Health & WellnessS


Health

Lyme disease IS all in your head

The symptoms of Lyme disease are not easy to classify. Trying to find a doctor who believes your symptoms are not psychological can be frustrating.

©NYC Department of Health
Bull's-eye circular skin rash (erythema migrans) appears at the bite site after three days to a month. As the patch expands, the center of the rash may clear, resulting in a bull's-eye appearance. Although the majority of people with Lyme disease dovelop the rash, 20 to 40 percent do not. (CDC)

Evil Rays

NASA technology helps predict and prevent future pandemic outbreaks

Research presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Meeting in Philadelphia

With the help of 14 satellites currently in orbit and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Applied Sciences Program, scientists have been able to observe the Earth's environment to help predict and prevent infectious disease outbreaks around the world.

The use of remote sensing technology aids specialists in predicting the outbreak of some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases today such as Ebola, West Nile virus and Rift Valley Fever. The ability of infectious diseases to thrive depends on changes in the Earth's environment such as the climate, precipitation and vegetation of an area.

Coffee

Eating fish, omega-3 oils, fruits and veggies lowers risk of memory problems

A diet rich in fish, omega-3 oils, fruits and vegetables may lower your risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, whereas consuming omega-6 rich oils could increase chances of developing memory problems, according to a study published in the November 13, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Magic Wand

Brain matures a few years late in ADHD, but follows normal pattern

In youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the brain matures in a normal pattern but is delayed three years in some regions, on average, compared to youth without the disorder, an imaging study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has revealed. The delay in ADHD was most prominent in regions at the front of the brain's outer mantle (cortex), important for the ability to control thinking, attention and planning. Otherwise, both groups showed a similar back-to-front wave of brain maturation with different areas peaking in thickness at different times.

Bulb

Connection between startled response and schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a debilitating psychiatric illness. Its cause is currently poorly understood, and there is no known cure. In a new study published online this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, Akiko Watanabe and colleagues report the identification of a gene linked to the condition.

Of particular interest to the study of schizophrenia is the so-called "gating" mechanism in the brain. This mechanism organizes information that comes from the sense organs, and when it malfunctions, it is believed to be responsible for the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, and social withdrawal.

©Yoshikawa et al.
Expression of Fabp7 protein in mouse brains at embryonic day 16 (left) and postnatal day 0 (right). At both stages, Fabp7 is strongly expressed in the ventricular zone and radial glia, where neurogenesis is prominent.

People

Actions speak louder: Why we use our past behavior to determine our current attitudes

Sometimes it's difficult for us to remember how we felt about a product. Was that restaurant pretty good or just okay" Was the movie boring or enjoyable? A new study reveals that, in many of these cases, consumers will use postpurchase actions - and advertising - as a proxy for lost memories, even if these actions are not a good indication of how we actually felt while using the product. In other words, if we gab about a terrible dinner and a boring movie with loved ones, we might mistake the positive memory of talking about the experience for positive memories of the experience itself.

Gear

Social change relies more on the easily influenced than the highly influential

An important new study appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research finds that it is rarely the case that highly influential individuals are responsible for bringing about shifts in public opinion.

Instead, using a number of computer simulations of public opinion change, Duncan J. Watts (Columbia University) and Peter Sheridan Dodds (University of Vermont), find that it is the presence of large numbers of "easily influenced" people who bring about major shifts by influencing other easy-to-influence people.

"Our study demonstrates not so much that the conventional wisdom is wrong . . . but that it is insufficiently specified to be meaningful," the researchers write. "Under most conditions that we consider, we find that large cascades of influence are driven not by influentials, but by a critical mass of easily influenced individuals."

Ambulance

Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders

One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved.

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

©Los Angeles Times
DROPPED: Patsy Bates, 51, a Gardena hairdresser, is seeking $6 million plus damages in a suit against Health Net after her coverage was rescinded while she was in the middle of chemotherapy treatments.

Syringe

House HHS Spending Bill Would Ban Mercury From Flu Vaccines

House and Senate conferees on the Labor/HHS spending bill agreed last week to a compromise amendment by House Appropriations Committee Chair Dave Obey (D-WI) that would force HHS to phase out mercury-laced flu shots for children younger than 3. The measure would take effect for the 2010-2011 flu season. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) had wanted the ban to go into effect by the 2009-2010 flu season but settled for an extra year after the Senate opposed any provision to address mercury in vaccines.

Attention

US: Plague Suspected In Death Of Man In Arizona

Eric York, a 37 year old wildlife biologist who worked at the Grand Canyon National Park who was found dead at his home on the South Rim of the Canyon in Arizona on November 2nd, probably died of the plague caught while carrying out an autopsy on a mountain lion that had probably died of the disease a week earlier.

Plague, due to the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was confirmed as the likely cause of death following preliminary laboratory tests at the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).