Health & WellnessS


Health

Flashback U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says

An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

Health

CDC Identifies Two New Norovirus Strains

A 90-year-old nursing home patient died from the stomach flu last year, marking the first time U.S. health officials confirmed that the highly contagious bug is sometimes fatal.

The North Carolina woman so far is the only person for whom lab tests confirmed norovirus as the killer, but health officials believe the virus killed at least 18 others and caused thousands of illnesses late last year.

Nuke

The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products

Investigative journalist Mark Schapiro discusses why companies that manufacture hazard-free products for the European Union often produce toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.

Magic Wand

Flashback Throw out your shampoo

If you want hair as fluffy as mine, the solution is staring you in the face

Health

700,000 New Yorkers with jobs do not have health insurance

Having a job is not necessarily a passport to health insurance in New York City. One million New Yorkers - some 17% of the adult population - lacked coverage in 2005, according to a new Health Department report, and 700,000 of them were employed. The complete report, Health Care Access among Adults in New York City, is available online here.

The report suggests that the lack of coverage is especially severe among young adults, Hispanics, and men:

Attention

Free will takes flight: how our brains respond to an approaching menace

Wellcome Trust scientists have identified for the first time how our brain's response changes the closer a threat gets. Using a "Pac Man"-like computer game where a volunteer is pursued by an artificial predator, the researchers showed that the fear response moves from the strategic areas of the brain towards more reactive responses as the artificial predator approaches.

When faced with a threat, such as a large bear, humans, like other animals, alter their behaviour depending on whether the threat is close or distant. This is because different defence mechanisms are needed depending on whether, for example, the bear is fifty feet away, when being aware of its presence may be enough, or five feet away, when we might need to fight or run away.

Magic Wand

TAU Researchers Discover Correlation Between Birth Month and Short-Sightedness

Planning for a summer delivery for your child? You might want to choose an ophthalmologist along with an obstetrician.

If your child is born in the winter or fall, it will have better long-range eyesight throughout its lifetime and less chance of requiring thick corrective glasses, predicts a Tel Aviv University investigation led by Dr. Yossi Mandel, a senior ophthalmologist in the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps.

Forming a large multi-center Israeli team, the scientists took data on Israeli youth aged 16-23 and retroactively correlated the incidence of myopia (short-sightedness) with their month of birth. The results were astonishing. Babies born in June and July had a 24% greater chance of becoming severely myopic than those born in December and January the group with the least number of severely myopic individuals. The investigators say that this evidence is likely applicable to babies born anywhere in the world.

Magic Hat

'World's fattest GM mouse' appears immune to diabetes

The "world's fattest mice", genetically engineered to overproduce a key hormone, weigh five times as much as normal mice do - but bizarrely do not develop diabetes, reveals a new study. The findings shed light on how current diabetes medications work and point to new drug targets to treat the disease, say the study's researchers.

©Ja-Young Kim/Dave Gresham
A mouse (pictured on the left) engineered to overproduce the hormone adiponectin weighs 100 grammes - five times as much as a normal mouse (pictured on the right)

Health

Soda and Food Warning! High-fructose Corn Syrup Linked To Diabetes, New Study Suggests

Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

Bomb

Flashback More Dangerous Than Smoking? Death by Soda

Drinking one soda a day could cause you to gain 15 pounds a year. Other related health risks include type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer and nerve damage.

We are a country of overweight people. Americans are tipping the scales in record numbers, with approximately 130 million who are presently considered overweight or obese. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged 20 to 39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles to our overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods. Dealing with the crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy dense foods is a multi-billion dollar industry, and manufacturers of such products go to great lengths to ensure their shareholders continue to profit from the sales of nutrition-less foods.