Public Health
Healthy consumers can handle low levels of bacteria occasionally found in cosmetics but for severely ill patients these bacteria may trigger life-threatening infections, as patients in the intensive care unit at one Barcelona hospital discovered after using contaminated body moisturizer. The Burkholderia cepacia bacteria outbreak is detailed in Critical Care.
Five patients suffered from infection including bacteremia, lower respiratory tract infection and urinary tract infection associated with the bacterial outbreak in August 2006. Skin care products sold in the European Union are not…
About nine percent of teenagers may have metabolic syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that put them on the path toward heart disease and diabetes in adulthood. This shocking statistic represents some of the first concentrated efforts to define and measure metabolic syndrome in children and adolescents – a necessary starting point for combating the problem, but one that has proven even trickier in youth than it has been in adults.
With the number of obese children in the United States rising at an alarming rate, pediatricians, family practitioners and researchers are concerned about what…
Metabolic syndrome, also known as metabolic syndrome X, is commonly used to describe the associations of various risk factors in diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Based on a study of 8,028 individuals representative of the general population aged over 30 who attended a nationwide health examination survey, researchers writing in PLoS ONE have concluded that seasonal changes in weight increase the risk for metabolic syndrome.
In people having 'winter blues', the risk of metabolic syndrome is heightened by 56 per cent. The negative effect of the seasonal changes equals to the protective…
Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infections are caused primarily by a single strain—USA300—of an evolving bacterium that has spread with “extraordinary transmissibility” throughout the United States during the past five years, according to a new study led by National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists.
CA-MRSA, an emerging public health concern, typically causes readily treatable soft-tissue infections such as boils, but also can lead to life-threatening conditions that are difficult to treat.
The study, from the National Institute of Allergy and…
Corn can grow in many places but from a nutritional point of view, its fiber benefits are offset by its poor vitamin content.
Deficiencies in vitamin A cause eye diseases, including blindness, in 40 million children annually, and increased health risks for about 250 million people, mostly in developing countries.
It makes sense to find ways to improve corn planting so that corn with more nutritional value will be in use and a team of researchers say they have done just that. This is not genetic modification of corn, this is a tool that analyzes "the genetic makeup of corn that will enable…
As levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise in the 21st century, the nutritional value of many major food crops could decrease, according to a study conducted at Southwestern University.
Max Taub, an associate professor of biology at Southwestern, did a "meta-analysis" of previous research that had been done on the effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on the protein concentrations in barley, rice, wheat, soybean and potato.
His study found that the crops had significantly lower protein concentrations when grown in atmospheres containing elevated levels of carbon dioxide.…
Continued from Part 3:
I interviewed Gary Taubes by phone a few weeks ago, shortly after he gave a talk about the main ideas of his new book — Good Calories, Bad Calories — at UC Berkeley. The interview lasted about 2 hours. This is part 4.
SETH: I was impressed with the discussion in your book and lecture about obesity coexisting with poverty in all these different cultures and the implications of that. I’d never seen that before.
GARY TAUBES: I have this feeling, and I guess that all writers (or all neurotic writers) have to some extent, that my work is being ignored. It’s my Rodney…
If you’re worried about high cholesterol levels and keeping heart-healthy as you get older, don’t push aside bacon and eggs just yet. A new study says they might actually provide a benefit.
Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered that lower cholesterol levels can actually reduce muscle gain with exercising. Lead investigator Steven Riechman, assistant professor of health and kinesiology, and Simon Sheather, head of the Department of Statistics, along with colleagues from The Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, have recently had…
Continued from Part 2:
I interviewed Gary Taubes by phone a few weeks ago, shortly after he gave a talk about the main ideas of his new book — Good Calories, Bad Calories — at UC Berkeley. The interview lasted about 2 hours. This is part 3.
SETH: You wrote that New York Times piece, and from my take on it, you had a bunch of evidence, and then you got a book contract. Is it fair to say that you found out that what you wrote in the piece was mostly right?
GARY TAUBES: It’s a difficult question. I had actually pitched the New York Times piece on fat as an attempt to determine the cause of the…
Exposure to air pollution significantly reduces foetus size during pregnancy, according to a new study by Brisbane scientists.
Queensland University of Technology senior research fellow Dr Adrian Barnett said the study compared the foetus sizes of more than 15,000 ultrasound scans in Brisbane to air pollution levels within a 14km radius of the city.
"The study found that mothers with a higher exposure to air pollution had foetuses that were, on average, smaller in terms of abdominal circumference, head circumference and femur length," Dr Barnett said.
The 10-year study, which was undertaken…