Articulatory Loop

We know HIV is bad for you. That's rather obvious - it causes all kinds of nastiness. One of the big problems facing those with HIV is the virus' ability to mutate at astounding rates, and thus rapidly develop resistance to any treatments thrown its way. An experimental drug, etravirine, may provide needed relief in this area: resistant patients treated with approved antiviral drugs and etravirine seem to have lowered their viral loads much more than those on antivirals alone. Granted, this data is from a pharmaceutical company's press release, with no publication cited, but we can hope the effects are real.

While everyone knows HIV is bad, most people are aware that drinking lots of cola is probably not good for them. Unfortunately, an article in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology suggests that folks who drink more than two servings of cola per day (that's less than one of those 20-oz bottles!) had a higher risk of chronic kidney disease. The culprit seems to be cola's characteristic phosphoric acid, as other sodas and caffeinated drinks didn't show similar effects.

Finally, you probably thought that Selenium was good for you. Health food stores and "dietary supplement" companies have been touting it for years as a miracle for everything from cancer to obesity and beyond. Unfortunately, what looks like a pretty robust clinical trial has found that selenium supplementation appears to be linked to higher risk of diabetes. Granted, this result comes from secondary analysis, but still it should serve as a warning: we don't really know what all those "supplements" do to our bodies.

Labels: AIDS, antiviral, cola, diabetes, diet, drugs, health, HIV, kidney, renal disease, selenium, supplements

Well, it's one option. Definitely better off will be the women (and ultimately the men too) of Eritrea, which has just officially banned the practice of female circumcision. Unlike male circumcision, which has generally no ill-effects and may or may not be good for you, female circumcision is just mutilation and torture, plain and simple. So good for you, Eritrea! (P.S. - please send someone to open a restaurant in Atlanta...I miss my Harambe!)

The good news for older folks (and younger too) is that it seems Tai Chi may help improve immunity. The study focused on resistance to varicella (shingles, chickenpox), but it's likely that the effect is not so specific. Granted, they didn't seem to control for the effects of exercise alone, but in that I think Tai Chi is amazing, I say people should do more of it! (Including me)

Also potentially good for all of us is a New Zealand group's proof-of-concept breakthrough in solar power: they've found a way to make solar cells that don't need direct light, and can be pigmented in ways to look good. Awesome!

Cancer patients may get some good news from the bad today; researchers have confirmed how cancer treatments can spur the disease's spread, but also how that process seems to work, and a possibly way to stop it. It seems that primary tumors release TGF-beta, which inhibits secondary tumors' growth until the primary is removed. Treating patients with TGF-beta could, in the future, suppress growth of these (and maybe even of the primary) tumors.

The real bad news today may be for HIV, which means good news for HIV patients, and maybe the rest of us!
A Spanish study tested a new protease inhibitor in advanced HIV patients, and found that it resulted in significant viral load decreases and improved CD4 counts. This is pretty early data, but still super encouraging! Secondly, US researchers used a rabies vector to deliver SIV/HIV proteins to monkeys, resulting in a good immune response to viral challenge. The vaccine doesn't protect from infection, but it did appear to reduce disease development, and could direct future work to find a preventative vaccine.

Labels: Africa, bladder cancer, circumcision, Eritrea, female genital mutilation, health, HIV, science, shingles, SIV, Tai Chi, TGF-beta, vaccine, varicella

Seriously, a mini-tiger? YES PLEASE! I'm not even a cat person, but I want one of these guys so bad it hurts.

And that's not the only wonderful science brings us today.

Canadian researchers have identified a peptide, which they are calling innate defense regulator peptide (IDR-1), that appears to be able to upregulate the innate immune system without a dangerous inflammatory response, offering hope against antibiotic resistant infections (among other things).

The battle against HIV/AIDS may get some new help now, as the WHO has published its recommendation that heterosexual men in sub-Saharan African be circumcised as a preventive measure. Now, I won't re-hash all the innumerable problems with this approach and its announcement (go here for a good, if shrill, discussion), but if it has any chance of helping, I say go for it. The potential harm is minimal, especially if the media is willing to be a little, teensie bit responsible about it.* In a possibly-more-important discovery, a US-UK team of researchers have found that green tea's famous epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) could help stop HIV, by interfereing with its ability to bind to cells. The work is really preliminary, but also has tons of potential.

And possibly good news for ADD** folks (like me): MIT researchers have found that different kinds of attention seem to be governed by different areas of the brain. The executive-function type attention, which is often the thing that us ADD folks lack seems to reside in the PFC, and could perhaps be improved separately from other attention types. Interesting...



* OK, so there's a good chance this'll be a disaster.
* * I don't actually buy any of this ADD stuff. 50 or 100 years ago, people who were interested in lots of different things and didn't like to do one thing too long were called "Renaissance Men," which was a compliment. Now we get tossed on Ritalin and told to settle down, which makes no one happier.

Labels: AIDS, antibiotic resistance, brains, circumcision, cute, cute overload, EGCG, green tea, HIV, immune system, toyger

Weight loss is big business. Every time we turn on the TV, or peek into our SPAM folders, we're assailed by a million-and-one advertisements, calling us fat and cajoling us to buy [insert likely placebo here] to change all that. Those TV ads are expensive, and at least a few morons seem to still click on SPAM messages (buying things seen via SPAM should be a capital crime, IMHO), so the money is clearly there.

But what works?!?!? That's the big question. Well, a Stanford study (which may or may not be published, el WaPo doesn't say or cite) of about 300 women followed for a year suggests that Atkins may not have been all wrong. From the article it's really hard to glean what the data actually say, but it seems at least that Atkins didn't have the cataclysmic effects on blood lipids expected, and that it may have been associated with more weight gain than other diets tested. But then again, big money's involved here, so who knows who was futzing with the data.

Speaking of diet and fat, Michigan researchers are trying to validate one of my biggest research pet peeves: that BMI is a terrible measure of obesity. Good work y'all! Also, Pittsburgh researchers have found that increased omega-3 fatty acids in the diet may be linked to increased grey matter, especially in areas related to mood and memory. Interesting!

We've heard all the hoopla about circumcision as a method of slowing HIV spread in Africa (see here for a good, if rather shrill, discussion on how bad the discourse has been on this so far), right? Well, it turns out that the news might not be all good (duh!): men who go back to engaging in sex before their newly-cut-penises are fully healed may be spreading HIV to their female partners at a higher rate. The data are sparse and look pretty shakey, but this is potentially a MAJOR concern, so it's worth investigating ASAP.

Speaking of ethics, South Korea is working on a Code of Ethics for robots, beginning of course with the Three Laws. Their code will expand on Asimov's model, and include rules on how humans should treat robots as well. Hopefully members of the commission have done more than watch I, Robot and Blade Runner before considering all this.

Labels: Atkins, brains, circumcision, ethics, fat, HIV, money, movies, obesity, omega-3, penis, robots, sci-fi, SPAM, weight-loss

A small study of Olympic wrestlers indicates that Hepatitis B, which can cause liver damage, failure, and death, can be transmitted through sweat. This is fairly scary - if hep-B can be transmitted this way, what about other things? As far as hep-B is concerned though, it's just more evidence that we need comprehensive vaccinations. Hepetitis B is a very stupid way to die, especially in the US where vaccine is readily available.

On the other hand, sweating isn't always a bad thing: it can be part of losing weight, for which there may be yet another good reason. A presentation at the AAAS meeting this year highlighted a growing problem of obesity in the medical arena: being really fat can make otherwise safe drugs become toxic. Acetominaphen (Tylenol) is one of the biggest problems. The data here are sketchy, but worth noting. Drugs are an important part of our lives ;-)

There is some good news on the drug front today, on both the HIV and malaria fronts. Sanofi-Aventis' neglected disease program has just released - off patent! - a tailored dose, combination pill for malaria. ASAQ combines two potent antimalarials, artesunate and amodiaquine, into one pill, with single-pill doses for adults, children, and infants. The idea is that ASAQ will be manufactured locally, making is cheaply available to poor parts of the world (where malaria does its damage). Its production could, additionally, help develop economies.

Pfizer released news this week of the first HIV drug to interact with the crucial CCR5 receptor - a goal since that protein's role in infection was discovered in the 1990's. The new drug is of course on fast-track regulatory review, and could begin use later this year, bringing new hope to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Labels: acetominaphen, amodiaquine, artesunate, CCR5, drugs, HBV, hepatitis B, HIV, malaria, maraviroc, obesity, sweat, wrestlers

A Canadian survey found that 90% of teenage boys admitted to looking at porn, as did 70% of girls. The authors of the study are of course Very Concerned, in that they imagine that viewing 'too much' porn will damage young people's development, et cetera. They don't have any evidence for this fear, but clearly it's the only conclusion Sensible People could make. The report glosses over the much more important finding - that parents aren't discussing sex (specifically: safer sex) with their kids - and instead goes for thinly veiled moralizing about porn.

Speaking of thinking with the little head, remember the study on circumcision against HIV the NIH stopped because the results were so overwhelming? Well, it seems that the results may be even stronger than previously thought - as much as a 65% reduction in risk! The problem, of course, is that the study was not very well designed, selecting control and treatment groups solely by volunteerism, not randomization*.

Moving around to the other side of the anatomy, it seems that perfectionists and high-stress types may be more likely to develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome after bouts of gastroenteritis. Cognitive therapy is prescribed to train sufferers to be less obnoxiously Type-A.

But really speaking of assholes, the Bush administration looks unlikely to grant state governor's requests for extra SCHIP funding this year, to keep those programs going. The programs provide health insurance to children whose families ear too much to get Medicaid, but not enough to afford insurance, and are proven highly effective.

And finally, the good news: the First Circuit has reaffirmed that bloggers aren't liable for commentors' libel**, and it seems that ginko extract may be helpful in treating the mental retardation that comes with Downs Syndrome, by antagonizing GABA.


* This probably isn't as big a deal here, as placebo effects are totally implausible and the men who received treatment may also have been more likely to engage in risky behavior, given expectation of increased protection. All in all, these methodological issues are probably a wash.
** Why doesn't anybody comment here anymore? It was more fun and more interesting when we had some discourse!

Labels: assholes, circumcision, Downs Syndrome, GABA, HIV, IBS, insurance, internet, law, libel, memory, porn, pron, SCHIP, sex, teenagers

And lots of other stuff too: it's been a crazy couple of days! First of all, Turkish researchers have found that drinking spearmint tea reduces free testosterone levels - offering a potential avenue for future treatment of severe hairiness. Also enough to drop mens' libidos, it seems, so boys should probably steer clear.

Speaking of looking good, Columbia researchers have found that living in densely populated areas, with a mix of residential and commercial spaces and transit options, is related to significantly lower BMI. Philosophically I hate BMI studies, as BMI is a terrible measure for obesity (while technically it should include a body composition component, in practice it's just weight/height^2), but it is a useful blunt instrument for this kind of study. Hopefully these results will result in people getting on with better smart development, etc.

We humans like to think that we're pretty special. We probably are, but we also have a lot more to learn about how other animals work. For instance, UK researchers have found that at least one species of bird, the western scrub-jay, conscientiously plans for the future - something only humans were believed able to do. In a really elegant-sounding experiment, the researchers taught jays that they might be denied their usual breakfast, but gave them the opportunity to store food instead. The birds not only hid food in the right places, but also hid a variety of it as well. Like setting up a menu. Cool!

And then there's chimps. Our closest cousins, they do all kinds of stuff that we used to like to think was unique to us. Now, researchers have observed wild chimps doing something really 'human': making spears to hunt prey. Whether or not we're actually seeing cultural evolution in action, or if this is an old trick we've just never before observed (unlikely), this is a really amazing discovery, and has huge implications for all kinds of stuff.

While animals are looking cleverer and cleverer, old people just got less clever and more annoying. OK, well, not really, now there's just a study to say so. A UVa study of older (60-80 years) and younger adults (under 60) found that while there were no differences in actual memory recall between the two groups, the old folks were much more adamant about their wrong answers. This study has implications not only for criminal justice (eyewitness accounts are the focus of the paper), but also for generally confirming how stubborn Grandpa is. And taking the leap of generalizing this to 80-100+ year-olds, who probably do have real memory problems, is a scary vision of a really frustrating place*.

And finally, to get to such stubborn old age, you have to not die first. One good way to die first is, of course, to get AIDS**. But, an African study has made an interesting discovery: an drug used to treat genital herpes seems also to reduce circulating HIV load by as much as 70%. Use of these drugs in HIV patients (who are frequently co-infected with HSV) could greatly reduce transmission and help prevent tons of cases. Assuming HIV doesn't mutate and render them ineffective. Also, it'll be really interesting to see how, exactly, the effect happens at a molecular level.

* To all who say that this stubbornness is part of old people's charm, I say yes of course it is: as long as it's someone else's problem.
** That's right kids - even with all the new modern treatments, including the one I'm about to tell you about, AIDS will still make you sick and die younger. So please, kill this 'barebacking' meme that's going around the gay community. Now.

Labels: birds, BMI, breakfast, chimps, geezers, geriatrics, hair, HIV, HSV, intelligence, memory, obesity, spearmint, tea, testosterone, tools, urban planning, weapons, women

We've known for some time that kids do better when they're breastfed as infants - they grow up healthier, smarter, and more secure - but that hasn't convinced many women to stick with it, so maybe this news might. Data from a huge follow-up study (96,648 new mothers over 16 years) suggests that breastfeeding is also good for the mothers: those who breastfed at least two years had significant reductions in cardiac events than did non-breastfeeders. There are lots of possible explanations for this effect, and I'll be interested to see what pans out.

If you're worried about your cardiovascular health, whether you breastfed your kids or not, you might consider giving blood. A good size VA study found that giving blood twice a year may improve circulatory health in younger people by reducing the body's stored iron. So give blood! Unless you're gay and barred from doing so. Just another way they wanna try and kill us off!

The alleged reason for the ban on gays giving blood is, of course, HIV. For which every blood donation is thoroughly screened, and with which at this point heterosexuals are about as likely to be infected, but that's another rant. The good news about HIV is that NAIAD researchers have published a picture of an important antibody at work blocking that nasty virus, hinting at possible targets for future vaccines. Awesome!

Labels: blood, breastfeeding, cardiovascular, health, HIV, vaccine

A team of researchers has made an alloy - bits of barium titanate immersed in tin - that is tougher than diamond. The thing is, it only has this grand title when it is between 58 and 59 degrees Celsius, so its immediate utility could be a bit limited. Still, as a proof-of-concept, it's pretty cool.

Not cool, however, is getting skin cancer. It seems that people who spend lots of time driving cars are at higher risk - especially if they keep the windows open - than are non-drivers. I have some trouble believing that the increase is entirely due to excess sun exposure (I, for instance, was getting lots more sun exposure when I lived in DC and walked everywhere, as opposed to now that I live in Atlanta and drive constantly, I am ghostly pale), but I was surprised that it seems most car glass only blocks UVB, not UVA rays. Weird.

Also bad: HIV. French researchers have found that HIV effectively 'hides' itself from drug treatments in mens' testes, helping to explain why viral load can be undetectable in blood, but the virus can still be transmitted sexually. You see, current drugs don't get to the testes - they are well protected by the body from foreign agents (for easily imagined reasons) - but targeting those cells in the future could reduce transmission of the virus. I do worry about side effects, however.

Labels: cars, diamond barium titanate, HIV, skin cancer, testes, tin

No longer content with the latte-addled wakefulness provided by the Starbucks on every street corner, wealthy people have decided that they need to pay premium prices to make themselves less sleepy by ... sleeping. That's right, yuppies and spoiled college students across the United States are apparently waiting in line to shell out for a nap. In special 'sleep spas.' I guess we really don't need any more evidence that we have too much spare time and money in this country.

Even further off the deep end, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has announced that he can cure AIDS (and asthma) in just three days. There's a joke about the assorted email-banking scams emanating from various African nations in here somewhere, but I am too high on cold medicine to come up with it.

Labels: capitalism, Gambia, HIV, marketing, morons, quackery, sleep

A treadmill-desk?? It's an idea that would probably benefit me as much as anyone - I often have to stop working and go walk, at least around the office if not outside, to regain my focus and release pent-up stress energy, but I doubt it'll ever catch on except for among the very wealthy.

NEAT sounds great, as long as you don't have to multi-task. I suppose that there are many people whose jobs can be done entirely on a computer, but all of mine have involved the need to have various books and papers handy as well. I just don't see jumping off and on a treadmill - especially during a client-phone call - as a realistic option. Especially because research indicates that we humans are not as good at multitasking as we think we are!

And, because I'm a bit brain-addled today, some quick-links:

- Yet another coalition has proposed a tax-break based health insurance plan. Tax-break based plan are just smoke and mirrors - when someone wants to sound like they're making an effort, it's what they propose. These plans only help the rich, who can afford out-of-pocket costs, never the poor, who need help.

- Alzheimer's vaccine patch shows promise in mice. Previous attacks on beta-amyloid have had severe autoimmune side-effects, but hopefully this will be different. I can't imagine why it would be, though.

- Selenium supplements may help lower HIV viral load. Cool!

- No drug, no pain cavity care? Please let this work!

- Sterilize your sponges in the microwave. Duh, I thought this was obvious!

Labels: Alzheimers, cavities, dental, health, HIV, insurance, multitasking, NEAT, office, selenium, taxes, treadmill

Kinda like a really old dog. All of these are symptoms of aging which, except for the second one, could be prevented by applications of today's research. The research on clumsiness is less compelling.

It appears that kids with lower IQs grow up to be more accident-prone, or at least more likely to suffer accidental injury. While it appears that the authors would like to conclude that lower IQ causes injury, I would argue that it sounds more like low IQ contributes to an environment in which injury is more likely: people with lower IQs tend to have more dangerous jobs, live in less safe home environments, and may, in places like Atlanta where sidewalks are rare, have to walk to work. An interesting finding, but it appears confounded all over the place.

As we get older, many of our bits deteriorate: our memory tends to get less reliable, we can't see as well, we develop cardiovascular disease, et cetera. But there may be things we can do to help ourselves delay those effects!

Drinking tea has for some time been known to have multiple beneficial effects, especially on the cardiovascular system. A puzzling side note, however, has been that English tea drinkers do not see the benefits that Asian ones do: and research suggests that this may be because the Brits put milk in their tea. In both rat experiments and a small human trial, it appears that the caseins in milk interfere with the beneficial catechins in the tea. So, drink your tea straight kids!

While protecting your heart with tea, your eyes may start to go. Don't fret, as Missouri researchers are working on retinal implants that could someday be used to stop or reverse the blindness caused by retinitis pigmentosa. This is really cool technology, I hope it works!

Meanwhile, you don't want to go losing your mind. Researchers also suggest a way to delay dementia: be bilingual! A Canadian study found that bilingual subjects, who used both languages every day, had a significantly later onset of dementia than did monoglots. The effect is likely to stem from increased cerebral blood flow associated with all that extra language processing; the protection could be similar to that offered by daily mental exercises like doing the crosswords.

But how does memory work, in the first place? Long-term potentiation (LTP), essentially a process by which neural connections become permanently 'stronger,' is thought to be the key. Now researchers have identified a molecule - TrkB - which is key to seeing LTP happen in vivo, as opposed to just in cultured cells. Cool!

Exercise is another great way to stave off the effects of aging. Unfortunately, some people are put off by the pain associated with said gain. To thier rescue may come by best friend, caffeine! A small study of female non-caffeine-users suggests that pre-workout caffeine may reduce post-workout pain better than many painkillers. Of course, this effect may be harder to see in sane people who don't abstain from coffee!

And finally, in order to be bothered by any of these troubles, you have to survive into old age. Having HIV is not a good way to do that, at least not until we find a cure. Princeton researchers have not done that, but they may have found a hint at a way to reduce HIV's effects on infected persons. They have identified a protein cascade which seems to dictate when the virus goes into hiding, or deactivates itself. If a drug therapy could induce hibernation in HIV, its symptoms would largely disappear, which would be great.

Labels: age, bilingual, biology, blindness, caffeine, dementia, exercise, geriatrics, HIV, injury, IQ, LTP, memory, milk, neuroscience, pain, tea

The National Geographic reports that an Ecuadorian bat, Anoura fistulata, has the longest tongue of any known mammal. Like me, they also cannot resist the obvious Gene Simmons commentary.

The bats use their super-tongues to reach their food, and it also seems that malaria allows HIV to reach more victims. Research indicates that when an HIV-positive individual is infected with malaria, that person's viral load increases dramatically, upping the chance of passing on the virus. AIDS sufferers are also more susceptible to malaria. This is just more evidence that we need more and better research into malaria, as well as HIV/AIDS.

The best way to reduce HIV spread is to encourage effective condom use. Unfortunately, it appears that the majority of condoms on the market are too big for Indian men, and so can't be used effectively. Unsurprisingly, most people aren't willing to go to the pharmacy and ask for smaller ones. (It's also hilarious to note that the article insists that size doesn't count - and convincingly(?) uses India's population growth rate as evidence)

Finding a good fit is important in most situations, most notably in finding a job, where nowadays burnout is a seemingly inevitable result. Best Buy is leading the pack in innovative workplace schemes, with their no-mandatory-meetings and output-over-time-assessments that allow workers to work whenever, and wherever, so long as good work gets done. Since implementing their program, whose '7th commandment' is that "Nobody talks about how many hours they work," Best Buy claims massive gains in productivity, satisfaction, and retention. This sounds like someplace I could work! It also sounds like an idea that Washingtonians especially ought to consider.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Rep. John Dingell claims that he will try to correct a major failing of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, which created the Part D drug benefit, to make CMS negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. This is the only rational thing to do, of course, but the pharmaceutical industry gives lots of money, especially to the Republicans, who will thus do anything to stop the legislation, and keep drug prices high.

Also in Washington, possibly due to short penises: SUV-heavy DC is rated the nation's unfriendliest place to drive.

Labels: bats, Best Buy, burnout, Dingell, Gene Simmons, HIV, malaria, medicare, nature, Part D, productivity, science, tongue, workplace