>>A Blog About the Science and Technology of Living Forever

A recent study at the University of Western in Ontario, Canada is suggested a second look at coma patients in a vegetative state may be required before “pulling the plug”. Following an experiment with MRI technology, Professor Adrian Owen and Postdoctoral Fellow Lorina Naci have determined that a man in a coma – the result of a serious car accident – is aware of his surroundings and his identity. This breakthrough finding challenges many of the assumptions about “vegetative” patients, and gives hope to their families. Dr. Owen, a Canada Research Chair, is behind the groundbreaking studies that examine patients under the medical sentence “vegetative state”. He suggests that these patients are simply incapable of “generating” — which simply means they don’t have the ability to communicate.  However, he says these patients still have the intention to communicate, making them a conscious human being with functioning capacities. MRI images prove Dr. Owens hypothesis to be true.  Using a comparison chart of a healthy human brain and that of a vegetative patient he provides a visual aid that shows the specific areas of the brain that signal a “yes” or “no” answer to a set of questions.  The questions used have specific answers routed in the patient’s reality to test if the brain is of sound mind. Dr.Owen is not the only doctor leading the research in neuroscience. Jill Bolte Taylor originally entered the field of brain science as a result of her schizophrenic brother.  She became a highly acclaimed scientist at Harvard University. On Dec. 10, 1996 a blood vessel exploded in the left half of her brain. From that day forward Jill could no longer walk, talk becoming an infant in a woman’s body. In her book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s...

Popcorn, already known to be a good source of fiber, has higher levels of healthy antioxidants than some fruits and vegetables, according to new research. “Based on fiber, whole grains, and antioxidant levels, popcorn is the king of snack foods,” says Joe Vinson, PhD, professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton. But he isn’t suggesting that anyone scrap fruits and vegetables in favor of popcorn. It’s not yet clear how much of popcorn’s healthy antioxidants get absorbed by the body. Vinson and Michael Coco, Jr., a chemistry student at the university, analyzed four commercial brands of popcorn, including two air-popped and two microwave varieties. They evaluated antioxidants known as polyphenols. These compounds are found in a wide variety of plants. Antioxidants undo the damage that can be done by unstable molecules known as ”free radicals.” “Everyone knows plant foods have antioxidants,” Vinson tells WebMD. “But nobody has even looked at what is in popcorn with respect to these compounds.” Vinson and Coco ground up the hull and the ”fluffy stuff,” Vinson says, and checked the polyphenol levels. Most of the polyphenols — about 90% — were in the hull, Vinson says. Read the rest of this article at...

Regular aspirin use significantly reduced risk of cancer, metastasis and cancer mortality, findings from the largest-ever analyses exploring the drug’s effects on cancer indicate. Overall, aspirin users had a 38% reduced risk of colorectal and other gastrointestinal cancers compared with nonusers. Mortality risk was 15% lower and metastasis was 35% to 40% lower among regular aspirin users. Aspirin use also reduced risk for major vascular events, but these benefits were initially offset by an increased risk for major bleeding events. Both of these affects diminished over time, however, leaving only a reduced risk for cancer after three years, Peter M. Rothwell, FMedSci, of the University of Oxford in England, and colleagues reported in three studies published online in Lancet and Lancet Oncology. “In view of the very low rates of vascular events in recent and ongoing trials of aspirin in primary prevention, prevention of cancer could become the main justification for aspirin use in this setting, although more research is required to identify which individuals are likely to benefit most,” they wrote. Read the complete article and see a video at The Clinical...

One dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD could help alcoholics give up drinking, according to an analysis of studies performed in the 1960s. A study, presented in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at data from six trials and more than 500 patients. It said there was a “significant beneficial effect” on alcohol abuse, which lasted several months after the drug was taken. An expert said this was “as good as anything we’ve got”. LSD is a class A drug in the UK and is one of the most powerful hallucinogens ever identified. It appears to work by blocking a chemical in the brain, serotonin, which controls functions including perception, behaviour, hunger and mood. Benefit Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analysed earlier studies on the drug between 1966 and 1970. Patients were all taking part in alcohol treatment programmes, but some were given a single dose of LSD of between 210 and 800 micrograms. For the group of patients taking LSD, 59% showed reduced levels of alcohol misuse compared with 38% in the other group. This effect was maintained six months after taking the hallucinogen, but it disappeared after a year. Those taking LSD also reported higher levels of abstinence. The report’s authors, Teri Krebs and Pal-Orjan Johansen, said: “A single dose of LSD has a significant beneficial effect on alcohol misuse.” They suggested that more regular doses might lead to a sustained benefit. “Given the evidence for a beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism, it is puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked,” they added. Prof David Nutt, who was sacked as the UK government’s drugs adviser, has previously called for the laws around illegal drugs to be relaxed to enable more research. He said: “Curing alcohol dependency requires...

According to a new survey, more than 15% of American surgeons suffer from alcohol abuse or dependency problems. Also it is reported that surgeons who showed signs of alcoholism were 45% more likely to admit that they had serious medical mistakes in the past three months. A team of researchers led by Dr Michael R Oreskovich from University of Washington, Seattle collected surveys of 7,200 surgeons from more than 25,000 members of the American College of Surgeons. The survey questions asked surgeons about their work, their lifestyle and their mood, and several were screened for alcohol abuse or dependency. The latest survey which published in the Archives of Surgery reported that overall, 15% of American surgerons showed signs of alcohol problems, while other studies have documented that among the general population, the number is about 9%. This research study led by Dr Oreskovich, did not determine why alcohol problems might be more common among surgeons. The study, published in the Archives of Surgery, found that 15% had a score on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test that was regular with alcohol abuse or dependence. The senior author of the study Oreskovich said that the nature of the beast is that the percent of emergencies, the percent of after hour jobs and actual scheduled work itself all needs energy and attentiveness that is actually different than a lot of the other specialties. The research showed that the alcohol abuse or dependence was 14% for male surgeons and 25% for female surgeons, also reported was that these are more likely in surgeons who were younger, who were dissatisfied with a spouse or partner relationship, and did not have children. Researchers found that the surgeons who were burned out and disheartened were more probable to have the...

Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States, but some colon cancers can be prevented with regular testing. March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so there couldn’t be a better time to learn the facts about colon cancer and get tested. It could save your life. Did you know that the rate of colorectal cancer (commonly known as colon cancer) has been decreasing for most of the past two decades? One reason is because more people are getting screened for this disease, which is preventable, treatable and beatable. Colon cancer, which almost always starts with a polyp — a small growth on the lining of the colon or rectum — does not usually cause symptoms until it is in a more advanced stage. Colon cancer screening can find and remove these growths before they turn into cancer. But, many people are not getting the tests that could save their lives — perhaps because the procedure seems embarrassing. But colon cancer screening tests aren’t that bad. Two different types of screening tests are available — those that find cancer and polyps and those that mainly find cancer and are less likely to find polyps. Finding and removing polyps before they become cancerous stops colon cancer before it starts. Talk to your doctor about which test is right for you. Colonoscopy is often recommended because it looks at the entire colon, and because if a polyp is found, it can be removed during the procedure. Colonoscopy can be somewhat uncomfortable, but it is not painful. If you are 50 or older, the American Cancer Society recommends that you talk to your doctor about getting tested, even if you have no symptoms of the disease. And...

People who had facial plastic surgery were estimated to be nearly nine years younger than their actual age after the procedures, according to a study published by the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery. The study, headed by Dr. Nitin Chauhan of the University of Toronto, included 60 patients (54 of them women), who ranged in age from 45 to 72, and divided them into three groups. The first group had face and neck lifts, the second had face and neck lifts along with eyelid work, while the third group had face and neck lifts, eyelid work and forehead lifts. Volunteers from a class of medical students estimated patients’ ages from photographs. The team says the students estimated patient ages to be about 1.7 years younger than their actual age before surgery but 8.9 years younger than their chronological age after surgery. The change in perceived age varied based on the specific procedures performed, the authors say. For the first group of patients, the average change in perceived age was 5.7 years, for the second group it was 7.5 years, and for the third group it was 8.4 years. “That being said, patients and facial plastic surgeons are aware that our abilities are not limitless in the effort to combat age-related changes, despite increased sophistication and diversity in our rejuvenation techniques,” the study...

From the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Lead in lipstick? Turns out, the ur­ban legend is true. In October 2007, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics tested 33 popular brands of lipsticks at an independent lab for lead content. The results: 61 percent of lipsticks contained lead, with levels ranging up to 0.65 parts per million. Lead-contaminated brands included L’Oreal, Cover Girl and even a $24 tube of Dior Addict. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration promised it would conduct an investigation, but dragged its feet in doing so. It took nearly two years, pressure from consumers and a letter from three U.S. Senators, but in 2009 the FDA released a follow-up study that found lead in all samples of lipstick it tested, at levels ranging from 0.09 to 3.06 ppm – levels four times higher than the levels found in the Campaign study. FDA found the highest lead levels in lipsticks made by three manufacturers: Procter & Gamble (Cover Girl brand), L’Oreal (L’Oreal, Body Shop and Maybelline brands) and Revlon. Yet FDA has thus far failed to take action to protect consumers. Breaking news: An expanded FDA study has found lead in hundreds of lipsticks at levels up to 7.19 ppm. Five of the 10 most lead-contaminated brands in the FDA study are made by L’Oreal USA. See the brands FDA tested here. No Safe Dose  The recent science indicates there is no safe level of lead exposure. “Lead builds up in the body over time and lead-containing lipstick applied several times a day, every day, can add up to significant exposure levels. The latest studies show there is no safe level of lead exposure,” according to Mark Mitchell, MD, MPH, policy advisor of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice and co-chair of the Environmental Health Task Force for the National Medical Association. “Lead...

The poorer your sleep, the more likely you may be to develop Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study. “We found that if people had a lot of awakenings during the night, more than five awakenings in an hour, they are more likely to have preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,” says researcher Yo-El Ju, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease is the term given to people who have normal mental skills but show brain changes associated with the degenerative disorder. Ju is due to present her findings on sleep problems and Alzheimer’s disease in April at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in New Orleans.  to read this article in its entirety on WebMed, click...

A link between memory loss and a high calorie diet has been suggested by researchers in the US. They were investigating mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can be an early sign of dementia. Research, presented at a conference, claimed a high calorie diet was linked to having twice the risk of MCI, compared with a low calorie diet. Alzheimer’s Research UK said a healthy lifestyle was known to help protect against dementia. Mild cognitive impairment has become increasingly interesting to researchers as it may help predict who will go on to develop dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. A team at the Mayo Clinic in the US has investigated the effect of diet in 1,233 people aged between 70 and 89. None had dementia, but 163 were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. Doubling The patients were divided into low calorie intake (600 to 1,526 calories a day), middle (1,526 to 2,142.5) and high (2,142.5 to 6,000) and the incidence of mild cognitive impairment was compared. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. They showed no difference in the low and middle groups, however, the high intake group had more than double the incidence of MCI. Researcher Dr Yonas Geda said: “We observed a dose-response pattern which simply means; the higher the amount of calories consumed each day, the higher the risk of MCI.” The study cannot say that a high calorie diet causes MCI, people who are cognitively impaired could end up eating more food or there could be another factor involved which increases the risk of both. It has also not yet been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. But Dr Geda did suggest there was potential for therapy: “Cutting calories and eating foods that make up a...

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice. The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at “unprecedented” speed. Tests also showed an improvement in some brain function. Specialists said the results were promising, but warned that successful drugs in mice often failed to work in people. The exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, but one of the leading theories involves the formation of clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid. These damage and kill brain cells, eventually resulting in memory problems and the inability to think clearly. Clearing protein plaques is a major focus of Alzheimer’s research and drugs are already being tested in human clinical trials. Read the rest of this BBC News item...

Click here to see WebMD’s Visual Guide to Heart Disease. February is Heart Month....

Bread and rolls are the No. 1 source of sodium in the American diet, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Salty snacks like chips and pretzels come in at No. 10. The finding seems unlikely, since bread isn’t actually saltier than chips or many of the other foods on the list. But Americans tend to eat more bread and rolls, compared with other foods. Overall, the report found, Americans are over-consuming sodium in a big way. The average American’s daily sodium intake was 3,266 mg a day, which far exceeds the government’s recommended daily limit of 2,300 mg. The limit is set lower, at 1,500 mg a day, for risk groups, including blacks, people over 51, and those with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — that’s about half the U.S. population. Nearly 90% of all Americans eat too much salt, which increases their chances of developing hypertension, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. The study found that 10 foods account for 44% of of all the sodium we eat. Broken down, they are: Bread and rolls, 7.4% Cold cuts/cured meats, 5.1% Pizza, 4.9% Fresh and processed poultry, 4.5% Soups, 4.3% Sandwiches like cheeseburgers, 4% Cheese, 3.8% Pasta dishes like spaghetti with meat sauce, 3.3% Meat dishes like meatloaf with tomato sauce, 3.2% Snacks, including chips, pretzels, popcorn and puffs, 3.1% The CDC report was based on food surveys conducted among 7,227 Americans, including more than 2,500 children and teens, in 2007-08. Participants were surveyed twice, about 3 to 10 days apart, and asked each time to recall what they had eaten in the previous 24 hours. The researchers then categorized the various foods and tallied their sodium content. Most participants reported eating foods from one or more...

Men who smoke tend to have a more rapid mental decline than men who do not smoke, a new study shows. But the findings did not reveal a similar link between smoking and mental decline in female smokers. Although the exact reason for the sex difference is unclear, one possibility is that women tend to smoke fewer cigarettes a day than men do and for fewer years. Other lifestyle habits, such as male smokers drinking more alcohol, may also account for some differences seen. In the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, scientists analyzed data from nearly 6,000 men and more than 2,100 women who were British civil servants. To evaluate their thinking abilities, participants were given their first mental assessment at midlife, an average age of 56. The assessment included five tests of memory, vocabulary, and reasoning (verbal and math) skills. Participants were retested two more times (every five years) over a decade. To determine volunteers’ smoking habits over a 25-year period, researchers looked at their then-current smoking status and past history, including whether they had quit or relapsed. Faster mental decline was seen in middle-age men who currently smoked than men who never...

London: The number of Britons dying of cardiac arrest has come down by half in eight years, a new study says. Helping people quit smoking and managing others with high blood pressure and high cholesterol contributed to the dipping numbers, said the study by the British Heart Foundation. Better hospital care for those who suffer a heart attack has also contributed to the drop, the Daily Express reported. Data from 2002 to 2010 showed the death rate fell by 50 percent in men and 53 percent in women. Experts, however, say there was still much to be done to slash the 83,000 heart attack deaths a year. “Too many still die from a cardiac arrest before medical help arrives,” said Peter Weissberg of the British Heart...

Every doctor makes mistakes. But, says physician Brian Goldman, medicine’s culture of denial (and shame) keeps doctors from ever talking about those mistakes, or using them to learn and improve. Telling stories from his own long practice, he calls on doctors to start talking about being...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:39am EST (Reuters) – The U.S. government has set a deadline of 2025 for finding an effective way to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease, an ambitious target considering there is no cure on the horizon and one that sets a firm deadline unlike previous campaigns against cancer or AIDS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF7iD0B8jWU A panel of Alzheimer’s experts this week has been fleshing out the first comprehensive plan by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to fight Alzheimer’s disease, an effort mandated by the National Alzheimer’s Project Act signed into law by President Barack Obama last year. The law called for the government to create a blueprint to beat Alzheimer’s but provided no new money for the effort. More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, a brain disease that causes dementia and affects primarily elderly people. Some experts estimate the disease costs the United States more than $170 billion annually to treat. click here to read the rest of this article.  ...

A study by the British Journal of Cancer has found eating processed meats such as bacon or sausage may increase a person’s risk of developing pancreatic cancer. The study, which pooled together 11 other studies involving 6,643 people with pancreatic cancer, suggests eating two strips of bacon a day, one hot dog, or a few slices of sausage or salami, increases pancreatic cancer risk by 19 per cent. The reason is that most processed meats (but not all) contain nitrites and possibly N-nitroso compounds which can induce pancreatic cancer in animals. Sodium nitrite is the most common of the nitrite family and is found in almost all brands of hot dogs, sausages, bologna, salami and similar processed meats. Hams and some bacons are not treated with nitrates. If you do eat processed meat, it is important to buy meats that are naturally cured or made from real ingredients, not chemicals. Previous research has linked consumption of both red and processed meat with colorectal cancer....

Intel Corp. is looking for ways to help famed British physicist Stephen Hawking reverse the slowing of his speech, according to a senior executive with the American chipmaker. Hawking was 21 when he was diagnosed Lou Gehrig’s disease, an incurable degenerative disorder that has left him almost completely paralyzed. While an infrared sensor attached to his glasses translates the pulses in his right cheek into words spoken by a voice synthesizer, the nerves in his face have deteriorated and those close to him say his rate of speech has slowed to about a word a minute. Speaking late Sunday on the sidelines of a conference celebrating Hawking’s 70th birthday in the English city of Cambridge, Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner said his company had a team in England to explore ways to help the celebrity scientist communicate more quickly. “This is a research project,” Rattner told The Associated Press, saying the team’s task was to gather data for further study. To read more of this article, click here. To learn more about Stephen Hawing, visit his website....

A Swedish study of more than 4,000 obese people treated at 500 health care centers and surgery departments found that those who had weight-loss surgery were less likely to subsequently suffer a heart attack than those treated with routine care such as advice on lifestyle changes. About half the patients had bariatric or weight-loss surgeries, most often stomach stapling. “Compared with usual care, bariatric surgery was associated with reduced number of cardiovascular deaths and lower incidence of cardiovascular events in obese adults,” wrote lead researcher Lars Sjostrom at the University of Gothenburg. The patents were followed for more than a decade, on average. Among the findings, researchers found that following surgery, patients were 30 percent less likely to have a first-time heart attack or stroke than non-surgery patients. And they were half as likely to die from it. You can read more about this study by clicking...

Americans spend an average of more than 65% of their time in their own home or others’ homes, the health impacts of indoor air pollution has remained elusive. Jennifer Logue, from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (California, USA), and colleagues combined disease incidence and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)-based health impact models to estimate the population average health costs related to chronic inhalation of air pollutants in U.S. residences. The team used disease impact models and incidence to identify those indoor air pollutants with the greatest impacts on health. Acrolein, formaldehyde, and small particles of particulates accounted for most of the negative effects from indoor air pollutants.  Formaldehyde and acrolein had the largest estimated number of annual DALYs lost per 100,000 people of all the various indoor pollutants considered, at 46 and 47, respectively. While the DALY losses associated with hospitalization were low for each pollutant, the estimated DALYs lost because of incidents of stroke, chronic bronchitis, and premature death related to PM(2.5) (fine particles in ambient air 2.5 micrometers or less in size) also was a contributor to the annual health impact, with the central estimate for disability adjusted life years lost due to all indoor air pollutants as 1,100 per 100,000 people. Read more about this here.  ...

There have been many studies showing the correlation between a healthy brain and high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Your grandma probably told you, “eat your fish, it is good for your brain.” A new study published in the December 28 issue of Neurology is unique, however, because researchers measure nutrient biomarkers in the blood….testing for omega-3 and other vitamin levels including B, C, D and E. Previous studies have used data from diet questionnaires. The paper’s first author is Dr Gene Bowman from the Departments of Neurology and Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. He and his colleagues describe three sets of findings: Elderly people with diets high in several vitamins or omega 3 fatty acids were less likely to have the brain shrinkage that usually accompanies Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets were low in those nutrients. Those whose diets were high in omega 3 fatty acids and in vitamins C, D, E and the B vitamins were also more likely to score better on tests of mental ability than those whose diets were low in those nutrients. Those whose diets were high in trans fats were more likely to have brain shrinkage and perform less well on thinking and memory tests than those whose diets were low in trans fats. For the study, Bowman and colleagues recruited 104 elderly people of average age 87 who had few risk factors for impaired memory and thinking. From participants’ blood tests the researchers measured 30 different nutrient biomarkers. All the participants also completed tests of memory and thinking, while 42 of them also underwent MRI scans that measured their brain volume. The results showed that overall the participants’...

Scanning the Science section of Today’s paper, I read the above headline. My god, I thought, how could this be happening already and how could I not know about it? Looking closer, I spotted a small “eyebrow line” (old newspaper lingo) above the headline that said in light bold type “MALARIA.” Thus, instead of getting excited I felt a bit depressed. I suppose a decline of 25% in malaria deaths is a good thing, but for me the glass is half empty. I would have thought by now Malaria had been virtually eradicated, yet in 2010 some 655,000 people, mostly children, died from this mosquito-borne infection.  The problem comes down to money, of course. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria raises $2 billion a year, but it really needs $6 billion. $6 billion may seem like a lot of money. But to put this in perspective, $6 billion is what is costs to fight the war in Afghanistan for 3 weeks! If you want to do something about Malaria, you can! Just make a donation to Nothing But Nets. For $10 they will send an insecticide-treated mosquito net to an endangered adult or child and they will provide instructions on proper use. Mosquito nets are good for about three years and then they need to be replaced so make a habit of donating on a regular basis. You can make a difference! Related: Insect and Disinfectant...