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What We Eat
- What is your relationship with food? more info
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- NON-PAID ASSIGNMENT
- FORMAT:
- ENDS: 17/10/2008 12:00 AM GMT
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Survey shows many Britons bully overweight people
A survey shows that 9 out of 10 overweight people experience name-calling due to their size.
Many of those people insulting others were in fact themselves overweight or obese.
Despite the increase of political correctness, the survey found many of the name-callers were young people. A survey shows that 9 out of 10 overweight people experience name-calling due to their size. ... more -
Junk food ads move from TV to wider media
The British government has said it will "keep an eye" on advertising after junk food advertisements have increased in the press, on the radio and online.
Despite companies decreasing their TV adverts for junk food which target children, there has been a 42% increase in child-themed press adverts in the last five years. The British government has said it will "keep an eye" on advertising after junk food advertisements have increased in the pr... more -
Brain boost drugs 'growing trend' - BBC NEWS
Increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin to boost alertness and brain power, say experts.
Up to a fifth of adults, including college students and shift workers, may be using cognitive enhancers, a poll of 1,400 by Nature journal suggests.
Neuropsychologist Professor Barbara Sahakian of Addenbrooke's Hospital said safety evidence is urgently needed.
Experts gather to debate this topic at a meeting in London on Monday evening.
Professor Sahakian's own work shows 17% of students in some US universities admit to using the stimulant Ritalin (methylphenidate) - a drug designed to treat hyperactive children - to maximise their learning power.
One in five of the 1,400 people who responded to the Nature survey said they had taken Ritalin, Provigil (modafinil) or beta-blockers for non-medical reasons. They used them to stimulate focus, concentration or memory.
Of that one in five, 62% had taken Ritalin and 44% Provigil - a drug normally prescribed to alleviating daytime tiredness in people suffering from the rare sleep disorder narcolepsy.
Most users had somehow obtained their drugs on prescription or else bought them over the internet.
Although these are only snapshots of use, Professor Sahakian says it does suggest these drugs are becoming more popular.
Professor Sahakian said given the increasing use of these drugs outside of their intended clinical setting, safety trials were urgently needed.
"We do not really have long-term efficacy and safety data in healthy people. These are studies that really need to be done.
"The use of these cognitive enhancing drugs is spreading to younger and younger people. That's a concern.
"Methylphenidate does have substantial abusive potential so we have to be worried about substance abuse problems and the use of these drugs in the developing brain in children."
John Harris, professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester said people should be allowed to make their own minds up about these drugs.
He said: "If these cognitive enhancing drugs make our lives better and make us better able to concentrate and better able to perform, this would surely be a good thing."
The debate will be heard at Kings Place, London. Increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin to boost alertness and brain power, say experts. ... more -
Live Chat with Doctors for Free!
HealthcareMagic allows live interaction between doctors and patients by "Live Chat with a Doctor" ...The portal allows reviews of doctors/hospitals and healthcare products/services.
The site is nicely done and one can search for doctors/hospitals based on specialities/area code (neatly implemented area suggester), as well as chat with doctors online.
An interesting feature: Health Calculators (Pregnancy Due Date Calculator, Alcohol/Smoking Calculators etc)... HealthcareMagic allows live interaction between doctors and patients by "Live Chat with a Doctor" ...The portal allows revie... more -
MADAGASCAR: No welcome for sex tourism
The warning posters start at the airport in the capital, Antananarivo, informing visitors that Madagascar says "NO to sex tourism" and "Malagasy women are not tourist souvenirs".
Large billboards notifying arrivals that the authorities will also prosecute those caught having sex with children line the route into the city, and at tourist hotels - along with a colourful "Welcome to Madagasikara – the land of the lemurs" - there is likely to be a sign saying the hotel has a right to check the age of anyone accompanying guests to their rooms. The warning posters start at the airport in the capital, Antananarivo, informing visitors that Madagascar says "NO to sex tourism... more -
Sarah Palin Never Gets Tired of Running
Even though nowadays in politics it’s hard to find role models when it comes to moral principles and virtues, we must admit women politicians are always on the covers of fashion or diet magazines. Even though nowadays in politics it’s hard to find role models when it comes to moral principles and virtues, we must admit women poli... more
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Cancer Causing Poppers Still on Sale
QueerNews.org.uk has discovered "poppers" continue to be sold in sex shops and in bars, clubs and saunas on the gay scene and even on the high street despite recent changes in the law effectively making the sale of any product that could be classed as a medicine being restricted from sale.
Manufacturers are escaping prosecution issued by the Department of Health and the European Commission over concerns over a link to HIV related cancers by changing the formulation from Isobutyl Nitrates to almost identical, but still legal Isopropyl Nitrates. QueerNews.org.uk has discovered "poppers" continue to be sold in sex shops and in bars, clubs and saunas on the gay scene an... more -
25 Test Positive For TB At Gwinnett County School
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -- The results are in from skin tests administered at a Gwinnett County school after an 11th-grade student came down with a suspected case of tuberculosis (TB).
Gwinnett County school spokeswoman Sloan Roach confirmed to WSB-TV that 25 of the 175 tests administered at Meadowcreek High School came back with positive results.
Roach said the positive test results don't indicate whether those tested actually have the disease, but said it means they came in contact with someone who did.
Roach said none of the individuals showed signs or symptoms of having the disease, but that health care officials are asking them to have chest x-rays, the normal process for a positive skin test. GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -- The results are in from skin tests administered at a Gwinnett County school after an 11th-grade student came d... more -
Double the "D" Dosage!
CHICAGO (AP) - The country's leading group of pediatricians is recommending that children receive double the usually suggested amount of vitamin D because of evidence that it might help prevent serious diseases.
To meet the new recommendation of 400 units daily, millions of children will need to take vitamin D supplements each day, the American Academy of Pediatrics said. That includes breast-fed infants and even those who get some formula and many teenagers who drink little or no milk.
Baby formula contains vitamin D, so infants fed only formula generally do not need supplements. However, the academy recommends breast-feeding for at least the first year of life, and breast milk is sometimes deficient.
Most commercially available milk is fortified with vitamin D, but most children do not drink enough of it; four cups daily would be needed to meet the new requirement, said Dr. Frank Greer, who helped write the report.
The new advice is based on mounting research about potential benefits from vitamin D besides keeping bones strong, including suggestions that it might reduce the risk for cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But the evidence is not conclusive, and there is no consensus on how much of the vitamin would be needed for disease prevention.
The advice replaces a 2003 academy recommendation for 200 units daily. That is the amount the government recommends for people up to age 50; 400 units is recommended for adults ages 51 to 70, and 600 units for those 71 and older. Vitamin D is sold in capsules and tablets, as well as in drops for young children.
The Institute of Medicine, a government advisory group that sets dietary standards, is discussing with federal agencies whether the recommendations should be changed based on the new research, said a spokeswoman, Christine Stencel.
The recommendations were to be released Monday at an academy conference in Boston. They will be published in the November issue of the academy's journal, Pediatrics. CHICAGO (AP) - The country's leading group of pediatricians is recommending that children receive double the usually suggested am... more -
Filmmaker Overcomes Himalayan Difficulties to Bring Rare Yogi Interview to Those S...
Two landslides on a road in the Indian Himalayas tested holistic health filmmaker Victor Demko's resolve to get an interview with Yoga Master Swami Sundaranand. Demko encountered this challenge while traveling from Rishikesh to Gangotri, the site of the historic head water of the Ganges River and longtime home of the 79 year old Swami Sundaranand, one of the last hardcore Himalayan yogis. Two landslides on a road in the Indian Himalayas tested holistic health filmmaker Victor Demko's resolve to get an interview with... more
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Ohio less predictable in hard economic times
"We were family," she told us. "They looked out for us. You know -- we got good raises. We got raises two times a year."
The last raise, though, was six years ago. Then workers one recent Friday night noticed supervisors changing some locks. The next day, a letter was delivered by overnight mail: official notice the bakery was shutting down, and that their benefits, including their health insurance, were being canceled.
"It is just devastating," Sheriff says as she stares at the ground outside her modest home.
Nobody was getting rich at the bakery; the jobs paid from $14 to $18 an hour. But they had health insurance with a modest worker contribution. Sheriff's daughter is a single mom who also worked at the bakery, and as she mingles with other family members nearby, Deb Sheriff confronts her family's new reality. "We were family," she told us. "They looked out for us. You know -- we got good raises. We got raises two times a year.... more -
LSD cured my headache
Cluster headaches cause such severe pain that some sufferers are driven to suicide. Now one man believes he's found a surprising cure. Cluster headaches cause such severe pain that some sufferers are driven to suicide. Now one man believes he's found a surprising ... more
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Medical Research Recession: Funding Flatlined for Diabetes, Cancer, Alzheimer'...
The Wall Street bailout cost $700 billion. The entire National Institutes of Health budget is less than $30 billion -- and sinking.---
The housing market wasn't the only bubble to get pricked of late. Consider the budget for the National Institutes of Health, the primary source of funding for U.S. biomedical researchers. It, too, has recently had the rug pulled out from under it. And while the negative impacts may not be as obvious or immediate as the fallout from the housing, credit and stock market crises, the repercussions of this pound-foolish parsimony promise to be massive.
Recall that between 1998 and 2003 the NIH budget underwent a long-overdue expansion. In a remarkable act of bipartisan solidarity -- and reflecting a broad appreciation that biomedical research is both an economic pump-primer and the best first step to conquering diseases -- Congress doubled the agency's budget over those five fiscal years. The Wall Street bailout cost $700 billion. The entire National Institutes of Health budget is less than $30 billion -- and sinking.---... more -
McCain's Erratic Health Strategy: Now He's Slashing Medicare
When a candidate suddenly, almost whimsically changes the way he proposes to handle $1.3 trillion, it's time to get nervous.
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"Gut-tasting" could reduce poison digestion
The human intestine detects potential poisons passing into it - and may take action to reduce the harm they cause.
US researchers have found a link between receptors in the gut which detect bitter foods and higher levels of a digestion-slowing hormone.
The same hormone also reduces appetite - perhaps to stop us eating any more.
The scientists, writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, say it means that sweeter-tasting medicines could be more effective.
Humans, and other animals, have evolved to dislike bitter tastes, probably because many natural plant poisons carry these flavours.
The researchers from the University of California at Irvine, led by Dr Timothy Osborne, are suggesting that when we do manage to eat something bitter, another defence mechanism may kick in.
It has been established for some time that the same taste receptors which are found on the tongue, and help us differentiate between sweet and bitter flavours, are found in the gut.
While the tongue-based receptors send a message to the brain, those in the gut are thought to trigger other chemical signals involved in digestion, although these have yet to be fully understood.
The US team found that when the bitter taste receptors in the gut are activated, this leads to the production of a hormone called cholecystokinin.
This is already known to not only slow up "motility", the rate at which food passes through the digestive system from the stomach, but also suppress appetite.
Slow the flow
The researchers believe that keeping potentially poisonous food in the stomach for longer might mean a bigger chance it would be expelled before its ingredients are absorbed.
Additionally, suppressing appetite might mean that less of the poison is eaten.
They are now eyeing the practical uses of their findings - and suggest that some medication might be absorbed more quickly if it was not so bitter tasting.
Professor Soraya Shirazi-Beechey, from the University of Liverpool, led research which proved that the action of "sweet" taste receptors in the gut could actually alter the way that glucose was absorbed into the body.
She said it was "quite reasonable" that bitter receptors might also have an effect on digestion.
"The whole scientific area of 'nutrient sensing' is really getting quite big. This is the first time that the link between bitter taste receptors and this hormone has been made." The human intestine detects potential poisons passing into it - and may take action to reduce the harm they cause. ... more -
What's under Sasha Hughes skin?
Nationally it is estimated that Lyme Disease could cost as much as...
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Policy Prevents Shipments Of Bird Flu Vaccine
Buried deep inside an 86-page supplement to the United States’ export regulations is a single sentence that prohibits U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu to five countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism. The ban is based on concern the viruses might be used to make biological weapons.
The policy means that countries such as Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Sudan may not get the vaccines without first receiving special export licenses, which could be granted or refused at the discretion and timing of the United States. Additionally, under a general U.S. embargo, Cuba, Iran and Sudan are also subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines.
The policy, quietly enacted more than a decade ago to include vaccines for everything from the Ebola virus to Dengue fever, has raised concerns among the medical and scientific communities. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said they were not aware of the regulations until contacted by The Associated Press last month. Privately, they expressed alarm, with recent worries about the threat of a bird flu pandemic making the matter even more relevant.
Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the policy made "no scientific sense". The bird flu vaccine, he said, can be used to contain outbreaks in poultry before they mutate to a form more easily transmitted among people.
"The more vaccines out there, the better," he told the Associated Press.
"It's a matter of protecting ourselves, really, so the bird flu virus doesn't take hold in these countries and spread," he said.
Christopher Wall, the U.S. Commerce Assistant Secretary, did not elaborate on the specific threat posed by vaccines for chickens infected with bird flu, but told the AP there were "valid security concerns" that they "do not fall into the wrong hands."
"Legitimate public health and scientific research is not adversely affected by these controls," he said.
However, some experts call the notion of using vaccines to make bioweapons “far-fetched”, and worry how quickly authorities could cut through the bureaucracy and red tape to distribute vaccines during a true health emergency.
Typically it would take at least six weeks to approve an export licenses for any vaccine on the list, according to Thomas Monath, former head of a CIA advisory group on countering biological attacks. Such decisions would follow negotiations at a "very high level" of government, he told the AP.
That could make it more difficult to contain bird flu outbreak among chickens in, for example, North Korea, which is in the region hardest hit by the virus. Sudan and Iran have already seen documented cases of the virus in poultry, and countries impacted by the virus surround Syria. Buried deep inside an 86-page supplement to the United States’ export regulations is a single sentence that prohibits U.S. exports of ... more -
Percentage of uninsured under 65 high in Florida
In the Livingston-Averill home, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol go untreated.
Without insurance, only a catastrophic event such as a heart attack or a stroke can draw medical attention.
"It's horrible," Debbie Livingston-Averill of Port Orange said of the stress of knowing her husband has these conditions that could mean tragedy around the corner -- and the medicine that could avert it is out of reach.
The Census Bureau released figures Thursday that show Florida residents suffer that stress more than most. Twenty-four percent of Floridians younger than 65 are without insurance, compared to the 17.2 percent nationwide. The survey also shows that blacks and Hispanics are without insurance even more: 26.7 percent of Florida blacks younger than 65 don't have it, and neither do 38.6 percent of Florida Hispanics.
Locally, the number without insurance in Flagler County is slightly higher than the state average: 24.4 percent of residents younger than 65. In Volusia County, that number is 21 percent.
Nationwide, only Texas and New Mexico had a higher percentage of uninsured people younger than 65. Minnesota, Hawaii and Wisconsin have the lowest percentage of people in that category.
How these numbers compare with the Census Bureau's 2000 survey is unclear because the categories of ages were not separated the same way. But Patrick Johnson, Flagler County Health Department administrator, said the health insurance status of Flagler County residents doesn't appear to be improving.
Not only does Johnson see the number of people seeking assistance increasing. He also has noticed a change in the job market. In the Livingston-Averill home, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol go untreated. ... more -
37 infected in anthrax outbreak in northern Iraq
Thirty-seven people have been infected by anthrax in northern Iraq in the country’s first outbreak of the disease since the 1980s, the health minister in the Kurdish autonomous region said today.
The Iraqi health minister, Ziryan Othman, said the disease appeared to have been passed on from livestock. The first human case of the outbreak was discovered in remote Dahuk province last month.
None of the reported cases had yet proven fatal, he said. The 37 cases in humans have all affected the patients’ skin, rather than their lungs or internal organs, as occurs in more serious anthrax cases.
Mr Othman said the authorities have ordered that infected animals be slaughtered and buried, while animals not yet infected should be vaccinated.
“The health and agriculture ministries are trying to contain this disease, because if it is spread among animals and then is transferred to humans it will have a negative effect on the economy,” he said.
Anthrax, which can be deadly in humans in some forms, is an endemic disease in cattle. Anthrax spores can be used as a biological weapon, but there has been no suggestion that this has been the case in the outbreak in Iraq. Thirty-seven people have been infected by anthrax in northern Iraq in the country’s first outbreak of the disease since the 1980s, the... more -
Athma-Pure: Human Secrets to Success
Ramen's Athma-Pure Tips for your well-being have already been proven by the successful people. Just follow and experience it for yourself. Then you can educate your kids. It is not too late even if you don't know. The teens are the pillars of our community. Please mentor the teens first after visiting athma-pure website. Athma-Pure's daily prayer keeps your reminder for guidance.
Please visit athma times: http://athma.pnn.com/4825-the-front-page Ramen's Athma-Pure Tips for your well-being have already been proven by the successful people. Just follow and experience it for ... more
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