Health & WellnessS


Attention

US: Mom Won't Be Forced to Have C-Section

Elizabeth Cohen
CNN.com
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:03 UTC
Szabo Family
© Szabo FamilyJeff Szabo was there when Joy gave birth to (from left) Gabriel, Michael and Daniel, but will probably miss No. 4.
Jeff Szabo was by his wife's side when she gave birth to their son Gabriel seven years ago, and he was right there holding Joy's hand when their younger sons Michael and Daniel were born, too.

Joy is now eight months pregnant, but when this baby is born, her husband will most likely be more than 300 miles away.

The reason: Their local hospital in Page, Arizona, won't deliver the Szabos' baby vaginally as the Szabos wish, so a week or so before her November 21 due date, Joy will drive 350 miles to be near a hospital in Phoenix that will.

Their local hospital says they'll only deliver the Szabos' baby, another boy, via Caesarean section. Joy had her second son, Michael, by C-section. Page Hospital says it won't do a vaginal birth after a woman has had a C-section -- known as a VBAC -- because it has a higher than usual risk for complications.
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Bulb

Study Sheds New Light On The Nature Of Broca's Area In The Brain


Medical News Today
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:03 UTC
A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reports a significant breakthrough in explaining gaps in scientists' understanding of human brain function. The study - which provides a picture of language processing in the brain with unprecedented clarity - is published in the October 16 issue of the journal Science.

"Two central mysteries of human brain function are addressed in this study: one, the way in which higher cognitive processes such as language are implemented in the brain and, two, the nature of what is perhaps the best-known region of the cerebral cortex, called Broca's area," said first author Ned T. Sahin, PhD, post-doctoral fellow in the UCSD Department of Radiology and Harvard University Department of Psychology.

The study demonstrates that a small piece of the brain can compute three different things at different times - within a quarter of a second - and shows that Broca's area doesn't just do one thing when processing language. The discoveries came through the researchers' use of a rare procedure in which electrodes were placed in the brains of patients. The technique allowed surgeons to know which small region of the brain to remove to alleviate their seizures, while sparing the healthy regions necessary for language. Recordings for research purposes were then made while the patients were awake and responsive. The procedure, called Intra-Cranial Electrophysiology (ICE), allowed the researchers to resolve brain activity related to language with spatial accuracy down to the millimeter and temporal accuracy down to the millisecond.
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Attention

Low vitamin D raises blood pressure in women: study

David Morgan
Reuters
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:34 UTC
Younger white women with vitamin D deficiencies are about three times more likely to have high blood pressure in middle age than those with normal vitamin levels, according to a study released on Thursday.

The study, presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago, adds younger women to a growing list of people including men who may develop high blood pressure at least in part because of low vitamin D.
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Arrow Up

Body Image Lessons From a Fired-for-Being-Too-Fat Model

Deborah Kotz |
U.S. News and World Report
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:27 UTC
Filippa Hamilton wants the world to know that she, a perfect size 4, was fired from Ralph Lauren for being too fat. I'm happy to help the 5-foot-10, 120-pound supermodel spread the word because I think her message is a good one. I heard her on a radio show last night saying she refused to shed pounds for the modeling gig because she knew she was at a healthful weight and didn't want to go lower. (Her body mass index of 17.6 means she's actually already underweight.) In an interview earlier in the day, Hamilton told the Today show's Ann Curry that she decided to go public about her April firing after recently seeing a photo-shopped image of her in a Ralph Lauren ad looking anorexic.
"It's not a good example when you see this picture; every young woman is going to look at it and think that it is normal to look like that. It's not," she told Curry. "I saw my face on this super-extremely skinny girl, which is not me. It makes me sad. It makes me think that Ralph Lauren wants to have this kind of image. It's an American brand...and it's not healthy, and it's not right."
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Heart - Black

Physician: Recent Ralph Lauren Advertisement Sends Unrealistic and Possibly Deadly Message to Women of All Ages


Reuters
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:17 UTC
Recent Ralph Lauren Advertisement Sends Unrealistic and Possibly Deadly Message to Women of All Ages, Says Medical Director at Timberline Knolls. 'Stop the abuse and violence towards women,' says Kimberly Dennis, M.D., Medical Director at Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center.
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Cheeseburger

Do 3 Meals a Day Keep Fungi Away?


Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:37 UTC
The fact that they eat a lot - and often - may explain why most people and other mammals are protected from the majority of fungal pathogens, according to research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

The research, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, showed that the elevated body temperature of mammals - the familiar 98.6o F or 37o C in people - is too high for the vast majority of potential fungal invaders to survive.

"Fungal strains undergo a major loss of ability to grow as we move to mammalian temperatures," said Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., chair and professor of microbiology & immunology at Einstein. Dr. Casadevall conducted the study in conjunction with Vincent A. Robert of the Utrecht, Netherlands-based Fungal Biodiversity Center, also known as Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures.
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Chess

Scientists Respond to Senator Grassley's Criticism of Time Magazine Piece 'Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food'

Keeve Nachman, PhD, MHS, Brent Kim, MHS, Roni Neff, PhD, MS, & Amy Peterson, DVM
Civil Eats
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:33 UTC
On September 29, 2009, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) gave a prepared floor statement addressing his concerns with Bryan Walsh's August 21st, 2009 Time Magazine article "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food".

We are encouraged that the Senator has entered the dialog of how we can improve our food system and the public's health. However, many of the criticisms of Walsh's article presented in the statement are unfounded and serve to misinform consumers.

The Senator covers a wide variety of topics in his statement, we have selected a handful of issues raised in quotes from the Senator's statement to address what we believe consumers would benefit from having clarified. Specifically, we will comment on the Senator's claims regarding the Danish ban on antimicrobial growth promoters, the contribution of industrial animal production to water quality, organic production methods and consumer demands.
"We only have to turn to our neighbors across the Atlantic to see how a ban on antibiotics has played out. The European Union made a decision to phase out the use of antibiotics as growth promoters over 15 years ago and in 1998 Denmark instituted a full voluntary ban which in 2000 became mandatory. [T]he science does not back that positive improvements in public health has occurred due to the Denmark ban"
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Magnify

Unusual Bacteria Help Balance the Immune System in Mice


PhysOrg
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:17 UTC
Bacteria
© Ivaylo Ivanov and Dan LittmanA little-known bacterial species called segmented filamentous bacterium, or SFB, can activate the production of specialized immune cells in mice.
Medical researchers have long suspected that obscure bacteria living within the intestinal tract may help keep the human immune system in balance. An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center has now identified a bizarre-looking microbial species that can single-handedly spur the production of specialized immune cells in mice.

This remarkable activation of the immune response could point to a similar phenomenon in humans, helping researchers understand how gut-dwelling bacteria protect us from pathogenic bacteria, such as virulent strains of E. coli. The study, published in the Oct. 30, 2009, issue of Cell, also supports the idea that specific bacteria may act like neighborhood watchdogs at key locations within the small intestine, where they sense the local microbial community and sound the alarm if something seems amiss.

In mice, at least, the newly identified neighborhood watchdog looks like something out of Disney's The Shaggy D.A. Distinguished by long hair-like filaments, "These bacteria are the most astounding things I've ever seen," says Dan Littman, MD, PhD, the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
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Magnify

Popular Antidepressant Associated with a Dramatic Increase in Suicidal Thoughts Amongst Men

Charlotte Webber
Medical News Today
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:00 UTC
Nortriptyline has been found to cause a ten-fold increase in suicidal thoughts in men when compared to its competitor escitalopram. These findings are published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.

The research was carried out by Dr. Nader Perroud from the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, who headed up GENDEP, an international team. Dr Perroud said "Suicidal thoughts and behaviours during antidepressant treatment have prompted warnings by regulatory bodies". He continued "the aim of our study was to investigate the emergence and worsening of suicidal thoughts during treatment with two different types of antidepressant."

Both escitalopram and nortriptyline have their effect through the mood modulating neurotransmitter systems. The former is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), preventing serotonin from re-entering the cell and thereby prolonging its effect on nerve synapses. The latter is a tricyclic antidepressant that inhibits the reuptake of noradrenaline, and to a lesser extent, that of serotonin.
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Attention

Cedars-Sinai radiation overdoses went unseen at several points

Alan Zarembo
The Los Angeles Times
Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:33 UTC
The dosage -- eight times the programmed amount -- appeared on technicians' screens during CT scans. Doctors also missed the problem. Experts say blind trust of medical machinery is a growing concern.

Every time a patient receives a CT scan, a mundane array of numbers appears on a computer screen before a technician.

The numbers include the radiation dose.

"It's in your face on the screen," said Dr. Donald Rucker, chief medical officer for Siemens, a manufacturer of CT scanners.

Beginning in February 2008, each time a patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center received a CT brain perfusion scan -- a state-of-the-art procedure used to diagnose strokes -- the dose displayed would have been eight times higher than normal. No standard medical imaging procedure would use so much radiation, which one expert said is on par with the levels used to blast tumors.

Somebody should have noticed. But nobody did -- everybody trusted the machines.

Late last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Cedars-Sinai revealed that 206 stroke patients who received scans at the prestigious Los Angeles hospital were overdosed with radiation. Now doctors and safety experts around the country face a troubling question: In an era of supposedly fail-safe medical technology, how did the problem go undetected for 18 months?
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