Health & WellnessS


Bulb

Severe, acute maternal stress linked to the development of schizophrenia


BioMed Central
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:14 UTC
Pregnant women who endure the psychological stress of being in a war zone are more likely to give birth to a child who develops schizophrenia. Research published today in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry supports a growing body of literature that attributes maternal exposure to severe stress during the early months of pregnancy to an increased susceptibility to schizophrenia in the offspring.

According to Dolores Malaspina from NYU School of Medicine and lead author of the study, "The stresses in question are those that would be experienced in a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a terrorist attack, or a sudden bereavement".
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Beer

US: Educators Urge Lower Drinking Age to Cut Bingeing

Susan Kinzie
Washington Post
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:27 UTC
Scores of college presidents, including the head of Maryland's public university system and the president of Johns Hopkins University, have an unexpected request for legislators: Please, lower the drinking age.

The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July, is a coalition of college presidents who say that the legal drinking age of 21 encourages binge drinking on campuses. William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, William Brody, president of Johns Hopkins, C.D. Mote Jr. of the University of Maryland and the presidents of Washington and Lee, Sweet Briar, Towson, Randolph-Macon, Duke, Tufts, Dartmouth and others have signed on to the effort.
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Arrow Up

Tobacco used as medicine


The Smokers Club, Inc.
Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:25 UTC
Image
Smoking helps you think straight
CTRI wins patent for using tobacco as medicine

The Hindu
February 17, 2008

New Delhi: Tobacco will now be used for manufacturing cancer and cardiac drugs with the Central Tobacco Research Institute (CTRI) bagging the patent for 'solanesol' -- a medicinal substance extracted from tobacco.

Solanesol, a white crystalline powder derived from tobacco's green leaf, has curative effects against cardiac insufficiency, muscular dystrophy, anaemia, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and liver injury. "Many pharmaceutical companies have approached us for carrying out clinical trials for the usage of solanesol as anti-cancer and anti-diabetic drugs," CTRI Director V Krishna Murthy told PTI.

Solanesol is rich in Coenzyme Q10 -- a physiologically active substance with high pharmaceutical value. "Solanesol has excellent prospects in future as drug and CTRI would soon distribute the rights for production of drugs in the market," Murthy said. A letter granting the patent for solanesol was received by CTRI in October last year from Controller of Patents.

The project of deriving solanesol from tobacco was a collaborative programme between CTRI and Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow. CTRI used chewing tobacco variety Abirmani grown in Tamil Nadu and HDBRG tobacco cultivated in black soils of Guntur in Andhra Pradesh for extracting solanesol
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Bulb

Dark-hued fruits, veggies are good for the brain

Daniel A. Marano
courant.com
Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:59 UTC
Neuroscientist James A. Joseph is one of those lucky people who gets to have his cake and eat it, too. At the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts), Joseph revels in his research demonstrating that dark-hued fruits and vegetables, especially blueberries, are just about the best foods you could consume for inoculating brain and body against the ravages of time.
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Health

Yoga eases physical and mental menopause symptoms


Reuters
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:48 UTC
Yoga can reduce hot flashes and night sweats among women going through menopause, and also appears to sharpen their mental function, researchers from India report.
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Health

US: Scientists identify chemical odor of skin cancer: study


Agence France-Presse
Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:51 UTC
US chemists have identified the odor that emanates from skin cancer, a development that researchers hope will advance diagnosis and treatment of the deadly disease, said a study out Wednesday.

The creation of a "profile" of the chemical odors linked to skin cancer, may lead to a day when diagnoses can be made by waving a scanner over the skin, researchers told the annual conference of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Health

Flashback Risk-takers 'escape Parkinson's'


BBC News
Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:29 UTC
People who take more risks with their health - including smoking and drinking - are less likely to develop Parkinson's disease, a study suggests.
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Syringe

Jump in measles outbreaks worries control system

Mike Stobbe
Associated Press
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:08 UTC
The number of measles cases in the U.S. is at its highest level since 1997, and nearly half of those involve children whose parents rejected vaccination, government health officials reported Thursday.


Comment: So what does this say about the vaccination? The reporter skirts the issue, but if 95% of the public is vaccinated against measles and "nearly half" of those who get the disease are the un-vaccinated which means that MORE than half were vaccinated!!! that isn't saying much for its preventive effects, is it?


Comment: How about all the information. Frankly, if the government and doctors were so concerned about children's health,they'd be providing better nutrition and removing environmental hazards from instead of introducing toxins to developing children.

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Magic Wand

They Teach Happiness at Harvard

Matt Mabe
Business Week
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:22 UTC
In Tal Ben-Shahar's positive psychology class, students learn that happiness isn't just an accident, it's a science

An entire industry has been built up around the pursuit of happiness. A stroll past any bookstore window demonstrates the explosive popularity of the feel-good, self-help movements of recent years. And whether these products are genuine paths to ultimate happiness or just pleasure-peddling scams, the trend seems likely to hold.
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Attention

FDA to allow radiation of spinach and lettuce

Susan Heavey
Reuters
Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:15 UTC
WASHINGTON - Health regulators have approved the use of ionizing radiation for fresh spinach and lettuce, saying the technique already approved for other foods can help control harmful bacteria and other pathogens.

Image
©REUTERS/David Gray
A worker picks some New Zealand spinach growing in a greenhouse at an organic farm located on the outskirts of Beijing June 20, 2008.

The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday the radiation treatment also would make the leafy greens last longer and give them greater "shelf-life" for retailers and consumers.

The approval comes two years after E. coli outbreaks linked to spinach and lettuce sold in grocery stores and served at various restaurants. Outbreaks of the dangerous bacteria sickened dozens of consumers and led some to be hospitalized.

In severe cases, patients developed kidney failure.

Since then, other outbreaks have affected a variety of products, most recently Salmonella contamination in hot peppers from Mexico that surfaced earlier this summer.
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