Researchers have long known that type-2 diabetes and depression often go hand in hand. However, it's been unclear which condition develops first in patients who end up with both. Now, a new study led by Johns Hopkins doctors suggests that this chicken-and-egg problem has a dual answer: Patients with depression have an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, and patients with type-2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing depression.
For the study, published in the June 18 Journal of the American Medical Association, diabetes expert Sherita Hill Golden, M.D., M.H.S., and her colleagues took advantage of data generated by the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), which examined risk factors for atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, in an ethnically diverse group of 6,814 men and women between ages 45 to 84. Participants in the MESA study identified themselves when they enrolled as white, black, Hispanic or Chinese.
The evidence is in - and it is overwhelming. Even at typical low power, cell phones and wireless technology cause severe biological disturbances in human cells. In August 2007, 26 medical and public health experts their Bioinitiative Report - available online - reviewing all the literature on the effects of electromagnetic radiation
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Cell phone researchers not in the pay of mobile phone corporations agree on three things:
A compound found in grape seed extract reduces plaque formation and resulting cognitive impairment in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, new research shows.
The study appears in the June 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Lead study author Giulio Pasinetti, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and colleagues found that the grape seed extract prevents amyloid beta accumulation in cells, suggesting that it may block the formation of plaques. In Alzheimer's disease, amyloid beta accumulates to form toxic plaques that disrupt normal brain function.
Washington - A House subcommittee voted Thursday to subpoena the records of nine private laboratories involved in food testing as part of a congressional investigation into allegations that some companies have withheld information on tainted food from federal regulators.
The subcommittee in May asked 10 labs for records dating back to 2002, but just one, in Miami, complied. The other labs, according to the subcommittee, refused to turn over records, arguing that the documents belong to their clients, food importing companies.
A Dutch woman who was the oldest person in the world when she died aged 115 appeared sharp right up to the end, joking that pickled herring was the secret to her longevity.
The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a
Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.
In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.
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| Iraq war veteran James Elliott smokes on his porch in Silver Spring as he talks about his experiences in war and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr. Elliott suffered a psychotic episode while taking the anti-smoking drug Chantix.
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Will Dunham
ReutersTue, 17 Jun 2008 10:15 UTC
Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Would you take a wonder drug that offered to free you from decades of nicotine addiction? Even if other users reported sinister psychological side effects? For Derek de Koff, the answer was easy: after 12 years as a smoker, he was ready to try anything to kick the habit. Or so he thought...
I'd heard about Chantix, a relatively new drug from Pfizer that blocks nicotine from attaching to your brain receptors. That way, you stop receiving any pleasure from cigarettes at all. The drug, snuggling up to those receptors the same way nicotine does, reduces withdrawal cravings and unleashes a happy little wash of dopamine to boot. Wonderful things they can do nowadays.
My doctor wished me luck as he wrote out the prescription, telling me it was the single most important decision I'd ever make. I had the medication that night, 35 minutes after dropping into a pharmacy. While waiting, I gleefully chain-smoked Parliament Lights. One of Chantix's big perks is that you can smoke for the first seven days you're on it (most people take it for 12 weeks) more than enough time, I thought, to say goodbye to an old friend.
A fruit-flavoured sugar pill which parents can use to soothe childhood aches and pains has been criticised. The pills are already on sale in the US, costing $6 for a bottle of 50.
They harness the "placebo effect", which makes some people feel better because they falsely believe they have had medicine. One UK scientist said it could make children rely on pills later in life, and another accused the makers of "medicalising love".
Comment: See:Mind over matter: Anti-smoking drug linked to suicide and The Brain Trauma Vets.