Public Health
Moderate alcohol consumption may reduce your risk for stroke, but cigarette smoking could offset that benefit, according to research presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto this week.
Scientists followed the drinking and smoking habits of 22,524 people in the United Kingdom who were between the ages of 39 and 79 and did not have a history of heart attack or stroke at the start of the study. During the 12-year study, 864 strokes occurred.
The study found that the association between alcohol drinking and stroke was significantly different between smokers…
Despite media reports to the contrary, there is no evidence to support the assertion that smoking in cars is 23 times more toxic than in other indoor environments, say researchers writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
The authors say citing the inaccurate statistic has the potential to turn the public against efforts to ban smoking in automobiles. And If you're going to dictate to people how they should behave, not making things up is an important precursor.
The CMAJ article describes how a local media report of an unsourced statistic — that "second-hand smoke…
Ehauke |
Travelling to work early Friday morning, I came across this article in the Metro.
Oral sex virus 'causing throat cancer' as scientists urge male HPV vaccine | Metro.co.uk.
The article is rather heavy on startling, attention-grabbing statements and a bit low on facts. It claims that a virus spread by oral sex might be responsible for the rise in throat cancer in men. The wording used somewhat implies that women are therefore responsible for 'infecting' men with throat cancer. After all, no one is worried about any rise in throat cancer in women.
I couldn't really identify any un-sullied facts…
camdic |
The Military laboratories are constantly seeking new poisons with special attention to the world's animal and plant, biological toxins.Examples: Snakes as the cobra, the fish Arothron hispidus Arothron meleagris or, like frogs Phyllobates aurotaenia, or TARIC Toros, shellfish such as Mytilis californianus, or Conus magus.
The Strychnine is an alkaloid found in small quantities in the seeds of Strychnos nux vomica, a tree indigenous to India, was synthesized in the mid-nineteenth century and produced in large quantities. The Strychnine due to its excitatory properties of the central nervous…
A 34 year-long study of 10,000 civil servants suggests that a happy marriage may help prevent fatal strokes in men.
Researchers found a correlation between reported "happiness" in marriage and the likelihood that a man will die from stroke. The study was presented at the American Stroke Association's International Conference earlier this year.
Men were surveyed about their happiness levels and marital status; 34 years later, a follow-up study determined how many of the men died from stroke. Single men were found to have a 64% higher risk of a fatal stroke than married men. The quality…
camdic |
Chloracne is a skin condition caused by over-exposure to certain toxic chemicals that looks like common forms of acne that affect teenagers.
First reported in German industrial workers in 1897, at present chloracne is the only well established long-term effect of exposure to TCDD or dioxin, the contaminant found in one of the ingredients of Agent Orange.
At Seveso Italy, from a reactor to the production of hexachlorophene, a product relatively harmless used by industry, cosmetics, it would be escaping, because of an accident, dioxin, a chemical highly toxic and carcinogenic.
The Seveso Italy…
Using CT scans to measure blood flow in the lungs of people who smoke may offer a way to identify which smokers are most at risk of emphysema before the disease damages and eventually destroys areas of the lungs, according to a new study published in PNAS
The study found that smokers who have very subtle signs of emphysema, but still have normal lung function, have very different blood flow patterns in their lungs compared to non-smokers and smokers without signs of emphysema.This difference could be used to identify smokers at increased risk of emphysema and allow for early intervention.
As…
Medical researchers at the University of Texas say they can detect obesity in infants just six month old, and a lot of children in the age group are obese and on track to maintain that status later in life.
By analyzing the electronic medical records of babies seen for routine "well-child" visits to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston pediatric clinic, researchers found that about 16 percent of 6-month-olds fit the criterion for obesity — a weight-for-length ratio that put them in the top 5 percent of all babies in their age group.
Further analysis of the records…
Eating eggs for breakfast reduces hunger and decreases calorie consumption at lunch and throughout the day, according to a new study published in Nutrition Research.
University of Connecticut researchers found that men who consumed an egg-based breakfast ate significantly fewer calories when offered an unlimited lunch buffet compared to when they ate a carbohydrate-rich bagel breakfast of equal calories.
The authors say their study supports previous research which revealed that eating eggs for breakfast as part of a reduced-calorie diet helped overweight dieters lose 65 percent more…
As if Mondays aren't bad enough, I found out today courtesy of my Wall Street Journal RSS feed that perhaps researchers have been mistaken in their calculations of calorie consumption and weight loss. So all of the little steps I was taking really don't add up to the ultimate diet equation?
Well, sort of. The problem is that the formula used for "diet math" - 3,500 calories equals one pound - isn't really all that simple.1 This rule of thumb works well in the short term, WSJ says, and with small shifts in weight, but the rule breaks down over long periods, because as a person's weight changes…