Health & WellnessS


Blackbox

Praying to God is like talking to a friend

Andy Coghlan
New Scientist
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:01 UTC
Is prayer just another kind of friendly conversation? Yes, says Uffe Schjødt, who used MRI to scan the brains of 20 devout Christians. "It's like talking to another human. We found no evidence of anything mystical."

Schjødt, of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues, asked volunteers to carry out two tasks involving both religious and "secular" activities. In the first task, they silently recited the Lord's Prayer, then a nursery rhyme. Identical brain areas, typically associated with rehearsal and repetition, were activated.

In the second, they improvised personal prayers before making requests to Santa Claus. Improvised prayers triggered patterns that match those seen when people communicate with each other, and activated circuitry that is linked with the theory of mind - an awareness that other individuals have their own independent motivations and intentions (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: link).
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Magnify

Road Hazard: Study Addresses Pollution from Traffic

Bina Venkataraman
Boston.com
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:12 UTC
Tufts researchers study health risks highways may pose in neighborhoods

Residents of Somerville's Nunnery Grounds neighborhood have long tolerated concrete vistas of Interstate 93 and Mystic Avenue, honking cars, and black grime on their windowsills. Now, they are increasingly worried about an invisible highway nuisance: the tiniest pieces of pollution emitted by passing traffic.

Community members in Somerville, as well as Boston's Chinatown, have joined with Tufts University researchers to determine whether microscopic "ultrafine particles" spewed by combustion engines are harming the health of people who live close to highways. In a study that is the first of its kind in the state and among the first in the nation, the scientists will measure these tiny pollutants in various locations and collect and map heart disease data from residents.
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Chart Pie

Study Challenges Link Between Panic Attacks, PTSD


Forbes.com
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:08 UTC
Findings suggest many factors contribute to stress disorder, not just fear during trauma

People who suffer a panic attack during or immediately after a traumatic event aren't at increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study says.

Factors such as a prior history of depression, a person's emotional support network and self-esteem are stronger indicators of a person's likelihood of developing PTSD, said U.S. researchers.
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People

America's uninsured haven't shown collective power

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:03 UTC
If the uninsured were a political lobbying group, they'd have more members than AARP. The National Mall couldn't hold them if they decided to march on Washington.

But going without health insurance is still seen as a personal issue, a misfortune for many and a choice for some. People who lose coverage often struggle alone instead of turning their frustration into political action.

Illegal immigrants rallied in Washington during past immigration debates, but the uninsured linger in the background as Congress struggles with a health care overhaul that seems to have the best odds in years of passing.

That isolation could have profound repercussions.
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Magnify

Doctor Possibly Exposed Hundreds to TB

Diana Alvear
ABC News
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:59 UTC
Babies, Children May Be Among Those Exposed; No Other Confirmed Cases Yet

Barely days old, hundreds of babies in Chicago may already have been exposed to tuberculosis.

"We are investigating a situation in which a physician may have unknowingly exposed patients and hospital co-workers," Dr. Terry Mason of the Chicago Public Health Department said Friday.

"The one thing that makes this investigation stand out is its size and its scope," Mason added.
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Briefcase

Researchers find job promotion is bad for mental health and stops you visiting the doctor


University of Warwick
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:54 UTC
New research by economics and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick has found that promotion on average produces 10% more mental strain and gives up to 20% less time to visit the doctors.

In a research paper entitled Do People Become Healthier after Being Promoted Chris Boyce and Professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick questioned why people with higher job status seem to have better health. A long-held assumption by researchers is that an improvement to a person's job status, through a promotion, will directly result in better health due to an increased sense of life control and self-worth.

The researchers tested this. They drew upon the British Household Panel Survey data set, collected annually between 1991 and 2005, with information on approximately 1000 individual promotions. They found no evidence of improved physical health after promotion - nor that self-assessed feelings of health declined.
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Family

Breast Milk Could Save Premature Babies


Columbia Broadcasting Service
Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:42 UTC
University of California, San Diego--Doctors Say Breast Milk Can Mean Difference Between Life And Death For Premature Babies.

Image
© CBS News Only 45 percent of preemies go home on breast milk as compared to 74 percent of full-term babies.
CBS News
Kathie Robinson is thrilled that her daughter Naomi, born 2-1/2 months early, is well enough to be home. But her family isn't complete - yet.

"Here we are, we're still going through the journey," Kathie told CBS News contributing medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

It's been a difficult journey for Naomi's twin brother, Caldwell. He's had three operations and remains in a neo natal intensive care unit. Kathie and her husband Whit believe that giving him breast milk, even through a feeding tube, is helping him recover.

"You can't be there all the time so it was my way to be able to be there for them all the time," Kathy said. "I'm providing for them."

Kathie is part of a new program at The University of California San Diego Medical Center that encourages mothers of premature babies, even babies who can't swallow, to commit to breastfeeding rather than formula. It's not easy.

"It's hard for them," said Dr. Lisa Stellwagen. "They're sick, they're tired, they're often afraid their baby isn't going to survive."
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Pills

Court documents show how drug company attempted to 'neutralise' or 'discredit' dissenting doctors

Dr. John Briffa
DrBriffa Blog
Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:26 UTC
The painkilling drug rofecoxib (Vioxx) was originally licensed in the USA in 1999. It proved quite a success for its manufacturer, the drug company Merck, until it emerged that the drug was associated with a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular events (heart attacks and strokes). Merck withdrew the drug in 2004, but not before there were accusations that certain data had been withheld (seemingly in an effort to downplay the real risks of the drug). And last month, it was revealed that some of the data which supported the use of rofecoxib as a painkiller had been made up by Professor Scott S. Reuben, formerly of the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA.

Even more recently revelations have emerged which concern supposed tactics used by Merck to deal with dissenting doctors who were not supportive or actually critical of rofecoxib during its early days on the market. These were reported in a news story that was published in the British Medical Journal earlier this week [1].
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USA

American Healthcare: A System From Hell

Kate Michelman
The Nation
Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:05 UTC
Image
© Lloyd Miller
It was a crisp and brilliant autumn day last October when the medical and financial crises with which my family had successfully, if barely, coped for seven years became a catastrophe.

My husband had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2002, a year after our daughter was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. His balance had deteriorated until he fell two or three times at home last summer. In the face of his diminishing physical condition, a single fall could result in disastrous injury. We scheduled an appointment with his neurologist in Washington.

We pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital after the two-hour drive from our home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My husband opened his door, grabbed the roof of the car and began to pull himself out as I walked around to help him. I was too late. In an instant--time slowed enough for me to see the danger but raced ahead too fast for me to reach him--he lost his grip and fell to the concrete, shattering his hip, breaking his femur and causing internal bleeding that kept him in the hospital for months.
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Syringe

Reports: teens are taking cow drugs for abortions

Erin Richards
Journal Sentinel
Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:49 UTC
Veterinary and medical professionals in Wisconsin said Friday that they have been warned about a potentially alarming practice among the state's rural youth: teenage girls ingesting livestock drugs to cheaply and discreetly end their unwanted pregnancies.

So far, the professionals in animal and human health and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction are treating the reports of girls inducing their own abortions with prostaglandins - drugs commonly used by cow breeders to regulate animals' heat cycles - as rumors, because no cases have been officially confirmed by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

But Anna Anderson, the executive director of Care Net Pregnancy Center of Green County in Monroe, maintains that she has identified at least 10 girls ages 14 to 18 in a three-county area who admitted to taking some form of cow abortifacient in the past year. Care Net is part of a large system of pro-life, Christian-affiliated pregnancy resource centers that counsel women against abortions.
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