Health & WellnessS


Health

Hypertension Patient's Gene Type Influences Response To Medication

Christian Nordqvist
Medical News Today
Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:51 UTC
If you suffer from high blood pressure (hypertension) your genotype may influence how well you respond to certain medications, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), January 23rd issue.

Of the 71 million Americans who are known to suffer from at least one type of CVD (cardiovascular disease), at least 65 million have high blood pressure. Only about two-thirds of all hypertension patients have their blood pressure controlled successfully with current treatments, the authors explain. Even though treatments have improved in recent years, a sizeable number of patients are not being treated effectively. Using treatment tailored to a CVD patient's particular genotype has been an area of focus in recent years - however, there have been no effective therapeutic choices for the clinical setting.
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Magic Wand

Doctors Report Transplant Breakthrough

Alicia Chang
Associated Press
Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:24 UTC
Los Angeles - In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.
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Fish

High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi

Marian Burros
The New York Times
Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:39 UTC
Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.
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Extinguisher

Flashback Le Musée du Fumeur (The Museum of Smoking)

Rolf Potts
The Smart Set
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:31 UTC
Wander through the 11th arrondissement of Paris toward the dead celebrities of Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and there's a decent chance you'll stumble across a small gallery called "Le Musée du Fumeur." Unlike the hallowed halls of the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay, there is no tyranny of expectation in this tiny, smoking-themed museum. No smiling Mona Lisa or reclining Olympia dictates where the random tourist should focus his attention. Thus left to meander, the drop-in visitor may well overlook the more earnest exhibits here - such as Egyptian sheeshas or Chinese opium pipes - and note the small, red-circle-and-slash signs reminding guests that, in no uncertain terms, smoking is strictly forbidden in the Museum of Smoking.
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People

One out of four children involved in a divorce and custody litigation undergoes the so-called Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)


University of Granada
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:28 UTC
One out of four children involved in a divorce and custody litigation undergoes the so-called Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), consisting of the manipulation of children by the custodial parent, who incessantly tries to turn them against the other parent by arousing in them feelings of hatred and contempt for the target parent, as explained in the book Marital Conflicts, Divorce, and Children's Development (Conflictos matrimoniales, divorcio y desarrollo de los hijos, edited by Pirámide), by professors José Cantón Duarte, Mª Rosario Cortés Arboleda, and Mª Dolores Justicia Díaz, from the Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Granada.
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Magnify

Epidemic superbug strains evolved from one bacterium


terradaily.com
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:16 UTC
The drug-resistant "superbugs" that have cut a swathe through day care centers, schools, locker rooms and prisons across the United States in the last five years stem from one rapidly evolving bacterium, US scientists said Monday.

Scientists studying the genetic make-up of these bugs, which are resistant to almost all antibiotics, say they are nearly identical clones that have emerged from a single bacterial strain, which they have dubbed USA300.

"The USA300 group of strains appears to have extraordinary transmissibility and fitness," said Frank DeLeo, a researcher with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Hamilton, Montana.

©Unknown
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Heart

From And For The Heart, My Dear Valentine: Broccoli


Science Daily
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:02 UTC
Wishing your Valentine good heart health on February 14 -- and throughout 2008?

Then consider the food some people love to hate, and hand over a gift bag of broccoli along with that heart-shaped box of chocolates. Researchers in Connecticut are reporting impressive new evidence that eating broccoli may protect against heart disease.

Researchers have known for years that broccoli is a rich source of antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber that may protect against cancer, Dipak K. Das and colleagues note. Other studies also suggest that broccoli may benefit the heart, although scientists do not know how it works.
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Coffee

Drinking coffee may lower ovarian cancer risk: study


Reuters
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:17 UTC
London - Caffeine appears to lower a woman's chances of developing ovarian cancer, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, while smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol do not.

The benefit for caffeine drinkers also seemed strongest for women who had never used oral contraceptives or postmenopausal hormones, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer.
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Bad Guys

Burying Clinical Data, Spinning Journal Articles, Selling Bad Drugs

Martha Rosenberg
CounterPunch
Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:52 UTC
If Hillary and Obama think the press is picking on them, they should look at Big Pharma.

The ink isn't even dry on the massive Vioxx settlement and already Big Pharma's been accused of burying clinical data, spinning journal articles and selling drugs that cause the conditions they're supposed to fix. Sound familiar?
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Health

Geneticizing Disease: Implications for Racial Health Disparities

Jamie D. Brooks, Meredith L. King
Center for American Progress
Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:44 UTC
Today it is almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or open a Web browser without finding an article that links a specific gene to a certain medical condition. In fact, a simple Google search of "gene linked" in November last year pulled up hits with genes linked to depression risk, restless leg syndrome, autism, breast cancer, childhood asthma, and type 1 diabetes in children. This is only on the first page of results from a total of 30,600,000 hits.

Increasingly, genes are being linked in the mainstream press, on the Web and also in prestigious medical journals not only to medical conditions but also to behavioral conditions such as narcissism, aggressiveness, and in some instances to voting behavior. Linking disease to specific genes is becoming progressively more common among the American public, too. The increasing perception is that an individual's genes are the main cause of disease.
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