Public Health
A group of researchers say they have shown environmental toxicants can negatively affect as many as three generations of an exposed animal's offspring.
Washington State University scientists led by molecular biologist Michael Skinner says he found reproductive disease and obesity in the descendants of rats exposed to the plasticizer bisephenol-A, or BPA, as well DEHP and DBP, plastic compounds known as phthalates. In the journal Reproductive Toxicology, they report the first observation of cross-generation disease from a widely used hydrocarbon mixture the military refers to as JP8.…
During our zeal to recapture manufacturing like Apple iPhone and solar panel construction during the last four years, something obvious was ignored; the environmental hazards were never going to be acceptable in the USA. The rich people who can afford the latest technology turn a blind eye to non-union wages, slave labor and environmental impact as long as it is happening in th developing world.
Electronic trash, such as cell phones, computers and TVs, is often collected in dumps in developing countries and crudely incinerated to recover precious metals, including silver, gold, palladium and…
Public health scholars in Spain say they have done the first comparative study on the evolution of sperm quality in young Spanish men and found that over a ten year period, spermatozoid concentration in men between 18 and 23 years in the regions of Murcia and Almeria has dropped by an annual average of 2%.
The multidisciplinary study headed by the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health of the University of Murcia (UMU) found that "total sperm count and concentration has declined amongst young men in the south-east of Spain in the last decade." More specifically, the…
While every study ever done shows that people who consume fewer calories than they burn will lose weight, it is as well known that some people cannot or will not eat less or exercise. For those people, laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding – lap banding – is a safe and effective long-term strategy for managing their obesity, according to the findings of 15-year follow-up study of patients treated in Australia.
The follow-up study found a significant number of lap band patients maintained an average weight loss of 26 kilograms for more than a decade after their procedure.
They analyzed…
Hank |
The Obama administration has terminated the Microbiological Data Program created under President George W. Bush and his 2001 Food Safety Initiative.
During its run, MDP conducted 80 percent of all federal produce testing for pathogens like Salmonella and Listeria. They conducted tests on thousands of samples of fruits and vegetables each year, gathered from 11 distribution centers.
The group was officially shut down on December 31st but had been winding down since November. The Obama administration had asked Congress to eliminate funding for it and the Republican Congress, stunned…
A new study indicates that thousands of individuals have had kidneys removed unnecessarily because doctors misdiagnosed their disease.
20% of individuals with kidney tumors common in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), a genetic disorder, has had a kidney removed. 40% had some kind of surgical procedure performed. Better diagnosis could have led to treatment that would have made surgery or kidney removal unnecessary, according to John Bissler, MD, a nephrologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and lead author of the study.
In TSC, it is common…
The dramatic increase in obesity over the past few decades has been tightly associated with an increase in obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Of course, it's also been associated with a change in the definition of obesity in that period. In 1912 the perfect woman was determined to be 5'7" tall, with measurements of 35-30-40 and weighing in at 171 lbs., but there is no denying the developed world is getting fatter in an unhealthy way.
High-calorie diets containing high levels of fat and sugar, along with sedentary lifestyles, have…
Genomic research will transform medicine but progress has been slower than expected, leading critics to charge that the promise of genomics was hyperbole to get funding mandates and that while research should continue, the bulk of the money earmarked because of its applied science potential might instead be better spent elsewhere.
Proponents argue that the slowness shows the complexity of the relationship between medicine and disease and argue for more funding.
Both sides are arguing with anecdote so Ramy Arnaout, MD, DPhil, a founding member of the Genomic Medicine Initiative at Beth Israel…
BPA - Bisphenol A - has been besieged by so much negative public relations that it is almost indefensible. Like smoking, people are going to blame it for everything they can. But research is sometimes about inconvenient truths and so a three-year study using more than 2,800 mice that was not able to replicate a series of previous studies finding harm has to be mentioned. The authors are quick to note they are not declaring BPA safe, rather just that they could not reproduce the developmental effects of BPA in babies in the womb - which used to be the definition of safe. The…
A combination of robotic devices that disperse a time-honored bleaching agent into the air and then detoxify the disinfecting chemical are highly effective at killing and preventing the spread of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria - MRSA and so-called superbugs.
These hydrogen peroxide vaporizers were first deployed in several Singapore hospitals during the 2002 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and later stocked by several U.S. government agencies in case of an anthrax attack
In the study, researchers placed the devices in single hospital rooms after routine cleaning to…