nabeepchen

Now things are really getting exotic. Alzheimer’s is really type 3 diabetes? Veddy veddy interesting. But you know, I’ve done quite a bit of work covering studies related to the causes of Alzheimer’s, and there are so many different theories. I tend to think that the riddle of Alzheimer’s has many answers, which makes it all that much more difficult to solve.

Two potentially significant discoveries about insulin may shed new light on how Alzheimer’s disease ravages the brain, and might one day lead to new treatments.

When de la Monte’s team looked at brain tissue from deceased Alzheimer’s patients, they found that insulin production was severely curtailed in areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s.

Here’s the link to the rest of the story

Do you know that the psychological effects are the same, whether a person merely thinks that he was abducted by a space alien, as opposed to really and truly being abducted by one?

Thanks to scientists from ultra-fancy and uber-prestigious Harvard University, we now know that we now know that the stress and trauma of actually being abducted by aliens from outer space, is the same as just believing that you were. Wow! That’s been on my mind for some time now.

I suppose that this was really just some project to dissect the human brain, and generalize that some fantasies are indistinguishable from reality, and they can be just as traumatic. Why they chose space alien abductions is a mystery, being that it’s kind of hard to separate the “we’ve really been there” crowd from the “we only think that we’ve been there” wanna-bees.

Relative to control participants,” the authors concluded, “abductees exhibited greater psychophysiological reactivity to abduction and stressful scripts than to positive and neutral scripts.” In fact, the abductees’ responses were comparable to those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients who had listened to scripts of their actual traumatic experiences.

The point of this peculiar study is that if someone believes something is real, then the effect on them is the same as if it were real.

Now, these researchers are assuming that none of the people who reported being abducted really had an authentic experience. But how do they know that? Didn’t they ever watch the X-Files? Don’t they know that Scully had an alien baby?

Here’s a link to the study, should you care to peruse it.

Behind every great man, there is a woman. Behind ever great invention, there is a health problem.

We’ve gone through cell phones, hair dryers, keyboards, vaccines, drugs too numerous to mention, asbestos, fluorocarbons, aluminum pots, lead in everything, mercury tooth fillings…all linked to health problems–proven, suspected or otherwise.

And now, horror of horrors, the handhelds are turned their wrath upon us. The alert has been raised by the American Society of Hand Therapists, that apparently, heavy use of small handheld devices such as Pocket PCs, BlackBerrys, cellphones and iPods — can cause long-term damage.

Using these small items may require prolonged grips, repetitive motion on small buttons and awkward wrist movements, according to the Society. This can lead to a large number of problems, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. And it does make sense, if you think about it. But some people are so addicted to their little toys, even though I can’t figure out the attraction. I have tiny hands, and I find the buttons on these devices way too small for me.

Very nicely, however, the Society doesn’t say that you must give up your obsessions. Rather, they offer some guidelines in how to avoid wrist, hand and arm problems.

*Use a neutral grip (wrist straight) when holding the device.

*Switch hands frequently. This allows one hand to rest.

*Do hand exercises:

1. Fold hands together and turn palms away from body while extending arms forward. You should feel a stretch from shoulders to fingers. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat eight times. Repeat extending arms overhead.

2. Extend an arm in front of you, making sure the elbow is straight. With palm down, take the opposite hand and bend hand toward the floor. Then turn palm up, and stretch hand up toward body. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat eight times.

3. Open hands and spread fingers are far as possible. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat eight times.

These exercises also work well for just regular keyboard work. I always forget to do them, and then am always wondering why my hands hurt.

A 26-year-old Vietnamese male nurse who tended a patient with bird flu has caught the virus that has killed 47 people in Asia, a health official said on Monday.

But it was not yet clear if the nurse caught the virus from the patient or by other means, said Tran Khac Vien, head of a district health care center in the northern province of Thai Binh, 70 miles southeast of Hanoi.

Reuter’s stories are not very comprehensive (just the facts, ma’am), as they try to get out news as soon as it breaks. So not too much info on this just yet, but it’s quite possible that the nurse also had contact with a contaminated bird, or that the nurse even had contact with the patient’s blood if he wasn’t taking strict precautions.

The patient, by the way, contracted the virus drinking raw duck blood last month. Uh, I don’t even want to go there.

Experts fear that if the versatile and resilient virus mutated into a form that could easily jump between humans, it would kill millions in a global pandemic.

Again, the big question. Why hasn’t it mutated in all of this time? People in Asia have been contracting bird flu since 1997, for eight years now. The bird flu also appears to be quite virulent in people, with a 70% mortality rate. But then, would the rate be lower if the patients had access to better medical care, or if they sought care earlier? According to the article, that seems to be the case–that while quite aggressive, it seems that the death toll may be high because infected persons aren’t seeking medical help soon enough. So it really is difficult to judge.

I would just like to know why this has transformed into the disease of the year, being that no solid evidence supports the “sky is falling” theory.