Health & WellnessS


Attention

Living within 100 yards of Petrol Stations 'Damages your health', Study Claims


Telegraph.co.uk
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:00 UTC
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© GETTYExperts say that a 'minimum' distance of 50 yards should be maintained between petrol stations and housing.
Researchers found that air in the immediate vicinity of garages is often polluted and can harm local residents.

Scientists from the University of Murcia studied the effects of contamination at petrol stations that is potentially harmful to health

Experts say it shows that a "minimum" distance of 50 yards should be maintained between petrol stations and housing.

A 100 yards minimum distance should apply to "especially vulnerable" facilities such as hospitals, health centers, schools and old people's homes.

Comment: For more information about how toxic chemicals like petrol can be harmful to human health read The Day the Water Died: Detoxing after the Gulf Oil Spill.

From the article:
Petroleum-based chemicals are in all of us, even if we do not work around chemicals. Heavy metals and other toxic chemicals are now everywhere in our world. The chemicals that are commonly found in human beings are toxic to the nervous system, immune system, and the hormonal system, and while individual tolerances to chemical exposures vary (as do the symptoms), there is an association between these chemicals and increased rates of asthma, allergies, cancers and autoimmune disorders.


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Smoking

Lung Cancer Epidemic 'May Have Peaked' in Women

Jeremy Laurance
The Independent
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:16 UTC
The fifty-year epidemic of lung cancer which has claimed at least one million lives in Britain may have peaked among women, figures show.

Female deaths from lung cancer in the UK are the highest in Europe, reflecting high rates of smoking 30 years ago. But the UK is the only country where the death rate is stable or falling - in all other countries it is still rising, European scientists say.
Related articles

Death rates among UK men from lung cancer peaked more than 20 years ago, in the mid 1980s. Men took up smoking earlier than women and in the 1940s around 80 per cent of adult men smoked.

Women did not take up smoking until later, with the numbers peaking in the mid 1960s at around 45 per cent. Growing evidence of the link between smoking and lung cancer from the 1960s onwards, accompanied by advertising bans and tighter restrictions on smoking, gradually persuaded smokers of both sexes to give up the habit. Today, around 20 per cent of men and 24 per cent of women smoke.

Because women took up smoking later, the rise in lung cancer death rates lagged behind that of men and has only begun to level off in the last decade. There is a gap of 30 to 40 years between the date of starting smoking and the onset of cancer.
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Health

Lymph Node Study Shakes Pillar of Breast Cancer Care

Denise Grady
The New York Times
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 19:46 UTC
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A new study finds that many women with early breast cancer do not need a painful procedure that has long been routine: removal of cancerous lymph nodes from the armpit.
The discovery turns standard medical practice on its head. Surgeons have been removing lymph nodes from under the arms of breast cancer patients for 100 years, believing it would prolong women's lives by keeping the cancer from spreading or coming back.

Now, researchers report that for women who meet certain criteria - about 20 percent of patients, or 40,000 women a year in the United States - taking out cancerous nodes has no advantage. It does not change the treatment plan, improve survival or make the cancer less likely to recur. And it can cause complications like infection and lymphedema, a chronic swelling in the arm that ranges from mild to disabling.

Removing the cancerous lymph nodes proved unnecessary because the women in the study had chemotherapy and radiation, which probably wiped out any disease in the nodes, the researchers said. Those treatments are now standard for women with breast cancer in the lymph nodes, based on the realization that once the disease reaches the nodes, it has the potential to spread to vital organs and cannot be eliminated by surgery alone.

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© The New York TimesReassessing a Type of Surgery
Experts say that the new findings, combined with similar ones from earlier studies, should change medical practice for many patients. Some centers have already acted on the new information. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan changed its practice in September, because doctors knew the study results before they were published. But more widespread change may take time, experts say, because the belief in removing nodes is so deeply ingrained.
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Magnify

Brain Shrinkage Seen in Those Taking Antipsychotic Medications

Melissa Healy
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:37 UTC
A new study finds that one the fastest-growing classes of prescription drugs in the United States is linked to shrinkage in the brains of those who take it, raising some new questions about the widening use of antipsychotic medications.

Over a study period that spanned 14 years, 211 newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients had periodic brain scans that measured the volume of their brains overall, and of their brains' principal component structures. Scanning each subject's brain at least twice and as many as five times, researchers at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine sought to tease apart the factors that might contribute to a long-observed phenomenon: that patients with psychiatric disease - particularly those who suffer the delusional thinking, hallucinations and cognitive deficits of schizophrenia - appear to have smaller brains than those in good mental health.
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Syringe

WHO probes swine flu narcolepsy concerns


Breitbart / AFP
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 09:41 UTC
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A doctor vaccinates a patient against the H1N1 flu in 2009. Twelve countries have reported suspected cases of narcolepsy linked to swine flu jabs, the World Health Organisation said as its scientists said the findings warranted more investigation.
Twelve countries have reported suspected cases of narcolepsy linked to swine flu jabs, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday as its scientists said the findings warranted more investigation.

The WHO said in a statement that such sleep disorders, mainly in youngsters, had not been seen with vaccines in the past, and were more frequent in Sweden, Finland and Iceland than in other countries.

However, the UN health agency decided to keep its advice in favour of vaccination, including with the Pandemrix vaccine highlighted in the study, because it still felt the benefits outweighed a relatively small risk, spokeswoman Alison Brunier said.

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder which causes extreme fatigue and often results in the patient falling soundly asleep without warning, even in the middle of an activity.

The Pandemrix vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline was used in 47 countries worldwide during 2009-2010, according to WHO, and was included by the agency in donations made to poor nations during the flu pandemic.
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Butterfly

Canada: Council votes to eliminate fluoride from Calgary water

Richard Cuthbertson
Calgary Herald
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:23 UTC
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© Stuart Gradon/Calgary HeraldAlderman Druh Farrell listens to comments during city council's debate on the issue of fluoride in city water in Calgary Wednesday, January 26, 2011.
City council has voted to eliminate fluoride from the city's drinking water.

In doing so, aldermen decided not to put the issue to plebiscite or to an expert panel being offered up by the University of Calgary.

Ald. Druh Farrell, who has spearheaded the effort to get the additive out of Calgary's water, said it is a matter of ethics.

She said there are other alternatives to fluoridating water that gives people a choice.

Farrell points to Europe where the additive is not in the water, but the fluoridated salt can be purchased instead.

Comment: Fluoridation is ineffective because:

1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's benefits are topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC 1999, 2001; Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).

2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85 percent of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White 1993; Pinkham 1999).

3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).

4) The largest survey conducted in the U.S. showed only a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all their lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be statistically significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).

5) The worst tooth decay in the U.S. occurs in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have been fluoridated for decades.

6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in Finland, former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up but continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997, 2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).

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Ambulance

Diet drinks 'lead to greater risk of heart attacks and strokes'


Daily Mail
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:56 UTC
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A study found those who drank diet pop every day had a 61 per cent higher chance of a heart attack or stroke than those who abstained from fizzy drinks
Sugar-free fizzy drinks could lead to a greater risk of a heart attack or stroke, research revealed today.

The study of more than 2,500 people found that those who consumed diet drinks every day had a 61 per cent higher chance of experiencing vascular problems than those who did not have any kind of carbonated drink.

Hannah Gardener, who led the study, said: 'If our results are confirmed with future studies, then it would suggest that diet soda may not be the optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages for protection against vascular outcomes.'

The research, presented at the American Stroke Association's international stroke conference in Los Angeles, was carried out by the University of Miami.

The 2,564 participants had to state whether they drank diet fizzy drinks, regular fizzy drinks, a mixture of the two or none at all.

Researchers said the survey did not include data on the types of diet and regular drinks consumed however, which could have given further information on how drinking different brands affected participants.

Dr Gardener, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said further studies would have to be carried out to explore how consuming diet drinks potentially raised the risk of vascular problems.
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Sherlock

Lack of sleep found to be a new risk factor for colon cancer


University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:21 UTC
sleep
© Unknown
Significant study published in journal Cancer.

An inadequate amount of sleep has been associated with higher risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and death. Now colon cancer can be added to the list.

In a ground-breaking new study published in the Feb. 15, 2011 issue of the journal Cancer, researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, found that individuals who averaged less than six hours of sleep at night had an almost 50 percent increase in the risk of colorectal adenomas compared with individuals sleeping at least seven hours per night. Adenomas are a precursor to cancer tumors, and left untreated, they can turn malignant.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to report a significant association of sleep duration and colorectal adenomas," said Li Li, MD, PhD, the study's principal investigator, family medicine physician in the Department of Family Medicine at UH Case Medical Center and Associate Professor of Family Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "A short amount of sleep can now be viewed as a new risk factor for the development of the development of colon cancer."
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Arrow Down

Extra testosterone reduces your empathy


University of Cambridge
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:00 UTC
A new study from Utrecht and Cambridge Universities has for the first time found that an administration of testosterone under the tongue in volunteers negatively affects a person's ability to 'mind read', an indication of empathy. The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In addition, the effects of testosterone administration are predicted by a fetal marker of prenatal testosterone, the 2D:4D ratio. The study has important implications for the androgen theory of autism (testosterone is an androgen) and confirms earlier rodent research that shows that testosterone in early brain development organizes the activation of the very hormone in later life.

Professor Jack van Honk at the University of Utrecht and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge designed the study that was conducted in Utrecht. They used the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' task as the test of mind reading, which tests how well someone can infer what a person is thinking or feeling from photographs of facial expressions from around the eyes.
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Clock

Ancient body clock discovered that helps to keep all living things on time

Bridget Borgobello
Gizmag.com
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:45 UTC
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© Yassine MrabetScientists have identified the mechanism responsible for driving the internal clock of almost all living organisms
A group of Cambridge scientists have successfully identified the mechanism that drives our internal 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm. It occurs not only in human cells, but has also been found in other life forms such as algae, and has been dated back millions of years. Whilst the research promises a better understanding of the problems associated with shift-work and jet-lag, this mechanism has also been proven to be responsible for sleep patterns, seasonal shifts and even the migration of butterflies.

The study from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge discovered that red blood cells contain this 24-hour rhythm. In the past, scientists assumed this rhythm came from DNA and gene activity but unlike most cells, red blood cells do not contain DNA.

During this study, the Cambridge scientists incubated healthy red blood cells in the dark at body temperature for several days, sampling them at regular intervals. It was discovered that the levels of peroxiredoxins (proteins that are produced in blood), underwent a 24-hour cycle. Virtually all known organisms contain peroxiredoxins.

"The implications of this for health are manifold," said Akhilesh Reddy, lead author of the study. "We already know that disrupted clocks - for example, caused by shift-work and jet-lag - are associated with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, mental health problems and even cancer. By furthering our knowledge of how the 24-hour clock in cells works, we hope that the links to these disorders - and others - will be made clearer. This will, in the longer term, lead to new therapies that we couldn't even have thought about a couple of years ago."
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