health
gregladen | April 25, 2009Here is a brief summary of what we seem to know now.
The World Health Organization reports that in the US there have been seven confirmed cases of Swine Influenza A/H1N1 in humans, wtih 5 in California and two in Texas. In addition, there are another nine spuspected cases. These were generally not severe, and no one has died.
Less traditional and less reliable sources have suggested that there are a large number of cases of type A flu (not necessarily the swine flue) in Queens New York, perhaps something like 100, and two cases in Kansas. If these are real, they will probably be reported…
gregladen | April 24, 2009Well, at some level, you should be worrying now. This is serious. But there are a lot of other things you should be worried about as well, such as the nuclear threat and, if you live in tornado alley, tornadoes. But when do you have to start paying attention to current information, bulletins, and so on, and to perhaps start planning to alter your behavior (like, not going to Mexico, or wearing around a mask and staying in the house, or perhaps something in between)?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a threat level system. The lowest threat level is 1, the highest is at 6. The good…
gregladen | April 17, 2009From a Michigan State University Press Release:
A Michigan State University researcher has developed a working vaccine for a strain of E. coli that kills 2 million to 3 million children each year in the developing world.
Enterotoxigenic E. Coli, which is responsible for 60 percent to 70 percent of all E. coli diarrheal disease, also causes health problems for U.S. troops serving overseas and is responsible for what is commonly called traveler's diarrhea.
A. Mahdi Saeed, professor of epidemiology and infectious disease in MSU's colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Human Medicine, has applied…
razib | April 15, 2009Male Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk: No Further Evidence Needed, According To Review:
The clinical trials included in the review took place in South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya between 2002 and 2006, and included a total of 11,054 men. The results show that circumcision in heterosexual men significantly reduces their risk of acquiring HIV by 54% over a two year period, compared with uncircumcised men. This reduced risk is the best estimate of the average effect and the researchers report that the true risk will be reduced by between 38 to 66%. Further research, however, is required to establish…
bcohen | April 14, 2009In a post a few weeks ago, I included links to some current and recently passed legislation on food, food safety, and food labeling. One of them, H.R. 875 -- a bill "To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services" -- has a particular devotion to "science" and "science-based" data and "science-based" practices. It's all so very post-Bush era. Debate about it is now starting to ramp up on-line.
But what got me thinking more about food and labeling was the Honest Tea Organic Honey Green Tea with 250 mg of EGCG Super Anti-oxidant I recently…
palmd | April 10, 2009I'm a primary care physician. What I, other internists, pediatricians, and family medicine docs do is prevent and treat common diseases. When we get to diseases that require more specialized care, we refer to our specialist colleagues. There is a movement afoot to broaden the role of naturopaths to make them primary care doctors. The big difference between naturopaths and real primary care physicians (PCPs) is that naturopaths haven't gone to medical school, completed a post-graduate residency program, and taken their specialty boards. Why is this important? If a naturopath wants to be…
gregladen | April 9, 2009I heard an interesting story today from someone involved in heart surgery research, a story about the first battery powered pacemaker to be used on a human. I don't know if any aspect of this is apocryphal or not, but I can tell you that the source is pretty reliable, and parts of this story are widely repeated on the Intertubes, so they must be true.
The original pacemaker was, of course, developed here at the University of Minnesota. In fact, open heard surgery was pioneered here and a lot of other heart related research. This is also where the first (and only) human-grown heart was…
razib | April 8, 2009I only know about Phenylketonuria (PKU) because it is an elementary example of an autosomal recessive disease. Newborns are routinely tested, because those with PKU may develop mental retardation on a normal diet. That's about all I knew, but this from Wikipedia:
If PKU is diagnosed early enough, an affected newborn can grow up with normal brain development, but only by eating a special diet low in phenylalanine for the rest of his or her life. This requires severely restricting or eliminating foods high in phenylalanine, such as meat, chicken, fish, nuts, cheese, legumes and other dairy…
sb admin | March 31, 2009I'm currently teaching Introduction to Psychology which has a number of university honors students who are required to do extra work in a certain number of their courses each semester in order to get 'honors credit.' The University leaves it up to me as to what they students should do to get this credit. I decided, along with my students, to let them explore the psychological literature through blogging. Each week they pick a relevant piece of literature (in this case - aggression, attractiveness, and political psychology) and write a short blog post about it.
I've found the blog to be a…
palmd | March 30, 2009This war taking place in our nation's medical schools and academic medical centers. Orac at Respectful Insolence has been tracking this trend, as have those of us writing at Science-Based Medicine. It is a war between those who feel that medicine should continue to be based on science and those who want to integrate faith-based practices. The model for this war is not that of pedagogical disputes or funding scuffles. More than anything else, it resembles a religious war.
The basic story goes like this: medical schools are in charge of educating future doctors. Individual hospitals are…
sb admin | March 20, 2009Funny!
From Jimmy Fallon:
Last night, Michael Showalter (from Stella, Wet Hot American Summer, The State, your dreams) made a cameo on the show. He and our head writer, A.D. Miles, played a couple of Columbia grad students on spring break. Things got pretty scandalous!
Really funny... but totally off base. It's more like Girls Gone Wild... I promise!
-via everyday scientist-
sb admin | March 20, 2009
Straight from XKCD...
I had this exact same reaction.
Now that we're on the topic. I don't like federal money going to pay bonuses but seriously... this money was promised long ago and it's already been given out. Using the tax code to take it back? Wow this is seriously a real cluster @#$!
palmd | March 18, 2009How can a seemingly trivial head injury kill you?
To answer this, you need a little anatomy.
Your brain is a pretty important organ, and is well protected. It sits inside a thick armor (the skull) and floats cushioned in a bath of cerebral-spinal fluid. It's surrounded by several layers of tissue, and its blood supply is kept relatively separate from the rest of the body (the "blood-brain barrier"). This separation helps keep out toxins and micro-organisms (but is imperfect). Just beneath the skull is a tough, leathery layer called the dura mater. This picture shows the skull cut…
palmd | March 16, 2009Thankfully, I don't receive all that much blog-related mail. But this weekend I received several communications about a piece in popular liberal blog. The piece is (ostensibly) about Lyme disease, which coincidentally happens to be one of the topics of my first post here at SBM. In fact, I've written about Lyme disease a number of times, and Dr. Novella has a very good summary of the controversy at one of his other blogs. Since we've discussed this so many times, I won't be reviewing the entire controversy, but looking at this particular blog post to examine how our personal experiences…
razib | March 11, 2009A few years ago I pointed to a paper which surveyed variation in health across the United States as a function of geography. Today Andrew Gelman points to a new map put out by the heath insurance industry. I've placed the two maps side by side below.
palmd | March 9, 2009A pastor in Illinois was shot and killed over the weekend. A similar tragedy happened in my community many years ago. Religious leaders are very public figures and have an emotional connection with members of their communities, so I suppose it's not so strange that they should be targets. Many of the cases I have read about over the years involved a mentally ill assailant, as it appears the Illinois case did. Mental illness doesn't usually lead to violence, but one can certainly imagine how a particularly disturbing delusion could lead someone to violence. The American mental health…
palmd | March 5, 2009This is a cross-post from Science-Based Medicine. Go there! --PalMD
There are many ways in which cult medicine believers try to insinuate themselves into the health care system. As Dr. Gorski has pointed out, "prevention" is one of their metaphorical feet in the door. The cult medicine literature often says things like, "mainstream medicine is fine for treating acute illness, but what we do is prevention." What they often leave out is the question of what "prevention" means, what the data on prevention is, and how to properly approach prevention. It's likely that one of my co-editors…
omnibrain | March 4, 2009Why in the world does my hospital/doctor need to know what my religious beliefs are?
I was running through this check-in form where they asked the usual questions like, what did your parents die of, etc. But then I got to the social section where they asked my education then my religion. WTF?! I guess I should have stopped even at the education but I'm so used to filling that out.
Seriously WTF?!
I did write "REALLY?!!" as my response to the question though.
palmd | March 1, 2009Remember when President Obama said something about returning science to it's rightful place? Well, our new president has a real tough climb ahead of him. The previous administration shoved science aside for political expediency and religious ideology. Now, forces in the president's own party are trying to insert their own quasi-religious beliefs into health care reform, leaving science in a whole different place altogether.
Here's the deal. Some years back, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) helped set up the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The whole idea of…
sciencepunk | March 1, 2009Last month, the UK Government came up with an ingenious new idea to stem the rising tide of obesity that is already spilling over low-slung jeans everywhere: eat less. Health Minister Alan Johnson met with a coalition of confectionery giants including Mars, Coca-Cola and Nestle, urging them to reduce the sizes of their delicious, calorie-laden snacks.
Shrinking portions is not a new idea. Last year, Food Standards Agency formed a panel to explore the role of food portion in our diets after announcing that reducing portions would be one of four key proposals for encouraging healthier…