Articulatory Loop

I know it seems like all I do these days is harp on diet and nutrition, but that's much of what's in the news and I don't understand quantum cryptography, and the continuing Iraq and SCHIP* travesties just make me to angry to say anything coherent (or publishable).

First, the good news. A UVA professor has published a review of the literature on carb-based diets, and found that the whole good-versus-bad carb thing is pretty much crap. It seems that there is no real evidence that a low-glycemic index diet is better for you, or will even help you lose weight in the long term. Also, low-carbers may not be as quick-thinking. Heh.

As much as I like that news, this could be even better: a pilot study of chronic fatigue syndrome patients may have had significant symptom reduction from eating dark chocolate. Except, of course, that I don't buy the findings one bit. Even though chocolate's health and cognitive benefits are pretty safely established, I can't help but be really concerned that this study doesn't appear to have controlled for caffeine. Or sugar. Or much of anything, really. Oh well.

Now, the bad-but-still-kinda-funny news: One of the big things in modern medicine is people going on endlessly about lowering their cholesterol. As usual, it has become clear that too much of a good thing is in fact a bad thing...pregnant women with very low cholesterol are at higher risk for premature and other poor birth outcomes. So pregnant ladies? Have another plate of steak.


* If anyone still needs convincing that dubya and co. are actually evil, as opposed to just incompetent, this really should do it.

Labels: Atkins, chocolate, diet, fatigue, glycemic index, health, low-carb, pregnancy, science, weight-loss

Exercise is good for you (we all know that) and it makes sense that what kind you do makes a difference. It turns out that for diabetes control, a combination of aerobic and strength-training routines is more effective than either alone, and, more amusingly, it turns out that playing soccer is better exercise than jogging. I'd much rather play soccer than jog, so I'm cool with this. Now I just need a new ACL...

But exercise isn't always good: too much working out during pregnancy appears to be a miscarriage risk. This isn't really a surprise, if you think about it, but it is good to keep in mind.

Lastly, the American Dental Association has granted its 'seal of approval' to a few chewing gum makers to market their products as "good for your teeth." The thing is, the studies used to evaluate the positive effects were mostly funded by the gum manufacturers, and so I find it hard to really trust them.

Still, one more excuse to chew gum in class!

Labels: ADA, chewing gum, diabetes, exercise, health, miscarriage, pregnancy, science, soccer, teeth

No, it's not (just) what I did last night. A Leeds PhD candidate has written reveals, in her forthcoming thesis, the blindingly obvious fact that people liked porn even before the modern era (anyone surprised by this should take a Japanese art history class). Her work focused on erotic literature published in the 1700's in England, and she found that public and group readings were not uncommon, and that even the poor (who were considered illiterate because they could not write, but could read) were at least as big fans as the gentry. She also found that much of the material was, er, not especially complimentary towards women.

What they didn't have in the 18th century, on the other hand, was oral contraception. Unfortunately, it seems that modern women may also stop having that too, thanks to a 2005 Medicare-budget-slash which stopped incentives for pharmaceutical companies to provide pill discounts to school health facilities.

Once all of our current college students have their babies, they will have to worry about caring for them. Science, unfortunately, is no help there: studies indicate that good-quality child care is both good and bad for kids. I wonder what the actual research publications say (as opposed to what The Weekly ReaderUSA Today says).

What goes with sex? Anger! And testosterone. A study has found that viewing angry faces stimulate learning and cognitive performance in people with high testosterone. This really has little to do with sex, but it was fun to try and make the association.

To have sex at all, you want to be in good health. What's good for you? Chocolate!!! Another study has found that eating dark chocolate improves circulatory health, and doesn't necessarily lead to weight gain. Also, blueberries might help prevent bowel cancer. And aren't chocolate-covered blueberries an aphrodisiac?

Labels: anger, child care, chocolate, cognition, college, contraception, emotion, erotica, kids, medicare, porn, pregnancy, pron, sex, testosterone, women

Worried about proving yourself as manly as can be? Well, the bet way to do that may be to have fraternal twins. Danish researchers found that fathers of dizygotic twins had higher-quality sperm than did fathers of single-births. They also found the same to be true of fathers of monozygotic twins, which makes very little sense, so I am not sure I really buy this study. However, it was fun to say.

Canadian researchers have found that mice with an induced MS-like syndrome recover some of their myelin when pregnant, due to prolactin. If this finding can be translated safely into a drug regiment for humans, it could really improve the lives of MS sufferers, who currently have few real treatment options. Plus, why does prolactin have this effect? That's really cool!

Labels: manliness, MS, myelin, neuroscience, pregnancy, prolactin, sperm, twins

Michigan researchers have found that tyrosine kinase SH2B1 appears to act as a central modulator for body weight. The protein interacts with leptin and insulin signaling molecules in the brain, and eliminated weight gain in mice on a high-fat diet. SH2B1 knockout mice got really fat.

Women getting fat for a different reason - pregnancy - may need to cut out one less thing they love for the duration: coffee! A pretty large Danish study suggests that low-moderate (3 cups/day) coffee consumption was not related to risk of low birth weight or prematurity. Probably still better to avoid caffeine, but maybe a little would help take the edge off.

But that may be moot, because after pregnancy is over, American conservative women tend not to really care what happens to children. The latest evidence? Complaints from parents and rabble-rousers have convinced the sponsor of a Maryland bill to require school-aged girls get the HPV vaccine to pull the measure. Why? Because being absolutely sure we don't do anything that might in any way encourage teenagers to do what comes naturally to them (fool around) is more important than preventing painful and fatal diseases. No, there is no gray area here. Parents have a duty to protect their kids as best as they can, and that includes doing things that may involve your 12-year-old knowing what her bits are for.

Finally: Yes, I'm still sick. Will go to the doctor if not better tomorrow.

Labels: caffeine, cancer, coffee, HPV, idiocy, legislation, leptin, Maryland, mice, obesity, pregnancy, sex, SH2B1

But stress is still bad: women who were more stressed out while pregnant have kids who are more likely to develop ADHD, lower IQ, and other developmental/behavioral problems. The effect seems to be modulated by amniotic cortisol, and so it could be possible to block it, even if the moms won't chill.

Lots of good news for what's bad for you today. Mice with a model condition for Multiple Sclerosis showed a significant reduction in symptoms when exposed to carbon monoxide. It's not clear if the researchers tested for side effects here (there must have been a few!), and certainly the method used in mice would be lethal to humans, but it's an interesting step. It seems to work by blocking free radical production, but I wonder why then high doses of, say, vitamin C isn't effective as well. Hmm.

Patients with an rare, deadly form of cancer - acute promyelocytic leukemia - seem to do very well on a combination of radiation and chemo with arsenic trioxide. I wonder if old lace helps?

And finally, a new way to quit smoking: brain damage!!! Neuroscientists found that many patients with damage to the insula spontaneously lose the urge to smoke. The thing is that not all of them do, and it's not clear why. Also, discussion of surgical smoking-cessation techniques is frankly a bit scary: yes, smoking is amazingly bad for you, and yes it's hard to quit, but the risks (not to mention the costs!) of any kind of brain surgery is way too much to even consider, I think.

Labels: ADHD, arsenic, brain damage, cancer, carbon monoxide, cigarettes, development, health, leukemia, mice, MS, pregnancy, smoking, stress

When humans get mad cow disease, it's called variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD), and it kills them within about a year. What few treatments exist are ultimately ineffective. Research using RNA interference now suggests a possible way to slow the disease progress - treated mice lived much longer with a prion illness than did controls.

However, the mice had to be treated embryonically, so it's not clear how this will apply to humans, and it is possible that interfering with healthy prion production could have serious side effects. We shall see.

Speaking of brain damage: it seems that psychopaths do not process fearful faces the same way non-psychopaths do. Psychopathic subjects' brains were observed to 'light up' less than controls' when shown pictures of fearful faces, while they were the same for happy faces.

Miscarriage is an extremely traumatic event, and its causes are often utterly mysterious, but a study of 600 UK women whose pregnancies lasted more than 12 weeks suggests a number of factors that may play a role. First of all, underweight women are more likely to miscarry. No shock here, as being underweight is often associated with amenorrhea and fertility problems. Single women, and those who don't take vitamins or eat chocolate are also at increased risk. So ladies? Get thee to Godiva!

Labels: anorexia, chocolate, emotion, faces, fMRI, mad cow, miscarriage, pregnancy, prion, psychopathy, RNAi, vCJD