October 23, 2007
Whole-Grain Cereals May Lower Heart Failure Risk for Men (MedPage Today)
During an average follow-up of 19.6 years, 1,018 new cases of heart failure occurred. These included 362 of 6,995 participants who did not eat any cereal, 237 of 4,987 who ate one serving or less a week, 230 of 5,227 who ate two to six servings a week, and 189 of 4,167 who ate seven or more servings a week. -Judith Groch
Posted by kuechebj at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2007
Simulated Relationships Offer Insight Into Real Ones (Science Daily)
Vicary and Fraley modeled their study on a 1979 Random House interactive fiction series, "Choose Your Own Adventure," which allowed the reader to select from multiple options at critical points in the story. Each choice directed the reader to a new scenario.
This approach appealed to the researchers because earlier studies of individual behavior in relationships asked participants to make choices based solely on descriptions of isolated events. The sequential nature of the new study was more like an actual relationship, Vicary said, in that it involved ongoing interactions with the same partner.
[From Jerz's Literacy Weblog. I found this finding particularly fascinating: “It is interesting that even when highly insecure individuals experience responses as a direct function of their actions, they are still relatively slow to adopt beneficial relationship choices,” the authors wrote. “It is possible that insecure individuals simply do not realize the detrimental impact that their actions have on their relationships.”
The reason is because after reading the first statement, it may be possible to understand its message as saying one cannot teach an old dog new tricks. However, taken together with the next statement the message changes into one that emphasizes how important communication is in a relationship. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2007
Supersize Me—and All My Friends (Scientific American)
Supersized portions and a lack of exercise may not be the only reasons for the spread of obesity in the U.S. A new study finds that having an obese friend makes a person 57 percent more likely to develop a bulging waistline too.
The effect was strongest for close friends but also occurred if friends of friends—or even their friends—gained weight, suggesting that obesity spreads as a kind of social contagion, the same phenomenon popularized in the 2000 book The Tipping Point as an explanation for fads from trucker hats to management philosophies. -JR Minkel
Posted by kuechebj at 09:22 AM | Comments (2)
July 27, 2007
Disney to cut smoking from movies (Canada)
Disney president and CEO Robert Iger told Ed Markey, that concerns raised by the lawmaker about cinema’s influence on underage smoking prompted the action. Disney also plans to place anti-smoking ads on DVDs of films in which the actors light up. -Brooks Boliek, Reuters
Posted by kuechebj at 07:29 AM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2007
Women are no chattier than men (Philadelphia Inquirer)
While the study deals only with how much men and women talk, Mehl also found some robust sex-specific differences he plans to publish later. "Men talk about technology, sports and money. They use more numbers," Mehl said. "Women talk about fashion, but also about relationships." -Erika Gebel
Posted by kuechebj at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2007
Anti-Fat Injection in Mice Conjures Up an Ice Cream Dream (MedPage Today)
In mice subjected to the equivalent of eating a pound of ice cream to get over some murine vicissitudes, blocking a well-known neuropeptide caused excess visceral fat to vanish, according to Zofia Zukowska, M.D., Ph.D., of Georgetown, and colleagues. -Michael Smith
Posted by kuechebj at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2007
Scientists Find Gene Linked to 70% Increase in Risk of Obesity (Bloomberg)
Sifting through the genes of more than 38,000 people of northern European descent, researchers from a dozen institutions studied three varieties of the FTO gene: AA, AT and TT. They found people who had the AA version faced the greatest obesity risk, while those with the TT version had the lowest. -Frances Schwartzkopff
Posted by kuechebj at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2006
Taking Back My Sleep (Discourse Chronicle)
[I trekked over to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a memory foam mattress topper for my bed yesterday. I hoped Rebecca's suggestion would finally solve my lower back pain problem when I sleep. I awoke this morning after at least 8 hours of sleep and realized I slept comfortably for the first time in over a year. Thanks, Rebecca. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 10:20 AM | Comments (2)
September 05, 2006
4:00am (Discourse Chronicle)
[I am awake against my own free will at 4am and my alarm clock is set for 7am. No, I am not a PhD graduate student yet, so I am not reading for prelims or working on a dissertation or anything like that. Unfortunately, lower back pain is what keeps me up at night preventing me from sleeping well over the past year or so. Nothing I do helps this pain go away and it seems to be getting worse as I watch my hours of sleep become less and less over time.
I started working out my upper body a few weeks ago because my parents thought my pain is associated to weight after a magical 15lbs. found its way on me over the summer changing me from 130 to 145lbs. against 5ft. 5in. in height. I tried using a pulley traction system to straighten my spine for 15 minutes a day, but stopped because of potential hyperextension of my neck; I flipped my mattress; I tried buying a contour memory foam pillow; but none of them alleviate my pain. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 04:02 AM | Comments (5)
March 10, 2006
Census Foresees an Older, and Wiser, America (Washington Post)
"Education is a particularly powerful factor in both life expectancy and health, and we're not quite sure why," Richard Suzman, associate director for behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, said in the teleconference. Better-educated people may have more money to pay for health care, and they may know more about a healthy lifestyle, he said.
[According to this article, "education" is defined as having an undergraduate degree, so "higher education" is not being factored into it. I am actually glad that post-undergraduate degree holders are not included. I am always willing to talk about graduate school since now I am "in the trenches," but I also tell people that graduate school is not for everyone. I usually say, "Don't go. If you have a choice between going and not going, then I say don't go, unless you are absolutely sure that is what you want or you have no choice." BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 12:13 PM | Comments (2)
February 20, 2006
Do Calcium Pills Work? (Time)
A study of more than 36,000 healthy postmenopausal women determined that taking a standard calcium-and-vitamin-D supplement for seven years had no significant effect for most of them on preventing fractures in the spine, arms and hips, although it did lead to a 1% improvement in hip-bone density. Yet women who managed to take the vitamin-mineral combo at least four days out of five had a statistically significant 29% fewer hip fractures. And women over 60 suffered 21% fewer broken hips.
A companion study found no beneficial effect on the rate of colorectal cancer. But those women were not at any particular risk of colorectal cancer. Other studies have concluded that men and women who have already had one precancerous polyp surgically removed from their intestinal tract develop fewer subsequent polyps if they take calcium supplements.
[...]
But there are still some quirks in the data. More than half the participants were also on hormone therapy, which is known to increase bone density. Moreover, most of the studies' subjects were already getting more calcium and vitamin D from their diet than the average American woman. Maybe supplements work best in people who need them most. Finally, the women were on the chunky side, which also protects bones.
[A few years ago, I was taking a multi-vitamin because I was learning how to cook on my own and constantly caught a cold during winter (four consecutive infections). Now, I learned how to make a few more things in the kitchen and maintain a policy of "If I don't eat it, then I must drink it," referring to fruits and vegetables. Whenever I go to the grocery store now, half gallons of orange juice and V8 are not uncommon for me to buy. I also stopped taking multi-vitamins and I am not entirely sure they were doing anything for me at all. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 03:36 PM | Comments (2)
McDonald's sued over french fry ingredients (Houston Chronicle)
Debra Moffatt of Lombard, Ill., seeks unspecified damages in a suit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court that accuses the company of misleading the public. Her attorney, Thomas Pakenas, said his client has celiac disease that causes gastrointestinal symptoms when set off by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat.
[...]
On Friday, Mark and Theresa Chimiak of Jupiter, Fla., sued the fast-food chain, claiming their 5-year-old daughter has an intolerance to gluten. On Wednesday, Nadia Sugich of Los Angeles sued McDonald's, saying she is a vegan and would not have eaten the fries if she had known they contained dairy products.
Until recently, the company had said its fries were free of gluten and milk or wheat allergens and safe for people with dietary issues related to the consumption of dairy items. But this month, the fast-food company quietly added "Contains wheat and milk ingredients" to the french fries listing on its Web site.
Posted by kuechebj at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2006
On iPods and hearing loss: Just turn it down (Cnet News)
The suit, filed on behalf of John Kiel Patterson and all other iPod buyers, seeks monetary damages to compensate for the hearing loss suffered by iPod users as well as a share of Apple's iPod profits. The suit also seeks to force Apple to offer a software upgrade to limit the iPod's output to 100 decibels as well as provide headphones designed to block out external noise.
[I remember one professor saying to me last semester about how he was investing in the hearing aid market because all of the current young people listening to iPods will need hearing aids in old age. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 02:54 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2006
Viruses May Be Fattening (Red Herring)
Six viruses have already been shown to produce obesity in animals, but University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have now shown that a human virus can cause obesity in chickens, a strong suggestion that it could make people fat, too.
The findings, which implicated a type of adenovirus, were released by the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, which published the study.
[Because of its suggested origins as a virus, obesity may someday be cured with a vaccine, as this article indicates. I doubt that and I also doubt obesity is "catching" like a cold or a flu. How ridiculous are people going to get about this issue? Will we someday quarantine all people who are obese? I treat this topic as I do when my colleagues ask me how I do things outside of coursework (conferences, grants, publications). I say "Work harder and drink less" and that needs to be in a fortune cookie. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 03:19 PM | Comments (2)
January 23, 2006
So, maybe soya is not such a hearty meal (Advertiser)
An American Heart Association committee, after reviewing a decade of studies on the claimed benefits of soy, has cast doubt on the claim that soy-based foods and supplements significantly lower cholesterol.
The panel also found neither soy nor the soy component isoflavone reduced symptoms of menopause, such as "hot flashes," and that isoflavones don't help prevent breast, uterine or prostate cancer.
Posted by kuechebj at 02:00 PM | Comments (2)
December 18, 2005
Booze-Free Bar (Spectator - Subscription)
An oxygen bar provides users with the ability to inhale 92 to 95 percent oxygen through cannulas (plastic tubes), which are inserted in the nose. Because of pollution and other contaminates, the air we breathe contains about 21 percent oxygen, said Steve Blaustein, owner of AirHeads Oxygen Bars in Coral Springs, Fla.
[Dr. Joel Pace (one of my mentors from undergraduate) and I visited this place on Thursday night. The space being used for this oxygen bar is being shared with a new tattoo parlor, so construction was going on, but it did not disrupt our experience. The bar itself has written on its counter, "It's OK to Inhale," which we thought was hilarious for political reasons. Interestingly, after we finished our ten minute session, my head felt much clearer. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 01:04 PM | Comments (6)
December 07, 2005
Study: junk food 'threat' aimed at kids (Hollywood Reporter)
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who secured the $1 million funding for the report, said the findings shouldn't come as a shock as he accused high-profile Hollywood characters of turning children into junk-food addicts.
"This report proves that the onslaught of junk food marketing is endangering the health of our children," he said. "We would like to think that SpongeBob SquarePants, Shrek and the Disney princesses are likable, kid-friendly characters, but they are being used to manipulate vulnerable children to make unhealthy choices. This must stop."
[And yet we bash Madonna for not letting her children eat a single french fry. Two things come to mind for me on this one. First, maybe practicing some moderation or plain common sense would not kill us. For example, eating fast food is acceptable but eating fast food daily is ridiculous. Second (and this is the big one), where are the parents? I said it before and I will say it again: Stories like this one scare me because good parenting seems rare when it should be the norm. BK]
Posted by kuechebj at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2005
Woman 'has first face transplant' (CNN)
Doctors in France say they have performed the first partial face transplant on a woman who had suffered extensive injuries in a dog attack. A joint statement from hospitals in Lyon and Amiens in northern France said on Wednesday the surgery took place Sunday in Amiens on a 38-year-old woman, replacing her nose, lips and chin.
Posted by kuechebj at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)