ScienceDaily for June 27, 2008 reported on an effect of seniors with diabetes eating fat.
Adults with type 2 diabetes who eat unhealthy, high-fat meals may experience memory declines immediately afterward, but this can be offset by taking antioxidant vitamins with the meal, according to new research from Baycrest.
LiveScience for June 25, 2008 reported on the effect of education and income on survival of heart attacks.
- People with the lowest income had the worse one-year survival estimates, with 75 percent survival among people earning $28,732 to $44,665; 83 percent survival for those earning $49,435 to $53,561; and 86 percent for people in the $56,992 to $74,034 income bracket.
- The level of an individual's education also coincided with survival rates: 67 percent among those who had fewer than 12 years of education; 81 percent among people with 12 years of education; and 85 percent for those with more than 12 years of education.
Dr. Liran Levin, a dentist from the Department of Oral Rehabilitation, School of Dental Medicine at Tel Aviv University has found that about 15 to 20 percent of teens with oral piercings are at high risk for both tooth fractures and gum disease. Resulting tooth fractures as well as periodontal problems, he says, can lead to anterior (front) tooth loss later in life.
ScienceDaily for June 23, 2008 gave suggestions from the Mayo Clinic for protecting ourselves from MSRA.
Superbugs -- bacteria that are resistant to many commonly used antibiotics -- can seem scary. Antibiotic resistance means illnesses last longer, and the risk of complications and death increases.
ScienceDaily for June 21, 2008 reported on a new way of detecting Huntington's Disease.
Research using newly developed Magnetic Resonance Imaging technology could soon allow clinicians to confirm Huntington's disease before symptoms appear in people who have the gene for the fatal brain disease.
ScienceDaily for June19, 2008 reported on a link between Caesarean Sections and Asthma.
Babies born by Caesarean section have a 50 % increased risk of developing asthma compared to babies born naturally. Emergency Caesarean sections increase the risk even further. This is shown in a new study based on data from 1.7 million births registered at the Medical Birth Registry at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
ScienceDaily for June 18, 2008 reported on stress in children.
Moving house or the separation of parents can significantly increase the risk of children developing allergies later on. These are the results from a long-term study correlating life-style, immune system development and allergies, led by the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig (UFZ), the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the "Institut für Umweltmedizinische Forschung" (IUF) in Duesseldorf.
ScienceDaily for June 17, 2008 reported on the effect of obesity and sperm production.
Santoro and her colleagues studied 292 men who gave semen samples at fertility clinics. The men were ages 18 to 50 and, on average, had a body mass index (BMI) of 28, which is considered nearly obese. The authors found that greater body weight was not associated with worse sperm production or sperm motility. Impaired sperm production is the cause of infertility in 90 percent of infertile men, according to Santoro. About 6 percent of reproductive-age men are infertile, she said.
LiveScience for June 13, 2008 reported on the effect of stress and diet on heart attacks.
Heart attacks occur when a clogged artery blocks blood flow to a part of the heart, starving it of oxygen and causing part of the muscle to die and beat irregularly. Arteries don't clog overnight. Rather, plaque accumulates in them over years as a result, in part, of a diet high in cholesterol. High cholesterol foods include all animal products, including meat and dairy. Part two of the process happens when the plaque in arteries cracks or tears (due to stress), and the body's platelets rally to the location to repair it. That can cause a clot that ironically finishes blocking the artery, causing the heart attack.
ScienceDaily for June 12, 2008 reported on HIV risk among teens who engage in other risky activities.
Researchers from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in Providence, R.I. report that frequent self-cutters -- teens who have cut themselves more than three times -- used condoms less consistently, were more likely to share cutting instruments, and had less self-restraint. The study is the first to examine whether these teens engage in the same level of risk behaviors as those who've only experimented with cutting once or twice.
An article in ScienceDaily for June 11, 2008 reported in the effect of omega 3 oils and eye disease.
"Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe vision loss among elderly people," they write as background information in the article. New treatments for AMD are potentially risky and treat only certain forms of the disease. "Thus, primary prevention of AMD by modifying risk factors (e.g., cigarette smoking) remains an important public health strategy."
In the study, treatments with activated vitamin D prevented heart muscle cells from growing bigger – the condition, called hypertrophy, in which the heart becomes enlarged and overworked in people with heart failure. The treatments prevented heart muscle cells from the over-stimulation and increased contractions associated with the progression of heart failure.A related article is here (from ScienceDaily about heart attacks in men).
The report, released on Tuesday, found two out of three Australians suffered some degree of hearing damage, but 70 percent of people aged 18 to 34 years had reported ringing in their ears, or tinnitus, which can be a sign of permanent damage.
ScienceDaily for June 9, 2008 reported on weight gain and Diabetes.
Gaining body fat may be a good thing, at least for people with type 1 diabetes, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Their study, being presented at the 68th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco, followed 655 patients with type 1 diabetes for 20 years and found that patients who gained weight over time were less likely to die.
ScienceDaily for June 7, 2008 reported that
This research led by Oxford University, in collaboration with the Institute of Education, London, challenges previous research showing that grandparents who are heavily committed to looking after their grandchildren could become depressed and have a negative effect on the children.
Marc Edwards and colleagues point out that more water purification plants in the United States are using chloramine to treat water. At the same time, builders are plumbing more houses with plastic pipe, rather than copper, to cut costs. Past studies have found that ammonia formed in chloramine-treated water can trigger a series of events that corrode brass faucet components and connectors commonly used in PVC plumbing systems. Corrosion of brass (made with copper, zinc and lead) releases those metals into water pipes and makes faucets prone to failure.
ScienceDaily for April 2, 2008 reported that
People with diabetes have the same high risk for heart attack or stroke or cardiovascular death as people who've already had a heart attack, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Scientific American for June 2008 reported on effects on our brain of sugar and artificial sweetners.
At the University of California, San Diego, 12 women underwent functional MRI while sipping water sweetened with either real sugar (sucrose) or Splenda (sucralose). Sweeteners, real or artificial, bind to and stimulate receptors on the taste buds, which then signal the brain via the cranial nerve. Although both sugar and Splenda initiate the same taste and pleasure pathways in the brain—and the subjects could not tell the solutions apart—the sugar activated pleasure-related brain regions more extensively than the Splenda did. In particular, “the real thing, the sugar, elicits a much greater response in the insula,” says the study’s lead author, psychiatrist Guido Frank, now at the University of Colorado at Denver. The insula, involved with taste, also plays a role in enjoyment by connecting regions in the reward system that encode the sensation of pleasantness.
NewsDaily for June 4, 2008 reported on health aspects of Mercury in teeth fillings.
"Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner," the agency said.
ScienceDaily for June 5 2008 reported that
Students who had ongoing eating problems were more likely to report multiple psychological problems and health complaints.
