Health & WellnessS


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Vision problems linked to higher dementia risk

Amy Norton
Reuters
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:43 UTC
Elderly adults with poor vision, particularly untreated vision problems, may have a higher risk of developing dementia than those with better vision, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 625 older Americans with initially normal cognition, those who said they had poor vision even with corrective lenses were more likely to develop dementia over the next 8.5 years.

During the study period, 168 participants developed Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. Of those men and women, less than 10 percent had rated their vision as "excellent" at the start of the study. That compared with almost 31 percent of participants who maintained normal brain function over the study period.
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Study Links IVF to Higher Stillbirth Risk


CBS News
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:40 UTC
Danish Study Says Those Who Take Fertility Treatments Face Higher Risk of Stillbirths

Women who get pregnant through in vitro fertilization are four times more likely to have a stillbirth than women who conceived without help.

The new study from from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark also indicates higher stillbirth risks for those who undergo intracytoplasmic sperm injection, although researchers point out the risk from both IVF and ISI still is low.
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US: Hospital infections killed nearly 50,000 a year

Rosemary Black
New York Daily News
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:33 UTC
A hospital stay could prove harmful to your health - or even fatal. Some 48,000 patients die annually from pneumonia or blood poisoning picked up in the hospital, according to a study that was reported by Reuters.

And hospital-acquired illnesses translated into 2.3 million extra patient days in hospitals, at a cost of $8.1 billion in 2006, according to the study from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy at Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The research study is one of the first to detail the ever-worsening problem of hospital-acquired illness. It notes that hospital-acquired infections are adding to the spiraling cost of health care in the United States.
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Arrow Up

Study: Napping can make you smarter

Sandra Cooper
drcutler.com
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:30 UTC
There's some good news for individuals who enjoy a good midday nap. A new study suggests that taking an hour-long nap can dramatically boost and restore brain power.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley conducted a sleep study of 39 healthy young adults. Half of the participants were allowed to nap and half were kept awake throughout the day.

They found that early in the afternoon, both groups performed at comparable levels on a rigorous learning task. However, individuals who took a 90-minute rest in the middle of the day performed better on a new round of learning exercises later in the day while those who did not nap actually became worse at learning.
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Attention

U.N. narcotics board warns of prescription drug abuse


Associated Press
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:09 UTC
Abuse of prescription drugs is growing rapidly around the world, with more people abusing legal narcotics than heroin, cocaine and ecstasy combined, the United Nations global drugs watchdog said on Wednesday.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) also pointed to a rise in the use of so-called "date rape drugs," as sexual abusers try to get around more rigorous controls with substances not banned by international drugs laws.

The INCB said several high-profile celebrity deaths, such as pop star Michael Jackson last year, had focused attention on prescription drug abuse.

In the United States, abuse of prescription drugs "is now the second most important drug abuse issue after cannabis," it said, with 6.2 million people hooked on them in 2008.

"Abuse of such drugs has been spreading over the world in recent years," said Hamid Ghodse, director of the International Center for Drug Policy at St George's University in London and one of the report's authors. "It needs to be tackled urgently."
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Health

Cancers can re-seed themselves after chemo, surgery or radiation

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:48 UTC
Researchers from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have published findings in the journal Cell that explain how tumor cells can re-seed and spread throughout the body after they have been removed through conventional chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation treatments. Tiny tumor cells that circulate throughout the body often begin to send out seeds to the places where the tumor originated, essentially planting the cancer back into the body.

Joan Massague and her colleagues at the Center are finding that conventional treatments leave behind malignant cells that relocate to other areas of the body to avoid being destroyed. Eventually they return as stronger and more aggressive tumors, having gathered back the worst leftover cells from the previous cancer. The result is a second cancer that is worse than the first.

Chemicals present in the immune system also appear to signal tumor cells in circulation to return to their source. Following conventional treatment, the immune system actually works against the body by drawing the vagrant cancer cells back to where they originally seeded, kick starting a relapse.
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Family

California Dental Association - No Fluoride for Babies


My Telegraph
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:46 UTC
The California Dental Association (CDA) joins a growing list of researchers, dental and health organizations advising against regularly mixing infant formula with fluoridated water to avoid discoloring babies' developing teeth (fluorosis). But little effort is made to inform the public, reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).

"Neither a nutrient nor required for healthy teeth, fluoride chemicals are added to many public water supplies and some bottled water in a failed attempt to reduce tooth decay," says attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President.

"...mixing powdered or liquid infant formula concentrate with fluoridated water on a regular basis for infants primarily fed in this way may increase the chance of a child's developing enamel fluorosis," according to the CDA's Feb 2010 Report, Oral Health During Pregnancy and Early Childhood: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Health Professionals. (1)
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Bad Guys

Toyota's Consumer Safety Problems are Dwarfed by Body Count of Big Pharma's Deadly Drugs

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:00 UTC
Image
© NaturalNews
Even as Toyota now finds itself the target of an increasingly hyped-up inquisition about "public safety," skeptical consumers are asking the commonsense question: If public safety is so important, then why isn't Congress asking about the dangers of Big Pharma's deadly drugs?

Toyota's problems with throttle controls and brakes haven't actually killed anyone as far as we know. Even if deaths have occurred, their number would be extremely small compared to the number of deaths caused by Big Pharma's products.

FDA-approved pharmaceuticals kill nearly 270 people each day in the United States alone, and that's according to conservative calculations published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That's equivalent to a jumbo jet airliner falling out of the sky and crashing in a giant ball of flame every single day in the U.S.

If you're concerned about public safety in the United States, there's no industry that's more dangerous than the pharmaceutical industry. All the automobile manufacturers combined can't even begin to approach the body bag count produced by Big Pharma. So why is the U.S. Congress and mainstream media all of a sudden so gung-ho to accuse Toyota of compromising public safety while ignoring the far greater threat posed by Big Pharma? Because Toyota is an easy, convenient target that can distract people from the far worse dangers that no one dares speak of. As long as Americans can be distracted into focusing their fear and anger on Toyota, Big Pharma keeps on committing its crimes without being called to task.
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Naps Clear Brain's Inbox, Improve Learning

Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic News
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:00 UTC
Image
© Joel Sartore/National GeographicNaps wipe the brain's memory slate clean, a new sleep study says.
If your brain is an email account, sleep - and more specifically, naps - is how you clear out your inbox.

That's the conclusion of a new study that may explain why people spend so many of their sleeping hours in a pre-dreaming state known as stage 2 non-rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep.

For years sleep studies have hinted that shut-eye improves our ability to store and consolidate memories, reinforcing the notion that a good night's sleep - and power naps - is much more conducive to learning than an overnight cram session.

Now scientists may have figured out how, in part, this happens: During sleep, information locked in the short-term storage of the hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for memories - migrates into the longer-term database of the cortex.

This action not only helps the brain process new information, it also clears out space for the brain to take in new experiences.
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In Learning, the Brain Forgets Things on Purpose


U.S.News & World Report
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:00 UTC
Scientists have known that newly acquired, short-term memories are often fleeting. But a new study in flies suggests that kind of forgetfulness doesn't just happen. Rather, an active process of erasing memories may in some ways be as important as the ability to lay down new memories, say researchers who report their findings in the February 19th issue of the journal Cell, a publication of Cell Press.

"Learning activates the biochemical formation of memory," says Yi Zhong of Tsinghua University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "But you need to remove memories for new information to come in. We've found that forgetting is an active process to remove memory."

The researchers have traced that process to a molecular pathway including a small protein known as Rac. When that mechanism is blocked, flies hold on to newly acquired memories for longer than they otherwise would.
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