Autism and related development disorders are becoming more common, with a prevalence rate approaching 1 percent among American 8-year-olds, according to new data from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study is a partnership between UAB, the CDC and 10 other U.S. research sites. It shows that one in 110 American 8-year-olds is classified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 57 percent increase in ASD cases compared to four years earlier.
The new findings, published Dec. 18 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), highlight the need for social and educational services to help those affected by the condition, said Beverly Mulvihill, Ph.D., a UAB associate professor of public health and co-author on the study.
ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities such as autism and Asperger disorder that are characterized by delays or changes in childhood socialization, communication and behavior.
Health & Wellness
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A debate over water is boiling over in the United States and elsewhere amid growing environmental concerns about bottled water and questions about safety of tap water.
A debate over water is boiling over in the United States and elsewhere amid growing environmental concerns about bottled water and questions about safety of tap water.
Heather Lewis was wracked with guilt when she realized she was addicted to the bottle.
Bottled water, that is.
At her worst, she said she went through five plastic bottles of water a day nearly every day for two years.
"It was appalling," said Lewis, an architect from Louisville, Colo. "I felt like Aquafina's trained monkey."
The Detroit Health Department is fighting swine flu with pepperoni. When kids return to school after the holiday break, each class has the opportunity to get a free pizza party - if they sign up for the shots.
It's a simple fact--kids don't like vaccinations - even when they can get them in a spray.
Their parents, like Leslie Ethridge however, are often eager to get their kids protected, "Your children get 20 some odd inoculations, this is just another one, so if it's available you should get the shot."
It's a simple fact--kids don't like vaccinations - even when they can get them in a spray.
Their parents, like Leslie Ethridge however, are often eager to get their kids protected, "Your children get 20 some odd inoculations, this is just another one, so if it's available you should get the shot."
A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for its role in paying Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein nearly $500,000 over the course of a decade to conduct research and to promote its anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel. Reinstein is being accused of wrongfully preying on thousands of mentally-ill patients in order to rake in profits for AstraZeneca.
Reinstein has a long history of working with AstraZeneca, receiving regular payments for speeches he would make across the country promoting the drug. AstraZeneca was also paying a for-profit research company, Uptown Research Institute, who in turn was paying Reinstein consulting fees for his services.
Cited in the lawsuit was the fact that Reinstein would continually prescribe roughly double the amount of drugs other psychiatrists would prescribe for the same conditions. When patients would report their pain and suffering due to the tremendous side effects of such drugs and their abnormally high dosages, Reinstein would largely ignore their concerns.
Reinstein has a long history of working with AstraZeneca, receiving regular payments for speeches he would make across the country promoting the drug. AstraZeneca was also paying a for-profit research company, Uptown Research Institute, who in turn was paying Reinstein consulting fees for his services.
Cited in the lawsuit was the fact that Reinstein would continually prescribe roughly double the amount of drugs other psychiatrists would prescribe for the same conditions. When patients would report their pain and suffering due to the tremendous side effects of such drugs and their abnormally high dosages, Reinstein would largely ignore their concerns.
Research is emerging that casts serious doubt on the major hypothesis as to the cause of Alzheimer's disease, raising questions as to whether scientists really understand the disease at all.
The most effective drug currently in use for the treatment of Alzheimer's is not any of the complex drugs developed or used in the United States or in Western Europe, which slow cognitive decline for only about six to nine months. That honor goes to a Russian antihistamine named dimebolin, which reverses the symptoms of Alzheimer's for a full year. Although not currently approved for U.S. use by the FDA, dimebolin is shaking up the Alzheimer's research world.
In a study conducted by researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine and presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Vienna, dimebolin was found to drastically improve symptoms at the same time that it led to a drastic increase in the levels of the beta amyloid protein in brain cells, both in cell-based experiments and in the brains of mice. Yet beta amyloids are the very molecules that most Western researchers have, until recently, believed to be the cause of the disease, by forming sticky plaques in the brain that interfere with neural functioning.
The most effective drug currently in use for the treatment of Alzheimer's is not any of the complex drugs developed or used in the United States or in Western Europe, which slow cognitive decline for only about six to nine months. That honor goes to a Russian antihistamine named dimebolin, which reverses the symptoms of Alzheimer's for a full year. Although not currently approved for U.S. use by the FDA, dimebolin is shaking up the Alzheimer's research world.
In a study conducted by researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine and presented at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Vienna, dimebolin was found to drastically improve symptoms at the same time that it led to a drastic increase in the levels of the beta amyloid protein in brain cells, both in cell-based experiments and in the brains of mice. Yet beta amyloids are the very molecules that most Western researchers have, until recently, believed to be the cause of the disease, by forming sticky plaques in the brain that interfere with neural functioning.
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The marketability of vaccines has a strict time limit. They're only in demand during the fear phase of a pandemic, and that fear phase has long since faded for H1N1. Virtually everyone who wants an H1N1 vaccine has already received one, and the rest of the population is beginning to notice something quite curious: People who got the vaccine are no better off than those who skipped it. In fact, there's no difference in mortality between those who were vaccinated and those who weren't, indicating yet again that the swine flu vaccine was a medical hoax to begin with.
If you don't believe me, just ask the potentially hundreds of thousands of parents who gave their children one of the recently recalled H1N1 children's vaccines. These vaccines were recalled because they were found to be so weak that they were medically useless. But observant parents are noticing a curious fact: Children who received the "useless" (recalled) vaccine have been no worse off than those who received a full-strength vaccine.
Are you a verbal learner or a visual learner? Chances are, you've pegged yourself or your children as either one or the other and rely on study techniques that suit your individual learning needs. And you're not alone -- for more than 30 years, the notion that teaching methods should match a student's particular learning style has exerted a powerful influence on education. The long-standing popularity of the learning styles movement has in turn created a thriving commercial market amongst researchers, educators, and the general public.
The wide appeal of the idea that some students will learn better when material is presented visually and that others will learn better when the material is presented verbally, or even in some other way, is evident in the vast number of learning-style tests and teaching guides available for purchase and used in schools. But does scientific research really support the existence of different learning styles, or the hypothesis that people learn better when taught in a way that matches their own unique style?
Unfortunately, the answer is no, according to a major new report published this month in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The report, authored by a team of eminent researchers in the psychology of learning -- Hal Pashler (University of San Diego), Mark McDaniel (Washington University in St. Louis), Doug Rohrer (University of South Florida), and Robert Bjork (University of California, Los Angeles) -- reviews the existing literature on learning styles and finds that although numerous studies have purported to show the existence of different kinds of learners (such as "auditory learners" and "visual learners"), those studies have not used the type of randomized research designs that would make their findings credible.
The wide appeal of the idea that some students will learn better when material is presented visually and that others will learn better when the material is presented verbally, or even in some other way, is evident in the vast number of learning-style tests and teaching guides available for purchase and used in schools. But does scientific research really support the existence of different learning styles, or the hypothesis that people learn better when taught in a way that matches their own unique style?
Unfortunately, the answer is no, according to a major new report published this month in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The report, authored by a team of eminent researchers in the psychology of learning -- Hal Pashler (University of San Diego), Mark McDaniel (Washington University in St. Louis), Doug Rohrer (University of South Florida), and Robert Bjork (University of California, Los Angeles) -- reviews the existing literature on learning styles and finds that although numerous studies have purported to show the existence of different kinds of learners (such as "auditory learners" and "visual learners"), those studies have not used the type of randomized research designs that would make their findings credible.
Individuals with more education suffer less from asthma. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Respiratory Research have found that having less than 12 years of formal schooling is associated with worse asthma symptoms.
Drs. Kim Lavoie and Simon Bacon from the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Canada, worked with a team of researchers to study asthma severity in a group of 871 adult patients. They said, "Lower educational achievement was associated with worse asthma control, greater emergency health service use, and worse asthma self-efficacy. Patients with less than 12 years of education were 55% more likely to report an asthma-related emergency health service visit in the last year."
The researchers suggest that lower education is often a marker of lower socioeconomic status generally, and that this may explain their results. At the individual level, poorer people may have higher exposures to indoor allergens, such as cockroaches, tobacco smoke and mould, and outdoor urban pollution.
Drs. Kim Lavoie and Simon Bacon from the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Canada, worked with a team of researchers to study asthma severity in a group of 871 adult patients. They said, "Lower educational achievement was associated with worse asthma control, greater emergency health service use, and worse asthma self-efficacy. Patients with less than 12 years of education were 55% more likely to report an asthma-related emergency health service visit in the last year."
The researchers suggest that lower education is often a marker of lower socioeconomic status generally, and that this may explain their results. At the individual level, poorer people may have higher exposures to indoor allergens, such as cockroaches, tobacco smoke and mould, and outdoor urban pollution.
The omega-3 essential fatty acids commonly found in fatty fish and algae help animals avoid sensory overload, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia; bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington's disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system.
The study, reported in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, provides more evidence that fish is brain food. The key finding was that two omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) appear to be most useful in the nervous system, maybe by maintaining nerve-cell membranes.
"It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that 'fats are bad,' and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet," said Norman Salem Jr., PhD, who led this study at the Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The study, reported in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, provides more evidence that fish is brain food. The key finding was that two omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) appear to be most useful in the nervous system, maybe by maintaining nerve-cell membranes.
"It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that 'fats are bad,' and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet," said Norman Salem Jr., PhD, who led this study at the Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
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Diet fizzy drinks may damage the kidneys, new research reveals
Diet fizzy drinks may damage the kidneys, new research reveals
The study accounted for various other risk factors including the woman's age, her blood pressure, if she smoked, and if she had any other pre-existing conditions such as heart disease or diabetes. The 11-year study evaluated the effects of all sweetened drinks on progressive kidney decline and discovered that two or more diet drinks leads to a two-fold increase in rapid kidney decline incidences.
Though study results did not show any correlation between sugar- or corn syrup-sweetened drinks and the onset of rapid kidney decline, these ingredients are implicated in causing diabetes and obesity and should not be perceived as safe merely because they did not have a direct correlation in this particular study topic.
