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How Being Deaf Can Enhance Sight

Laura Sanders
Science News
Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:20 UTC
Hearing-specialized brain regions adapt to visual input

Image
© Amee J. McMillan
A new study of deaf cats may help explain why some deaf people have great vision. In hearing cats (left), visual information is processed in one place (yellow) and sound information is processed somewhere else (orange), but in deaf cats, parts of the auditory regions become visual (small yellow areas).
Some deaf people have extraordinarily keen vision, and a new study of cats may explain why. The results, published online October 12 in Nature Neuroscience, show how parts of the brain normally dedicated to a sense that has been lost can pitch in to augment another type of input.

For years, researchers have known that deaf people often have superior peripheral vision and motion detection, but just how the brain creates these advantages was unclear. "Over the years, we've speculated about how these changes might be taking place," says neuroscientist Helen Neville of the University of Oregon in Eugene, but a clear cause has been elusive.

In the new study, researchers led by Stephen Lomber found that in deaf cats, brain regions important for hearing get co-opted to enhance vision. Instead of processing sound, these regions lend a hand to the visual system. For the first time, the study establishes a causal link between particular auditory regions and vision enhancements.
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Pills

Call for ban on codeine


New Scientist
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:09 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The widely used painkiller codeine doesn't work in some people and can be fatal in others, so its use should be halted, say researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Codeine works by being metabolised to morphine in the body, but the extent of that metabolism depends on a person's genetic make-up, so the amount of morphine produced varies.

In an editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this week, Stuart MacLeod and Noni MacDonald say the problem is especially relevant for infants, citing examples of two children who died after being given codeine following a tonsillectomy, and two studies that show non-fatal toxicity to infants being breastfed by mothers taking codeine.

The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, has stopped using codeine. The authors are calling for others to follow suit.
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Book

US: Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children

Julie Bosman
The New York Times
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© Drew Angerer/The New York Times
Sophia Coudenhove read a picture book on Wednesday to her 14-month-old daughter, Anna, perhaps too young for a chapter one.
Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children's Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher.

"So many of them just die a sad little death, and we never see them again," said Terri Schmitz, the owner.

The shop has plenty of company. The picture book, a mainstay of children's literature with its lavish illustrations, cheerful colors and large print wrapped in a glossy jacket, has been fading. It is not going away - perennials like the Sendaks and Seusses still sell well - but publishers have scaled back the number of titles they have released in the last several years, and booksellers across the country say sales have been suffering.
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Info

Why We Need Mandatory GMO Food Labels

Alexis Baden-Mayer
Organic Consumers Association
Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:36 UTC
  • Only 26% of the U.S. public understands that most junk foods and animal products contain GMO ingredients.
  • The FDA is moving fast to approve a brave new world of GMO foods, including genetically engineered animals like Frankenfish, the eel-like-ocean-pout-chinook-Atlantic-salmon mix.
  • Genetically modified foods are less nutritious, more likely to trigger an allergy, and contain higher levels of growth hormones and pesticides. Yet GM foods aren't required to be rigorously tested for food safety before they end up in grocery stores and restaurants.
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Industry Study Shows Brain Tumour Link to Heavy Mobile Phone Usage

Adam Cresswell
The Australian
Mon, 17 May 2010 11:13 UTC
Image
© Unknown
A long-awaited international study of the health risks of mobile phones has linked extended mobile phone use to an increased risk of developing brain tumours.

The 10-year Interphone study, the world's biggest study of the health effects of mobile phones, found while there was no increased risk of cancer overall, those in the top 10 per cent of phone use are up to 40 per cent more likely to develop glioma, a common type of brain cancer.

Just 30 minutes of mobile talk time daily was enough to put participants into the top 10 per cent category in the study, carried out in 13 countries, including Australia, and involving more than 5000 brain cancer patients worldwide.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which conducted the study and has repeatedly delayed its publication, summarised the findings by saying there were "suggestions of an increased risk of glioma, and much less so meningioma, in the highest decile (10 per cent) of cumulative call time, in subjects who reported phone use on the same side of the head as their tumour".
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Garlic Oil Shows Protective Effect Against Heart Disease in Diabetes


PhysOrg
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Garlic Oil
Garlic has "significant" potential for preventing cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that is a leading cause of death in people with diabetes, scientists have concluded in a new study. Their report, which also explains why people with diabetes are at high risk for diabetic cardiomyopathy, appears in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Wei-Wen Kuo and colleagues note that people with diabetes have at least twice the risk of death from heart disease as others, with heart disease accounting for 80 percent of all diabetes-related deaths. They are especially vulnerable to a form of heart disease termed diabetic cardiomyopathy, which inflames and weakens the heart's muscle tissue. Kuo's group had hints from past studies that garlic might protect against heart disease in general and also help control the abnormally high blood sugar levels that occur in diabetes. But they realized that few studies had been done specifically on garlic's effects on diabetic cardiomyopathy.

The scientists fed either garlic oil or corn oil to laboratory rats with diabetes. Animals given garlic oil experienced beneficial changes associated with protection against heart damage. The changes appeared to be associated with the potent antioxidant properties of garlic oil, the scientists say, adding that they identified more than 20 substances in garlic oil that may contribute to the effect.
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Taking Showers "Can Make You Sick"


BBC News
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:06 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Shower water can contain harmful bacteria
Showering may be bad for your health, say US scientists, who have shown that dirty shower heads can deliver a face full of harmful bacteria.

Tests revealed nearly a third of devices harbor significant levels of a bug that causes lung disease. Levels of Mycobacterium avium were 100 times higher than those found in typical household water supplies.

M. avium forms a biofilm that clings to the inside of the shower head, reports the National Academy of Science.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, the study authors say their findings might explain why there have been more cases of these lung infections in recent years, linked with people tending to take more showers and fewer baths.

Water spurting from shower heads can distribute bacteria-filled droplets that suspend themselves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, say the scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Info

Food Lectins in Health and Disease: An Introduction

Dr. Scot Lewey
The Food Doc Journal
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:51 UTC
In recent years it appears there is a rising epidemic of people suffering from chronic digestive and autoimmune conditions. Food intolerance or sensitivities may lie at the root of the problem. Most people, including doctors, have little clue how foods they eat may be contributing to their chronic illness, fatigue and digestive symptoms.

There are, however, a lot of clues in the medical literature and the lay public's experience about how foods are causing and/or contributing to the current epidemic of chronic illness and autoimmune disease. There are several diets being used by many people with varying success to improve their health despite a general lack of iron clad scientific proof for their effectiveness. One of the clues to the cause and relief of food induced illness may lie in proteins known as lectins that are present in all foods.
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Pills

To B or Not to B Vitamins?

Dr. Leo Galland
Pill Advised
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:43 UTC
With findings that surprised even its chief investigator, a study published in September of this year from Oxford University is receiving tremendous attention.

The researchers found that giving a combination of B vitamins to elderly men and women at high risk of Alzheimer's disease reduced the amount of brain shrinkage occurring over 2 years by about 50%. Decreased brain shrinkage was accompanied by preservation of brain function. (1)

This is a remarkable finding and an important study for several reasons:
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Health

Adequate sleep found to be important for healthy body composition

Dr. John Briffa
drbriffa.com
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:41 UTC
Many individuals contend that weight control is all about diet and exercise. Of these, the research suggests that dietary change is likely to bring the lion's share of benefits. However, body weight and fatness are not determined only by these lifestyle factors. Hormonal issues can play a part too. For example, if the thyroid gland is under-functioning, weight tends to go up. And my experience in practice is that if this issue remains untreated, practically no amount of eating less, eating well or increased exercise will put much of a dent in someone's weight.

One lifestyle factor which may influence hormone levels and also weight is sleep. In fact, there is already a body of evidence which suggests that sleep restriction can alter hormones that control food intake. In particular, sleep restriction has been shown to boost levels of hormones that stimulate appetite (e.g. ghrelin) and suppress levels of hormones that that temper appetite (e.g. leptin). The end result can be increased food intake. See here and here for posts about research which suggests that sleep restriction can indeed cause individuals to eat more.
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