but there’s a less obvious condition out there that is just as dangerous – loneliness.
According to a study the support of family, friends and neighbours can increase your chances of living to a healthy old age by 50 per cent.
But the findings, based on an analysis of more than 300,000 people, suggest social isolation is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic.
It also does more damage to your health than not exercising – and is twice as harmful as obesity.
The American scientists who made the discovery say lack of social support should be added to the ‘short list’ of risk factors for an early grave.
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The researchers looked at data from 148 previously published studies that measured people’s social networks and tracked their health for an average of seven and a half years.
The data did not show whether people were in ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ relationships – simply the number of people they were in contact with regularly.
The authors of the study believe the health benefits of positive friendships could be even stronger. ‘The data simply show whether they were integrated in a social network,’ said Dr Holt-Lunstad.
‘That means the effects of negative relationships are lumped in there with the positive ones. They are all averaged together.’
We are from the beginning, relational beings and we find ourselves and who we are in our relationships. Social relationships are essential to good health and well-being.
My mother thought she was captured by the Chinese while Justin Kaplan saw
“Thousands of tiny little creatures,some on horseback, waving arms, carrying weapons like some grand Renaissance battle,” who were trying to turn people “into zombies.” Their leader was a woman “with no mouth but a very precisely cut hole in her throat.”
Hallucinations in Hospital Pose Risk to Elderly
Disproportionately affecting older people, a rapidly growing share of patients, hospital delirium affects about one-third of patients over 70, and a greater percentage of intensive-care or postsurgical patients, the American Geriatrics Society estimates.
“A delirious patient happens almost every day,” said Dr. Manuel N. Pacheco, director of consultation and emergency services at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He treated Mr. Kaplan, whom he described as “a very learned, acclaimed person,” for whom “this is not the kind of behavior that’s normal.” “People don’t talk about it, because it’s embarrassing,” Dr. Pacheco said. “They’re having sheer terror, like their worst nightmare.”
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Frequently, geriatricians say, delirium is misdiagnosed, or described on patient charts as agitation, confusion or inappropriate behavior, so subsequent doctors might not realize the problem. One study found “delirium” used in only 7 percent of cases; “confusion” was most common. Another study of delirious older emergency-room patients found that the condition was missed in three-quarters of them.
Many more people are going to be told they have incipient Alzheimer's when the new rules take effect in the fall. The hope is earlier diagnosis - long before memory loss is apparent - will lead to more effective drug treatment.
Rules to change in diagnosing Alzheimer's
If the guidelines are adopted in the fall, as expected, some experts predict a two- to threefold increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
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But researchers are now convinced that the disease is present a decade or more before dementia.
“Our thinking has changed dramatically,” said Dr. Paul Aisen, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of one of the groups formulating the new guidelines. “We now view dementia as a late stage in the process.”
The new guidelines include criteria for three stages of the disease: preclinical disease, mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease and, lastly, Alzheimer’s dementia.
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Under the new guidelines, for the first time, diagnoses will aim to identify the disease as it is developing by using results from so-called biomarkers — tests like brain scans, M.R.I. scans and spinal taps that reveal telltale brain changes.
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“This has implications for everybody alive, anybody who is getting older,” Dr. Doraiswamy said. Among other things, he said, it will encourage a lot more testing. And, Dr. Doraiswamy said, “diagnosis rates, like testing rates, only go in one direction — up.”
Contraceptives are far more dangerous than women think.
According to the US Drug Watchdog the serious side effects of birth control pills such as Yaz and Yasmin are potentially putting millions of women at risk for stroke, heart attack and even death.
Also woman who have used the pill are now showing up in their 30's with breast cancer (prior to the pill breast cancer was a post-menopausal women's disease). Next time you are at the pharmacy ask for the insert information inside the very box that is provided to the consumer when they purchase a contraceptive. On NuvaRing's website (a common contraceptive) risks associated with the drug include blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallbladder disease, liver tumors, and cancer of the reproductive organs and breasts.
How many doctors are telling women who go in for contraceptives these stunning statistics? Women who use hormonal contraceptives for a minimum of 4 years prior to their first full term pregnancy have a 52% higher risk of developing breast cancer (Mayo Clinic Proceedings). Women who use a hormonal contraceptive for more then 5 yrs are 4 times more likely to develop cervical cancer (International Agency of Research on Cancer). Instead many doctors convince married and single woman to go on contraceptives when they go into the office.
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a highly reliable form of not only spacing children but helping couples to conceive. Recent studies have shown it to be 99% effective.
Botox can stunt you emotionally, but may help if you're depressed. So does smiling.
Smiling makes you happy research into botox shows
Botox, used to fight facial wrinkles, is made of an extremely toxic protein called Botulinum toxin that temporarily paralyses the muscles that cause creases.
That means no lines, but also no moving of the muscles at all which often makes faces look frozen.
Now the lack of facial expressions may influence emotional experiences as well, the research found.
A person with limited ability to make facial expressions was found to also have a limited ability to feel emotions.
Bad news for Botox users If your face is too tight to show disgust, you won't be able to get rid of the feeling, instead you think about disgusting things more often.
Good news, Botox may ease depression So does smiling, Even if you're faking it, smiling releases endorphrins that make you feel better
Thanks to adult stem cells, the New England Journal of Medicine reports blindness reversal in dozens of patients.
- Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells--a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday.
The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.
“This is a roaring success,” said ophthalmologist Dr. Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis, who had no role in the study--the longest and largest of its kind.
Very good news for women and the men who love them.
At the recent annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. came the announcement that a new Blood test detects breast cancer before any sign of a lump.
A blood test that detects breast cancer more than a year before any symptoms appear could dramatically improve survival rates.
The test looks for raised levels of a certain protein that is already known to increase once cancer has developed. But in a new study, researchers found levels of the protein, called epidermal growth factor receptor, were already high up to 17 months before women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
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The latest development came from a study of more than 400 breast cancer victims by scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle.
The volunteers were all taking part in a major, long-running U.S. study, called the Women's Health Initiative, a 15-year investigation that began in 1991 and involved more than 100,000 volunteers.
Every volunteer donated blood samples to the study for routine testing. When researchers identified women who later developed breast cancer, they analysed the blood samples they had given up to 17 months before their diagnosis.
These were then compared with another group of cancer-free women from the same study.
The results showed those with the highest levels of epidermal growth factor receptor were nearly three times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a later date.
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Epidermal growth factor receptor is a protein on the surface of all cells. But in excess quantities, it can trigger uncontrolled growth of cancerous tissue.
Dr Christopher Li, who led the research, said it was too early for the biomarker test to be used on its own as a cancer diagnosis. But it could form part of the screening process if further trials confirm the early findings.
The simple blood test that spots cancer six years before tumours develop
A simple blood test to spot cancer up to six years before a tumour forms could be available in Britain next year.
The brainchild of a Nottingham University cancer specialist, it could provide vital early warning of lung and breast cancers - diseases that between them claim almost 50,000 lives annually.
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Diagnostic techniques such as scans and biopsies focus on tumours that have already formed but the new test can detect that something is wrong well before the cancer does any damage.
The Oncimmume test picks up telltale signs of a germinating cancer in the blood. The signals - generated by the immune system - can be detected up to five years before a cancer is spotted, from just two teaspoons of blood.
Professor John Robertson, the breast cancer specialist who spent 15 years developing the test, said: 'We are starting to understand carcinogenesis in a way that we have never seen before - seeing which proteins are going wrong and how your immune system responds.
'It's as if your body is shouting "I've got cancer" way before a tumour can be detected.
Presentations on the technology are due to be made at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual conference in Chicago next week.
Breast cancer cells
Man infected with computer virus and no, it's the Onion, it's the BBC.
A British scientist says he is the first man in the world to become infected with a computer virus.
Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading contaminated a computer chip which was then inserted into his hand.
The device, which enables him to pass through security doors and activate his mobile phone, is a sophisticated version of ID chips used to tag pets.
In trials, Dr Gasson showed that the chip was able to pass on the computer virus to external control systems.
If other implanted chips had then connected to the system they too would have been corrupted, he said.
Dr Gasson admits that the test is a proof of principle but he thinks it has important implications for a future where medical devices such as pacemakers and cochlear implants become more sophisticated, and risk being contaminated by other human implants.
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Professor Rafael Capurro of the Steinbeis-Transfer-Institute of Information Ethics in Germany told BBC News that the research was "interesting".
"If someone can get online access to your implant, it could be serious," he said.
Professor Capurro contributed to a 2005 ethical study for the European Commission that looked at the development of digital implants and possible abuse of them.
"From an ethical point of view, the surveillance of implants can be both positive and negative," he said.
"Surveillance can be part of medical care, but if someone wants to do harm to you, it could be a problem."
A whole new world of plot devices for mystery writers has opened up,
Walgreens to sell genetic tests, FDA investigating
Walgreens will begin selling personal genetic testing kits on Friday, the first major retail chain in the U.S. to offer the home tests. CVS plans to have the same test kits in its stores by August.
Both drug store chains are buying the kits from Pathway Genomics, a San Diego-based startup that offers genetic health and ancestry reports.
The over-the-counter tests, which have been available through a few Internet retailers, haven't reached a mass audience until now. And their pending arrival has scientists and bio-ethicists concerned that consumers will misuse or misunderstand the results.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told the Tribune Tuesday that it is investigating the medical claims two-year-old Pathway is making in marketing its genetic test to consumers. The test has not been approved by U.S. regulators.
UPDATE: Walgreen Won't Sell Genetic Test Until Maker Works Out Issues With FDA
Always have on hand aspirin and dark chocolate, aspirin for a heart attack, dark chocolate for a stroke.
Dark chocolate 'can reduce risk of brain damage after stroke'
Dark chocolate can reduce brain damage following a stroke, a study suggests.
Scientists have discovered that a compound called epicatechin, commonly found in dark chocolate, protects the brain against strokes by shielding nerve cells.
They based their findings on tests in mice and hope the effects can be replicated in humans.
Advice from the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. Aspirin for a heart attack
If you think you may be having a heart attack, you need to get aspirin in your system quickly. Aspirin works by inhibiting the platelets that otherwise would clot around a cholesterol-laden plaque thereby causing more blockage in a coronary artery
For the best results, chew a single full-sized 325-mg tablet.
I've wondered for a long time why medical research is not doing more to harness the power of placebos.
Today in the Boston Globe fake medical treatments can work amazingly well.
For a range of ailments, from pain and nausea to depression and Parkinson’s disease, placebos--whether sugar pills, saline injections, or sham surgery--have often produced results that rival those of standard therapies.
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“In the last 10 years we’ve made tremendous strides in demonstrating the biological veracity of the placebo effect,” says Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the coauthors of the Lancet article. “The frontier is, how do we utilize what is clearly an important phenomenon in a way that’s consistent with patient-practitioner trust, and informed consent?”
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according to advocates, there’s enough data for doctors to start thinking of the placebo effect not as the opposite of medicine, but as a tool they can use in an evidence-based, conscientious manner. Broadly speaking, it seems sensible to make every effort to enlist the body’s own ability to heal itself--which is what, at bottom, placebos seem to do. And as researchers examine it more closely, the placebo is having another effect as well: it is revealing a great deal about the subtle and unexpected influences that medical care, as opposed to the medicine itself, has on patients.
And then I learned how much depends on context.
“Medicine is intensely meaningful,” says Daniel Moerman, a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Michigan at Dearborn who coined the phrase “meaning response.” “It’s this highly stylized, highly ritualized thing.” He urges us to “forget about the stupid placebo and start looking at the system of meaning involved.”
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“It’s amazing,” says Kaptchuk. “Connecting with the patient, rapport, empathy . . . that few extra minutes is not just icing on the cake. It has biology.”
It may be, then, that the simplest and least ethically hazardous way to capitalize on the placebo effect is to acknowledge that medicine isn’t just a set of approved treatments--it’s also a ritual, with symbolism and meaning that are key to its efficacy.
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Whether we call it the placebo effect or use new terms, the research in this field could start to put a measurable healing value on doctors’ time and even demeanor, rather than just on procedures and pills. And that could change medicine in a way that few blockbuster drugs ever could.
Do you know what the chief actuary for Medicare wrote in a memorandum to his boss, the secretary for HHS, Kathleen Sibelius, about the costs of the new health bill a week before the final vote on the health care bill? Why weren't we told? Why am I not surprised?
The Prowler reports
Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.
"The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote," says an HHS source. "Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think."...
"We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff," says the HHS staffer, "and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary's office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report."
James Capretta summarizes
The actuary says that the legislation will increase health care costs, not reduce them — by about $300 billion over a decade.
The actuary also says that the financial incentives in the bill will lead many employers to stop offering coverage altogether. That means about 14 million people with job-based insurance today will lose it. Moreover, he estimates that the cuts in Medicare Advantage will reduce enrollment by 7 million people. So much for keeping the Democrats’ other mantra of “keeping the coverage you have today.”
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The memo says the Medicare cuts will total nearly $600 billion through 2019, and that they will almost certainly jeopardize access to care for seniors by driving scores of institutions into financial distress.
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The various taxes and fees on insurers and producers of drugs and devices will largely get passed on to consumers, says the memo. In other words, these taxes will hit the middle class hard and drive their premiums up, not down.
The actuary says the new long-term care insurance program created in the bill faces “a significant risk of failure” due to adverse selection — meaning that the program will attract the kind of enrollment that will require higher costs than can be covered by the premiums collected.
Neoneocon in her usual way puts her finger on it in The calm before the storms
The problem is that most Americans’ trust in the ability of Congress to solve such things, or even to tackle them in a way that will not make them worse, is nonexistent. The idea that our representatives would listen to our concerns, be responsive to our needs, and then have the intelligence to craft solutions based on common sense and/or intelligent thought or even well-meaning effort has been waning over the years but has finally evaporated. If there had been any lingering faith in Congress, HCR erased it.
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We assume that the cure will be worse than the disease. We expect that the bills will be rushed through without proper debate and enacted at the stroke of midnight, like evil spells in a fairy tale. We are no longer surprised at the depth and breadth of the corrupt and shady behind-the-scenes deals involved. We know the legislations will be lengthy and complex. We do not think our representatives possess the intelligence to even understand the bills they pass—that is, if they bother to read them at all—and either do not appreciate their negative consequences or actually intend them to do us harm. We know that, just when we think we’ve driven a fatal stake into the heart of an unpopular bill, it rises and staggers forward to attack us.
Forget going to gym – 'laughercise' session just as good for you
CURLING up with laughter has similar effects on the body as pumping iron in the gym, a study has shown.
Sessions of mirthful laughter – dubbed "laughercise" by researchers – enhance mood, reduce stress hormones, boost
the immune system and lower blood pressure and levels of "bad" cholesterol, researchers have found.
Like physical exercise, they also appear to stimulate appetite, offering a potential way to help malnourished patients who are off their food.
Laughter has long been thought of as the "best medicine" but recent research has shown that it really can have health benefits.
Previous research by US scientists led by Californian physician Dr Lee Berk has demonstrated how laughter improves mood, reduces stress and activates immune system cells, especially those which combat cancer.
Laughter has also been shown to benefit blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
The latest study from Dr Berk's team suggests that some of the effects of laughter mirror those of repetitive exercise.
No matter how old you are, alcohol, even in moderate amounts, can cause serious problems as you age and stopping can bring real benefits to the rest of your life.
For years, therefore, medical groups have called for screening every patient, including older ones, for alcohol and other drug use. But as Ms. Sharp’s recently published study in The Journal of Applied Gerontology shows, many doctors still neglect to ask older patients about drinking. Her survey of 101 primary care physicians found that 73 percent reported screening new patients over 65 for alcohol use at their first appointments, and only 44 percent screened their existing patients.
Dr. Oslin’s 85-year-old patient, for instance, had seen a series of specialists, plus his primary care doctor, and all had missed his alcohol dependence.
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Perhaps, Ms. Sharp speculated, doctors don’t look for alcohol problems because they think older people can’t or won’t stop drinking anyway.
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But older people can indeed benefit from treatment or intervention. In fact, older people dependent on alcohol do better in treatment than younger people, Dr. Oslin has found. They’re more likely to attend therapy sessions and take prescribed medication, and less likely to relapse.
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It can be worth the fight. The 85-year-old he saw continued to abstain from drinking and continued seeing his psychiatrist. He was able to rejoin family activities and stopped taking antidepressants.
“He only lived another 14 months, but he was clearly better without the booze,” Dr. Oslin said. “The family got to see their husband and father again for the first time in a long time. They were very grateful that they had that year with him.”
So this guy goes to the doctor for back pain and the diagnosis is pretty awful: The patient is going to need spinal surgery again, for the third time in three years.
Charles Fleming thought back on all the misery he'd endured the first two times he was cut open like a Christmas goose. He gave about two seconds' worth of consideration to the doctor's proposed disc-ectomy and said thanks, doc, but not just yet.
He couldn't face the knife again.
Just one problem: What to do about the crippling pain?
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He started modestly, covering two blocks or so in those early days, back in 2006. Then he got braver, and looser, and soon he was up to half a mile, followed by a mile, followed by long, therapeutic walks that felt really good. Much better than surgery, in fact.
Fleming is no doctor, but he thinks he has a reasonable medical explanation for this miracle cure called walking.
He ended up walking the historic staircases in Los Angeles and writing a book about them.
Fleming says there are roughly 400 staircases in Greater L.A., and he has "walked, measured, studied, photographed and mapped more than 275" of them in researching "Secret Stairs, A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles."
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There's something magical about the stair walks. You leave the known city behind and visit a quiet place built for an entirely different kind of living. Bungalows, some of them 100 years old, sit amid towering oaks and wildflowers, no roads or cars in sight.
From Wired, 7 Disruptive Foods Changing the Way We Eat including non-sentient meat, bananas 2.0, salt water algae and organic pancake batter in a spray can.
One day in 2005, a retired building surveyor in Edinburgh visited his doctor with a strange complaint: His mind’s eye had suddenly gone blind.
The surveyor, referred to as MX by his doctors, was 65 at the time. He had always felt that he possessed an exceptional talent for picturing things in his mind. The skill had come in handy in his job, allowing MX to recall the fine details of the buildings he surveyed. Just before drifting off to sleep, he enjoyed running through recent events as if he were watching a movie. He could picture his family, his friends, and even characters in the books he read.
Then these images all vanished. The change happened shortly after MX went to a hospital to have his blocked coronary arteries treated. As a cardiologist snaked a tube into the arteries and cleared out the obstructions, MX felt a “reverberation” in his head and a tingling in his left arm. He didn’t think to mention it to his doctors at the time. But four days later he realized that when he closed his eyes, all was darkness.
The Brain: Look Deep Into The Mind's Eye
We take visual imagination for granted. But the blank inner world of a patient called MX demonstrates the rich neural processes needed to create the images in our heads.
Postpartum depression affects between 5 percent and 25 percent of new mothers. Symptoms — including sadness, fatigue, appetite changes, crying, anxiety and irritability — usually occur in the first few months after child birth. There is a simple way to alleviate postpartum depression in just a few hours: sleep deprivation.
If a depressed mother stays up all night, or even the last half of the night, it is likely that by morning the depression will lift. Although this sounds too good to be true, it has been well documented in over 1,700 patients in more than 75 published papers during the last 40 years.[1] Sleep deprivation used as a treatment for depression is efficacious and robust: it works quickly, is relatively easy to administer, inexpensive, relatively safe and it also alleviates other types of clinical depression. Sleep deprivation can elevate your mood even if you are not depressed, and can induce euphoria. This throws a new light on insomnia.
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All this offers hope that studying sleep deprivation may lead to new, unique and rapid treatments for depression.
In Sleepless Nights, a Hope for Treating Depression
As someone who listens to natural sounds - ocean waves, birdsong, croaking frogs and waterfalls - on my computer more than I do music, this story resonated with me.
"In Pursuit of Silence": How noise really is killing us
In his new book, "In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise," George Prochnik argues that this barrage of noise is more than just a nuisance; it poses a real threat to our cardiovascular system and mental health, our ability to concentrate, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, it turns our political discourse into a shrill barrage.
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The noise we suffer from today is more incessant. We have a different set of issues -- nighttime noise and air traffic being some of the most obvious culprits -- but in the 19th century, even people from the working class often lived in situations where it was easier to find an actual quiet space or a space where the sound of civilization was mixed with some kinds of natural sounds. It's important to remember that not all noises are created equal, and many surveys have demonstrated that people's reactions to noise vary wildly depending on whether they're natural or mechanical. Even at loud volumes sounds like birds singing and waterfalls are soothing.
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Noise wreaks havoc on all different parts of our bodies. The heart rate accelerates. We get vasoconstriction. It's been shown that the elevated blood pressure from nighttime noise continues all through the day. Even if we're not fully aroused by noise, sleep is fragmented. Loss of sleep is tied to all kinds of immune and heart problems, and a real laundry list of ailments. The really scary thing is even if we do habituate mentally to noise, that doesn't change what's happening to our bodies.
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I've always liked Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio but never than when he looked at his overweight inmates and instituted a new program called "Pedal Vision"
Arpaio gets inmates moving on electricity-generating cycles
The stationary bikes are customized so that as an inmate pedals, a connected television is powered once the cycle generates 12 volts of electricity.
One hour of pedaling equals one hour of television viewing for the inmates, according to Arpaio.
Arpaio said the inmates will only be able to watch television in the television room if they choose to pedal.
Yes, I hear a voice when I read and never thought twice about it until I read this.
Do you hear a voice in your head when you read? If not... you could be dyslexic
Professor Rod Nicolson, head of work psychology at the University of Sheffield, has been studying dyslexia for many years and was inspired to investigate internal speech after meeting Gary at a conference in 2004. He believes he has found a link between lack of inner speech and poor reading ability.
'Children start off having to say every word out loud,' he says. 'At some stage, as their reading improves, so does their ability to sight-read [to read in their heads] and that is the stage at which reading really takes off.
By the age of eight or nine, most children can read in their heads. The development of the inner voice seems to be automatic for most people, but our data suggests a link with fluent reading, in that the process of learning to sight-read actually helps inner-speech develop.
'Everyone assumes everyone else is the same. However, we have found not everyone has an inner voice and in those who don't, literacy levels are often poor.
Why you should never buy pre-sweetened anything. Always add your own spoonful of sugar.
A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides
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The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered, but may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles.
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Monday Morning Coming Down
Who has better credit than Uncle Sam? If you ask the bond market, that elite list includes Berkshire Hathaway, Procter & Gamble, Lowe’s, Johnson & Johnson, and a host of other blue-chip corporate borrowers. The U.S. government has the ability to levy taxes on the largest national economy in the world, a vast and fearsome revenue-collection apparatus, and more than two centuries of constitutional government under its belt. P&G has Tampax.
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As hangover headaches go, this is going to be brutal, and investors apparently have more faith in Johnson & Johnson’s ability to sell Tylenol than in Washington’s ability to pay for it. Mitchell Stapley, an analyst with Fifth Third Asset Management, told Reuters that the numbers coming out of the bond market are a “slap upside the head of the government.”
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So here’s a prediction for you: Obamacare is not going to happen, regardless of the fact that the president is going to sign it into law today, regardless of what happens in the 2010 and 2012 elections, and regardless of any speech given anywhere in Washington. The government’s ability to simply say “Make it so!” and ignore economic reality is coming up against its limit.
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Obamacare will be a huge new outlay on an already bloated federal budget, two-thirds of which is committed to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national defense, and interest payments on the national debt. Somebody’s not going to get paid. Bond investors are worried that it’s going to be them, but my bet is that it’s going to be those who have put their faith in Obamacare. But, hey, it was fun while it lasted. Have a Tylenol.
"In a private fee-for-service medical system, a dead patient is a revenue loss. In the National Health Service (UK), a dead patient was a cost savings." -Harry Bailey MD 1930-2003.
A Unique Perspective on the Delivery of Medical Care
Via The Anchoress who offers two anecdotes of her own in Obamacare & the Aging Population.
Since the Health Care Reform Act cuts $500 billion from Medicare, does anyone doubt that seniors will be urged and too soon required to take the painkiller instead of surgery?
Why don't we ever learn the Lessons of History?
With the elimination of private expenditures for health services, the form and amount of medical care were now dependent upon the budgetary priorities of the State. All members of the medical industry were put on low fixed monthly salaries and were mandated to examine and treat an overwhelming daily quota of patients. Medical research became dependent upon inadequate annual budgetary allocations from the government. Doctors’ and nurses’ incomes no longer depended on their professional skills or the number of patients they treated. Total unionization of the medical profession made it practically impossible for anyone to be fired. Without markets and prices determining the value and availability of health care, the government imposed a rationing system for medical services and pharmaceutical products.
“The patient doesn’t seem to be in the picture.” It adds: “We were struck by the virtual absence of mention of patients and families ... whether we were discussing aims and ambition for improvement, measurement of progress or any other topic relevant to quality.
“Most targets and standards appear to be defined in professional, organisational and political terms, not in terms of patients’ experience of care.”
The above quote is from a report by the Massachusetts-based Institute for Healthcare Improvements on Great Britain's National Health Care Service.
Not so hard to believe when read Neglected by 'lazy' nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water.
Told by the doctors that everything was under control, the police left and the man died the next day.
Sources say they are investigating the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London.
Mr Gorny, from Balham, worked for Waitrose and had been a keen footballer and runner until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the year before his death.
The medication he took caused his bones to weaken and he was admitted to St George's for a hip replacement in May last year. The operation left him immobile and unable to get out of bed.
His 50-year-old mother says that he needed to take drugs three times a day to regulate his hormones. Doctors had told him that without the drugs he would die.
Although he had stressed to staff how important his medication was, she said, no one gave him the drugs. She said that two days after his hip operation, while Miss Cronin was at work, he became severely dehydrated but his requests for water were refused.
He became aggressive and nurses called in security guards to restrain him. After they had left, he rang the police from his bed to demand their help.
Back to the report on the NHS from the London Times which reports were suppressed by the government.
Lord Darzi, the former health minister, commissioned the three reports from international consultancies to assess the progress of the NHS as it approached its 60th anniversary in 2008. They have come to light after a freedom of information request.
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They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as the root cause of a string of hospital scandals that have cost thousands of lives.
That's the basic core problem of nationalized health care. When the government takes over management, politics and managerial targets become more important than patient care.
The amount of weight you will lose on a diet appears to be related to your genetic makeup.
New gene test may help you pick your diet
Can't lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
The small study of about 140 overweight or obese women showed that those on diets "appropriate" for their genetic makeup lost more weight than those on less appropriate diets, researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.
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Massachusetts-based Interleukin's $149 test looks for mutations in three genes, known as FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2.
The company says 39 percent of white Americans have the low-fat genotype, 45 percent have the type that responds best to a diet low in processed carbohydrates and an unlucky 16 percent have gene mutations that mean they have to watch both fat and processed carbohydrates.
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Over a year, people on diets appropriate to their genetic makeup, as determined by the test, lost 5.3 percent of body weight. People on mismatched diets lost 2.3 percent, the Stanford researchers told the meeting.
Cholesterol levels improved in line with weight loss, they said.
Finally, a pill container that beeps when you need to take your medication.
The Wall St Journal reports.
The container—actually a high-tech top for a standard pill bottle called a "GlowCap"—is equipped with a wireless transmitter that plugs into the wall. When it is time for a dose of medicine, the GlowCap emits a pulsing orange light; after an hour, the gadget starts beeping every five minutes, in arpeggios that become more complicated and insistent. After that, the device can set off an automated telephone or text message reminder to patients who fail to take their pills. It also can generate email or letters reporting to a family member or doctor how often the medication is taken.
It is one of the high-tech ways companies are grappling with medicine noncompliance. Only about half of patients who are prescribed a medication for a chronic condition are still taking the drug regularly after a year...
I've long been in favor of Health Savings Accounts or HSAs as they are known. Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana shows how such accounts have improved health and saved money, lots of money.
Hoosiers and Health Savings Accounts
The HSA option has proven highly popular. This year, over 70% of our 30,000 Indiana state workers chose it, by far the highest in public-sector America. Due to the rejection of these plans by government unions, the average use of HSAs in the public sector across the country is just 2%.
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State employees enrolled in the consumer-driven plan will save more than $8 million in 2010 compared to their coworkers in the old-fashioned preferred provider organization (PPO) alternative. In the second straight year in which we've been forced to skip salary increases, workers switching to the HSA are adding thousands of dollars to their take-home pay.
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The state is saving, too. In a time of severe budgetary stress, Indiana will save at least $20 million in 2010 because of our high HSA enrollment. Mercer calculates the state's total costs are being reduced by 11% solely due to the HSA option.
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Most important, we are seeing significant changes in behavior, and consequently lower total costs. In 2009, for example, state workers with the HSA visited emergency rooms and physicians 67% less frequently than co-workers with traditional health care. They were much more likely to use generic drugs than those enrolled in the conventional plan, resulting in an average lower cost per prescription of $18. They were admitted to hospitals less than half as frequently as their colleagues. Differences in health status between the groups account for part of this disparity, but consumer decision-making is, we've found, also a major factor.
Overall, participants in our new plan ran up only $65 in cost for every $100 incurred by their associates under the old coverage
Is Aging the Body's Cure for Cancer?
Maybe so according to a study from an international team based at Newcastle University in England.
The Newcastle team, working with the University of Ulm in Germany, used a comprehensive “systems biology” approach, involving computer modelling and experiments with cell cultures and genetically modified mice, to investigate why cells become senescent. In this aged state, cells stop dividing and the tissues they make up show physical signs of deterioration, from wrinkling skin to a failing heart.
The research, published by the journal Molecular Systems Biology, shows that when an ageing cell detects serious damage to its DNA – caused by the wear and tear of life – it sends out specific internal signals.
These distress signals trigger the cell’s mitochondria, its tiny energy-producing power packs, to make oxidising “free radical” molecules, which in turn tell the cell either to destroy itself or to stop dividing. The aim is to avoid the damaged DNA that causes cancer.
Verum Serum comments
But I’m taken by the ironic, almost poetic nature of this discovery. In a real biological sense death, at least death on a cellular scale, is found to be oddly pro-life. Aging turns out to be a gradual battle against more catastrophic failure. It’s all very counter-intuitive and yet somehow not unpleasant to learn.
In the coming era of personalized medicine, it's the pharmacists, not the health care firms, who are investing in ways to make the benefits of the sequencing of the human genome widely accessible.
About 100 million American have their prescription benefits managed by one of two companies, Medco or CVS Caremark. And both companies have recently invested in firms that aim to make genetic testing more accessible and easier for doctors and patients to interpret.
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Medco is also funding studies to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of specific pharmacogenomics tests, including those for the blood thinner warfarin and the breast cancer drug tamoxifen.
Beer May Be Good for Your Bones
a new analysis of 100 commercial beers shows the hoppy beverage is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for bone health.
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The type of silicon in beer, called orthosilicic acid, has a 50 percent bioavailability, meaning that much is available for use in the body. Some foods, like bananas are rich in silicon but only 5 percent is bioavailable. This soluble form of silica found in beer could be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Past research has suggested that moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue.
Another past study involving nearly 1,700 women reported last year in the journal Nutrition showed participants who were light to moderate beer drinkers had much better bone density than non-drinkers. The researchers suggested the beer's plant hormones, not the alcohol, could be responsible for the bone boost.
The BBC explores the history and the promise of frankincense as a cure for cancer
Scientists have observed that there is some agent within frankincense which stops cancer spreading, and which induces cancerous cells to close themselves down.
Immunologist Mahmoud Suhail is quoted "Cancer starts when the DNA code within the cell's nucleus becomes corrupted. It seems frankincense has a re-set function. It can tell the cell what the right DNA code should be. Frankincense separates the 'brain' of the cancerous cell - the nucleus - from the 'body' - the cytoplasm, and closes down the nucleus to stop it reproducing corrupted DNA codes."
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Currently, with chemotherapy, doctors blast the area around a tumour to kill the cancer, but that also kills healthy cells, and weakens the patient. Treatment with frankincense could eradicate the cancerous cells alone and let the others live.
The task now is to isolate the agent within frankincense which, apparently, works this wonder
The Wall St Journal reports fish oil pills may be able to spare some young people with signs of mental illness from a progression into fully developed schizophrenia.
A Study Finds Mental Benefit of Fish Oil
No one knows what causes schizophrenia but one hypothesis is that people with the disease don't process fatty acids correctly, leading to damaged brain cells. Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil could help brain cells repair and stabilize, the researchers speculate.
Dr. Janet Wozniak of Harvard Medical School said the findings might reasonably cause psychiatrists to recommend fish oil to some patients because there are known benefits and little risk.
This is not the first study that found a correlation between omega 3 fatty acids, mental illness and crime.
In 2003 a study from South Africa saw the Clinical potential of omega-3 fatty acids in the treatment of schizophrenia.
The Australian press did a round-up of studies being conducted around the world studying the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on the brain in its article, Crime, punishment and a junk-food diet. Can violent behavior be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies?
The British prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences committed in the prison fell by 37 per cent.
In 2006, the New York Times asked whether Eating Salmon Will Lower the Murder Rate?
In 2001, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a senior clinical investigator at the National Institutes of Health, published a study, provocatively titled "Seafood Consumption and Homicide Mortality," that found a correlation between a higher intake of omega-3 fatty acids (most often obtained from fish) and lower murder rates.
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Consider, for example, a study conducted by researchers in Finland. They tested prisoners convicted of violent crimes and found that they had lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids than ordinary, healthy subjects. Why? Omega-3's foster the growth of neurons in the brain's frontal cortex, the bit of gray matter that controls impulsive behavior. Having enough of these fatty acids may keep violent impulses in check.
I admit to being a bit of nut on the benefits of coffee, bear, chocolate, Vitamin D and Omega 3. Here are a few on Omega -3
Fish Oil and Breast Cancer
Fish Oil after Heart Attacks
Fish Oil to Lose Weight Faster
Fish Oil to Help Asthma
More Salmon, Less Murder
Splendid Omega
Going to get your eyes examined will take on new meaning with the Eye test that spots Alzheimer's 20 years before symptoms.
A test that can detect Alzheimer's up to 20 years before any symptoms show is being developed by British scientists.
The simple and inexpensive eye test could be part of routine examinations by high street opticians in as little as three years, allowing those in middle age to be screened.
Dementia experts said it had the power to revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer's by making it possible for drugs to be given in the earliest stages.
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The eye test would provide a quick, easy, cheap and highly-accurate diagnosis.
It exploits the fact that the light-sensitive cells in the retina at the back of the eye are a direct extension of the brain.
Using eye drops which highlight diseased cells, the UCL researchers showed for the first time in a living eye that the amount of damage to cells in the retina directly corresponds with brain cell death.
They have also pinpointed the pattern of retinal cell death characteristic of Alzheimer's. So far their diagnosis has been right every time.
With research showing that cells start to die ten to 20 years before the symptoms of Alzheimer's become evident, it could allow people to be screened in middle age for signs of the disease.
From Live Science Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good for You
Beer quells heart disease and chocolate staves off cancer? Though often tagged with a disclaimer, studies that tell us to eat, inhale and generally indulge in "bad stuff" is music to our ears. So go ahead and enjoy these bad-for-you remedies-everything in moderation, as they say-until the next study inevitably overturns the research.
Loneliness spreads like a virus
A lonely person will be less trusting of others, essentially "making a mountain out of a molehill," said study researcher John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. An odd look or phrasing by a friend that wouldn't even be noticed by a chipper person could be seen as an affront to the lonely, triggering a cycle of negative interactions that cause people to lose friends.
Vitamin D shows heart benefits
There is more and more evidence that vitamin D is a critical player in numerous other aspects of metabolism. A new study suggests many Americans aren’t getting anywhere nearly enough of the vitamin, and it may be affecting their heart health.
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The findings, which are being presented today at an American Heart Association conference in Orlando, don’t prove that lack of vitamin D causes heart disease; they only suggest a link between the two. But cardiologists are starting to pay increasing attention because of what they’re learning about vitamin D’s roles in regulating blood pressure, inflammation and glucose control — all critical body processes in cardiovascular health.
Surprise! Your skin can hear
We not only hear with our ears, but also through our skin, according to a new study.
The finding, based on experiments in which participants listened to certain syllables while puffs of air hit their skin, suggests our brains take in and integrate information from various senses to build a picture of our surroundings.
Along with other recent work, the research flips the traditional view of how we perceive the world on its head.
"[That's] very different from the more traditional ideas, based on the fact that we have eyes so we think of ourselves as seeing visible information, and we have ears so we think of ourselves as hearing auditory information. That's a little bit misleading," study researcher Bryan Gick of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told LiveScience.
"A more likely explanation is that we have brains that perceive rather than we have eyes that see and ears that hear."
With such abilities, Gick views humans as "whole-body perceiving machines."
The research, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada and the National Institutes of Health, is detailed in the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Nature.
You'll be hearing a lot more about Brown Fat in the months and years to come especially if it becomes the weight-loss breakthrough of the next decade. The Future of Fat
Beer could be the new weapon against cancer
MEN now have another excuse to go down the pub thanks to new research suggesting that a compound in beer may prevent prostate cancer.
Tests showed that the ingredient, xanthohumol, blocked a biological pathway that allows prostate cancer to be fuelled by the male hormone testosterone.
The disease is commonly treated with drugs that act in a similar way.
Xanthohumol is a powerful antioxidant derived from hops. It belongs to a family of chemicals called flavonoids found in fruits and vegetables that are known to have anti-cancer properties.
Previous studies have already suggested that xanthohumol may block the female hormone oestrogen's ability to stimulate breast cancer. Scientists now believe it may have a similar effect in men.
In laboratory tests, the compound blocked the molecular "switch" that allows testosterone to trigger changes in prostate cells that may lead to cancer.
Life-saving pregnancy stem cells
Italians suggest tailor-made treatments for babies possible
A pregnant woman carries stem cells that could be used in critical medical treatments for her baby, either in the womb or later in life, a team of Italian scientists has announced. These cells, found in the womb during pregnancy, can be removed during a simple antenatal test and stored for future use, concluded the study, which appears in next week's edition of the Cloning and Stem Cells journal.
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''We took these cells from women whose fetuses were affected with spinal muscular atrophy and we were able to correct the genetic defect using genetic therapy,'' said Novelli. Although the technique is not yet sophisticated enough to cure the disease, the team says the day could come when corrected cells could be injected back into the fetus to treat genetic disorders before birth.
Researcher's labour of love leads to MS breakthrough
What he learned in his medical detective work, scouring dusty old books and using ultra-modern imaging techniques, could well turn what we know about MS on its head: Dr. Zamboni's research suggests that MS is not, as widely believed, an autoimmune condition, but a vascular disease.
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More radical still, the experimental surgery he performed on his wife offers hope that MS, which afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide, can be cured and even largely prevented.
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For the Italian professor, however, the quest was both personal and professional and the results were stunning.
Fighting for his wife's health, Dr. Zamboni looked for answers in the medical literature. He found repeated references, dating back a century, to excess iron as a possible cause of MS. The heavy metal can cause inflammation and cell death, hallmarks of the disease. The vascular surgeon was intrigued – coincidentally, he had been researching how iron buildup damages blood vessels in the legs, and wondered if there could be a similar problem in the blood vessels of the brain.
Using ultrasound to examine the vessels leading in and out of the brain, Dr. Zamboni made a startling find: In more than 90 per cent of people with multiple sclerosis, including his spouse, the veins draining blood from the brain were malformed or blocked. In people without MS, they were not.
He hypothesized that iron was damaging the blood vessels and allowing the heavy metal, along with other unwelcome cells, to cross the crucial brain-blood barrier. (The barrier keeps blood and cerebrospinal fluid separate. In MS, immune cells cross the blood-brain barrier, where they destroy myelin, a crucial sheathing on nerves.)
More striking still was that, when Dr. Zamboni performed a simple operation to unclog veins and get blood flowing normally again, many of the symptoms of MS disappeared.
Seven market-based health care solutions that have lowered health care costs and improved both access and quality of service have gone unnoticed. Congress to Healthcare Market: Drop Dead
1. Retail clinics
2. Retail clinic-hospital partnerships
3. On-site workplace healthcare clinics
4. Affordable $4 generic drugs that have already saved consumers $1 billion since Walmart introduced them in 2008.
5. Prepaid medical plans
6. Concierge medicine
7. High-deductible health insurance plans along with individually owned and managed health savings accounts.
Just for the record, the CBO released its cost analysis of the Republican health care plan and found it would reduce health care premiums and the deficit by $68 billion over 10 years.
How were the Republicans able to reduce costs?
• by creating high-risk insurance pools
• allowing people to purchase health insurance policies across state lines
• instituting medical malpractice reforms
Today, small businesses - the ones who create the majority of jobs - have difficulties finding affordable health plans for their employees because they lack the negotiating leverage a large business has. Under the Republican plan, rates would drop 7-10% for small business plans, 5-8% for the individual market and only 0-3% for large corporations.
Here are some miscellaneous health care stories from the past several days that seem worthy of notice.
I never knew that breast-feeding your baby helps you shed extra weight you gain during the pregnancy.
Breast-Feed the Baby, Love the Calorie Burn
Dr Miriam Grossman, a psychiatrist who spent 20 years counseling college students is on a tear to challenge the "sex ed oligarchy" What's missing in sex education.
She specifically wants to smash the ideas that "sex trumps everything" in life, and "promiscuity, experimentation and fringe behaviors" are healthy.
In Britain with recent changes to assisted suicide rules, a group of leading lawyers, peers and former judges warn Elderly and disabled could be forced to commit suicide under changes to rules
“The current law acts as a powerful deterrent against abuse and exploitation of vulnerable people and has been firmly upheld by Parliament. Removing these safeguards could lead to increase in vulnerable and disabled people being pressured into ending their lives.”
Elder medical care is not one of the six core areas that are the focus of medical school training. The American Geriatric Society calls out to all medical schools to prepare all medical students to treat the elderly. There are just not enough geriatricians to go around (only 1 geriatrician for 2546 elderly today and in 20 years only 1 for 5000 elderly)
There are drugs that work to prevent prostate cancer and breast cancer. So why aren't people at risk taking them?
Gina Kolata tries to figure out why Medicines to Deter Some Cancers Are Not Taken
Much of what Americans do in the name of warding off cancer has not been shown to matter, and some things are actually harmful. Yet the few medicines proved to deter cancer are widely ignored.
"Rumbles through the medical community" as a third study questions the effectiveness of the popular cholesterol drugs Zetia and Vytorin.
A widely prescribed and expensive cholesterol drug is not as effective as niacin, a cheap vitamin, in helping to unclog coronary arteries in people already taking statins, the standard medicines used to lower cholesterol, according to a new study.
The Wall St Journal calls it The Worst Bill Ever
In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.
Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
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Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of "change," but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi's handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.
Annual Medicare Fraud: $60 Billion; Annual Profits of Top Ten Insurance Companies: $8 billion
As 60 Minutes reported last week, Medicare fraud is rampant and has now replaced the cocaine (ahem) business as the major criminal activity in South Florida
House Republicans Find 111 New 'Bureaucracies' in Health Care Bill
Among some off the new agencies, the list cites a Health Insurance Exchange; the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation; the Public Health Investment Fund; the Public Health Workforce Corps; an Assistant Secretary for Health Information; the Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health; grant programs for alternative medical liability laws, infant mortality programs and other issues; and about 100 other government-sponsored creations.
26 reasons to oppose Pelosi's health care bill, H.R. 3962. Here are a few:
• Permits federal taxpayer funding of abortion services, above and beyond the status quo of current law.
• Provides for a "health care czar" called the Health Choices Commissioner, who could forcibly enroll individuals in government-run insurance and whose tasks include requiring random compliance audits on Americans' health benefits plans.
• Allows for "community organizations" like ACORN and Planned Parenthood to assist the Health Choices Commissioner in enrolling individuals in the Health Insurance Exchange.
• Provides for 13 new and different tax increases, including an employer mandate excise tax.
• "Grandfathers" out of existence individual health insurance coverage.
• Retains the "death panels" by providing for bureaucrats working for a new comparative effectiveness institute funded by a tax on health benefits. The institute could publish the protocols needed to deny patients access to life-saving treatments on cost grounds.
• Contains NO ban on federal promotion of assisted suicide and/or health care rationing of treatments.
• Slashes Medicare payments to providers by more than $400 billion.
Using the English to 12-year-old -AOLer Translator, I've translated the above.
• P3RMITS FADARAL TAXPAEYR FUNDNG OF ABORTION S3RVIECS ABOVE AND BYOND DA STATUS QUO OF CURENT LAW
•!1111 PROVIEDS FOR A H3ALTH R CZAR CALED TEH H3ALTH CHOIECS COMISION3R WHO CUD FORCIBLEY ANROL INDIVIDUALS IN GOV3RNMANT-RUN INSURANC3 AND WHOS3 TASKS INCLUD3 RAQUIRNG RANDOM COMPLIANCE AUDITS ON M3RICANS H3ALTH BNEFITS PLANS
•!11!!11!! WTF ALOWS FOR COMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS LIEK ACORN AND PLANAD PAERNTHOD 2 ASIST TEH H3ALTH CHOIECS COMISION3R IN 3NROLNG INDIVIDUALS IN DA HAALTH INSURANCE 3XCHANGE
•!1!!! OMG WTF PROVIEDS FOR 13 NU AND DIFARENT TAX INCREAESS INCLUDNG AN 3MPLOY3R MANDAET EXCIES TAX
•!!1!! OMG WTF LOL GRANDFATHERS OUT OF EXISTANCE INDIVIDUAL HEALTH INSURANC3 COV3RAEG
•!1!1!1!1 WTF RETANES DA DEATH PAENLS BY PROVIDNG FOR BUREAUCRATS WORKNG FOR A NU COMPARATIEV EF3CTIEVNES INSTITUT3 FUNDAD BY A TAX ON HAALTH BN3FITS!!11!!!! OMG LOL TEH INSTITUT3 CUD PUBLISH DA PRO2COLS NEDAD 2 DANY PATEINTS ACES 2 LIEF-SAVNG TR3ATMENTS ON COST GROUNDS
•!1!1!1 WTF LOL CONTANES NO BAN ON FED3RAL PROMOTION OF ASISTED SUICIED AND/OR HAALTH R RATIONNG OF TRAATMANTS
•!1!1!11 SLASHAS R PAYMANTS 2 PROVIEDRS BY MORE THAN $40 BILION!!!11!!! WTF
There's growing evidence of a link between heart disease and gum disease.
That’s the conclusion of a “consensus’’ statement written by leading gum disease specialists and cardiologists published online earlier this year in the American Journal of Cardiology and the Journal of Periodontology.
“The mechanism of the relationship strongly points to inflammation’’ as the culprit in both cardiovascular disease and periodontitis, or gum disease, says Dr. Thomas E. Van Dyke, a professor of periodontology and oral biology at the Boston University School of Medicine.
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Dr. Paul Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, notes that “cardiologists now understand that inflammation is a major risk factor for heart disease. Patients with periodontal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis all have chronic inflammation, and all turn out to have higher cardiac risk than previously appreciated.’’
In 2006 the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Gardasil as a vaccine against certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) which is the primary cause of cervical cancer in women. Gardasil is manufactured by Merck and the company has aggressively marketed the drug including political contributions through its PAC.
Many state and local governments have proposed that Gardasil be required for school girls as young as those entering the sixth grade.
Now one of the lead researchers for the Merck drug, Dr. Diane Harper, says the "Pubic should receive more complete warnings."
"Parents and women must know that deaths occurred. Not all deaths that have been reported were represented in Dr. Slade's work, one-third of the death reports were unavailable to the CDC, leaving the parents of the deceased teenagers in despair that the CDC is ignoring the very rare but real occurrences that need not have happened if parents were given information stating that there are real, but small risks of death surrounding the administration of Gardasil."
After 26 million vaccinations, Dr. Harper says it will have NO effect on the rate of cervical cancer in the U.S.
To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse effects include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths."
Merck's Dr. Harper told CBS News that a girl is more likely to die from an adverse reaction to Gardasil than from cervical cancer.
What would be the point in promoting the inoculation of millions of girls and women with a useless, sometimes dangerous drug? And it really is useless: Merck's current project is to push it to pre-teen girls, but Dr. Harper pointed out that, once a girl hits puberty, any effectiveness of the vaccine disappears, and she has to start over again with the course of shots. And by the way, the efficacy of the drug in pre-teen girls hasn't actually been tested.
One thing we know about Gardasil is that each three-dose treatment costs $360, which has helped Merck a lot. It's been one of the company's top-selling drugs.
Chronic fatigue syndrome has frustrated sufferers and doctors alike because nobody knew what caused the disease or how best to treat it. That just changed.
Scientists say that a retrovirus may cause chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis)
Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported in the journal Science.
But lead scientist Judy Mikovits from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada, said further blood tests revealed 95 per cent of the ME patients had antibodies to the virus. This indicated they had been infected with XMRV.
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Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported in the journal Science. But lead scientist Judy Mikovits from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada, said further blood tests revealed 95 per cent of the ME patients had antibodies to the virus. This indicated they had been infected with XMRV.
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The XMRV virus is a retrovirus, like the HIV virus that causes AIDS. As with all viruses, a retrovirus copies its genetic code into the DNA of its host but uses RNA - a working form of DNA - instead of using DNA to do so.
Reports the New York Times
“I think this establishes what had always been considered a psychiatric disease as an infectious disease,” said Dr. Mikovits, who is research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, a nonprofit center created by the parents of a woman who has a severe case of the syndrome. Her co-authors include scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Mikovits said she and her colleagues were drawing up plans to test antiretroviral drugs — some of the same ones used to treat HIV infection — to see whether they could help patients with chronic fatigue. If the drugs work, that will help prove that the virus is causing the illness. She said patients and doctors should wait for the studies to be finished before trying the drugs.
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Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, said the discovery was exciting and made sense.
“My first reaction is, ‘At last,’ ” Dr. Schaffner said. “In interacting with patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, you get the distinct impression that there’s got to be something there.”
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He added, “This is going to create an avalanche of subsequent studies.”
A plumber by trade, Torron Eeles fell down the stairs and broke his arm on December 3, 2008.
Here he is today
Plumber with shattered arm left horrifically bent out of shape has operation 'cancelled four times'
Mr Eeles claims his first two operations at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital i... were cancelled due to a lack of beds and operating time respectively.
His third operation in February was postponed after he was found to have high blood pressure, while the fourth, scheduled for May, was abandoned because of concerns about his smoking.
He can't work, but because he can turn on a tap and raise his arm, he doesn't qualify for temporary disability benefits.
Government health care, government rules. He didn't stop smoking, so no operation for him.
I'm all for incentives to increase the number of doctors, especially general practitioners.
But I don't know why the Administration proposes to cut the prices paid for cardiologists and oncologists by 11% and 19% respectively so they can pay general practitioners more.
this boost for GPs comes at the expense of certain specialties. The 2010 rules, which will be finalized next month, visit an 11% overall cut on cardiology and 19% on radiation oncology. They're targets only because of cost: Two-thirds of morbidity or mortality among Medicare patients owes to cancer or heart disease.
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The way Medicare works is that Congress decides each year how much it wants to spend on doctors, period. If one area of medicine receives a larger slice of this pie, another must accept a smaller one.
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Jack Lewin, who heads the American College of Cardiology, said in an interview that the crackdown will cause "a horrible disruption" that will force many community and independent practices to close their doors, lay off staff or make senior patients wait days or weeks for tests and services.
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HHS justified its decision with a flimsy survey whose data it won't release and whose results can't be replicated. Dr. Lewin told us that both HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and budget director Peter Orszag refuse to meet with him to discuss the topic.
Why heart disease and cancer, the biggest killers as people grow older?
Especially on top of a $500 billion cut in Medicare spending in the proposed health care bills.
Will seniors and boomers who are about to swell the senior ranks and so required to use Medicare stand for this?
Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist, has Asperger's Syndrome.
This week she is offering career advice on How to deal with Asperger Syndrome at work.
People often tell me that I should write career advice for people with Asperger Syndrome. This is because I am surrounded by people who have Asperger’s, and I have it myself. Please, do not tell me I don’t have it. First of all, it looks very different in men and women, and most of you have experience with men. Second, I’m way more weird in person than I am on the blog. And surely you thought it was the other way around.
So, anyway, the reason I’m good at giving career advice is because I had to learn things systematically, which helps me break it down for everyone else.
For example, I had to learn that a candy dish on someone’s desk means “I like to talk with people.” Other people read this cue instinctively.
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I don’t really do career coaching. I don’t have patience. But often career coaches send people with Asperger’s to me, because mostly, these people are extremely difficult to coach.
They are difficult to coach because the biggest problem is that non-verbal cues that are obvious to everyone else are totally lost on people with Asperger’s. For example, you can tell when you are boring someone, but someone with Asperger’s cannot—we just keep talking.
Does getting hit and tackled week after week affect your future life? Yes says a recent study commissioned by the National Football League.
Former players get Alzheimer's or other memory-related disease at a rate 19 times more than the normal rate for men 30-49.
Dementia Risk Seen in Players in N.F.L. Study
The findings could ring loud at the youth and college levels, which often take cues from the N.F.L. on safety policies and whose players emulate the pros. Hundreds of on-field concussions are sustained at every level each week, with many going undiagnosed and untreated.
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“This is a game-changer — the whole debate, the ball’s now in the N.F.L.’s court,” said Dr. Julian Bailes, the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the West Virginia University School of Medicine
Sleep boosts the immune system and Lack of Sleep Increases the Risk of Catching a Cold
Sleep and immunity, it seems, are tightly linked. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce greater levels of disease-fighting white blood cells — but not red blood cells, even though both are produced in bone marrow and stem from the same precursor. And researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have shown that species that sleep more have greater resistance against pathogens.
“Species that have evolved longer sleep durations,” the Planck scientists wrote, “appear to be able to increase investment in their immune systems and be better protected.”
The Congressional Budget Office director told Senator Max Baucus that his
plan to cut $123 billion from Medicare Advantage—the program that gives almost one-fourth of seniors private health-insurance options—will result in lower benefits and some 2.7 million people losing this coverage.
Imagine that. Last week Mr. Baucus ordered Medicare regulators to investigate and likely punish Humana Inc. for trying to educate enrollees in its Advantage plans about precisely this fact. Jonathan Blum, acting director of a regulatory office in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said that a mailer Humana sent its customers was "misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, who may believe that it represents official communication about the Medicare Advantage program."
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Meanwhile, we have the case of the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP), and its fanciful Medicare claims. The self-styled seniors lobby is using all its money and influence to cheer on ObamaCare, even though polls show that most retired persons oppose it. AARP has spent millions of dollars on its TV ad campaign and bulletins and newsletters to its members, including eight million direct-mail letters over Labor Day. The AARP Web site claims that it is a "myth" that "health care reform will hurt Medicare," while it is a "fact" that "none of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress will cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs.
Abraham Verghese is at the First Stanford Symposium on Bedside Medicine and reports
An anthropologist from Mars looking at our hospitals might conclude that the 'work' of medicine takes place in rooms far removed from the patient, typically in front of a computer screen. The actual patient and the person-hood of the patient is pushed to the margin of medical attention while the 'iPatient', the virtual patient rules.
Last night we talked about the ritual of the exam, and how important that ritual is. Rituals are about transformation, and the careful exam has all the elements of ritual, including a sacred space, a ceremonial garb (white coat and patient gown), a routine that is mysterious to the patient and includes disrobing and touch (which in any other context would be assault). Rituals are about transformation (think wedding, baptism etc) and this ritual when done well, is transformative, it establishes the physician-patient bond, it recognizes the body of the patient (the soma as opposed to the image of the body), and it is therapeutic, particularly in chronic disease, where the ritual repeated at every visit conveys to the patient that we are with them on the journey, we will not abandon them.
If We Can't Measure It, It Doesn't Exist
I've been hearing from a doctor friend just how poorly trained new residents are in developing relationships with their patients. We see fabulous technological advances in medicine, yet the art of medicine is neglected and that is where the trust and healing takes place.
via Rod Dreher
We could lose half the doctors practicing today.
45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
Richard Fernandez discusses Another Point of View that takes into account the thinking of Robert Fogel, Nobel Prize winning economist.
Fogel argues that because most Americans have satisfactorily met their food, shelter and clothing needs, people are willing to spend a greater fraction of each extra dollar on health care, simply because it matters more to them then say, extra comestibles, which they have enough of. To some extent the American propensity to spend more on health care resembles the demand for a luxury good [2], “a good for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises”.
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An aging but still functional society, in Fogel's apparent view, would naturally demand more health care than skateboards, but for so long as they can sustainably pay for it through a well functioning market, there is no need to suppress demand. On contrary, health care will be one of the fundamental demand drivers of technology for biotechnology and other new industries way into the 21st century. In the long struggle between man versus death, humanity, having basically beaten starvation and cold, would naturally turn its efforts to fighting old age and disease.
Consequently, there is no need to suppress the demand for healthcare. Expenditures on healthcare are driven by demand, which is spurred by income and by advances in biotechnology that make health interventions increasingly effective. Just as electricity and manufacturing were the industries that stimulated the growth of the rest of the economy at the beginning of the 20th century, healthcare is the growth industry of the 21st century. It is a leading sector, which means that expenditures on healthcare will pull forward a wide array of other industries including manufacturing, education, financial services, communications, and construction.
New policy changes at an office I had never heard of before -the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) - threatens access to medical services for millions of heart and cancer patients on Medicare.
Medicare facing cancer and cardiac care cuts
If enacted as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2010, policy changes recommended by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- the government's insurer for the elderly and disabled -- will severely cut current Medicare reimbursements to cardiologists and oncologists for critical care services that are provided to patients in physicians' offices or other out-of-hospital setting, such as chemotherapy to treat cancer, and various cardiac procedures to monitor and treat heart disease, such as nuclear imaging and heart catheterization.
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Yet the policymakers at CMS, who base their decisions on numbers and statistics, are unilaterally and dramatically changing the delivery of heart and cancer care by proclaiming that care for heart disease and cancer is too costly, while treatment for other diseases has greater value.Seniors
In my lifetime, I have never seen such a spontaneous, self-organized rally of up to so many --- 2 million people according to the Daily Mail, 60,000 according to ABC News. The spokesman for the National Park Service is quotes as saying, "It is a record.... We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
It was a remarkable event by ordinary people who are rightly alarmed about what's happening and not happening in Washington.
Nick Gillespie on the scene says
First, the crowd was truly huge. Second, the crowd was from all over the place (both geographically and ideologically). And third, the crowd, well-behaved and stunningly normal in the main, was genuinely pissed off at out of control spending and government policies. "Stop spending," was the basic answer to any questions about what Congress and the president should do come tomorrow. Throw the bums of either party out come next fall was the second most-common answer.
I'm with them, the people pushing back. The government is not fixing the economy, but making everything worse.
The president's chief economic advisor Larry Summers warns that the unemployment rate could stay "unacceptably high" for years which means no new jobs are being created in the private sector.
Already, 2 out of 5 Californians don't have a job!
So the idea we are starting a trade war with China at the behest of the steelworkers' union is mind-boggling because it could so easily "ratchet up into a full-blown trade war and inflict serious economic damage on both countries."
The problem that got us into this mess, the bad regulation of the financial services sector, has not and is not being fixed.
Bloomberg reports that Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist says
the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”
Which brings me to health care. Why doesn't the President just fix Medicare and Medicaid which will go broke in the next 10 years? Why does he want to cut benefits to seniors by cutting the only part Medicare that is competitive?
Medicare for Dummies says the Wall St Journal, with "contradictions worthy of the Marx Brothers"
No cuts, for anyone—except, that is, for the 24% of senior beneficiaries [who] are enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program, which Democrats want to slash by $177 billion or more because it is run by private companies. Mr. Obama called that money "unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies—subsidies that do everything to pad their profits but don't improve the care of seniors."
In fact, Advantage does provide better care, which is one reason that enrollment has doubled since 2003. It's true that the program could be better designed, with more competitive bidding and quality bonuses. But Advantage's private insurers today provide the kind of care that Mr. Obama said he would mandate that private insurers provide for the nonelderly—"to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventative care."
Advantage plans have excelled at filling in the gaps of the a la carte medicine of traditional Medicare, contracting with doctors and hospitals to coordinate care and improve quality and covering items such as vision, hearing and management of chronic illness. If seniors in Advantage lose this coverage because of the 14% or 15% budget cut that Mr. Obama favors, well, that's "waste and abuse."
Who knew that recycling fat could have such astounding effects?
Fat sucked out of chunky thighs or flabby bellies might provide an easy source of stem cells made using new and promising technology, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found immature fat cells in the material removed during liposuction were easy to transform into cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.
They were easier to work with than the skin cells usually used to make iPS cells, the team at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Liposuction leftovers make easy stem cells: study
In what I think is a major medical breakthrough, British scientists are using adult stem cells to avoid hip replacements.
Doctors in Southampton are using the pioneering technique, where a patient’s damaged bones are repaired using their own stem cells.
Patients hailed the treatment, after many found they could walk normally again without any pain and without the need for hip replacement surgery.
So far six patients have had the treatment with only one failure, doctors said.
The numbers are small but the prospects are huge.
Under the treatment, surgeons at Spire hospital used purified cells from bone marrow extracted from the pelvis.
The stem cells, which are immature cells that can develop into different kinds of tissue, were then mixed with “cleaned, ground-up” bone from another patient, after they had a hip replacement operation.
They then finished with dead tissue being removed before surgeons filled the cavity with the mixture of stem cells and donated bone.
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Prof Oreffo, who is currently leading a team researching how stem cell technology can be used to repair human skeletal tissue, told Sky News that stem cells used chemical signals to attract blood vessels.
"Bone is a living vibrant tissue. These stem cells generate new tissue and drive new blood vessel formation to bring in nutrients," he said.
In Wired, Placebos getting more effective. Drugmakers are desperate to know why. So what's the problem?
In a 1955 paper titled "The Powerful Placebo," published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Beecher described how the placebo effect had undermined the results of more than a dozen trials by causing improvement that was mistakenly attributed to the drugs being tested. He demonstrated that trial volunteers who got real medication were also subject to placebo effects; the act of taking a pill was itself somehow therapeutic, boosting the curative power of the medicine. Only by subtracting the improvement in a placebo control group could the actual value of the drug be calculated.
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Beecher's double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial—or RCT—was enshrined as the gold standard of the emerging pharmaceutical industry. Today, to win FDA approval, a new medication must beat placebo in at least two authenticated trials.
Beecher's prescription helped cure the medical establishment of outright quackery, but it had an insidious side effect. By casting placebo as the villain in RCTs, he ended up stigmatizing one of his most important discoveries. The fact that even dummy capsules can kick-start the body's recovery engine became a problem for drug developers to overcome, rather than a phenomenon that could guide doctors toward a better understanding of the healing process and how to drive it most effectively.
After prodding by Potter and others, the NIH focused on the issue in 2000, hosting a three-day conference in Washington. For the first time in medical history, more than 500 drug developers, doctors, academics, and trial designers put their heads together to examine the role of the placebo effect in clinical trials and healing in general.
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Ironically, Big Pharma's attempt to dominate the central nervous system has ended up revealing how powerful the brain really is. The placebo response doesn't care if the catalyst for healing is a triumph of pharmacology, a compassionate therapist, or a syringe of salt water. All it requires is a reasonable expectation of getting better. That's potent medicine.
Atul Gawande is one of the those writers I never miss. Writing in the Annals of Medicine in The New Yorker, he writes unforgettable articles that have illuminated the world of medicine for me like no one else. They "open up like an umbrella" said his New Yorker editor Henry Finder.
Some of my favorites are:
The Cost Conundrum
The Itch
The Checklist
The Way We Age Now
So I was quite interested in this profile on Atul Gawande in Harvard Magazine, Surgeon, Health Policy Scholar and Writer.
On the desk in his office at the Brigham is a framed copy of Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Surgeon at 2 a.m.” She describes a patient’s innards as “tubers and fruits/Oozing their jammy substances.” From the surgeon’s perspective, she writes: “I worm and hack in a purple wilderness.” Gawande notes that Plath, not a surgeon, nevertheless got things just right. “That,” he says, “is the really amazing thing, and that’s the difference between me and a real writer.”
He likes the Plath poem because it casts the surgeon in an ambiguous light. “Most writing about people in medicine casts them as either heroes or villains,” he says. “That poem captures the surgeon as a merely human, slightly bewildered, a little bit benighted person in a world that is ultimately beyond his control.”
I'm putting together a post about all the good ideas for health care reform, but I couldn't resist this
Chocolate 'cuts death rate' in heart attack survivors
PARIS (AFP) – Heart attack survivors who eat chocolate two or more times per week cut their risk of dying from heart disease about three fold compared to those who never touch the stuff, scientists have reported.
Smaller quantities confer less protection, but are still better than none, according to the study, which appears in the September issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Earlier research had established a strong link between cocoa-based confections and lowered blood pressure or improvement in blood flow.
It had also shown that chocolate cuts the rate of heart-related mortality in healthy older men, along with post-menopausal women.
But the new study, led by Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is the first to demonstrate that consuming chocolate can help ward off the grim reaper if one has suffered acute myocardial infarction -- otherwise known as a heart attack.
"It was specific to chocolate -- we found no benefit to sweets in general," said Kenneth Mukamal, a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and a co-author of the study.
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"Our findings support increasing evidence that chocolate is a rich source of beneficial bioactive compounds," the researchers concluded.
Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.
Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon’s decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending operations based on what’s right for the patient.
We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President’s remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.
We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.
La Paglia on Obama's healthcare horror
But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.
You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.
I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.
As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.
Theodore Dalrymple on the British health service, Man vs. Mutt
In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog.
As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.
The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. The relatives are united by their concern for the welfare of each other’s loved one. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they.
People are legitimately worried about the end-of-life provisions in the health care bill. While I am all for end-of-life planning with the necessary documents and I'm also against unnecessary medical treatments that can make the end of life a hell on earth, I believe these are private decisions by the person and the family involved. When doctors are paid to initiate these conversations and have the ability to execute documents on the spot, I am very concerned that economic and political concerns will have too great an influence on a vulnerable population.
So is Charles Lane, a member of the editorial staff of the The Washington Post, who writes in Undue Influence
About a third of Americans have living wills or advance-care directives expressing their wishes for end-of-life treatment. When seniors who don't have them arrive in a hospital terminally ill and incapacitated, families and medical workers wrestle with uncertainty -- while life-prolonging machinery runs, often at Medicare's expense. This has consequences for families and for the federal budget.
Enter Section 1233 of the health-care bill drafted in the Democratic-led House, which would pay doctors to give Medicare patients end-of-life counseling every five years -- or sooner if the patient gets a terminal diagnosi
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Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit "formulation" of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would "place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign," I don't think he's being realistic.
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But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.
Mickey Kaus puts it more succinctly
Tip for Dems: If you don't want people to think that subsidized, voluntary end-of-of-life counseling sessions are the camel's nose of an attempt to cut costs by limiting end of life care, then don't put them in a bill the overarching, stated purpose of which is to cut health care costs! .
Meanwhile we learn more about Oregon health care from a newspaper in Britain than we do in our own press
The chilling truth about the city where they pay people to die
His body ravaged by cancer, lumberjack David Prueitt barely had the strength to raise the cup to his lips.
In it was a mix of apple sauce and dozens of crushed barbiturate pills, legally prescribed by the 42-year-old's doctor to end his life.
Within minutes, the drugs had started to take effect, the terminally-ill man slipping into unconsciousness as his wife sat by his side.
If all had gone to plan, David would have quickly and peacefully passed away, his breathing becoming more laboured until it eventually stopped altogether.
But it did not happen like that. Instead, after three days in a deep coma, David suddenly woke up. 'Honey?' he said to his wife. 'What the hell happened? Why am I not dead?'
For another 13 days, coherent but racked with pain, David survived before finally succumbing to the disease and dying naturally in his home near Portland, Oregon's most populous city.
In that time he would be transformed from just another death to be recorded under Oregon's policy of assisted suicide into a figurehead for opponents of the U.S. state's deeply controversial Death With Dignity Act.
'He took five times the amount of barbiturates that should kill somebody and he still didn't die,' his older brother Steve told the Daily Mail this week.
'If anything, he should have been brain-dead. But he told us that, while unconscious, he had found himself before God and been told: "Not this way, David." God chose David as his spokesman, absolutely.'
He adds: 'It definitely made it very clear to me that we are not supposed to determine our own deaths.'
graphic from American Digest
When Barbara’s lung cancer reappeared during the spring of 2008 her oncologist recommended aggressive treatment with Tarceva, a new chemotherapy. However, Oregon’s state run health plan denied the potentially life altering drug because they did not feel it was "cost-effective." Instead, the State plan offered to pay for either hospice care or physician-assisted suicide.
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The answer is simple. Oregon state officials controlled the process of healthcare decision-making—not Barbara and her physician. Chemotherapy would cost the state $4,000 every month she remained alive; the drugs for physician-assisted suicide held a one-time expense of less than $100. Barbara’s treatment plan boiled down to accounting. To cover chemotherapy state policy demanded a five percent patient survival rate at five years. As a new drug, Tarceva did not meet this dispassionate criterion. To Oregon, Barbara was no longer a patient; she had become a "negative economic unit."
Physicians for Reform want you to know What This Means for You
From the trenches, the perspective of a doctor, ObamaCare and me.
in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.
Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.
Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved list. Get the point -- rationing of care.
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We are being lied to about the uninsured. They are getting care. I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month who pay me nothing, and the children's hospital at which I operate charges them nothing also.This is true not only on Atlanta, but of every community in America.
The bottom line is that I urge all of you to contact your congresswomen and congressmen and senators to defeat this bill. I promise you that you will not like rationing of your own health.
15 Facts You Didn't Know About Your Body
#4. Every person has a unique tongue print
Did you ever wonder how so many Americans became obese, seemingly all of a sudden?
Blue Crab Boulevard explains
The sudden upward spike is actually the result of bureaucratic fiat. The fact is that in 1998 the National Institutes of Health waved its magic wand and simply created the sudden, sharp spike with some bureaucratic prestidigitation:
In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold for BMI 27.8 to 25 to match international guidelines. The move added 30 million Americans who were previously in the “healthy weight” category to the “overweight” category.
To be amazed and shocked by this shows a basic lack of fact-checking. People who had previously been completely “normal” (as if anyone really were) were suddenly reclassified as obese. Now the bureaucrats are demanding solutions to the crisis they manufactured out of thin air, so to speak.
Who knew that a spleen was so important?
Finally, the Spleen Gets Some Respect
Scientists have discovered that the spleen, long consigned to the B-list of abdominal organs and known as much for its metaphoric as its physiological value, plays a more important role in the body’s defense system than anyone suspected.
Reporting in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School describe studies showing that the spleen is a reservoir for huge numbers of immune cells called monocytes, and that in the event of a serious trauma to the body like a heart attack, gashing wound or microbial invasion, the spleen will disgorge those monocyte multitudes into the bloodstream to tackle the crisis.
“The parallel in military terms is a standing army,” said Matthias Nahrendorf, an author of the report. “You don’t want to have to recruit an entire fighting force from the ground up every time you need it.”
In the long run obese people die sooner thus saving us money. Sure, they are more expensive to treat on an annual basis, but since they die sooner, their lifetime health care costs are less.
If Obesity Saves Taxpayers Money, Should It Be Encouraged?
I am, alone of all my friends, a big milk drinker. Yes, the milkman still delivers my milk in glass bottles each week straight from Crescent Ridge Farm.
But I'm not going to lord it over them that milk drinkers have longer lives because of the reduced incidences of coronary heart disease and stroke, up to 15-20%
But I will warn them against sunbeds. Even before studies showed that tanning beds definitely cause cancer, DEFINITELY cause cancer, I wouldn't go near them given my red hair and pale and freckled skin. I used to use those self-tanners but now I can't be bothered.
A large independent review has show that organic food 'has no health benefits' over conventionally grown food, but when it comes to certain fruits and vegetables, I discern a far better flavor.
But the worse health news of all is that Divorce damages your health - and getting remarried barely helps.
Divorced people have 20 per cent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people, according to the study of 8,652 people aged between 51 and 61 by Professor Linda Waite of the University of Chicago.
They also have 23 per cent more mobility problems, such as difficulty climbing stairs or walking short distances.
Do they have a 'right' to health care? Do the obese? Do alcoholics?
No says Theodore Dalrymple in the Wall St. Journal There is no 'right' to health care - for anyone.
If there is a right to health care, someone has the duty to provide it. Inevitably, that “someone” is the government. Concrete benefits in pursuance of abstract rights, however, can be provided by the government only by constant coercion.
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The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.
Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world.
I wondered about this talk of right to health care because if you have a right, how can the government can decide who gets what medical procedure?
Econoblogger Megan McCardle describes it far more vividly
The other major reason that I am against national health care is the increasing license it gives elites to wrap their claws around every aspect of everyone's life. Look at the uptick in stories on obesity in the context of health care reform. Fat people are a problem! They're killing themselves, and our budget! We must stop them! And what if people won't do it voluntarily? Because let's face it, so far, they won't. Making information, or fresh vegetables, available, hasn't worked--every intervention you can imagine on the voluntary front, and several involuntary ones, has already been tried either in supermarkets or public schools. Americans are getting fat because they're eating fattening foods, and not exercising. How far are we willing to go beyond calorie labelling on menus to get people to slim down?
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These aren't just a way to save on health care; they're a way to extend and expand the cultural hegemony of wealthy white elites. No, seriously. Living a fit, active life is correlated with being healthier. But then, as an economist recently pointed out to me, so is being religious, being married, and living in a small town; how come we don't have any programs to promote these "healthy lifestyles"? When you listen to obesity experts, or health wonks, talk, their assertions boil down to the idea that overweight people are either too stupid to understand why they get fat, or have not yet been made sufficiently aware of society's disgust for their condition. Yet this does not describe any of the overweight people I have ever known, including the construction workers and office clerks at Ground Zero. All were very well aware that the burgers and fries they ate made them fat, and hitting the salad bar instead would probably help them lose weight. They either didn't care, or felt powerless to control their hunger. They were also very well aware that society thought they were disgusting, and many of them had internalized this message to the point of open despair. What does another public campaign about overeating have to offer them, other than oozing condescension?
For some time now parents with autistic children, in numbers increasing every year, wondered whether the vaccines given them had been contaminated with mercury in the form of Thimerosal, a mercury containing organic preservative.
The FDA has removed thimerosal from all vaccines given to children under 6 while conducting studies to determine whether vaccines containing trace amounts of mercury as a preservative in vaccines against contamination by microbes could have a causal relationship to autism. They concluded on the basis of their studies and studies in the U.K. Denmark, and Sweden that it did not.
Now an even graver question has arisen.
Is Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Linked to Autism?
Despite research ruling out mercury (Thimerosal) or the measles portion of one specific vaccine, autism continues to rise to a level of one in every 64 children in the UK.
The NVAC [1] draft report recommends further study of the potential for vaccines to contribute to autism in children who have underlying mitochondrial disease, a worthwhile study given the clinical history of such children developing autism after vaccinations (see [2] Poling case). What the NVAC has overlooked, however, in their recommendations, is that epidemic regressive autism is associated with the switch from using animal cells to produce vaccines to the use of aborted human fetal cells for vaccine production. Now when we vaccinate our children, some vaccines also deliver contaminating aborted human fetal DNA. The safety of this has never been tested.
Autism and autism spectrum disorder are polygenic diseases, meaning that multiple genes have been shown to be associated with these diseases. Studies have also clearly shown that there is an environmental component, a trigger, that is required. Vaccines are an obvious potential environmental trigger for autism because of the almost universal childhood exposure to vaccines in first world countries.
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Those studies have largely ruled out the new measles portion of the MMR II or mercury as the environmental trigger for autism. However, the compelling temporal association between this new MMR vaccine and autism cannot be ignored or explained away. What has been ignored is the fact that this new MMR vaccine introduced the use of aborted fetal cells for vaccine production. At one point, as much as 94 percent of children in the U.S. and 98 percent of children in the UK were given this vaccine.
Today, more than 23 vaccines are contaminated by the use of aborted fetal cells. There is no law that requires that consumers be informed that some vaccines are made using aborted fetal cells and contain residual aborted fetal DNA.
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Preliminary bioinformatics research conducted at SCPI indicates that “hot spots” for DNA recombination are found in nine autism-associated genes present on the X chromosome. These nine genes are involved in nerve-cell synapse formation, central nervous system development and mitochondrial function.
Could genomic insertion of the aborted fetal DNA, found in some of our childhood vaccines since 1979, be an environmental trigger for autism? Could the fact that genes critical for nerve synapse formation and nervous system development are found on the X chromosome provide some explanation of why autism is predominantly a disease found in boys? Could the “hot spots” identified in these autism-associated genes be sites for insertion of contaminating aborted fetal DNA?
These questions must be answered, and quickly. Recent literature suggests that autism spectrum disorder may now impact one out of every 100 children. The pharmaceutical industry is also currently moving to replace more animal-produced vaccines with aborted-fetal-cell production and also to produce biologic drugs using aborted fetal cells.
GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
Since Medicare was established in 1965, access to care has enabled older Americans to avoid becoming disabled and to travel and live independently instead of languishing in nursing homes. But legislation now being rushed through Congress—H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health Committee Bill—will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years.
The Congressional majority wants to pay for its $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bills with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare. This cut will come just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30%. Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 1% of Medicare cuts will come from eliminating fraud, waste and abuse.
How it began with comparative effectiveness research which Betsy McCaughey writes is code for limiting care based on the patient's age.
The assault against seniors began with the stimulus package in February. Slipped into the bill was substantial funding for comparative effectiveness research, which is generally code for limiting care based on the patient’s age. Economists are familiar with the formula, where the cost of a treatment is divided by the number of years (called QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years) that the patient is likely to benefit. In Britain, the formula leads to denying treatments for older patients who have fewer years to benefit from care than younger patients.
When comparative effectiveness research appeared in the stimulus bill, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., (R., La.) a heart surgeon, warned that it would lead to “denying seniors and the disabled lifesaving care.” He and Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) proposed amendments to no avail that would have barred the federal government from using the research to eliminate treatments for the elderly or deny care based on age.
From Family Security Matters who, unlike just about everyone in Congress, has read the health care bill
PG 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consultations. Think Senior Citizens end of life prodding.
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in how to die.
PG 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends.
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "advanced care planning consultant" will be used frequently as patients’ health deteriorates.
PG 429 Lines 10-12 "advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from the Government to end a life!
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.
Who will decide what treatment you will get? Your doctor or the government. George Will asks about Our New Medical Judges?
If President Obama has his way, another such unelected authority will be created -- a manager and monitor for the vast and expensive American health-care system. As part of his health-reform effort, he is seeking to launch the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, or IMAC, a bland title for a body that could become as much an arbiter of medicine as the Fed is of the economy or the Supreme Court of the law.
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Under his plan, the president would name five physicians or other health-care-savvy members to serve for five-year terms on its board, picking one of them as chairman. Like the nominees to the Fed and the Supreme Court, they would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Each year, IMAC would have two responsibilities. First, it would recommend to the president updated fees that Medicare would pay doctors, hospitals, rehab centers, nursing homes, labs, home-care and ambulance services, equipment manufacturers, and all other providers. That is now done by Congress itself, and the lobbying by potent hometown individuals and institutions is one reason Medicare costs keep growing.
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....Second, IMAC would annually recommend a set of broader reforms to improve the quality or reduce the cost of medical care. On each report, the president would have 30 days to approve or reject the recommendations, but he would have to act on the whole package, not pick it apart.
If he approved, the package would go to Congress and could be overruled only by joint action of the Senate and House within 30 days. Absent that, the secretary of health and human services would order the changes into effect.
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Americans will have to decide if they are comfortable having those commissioners determine how they will be treated when they are ill.
Just as the Obama administration has promulgated federal funding rules for embryonic stem cells, Forbes magazine reveals The Dirty Secret of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Hope for any benefits from ES research is decades away.
Thomson blamed simple biology. Among other problems, ES cells require permanent use of dangerous immunosuppressive drugs. They have a nasty tendency to form tumors both malignant and benign including teratomas--meaning "monster tumor." Teratomas can grow larger than a football and can contain eyeball parts, hair and teeth. Yech!
OK, so how many "decades?"
"The routine utilization of human embryonic stem cells for medicine is 20 to 30 years hence," embryonic stem cell research advocate William Haseltine and then-chief executive officer of Human Genome Sciences.
Others say 'three to five decades' or 'never in my lifetime'.
Meanwhile adult stem cells (AS) have proved to be just as flexible as embryonic stem cells (ES) without the health concerns or moral baggage.
AS cells have now treated scores of illnesses including many cancers, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiency disorders, neural degenerative diseases, anemias and other blood conditions. They've been used in over 2,000 human clinical trials. There has never been an ES cell clinical trial. Former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Bernadine Healy, once an ES cell research enthusiast," now calls them "obsolete."
That's why it hardly makes sense to vastly increase federal research funding for ES cells. Medical research spending is always a zero-sum game. However big the overall budget, every dollar approved for one grant is a dollar lost to others.
UPDATE; Researchers produce cells they say are identical to embryonic stem cells
Two groups of Chinese researchers have performed an unprecedented feat, it was announced today, by inducing cells from connective tissue in mice to revert back to their embryonic state and producing living mice from them.
By demonstrating that cells from adults can be converted into cells that, like embryonic stem cells from fetuses, have the ability to produce any type of tissue, the researchers have made a major advance toward eliminating the need for fetal cells in research and clinical applications.
I dislike being pressed to make any financial decision "right now" because I feel I'm being swindled. I feel that same way about the health care proposal now before the Congress.
What I read and see makes me want to yell to all of Congress, "Stop, stop. Go home. Take a break and come to your senses."
Mr. Obama's February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.
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The most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history. The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff.
The Congressional Budget Director says all the various health care proposals will increase, not reduce federal government spending and so the Federal Budget is on an unsustainable path
While the Vice President says We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt
The Investors' Business Daily says the individual private health insurance is illegal under the House plan. It's Not an Option
It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
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So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
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What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
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The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Dick Morris points out that rationing health care is inevitable and it's older people who will suffer the most.
Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.
It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush’s Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama’s plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.
The organizational chart of the Democratic plan charted.
click image to enlarge. Via Maggie's Farm who Says it all.
Rick Moran asks
So what do we get after spending at least a trillion dollars over 10 years? The [5] CBO says we would still have 17 million legal Americans not insured. We would also almost certainly have some form of rationing. And the chances are good that we would have a system performing much worse for people who are insured today.
Without the doctor she found in Boston who did operate successfully, Meg would not be alive, married and with a new job in publishing and a new charity to give support to other people suffering with brain tumors.
Meg was out of hospital within three days and back home within the month, just in time to celebrate her 2:1 degree result. Soon after she took a job in publishing.
'I can't forget about my brain tumour as I still have annual scans and will need them for the rest of my life,' she says. 'But they show that everything is fine and there are no cancer cells. I'm incredibly lucky.'
Meg didn't hesitate when Josh, an investment consultant, proposed on a trip to Venice last summer.
'Sadly Professor Black wasn't able to come to the wedding,' says Meg. 'But Josh and I thought about him so much that day. I owe my life to him - and to my mum who wouldn't give up until she had found a cure.
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'I've no doubt that, without my operation, I'd now be dead. Britain is gradually catching up with America. But, sadly, we still don't yet have the same high level of technology. I wish everyone could have the same chance I had.'
Daily caffeine dose may delay progress of Alzheimer's, researchers say
Three large cups of coffee a day could help to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease and even reverse the condition, researchers say.
A daily dose of caffeine can suppress the degenerative processes in the brain that can lead to confusion and memory loss, a study in mice suggests.
Although drinking coffee has previously been linked to a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s, this is the first study to suggest that caffeine can directly target the disease itself.
My mother drank coffee from morning to night and never had any problems sleeping or any trouble with her memory, so I believe this
Mark Steyn on why "stirring up apathy" is the key to understanding the health care debate
Willie Whitelaw, a genial old buffer who served as Margaret Thatcher's deputy for many years, once accused the Labour Party of going around Britain stirring up apathy. Viscount Whitelaw's apparent paradox is, in fact, a shrewd political insight, and all the sharper for being accidental. Big government depends, in large part, in going around the country stirring up apathy – creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it's easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them.
Take health care. Have you read any of these health care plans? Of course not. They're huge and turgid and unreadable. Unless you're a health care lobbyist, a health care think-tanker, a health care correspondent or some other fellow who's paid directly or indirectly to plow through this stuff, why bother? None of the senators whose names are on the bills have read 'em; why should you?
Now this makes sense for lifelong and life-threatening conditions: Tattoos being used for medical alerts
Increasing numbers of people who have serious medical conditions, such as diabetes, are turning to tattooing to identify themselves on the chance a health emergency leaves them unable to communicate.
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At Fatty's Custom Tattooz in Washington, D.C., owner Matthew "Fatty" Jessup says he has carved numerous health-related tattoos. "I've done a biohazard symbol for a few people with HIV," he says.
Stem cells used to help cure sight loss
COATING a common contact lens with stem cells could help restore a person's sight, Australian scientists have found.
University of New South Wales medical researchers used the technique to treat the damaged corneas of three patients, all of whose vision improved within weeks of the groundbreaking procedure.
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Stem cells were harvested from the eyes of each patient and then cultured inside a contact lens, which was then stuck onto a damaged cornea in a "transplant'' of regenerative cells.
"The procedure is totally simple and cheap,'' said the university's Dr Nick Di Girolamo.
"Unlike other techniques ... there's no suturing, there is no major operation, all that's involved is harvesting a minute amount - less than a millimetre - of tissue from the ocular surface.''
The lens stayed on for 10 days allowing stem cells to change their form, colonise and repair the cornea.
With so many successes from adult stem cells, I can not understand why any scientist or researcher would want to get entangled with the moral quagmire of embryonic stem research
A newly-discovered astonishing surprise of life: the extra chromosome carried by people with Down's syndrome carries a gene that causes cancer tumors to be starved of the blood they need to survive.
"Most people don't appreciate the fact that these individuals with Downs potentially hold a secret that might lead to quite substantial and revolutionary new treatments for cancer," said Dr. David Sweetser, who treats patients and researches cancer at MassGeneral Hospital for Children but was not involved in the Downs project. "The obvious hope is that this is going to give us information to help develop a tool that we could use to treat a whole variety of solid tumors."
A tale of scientific serendipity
The good news is Gimundo is back with good news served daily like
Delaying Retirement Can Ward Off Alzheimer's Disease
“The intellectual stimulation that older people gain from the workplace may prevent a decline in mental abilities, thus keeping people above the threshold for dementia for longer,” Simon Lovestone, one of the study’s co-authors, said in a press statement.
Happy News from the Recession: 5 Good Things about Hard Times
I quite liked the idea of Job Angels and Estonia's Bank of Happiness
The Bank of Happiness has no physical presence, but is merely an Internet portal where Estonians can register their contact details, along with details on what personal and professional skills they can use to help community members, as well as requests for what they’d like help with from others.
“I think young people would love to do this. Not everything has to be based on money,” 18-year-old student Evelin Tamm told the Times Online. “I love to clean and to babysit. Perhaps, in return, someone could help me with my maths and physics.”
Last week the trustees reported that the Medicare will run out of money in less than 10 years, by 2017, two years ahead than projected last year. Social security will run out of money in 2037. It will start running deficits in 2017. The trust funds have always been a fiction since the surpluses have been used to reduce budget deficits.
From the summary issued by the trustees
Medicare's annual costs were 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, or about three quarters of Social Security's, they are projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2028 and reach 11.4 percent of GDP in 2083.
The argument goes Medicare is going to bankrupt us which is why we have to have universal health care. To which Megan McArdle replies
I hear this argument quite often, and it's gibberish in a prom dress. Any cost savings you want to wring out of Medicare can be wrung out of Medicare right now:
The Wall St Journal reports that the "unfunded liability" of Medicare over the next 75 years is $38 trillion. Yes, trillion. It's hard to wrap your mind around just how big a trillion is.
A trillion seconds ago, no one on this planet could read and write. Neither the Roman Empire nor the ancient Chinese dynasties had yet come into existence. None of the founders of the world's great religions today had yet been born.
A million seconds is 13 days.
A billion seconds is 31 years.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years
Do you believe the White House estimate that it could save $2 trillion in health care over 10 years just like that the Boston Globe asks.
President Obama is right that the cost of healthcare, now more than 16 percent of the economy, is simply unsustainable.
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But will the industry's gauzy pledges of better coordination of care, more standardization of insurance claim forms, reduced administrative costs, and greater efficiency actually yield the promised savings?
Wesley Smith says we're Pushing Health Care Rationing By Not Discussing Health Care Rationing
rationing prohibits health care funders from paying for otherwise covered treatments, based on the patient’s age, state of health, disability, or perhaps, because the patient committed politically incorrect lifestyle crimes such as smoking or being overweight.
The rationing has already begun and the elderly are hardest hit.
Viking Pundit reports on a story in the Boston Globe on the "pathbreaking effort to cut medical costs" begun by Massachusetts General Hospital: send home the frail elderly from the hospital sooner and reduce their emergency room visits.
Medicare is now the country's largest purchaser of health care. OMB budget chief Peter Orszag believes that "comparative effectiveness research" will determine what works best. Problem is virtual colonoscopies work best for the elderly but not for anyone else. So as the WSJ reports in How Washington Rations, Medicare now will refuse to reimburse for virtual colonoscopies.
The problem is that what "works best" isn't the same for everyone. While not painless or risk free, virtual colonoscopy might be better for some patients -- especially among seniors who are infirm or because the presence of other diseases puts them at risk for complications. Ideally doctors would decide with their patients. But Medicare instead made the hard-and-fast choice that it was cheaper to cut it off for all beneficiaries. If some patients are worse off, well, too bad.
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All this is merely a preview of the life-and-death decisions that will be determined by politics once government finances substantially more health care than the 46% it already does. Anyone who buys Democratic claims about "choice" and "affordability" will be in for a very rude awakening.
David Brooks in Fiscal Suicide Ahead says that for Obama Health care costs are now the crucial issue of his whole presidency.
For the past 50 years, we've tried to control health care spending and no one is satisfied with the results. Yet, for the most part, we have better care, more advanced technology and more effective medicines than we did 50 years ago. But there's no question we waste enormous amounts of money and even more is lost to fraud. We cut back again and again on payments to doctors who treat Medicaid and Medicare patients with the result that make almost no money treating such patients.
Seems to me there are two ways to go. Either the government takes over and imposes price controls and rations health care or we let the market do it. Now, I can hear you say, but the market hasn't done it and it's not fair.
One country did it and did it well while spending far less. Singapore put the consumer in control with money each individual was required to put aside for health care. By using the money wisely and getting the care they wanted, they had money left over they could use in retirement. A twofer.
American health care policies are sick by Robert Herbold
I believe it's just plain silly for the folks in Washington D.C. to consider spending an additional $600 billion for healthcare. Why throw money at an ineffective and bureaucratic system that is totally out-of-control? Why not figure out how to get it under control before deciding to drown it with more borrowed money from the Chinese or, even worse, further taxing the rich and thus retarding investment that might have a chance of turning around our economy?
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So, what countries seem to be handling healthcare most effectively and efficiently? Well, there's one nation that has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world as well as the third longest average lifespan for its citizens - and it spends only 3.7 percent of its GDP on healthcare. That country is Singapore.
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Singaporeans participate in a mandatory savings program that sets up a "Medisave" account for each individual. The individual is required to pay a small percentage of his or her income each month into that account, and employers also make a contribution. For individuals who are unemployed, there is a government subsidy. Singaporeans also engage in a "Medishield" program, which is a national catastrophic illness insurance plan. Premiums for the Medishield program are small, because it is government subsidized; as a result, the premiums are paid for out of an individual's Medisave account.
Choice and Competition
Most significantly, when individuals in Singapore feel the need to go to a physician, they select the doctor based on the quality of the care they believe they will get and the cost associated with going to that physician. In essence, physicians compete for the patient's business. Individuals select carefully since it's their Medisave account money that's used to pay for the chosen physician.
Individuals cannot take money out of their Medisave accounts except for medical use. On the other hand, these accounts grow steadily over time because the government invests these funds for the individual in a safe and modestly performing investment fund.
What's important here is that the money is not the government's. It's the individual's money and, at retirement age, people actually have access to these funds. That's why individuals use the funds wisely.
Eating fatty foods may boost your memory, say scientists
Researchers at the University of California-Irvine think so. A team of scientists found that oleic acids from fats are converted into a memory-enhancing signals in the part of the brain responsible for remembering emotional events.
Oleic acid, or OEA, is found in unsaturated fats - or so-called "good fat" - such as olive oil, grape seed oil and acai berries.
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Researchers said OEAs helps animals remember where they found a nice, fatty meal.
"By helping mammals remember where and when they have eaten a fatty meal, OEA's memory-enhancing activity seems to have been an important evolutionary tool for early humans and other animals," Dr. Daniele Piomelli said.
"Remembering the location and context of a fatty meal was probably important survival mechanism for early humans."
My sister has had multiple sclerosis for thirty years so I really appreciate this quite good news Adult stem cells cure multiple sclerosis patient in Canada
Alex Normandin, 26, of Montreal, Canada has been cured of his Multiple Sclerosis following the implantation of his own Adult Stem Cells. The stem cell therapy was done in conjunction with a research program in Ottawa with Dr. Mark Freedman.
Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler explores why we just can't resist fat, salt and sugar food when wrapped up together in "highly palatable" junk food.
Instead of satisfying hunger, the salt-fat-sugar combination will stimulate that diner's brain to crave more, Kessler said. For many, the come-on offered by Lay's Potato Chips -- "Betcha can't eat just one" -- is scientifically accurate.
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"Highly palatable" foods -- those containing fat, sugar and salt -- stimulate the brain to release dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure center, he found. In time, the brain gets wired so that dopamine pathways light up at the mere suggestion of the food, such as driving past a fast-food restaurant, and the urge to eat the food grows insistent. Once the food is eaten, the brain releases opioids, which bring emotional relief. Together, dopamine and opioids create a pathway that can activate every time a person is reminded about the particular food. This happens regardless of whether the person is hungry.
Now that we know that, we can drink white tea that contains anti-obesity substances.
Marc Winnefeld led a team of researchers from Beiersdorf AG, Germany, who studied the biological effects of an extract of white tea – the least processed version of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. He said, "In the industrialized countries, the rising incidence of obesity-associated disorders including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes constitutes a growing problem. We've shown that white tea may be an ideal natural source of slimming substances".
With the rise of autistic disorders among Somali immigrants in Sweden and Minnesota, a condition that never appeared in Somalia,
scientists are now asking whether Vitamin D deficiency is a cause of autism
Proponents of the vitamin D–autism link say there is biological plausibility to their theory. They cite a 2007 review by Allan Kalueff, a researcher now at Tulane University, in Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care. That review—based on more than 20 studies of animals and humans—concluded that vitamin D during gestation and early infancy was essential for "normal brain functioning."
The swine flu (H1N1) is transmitted from person to person like this.
I'm late to post on the swine flu because I've spent much of my time trying to figure out how serious it is and what the average person can do about it aside from washing their hands a lot and postponing any vacation to Mexico. Apart from the baby who died in Texas, swine flu in the U.S. seems to be quite mild. In Mexico, the crisis is severe with 149 deaths; the government is going all out to stem the spread canceling public events, closing schools and restaurants in Mexico City.
One of the most alarming bits of new was that Obama in Mexico earlier this month was showed around the city's anthropology museum by Dr. Felipe Solis who died the next day from "flu-like" symptoms, making the President coming closer to almost anyone in the country to contracting the virus. We did learn later that the President was fine and that Dr. Solis has died of pneumonia.
There's no question that one of the consequences of a flat world, interconnected in ways unimaginable, that fears of a global pandemic will characterize our future.
Contagion on a Small Planet
An urbanizing planet knitted by transportation is an extraordinarily welcoming world for infectious disease, particularly easily transmitted viruses like the flu. That’s why it wasn’t surprising Saturday when the World Health Organization concluded that the outbreaks of swine flu focused in central Mexico as well as a school in New York City and several other places around the United States officially constituted “a public health emergency of international concern".
My brother works for the WHO in Geneva and yesterday sent me this graph after WHO raised the global alert level to phase 4. Click for larger image.
The good news is that the U.S. government is far better prepared to deal with a pandemic than it was a few years ago. After the avian flu scare, President George Bush issued a pandemic flu preparedness plan. Since 2006, $6.2 billion has been appropriated to stockpile antivirals, step up surveillance and improve vaccine-making and technology.
How Not to Battle Flu - Lessons from the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918
CDC tips for individuals
What should you do?
1. Don't panic. Eat pork if you want.
2. Wash your hands often with soap and water.
3. Have antibacterial handwash in your car so you can use it wherever you are.
4. If you are sick, stay home. If you have flu symptoms, stay home unless you have difficulty in breathing, dizziness, pain in the chest or vomiting. Then see a doctor. The anti-viral drugs Tamiflu and Reflenza are only available with a doctor's prescription.
5. You might want a mask if you come into close contact with flu-infected people, either a disposable surgical mask or a painter's mask. The most effective are N95 respirators but make sure they are approved by the CDC.
5. Check your own state of preparedness.
Do you have two weeks worth of food and water and necessary medications?
Close friendships often have a greater effect on health than a spouse or a family member. They will shape your life, sustain it and make it better.
What Are Friends For? A Longer Life
Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. A large 2007 study showed an increase of nearly 60 percent in the risk for obesity among people whose friends gained weight. And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.
“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t terribly well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There is just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.”
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) British lexiographer.
My friends are my estate.
- Emily Dickinson
Those nocturnal tiny insects that feed on the blood of humans are back. Jane Brody tells you how to keep them from biting.
Although this blood-sucking parasite has been around for thousands of years, it was mainly associated with impoverished dwellings and fleabag hotels. Now, as the authors pointed out, “international travel, immigration, changes in pest control practices, and insecticide resistance” have ganged up to create “a resurgence in developed countries,” including the United States.
“Bed bug infestations have been reported increasingly in homes, apartments, hotel rooms, hospitals and dormitories in the United States since 1980,” they wrote. Reported infestations in San Francisco doubled from 2004 to 2006; telephone complaints in Toronto rose 100 percent in six months during 2002; and the number of bed bug samples sent to authorities in Australia was 400 percent higher from 2001 to 2004, compared with the previous three years.
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Most people who are bitten by bed bugs do not react. Of the 30 percent or so who do, many mistake the small, pink, itchy bumps for mosquito bites, although people may become more suspicious and more sensitive with repeated bites....People who are highly sensitive react with intense itching that prompts scratching and can lead to infections......most bed bug lesions can be treated with an anti-itch product like calamine lotion or a topical or oral corticosteroid and antihistamine. If bites become infected, a topical or oral antibiotic may be needed.
Just don't pick up discarded mattresses, sofas or cushioned chairs off the street.
When you travel, check for bedbugs with the small flashlight you should always have with you.
If your bed has been infested, you have no choice but to call a professional.
Nasal irrigation works, as many recent studies attest, to ease allergy symptoms, stuffy nose and other nasal problems.
One benefit is that irrigation can clear nasal passages without dryness or “rebound” congestion, which occurs when overuse of decongestants leads to dependence and irritated tissue.
In one independent study in 2008, researchers examined a group of children with severe allergies. They found that regular nasal irrigation with a mild saline solution significantly eased symptoms and helped reduce the need for steroid nasal sprays. A 2007 study at the University of Michigan looked at 121 adults with chronic nasal and sinus problems. Over two months, the scientists found that those treated with nasal irrigation reported greater improvements than those treated with a spray.
The neti pot has been used for thousands of years, but some find it too awkward to use. Today you can easily buy a saline spray that will remain sterile as long as you don't share it. Natural and cheap.
If you or someone you love has to take a complicated regime of medicines, you might be pleased to learn that soon a microchip that tells the doctor if you've taken your pills.
Digestible sensors in pills activate a harmless electrical charge when the pill is digested by the stomach which charge is picked up on a sensing patch on the patient's stomach that records the time and date the pill is digested, sends it off to a mobile phone which in turn sends it to a secure web page. Just 1 mm wide, the silicon microchips can't be seen by patients and can be added to any standard drug during the manufacturing process.
New research suggests that one speck of blood or tissue may be enough to diagnose cancer.
Researchers at Stanford University, California, have developed a machine that separates cancer-associated proteins by means of their electric charge, which varies according to modifications on the protein’s surface.
There may be a "good" fat tissue - brown fat -that fights obesity but the downside is that it works only when you turn down the heat and shiver.
And the best news of all. Bacon sandwich really does cure a hangover by boosting the level of amines which clear the head.
Even after a heart attack, the muscles of the heart can regenerate says the NIH
It has long been assumed that when the heart is damaged — such as after a heart attack — heart muscle cells do not regenerate and the damage is permanent. This assumption has been challenged in recent years by evidence that heart muscle cells may in fact regenerate. Now, this latest research provides the most dramatic and clear-cut demonstration to date of heart cell regeneration after cardiac injury," says Claude Lenfant, M.D., director of the NHLBI, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
You don't die with the same heart you were born with
Heart muscle renewed over lifetime, study finds
About 1 percent of the heart muscle cells are replaced every year at age 25, and that rate gradually falls to less than half a percent per year by age 75, concluded a team of researchers led by Dr. Jonas Frisen of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The upshot is that about half of the heart’s muscle cells are exchanged in the course of a normal lifetime, the Swedish group calculates. Its results are to be published Friday in the journal Science.
Those nuclear weapons tested in the atmosphere until 1963 in essence "labelled the cells of the entire world's population".
By measuring the amount of carbon 14 in the heart muscles, the scientists were able to calculate the turnover of cells in what was called a "scientific tour de force"
In the past couple of years, the vaccine Gardasil has been touted as the best way to protect young women against cervical cancer.
Manufactured by Merck & Co, the vaccine is designed to prevent the initial establishment of HPV, the human papillomavirius, that causes cervical cancer and is transmitted sexually. Administered in three injections over six months, Gardasil is expensive ($360).
So effective was the new vaccine, many urged that it be given to all young teenage girls as a prophylactic before they became sexually active. Some parents were horrified at the idea; most greeted the idea with great relief.
Since HPV infection shows no symptoms and has no cure, the vaccine was heavily promoted in commercials which showed teenage girls saying "I want to be one less" who gets the HPV virus.
A number of states mandated the vaccine despite the fact that no one knew the long term effects.
Now from CBS news comes new worries about Gardasil safety and very serious side effects.
The National Vaccine Information Center, a private vaccine-safety group, compared Gardasil adverse events to another vaccine, one also given to young people, but for meningitis. Gardasil had three times the number of Emergency Room visits - more than 5,000.
Reports of side effects were up to 30 times higher with Gardasil.
"If I'd have known, we never would have gotten the shot," said Emily Tarsell, whose daughter, Chris, died three weeks after her third Gardasil shot. She was one of the 29 fatalities reported in two years. "And she'd be here to hug."
Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the NVIC, said: "Now we know from this report that there are more reactions and deaths associated with Gardasil than with another vaccine given in the same age group. It's irresponsible not to take action."
Mary Beth Bonacci says "The vaccine is unnecessary, it's dangerous, and it's disabling and killing young women."
We have pap smears, which detect HPV-related warts and pre-cancerous changes to the cervix. It is because of our friend the pap smear that cervical cancer deaths declined 74% between 1955 and 1992 - - the same time period wherein the rate of unmarried sexual activity was rising dramatically. Those cervical cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, continue to decline at a rate of about 4% a year.
We don't need Gardasil to prevent cervical cancer. Gardasil is the closest thing I've ever seen to an out and out pharmaceutical hoax foisted on American women under the guise of "public health."
After little Morgan McCracken, 7, was hit in the head with a baseball in a backyard game, she seemed fine, but her parents, after reading about the death of Natasha Richardson took her to the emergency room after the little girl complained of a headache.
Morgan was in such bad shape by the time they got there that she had to be transferred to a children's hospital by helicopter, where she was immediately taken into surgery, according to CNN.
The McCrackens learned there that Morgan had the same injury that Natasha Richardson had died of -- according to CNN, an epidural hematoma. Mr. McCracken told the cable news outlet: "[Our doctor] told us that if we hadn't brought her in Thursday night, she never would have woken up."
But after Morgan's surgery and five days in the hospital, she's "doing fine," according to CNN, which lists the danger signs to look out for in a head injury on their web site.
Little girl saved after Natasha Richardson's death
Any head injury should be checked out.
Another reason why Alzheimer's is the last thing you want to get.
The health care costs of treating Alzheimer's are triple those of other older people and that doesn't include the billions of hours of unpaid care from family members.
That all adds up to at least $33,007 in annual costs per patient, compared with $10,603 for an older person without Alzheimer's, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Alzheimer's Association.
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An estimated 5.3 million Americans have the disease; by next year nearly half a million new cases will be diagnosed, according to the Alzheimer's Association.
From 2000 to 2006, while deaths from heart disease, stroke, breast and prostate cancer declined, Alzheimer's deaths rose 47 percent.
The Pope is in Africa, so naturally the talk turns to condoms.
"I would say the opposite. I think that the reality that is most effective, the most present and the strongest in the fight against AIDS, is precisely that of the Catholic Church, with its programs and its diversity. I think of the Sant'Egidio Community, which does so much visibly and invisibly in the fight against AIDS ... and of all the sisters at the service of the sick.
"I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money -- which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it, (money) doesn't help.
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
"The solution can only be a double one: first, a humanization of sexuality, that is, a spiritual human renewal that brings with it a new way of behaving with one another; second, a true friendship even and especially with those who suffer, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices and to be with the suffering. And these are factors that help and that result in real and visible progress.
"Therefore I would say this is our double strength -- to renew the human being from the inside, to give him spiritual human strength for proper behavior regarding one's own body and toward the other person, and the capacity to suffer with the suffering. ... I think this is the proper response and the church is doing this, and so it offers a great and important contribution. I thank all those who are doing this."
Let's look at the research done by Harvard professor Edward Green, senior research scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies in "Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries" , a book reviewed by Douglas Sylva in Saving Life
There are, however, no condom "successes" in Africa. Something like 700 million condoms are shipped to the continent, year in and year out, courtesy of the U.N., the U.S., and the EU, yet infection rates remain stubbornly high. The UNICEF official approvingly cites Botswana's commitment to condoms — "Let us follow the decision of the government of Botswana" — but about 35 percent of that country's population is infected. That's the example the rest of the world should follow?
Whenever someone, usually an obscure African churchman, dares to raise such uncomfortable questions, the full might of the AIDS establishment comes down to smite him, and he is condemned as a religious zealot. Finally, though, there is a challenger to condom dominance who cannot be so easily dismissed. He is a distinguished public-health official, a paragon, in fact, of establishment credentials: Edward C. Green, senior research scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Green has had an epiphany of common sense and now has the courage to criticize the role of his colleagues as prophylactic missionaries to the Third World. In his important new book, Rethinking AIDS Prevention, he exposes the failure of the condom approach, and explains why AIDS experts cling to this failure.
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Obviously, such people have a personal interest in ensuring that the basic lesson of the AIDS epidemic — promiscuous sex cannot be made consequence-free — never gets learned. As our "polypartnering" devotee makes clear, "we should not use the HIV/AIDS crisis as an excuse to revert back" to the bad old days of monogamy. And thus enters the lowly condom; it allows proponents of the sexual revolution to trumpet as "safe" risky sexual behavior.
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Green makes the reasonable request that African public-health measures should be designed with the best interests of Africans in mind; most especially, that the schoolchildren of Africa should not be handed a box of condoms, and subjected to a program designed for the clients of New York's gay bathhouses, but encouraged instead to delay sexual activity.
It doesn't matter what your diet, only calories count.
That is the finding of the largest-ever controlled study of weight-loss methods published on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. More than 800 overweight adults in Boston and Baton Rouge, La., were assigned to one of four diets that reduced calories through different combinations of fat, carbohydrates and protein. Each plan cut about 750 calories from a participant’s normal diet, but no one ate fewer than 1,200 calories a day.
While the diets were not named, the eating plans were all loosely based on the principles of popular diets like Atkins, which emphasizes low carbohydrates; Dean Ornish, which is low-fat; or the Mediterranean diet, with less animal protein. All participants also received group or individual counseling.
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The lesson, researchers say, is that people lose weight if they lower calories, but it does not matter how.
“It really does cut through the hype,” said Dr. Frank M. Sacks, the study’s lead author and professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It gives people lots of flexibility to pick a diet that they can stick with.”
The brain uses two forms of attention. “Directed” attention allows us to concentrate on work, reading and tests, while “involuntary” attention takes over when we’re distracted by things like running water, crying babies, a beautiful view or a pet that crawls onto our lap.
Directed attention is a limited resource. Long hours in front of a computer or studying for a test can leave us feeling fatigued. But spending time in natural settings appears to activate involuntary attention, giving the brain’s directed attention time to rest.
“It’s pretty clear that all human beings experience attentional fatigue,” Dr. Faber Taylor said. “Our attention has to be restored from that fatigue, and there is a growing body of research evidence that nature is one way that seems particularly effective at doing it.”
The New York Times reports on recess. Tara Parker-Pope concludes:
The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.
New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
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Playtime and nature time are important not only for learning but also for health and development.
Alzheimer's study finds parental link
Children of parents with Alzheimer's disease can develop memory problems in their 50s or even younger - much earlier than previously thought - according to a large study released yesterday by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine.
The study subjects, who carried a gene strongly linked to Alzheimer's, performed worse in memory tests, on average, than other middle-aged people who had the same gene but did not have a parent diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The difference in memory between the two groups was equivalent to approximately 15 years of brain aging, researchers found..
"How big an effect we saw was surprising," said Dr. Sudha Seshadri, a BU associate professor of neurology and senior author of the study. "It was like you were comparing two groups, 55-year-olds to 70-year-olds."
Surely you've heard about the link between autism and vaccines. Some parents have been terrified to have their young children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. The fear of such vaccination led to the return of measles in England, Germany, Switzerland and Italy
The London Times reports that the doctor who sparked the scare with his study in the British medical journal Lancet
linking autism with vaccinations fixed the data to make the link.
MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism.
THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.
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Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.
Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.
Maybe you've heard the quote "Genes Load the Gun, But Environment Pulls the Trigger". That's what I thought of when I read this article in the London Times.
Vitamin D is a ray of sunshine for multiple sclerosis patients
Multiple sclerosis could be prevented through daily vitamin D supplements, scientists told The Times last night.
The first causal link has been established between the “sunshine vitamin” and a gene that increases the risk of MS, raising the possibility that the debilitating auto-immune disease could be eradicated.
George Ebers, Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Oxford, claimed that there was hard evidence directly relating both genes and the environment to the origins of MS. His work suggests that vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy and childhood may increase the risk of a child developing the disease.
He has also established the possibility that genetic vulnerability to MS, apparently initiated by lack of vitamin D, may be passed through families. These risks might plausibly be reduced by giving vitamin D supplements to pregnant woman and young children.
“I think it offers the potential for treatment which might prevent MS in the future,” Professor Ebers said. “Our research has married two key pieces of the puzzle. The interaction of vitamin D with the gene is very specific and it seems most unlikely to be a coincidence of any kind.”
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Until now there has been no scientific proof of the links. However, Professor Ebers and his team have shown that vitamin D affects a particular genetic variant, identified as the one that increases the risk of developing MS threefold.
They suggest that a shortage of the vitamin alters this variant, thus preventing the immune system from functioning normally.
This comes to late for my sister Debby who has had MS for more than 30 years but it offers great hope for early phase MS.
Stem cells 'reset' immune system in MS patients in study.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that impairs movement and coordination, while causing muscle weakness, cognitive impairment, slurred speech and vision problems.
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But in the decade or more after onset, MS is characterised by gradual but irreversible neurological impairment. There is no known cure.
In clinical trials, a team of scientists led by Richard Burt of Northwestern University in Chicago essentially rebuilt the immune system of 21 adults -- 11 women and 10 men -- who had failed to respond to standard drug treatments.
First they removed defective white blood cells that, rather than protecting the body, attacks the fatty sheath, called myelin, that protects the nervous system.
The immune systems were then replenished with so-called haemopoeitic stem cells -- extracted from the patient's bone marrow -- capable of giving rise to any form of mature blood cell.
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The procedure "not only seems to prevent neurological progression, but also appears to reverse neurological disability," concluded the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
It's wise to be wary of the pill
According to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, an alarming rise in male infertility in developed nations is possibly caused by the quantities of synthetic female hormones, particularly estrogen, in the food chain and water. These quantities are directly attributable to increased use of the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
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Indeed, according to Canberra Hospital professor Peter Collignon, an opponent of recycling sewage water into the potable supply, estrogen can be more of a problem in recycled water than microbes because it cannot be filtered out and we simply do not know how well it breaks down. Just as the Romans drinking from lead cups unwittingly caused infertility in themselves, perhaps we are seeing after 30 years of contraceptive pill use the long-term effects of introducing artificial estrogen into our wider environment. So you see this is not just a preoccupation of the misogynistic old Vatican.
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The evidence that synthetic hormones can have grotesque environmental effects has actually been around for a long time and it is mounting. As long ago as the 1980s, studies were done in the US which showed the effects of estrogen pollution on wildlife, famously alligators in Florida with deformed genitals.
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There are so many reasons for being wary of the contraceptive pill. Why are we not questioning its prevalence?
The reason is, of course, that it is the sacred cow of the sexual revolution. One imaginative letter writer claimed the Catholic view of the pill was that it was "the great Satan", and actually that is not a bad description. It was marketed as an instrument of sexual freedom, and it has provided that, particularly for men. But one might ask if for women it has been the means of sexual liberation or just a way of turning us into empty vessels for sex? Is it like the sexual revolution itself: a pretty and alluring package that turns out to be - for both sexes - like a series of empty boxes, one inside the other. At the end, there is nothing but an empty box.
It's astonishing when you think of it. If there were any other cause for worldwide male infertility and environmental degradation, people would be up in arms.
Where is the EPA? Where is the UN? Where is the outrage?
Maybe they don't pay professional athletes enough. Take a look at the photo below to see the effect that repeated concussions have on a formerly healthy brain.
Until recently, the best medical definition for concussion was a jarring blow to the head that temporarily stunned the senses, occasionally leading to unconsciousness. It has been considered an invisible injury, impossible to test -- no MRI, no CT scan can detect it.
But today, using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), at the Boston University School of Medicine, is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Dead athlete's brains show damage from concussions.
CTE has thus far been found in the brains of six out of six former NFL players.
"What's been surprising is that it's so extensive," said McKee. "It's throughout the brain, not just on the superficial aspects of the brain, but it's deep inside."
CSTE studies reveal brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue of former NFL players who died young -- some as early as their 30s or 40s.
McKee, who also studies Alzheimer's disease, says the tangles closely resemble what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.
"I knew what traumatic brain disease looked like in the very end stages, in the most severe cases," said McKee. "To see the kind of changes we're seeing in 45-year-olds is basically unheard of."
The damage affects the parts of the brain that control emotion, rage, hypersexuality, even breathing, and recent studies find that CTE is a progressive disease that eventually kills brain cells.
One man Chris Nowinski, once a Harvard football star, is responsible for starting these studies in the first place.
"I realized when I was visiting a lot of doctors, they weren't giving me very good answers about what was wrong with my head," said Nowinski. "I read [every study I could find] and I realized there was a ton of evidence showing concussions lead to depression, and multiple concussion can lead to Alzheimer's."
Nowinski decided further study was needed, so he founded the Sports Legacy Institute along with Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon and the co-director of the CSTE. The project solicits for study the brains of ex-athletes who suffered multiple concussions.
More evidence that coffee is good for you, in the short term and the long.
Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk
Drinking coffee may do more than just keep you awake. A new study suggests an intriguing potential link to mental health later in life, as well.
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After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less.
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First, earlier studies have linked coffee consumption with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, which in turn has been associated with a greater risk of dementia. In animal studies, caffeine has been shown to reduce the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the bloodstream, reducing vascular risk factors for dementia.
Dr. Kivipelto noted that previous studies have shown that coffee drinking may also be linked to a reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease.
Harvard researchers report in the Boston Globe
Deaths and complications dropped by an astounding one-third when operating room doctors and nurses completed a simple safety checklist before, during, and after surgery, according to a study led by Harvard researchers.
The eight hospitals that participated in the international study collectively reduced complications during hospital stays from 11 percent of patients before they began using the checklist to 7 percent of patients when using the checklist. Deaths dropped from 1.5 percent of patients to 0.8 percent.
"It was beyond anything we expected," said Dr. Atul Gawande, senior author of the Harvard School of Public Health paper and a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital. The impact of all the items on the checklist "put together seems to have produced these really remarkable results," he said.
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Completing the checklist out loud as a team is crucial to uncovering lapses that lead to problems, said Dr. Alex Haynes of the Harvard School of Public Health, the lead author and a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"Saying it verbally codifies things more than simply having one person check a box," Haynes said. It requires more attention, he said, and a greater sense of collective responsibility.
I posted The Art of Managing Extreme Complexity in the ICU over a year ago which excerpted chunks of Atul Gawande's article in the New Yorker.
One doctor looked at what happens when procedures are too complex to carry out reliably from memory alone by taking a page from pilot checklists.
Checklists help people with memory recall and make explicit the minimum, expected steps in complex processes.
What checklists do you use?
Probably the best investment you can make in your own health and that of your family is to put together your family health history.
The Surgeon General agrees. He's upgraded and simplified the software and it's all free. Better yet, when you share your family health tree with a relative, the software can "'reindex" so that relative becomes the center of his or her own tree and all that information you share takes its proper place.
Tracking red flags in family history
A good family health history is more important than a gene test in predicting your future medical needs, but it's hugely underused. Today, the government begins offering a free new service to try to change that - helping people compile a health history at home, e-mail it to relatives who can fill in the gaps, and even pop it into their doctors' computers.
"That is an amazingly positive investment," acting Surgeon General Steven Galson, whose office spearheaded the initiative, said. "You're going to help your doctor learn a lot more about you by spending those 20 minutes, and you can share that invested time around your family and with your physicians."
The goal: Just as people create ancestral family trees, create a family "health tree." It may sound old-fashioned in this era of gene discovery. But genetics specialists use these "pedigrees" to look for patterns of inherited illnesses that can provide a powerful window on someone's brewing health risks.
"Family health history is the first genetic test, but it encompasses much more than genes," says James O'Leary of the nonprofit Genetic Alliance.
A family's shared environmental or lifestyle factors are key, too. Add those together, and a family health tree "is the way you identify what is important to pay more attention to," he explains.
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A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found fewer than 30 percent of Americans have ever collected health information from relatives to compile such a history.
Today, the site reopens - at https://familyhistory.hhs.gov - after a high-tech facelift.
It's private; users download the information to their own computers. Then they can e-mail a tree-in-progress to relatives to fill in missing information.
Now, that a 'Cancer-free' baby is born in London, what will she die of?
The first child in Britain known to have been screened as an embryo to ensure she did not carry a cancer gene was born Friday, a spokesman for University College London told CNN.
Genetic screening allows lab-fertilized embryos to be tested for genes likely to lead to later health problems.
Her embryo was screened in a lab days after conception to check for the BRCA-1 gene, linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
People with the gene are known to have a 50-80 percent chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer in their lifetime.
Not everyone is thrilled with this development.
"This is not a cure for breast cancer," said Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, which describes itself as group that focuses on ethical dilemmas related to reproduction.
What do you think about testing embryos for gene defects?
"This is simply a mechanism for eliminating the birth of anybody (prone to) the disease," she said. "It is basically a search-and-kill mechanism."
She opposes the procedure because embryos found to carry disease-causing genes often are discarded. She says that is essentially murder.
"They will be destroyed," she said. "They will never be allowed to live."
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Quintavalle opposes any form of in-vitro fertilization where embryos are "killed," she said. But she is particularly troubled by the idea of screening an embryo for the BRCA-1 gene because carriers of the gene do not always develop the disease, and the disease is not always fatal.
"The message we are sending is: 'Better off dead than carrying (a gene linked to) breast cancer,'" she said. "We have gone very much down the proverbial slippery slope."
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Yeew. Guess what happened when hospitals stopped providing freshly-laundered scrubs for their doctors and nurses.
Hospital Scrubs Are a Germy, Deadly Mess. Bacteria on doctor uniforms can kill you.
Dirty scrubs spread bacteria to patients in the hospital and allow hospital superbugs to escape into public places such as restaurants. Some hospitals now prohibit wearing scrubs outside the building, partly in response to the rapid increase in an infection called "C. diff." A national hospital survey released last November warns that Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections are sickening nearly half a million people a year in the U.S., more than six times previous estimates.
The problem is that some medical personnel wear the same unlaundered uniforms to work day after day. They start their shift already carrying germs such as C.diff, drug-resistant enterococcus or staphylococcus. Doctors' lab coats are probably the dirtiest. At the University of Maryland, 65% of medical personnel confess they change their lab coat less than once a week, though they know it's contaminated. Fifteen percent admit they change it less than once a month. Superbugs such as staph can live on these polyester coats for up to 56 days.
Do unclean uniforms endanger patients? Absolutely
A quick round-up of health stories you may have missed.
Beer marinade cuts steak cancer risk, The New Scientist
If you are frying a steak and mindful of your health, then marinate it in either beer or red wine. So say food scientists who measured amounts of a family of carcinogens found in fried steaks after steeping them in booze.
Blood Sugar Control Linked to Memory Decline
Spikes in blood sugar can take a toll on memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories, a new study reports.
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“When we think about diabetes, we think about heart disease and all the consequences for the rest of the body, but we usually don’t think about the brain,” he said. “This is something we’ve got to be really worried about. We need to think about their ultimate risks not only for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, but also about their cognitive skills, and whether they will be able to keep up with the demands of education and a fast-paced complex society. That’s the part that scares the heck out of me.”
Too much thinking 'can make you fat'
Researchers found the stress of thinking caused overeating with heavy thinkers seeking out more calories.
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Mr Chaput added: "Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialised countries.
"This is a factor that should not be ignored, considering that more and more people hold jobs of an intellectual nature."
Sarcasm used to diagnose dementia
Researchers at the University of New South Wales found that patients under the age of 65 suffering from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common form of dementia, cannot detect when someone is being sarcastic.
The health benefits of a well-developed derriere may be good news to ears of many women
Big bottoms could be good for your health as the fat may protect against type 2 diabetes.
Via Ronnie Bennett, the pre-eminent elder blogger comes this news
Memory can be an issue as we get older even without fear of dementia. Now, two new studies each have a different idea of what might help. You could try marijuana. Or, some different researchers suggest red wine. Make of it what you will.
Clicking on the links I found Scientists are high on the idea that marijuana reduces memory impairment
The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells.
The research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Though the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, chronic inflammation in the brain is believed to contribute to memory impairment.
Any new drug’s properties would resemble those of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive substance in the cannabis plant, but would not share its high-producing effects. THC joins nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as agents that, in moderation, have shown some protection against inflammation in the brain that might translate to better memory late in life.
And Red, red wine: How it fights Alzheimer's
Reporting in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, David Teplow, a UCLA professor of neurology, and colleagues show how naturally occurring compounds in red wine called polyphenols block the formation of proteins that build the toxic plaques thought to destroy brain cells, and further, how they reduce the toxicity of existing plaques, thus reducing cognitive deterioration.
I've wondered about this all my life. Why do we yawn?
Now, the Discovery channels claims to answer that question. It Cools Your Brain
If your head is overheated, there's a good chance you'll yawn soon, according to a new study that found the primary purpose of yawning is to control brain temperature.
The finding solves several mysteries about yawning, such as why it's most commonly done just before and after sleeping, why certain diseases lead to excessive yawning, and why breathing through the nose and cooling off the forehead often stop yawning.
The key yawn instigator appears to be brain temperature.
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The new findings also explain why tired individuals often yawn, since both exhaustion and sleep deprivation have been shown to increase deep brain temperatures, again prompting a yawn-driven cool down. Yawning additionally appears to facilitate transitional states of the brain, such as going from sleep to waking periods.
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"Bouts of excessive yawning often precede the onset of seizures in epileptic patients, and predict the onset of headaches in people who suffer from migraines," he added.
Now I recall when I used to suffer from migraines, I yawned a lot.
But Discovery solved the puzzle of why yawning is so contagious.
photomontage by Zachary Scott
Some contend it's the capacity for empathy, but why do we yawn just thinking about it?
Steve Platek, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University is the go-to expert.
Platek says he thinks it has to do with empathy. The way he sees it, the more empathetic you are, the more likely it is that you'll identify with a yawner and experience a yawn yourself. In a recent study, Platek looked at contagious yawning in people with "high empathy," "low empathy" and everything in between. He found that higher empathy meant more yawn-susceptible and lower empathy meant more yawn-immune.
But that wasn't proof enough. So Platek put volunteers in M.R.I. machines and made them yawn again and again to pinpoint the areas of the brain involved. When their brains lighted up in the exact regions of the brain involved in empathy, Platek remembers thinking, "Wow, this is so cool!"
Some yawning researchers - of which there are few - have identified many types of yawns. There's the contagious yawn, the I'm-tired yawn and the I-just-woke-up yawn. There's the threat yawn, which is the my-teeth-are-bigger-than-yours yawn that's so popular with primates. ("People do it, too," says Platek, "but unfortunately, we don't have scary teeth anymore.") There's also the sexual yawn. (One scientist claims that yawns are used in seduction.)
At some point, you have to wonder: why study yawning? It's quirky, interesting, but not important, right? Wrong, says Platek. Nearly every species on the planet yawns: insects, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals. "Yawning is such a primitive neurological function," Platek says, "it's a window into what happened during the evolution of the brain."
The good thing about yawning is that it's not boring. "Scientists like me usually go to conferences and give talks about technical mumbo jumbo," Platek says. "The audience always yawns, and we're up there thinking, Oh, man, they're so bored! But when I give a talk about yawning and they yawn, I think: Sweet! They're paying attention!"
Cutting out the carbs may help you lose weight - but it can also help you lose your memory.
A study has found that dieters who avoid starchy foods do worse in mental tests than those who are allowed some pasta, bread and potatoes.
Carbohydrates are such an important source of energy for the brain that mental performance drops after just a week on an Atkins-style diet, the scientists found.
Women who cut out carbohydrates 'could lose their memory.'
The new study, carried out by scientists at Tufts University in Boston, America, looked at the impact of low-carb diets on the brain power of 19 women aged 22 to 55. The volunteers were put on either a low-calorie balanced diet or a low-carb diet.
Within a week, the ten women taking the low-carbohydrate diet were far worse at mental tests than those on the conventional low-calorie diet.
The tests looked at attention, long-term and short-term memory, visual attention and spatial memory.
The low-carb dieters showed a gradual decline in memory tasks compared with the low-calorie dieters.
Well this surprised me.
Cold sore virus could be the clue to the cause of 60 per cent of Alzheimer's cases
The virus that causes cold sores may be one of the main causes of Alzheimer's disease, according to research that suggests that existing drugs could be used to treat the most common form of dementia.
Scientists at the University of Manchester have found new evidence that the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) could be in up to 60 per cent of Alzheimer's cases.
The research, which was published in the Journal of Pathology, is in preliminary stages, but should the HSV1 role be confirmed, it could transform the way in which the debilitating disease is understood and treated.
The news is particularly exciting as products to treat the HSV1 virus are already widely available. Drugs including acyclovir and Zovirax have been on the market for many years, and are available over the counter.
'One thing that is exciting about our research is that we already have drugs that have been used for a relatively long time against HSV1, which are cheap and well tolerated. If we are right, there is a good chance we could make progress quite quickly,' said Professor Ruth Itzhaki, who led the research.
Aging brings mental changes - including a slowdown of mere milliseconds - that drives us to distraction, Surveying the Brain for Origins of the Senior Moment in Science Journal by Robert Lee Holtz.
Ms. Puccinelli, 69 years old, said. "There is a lack of concentration. Because you're getting older, you get more concerned about it."
By recording the electrical activity of her mind at work, neurologist Adam Gazzaley at the University of California at San Francisco was using her healthy brain as a road map of mental changes that age brings to us all. In particular, Dr. Gazzaley and his colleagues were trying to understand why aging drives us all to distraction.
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Among the brain circuits that focus attention and memory, his research suggests, aging is a matter of milliseconds. In experiments testing how well people of different ages could recall faces and landscapes, Dr. Gazzaley and scientists at UC Berkeley found that among older people, the brain was slightly slower -- 200 milliseconds or so -- to ignore irrelevant test information. That instant of interference was enough to disrupt a memory in the making, they found.
We don't ignore distractions as easily as we once did. Of course, diet and exercise play a role, but so does education.
"With the right kind of training, we can take an older mind and make it younger," Dr. Gazzaley says. "The potential exists."
A good social life also helps.
An active social life also appears to slow the rate at which memory fails, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health reported this past July in the American Journal of Public Health.
Despite its distractions, a healthy brain may also mellow with age. The roller-coaster rush of dopamine, a biochemical associated with heady feelings of reward, doesn't affect older people as strongly as it does the young, Dr. Berman reported this fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Is this evidence that, among older neurons and synapses, life can lose its savor? "I would suggest it shows that older people are appreciating life in a different way," says Dr. Berman.
In other words, the dopamine drop may be a biochemical marker of something else: the wisdom to accept with grace what we cannot change.
I don't know how much faith I'd put in this, but it's another reason to avoid fast food unless you're on the road, pressed for time and really hungry.
Research on mice links fast food to Alzheimer's
"On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement.
"We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."
US teen lives 118 days without a heart
An American teen-ager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.
The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."
"You never knew when it would malfunction...It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.
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"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.
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For now, D'Zhana said she is glad she can now walk without the machine. She is looking forward to celebrating her 15th birthday on Saturday riding a boat off Miami's coast, and is grateful she will be able to see her five siblings and friends again soon at her home in Clinton, S.C.
The scientific evidence mounts:
Attending Religious Services Sharply Cuts Risk Of Death, Study Suggests
A study published by researchers at Yeshiva University and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, strongly suggests that regular attendance at religious services reduces the risk of death by approximately 20 percent.
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“Interestingly, the protection against mortality provided by religion cannot be entirely explained by expected factors that include enhanced social support of friends or family, lifestyle choices and reduced smoking and alcohol consumption,” said Dr. Schnall, who was lead author of the study. “There is something here that we don’t quite understand. It is always possible that some unknown or unmeasured factors confounded these results,” he added.
Others:
Weekly Religious Attendance Nearly as Effective as Statins and Exercise in Extending Life
Improvements in life expectancy of those who attend religious services on a weekly basis to be comparable to those who participate in regular physical exercise and to those who take statin-type medications
Go to Church and Breathe Easier
religious activity may protect and maintain pulmonary health in the elderly.
Religious Attendance Linked to Lower Mortality in Elderly
The current findings build on a series of earlier studies at Duke and elsewhere showing that religious people have lower blood pressure, less depression and anxiety, stronger immune systems and cost the health care system less than people who are less religiously involved.
Research Shows Religion Plays a Major Role in Health, Longevity
For the first time, that extra lifespan has been quantified. While there are differences between genders and races, in general those who go to church once or more each week can look forward to about seven more years than those who never attended.
Miseries of Allergies Just May Help Prevent Some Cancers
Sneezing, coughing, tearing and itching just may help prevent cancer -- particularly colon, skin, bladder, mouth, throat, uterus and cervix, lung and gastrointestinal tract cancer, according to a new Cornell study.
Paul Sherman, Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior led the team that analyzed 646 studies on allergies and cancers published over the past 50 years.
Sherman believes that allergy symptoms may help protect against cancer by shedding foreign particles from the body. Some of those particles, he said, might be carcinogenic or carry carcinogens.
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So should people routinely suppress all allergy symptoms with medications? Sherman said the jury is still out. However, allergies are not merely disorders of the immune system, but rather are the evolved front line of defense against certain parasites and cancers. In sum, allergic reactions may be like fevers and morning sickness: uncomfortable responses that survived natural selection because they provided direct benefits.
Most philanthropists are happy to their names embossed on a plaque on a hospital wing. Not Donna Karan, the fashion designer, who is bringing yoga teachers onto the cancer ward.
In One Section of Beth Israel Hospital, Some Patients Are Saying 'Om', not 'Ah'
While other hospitals in New York and across the country have dabbled in yoga, the new Beth Israel project is broader, better financed and more integrated into the medical protocol, and because of Ms. Karan’s concern that it might be dismissed as touchy-feely nonsense, it includes a research component. Ms. Karan hopes to prove that the Urban Zen regime can reduce classic symptoms of cancer and its treatment, like pain, nausea and anxiety (thereby cutting hospital stays and costs) and serve as a model for replication elsewhere.
Not news, but important to remember. Don't go to the hospital alone if you can possibly avoid it.
Bedside Manner: Advocating for a Relative in the Hospital
Having someone with you in a hospital who is alert and asking questions can help stave off all kinds of potential problems, from mistaken identity to medication mixups to MRSA infections. An estimated 100,000 hospital patients die every year in the U.S. because of preventable errors. Many hospitals are under financial pressures to keep nursing staffs lean. A personal advocate can be a valuable resource. It doesn't have to be a relative -- and it can be more than one person -- as long as they know you and are willing to speak up.
"If we could make only one change in health care, it should be to change the notion that families are visitors. Families are allies and partners for safety and quality," says Beverly Johnson, president of the nonprofit Institute for Family-Centered Care, which is leading a movement to involve families more.
A growing number of hospitals are doing just that -- including unlimited visiting hours, letting family members accompany patients to procedures and even stay during emergencies. "We're drawing on the strength of the family. They're not out in the waiting room, wondering what's going on," says Pat Sodomka, senior vice president for Patient and Family-Centered Care at MCG Health Inc., which runs a 630-bed hospital in Augusta, Ga.
Is the medical approach to addiction fundamentally flawed?
Mindful Hack reviews Theodore Dalrymple's book Romancing Opiates.
... to conceive of opiate addiction as a disease seems, after my experience with thousands of drug addicts, to me to miss the fundamental point about it: that it is a moral or spiritual condition that will never yield to medical treatment, so called.
This is a very literate way of explaining a situation often explained - as Dalrymple says - by recovered addicts in a much simpler way: "I just didn't want to live that way any more." In my view, that is a form of spiritual experience - to discover that one need not live "that way" any more.
Dalrymple worked for 14 years as a doctor in a larger general hospital and prison in a poor area of Britain. Here he writes Heroin addiction isn't an illness --and we should stop spending millions 'treating it'.
I had briefly run a drug-addiction clinic in a famous university town, at a time when I accepted what I now know to be myths about heroin addiction.
But as more addicts came to my attention - I see up to 20 new cases a day in prison - I began to think about it more. The medical perspective, that these people were ill and in need of treatment, seemed less and less convincing.
I discovered that most addicted prisoners stopped taking heroin in jail, even when it was available. They came into the prison starving and miserable, and went out relatively healthy.
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There is a strenuous, almost outraged, rejection of the idea that addiction is, at bottom, a moral problem, or even that it raises any moral questions at all.
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To conceive of heroin addiction as such seems to me to miss the fundamental point: it is a moral or spiritual condition that will never yield to medical treatment.
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Having started with a vague supposition that the medical approach to addiction must be right, I came to a different conclusion: that such an approach, having started no doubt as an honest attempt to help addicts, now represented a combination of moral cowardice, displacement activity and employment opportunity.
The therapeutic juggernaut rolls on. It is easier, after all, to give people a dose of medicine than a reason for living. That is something the patient must minister to himself.
In coming to these conclusions, I felt I was living in a world in which the plainest of truths could neither be said out loud nor acknowledged.
Carefully selected music can significantly increase a person's physical endurance and improve the 'feeling' state of exercisers, helping them enjoy working at high intensity.
Music Increases Exercise Endurance
Sure helped on the chain gang.
By inserting two genes from a snapdragon into a tomato, British researchers breed purple tomatoes to fight cancer.
The snapdragon genes caused the fruit to produce high levels of anthocyanins, plant chemicals that give blackberries and blueberries their deep purple colour.
Research suggests that the compounds protect against certain cancers, as well as heart disease and age-related degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's.
They may also combat inflammation, improve vision and hinder obesity and diabetes.
Both the skins and the flesh of the tomatoes are an intense deep purple colour.
It worked on mice, trials with human volunteers are next. Purple tomatoes could be on sale within three years but not in Britain or the EU which has far more rigorous safety tests for genetically modified food.
Half of U.S. doctors say they use placebo treatments.
About half of American doctors in a new survey say they regularly give patients placebo treatments – usually drugs or vitamins that won't really help their condition.
And many of these doctors are not honest with their patients about what they are doing, the survey found.
That contradicts advice from the American Medical Association, which recommends doctors use treatments with the full knowledge of their patients.
“It's a disturbing finding,” said Franklin G. Miller, director of the research ethics program at the U.S. National Institutes Health and one of the study authors. “There is an element of deception here which is contrary to the principle of informed consent.”
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Most doctors used actual medicines as a placebo treatment: 41 per cent used painkillers, 38 per cent used vitamins, 13 per cent used antibiotics, 13 per cent used sedatives, 3 per cent used saline injections, and 2 per cent used sugar pills.
Placebo from the Latin I will please. A doctor pleases the patient by prescribing a placebo, a treatment that the doctor knows is ineffectual but the patient is led to believe is effective.
A placebo won't work if the patient knows it's a placebo. So what to do about the ethical challenges?
Well to start, doctors shouldn't be prescribing antibiotics or sedatives.
Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, one of the study’s authors, said doctors should not prescribe antibiotics or sedatives as placebos, given those drugs’ risks. Use of less active placebos is understandable, he said, since risks are low.
“Everyone comes out happy: the doctor is happy, the patient is happy,” said Dr. Emanuel, chairman of the bioethics department at the health institutes. “But ethical challenges remain.”
Mindful Hack writes about placebos and nocebos.
Doctors use the placebo effect automatically in their work. For example, they behave confidently and reassuringly even when completely stumped by the patient's symptoms or faced suddenly with a life-threatening disorder. They are right to behave this way. A doctor's anxiety would trigger the placebo effect's evil twin, the nocebo effect. "Nocebo" means "I will harm," and nocebos really do harm. Patients may be ill for longer periods and suffer worse symptoms if nocebo effects convince them that they are doomed.
Some consider the placebo effect a mystery. In March 2005, British science magazine New Scientist listed thirteen "Things That Don't Make Sense", and the placebo effect was number one on their list. Of course, the placebo effect doesn't "make sense" if you assume, as they do, that the mind either does not exist or is powerless. The traditional Christian view is that the mind is grounded in the brain so long as we live in this world. Therefore, what the patient's mind perceives expresses itself in the brain and body. Both the placebo and nocebo effects are strong support for the traditional view.
The Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive has almost the perfect rhythm to help jump-start a stopped heart.
The Seventies disco anthem contains 103 beats per minute, just three beats more than the 100 chest compressions per minute recommdended by the American Heart Association.
Keeping time with the song helped a small group of doctors at the University of Illinois medical school maintained close to the ideal number of chest compressions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
“It’s a song everyone seems to know, whether they want to or not,” said Dr. David Matlock, the resident and researcher who led the study. He hopes further research will confirm its use in lay people trained in CPR as well.
What surprised me most in watching the great beginning to the movie Saturday Night Fever was that no one wore sports or running shoes. No Nike or Reeboks to be seen. John Travolta wears leather shoes to work in the paint store.
Revealed. The 20 'functional foods' you should be eating for a long and active life.
Gary Williamson, professor at Leeds University calls them 'lifespanessential 'since they all contain polyphenols known for their anti-oxidant properties, helping to prevent cancer and heart disease.
Mainly fruits and vegetables, but chocolate, tea and coffee made the list
People who are obese enjoy eating less than lean people do. That's the problem according to one group of researchers.
New Evidence of the Brain's Role in Obesity
In order to compensate for the missing pleasure, obese people eat more high-calorie food. In turn, overeating further dulls the enjoyment and begins a vicious cycle.
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“The research reveals obese people may have fewer dopamine receptors, so they overeat to compensate for this reward deficit,” said Dr. Stice, who has studied eating disorders and obesity for almost twenty years.
Good news for middle-aged and older people. Internet use 'good for brain'.
A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulates centres in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning.
The researchers say this might even help to counter-act the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down.
The study features in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Searching on the web stimulates more areas of the brain than reading a book. and may keep it active and healthy.
Well I certainly plan to be a 'silver surfer'.
