Health & WellnessS


Pills

Unhappy teens to be effectively lobotomized: Govt panel wants universal screening for 'depression'


Associated Press
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:26 UTC
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© Unknown
An influential government-appointed medical panel is urging doctors to routinely screen all American teens for depression - a bold step that acknowledges that nearly 2 million teens are affected by this debilitating condition.

Most are undiagnosed and untreated, said the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which sets guidelines for doctors on a host of health issues.

The task force recommendations appear in April's issue of the journal Pediatrics. And they go farther than the American Academy of Pediatrics' own guidance for teen depression screening.

Comment: See also: The Myths of Modern Pharmaceutical Medicine Parallel Greek Mythology

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Roses

Simple Ways to Stop Acne Naturally


Mercola.com
Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:57 UTC

In this video, I explain simple, safe, and effective ways to eliminate acne.
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Syringe

Vaccinate them all: Boys to get cervical cancer jabs?

Daniel Martin
Daily Mail
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:57 UTC
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Next in line
Boys should be vaccinated against the sexual infection which causes cervical cancer because so few girls have had the jab that protects against it, say campaigners.

Even though boys cannot get cervical cancer, they can contract the human papillomavirus which causes 70 per cent of cases - and pass it on to girls.

Ministers want all girls between the ages of 12 and 18 to be given the jab over the next three years.

But latest figures show only 73 per cent of girls aged 12 and 13 had received the first two of the doses of the vaccine by this January.
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Health

Light-activated 'Lock' Can Control Blood Clotting, Drug Delivery

Youngmi Kim
Science Daily
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:27 UTC
Scientists have shed new light -- literally -- on a possible way to starve cancer tumors or prevent side effects from a wide range of drugs.

A lock-like molecule designed by University of Florida chemistry researchers clasps or unclasps based on exposure to light. In laboratory tests, the chemists put the lock on an enzyme involved in blood clotting. They then exposed the enzyme to visible and ultraviolet light. The clasp opened and closed, clotting the blood or letting it flow.

The results suggest that the biological hardware could one day be used to prevent the formation of tiny blood vessels that feed tumors. The little lock could also be placed in drugs, giving doctors the ability to release them only on diseased cells, tissues or organs -- maximizing their efficacy while preventing side effects from damage to healthy tissue.

Endoscopic lights inserted into the patient could unlock the drugs when desired -- or, the drugs could be activated by simply exposing the skin nearest the targets to near-infrared light, which penetrates the skin.
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Magic Wand

The Myths of Modern Pharmaceutical Medicine Parallel Greek Mythology

Mike Adams
Nature News
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:14 UTC
Every culture invents its own mythology to explain the world around it. What's interesting about this, however, is that no culture believes its mythology is actually "myth". Its people believe commonly-held fabrications to be truthful and accurate. It is only later, after that culture or civilization collapses or moves forward that the mythology is revealed as fiction.

Western civilization is currently steeped in a fascinating form of mythology called "medical science." Like any good mythology, it has its stories ("these chemicals balance your brain chemistry") and its story tellers (the medical journals). These stories are carefully placed in the framework of truthful-sounding "scientific" language. But as the recent findings about 21 fabricated studies reveals, these peer-reviewed clinical trial results published in "scientific" journals are really just a modern form of mythological story-telling.
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Health

Russian medics say hadron collider can cure cancer


MOSNEWS.com
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:26 UTC
Up to 2,000 cancer patients can be cured annually by a hadron collider-based device developed by Russian researchers, spokesman for a Russian nuclear physics study center has said.

The treatment process involves focusing the flow of protons, accelerated to the speed of light, into a hair-thin ray, and directing it at the tumor, deputy head of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Russian Sciences Academy, Yevgeny Levichev, told Life.ru website on Thursday.
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Pills

Fake company gets approval for risky trial


New Scientist
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:03 UTC
You would hope that a fake company, proposing to test a risky medical procedure, would be turned down flat. But that's not what happened in an elaborate "sting" operation set up to probe the US system for protecting volunteers in clinical research.

Trials of new drugs or medical devices can only begin if approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). Often these are attached to the hospitals or universities where the research will take place. But the task is increasingly being performed for profit by commercial IRBs, prompting fears that some may be rubber-stamping risky trials without proper scrutiny.
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Bad Guys

Teen Commits Suicide Due to Bullying: Parents Sue School for Son's Death

Susan Donaldson James
American Broadcasting Company
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:18 UTC
Family Wants No Money but Insists School Address Bullying and Three Other Suicides

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© (Courtesy Mohat Family)In a federal lawsuit, the parents of Eric Mohat allege that their son committed suicide after being tormented by bullies at his Mentor, Ohio, High School. They say the school knew about the bullying and failed to protect their son.
Eric Mohat, 17, was harassed so mercilessly in high school that when one bully said publicly in class, "Why don't you go home and shoot yourself, no one will miss you," he did.

Now his parents, William and Janis Mohat of Mentor, Ohio, have filed a lawsuit in federal court, saying that their son endured name-calling, teasing, constant pushing and shoving and hitting in front of school officials who should have protected him.

The lawsuit -- filed March 27, alleges that the quiet but likable boy, who was involved in theater and music, was called "gay," "fag," "queer" and "homo" and often in front of his teachers. Most of the harassment took place in math class and the teacher -- an athletic coach -- was accused of failing to protect the boy.
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Health

Fear Erased in Rat Brains

Andrea Thompson
Live Science
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:46 UTC
Fearful memories have a powerful grip on the brain, but researchers have developed a new technique in rats that loosens that grip and overwrites the fear response permanently.

The technique, involving exposing rats to the very thing they were primed to fear and taking advantage of a moment of weakness in memory of that fear, could eventually be used to develop clinical treatments of fears in humans, the scientists said.

Fear memories, like other bad memories, are particularly sticky in the brain compared to "good" ones. Evolution played a hand in this, the thinking goes, because fearing things that can harm us is an advantage to survival.

So the brain has a hard time letting go of these memories, as well as distinguishing rational from irrational fears. Researchers have long looked for a way to short-circuit the brain and help it delete those irrational fears.
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Heart

Scientists prove human heart can regenerate cells

Kylie MacLellan
Reuters
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:13 UTC
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© REUTERS/Camilla Svensk/HandoutJonas Frisén of Sweden's Karolinska Institute in an undated photo.

London-- Scientists said on Thursday they had shown the human body regenerates heart cells at a rate of about one percent a year, a discovery that could one day reduce the need for transplants.

The study of 50 volunteers, using a dating method that detects traces of a carbon isotope left by Cold War nuclear bomb tests, raises the prospect of artificially stimulating the renewal process some day, they reported in the journal Science.

"It would be a way to try and help the heart to some self-help rather than transplanting new cells," Jonas Frisen of Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a telephone interview.

"Taking advantage of the heart's own capacity to generate new cells either using pharmaceutical compounds or, if it is possible, by exercise or any other environmental factor."
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