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Cholera Rages in Rural Haiti, Overwhelming Clinics

Published on December 3, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

BEN FOX, Associated Press, Dec 3, 2010

LIMBE, Haiti – A gray-haired woman, her eyes sunken and unfocused from dehydration, stumbles up a dirt path slumped on the shoulder of a young man, heading to a rural clinic so overcrowded that plastic tarps have been strung up outside to shade dozens who can’t fit inside.

On the path to the clinic, another cholera victim lies dazed, her head bleeding because she couldn’t stay atop the motorcycle taxi that carried her along the twisting country roads to the treatment center on the front line of Haiti’s sudden battle with cholera.

Nearby, a 16-month-old girl wails as a nurse prods her with a needle, trying to find a vein for the intravenous fluids she needs to save her life.

Many feared Haiti’s growing epidemic would overwhelm a capital teeming with more than 1 million people left homeless by January’s earthquake. But, so far, it is the countryside seeing the worst of an epidemic that has killed nearly 1,900 people since erupting less than two months ago.

Rural clinics are overrun by a spectral parade of the sick, straining staff and supplies at medical outposts that could barely handle their needs before the epidemic.

At the three-room clinic near Limbe, in northern Haiti, a handful of doctors and nurses are treating 120 people packed into three rooms.

“It’s really attacking us,” Guy Valcoure, grandfather of the 16-month-old, says of the cholera. He piled on the back of a motorcycle with the baby and her mother to make a 40-minute ride in pre-dawn gloom to reach the clinic.

Regenerative Medicine Regenerates Itself

Published on November 1, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

By Christie Rizk, Genome Technology, November 2010

When Scott Noggle was an undergraduate student watching various PIs present their work to give students an idea of which labs they may want to work in, he saw a video of cardiac muscles developed from mouse embryonic stem cells. The cells were beating in the culture dish — contract, contract, contract — and Noggle’s imagination was hooked. “Most things don’t move around in the dish while you’re looking at them,” says Noggle, now a PI at the New York Stem Cell Foundation. “It was pretty wild.”

Stem cell research has captured the imaginations of many people. Very few fields of scientific research are fraught with such misinformation, controversy, and hope — some spas offer “stem cell facials” to rejuvenate tired skin; stem cell opponents say that research destroys embryos and will lead to human cloning; and families of patients with neurodegenerative diseases wait for the day when their loved ones can be treated with stem cells to repair the damage wrought by ALS or Alzheimer’s disease.

The field has also captured the imagination of many researchers. “Embryonic stem cells are a representation of a person in a dish,” Noggle says. The cells, in their undifferentiated state, can be poked and prodded to become any cell in the human body. A PubMed search for papers from researchers that utilize stem cells or experiment on them returns more than 100,000 results — more than 700 in the last two months alone. That’s quite a bit of interest.

Stem cells generally come in two forms: embryonic stem cells, which come from the inner cell mass of blastocysts and are pluripotent, can differentiate to become all the different tissues of the human body and can be replicated almost indefinitely; and adult stem cells, which come from — and are named after — various parts of the fully developed human body and cannot be changed into other kinds of cells. Adult stem cells are already successfully being used in medicine to treat blood and bone marrow cancers through bone marrow transplants.

Amnesty Warns of Healthcare Crisis in North Korea

Published on July 18, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

15 July 2010 BBC

_48359916_korea2 North Korea is failing to provide the most basic healthcare needs for its people, Amnesty International warns.

An investigation by the human rights watchdog found barely functioning hospitals, poor hygiene and epidemics made worse by widespread malnutrition. Many people were also too poor to pay for treatment, the report citing North Koreans and health workers said.

Pyongyang spends less than $1 (£0.65) per person on healthcare a year, World Health Organization figures show.

Amnesty’s report, The Crumbling State of Health Care in North Korea, is based on interviews with more than 40 North Koreans, who left the country between 2004 and 2009.

Health professionals who work with North Koreans were also consulted.

Mapping The Ozzy Genome

Published on July 15, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

the ONION July 15, 2010

INFOGRAPHIC

Last month, the Cambridge, MA company Knome began mapping the complete DNA sequence for heavy metal singer and former reality star Ozzy Osbourne. Here are some of the discoveries made so far:

His DNA contains vast sequences of mumbly code that are almost completely indecipherable
Subliminal genes that must be unraveled backwards
Brain unique in that it possesses not just opiate receptors, but powerful transmitters as well
Gene responsible for making Jack Daniel’s unappealing in any amount less than a fifth
Shares a close genetic link with no other living creature
Enough musical ability to get very lucky
Increased probability of creating, developing, and headlining Ozzfest
Sharon Marker: Predisposed to shuffle about shouting “Sharon!” The fact that subject is married to a person of this name is a statistically improbable coincidence

International Conference on Health, Wellness and Society

Published on July 6, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

This conference will address contemporary challenges of health and wellness from interdisciplinary perspectives. Areas of concern include preventative medicine, public health, proactive wellness and the relationships of social and personal wellbeing to health. Disciplinary perspectives include public health, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, nutrition, physical and health education, psychology, social work, sociology and communications.

Participants at the conference will include researchers, teachers, administrators, policy makers health_180w_color and practitioners whose interests range across public health, health sciences, physical education and the social sciences.

We invite you to respond to the Conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters’ written papers can be submitted for publication in the peer-reviewed, International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society.

If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available, which allow you to submit a paper for possible publication in the Journal.

The call for papers (a title and short abstract) is now closed. Look for information coming soon regarding the 2012 conference to submit a proposal and for future deadlines go to the conference web page, call for papers.

Experts Optimistic About Solving Puzzle of Alzheimer’s

Published on June 30, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

WEDNESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) – Research into Alzheimer’s disease has reached a point of significant potential, even as the disease’s looming impact on society grows more and more dire, experts say.

Some leading scientists, in fact, worry that we may not be doing enough to press forward with key advances and new insights into Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia among older people. ph_generic1

An estimated 5.3 million U.S. residents have the disease, which results from the deterioration of nerve cells in the brain and leads to memory loss, impaired judgment, wandering and, as it progresses, to the inability to perform such normal daily functions as dressing, bathing and eating.

As the population ages, the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to spike dramatically. Today, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s every 70 seconds, according to the Alzheimer’s Association — a number expected to rise to once every 33 seconds in a few decades.

Scientists researching early detection and treatment for the disease, though, say they are on the verge of substantial advances.

Phys Ed: What Exercise Science Doesn’t Know About Women?

Published on June 30, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS June 30, 2010 New York Times

Several years ago, Dr. David Rowlands, a senior lecturer with the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health at Massey University in New Zealand, set out to study the role of protein in recovery from hard exercise. He asked a group of male cyclists to ride intensely until their legs were aching and virtually all of their stored muscle fuel had been depleted. The cyclists then consumed bars and drinks that contained either mostly carbohydrates or both carbohydrates and protein. Then, over the next few days, they completed two sessions of hard intervals. One took place the following morning; the next, two days later. 30moth-women-blogspan

Dr. Rowlands found that the cyclists showed little benefit during the first interval session. But during the second, the men who ingested protein had an overall performance gain of more than 4 percent, compared with the men who took only carbohydrates, “which is huge, in competitive terms,” Dr. Rowlands says. Other researchers’ earlier studies produced similar results. Protein seems to aid in the uptake of carbohydrates from the blood; muscles pack in more fuel after exercise if those calories are accompanied by protein. The protein also is thought to aid in the repair of muscle damage after hard exercise. Dr. Rowlands’s work,which was published in 2008, was right in line with conventional wisdom.

Not so his latest follow-up study, which was published online in May in the journal Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise and should raise eyebrows, especially lightly plucked ones. After his original work was completed, Dr. Rowlands says, “we received inquiries from female cyclists,” asking to be part of any further research. So, almost as an afterthought, Dr. Rowlands and his colleagues repeated the entire experiment with experienced female riders.

This time, though, the results were quite different. The women showed no clear benefit from protein during recovery. They couldn’t ride harder or longer. In fact, the women who received protein said that their legs felt more tired and sore during the intervals than did women who downed only carbohydrates. The results, Dr. Rowlands says, were “something of a surprise.”

In Summer’s Heat, Watch What You Drink

Published on June 30, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

By JANE E. BRODY June 28, 2010 New York Times

This is a perfect time of year to take a beverage inventory: what you drink, how much and how to maintain a reasonable intake of fluids — ones that will supply your body with much-needed water without adding to your fat stores.

Chances are the summer heat will tempt you to grab whatever cold liquid might be handy, and many of today’s most popular choices are loaded with sweet calories that actually increase the body’s need for water. Chances are, too, that no matter what the season, you probably don’t drink enough fluid to fulfill your body’s requirements.

It’s not wise to rely solely on thirst to guide your water intake. Nor should quenching your thirst be a measure of whether you’ve drunk enough. To calculate how much water you need each day, multiply your weight in pounds by 0.08; the result is your requirement in eight-ounce cups. brody-articleinline

Before those who weigh 200 pounds panic about having to drink 16 cups of liquid a day, keep in mind that about half the fluid people need comes from fruits, vegetables and other solid foods.

Barbara J. Rolls, a nutrition researcher at Penn State and the author of “Volumetrics” (HarperCollins, 2000), and her colleagues have demonstrated in many studies that people consume fewer calories when their meals and snacks have a high liquid content. Drinks consumed with and between meals do not have the same satiating effect, their research has shown.

People who drink lots of high-calorie beverages rarely compensate by eating less, and they can end up with a caloric overload. And if people who try to limit calories fill their daily quota with high-calorie drinks, they can easily shortchange themselves on foods that supply essential, health-promoting nutrients: fruits and vegetables (which, incidentally, are an important source of liquids in a well-balanced diet), protein-rich foods and whole grains.

For a Healthier Bronx, a Farm of Their Own

Published on June 23, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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By KIM SEVERSON, June 22, 2010, New York Times

IT’S hard to imagine two places in New York State more different than the South Bronx and Schoharie County.

The South Bronx has 31,582 people per square mile. The county has 51.

Less than 2 percent of the people who live in the South Bronx are white. Schoharie County, about three hours straight north by car, is 95 percent white.

The South Bronx is home to four jails, two sewage plants and an untold number of subway rats. Schoharie County has 13,600 cows, 1,305 sheep, 291 hogs and several hundred farmers to tend those animals and grow vegetables and fruit.

Dennis Derryck, a 70-year-old mathematician and professor at the New School for Management and Urban Policy, has become the unlikely matchmaker between the two worlds.

For Denied Claims, a Bit of Help in the Health Law

Published on June 23, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

By MICHELLE ANDREWS June 21, 2010, New York Times

F 22landscapespan-articlelarge ighting with a health plan over a denied claim can leave people feeling they’ve been injured all over again.

The options for challenging an insurance company’s decision are limited. Appeals can be slow and cumbersome, if they are available at all, and most patients are barred from suing for damages resulting from denials and delayed treatments.

The new health law makes the system somewhat more consumer-friendly. Starting this fall, patients in all health plans can contest claim denials in an independent state-level review procedure — a recourse that has not generally been available to employees of companies that pay their employees’ health claims directly.

Since more than half of all covered workers are in a “self-funded” plan, the change is significant. “This fixes a long-standing problem,” said Sara Rosenbaum, head of the department of health policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. The provision does not apply, however, to “grandfathered” plans — those in existence on March 23, when the health law was enacted.