Health & WellnessS


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Sleep Deprivation Can Negatively Affect Information Processing


ScienceDaily
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:00 UTC
A new study in the journal Sleep shows that sleep deprivation causes some people to shift from a more automatic, implicit process of information categorization (information-integration) to a more controlled, explicit process (rule-based). This use of rule-based strategies in a task in which information-integration strategies are optimal can lead to potentially devastating errors when quick and accurate categorization is fundamental to survival.

Results show that sleep deprivation led to an overall performance deficit on an information-integration category learning task that was held over the course of two days. Performance improved in the control group by 4.3 percent from the end of day one to the beginning of day two (accuracy increased from 74 percent to 78.3 percent); performance in the sleep-deprived group declined by 2.4 percent (accuracy decreased from 73.1 percent to 70.7 percent) from the end of day one to the beginning of day two.

According to co-principal investigators W. Todd Maddox, PhD, professor of psychology, and David M. Schnyer, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Texas in Austin, fast and accurate categorization is critical in situations that could become a matter of life or death. However, categorization may become compromised in people who often experience sleep deprivation in fast-paced, high pressure roles such as doctors, firefighters, soldiers and even parents. Many tasks performed on a daily basis require information-integration processing rather than rule-based categorization. Examples include driving, making a medical diagnosis and performing air-traffic control.
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Family

The Epidemic Of 'Medical Child Abuse' And What Can Be Done

Dana Ullman
Huffington Post
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:40 UTC
The primary purpose of this article is to encourage a stronger commitment from doctors and parents to consider using safer medical care for infants and children FIRST before resorting to more dangerous treatments. One would hope and assume that doctors and parents would have a natural inclination to make the safety of these young human souls a significant and sincere priority, but sadly, the power and propaganda of Big Pharma has inappropriately turned this equation around and made it seem that doctors and parents are putting their children at risk if they don't prescribe powerful drugs first. I personally disagree with this assumption and sincerely hope that people consider this health issue to be of primary importance today.

I certainly realize that the evidence that I present below on the epidemic proportions of "medical child abuse" is somewhat inflammatory, but due to the fact that this issue is presently being ignored by so many doctors and parents, a little "inflammation" may be a necessary symptom that will lead to great attention to this problem and perhaps to some concrete solutions to it.
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Health

Women With Chronic Kidney Disease More Likely Than Men To Go Undiagnosed


Science Daily
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:41 UTC
Woman are at particular risk of their primary care physicians delaying diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a paper being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in San Diego, California. The findings suggest that educating practitioners about CKD could increase the timely diagnosis of CKD, thereby leading to improvements in care to patients and savings in Medicare dollars.

Maya Rao, MD, of Columbia University, reviewed records from nearly 900 patients at 18 rural, community-based primary care clinics in Oregon, to investigate whether primary care physicians accurately diagnosed CKD in patients with known kidney dysfunction. Chronic kidney disease is estimated to affect up to 19 million adults in the U.S. and is usually diagnosed and treated in the primary care setting. The analysis showed that 52.4 percent of patients found to have CKD did not have a diagnosis in their charts. Females were more likely to be undiagnosed than males, except at the most advanced stages of CKD.
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Pills

Rise in Youth Hyperactivity Prescriptions


The Independent
Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:41 UTC
The number of prescriptions for drugs to treat hyperactivity in children is on the rise, figures suggested today.

Data obtained by the Conservatives found more than 420,000 prescriptions were written for under-16s in 2007 - up 33 per cent on 2005 figures.

More than 40,000 prescriptions were also written for 16 to 18 year-olds, up 51 per cent since 2005.
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Health

Every minute, one woman dies in labour


Press TV
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:39 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth is increasing in some nations, the health ministers from around the world say at the UN Population Fund meeting.

According to the findings of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) meeting held this week in Addis Ababa, every minute, a woman dies in childbirth.

In the high-level meeting of over 150 health ministers, childbirth was reported to be responsible for a greater number of female deaths when compared to events such as war.

Lack of properly trained midwives and the long distance between certain rural areas and health centers are among the main reasons contributing to serious complications and even death in pregnant women.
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Magic Wand

Swine flu vaccine shots eliminate wrinkles, bad breath and varicose veins, too

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:49 UTC
The propaganda push for flu vaccines has reached a level of absurdity that's just begging to be made fun of. Today, a flu vaccine story appearing in Reuters claimed that injecting pregnant women with flu shots would increase the birth weight of their babies by half a pound. That same story claimed flu shots are so healthy for pregnant women that they also prevent premature births.

It even quotes a team of experts who claim that injecting an expectant mother with a flu shot would reduce the hospitalization of her infants, explaining: "Flu vaccine given to women during pregnancy is 85 percent effective in preventing hospitalization in their infants under 6 months of age."
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Pumpkin

Study: Pumpkin Skin May Repel Germs


United Press International
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:20 UTC
Pumpkin
© UPI/Terry SchmittGrowers thump a competing gourd at the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay.
Kwangju, South Korea - South Korean scientists say they've determined a substance in pumpkin skin can repel germs that cause millions of cases of yeast infections annually.

Chosun University researchers say some disease-causing microbes are becoming resistant to existing antibiotics, causing scientists to search for new bacterial treatments.

In the study, Kyung-Soo Hahm, Yoonkyung Park and colleagues noted pumpkins have long been used as folk medicine in some countries. So the scientists said they extracted proteins from pumpkin rinds to see if the proteins inhibit the growth of microbes, including Candida albicans, a fungus that causes vaginal yeast infections, diaper rash in infants and other health problems.
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Bizarro Earth

Beware: Genetically Modified Omega 3 Oils to Appear in Foods

James Williams
Atlanta Wellness Examiner
Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:00 UTC
Image
Evidence: journals, pharmaceutical companies, GM-food and processed food producers work together
Monsanto, the company which spent an astounding eight million dollars last year on lobbying, is planning to flood the food market with poor quality omega 3 oils from its genetically modified (GM) soy beans.

Monsanto, which is trying to control the world's farming market and infect nature with its genetically modified seeds, plans to sell its omega 3 frankenfood to processed food companies. The food companies will then claim that their frozen dinners and microwave meals are healthy because they contain omega 3 oils.

Yet you can bet your bottom dollar that the packaging on these TV dinners won't reveal that the omega 3 oils are from GM soy. If you've missed the headlines, you can learn why GM-food has a suspicious history and why these food ingredients are considered unhealthy.

More astoundingly, is the timing of this press release from Monsanto. Just last week, a poorly designed study doubting the benefits of omega 3 oils from fish somehow passed the peer review process and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. What's the connection?
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Stress-Induced Changes in Brain Circuitry Linked to Cocaine Relapse


ScienceDaily
Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC
Stress-evoked changes in circuits that regulate serotonin in certain parts of the brain can precipitate a low mood and a relapse in cocaine-seeking, based on mouse studies published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The impetus for this research was our interest in how stress alters the brain's cell receptors and protein signals in ways that lead to mood changes, depression, anxiety, and drug seeking," said Dr. Michael Bruchas, acting instructor of pharmacology at the University of Washington (UW), who with Dr. Benjamin Land, a former UW doctoral student now in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University, co-led the recent study of the adverse effects of stress-activated brain pathways. The senior author was Dr. Charles Chavkin, the Allan and Phyllis Treuer Professor of Pharmacology and director of the UW Center for Drug Addiction Research

A common belief is that drug seeking is regulated by dopamine, a chemical nerve signal associated with motivating and rewarding behavior. Dopamine may still have a key role, the researchers noted, which is why they were surprised to find harmful effects of stress converging in a brain region- the dorsal raphe nucleus --where nerve cells that use serotonin are abundant. These nerve cells also project to other structures found on either side of the brain -- the nucleus accumbens -- which are thought to play roles in feeding and drug addiction. Serotonin is a chemical nerve signal that has been associated with wake and sleep cycles, mood, anger, status and aggression.
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This is Your Brain on Fatty Acids: Scientists Discover Lipid may be Vital to Learning


AScribe Newswire
Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:28 UTC
Saturated fats have a deservedly bad reputation, but Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a sticky lipid occurring naturally at high levels in the brain may help us memorize grandma's recipe for cinnamon buns, as well as recall how, decades ago, she served them up steaming from the oven.

The Hopkins team, reporting Oct. 29 in Neuron, reveals how palmitate, a fatty acid, marks certain brain proteins - NMDA receptors - that need to be activated for long-term memory and learning to take place. The fatty substance directs the receptors to specific locations in the outer membrane of brain cells, which continually strengthen and weaken their connections with each other, sculpting and resculpting new memory circuits.

Moreover, the researchers report, this fatty modification is a reversible process, with some sort of on-off switch, offering possibilities for manipulating it to enhance or even, perhaps, erase memory.

"Before now, no one knew that NMDA receptors change in response to the addition of palmitate," says Richard Huganir, Ph.D., professor and director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins.
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