Health & WellnessS


Health

Study: 9/11 lung problems persist years later

Amy Westfeldt
Associated Press
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:27 UTC
Researchers tracking Sept. 11 responders who became ill after working at the World Trade Center site found many had lung problems years later in a study the authors said proves persistent illness in people exposed to toxic dust caused by the twin towers' collapse.

The study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center's medical monitoring program examined more than 3,000 responders between 2004 and 2007, repeating exams conducted between the middle of 2002 and 2004. Slightly more than 24 percent of the patients had abnormal lung function, the study found. In the earlier examinations, about 28 percent of the patients had similar results.

"We know people we are following are still sick. It's confirming what we've been seeing clinically," said Dr. Jacqueline M. Moline, who treats ailing responders and co-authored the study.
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Attention

India: 14 people die of mysterious disease in Tripura


Indo-Asian News Service
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:20 UTC
Agartala - At least 14 people died and several more were taken ill after a mysterious disease struck Tripura in the past one week, officials said here Thursday. "After getting reports of death due to some mysterious disease during the past one week, we have sent medical teams to the affected Longtharai valley areas of Dhalai district to find out the cause," a Tripura health department spokesman said.
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Ambulance

Injured man dies after rejection by 14 hospitals

Mari Yamaguchi
Yahoo News
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:56 UTC
Tokyo - After getting struck by a motorcycle, an elderly Japanese man with head injuries waited in an ambulance as paramedics phoned 14 hospitals, each refusing to treat him.

He died 90 minutes later at the facility that finally relented - one of thousands of victims repeatedly turned away in recent years by understaffed and overcrowded hospitals in Japan.

Paramedics reached the accident scene within minutes after the man on a bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami. But 14 hospitals refused to admit the 69-year-old citing a lack of specialists, equipment and staff, according to Mitsuhisa Ikemoto, a fire department official.
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Magnify

Vitamin D And Gene Variant Affect Multiple Sclerosis Risk

Catharine Paddock, PhD
Medical News Today
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:00 UTC
Researchers in the UK and Canada have discovered that vitamin D and a particular gene variant interact to increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), and suggested that vitamin D deficiency during fetal growth and early childhood may increase the risk of developing MS in later life.

The research was done by scientists at Oxford University in the UK and the University of British Columbia in Canada and is published as an open access article in the 6 February issue of the Public Library of Science. The research was funded by the UK's MS Society, the MS Society of Canada, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council.
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Magnify

Roundup's "Cocktail effect"? Nothing to worry about for Monsanto

Agrovaox Staff
Agoravox
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:10 UTC
Roundup Weed Killer

French academics have highlighted the dangerousness on the human health of the world number one weed-killer, Roundup, even with extremely weak doses. Published in the American scientific magazine Chemical Research in Toxicology at the end of December, the study undertaken by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini, helped by his colleague Nora Benachour, has made a world premiere: for the first time, a study on the effects of Roundup (a range of very powerful weed killers that are the center of the American firm's GM strategy) has reached very worrying conclusions for the Human Being.
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Oscar

Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem & Materialism Goes Hand in Hand

Rebecca Sato
The Daily Galaxy
Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:08 UTC
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."

~From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.
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People

'Franken Foods': How To Avoid GMOs

Green Muze Staff
Green Muze
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:13 UTC
Image
© Emrah Turudu
GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are becoming a lot more prevalent in North American food and due to the lack of GMO labeling, consumers have difficulty avoiding foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. Unfortunately, an estimated 70% of the food in North American stores contain bio-engineered elements and that number is only expected to increase as more Frankenfoods are introduced into the North American food system each year.
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Binoculars

Finding Control in Chaos

Siri Carpenter
Scientific American
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:38 UTC
Feeling helpless leads us to see nonexistent patterns.

Even the most laid back among us crave a sense of control, and when we feel helpless we scour our surroundings for anything that will restore predictability. New research shows that when we lack control we don't simply wait for order to return: we impose it, if only in our own minds, by imagining patterns and trends where none exist.
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Arrow Up

US: Wisconsin bill would require autism coverage


MSNBC.com
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:25 UTC
Gov. Jim Doyle called on lawmakers Tuesday to pass a bill that would require insurance companies to cover autism treatments.

Most insurance companies don't cover autism because it's classified as an emotional disorder rather than a neurological condition. The state runs some treatment programs, but waiting lists have stretched to 18 months, said Sean Dilweg, state insurance commissioner.
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Info

What Your Mother Did When She Was A Child May Have An Effect On Your Memory


Science Daily
Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:07 UTC
A study reveals that the severity of learning disorders may depend not only on the child's environment but also - remarkably - on the mother's environment when she was young. The study in memory-deficient mice was led by Larry Feig, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Tufts University School of Medicine and member of the biochemistry and neuroscience programs at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University.

The researchers studied the brain function of pre-adolescent mice with a genetically-created defect in memory. When these young mice were enriched by exposure to a stimulating environment - including novel objects, opportunities for social interaction and voluntary exercise - for two weeks, the memory defect was reversed. The work showed that this enhancement was remarkably long-lasting because it was passed on to the offspring even though the offspring had the same genetic mutation and were never exposed to an enriched environment.
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