Health & WellnessS


Magic Wand

Protein Discovery May Improve Recovery After Nerve Injuries


Science Daily
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Jung Eun Shin)These are images of axon regeneration in mice two weeks after injury to the hind leg’s sciatic nerve. On the left, axons (green) of a normal mouse have regrown to their targets (red) in the muscle. On the right, a mouse lacking DLK shows no axons have regenerated, even after two weeks.

A protein required to regrow injured peripheral nerves has been identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The finding, in mice, has implications for improving recovery after nerve injury in the extremities. It also opens new avenues of investigation toward triggering nerve regeneration in the central nervous system, notorious for its inability to heal.

Peripheral nerves provide the sense of touch and drive the muscles that move arms and legs, hands and feet. Unlike nerves of the central nervous system, peripheral nerves can regenerate after they are cut or crushed. But the mechanisms behind the regeneration are not well understood.

In the new study, published online June 20 in Neuron, the scientists show that a protein called dual leucine zipper kinase (DLK) regulates signals that tell the nerve cell it has been injured -- often communicating over distances of several feet. The protein governs whether the neuron turns on its regeneration program.
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Heart

Omega-3 Lowers Inflammation in Overweight Older Adults


Science Daily
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Omega-3
© healthcastle.com
New research shows that omega-3 fatty acid supplements can lower inflammation in healthy, but overweight, middle-aged and older adults, suggesting that regular use of these supplements could help protect against and treat certain illnesses.

Four months of omega-3 supplementation decreased one protein in the blood that signals the presence of inflammation by an average of more than 10 percent, and led to a modest decrease in one other inflammation marker. In comparison, participants taking placebos as a group saw average increases of 36 percent and 12 percent, respectively, of those same markers.

Chronic inflammation is linked to numerous conditions, including coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease, as well as the frailty and functional decline that can accompany aging.
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Pills

Blood Pressure Drug Olmesartan Linked to Severe Gastrointestinal Problems


Science Daily
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© kvor.com
Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered an association between a commonly prescribed blood pressure drug, Olmesartan, and severe gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and electrolyte abnormalities -- symptoms common among those who have celiac disease. The findings are published online June 21 in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

From 2008-11, Mayo Clinic physicians treated 22 patients with symptoms similar to celiac disease, including intestinal inflammation and abnormalities. Patients came from 17 states, and some had been diagnosed with celiac disease. They had chronic diarrhea and weight loss; the median weight loss was 39 pounds, and one patient lost 125 pounds. Fourteen of the 22 were hospitalized because of the severity of their symptoms. When given a blood test, however, these patients didn't come back with results typical of celiac disease. They also didn't respond to treatments such as gluten-free diets.

After examining their medications, Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist Joseph Murray, M.D., pulled several of the patients off Olmesartan. Their symptoms dramatically improved. Eventually, all 22 were taken off the drug, and all showed improvement. Eighteen of the 22 patients had intestinal biopsies after stopping the medication and showed improvement.
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Info

Opiate Reactions May Be Linked to Genetics

Susan E. Matthews
MyHealthNewsDaily
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:49 UTC
Pills
© Dreamstime

How the body responds to opiates - the powerful, pain-relieving drugs that carry a high potential for addiction - may be partly determined by genetics, according to a new study.

Researchers studied 121 pairs of twins to look at the role of genetics in people's reactions to the pain medications. They found that genetic predisposition accounted for 59 percent of the variation between people's levels of nausea, 36 percent of the differences in how much people disliked the drug and 38 percent of the variation in itchiness in reaction to the drug.

The findings are important because the degree to which people experience unpleasant side effects, and like or dislike the drugs, can be a sign of how effectively the drugs treat their pain, and their potential to develop addiction, the researchers said. Liking a drug increases the susceptibility to addiction, while experiencing negative side effects decreases it.

"Genetics matter...people are different, and if we understand why they are different, we can take better care of them," said study author Dr. Martin Angst, professor of anesthesia at the Stanford University Medical Center.

It's well-known that the pain relievers cause extremely different reactions in people, but the new study gives researchers a better understanding of how genetics could play a role in those reactions.

"Patients vary dramatically in how much pain relief they get, what extent they suffer from opiates and how much pleasure they get from opiates," Angst said.
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Cheeseburger

Mammal Meat Allergy Caused by Ticks is Spreading Fast

Jason Mick
DailyTech
Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:00 UTC
East coast states of Virginia, North Carolina, and New York are among the worst hit

Americans can be a stubborn lot. If there's one thing many of them won't give up, it's red meat, as epitomized by the Beef Checkoff Program's popular ad phrase, "Beef it's what's for dinner."

I. Deadly Mammal Meat Allergy Fascinates Allergists
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© Chris PassetFor alpha-gal allergy victims, mammal meat can prove deadly.

But some meat lovers are being forced to begrudgingly give up their favorite food item to preserve their health.

The culprit is a new allergy to galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, or alpha-gal, a sugar found in the flesh of virtually all non-primate mammals. The allergy is pretty unique. Allergist Dr. Erin McGintee describes, "Intellectually, it's such a cool allergy on so many levels. It's a sugar, not a protein, and most food allergies occur in response to a protein antigen."

And to add to the oddity, the allergy is the first known case of delayed anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction to food that can cause death. Symptoms include the appearance of an itchy rash, throat swelling, and low blood pressure. Typically these symptoms occur minutes after eating the allergy-containing food. But in the case of the alpha-gal allergy, people can eat a steak dinner and then be stricken with anaphylaxis hours later, requiring hospitalization and life-saving epinephrine injections.
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Bacon

Aging is optional: Body Building Grandma Ernestine Shepherd Bench Presses, Runs Marathons

SARAH NETTER
ABC News
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:40 UTC
bodybuilder grandmother
© Yohannie ShambourgerCourtesy Yohnnie Shambourger Ernestine Shepherd began working out at the age of 56. She now runs 80 miles per week and can bench press 150 pounds. She was named in the Guinness World Records as the oldest female bodybuilder.
Taut abs and rippling muscles aren't exactly the stuff grandmothers are known for. But then again neither are marathons and cell phones that play the theme to "Rocky."

At 73, Ernestine Shepherd is in better shape than most people decades her junior. Up at 3 a.m. every morning, she spends her days >running, lifting weights and working out other senior citizens at the Union Memorial United Methodist Church in Baltimore. She also works as a certified personal trainer at her gym.

"I feel better than I did at 40," she said. "I am very, very happy."

In less than 20 years, Shepherd has morphed from a "prissy" woman who never exercised to the Guinness Book of World Records' oldest female bodybuilder.

A die-hard Rocky fan -- "Sylvester Stallone is my man," she cooed -- Shepherd is preparing for a body building competition this weekend.

"I feel now that I am a very strong, positive and confident woman," she said. "Years ago I concerned myself about what people said concerning me. But when you get 70-something and you don't have that many years in front of you, you don't concern yourself with that."
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Alarm Clock

Behind the GM Wheat Trial


Institute of Science in Society
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:05 UTC
gm wheat
© Unknown
Crucial information omitted from public discussion discredits the public-funded research institute: it has close ties to industry, the GM crop has not been molecularly characterized or tested for potential risks to health or the environment, it carries genes for antibiotic resistance and tolerance to glufosinate, a herbicide banned in Europe, and the anti-aphid trait on trial is very likely to be ineffective Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji

Rothamsted Institute in Hertfordshire, UK, has begun an open-air GM wheat trial that is re-energising the country's debate on genetically modified (GM) crops. The crop has been engineered to produce an aphid 'alarm' pheromone that aims to repel the aphid pests from the crop and/or attract aphid predators.

Despite the media hype, there has been no critical analysis of the scientific or political rationale behind the project. The huge PR campaign headed by the lobby group Sense About Science has successfully confused the public and obscured the facts. Meanwhile, Rothamsted is pressing for debates with GM sceptics in an attempt to convince the public that the GM technology is based on environmental principles, and is needed to feed a starving world. But evidence of the technology's effectiveness, safety and potential non-private beneficiaries is conspicuously lacking. The inclusion of a herbicide tolerance (see below) trait in the crop - not disclosed to the public - also discredits the institute's claims of being "environmentalists" with aims to promote sustainable agricultural practices and reduce chemical use.
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Info

Is GMO Farming Poisoning The World's Drinking Water?

Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:00 UTC
GMO Water
© GreenMedInfo
Monsanto's Herbicide Linked To Groundwater Contamination

In a groundbreaking study published in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry last year, evidence surfaced that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto's patented herbicide Roundup, is flowing freely into the groundwater in areas where it is being applied.1 The researchers found that 41% of the 140 groundwater samples taken from Catalonia Spain, had levels beyond the limit of quantification - indicating that, despite the manufacturer's claims, glyphosate herbicide does not break down rapidly in the environment, and is accumulating there in concerning quantities.

Why Is Groundwater Contamination An Important Finding?

Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface, that supplies aquifers, wells and springs. If a chemical like glyphosate is mobile enough to get into the groundwater and is intrinsically resistant to being biodegraded (after all, it is being used to kill/degrade living things - not the other way around), significant environmental exposures to humans using the water are inevitable. After all, according to the USGS, 88,000 tons were used in the US in 2007 alone.

Keep in mind that glyphosate is considered by the EPA as a Class III toxic substance, fatal to an adult at 30 grams, and has been linked to over 20 adverse health effects in the peer-reviewed, biomedical literature.

This groundwater contamination study adds to another highly concerning finding from March, 2011, published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, where researchers found the chemical in 60-100% of all air and rain samples tested, indicating that glyphosate pollution and exposure is now omnipresent in the US. When simply breathing makes you susceptible to glyphosate exposure, we know we are dealing with a problem of unprecedented scale.

In fact, glyphosate's broad spectrum toxicity has been identified to be one potential cause for the disturbing loss of indispensable food-starter bacteria from soils and cultured foods within certain regions of the world, indicating that GMO farming may be depleting the microbial biodiversity of the soil, and ultimately its ability to remain fertile.
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Wolf

Study: Dog Dander Protects Children from Common Cold Virus and Asthma


Life With Dogs
Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:49 UTC
baby, dog
© Unknown
House dust from homes with dogs appears to protect against infection with a respiratory virus that is associated with the common cold and the development of asthma in children. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, presented their findings today at the 2012 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

"In this study we found that feeding mice house dust from homes that have dogs present protected them against a childhood airway infectious agent, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV infection is common in infants and can manifest as mild to severe respiratory symptoms. Severe infection in infancy is associated with a higher risk of developing childhood asthma," says Kei Fujimura, a researcher on the study.

In the study Fujimura and her colleagues compared three groups of animals: Mice fed house dust from homes with dogs before being infected with RSV, mice infected with RSV without exposure to dust and a control group of mice not infected with RSV.
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Blackbox

Say What? Why You Shouldn't Panic About Pesticide In Produce

Jon Hamilton
National Public Radio
Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:27 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto.comApples made the top of the list for produce containing pesticide residue, but how much is unsafe?
The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit health advocacy organization, says you should be concerned about pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables, but not so concerned that you stop eating these foods.

That's the mixed message delivered in the eighth edition of EWG's annual Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce released today.

The guide begins by telling readers to "eat your fruits and vegetables." Then it offers a detailed list of every pesticide found along the produce aisle, as well as reminders that "some pesticides pose health dangers to people."

So what's a consumer to do?

Look beyond the fearful rhetoric, says Joseph Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal.

Comment: Environmental Working Group Says: 'Dirty dozen' Produce Carries More Pesticide Residue

It's not all white: The cocktail of up to 20 chemicals in a glass of milk

Toxicity tests for chemicals: If only we all had EFSA's crystal ball

Research Links Pesticides with ADHD in Children

Organic Foods Offer Alternative to Foods Containing Food Dyes & Pesticides Linked to Raising Children's Risk of ADHD

Fresh Produce Often Contaminated with Pesticides

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