Photo: Eneas de Troya/Flickr CC
Air pollution is driving-up the blood pressure of the average urban dweller, German scientists report:
“‘Both, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, are higher in people who live in more polluted areas, even if we take important factors that also influence blood pressure like age, gender, smoking, weight, etc. into account. Blood pressure increases were stronger in women than in men.’”
via Higher Blood Pressure Found in People Living in Urban Areas.
For those asking, “Is there anything pot can’t do?” here’s a bit more evidence that there isn’t:
“A new study out of Thailand demonstrates that THC can fight cholangiocarcinoma – cancer of the bile duct. This is a rare but deadly form of cancer, with only 30 percent of patients still alive after five years, according to the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. Based on these new lab results, the Thai researchers conclude, “’THC is potentially used to retard cholangiocarcinoma cell growth and metastasis.’”
via More Good News on THC and Cancer — MPP Blog.
Nurses have found that their patients use pot to combat symptoms. Photo: Doktor Design Love/Flickr CCWhile at least two studies have found an association between cannabis use and schizophrenia, none have established that pot causes the symptoms associated with the disease.
Now, in the first study that bothers to ask schizophrenics why they take the drug, patients report using pot to ease some of their tormenting symptoms:
“The findings indicate that cannabis is used as a means of satisfying the schizophrenia-related need for relaxation, sense of self-worth, and distraction. The findings may be useful for nurses working with persons who have schizophrenia, a population that is frequently stigmatized and unheard.”
via Attraction to cannabis among men with schizophreni… [Can J Nurs Res. 2010] – PubMed result.
Photo: Woodley Wonderworks/Flickr CC
Now, it’s American manufacturers who appear to be making poor quality meds, in filthy, grimy plants, and shipping them to the rest of the world. — MB
I’ve been railing against Tylenol for a long time, now.
I do not trust this drug.
Each year, tens of thousands of overdoses of acetaminophen, Tylenol’s active ingredient, fill US emergency rooms and hospital beds, and jam the phone lines at poison control centers. And it is the cause of hundreds of cases of acute liver failure in the US each year.
Now, Johnson & Johnson, which makes Tylenol, finds itself plagued by a quality control problem:
“Raw materials used to make over-the-counter infant’s and children’s medications, which are subject to a massive recall, tested positive for bacterial contamination, according to a Food and Drug Administration inspection report released late Tuesday.”
via FDA finds bacterial contamination in children’s medicine ingredients – latimes.com.
Photo: D. Sharon/Flickr CC
Here’s to hoping that resveratrol, which mimics the life-extending benefits of severe caloric restriction, might do the same. — MB
Tufts scientists recently deprived a group of chubby men, for six months, of about one-third of their daily caloric intake.
The result: The subjects’ white blood cells, central to the body’s immune response systems, performed better:
“Scientists funded by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that volunteers who followed a low-calorie diet or a very low-calorie diet not only lost weight, but also significantly enhanced their immune response. The study may be the first to demonstrate the interaction between calorie restriction and immune markers among humans.”
The study might also help scientists determine whether resveratrol, which is found in red wine and other foods, mimics the immune regulating effects of caloric restriction — an impractical lifestyle change for millions of Americans.
via Less is More When Restraining Calories Boosts Immunity.
Photo: Fernando de Sousa/Flickr CC
Psychiatrists are enlisting holy men to keep the fantastic at bay. — MB
When a 30-year-old Muslim factory worker in Holland complained to his doctors about “a white figure in the basement who asked him ‘What are you doing here?’” a Dutch psychiatrist pinned the visions on obsessive-compulsive disorder, and prescribed cognitive behavioral therapy and an SSRI — the Gold Standard treatment for OCD.
“But because the patient believed he was being taunted by a djinn (loosely speaking, a mischievous spirit), his doctor enlisted the patient’s imam to disabuse him of that notion.”
The patient, as this report (below) shows in 2009, refused to cooperate.
But a door between psychiatry and religion appears to be opening:
We recommend to ask individuals with an Islamic background specifically whether djinns might be involved, especially in cases of mental problems and unexplained symptoms, and to seek the cooperation of a qualified imam or traditional healer for treatment purposes.
I wonder, then, whether science or religion will prevail, when holy men and healers prescribe their own remedies for the demon-haunted.
via [Hallucinations attributed to djinns] [Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 2009] – PubMed result.
Morally impaired? Photo: Eddie Van 3000/Flickr CC
This new finding, from MIT, should cause scientists to more closely examine the risks to human health posed by mobile phones and other wireless, personal technologies. — M.B.
MIT neuroscientists believe they have isolated the brain region — just behind the right ear — where moral judgements take place.
And they can suspend someone’s ability to judge right from wrong, simply by generating a magnetic field near the same spot where many of us hold our cellular phones and wireless, Bluetooth, headsets.
The researchers’ findings, announced today:
“In both experiments, the researchers found that when the right TPJ (right temporo-parietal junction) was disrupted, subjects were more likely to judge failed attempts to harm as morally permissible.”
The technique used by the MIT scientists, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), has been described as one that creates “virtual lesions” on the brain.
Neurostar makes a device that affects mood and behavior, from outside the head. Photo: Neuronetics
And although TMS’s long term effects on health are not well understood (similar amounts of electromagnetic radiation have been linked to increased cancer risk), the treatment is becoming increasingly popular for everything from tinnitus to depression.
The US military also hopes to use TMS to keep soldiers fighting, without the need to stop for sleep.
via Moral judgments can be altered.
See what else Hub scientists getting up to, by following my Boston Globe column, here.
Photo: Salvatore Palange/Flickr CC
The UN is sticking its nose into the business of individual US states, by complaining that any trend toward legalization of weed will have a domino effect, globally, says the MPP:
“The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board’s (INCB) attempts to meddle in marijuana reform in the United States were denounced by the Marijuana Policy Project on Thursday.
The INCB, which is currently meeting in Vienna, Austria, said in a recent report that they were ‘deeply concerned’ that the 14 U.S. states that have medical marijuana laws are sending the ‘wrong message to other countries.’”
via Toke of the Town – Cannabis news, rumor and humor.
Incredible. Another nano-therapy that might be available in the short term:
Scientists at Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute have further developed a potential new treatment againsat cancer that uses magnetic nanoparticles to attach to cancer cells, removing them from the body. The treatment, tested in mice in 2008, has now been tested using samples from human cancer patients. The results appear online in the journal Nanomedicine.
via Magnetic Nanoparticles Show Promise for Combating Human Cancer.
You might also recall this mind-blowing interview on NPR, in which Georgetown researcher Esther Chang reports a method for using nanoparticles to deliver tumor suppressor genes to kill tumors.
A new survey from ConsumerLab (former FDA scientists who test supplements, to see what’s really in them), finds that pill poppers are stuffing themselves with fish oil, more often than multivitamins.
Among the results:
Fish oil/omega-3 supplements were used by 74.0% of respondents (up from 71.6% in 2008), followed in popularity by multivitamins, which were used by 72% (down from 73.8% in the prior year). Among the heaviest supplement users (10 or more per day), 87% used fish oil. The percentage of people using fish oil/omega-3 remained steady among those aged 35 through 74, dropping slightly among older people.
· CoQ10 became third most popular supplement with 55% using it, up from 50.9% last year. Calcium use fell from 55.3% to 51.2%.
· Vitamin D was used by 47.9% of respondents, up from 36.9% in 2008 – a 30% increase, making it the fifth most popular supplement. Vitamin D use was seen to increase dramatically with increasing age.
· Probiotics were used by 30.4% of respondents, up from 25% last year. One-third of women in the survey used a probiotic.
· Resveratrol was used by 19.4% of respondents, up from only 11.7% last year – a 66% increase. Men polled were 50% more likely than women to use resveratrol.