Health & WellnessS


Health

Maggot Therapy Gains in Popularity

Robin Lloyd
Live Science
Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:11 UTC
Medical Maggots
© Monarch Labs; Irvine, CAIn the United States, 70 vials of medical grade maggots are distributed each week to wound care doctors, clinics and hospitals.
Maggots, the larval stage of certain flies, are already a federally approved treatment for people with nasty bed sores, chronic post-surgical wounds and diabetic foot ulcers.

Now, maggot therapy has received a boost from the medical establishment that could make it easier for patients and doctors to get insurance reimbursement for this treatment, which was noticed as effective against war wounds by Napoleon's surgeon general as well as by orthopedic surgeon Dr. William S. Baer during WWI, among others.

Today, specially prepared maggots, typically of the green bottle fly, are used to "debride" wounds, feeding on sick tissue so healthy cells can move in and further infection is avoided. Maggot therapy was common in the United States in the 1930s but was replaced by antibiotics in the following decade or so. Now, with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria including MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, maggot therapy is getting a second look.
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Question

Australia: Classroom evacuated as kids get rashes


News.com.au
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:50 UTC
A Gold Coast school classroom has been quarantined and emergency services are on site after 23 children from a Year Four class began to display rashes.

Firefighters and paramedics are responding to an incident at Emmanuel College on Birmingham Road, Cararra.

Crews were called to the college at 9.30am (AEST) today when several children began to display rashes and complain of itching.

An emergency services spokeswoman said 23 children were being assessed and treated by paramedics at the site.

Officers had yet to confirm the nature of the substance but no children had been taken to hospital.
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Attention

Pesticide Exposure Boosts Parkinson's Risk by 60 Percent

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:33 UTC
A new study has provided one of the strongest links yet between pesticide use and Parkinson's disease.

A team of researchers from Duke University, Miami University and the Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence has found that people who were exposed to pesticides were substantially more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than closely related people who did not use so many pesticides, according to a study published in the journal BMC Neurology.
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Attention

Australia: Queensland launches ads to prepare public for water fluoridation


ABC News
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:24 UTC
The State Government has begun fluoride ads on radio and TV to prepare south-east Queenslanders for the change later this year. Fluoride will be added to drinking supplies around the state over the next few years, beginning in the south-east.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson says the Government is open and accountable about fluoride.

"[We're] not being sneaky, but being very up front about it," he said.

Premier Anna Bligh says similar advertisements may also be aired for recycled and desalinated water next year. She says she welcomes a debate about recycled water, as long as it is honest.
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Health

Veterans Affairs chief labels vet suicide 'chronic problem'

Julie Sherwood
Daily Messenger
Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:47 UTC
Canandaigua, New York - Veteran Affairs Secretary Dr. James Peake called the suicide rate among veterans "a chronic problem" during a visit Thursday to the VA Medical Center.

Referring to statistics showing that, on average, 6,500 U.S. veterans a year - or 18 a day - commit suicide, Peake said the data suggests an elevation in the suicide rate among veterans of all ages. Figures also suggest an "upturn in younger veterans" committing suicide, said Peake, including those who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Peake, a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran and former cardiac surgeon, toured the 75-year-old VA campus and talked with the media and local veterans advocates during the visit, which was prompted by the success of the national veterans suicide-prevention hotline.
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Evil Rays

Breast Cancer Rates Higher after Mammograms: Study Suggests Cancers May Go Away on Their Own

Gina Kolata
The New York Times
Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:44 UTC
Cancer researchers have known for years that it was possible in rare cases for some cancers to go away on their own. There were occasional instances of melanomas and kidney cancers that just vanished. And neuroblastoma, a very rare childhood tumor, can go away without treatment.

But these were mostly seen as oddities - an unusual pediatric cancer that might not bear on common cancers of adults and a smattering of case reports of spontaneous cures. And since almost every cancer that is detected is treated, it seemed impossible to even ask what would happen if cancers were left alone.

Now, though, researchers say they have found a situation, in Norway, that has let them ask that question about breast cancer. And their new study, published Tuesday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that even invasive cancers may sometimes go away without treatment and in larger numbers than anyone ever believed.
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Health

Mineral Oil Contamination In Humans


Science Daily
Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:37 UTC
From a quantitative standpoint, mineral oil is probably the largest contaminant of our body. That this contaminant can be tolerated without health concerns in humans has not been proven convincingly.

The current editorial of the European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology reflects on this and concludes that this proof either has to be provided or we have to take measures to reduce our exposure - from all sources, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and the environmental contamination.

In Ukraine recently around 100,000 tonnes of sunflower oil were contaminated with mineral oil at concentrations often above 1000 mg/kg. Much of the contaminated oil was withdrawn, but there are products on the market which were produced before this contamination was detected; and this autumn there are still several 10,000 tonnes of contaminated oil in Ukraine and other parts of the world. To protect consumers, a broad analytical campaign was initiated throughout Europe. The European Commission decided to apply a legal limit of 50 mg/kg to the mineral paraffins in Ukrainian sunflower oil and in September 2008 it organized a workshop together with the Official Food Control Authority of Zurich, Switzerland, to promote this campaign.
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Pills

Pharmaceutical Deception - Are Prescriptions Really Safe to Take?

Lourdes Salvador
American Chronicle
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:45 UTC
Drug pills
Most of us believe that prescription drugs are tested for safety. And we believe that theses tests are reviewed and drugs which are not safe are not prescribed. Yet, according to a recent review of over 900 clinical drug trials, most failed clinical trials are never published. In fact, more than half the studies showing a drug was ineffective were never published.

Sponsors seek approval by submitting a new drug application (NDA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The application includes information about the ingredients, pharmacology, manufacturing, processing, and packaging of the drug. It also includes clinical trial information.

The FDA assumes that sponsors submit all data, including data from failed trials, so that the FDA can decide whether to approve the drug based on the sponsor´s conclusion that it is safe and effective. However, this is not the case according to a recent study.
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Info

'Wiring' in the brain influences personality

Bernd Weber
University of Bonn
Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:53 UTC
Connections between the nerves is one factor determining whether a person welcomes a change or tends to avoid anything new.

Have you got the new iPhone yet? Do you like changing jobs now and again because you get bored otherwise? Do you go on holiday to different places every year? Then maybe your neural connection between ventral striatum and hippocampus is particularly well developed. Both of them are centres in the brain. The reward system which urges us to take action is located in the striatum, whereas the hippocampus is responsible for specific memory functions.
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Sheeple

TV Ads Contribute to Childhood Obesity, Economists Say

Roni Caryn Rabin
The New York Times
Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:19 UTC
Banning fast food advertisements from children's television programs would reduce the number of overweight children in the U.S. by 18 percent and decrease the number of overweight teens by 14 percent, economists have estimated in a new study.

The researchers used several statistical models to link obesity rates to the amount of time spent viewing fast food advertising, finding that viewing more fast food commercials on television raises the risk of obesity in children. The study appears in this month's issue of The Journal of Law and Economics.
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