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Testing on severely depressed patients shows that electrical brain implants can successfully "reset" the brain's mood switch from sad to normal, with results that last for at least a year, Canadian researchers are reporting.
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| ©Onur Dongel/iStockphoto |
The human mind is a remarkable device. Nevertheless, it is not without limits. Recently, a growing body of research has focused on a particular mental limitation, which has to do with our ability to use a mental trait known as executive function.
Viviane Maraghi expected the blood tests to show she would have some chemical pollution in her body, but nothing like this.
After all, she viewed herself as "very environmentalist," carefully monitoring what she ate and and the household products and items she purchased.
Nevertheless, lead, arsenic, mercury, PCBs, PBDEs (a flame retardant banned in Europe and eight U.S. states but still in use in Canada), plus an array of other chemicals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological diseases were all well represented in her bloodstream.
Her blood tested positive for 36 of 68 potentially toxic chemicals, many of which never actually leave the body, but continue to accumulate over time in tissues such as fat or bone.
They get there because they are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the products we use.
After all, she viewed herself as "very environmentalist," carefully monitoring what she ate and and the household products and items she purchased.
Nevertheless, lead, arsenic, mercury, PCBs, PBDEs (a flame retardant banned in Europe and eight U.S. states but still in use in Canada), plus an array of other chemicals that have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological diseases were all well represented in her bloodstream.
Her blood tested positive for 36 of 68 potentially toxic chemicals, many of which never actually leave the body, but continue to accumulate over time in tissues such as fat or bone.
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| ©Phil Carpenter, The Gazette |
| Viviane Maraghi and son Aladin, 12, were tested for chemical contaminants as part of a 2005 Environmental Defence study. |
They get there because they are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the products we use.
Joel and Ian Gold, brothers and psychiatrists from Montreal, believe they have discovered a signature mental illness of the YouTube era: patients who claim they are subjects of their own reality TV shows.
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| ©National Post |
| Montreal psychiatrists Joel and Ian Gold have coined 'the Truman Show Delusion,' where patients claim that the world around them is an elaborate production. |
British researchers have made a dramatic breakthrough against a lethal form of prostate cancer.
Trials of a new pill have shown that it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent of cases, and end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Experts hailed the advance as potentially the biggest in the field of prostate cancer for decades, capable of saving many thousands of lives.
Trials of a new pill have shown that it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent of cases, and end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Experts hailed the advance as potentially the biggest in the field of prostate cancer for decades, capable of saving many thousands of lives.
A recent fibromyalgia study reveals that an exercise program that incorporates walking, strength training and stretching may improve daily function and alleviate symptoms in women with fibromyalgia, as reported in the November 12, 2007 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. These benefits appear to be enhanced when the exercise is combined with education about managing fibromyalgia.
Mother-of-two Dawn Page has won more than £800,000 in damages at the High Court after a radical new detox diet left her brain damaged and epileptic.
The 52-year-old was told to drink an extra four pints of water per day and reduce her salt intake in a bid to prevent fluid retention and lose weight.
She began vomiting uncontrollably within days of going on 'The Amazing Hydration Diet'.
But nutritionist Barbara Nash assured her it was all 'part of the detoxification process'.
Mrs Nash even urged her to increase the amount of water she drank to six pints per day and eat fewer salty foods.
But Mrs Page - who weighed just 12 stone - suffered a massive epileptic fit brought on by severe sodium deficiency less than a week after she started the diet in 2001.
She was rushed to intensive care, but doctors were unable to prevent permanent brain injuries.
The 52-year-old was told to drink an extra four pints of water per day and reduce her salt intake in a bid to prevent fluid retention and lose weight.
She began vomiting uncontrollably within days of going on 'The Amazing Hydration Diet'.
But nutritionist Barbara Nash assured her it was all 'part of the detoxification process'.
Mrs Nash even urged her to increase the amount of water she drank to six pints per day and eat fewer salty foods.
But Mrs Page - who weighed just 12 stone - suffered a massive epileptic fit brought on by severe sodium deficiency less than a week after she started the diet in 2001.
She was rushed to intensive care, but doctors were unable to prevent permanent brain injuries.
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| ©Unknown |
| Dawn Page was told to drink four extra pints of water a day and reduced her salt intake |
One of the easiest ways to identify an object is by its color -- perhaps it is because children's books encourage us to pair certain objects with their respective colors. Why else would so many of us automatically assume carrots are orange, grass is green and apples are red?
In two experiments by Holger Mitterer and Jan Peter de Ruiter from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, perception of color and color constancy (the ability to see the same color under varying light conditions) were examined using different hues of orange and yellow. By using these hues on different objects, the researchers hoped to show that knowledge of objects can be used to identify color.
In two experiments by Holger Mitterer and Jan Peter de Ruiter from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, perception of color and color constancy (the ability to see the same color under varying light conditions) were examined using different hues of orange and yellow. By using these hues on different objects, the researchers hoped to show that knowledge of objects can be used to identify color.
© visualphotos.comThe divine tobacco plant
The treatment, which would vaccinate cancer patients against their own tumor cells, is made using a new approach that turns genetically engineered tobacco plants into personalized vaccine factories.
"This is the first time a plant has been used for making a protein to inject into a person," said Dr. Ron Levy of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, whose research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"This would be a way to treat cancer without side effects," Levy said in a statement. "The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer."
Austerity measures attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans may have contributed to a resurgence in tuberculosis in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, researchers said on Tuesday.
Governments may be reducing funding for health services such as hospitals and clinics to meet strict IMF economic targets, the British researchers said.
The study, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, found that countries participating in IMF programmes had seen tuberculosis death rates increase by at least 17 percent between 1991 and 2000 -- equivalent to more than 100,000 additional deaths. About one million new cases were recorded during the same period.
Governments may be reducing funding for health services such as hospitals and clinics to meet strict IMF economic targets, the British researchers said.
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| ©REUTERS/Thomas Peter |
| An inmate sits in the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) ward in a prison hospital in the Siberian city of Tomsk, about 3500 km (2175 miles) east of Moscow, in this file photo from June 4, 2008. |
The study, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, found that countries participating in IMF programmes had seen tuberculosis death rates increase by at least 17 percent between 1991 and 2000 -- equivalent to more than 100,000 additional deaths. About one million new cases were recorded during the same period.
Comment: Or you could skip all that and just smoke the plant! Nicotine is best infused through smoking.