Health & WellnessS


Health

Acupressure Calms Children Before Surgery


Science Daily
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:12 UTC
An acupressure treatment applied to children undergoing anesthesia noticeably lowers their anxiety levels and makes the stress of surgery more calming for them and their families, UC Irvine anesthesiologists have learned.
Acupressure bead
© Daniel A. AndersonAcupressure bead applied before surgery decreases anxiety in children.

According to Dr. Zeev Kain, anesthesiology and perioperative care chair, and his Yale University collaborator Dr. Shu-Ming Wang, this noninvasive, drug-free method is an effective, complementary anxiety-relief therapy for children during surgical preparation. Sedatives currently used before anesthesia can cause nausea and prolong sedation.

"Anxiety in children before surgery is bad because of the emotional toll on the child and parents, and this anxiety can lead to prolonged recovery and the increased use of analgesics for postoperative pain," said Kain, who led the acupressure study. "What's great about the use of acupressure is that it costs very little and has no side effects."
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Health

Changes In Sex Steroids Associated With Menopause


Science Daily
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:08 UTC
A study in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that the increased rate of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) change that occurs during menopause is associated with increased objective sleep duration but poor subjective sleep quality.

Findings from the sleep profiles created for the study's 365 participants indicate that postmenopausal women had deeper sleep and longer total sleep time than premenopausal women. The faster rate of change in FSH was associated with slow wave sleep and sleep duration, indicating that as women transitioned more rapidly from an endocrine perspective, they slept longer. Simultaneously, however, FSH change was associated with poorer self-reported sleep quality.

"We found that it was not the level of the FSH that was predictive of sleep, bout how quickly these menopause transition changes - FSH changes - occurred when hormones were measured over a seven-year period," said principal investigator MaryFran Sowers, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan.
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Health

Compact Fluorescent Lighting: Are We Trading Energy Conservation For Toxic Mercury Emissions?


Science Daily
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:49 UTC
A team of Yale scientists has found that certain countries and some U.S. states stand to benefit from the use of compact fluorescent lighting more than others in the fight against global warming. Some places may even produce more mercury emissions by switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lighting.
fluorescent lighting
© iStockphoto/Jon SchulteSome places may produce more mercury emissions by switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lighting, a new study suggests.

The study, which appears online October 1 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, looked at all 50 states and 130 countries to determine the impact of fluorescent lighting on total mercury emissions in those regions.

Estonia, which relies heavily on coal-powered energy generation, tops the list as the country that would see the greatest reduction in mercury emissions for every incandescent bulb it replaces with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). However, given its similar reliance on coal-fired plants, coupled with its huge population, China stands to reduce its mercury emissions by the greatest overall amount. Other countries near the top of the list include Romania, Bulgaria and Greece; within the U.S., North Dakota, New Mexico and West Virginia have the greatest potential to reduce their mercury emissions.
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Document

Father's age 'linked' to autism in children


Press Trust of India
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:41 UTC
While older women are said to have a higher risk of having babies with birth defects, it has long been presumed that men can have children at any age. But a new study has shown that it's the other way round.
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Syringe

US: Some want changes in vaccination schedules

Paul Nelson
KSL.News
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:36 UTC
Vaccine
© Unknown
Twenty-two medical groups are trying to boost the public's confidence in vaccines, but some advocates want changes in how vaccines are given.

Confidence about vaccines in Utah is already pretty high. Utah Immunization Program Outreach Coordinator Rebecca Ward said, "We have a fairly high vaccination rate in kindergarten and in child care facilities, anywhere from around the high '70s to the mid-'80s."

Comment:
"But, Ward says the link between vaccines and Autism because of Thimerosal is not real."
For those of you who believe as Ms. Ward does, may we direct your attention to just a few of numerous articles that say that she is either very misinformed, or is, herself, involved in damage control.

Stunning New Link Between Vaccines and Autism Rates
12 Babies die during vaccine trials in Argentina
Infant Primates Given Vaccines on U.S. Children's Immunization Schedule Develop Behavioral Symptoms of Autism
More parents claim vaccine-autism link

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Attention

Measles vaccination kills 4 infants in Maharashtra, India

Syed Rizwanullah
Transnational News Navigator
Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:30 UTC
Four infants aged between eight and 12 months died on Saturday, a day after they were administered measles vaccine at Waghola village,
about 30km from Aurangadad.

Six other infants in the same age group are battling for their lives at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Aurangabad.

Aurangabad deputy director, health, M I J Qazi, said: "The health department immediately stopped the vaccination drive, which was launched in Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed and Hingoli districts on September 12." About 4,000 vaccine bulbs had been sent to each district, he added.

The police have seized the vaccines and other materials and sent them for forensic examination. Aurangabad rural DSP Prabhakar Shelke said a case has been registered.
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Syringe

US: Vaccines for rabies being doled out sparingly

Brian Newsome
The Gazette
Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:23 UTC
Colorado health authorities are doling out rabies shot regimens one at a time and denying preventive vaccines to veterinarians and wildlife workers because of a severe national vaccine shortage.

The strict limitations come as a new strain of rabies found in skunks has emerged on the state's eastern plains.

Rabies is fatal once symptoms show up, but it is avoidable if treated with a five-shot regimen known as rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP. That leads to situations where people get treated with a series of shots, even if it's possible but unlikely that they have been exposed to rabies.
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Syringe

Bad vaccines risk encephalitis epidemic in India

Biswajeet Banerjee
Associated Press
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:13 UTC
India's government sent thousands of ineffective vaccines to a northern Indian state, halting a planned immunization drive against a deadly outbreak of Japanese encephalitis that has killed more than 200 children since June, officials said Wednesday.

The mistake - compounding delays in starting the immunizations - raises chances that hundreds more children could die of the disease this year, health officials warned.

North India's impoverished Uttar Pradesh state suffers from recurring annual outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease, which causes high fevers and vomiting - and sometimes comas and death. It is particularly deadly among children.
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Butterfly

Why moths can predict how long we'll live

Martin Wainwright
The Guardian
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:30 UTC
The chances of living to be 100 have never been better in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics' latest data. There are 9,300 centenarians in the country now, compared with 100 a century ago. But at the same time, through one of science's stranger connections, the chances of spotting a famous British insect have sunk by a similar ratio. We trade our longer lives for a decline, which looks terminal, in the melanistic - or dark-coloured variety - of the Peppered Moth.

The relation of older people to creepie-crawlies may sound curious, but it is based on pollution.
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Evil Rays

Toddlers get post-trauma stress


BBC News
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:25 UTC
Child PTSD
Children may avoid stressful situations

Children as young as two experience post-traumatic stress, research shows. A study on 114 younger children who had been exposed to road traffic accidents in the UK found one in 10 suffered continued anxiety after the event.

Although this is similar to the rate seen in adults, most go unrecognised and untreated, say the King's College London experts. Their work is published in the latest edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

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