Public Health

Magnetic stimulation of a brain area, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), involved in "executive function" affects cravings for and consumption of calorie-dense snack foods, reports a paper in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine. After stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, young women experience increased cravings for high-calorie snacks—and eat more of those foods when given the opportunity, according to the study by researchers at University of Waterloo, Ontario.   Mean (SE) Stroop interference effect in milliseconds (asterisk trial RT\…

If we get sugars down to 3% of total energy intake, it may put dentists out of business, according to a paper in BMC Public Health which analyzed the effect of sugars on tooth decay and found that sugars are the only cause of tooth decay in children and adults. Free sugars are defined by the World Health Organisation Nutrition Guidance Advisory Group as "Free sugars include monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates."  Tooth decay is the most common non-…

Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease with symptoms which include the formation of red inflamed lesions that appear on the skin, vary from mild to severe. It affects around 125 million people worldwide. A new paper has found different types of dendritic cells in human skin have assorted functions in the early and more advanced stages of psoriasis. The scientists suggest that new strategies to regulate the composition of dendritic cells in psoriatic skin lesions might represent an approach for the future treatment of the disease. The scientists observed an increase in the accumulation of…

Researchers have discovered a pathway that may improve understanding of molecular mistakes that cause older women to have babies with Down syndrome. As women age, so do their eggs and during a woman's 30s, the chance that she will conceive a Down syndrome fetus increases dramatically. Most such pregnancies arise from mistakes in a process called meiosis, a specialized cell division that creates gametes, or sex cells (sperm and eggs). Mistakes in meiosis can lead to gametes with the wrong number of chromosomes, which can cause Down syndrome. In Down syndrome, the fetus inherits three copies…

Health systems aren't sexy. Credit: Truthout.org, CC BY-NC-SA By Sophie Harman, Queen Mary, University of London With each week that passes, the Ebola crisis in West Africa deepens. And amid the horror, the fear and a public health response described by Medicine Sans Frontières as “lethally inadequate”, public health systems face total collapse. While the inadequate international response has loomed large, it is the region’s chronically weak and desperately resourced health infrastructure which is the critical factor. This was underlined by Bruce Ribner, an infectious disease specialist at…

Endometriosis often takes a long time to be diagnosed and affects all areas of a woman's life, from sex to emotional wellbeing, from personal relationships to work.  Endometriosis is a chronic, recurring disease that is experienced by approximately 10 per cent of women worldwide. Common symptoms include painful menstruation, heavy menstrual bleeding, painful sex and infertility. A recent paper by Monash University's Kate Young in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care reviewed a number of surveys that documented women's experiences of endometriosis.  She found…

China has 18 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its diabetics. When the numbers are a staggering 1.3 billion, such a startling disparity in representation means a major public health crisis. In 1980, less than 1% of Chinese adults had diabetes but with wealth and more food comes more opportunities to eat poorly. Though pre-diabetes is a wholly fabricated condition the evidence-based world wishes epidemiologists would stop talking about, if we do consider that, then 50% of Chinese adults have it.   "Especially alarming is that most adults with diabetes are undiagnosed (70…

Forget lettuce, adults who consume a high-protein diet are at a lower risk for developing high blood pressure (HBP), according to a paper in the American Journal of Hypertension. One of three U.S. adults has hypertension and 78.6 million are clinically obese, which is considered a risk factor for the development of hypertension. Because of the strain that it puts on blood vessel walls, high blood pressure is one of the most common risk factors of stroke and an accelerator of multiple forms of heart disease, especially when paired with excess body weight.  What might help? More meat.…

Image credit:  Gianluca Rasile via shutterstock http://shutr.bz/1o2xR50 By: Benjamin Plackett, Inside Science (Inside Science) -- From the strip malls of the Midwest to the boutiques of Manhattan’s West Village, e-cigarette stores can be found almost anywhere in the U.S. The science surrounding e-cigarettes has been cloudy at best — leaving several unanswered questions. A new piece of research published in the journal Environmental Science: Processes&Impacts has helped to clear the smoke surrounding one of these questions: Is secondhand e-cigarette smoke less harmful than its…

Mystery virus EV-D68 exploding among vaccinated children; U.S. medical system clueless without a vaccine warns blogger Mike Adams, who calls himself a "Health Ranger" and seems to exist to undermine medicine. This brand of folklore is nothing new for the health food contingent - their "science" conferences are headlined by Yogic flying instructors and people who tell you not to eat food they can't pronounce -  but looking over his online supplement sales site and asking around about him, it seems the things that set Adams apart from his naturalistic fallacy peers is (a) he is both a left…