Health & WellnessS


Health

My Mother, A Paranoid Schizophrenic

Editor's Note: With a poor understanding of mental health and the tendency to categorize those suffering as "crazy," patients and their families become reluctant to seek help. When they do, only about one in three receive treatment that meets minimum standards of care. NAM contributor Christine Ferrer candidly discusses her own mother's struggle with paranoid schizophrenia.

Attention

Dairy Consumption Increases Parkinson's Risk in Men

Consumption of dairy products, especially milk, increases a man's risk of contracting Parkinson's disease, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Bulb

Assembling the jigsaw puzzle of drug addiction

Using an integrative meta-analysis approach, researchers from the Center for Bioinformatics at Peking University in Beijing have assembled the most comprehensive gene atlas underlying drug addiction and identified five molecular pathways common to four different addictive drugs. This novel paper appears in PLoS Computational Biology on January 4, 2008.

Drug addiction is a serious worldwide problem with strong genetic and environmental influences. So far different technologies have revealed a variety of genes and biological processes underlying addiction. However, individual technology can be biased and render only an incomplete picture. Studying individual or a small number of genes is like looking at pieces of a jigsaw puzzle - only when you gather most of the pieces from different places and arrange them together in an orderly fashion do interesting patterns emerge.

Question

Egyptian woman flees hospital after H5N1 diagnosis

A 23-year-old woman has escaped from a hospital in Egypt after being preliminary diagnosed with a deadly bird flu virus, local media reported on Monday.

The woman was hospitalized last week with high temperature in the town of Tahta in the Upper Egyptian Sohag Governorate. She fled the hospital following the doctors' decision to transfer her to a special clinic.

Key

Scientists discover new key to flu transmission

Flu viruses must be able to pick a very specific type of lock before entering human respiratory cells, U.S. researchers said on Sunday, offering a new understanding of how flu viruses work.

The discovery may help scientists better monitor changes in the H5N1 bird flu virus that could trigger a deadly pandemic in humans. And it may lead to better ways to fight it, they said.


Comment: Now these scientists have found out how to manipulate the virus making it able to jump from human to human. The darned thing just wouldn't do it before, but now they have it figured out. And, of course, then they will be able to give us all of the vaccines that they have been trying to stick us with. They'll get this pandemic thing off the ground one way or another.


Alarm Clock

Size zero epidemic as hospitals struggle to cope with huge rise in patients with eating disorders

The number of patients needing hospital treatment for eating disorders has soared, it has emerged.

The findings are sure to renew concerns about the effect "size zero" models and celebrities are having on the body image of many youngsters.

©Unknown
Some doctors are blaming the fashion industry for the rise in so-called size zero patients

Pills

Most Free Drug Samples Go to Wealthy and Insured

Most free drug samples go to wealthy and insured patients, not to the poor and uninsured who may need them most, Harvard researchers report.

In fact, more than four-fifths of those who receive samples are insured, while less than one-fifth are uninsured and less than one-third have low incomes (below $37,000 for a family of four), the researchers found.

"Free drug samples influence prescribing and also introduce potential safety problems," said lead researcher Dr. Sarah Cutrona, a physician with the Cambridge Health Alliance and an instructor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School. "Despite these problems, many doctors support the program because [they say] free samples 'allow us to get free medications to our neediest patients,' " she said.

Eye 1

Teens who torture animals are 'potential time bombs'

A local criminologist says teens who torture animals are potential time bombs waiting to go off.

"Young people who torture animals can be lethal at older ages. This is an incredibly dangerous red flag. Combined with other behaviours, it's often an indicator of anti-social personality disorder and psychopathy," said Bill Pitt of the University of Alberta.

Syringe

New vaccinations to conquer flu pandemic (one that is being manufactured in secret government labs)

A vaccine that could help to control a flu pandemic has shown encouraging results in its first human trials.

The vaccine, made by Acambis, based in Cambridge, should protect against all strains of influenza A, the type responsible for pandemics. Unlike existing vaccines it does not have to be reformulated each year to match the prevalent strains of flu, so it could be stockpiled and used as soon as a pandemic strain emerges. Nor does it need to be grown on fertilised chicken eggs, as the existing vaccines do, but can be produced by cell culture.

Health

Flashback Chocolate: A Health Food After All



©Unknown
Chocolate 'addicts' won't be surprised at the growing evidence that it is a mood enhancer

Ever since the Atkins Diet revival made sugar public enemy No 1, confectionery manufacturers have had their work cut out to sweeten up their image. It hasn't been easy: sugar doesn't just make you fat, and thus can contribute to the development of adult-onset diabetes, it also rots your teeth. Willy Wonka would be weeping into his top hat.

But recently, chocolate has been undergoing something of a rehabilitation, and the current thinking is that it may actually be good for you. So, what's going on?