In an extraordinary editorial and feature article, Nature one of the world's pre-eminent scientific journals, has effectively admonished the chair of the Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition department, Walter Willett, for promoting over-simplification of scientific results in the name of public health and engaging in unseemly behavior towards those who venture conclusions that differ to his.

Willett, who is one of the most frequently quoted academic sources on nutrition in the news media, appears to have crossed a Rubicon when he denounced Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist at the US National Center for Health Statistics, for publishing a study that showed people who were overweight (but not obese) lived longer than those deemed normal weight. "This study is really a pile of rubbish, and no one should waste their time reading it," he told National Public Radio.

Are all the best doctors out on the golf course during the weekend, leaving some major surgeries to their less experienced colleagues?

According to a new study in the British Medical Journal, patients who have elective surgery on the weekend are 82 percent more likely to die than if they had undergone the procedure on a Monday.

"The first 48 hours after an operation are often the most critical period of care for surgery patients," said lead author Dr. Paul Aylin, from the School of Public Health at the Imperial College London.

The latest study adds to a growing body of evidence about the so-called "weekend effect" which suggests a notably higher risk of death if a person is admitted to the emergency room on the weekend compared with a weekday.

"So if the quality of care is lower at the weekend as some previous studies have suggested, we would expect to see higher mortality rates not just for patients operated on at the weekend, but also those who have operations towards the end of the week, whose postoperative care overlaps with the weekend," Aylin said. "That is what we found."

Nothing can replace exercise, but turmeric extract does a pretty good job of producing some of the same cardiovascular health benefits, most notably in women undergoing age-associated adverse changes in arterial health.

Despite the general lack of interest by conventional medical practitioners in turmeric's role in preventing heart disease, there is a robust body of published research on its remarkable cardioprotective properties, with three dozen study abstracts on the topic available to view on our database alone: turmeric's cardioprective properties.

Last year, we reported on a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology that found turmeric extract reduces post-bypass heart attack risk by 56%. Now, we would like to bring attention to a remarkable study published in the journal Nutrition Research in 2012 that revealed that curcumin, the primary polyphenol in turmeric and which gives the spice its golden hue, is as effective in improving vascular function in postmenopausal women as a moderate aerobic exercise training regimen. ^[1]

The new Sars-like respiratory illness which has killed half of the people who have been infected with it is a "threat to the entire world", the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.

Experts raised concerns that the disease is "emerging faster than our understanding".

The WHO says that since September last year there have been 44 laboratory confirmed cases across eight countries which have resulted in 22 deaths, including two people in the UK, but reports suggest that the figure could be higher.

Earlier this week, WHO's director general said that the novel virus, which has been called Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus - or MERS-CoV, is her "greatest concern".

Addressing the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Monday, Dr Margaret Chan said: "Looking at the overall global situation, my greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus.

On Tuesday, a 65-year-old French man died from a SARS-like infection, called novel coronavirus (nCoV). He was the first man in France to die from the infection, which he contracted after visiting Dubai. Meanwhile, health officials in Saudi Arabia - where the virus was first detected in April 2013 - reported five additional cases of the infection.

Novel coronavirus is among the family of coronaviruses that cause illnesses that range from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Until last year, the new strain had never before been seen in humans. As of last week, the WHO reported that there have been a total of 49 people infected since September 2012, 27 of whom have died.

Washington - High blood pressure, particularly in the arteries that supply blood to the head and neck, may be linked with declining cognitive abilities, according to a new study from Australia.

Researchers found that people with high blood pressure in the central arteries - including the aorta, the largest artery in the human body, and the carotid arteries in the neck - performed worse on tests of visual processing, and had slower thinking and poorer recognition abilities.

Typically, blood pressure measurements are taken from the brachial artery in the arm, but looking at the health of the central arteries may be a more sensitive way to assess cognitive abilities, said study researcher Matthew Pase, of the Center for Human Psychopharmacology at Swinburne University in Melbourne. The central arteries directly control bloodflow to the brain.

"If we can estimate the blood pressure in central arteries, we might be able to better predict cognitive function and cognitive decline," Pase said.

Pase presented the findings here on May 24 at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science.

Chinese researchers reported the first ever clinically documented case of resistance to the antiviral medication Tamiflu in patients infected with the H7N9 bird flu.

In the case of 14 patients admitted to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center in April, treatment with antiviral medications helped in all but three. Those three developed severe illnesses that required the delivery of oxygen to the circulatory and respiratory systems with a machine, known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Two of the three died. A viral mutation associated with drug resistance was isolated in two of them.

One of the mutations appeared to arise in one of the patients with oxygen support as a result of treatment.

In a report of the cases, the researchers wrote: "The apparent ease with which antiviral resistance emerges ... is concerning; it needs to be closely monitored and considered in future pandemic response plans."

- Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The epic inside story of long-term criminal fraud at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans.

1. The assignment

On the morning of Aug. 18, 2004, Dinesh Thakur hurried to a hastily arranged meeting with his boss at the gleaming offices of Ranbaxy Laboratories in Gurgaon, India, 20 miles south of New Delhi. It was so early that he passed gardeners watering impeccable shrubs and cleaners still polishing the lobby's tile floors. As always, Thakur was punctual and organized. He had a round face and low-key demeanor, with deep-set eyes that gave him a doleful appearance.

His boss, Dr. Rajinder Kumar, Ranbaxy's head of research and development, had joined the generic-drug company just two months earlier from GlaxoSmithKline, where he had served as global head of psychiatry for clinical research and development. Tall and handsome with elegant manners, Kumar, known as Raj, had a reputation for integrity. Thakur liked and respected him.

Like Kumar, Thakur had left a brand-name pharmaceutical company for Ranbaxy. Thakur, then 35, an American-trained engineer and a naturalized U.S. citizen, had worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) in New Jersey for 10 years. In 2002 a former mentor recruited him to Ranbaxy by appealing to his native patriotism. So he had moved his wife and baby son to Gurgaon to join India's largest drugmaker and its first multinational pharmaceutical company.

When he stepped into Kumar's office that morning, Thakur was surprised by his boss' appearance. He looked weary and uneasy, his eyes puffy and dark. He had returned the previous day from South Africa, where he had met with government regulators. It was clear that the meeting had not gone well.

A study claiming that fish oil provides no benefit in heart disease is being hyped as the final word on the issue. But is it? No, it is not. In fact, the study is absurdly blatant pseudo science, with two errors so glaring it's hard to believe they were made. Why do the researchers do it? Why do they care so little about the truth and your health?

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine purports to show that fish oil provides no benefit whatsoever in prevention of heart disease.^[1] At first glance, it would appear to be true. The study is, after all, double blind and placebo controlled, not to mention having a significant number of participants. But is it for real, or is there some sleight of hand at work?

There's one initial clue that should give pause. The study's endpoints had to be changed. That's always a bad sign. In fact, it breaks the rules of good research. But, they had to do it because they found that their study participants weren't dying as fast as they'd anticipated.

Now, if they'd been interested in the truth, they'd have tried to figure out what was wrong. After all, the odds of dying when people have signs of heart disease are pretty well understood. Otherwise, how could they possibly have anticipated the rate at which deaths would occur?

Of course, they didn't sit back and wonder what they might be doing wrong. Instead, they just added new end points to their study.

A case study of cola dependency in a woman with recurrent depression

It's not the world's greatest paper. It's a simple case study, just an introduction that proves nothing. The most fascinating thing about the paper is what we don't know about the consumption of cola, addiction, and mood.

So let's jump in. There is a 40 year old woman who has been on antidepressants for many years, and in addition drinks up to 3 liters of soda every day. She craves soda of a particular brand and has been unable to cut down her consumption in spite of the fact that it is probably interfering with her sleep, and she's developed metabolic syndrome. She feels the soda gives her an energy and mood boost. In fact she meets official criteria for dependence (which are official and written out and require physical dependence and withdrawal syndrome among some other symptoms, but what it all boils down to is continued use despite harm). After a serious exacerbation of her depression, she is referred to an outpatient clinic for treatment.

They work on slowly reducing her soda consumption. Low and behold, she sleeps better, feels better, has better energy, and her depression gets better. She still drinks a bit of soda, but not the massive amounts. She loses weight and stops having metabolic syndrome. She was able to wean off her antidepressant medication and felt good. Success.