New Research Could Lead To Men’s Birth Control Pill In Ten Years Or Less

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Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Women may soon be off the hook with having to remember to take birth control following the introduction of a new male contraceptive reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Scientists found that complete male infertility could be achieved by blocking two proteins found on the smooth muscle cells that trigger the transport of sperm. They demonstrated that the absence of two proteins in mouse models caused infertility without long-term effects on sexual behavior or function. The team believes the knowledge could be applied to the development of a contraceptive pill for men.
“Previous strategies have focused on hormonal targets or mechanisms that produce dysfunctional sperm incapable of fertilization, but they often interfere with male sexual activity and cause long term irreversible effects on fertility,” said Dr Sab Ventura of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
He said the team was able to show how simultaneously disrupting the two proteins, α1A-adrenoceptor and P2X1-purinoceptor, could control the transport of sperm during ejaculation, causing complete male infertility without affecting long-term viability of sperm or the sexual or general health of males.
“The sperm is effectively there but the muscle is just not receiving the chemical message to move it,” Ventura explained.
He added there was already a drug that targets one of the two proteins, but they would have to find a chemical and develop a drug to block the second one.
“This suggests a therapeutic target for male contraception. The next step is to look at developing an oral male contraceptive drug, which is effective, safe, and readily reversible,” Ventura said.
If the next step in the research is successful, then they believe a male contraceptive pill could be available within ten years.
Ventura and colleagues are not the only scientists trying to open the door up for male contraceptives. Last year, researchers reported that a small molecule called JQI was able to produce infertility without a decrease of sex drive. This team also believes these molecules could be packaged in pill form, allowing JQI to move through the blood-testis barrier without major obstacles.
“These findings suggest that a reversible, oral male contraceptive may be possible,” Dr. James E. Bradner, a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, said in a statement at the time of the study. “While we will be conducting more research to see if we can build on our current findings, JQ1 shows initial promise as a lead compound for male contraception.”

Health

Diverticulosis Is Much Less Risky Than Previously Thought

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Patients diagnosed at a younger age are at higher risk
People who have diverticulosis, or pouches in the lining of the colon, often worry that they will eventually develop a painful and sometimes serious condition called diverticulitis, as previous research has shown that one in four, or up to 25 percent, of those with the condition will.
Now, in a 15-year study that contradicts the common wisdom on rate of progression from diverticulosis to diverticulitis, UCLA researchers show that the risk is significantly lower than previously thought, about 1 percent over seven years. Researchers also found that those diagnosed with diverticulosis at a younger age are more likely to progress to diverticulitis than those diagnosed at an older age.
The study will help inform patients with diverticulosis – particularly those diagnosed at a younger age – and their physicians about the risks of developing acute diverticulitis, said study senior author Dr. Brennan Spiegel, an associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
“These colon pouches are commonly detected during colonoscopy, and patients wonder if they are important and what to do with them,” Spiegel said. “In short, diverticulosis is not something to worry much about. Chances are low that something will happen.”
The study appears in the December edition of the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
As they age, most people develop diverticulosis. More than half of people over 60 and two-thirds of those over 70 have the condition, but the pouches usually don’t cause any problems. Occasionally, the pouches become inflamed, leading to diverticulitis, which causes pain and infection in the abdomen. Doctors usually treat the condition with antibiotics, or in more severe cases, surgery.
Spiegel said the research predicting that one in four patients with diverticulosis would develop diverticulitis is based on limited data pulled from a time when population-based colonoscopy was not performed.
“These risk figures have been widely quoted throughout the literature and appear in multiple research publications, prominent review articles, textbooks and public guidelines,” Spiegel said. “Because the data are from before the advent of routine colonoscopy, many cases of diverticulosis may have gone undiscovered, skewing the risk predictions.”
The retrospective UCLA study identified 2,222 patients from the Veterans Affairs Health System with chart-confirmed diverticulosis and followed them over a median of 6.75 years. Of those 2,222 patients, 95 patients, or 4.3 percent, developed diverticulitis using a liberal definition of the condition not requiring CT scan confirmation. Of those 95, 23 patients, or only 1 percent, developed diverticulitis that met a very rigorous definition of the condition requiring CT scan or surgery to confirm the diagnosis.
And although the younger patients were more likely to develop diverticulitis, their risk was nowhere near the traditionally-cited 25 percent level, Spiegel said.
“With an aging population and greater use of colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening, more and more people are going to be told they have diverticulosis,” Spiegel said. “Patients often question the significance of this. If providers had more accurate information regarding the risk of diverticulosis complications, they then could make better decisions about the timing of interventions such as surgery.”
Spiegel said the study had limitations. It was a retrospective, single-center study in a Veterans Affairs hospital where the patients were primarily Western and predominantly male. Also, the researchers relied on administrative data to identify diverticulitis cases, and some cases may have been missed. However, the team did perform extensive reviews of medical records to confirm the chart evidence of diverticulitis.
Going forward, Spiegel and his team will study diverticulosis in other, more diverse populations to confirm these findings.
Diverticular disease accounts for more than 300,000 hospital admissions, 1.5 million inpatient care days and $2.4 billion in direct costs annually in the United States.
“These data may help to re-frame discussions with patients regarding their probability of developing clinically significant diverticulitis,” the study states. “Future research should identify individual predictors of diverticulitis in a prospective analysis to better risk-stratify among patients and further study why younger patients may harbor a higher risk of progression than do older patients.”
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Beaks Were Functionally Important In Protecting Dinosaur Skulls

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April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
One typical hallmark of modern birds that comes in a huge variety of shapes and sizes is the beak. While this is common knowledge, it is less well known that during the Cretaceous Period keratin-covered beaks had already evolved in different groups of dinosaurs.
A international team of scientists, composed of Dr Stephan Lautenschlager and Dr Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol with Dr Perle Altangerel of the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar and Professor Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University, used high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (CT scanning) and computer simulations to take a closer look at these dinosaur beaks.
The researchers focused on the skull of Erlikosaurus andrewsi, which was a 10- to 13-foot-tall herbivore dinosaur called a therizinosaur. E. andrewsi lived more than 90 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period in the region now known as Mongolia.
The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), show evidence that part of the snout of this dinosaur was covered by a keratinous beak. Further, they reveal that keratinous beaks played an important role in stabilizing the skeletal structure during feeding, making the skull less susceptible to bending and deformation.
Dr Stephan Lautenschlager of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences said, “It has classically been assumed that beaks evolved to replace teeth and thus save weight, as a requirement for the evolution of flight. Our results, however, indicate that keratin beaks were in fact beneficial to enhance the stability of the skull during biting and feeding.”
“Using Finite Element Analysis, a computer modeling technique routinely used in engineering, we were able to deduce very accurately how bite and muscle forces affected the skull of Erlikosaurus during the feeding process. This further allowed us to identify the importance of soft-tissue structures, such as the keratinous beak, which are normally not preserved in fossils,” added Dr Emily Rayfield, Reader of Palaeobiology at Bristol.
Lawrence Witmer, Chang Professor of Paleontology at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine noted, “Beaks evolved several times during the transitions from dinosaurs to modern birds, usually accompanied by the partial or complete loss of teeth and our study now shows that keratin-covered beaks represent a functional innovation during dinosaur evolution.”

Oxycodone, Hydrocodone Drugs Of Choice For Opioid Abusers

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April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

In the past 15 years, prescription opioid abuse has reached epidemic levels. Researchers investigating why abusers favor one prescription medication over another have discovered that oxycodone and hydrocodone are the drugs of choice for 75 percent of opioid-dependent people.

Oxycodone is the most popular drug over all, according to a study published in the journal PAIN, because of the high quality of the high for those who were after such effects. Hydrocodone has lower euphoric qualities; however it remains one of the most popular primary drugs. Users also say they are concerned about acetaminophen poisoning since, until recently, all hydrocodone products contained non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Opioids are used to manage pain in general medicine and dentistry and are well known for their analgesic properties and their ability to produce a high. Misuse has risen in most opioid classes. Hydrocodone and oxycodone, which are the most commonly prescribed opioids in the US, both have a long history of non-therapeutic purposes and are by far the most popular drugs of choice among abusers.

A team of researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis and the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities at Nova Southeastern University investigated the factors that influence the choice of primary drugs of abuse in 3,250 opioid-dependent patients entering drug-treatment programs across America.

Study participants were identified through the ongoing nationwide Survey of Key Informants’ Patients (SKIP) program, which is a key element of the post-marketing surveillance system, Researched Abuse, Diversion and Addiction-Related Surveillance (RADARS®) System. More than 150 public and privately funded treatment centers, geographically balanced between urban, suburban and rural patients, are part of the SKIP system.

The team used anonymous, self-administered surveys to assess the influence of sex, age, race/ethnicity, area of residence, source of income, health-care coverage, drug-use patterns, and other decision-related factors in order to determine the choice of one opioid over another. To enrich the study, the team recruited an additional 200 patients who previously had completed the SKIP survey and indicated that they were willing to give up their anonymity to participate in a follow-up study using non-structured, qualitative interviews, dubbed Researchers and Participants Interacting Directly (RAPID).

The results showed that significantly more users chose oxycodone (47 percent) than hydrocodone (29.4 percent). For the most part, this was because the quality of the high was viewed to be much better by oxycodone users (54 percent) than hydrocodone users (20 percent). When asked why they chose a particular primary drug, 90 percent selected mood alteration. A very large percentage of both sample groups — 50 percent and 60 percent — indicated that the treatment of pain was also a factor in their use. This finding suggests that, in the view of many patients, pain was inadequately managed.

Hydrocodone is viewed as less attractive than oxycodone by active abusers despite its high abuse rates among prescription opioid abusers. This is because, unlike many oxycodone products that are 100 percent oxycodone, hydrocodone is frequently combined with acetaminophen, which can deter users from increasing the dose to get high.

In contrast, oxycodone users are more likely to tamper with their drugs in order to inhale or inject the drug. In 2010, the introduction of an OxyContin abuse-deterrent formulation led to a significant drop in the use of OxyContin. The overall impact on total oxycodone users, however, was not sufficiently significant to change the rank of order of abuse rates; oxycodone products remained more popular than hydrocodone products.

One of the essential questions for this study is why hydrocodone remains one of the most popular primary drugs even though it produces a lower quality of high and raises the potential for acetaminophen poisoning.

“The data show that hydrocodone is popular because it is relatively inexpensive, easily accessible through physicians, friends, and families, and is perceived as relatively safe to use, particularly by risk-averse users. This group includes generally risk-averse women, elderly people, non-injectors, and those who prefer safer modes of acquisition than dealers, such as doctors, friends, or family members,” says Theodore J. Cicero, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. “In contrast, we found that oxycodone is much more attractive to risk-tolerant young male users who prefer to inject or snort their drugs to get high and are willing to use riskier forms of diversion despite paying twice as much for oxycodone than hydrocodone.

“It is clear that not all drug abusers share the same characteristics,” he continues. “The decision to use one drug over another is a complex one, largely attributable to individual differences such as personality, gender, age, and other factors. Prevention and treatment approaches should benefit from this because it may help prescribing physicians determine which drug to prescribe and monitor for abuse.”

Extreme Genomic Evolution Discovered In Burmese Pythons

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[ Watch the Video: Genomics Reveal The Evolution Of Snakes ]

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A team of researchers have sequenced the genome of the Burmese python, or Python molurus bivittatus, finding large numbers of rapidly evolved genes in snakes.

Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reveal that these genetic changes are linked to extreme characteristics in snakes. The discovery of these characteristics, which include rapid increases in metabolism and organ growth after feeding, open a novel window into how evolution works at the molecular level.

“The bottom line is that snakes have undergone incredible changes at all levels of their biology, from the physiological to the molecular,” said David Pollock, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the CU School of Medicine. “Snakes appear to have functionally evolved much more than other species. They are a crucible of evolution.”

Pollock collaborated with Todd Castoe, a former postdoctoral fellow at the CU School of Medicine now at the University of Texas at Arlington, and an international team of researchers from four countries. They found that snakes carry large numbers of proteins with signatures for positive selection in their ancestors.

PYTHON ADAPTATION

“One of the fundamental questions of evolutionary biology is how vertebrates with all the same genes display such vastly different characteristics,” Castoe said. “The Burmese python is a great way to study that because it is so extreme. We’d like to know how snakes uses genes we all have to do things no other vertebrate can do.”

Positive selection in hundreds of genes is linked to extreme characteristics of the snake such as in metabolism, spine and skull shape and cell cycle regulation.

“When you have positive selection you have a lot of adaptation going on,” Pollock said. “Positive selection is rare, but when it happens we are curious. What we are seeing in snakes is unprecedented.”

These multiple adaptive bursts caused evolutionary redesign of many proteins in the snake, said the researchers.

“We first saw these unusual molecular patterns in the snake mitochondrial DNA, and now it seems they extend throughout the nuclear genome,” Pollock said.

After Burmese pythons eat, the team found that they experience massive changes in gene expression linked to 35 to 100 percent size increase in their heart, small intestine, liver and kidneys in a 24 to 48 hour period. This is an example of physiological remodeling. As the digestion completes, the snake’s organs return to their original size within a matter of days. The researchers suggest that gaining a better understanding of how snakes accomplish such enormous feats could hold vital clues for the development of treatments for many human diseases.

Normally the lowest of any vertebrate, the snake’s metabolism ramps up significantly. According to Pollock, the increase is akin to a horse going from standing still to running a quarter mile race. The snake isn’t moving, however, only digesting.

“Genes that were fully off are now full on,” he said. “Snakes eat animals as big as themselves. Once they catch something that size, they need to digest it quickly before it rots in their stomach, and they have to turn a lot of genes on to do it.”

“The Burmese python has an amazing physiology. With its genome in hand, we can now explore the many untapped molecular mechanisms it uses to dramatically increase metabolic rate, to shut down acid production, to improve intestinal function, and to rapidly increase the size of its heart, intestine, pancreas, liver, and kidneys,” said Stephen Secor, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Alabama. “The benefits of these discoveries transcends to the treatment of metabolic diseases, ulcers, intestinal malabsorption, Crohn’s disease, cardiac hypertrophy and the loss of organ performance.”

Phenotypic novelty in snakes appears to be driven by the system-wide coordination of protein adaptation, gene expression and changes in the genome structure, the study notes.

The findings can offer insights into how evolution works at the molecular level, as well as having implications for humans. Snakes contain many of the same genes as other vertebrates, so investigating how these genes have evolved to produce such extreme and novel characteristics may eventually explain how these genes function. Understanding these functions, such as how they enable extreme feats of organ remodeling, could someday be used to treat human diseases.

“What we are seeing now can apply to people,” Pollock said. “We can link mutations to physiological effects and perhaps find a way to stop those mutations before they cause disease. There are any number of possibilities and we are only starting to unravel them.”

COMPARING THE KING COBRA

Along with a companion paper also published in PNAS detailing the genome of the King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), these studies represents the first complete and annotated snake genomes.

The python and king cobra studies represent a significant addition to the field of “comparative systems genomics – the evolutionary analysis of multiple vertebrate genomes to understand how entire systems of interacting genes can evolve from the molecules on up,” according to Pollock

He said, “I believe that such studies are going to be fundamental to our ability to understand what the genes in the human genome do, their functional mechanisms, and how and why they came to be structured the way they are.”

To accomplish both studies, the team aligned 7,442 genes from the python and cobra with gene sequences available in the Ensembl Genome Browser from other amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. They analyzed the data using a statistical method called “branch site codon modeling” to look for genes that had been positively selected (or evolutionarily changed due to natural selection) in the python, the cobra, and early in snake evolution in the common ancestor of these two snakes. The data revealed changes in hundreds of genes.

The research team believes the results demonstrate that natural selection-driven changes in many genes that encode proteins contributed substantially to the unique characteristics of snakes.

The research team found that the extreme characteristics in snakes could also be linked to duplications or losses in multigene families — in addition to changes to individual genes and their expression — including ancient loss and more recent re-evolution of high resolution vision, and their ability to detect chemical cues from the environment.

The team noted that, despite the fact that most assume that reptile genes change at a very slow rate, snake genomes are evolving at one of the fastest rates for any vertebrate.

Co-Catalyst System Could Help Encourage Synthetic Gasoline Production

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redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Researchers have reportedly developed a novel chemical system that uses inexpensive and easy-to-fabricate carbon-based nanofiber materials that could prove promising in the development of synthetic gasoline.
Writing in the online edition of the journal Nature Communications, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) mechanical and industrial engineering professor Amin Salehi-Khojin and his colleagues report that their system efficiently converts carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, a useful staring material for syngas and other synthetic fuels.
“I believe this can open a new field for the design of inexpensive and efficient catalytic systems for the many researchers already working with these easily manipulated advanced carbon materials,” Amin Salehi-Khojin said in a statement Monday. His team’s method represents a new approach to the long-standing search for a commercially viable way to chemically lower the oxidation rate of CO2.
Lowering or “reducing” carbon dioxide’s oxidation rate is a two-step process, but Salehi-Khojin pointed out that chemists typically used only one catalyst. However, he and his associates experimented with using different catalysts for both steps. Previously, they used an ionic liquid for the first step and silver for the final reduction to carbon monoxide – a process which was reportedly more efficient than single-catalyst carbon reduction systems.
However, the expense of silver led the investigators to try using graphitic carbon structures doped with other reactive atoms, a fairly new type of metal-free catalysts, instead. They first tried carbon nanofibers doped with nitrogen as the second-step catalyst. Usually, when carbon materials are used in this process, the doping atoms drive the reduction reaction, but in this case Salehi-Khojin’s found it was the carbon atom that was responsible.
According to Mohammad Asadi, a UIC graduate student and one of the first authors of the study, the researchers were initially surprised by the result. However, as they continued their research, they found that not only was the carbon catalyzing the reaction, but that it was doing so more efficiently than silver. In fact, Asadi said that it showed “substantial synergistic effects.”
Furthermore, the study authors “uncovered the hidden mechanism” of the co-catalyzed reaction, according to UIC researcher and first author Bijandra Kumar. Their work has “opened up a lot of options for designing inexpensive and efficient catalyst system for carbon dioxide conversion,” Kumar added. “Further, one can imagine that using atomically-thin, two-dimensional graphene nano-sheets, which have extremely high surface area and can easily be designed with dopant atoms like nitrogen, we can develop even far more efficient catalyst systems.”
Had the reaction occurred on the dopant, Salehi-Khojin said that the researchers would have limited freedom in terms of structure, because little could be done to increase the reaction’s efficiency or stability. However, since the reaction occurred on the carbon, it gave them a tremendous amount of freedom to optimize the reaction using advanced carbon materials. He hopes that his team’s findings will lead to new commercially viable processes for the production of syngas, and perhaps even one day will allow scientists to use carbon dioxide to create gasoline.

Want To Be Happier? Try Hitting The Slopes

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Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers have confirmed in a study published in Applied Research in Quality of Life that skiing can give a boost of pleasure and well-being.

A team at Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea conducted a survey of 279 visitors at three major ski resorts in South Korea. They measured the level of happiness and satisfaction of skiers and snowboarders by assessing their sense of pleasure, their level of flow or engagement in the activity and the sense of involvement and satisfaction they subjectively reported after the winter activity.

The skiers and snowboarders spent an average of four and a half days at a resort, but more than 90 percent visited ski resorts fewer than five times in a season. The sample included 126 participants that skied, 112 who were snowboarders and 41 who participated in both activities.

The team found the sport has a positive effect on satisfaction and such rich experiences enhance happiness, which can lead to positive affirmations outside of sports to help have an impact on one’s health and well-being.

The team said the experience of skiing itself is so enjoyable that people will do it at great cost, just for the sake of doing it. Hyun-Woo Lee, a researcher on the study, said even one-off or fewer skiing outings had a positive effect on participants. They also found skiers showed a higher level of pleasure and involvement in their sport than snowboarders did.

The new study demonstrates how various elements, such as being deeply involved in an enjoyable activity, can enhance a person’s positive outlook on life. The findings are in line with the thinking of positive psychology that physical activity in sports helps people and communities to flourish.

“Together, these findings support the research model synthesizing the behavioral constructs of sport participation with subjective well-being perspectives,” the researchers wrote in the journal. “Moreover, the expanded model in a sporting context further evidences the functional roles of the orientations to happiness by results consistent with extant literature of positive psychology.”

Previous studies highlighted the benefits of participating in sports, such as preventing mental illness and enhancing positive thinking.

“Adult playfulness can influence people’s happiness, while activities and socially convening around a sporting activity such as skiing have positive psychological outcomes and contribute to overall well-being,” Lee said in a press release. “This is also true for people who only casually participate in sports.” Lee advised that people who organize sporting activities should attempt to build group solidarity and greater involvement so people can grow emotionally, socially and creatively.

Newest iPhone Models Take Japan By Storm

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Bryan P. Carpender for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Until two months ago, Japan’s largest telecommunications company, NTT DoCoMo refused to carry Apple’s iPhone devices. Now, with iPhone’s availability on all three mobile carriers, Apple’s market share has surged to over 76 percent of all smartphone sales in Japan.
NTT DoCoMo’s longtime holdout against Apple came to an end after the company realized it needed to regain market share from other smaller wireless carriers who were already offering iPhone handsets. NTT DoCoMo’s refusal to join the iPhone trend was due in part to its desire to focus on Android platform smartphones from Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co.
Another reason for balking at the iPhone inclusion was NTT DoCoMo’s vested interest in protecting and promoting its developing ‘lifestyle system’ which includes its online store, dmarket – a digital entertainment marketplace similar to Apple’s iTunes.
In 2011, NTT DoCoMo’s Chief Executive Officer stated his refusal to carry iPhones was due in part to Apple’s refusal to allow custom carrier branding and preinstalled apps on its iPhones. After the exclusion of iPhones caused them to lose 3.2 million users, NTT DoCoMo quickly changed its tune and finally began carrying iPhones this fall.
If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
US wireless carrier Verizon avoided getting into the iPhone game for years, instead choosing to back BlackBerry’s attempts to launch the Storm handset, which fizzled out after just two generations.
Verizon then got behind the Android platform, positioning the ‘Droid’ branded handset as a powerful alternative to iPhone. When that strategy failed to ignite sales, Verizon finally relented. After launching iPhone 4 in 2011, they saw the sales of Apple’s smartphone dwarf the combined sales of all of its Android-based models.
Now that all three wireless carriers in Japan support the iPhone line, the numbers tell the rest of the story. The most recent weekly sales rankings show 9 of the top 10 smartphones are iPhones, with various capacity iPhone 5s models capturing seven slots and the iPhone 5c nabbing the remaining two.
Curiously, the only non-iPhone device in the top 10 was not from Samsung or Sony; it was a low-end handset by ZTE.
Although there has been an expected jump in iPhone sales with the newest additions to the iPhone line, the percentage of the sales increase was lower than with the launch of iPhone 5.
“Apple’s share of the market still remains lower than when the iPhone 5 was released, although this is not wholly unexpected, as shoppers tend to react more positively to ‘full’ releases than incremental improvements such as the 5s and 5c,” said Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
The iPhone 5c, with its bright range of colors and lower price point was designed to appeal to a broader audience and provide an entry point for new customers to try the brand for the first time without a hefty price tag.
“The good news for Apple is that this wider appeal is attracting significant switching from competitors. Almost half of iPhone 5c owners switched from competitor brands, particularly Samsung and LG, compared with 80 per cent of 5s owners who upgraded from a previous iPhone model,” continued Sunnebo. Attracting new customers and luring them away from competitors is one of Apple’s strategic strengths.
Though the iPhone is currently dominating the market in Japan, time will tell if it can maintain its surging market share. In the meantime, you can bet the other manufacturers are going to be stepping up their game to see if they can reclaim a larger piece of the pie.

Health

Imaging Shows Long-Term Impact Of Blast-Induced Brain Injuries In Veterans

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Using a special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers have found that soldiers who suffered mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) induced by blast exposure exhibit long-term brain differences, according to a study being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Recent wars have resulted in veterans with an exposure rate of approximately 20 percent to blast-induced MTBI, or trauma resulting from mortar fire and improvised explosive devices. Diagnosis can be challenging, especially in mild cases.

“Mild traumatic brain injury is difficult to identify using standard CT or MRI,” said study co-author P. Tyler Roskos, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist and assistant research professor at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo. “Other methods may have added sensitivity.”

One of those methods is diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), an MRI technique used to identify microstructural injury to white matter, the part of the brain that consists mostly of signal-carrying axons. Damage-associated changes in water movement along the axons are comparable in certain respects to what might happen with a garden hose, according to co-author Thomas M. Malone, B.A., research associate at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

“As water passes through the hose from the faucet to the sprinkler, it goes in the same direction, but if you were to puncture the hose with a rake, the water would shoot out the sides,” Malone said.

In the study, researchers compared DTI-derived fractional anisotropy (FA) values in 10 veterans of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom who had been diagnosed with MTBI with those of 10 healthy controls. FA measures the uniformity of water diffusion throughout the brain, and low FA tends to indicate areas of axonal injury. The average time elapsed between the blast-induced injury and DTI among the patients was 51.3 months.

“The time since injury is a novel component to our study,” Dr. Roskos said. “Most other blast-related MTBI studies examine patients in the acute phase of injury.”

Comparison of FA values showed significant differences between the two groups, and there were significant correlations between FA values and attention, delayed memory and psychomotor test scores. Since the victims were, on average, more than four years removed from their injuries, the results suggest the presence of a long-term impact of blast injury on the brain.

“This long-term impact on the brain may account for ongoing cognitive and behavioral symptoms in some veterans with a history of blast-related MTBI,” Dr. Roskos said.

The results also indicate that DTI is sensitive to group differences in blast-related MTBI even in the post-acute phase.

“DTI shows promise in enhanced sensitivity for detecting MTBI compared to MRI/CT, even in the chronic phase,” Dr. Roskos said. “Identification of changes in specific brain regions may help in diagnosis and treatment of MTBI among veterans.”

Dr. Roskos explained that this research is aimed at finding better ways for the clinician to differentiate between MTBI and PTSD in veterans in order to improve treatment.

“It makes a difference, because PTSD is psychological in nature and MTBI is neurological,” he said. “Many veterans in the healthcare system are dealing with MTBI, PTSD or both. Our emphasis today is to find the best treatments and measure the patient’s progress. Imaging has the potential to do that.”

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Journal Retracts Research Linking GM Corn With Cancer In Rats

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redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Controversial research which linked genetically modified (GM) corn to cancer and premature death in rats has been retracted by a food safety journal after the study’s authors refused to withdraw the paper.

The study, which was originally published by the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology 14 months ago, claimed rodents had developed tumors and experienced multiple organ failures after consuming GM corn produced by St. Louis-based Monsanto.

The study “described rats that for two years were exposed to herbicide-tainted water and fed an unlimited diet of Roundup-resistant maize, a type of corn genetically modified to resist herbicide and marketed by the agribusiness giant Monsanto,” TheStar.com science and technology reporter Kate Allen explained. She added the researchers “claimed many of the female GM-fed rats grew massive mammary tumors and that the males suffered from liver damage; all died more quickly than animals fed a non-GM diet.”

Lead author Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen defended his team’s research, calling it the most detailed analysis of the subject ever completed. However, criticism of the study began to mount last November as over 700 other scientists signed an online petition demanding the authors fully disclose all information pertaining to their research.

In fact, in a letter to the journal’s editor Maurice Moloney, then the head of the Rothamsted Research agricultural study group, detractors called the paper “seriously deficient in its design, its execution and its conclusions” and said it was “appalling” that a “respected” journal would publish the study. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) echoed these sentiments, claiming there were “serious defects” in the design and methodology of Seralini’s study.

On Thursday, the editors of the journal issued a statement announcing the study was being retracted following “a thorough and time-consuming analysis of the published article and the data it reports, along with an investigation into the peer-review behind the article.” They went on to report the nature of the concerns raised about the research prompted Food and Chemical Toxicology Editor-in-Chief A. Wallace Hayes to review the raw data from the research.

“The request to view raw data is not often made; however, it is in accordance with the journal’s policy that authors of submitted manuscripts must be willing to provide the original data if so requested,” the publication said. While their review uncovered “no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation” of that data, it did find “legitimate cause for concern regarding both the number of animals in each study group and the particular strain selected.”

According to Andrew Pollack of the New York Times, the review ultimately determined that the study results were “inconclusive” and did not meet the journal’s standards for publication. The decision to retract the paper came after the authors refused to voluntarily withdraw it, added Nature.com’s Barbara Casassus.

Study co-author and physician Joël Spiroux de Vendômois, who is also the president of the Paris-based Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN), told Casassus that the retraction was “a public-health scandal” and that their paper was subjected to more scrutiny than other published research.

Supporters of the study’s findings also note one of the journal’s editors, Richard Goodman, was once employed by Monsanto – though he denies being involved in the publication’s decision to retract the paper. “Food and Chemical Toxicology asked me to become an associate editor in January 2013 because of my extensive experience in the area, and after I complained about the Séralini study,” he told Nature. “But I did not review the data in the Séralini study, nor did I have anything to do with the determination that the paper should be withdrawn from or retained by the journal.”

Fibromyalgia

How Chiropractic Care Can Help Combat Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a disease of the central nervous system that causes debilitating and widespread body pains that cannot be pinpointed to any particular physiological cause.

This is because fibromyalgia causes the central nervous system of a patient to become oversensitive and abnormally sensitive to the impulses of pain that are received from various sensory organs in the body.

A person suffering from fibromyalgia has a central nervous system that amplifies the sensation of pain while minimizing their ability to resist and fight pain itself.

Fibromyalgia is a fairly recent discovery and is in fact disputed by certain people in the medical profession. There is however, no disputing the fact that it is a debilitating disease that makes life difficult for anyone affected by it. Fibromyalgia also gives rise to several other problems that can be linked to it.

Physical Symptoms & pain associated with Fibromyalgia

The most common visible symptoms associated with fibromyalgia include chronic body pain and psychological problems. One of the most common problems of fibromyalgia is interrupted sleep patterns. This causes a patient to feel tired even after long periods of sleep. The reason for this is that while the patient perceives his sleeping as being uninterrupted, it is in fact interrupted many times due to problems like sleep apnea and the aforementioned chronic pain.

This can lead to chronic headaches and dizziness or lightheadedness. Other problems associated with sleep deprivation such as cognitive problems and long-term and short term memory problems are also common. Irritable bowel syndrome is also a very common complaint of people suffering with fibromyalgia.

As this is a disease of the central nervous system other problems like numbness and tingling of extremities are also quite common. A person suffering from fibromyalgia can also develop a heightened sensitivity to allergens & chemicals.

In women, a common side effect of fibromyalgia is menstrual cramping.  Muscular pain due to exertion is also a common complaint and this can later translate into chronic pain which is much more difficult to deal with.

How Chiropractic Care Can Help Combat Fibromyalgia

Pain management techniques

Due to the nature of fibromyalgia being very complex, scientists and medical professionals are still trying to gain a better understanding of how it works. There are however, many ways in which the pain and other symptoms associated with fibromyalgia can be managed and reduced.

The psychological symptoms of fibromyalgia can be combated effectively with medical drugs, psychological therapy and certain lifestyle changes that eliminates stress.

There are also several ways to combat the physical pains of fibromyalgia. Chiropractic care is a very effective method of coping with this chronic pain. The process of administering chiropractic care is a detailed and complex procedure. The chiropractor first diagnoses the key reasons behind the pain and then works to alleviate the symptoms.

The chiropractor will make use of a patient’s clinical evaluation and blood tests to determine the presence of conditions like  Lyme disease, anemia, rheumatoid problems and hormonal imbalances. Other potential problems like allergies or poor nutrition are also examined. The most common problem associated with fibromyalgia that chiropractors help to manage is joint and back pain.  Chiropractors have extensive experience in dealing with these problems.

Chiropractic care has helped a large number of people from all walks of life.  Chiropractors also suggest nutritional advice and dietary changes in addition to certain lifestyle changes that can greatly help in reducing or even eliminating the pain associated with fibromyalgia. The techniques used by chiropractors to combat the pain of fibromyalgia are diverse.

The main goal of chiropractic care is to reduce the stresses and pains that are caused by fibromyalgia.  Some of the most common therapies include ultrasound stimulation and electrical stimulation of affected areas.  Massage therapy is also a very useful tool that is used by experienced chiropractors to combat skeletal and muscular pain.

Chiropractic care can also include the suggestion of beneficial exercises and stretches that can greatly alleviate the pain of muscles and joints. Dietary supplements can also be suggested to improve the overall health of the patient. A good dietary supplement help to ease gastric distress and problems like irritable bowel syndrome.

In case of the chronic body pain being aggravated, it is possible to take the right dietary supplements that overcome the nutritional deficiencies in a regular diet and help control the pain. In addition to the above a good chiropractor will also be able to give suggestions that can be used to regulate sleep patterns and improve psychological health.

Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia stretches and trigger point exercises

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

There are many medications and exercised that can help those with fibromyalgia to reduce their pain and the severity of their chronic pain.

The pain from fibromyalgia often displays itself in the shoulders, back, neck and other similar areas like the lower back. These are areas where muscles are highly concentrated.

Muscles can contain nodules called myofascial trigger points, which are points that cause pain not only in that specific area but also in surrounding areas.  These can cause pain to be diverted to other areas nearby.

There are many ways to work on easing muscle pain associated with fibromyalgia. These are important because chronic pain that is uncontrolled can lead to a variety of other issues, including mental health concerns.

People with fibromyalgia have to deal with issues of pain, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. This does not happen in all cases, but in a great number of them.

People who are dealing with chronic pain can easily become depressed, as they are not able to be as mobile and social as they once were.

They may find themselves staying in rather than socializing with friends, and may also be so fatigued that they can barely get out of bed to enjoy the days activities.

There are various alternative treatments to chronic pain from fibromyalgia.

Massage is used to treat chronic pain and to reduce muscle achiness. Massage can be done at home or in a professional setting.

A professional masseuse should be educated in the condition of fibromyalgia and should be prepared to treat trigger points and muscle soreness, while working gently.  Massage at home can be done regularly and easily.

Many people like to use a tennis ball to roll on their sore muscles to alleviate pain.  This is a good technique because it does not put too much pressure on the muscles, but rather works them from all sides and releases some tension.

Fibromyalgia stretches and trigger point exercises

Massage can be done after a warm bath or shower, which will loosen muscle tension and will allow more tension to be worked out. Osteopaths are trained in physical therapy for muscles, and can be of great help. They can do massage and other trigger point therapies.

Stretching and exercise is a great way to reduce pain and increase flexibility. Yoga is a stretching exercise that can be done to increase flexibility of muscles and to release tension. Yoga is also great for stress relief.

There are many different types of yoga, but those with fibromyalgia should choose a gentle or restorative yoga class. These classes will be relaxing and will focus more on stretching in a casual and relaxed class pace.

It is important to talk to the instructor before taking a class to ensure that it will be easy and gentle.  The teacher can also give modification that will be easier on people with fibromyalgia and specific pain points.

Acupuncture is a therapy that is 2500 years old and is from Chinese tradition. This can be used for stress relief, as it induces relaxation. The practice releases the qi energy to create a healing energy in the body.  Acupuncture is supported by the NIH to assist in relieving the pains of fibromyalgia.

Trigger point therapies are very popular as they treat the direct source of the pain. Trigger point injections occur when a needle with anesthetic (lidocaine) is inserted into the center of the trigger point. This essentially blocks the pain that is being transmitted from the trigger point both at that point and to other parts of the body.

This injection loosens the knots and tightness. Low level laser therapy is a non-invasive therapy in which lasers are used to treat the tight areas and trigger points that are most painful.

Stretching with heat and coolant can be effective for increase muscle movement and reducing pain.  Muscles should be stretched after heat is applied, so there is more give from the muscles and so they can stretch more easily rather than tearing or getting tighter.

It is important not to stretch too far and hard at first, but rather to start with gentle stretching and slowing increase pressure and range.

All of these methods can be tried by people with fibromyalgia, as different treatments will prove to work differently for different people. Some people may do best with massage while others many need the slightly more invasive trigger point injection treatment.

There are treatments to ease the pain of fibromyalgia, and it is important to explore these options with a doctor to find the best treatment for each individual.

Typhoons Could Be Spreading Radioactive Cesium From Fukushima Plant

Written By: editor
editor

[ Watch the Video: Frequent Typhoons Spread Fukushima Contaminates ]

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The typhoons that pound Japan every year are damaging enough on their own, but new research indicates they are also carrying radioactive material from the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster into the country’s waterways.

Researchers from France’s Climate and Environmental Science laboratory (LSCE) and Tsukuba University in Japan have found that high winds and rain wash away soil contaminated following the earthquake and tsunami two years ago, David Kashi of the International Business Times explained.

That soil, which was tainted by cesium particles and other radioactive materials following the accident, becomes deposited in streams and rivers, the AFP news agency added. As a result, people living in communities that escaped the initial fallout in 2011 could now find their food and water contaminated by the cesium particles, LSCE researcher Olivier Evrard and his colleagues warned.

“The typhoons ‘strongly contribute’ to soil dispersal, said Evrard, though it can be months later, after the winter snow melts, that contamination actually passes into rivers,” AFP noted, adding research has demonstrated that “soil erosion can move the radioactive varieties of cesium-134 and 137 from the northern mountains near Fukushima into rivers, and then out into the Pacific Ocean.”

“In October a fierce typhoon headed toward Japan’s northeast coast, sounding alarms that Fukushima was in its wake. The storm was described as the ‘strongest in 10 years,’ with winds reaching nearly 125 miles per hour near its center,” Kashi reported. “Japanese officials say there is no environmental threat as the radiation will be diluted by the sea water. The operators of the Fukushima plant… said it was preparing for this week’s typhoon.”

In August, researchers reported the radioactive ocean plume created following the Fukushima disaster was expected to reach North America by 2014. However, study author Dr. Erik van Sebille of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and his colleagues reported that the plume would most likely be harmless by the time it arrived.

“Observers on the west coast of the United States will be able to see a measurable increase in radioactive material three years after the event,” said van Sebille. “However, people on those coastlines should not be concerned as the concentration of radioactive material quickly drops below World Health Organization safety levels as soon as it leaves Japanese waters.”

Protein Analysis Could Lead To Hepatitis C Vaccine

Written By: editor
editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

A hepatitis C vaccine is one step closer thanks to the efforts of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), who have managed to discover unexpected structural features of a protein used by the virus to infect liver cells.

The study authors, whose work appears in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, state any successful hepatitis C vaccine would most likely target this protein, which is known as E2 envelope glycoprotein. Rare antibodies capable of binding E2 in ways that can neutralize a vast array of different viral strains have already been isolated in patients by scientists, they added.

“We’re excited by this development,” senior author Dr. Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI, said in a statement. He added that it took him and his TSRI colleagues Dr. Mansun Law and Dr. Andrew B. Ward six years of “painstaking work” to complete a high resolution structure of the protein. They now intend to create vaccines that can mimic the structural details of those binding sites.

According to the Institute, the global spread of hepatitis C has resulted in a desperate need for an effective vaccine against the virus. The pathogen, which was once geographically isolated, has found its way throughout the world, primarily due to blood transfusions, the use of unsterilized medical equipment and the re-use of hypodermic needles. While hospitals have screened for the virus for approximately two decades, there are believed to be up to 200 million people worldwide infected with hepatitis C, including over three million in the US alone.

“HCV was able to spread so widely because it typically causes few or no symptoms when it infects someone. In many cases it establishes a long-term infection of the liver, damaging it slowly for decades – until liver cirrhosis and/or cancer develop,” TSRI explained. The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology.

The disease, which according to Law is a “silent killer,” is typically fatal unless a patient undergoes a costly and high-risk liver transplantation procedure. Some antiviral medications can treat and even cure chronic hepatitis C infection, but the most effective ones are extremely expensive, and often those who are infected do not realize they have the virus and require medical attention. A vaccine could prevent new infections, ending the pandemic.

“It could be given to people when they’re young and healthy, and they’d never have to worry about developing HCV-related liver diseases,” Ward said. However, unlike HIV and other viruses, hepatitis C utilizes several different effective countermeasures to evade an immune system, including rapidly-mutating regions on the E2 protein that makes sure antibodies that are effective against one strain are not ineffective against others.

The TSRI researchers set out to analyze the high-resolution atomic structure of the virus in order to help overcome these countermeasures. However, according to the study authors, that has been a difficult task to attempt, let alone complete. It took dozens of experiments to find the right way to modify E2, making it so the protein aggregates less readily while making sure that its antibody-binding sites are maintained. Ward called it “a Herculean effort” because hepatitis C is “one of the most difficult and unstable viral envelope proteins around.”

“In the end, the team succeeded, using a slightly altered version of E2 – the E2 core – with some of its glycans (sugar molecules) and outer variable and stalk segments removed,” the Institute said. “The scientists were then able to obtain the high-resolution structure of the protein while it was bound to a known broadly neutralizing antibody developed at TSRI. The scientists then followed up by imaging a more complete version of E2 using electron microscopy to extend the structural model.”

Image 2 (below): This is the new picture of hepatitis C’s E2 protein, which the virus uses to infect liver cells, will aid in the design of a vaccine against the disease. Credit: The Scripps Research Institute

City On The Sea: Freedom Ship Concept Floating City

Written By: editor
editor

Susan Bowen for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Who hasn’t longed, at one time or another, to ditch everything and sail around the world? How would you like the trip to last forever? You will be able to if the vision of a venture called Freedom Ship International becomes a reality. It would become the largest ship ever built, and the world’s first floating city.

Here’s how it is described on the promotional web site: “Envision an ideal place to live or run a business, a friendly, safe and secure community with large areas of open space and extensive entertainment and recreational facilities. Finally, picture this community continually moving around the world. You are beginning to understand the Freedom Ship concept of a massive ocean-going vessel.”

The ship would be a mile long and 25 stories high. As these dimensions would never allow it to dock at any port, residents would either fly from the top-deck airport, or use ferry boats to get ashore.

According to its promoters, its amenities would be impressive. It would have art galleries, shops, parks, aquariums, a casino, restaurants, a huge duty-free shopping mall, libraries, banks, ball fields, entertainment facilities and all the other comforts of home. They also boast that the city would have world class medical and educational centers. Landscaping would include ponds, waterfalls and open green space. Parts of the ship would also contain culturally characteristic architecture from around the world.

Commercial space will be available for everything from light industrial, to warehouse space, to retail space and corporate headquarters.

Its design would allow for 40,000 full time residents, 30,000 daily visitors, 10,000 nightly hotel guests, and 20,000 full time crew members. The prices for residential units range from $153,000 for an economy unit with no kitchen, to over $2 million. Commercial units display a similar range of prices.

The ship would circumnavigate the globe every two years, stopping at ports all along the way. It would spend 70 percent of its time off the shore of major cities and the other 30 percent in transit. Residents would have ample time to explore at each stop.

The company that wants to build this floating city only needs $1 billion dollars before they can begin construction, then another $9 billion going forward.

It’s been a hard sell. Roger M. Gooch, director and vice-president of the Florida-based firm, explained to The Daily Mail, “This will be a very heavily capitalised project and the global economy in the last few years hasn’t been too inviting for unproven progressive projects like ours.” He is optimistic, however. He says there has been an upswing of interest in the project during the past six months, and he is confident they can raise the money.

Health

The Good News About The Global Epidemic Of Dementia

Written By: editor

New England Journal of Medicine perspective highlights effects of education, prevention

It’s rare to hear good news about dementia. But that’s what a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective article reports. The article discusses several recent studies that show how age-adjusted rates in aging populations have declined for people born later in the last century, particularly in those older people most likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The Perspective also describes what researchers have reported to be associated with this encouraging trend.

The authors are Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, executive director of Group Health Research Institute and Group Health’s vice president for research; Kristine Yaffe, MD, a professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology and biostatistics, the Roy and Marie Scola endowed chair in psychiatry, and vice chair for clinical and translational research in psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center; and Kenneth M. Langa, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan and VA Healthcare System. Dr. Larson is also an adjunct professor at the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

“Of course, people are tending to live longer, with worldwide populations aging, so there are many new cases of dementia,” Dr. Larson said. “But some seem to be developing it at later ages—and we’re optimistic about this lengthening of the time that people can live without dementia.” Dementia in those affected may be starting later in the course of life, closer to the time of death.

In 2008, Drs. Langa and Larson reported one of the first studies suggesting a decline in U.S. dementia rates, using information from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study. They found that the decline tracked with education, income, and improvements in health care and lifestyle. Since then, several studies in Europe have confirmed this trend—and the reasons behind it.

“We’re very encouraged to see a growing number of studies from around the world that suggest that the risk of dementia may be falling due to rising levels of education and better prevention and treatment of key cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol,” Dr. Langa said. He added that it will be very important to continue to follow these trends in the population given the wide-ranging impact of dementia on patients, families, and the health care system.

“This is a fascinating example of personal health changes earlier in life having an impact on personal and public health in late life,” Dr. Yaffe said. She and Dr. Larson have reported that regular exercise may help delay dementia. In an earlier publication this year in the New England Journal, Dr. Larson’s team reported that people with lower blood sugar levels tend to have less risk of dementia. And Dr. Yaffe and her team have focused on a host of other lifestyle factors that have the potential to reduce risk.

“Still, we need to be aware that recent increases in obesity and diabetes threaten to reverse these gains, because of the impact these conditions can have on the aging brain,” Dr. Yaffe said. “The obesity and diabetes epidemics are not affecting age groups most at risk for dementia—yet.” But it’s just a matter of time.

“To help more people avoid dementia, we’ll need to find better ways of preventing obesity—and avoiding obesity-linked health risks, including diabetes and dementia,” Dr. Larson said. Narrowing health disparities will also be crucial, because obesity and diabetes are more common among certain racial and ethnic minorities and others who lack access to education and health care.

“As luck would have it, preventing obesity and diabetes jibes with preventing dementia,” Dr. Larson said. “In other words, we must focus on exercise, diet, education, treating hypertension, and quitting smoking.”

On December 11, the New England Journal of Medicine will post a podcast of Dr. Larson discussing this perspective piece, and that day he and Dr. Yaffe will also address the U.K. Department of Health’s G8 Dementia Summit in London. The Summit aims to develop coordinated global action on dementia.

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Health

Pitt Unlocks Trove Of Public Health Data To Help Fight Deadly Contagious Diseases

Written By: editor

In an unprecedented windfall for public access to health data, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health researchers have collected and digitized all weekly surveillance reports for reportable diseases in the United States going back more than 125 years.

The easily searchable database, described in the Nov. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is free and publicly available. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the project’s goal is to aid scientists and public health officials in the eradication of deadly and devastating diseases.

“Using this database, we estimate that more than 100 million cases of serious childhood contagious diseases have been prevented, thanks to the introduction of vaccines,” said lead author Willem G. van Panhuis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. “But we also are able to see a resurgence of some of these diseases in the past several decades as people forget how devastating they can be and start refusing vaccines.”

Despite the availability of a pertussis vaccine since the 1920s, the largest pertussis epidemic in the U.S. since 1959 occurred last year. Measles, mumps and rubella outbreaks also have reoccurred since the early 1980s.

“Analyzing historical epidemiological data can reveal patterns that help us understand how infectious diseases spread and what interventions have been most effective,” said Irene Eckstrand, Ph.D., of NIH, which partially funded the research through its Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study. “This new work shows the value of using computational methods to study historical data — in this case, to show the impact of vaccination in reducing the burden of infectious diseases over the past century.”

“We are very excited about the release of the database,” said Steven Buchsbaum, deputy director, Discovery and Translational Sciences, for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We anticipate this will not only prove to be an invaluable tool permitting researchers around the globe to develop, test and validate epidemiological models, but also has the potential to serve as a model for how other organizations could make similar sets of critical public health data more broadly, publicly available.”

The digitized dataset is dubbed Project TychoTM, for 16th century Danish nobleman Tycho Brahe, whose meticulous astronomical observations enabled Johannes Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion.

“Tycho Brahe’s data were essential to Kepler’s discovery of the laws of planetary motion,” said senior author Donald S. Burke, M.D., Pitt Public Health dean and UPMC-Jonas Salk Chair of Global Health. “Similarly, we hope that our Project Tycho disease database will help spur new, life-saving research on patterns of epidemic infectious disease and the effects of vaccines. Open access to disease surveillance records should be standard practice, and we are working to establish this as the norm worldwide.”

The researchers selected eight vaccine-preventable contagious diseases for a more detailed analysis: smallpox, polio, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis A, diphtheria and pertussis. By overlaying the reported outbreaks with the year of vaccine licensure, the researchers are able to give a clear, visual representation of the effect that vaccines have in controlling communicable diseases.

“Infectious disease research is critically dependent on reliable historical data to understand underlying epidemic dynamics. However, my colleagues and I repeatedly find ourselves digging out historical datasets from various sources in different states of preservation,” said Dr. van Panhuis. “By digitizing and giving open access to the entire collection of U.S. notifiable disease data, we’ve made a bold move toward solving this problem.”

The researchers obtained all weekly notifiable disease surveillance tables published between 1888 and 2013 — approximately 6,500 tables — in various historical reports, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. These tables were available only in paper format or as PDF scans in online repositories that could not be read by computers and had to be hand-entered. With an estimated 200 million keystrokes, the data — including death counts, reporting locations, time periods and diseases — were digitized. A total of 56 diseases were reported for at least some period of time during the 125-year time span, with no single disease reported continuously.

“This work by the Tycho Team is remarkable and represents the next step in making government data accessible and useful,” said Bryan Sivak, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services chief technology officer and entrepreneur in residence. “This is a great example of how our policies on open data and public access accelerate the use of computer-readable data by researchers and application developers to create new tools and provide valuable insights into the nation’s health.”

All these data now can be explored and retrieved by everyone on the Project Tycho Web site http://www.tycho.pitt.edu. The open access release of these data has ignited a collaboration with the United States Open Government Initiative and, in the near future, the Project Tycho database will be available on the HealthData.gov Web pages.

“Historical records are a precious yet undervalued resource. As Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, we live forward but understand backward,” explained Dr. Burke. “By ‘rescuing’ these historical disease data and combining them into a single, open-access, computable system, we now can better understand the devastating impact of epidemic diseases, and the remarkable value of vaccines in preventing illness and death.”

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Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia Secrets Educates Pregnant Women to Spread Awareness

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Fibromyalgia Secrets Educates Pregnant Women to Spread Awareness

People who suffer from fibromyalgia and want to become pregnant should be aware of their condition and how pregnancy will affect their pain levels.

It is surely possible for people with fibromyalgia to get through a pregnancy, although they should be prepared for an increase in pain and symptoms.

This can be managed but people should be aware that they will likely experience greater amounts of fibromyalgia pain and flare-ups during pregnancy.

Some of the symptoms for fibromyalgia and for pregnancy are similar, including fatigue, pain and depression. However, people with fibromyalgia will likely experience these to a greater degree due to their condition.

Fibromyalgia generally causes women to experience fatigue, along with pain and depression. With pregnancy, there are a lot more hormones circulating through a woman’s body than are regularly present.  Pregnant women experience weight gain and other body issues.

One study has shown that people with fibromyalgia had more pain symptoms while pregnant than those who did not have fibromyalgia. This makes sense, as pregnancy can easily exacerbate the pains of fibromyalgia.

The first three months of pregnancy can be the most difficult, as women experience more fatigue and nausea. On top of fibromyalgia symptoms, this can seem overwhelming.  However, the pain generally gets a bit better after the first three months.

Stress is a great indicator of fibromyalgia pain, as high stress levels can trigger flare-ups. Pregnancy is generally a high stress period in a woman’s life, as the woman is now caring for and worrying about their baby and themselves.

Also, it is not safe to take pain medications or antidepressants when pregnant, so women will need to deal with their mental and physical pain in different ways.

The recommended ways to deal with pain include light physical exercise and massage, including yoga, rest and meditation, and other relaxing activities. It is also recommended to try exercising in a warm pool, doing gentle aerobics or swimming. This can ease muscle pain and loosen tight muscles and stiff joints. Water should be warm but never hot. Hot water immersion is not recommended during pregnancy.

Exercise is important as it can make joints more flexible and cab strengthen muscles. It can also improve mood and can increase the release of endorphins. Serotonin the neurotransmitter that is related to fibromyalgia pain, as these neurotransmitters transmit signals between cells. Stress can lower serotonin levels, leading to anxiety and depression. Therefore, exercise can create serotonin that will ward off depression and moodiness, and will increase positive affect and energy levels.

When women have mood swings during pregnancy, and even during menstruation, it is the result of fluctuating levels of hormones.  Serotonin levels can be boosted by exercise, sunlight, and certain carbohydrates.

In addition to exercising, it is also important for women to get plenty of rest during pregnancy. People should plan rest periods and breaks into their day, as napping and resting will help management of pain and fatigue. Women can also take a warm bath or shower to loosen their muscles and ease pain to a more manageable level.

Overall, people with fibromyalgia suffer from chronic pain that can be discouraging when it comes to considering having a child. It is likely true that the pain will be worse, and that pregnancy will be more tiresome, but it is definitely possible to get through it, as many women have before. There are various steps that can be taken to improve the pain during pregnancy, and there are other things that should be avoided.

Medications should be avoided, as they are not good for the baby. Tylenol or other acetaminophen pain relievers can be taken in small dose, but are only recommended in very desperate situations. It is best to avoid medications altogether. Instead, exercise is recommended to ease pain and increase serotonin levels.

Some exercise that is safe for pregnant women with fibromyalgia includes yoga, tai chi, and swimming. These are low-impact activities that can be relaxing and restorative while stimulating serotonin and other positive mood hormones.

Getting plenty of rest is also important, and pregnant women should set a schedule that is not too tiresome.  Waking up and going to bed at the same time each day can be helpful, as well as taking many breaks and naps throughout the day.  Even a 20-minute nap can do wonders for pain and fatigue.  Warm showers can also loosen tight muscles and can ease pain.

There are many ways for women with fibromyalgia to manage pain during pregnancy. Developing a plan is the best way to be prepared for the experience.

WHO: Mexico Cholera, Syria Poliovirus, MERS Coronavirus On The Rise

Written By: editor
editor

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

MERS Coronavirus has been gripping the Middle East and parts of Europe for more than a year; Wild poliovirus type 1 has been on the rise in Syria after being nonexistent for more than 14 years; Mexico has seen an insurgence of infections from Vibrio cholerae O1 Ogawa in recent months.

This week the World Health Organization (WHO) has received three separate reports from health officials in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria pertaining to disease outbreaks that continue to grip each region.

MERS Coronavirus

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health informed the World Health Organization of three additional laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) on Tuesday, Nov 26.

The first patient is a 73-year-old woman from Riyadh who had underlying medical conditions. She became ill on Nov 12, was hospitalized on Nov 14 and died on Nov 18. The second patient is a 65-year-old man from Jawf region who has underlying medical conditions. He became ill on Nov 4 and was hospitalized on Nov 14. The third patient is a 37-year-old man from Riyadh who became ill on Nov 9, was hospitalized on Nov 13 and died on Nov 18.

The MOH confirms that none of the three patients had been exposed to animals or were in contact with previously lab-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV.

To date, the WHO has been informed of a total of 160 lab-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, including 68 deaths.

Poliovirus

WHO has been informed of additional confirmed cases of infection with wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in the Syrian Arab Republic. A total of 17 cases have now been confirmed. These include 15 cases in children, mostly under the age of five, from Deir Al Zour province, as well as two additional cases confirmed from rural Damascus and Aleppo. Those two cases also confirm the widespread circulation of polio. The case with the most recent onset developed paralysis on Oct 8, 2013.

A comprehensive outbreak response plan has been implemented across the region, both by international health organizations and by the Syrian government.  Seven countries are now holding polio vaccination campaigns targeting 22 million children under the age of five years old.

WHO and UNICEF are committed to work with all organizations and agencies to help eradicate polio from these impoverished countries. The multi-organizational campaign is providing humanitarian assistance to the region to ensure that all children, especially those in Syria, are vaccinated against the debilitating poliovirus. The outbreak response will likely take six to eight months, depending on underlying epidemiological circumstances in each region.

Given the current situation in the Syrian Arab Republic, health officials have deemed the spread risk of poliovirus to be high. A surveillance alert has been issued for the region to actively search for additional potential cases and to implement supplementary immunization activities where needed.

Cholera

Mexico’s Ministry of Health has informed WHO of an additional four cases of infection with Vibrio cholerae O1 Ogawa. Of these cases, three are from the state of Veracruz and one from the state of Hidalgo.

Since the outbreak was first detected in September, a total of 184 cases have been confirmed, including a single death. Hidalgo has seen the largest outbreak with 160 confirmed cases. Veracruz has had 11 cases, the state of Mexico has had nine, the Federal District has had two, and San Luis Potosi has  had two cases.

Mexican health authorities continue to strengthen surveillance and to ensure availability and quality of care in medical units. Health measures are also being implemented to ensure citizens have access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Also, awareness campaigns have been launched and health professionals and other healthcare workers are being trained in prevention and treatment of the disease.

This was the first local transmission of cholera recorded in Mexico since 2001. The genetic profile of the bacterium obtained from patients present high similarity (95 percent) with the strain that is also circulating in three Caribbean countries (Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti). However, it is a different strain from the one that was circulating in Mexico from 1991-2001.

Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia and Coconut Oil

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that is still little known, even to the large majority of the specialists working in the field.

If several decades ago it wasn’t even considered to be a syndrome on its own and it was mostly considered to be a form of depression, nowadays most of those studying the field agree on the fact that it is a stand-alone syndrome.

Still, the mysteries behind Fibromyalgia are far from being elucidated and researchers have not yet agreed upon a clear set of causes or even upon a clear set of symptoms that may appear in the case of those with Fibromyalgia.

This makes diagnosing this syndrome very difficult, and most of the times it will be mistaken with other syndromes and disorders that have very similar symptoms.

One thing is for sure though: Fibromyalgia patients can actually work on improving their general state and on relieving their bodies from pain. To help these patients, most of the professionals out there will prescribe a combination of drugs and alternative remedies and they will give suggestions for changing one’s lifestyle.

Taking into consideration all that a doctor prescribes or suggests in the case of the Fibromyalgia patients is extremely important, because, in fact, all these remedies will help reverse the process of the most commonly encountered causes and risk factors.

For instance, the lifestyle of a patient is very important because it is generally acknowledged the fact that it can influence how the syndrome can develop.

Unhealthy eating, poor level of fitness, smoking and other bad habits can lead to the development of Fibromyalgia symptoms and making sure that they are eliminated from the patient’s life can help with making him/her feel better.

Fibromyalgia and Coconut Oil

Furthermore, there is a series of foods and herbs that are believed to help those suffering from Fibromyalgia. From chamomile tea (used for its relaxing effects) to ginger and from fatty fish to nuts, there is a wide variety of products you can incorporate into your daily meals in order to help with relieving yourself from the Fibromyalgia symptoms.

Out of all these products though, coconut oil is rather misunderstood. This delicious ingredient can be added to a lot of recipes, from sweets to main dishes, but a lot of people out there believe it to be harmful in the case of those suffering from Fibromyalgia.

The reason behind this commonly encountered belief is related to the fact that coconut oil is 95% saturated fat, and this type of fats is also quite unhealthy.

However, those who believe coconut oil to be bad for those suffering from Fibromyalgia may not be watching the entire picture. Yes, coconut oil is mainly consisted out of saturated fats. But it also contains a fatty acid called “lauric acid”, which will make the coconut oil be absorbed into the body fast and it will create energy.

Since one of the major symptoms in the case of those with Fibromyalgia is precisely feeling fatigue, such a source of energy can be a great addition to one’s diet. Unlike sugary foods, coffee and caffeinated products, coconut oil can create fast energy that will not leave the body feeling even more tired than before.

Furthermore, the same lauric acid (or laurate, as it is sometimes called) can also help with the digestive issues, which are very commonly encountered in patients with Fibromyalgia as well. Because it is antiviral and antibacterial, this acid in the coconut oil can be rather beneficial to those suffering from this syndrome.

There are other types of foods that contain lauric acid or other types of medium chain fatty acids, such as butter, for instance, but coconut oil is the natural product containing the largest percentage.

Since, as mentioned before, coconut oil will be rapidly transformed into energy, it is also a good helper in the weight loss process and it will increase the metabolic rate.

Fibromyalgia is quite mysterious and nobody has yet been able to establish clearly how it is developed and, very importantly, which are its exact symptoms and which are the symptoms related to comorbid disorders.

If you (or someone you love) suffer from this syndrome, then you surely know that the most important thing in dealing with it is staying positive and acquiring as much information as possible.

Advances are made every day in this direction and new pieces of information will regularly reach the surface to complete the puzzle. Staying in touch with the latest news can be crucial, but being optimistic about relieving yourself from pain is also very important.

Two Subglacial Lakes Discovered Beneath Greenland Ice Sheet

Written By: editor
editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Researchers have discovered a pair of subglacial lakes discovered over 800 meters beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet – the first ever to be discovered in the island nation, according to research appearing in the latest edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The two lakes are reportedly between eight and 10 square kilometers in surface area, but might have been up to three times larger than their current size at one point, the researchers said in a statement Wednesday. The study was conducted as the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge and used airborne radar measurements to reveal the lakes underneath the ice sheet.
According to the study authors, subglacial lakes such as these could influence the flow of the ice sheet, thereby impacting global sea level change. The discovery of these new bodies of water in Greenland could help scientists better understand how the ice will be affected by changing environmental conditions, they added.
“Our results show that subglacial lakes exist in Greenland, and that they form an important part of the ice sheet’s plumbing system,” explained lead author and former SPRI researcher Dr. Steven Palmer, who now works at the University of Exeter. “Because the way in which water moves beneath ice sheets strongly affects ice flow speeds, improved understanding of these lakes will allow us to predict more accurately how the ice sheet will respond to anticipated future warming.”
The newly-discovered lakes are unusual compared to those detected beneath Antarctic ice sheets, leading researchers to believe that they were likely formed in a different way. Unlike in Antarctica, where surface temperatures are below freezing throughout the year, the new subglacial lakes are probably fed by melting surface water that drains through the cracks in the ice.
Furthermore, they could also be partially replenished during the warm summers thanks to a nearby surface lake, Dr. Palmer and his colleagues said. That would mean that the lakes were part of an open system and were connected to the surface, which would make them different than the frequently isolated Antarctic lakes.
“While nearly 400 lakes have been detected beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, these are the first to be identified in Greenland,” the university said. “The apparent absence of lakes in Greenland had previously been explained by the fact that steeper ice surface in Greenland leads to any water below the ice being ‘squeezed out’ to the margin.”
Greenland’s ice is also thinner than the ice found in Antarctica, which results in colder conditions at the base of the ice sheet. For this reason, any lakes that might have existed in the past would have frozen relatively rapidly. The thicker Antarctic ice could have an insulating effect, keeping the water trapped below the surface from freezing.
“As many surface melt-water lakes form each summer around the Greenland ice sheet, the possibility exists that similar subglacial lakes may be found elsewhere in Greenland,” the university added. “The way in which water flows beneath the ice sheet strongly influences the speed of ice flow, so the existence of other lakes will have implications for the future of the ice sheet.”
Back in August, researchers from the University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences discovered one of the largest canyons in the world beneath the Greenland ice sheet. The study authors explained that the canyon is at least 750km (460 miles) long and up to 800m (2,600 feet) deep in some places.

Fibromyalgia

Famous People With Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating
admin

Understanding the basics of Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia is a disease that affects the central nervous system. It is a disease that causes a central nervous system to become oversensitive to pain impulses from various sensory centers of the body.

It causes chronic and widespread body pain in patients that cannot be pinpointed to a single physiological cause.  Muscular and skeletal pains are one of the most common complaints of fibromyalgia.

This is because fibromyalgia affects the sensory neurons close to the spinal cord and causes them to become hyperactive upon the application of a pain stimulus.

Fibromyalgia is a disease that causes a wide area of problems that are not just limited to body pain. It also causes people to lose cognitive ability and the ability to concentrate on a single task for a lengthy amount of time. It produces the attention span and the ability to multitask.

Fibromyalgia also causes interrupted sleep patterns and mood swings. The interrupted sleep caused you to fibromyalgia presents itself and symptoms that are nearly identical to the problems faced by healthy people when they’re deprived of sleep.

One of the most common problems is continuous fatigue and the feeling of tiredness throughout the day. This tiredness is experienced even after lengthy amounts of sleep.

The reason for this is that while the patient cannot recall waking up in the middle of the night, fibromyalgia causes pain and sometimes sleep apnea that causes a patient to wake up for very short periods and interrupt the long sleep that is needed for healthy functioning.

Famous People With Fibromyalgia

Who does it affect?

Fibromyalgia tense to affect 2% of the adult human population all over the world. It is also thought to be genetically linked. This places people with relatives who have fibromyalgia at a greater risk of contract in the disease at some point in their life.

Fibromyalgia can also be triggered by physical stresses any injuries. Injuries to the neck are one of the most common triggers of fibromyalgia in healthy people. It is important to understand that apart from physiological and physical stresses, psychological stresses also play a major role in the development of this disease.

People who were continuously stressed or have some form of posttraumatic stress disorder are at higher risk of developing fibromyalgia.  In such people the symptoms of fibromyalgia can also be aggravated further due to their inherent psychological problems.

Fibromyalgia does not discriminate between race, age, gender and economic status. It affects nearly all groups of people equally.  There are several celebrities and famous people who suffer from fibromyalgia.

In fact, it is conceivable that famous people and celebrities are at a higher risk of developing fibromyalgia because of the increase amounts of psychological stresses they face. This is especially true for people who are in very responsible positions and have to make important decisions every day.

Famous people with fibromyalgia

One of the most famous celebrities with fibromyalgia is Sinead O’Connor. She was so aggravated by the symptoms of this disease that she was forced to take a two year hiatus and step away from the limelight in order to properly deal with those symptoms and get treatment.

In addition to fibromyalgia, Sinead also suffers from bipolar disorder and is forced to juggle her problems and raise 4 children at the same time. Susan Flannery is another celebrity what had to take a hiatus to deal with fibromyalgia. She is a 4 time Emmy winner and had to leave showbiz for a period starting in 2007. She later returned and upon being asked about it, said that she deals with the disease on a daily basis.

Michael James Hastings represents one of the more serious cases of fibromyalgia. He was forced to retire in order to properly deal with the disease and has since then become a spokesperson for spreading awareness about this disease.

Florence Nightingale is a historic celebrity whose battle with fibromyalgia was triggered by an infection. She battled the disease well into old age, dying peacefully in her sleep at the ripe old age of 90. Rosie Hamlin is a celebrity who was so aggravated with fibromyalgia that she was forced to make major changes to her career.

She was the lead singer of her band, “Rosie & The Originals” but after being afflicted with fibromyalgia, she stopped going on tours and started a new career as an artist. Frances Winfield Bremer is the wife of Ambassador Paul Bremer and has been struggling with fibromyalgia for the past 30 years.

She and her husband are active with several organizations for the disease and help to spread awareness. One of the most high profile celebrities to battle fibromyalgia is Morgan Freeman. The man who played god fights a daily battle with the disease and continues to be an inspiration to all those who suffer from it.

Health

Study Finds No Increased Risk Of Retinal Detachment With Use Of Certain Antibiotics

Written By: editor

In contrast to findings of a recent study, researchers in Denmark did not find an association between use of a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones (such as ciprofloxacin) and an increased risk of retinal detachment, according to a study appearing in the November 27 issue of JAMA.
Retinal detachment (a separation of the retina from its connection at the back of the eye) is an acute eye disorder that may lead to loss of vision despite prompt surgical intervention. A recent study found that use of fluoroquinolones was strongly associated with retinal detachment, reporting a 4.5-fold significantly increased risk for ongoing exposure. A possible mechanism was effects of the drug on connective tissue, according to background information in the article. “Given the prevalent use of fluoroquinolones, this could, if confirmed in the general population, translate to many excess cases of retinal detachment that are potentially preventable.”
Bjorn Pasternak, M.D., Ph.D., of the Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues used data from a nationwide register to investigate whether oral fluoroquinolone use was associated with increased risk of retinal detachment. The register had information about 748,792 episodes of fluoroquinolone use and 5,520,446 control episodes of nonuse, including data on participant characteristics, drugs used, and cases of retinal detachment with surgical treatment.
The fluoroquinolones used were ciprofloxacin (88.2 percent), ofloxacin (9.2 percent), fleroxacine (1.2 percent), moxifloxacin (0.8 percent), and others (0.7 percent).
Of 566 patients with retinal detachment, 72 were exposed to fluoroquinolones; 5 during current use (days 1-10), 7 during recent use (days 11-30), 14 during past use (days 31-60), and 46 during distant use (2-6 months). Among patients not exposed to fluoroquinolones, 494 cases occurred. Analysis of the data indicated that fluoroquinolone use compared with nonuse was not associated with increased risk of retinal detachment.
The authors write that given limited power, the study can only rule out more than a 3-fold relative increase in the risk of retinal detachment associated with current fluoroquinolone use. However, any differences in absolute risk are likely to have limited, if any, clinical significance: in terms of absolute risk, current use of fluoroquinolones would, in the worst-case scenario, account for no more than 11 additional cases of retinal detachment per 1,000,000 treatment episodes.
(doi:10.l001/jama.2013.280500; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor’s Note: This study was supported by The Danish Medical Research Council. All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.
Editorial: Oral Fluoroquinolone Use and Retinal Detachment – Reconciling Conflicting Findings in Observational Research
Allan S. Brett, M.D., of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, S.C., comments in an accompanying editorial on the findings in studies regarding an association between fluoroquinolone use and retinal detachment.
“For the physician caring for an inpatient with an indication for fluoroquinolone therapy, retinal detachment should not cross the physician’s mind. But the next time an outpatient with no good indication for a quinolone asks for one ‘because I got better last time I took it,’ the physician might mention a remote possibility of retinal detachment among the many reasons for declining the request.”
(doi:10.l001/jama.2013.280501; Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com)
Editor’s Note: The author has completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and none were reported.
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Fizzy Over-The-Counter Meds Have Dangerously High Sodium Levels

Written By: admin

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

For years, physicians have been telling their patients to monitor the amount of sodium in their food due to the potential damage it can cause to the body’s cardiovascular system. Now, a new study from UK researchers published in the British Medical Journal has found that some common medications contain enough sodium to increase the risk of a dangerous cardiovascular event.

The researchers concluded that the public “should be warned about the potential dangers of high sodium intake from prescribed medicines” and these drugs “should be prescribed with caution only if the perceived benefits outweigh the risks.”

“These drugs are also available over the counter, they can be picked up in the supermarket,” study author Jacob George, a clinical pharmacologist at Dundee University told The Guardian. “We have no control over how many millions of people are buying these drugs.”

“The ones we looked at were prescribed by GPs, but there’s a potentially much larger problem with these drugs being bought over the counter and in supermarkets,” added George.

Many drugs use sodium as a non-active ingredient to improve the absorption of an active ingredient into the body. These medications are often the soluble or effervescent versions of a drug. The researchers called for medications containing excessively high levels of sodium to be labeled as such.

The study team began by collecting a list of 24 drugs that tend to be relatively high in sodium, including effervescent or soluble versions of the pain medications acetaminophen and aspirin, as well as calcium and zinc supplements.

Next, the study team sifted through a database of British medical records that included nearly 1.3 million patients’ medical history for an average span of slightly more than seven years. The team said their focus was to determine if people on high-sodium drugs were more or less likely to have cardiovascular episodes than those who did not take these drugs.

The researchers found that over 61,000 patients they were following suffered a stroke, heart attack or death due to vascular disease. To eliminate confounding factors for these events, the researchers considered patients’ body mass index, smoking habits, alcohol intake, history of chronic illnesses, and use of certain other drugs.

The research team concluded that patients taking high-sodium medications had a 16 percent higher risk of a heart attack, stroke or vascular death compared to patients taking the non-sodium versions of the same drugs. The scientists also found that patients on high-sodium medications were seven times more likely to develop high blood pressure. Overall death rates, driven largely by cardiovascular disease, were also 28 percent higher in this group.

“It is important to remember that this research applies to people who are taking these medicines regularly,” Mike Knapton, of the British Heart Foundation, told The Guardian. “This does not mean that occasional use could damage your heart health. To give us an idea of whether these risks translate for medicines bought over the counter, we would need to see further research focusing on non-prescription medicine.”

“It’s important not to simply stop taking your dose,” Knapton added. “Make an appointment with your doctor to discuss any concerns.”

NASA And Others Build On Past Microgravity Fire Research

Written By: editor
editor

NASA

Researchers build on the work of those who have gone before. New experiments intersect with published research; current investigations expand the scope of earlier work; new tests verify and challenge old results. And so it goes with all research, including microgravity flame studies.

NASA engineers, academic researchers and scientists of all stripes have built on past experiments and findings to understand the fundamentals of combustion, fire sensing and fire suppression both on Earth and in space.

Space-based microgravity flame investigations in the 1990s included the Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion Experiment (FSDC) and the Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE). Both of these investigations were supported by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The lead principal investigator for both was Forman Williams from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Glenn and Williams also joined forces for the recent Flame Extinguishment Experiment (FLEX), which is currently being conducted on the International Space Station. This study is scheduled to complete its final experiment runs aboard station in the next six weeks.

A related study to FLEX is the Flame Extinguishment Experiment – Italian Combustion Experiment for Green Air (FLEX-ICE-GA), which finalized operations Sept. 12 aboard the space station as part of Expedition 37. This study is a collaborative effort between Glenn, the Italian Space Agency, and the Istituto Motori of the National Research Council in Naples, Italy.

On July 19, 2013, a new generation of engineers joined the effort to study biofuel flame behavior in microgravity. Undergraduates from UCSD flew as part of NASA’s Microgravity University aboard a modified Boeing 727. The aircraft was modified to fly up and down in parabolas to create up to 20 seconds of microgravity.

Sam Avery, a fourth-year Aerospace Engineering major at UCSD, served as project manager and led a team of 12 undergrads. Williams acted as an advisor to the students for their project. For their investigation, the student team referenced Williams’ FSDC research.

“Our work meshes with NASA’s by providing burning rate data for butanol, a biofuel which can act as a standalone substitute for gasoline,” Avery said. “We started with a general idea of how past FSDC experiments were conducted, including using syringes for fuel ejection and nichrome wire to ignite the droplet.”

The team designed every piece of hardware for the experiment to be bolted to some part of the experiment container. This prevented any equipment from floating or lifting off the surface as the plane flew parabolic arcs to create the microgravity conditions.

“The Microgravity University program had strict structural loading requirements, including that the experiment needed to be able to withstand nine times its own weight in the forward direction,” Avery said. “Therefore, we essentially designed our experiment to be able to withstand a plane crash.”

Compared to studies on the space station, which can have dozens if not hundreds of runs, UCSD’s experiments were somewhat limited at 30 attempts—the total number of parabolas. Each attempt lasted 20 seconds during the reduced gravity arc of the flight. Despite the limited number of attempts and relatively short duration of the microgravity conditions, the student scientists had a high rate of success, according to Avery.

“Besides the five or so parabolas that were designated as ‘fun,’ we had successful droplet ignition on all but one or two of our attempts,” Avery said. “That gives a greater than 90 percent success [rate] for achieving ignition. However, our actual usable data might be much less than 90 percent because there was ‘dirty’ gravity, additional flow around the flame, or human error during the ignition process.”

The team is still evaluating the results and plans to publish in the near future. They will write a final report for NASA and will also submit a paper to an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) student conference.

The team’s findings could help improve fuel efficiency here on Earth, as well as fire extinguisher designs and other applications in weightless environments like those on the space station.

While the UCSD experiment looked at butanol, other fuels were studied in earlier investigations. FLEX was the first time scientists observed large droplets of heptane fuel that had dual modes of combustion and extinction. The recently completed FLEX-ICE-GA investigation looked at “green” fuels with an emphasis on finding ecologically friendlier fuels. The fuels for FLEX-ICE-GA included mixtures of heptane and ethanol and decane and hexanol.

After decades of microgravity flame studies by a diverse group of researchers, the work continues with a new generation. The building blocks that interconnect to form our understanding of the universe continue as students find new ways to build on past research and explore new mysteries.

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Fibromyalgia

Decrease your fibromyalgia pain flair up

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that can affect every single area of your life, if you are not careful.

Its causes are relatively unknown and its symptoms are quite confusing at times and, under these circumstances, every day can be a fight against pain and against all the other Fibromyalgia-related symptoms.

Chronic pain is, of course, the most important and the most commonly encountered symptom in patients with Fibromyalgia. Still, a series of other symptoms combined can make everything eve worse.

Irritated bowel, headaches, insomnia, dizziness, depression, anxiety, skin problems, breathing problems and so on – all these symptoms can transform a good day into a bad one.

To avoid a pain flare, you should be very careful about certain things and the first one is also the most obvious one: listen to what your body wants to tell you.

If it tells you that it hadn’t had enough sleep, or that the pain is too strong to let you do all the things you wanted to do today, then listen to it.

You may feel tempted to want to push yourself beyond your limits, but do remember the fact that this could actually worsen your condition. Instead of sticking to your initial plan and doing all the things on the list, pick those that seem manageable and do them.

Stress is one major influencer when it comes to Fibromyalgia and if you are having a bad day, when pain feels stronger than the usual, then stress is the last thing you want in your life.

Decrease your fibromyalgia pain flair up

Leave problems behind and solve them later on, when the pain will not be as strong as it is now. If something is troubling you, talk to someone and leave it out. You are already in pain, you don’t need more problems for today!

Relax. Seriously, the last thing you need when pain is flaring up is to have to run around and to worsen your condition. Watch a movie you like, listen to soothing movies, go and see someone you feel good around.

Read a book, knit, browse the Internet and do things that you like. They will help you keep your mind off pain and they will also make you feel better in general, since your state of mind can be very important in the way your body perceives pain.

If you feel strong soreness in a certain area then taking a warm shower or applying a piece of warm cloth on the painful zone may help. Pain tends to respond to heat because it can increase the blood circulation in an area.

Also, taking a warm bath before sleep can help you avoid waking up due to pain or to the restless leg syndrome. You can make this bath a routine and, if you want to, you can add lavender oil to it to help you sleep better.

Exercise, no matter how painful the thought of it may be, can be very beneficial for your condition as well. The most important thing is to keep it low-impact and not to strain yourself.

Exercising will make you feel more energized and it will help you avoid pain flares, especially since it has a good effect on the way you feel psychologically as well.

A bit of walking or stretching can work wonders on the way your body feels and on the way your mind feels. If you feel that the pain you feel one day is very strong, do not do your entire exercising routine, but do not drop it either, since that will be of no help long-term.

Massages can be quite helpful as well, but that depends a lot on the person and on his/her symptoms. Furthermore, acupuncture and Tai-Chi can be pain-relieving as well and you can try them out to see if they have any effect on you.

What you eat will influence a bad day as well. Stay away from any kind of unhealthy food, since you most likely do not want any more trouble in your life right now.

Junk food can make your bowel feel irritated, sweets can do the same and, on top of it, they can make you feel low-energy, while greasy fast-food will do nothing else than irritate you and feed you with no real nutrients at all.

Try to have a chamomile tea and to lay back. Eat fatty fish and nuts and provide your body with tons of vitamins and nutrients. Tomorrow can be better, but you have to make sure that is so by taking care of your body today.

Morning After Pill Less Effective On Plus-Sized Women

Written By: editor

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A certain emergency contraception made in Europe is now being packaged to show that it is less effective for women weighing over 176 pounds, according to the pill’s maker HRA Pharma.

The company said it became aware there was “a clear impact of weight” on the effectiveness of its contraceptive pill Norlevo while conducting research on another related issue.

HRA Pharma chief executive Erin Gainer told CNN‘s Jacque Wilson that company scientists saw Norlevo losing its effectiveness when women reached 165 pounds and showed an “absence of effectiveness” at about 176 pounds.

“We felt it was our ethical duty … to report those results to our health authorities here in Europe,” Gainer said.

Norlevo is indistinguishable from the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step available in the US, said Kelly Cleland, a public health expert at Princeton University. Both pills include the active ingredient levonorgestrel, a synthetic version of the hormone progestogen. Emergency contraceptives work by disrupting ovulation, essentially preventing the fertilization of an egg.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokeswoman Erica Jefferson told CNN that it “is currently reviewing the available and related scientific information on this issue, including the publication upon which the Norlevo labeling change was based.

“The agency will then determine what, if any, labeling changes to emergency contraceptives are warranted,” she added.

The American version of the pill is currently available without a prescription to anyone of any age. Generic versions of the drug are marketed as Next Choice One Dose and My Way.

“Actavis’ Next Choice One Dose is approved by the FDA as a safe, effective and therapeutically equivalent treatment option to its brand counterpart,” Actavis spokesman David Belian told CNN. “Therefore, should any update to the Plan B labeling take place, we would make the appropriate change to our product as well.”

Anna Glasier, an expert in reproductive medicine at the University of Edinburgh who published a study on emergency contraception in 2011, said it is unclear why emergency contraceptives may be less effective for overweight women. The 2011 study revealed obese women had three times the risk of getting pregnant after taking emergency contraception compared to those with a normal body weight.

“There has been some evidence over the years that low doses of progestogen-only contraceptives have less efficacy in heavier women, but we do not know why,” Glasier told CNN. She added, “it is well recognized that body weight affects the way drugs are metabolized.”

Glasier also noted the number of obese women in her study was not representative, making it difficult to make generalizations about the effect of body weight.

“You are probably better to take (levonorgestrel) after unprotected sex than just to leave it to chance even if you are obese,” Glasier said. “Because Plan-B One Step is now available over-the-counter and is by far the easiest EC method to get, this is the method that most women are familiar with.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “The best way to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy among women who are sexually active is to use effective birth control correctly and consistently.”

Mach 1000 Shock Wave Powers Tycho Supernova Remnant

Written By: admin

John P. Millis, PhD for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Somewhere in the Universe a star or stellar remnant is preparing to explode. Binary white dwarf systems can build up in mass as the compact object accretes mass from its companion. Eventually, the tiny ball of matter will explode in a brilliant event known as a supernova. The blast can glow for weeks or even months before eventually fading. However, the shock wave from the event will travel through the surrounding medium, energizing the gas and forming a brilliant remnant.

This supernova echo can last for hundreds or thousands of years before fading into the background of the cosmos. But how can these remnants persist for so long? While the initial shock wave does the work of powering the remnant, astronomers have suspected reverse shocks will eventually race back to the center of the supernova, reigniting the particles.

Now, new work on the Tycho supernova remnant – so named for the famed astronomer Tycho Brahe who tracked the evolution of this system in the sky in 1572 – has measured a reverse shock penetrating the remnant at more than 1,000 times the speed of sound in the gas. This is more than three times the speed of the outward shock, which is still pushing out into the surrounding interstellar space. “We wouldn’t be able to study ancient supernova remnants without a reverse shock to light them up,” says Hiroya Yamaguchi, who conducted this research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

Because the outward shock expands so violently through the gas, there is a significant “backwash” that rushes back to the center of the supernova. “It’s like the wave of brake lights that marches up a line of traffic after a fender-bender on a busy highway,” explains CfA co-author Randall Smith.

This is significant because of the reverse shock were to cease, or not arise in the first place, the inner volume of the remnant would fade much more quickly – a phenomenon that has been observed in other systems. “Thanks to the reverse shock, Tycho’s supernova keeps on giving,” says Smith.

Now that such a high speed shock has been observed in the Tycho system, the team will turn the Suzaku X-ray spacecraft – the primary instrument used in this work – to study other young supernovae systems in the hope of finding more reverse shock powered remnants. This is important because there are still significant questions to answer. While the shocks are clearly powering the supernova remnant by rapidly heating the electrons, the process by which the energy is transferred to the particles is still unclear. Hopefully more time and data will bring the answer to light.

Autoimmune Disorders May Be Treated With A Little THC

Written By: editor

Rebekah Eliason for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

New research has found evidence that THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), a principal component of marijuana, could be a beneficial treatment for autoimmune disorders.

This is the first study of its kind to investigate how powerful little molecules known as microRNAs are affected by THC. RNAs are biological molecules that are important in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. MicroRNAs were only recently discovered and are a type of non-coding RNAs responsible for regulating gene expression. If THC alters microRNA expression, it could be a vital component for the treatment of multiple autoimmune diseases including arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes.

This study was executed through injection of laboratory mice with THC. A total of 609 mice microRNAs were analyzed. Of these, researchers discovered thirteen unique microRNAs that were significantly altered by THC.

MicroRNAs are extremely important in the immune system and function as “brakes” to target over 60 percent of the entire gene expression. Usually microRNAs suppress gene expression but when it becomes over expressed the result is gene silence. Conversely, when microRNA is shut off, the specific gene affected becomes expressed at a higher level.

The researchers also studied how miRNA-690, a specific microRNA, functionally targets a vital protein known as c/EBPa when over-expressed due to THC interference. The protein molecule is able to trigger the unique cells called MDSC, which have the special ability to suppress inflammation. The effects of THC were reversed when miRNA-690 was successfully brought down.

For more than a decade lead authors Drs. Prakash and Mitzi Nagarkatti have studied the effect marijuana has in altering immune function and inflammation. It was their research that first showed marijuana components can trigger MDSC to suppress inflammation.

This current study was completed by Dr. Venkatesh Hegde in combination with other team members. They discovered that marijuana can act in counterproductive ways by suppressing inflammation, which increases vulnerability to some diseases but also works as a successful treatment against inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Dr. Mitzi Nagarkatti explained how understanding of micoRNA expression is a remarkable step in potential medical breakthroughs.

“MicroRNA therapeutics is an important, rapidly growing area with major pharmaceutical companies getting into this discovery and development,” Nagarkatti said. “While our study identifies the molecular mechanism of immune-altering effects of marijuana, select microRNA identified here could serve as important molecular targets to manipulate MDSC activity in cancer and inflammatory diseases.”

Science

Friendly Information Signs Reduce Vandalism On Scientific Equipment

Written By: editor

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Behavioral biologists conducting research in the field often depend on state-of-the-art techniques. Consequently, damage to or theft of technical equipment represents a dramatic financial and scientific loss. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen decided to find out whether the information content and tone of labels attached to the equipment could reduce the incidence of vandalism. In total 60 equipment dummies were distributed in four public parks in Munich. The researchers found that a friendly, personal label reduced the interaction of people with the equipment in comparison with neutral or threatening labels. Their results are published in the British Ecological Society journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

From small transmitters used to study migration routes of butterflies to cameras in nest boxes recording breeding activities of great tits, state-of-the-art and expensive technical equipment is essential for today’s ecological science. Usually, this equipment has to remain on site to allow for long-term observations or to minimize the impact of repeated installation. For a team of researchers led by Markus Clarin and Holger Goerlitz from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen it is also important to get as close as possible to their study animals. They investigate the behavior of bats, which spend their life in the dark, mostly during flight and in an acoustic environment unrecognizable to humans. Therefore the researchers have to rely on a range of special, expensive equipment to study the life of bats.

The idea for this study was thus born out of necessity: what and how much will happen to scientific equipment when it is left unattended in the field while automatically collecting data? Does a written threat of being reported to the police or a friendly notice that the work is part of a student’s thesis including a photo of a cute juvenile squirrel on the label of the equipment have the potential to prevent possible vandalism? Markus Clarin and colleagues distributed 60 equipment dummies in four public parks in Munich for a period of one week. The dummies consisted of locked toolboxes with a fake dome camera with a flashing red LED light and a car antenna. The researchers attached a label to all of these dummies that either contained a personal, neutral, or a threatening message. “We have been frequently approached by interested park visitors”, says Markus Clarin, first author of the study. “With remorse we told all of them about our fictitious study on small mammals that have been equipped with transmitters and are being photographed by the camera on top of the boxes when passing close by.”

The good news first: most of the dummies were not touched at all, despite being highly visible and unsecured in the middle of the park. Dummies containing a friendly label were interfered with 40% less than those with a neutral or threatening label. The label type, however, did not affect the seriousness of the interference, such as moving, opening, damaging or stealing the dummy. “Apparently, the friendly label effectively reduced anybody’s interference with our equipment, regardless of whether they intended to damage or steal the equipment or just wanted to pick it up for closer inspection”, says Holger Goerlitz, head of the project.

The question remains whether this study is representative, as it has been conducted in one of the richest cities in Germany. To account for this the researchers first asked international colleagues about their experience with fieldwork equipment. Their survey showed that the equipment, such as animal traps or cameras, remained mostly untouched. In case of damage or theft, this resulted in dramatic financial and scientific consequences, and in extreme cases also in complete failure of an experiment. A label in a friendly tone could probably put things right.

“Although our friendly labels were not able to influence what exactly was going to happen with the equipment, it nevertheless could minimize the number of incidences”, summarizes Holger Goerlitz.

“We would explicitly like to thank the local authorities, especially the police and the park management”, says Markus Clarin. They had been informed beforehand and remained cooperative, even when in one occasion a false bomb alert has caused some confusion: a visitor took one of the boxes to a beer garden and left it there with the red LED flashing.

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Personality Traits Could Determine If Bowl Size Causes Kids To Want More Food

Written By: editor
editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

While research published earlier this month found that bigger bowls tend to make children want larger portions of food, a new study suggests that some youngsters may be more susceptible to the phenomenon than others.

In fact, investigators from the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab report that kids respond differently to environmental cues, such as plate and bowl size, based on whether they are introverted or extroverted in nature. Their findings appear in the journal PLoS ONE.

As part of their study, the researchers looked at the breakfast behaviors of children between the ages of six and 10. Adults serving the youngsters breakfast gave them a large bowl, asked the kids to indicate how much milk and cereal they wanted, and then served them accordingly. Then on a different day, the children were given either a large or small bowl and were permitted to serve themselves as much cereal and milk as they wanted.

“To determine each child’s personality type, four teachers and counselors rated each child’s degree of introversion and extroversion on a scale of 1 to 9,” officials from the laboratory said. “Researchers used the average of these scores to classify each child as an introvert or an extravert. To measure the amount of food children asked for or served themselves, researchers weighed each student’s serving through scales hidden in the table.”

The researchers then compared the serving sizes for introverts and extraverts, and found that extroverted children were far more likely to be affected by the size of the bowl when getting their own cereal. Those kids served 33.1 percent more breakfast in the large bowl, while introverted youngsters only served themselves 5.6 percent more when the size of the bowl increased.

“This indicates that the extroverted kids were more influenced by the external cue of bowl-size than introverted kids were. This benefit for introverted kids, however, is only present when serving themselves; when served by adults, all kids requested more cereal to fill up the large bowl than the small bowl,” the university said.

“Extroverted children appear to be highly influenced by environmental cues when serving themselves, filling their big bowls to the brim when left in charge of their own portions,” it added. “These extraverts may benefit from having an adult serve. Introverted kids, however, are less likely to base portions on bowl size only when serving themselves, so parents may want to allow young introverts to serve their own food to avoid dish-size bias.”

In the previous study, a team of American and Dutch researchers served 69 preschoolers a sugary cereal in either an eight-ounce bowl or a 16-ounce bowl. The investigators filled the bowl with cereal and milk in small increments, each time asking the kids whether they had enough food or wanted more.

They stopped only when the children indicated that they were happy with the amount of cereal and milk in the bowl. The research revealed that larger bowls correlated to children requesting an average of 87 percent more cereal, regardless of age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). The study was published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Fibromyalgia

A Blood Test for Fibromyalgia?

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Although a lot of advances have been made in this field (and in the medical field in general), Fibromyalgia is still a relatively unknown and mysterious syndrome that affects millions of Americans and their daily lives.

What makes this syndrome so mysterious is precisely because specialists haven’t yet been able to agree on a clear set of symptoms and causes that lead to its development.

The symptoms of Fibromyalgia are very commonly overlapped with those of other medical conditions, such as themajor depressive disorder, Arthritis, Lupus, thyroid-related disorders and so on. This makes Fibromyalgia very hard to diagnose and thus, very difficult to treat as well.

Misdiagnosis is quite commonly encountered in the case of those suffering from Fibromyalgia. The most common misdiagnosis is either that of arthritis or that of chronic fatigue syndrome.

To be able to put the correct diagnosis, a doctor will have to run a series of tests, as well as to inquire thoroughly the patient about certain symptoms he/she may show.

Being very honest about these symptoms when you talk to your doctor is crucial in diagnosing Fibromyalgia. For instance, he/she may discover certain tender points around your body (which is one of the major red flags in the case of this syndrome), but as long as you do not tell him/her about the pain you feel in those areas, he/she will not be able to correctly diagnose you.

Depending on the case, some doctors will run tests that are usually ran in the case of other medical conditions, either to rule them out or to see if you have developed them as comorbid conditions.

A Blood Test for Fibromyalgia

For instance, he/she will check your thyroid functions, your general state of mind, your joints, the way your digestive system works, and so on. Also, under certain circumstances, he/she will have to run genetics tests to see if you are predisposed to develop Fibromyalgia or not.

A complete blood count will most likely be required first and foremost, since this will show if you have any kind of deficiencies, if you haven’t developed anemia and if there is something else to analyze (that may trigger other medical conditions than Fibromyalgia). Furthermore, the medical professional will check your liver and your kidney to see if the chemistry of your body is in order.

Although Fibromyalgia signs will not show on X-rays, some medical professionals may want to run them as well, since they will probably want to exclude the possibility of a serious disease. If everything else has been ruled out, your doctor will analyze how long you have been feeling pain, how much it lasted and how many tender points are painful on your body.

Although all these tests are generally related to other medical conditions than Fibromyalgia, there is one blood test that will be used to tell if someone has developed this syndrome or not. This test is called “FM/a”. This is a relatively newcomer to the entire “business” related to Fibromyalgia and its developers believe it to be very accurate.

The results they obtained through this test has been compared with those obtained in the case of patients suffering from other similar medical conditions (including Lupus and arthritis), as well as with the results obtained in the case of healthy patients. According to the researchers that developed this test, the results are definitive and the entire test only asks for one blood sample from the patient.

Also, they believe that the sensitivity of this test is comparable with that of the HIV test, which makes it quite reliable and safe when it comes to its results.

The downfall with this FM/a test though is related to the fact that, at least for now, it costs a lot (almost $750) and that not many of the patients out there may be able to afford it (especially since it is probably not covered by the insurance policies they have).

Furthermore, due to the mysterious nature of this syndrome, they may have had to run previous tests to get to the point where they are suspects of Fibromyalgia, which raises the costs of diagnosing the syndrome even more.

All in all, this test may be helpful for a lot of people out there, especially if they can afford it. One single test to diagnose Fibromyalgia gives the patients the accuracy they need and thus, taking benefit of the adequate treatment sooner, rather than later.

If you cannot afford it though, talking to a specialist and being very open about your symptoms is absolutely crucial if you want to start improving your health as soon as possible.

Violent Video Games Kill Self Control And Increase Unethical Behavior

Written By: admin

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Ever since the horrific incident at Columbine High School, violent video games and mass shootings have been intertwined. Now, a new study from an international team of researchers has found playing violent video games not only increases aggression but can also cause players to exhibit less self-control and more unethical behaviors.

The study researchers found these effects were strongest in teenage participants who scored high on a scale for moral disengagement – the capacity for an individual to convince themselves that ethics don’t apply in a certain situation.

According to study author Brad Bushman, the results of the study show far-reaching impacts of playing violent video games.

“When people play violent video games, they show less self-restraint. They eat more, they cheat more,” said Bushman, a professor of psychology and communication at The Ohio State University. “It isn’t just about aggression, although that also increases when people play games like Grand Theft Auto.”

Based in Italy, the study experiment began with more than 170 teenagers playing a violent video game, such as Grand Theft Auto III, or a non-violent game like MiniGolf 3D, for a total of 45 minutes. As the teens played, a bowl containing chocolate M&Ms was placed next to the gaming console. The participants were told they could eat the candy, but warned eating too much in a short time span was unhealthy.

The researchers watched as those who played the violent games ate over three times as much candy as the other teens, according to the study team’s report in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“They simply showed less restraint in their eating,” Bushman said.

After their gaming session, the teens were given a 10-item logic test in which they would get one ticket for a prize raffle for each question they got correct. After finding out how many answers they got right, the teens were told to take the appropriate number of tickets out of an envelope while not being watched.

Knowing exactly how many tickets were in the envelope, the researchers could later determine if a participant took more than they had earned. They found violent game players cheated about eight times more often than did those who played a nonviolent game.

The researchers also tested participants’ level of aggression by having them play a game with an unseen fictional “partner” for the chance to blast the loser with a loud noise through headphones. They found violent game players chose to blast their fictitious partners with louder noises that lasted longer than those who played nonviolent games.

“We have consistently found in a number of studies that those who play violent games act more aggressively, and this is just more evidence,” Bushman said.

Participants also completed a Moral Disengagement Scale, which quantifies how loosely a person holds themselves to high moral standards in all situations. The researchers found violent game players who scored higher on the scale, and were therefore more disengaged, were more likely to take extra tickets, eat more candy and act more aggressively – compared to those who played the nonviolent games.

“Very few teens were unaffected by violent video games, but this study helps us address the question of who is most likely to be affected,” Bushman said. “Those who are most morally disengaged are likely to be the ones who show less self-restraint after playing.”

He added that the effects were seen among both male and female participants.

“One of the major risk factors for anti-social behavior is simply being male,” Bushman said. “But even girls were more likely to eat extra chocolate and to cheat and to act aggressively when they played Grand Theft Auto versus the mini golf or pinball game. They didn’t reach the level of the boys in the study, but their behavior did change.”

Health

Latest Research Findings Offer Potential New Treatments For Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Written By: editor

2 separate studies yield key findings for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure for the disease

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a group of heterogeneous diseases with considerable diversity in terms of genetic abnormalities. Mutations of CEBPA, a tumour suppressor, are found in about 10 per cent of human AML patients. In two separate studies on CEBPA mutations in AML subtypes, researchers successfully identified and validated a gene known as Sox4 as a potential therapeutic target and a class of anti-cancer drugs, histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, as potential candidates in the treatment of certain AML.

Both research teams, comprising international scientists from Singapore, United States, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden and the Czech Republic, were led by Professor Daniel Tenen, Director, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Breakthrough study validates Sox4 as potential therapeutic target

In this breakthrough study, the researchers discovered, for the first time, a molecular target for CEBPA mutations by demonstrating that targeting Sox4 effectively perturbs the major leukemogenic phenotypes in human patient samples of mutated CEBPA AML. These findings were first published in the leading scientific journal Cancer Cell on 11 November 2013.

Although CEBPA mutations have been studied for decades, the precise oncogenic pathway and the role of their downstream targets are still poorly understood. This is the first study that identified a molecular target downstream of CEBPA mutations. By identifying the failure to suppress oncogene Sox4 expression as the underlying mechanism of CEBPA mutant-transformed leukemia stem cells (LSCs), the study highlights Sox4 as a potential therapeutic target for a subtype of AML. The discovery provides a direct route for the treatment of such leukemia and is a big step forward as there are currently limited therapeutic options for this subtype of AML.

Moving forward, the researchers intend to continue investigating the downstream signaling components of Sox4 during normal hematopoiesis and leukemogenesis. Based on the findings of Sox4 as a crucial node in mutated CEBPA-driven leukemogenesis, the team will focus on identifying its downstream signaling components and explore whether inhibition of these pathways, using pharmaceutical drugs, can effectively eradiate LSCs. They will also look into the development of novel therapeutic drugs for cancer.

New research identifies histone deacetylase inhibitors as potential candidates in treatment of AML

In the second study, the scientists identified a group of genes which were not properly expressed in a subgroup of AML patient samples. They demonstrated that HDAC inhibitors were able to reactivate expression of these genes and as such, could potentially be used as drugs in the treatment of certain AML. The discovery was first published online in the scientific journal Haematologica on 31 October 2013.

The research team examined the blood samples of more than 500 patients who were newly diagnosed with AML for this study. They found that a group of genes, known as the CEBPA signature, was not properly expressed in 20 per cent of the blood samples. Their findings also revealed that the CEBPA signature was responsible for blocking the growth of granulocytes, impeding their ability to mature into healthy blood cells.

The scientists further tested the effects of HDAC inhibitors, a class of anti-cancer drugs that trigger the production of proteins, on the subtype of AML using laboratory models and blood samples from patients. They found that the HDAC inhibitors were able to reactivate the expression of the CEBPA signature and promote the growth of healthy blood cells, demonstrating the HDAC inhibitors as potential drug targets for the treatment of the AML subtype.

As HDAC inhibitors have complex mechanisms of action, the research team intends to further examine how they behave at the molecular level in order to establish ways to promote the growth of healthy blood cells.

Said Professor Daniel Tenen, “Up to now, therapeutic options for AML are very limited. By understanding oncogenic pathways and the signatures which respond to specific enzyme inhibitors, we can build up our knowledge and understanding towards the development of more efficient drugs. We hope to apply similar approaches to identify new therapeutic avenues for other types of AML.”

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Science

Scientists Show X-ray Laser Can Solve Protein Structures From Scratch

Written By: editor

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

SLAC’s linac coherent light source reaches key milestone in decoding biological structures that were out of reach

A study shows for the first time that X-ray lasers can be used to generate a complete 3-D model of a protein without any prior knowledge of its structure.

An international team of researchers working at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory produced from scratch an accurate model of lysozyme, a well-studied enzyme found in egg whites, using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser and sophisticated computer analysis tools.

The experiment proves that X-ray lasers can play a leading role in studying important biomolecules of unknown structure. The special attributes of LCLS, which allow the study of very small crystals, could cement its role in hunting down many important biological structures that have so far remained out of reach because they form crystals too small for analysis with conventional X-ray sources.

“Determining protein structures using X-ray lasers requires averaging a gigantic amount of data to get a sufficiently accurate signal, and people wondered if this really could be done,” said Thomas Barends, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Germany who participated in the research. “Now we have experimental evidence. This really opens the door to new discoveries.”

Collaborators from SLAC and Arizona State University also participated in the research, which was published Nov. 24 in Nature.

The underlying technique, called X-ray crystallography, is credited with solving the vast majority of all known protein structures and is associated with numerous Nobel Prizes since its first use just over a century ago.

Protein structures tie directly to their functions, such as how they bind and interact with other molecules, and thus provide vital details for developing highly targeted disease-fighting drugs. But many protein structures that are considered promising targets for new medicines remain unknown, mainly because they don’t form crystals that can be deciphered with existing techniques.

This work is the latest in a rapid progression of important advances at LCLS, which began operations for users in 2010. For example, last year researchers used LCLS to determine the structure of an enzyme that can hold African sleeping sickness in check, which makes it a promising drug target. However, those previous studies relied on data from similar, known structures to fill in common data gaps.

For this study the researchers chose lysozyme, whose structure has been known for decades, because it offered a good test of whether their method produced accurate results. They soaked lysozyme crystals in a solution containing gadolinium, a metal that bonded with the lysozyme to produce a strong signal when subjected to the intense X-ray light. It was this signal from the gadolinium atoms that enabled exact reconstruction of the lysozyme molecule.

The team hopes to adapt and refine the technique to explore more complex proteins such as membrane proteins, which serve a range of important cellular functions and are the target of more than half of all new drugs in development. Only a small fraction of the thousands of membrane proteins have been completely mapped.

“This study is an important milestone on which the field will build further,” said John R. Helliwell, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester and formerly a director of the Synchrotron Radiation Source at Daresbury Laboratory in England. “The X-ray laser is bringing new opportunities and new ideas for 3-D structure determination of ever-smaller samples. The use of computers to automate this process is a triumph.”

Barends said the latest results are a remarkable achievement, given that it took just a few years for LCLS to reach this milestone. “Further improvements in X-ray detectors, software and crystal formation and delivery techniques should enable more discoveries in the coming years,” he said.

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Putting A Cap On CO2 Emissions Won’t End Global Warming: Study

Written By: editor
editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The carbon dioxide content already present in the Earth’s atmosphere would continue to cause warming for hundreds of years, even if the emissions were to suddenly stop today, according to new research published in Sunday’s edition of the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study, which was led by scientists at Princeton University and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), suggests that it could take far less CO2 than previously believed to reach global temperatures experts have deemed unsafe, the Ivy League school said in a statement.

As part of their research, the investigators created a simulation of Earth upon which carbon dioxide emissions suddenly ceased after 1,800 billion tons of the greenhouse gas had entered the atmosphere. Within a millennium of this sudden CO2 shutoff, the carbon itself began to fade. Within 20 years, 40 percent of it had been absorbed by the planet’s oceans and landmasses, and 80 percent of it had been soaked up after 1,000 years.

“By itself, such a decrease of atmospheric carbon dioxide should lead to cooling. But the heat trapped by the carbon dioxide took a divergent track,” the university said. “After a century of cooling, the planet warmed by 0.37 degrees Celsius (0.66 Fahrenheit) during the next 400 years as the ocean absorbed less and less heat.”

“While the resulting temperature spike seems slight, a little heat goes a long way here. Earth has warmed by only 0.85 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times,” it added. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global temperatures a mere 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial levels would dangerously interfere with the climate system.”

In order to prevent the planet from reaching that point, humans would have to limit cumulative CO2 emissions to less than 1,000 billion tons of carbon, approximately half of which have already entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The lingering warming effect that the Princeton researchers found, however, means that the two-degree plateau could be reached with far fewer carbon emissions.

“If our results are correct, the total carbon emissions required to stay below 2 degrees of warming would have to be three-quarters of previous estimates, only 750 billion tons instead of 1,000 billion tons of carbon,” said first author Thomas Frölicher, who conducted the work as a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS).

“Thus, limiting the warming to 2 degrees would require keeping future cumulative carbon emissions below 250 billion tons, only half of the already emitted amount of 500 billion tons,” added Frölicher, who now works as a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich).

The results of their study contradict a widely-accepted scientific consensus that the planet’s temperature would remain the same or decline if emissions suddenly stopped. However, those previous studies did not take into account the oceans’ decreasing ability to absorb atmospheric heat (especially the polar oceans).

While CO2 steadily dissipates, Frölicher’s team was able to determine that the oceans that remove heat from the Earth’s atmosphere gradually begin absorbing less and less. Ultimately, the residual heat offsets the cooling that takes place as a result of reduced amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The researchers demonstrated that the change in ocean heat uptake in the polar regions has a more pronounced effect on global mean temperature than changes in low-latitude oceans. This phenomenon is known as “ocean-heat uptake efficacy,” and according to Frölicher, it plays a “central role” in climate change and has been underrepresented in previous studies.

“Scientists have thought that the temperature stays constant or declines once emissions stop, but now we show that the possibility of a temperature increase can not be excluded,” Frölicher said. “This is illustrative of how difficult it may be to reverse climate change – we stop the emissions, but still get an increase in the global mean temperature.”

Poisonous Spiders Found In Grapes At Supermarkets In Four States

Written By: editor
editor

[ Watch the Video: Check Your Grapes! Black Widow Spiders May Be Lurking Within ]
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Purchasing a bunch of red grapes at the local supermarket last week nearly turned out to be a fatal decision for one Pennsylvania woman, who was almost bitten by a venomous black widow spider.
As reported by the Daily Mail on Saturday, the woman, Yvonne Whalen, was washing the produce in a colander when she saw a spider crawl over the top of one of the grapes. She immediately dropped the container into the sink.
“Mrs. Whalen quickly did an Internet search in an attempt to identify the type of spider she found,” stated Lara Stielow of the Las Vegas Guardian Express. Ultimately, she contacted a spider expert, who came to her home and identified the arachnid as a young female Latrodectus or black widow spider, whose venomous bite is dangerous and potentially fatal to humans.
According to Fox News, similar incidents have been reported this month in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Stielow added that spiders were also detected in grapes purchased in a Missouri supermarket.
In Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a woman named Yvonne Duckhorn was inspecting grapes for mold at an Aldi store when she found a black widow, Karen Herzog of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported back on November 9. Following the incident, the supermarket chain announced that they would be pulling all red, green and black grapes from Milwaukee-area stores and promised to step-up produce inspections.
Earlier this month, 20-year-old Callum Merry noticed a spider web along with a black widow in a bag of grapes purchased at a Kroger supermarket in Brighton, Michigan. Likewise, in early October, two shoppers reported finding black widow spiders in grapes obtained from two different Aldi stores in the St. Louis area.
“A female black widow’s venom is 15 times stronger than that of a rattlesnake,” Stielow said, adding that the spiders are “are easily identified by the characteristic red hourglass shape on their abdomen” and are not typically aggressive, only biting when they feel the need to defend themselves.
“A bite from a black widow feels like a pinprick and can go altogether unnoticed by some,” she added. “The site can be identified by double fang marks on the victim’s skin. Pain, redness, and swelling develop quickly after being bitten. A person may experience any of the following symptoms: headache, dizziness, itching, rash, anxiety, cramping and a stiff torso, back and shoulders, weakness or paralysis, excessive saliva, nausea, and vomiting. The victim should clean the site of the wound with soap and water, apply ice and then seek medical treatment.”

Fibromyalgia

15 Ways Ease Fibromyalgia Pain

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

 1. Take Time to Relax

When dealing with fibromyalgia, it is important to reduce stress and take time to relax. This can be done in a variety of ways, including taking a walk, reading, listening to music etc. Reducing stress levels means different things to every person, but finding what is best is very important, as this relaxing activity can be your go to when you feel anxiety levels spiking.

2. Meditate

Meditation is an Eastern practice of focusing and calming the mind. It is a technique that can help to maintain stress levels, and can also increase optimism and other positive effects. There are many different forms of meditation, including guided meditation, walking meditation, silent meditation etc.

3. Pet an Animal

Petting and playing with animals has been proven to be therapeutic and to reduce stress levels. If you have a pet, spend some time playing with them or holding them on your lap. Pets are a great way to interact and deal with any feelings of loneliness or despair that may arise. Your pain may prevent you from getting out and being social as much as you would like, so spending time with animals is a great way to interact with sweet living beings.

4. Take Medication

It can be helpful to look into medication that can ease pain.There are various recommended medications for the pain management of fibromyalgia.  Always take medication in conjunction with a doctor, and do not attempt to self-medicate.

5. Apply Ice

Applying ice to painful muscles helps to ease the pain of fibromyalgia.  Ice sooths the deep muscle pain, and can provide temporary relief to those with a bothersome muscle.  Try to do a bit of massage, and then apply ice to the area.

6. Talk to Friends

It is important to be as social as possible, and to maintain a social life and close connections with friends and family- they are your support system. Talking to friends and family is important to helping them understand your illness- and why your energy levels are low.

You can also make friends and find support groups for those with fibromyalgia. This support can be very helpful as talking to people who are going through the same thing as you can cure loneliness.

15 Ways Ease Fibromyalgia Pain

7. Eat Healthy

Eating a healthy diet increases overall energy levels, and can help to boost energy and feelings of satisfaction. It is important to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and to eat a variety of vitamin rich foods.

8. Exercise

Exercise is great for the body and for the release of endorphins, which assist in pain management. Taking an easy walk can be sufficient in terms of exercise, and starting small and short and building up your exercise routine will help strengthen the body and let muscles adjust. Swimming and cycling are highly recommended as they are low-impact exercises that are good for the joints and muscles.  Yoga and stretching can also be helpful as muscles and joints can gain flexibility.

9. Try Regular Massage

Massage is a great way to reduce muscle pain and to conquer stress. Regular massage can increase the quality of life for fibromyalgia sufferers, by stretching muscles and reducing deep muscle pain. Massage can be done by a professional on a regular basis, or can be completed at home daily.  Many have suggested using a tennis ball to rub out painful muscle areas.

10. Try Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese healing method that can help to ease fibromyalgia pain when a regular practice is maintained.  Acupuncture involves the insertion of thin needles into specific points on the body in order to increase energy flow. The practice also claims to increase the release of positive chemicals that can assist in pain management.

Studies on acupuncture have been inconclusive, but some studies have demonstrated a decrease in pain, anxiety, fatigue, and other unwelcomed issues. Try acupuncture for at least a month, twice a week, to see if you notice any improvements.

11. Raise Your Serotonin Levels

Practice any activity that you find fun- going to concerts, happy hour with friends, taking your dog for a walk, cooking a healthy meal, going for a swim, listen to music, read a book etc.  The possibilities are endless- just do what is fun for you and makes you laugh.

12 Take a Magnesium Supplement

13. Eat Foods with Malic Acid

14. Consider Homeopathy

Homeopathic remedies are those that come from nature.  Try these alternative methods to traditional medicine.

15. Maintain Optimism

When struggling with chronic pain, it can be difficult to remain positive.  But try putting these other suggestions in practice and you can live a fulfilling life.

Twitter Rolls Out New Forward Secrecy Encryption Efforts

Written By: editor
editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Twitter has added an extra layer of encryption to its service, making it more difficult for third-parties to spy on its users, and the popular micro-blogging network is calling on other Internet companies to do the same.
According to Reuters reporter Jim Finkle, the move is an attempt to “thwart spying by government intelligence agencies” by the social media website, which began completely scrambling data in 2011 using traditional HTTPS encryption.
On Friday, Twitter officials revealed that the company would be upping their encryption efforts by adding a layer of privacy known as “forward secrecy” for all traffic on twitter.com, api.twitter.com, and mobile.twitter.com.
High-tech companies initially started using forward secrecy to thwart hackers looking to exploit stolen or cracked session keys, but as Rachel King of ZD Net explained, the decryption-prevention method is now being used to help keep national security agencies at bay and “save face” with users.
“Under traditional HTTPS, the client chooses a random session key, encrypts it using the server’s public key, and sends it over the network. Someone in possession of the server’s private key and some recorded traffic can decrypt the session key and use that to decrypt the entire session,” Twitter’s Jacob Hoffman-Andrews said in a blog posting on Friday.
However, the website has now enabled what is known as the EC Diffie-Hellman cipher suites, under which the client and server co-devise a shared, random session key that is never sent across the network. The server’s private key is only accessed to sign the key exchange, preventing so-called man-in-the middle attacks, he added.
As King pointed out, Twitter “actually wasn’t one of the nine original tech giants revealed back in June to be utilized as a source for the National Security Agency’s now-controversial data mining program, PRISM. That is likely because virtually anyone can sign up for Twitter, and for an unlimited number of accounts, with information that doesn’t necessarily need to be authentic.”
Nonetheless, with the move, the San Francisco-based social network joins the ranks of Google and Yahoo, both of whom have recently taken steps to help protect user information, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Earlier this month, both companies announced that they would begin encrypting all of the information transmitted between their respective data centers, and each has reiterated that they do not allow the NSA to directly access their servers.
In announcing Twitter’s new forward secrecy efforts, Hoffman-Andrews said that this type of enhanced encryption “should be the new normal for web service owners… Security is an ever-changing world. Our work on deploying forward secrecy is just the latest way in which Twitter is trying to defend and protect the user’s voice in that world.”

Fibromyalgia

15 Causes Of Fibromyalgia Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Not until very long ago, most doctors would shrug and prescript some analgesics when someone came to them showing symptoms of Fibromyalgia.

Even worse, sometimes they considered it to be the same thing as depression (or at least a form of it) and they prescribed treatment only for that particular set of symptoms.

Nowadays though, more and more specialists agree on one fact: Fibromyalgia is a stand-alone syndrome, although its symptoms can vary from one person to another and sometimes they can even overlap with those of other syndromes, disorders and diseases.

As for the causes of Fibromyalgia, there is no general consensus and the opinions are spread among the professionals.

Still, Fibromyalgia can have unusual causes that your doctor may not be aware of. Here are 15 of the most uncommon causes and risk factors for Fibromyalgia which are quite unknown to doctors, not necessarily because they are poorly trained in this direction, but because these causes can stay well hidden unless they are discovered in time.

1- A traumatic event

Fibromyalgia is quite often comorbid with depression and anxiety and these two disorders can appear after a traumatic event, such as the death of a loved one. Although depression may not be a cause proper for the development of Fibromyalgia, it can be a risk factor.

2- Food

This may seem obvious, but unhealthy food can actually influence the development of Fibromyalgia. Not providing your body with the necessary nutrients can always be a risk factor and it can “help” with the development of a lot of diseases, disorders and syndromes, among which Fibromyalgia is sometimes included.

15 Causes Of Fibromyalgia Your Doctor Doesn't Know About

3- Thyroid-related dysfunctions

The thyroid gland is very important in the human body because it regulates the metabolism. Furthermore, it can affect the weight gain (or the weight loss) of a patient, it can affect his/her sleep, his/her level of energy, and many other things. Checking for signs of trouble in this area may be helpful in patients with Fibromyalgia, since sometimes, adequate treatment for a thyroid disorder can help alleviate the Fibromyalgia symptoms as well.

4- Smoking

This is, again, not an actual cause for Fibromyalgia, but a major risk factor. Studies have shown that patients who are smokers tend to develop Fibromyalgia more than those who are not.

5- Poor physical condition

Working out is not good just for the way you look or for the way your heart works, but also for your general state of being. Not being properly trained can be, again, a very important risk factor for Fibromyalgia, especially when it is developed comorbid with depression.

6- Candida

This may sound odd to you, but Candida can actually be a cause for Fibromyalgia. When it is not properly treated, Candida can enter the bloodstream and release toxins that will eventually lead to feeling dizzy and tired and to developing digestive issues and chronic pain (all of which are common symptoms in patients with Fibromyalgia).

7- Vitamin deficiencies

Sometimes, lacking vitamin D, magnesium and B12 can be overlooked, but the truth is that, in time, they can lead to the development of Fibromyalgia symptoms.

8- Intolerance to gluten

This type of intolerance has become more widely known ever since the “gluten-free diet” craze. Still, the issue can be very serious and gluten intolerance can lead to developing a particular set of Fibromyalgia causes that are, surprisingly, not related to the digestive system. Sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, pain and even cognitive impairment are among the Fibromyalgia symptoms caused by gluten intolerance.

9- Stress

Being chronically stressed is mostly related to the adrenal glands and it can start showing symptoms of Fibromyalgia.

10- Genes

The fact that genes can be the cause for the development of Fibromyalgia is quite well-known. Still, not many may know that it is actually a MTHFR mutations test that can show whether a person is predisposed to developing Fibromyalgia symptoms or not.

11- Twins

This may sound, again, quite odd, but studies show that those who have a monozygotic twin show 15% more chances than their brother/sister to develop Fibromyalgia symptoms (out of which pain is the most poignant one).

12- Mycotoxins

This type of toxins can lead to the development of certain Fibromyalgia symptoms, but their harmful effects are not limited to that, since they are very strong.

13- Lack of glutathione

Having a glutathione deficiency means that your body cannot properly detoxify itself, which, again, may lead to the development of certain symptoms that are common to Fibromyalgia patients.

14- Mercury

It is a well-known fact that mercury is toxic for the human body, but you may have a high level of it in your own body and not know it. Make sure that you are correctly tested for heavy metals, especially since this can be an important part in detecting why Fibromyalgia has developed in your case and which is the most adequate treatment.

15- Sleep disturbance

Apparently, sleeping badly is not only a symptom but it can be also a cause in some cases. Studies show that sleep disturbances are sometimes linked to the development of Fibromyalgia and that waking up during your IV level of sleep can be a piece of the puzzle.

Drinking Sugary Beverages Could Increase Endometrial Cancer Risk

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editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Consuming sugary soft drinks or other naturally-sweetened beverages could increase the risk of a common form of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women, according to research appearing in the latest edition of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
According to FoxNews.com reporter Amanda Woerner, researchers from the University of Minnesota looked at data collected from over 23,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the Iowa Women’s Health Study. This included information on the female subjects’ medical history and dietary intake, including their typical consumption of sugary beverages.
Overall, those who drank the most sugary colas, other carbonated soft-drinks or non-carbonated liquids like lemonade or fruit drinks had a 78 percent higher risk of developing estrogen-dependent type 1 endometrial cancer (the most common form of the disease). Furthermore, the researchers found that the more sugar-sweetened drinks those women consumed, the higher their risk of developing the cancer became.
“Although ours is the first study to show this relationship, it is not surprising to see that women who drank more sugar-sweetened beverages had a higher risk of estrogen-dependent type I endometrial cancer but not estrogen-independent type II endometrial cancer,” Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi, who led the research while working as a research associate in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the university’s School of Public Health, said in a statement.
“Other studies have shown increasing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has paralleled the increase in obesity. Obese women tend to have higher levels of estrogens and insulin than women of normal weight. Increased levels of estrogens and insulin are established risk factors for endometrial cancer,” Inoue-Choi added.
The study authors also reviewed whether or not other sweetened foods could also increase the endometrial cancer risk in postmenopausal women, according to Richard Gray, Science Correspondent with The Telegraph. However, their analysis found no link between sweet snacks and cancer.
Likewise, they did not find any association between consumption of starchy foods or sugar-free soft drinks and type I or type II endometrial cancers. According to the Woerner, the CDC reports that nearly 50,000 American women will be diagnosed with the disease in 2013.
“Research has documented the contribution of sugar-sweetened beverages to the obesity epidemic,” said Inoue-Choi, whose research was funded by the National Cancer Institute. “Too much added sugar can boost a person’s overall calorie intake and may increase the risk of health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”

Fibromyalgia

12 Steps to Natural Cure for Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

12 Steps to Natural Cure for Fibromyalgia

There are many people with fibromyalgia who are looking for an alternative treatment to pharmaceutical drugs.

There are many other treatments that can be tried, and some of them have been determined to have a positive impact on the lives of people with the condition.

Several supplements and herbs are recommended for fibromyalgia.

These can help ease the pain of fibromyalgia by increasing serotonin levels, decreasing pain sensitivity, improving immune function, and other.

Massage is also recommended as a natural treatment for fibromyalgia, as it can help to ease sore muscles.

Massage can be done by a professional, or can be completed at home.

Many people like to see a masseuse as it not only helps their muscle pain directly, but also allows them time to fully relax and ease stress.  Other people prefer to do daily massage at home.

This can be done using a tennis ball, rolled over the sore muscles to gently work them out.

Heat and cold can also be applied in order to ease sore muscles.  Cold packs and ice can be applied to deep and achy muscles to help sooth their pain.  Heat can also be applied to release muscle tension, and a hot shower or bath is often the best way to apply heat to various different muscle groups and areas.  The heat from a shower or bath will relax muscles and will rejuvenate the body.

1. Magnesium

Magnesium is a property that assists with nearly 300 biochemical body reactions.  It has been estimated that 80-95% of people with fibromyalgia are deficient in this mineral.  Also, a large number of the general population is lacking in the mineral as well.

2. Colloidal Silver

3. Oleander Extract

Oleander extract is an immune modulator which can relieve fibromyalgia.  Raw oleander is toxic, so this should only be taken in supplement form.

4. Vitamin D3

Vitamin D3 is an immune modulator and can help with fibromyalgia.  D3 deficiency is linked with immune disorders

5. Garlic and Echinacea

These improve circulation and are immune modulators.

6. Curcumin

Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric, and can relieve inflammation and pain.

7. Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese practice that dates back 2500 years.  It involves using small needles in the skin to open energy fields.  The acupuncture process releases the qi and opens up pathways to energy.  This is a traditional medical and spiritual practice that has also been backed by the NIH.

8. Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 helps to increase energy levels in the body.  Deficiency in vitamin B12 can contribute to pain for people who have fibromyalgia.  Taking extra B12 supplements can ease the conditions of fibromyalgia and can increase quality of life as it can increase energy levels in those who have chronic pain and may experience depression and isolation due to pain and fatigue.

9. Liver Cleanse

Doing a liver cleanse regularly is a great way to clear out toxins.  There are various natural ways to complete a liver cleanse.  This is important because as toxins come through the body they can get caught in the organs and in the liver.  Regular flushing and cleansing of the liver can improve liver functioning and can help the body in eliminating waste that has been stuck in the body.

10. 5-HTP

5-HTP increases serotonin levels in the bran and can help to reduce the amount of tender points on the body due to fibromyalgia.  This supplement keeps the body form experiencing pain by upping serotonin and stabilizing mood.  The chemical affects the brain, and those considering using it should consult a naturopathic doctor.

11. SAMe

SAMe is a compound that is naturally occurring in the body, and is necessary for immune functioning.  It assists in maintaining cell membranes and helps to break down neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.  SAMe may assist in helping with

12. Meditation

Meditation is a technique that helps to clear the mind by calming the body and calming thoughts.  Meditation can be done in a variety of ways: sitting, lying down, walking and others. Meditation has been proven to reduce stress levels and to increase clarity and focus.

It may also help with pain management and positive outlook.  Meditation involves quieting the thoughts and the mind, and clearing the mind of any negative thoughts.  Regular meditation can reduce stress levels and can help bring optimism and balance to the lives of those with fibromyalgia.

These natural methods of treatment should be considered by those who want an alternative to the traditional pharmaceutical drug treatments often offered.  Please consult with a doctor.

Cheese Made From Human Foot And Armpit Bacteria

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Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

They say the smelliest cheese is the best cheese, so the latest batch created by a scientist and scent expert could be top notch – if you like the stench of belly button and toe jam.

Scientist Christina Agapakis and scent expert Sissel Tolaas have used bacteria from the human foot, belly button and armpit to create a variety of cheeses as part of a project called Selfmade.

The project debuted at an exhibition in Dublin, Ireland about synthetic biology. The team says that Selfmade is a series of “microbial sketches,” portraits reflecting an individual’s microbial landscape in a unique cheese.

Each of the cheeses are crafted from starter cultures samples from the skin of a different person, and are then identified and characterized using microbiological techniques and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing.

Agapakis and Tolaas say that each of the cheeses have a unique set of microbes that help shape a unique odor. The odors were sampled and characterized using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, which is a technique used to identify and quantify volatile organic compounds present in a sample.

“We not only live in a biological world surrounded by rich communities of microorganisms, but in a cultural world that emphasizes total antisepsis,” the team said in a statement. “The intersection of our interests in smell and microbial communities led us to focus on cheese as a ‘model organism’.”

They said that many of the stinkiest cheeses are hosts to species of bacteria closely related to the bacteria responsible for the characteristic smells of human armpits and feet.

“Can knowledge and tolerance of bacterial cultures in our food improve tolerance of the bacteria on our bodies? How do humans cultivate and value bacterial cultures on cheeses and fermented foods? How will synthetic biology change with a better understanding of how species of bacteria work together in nature as opposed to the pure cultures of the lab,” say Agapakis and Tolaas.

Agapakis told Dezeen that everyone has a unique and diverse set of bacteria living on their skin that can be amplified using techniques from microbiology and grown directly in milk to form and flavor cheese. Selfmade features eleven cheeses in total, made from bacterial cultures harvested from the skin of artists, scientists, anthropologists, and cheese makers using sterile cotton swabs that were sent to the donors.

The scientist said that each of the cheeses smell and taste of the body odor of the donor. She also said they discovered that cheese and smelly body parts share similar microbial populations.

“Nobody will eat these cheeses, but we hope that the cheese can inspire new conversations about our relationship to the body and to our bacteria,” Agapakis told Dezeen. “By making cheese directly from the microbes on the body, we want to highlight these bacterial connections as well as to question and potentially expand the role of both odors and microbes in our lives.”

Study Pinpoints Cell Types And Brain Regions Affected By Autism Gene Mutations

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redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Researchers from Yale University and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have pinpointed the types of cells and regions of the brain affected by the genetic mutations associated with autism.
Their findings, which were reported in Thursday’s edition of the journal Cell, indicate that a common variety of neural circuits are affected by autism-risk genes. Furthermore, they determined how, when, where and in what types of cells those genes will influence a developing brain, leading to autism spectrum disorders.
As part of the study, senior author Matthew W. State, chair of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry at UCSF and an expert on the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, and his colleagues focused specifically on nine genes that had been most strongly associated with autism in recently-published sequencing studies.
State’s team “investigated their effects using precise maps of gene expression during human brain development,” UCSF added, and demonstrated that this set of genes play a role in abnormalities in specific brain cells. Those cells, which are known as cortical projection neurons, are located in the deepest regions of a person’s developing prefrontal cortex during the middle period of fetal development, the study authors said.
“Given the small subset of autism genes we studied, I had no expectation that we would see the degree of spatiotemporal convergence that we saw,” explained State. “This strongly suggests that though there are hundreds of autism risk genes, the number of underlying biological mechanisms will be far fewer. This is a very important clue to advance precision medicine for autism toward the development of personalized and targeted therapies.”
It has been difficult for researchers to pin-down the genetic causes of autism, as several hundred genes have been linked to autism spectrum disorders but no single set of them appears to explain all of the symptoms associated with the disorders. Even with these new discoveries, the authors explain that there are other genes and other neural circuits that also contribute to autism spectrum disorders and have not yet been discovered.
However, according to co-senior author and Yale neurobiology professor Nenad Sestan, the new study suggests that new targeted treatment approaches could be possible. “We know now that we may not have to treat the whole brain, that changes related to mutations in autism-risk genes may affect particular neural circuits at specific places at specific times,” he said.
In related work, UCLA neuroscientists have become the first researchers to map groups of autism-risk genes by function, and to identify the time and location where those genes typically play major roles in early brain development.
Furthermore, they found disturbances in neural circuits that define key pathways between areas of the cerebral cortex, and their findings suggest that those disruptions are not a result of autism itself.
Rather, the changes are formed by mutations in genes during fetal brain development, the study authors said. Their study, which was also published in Cell on Thursday, could help experts better understand how genetic changes cause autism spectrum disorders on a molecular level and should help shape future research.
“Identifying gene variants that boost risk is only the first step of unraveling a disease,” said lead author Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of human genetics, neurology and psychiatry. “We need to figure out where genetic changes appear in the brain, at what stages during development and which biological processes they disrupt. Only then will we understand how mutations cause autism.”

Heavy Drinking Leads To Higher Divorce Rate, Unless Both Partners Do It

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[ Watch the Video: How Can Heavy Drinking Lead To Divorce? ]

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Differences in a couple’s drinking habits, rather than the drinking itself, is what leads to marital dissatisfaction, separation and divorce, according to a recent study by the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

The researchers followed 634 couples through the first nine years of marriage, and found that couples in which only one spouse was a heavy drinker had much higher rates of divorce than other couples.

By contrast, couples in which both spouses drank heavily had the same divorce rates as couples in which both spouses weren’t heavy drinkers, suggesting it’s the differences in drinking styles that contribute to marital strife.

Over the course of the nine-year study, nearly half the couples in which only one partner was a heavy drinker wound up divorcing, while the divorce rate for other couples was only 30 percent. For the purposes of the study, heavy drinking was defined as consuming six or more drinks at one time or drinking to intoxication. The study also controlled for factors such as marijuana and tobacco use, depression and socioeconomic status, which can also be related to marital dissatisfaction, separation and divorce.

“This research provides solid evidence to bolster the commonplace notion that heavy drinking by one partner can lead to divorce,” said Kenneth Leonard, PhD, RIA director and lead author of the study.

“Although some people might think that’s a likely outcome, there was surprisingly little data to back up that claim until now,” Leonard said in an interview with UB News Center.

The surprising outcome was that the divorce rate for two heavy drinkers was no worse than for two non-heavy drinkers, Leonard said.

“Heavy drinking spouses may be more tolerant of negative experiences related to alcohol due to their own drinking habits.”

However, this doesn’t mean other aspects of family life are unimpaired.

“While two heavy drinkers may not divorce, they may create a particularly bad climate for their children.”

The researchers also found a slightly higher divorce rate in cases when the heavy drinker was the wife, rather than the husband. But Leonard cautioned that this difference is based on only a few couples in which the wife was a heavy drinker, but the husband was not, and that the finding was not statistically significant.

If this difference is supported by further research, one possible explanation could be that men view heavy drinking by their wives as going against proper gender roles for women, leading to more conflict, he said.

“Ultimately, we hope our findings will be helpful to marriage therapists and mental health practitioners who can explore whether a difference in drinking habits is causing conflicts between couples seeking help,” Leonard said.

The study will appear in the December issue of the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. The study’s co-authors were Gregory Homish, PhD, and Philip Smith, PhD, of UB’s Department of Community Health and Health Behavior.

Genetic Variant Linked To Freckling, Sun Sensitivity Discovered

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[ Watch the Video: Genetic Variant Linked To Freckling And Sun Sensitivity ]
April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A genomic variant strongly associated with sensitivity to the sun, brown hair, blue eyes and freckles has been identified by a new study.
Researchers studying Icelanders discovered an intricate pathway involving the interspersed DNA sequence, or non-coding region, of a gene that is among a few dozen that are associated with human pigmentation traits. The findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Cell.
People with ancestors from geographic locations farther from the equator, such as Iceland, are more likely to have less pigmentation in their skin, hair and eyes. A reduction in pigment makes individuals more sensitive to the sun, but allows them to more easily draw upon sunlight to generate vitamin D3, which is essential for healthy bones.
The international research team — including scientists from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — analyzed data from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 2,230 Icelanders. Hundreds of thousands of common differences across individuals’ DNA are compared during a GWAS to see if any of those variants are associated with a known trait.
“Genes involved in skin pigmentation also have important roles in human health and disease,” said NHGRI Scientific Director Dan Kastner, MD, PhD.  “This study explains a complex molecular pathway that may also contribute insights into skin diseases, such as melanoma, which is caused by the interaction of genetic susceptibility with environmental factors.”
The GWAS data helped the team to focus on the interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) that had previously been associated with immunity. The production of interferons — proteins that fight off viruses or harmful bacteria — is spurred by a protein generated by IRF4. Genomic databases revealed that the IRF4 gene is expressed at high levels only in lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell important in the immune system, and in melanocytes, specialized skin cells that make the pigment melanin. An association between the IRF4 gene and the pigmentation trait was established by the current study results.
“Genome-wide association studies are uncovering many genomic variants that are associated with human traits and most of them are found in non-protein-coding regions of the genome,” said William Pavan, PhD, senior investigator, Genetic Disease Research Branch, NHGRI. “Exploring the biological pathways and molecular mechanisms that involve variants in these under-explored portions of the genome is a challenging part of our work. This is one of a few cases where scientists have been able to associate a variant in a non-coding genomic region with a functional mechanism.”
Millions of variants were revealed among the individuals in the Icelandic GWAS. To make the study more manageable, the researchers narrowed their focus to 16,280 variants located in the region around the IRF4 gene, then they used an automated fine-mapping process to explore the set of variants in IRF4 in 95,085 people from Iceland. The automated process uses a silicon chip that enables a large number of variants to be included in the analysis.
The new data allowed the researchers to discover a variant in a non-coding, enhancer region which regulates IRF4 that is associated with the combined trait of sunlight sensitivity, brown hair, blue eyes and freckles — placing IRF4 among more than 30 genes now associated with pigmentation. This group includes a gene variant previously found in people with freckles and red hair.
The NHGRI researchers studied the IRF4’s role in the pigment-related regulatory pathway. Using cell-culture studies and tests in mice and zebrafish, they demonstrated that two transcription factors, proteins that turn genes on or off, interact in the gene pathway with IRF4, ultimately activating expression of an enzyme called tyrosinase. One of the pathway transcription factors, MITF, is known as the melanocyte master regulator. MITF activates expression of IRF4, but only in the presence of the TFAP2A transcription factor. A higher production of the pigment melanin in melanocytes is caused by a greater expression of tyrosinase.
“This non-coding sequence harboring the variant displayed many hallmarks of having a function and being involved in gene regulation within melanocyte populations,” said Andy McCallion, PhD, from Johns Hopkins University and collaborator with the NHGRI group.
The new variant acts like a dimmer switch for pigment production. When the switch in the IRF enhancer is in the “on” position, more pigment is produced. Melanin pigment is transferred from melanocytes to keratinocytes — a type of skin cell near the surface of the skin — where it protects the skin from UV radiation in sunlight.
If the switch in the IRF4 enhancer is turned “off,” as is the case in the newly discovered variant, the pathway is less effective and the expression of tyrosinase and melanin production is reduced. The researchers haven’t isolated the exact mechanism that generates freckling yet, but Dr. Pavan suggests that epigenetic variation — a layer of instructions in addition to sequence variation — may play a role in the freckling trait.
The researchers say more investigation is needed to determine the mechanism by which IRF4 is involved in how melanocytes respond to UV damage, which can induce freckling and is linked to melanoma, the type of skin cancer associated with the highest mortality.

Discovery Of Cosmic Neutrinos Signals New Era Of Astronomy

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editor

[ Watch the Video: Cosmic Neutrinos Observed By IceCube Observatory ]

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Astronomers working with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica have announced that they have, for the first time, observed 28 very high-energy particle events, leading them to conclude that “the era of neutrino astronomy has begun.”

Cosmic neutrinos are nearly massless particles that stream to Earth at the speed of light from outside our solar system. This observation, published in the journal Science, will allow scientists to learn about the nature of astrophysical phenomena that occurs millions to billions of light years away from Earth.

“The sources of neutrinos, and the question of what could accelerate these particles, has been a mystery for more than 100 years. Now we have an instrument that can detect astrophysical neutrinos. It’s working beautifully, and we expect it to run for another 20 years,” Gregory Sullivan, who led the team from University of Maryland, said in a statement.

Between May 2010 and May 2012, the IceCube detector at the South Pole captured a total of 28 neutrinos with energies greater than 30 teraelectronvolts (TeV). Two of the neutrinos had an energy of more than 1,000 TeV, which is more than the kinetic energy of a flying bug.

“This is the first indication of very high-energy neutrinos coming from outside our solar system,” said Francis Halzen, principal investigator of IceCube and the Hilldale and Gregory Breit Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Until now, scientists have only seen low-energy neutrinos that originate in Earth’s atmosphere, from farther out within the solar system, and from a nearby supernova known as 1987A. The team is now working on pinpointing where these high-energy neutrinos are coming from outside of our solar system.

“The universe is transparent to neutrinos,” stated Tom Gaisser, the Martin A. Pomerantz Chair of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware. “Are they remnants from supernovae, did they emanate from gamma ray bursts, or were they accelerated from an accreting black hole? We do not have conclusive information about their origin yet.”

Billions of neutrinos pass through Earth every second, rarely interacting with matter because they have no electrical charge. The majority of these subatomic particles originate either in the sun or in Earth’s atmosphere. Cosmic neutrinos have long been theorized to provide insight into the powerful cosmic objects from which they originate.

“This is an important observation,” Gaisser says. “It means that somewhere in the universe, there are high-intensity sources near a ‘central engine,’ and lots of collisions are occurring to produce the neutrinos.”

IceCube was designed to measure the flux, or rate, of high-energy neutrinos, and also to try and identify some of their sources. The observatory is composed of 5,160 digital optical modules suspended like beads on a necklace along 86 strings embedded in about a half cubic mile of ice beneath the South Pole. IceCube detects neutrinos through the tiny flashes of blue light, called Cherenkov light, produced when tiny particles interact in the ice.

“IceCube is a wonderful and unique astrophysical telescope – it is deployed deep in the Antarctic ice but looks over the entire Universe, detecting neutrinos coming through the Earth from the northern skies, as well as from around the southern skies,” Vladimir Papitashvili of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Polar Programs said in a statement.

The 28 events recorded so far are too few to point to any one location, but IceCube will be able to detect more cosmic neutrinos to help reveal a clearer picture. Sullivan said that waiting for these to arrive is like waiting for a long exposure photograph. The more measurements that fill in a picture, the more it reveals the point of origin of these phenomena.

Nuts Cut Your Risk Of Dying From Cancer And Heart Disease

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John

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
The old adage, “you are what you eat,” may not hold true for people who eat nuts, as a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that regularly eating walnuts or cashews can cut a person’s risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and other causes.
“There’s a general perception that if you eat more nuts you’re going to get fat. Our results show the opposite,” study author Dr. Ying Bao of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told the Associated Press.
In the study, researchers followed nearly 120,000 Americans from all 50 states who had enrolled in either the Nurses’ Health Study or the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The study team discovered that those who ate a daily, one-ounce serving of almonds, cashews or other tree nuts had a 20 percent lower mortality rate over the three-decade span of the study, compared with those who did not eat nuts on a daily basis.
More specifically, nut-eating participants’ risk of dying from heart disease was 29 percent lower and their risk of dying of cancer was 11 percent lower than those who didn’t eat nuts regularly.
The study team said they didn’t know why nuts appeared to convey health benefits. They speculated that unsaturated fatty acids, minerals and other healthy nutrients reduce cholesterol, inflammation and other health problems.
Ralph Sacco, a former president of the American Heart Association, told the AP that nuts are a healthy snack that could be replacing something much less healthy in a person’s diet.
“Sometimes when you eat nuts you eat less of something else like potato chips,” he speculated.
The researchers noted that study participants who often ate nuts tended to be healthier, often weighed less, exercised more and were less likely to smoke. Even after considering these and other lifestyle factors, researchers were still able to find a strong benefit from regular nut consumption.
“I’m very confident,” Bao said about the study’s results. “We did so many analyses, very sophisticated ones” to eliminate confounding factors.
The study team did perform separate analyses on smokers and non-smokers, intense and light exercisers, and those with and without diabetes, yet still saw a consistent benefit from eating nuts daily.
Penny Kris-Etherton, a Pennsylvania State University nutrition expert, reviewed previous studies on nuts at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Dallas this week.
“We’re seeing benefits of nut consumption on cardiovascular disease as well as body weight and diabetes,” Kris-Etherton told the AP. “We don’t know exactly what it is” about nuts that conveys a benefit, she added. “I tell people to eat mixed nuts.”
Coming from a reputable Harvard study group, the new study builds on another study published earlier this year that found a Mediterranean-style diet, complete with nuts, lowers the odds of heart-related problems, particularly strokes, in older individual with a higher level of risk.
While the newer study didn’t focus on how the nuts were prepared, the AHA recommends four servings of unsalted, oil-free nuts per week. It also warns against eating too many nuts because of their relatively high calorie count.

Bigger Bowls Make Kids Want Larger Portions

Written By: admin
[ Watch The Video: How To Estimate Portions And Servings ]

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Two studies from a team of American and Dutch researchers have found that larger bowl sizes bias children toward requesting larger portion sizes and eating more food, according to a report published earlier this week in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Previous research has shown that bigger dishes cause adults to eat bigger portions and the new report found the same phenomenon for children – influencing them to eat 52 percent more in one of the new studies.

To examine the effect of bowl size on children’s eating tendencies, researchers served 69 preschoolers a sweetened cereal in either 8-ounce bowls or 16-ounce bowls. Study researchers poured the cereal and milk in small increments, each time asking “Is that enough or do you want more?” until the children responded that they were happy with the amount in front of them. The young participants did not eat their particular portion of cereal.

The study researchers found that bigger bowls correlated to children requesting 87 percent more cereal—despite their age, gender, and body mass index (BMI).

To see how much bowl size affects what children will actually eat – a separate study was conducted with 18 children between the ages of 6 and 10 at summer camp. The second study started the same way as the first – with adults serving the children cereal and milk in increasing increments until the participants indicated they had enough. Next, however, the researchers used secret scales built into the tables to determine each cereal portion before and after the children ate – indicating exactly how much had been consumed.

This time, the children asked for 69 percent more cereal and milk when using the bigger bowls. The bigger bowls also correlated to 52 percent increase in what the children ate. Children with the larger bowls also wasted about 14 percent more food than those with small bowls. The researchers also found that 78 percent of the young participants said they had eaten from the same size bowl as their parents at home, potentially causing them to over-portion and overeat.

“Bigger bowls cause kids to request nearly twice as much food, leading to increased intake as well as higher food waste,” said study author Koert Van Ittersum, from the University of Groning. “Based on these findings, using smaller dishware for children may be a simple solution for caregivers who are concerned about their kids’ caloric intake.”

“The quickest way parents can help kids eat less might be to grab them a smaller bowl,” said lead author Brian Wansink, professor of behavioral economics at Cornell University. “Make it 12 ounces rather than the 20 ounces we use.”

According to the USDA, the recommended serving size for cereal is 8 ounces, or a portion about the size of a fist or tennis ball.

“The Dietary Guidelines encourage you to enjoy your food, but eat less and to avoid oversized portions,” said a statement on the USDA’s Choose My Plate website.

“The amount you eat or drink plays an important role in your energy balance strategy,” the statement added. “Most people eat and drink more when served larger portions. Choosing smaller portions can help you lose weight and keep it off.”

Health

Preventing Marijuana-Induced Memory Problems With Over-The-Counter Painkillers

Written By: editor

In addition to being used as a recreational drug, marijuana has been used for centuries to treat a variety of conditions, from chronic pain to epilepsy. However, its medical value is greatly limited by debilitating side effects. A study published by Cell Press November 21st in the journal Cell has revealed the molecular pathways responsible for marijuana-induced learning and memory problems. The findings suggest that preventing these side effects could be as easy as taking an over-the-counter painkiller.

“Our studies have solved the longtime mystery of how marijuana causes neuronal and memory impairments,” says senior study author Chu Chen of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. “The results suggest that the use of medical marijuana could be broadened if patients concurrently take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen.”

The main active ingredient in marijuana is Δ 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), and drugs based on this compound have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients. But these drugs have not been approved for a wider range of conditions, in part because of Δ9-THC-induced side effects. Moreover, there are no effective FDA-approved treatments for these side effects because, until now, little was known about the molecular pathways underlying these impairments.

In the new study, Chen and his team discovered that Δ9-THC treatment caused an increase in levels of an enzyme called cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in the mouse hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory. Drugs or genetic techniques that reduced COX-2 levels in mice prevented memory problems and neuronal abnormalities caused by repeated Δ9-THC exposure. Because COX-2 is inhibited by over-the-counter painkillers such as ibuprofen, the findings suggest an easy strategy to prevent the side effects of marijuana.

The researchers also discovered that Δ9-THC treatment reduced neuronal damage in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, and this beneficial effect persisted when the animals were simultaneously treated with a COX-2 inhibitor. “There are no effective medications currently available for preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease or halting disease progression,” Chen says. “Our results suggest that the unwanted side effects of cannabis could be eliminated or reduced, while retaining its beneficial effects, by administering a COX-2 inhibitor along with Δ9-THC for the treatment of intractable medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

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