Health & WellnessS


Cow Skull

Alamosa water cleared to drink after treatment for salmonella

DENVER - Alamosa officials opened the faucet, poured themselves a glass of water and toasted the state health department's declaration Friday that tap water was safe to drink after more than three weeks of restrictions because of salmonella contamination.

Laptop

Pro-suicide websites 'outnumber' pro-life sites

Suicidal people searching the internet are more likely to find advice on how to end life than sites offering help and support, a new study claims.

Researchers from the universities of Bristol, Oxford and Manchester performed searches likely to be undertaken by a person looking for instructions and information about methods of suicide using the four most popular search engines.

Eye 1

Genetics key to teen violence

Whether a criminal teenager turns into a violent adult or grows out of crime, may be related to how low his ears are set or the types of food he was given as a child. International research shows antisocial behaviour in young adults can be written into their genetic code, and made worse by bad parenting.

Bulb

Human mind product of chaotic evolutionary path, NYU psychology professor concludes in new book

The human mind, far from being a highly efficient computer, is in fact the product of a bumpy evolutionary path, serving as a marvelous storage facility but operating as a shaky retrieval system, concludes New York University's Gary Marcus in his new book Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (Houghton Mifflin).

"Kluge," a term popularized by computer pioneer Jackson Granholm, is "an ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole."

Syringe

Bird flu virus may have mutated

The highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus has passed from human-to-human in China, raising fears that the virus may have started to mutate. In a highly rare case, genetic tests on a 52-year-old father diagnosed with bird flu in the Jiangsu province of China has shown that he was infected by H5N1 from his 24-year-old dying son.

Health

Vitamin D and calcium influence cell death in the colon, researchers find

Researchers at Emory University are learning how vitamins and minerals in the diet can stimulate or prevent the appearance of colon cancer.

Emory investigators will present their findings on biological markers that could influence colon cancer risk in three abstracts at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in San Diego.

In a clinical study of 92 patients, supplementing diet with calcium and vitamin D appeared to increase the levels of a protein called Bax that controls programmed cell death in the colon. More Bax might be pushing pre-cancerous cells into programmed cell death, says Emory researcher Veronika Fedirko, who will present her team's results (abstract 464).

Previous studies have shown that calcium and vitamin D tend to reduce colon cancer risk.

People

Kids with autism may have gene that causes muscle weakness

Some kids with autism may have a genetic defect that affects the muscles, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12 - 19, 2008.

The study looked at 37 children with autism spectrum disorders who were evaluated for mitochondrial disease, which causes muscle weakness and prevents a child from being able to participate in physical activities and sports. Mitochondrial disease occurs when genetic mutations affect the mitochondria, or the part of the cell that releases energy.

People

Researchers find disparities in depression among older Hispanics in US

Older Puerto Ricans have higher rates of depression than other Hispanics living in the United States, according to a new study by researchers at Hebrew SeniorLife's Institute for Aging Research (IFAR).

Nearly 7 percent of Puerto Ricans, who make up 11 percent of the Hispanics 65 and older in the U.S., suffer from major depression, compared to Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, and Hispanics from Central and South America. Only 2.8 percent of Mexican Americans (46.7 percent of the older Hispanic population) and 2.5 percent of Cuban Americans (13 percent) suffer from major depression.

"We found the prevalence of depression across Hispanic groups in the United States to be highest in Puerto Ricans, even though this was the smallest group," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

Bulb

A genetic cause for iron deficiency

The discovery of a gene for a rare form of inherited iron deficiency may provide clues to iron deficiency in the general population - particularly iron deficiency that doesn't respond to iron supplements - and suggests a new treatment approach. The finding was published online by the journal Nature Genetics on April 13.

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency and the leading cause of anemia in the United States.(1) Most cases are easily reversed with oral iron supplements, but over the years, Mark Fleming, MD, DPhil, interim Pathologist-in-Chief at Children's Hospital Boston, and pediatric hematologist Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD, formerly of Children's and now Dean of Duke University School of Medicine, had been referred a number of children with iron deficiency anemia who didn't respond to oral supplements, and only poorly to intravenous iron.

Fish

Omega-3 intake during last months of pregnancy boosts an infant's cognitive and motor development

Quebec City - A study supervised by Université Laval researchers Gina Muckle and Éric Dewailly reveals that omega-3 intake during the last months of pregnancy boosts an infant's sensory, cognitive, and motor development. The details of this finding are published in a recent edition of the Journal of Pediatrics.