Health & WellnessS


Health

Salt Raises Blood Pressure, Vitamin C Lowers It

Ben Wasserman
Foodconsumer.org
Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:30 UTC
A study presented at the American Heart Association's Fall Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research, in Atlanta shows too much dietary salt can contribute to resistant high blood pressure.

Another study also presented at the same conference showed that vitamin C intravenously delivered can lower blood pressure by acting on an overactive central nervous system. Read Vitamin C lowers blood pressure for details.

Resistant hypertension refers to a condition where blood pressure remains above the target level even when three medications are used in an effort to lower it. High blood pressure is also called resistant to treatment if the condition can only get controlled by taking four or more medications.
Read More...
Cut

Chelation Study for Autism Called Off

Salynn Boyles
WebMD
Sun, 21 Sep 2008 02:01 UTC
Controversial Trial Too Risky, Panel Says

Federal officials have abandoned a proposed study of a controversial alternative therapy for autism, leaving parents who believe in the treatment disappointed and angry about the move.

Comment: What a poor excuse to shelve a promising therapy, while failing to offer any alternatives for autism sufferers.

Read More...
People

New study: Overbearing parents foster obsessive children


University of Montreal
Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:40 UTC
New Université de Montréal study correlates parenting and a child's relationship to his or her hobby.

A new study has found that parental control directly influences whether a child will develop a harmonious or obsessive passion for their favorite hobby. Conducted by Professor Geneviève Mageau, of the Université de Montréal's Department of Psychology, the study will be published this fall edition of the Journal of Personality.

Mageau focused on 588 musicians and athletes between the ages of six and 38 who practice their hobby at different levels (beginner, intermediate and expert). Mageau used a Likert-type scale to measure how parents support the autonomy of their child.
Read More...
Gear

Shock Doctrine Applied: Some Political Views May be Related to Physiology


NSF
Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:21 UTC
View a video interview and podcast with researcher John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

People who react more strongly to bumps in the night, spiders on a human body or the sight of a shell-shocked victim are more likely to support public policies that emphasize protecting society over preserving individual privacy. That's the conclusion of a recent study by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Their research results appear in the Sept. 19 issue of Science magazine.
Read More...
Bulb

Duke medical team finds genetic link between immune and nerve systems


Duke University Medical Center
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:01 UTC
Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered genetic links between the nervous system and the immune system in a well-studied worm, and the findings could illuminate new approaches to human therapies.

For some time, researchers have theorized a direct link between the nervous and immune systems, such as stress messages that override the protective effects of antibodies, but the exact connection was unknown.

"This is the first time that a genetic approach has been used to demonstrate that specific neurons in the nervous system are capable of regulating immune response in distant cells," said Alejandro Aballay Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology.

They studied a neural circuit in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans.
Read More...
Cow

European Parliament urges commission to ban animal cloning for food supply


Cordis
Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:59 UTC


Cow and calf
©Shutterstock

On 3 September the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a ban on the cloning of animals for food supply purposes, as well as an embargo on imports of cloned animals and their produce and offspring. The main concerns were threats to animal welfare, genetic diversity, consumer confidence and the image and substance of the European agricultural model.

Animal cloning is usually carried out using somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT). This process involves inserting genes from the donor animal into an egg that has had its nucleus removed. This egg then forms an embryo, which is transferred to a surrogate mother. Cattle and pigs that have been successfully cloned using SCNT are apparently normal; however, severe adverse health effects and developmental abnormalities are seen in animals when failures occur during the 'reprogramming' phase of cloning.
Read More...
People

Sydney lab cleared to clone human embryos

Deborah Smith
The Age
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:48 UTC
Sydney scientists have been given approval to attempt a world first in medical research. Researchers at fertility company Sydney IVF were yesterday issued with Australia's first licence to produce cloned human embryos.

By extracting stem cells from the cloned embryos, they hope to gain unprecedented insights into how crippling conditions including muscular dystrophy and Huntington's disease develop, and how to treat them.
Read More...
Life Preserver

Moyamoya, Deadly And Mysterious Disease In Little People Can Be Treated


Medical News Today
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:10 UTC
Neurosurgeon Gary Steinberg, MD, PhD, leads the largest and most successful program in the world for treating Moyamoya, a mysterious vascular time bomb in the brain . Patients from Alabama to Australia have been seeking Steinberg out in a desperate effort to treat a brain disease so rare most neurologists will never see a case.
Read More...
Attention

US: Cancer Cases Investigated At Connecticut Plant

Mike Webster
WCSH6.com
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:01 UTC
A new study may solve the question of whether the chemicals at a Pratt and Whitney plant are causing cancer clusters in its workers. The results from the first phase of the multi-year study.

Widow Carol Shea says "everyone is very anxious to find out what the first results will be."
Read More...
Health

Woman Suffers Orgasm-Related Stroke


CBS News
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:00 UTC
Sex triggered a life-threatening stroke in a healthy 35-year-old Illinois woman, her doctors report. Sex- and orgasm-triggered strokes in relatively young women and men are rare, but not unheard of. They require a combination of factors and events not unusual in themselves, but which are highly unlikely to occur at the same time.
Read More...