It's no secret that sedentary behavior contributes to obesity and chronically poor health. But not all sedentary behaviors are created equal, according to a new study that examines the link between blood pressure in children and their choice of inactive pastimes, including watching TV, using the computer and reading.
Researchers in the U.S. and Spain collaborated on the study of 111 children ages 3 to 8 and found that of all the forms of inactivity they examined, television-viewing was the worst. It was linked to significantly higher blood pressure in children - the more TV kids watched, the higher their blood pressure - and the effect held true regardless of whether a child was heavy or at a healthy weight. What's more, other sedentary behaviors, like using a computer, were not associated with similar blood-pressure hikes, according to the study, which was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
Health & Wellness
This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it. Here's the latest example: factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations -- but they are being sternly told not to. Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents -- and profits. There is an alternative to this sick system -- but we are choosing to ignore it.
To understand this tale, we have to start with an apparent mystery. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been correctly warning for months that if swine flu spreads to the poorest parts of the world, it could cull hundreds of thousands of people -- or more. Yet they have also been telling the governments of the poor world not to go ahead and produce as much Tamiflu -- the only drug we have to reduce the symptoms, and potentially save lives -- as they possibly can.
To understand this tale, we have to start with an apparent mystery. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been correctly warning for months that if swine flu spreads to the poorest parts of the world, it could cull hundreds of thousands of people -- or more. Yet they have also been telling the governments of the poor world not to go ahead and produce as much Tamiflu -- the only drug we have to reduce the symptoms, and potentially save lives -- as they possibly can.
© Jamie Simon, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
"Jumping genes" could go a long way towards explaining brain development and individuality.
"Jumping genes" could go a long way towards explaining brain development and individuality.
The team, led by Fred Gage, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk's Laboratory of Genetics and holder of the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases, found that human brain cells contain an unexpected number of so-called mobile elements - extraordinary pieces of DNA that insert extra copies of themselves throughout the genome using a "copy and paste" mechanism.
"This is a potential mechanism to create the neural diversity that makes each person unique," says Gage. "The brain has 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections, but mobile pieces of DNA could give individual neurons a slightly different capacity from each other."
A novel class of drugs composed of single strands of DNA or RNA, called aptamers, can bind protein targets with a high strength and specificity and are currently in clinical development as treatments for a broad range of common diseases, as described in a comprehensive review article published online ahead of print in Oligonucleotides, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online, offer several advantages compared to protein or small molecule drugs, most notably their ease of production, low risk of inducing an immune reaction in humans, and amenability to chemical modifications that enhance their drug-like properties, including improved stability and residence time in the bloodstream.
Aptamer therapeutics presently in clinical development target diseases and applications such as macular degeneration, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and various types of cancer.
Aptamer therapeutics presently in clinical development target diseases and applications such as macular degeneration, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and various types of cancer.
© iStockphoto/Hayden Bird
Scientists have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy.
Scientists have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy.
The research investigated the brain biology of psychopaths with convictions that included attempted murder, manslaughter, multiple rape with strangulation and false imprisonment. Using a powerful imaging technique (DT-MRI) the researchers have highlighted biological differences in the brain which may underpin these types of behaviour and provide a more comprehensive understanding of criminal psychopathy.
Dr Michael Craig said: 'If replicated by larger studies the significance of these findings cannot be underestimated. The suggestion of a clear structural deficit in the brains of psychopaths has profound implications for clinicians, research scientists and the criminal justice system.'
© Unknown
The articles, published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005, emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks of taking hormones to protect against maladies like aging skin, heart disease and dementia. That supposed medical consensus benefited Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that paid a medical communications firm to draft the papers, as sales of its hormone drugs, called Premarin and Prempro, soared to nearly $2 billion in 2001.
But the seeming consensus fell apart in 2002 when a huge federal study on hormone therapy was stopped after researchers found that menopausal women who took certain hormones had an increased risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. A later study found that hormones increased the risk of dementia in older patients.
HP has backtracked on pledges to remove dangerous toxic substances from its computers
US computer giant Hewlett-Packard has been accused of backtracking on a commitment to phase out toxic chemicals from its products.
Earlier this year, HP postponed its 2007 commitment to phase out dangerous substances such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from their computer products (excluding their server and printer lines) from 2009 to 2011.
Aside from the dangerous ingredients many people already know about (like squalene or thimerosal), one of the key ingredients used in flu vaccines (including the vaccines being prepared for the swine flu pandemic) is the diseased flesh of African Green Monkeys. This is revealed in U.S. patent No. 5911998 - Method of producing a virus vaccine from an African green monkey kidney cell line.
Comment: Although Baxter, International is involved in making some Swine Flu vaccines, according to this article, these are the companies providing vaccines for the US:
Five companies are making H1N1 vaccine for the U.S. market -- AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA.
Common household pesticides were found in the urine of more than half of the participants
Children with leukemia have been found to have higher levels of household pesticides in their body, according to a study published in the US.
Researchers from the Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre studied 41 pairs of children with ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) and their mothers. They also tested 41 pairs of healthy children and mothers.
Common household pesticides were found in the urine of more than half of the participants but were higher in the children with leukemia.
Magnesium is a very underrated, virtually ignored mineral for our diets, yet it is the most crucial and essential to over 300 bodily biochemical and cellular metabolic processes. It has been called the "Master Mineral" because of its central importance to so many cellular functions and proper body glucose balance. Because of poor topsoil conditions and poor eating habits, almost everyone is magnesium deficient to some extent.
The mineral that gets the most attention for supplementation is calcium. Yet without magnesium, calcium synthesis into bones and teeth is drastically impaired. Cardiovascular and neurological issues are also prone to surface. It's estimated that most people have a ratio of calcium to magnesium at 3 to 1or higher, but the ideal ratio is close to 2 to 1, actually 10 to 4. In other words, your body should have about half as much magnesium as calcium.
The mineral that gets the most attention for supplementation is calcium. Yet without magnesium, calcium synthesis into bones and teeth is drastically impaired. Cardiovascular and neurological issues are also prone to surface. It's estimated that most people have a ratio of calcium to magnesium at 3 to 1or higher, but the ideal ratio is close to 2 to 1, actually 10 to 4. In other words, your body should have about half as much magnesium as calcium.
Comment: Striking contradiction here: the results suggest that psychopaths have biological differences in the brain, yet this doctor wants to develop treatments to cure "this mental disorder"??
No wonder there has been zero progress on resolving this ages-old bane of human existence. The evidence suggests that psychopaths are hard-wired differently because they are an entirely different species and do not want nor feel any need to be cured, not least by members of a species they consider to be diseased!