Health & WellnessS


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SpongeBob Impairs Little Kids' Thinking, Study Finds

Eryn Brown
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:06 UTC
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© NickelodeonSubtle programming or just plain evil? Watching a few minutes of a show about an "animated sponge that lives under the sea" impaired 4-year-olds' executive function, University of Virginia researchers found.
Watching just a short bit of the wildly popular kids TV show SpongeBob SquarePants has been known to give many parents headaches. Psychologists have now found that a brief exposure to SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward and the rest of the crew also appears to dampen preschoolers' brain power.

Angeline Lillard and Jennifer Peterson, both of the University of Virginia's department of psychology, wanted to see whether watching fast-paced television had an immediate influence on kids' executive function -- skills including attention, working memory, problem solving and delay of gratification that are associated with success in school.

Television's negative effect on executive function over the long term has been established, the researchers wrote Monday in the journal Pediatrics, but less is known about its immediate effects.

To test what those might be, Lillard and Peterson randomly assigned 60 4-year-olds to three groups: one that watched nine minutes of a fast-paced, "very popular fantastical cartoon about an animated sponge that lives under the sea;" one that watched nine minutes of slower-paced programming from a PBS show "about a typical U.S. preschool-aged boy;" and a third group that was asked to draw for nine minutes with markers and crayons.
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Cheeseburger

Hormones And Metabolism Conspire Against Dieters

Allison Aubrey
National Public Radio
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:12 UTC
A dieter checks weight on a bathroom scale.
© iStockphoto.com

There are some fresh insights from Australia that help explain why it's so difficult for dieters to keep off the weight they lose.

Willpower will only take you so far, in case you haven't run that experiment yourself. Turns out our bodies have a fuel gauge, not entirely unlike the gas gauge on our cars, that tell us when it's time to tank up on food.

The gauge relies on hormones that signal to the brain when and how much to eat. But as Dr. Louis Aronne, who directs the comprehensive weight control program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, explains, the human fuel gauge can sometimes be way off the mark - especially for dieters.

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine documents a pretty extreme diet regimen that limited 50 overweight and obese Australian volunteers to about 550 calories a day for 10 weeks.

Comment: Counting calories doesn't work - counting carbohydrates does.

Book Review: Why We Get Fat and What to do About it
Carbohydrates Trick Your Body into Stacking on Pounds - Fast

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Gear

Corrupt science at it again: ADHD seen as early as age 4

Nanci Hellmich
Detroid Free Press
Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:41 UTC
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© braininspect.com
Children as young as 4 can be diagnosed and treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), say updated guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Previous guidelines covered ADHD in kids 6-12. The latest ones address children ages 4-18 because there is additional research on that age range, says Mark Wolraich, chairman of the committee that prepared the report, released Sunday at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference in Boston.

Earlier treatment can help the children and reduce family stress, he says.

"These children may have been kicked out of preschool programs, or they may have parents who are really getting angry at them much of the time."
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Health

A Flu Vaccine Timeline: The Recent History Revolving Around Vaccine Dangers

Mike Barrett
Natural Society
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:57 UTC
DNA
© Activist Post

If you thought you were safe from the flu after receiving a flu vaccine, think again. It's hard to keep up with all the false claims and corruption revolving around flu vaccination, but if you were to piece the massive puzzle together, everything may suddenly become crystal clear. Not only are people risking their health by subjecting themselves to the almighty prick, but it turns out that all of the effort is for nothing.

Convulsions in Children Ignite a Ban in Australia

Last year Australia noticed a lot of children being hospitalized after having convulsions triggered by the flu shot. Australian health authorities knew of these cases but continued to push the flu shot on every child. Irresponsibly, the health authorities allowed for more and more convulsions along with vomiting and dangerously high fevers. Finally, after having known of the convulsions and other health problem revolving around the flu vaccine, Commonwealth chief health officer Professor Jim Bishop took action and instituted a ban on the flu shot.

A Confirmed Link Between the Flu Vaccine and Killer Nerve Disease

In 2009 a staggering 50 percent of doctors refused the H1N1 flu vaccine due to the strong connection with adverse health concerns. Even though 50 percent of the doctors were not receiving the shot, many of them would still recommend the shot to their patients.

In 2010, government health chiefs confirmed a link between the H1N1-containing seasonal flu vaccination and the killer nerve disease known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome. But this information didn't stop health officials from pushing the vaccine onto the population in 2010 and 2011. What's more, the connection between Guillain-Barre Snydrome and flu vaccines has been alive since the 1970s.
'The vaccines used to combat an expected swine influenza pandemic in 1976 were shown to be associated with GBS and were withdrawn from use,' Prof. Elizabeth Miller, head of the HPA's immunization department, wrote in the letter sent last month to neurologists.
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Arrow Up

Probiotic Bacteria May Help Treat Depression

Charles Q. Choi
Live Science
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:02 UTC
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© psychcentral.comStress Harms Gut Bacteria
Bacteria in the gut can directly influence the brains of mice and perhaps humans, scientists find.

This discovery could lead to new ways to control depression, anxiety and other disorders. And while mice serve as good models for understanding aspects of the human brain, the findings need to be replicated in humans.

The scientists detailed their findings online Aug. 29 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Info

Wave of Mysterious E. Coli Outbreaks Hits U.S

Gretchen Goetz
Food Safety News
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00 UTC
E.coli
© unknown
Over the past month, the Listeria outbreak linked to Colorado cantaloupes has grabbed headlines as the numbers of sicknesses and deaths push higher. But a series of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks have been piling up under the radar, and health officials have been unable to identify what's causing them.

At least 4 separate E. coli outbreaks have arisen in 4 different states within a month's time. And as of Thursday, none of them had been traced back to a source, making it impossible for authorities to warn customers about what foods or locations to avoid in order to protect themselves.

Many cases involved in these epidemics have been severe. In total, they have caused at least 50 illnesses and 1 death in the affected states, which include:

Michigan

Health officials have reported E. coli illnesses among two children and one adult from the Maple Rapids area of the state. The children have both been hospitalized with hemolytic uremic system (HUS), a life-threatening complication of an E. coli infection that can cause kidney failure.

The same strain of the bacteria appeared this summer among victims who had attended the Clinton County Fair. Officials remain unsure whether there is a connection between the two clusters of illnesses.

"This strain of E. coli is very potent and troublesome," said Dr. Robert Graham, Medical Director at the Mid-Michigan District Health Department. "We urge everyone to take precautions to prevent becoming infected by this germ," he said, according to The Morning Sun.
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Pills

More than 1 in 10 Americans on Suicide-Linked Antidepressants

Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:28 UTC
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© Natural Society
Despite evidence linking popular antidepressants like Prozac to suicide more than 1 in 10 Americans over the age of 12 are now taking antidepressants prescribed by their doctors. In fact, antidepressants are now the most common drug among people aged 18 to 44, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. Even more notable is the fact that once prescribed, individuals generally keep taking antidepressants for years. Over 60 percent of patients prescribed antidepressants report taking them for more than 2 years, and 14 percent for 10 years or more. This is unfortunate when the drugs meant to help depression actually cause further depression.
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Syringe

300,000 Doses of Flu Vaccine Preflucel Withdrawn in Alert over Side-effects‎

Sadie Whitelocks
Daily Mail
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:36 UTC
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© dailymail.co.ukPreflucel has been recalled amid fears it is making people ill.
A flu vaccine has been recalled from thousands of surgeries and pharmacies across Europe amid fears it is making people ill.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued a warning over Preflucel, a popular influenza vaccine.

Around 300,000 doses of the drug are to be immediately withdrawn following fears from health bosses that the most recent batch, issued last month, is causing side-effects.

A high percentage of those vaccinated with Preflucel have reported fatigue, muscle pain and headaches.

Alternative products will now be made available to prevent any shortages.

Comment: For more information about 'The Myth of Vaccine Safety and Effectiveness' read the following articles:
As awareness to the dangers of vaccines increases amongst the general public, more and more scientific evidence of this sort will gradually come to light. As usual, those who were ridiculed as irresponsible "conspiracy theorists" in the beginning will eventually proven justified in their decisions to refuse vaccination, much as they are in others areas of life.

Vaccine makers, pharmaceutical companies, and even government regulatory and safety agencies will attempt to avoid any real scientific studies as to the safety of vaccines and their ingredients in the meantime. This is because, once true science is applied to the sacred cow of the medical establishment known as vaccines, the entire industry will come crumbling down. Vaccines simply cannot stand up to true scientific standards.
10 Reasons Why Flu Shots Are More Dangerous than A Flu

Expert casts doubt on flu vaccine

Eighteen Reasons Why You Should NOT Vaccinate Your Children Against The Flu This Season

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Info

Autism Linked to Unusual Shapes in Lungs

Laird Harrison
WebMD
Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:23 UTC
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© ladowntownnews.com
Children born with a certain shape in their airways - the tubes that take air to the lungs - all have autism or autism spectrum disorder, according to a new study.

The study is one of the few to show a strong link between anatomy and autism and may indicate a genetic cause for the syndrome, says Barbara Stewart, MD. She presented the study today at CHEST 2011, the Annual Meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

"I think it takes some of the pressure off parents," Stewart tells WebMD. "Autism is not something they did. It just happened."

Stewart, a lung doctor at Nemours Children's clinic in Pensacola, Fla., made the discovery while examining patients referred to her for persistent coughs.
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Attention

CDC Group Backs Gardasil for Routine Use in Males

Tracy Staton
fiercepharma.com
Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:05 UTC
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© arcticcompass.blogspot.com
Thanks to a CDC committee recommendation, Merck could see a spike in sales of its HPV vaccine Gardasil. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said boys 11 years and older should be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, the sexually transmitted virus that has been linked to several types of cancer.

HPV vaccination was initially targeted toward girls and young women because of the virus' known association with cervical cancer. That market seemed to be plenty big enough: As the first HPV shot to hit the U.S. market, Gardasil quickly took off. But sales soon sputtered, partly because some adults proved squeamish about vaccinating young girls against sexually transmitted disease. The vaccinations are also expensive, at more than $100 for each of the three required doses.
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