More than 20 million Americans have diabetes and 54 million people are considered pre-diabetic and at high risk of developing it. Although genes play a role, risk factors include age, obesity, physical inactivity and race. Now, researchers believe they have found a new cause of this life threatening condition ... and it could be found in your own backyard. Now, we explore a place that's considered one of the most contaminated towns on Earth, where diabetes is running rampant.
For decades now, Steve Cooper has made his living off the land, selling the produce he grew in his own garden. That was until he found out the veggies he grew were laden with a deadly chemical manufactured in a factory, just a stones throw from his home in Anniston, Ala., in the same neighborhood where his grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and cousins all grew up.
No one likes to be excluded from a group: exclusion can decrease mood, reduce self-esteem and feelings of belonging, and even ultimately lead to negative behavior (e.g., the shootings at Virginia Tech). As a result, we often try to fit in with others in both conscious and automatic ways.
Psychologists Jessica L. Lakin of Drew University, Tanya L. Chartrand of Duke University, and Robert M. Arkin of The Ohio State University studied people's tendency to copy automatically the behaviors of others in order to find out how this mimicry can be used as an affiliation strategy.
Chili peppers can do more than just make you feel hot, reports a study in the August 1 Journal of Biological Chemistry; the active chemical in peppers can directly induce thermogenesis, the process by which cells convert energy into heat.
Capsaicin is the chemical in chili peppers that contributes to their spiciness; CPS stimulates a receptor found in sensory neurons, creating the heat sensation and subsequent reactions like redness and sweating.
Now, Yasser Mahmoud has found that capsaicin can create "heat" in a more direct manner by altering the activity of a muscle protein called SERCA. Normally, muscle contraction initiates following the release of a wave of calcium ions from a compartment called the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR); SERCA then actively pumps the calcium back into the SR (using ATP energy), causing muscle relaxation and renewing the cycle.
An outbreak of the mosquito-borne chikungunya fever infected 17 workers in an area of Singapore and a Chinese national in another area, as health officers are trying to contain the virus in the city-state.
There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the dengue-like disease, which causes fever, rash and debilitating joint pain that can persist for months.
Following the latest cluster of three chikungunya cases reported on Aug. 2, the Health Ministry has been carrying out active case detection at and around the site in Kranji Way, a northern industrial area.
Deena Beasley and Bill Berkrot
ReutersTue, 05 Aug 2008 11:00 UTC
LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK - Biogen Idec and Elan have notified regulators of two new cases of a potentially deadly brain disease in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients being treated with Tysabri.
Anne Harding
ReutersMon, 04 Aug 2008 22:37 UTC
An estimated 11.4 million Americans with at least one chronic illness have no health insurance, new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows.
These people are much less likely to have a regular place to get medical care, much less likely to have seen a doctor in the past year, and much more likely to use the emergency room than chronically ill people who are insured, Dr. Andrew P. Wilper and colleagues from Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found.
"Primary care doctors know that people who don't have access to health care due to health insurance suffer," Wilper, who is now with the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, told Reuters Health. "We wanted to study that issue and bring public attention to it."
Fewer patients are undergoing in-depth treatment as antidepressants and other drugs are more widely used. The shift is attributed partly to insurance reimbursement policies.
Wider use of antidepressants and other prescription medications has reduced the role of psychotherapy, once the defining characteristic of psychiatric care, according to an analysis published today.
The percentage of patients who received psychotherapy fell to 28.9% in 2004-05 from 44.4% in 1996-97, the report in Archives of General Psychiatry said.
Most kids' meals at top restaurant chains have way too many calories to be healthy, according to a report released yesterday.
Nearly every possible combination of the children's meals at KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic and Chick-fil-A are too fattening, the report on meals at 13 major restaurants found.
The average 8-year-old should eat about 1,200 to 1,300 calories a day, or about 430 calories a meal. But 93 percent of the meals at the chains had more calories than that. Instead of fried and fatty foods, restaurants should offer more choices that include fruits and whole grains, the report said.
© AZ quotes
In the months after the 2004 election, when the Red States were said to have voted on the basis of their "moral values," it was noted by many observers that the sleazy TV and movies the traditionalist and Christian right denounce so energetically also tend to get their highest ratings in the same parts of the country most populated by such people. (It was noted, as well, that some of the family pathologies that traditionalists decry are found at high rates among these most vocal proponents of "family values.")
Some took this as a clear indication of the hypocrisy of the conservatives: what they denounce, they also secretly enjoy. They are not as concerned about morality, this critique declared, as they pretend to be. A posture of devotion to righteousness, all the while indulging forbidden impulses in hidden ways.
Sleep-disordered breathing (also known as sleep apnea) is associated with an increased risk of death, according to new results from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort, an 18-year observational study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers found that adults (ages 30 to 60) with sleep-disordered breathing at the start of the study were two to three times more likely to die from any cause compared to those who did not have sleep-disordered breathing. The risk of death was linked to the severity of sleep-disordered breathing and was not attributable to age, gender, body mass index (an indicator of overweight or obesity), or cardiovascular health status.
