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Doctors Want To Give You Genetically Engineered Herpes Virus To "Help Stress"


Daily Mail
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:55 UTC
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Forget the age-old remedies of yoga, meditation or popping pills. Relieving chronic stress could soon be as simple as having an injection, according to scientists.

Academics say they are close to developing the first vaccine for stress - a single jab that would help us relax without slowing down.

After 30 years of research into cures for stress, Dr Robert Sapolsky, professor of neuroscience at Stanford University in California, believes it is possible to alter brain chemistry to create a state of 'focused calm'.

Professor Sapolsky claims he is on the path to a genetically engineered formula that would remove the need for relaxation therapies or prescription drugs.
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Attention

Peru Suffers Deadly Outbreak of Bubonic and Pneumonic Plague


The Telegraph
Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:46 UTC
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© Alamy
The plague outbreak is close to Chicama beach, a popular draw for tourists to Peru.
An outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague in Peru has killed a 14-year-old boy and infected at least 31 people in a northern coastal province.

Oscar Ugarte, the health minister, said authorities were screening sugar and fish meal exports from Ascope province, located about 325 miles north-west of Lima.

Chicama beach, a popular draw for tourists to Peru, is not far away.

Mr Ugarte said the boy, who had Down syndrome, died of bubonic plague on July 26.

He said on Monday that most of the infections were bubonic plague, with four cases of pneumonic plague.

The former is transmitted by flea bites, the latter by airborne contagion. The disease is curable if treated early with antibiotics.

The first recorded plague outbreak in Peru was in 1903. The last, in 1994, killed 35 people.

Comment: For the interesting alternative, and highly likely, cause of the Black Death see the article, New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection

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Study suggests: Sperm may be harmed by exposure to BPA


Physorg.com
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:56 UTC
In one of the first human studies of its kind, researchers have found that urinary concentrations of the controversial chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, may be related to decreased sperm quality and sperm concentration.

However, the researchers are quick to point out that these results are preliminary and more study is needed. Several studies have documented adverse effects of BPA on semen in rodents, but none are known to have reported similar relationships in humans.

BPA is a common chemical that's stirred much controversy in the media lately over its safety. Critics say that BPA mimics the body's own hormones and may lead to negative health effects. BPA is most commonly used to make plastics and epoxy resins used in food and beverage cans, and people are exposed primarily through diet, although other routes are possible. More than 6 billion pounds of BPA are produced annually.

Comment: For more information on the serious health issues related to the toxic chemical BPA read the following articles:

President's Cancer Panel Warns of Toxic Effects of BPA
BPA Plastics Chemical Damages Intestines, Study Shows
BPA Linked To Male Sexual Dysfunction
Bisphenol A (BPA) Found In Many Plastics May Cause Heart Disease In Women, Research Shows
Human Placenta Cells Die After BPA Exposure
Endocrine Disruptors Really Do Suck

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Family

Survey Finds Gulf Oil Spill Taking Physical, Mental Toll on Adults and Children


NewsInferno
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:28 UTC
Another survey conducted in the wake of the BP oil spill has found evidence of significant and potentially lasting impacts on the health, mental health, and economic fortunes of Gulf Coast residents and their children and on the way they live their everyday lives.

The study was conducted by researchers at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness, in corroboration with the Children's Health Fund and The Marist Poll of Poughkeepsie, NY.

For the survey, phone interviews were conducted with over 1,200 adults living within 10 miles of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi.
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Question

Kidney Stones Becoming More Common in Kids?

Amy Norton
Reuters
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:50 UTC
New York - The number of children treated for kidney stones at some U.S. hospitals has been on the rise over the past decade, for reasons that are not yet certain, according to a new study.

Kidney stones develop when the urine contains more crystal-forming substances - including calcium, uric acid and a compound called oxalate - than can be diluted by the available fluid. The stones usually cause no lingering damage, but can be painful to pass.

While kidney stones are most common after age 40, they can develop at any age. And in recent years, there have been anecdotal reports from pediatric urologists and kidney specialists that they are seeing an increase in the number of children with kidney stones. One study published earlier this year showed that they were diagnosed in South Carolina kids four times as often in 2007 as in 1996, for unclear reasons.
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Radar

Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds

Maggie Fox
Reuters
Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:52 UTC
Study shows fructose used differently from glucose

Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars

Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.

Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.

They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
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Brain May Age Faster in People Whose Hearts Pump Less Blood


ScienceDaily
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:00 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Keep your heart healthy and you may slow down the aging of your brain, according to a new study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In the study, people whose hearts pumped less blood had brains that appeared older than the brains of those whose hearts pumped more blood. Decreased cardiac index, the amount of blood that pumps from the heart in relation to a person's body size, was associated with decreased brain volume using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Researchers observed the link even in those participants who did not have cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure or coronary heart disease. As the brain ages, it begins to atrophy (shrink) and has less volume. The decrease in brain volume is considered a sign of brain aging. More severe brain atrophy occurs in those with dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease.

"The results are interesting in that they suggest cardiac index and brain health are related," said Angela L. Jefferson, Ph.D., the study's lead author and associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. "The association cannot be attributed to cardiovascular disease because the relationship also was seen when we removed those participants with known cardiovascular disease from our analyses."
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Gut Bacteria Reflect Dietary Differences

Gwyneth Dickey
Science News
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:00 UTC
High-fiber, low-fat diets cultivate healthier intestinal microbes, study suggests

A termite a day may keep the doctor away. African children who eat a high-fiber diet (and the occasional wood-digesting insect) have gut bacteria that help them digest plant fibers and protect them from diarrhea and inflammatory disease, a new study finds. The research may lead to new probiotics that improve the digestive health of Westerners, who were found to have a less diverse assemblage of intestinal microbes.

"This discovery is very important because it bears on how we should feed our children to make them healthy," says study coauthor Duccio Cavalieri, a microbiologist at the University of Florence in Italy. "We should move our habits toward a diet more heavy in fiber, with the same amount of calories."

Animals have bacteria in their guts to help digest their food, train their immune systems and protect them from harmful bacteria. Different types of food encourage different abundances and diversity of bacteria to grow in the gut.
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Health

Study Raises Questions About Industry Funded Trials


CNN
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:40 UTC
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© Dave Rust/CNN
Drug trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry usually have positive outcomes according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the United States and Canada looked at 546 drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, a registry of both federal and private trials in the United States and abroad. 346 of them, or 63 percen, were funded by the drug industry. The remaining 200 were paid for by government or non-profit organizations. Study authors found that more than 85 percent of industry-funded trials in their sample posted favorable outcomes and were 4 times more likely to report findings that favored their drug.

"We did this study in order to determine whether there is an inherent bias because pharmaceutical companies fund trials on products in which they have a financial interest," said study co-author Dr. Kenneth Mandl of Children's Hospital, Boston. "The most reassuring result would have been that the rate of favorable outcomes would be the same regardless of funding sources. In a very dramatic way that was not the case and what we need to ascertain is if the cause of this shift toward favorable findings among trials funded by pharmaceutical companies is related to the details of the protocols and study design."
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Health

International Doctors in U.S. Perform Better Than Home-Grown Physicians

Pat Wechsler
Bloomberg.com
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:56 UTC
U.S. patients of doctors who went to medical school outside the country and weren't American citizens had a 9 percent lower death rate on average than those whose doctors trained at home, a study showed.

The report, published today in the August issue of Health Affairs, tracked the performance of primary-care doctors, internists and cardiologists in 244,153 hospitalizations involving congestive heart failure or heart attacks.

Economics may help explain the gap in patient outcomes, said John Norcini, co-author of the study. Internal medicine and primary care have failed to attract the best U.S. students because of lower pay, relative to other specialties, he said.

"Primary care may not be getting the best and the brightest from U.S. medical schools," said Norcini, chief executive officer of the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research, a Philadelphia- based nonprofit. "Foreign students see primary care as a gap that they can fill and a way to practice medicine here."
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