Health & WellnessS


Health

US: Elderly man dies after contracting West Nile


The Associated Press
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:54 UTC
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. - An elderly Rancho Palos Verdes man has died after contracting West Nile virus.

Seven Californians have died of the mosquito-borne disease this year.

The Los Angeles County West Vector Control District says the Rancho Palos Verdes man, whose name is being withheld, was hospitalized with encephalitis and he died Oct. 10.

It is not clear where the victim was when he contracted the virus, which is transmitted by mosquito bites and can cause encephalitis, meningitis, fever and sometimes death, especially in elderly people or those with immune deficiencies.
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Family

Teen motherhood: Celebrity buzz belies its cost

David Crary
Associated Press
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:39 UTC
Teen motherhood has gained a bit of celebrity allure with the pregnancies of Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin, but front-line professionals see a starkly different reality involving poverty, lost opportunities and a cost to taxpayers in the billions of dollars annually.
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Syringe

HIV scare puts Mo. school in uncertain territory

Cheryl Wittenauer
Associated Press
Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:36 UTC
Students at a suburban St. Louis high school headed to the gymnasium for HIV testing this week after an infected person told health officials as many as 50 teenagers might have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS.
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Health

Deceptively Happy: Angelman Syndrome Often Misunderstood

Dan Childs
ABC News
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:42 UTC
Ryan Ravellette and mother
© Susan RavelletteRyan Ravellette, 6, and his mother Susan.
Six-year-old Ryan Ravellette is a happy and sociable child; he has a smile that can light up a room. But his beaming smile both belies and reveals a genetic condition that will affect him for the rest of his life -- and make normal communication all but impossible for the upbeat little boy.

Ryan is one of a few thousand children in the United States who has Angelman syndrome, a condition associated with severe cognitive and developmental disorders, as well as seizures.

What sets this condition apart from many others is the unusually cheerful, gregarious disposition of the children who have it. This characteristic, along with the syndrome's effects on coordination, has earned it the nickname "happy puppet syndrome."
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People

Warm Hands Warm Your Heart

Caroline Wilbert
WebMD
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:39 UTC
You're probably familiar with the expression, "cold hands, warm heart." Now there's science to show the opposite is true.

Lawrence Williams, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and John A. Bargh, PhD, professor of psychology at Yale University, conducted two studies on undergraduate students to assess how temperatures affect emotions. They found that holding warm things may actually make people view others more favorably and may also make people more generous.
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Arrow Down

'Detoxifying' Foot Pads are a Scam


Dr Mercola
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:51 UTC
footpads
An NPR experiment on Kinoki foot pads tested to see if they'd drawn anything out of a reporter's body.

Reporter Sarah Varney and her husband bought some "detoxifying" Kinoki foot pads and wore them to bed. In the morning, they both awoke find the pads covered in the brown mess that the advertisement had promised. But when they took the foot pads to a lab and had them analyzed and compared with unused pads, the used pads were almost identical to the blank.

Further experimentation showed that the "gunk" in the pads shows up if you hold the pad over a pot of boiling water. Who knew steam had "metabolic waste"?
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Syringe

No Escape from the Madness: Bill Gates funds 'flying syringe' mosquitos to deliver vaccines


Agence France Presse
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:51 UTC
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded 100,000 dollars each on Wednesday to scientists in 22 countries including funding for a Japanese proposal to turn mosquitos into "flying syringes" delivering vaccines.
'Flying Syringe' Mosquitos
© Agence France PresseA group of mosquitos are shown inside a net
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People

Food allergies increase by 18% in US kids since 1997

Mike Stobbe
Associated Press
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:27 UTC
Food allergy chart
© Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Food allergies in American children seem to be on the rise, now affecting about 3 million kids, according to the first federal study of the problem. Experts said that might be because parents are more aware and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.

About 1 in 26 children had food allergies last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. That's up from 1 in 30 kids in 1997. The 18 percent increase is significant enough to be considered more than a statistical blip, said Amy Branum of the CDC, the study's lead author.

Nobody knows for sure what's driving the increase. A doubling in peanut allergies - noted in earlier studies - is one factor, some experts said. Also, children seems to be taking longer to outgrow milk and egg allergies than they did in decades past.

Comment: With the continuing poisoning of the environment and food supply, is it any surprise that food allergy is sharply increasing? Check out our forum where we gather and discuss the best ways to protect our health from the onslaught of the environmental toxins.

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Syringe

Immigrants' advocates decry cervical cancer vaccine order

Mary Engel
Los Angeles Times
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:52 UTC
Gardasil, recommended for young female residents, is required for their immigrant counterparts. Its cost and safety questions raise concerns.

A controversial cervical cancer vaccine that has been only recommended for U.S. residents has become a requirement for all new female immigrants ages 11 to 26, sparking an outcry over the order's safety and cost.

"It's outrageous," said Sara Sadhwani, project director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. "It seems absolutely premature to mandate this for immigrant women."
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Arrow Up

Study: Girls With High IQs at Risk for Adult Drinking Problems


Reuters
Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:57 UTC
Contrary to expectations, higher intelligence scores at age 10 may be associated with higher levels of alcohol intake and alcohol-related drinking problems during adulthood, study findings suggest.

Moreover, these associations appear "markedly stronger among women than among men," Dr. G. David Batty, from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and colleagues report in the American Journal of Public Health.

However, "given that these findings ran counter to our expectations," the investigators call for further examination of this relationship.
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