Monday, January 21, 2013

is-diphenhydramine-addictive?

http://cold.emedtv.com/diphenhydramine/is-diphenhydramine-addictive.html

 

Scientists discover DNA with a quadruple helix in cancer cells

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/scientists-discover-dna-with-a-quadruple-helix-in-cancer

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Flu outbreak: 33 died in Minn. last week

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/01/17/health/more-deaths-in-minnesota-flu-outbreak

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Slow Caffeine withdrawal

According to what I saw on the internet, here are the caffeine amounts for certain teas …

 

English Breakfast: 50mg

Black Tea:  40mg

Green Tea:  20 Mg

 

I suspect that these numbers could be inaccurate, because I sometimes have seen numbers that were higher.

 

Regardless, I think that it is still valid to use these numbers as a guide.  It is easy to see how I could use this to slowly decrease my caffeine intake …

 

Day 1:  I ingested 120 mg caffeine.

Day 2:  I ingested 100 mg caffeine.

Day 3: I ingested 90 mg caffeine.

 

My plan is to continue going down in increments of 10 where possible.  When I get down to 40 I might stay there a few days before going down to 20.

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Therapeutic cloning - How it is done; possible benefits

bulletTherapeutic cloning: (a.k.a. Somatic cell nuclear transfer or research cloning): This starts with the same procedure as is used in adult DNA cloning. The resultant embryo would be allowed to grow for perhaps 14 days. It's stem cells would then be extracted and encouraged to grow into a piece of human tissue or a complete human organ for transplant. The end result would not be a human being; it would be a replacement organ, or piece of nerve tissue, or quantity of skin. The first successful therapeutic cloning was accomplished in 2001-NOV by Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Worcester, MA.


Is an embryo a human person? Pro-life supporters generally believe that a human person comes into existence at conception. Some believe that somatic cell nuclear transfer is sufficiently similar to normal conception with an egg and spermatozoa that a human person also comes into existence during therapeutic cloning. The process of extracting stem cells involves killing the embryo. To many pro-lifers, this is murder. They feel that murdering one person, the embryo, to cure another person of paralysis, or diabetes, or heart disease, etc. can never be justified. More details. Therapeutic cloning research may well be limited to those countries, like China, the UK, and perhaps Canada, where pro-life supporters are relatively few in number.



Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 1): An Epidemic for Every Body

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/h0zD1gj0pXk

An excerpt from Dr. Robert Lustig’s “Fat Chance” | MSNBC

Here's the kicker. Being thin is not a safeguard against metabolic
disease or early death. a full 40% of normal-weight individuals harbor
insulin resistance—a sign of chronic metabolic disease—which will
likely shorten their life expectancy. of those, 20% demonstrate liver
fat on MRI of the abdomen (see Chapter 8).7 Liver fat, irrespective of
the rest of body fat, has been shown to be a major risk factor for the
development of diabetes. You think you're safe? You are SO screwed.
And you don't even know it.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/08/an-excerpt-from-dr-robert-lustigs-fat-chance/

Friday, January 4, 2013

Natural News

How much Vitamin C do we need?

Why you can’t bank on living longer if you’re overweight

People who were overweight or mildly obese -- weighing between 146 and 203 pounds for a 5'4" person -- had a 5 to 6 percent lower risk of dying compared to those who were at a healthy weight, between 108 and 145 pounds. Those who were extremely obese had nearly a 30 percent greater risk of dying...

"What we found suggests that over a broad range of body mass index levels, there's not much variation in mortality,"

... added that the new study had flaws in its methodology.

For example, older folks in the lower end of the healthy weight spectrum may have been more likely to have been former smokers with health problems that kept them slim.
Those researchers found a clear relationship between increasing body mass index and death rates with a 13 percent greater death risk in moderately overweight individuals, which rose to a nearly 90 percent greater risk in those who were obese.

If I can add my 2 cents here, I am not sure that there is a clear cause and effect (causality).  It is rare that I hear anyone say why being overweight would increase your chance of death.  Instead there seems to be a casual association with other health problems.

It is possible that things that cause people to be overweight might also cause them to have a higher risk of death.   This could include lack of exercise, metabolic syndrome, consumption of saturated fat and sugar, or just not eating enough fruits and vegetables.  For example, one study showed that doing exercise can offset the danger of being obese.   For years I have seen people claim that heavy people who exercise have lower mortality than thin people who don't.

One problem with this theory is that heavy people aren't very motivated to exercise.

John Coffey