Health & WellnessS


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Cholera kills 67 in Kenya, fungus wipes out rice - UN

Geneva - A cholera outbreak in Kenya has killed 67 people so far this year, while a fungus has wiped out up to 20 percent of the country's annual rice production, United Nations agencies said on Friday.

Nearly 1,300 cases of cholera, a virulent water-borne disease, have been reported in the east African country since January, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

Comment: Cholera outbreaks have been recently reported also in Vietnam, Congo and Iraq.


Evil Rays

Electrical implant may help fight obesity

There may be new hope for people struggling with obesity.

It's called VBLOC therapy and it works by stopping the impulse to overeat by blocking the vagal nerves. Those nerves communicate feelings of hunger and fullness from the brain to the stomach.

With the new approach, doctors insert a VBLOC device just beneath the skin. It's a receiver. Electrodes are hooked up to the vagal nerves. And the patient wears a belt that transmits electronic impulses to confuse or block the nerves' signals. The desired result - pangs of hunger are reduced, and patients eat less.

Comment: This seems to be yet another attempt to acclimatise us to being 'chipped'. Is this really such a good idea?


Pumpkin

'Pacemaker for the brain' being studied

Brenda Talavera was pretty matter-of-fact when her doctor suggested that they implant a stimulator the size of a small cell phone inside her brain.

"If it was going to make me better, do it," the Seattle woman said while standing in her living room filled with hockey memorabilia. "If it didn't work, they could remove it."

Image
©Andy Rogers / P-I
Brenda Talavera uses a tethered wand to collect information about her epileptic seizures that's stored on the device implanted in her brain. She then uses a computer to transmit the data to her doctor. Talavera is part of a clinical trial at Swedish that is testing the effectiveness of the Responsive Neurostimulator System, which detects abnormal electrical activity in the brain and then delivers electrical stimulation.

Comment: Do we really want to get comfortable with this kind of technology?


Attention

Baby Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns



Nalgene baby bottles
©David McNew/Getty Images
Nalgene brand water bottles had used bisphenol-a, which some studies in animals linked to hormonal changes.

Nalgene, the brand that popularized water bottles made from hard, clear and nearly unbreakable polycarbonate, will stop using the plastic because of growing concern over one of its ingredients.

The decision by Nalgene Outdoor Products, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Rochester, came after reports that the Canadian government would declare the chemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, toxic. Some animal studies have linked the chemical to changes in the hormonal system.

Pocket Knife

Hypnotist 'put himself into trance for surgery'



Alex Lenkei
©KNP
Alex Lenkei could hear bones cracking but felt nothing

A hypnotist stunned medics by snubbing anaesthetic and sending himself into a trance before undergoing surgery.

Mind-bender Alex Lenkei, who could hear the cracking of bones as the surgeon sawed at his hand but felt nothing, is thought to be the first person in the world to perform the feat.

Heart

Flashback Empathy: Could It Be What You're Missing?

A Washington Psychotherapist Suggests How to Tell . . . and How to Treat the Symptoms

You may not realize it, but a great number of people suffer from EDD.

No, you're not reading a misprint of ADD or ED. The acronym stands for empathy deficit disorder.

Comment: The article certainly reads like an apology for psychopathy by assuming that all individuals who lack empathy are suffering from EDD. The examples he gives, people in positions of authority or power, sound like psychopaths, not people suffering from a "disorder".

The question that comes to mind, however, is to what extent there could be such a disorder as a result of the control of society by psychopaths. When one is raised in a place such as the US where all the standards are set by deviants, where the idea of individual material success is hammered into everyone from birth, where all the criteria for success have to do with wealth, position, material goods, and where clawing your colleague to get to the top is encouraged, it may well be that many people get what little spark of empathy they might have driven out of them at a young age.


Bandaid

Canada Likely to Label Plastic Ingredient, Bisphenol-A, 'Toxic'

The Canadian government is said to be ready to declare as toxic a chemical widely used in plastics for baby bottles, beverage and food containers as well as linings in food cans.

Syringe

Japan to vaccinate 6,000 health officials for potential bird flu outbreak

Japan's health ministry said Tuesday it plans to inoculate thousands of health officials with a government stockpile of vaccines to prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic in humans.

Under the plan, pending approval Wednesday, about 6,000 quarantine and immigration officials, doctors and other health workers will be vaccinated by the end of this year, Health and Welfare Ministry official Kishiko Yamaguchi said.

Ambulance

Bird Flu Reported In South Korea and Showing Troubling Mutations

The H5N1 virus known as Avian flu or the bird flu is undergoing what experts are calling a troubling pattern of mutations which are allowing the virus to spread from human to human.

South Korea has confirmed their fourth outbreak of this virus, this year, according to Kim Chang-sup, an official for South Korea's Agriculture Ministry.

Attention

The Diarrhea Diet

In lieu of exercise or a healthy diet, Americans now have the option of losing weight with a drug that causes bowel incontinence.

Since GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) high profile launch of alli last summer, the first FDA-approved diet drug sold over the counter, the only figures that have flattened are sales.

Two million starter packages sold in the first few weeks at $49.99 for 60 pills and $69.99 for 120, thanks to a $150 million populist rollout that included displays in Targets, Wal-Marts and warehouse clubs.