Public Health

It almost reads like an April Fools Day article.  A new UC Davis study has found that more obese people have minimum-wage jobs by demographic, adding to growing evidence that being poor is a risk factor for unhealthy weight. So minimum wage jobs cause obesity? No, but if researchers are going to make silly correlations they could as easily have made that one. The researchers instead want to make the case that being poor somehow makes people fatter. The reasoning is that after mankind spent 2,000 years finding ways to make food cheaper and more plentiful - a Utopia to poor farmers before…

Working overtime may be bad for your heart, according to results from a long-running study following more than 10,000 government employees in London. The research, published in the European Heart Journal, found that, compared with people who did not work overtime, people who worked three or more hours longer than a normal, seven-hour day had a 60% higher risk of heart-related problems such as death due to heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks and angina. Researchers warn, however, that there study did not include any private sector employees and cannot be generalized as a result. "The…

A new study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine suggests that minimum-wage employees are more likely to be obese than those who earn higher wages, adding to growing evidence that being poor is a risk factor for unhealthy weight. The authors say the study provides justification for raising minimum wage rates around the country which would allow low-income workers to make healthier choices. "Our study clarifies a link that has been assumed but difficult to prove," said Paul Leigh, senior author of the study and professor in the UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and…

Teenagers are smoking fewer cigarettes today, but that doesn't mean they've given up tobacco altogether. A new study in Pediatrics has found that almost one-quarter of young adults in Montreal have used waterpipes (also called shishas or hookahs) in the past year. The habit is particularly popular among young, English-speaking males who lived on their own and had a higher household income. In addition, the research team found that waterpipe users were more likely to use other psychoactive substances such as cigarettes, marijuana, illicit drugs and alcohol. As part of the longitudinal cohort…

Our University’s former Safety-Office-in-Chief, who retired about ten years ago, had a line in horror stories while presenting training lectures.  One of his “things” was always radiation checking a new piece of equipment before releasing it for use. One of our departments had purchased a new X-ray generator system, and all the paperwork was in order.  But John was having none of that, and powered it up and went around it with his radiation monitor.  Loads of radiation coming out!  And at a level that would cause gentlemen great concern (and ladies too, but men’s brains…

New research has found that video gaming is an effective way to reduce anxiety and acute pain caused by medical procedures and could be a useful treatment for chronic pain. The research was presented this week at the American Pain Society’s annual scientific meeting “Virtual reality produces a modulating effect that is endogenous, so the analgesic influence is not simply a result of distraction but may also impact how the brain responds to painful stimuli,” said Jeffrey I. Gold, Ph.D., associate professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics. “The focus is drawn to the game not the pain or the…

If you want your kids to slim down, a residential summer weight-loss camp might be the answer you're looking for. A new study in Pediatrics found that such camps can significantly improve children's weight, body mass index (BMI), physical fitness and blood pressure. Researchers say the camps are effective because they get children out of the social environment that keeps them fat. Obese children struggle with their body's awkwardness in running, jumping and playing, which causes them to withdraw from these physical activities and make unhealthy lifestyle choices. This can be reversed when…

A compound in dark chocolate called epicatechin may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage. After inducing an ischemic stroke in mice, John Hopkins scientists found that mice who had been fed a single modest dose of epicatechin suffered significantly less brain damage than the ones that had not been given the compound. The study was recently published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. While most treatments against stroke in humans have to be given within a two- to three-hour time window to be…

Previous research has suggested that the best approach to significant weight loss is a slow and steady one. But a new study in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine indicates that the key to long-term weight loss and maintenance is rapid weight loss in the initial stages of obesity treatment. Successful weight loss in obese individuals is defined as a reduction of 10 percent or more of initial body weight maintained for at least a year. The jury is still out, however, as to whether fast or slow initial weight loss is the best approach for long-term weight control in obese patients…

This little girls seems ready to kick her way out of the womb and into the big wide world! The video was produced using an experimental technique taking time-lapse MRI images and then morphing them together into a seamless video. The aim is to analyse the behaviour of the foetus so as to establish what could be signs of abnormality. Foetal behaviour and its relationship to brain development are still a mystery, so this technique may also help in establishing at what point consciousness develops. From Bumpology blog.