Pros and Cons

These two stories keep coming up on my screen together...

105 year old woman says Bacon is her key to long life
Governor Chris Christie has weight loss surgery

Update from the Center of the Vortex

Self Poisoning rises dramatically in UK
The number of hospital admissions after people have deliberately poisoned themselves has risen by almost 50% in a decade.

Well Me Oh My

Antibiotics could cure 40% of chronic back pain patients

Surgeons in the UK and elsewhere are reviewing how they treat patients with chronic back pain after scientists discovered that many of the worst cases were due to bacterial infections. The shock finding means that scores of patients with unrelenting lower back pain will no longer face major operations but can instead be cured with courses of antibiotics costing around £114.
Working with doctors in Birmingham, the Danish team examined tissue removed from patients for signs of infection. Nearly half tested positive, and of these, more than 80% carried bugs called Propionibacterium acnes. The microbes are better known for causing acne. They lurk around hair roots and in the crevices in our teeth, but can get into the bloodstream during tooth brushing. Normally they cause no harm, but the situation may change when a person suffers a slipped disc.

Wait a minute.   I thought you said those people were fat and lazy.
Paradigms shifting underneath my feet.   Getting Dizzy...

Strike That, Reverse It

Benefits of sun 'may outweigh the risks', Edinburgh University study suggests

Edinburgh University research suggests sunlight helps reduce blood pressure, cutting heart attack and stroke risks and even prolonging life. UV rays were found to release a compound which lowers blood pressure.

I've been meaning to mention this.

Vitamin D may also prevent more cancer than sun causes.

Research suggests that vitamin D might help prevent 30 deaths for each one caused by skin cancer.

Although the zombie site ends with the "Wear Sunscreen" song, I now no longer believe that its benefit has been proven by scientists. I now only wear it on my nose and hands, and have been making an attempt to go sleeveless in the sun.  When there is some.  (like this week finally yay!)

Infinite Possible Correlations

Sleep Problems May Increase Risk for Prostate Cancer

Same infection, different day.

Doncha Know It

Weight Gain Linked With Personality Trait Changes

Sutin and colleagues found that participants who had at least a 10 percent increase in body weight showed an increase in impulsiveness -- with a greater tendency to give in to temptations -- compared to those whose weight was stable. The data don't reveal whether increased impulsiveness was a cause or an effect of gaining weight, but they do suggest an intimate relationship between a person's physiology and his or her psychology.
In a surprising twist, people who gained weight also reported an increase in deliberation, with a greater tendency to think through their decisions. Deliberation tends to increase for everyone in adulthood, but the increase was almost double for participants who gained weight compared to those whose weight stayed the same.

As I was saying.
Impulse Control Problems.
Rigorous Righteousness.
Weight Gain.

I got nothin

Here's a nice picture.

Why Classification Matters

A case of REM sleep behavior disorder, narcolepsy-cataplexy, parkinsonism and rheumatoid arthritis.

Because these are all autoimmune reactions to the same damn infection, not separate disorders.

I'm guessing their patient also had extensive dental disease, but they just didn't think that was relevant...

We do not see the lens through which we look.
-Ruth Benedict

Up Late

Music for the Apocalypse

Back to Reality

Betty Ford Center

Overly waifish models best beware: according to one recent grad, clients whose BMI (Body Mass Index) is below the minimum are put on “cardio restriction” and required to spend an hour meditating in the Center’s “Serenity” hall until they pack on some extra pounds. Given the quality of the cuisine here, that won't be too hard: breakfast consists of a host of “yummy” hot and cold options that are reminiscent of Sunday brunch at Grandma’s country club—with an omelet stand and huevos rancheros, along with a huge selection of yogurts and fresh fruits towering over a bountiful pile of baked goods. Lunch and dinner selections are said to be equally tantalizing.

Yes, you sick girls stop exercising and eat some of those baked goods.  That should increase your serenity.
Good grief.   Sorry, Lindsay.

Let the Choir Sing

omigod, omigod, omigod...

National Institute of Mental Health to Drop DSM Use

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure," Insel wrote.
As an alternative, the NIMH is launching the Research Domain Criteria Project. The goal, according to the agency, is "to transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system."

dance dance dance!

The Circle of Insanity

Sno-Cone Joe stalked Mr. Ding-A-Ling

The Mr. Ding-A-Ling truck hadn't been rolling through the streets here for more than a week before Joshua Malatino made his message clear: There ain't enough Fudgsicles in this city for the both of us.

Yeah, I can see that.  These are enough to make me insane for about a week. Gluten, chocolate, nuts and sugar....   mmmm.   I'll take one "Rage Attack a la Mode" please!

HT to PourMeCoffee

Another Brick in the Wall

I mean matrix.  Oops, no I meant free market.

The GOP's Drug-Testing Dragnet 

This may sound overzealous, but Republican lawmakers around the country are already enthusiastically embracing the idea of making clean urine a condition of receiving public benefits. Since 2011, seven states have passed laws mandating drug tests for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applicants and recipients, and in 2012 at least twenty-five other states considered proposals to tie welfare cash assistance, and in some cases also food stamps, to drug tests. In February 2012, Congress passed a law paving the way for states to urine-test the recipients of unemployment benefits seeking work in sectors where such screenings are required. Since then, sixteen states have considered laws tying unemployment insurance benefits to drug tests.

... By 2006, 84 percent of American employers were reporting that they drug-tested their workers. Today, drug testing is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. DATIA represents more than 1,200 companies and employs a DC-based lobbying firm, Washington Policy Associates. Hoffmann-La Roche’s former consultant, David Evans, now runs his own lobbying firm and has ghostwritten several state laws to expand drug testing. Most significant, in the 1990s Evans crafted the Workplace Drug Testing Act for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which Hoffmann-La Roche was a paying member. Laying out protocols for workplace drug testing, the bill—which has been enacted into law in several states—upheld the rights of employers to fire employees who do not comply with their companies’ drug-free workplace program.
Over the past decade, lobbyists like Evans have focused on what a DATIA newsletter recently dubbed “the next frontier”—schoolchildren. In 2002, a representative from the influential drug-testing management firm Besinger, DuPont & Associates heralded schools as “potentially a much bigger market than the workplace.” That year, the Supreme Court upheld the right of schools to drug-test any student involved in extracurricular activities, from the football team to the chess club. (Many in the drug-testing industry advocate testing all school kids ages 12 and up, but they have failed thus far to convince the courts.)

The great thing about the testing business is you get to make money whether people test positive or not...

The Guinea Pig Generation

Decades-old question: Is antibacterial soap safe?

It's a chemical that's been in U.S. households for more than 40 years, from the body wash in your bathroom shower to the knives on your kitchen counter to the bedding in your baby's basinet. But federal health regulators are just now deciding whether triclosan — the germ-killing ingredient found in an estimated 75 percent of antibacterial liquid soaps and body washes sold in the U.S. — is ineffective, or worse, harmful. The agency's review comes amid growing pressure from lawmakers, consumer advocates and others who are concerned about the safety of triclosan. Recent studies of triclosan in animals have led scientists to worry that it could increase the risk of infertility, early puberty and other hormone-related problems in humans.

The concerns over triclosan offer a sobering glimpse at a little-known fact: Many chemicals used in everyday household products have never been formally approved by U.S. health regulators. That's because many germ-killing chemicals were developed decades ago before there were laws requiring scientific review of cleaning ingredients.

Finally

Something that makes sense.

Psychopathic Traits Seen in Children’s Brains

The researchers focused on several brain areas known to play a role in empathy, including the anterior insula, which sits deep in the brain; the anterior cingulated cortex, a deep layer that sits behind the forehead; and the inferior frontal gyrus, a ridge of brain matter on the frontal lobe.
In all three regions, kids with conduct problems showed reduced brain activity when viewing images of pain compared with the The children were matched on age, IQ, socioeconomic status and ethnicity to reduce the chance of unrelated factors skewing the results.

Here's the good part.  Instead of announcing some newfangled name for this phenomenon, they actually try to come up with a plausible mechanism:

"It may be that these children have atypical arousal response to pain — for example, those children who are most callous may not feel pain as keenly as their peers, and this may, in turn, mean that they find observing pain less distressing than their peers," Viding said.

Yes. Yes. Yes.  Yes.   Yes.

And so it goes

Suicide rate for middle-aged Americans is up 28 percent over decade, 40 percent among whites

Health officials say suicides among middle-age Americans climbed at a startling rate over the past decade, a period that included the recession. Overall, the suicide rate for the age group jumped 28% from 1999 to 2010. And among whites, it shot up 40%.

 During the 1999-2010 period, suicide went from the eighth leading cause of death among middle-aged Americans to the fourth, behind cancer, heart disease and accidents.

Quickie Correlation

Supply and Demand

Addicted to added sugar? It's 13% of calories consumed by Americans

The researchers also discovered that the poorer people were, the bigger the role that added sugars played in their diets. Women in the lowest income category got 15.7% of their calories from sugar, compared with 13.4% for women in the middle income category and 11.6% for women with the highest incomes. For men, the corresponding figures were 14.1%, 13.6% and 11.5%.

Adverse Outcomes

Emergency Room Visits Seen Rising Among Sleeping Pill Users

Dr. Bob Rothstein, an emergency physician and vice president of medical affairs at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., said zolpidem is a safe drug. However, he added, “If it’s used more and more by a lot of people, you’re going to see those side effects. … It’s just a law of averages.”

Pardon Me?  Did you just blow this off?

In the new study, women users seemed especially vulnerable. They made up two-thirds of the ER visits in 2010. Of those nearly 44 million prescriptions for Ambien and zolpidem in 2012, about 64 percent or more than 29 million were filled for women.
“I think we know that women clear the drug from their system more slowly than men and, in fact, the FDA recently recommended a lower dose for women just recently,” Rothstein said.

This is not just side effects.
This is a predictable consequence of the low experimental standards the FDA sets for drug approval.

For the record, my friend Janet took some Ambien this week and slept through a TREE FALLING ON HER BEDROOM. 

Grocery Store Solutions

New Evidence On How Fluoride Fights Tooth Decay

The report describes new evidence that fluoride also works by impacting the adhesion force of bacteria that stick to the teeth and produce the acid that causes cavities. The experiments -- performed on artificial teeth (hydroxyapatite pellets) to enable high-precision analysis techniques -- revealed that fluoride reduces the ability of decay-causing bacteria to stick, so that also on teeth, it is easier to wash away the bacteria by saliva, brushing and other activity.

 Translation: Use Anticavity Mouth Rinse containing Fluoride.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

When the Doctor Is Overweight
A bariatric surgeon takes his own advice.

210 pounds, 800 calories a day.
The only way that is possible is by producing massive amounts of insulin.
That man is still very, very sick.

World Class Obsession

One of my heroes.   The trailblazer.

The origins of the diagnosis of autism—and the parental guilt-tripping that went along with it.
By Temple Grandin

Pigs at the Trough

Raptor's FDA Approval Is New Test For Orphan Drug Pricing

Investors love orphan disease companies because they can charge sky-high prices -- Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN_), for example, charges about $500,000 per year for Soliris -- and insurance companies reimburse without much protest. But as the number of orphan disease companies with approved products grow, so too are concerns about a backlash. As the cost of orphan drugs rise, will insurance companies erect more roadblocks in the way of reimbursement?

Gosh let's hope so.    I think that might be just the people to pull the plug on this bullshit. 

Raptor is an interesting test case because Procysbi isn't a new drug, just a long-acting version of Cystagon, approved in 1994 to treat nephropathic cystinosis. Cystagon must be taken on a strict, every six-hour schedule. Procysbi is administered twice a day. Cystagon costs about $10,000 a year. By orphan disease standards, that's almost giving a drug away for free. Raptor intends to charge $250,000 per year for Procysbi. We'll soon find out if insurance companies agree to a 2,400% price hike for a more convenient, but not necessarily more effective, orphan disease therapy.

Yes, well Xyrem is basically just a stronger version of alcohol.   No chemistry wizards needed.

I do wonder how Jazz expects to keep it's Orphan drug status for Xyrem while seeking to sell it for every other affective illness...  Do they already have some other new and vile way to rip off Medicare and Medicaid?
Medicare fraud.   That would look good in a headline.   Hmmmm.

Maniac of the Day

 Erik Klein Wolterink is  Obsessed with Kitchens.   Heh.

Nerd Porn

The world's oldest laboratory experiment

Yo Doctors

Doctors less likely to bond with overweight patients

In a small study of 39 primary care doctors and 208 of their patients, Johns Hopkins researchers found that patient weight played no role in the quantity of physicians' medical questions, medical advice, counseling, or treatment regimen discussions. But when it came to things like showing empathy, concern and understanding, the doctors were significantly more likely to express those behaviors in interactions with patients of normal weight than with overweight and obese patients, regardless of the medical topic being discussed.
Obese patients may be particularly vulnerable to poorer physician-patient communications, Gudzune says, because studies show that physicians may hold negative attitudes toward these patients. Some physicians have less respect for their obese patients, which may come across during patient encounters.

Gosh golly, say it ain't so.
This is the part that gets me though-

"If patients see their primary care doctors as allies, I think they will be more successful in complying with our advice," says Gudzune, whose practice focuses on weight-loss issues.

What makes you believe we aren't complying with your advice?
The fact that we do not succeed in losing weight?
Your disrespect seems to be based on the assumption we are insincere or incompetent.
You might want to think about that.  What if we aren't?