health
aardvarchaeology | December 29, 2009
The Swedish Skeptic Society's annual awards for 2009 were announced yesterday.
Professor emeritus of ecological zoology Staffan Ulfstrand receives the Enlightener of the Year award,
"... for his engrossing and pedagogical books about evolution [such as Savannah Lives: Animal Life and the Human Evolution of Africa] and his many pop-sci talks, particularly during the double Darwin jubilee of 2009. Staffan Ulfstrand frequently appears on nature shows, in Q&A columns and in debates about biology and behaviour. He has also frequently explained evolution in a pedagogical manner when it has…
razib | December 17, 2009Increased Prevalence of Myopia in the United States Between 1971-1972 and 1999-2004:
Results
Using the 1971-1972 method, the estimated prevalence of myopia in persons aged 12 to 54 years was significantly higher in 1999-2004 than in 1971-1972 (41.6% vs 25.0%, respectively; P < .001). Prevalence estimates were higher in 1999-2004 than in 1971-1972 for black individuals (33.5% vs 13.0%, respectively; P < .001) and white individuals (43.0% vs 26.3%, respectively; P < .001) and for all levels of myopia severity (>-2.0 diopters [D]: 17.5% vs 13.4%, respectively [P < .001]; -2.0 to…
aardvarchaeology | December 1, 2009AIDS was discovered in gay men and the virus is more easily transmitted through anal than vaginal intercourse. For this reason, gay men (defined as "men who have sex with men") have long been forbidden to donate blood in Sweden. Likewise, people who go to bed with a new hetero partner must wait three months before donating blood again.
Now the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has decided to change the rules. A bit. Gay men are now allowed to donate blood. If the last time they had sex with a man was more than a year ago. So you're only allowed to donate blood if you're gay in the…
razib | November 23, 2009
In medical news which won't be surprising to anyone, Ethnic Variation in Fat and Lean Body Mass and the Association with Insulin Resistance:
Objective: Our objective was to compare total body fat to lean mass ratio (F:LM) in Aboriginal, Chinese, European, and South Asian individuals with differences in insulin resistance.
...
Results: After adjustment for confounders and at a given body fat, South Asian men had less lean mass than Aboriginal [3.42 kg less; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.55-5.29], Chinese (3.01 kg less; 95% CI = 1.33-4.70), and European (3.57 kg less; 95% CI = 1.82-5.33)…
gregladen | November 23, 2009The Free Market is a god-like powerful force that we can rely on to solve our problems, especially those of supply and demand. So if, as the WHO estimates, about 2% of the population is going to be covered by H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine then ... shall we assume that the other 98% of the world's population did something wrong and angered the Free Market?
Everyone has seen this [shortage] coming. But everyone also decided that we would have to rely on the "market" and the private sector to solve it. Well, not everyone. We have been calling for years for ten or a dozen international regional…
gregladen | November 14, 2009Recent discussion of Canadian Naturopathy caused this old memory of mine to surface, regarding a friend who nearly died because he had a treatable illness but was attended to only by a Naturopath. A stupid, badly dressed Naturopath who couldn't drive for shit.
I won't say his real name, because he's reasonably well known, and I'm not sure how much he knows I know about this story. He was pretty private about it at the time, but when he was in the hospital still unconscious after the emergency surgery, his wife told me everything, much of which I already knew by observation, some I already…
gregladen | November 5, 2009Kids, before we watch the video, I have to tell you: I just got a flu shot the other day and it did not hurt even a tiny little bit. That's because the needle is very small and your neurons .... that feel the pain ... are far apart. So, many times the shot does not hurt, sometimes it does.
So you should get all your friends together and make a list of who's shot hurt, who's didn't, and then you can make an estimate of what the chances are that the needle hits the neuron. And if you think THAT sounds like fun, you are well on your way to being a total science geek.
OK, here's the latest…
aardvarchaeology | November 4, 2009My family and I just came home from our local vårdcentral, the public medical centre, where we've taken our shots for epidemic H1N1/09 swine flu. It cost us nothing and we waited for only about 15 minutes. We got something called Pandemix, which appears to be Pandemrix mixed with another vaccine. They're not sure if a second shot will be needed or not, but if so then we will take it at the same time as I get my annual non-swine flu shot. Juniorette cried a little after the jab but calmed down after eating two saffron buns. She then went with her mom to swimming class.
[More blog entries…
gregladen | November 3, 2009The current health care reform bill(s) do not address actual health care ... like what procedures to use and stuff ... as much as they address insurance. This is a health insurance reform bill, not a health care system reform bill. (Though there is necessarily overlap.) Nonetheless Republican Wingnuts want a provision regarding prayer as a methods of treatment. Insurance companies would be required to cover prayer treatments:
a little-noticed provision in the health care overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The…
gregladen | November 3, 2009We have an interesting conundrum. Our offspring (______) is due on November 20th. This places the likely date of birth just prior to Thanksgiving. This causes many people to get very excited because they get to see and play with the new baby. I wonder how mad at me all those people are going to get when they find out I might not let that happen?
I'm not entirely sure what we are going to do postpartum. I'm quite interested in advice, so please do make your suggestions below. I'd especially like the advice of the MD's and Public Health Scientists in the vicinity. Or anyone with relevant…
edyong | November 3, 2009A friend of mine recently got onto a train and found a group of four seats that were empty except for one woman who was sitting face down. She looked asleep and he looked forward to a quiet journey. As soon as he sat down, the woman lifted her head to reveal streaming, puffy eyes and started sneezing profusely. This happened a few weeks after swine flu first began to dominate the headlines but being English, he was bound to the socially awkward choice of staying in his seat for the sake of avoiding social awkwardness.
Many of us probably have similar stories. At a time when fears of a flu…
gregladen | November 2, 2009The following press release touches on a recently emerging and probably valid method of addressing some infections.
New research shows that cutting down the amount of fat particles in cells may be an effective way to prevent the dengue fever virus from replicating and spreading.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute international research scholar Andrea V. Gamarnik and her colleagues have shown that the dengue virus hijacks fat droplets inside cells and uses those tiny fat globules to build new infectious virus particles. The scientists have been able to slow down dengue virus assembly in a…
gregladen | November 2, 2009The seasonal influenza virus is extremely adaptable: each year, it evolves ways to evade vaccines, forcing vaccine makers to come up with new formulations.
That evolution, known as antigenic drift, occurs when viruses change the sequence of their major surface protein, known as hemagglutinin (HA). HA is one of the primary targets of the natural immune response and key to eliciting an effective vaccine response.
A paper published in today's issue of Science suggests how the spread of influenza between vaccinated and non-vaccinated (naïve) individuals may affect antigenic drift. The results…
gregladen | November 1, 2009Athens, Ga. - Each year, the influenza virus evolves. And each year, public health officials try to predict what the new strain will be and how it will affect the population in order to best combat it.
A new study by an international team of researchers, led by assistant professor Andrew W. Park, who holds a joint appointment in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology and in the College of Veterinary Medicine, may make their task a little easier. The study breaks ground by working across scales and linking sub-molecular changes in the influenza virus to the likelihood of influenza…
aardvarchaeology | October 29, 2009Ed Yong's excellent post about fruit-bat fellatio received some even better, eye-opening comments from one Russell and Frog:
Russell: "Tan is falling into the fallacy that animals have sex for the purpose of procreation. Or of writing as if. Those bats are having sex because they're horny, and the fellatio is somehow making their sex more satisfying. That might or might not enhance reproduction. But that is not on the little bats' minds when they're busy getting it on."
Frog: "The bats aren't making direct computations of relative reproductive success -- they're 'feeling good', and very often…
aardvarchaeology | October 28, 2009Here's a confusing press release from the University of Gothenburg. Researcher Jonas Warringer is trying to find ways to slow the rate of genetic adaptation in certain microbes down to keep them from evolving resistance to antibiotics. But look at this (and I translate):
Slowed-down evolution can counteract antibiotic resistance
...
The resistance of an infectious agent against antibiotics is particularly serious when it comes to drugs made from fungi, penicillin for instance. Fungal cells are similar to human ones, which makes it hard to develop drugs that hit fungal cells (and are effective…
grrlscientist | October 27, 2009tags: Food, Inc., food industry, factory farming, health, documentary, film, movie trailer, Eric Schlosser, streaming video
This is the official trailer for a 2008 documentary based on Eric Schlosser's research (Fast Food Nation DVD or book). It identifies, describes and details the problems of the food industry, its effects upon our health and provides us -- the consumer -- with strategies for changing the way the food industry operates so farmers can earn a living wage and all of us can enjoy improved health outcomes.
Learn more about this film or purchase the DVD.
gregladen | October 26, 2009You must watch this. You. Simply. Must. Watch. This.
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gregladen | October 19, 2009Hispanic children diagnosed with brain tumors get high-quality treatment at hospitals that specialize in neurosurgery far less often than other children with the same condition, potentially compromising their immediate prognosis and long-term survival, according to research from Johns Hopkins published in October's Pediatrics.
More than a decade after the Institute of Medicine's landmark report Crossing the Quality Chasm, the Hopkins investigators say their findings detect persistent gaps in access to specialized care among certain patients, raising questions about how far across the chasm we…
esiegel | October 16, 2009...we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet.
There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.
What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the…