Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 29 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Health & Wellness
Map

Magnify

Word Games May Predict Life of Relationship

Kathleen Doheny
USA Today
Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:29 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Word Association Game
Want to know if your romantic relationship will last "'til death do you part" - or if you are cruising toward a breakup?

A simple word association game may reveal the hidden truth about your union, a new study suggests.

Most research on successful relationships is flawed because it relies on asking the people involved how they feel about each other, said researcher Dr. Ronald Rogge, an associate professor at the University of Rochester and co-author of a study recently published online in the journal Psychological Science.

That strategy assumes partners know how happy they are - and tell the truth - which is not always the case, he said.

Instead, Rogge and his colleagues used word association games that are often used to detect bias to see what people really think about their partners.
      Read More...
Family

Scientists Prove That Women Are Better At Multitasking Than Men

Richard Gray
The Telegraph
Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:17 UTC
Womens work is never done
© Photolibrary
Psychologists have proven that men really are worse at multitasking than women
Psychologists have proven that men really are worse at multitasking than women, although it does depend on the task.

It is an age old complaint - that men are incapable of doing more than one thing at once.

Researchers decided to test the truth of the commonly held belief after discovering that no scientific research had ever been done into it.

They found that when women and men work on a number of simple tasks - such as searching for a key or doing easy maths problems - at the same time, the women significantly outperformed the men.

Scientists believe that the results show that females are better able to reflect upon a problem, while continuing to juggle their other commitments, than men.
      Read More...
Question

How Safe Are Cosmetics? New Bill Wants to Find Out

Andrew Schneider
Aol News
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:40 UTC
Image
© Mark Schapiro
Most Americans use about 10 personal care products each day. The toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, baby powder and other things that we routinely douse or slather on our bodies expose us to at least 100 different chemicals. Many of these, public health experts say, have been linked to adverse health effects like cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities.

There is nothing that the Food and Drug Administration can legally do about it.

But that may begin to change as two Democratic lawmakers - Reps. Jan Schakowsky from Illinois and Edward Markey from Massachusetts - introduced the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 today. If passed, it will be the first meaningful effort to give the FDA the teeth, tools and mandate to protect consumers from harmful products that are used by almost everyone.
      Read More...
Magnify

The Ugly Side of Beauty, Some Cosmetics Can Be Toxic

Marylynn Uricchio
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:53 UTC
Image
© unknown
It didn't get much attention nationally, just a few paragraphs in papers such as the Kennebec Journal and a segment on the local news.

But the quiet protest by a group of high school and college students in Waterville, Maine, in February was one of a growing number across the country. They gathered at the post office to mail 12 beauty products to an environmental lab, where they would be tested for toxins and other dangerous ingredients that many commonly used products contain.

"As young people, we're coming together to put our cosmetics on trial," said Anne Sheldon, a member of the Maine Women's Lobby, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping women through public policy.

"The European Union has banned more than 1,000 ingredients from cosmetics, while the United States has banned only 10."

Comment: For more information about dangerous ingredients and toxins in many commonly used cosmetic products read the following articles:

      Read More...
X

Can Ecstasy help ease post-traumatic stress?


CNN
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:08 UTC
veterans
© Getty
The drug MDMA - better known by its street name, Ecstasy - may be illegal, but a new study suggests that it's also a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study, which appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, included 20 people with PTSD stemming from traumas such as sexual assault and combat stress. On two separate occasions, 12 of the people took a dose of MDMA and then spoke for several hours with a pair of trained therapists. The others took a placebo but received the same therapy. (All of the participants received additional therapy sessions that did not involve the drug.)

Comment: The article states that Ecstasy, with all its negative effects, has been chosen because
"MDMA is believed to raise levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin and the so-called "bonding hormone," oxytocin.
There are certainly healthier and less risky methods of raising the levels of serotonin and oxytocin, including diet changes, supplementation and proper breathing techniques.

      Read More...
Attention

Common Chemicals Linked To ADHD


NewsInferno
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:15 UTC
A new Boston University School of Public Health study has found a potential link between polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFCs) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - a neurodevelopmental disorder - in children, wrote Science Daily. PFCs are ubiquitous industrial compounds found in a wide range of consumer products.

The research, first published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, indicated that the team found "increased odds of ADHD in children with higher serum PFC levels," quoted Science Daily.

Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers compared PFC levels in serum samples from 571 children, ages 12 to 15, said Science Daily. Parents of 48 of the children reported their children received an ADHD diagnosis. NHANES, said Science Daily, is an ongoing national survey of a sampling of the U.S. population from which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) obtains dietary and health data, explained Science Daily.
      Read More...
Health

IVF Babies May be More Prone to Childhood Cancers


NewsInferno
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:11 UTC
IVF babies, those children who were conceived via in vitro fertilization, seem to experience an increased risk for childhood cancer versus babies conceived naturally, wrote WebMD, citing Swedish research. The new study is believed to be the first of its kind to indicate a scientifically strong link, said the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, reported WebMD.

According to the study's lead author, childhood cancer is considered rare and the increase seen is small to moderate, potentially linked to the infertility, said WebMD. "There is an increased risk for cancer in children born via IVF, but it's rather small," researcher Bengt Kallen, MD, PhD, a retired professor of embryology and head of the Tornblad Institute, University of Lund, Lund, Germany, told WebMD. "The estimate that we give is that the risk increases 40 percent, but the estimate has, of course, a degree of uncertainty," Dr. Kallen added. The study appears in the journal Pediatrics.
      Read More...
Health

Poverty-stricken U.S. cities have HIV epidemics

Kate Kelland
Reuters
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:55 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Eric Thayer


AIDS activists demonstrate carrying mock coffins near the site of the upcoming G20 Pittsburgh Summit as they protest against the policies of the world's wealthiest nations regarding AIDS research and treatment funding in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania September 22, 2009.
Many low-income urban areas across the United States have epidemics of HIV, with 2.1 percent of heterosexuals in poverty-stricken urban areas infected with the incurable AIDS virus, U.S. scientists said on Monday.

In a study of rates of HIV across the United States, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that poverty is the single most important factor linked to HIV infection among inner-city heterosexuals.

"In this country, HIV clearly strikes the economically disadvantaged in a devastating way," said CDC HIV/AIDS expert Kevin Fenton, whose findings were presented at an international conference on AIDS in Vienna.

He said the research showed there was "a widespread HIV epidemic in America's inner cities."

More than 1.1 million people in the United States are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, according to the CDC, and there are around 56,000 new infections there every year.
      Read More...
Syringe

Combat injuries may cause epilepsy years later

Frederik Joelving
Reuters
Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:31 UTC
Wounded Iraq war veteran
© Reuters/Molly Riley
Wounded Iraq war veteran sits among injured war veterans during a news conference held by the Wounded Warrior Project in Washington September 12, 2007.
Soldiers may develop epilepsy from a head injury as many as 30 years down the road, hints a new study of Vietnam veterans.

Post-traumatic epilepsy, as the seizure disorder is known, is common after brain injuries sustained in battle.

"Soldiers have more severe injuries than what commonly occurs in the civilian populations," Dr. L. James Willmore, who was not involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

"With severe injury, almost half develop epilepsy. It's difficult to treat and a persisting problem," added Willmore, an epilepsy expert at Saint Louis University in Missouri and a former medical officer in the U.S. Navy.

The new study, published Monday in the journal Neurology, is part of the National Naval Medical Center's long-term efforts to follow Vietnam vets with head injuries. It's the third evaluation of this group, performed 35 years after the original damage.

Most of the injuries involved penetration of the skull, for instance by shrapnel. Through interviews with the vets, a neurologist determined that 87 out of 199 (44 percent) suffered from post-traumatic epilepsy.
      Read More...
Attention

Louisiana State University Survey Chronicles Health Impacts of BP Oil Spill in Louisiana


NewsInferno
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:37 UTC
Two Louisiana State University (LSU) sociology professors have released a survey detailing some of the health impacts the BP oil spill is having on people living in Louisiana's coastal communities. According to the two professors who conducted the study, those impacts are "real and substantial."

"Louisiana's coastal communities are the most geographically proximate human settlements to the actual disaster site," Professor Matthew Lee, said in a statement announcing the survey results. "It is imperative that we begin work now to better understand the human impacts of this situation because the results are expected to be long-lasting and diverse."
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts