Well how about that

Canker sore drug helps mice lose weight without diet, exercise

In the study at the University of Michigan, researchers gave mice a high-fat diet, and they became obese. They then injected the animals with a drug called amlexanox, which has been on the market for more than 15 years to treat canker sores. The mice lost weight, even though they kept eating the same number of calories. When they were taken off the drug, the mice gained all the weight back.

Well me oh my.   A drug that improves oral health reduces obesity.   I gotta look into this.

Zombie of the Day

Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to Accused Cop Killer Christopher Dorner

Dorner likely doesn't have wifi, but if anyone understands the effects of a chaotic mind, it's Charlie.

Have Mercy for all.
Fight the good fight.

My new favorite article

I live in Seattle.   I am surrounded by militant ecologists and vegetarians.  The fact that I have solar panels and no kids to offset my environmental sins does not seem to deter their derision.

Are plant-based diets environmentally friendly?

Growing fruit and vegetables doesn't produce as much greenhouse gas as raising cattle or livestock, the study confirms, but people who eat a primarily plant-based diet make up for that by eating more of those foods.

It's not just the caloric difference-  Eating Carbs Makes You Want To Eat More Carbs. 

H1N1 Flu Virus may cause Narcolepsy via Secondary Infection

One more time...

Flu shot ingredient eyed for narcolepsy link 

 "It's clear that H1N1 is a key ingredient. But it's also clear that if you didn't have the adjuvant you also didn't have this dramatically increased risk (of developing narcolepsy)," said Mignot, who is being funded by GSK to conduct further research into the links.  "So my opinion is that it was a combination of both in Pandemrix that made it very nasty for narcolepsy."

Yes, well he's right about the vaccine.  The flu virus is necessary to provide the right antigen- it seems this result does not occur with other vaccines for other pathogens. And the adjuvant was clearly a factor, because other H1N1 vaccines manufactured without it did not have this high incidence of onset of narcolepsy.  The Pandemrix adjuvant causes a stronger immune response, which implies the immune response is actually responsible for the post inoculation complications.
Recently it has been shown that Chinese individuals often have an extreme immune response to the flu virus. And there was a documented rise in post H1N1 narcolepsy cases in China that were caused by infection, not the vaccine, indicating the adjuvant isn't actually necessary for flu virus to promote narcolepsy onset.  This non-vaccine data suggests an autoimmune reaction to the flu virus may be the trigger for narcolepsy onset.

I propose an alternate explanation for these events:  The immune reaction to the flu virus indirectly causes Narcolepsy by decreasing bacterial immunity and facilitating the development of a Streptococcal infection.  Post-streptococcal autoimmune disorders commonly cause neurological symptoms, and strep is already associated with the onset of narcolepsy.  Encephalitis Lethargica was a post 1918 flu complication with symptoms similar to narcolepsy, and has also been associated with strep infection.

The increased incidence of streptococcal infections after flu exposure is extensively documented.  It seems plausible that an extreme immune response to the flu virus facilitated more virulent bacterial activity, which then triggered the streptococcal autoimmune response causing narcolepsy in susceptible individuals.

An increase in bacterial infections after the H1N1 epidemic was predicted before it happened and confirmed after it did. 

The increased lethality of H1N1 has been shown to be due to more aggressive Streptococcus pneumonia coinfection.

Various oropharyngeal streptococcal infections were reported after H1N1 infection and were characterized by marked increases in invasive S. aureus and S. pyogenes infections among children and adults. Children with allergies seem to have a more extreme reactions to the virus too.     This may even be caused by an interaction with an antibody receptor.   (I personally got an acute oropharyngeal infection after having the US version of the vaccine.)

This additional data indicates that the mechanism for the onset of narcolepsy is more complicated than a flu infection.  Autoimmune and secondary infections must also be considered.  If narcolepsy is caused by an immune response instead of the pathogens themselves- then vaccination probably infers a greater risk of developing narcolepsy, and the proper protocol for immunization of susceptible individuals should be determined for the flu as well as pneumococcal vaccines.

Totally Off-Topic

I don't know if you have ever watched soap operas, but I enjoy them.  It's like sports to me- keeping track of all the characters and calculating the most dramatic possible scenario.

I've been tuning in The ABC soaps off and on since 1977.  Since TV is really barren and boring lately,  I started recording and watching it again after years away.  Anyhow, All My Children and One Life to Live went off the air (they are living on the web now) and only General Hospital is left.  But GH has poached a whole bunch of actors from the other two.  Which is fun because over the years almost all the casts have been on all the other shows as other characters. 

Anyhow, lately it's like a family reunion on hallucinogens. They are going all-in.  MetaCamp.  There are people coming back from the dead almost every day, evil twins dating other evil twins, and grown-up baby mixups from the past are now pregnant with the embryo swaps of the future.  Ooh look, Laura's coming back from "Switzerland" too.   It's a melodrama mobius strip.   And a constant cosmetic surgery memory game.  Who is that, what character are they now, and which facial feature is altered...

It's cracking me up.  Maybe not Cuna de Lobos legendary, but the most entertaining trash I've seen on TV in a long time. It's a great development in the genre.   I approve heartily.

Heather Webber, Lucy Coe and Todd Manning in the asylum together.  Pointing and calling eachother crazy.  Glorious.

Diet Trivia

Diets through history: The good, the bad and the scary

1970:The Sleeping Beauty Diet, which involves sedation, is rumored to have been tried by Elvis.

1992: Dr. Robert C. Atkins publishes "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution," a high-protein, low-carb plan.

umm no.  His first book Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution was published in 1972.
And Oprah lost all that weight on a liquid Protein diet.  No carbs.

I have been wondering

Development of gingival recession in orthodontically treated patients

Introduction- Our aim was to assess the prevalence of gingival recessions in patients before, immediately after, and 2 and 5 years after orthodontic treatment.

Results- There was a continuous increase in gingival recessions after treatment from 7% at end of treatment to 20% at 2 years posttreatment and to 38% at 5 years posttreatment.

Conclusions- The prevalence of gingival recessions steadily increases after orthodontic treatment. The recessions are more prevalent in older than in younger patients. No variable, except for age at the end of treatment, seems to be associated with the development of gingival recessions.

When it is good

Lindsey Vonn’s horrific crash stems from a fearlessness that makes her unique

What is the psychology that allows Vonn to keep crashing so hard and getting back up?

It's not psychology, it's physiology.  It's a psychoactive immune response.  Every time she gets hurt- she gets a dopamine reward from her brainstem.   More injury=More immune response.  Surgery and rehab will do the same thing.

It's all fun and games now, but at this rate it will surely kill her.

Update- yeah Tiger Woods seems like the perfect companion.   No impulse control problems there...

Science You Can Use

Do Artificial Sweeteners Cause an Insulin Spike?

Very good info on all of them.   Thanks Mark! 

Quote of the Day

There is no doubt that with sufficient destruction of the cerebral tissue one can 'cure' any psychosis by replacing it with dementia... It is obvious that such a patient is more manageable and easier to nurse than one who is violent, shouting, and restlessly psychotic.

-Clifford Allen

An Examination of Physical Methods of Treatment in Mental Disease 1946

You Don't Say

Diet sodas may hike diabetes risk

The authors also pointed out that obese people were more likely than thin ones to drink artificially sweetened drinks in the first place.

Strike that, Reverse it

Being Overweight Linked to Higher Risk of Gum Disease

"We know that being overweight can affect many aspects of a person's health," says Charlene Krejci, DDS, MSD, lead author of the article. "Now researchers suspect a link exists between obesity and gum disease. Obese individuals' bodies relentlessly produce cytokines, proteins with inflammatory properties. These cytokines may directly injure the gum tissues or reduce blood flow to the gum tissues, thus promoting the development of gum disease."

That would be the best result for dentists, but it's not so.   You people know what causes periodontitis, and have since 1890. And you know those microbes trigger cytokines.   And post-streptococcal weight gain has already been documented.
Good effort, though.

Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

Smoking, Once Used to Reward, Faces a Ban in Mental Hospitals

Let me state this very clearly:  Yes we would rather die of cancer and put up with your systematic indignities than live without nicotine.  Maybe you should figure out why.  Maybe because it works.  You probably don't understand that concept, since none of your drugs do.
And until you find something better,  you fking useless hacks-   FK OFF.

You should be prescribing and providing e-cigs for those people, actually reducing harm, not amping up their misery to satisfy your fking theoretical fantasies about improving their quality of life.
It makes you feel better.  Not them. 

Once again- fk you very much.

Oh my Heavens

Even acutely intoxicated people know this.

Heavy Drinking Raises Risk of Divorce

Even children know that.
Even the first civilizations knew that.

Future study:  Heavy drinking raises incidence of stating the obvious.

See the Pathology

House of sleep: the world's most narcoleptic family - video

More than a dozen members of the Lopez family in Seville are narcolepsy sufferers - and they could hold the genetic clue to its cure. Here, Josefina Mas-Bartoli and her son David talk about the family's sleepy tradition.

...and bread.  Go figure.

Fascinating

"Fearless" Patients Terrified By Panic Experiment

A new study describes how "fearless" patients with damage to the brain's amygdala or "fear centre" experienced terrifying panic in a suffocation experiment, suggesting other brain circuits that do not involve the amygdala can also produce a fear response in reaction to potential threats.
Previous studies clearly show that the amygdala plays an important role in processing external events, threats from the environment, and in the social aspect of emotion, such as recognizing the facial expressions of others. But Feinstein and colleagues propose their findings reveal the amydgala may not be the only circuit for the fear response, or for all fear responses. There may be another circuit for processing events that arise within the body, they say.

 I believe this.   I think the panic caused by low blood sugar is different than from external events too.  I think it may make us hypersensitive to environmental stimuli.

Gluten in the NYTimes

Gluten-Free, Whether You Need It or Not

Now medical experts largely agree that there is a condition related to gluten other than celiac. In 2011 a panel of celiac experts convened in Oslo and settled on a medical term for this malady: non-celiac gluten sensitivity. What they still do not know: how many people have gluten sensitivity, what its long-term effects are, or even how to reliably identify it. Indeed, they do not really know what the illness is. The definition is less a diagnosis than a description — someone who does not have celiac, but whose health improves on a gluten-free diet and worsens again if gluten is eaten. It could even be more than one illness.
“We have absolutely no clue at this point,” said Dr. Stefano Guandalini, medical director of the University of Chicago’s Celiac Disease Center. 

and then there's this-

Experts have been skeptical. It does not make obvious sense, for example, that someone would lose weight on a gluten-free diet. In fact, the opposite often happens for celiac patients as their malfunctioning intestines recover.

Yes, well hyperinsulinemia seems to be an obvious fat producing mechanism that obesity doctors just have never been able to wrap their heads around.
Funny though, a whole lot of gluten sensitive people can...  makes perfect sense to us.

Correlation Games

Shame about past alcoholism predicts relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics

"Our research suggests that shaming people for difficult-to-curb behaviors may be exactly the wrong approach to take," Tracy and Randles argue. "Rather than prevent future occurrences of such behaviors, shaming may lead to an increase in these behaviors."

My turn:  You're measuring an indirect correlation between effects. People with messed up amygdalas have hypersensitivity to error and impulsive behavior. Accumulating pathology in alcoholics causes both increased feelings of shame and likelihood to relapse.  Yes shaming is unproductive , but trust me, the sense of failure is physiological- spontaneous and insistent even if there is nobody there to criticize.

See rule #1 below.

You Don't Say

Poor Mental Health Leads to Unhealthy Behaviors Among Low-Income Adults

Poor mental health leads to unhealthy behaviors in low-income adults - not the other way around, according to a new study by Dr. Jennifer Walsh at The Miriam Hospital in the US. In this study, stress and anxiety predicted subsequent health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking, binge drinking, illegal drug use, unprotected sex and unhealthy diets. One possible explanation for these findings is that health compromising behaviors may be used as coping mechanisms to manage the effects of stress and anxiety.

Well, I think risky sex is a symptom of mania rather than self-medicating behavior like the others, but this is promising.

Rule #1    The pathology Always, Always, Always comes first.

Things that make me twitch

Gum Disease Found to Worsen Infection in Animal Model of AIDS

Texas Biomed scientists in San Antonio have found that moderate gum disease in an animal model exposed to an AIDS- like virus had more viral variants causing infection and greater inflammation. Both of these features have potential negative implications in long term disease progression, including other kinds of infections, the researchers say in a new report.

Told ya.

Fun Fact for the Day

I am researching medical history right now.  Mostly it's annoying, but the last book had tons of fantastic info.

Everyone knows about leeches and bloodletting, but all the paintings show opening an arm vein and leeches on the neck or face maybe.
Did you know that bleeding and leeches were one of the most common and respected treatments for periodontal disease?  Dentists throughout history would cut and bleed and cauterize the gums when they were infected. But the procedure that was considered more effective was leeches. Carefully placed on the abscess in your mouth. It would take minutes to insure attachment so it didn't slip and get swallowed  And they had to stay there a while.  

You're welcome.

Inside Information

Clever, clever boys.

Brothers Develop New Device to Halt Allergy Attacks

The product, called the Auvi-Q, boldly challenges the superiority of the EpiPen at a time when food allergies among children and teenagers are on the rise. Sanofi and the Edwards brothers clearly hope it will appeal to a gadget-hungry generation with its compact, rectangular design and automated voice instructions that guide a user through the injection process. Both the Auvi-Q and EpiPen contain the drug epinephrine, which can halt a severe allergic reaction, known as anaphylaxis. 

 Making a better world one obsession at a time.

Their vision of your future

If You Are Impulsive, Take Modafinil and Count to Ten

Although modafinil is formally approved solely for the treatment of several sleep disorders, it has been shown to enhance cognition. Such beneficial effects have been observed in healthy individuals and in patients with schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. It has also been shown to reduce impulsivity in some individuals with addictions, but these effects had not yet been studied in non-stimulant addictions like alcohol dependence.

"This line of research adopts a strategy from the attention deficit disorder 'playbook'. Modafinil has effects that resemble amphetamine. This interesting new study suggests that, if you are impulsive, modafinil may help your self-control."

Yes, frontal cortex activity is very helpful in decision making.   And I'm sure you want in on that ADHD revenue stream.
But that drug doesn't address the underlying pathology.
Or really change the underlying behavior much. Unlike modafinil, nicotine actually does activate the frontal cortex in a few seconds.

New medications might target the uncontrollable urges to consume drugs of abuse.

My experience shows these new drugs do pretty much the same thing as the old drugs, and are just as addictive, only doctors just don't call it destructive and get a cut of the action.

Stop drinking-  take stimulants
Stop smoking- take antidepressants
I'm sure you'll feel much better.

The Battle Within

Most U.S. Soldiers May Suffer From Sleep Problems

They looked at 725 active-duty members of the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy, and found that 85 percent of them had a sleep disorder. The most common was obstructive sleep apnea (51 percent), followed by insomnia (25 percent).
The participants slept an average of only about 5.7 hours per night, and 42 percent of them reported sleeping five hours or less per night. Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep a night to feel alert and well-rested the next day, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The researchers also found that about 58 percent of the participants had one or more medical conditions. Of service-related illnesses, the most common were depression (23 percent), anxiety (17 percent), post-traumatic stress disorder (13 percent) and mild traumatic brain injury (13 percent).

OSA and insomnia and hypervigilance.   Hmmmm.   I wonder what that could be.

Oh Mercy, I just saw this.
VA study: 22 vets commit suicide every day

More Misery

Always seems to be a viable "treatment" option.

Alcohol vaccine for immediate hangover to be tested in India

If a candidate  who is vaccinated tries to drink alcohol  will immediately experience severe nausea, accelerated heartbeat, and general discomfort. Once the vaccine has been administered it cannot be reversed, the report said.
...
The vaccine would work for six months to one year through RNA, which can control gene expression. The so-called anti-aldh2 antisense RNA acts as a messenger to tell the liver not to express genes that metabolise alcohol.

A metabolic shock-collar.  Subtle.
Nevermind that this doesn't actually address the physiological cause of your problem- and adds another one- you need some incentive,  loser.