Health & WellnessS


People

Protein found to turn up metabolism in mice

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:23 UTC


©REUTERS/Handout
Dr. Clay Semenkovich of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, in an undated photo.

Tricking muscle tissue to burn rather than store fat has succeeded in increasing the average life span of mice and staved off some age-related diseases, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
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People

Optimism isn't always healthy


University of Chicago Press Journals
Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:45 UTC
People are generally optimistic, believing they'll do better in the future than they've done in the past. This time around, I'll actually use that gym membership. I'm sticking to the diet this time. Now is the time to start saving for a down payment on a house. However, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that this "optimism bias" can lead us to make immediate choices that go against our long-term goals.

Ying Zhang, Ayelet Fishbach (both of the University of Chicago), and Ravi Dhar (Yale University) identify how different mindsets work in conjunction with an optimistic attitude. They found that when people think about the goal in terms of progress, they are more likely to make a detrimental decision - such as eating an unhealthy snack. However, when people focus on commitment to a goal, they are more likely to choose an action consistent with its attainment.
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Video

Pass the popcorn! Study finds that film enjoyment is contagious


University of Chicago Press Journals
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:15 UTC
Loud commentary and cell phone fumbling may be distracting, but new research from the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences. Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant's evaluation of the overall experience - the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie.

"When asked how much they had liked the film, participants reported higher ratings the more their assessments lined up with the other person," explain Suresh Ramanathan and Ann L. McGill (both of the University of Chicago). "By mimicking expressions, people catch each other's moods leading to a shared emotional experience. That feels good to people and they attribute that good feeling to the quality of the movie."
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Magnify

What "Psychopath" Means; It is not quite what you may think

Scott O. Lilienfeld
Scientific American
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:54 UTC
We have all heard these phrases before. "Violent psychopath" (21,700). "Psychopathic serial killer" (14,700). "Psychopathic murderer" (12,500). "Deranged psychopath" (1,050). The number of Google hits following them in parentheses attests to their currency in popular culture. Yet as we will soon discover, each phrase embodies a widespread misconception regarding psychopathic personality, often called psychopathy or sociopathy. Indeed, few disorders are as misunderstood as is psychopathic personality. In this column, we will do our best to set the record straight and dispel popular myths about this condition.

Comment: It may be a bit premature to suggest that psychopathy can be treated as Jennifer Skeem proposes. Dozens of other studies say otherwise.

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Info

Study: Try honey for children's coughs

Carla K. Johnson
Associated Press
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:04 UTC
A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms.

©PhotoDisc

The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said.

"Many families are going to relate to these findings and say that grandma was right," said lead author Dr. Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine.
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Health

Disturbing! Over 40 million in U.S. can't afford health care

Maggie Fox
Reuters
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:50 UTC
More than 40 million people in the United States say they cannot afford adequate heath care and go without drugs, eyeglasses or dental treatment, according to a federal report released on Monday.

©REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi
A customer at a pharmacy counter in a file photo.

Comment: The last couple of paragraphs seem to be a distraction.

See? Things are really getting better. Who needs health care anyway? In the U.S. that would be only the wealthy.

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Coffee

'Cweet': Another artificial sweetener being pushed to market


Mercola
Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:43 UTC
Brazzein, a sweet protein from the berries of a West African plant named Pentadiplandra Brazzeana, may soon hit supermarket shelves as the newest "natural" alternative to sugar.

The product, which will be marketed globally as Cweet, is said to be 1,000 times sweeter than sugar with no undesirable aftertaste. Cweet is also touted as tasting similar to sugar, is heat stable and water soluble, and has zero calories.
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Health

Flashback Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers

Andy Coghlan
NewScientist.com
Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:12 UTC
IT SOUNDS almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
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Attention

Slow pace of advances against cancer frustrate researchers

Scott Allen
Boston Globe
Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:31 UTC
Despite optimistic claims by American officials that the tide is finally turning against cancer, a growing number of patient advocates and researchers say they are discouraged by continuing slow progress in the 36-year-war against the disease in the United States.

Comment: The problem is the multi-billion dollar health care system is sustained by the cancer industry which doesn't like to look at cheap, safe and simple solutions to curing cancer or preventing it.

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Ambulance

Flashback First human trials for experimental cancer drug approved

Shannon Montgomery
The Canadian Press
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:28 UTC
Health Canada has approved the first human trial of an experimental cancer drug called dichloroacetate, or DCA, in people with an advanced form of an aggressive brain cancer.
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