Health & WellnessS


Magic Wand

Mitochondrial genes matter!

Göran Arnqvist
Uppsala University
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:45 UTC
Contrary to common belief, mitochondrial genes seem to matter for how well individuals survive and reproduce. These new results are reported by researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, who studied the genes of a common beetle species.

Mitochondria are vital power plants of cells. They carry their own genes, which are inherited only through females, and these genes vary greatly between individuals. In the latest issue of the prestigious scientific journal Ecology Letters, researchers from Uppsala University show for the first time that differences in the mitochondrial genes that individuals carry actually affect how well they survive and reproduce.

It took the researchers two years to conduct the experiments, where they followed 180 populations of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus for more than 10 generations. The results are based on gene sequence data from more than 2000 individuals.
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Laptop

The seven deadly email sins that leave us all fuming: Scientists identify bad inbox habits that can create tensions in the office


Daily Mail, UK
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 11:03 UTC
Image
Email ping pong, where messages are responded to immediately by both sides until a long thread builds up, are particularly despised by many of those involved, the study found
  • Worst sin is 'ping pong' messaging where emails are replied to rapidly
  • Other faults include emailing out of hours and ignoring emails completely
  • Scientists discovered that requesting 'read receipts' and automated replies could create stress for both the sender and their colleagues
Boring round robins, smug out-of-office replies and those pesky company newsletters - all sorts of exasperating emails make us sigh when they pop up in our inbox.

And according to psychologists, bad email etiquette is more than just a workplace irritation. They say it can damage our mental health - as well as our colleagues'.

A team from Kingston Business School analysed 28 email accounts to see which messages raised workers' stress levels. They identified seven habits, or 'deadly email sins', that tend to cause negative or harmful feelings.

Getting back to someone within seconds or replying to an email out of office hours made recipients feel that they were not as dedicated to their job as the sender still firing off work emails late at night.
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Cow

Udder nonsense? Cow urine promoted for health benefits

Marc Lallanilla
LiveScience
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 11:55 UTC
Cows
© TFoxFoto/ShutterstockAn Angus calf on grazing lands.
Though it may never move into the mainstream, an alternative medicine promoted by a Hindu group in India is getting some attention: cow urine as a treatment for numerous diseases, including cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis.

But not any old cow urine will do, according to the followers of the hardline Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sect - only the urine collected from a female virgin cow will suffice, and it's best when collected before dawn.

"Cow urine offers a cure for around 70 to 80 incurable diseases like diabetes," Om Prakash, of the RSS Cow Protection Department, told Reuters. "All are curable by cow urine."

Cow urine soda?

Though Westerners may find the practice surprising - if not outright disgusting - the therapeutic use of cow urine has a long history in India, particularly in Ayurvedic medicine, an ancient health care tradition that has been practiced in India for at least 5,000 years.

For people who would rather not drink their cow urine straight, the RSS has developed a cow-urine-based soft drink called Gomutra Ark. The drink is promoted as a "healthy" alternative to Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drinks, which are seen as part of a wider problem resulting from corrupt Western influences.

"We refer to gau ark (cow urine) as gau jal (cow water), as it has immense potential to cure various diseases," Prakash told The Telegraph. "We have developed a soft-drink formula with gau jal as the base."
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Dominoes

Daily pot tied to age of first psychotic episode

Benjamin Stix
Reuters
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 13:09 UTC
pot crazy
In a study of adults who experienced psychosis for the first time, having smoked marijuana daily was linked to an earlier age of onset of the disorder, according to UK researchers.

"This is not a study about the association between cannabis and psychosis, but about the association between specific patterns of cannabis use . . . and an earlier onset of psychotic disorders," Dr. Marta Di Forti, who led the research at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College, said in an email.

Comment: How Marijuana May Drive the Brain into Psychosis

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Syringe

The Gardasil experience in Denmark: One family's story

Charlotte Nielsen
Hormones Matter
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:18 UTC
Image
The diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) has been seen as a side effect to Gardasil by the Danish health authorities.
In Denmark, the childhood immunization program has included the HPV-vaccination since 2009. The first injection is given with the third and last "MFR", (Measles, mumps, rubella). Gardasil is offered for free for girls aged 12. As a "follow up", young girls have been offered the vaccination for free as well. The plan in Denmark is to expand the standard program by including girls aged 15-18. Many Danish women and even some young boys have received the vaccination by co-payment.

According to Danish health care authorities they received 468 reports about 1022 possible side effects to Gardasil during the period 2009-2012. At that point, 53 cases were classified as "serious" out of which 24 were classified "possible" and 29 "less possible".

From the period of January 1, 2009 through August 1, 2013, 1,392,101 vaccine doses of Gardasil were sold in Denmark. Since Gardasil comes in a three dose schedule, approximately 460,000 young Danish girls Denmark may have had the HPV vaccine. During this period was reported 41 suspected serious adverse effects considered as "possible" due to Gardasil.

The latest report from September 26. 2013 describes an increasing number of reported side effects - 281 reports including 1528 side effects, 80 classified "serious", 17 "possible", 29 "less possible" and the last 34 not possible to assess primarily due to missing a diagnosis or too little information.
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Coffee

Caffeine improves long-term memory when consumed after learning

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:14 UTC
Image
© Alfred HermidaCaffeine enhances consolidation of long-term memories.
Until now scientists thought that while caffeine has all sorts of effects on the mind, it has little or no influence over long-term memory.

But previous studies generally gave caffeine to people before they began learning.

A new study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, gave caffeine to participants after a session of learning.

They found that it boosted a deeper level of long-term memory (Borota et al., 2014).

One of the study's authors, Michael Yassa, explained that the problem with giving caffeine to people before the learning session is that...
"...if there is an enhancement, it's not clear if it's due to caffeine's effects on attention, vigilance, focus or other factors. By administering caffeine after the experiment, we rule out all of these effects and make sure that if there is an enhancement, it's due to memory and nothing else,"
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Bulb

Why we need to sleep in total darkness

George Dvorsky
io9
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 11:20 UTC
sleeping beauty
The modern bedroom is full of lights, from glowing computer monitors and clock radios to any number of blinking and glimmering electronic devices. Trouble is, chronic exposure to light at night leads to a host of health problems.

To understand why chronic exposure to light at night is so bad, we need to consider human evolution. Prior to the end of the stone age, humans were exposed to two different kinds of natural light responsible for regulating circadian rhythmicity. During the day we had the sun, while at night we had the moon and the stars, and perhaps the light from campfires. The binary day/night pattern was unrelenting, and our biological programming followed suit.

Comment: To be consistent it would also help to turn off any smartphone and wireless routers, as wireless radiation is interpreted by our bodies, as light.

See also:
Mobile phone radiation wrecks your sleep
Good Old Melatonin - Making News Again

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Sheeple

Insomnia? How to fall asleep

Laura McMullen
Yahoo News
Fri, 10 Jan 2014 17:29 UTC
Sleep Porblems
© Shutterstock
It's 4 a.m. The clock ticks, the moon glows, the dog snores and you just stare. Perhaps you stare into the blackish red of the inside of your eyelids as you lie still and fetal, thinking if you pretend to be sleeping, the real thing will surely come. Or maybe you stare at the paint chips in the ceiling, then the laundry on the floor, then the glowing 4:01 a.m. time, as you turn and shift and stare some more. And you know you shouldn't be staring - you should be sleeping! You should be logging those crucial seven-plus hours of quality sleep each night, and the frustration that you cannot will yourself to achieve that makes this 4:02 a.m. stare session all the more infuriating. And it's hard to fall asleep when you're infuriated.

So what do you do? The second step to racking more zzz's is to perfect your sleep hygiene. That means developing a regular sleep schedule, using your bed only for sleep and intimacy, and ditching electronics and caffeine well before bedtime. Here's a sleep hygiene guide to get you started. But that second step is for the daylight hours. The first step is to get to sleep now - pronto - so you can grab at least a couple hours before the birds start chirping.

The tips below might help you sleep easier. Here's the advice of Eric Olson, co-director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minn., and Harneet Walia, a doctor in the Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Center:
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Health

Mystery deepens over killer illness striking Houston: Doctors wonder if it's a new super flu

Tyler Rudick
Culture map
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:22 UTC
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© KHOU Houston Channel 11/Family photoUOdessa Reed watched her son die in a matter of days from an illness that started with flu-like symptoms
Montgomery County officials are on high alert as a mysterious and fatal flu-like illness continues to baffle doctors. Of the eight reported cases seen at the Conroe Regional Medical Center, four patients aged from 41 to 65 have died and two others are struggling for their lives.

Health department representatives tell CultureMap that no diagnosis has been made for an unknown illness that begins with symptoms resembling the flu. In a matter of weeks or even days, however, victims develop serious complications including organ failure.

So far all patients have tested negative for influenza, although health professionals are awaiting further lab results.
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Light Saber

GMO and 'Natural' food fight: Treacherous terrain

Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 14:33 UTC
Image
© permaculturenews.org
2014 is shaping up to be a decisive year for the future of food and farming. Grassroots activists are gearing up for new legislative battles, including state GMO labeling laws and county bans on growing genetically engineered crops. Meanwhile the multinational food corporations last month raised the stakes in the ongoing David vs. Goliath battle by petitioning the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to allow companies to continue to label or market products that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as "natural." And all signs point to efforts by industry and the FDA to float either voluntary, or watered-down mandatory GMO labeling laws that would take away states' rights to impose strict GMO labeling laws, and also exempt a large percentage of GMO ingredients from labeling.

For more than two decades, Monsanto and Big Food have poisoned and profited with impunity, thanks to the FDA's reckless 1992 dictate that pesticide-drenched (Roundup-resistant) or insecticide-impregnated (Bt-spliced) crops and foods are "safe and substantially equivalent" to non-GE foods. Now, the Biotech Bullies and Junk Food Giants are under siege by a well-informed and passionate grassroots food movement that is determined to drastically reduce or eliminate the market share of genetically engineered and chemically-intensive foods and crops.
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