Health & Wellness
© Charlyn Keating Chisholm
Bed bug on a finger
The US government is waking up to what has become a growing nightmare in many parts of the country - a bed bug outbreak.
The tiny reddish-brown insects, last seen in great numbers prior to World War II, are on the rebound. They have infested college dormitories, hospital wings, homeless shelters and swanky hotels from New York City to Chicago to Washington.
They live in the crevices and folds of mattresses, sofas and sheets. Then, most often before dawn, they emerge to feed on human blood.
Faced with rising numbers of complaints to city information lines and increasingly frustrated landlords, hotel chains and housing authorities, the Environmental Protection Agency is hosting its first-ever bed bug summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
© Unknown
A study has found that erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra do not damage men's vision.
Treatments for erectile dysfunction such as the hugely popular drug Viagra do not appear to pose long-term damage to men's sight, a new study has shown.
Doctors had been concerned that Viagra, and its competitor drug sold in the United States as Cialis, might prove harmful after some men reported blurred and blue-tinged vision. The two drugs accounted for $US1 billion in sales in 2008.
But the six-month study published on Monday and funded by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, the makers of Cialis, showed no side effects on sight, according to the results published in the April issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.
The drugs treat erectile dysfunction by blocking an enzyme in the blood flowing to the penis, and there had been fears they could also act on similar compounds in the retina in the eye that receives and transmits images.
Comment: Well, that IS a relief. A report funded by one of the makers of the drugs in question found it causes no vision problems. Now everybody who uses Viagra and Cialis can sleep at night, knowing they are not going to go blind. PLEASE, are we all THAT silly.
A former leukaemia patient who had his sperm frozen as a teenager has fathered a baby after doctors successfully thawed his sample a record 22 years later.
Stella Biblis was conceived after scientists injected a defrosted sperm into an egg from wife Melodie and implanted it in her uterus
Chris Biblis was 16 when doctors told him that he needed radiotherapy that would leave him sterile and recommended before going ahead with the life-saving treatment that they put a sample of his sperm into cryogenic storage for future use.
Now aged 38, he is celebrating the birth of a healthy baby daughter, Stella, who was conceived after scientists injected a defrosted sperm into an egg from his wife, Melodie, and implanted it in her uterus.
The 22-year lapse between storage in April 1986 and conception in June 2008 is a world record, according to specialists at the US fertility clinic who carried out the procedure.
During this downturn watch out for the bully bosses who are relishing their power over you.
One can almost hear their tiny reptilian brains warming to the kill. You're not imagining things when you see their slime on the office floor. Catch the bully boss unawares and you will see him baring his blood-stained fangs.
Comment: For more on the psychological basis for the widespread evil in our society - ignored until now for so long - see the website
Political Ponerology.
A survey of 2,060 people showed 53 per cent believe in life after death, 55 per cent believe in heaven and 70 per cent believe in the human soul.
The study carried out between October and November last year for the public theology think tank Theos also showed nearly four in 10, or 39 per cent, believe in ghosts and more than a quarter (27 per cent) believe in reincarnation.
Rebecca Renner
SalonTue, 14 Apr 2009 21:33 UTC
From 2001 to 2004, Washington, D.C., experienced what may have been the worst lead contamination of city water on record. Tens of thousands of homes had sky-high levels of lead at the tap, and in the worst cases, tap water contained enough lead to be classified as hazardous waste. Not that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government oversight agency for public health, was worried.
A 2004 CDC report found that water contamination "might have contributed a small increase in blood lead levels." The study has been influential. School officials in New York and
Seattle have used the CDC report as justification for not aggressively responding to high levels of lead in their water, and other cities have cited the report to dispel concerns about lead in tap water.
Ellen Wulfhorst
ReutersTue, 14 Apr 2009 19:44 UTC
If there's a bit more false flattery and loud enthusiasm at the office than usual, don't be surprised.
Whether it's called buttering up the boss, brown-nosing, sucking up or managing up, experts say ingratiating behavior is bound to be on the rise in the workplace as workers fret about keeping their jobs in tough economic times.
But such behavior can be bad for business, they said.
Essential oils are more than just a great addition to a relaxing massage. True essential oils are distilled from the bark, flowers, or leaves of a plant and can provide physical and psychological benefits. Internal ingestion of some oils, inhalation, and application to the skin are all methods of using essential oils. The use of essential oils can benefit mood, decrease stress, help prevent disease, and decrease pain.
Alternative and complementary therapies are no longer written off as useless quackery or unproven folklore by a growing number of mainstream physicians. A case in point: Dolores Mendelow, M.D., clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMHS), says these approaches can be successful against many illnesses in youngsters, including the common cold or skin rashes. In fact, they can work quicker and more safely than many typical over-the-counter medications.
A drug that boosts the body's production of stem cells can also "jump-start" the bone-healing process for older patients who have suffered a fracture, research suggests.
A study found that teriparatide, a hormone normally used to treat osteoporosis, increases the ability of older bones to heal themselves and could even "turn back the clock", making older bones heal as quickly as those of a younger person.
The American researchers described the effects of a daily injection as "miraculous" as, in some cases, patients who had been confined to wheelchairs were able to walk or leave full-time care when their broken bones finally healed.
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, gave teriparatide, also known as Forteo, to 145 people who had bone fractures that had not healed, many for six months or more.
Comment: Well, that IS a relief. A report funded by one of the makers of the drugs in question found it causes no vision problems. Now everybody who uses Viagra and Cialis can sleep at night, knowing they are not going to go blind. PLEASE, are we all THAT silly.