Health & WellnessS


Gear

New rule for health providers stirs objections

Kevin Freking
Associated Press
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:24 UTC
Washington - The Bush administration, in its final days, has issued a federal rule reinforcing protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other procedures because of religious or moral objections.

Critics of the rule say the protections are so broad that they limit a patient's right to get care and accurate information. For example, they fear the rule could make it possible for a pharmacy clerk to refuse to sell birth control pills and face no ramifications from an employer.

Under longstanding federal law, institutions may not discriminate against individuals who refuse to perform abortions or provide a referral for one. The administration's rule, issued Thursday, is intended to ensure that federal funds don't flow to providers who violate those laws.
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Health

Experts urge safety probe of plastics chemicals

Will Dunham
Reuters
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:58 UTC
U.S. regulators should examine whether a controversial class of chemicals found in many plastic products including children's toys can hurt people, a panel of experts said on Thursday.

A panel of the independent National Research Council said the scientific evidence justifies an Environmental Protection Agency assessment of the health effects from cumulative exposure to chemicals known as phthalates.

Phthalates, which make plastic products soft and flexible, have been used commercially for decades. They are different from another chemical, bisphenol A, or BPA, found in plastic products including baby bottles that has also come under health scrutiny. The Food and Drug Administration says BPA is safe at current levels of exposure but plans more research.

Animal studies cited by the panel indicated that exposure to phthalates affected male reproductive system development. Some phthalates reduce levels of the male hormone testosterone. Studies also link phthalates to liver cancer, the panel said.
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Family

Truth About Give And Take In Social Situations: The More You Take The More You Lose


Science Daily
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:32 UTC
In everyday social exchanges, being mean to people has a lot more impact than being nice, research at the University of Chicago has shown.

Feeling slighted can have a bigger difference on how a person responds than being the recipient of perceived generosity, even if the net value of the social transaction is the same, the research on reciprocity - giving and taking - shows.

"Negative reciprocity, or taking, escalates," said Boaz Keysar, Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and lead author of the paper "Reciprocity is Not Give and Take: Asymmetric Reciprocity to Positive and Negative Acts," published in Psychological Science. The study was based on giving-and-taking games conducted on students and people in downtown Chicago.

The games provided data on how people respond to give-and-take social exchanges.

"For instance in driving, if you are kind and let someone go in front of you, that driver may be considerate in response. But if you cut someone off, that person may react very aggressively, and this could escalate to road rage," Keysar said.
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Heart - Black

Children and Teenagers Found to Have Arteries of Middle Aged Adults

Reuben Chow
Natural News
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:10 UTC
Many people have the idea that they can enjoy life in their younger years, eat and drink whatever they want, do whatever they like, and not have to worry about diseases or illnesses until they are much older. Well, the evidence is building up against such a mentality. In a small study which was presented at the American Heart Association's recent annual meeting in New Orleans, researchers took a peek inside the neck arteries of a group of children and teens. Alarmingly, they saw cardiovascular systems which looked more like they belonged to middle-aged 45 year olds.
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Sheeple

Personality disorders plague US adults


Press TV
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:17 UTC
Man's head
Statistics show one in every five college-aged American suffers a personality disorder, interfering with his/her everyday life routine.

According to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, mental disorders including obsessive compulsive, anti-social and paranoid behavior are seen in 25 percent of college-aged Americans for which only a small group receive necessary treatment.

The study revealed that nearly half of these individuals are affected with a psychiatric condition when alcohol and drug abuse are also taken into account. Substance abuse, interfering with the individual's school or work, affects nearly one-third of these individuals.
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Magnify

How biology can contribute to criminal behaviour


Scotsman News
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:10 UTC
Crime may be an unusual topic for a medical column but is a growing area of scientific research.

The various contributions of biological factors or "nature" versus the social environment, "nurture", is hotly debated. New brain scanning techniques and quick and affordable genetic testing is rapidly improving our understanding of the science behind crime.

The brains of people who undertake serious or sexual crimes seem to differ in a number of ways.

A controversial study from Yale University used MRI scans to compare the brains of paedophiles and those convicted of non-sexual crimes. Paedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" that connects six areas of the brain known to play a role in sexual arousal.
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Ambulance

FDA Stuns Scientists, Declares Mercury in Fish to be Safe for Infants, Children, Expectant Mothers!

Mike Adams
Natural News
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:57 UTC
In a truly astonishing betrayal of public safety (even for the FDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today revoked its warning about mercury in fish, saying that eating mercury-contaminated fish no longer poses any health threat to children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants.

Last week, the FDA declared trace levels of melamine to be safe in infant formula. A few weeks earlier, it said the plastics chemical Bisphenol-A was safe for infants to drink. Now it says children can eat mercury, too. Is there any toxic substance in the food that the FDA thinks might be dangerous? (Aspartame, MSG, sodium nitrite and now mercury...)

This FDA decision on mercury in fish has alarmed EPA scientists who called it "scientifically flawed and inadequate," reports the Washington Post. Even better, the Environmental Working Group issued a letter to the EPA, saying "It's a commentary on how low FDA has sunk as an agency. It was once a fierce protector of America's health, and now it's nothing more than a patsy for polluters."
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Health

Strict Blood Sugar Lowering Won't Ease Diabetes Heart Risk

Steven Reinberg
The Washington Post
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:40 UTC
Intensive lowering of blood sugar in people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes does not have a significant effect on reducing cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, a new study finds.

"You can decrease cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes by good treatment of lipids [cholesterol], blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors," noted lead researcher Dr. William Duckworth, from the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care Center in Arizona. "But among older patients whose risk factors are controlled, intensive glucose control does not add any significant benefit," he said.

That runs counter to the conventional wisdom on the issue, which holds that intensive lowering of blood sugar should reduce cardiovascular events.
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Bizarro Earth

Asian Countries Battle New Bird Flu Outbreaks


VOA News
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:37 UTC
Chickens
© AFP
Authorities in several Asian countries are working to contain new outbreaks of bird flu.

Cambodia has begun slaughtering poultry in a district south of the capital, Phnom Penh, where a 19-year-old man last week tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. The agriculture ministry also ordered a 30-day ban on selling or transporting poultry in Kandal province.

The man is the eighth confirmed human case of bird flu in Cambodia, and the first person diagnosed with the disease there this year.
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People

Cleveland Clinic Team Outlines Details of First U.S. Face Transplant

Rob Stein
The Washington Post
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:32 UTC
Surgeons today described the first face transplant in the United States, a painstaking 22-hour operation to stitch most of a dead woman's face onto a recipient so horribly disfigured she was willing to undergo the risky surgery in the hopes of being able to smile, smell, eat and breathe normally again -- and go out in public without frightening children.

In a procedure done sometime in the past two weeks, the 30-member Cleveland Clinic team replaced about 80 percent of the patient's face -- essentially recreating the entire middle of her face including her lower eyelids, nose, cheeks, and upper jaw, along with supporting the bones, muscles, nerves and arteries.

The operation, transferring everything except the upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin, marks the first time the controversial procedure has been performed in North America and the most extensive face transplant yet.
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