Public Health

Life has had billions of years to evolve defences against free radicals, reactive oxygen compounds and other physical and chemical assaults that can damage cell components, including our genetic material, DNA. Those same, powerful defense mechanisms protect us from low levels of ionizing radiation - from the cosmic rays that strike the earth surface to the radioactive particles continually released from the earth's crust into the air around us. Yet today the words 'radiation' and 'radioactivity' cause unwarranted fear, argues Zbigniew Jaworowski of the Central Laboratory for Radiological…

All animals, plants and bacteria run the risk of being infected by specific viruses. For humans, such viruses include the flu virus, for the tobacco plant this is the tobacco mosaic virus and for the intestinal bacterium E. coli this is the enterobacteria phage lambda. During the course of evolution, these organisms have developed systems to render viruses harmless. Viruses respond by adapting themselves in such a way that they avoid the defence mechanism, to which the bacteria respond in turn. In short, there is a continuous arms race between bacteria and viruses. Researchers at Wageningen…

In the first statewide study of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) in the United States, California officials have identified 18 cases of the dangerous and difficult-to-treat disease between 1993 and 2006, and 77 cases that were one step away from XDR TB. The study appears in the August 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online. California reports almost 3,000 cases of tuberculosis annually, the largest number of TB cases of any U.S. state. California has also led the nation since 2002 in the number of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) cases—those…

Small, specially designed bits of ribonucleic acid (RNA) can interfere with cholesterol metabolism, reducing harmful cholesterol by two-thirds in pre-clinical tests, according to a new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in collaboration with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In a study that appears on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that a single dose of a small interfering RNA (siRNA), a chemical cousin of DNA, lowered cholesterol levels up to 60 percent in rodents, with the effects lasting for…

Sauna has long been a cottage industry in Finland and the entire Northern hemisphere, with Scandinavians and Russians claiming to have used saunas for cleansing and relaxation for over 2,500 years. Saunas are the new Prius, with various studies claiming a positive influence on general health. A recent study(1) conducted in 41 healthy volunteers and presented in Dermatology says that regular sauna also has a positive effect on skin physiology. Well, duh, you may think, every sauna aficionado has said that all along. True, but it was never scientifically proven until now. Kowatzki, et al at…

A study published in the International Journal of Obesity says that eating two eggs for breakfast, as part of an overall reduced-calorie diet, helps overweight adults lose more weight and feel more energetic than those who eat a bagel breakfast of equal calories.(1) This study supports previous research, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, which showed that people who ate eggs for breakfast felt more satisfied and ate fewer calories at the following meal. (2) Eggs are also affordable. At an average of $1.93 per dozen (or $0.16 per egg), eggs are one of the…

The recent suicide of Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins, shortly after being implicated, brought a likely end to the Anthrax scare of 2001 but, while information on this specific case remains sealed, the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland is unclassified and available online to researchers. It contains more than 85,000 terror incidents since 1970. Hundreds of details associated with each incident are included to make the tool most useful to social scientists. It shows that the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States may be the only ones on record. Bio-chemical terrorist…

Male circumcision has been performed as far back as ancient Egypt, and the practice has continued through the ensuing centuries for religious, cultural and sociopolitical reasons. Performing circumcision for potential health benefits gained momentum in the 19th century with the advent of anesthesia and the initial epidemiological studies demonstrating lower rates of venereal diseases in circumcised men. Recent studies have shown that circumcised men are at significantly lower risk of urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis and chancroid. Additional…

New science indicating fluoride’s dangers to the brain and other organs will be presented by prominent fluoride research scientists during back-to-back conferences of the International Society for Fluoride Research (ISFR) and the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) in Toronto August 7-11, 2008. Fluoride, added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay, is also in virtually all non-organic foods and beverages. Fluoride's brain effects were never examined prior to water fluoridation. Recently, because of health concerns, Health Canada recommended that fluoride…

A fish-heavy diet has gotten another endorsement, this one saying that a lifetime of eating tuna, sardines, salmon and other fish appears to protect Japanese men against clogged arteries, despite other cardiovascular risk factors. The research, published in the August 5, 2008, issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), suggests that the protection comes from omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in oily fish. In the first international study of its kind, researchers found that compared to middle-aged white men or Japanese-American men living in the United States, Japanese…