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The widely-held perception that the influenza vaccination reduces overall mortality risk in the elderly does not withstand careful scrutiny, according to researchers in Alberta. The vaccine does confer protection against specific strains of influenza, but its overall benefit appears to have been exaggerated by a number of observational studies that found a very large reduction in all-cause mortality among elderly patients who had been vaccinated. The results will appear in the first issue for September of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a publication of the American Thoracic Society. The study included more than 700 matched elderly...

The virus that causes AIDS is spreading in New York City at three times the national rate — an incidence of 72 new infections for every 100,000 people, compared with 23 per 100,000 nationally — according to a study released on Wednesday by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The findings, based on a new formula developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that 4,762 New Yorkers contracted H.I.V. in 2006, the most precise estimate the city had ever offered. But the city stressed that because the method of estimating infections was new, it...

Contact: Jessica Guenzel jguenzel@wfubmc.edu 336-716-3487 Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. –A class of oral drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes may make heart failure worse, according to an editorial published online in Heart Wednesday by two Wake Forest University School of Medicine faculty members. "We strongly recommend restrictions in the use of thiazolidinediones (the class of drugs) and question the rationale for leaving rosiglitazone on the market," write Sonal Singh, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of internal medicine, and Curt D. Furberg, M.D., Ph.D., professor of public health sciences. Rosiglitazone and pioglitazone are the two major thiazolidinediones....

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, Aug. 28, 2008 – A powder that regrows fingers and toes sounds like the stuff of fairy tales, but medical experts here are hoping they can use it to make magic happen for wounded warriors. Doctors from the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research are trying a regenerative medicine powder that’s already approved by the Food and Drug Administration in hopes of stimulating tissue growth in soldiers with missing extremities. “The powder is FDA approved and is already being used for hernia repairs and other applications,” said Dr. Steven Wolf, chief and task area manager...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — An analysis of randomized trials indicates that for critically ill adults, tight glucose control is not associated with a significantly reduced risk of death in the hospital, but is associated with an increased risk of hypoglycemia, calling into question the recommendation by many professional societies for tight glucose control for these patients, according to a new article. In 2001, a randomized controlled trial (van den Berghe et al) showed that tight glucose control for critically ill surgical patients reduced hospital mortality by one-third. "Because few interventions in critically ill adult patients reduce mortality to this...

Good news for potheads making their annual trek to Black Rock, Nev., this week to celebrate Burning Man: A new study says that marijuana appears to fight infections. According to research published in the Journal of Natural Products, the five most common cannabinoid compounds in weed—tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol, cannabigerol, cannabinol and cannabichromene—can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Think MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which claimed more lives than AIDS in 2007 or, more recently, extensively drug-resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis (XDR-TB.) Researchers were unable to pinpoint exactly how the ingredients interact with bacterial targets. They called for rigorous clinical trials to determine the safety and...

In 1943 during WW2, an army Sgt., Ed Davis, was working in Iran near the Turkish border, in charge of locals hired by our army to build a road through Iran to the Soviet border, which would carry supplies to the Soviets instead of flying them in. In short, Ed did a tremendous favor for a little Kurdish village near Ararat. His workers were mostly Kurds and the chief of the village came to Ed and asked if he would like to see Noah's Ark. He said the summer on the mountain had been hottest in many years and the...

Enlarge ImageSensitive ears. Mice that received extra copies of a protein during fetal development produced more of a key hearing cell (bottom) than control mice did.Credit: David Woessner, John Mitchell, and John V. Brigande A cure for hearing loss could be closer, now that a team of scientists has produced key ear cells in mice--and for the first time verified that the cells work just like natural ones. The inner ear turns sound waves into electrical signals inside the organ of Corti, which is lined with rows of 15,000 to 20,000 hairlike cells. The cells respond to vibrations by...

Scientists have transformed one type of fully developed adult cell directly into another inside a living animal, a startling advance that could lead to cures for a variety of illnesses and sidestep the political and ethical quagmires associated with embryonic stem cell research. Through a series of painstaking experiments involving mice, the Harvard biologists pinpointed three crucial molecular switches that, when flipped, completely convert a common cell in the pancreas into the more precious insulin-producing ones that diabetics need to survive. The experiments, detailed online yesterday in the journal Nature, raise the prospect that patients suffering from not only diabetes...

In a discovery that’s being hailed as a leap forward in regenerative medicine, researchers have found a way to transform common pancreatic cells in an adult mouse into the rare, insulin-producing beta cells that are destroyed in type 1 diabetes. Previously, researchers believed that the only way to transmute an adult cell was to first coax it back into stem cell form and then to reprogram it; this new research removes the first step entirely.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene. Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer. The carcinogen affected the activity of some 2,200 genes in the animals’ esophagus in only one week, but 460 of those genes were restored to normal activity in animals that consumed freeze-dried black...

The Census Bureau reported that the number of people lacking health insurance dropped by more than one million in 2007, the first annual decline since the Bush administration took office. The nation's poverty rate held steady at 12.5%, not statistically different from the 12.3% in 2006. That meant there were 37.3 million people living in poverty in 2007. The median, or midpoint, household income rose slightly to $50,200, marking the third consecutive annual increase. The statistics released Tuesday don't take into account the consequences of the economic downturn that began late last year. (See Census report.) Census said 45.7 million...

Dramatic rise in bedbugs infesting seats on buses and trains ....The number of bedbugs on public transport has risen dramatically in the past year... a 40 per cent increase in the number...in the past year. More than two-thirds of infestations involved bedbugs. Don't let the bedbugs bite: The critters cause itchy white lumps on the skin Savvas Othon, technical director at Rentokil, said: 'The short turnaround times for planes and other forms of transport means they are sometimes not inspected as thoroughly as they used to be. ... ...have increased 51 per cent for cars, 24 per cent for airlines...

Rural Kanpur is fighting its most frightening scourge — a mystery disease that has left a long line of bodies in its trail and doesn’t seem anywhere finished. What started from one village two weeks ago has now spread to 350 and has so far claimed 160 lives. Thousands more are bed-ridden. On an average, 15 to 20 people have been dying every day; Saturday saw the highest toll in a day: 24. The district’s health department is somewhat confused about the nature of the disease that has struck. At the beginning, the diagnosis was viral fever. Then doctors concluded...

A Dallas-based researcher says he’s pulled off a medical first: successfully treating mice and rats dying of insulin-dependent diabetes without using insulin.Dr. Roger Unger, chair of diabetes research at UT Southwestern Medical School, is quick to warn that practical applications, if any, are years away. But the research team he headed used high levels of leptin, a substance naturally produced by fat cells, to somehow reverse the otherwise fatal effects of diabetes. If the experiment is repeated in other labs, and then if leptin can be adapted to treat humans, it might offer the first alternate to the multiple insulin...

Elevated cholesterol levels return to normal or near normal levels over time in four out of 10 children with uncontrollable epilepsy treated with the high-fat ketogenic diet, according to results of a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study reported in the Journal of Child Neurology. The study appears online ahead of print at http://jcn.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/23/7/758. In the four-year study, the Hopkins Children's team followed 121 epileptic children with intractable seizures on the high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet designed to control such seizures. While most children developed high cholesterol after starting the diet, cholesterol gradually improved in nearly half of them, returning to normal...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2008) — Terminally ill rodents with type 1 diabetes have been restored to full health with a single injection of a substance other than insulin by scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Since the discovery of insulin in 1922, type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes) in humans has been treated by injecting insulin to lower high blood sugar levels and prevent diabetic coma. New findings by UT Southwestern researchers, which appear online and in a future issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that insulin isn't the only agent that is effective. Leptin, a...

Researchers at Rutgers University and The University of Texas at Austin have reported a discovery that could help scientists develop drugs to fight the much-feared bird flu and other virulent strains of influenza. The researchers have determined the three-dimensional structure of a site on an influenza A virus protein that binds to one of its human protein targets, thereby suppressing a person's natural defenses to the infection and paving the way for the virus to replicate efficiently. This so-called NS1 virus protein is shared by all influenza A viruses isolated from humans - including avian influenza, or bird flu, and...

Rural Kanpur is fighting its most frightening scourge — a mystery disease that has left a long line of bodies in its trail and doesn’t seem anywhere finished. What started from one village two weeks ago has now spread to 350 and has so far claimed 160 lives. Thousands more are bed-ridden. On an average, 15 to 20 people have been dying every day; Saturday saw the highest toll in a day: 24. The district’s health department is somewhat confused about the nature of the disease that has struck. At the beginning, the diagnosis was viral fever. Then doctors concluded...

PLEASE READ THIS SUMMARY CAREFULLY, THEN ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT PANEXA AND HOW TO PROVIDE YOU WITH LARGE QUANTITIES. THIS ADVERTISEMENT DOES NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF ADVICE FROM YOUR DOCTOR; RATHER, IT PROVIDES YOU WITH NEW INFORMATION ABOUT NEW DRUGS YOU COULD BE USING.

Up to a quarter of fish in stores and restaurants in New York City was mislabelled as a more expensive variety, according to samples collected by two US teenagers and tested with genetic "barcoding" methods. fish market In the worst cases, two samples of filleted fish sold as red snapper, caught mostly off the southeast United States and in the Caribbean, were instead the endangered Acadian redfish from the North Atlantic, according to the tests, revealed on Friday. "We never expected these results. People should get what they pay for," said Kate Stoeckle, 18, of the project with Louisa Strauss,...

SAGINAW - T-Boone Pickens says they're the wave of the future. But a wind turbine meant to save one Saginaw family on electricity has instead sparked a huge headache for their neighbors. "It makes a terrible air raid noise," says Debbie Behrens, about the high-pitched whine made by the turbine. "It's driving me crazy." What's worse, is that Debbie and her son Lance both say that high-pitched hum is now causing them problems, physically. "You occasionally have the dizziness," explains Lance, "The ringing in the ears, I've never experienced the ringing in the ears." It turns out, there is a...

Can Science Give Us Eternal Life? Man has made great strides in technology and medicine, raising the hope that human immortality may be just around the corner. How have these advances come about, and what do they mean for you? by Larry Walker From our earliest history, mortal man has sought in vain for immortality. Spanish explorer Ponce de León is famous for his futile search for the fountain of youth. Most other names are lost in history. The searchers had one thing in common: They all failed. Medical science is on a path that some feel will succeed in...

I had another posting regarding using salad dressings to cook with, this is kind of a follow up, but with more detail.....and not for the weak of heart. My buddies came across something on the web about bacon cereal. This guy fried up his bacon, chopped it up and put it in a bowl (like it was cereal) and then added blue cheese (like it was milk).Naturally, under the theory that everything is better with bacon, we decided to come up with something similar. We would do the same thing, but instead of blue cheese, add bacon flavored ranch dressing...

More people had measles infections in the first seven months of this year than during any comparable period since 1996, and public health officials blamed growing numbers of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Many of these parents say they believe vaccines cause autism, even though multiple studies have found no reputable evidence to support such a claim. In Britain, Switzerland, Israel and Italy, measles outbreaks have soared, sickening thousands and causing at least two deaths.

WASHINGTON, August 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New England Journal of Medicine posted two articles this week that asked why two human papillomavirus vaccines have been so widely distributed given their unproven effectiveness and high costs.Gardasil by Merck Sharp & Dohme, which has already received tremendous criticism for the severe and fatal side-effects experienced by users, and Cervarix by GlaxoSmithKline were the two drugs called to question.As reported by the New York Times, Dr. Charlotte J. Haug, editor of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, whose editorial appeared in Thursday's issue of The New England Journal, said, "Despite...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favorites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat. The state has given its 37,527 employees a year to start getting fit — or they'll pay $25 a month for insurance that otherwise is free.

CLAYTON, CA (KGO) -- Two young East Bay girls are trying to find out if you really can fight city hall. The youngsters are battling to get their produce stand back after the city of Clayton shut them down. The mayor himself is getting involved in this issue; he says the produce stand, operated by two young sisters, had to be shut down because of public safety and a zoning ordinance. But members of the Lewis family say - we have just begun to fight. On a Clayton street corner is where 11-year-old Katie and 3-year- old Sabrina Lewis had...

Ninety years later, survivors of the worst epidemic in history still retain knowledge of the event--on a cellular level. Scientists have found that the immune systems of a group of 90- and 100-year-olds continue to produce antibodies to the virus responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed as many as 40 million people. What's more, the antibodies still work: When transferred to mice, the rodents became resistant to deadly flu infections. It doesn't take a global pandemic to rile up the immune system. Even the seasonal flu prompts immune cells called B cells to generate antibodies specific to the...

PHILADELPHIA — Childhood ear infections may not just put hearing at risk. Kids who get them may develop a strong affinity for fatty foods and could be predisposed to obesity, surveys now suggest. Researchers suspect that infections of the middle ear may alter the sense of taste by damaging a nerve that carries sensations from the tongue to the brain.

Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers presumably shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death. "The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated." Recent experimental evidence has shown that laser pulses tuned to the right frequency can kill certain viruses. However, locating these so-called resonant frequencies is a bit of trial and error....

Reviewed By Elizabeth Klodas, MD, FACC 13 Million Americans Are Exposed to Dangerous Levels of Arsenic Through Drinking Water Exposure to arsenic, typically through drinking water, is linked to diabetes, according a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Thirteen million Americans — and millions more worldwide — are exposed to drinking water contaminated with more inorganic arsenic than the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed safe. The EPA standard is 10 micrograms per liter. Researchers, led by Ana Navas-Acien, MD, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, studied 788 adults who had their urine tested...

Two vaccines against cervical cancer are being widely used without sufficient evidence about whether they are worth their high cost or even whether they will effectively stop women from getting the disease, two articles in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine conclude. Both vaccines target the human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted virus that usually causes no symptoms and is cleared by the immune system, but which can in very rare cases become chronic and cause cervical cancer. The two vaccines, Gardasil by Merck Sharp & Dohme and Cervarix by GlaxoSmithKline, target two strains of the virus that together...

Somewhere deep inside the brain of Senator Edward Kennedy, the neurons in his left parietal lobe were becoming angry. Something had invaded their territory in this part of the brain — located at about eye level, just behind the ear — and they were about to react in a way that would frighten the Senator and those around him. The neurons sparked a burst of electrical activity, causing a seizure that made parts of his body become rigid and start to shake. As with most patients, there was really no way for the Senator to pick up on any warning...

Pierpont's findings suggest that low-frequency noise and vibration generated by wind machines can have an effect on the inner ear, triggering headaches; difficulty sleeping; tinnitus, or ringing in the ears; learning and mood disorders; panic attacks; irritability; disruption of equilibrium, concentration and memory; and childhood behavior problems.

More than 25 percent of adults are obese in 28 states, an increase from 19 states last year, Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported in their fifth annual obesity survey. More than 20 percent of adults are obese — 30 pounds or more overweight — in every state except Colorado. Nine of the Top 10 fattest states are in the south. Mississippi leads the pack with an adult obesity rate of 31.7 percent, according to the report, which is a follow-up analysis of the annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey by the federal Centers for...

Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing. Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past. ... "All of the different kinds of data and methods of...

August 19, 2008, 6:00 a.m. The Real Truth about Drug CompaniesDevelopmental issues. By Henry I. Miller I never knew my maternal grandparents. During the 19-teens, my maternal grandmother died of a wound infection following a routine gall-bladder operation. A few years later, her husband, my grandfather, suffered a fatal stroke brought on by untreated high blood pressure. Both were in their thirties. Neither occurrence was uncommon back then, but a half century of new drugs has changed that. Thanks to a research-intensive (and, therefore, capital-intensive) pharmaceutical industry, pharmacy shelves now contain dozens of antibiotics and blood pressure medications. Similar...

Implications for future pandemic planningThe majority of deaths during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 were not caused by the influenza virus acting alone, report researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Instead, most victims succumbed to bacterial pneumonia following influenza virus infection. The pneumonia was caused when bacteria that normally inhabit the nose and throat invaded the lungs along a pathway created when the virus destroyed the cells that line the bronchial tubes and lungs. A future influenza pandemic may unfold in a similar manner, say the NIAID authors,...

The 36-year-old actress was born in Hollywood, California. Robert Applegate, her father, was a record producer and record company producer executive, and Nancy Lee Priddy, her mother, was a singer. She also had to fight both breast and cervical cancer. Christina Applegate will always remain in the audience’s memory as Kelly Bundy in the sitcom “Married with Children.” The actress made a great film and television career until her 36 years. Christina Applegate had major roles in several pictures, as “Farce of the Penguins,” “Anchorman,” “The sweetest thing” and is the lead character in the ABC sitcom “Samantha Who?,”...

FRESNO, Calif. — Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before. But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Wastewater is widely used to irrigate urban agricultural land in developing countries, a practice that has both advantages and disadvantages, a 53-city study presented at a water conference in Stockholm showed Monday. Wastewater agriculture contributes importantly to urban food supplies and helps provide a livelihood for the poor, but can also lead to health risks for consumers, particularly for vegetables consumed uncooked, the report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said.

The threat to Britain and the NHS from rising obesity is as grave as that posed by terrorism, a top expert says. Durham University public health expert Professor David Hunter, who also acts as a government adviser, said ministers should be taking "bold action" now. He said this could include compelling manufacturers to improve the salt, fat and sugar content of their products. The Department of Health said it was making progress in disease prevention in a number of areas. Professor Hunter said that governments since the 1970s, including the present Labour government, had "tinkered around the edges" of the...

SUNDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) -- People who lived through the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million worldwide are still producing antibodies to the virus 90 years later, researchers report. "Most people have a notion that elderly people have very weak immunity or they have lost immunity," said lead researcher Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University. "This study shows that extremely elderly people have retained memory of being infected with the 1918 flu, even 90 years later," Crowe said. This is the first evidence that shows that people developed significant...

Shaped by glacial temperatures, stark landscapes, and protracted winters, the traditional Eskimo diet had little in the way of plant food, no agricultural or dairy products, and was unusually low in carbohydrates. Mostly people subsisted on what they hunted and fished. Inland dwellers took advantage of caribou feeding on tundra mosses, lichens, and plants too tough for humans to stomach (though predigested vegetation in the animals' paunches became dinner as well). Coastal people exploited the sea. The main nutritional challenge was avoiding starvation in late winter if primary meat sources became too scarce or lean. These foods hardly make up...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday. The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated. These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children. Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency,...

POLITICAL COMMENTATORS ANONYMOUSCASTING OFF THE OBSESSION by John W. Cassell Do you find yourself boiling inside when you see a so-called “news program”? or when you listen to the endless collection of parasitic “talking heads” on the more in-depth media atrocities on current events?Do you often feel that only you and maybe one or two others are aware that the two candidates running for president are stone idiots?  That this farce we will be enduring through January of next year is but a shabby remake…a very shabby remake… of THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES…..but that everyone else [almost] sees the capability, wisdom...

A federal ban on ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to conform to the Clean Air Act, is, ironically, affecting 22.9 million people in the United States who suffer from asthma, says Scientific American. Generic inhaled albuterol -- the most commonly prescribed short-acting asthma medication that requires CFCs to propel it into the lungs -- will no longer be legally sold after December 21, 2008. As more patients see their prescriptions change and costs go up -- the reformulated brand-name alternatives can be three times as expensive, raising the cost to about $40 per inhaler -- many question why this ban must begin...

For the first time, scientists have proven that "beer goggles" are real - other people really do look more attractive to us if we have been drinking. Surprisingly, the beer goggles effect was not limited to just the opposite sex among the ostensibly straight volunteers recruited for the study - they also rated people from their own sex as more attractive. Scientists in England gave 84 heterosexual college students chilled lime-flavored drinks that were either non-alcoholic or given a dose of vodka equivalent in alcohol to a large glass of wine or a pint-and-a-half of beer. After 15 minutes, the...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---More than 80 percent of a sample of Air Force women deployed in Iraq and other areas around the world report suffering from persistent fatigue, fever, hair loss and difficulty concentrating, according to a University of Michigan study. The pattern of health problems reported by 1,114 women surveyed in 2006 and 2007 is similar to many symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, the controversial condition reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "It is possible that some unknown environmental factor is the cause of current health problems and of Gulf War Syndrome," said U-M researcher Penny Pierce....