Health & WellnessS


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Researchers Examine How Viruses Destroy Bacteria


Eurek Alert!
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:00 UTC
Viruses are well known for attacking humans and animals, but some viruses instead attack bacteria. Texas A&M University researchers are exploring how hungry viruses, armed with transformer-like weapons, attack bacteria, which may aid in the treatment of bacterial infections.

The Texas A&M researchers' work is published in the renowned journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

The attackers are called phages, or bacteriophages, meaning eaters of bacteria.

The word bacteriophage is derived from the Greek phagein, meaning eater of bacteria.

"The phages first attach to the bacteria and then inject their DNA," says Sun Qingan, coauthor of the article and a doctoral student at Texas A&M. "Then they reproduce inside the cell cytoplasm."
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Split-Second Decision Making Negatively Affected by Sleep Deprivation

Jessica Sinn
Medical News Today
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:00 UTC
Sleep deprivation adversely affects automatic, accurate responses and can lead to potentially devastating errors, a finding of particular concern among firefighters, police officers, soldiers and others who work in a sleep-deprived state, University of Texas at Austin researchers say.

Psychology professors Todd Maddox and David Schnyer found moderate sleep deprivation causes some people to shift from a faster and more accurate process of information categorization (information-integration) to a more controlled, explicit process (rule-based), resulting in negative effects on performance.

The researchers examined sleep deprivation effects on information-integration, a cognitive operation that relies heavily on implicit split-second, gut-feeling decisions.

"It's important to understand this domain of procedural learning because information-integration - the fast and accurate strategy - is critical in situations when solders need to make split-second decisions about whether a potential target is an enemy soldier, a civilian or one of their own," Maddox said.
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A Parable on the National School Lunch Program

Ann Cooper & Kate Adamick
Grist
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:46 UTC
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Crap: it’s what’s for school lunch. But does it have to be?

Not long ago or far away, there was a great and mighty kingdom that was the envy of all other kingdoms in the world. The kingdom was home to two groups of people, the Big People and the Little People. The Big People had many jobs and responsibilities, but foremost among these was their unalterable duty to care for the well being of the Little People above all else. The Little People had only one responsibility, to follow the advice of the Big People so that they, too, could grow up to be Big.

For many, many years, the Big People diligently watched over the Little People and looked out for their interests, while the Little People followed their examples and grew strong. The kingdom thrived and prospered.
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Antifibrotic Effects of Green Tea


ScienceDaily
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:00 UTC
Several studies have shown that lipid peroxidation stimulates collagen production in fibroblasts and hepatic stellate cells (HSC), and plays an important role in the development of liver fibrosis. Hepatoprotective effects of green tea against carbon tetrachloride, cholestasis and alcohol induced liver fibrosis were reported in many studies. However, the hepatoprotective effect of green tea in dimethylnitrosamine (DMN)-induced models has not been studied.

A research article published on November 7, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The research team, led by Prof. Hong-Yon Cho from Korea University examined the protective effect of green tea extract (GT) on hepatic fibrosis in a rat HSC line and in a rat model of DMN-induced hepatic fibrosis.

The results showed GT administration prevented the development of hepatic fibrosis in the rat model of DMN-induced liver fibrosis. These results were confirmed both by liver histology and by quantitative measurement of hepatic hydroxyproline content, a marker of liver collagen deposition. Accordingly, inhibition of proliferation, reduced collagen deposition, and type 1 collagen expression were observed in activated HSC-T6 cells following GT treatment. These results imply that GT reduced the proliferation of activated HSC and down regulated the collagen content and expression of collagen type 1, thereby ameliorating hepatic fibrosis.
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Immune System Activated in Schizophrenia


ScienceDaily
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:00 UTC
Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered that patients with recent-onset schizophrenia have higher levels of inflammatory substances in their brains. Their findings offer hope of being able to treat schizophrenia with drugs that affect the immune system.

The causes of schizophrenia are largely unknown, and this hinders the development of effective treatments. One theory is that infections caught early on in life might increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, but to date any direct evidence of this has not been forthcoming.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now been able to analyse inflammatory substances in the spinal fluid of patients with schizophrenia, instead of, as in previous studies, in the blood. The results show that patients with recent-onset schizophrenia have raised levels of a signal substance called interleukin-1beta, which can be released in the presence of inflammation. In the healthy control patients, this substance was barely measurable.
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Your Own Stem Cells Can Treat Heart Disease, Study Suggests


ScienceDaily
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:00 UTC
The largest national stem cell study for heart disease showed the first evidence that transplanting a potent form of adult stem cells into the heart muscle of subjects with severe angina results in less pain and an improved ability to walk. The transplant subjects also experienced fewer deaths than those who didn't receive stem cells.

In the 12-month Phase II, double-blind trial, subjects' own purified stem cells, called CD34+ cells, were injected into their hearts in an effort to spur the growth of small blood vessels that make up the microcirculation of the heart muscle. Researchers believe the loss of these blood vessels contributes to the pain of chronic, severe angina.

"This is the first study to show significant benefit in pain reduction and improved exercise capacity in this population with very advanced heart disease," said principal investigator Douglas Losordo, M.D., the Eileen M. Foell Professor of Heart Research at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a cardiologist and director of the program in cardiovascular regenerative medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the lead site of the study.
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Flu, Viruses, and Vitamin C Megadoses: A Personal Statement

Robert G. Smith, PhD
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:34 UTC
Like most Americans, throughout most of my life I have occasionally been down with a virus. But for a long time, a simple cold for me started as a headache, sore throat and congestion in my nasal passages, and typically progressed to prolonged infection in my lungs, and a terrible cough. The whole experience took up to two weeks for recovery from the virus, and several more weeks for my lungs to recover.

In his book Vitamin C and the Common Cold (1), Linus Pauling explained that vitamin C, taken at the proper dose, can prevent a virus from taking hold in the body. This pioneering book, written back in 1970, was ignored by many doctors but was well-received by the public. One chemistry professor told me that he had heard of Pauling's book and the vitamin C therapy but didn't think taking a big dose of an acid, even a mild one like ascorbic acid, would be good for the body. As for me, I imagined Pauling was probably correct about the details he had researched, because he was a renowned scientist and knew much more than most about biochemistry. Perhaps, I thought, he had simply gotten some of the medical details wrong or had missed some of the important studies about the effects of vitamins. But I started taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C every day and kept this up for several decades.
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Flashback 'Poisoned Profits' makes case against chemical companies

Eric Liebetrau
Boston Globe
Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:59 UTC
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Despite President Bush's claims that we have "the best health care system in the world," nearly one of every three children in the United States struggles with some form of chronic disease. To those unfamiliar with the near-crisis situation faced by the country's youth, the roll call reads like a report from a Third World nation: with 2.5 million born with birth defects; 310,000 poisoned by lead; 6 million with asthma, and 12 million with developmental disorders like autism or attention deficit hyperactivity. Perhaps most disconcerting, childhood cancer has increased more than 67 percent from 1950 to 2001.
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Fearless 3-Year-Olds Might Be Tomorrow's Criminals

Michelle Lodge
HealthDay
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:44 UTC
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© Tsuneo Yamashita/GettyAfraid is better
Children who are fearless at 3 years of age might just be poised for a life of crime.

According to a new study, poor fear conditioning at the tender age of 3 can predispose that person to break the law as an adult. Yet other factors, such as education of the parents, large family size, nutrition, physical activity, configuration of the household and other elements also play a role, the researchers concluded.

"There's no 100 percent correspondence between conditioning deficits and crime: Not all poor conditioners will become criminals and not all criminals have the early fear conditioning deficits," explained study author Yu Gao, a research associate in the department of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. His findings are published in the Nov. 16 online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
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Red Flag

Foodborne Illness Impact Hard to Assess


United Press International
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:29 UTC
Foodborne illness is under reported, has inadequate follow-up and a lack of research making its impact difficult to assess, a U.S. non-profit group says.

The report by the The Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention documents what is known about the long-term health outcomes associated with several foodborne illnesses.

"Foodborne illness is a serious public health issue in the 21st century," report author Tanya Roberts, chairwoman of the center's board of directors, said in a statement.
"But the vast majority of these illnesses are never reported to public health agencies, leaving us with many unanswered questions about the impact that foodborne illness is having on different populations, particularly young children and the elderly."
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