Tag Archives: Medicine

Praying for a cure? Proximity counts

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Photo: Giselle Giardino/Flickr CC

Here’s one for all of us who find religion every time we’re worried about our health:

As it turns out, for improving health, prayer might work, after all.

The key, according to Indiana researchers, is PIP — proximate intercessory prayer (PIP). That means the persona praying, and the “target” of those prayers, must be near to one another.

I’d like to see a followup on prayers made via live audio and video connections…

Rural Mozambican subjects exhibited improved audition and/or visual acuity subsequent to PIP. The magnitude of measured effects exceeds that reported in previous suggestion and hypnosis studies. Future study seems warranted to assess whether PIP may be a useful adjunct to standard medical care for certain patients with auditory and/or visual impairments, especially in contexts where access to conventional treatment is limited.

via Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Pr… : Southern Medical Journal.

To prevent stroke, get lots of kisses

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They're good for each other. Photo: Felix Montino/Flickr CC

A UC Irvine study recently found that teasing a rat’s whiskers prevents the animal from having a stroke.

And the university’s researchers are extrapolating from their results a possible benefit for humans:

In people, “stimulating the fingers, lips or face in general could all have a similar effect,” says UCI doctoral student Melissa Davis, co-author of the study, which appears in the June issue of PLoS One.

In the animal study, the UCI researchers found that the facial stimulation rerouted blood flow to the brain from blocked arteries.

via UC Irvine Release: Whisker stimulation prevents strokes in rats :: UC Irvine TODAY.

North Korean healthcare "the envy" of developing nations, says UN boss

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Embarrassed by a damning Amnesty International report that surprised no one — detailing amputations without anesthesia and other horrors in the Hermit Kingdom — the UN World Health Organization is still going to bat for Pyongyang.

The rationale for lying about North Korea, according to a spokeswoman for WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan is that only by kissing ass, can the the UN and nongovernmental organizations gain access to the country:

Major global relief agencies have been quietly fighting for years to save the lives of impoverished and malnourished North Koreans, even as the country’s go-it-alone government joined the exclusive club of nuclear weapons powers and wasted millions on confrontational military programs.

via WHO criticizes Amnesty report into NKorea health – Yahoo! News.

How depression damages the brain (and how SSRIs might make it worse)

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Photo: Gisela Giardino/Flickr CC

The University of Massachusetts Medical School researchers now suspect that inflammation, caused by major depressive episodes, might cause brain damage leading to dementia.

But SSRIs, such as Prozac and Zoloft, which are typically used to treat depression, also cause inflammation.

This CNN article (link and excerpt, below), does not mention SSRI’s, but instead echoes the researchers’ calls for treatment of depression in the elderly. (More to come on this subject.)

The findings, published in the journal Neurology, are based on nearly 1,000 people who were studied for up to 17 years. Researchers evaluated them for depression and dementia using standard clinical tests. Those who were depressed when first examined almost doubled their risk for dementia and also increased their risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

via Depression may raise risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s, study says – CNN.com.

Time for a new medical specialty: GLBT

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Photo: David Shankbone/Flickr CC

Gay men are svelter than straight guys. Lesbian women are more likely to be overweight.

Northeastern and Harvard researchers this week said they’ve found huge disparities in several measures of health and heart disease risk, between straight and gay populations.

Indeed, the gaps between straight and gay people are so great– lesbian women are 50 percent more likely than straight women to be obese, for example — I believe it is time that medical schools consider training docs to specialize in the primary care of GLBT patients.

More from the study:

• Gay men and women were more likely to be current smokers compared to their heterosexual counterparts.• Lesbian women and bisexuals were more likely to report having multiple risk factors for heart disease.• Sexual minorities as a whole were more likely to report experiencing some form of sexual assault during their lifetime.

via Study Correlates Sexual Orientation and Health Disparities.

More evidence that coffee cuts diabetes risk

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And scientists at Nagoya University say it’s the caffeine. (Note, this is a finding in mice, not humans.)

Take that Andrew Weil!

Weil is the bearded supplements guru, who is for just about anything, until he’s against it (after the science catches up with him). Ditto for the reverse: He has railed against the evils of coffee and black pepper, for example, based on scant evidence that either is bad for you.

Indeed, the evidence is mounting that coffee is an excellent tonic.

Results of the study:

Effects of Coffee Ingestion on Blood Glucose Concentration and Lipid Metabolism in KK-Ay Mice (Experiment 1)

In experiment 1, 4-week-old KK-Ay mice ingested coffee or water as their drinking water for 5 weeks. The body weight, food intake, and tissue weights are shown in Table 1. The final body weight did not differ between the control and coffee groups. The food intake (on days 11−13 and 25−27) was also not different between these two groups. Coffee ingestion reduced subcutaneous or retroperitoneal fat tissue weight, but did not affect epididymal or mesenteric fat tissue or interscapular BAT weights. The liver weight in the coffee group was significantly lower than that in the control group. As shown in Figure 1A, the blood glucose concentration in the control group gradually increased during the course of the experiment, reaching a maximum of 30.2 ± 1.5 mmol/L. After the second week, the blood glucose concentrations in the coffee groups were significantly lower than the respective values in the control group. Finally, blood glucose concentration in the coffee group (19.6 ± 1.7 mM) exhibited a 30% decrease compared with that in the control group (28.1 ± 1.5 mM) (Figure 1A).

via Coffee and Caffeine Ameliorate Hyperglycemia, Fatty Liver, and Inflammatory Adipocytokine Expression in Spontaneously Diabetic KK-Ay Mice – Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (ACS Publications).

Tattoo will advertise your genetic flaws

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Tattoos tell a lot about you. Photo: Laura Brechtbert/Flickr CC

MIT materials experts suggest that an ink made from carbon nanotubes can be injected into diabetics, to monitor their blood glucose levels. Patients can then check their tats for any changes.

Diabetics say this beats pricking their fingers throughout the day. But the tat — which might be partially covered by wristwatch with a UV scanner on the back of it — will also mean wearing your condition on, or near, your shirtsleeve.

The technology behind the MIT sensor, described in a December 2009 issue of ACS Nano, is fundamentally different from existing sensors, says Strano. The sensor is based on carbon nanotubes wrapped in a polymer that is sensitive to glucose concentrations. When this sensor encounters glucose, the nanotubes fluoresce, which can be detected by shining near-infrared light on them. Measuring the amount of fluorescence reveals the concentration of glucose.

The researchers plan to create an “ink” of these nanoparticles suspended in a saline solution that could be injected under the skin like a tattoo. The “tattoo” would last for a specified length of time, probably six months, before needing to be refreshed.

via ‘Tattoo’ may help diabetics track their blood sugar.

Report: Better to have two moms than one dad

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Outstanding. And, of course, consistent with the personal experiences of anyone lucky enough to know a family with two moms. Bonus here is how CNN chooses to balance the story with criticism not from other scientists, but a Bible lady. Which makes this an example of something other than science reporting.

(CNN) — A nearly 25-year study concluded that children raised in lesbian households were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers.

via Kids of lesbians have fewer behavioral problems, study suggests – CNN.com.

Four tips for healthy red meat eating

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Health nut: Photo: H Anderson/Flickr CC

I knew I’d live to see red meat lose its bad boy image.

Turns out that the problem with the meat we’ve been eating is its toxic load, thanks to giant agribusinesses and our huge appetites.

Behold, the Heretic’s four-point harm reduction plan for meat eaters:

  1. Buy grass fed beef. It way better for you (higher in the good-for-you fats and vitamins) than corn fed cattle.
  2. Use spices. Rosemary and curry spices drastically reduce the formation of certain carcinogens.
  3. Avoid deli meats and dogs. A study suggests that processed meats, particularly those cured with sodium nitrate, are the real killers (quote from a WBUR story):

    We found that processed meats were associated with higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, and then unprocessed red meats were not.

  4. Don’t burn it. Hockey pucks are not the way to go. High heat and long cooking times turn burgers into poison pills, with higher levels of carcinogens. Surprisingly, though, grilled chicken is ten-times higher than beef burgers in its levels of certain cancer causing agents, according nutritionists at The Cancer Project.

via Not All Red Meats Are Heart-Unhealthy, Study Says | WBUR.

Will marijuana bong and vaporizer sellers welcome government oversight?

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Should these consumers (present and future) be protected from false advertising claims? Photo: nimbin mardi grass 2009/Flickr CC

With cannabis legalization looking like a real possibility in California this fall, growers are understandably worried that they’ll soon be out of business.

But there’s another group of entrepreneurs — the makers of pot smoking and vaporizing paraphernalia — who might also be in for a rude awakening.

Post-legalization, I expect government regulators to be snuffing out bogus product claims, such as those made by the makers of the Gravity Vortex (excerpt from the product website, below).

The company’s website copy strongly suggests that its bong removes as many harmful particulates as vaporizers (emphases are mine):

The Gravity VORTEX is the world’s first portable gravity smoking device that hits like a gravity bong and is smooth like a vaporizer. Winner of the gold medal at the 2006 High Times Cannabis Cup, the VORTEX is quickly taking the smoking world by storm. Clean, cool and smooth hits that wont hurt your lungs. It is made of high quality polycarbonate, so its virtually indestructible and safe to smoke from (sic).

These are exactly the kinds of claims for legal products that the FDA and other agencies already look for…

In fact, since the maker of the Gravity Vortex, Long Beach, Calif.-based Nine Point Eight Entertainment, claims its product is for “tobacco use only,” it may already be in the sites of someone at FDA, and we just have not heard about it yet.

I plan on tracking this story for a while, so stay tuned.

via Gravity VORTEX: Waterfall smoking experience. Powerful as a gravity bong, smooth as a vaporizer.