Health & WellnessS


Attention

Australia: Deadly virus found in riverland

The potentially deadly mosquito-borne Murray Valley encephalitis (MVE) virus has been found in the South Australian Riverland.

Health authorities said testing of local birds, following the discovery of the virus in Victoria and New South Wales over summer, had returned positive results for MVE.

Attention

Death Toll from Child Virus Hits 34 in China

The death toll in China from an outbreak of a severe intestinal virus that has sickened thousands of children now stands at 34.

China's official Xinhua news agency says two children died in the eastern province of Anhui, where the majority of the casualties have been recorded.

Sheeple

Emotions, Moral Choice Linked in Study Watching Brain Activity

Brain activity in a region tied to human emotion may help prompt people to be fair rather than efficient in handing out rewards and burdens, say researchers aiming to understand the inspiration behind moral actions.

U.S. scientists used imaging technology to measure the brain activity of 26 adults asked to make decisions about how to allocate meals to orphans. The researchers found that the stronger the activity was in the insula, a part of the brain associated with emotions, the more likely participants were to fairly spread the meals among the children.

People

Women face tougher impact from climate change

Climate change is harder on women in poor countries, where mothers stay in areas hit by drought, deforestation or crop failure as men move to literally greener pastures, a Nobel Peace laureate said on Tuesday.

"Many destructive activities against the environment disproportionately affect women, because most women in the world, and especially in the developing world, are very dependent on primary natural resources: land, forests, waters," said Wangari Maathai of Kenya.

"Women are very immediately affected, and usually women and children can't run away," said Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on sustainable development.

Comment: The problem is, demanding to cut the emissions is not going to solve this probable dire situation. Global warming and depletion of resources is just another fabricated lie imposed by the psychopaths who are in power throughout the world. They know about the things to come, and make preparations to save their skin while millions of people will be left to starve and die.


People

Is bipolar disorder overdiagnosed?

A new study by Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University researchers reports that fewer than half the patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder based on a comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview--the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID).

The study concludes that while recent reports indicate that there is a problem with underdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, an equal if not greater problem exists with overdiagnosis. The study was published online by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Principle investigator Mark Zimmerman, M.D., will present the findings at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association on Wednesday, May 7.

Health

77 more hepatitis cases may trace to clinic, officials say

Las Vegas, Nevada - Seventy-seven more people who were treated at a Las Vegas outpatient clinic have been diagnosed with hepatitis C, health officials said.

People

Depression Diversity: Brain Studies Reveal Big Differences Among Individuals

Depressed people may have far fewer of the receptors for some of the brain's "feel good" stress-response chemicals than non-depressed people, new University of Michigan Depression Center research shows. Scans show untreated depressed people have fewer serotonin and opioid receptors, and that variation is linked to symptoms and treatment response.

And even among depressed people, the numbers of these receptors can vary greatly. What's more, the number of receptors a depressed person has appears to be linked with the severity of their symptoms - and the chances that they'll feel better after taking a medication.

These preliminary findings, presented Tuesday at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., amplify a growing understanding of depression as a condition that affects different people in different ways, and is solidly rooted in genetic and molecular factors that are unique to each individual.

The lead U-M researcher, Jon-Kar Zubieta, M.D., Ph.D., says these new results bolster what other researchers have been finding in recent years.

Stop

Child Abuse May 'Mark' Genes In Brains Of Suicide Victims

A team of McGill University scientists has discovered important differences between the brains of suicide victims and so-called normal brains. Although the genetic sequence was identical in the suicide and non-suicide brains, there were differences in their epigenetic marking - a chemical coating influenced by environmental factors.

All of the 13 suicide victims in the study had experienced abuse as children.

"It's possible the changes in epigenetic markers were caused by the exposure to childhood abuse, although in humans it's difficult to establish causality between early childhood and epigenetic markers, in the way we have established this in animal subjects," said Moshe Szyf, a professor in McGill's Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. "The big remaining questions are whether scientists could detect similar changes in blood DNA - which could lead to diagnostic tests - and whether we could design interventions to erase these differences in epigenetic markings".

Crusader

Steno 'Superbug' Genome Shows Extreme Drug Resistance

British research into Steno, one the most recent "superbugs" to claim lives, reveals that the bacterium has an incredible ability to resist antibiotics and other drugs, according to soon-to-be-published findings.

Steno, short for Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, thrives in moist environments, such as around taps and shower heads, and can be transmitted to people. It is responsible for roughly 1,000 cases of Steno blood poisoning in the U.K. annually. About 30 percent of these infections prove fatal.

"This is the latest in an ever-increasing list of antibiotic-resistant hospital superbugs. The degree of resistance it shows is very worrying," study senior author Dr. Matthew Avison, of the University of Bristol, said in a prepared statement. "Strains are now emerging that are resistant to all available antibiotics, and no new drugs capable of combating these pan-resistant strains are currently in development."

Ambulance

Mystery flu-like illness: One dead and 280 quarantined on Canadian train

TORONTO/OTTAWA - One person died and about 280 were placed in quarantine aboard a cross-Canada train on Friday after a mystery illness caused violent flu-like symptoms.

Police spokesman Marc Depatie told CTV television that seven passengers who boarded the VIA Rail train in the Rocky Mountain resort of Jasper, Alberta, had fallen ill, and one, a 60-year-old woman, had died. Another passenger had been airlifted to hospital.

Comment: Another deadly mystery illness has already killed at least 26 children in China; while a month ago there was another mystery outbreak in the University of Denver.