Health & WellnessS


Family

Omega 3 Fatty Acids Have Protective Benefits When Taken During Pregnancy, Study Suggests

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© blog.find-healthy-food.com
An Emory University study published online on August 1 in Pediatrics suggests consuming Omega 3 fatty acids during pregnancy helps protects babies against illness during early infancy.

The randomized, placebo-controlled trial followed approximately 1,100 pregnant women and 900 infants in Mexico. The women were supplemented daily with 400 mg of Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) supplements in the algal form or placebo from 18 to 22 weeks gestation through childbirth.

Researchers found those whose mothers took DHA supplements had fewer colds and shorter illnesses at one, three and six months of age.

"This is a large scale, robust study that underscores the importance of good nutrition during pregnancy," says Usha Ramakrishnan, PhD, associate professor, Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health. "Our findings indicate that pregnant women taking 400 mg of DHA are more likely to deliver healthier infants."

Attention

What's causing this lady's stomach to bloat after eating?

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Food babies: This is Kerri after she ate a small slice of cherry pie. She returns to her normal size 10 figure after a few hours
I came across this story today. It concerns a young lady who, it is claimed, can bloat up like a balloon shortly after she eats. Normal testing has not identified any particular problem.

I was interested in this story because it reminded me of a similar story given to me some years ago when I was lecturing in Toronto. One dinner, I sat next to the very nice Canadian administrator of the event on which I was teaching. I noticed she (let's call her 'Louise') was eating only tiny portion of food. Often, individuals assume that someone eating micro-portions of food has something to do with weight control. But I've learned in practice to avoid making assumptions, and (gently) asked Louise why she was not eating much.

Beaker

Monsanto to Sell Biotech Sweet Corn for U.S. Consumers

corn & cross bones
© Current.com
Monsanto Co., the world's biggest vegetable seed maker, said it will begin selling genetically modified sweet corn in the U.S. this year, the first product it has developed for the consumer market.

The sweet corn seeds are engineered to kill insects living above and below ground and to tolerate applications of the company's Roundup herbicide, Consuelo Madere, Monsanto vice president for vegetables, told reporters at company headquarters in St. Louis today. They will be introduced to growers serving the U.S. fresh corn market starting in the autumn, she said.

Monsanto previously sold only engineered crops that are processed into sugars and oils, used as animal feed or made into fibers. The new seeds will initially target the 250,000-acre market for fresh corn in the eastern U.S., Madere said. Monsanto is in discussions with companies that would can or freeze the corn, she said.

Monsanto will compete with pest-killing sweet corn seeds that Syngenta AG (SYNN) of Switzerland has sold for more than a decade, she said.

Pills

Everyday medicines can destroy lives, conference warns

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© Unknown
Experts have called for increased awareness about the issue of adverse drug reactions after hearing how everyday prescription medicines are destroying the lives of some patients.

Delegates at an international conference heard that more needed to be done to raise the profile of the Yellow Card scheme, which allows patients to directly report serious side effects of prescribed medicines that have not previously been included in pharmaceutical product literature.

It followed recent research led by academics at The University of Nottingham, University of Aberdeen, the Drug Safety Research Unit (DSRU) and Liverpool John Moores University which showed that patient reporting of suspected adverse drugs reactions, or ADRs, through the Yellow Card scheme is richer in detail and better at describing the impact on their daily lives than information supplied by health care professionals.

Tony Avery, Professor of Primary Health Care in the University's School of Community Health Sciences, who led the research and spoke at the conference, said: "Not only do patients' voices matter, the experiences of everyday people taking prescribed medicines can also increase the understanding of adverse effects.

Comment: Shouldn't be drugs thoroughly tested before introducing them to the market? Talk about shifting responsibility!

Briefcase

Big Pharma Spends $95 Thousand Per Doctor on Marketing Each Year

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© Unknown
The amount of spending to market Big Pharma's products comes to about $95,000 per doctor per year in the US alone. Now, they're interacting with docs at the point of writing prescriptions.

You've likely seen your doctor using a nifty mobile phone application, called Epocrates, before writing a prescription. Such a clever device - and your doc didn't have to pay a penny for it. But you do. You pay for it in terms of adverse effects, less effective drugs, and money. Lots of money.

Mobile devices are the big new thing in pharmaceutical marketing, and one company now dominates the industry: Epocrates. Clever name that, but it plays on the name of Hippocrates, whose oath includes a statement that a doctor should first do no harm. That oath is shredded by Epocrates' Big Pharma connections and funding by advertisements.

Of the $60 billion spent each year on marketing, according to former Epocrates CEO, Kirk Loevner, $16 billion is spent trying to directly influence doctors. That's $23,333 per doctor per year, and the industry is planning to increase that figure. They do it for one reason alone: it works.

Doctors who claim it doesn't are, at best, fooling themselves. Epocrates says that pharmaceutical companies that purchase DocAlerts return three dollars for every dollar spent. Doc Alerts are thinly-disguised advertisements that physicians must go through before getting to their drug searches. Obviously, these ads are effective in convincing doctors to prescribe drugs.

Ladybug

US: New Tick-Borne Disease Found in Upper Midwest

A tick is shown in this file photo.
© Kent Wood/Getty ImagesA tick is shown in this file photo.

A previously unknown species of the tick-borne Ehrlichia bacterium was responsible for mysterious infections affecting four people in Wisconsin and Minnesota in 2009, researchers reported in the Aug. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Culturing, serological testing, and DNA analysis confirmed that the four individuals, all of whom recovered, were infected with a still unnamed Ehrlichia species distinct from E. chaffeensis and E. ewingii, the most common pathogens responsible for ehrlichiosis in the U.S., according to Dr. Bobbi S. Pritt of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and colleagues.

Currently designated as Ehrlichia Wisconsin HM543746, the new species appears most closely related to E. muris, which until recently was thought to be confined to eastern Europe and parts of Asia. Pritt and colleagues found the two species to be 98 percent genetically similar.

Arrow Down

Study: U.S. Hospitals Poor at Breast-feeding Support

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© Reuters/Carlos Barria/FilesA nursing mother holds her son in front of the Delta airlines counter during a protest over breastfeeding on Delta planes at Fort Lauderdale airport, Florida
U.S. hospitals are not doing enough to encourage mothers to breast-feed their newborns, raising the risk of childhood obesity, diabetes and other conditions, according to a federal study released on Tuesday.

Less than 4 percent of the country's hospitals fully support breast-feeding, said a report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In nearly 80 percent of hospitals, healthy babies who are being breast-fed are given formula even when there is no medical need for it, making it more difficult to continue breast-feeding at home, the report says.

People

Smoke, Drink, Eat the Wrong Food and Live to 100...If You've Inherited the Right Genes

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© InternetMust have good genes: Scientists discover centenarians can indulge their vices if they have good genes
Smoking, drinking and eating fast food will not stop you living to a ripe old age - if you have the right genes.

A study of hundreds of centenarians revealed they were just as likely to have vices as other people - and in some cases they indulged in them more.

Some of them had smoked for 85 years, others got through more than two packets of cigarettes a day. They also exercised less than their shorter-lived counterparts but were less likely to become obese.

The bad news is it is almost impossible to be sure if you are one of the lucky few blessed with the longevity genes.

This means, say the American researchers, that there is no excuse for not taking care of your health.

Family

Study links asthma to magnetic-field exposure of pregnant moms

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© Unknown
Can magnetic fields from power lines, computers and even common household appliances lead to health problems down the road?

A new study suggests that pregnant women with the highest levels of exposure to magnetic fields are more likely to have a child who develops asthma, compared to pregnant women with low exposure levels.

The study was conducted by the same researcher who made waves in 2002 with a study that suggested magnetic fields could boost a woman's chances of miscarriage.

But many experts aren't convinced the risks are real and the medical field remains sharply divided over the presence of a link between health problems and exposure to electromagnetic fields.

Pills

Are You Taking Pills You Don't Need?

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© Martha Rosenberg
Some reasons why

Most people blame direct-to-consumer advertising, especially on TV, for elevating everyday anxiety to depression, depression to bipolar disorder, childhood behavior problems to psychiatric illnesses, lack of sleep to excessive sleepiness, migraines to epilepsy-drug deficiencies, and old age to hormone deficiency.

Ghostwriting also helps promote the national malaise: people suffering from and treating diseases that didn't exist earlier and ballooning public and private health-plan costs.

There are 200 U.S. medical education and communication companies (MECCs) that ghostwrite medical journal articles for pharma for $20,000 to $40,000 per article. Companies like Complete Healthcare Communications (CHC), whose phalanx of 50 medical writers, editors, and medical directors promise an "84.5 percent acceptance rate for first-time manuscript submissions."