Health & WellnessS


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Is autism on the rise in Ireland?

Fiachra O'Cionnaith
Herald.ie
Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:19 UTC
The number of children diagnosed is soaring but as families reach out for help, the HSE (Health Service Executive) admits it's struggling to cope, reports Fiachra O'Cionnaith

Autism services across the country are struggling to meet the needs of children desperate for help because they are being swamped by a "huge increase" in demand.
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Syringe

Is Autism an "American Disease?" Somali Immigrants Reportedly Have High Rates

David Kirby
Huffington Post
Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:17 UTC
NOTE: Please also see my post today at AGE OF AUTISM -- "Top Researcher: Spread Shots Out 'As Much As Possible' With Mitochondrial Disorders"

A very interesting article was published today by Elizabeth Gorman on MinnPost.com that should be researched further: It might shine new light on genetic, and possibly environmental factors in autism.

The article reports that an unusually large proportion of Somali-speaking children in Minnesota have autism, something that has also been noted in Sweden, where Somali immigrants call autism "the Swedish Disease," because they did not see it back in East Africa.
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Flashback UK: A look into fluoridation


Rinf.com
Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:43 UTC
If you knew that someone was putting poison into your water supply, what would you do? Call the authorities? Well don't bother cos it's the government wot's doing it!

If you live in the West Midlands or the North East, the chances are that you already have a fluoridated water supply - and comments earlier this year from Health Secretary Alan Johnson made it clear that he is keen to see this toxic industrial waste added to everyone else's water as soon as possible. Why? He believes that it is a 'key means of tackling tooth decay' - despite the fact that no scientific evidence bears this out, and much other evidence has emerged linking fluoride ingestion to bone deficiencies, cancer, joint pain, skin rash, damage to thyroid glands and even IQ deficits.
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Pills

More than 1,000 died in painkiller overdoses over 2 years in the US

Will Dunham
Reuters
Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:44 UTC
At least 1,013 people died of overdoses in several U.S. cities from 2005 to 2007 after illegally injecting the highly potent painkiller fentanyl, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The fentanyl, at least some of which came from Mexico, was sold illegally by drug dealers on U.S. streets, sometimes mixed with cocaine and heroin, according to a report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Limiting fructose may boost weight loss, UT Southwestern researcher reports


UT Southwestern Medical Center
Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:07 UTC
One of the reasons people on low-carbohydrate diets may lose weight is that they reduce their intake of fructose, a type of sugar that can be made into body fat quickly, according to a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Elizabeth Parks, associate professor of clinical nutrition and lead author of a study appearing in a current issue of the Journal of Nutrition, said her team's findings suggest that the right type of carbohydrates a person eats may be just as important in weight control as the number of calories a person eats.

Current health guidelines suggest that limiting processed carbohydrates, many of which contain high-fructose corn syrup, may help prevent weight gain, and the new data on fructose clearly support this recommendation.

"Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans make body fat from fructose," Dr. Parks said. Fructose, glucose and sucrose, which is a mixture of fructose and glucose, are all forms of sugar but are metabolized differently.
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Common gene makes Africans more vulnerable to HIV

James Randerson
The Guardian
Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:03 UTC


Child in Village
©Marco Longari/AFP

Around 11% of HIV infections in Africa may be due to a genetic variant common in people of African descent that makes them more vulnerable to the virus. The genetic change, which is less prevalent in other ethnic groups, increases the likelihood of infection with the most common strain of the virus (HIV-1) by 40%.
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Roses

Are women's brains different from men's?


Independent
Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:09 UTC
Men and women show differences in behaviour because their brains are physically distinct organs, new research suggests. Male and female brains appear to be constructed from markedly different genetic blueprints.

The differences in the circuitry that wires them up and the chemicals that transmit messages inside them are so great as to point to the conclusion that there is not just one kind of human brain, but two, according to recent neurological studies.
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Attention

Pittsburgh cancer center warns of cell phone risks

Jennifer C. Yates and Seth Borenstein
Associated Press
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:41 UTC
PITTSBURGH - The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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FDA: Jalapeno peppers found tainted with Salmonella

FDA
foodconsumer.org
Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:01 UTC
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that one jalapeno pepper sample is a positive genetic match with the Salmonella Saintpaul strain causing the current Salmonella outbreak.

The positive sample was obtained during an FDA inspection at a produce distribution center in McAllen, Texas. The pepper was grown on a farm in Mexico, however, that does not mean that the pepper was contaminated in Mexico.
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Heart

Exercise could be the heart's fountain of youth


Washington University School of Medicine
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:44 UTC
Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but endurance exercise seems to make it younger. According to a study conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts. The researchers also showed that by one metabolic measure, women benefited more than men from the training.

"We know that the heart deteriorates as people get older, and that's largely because they don't stay as active as they used to," says first author Pablo F. Soto, M.D., instructor in medicine in the Cardiovascular Division. "Past research has suggested that exercise can reverse some effects of aging, and we wanted to see what effect it would have specifically on the heart."
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