Health & WellnessS


Fish

Disturbing! Fish-Flavored Fish

As stocks of ocean-caught fish dwindle in the face of overfishing and environmental changes, farmed fish has flooded the market, helping to meet our growing appetite for seafood. But one sector of the seafood industry has remained elusive. Fast-food restaurants, which serve hundreds of millions of deep-fried-fish sandwiches every year, have always chosen wild species over farmed ones, because the flavor is better.

Life Preserver

Study shows psychotherapy useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder in early stages

When treated within a month, survivors of a psychologically traumatic event improved significantly with psychotherapy, according to a new study presented at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) annual meeting.

Lead researcher and ACNP member Arieh Shalev, M.D., Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and founding Director of the Center for Traumatic Stress at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, studied 248 adults with early symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a traumatic event that had occurred no more than four weeks earlier. His goal was to determine which forms of treatment given soon after the traumatic event can prevent the development of chronic PTSD. Officially, PTSD cannot be diagnosed until four weeks after a traumatic event. However, symptoms that occur before four weeks often persist, and effective early intervention may prevent subsequent trauma-related suffering.

Health

Hidden Risks Muddy Debate on Hand-Washing

Recent intense media scrutiny including hidden camera video in Canadian hospitals has exposed an alarming truth: there is a shocking lack of diligence among the general public, many visitors to health-care facilities and, most disturbingly, the majority of doctors and other health-care workers with respect to frequent and effective hand-washing.

But as the U.S.'s National Handwashing Week drew to a close this past weekend, two recent studies are drawing attention to some previously unknown hidden health risks associated with increasingly vigorous and frequent hand-washing, with newer, chemical laden anti-bacterial soaps and sanitizing gels.

This past August a University of Michigan study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases showed that antibacterial soaps available to the public might convey no health benefits over plain soap and water. Indeed the study showed that these soaps also were no more effective at simply removing bacteria from the skin, not to mention having questionable antibacterial action.

X

Flashback Why You Don't Want to Use Antibacterial Soap Anymore

Hand WashingThe antibacterial agent triclosan, commonly used in certain soaps, is starting to appear in consumer products ranging from socks to toothpaste.

But research shows that under normal household conditions triclosan can react with chlorinated water to produce chloroform, a likely carcinogen.


Syringe

NJ, US: A Proposal to Require Flu Vaccines for Preschool

The New Jersey Public Health Council is expected to vote tomorrow on a rule that would require flu vaccines for any child entering day care or preschool. If it is approved, New Jersey would become the first state in the country to impose that mandate.

Comment: Apart from the huge evidence that mercury preservative in vaccines caused the wave of autism in the U.S. in recent years, the effectiveness of vaccines themselves is questionable (see Deadly Immunity and Why You Should Avoid Taking Vaccines). In addition, unlike other types, flu vaccine is supposed to be taken every year. Would you want to inject that poison into your children every year?


USA

We Are What We Eat

The following is an excerpt from Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed edited by Vandana Shiva (South End, 2007).

I am not a scientist, journalist, or other specialist. I sell food. I help run a family-owned and operated neighborhood market and café that buys and sells predominantly local, clean, and sustainable food. I cannot speak about the reality of our food supply around most of the world. I can only can speak of what is happening in the first world, where, unfortunately, only the privileged elite can choose to put real food on their dinner tables.

Clock

Studies find stable sleep patterns and regular routines may improve outcomes in bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic-depressive disorder, is highly influenced by the circadian system - the body's internal clock - and a specific kind of psychotherapy may help decrease irregularities in the circadian system that can trigger key symptoms of bipolar disorder, according to a study presented today at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) annual meeting. The results are important because they show for the first time that psychotherapy which focuses on practical lifestyle changes can ease the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Every year nearly six million American adults suffer from bipolar disorder, a brain disorder which causes severe shifts in mood, energy, and ability to function, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule and wake time can help balance the circadian system, which in turn can help people avoid nighttime sleeplessness or daytime exhaustion, which can increase the risk of new episodes of mania or depression. "Having already found that disruption in daily routines can make individuals with bipolar disorder vulnerable to new episodes of illness, we have now learned that working with patients to achieve and maintain regular social rhythms - including regular sleep patterns and adequate physical activity - will help to protect them against episodes of mania or depression," says Ellen Frank, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Syringe

UK: Drug addicts used as organ donors

A serious shortage of organs means transplant surgeons are being forced to use body parts from drug addicts.

Between 2002 and 2007 some 450 organs came from donors with a history of drug abuse, which may affect the quality of the organ and raise infection risks.

The lack of viable organs is due in part to the fact that fewer healthy people are dying in car accidents, when organs can often be retrieved intact.

People

Why People With Schizophrenia Have Lower Rates Of Cancer: New Clues

A series of studies presented December 8 at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) annual meeting elucidates evidence that there is a genetic link between schizophrenia and cancer, providing a surprising possible scientific explanation for lower rates of cancer among patients with schizophrenia -- despite having poor diets and high rates of smoking -- and their parents.

Health

Neurons in the frontal lobe may be responsible for rational decision-making

You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster trumps steak. Without reconsidering the salmon, you place your order - all because of a trait called "transitivity."

"Transitivity is the hallmark of rational economic choice," says Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, a postdoctoral researcher in HMS Professor of Neurobiology John Assad's lab. According to transitivity, if you prefer A to B and B to C, then you ought to prefer A to C. Or, if you prefer lobster to steak, and steak to salmon, then you will prefer lobster to salmon.

Padoa-Schioppa is lead author on a paper that suggests this trait might be encoded at the level of individual neurons. The study, which appears online Dec. 9 in Nature Neuroscience, shows that some neurons in a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex encode economic value in a "menu invariant" way. That is, the neurons respond the same to steak regardless if it's offered against salmon or lobster.