Friday, May 18, 2007
Loooong Week
My first week of my internship has been tons of fun, but very busy. Thus, here are a ton of quick-link type things to the many big important sciencey news stories that are going on:
American and Japanese people read faces very differently, the former focusing on the mouth and the latter on eyes. It makes for a very interesting contrast, and has interesting implications even beyond emoticons - :-) versus (^_^).
Taking tons of vitamin supplements may be linked to more malignant and fatal cancers: bloody eat your vegetables and take less pills people!
British food is notoriously tasteless: it may also be less nutritious! A Warwick study found that boiling brassicas (broccoli and the like) for 30 minutes severely reduces the amount of cancer-fighting glucosinolate in the meal. Why the fuck would you boil a vegetable for 30 minutes, even if you're English?!?!?
California researchers found that N-acetylglucosamine, which is similar to but is NOT the popular supplement glucosamine, may help block the autoimmune responses seen in multiple sclerosis and diabetes type I. Cool!
US still has worst, most expensive healthcare in the "industrialized world."
The US and DC have reached agreement on a plan to 'fix' St. Elizabeth's Hospital...including such lofty goals as halting patient abuse. This old place has been in trouble for so long, that it'll be really kinda weird if they ever do fix it up! But I hope they do, since aside from being necessary to help mental patients in DC, it's a gorgeous old campus.
And the NIH has given Erin Brockovich more to crow about. They've finally released findings that Chromium 6 may indeed cause cancer by ingestion, not just inhalation. Whether or not this means that the EPA will actually act to reduce its release into the environment is an entirely different issue.
American and Japanese people read faces very differently, the former focusing on the mouth and the latter on eyes. It makes for a very interesting contrast, and has interesting implications even beyond emoticons - :-) versus (^_^).
Taking tons of vitamin supplements may be linked to more malignant and fatal cancers: bloody eat your vegetables and take less pills people!
British food is notoriously tasteless: it may also be less nutritious! A Warwick study found that boiling brassicas (broccoli and the like) for 30 minutes severely reduces the amount of cancer-fighting glucosinolate in the meal. Why the fuck would you boil a vegetable for 30 minutes, even if you're English?!?!?
California researchers found that N-acetylglucosamine, which is similar to but is NOT the popular supplement glucosamine, may help block the autoimmune responses seen in multiple sclerosis and diabetes type I. Cool!
US still has worst, most expensive healthcare in the "industrialized world."
The US and DC have reached agreement on a plan to 'fix' St. Elizabeth's Hospital...including such lofty goals as halting patient abuse. This old place has been in trouble for so long, that it'll be really kinda weird if they ever do fix it up! But I hope they do, since aside from being necessary to help mental patients in DC, it's a gorgeous old campus.
And the NIH has given Erin Brockovich more to crow about. They've finally released findings that Chromium 6 may indeed cause cancer by ingestion, not just inhalation. Whether or not this means that the EPA will actually act to reduce its release into the environment is an entirely different issue.
Labels: autoimmune, cancer, chromium, culture, DC, diabetes, emotion, health, healthcare, mental health, science, St. Elizabeth's
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
New Causes, Solutions, and Concoctions
Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative autoimmune disease, causing severe pain and disability in its victims. Like other autoimmune conditions, its causes are unknown and treatments are scarce. Argentine researchers are reporting the results of a small cohort of MS patients (24), some of whom showed sign of parasitic infection and some of whom did not. The parasite hosts had much less severe MS symptoms and fewer relapses than did non-hosts. Similar to previous findings that intestinal parasites relieved Crohn's, this result is in support of a 'hygiene hypothesis' of autoimmune disorders: relatively unchallenged by our germ-free modern environment, our immune systems have started 'looking' for things to attack. Such as ourselves.
On a different (and mysterious) causal chain, a large sample study has found that men with gum disease are 63% more likely to suffer hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers. One idea is that this could be due to the inflammation of gum disease 'spreading' to other parts of the body, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me, in terms of cancer. The findings are really fascinating, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a confounding factor in the mix.
In to good news: Canadian researchers have found that the old, apparently safe, off-label (read: cheap) drug dichloroacetate (DCA) may be a potent cancer killer. The compound acts by reactivating cancer cells' mitochondria, which are normally shut off in favor of cellular metabolism glycolysis in cancer cells, and which subsequently initiate apoptosis of the unhealthy cells.
Business, union, and retiree leaders in one room, agreeing on something?!?! It seems so. The group met in Washington to send a message to the politicians: the time has come for universal health care. This needs to happen, and it needs to be done right (or it'll be a disaster akin to what we have now, only even harder to fix), and it needs to be done now. Neither side of the aisle in Congress or the White House has been really willing to step up yet, but hopefully this meeting will prompt them to do so.
Finally, everything you didn't want to know aboutmolecular gastronomy cooking-using-funny-tools-and-ingredients. I've never been to any of the places mentioned, but I get the idea, and am pretty much already bored with it. Like avant-garde art, there comes a point when you're just doing to be shocking, or contrary, or because you can.
For some I guess this is part of the fun, but for me I think it ends up detracting from the actual flavor of the food. Butterscotch bacon? Sounds awesome. Edible menus? Once, cool, twice, yawwwnnn. Soup in a pipette? No thanks.
On a different (and mysterious) causal chain, a large sample study has found that men with gum disease are 63% more likely to suffer hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers. One idea is that this could be due to the inflammation of gum disease 'spreading' to other parts of the body, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me, in terms of cancer. The findings are really fascinating, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a confounding factor in the mix.
In to good news: Canadian researchers have found that the old, apparently safe, off-label (read: cheap) drug dichloroacetate (DCA) may be a potent cancer killer. The compound acts by reactivating cancer cells' mitochondria, which are normally shut off in favor of cellular metabolism glycolysis in cancer cells, and which subsequently initiate apoptosis of the unhealthy cells.
Business, union, and retiree leaders in one room, agreeing on something?!?! It seems so. The group met in Washington to send a message to the politicians: the time has come for universal health care. This needs to happen, and it needs to be done right (or it'll be a disaster akin to what we have now, only even harder to fix), and it needs to be done now. Neither side of the aisle in Congress or the White House has been really willing to step up yet, but hopefully this meeting will prompt them to do so.
Finally, everything you didn't want to know about
For some I guess this is part of the fun, but for me I think it ends up detracting from the actual flavor of the food. Butterscotch bacon? Sounds awesome. Edible menus? Once, cool, twice, yawwwnnn. Soup in a pipette? No thanks.
Labels: autoimmune, bladder cancer, food, gum disease, health care, hygiene, molecular gastronomy, MS, parasites, politics, science
