Euthanasia on a Budget

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Britons flock to Mexico for euthanasia drug Britons are among hundreds of terminally ill people flocking to Mexico to buy a cheap, widely available euthanasia drug which is illegal in most countries. The lax controls on the drug's distribution has helped to make Mexico a macabre destination for euthanasia "tourists". At least 200 terminally ill people from Britain, Australia, the United States and New Zealand have visited Mexico in recent years to buy nembutal, a barbiturate usually used to put down animals. Exit International, an Australian pro-euthanasia group, said the drug was "widely, cheaply and legally available". Dr Phillip Nitschke, an Australian euthanasia advocate nicknamed Dr Death, has travelled to Mexico to advise Australians and New Zealanders about buying the drug. "They need to have access to the best information. You don't just swan into Mexico City or Tijuana and ask about nembutal," he told an Australian newspaper.

Gut hormone makes food look even yummier

"It has also been well established that ghrelin activates feeding through its effects on the hypothalamus, where ghrelin receptors are densely concentrated. However, ghrelin also has specific effects on many brain regions implicated in reward and motivation.

[After ghrelin infusion], food pictures become even more salient—people actually see them better. It influences not only visual processing, but also memory. People remembered the food pictures better when ghrelin was high.”"

clipped from www.eurekalert.org A gut hormone that causes people to eat more does so by making food appear more desirable, suggests a new report in the May issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. In a brain imaging study of individuals, the researchers found that reward centers respond more strongly to pictures of food in subjects who had received an infusion of the hormone known as ghrelin. The findings suggest that the two drives for feeding—metabolic signals and pleasure signals—are actually intertwined. “When you go to the supermarket hungry, every food looks better,” said Alain Dagher of the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University. “Your brain assigns a cost versus benefit to every food item. Now, we’ve found that it is ghrelin that acts on the brain to make food more appealing.” Ghrelin levels are known to rise before a meal and fall afterwards, suggesting that it causes hunger and encourages eating.

Canadian Study Finds Breastfed Babies Are Smarter

"“Even though the treatment difference appears causal, it remains unclear whether the observed cognitive benefits of breastfeeding are due to some constituents of breast milk or are related to the physical and social interactions inherent in breastfeeding.”

The ability of these children was tested by doctors and teachers who examined these kids on the basis of their performance in reading, writing, mathematics and other subjects. The children who were breastfeed for long run scored higher in all departments than the other kids.

... it helps the immune system of the baby to be much strong so that it could resist and fight out many diseases."

clipped from www.eontarionow.com Posted by admin in Health (Tuesday May 6, 2008 at 8:48 am) Toronto - It is very well known that breastfeeding is the main and very essential diet for young ones as it protects the child from various diseases and allergies. But recently a new study has found that breastfeeding helps the child to have a higher IQ level. This research has revealed a new and significant benefit of mother’s milk for the child. The recent Canadian study was conducted on 14,000 children also involving mothers who support breastfeeding in a long run and those mothers who don’t believe in long-term breastfeeding. The results of this study were remarkable, with children who were breastfeed for a long-term showing great intelligence than rest. Lead author Professor Michael Kramer said: “Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve children’s cognitive development.” The study appears in Archives of General Psychiatry.

Living with heart Arrhythmias

The advice and preventions of Arrhythmias

clipped from heartdiseaseadvice.info Heart Disease Advice    Expert Information And Advice On: Cardiovascular Disease, Metabolic Syndrome, Marfan Syndrome Reversing Heart Disease, Abnormal Heartbeats, Ischemic Cardiomyopathy Living with heart Arrhythmias Any arrhythmia that impairs the heart's ability to pump blood adequately is serious. How serious, depends in part on where the arrhythmia originates. Is it in the heart's normal pacemaker, in the atria, or in the ventricles? Generally, arrhythmias which originate in the ventricles are more serious than those that originate in the atria. These are more serious than those that originate in the pacemaker. However, there are many exceptions.

The five warning symptoms of a stroke are

clipped from www.webmd.com Sudden weakness or numbness of the arms, legs, or face, especially on one side. Sudden vision problem in one or both eyes. Sudden dizziness, loss of balance or coordination, or difficulty walking. Sudden confusion or trouble speaking. Sudden severe headache with no known cause.

Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep?

The good news is that, like all debt, with some work, sleep debt can be repaid—though it won't happen in one extended snooze marathon. Tacking on an extra hour or two of sleep a night is the way to catch up. For the chronically sleep deprived, take it easy for a few months to get back into a natural sleep pattern, says Lawrence J. Epstein, medical director of the Harvard-affiliated Sleep HealthCenters.
Go to bed when you are tired, and allow your body to wake you in the morning (no alarm clock allowed). You may find yourself catatonic in the beginning of the recovery cycle: Expect to bank upward of ten hours shut-eye per night. As the days pass, however, the amount of time sleeping will gradually decrease.

clipped from www.sciam.com Sleep debt is the difference between the amount of sleep you should be getting and the amount you actually get. It's a deficit that grows every time we skim some extra minutes off our nightly slumber. "People accumulate sleep debt surreptitiously," says psychiatrist William C. Dement, founder of the Stanford University Sleep Clinic. Studies show that such short-term sleep deprivation leads to a foggy brain, worsened vision, impaired driving, and trouble remembering. Long-term effects include obesity, insulin resistance, and heart disease. And most Americans suffer from chronic deprivation. on average, Americans sleep 6.9 hours per night—6.8 hours during the week and 7.4 hours on the weekends. Generally, experts recommend eight hours of sleep per night, although some people may require only six hours of sleep while others need ten. That means on average, we’re losing one hour of sleep each night—more than two full weeks of slumber every year.

clipped from earsringing.wetpaint.com Ear Ringing An ear ringing is a condition that must not be taken lightly. It can be a symptom of a serious problem that needs to be diagnosed immediately to prevent further complications to the problem. There is a need for an information drive to urge those who have ear ringing to seek for medical help to have the cause of their ear ringing diagnosed immediately. Only a few of those who have ear ringing only bother to visit their physician for a medical check up. Each case of ear ringing is characterized by a different type of noise that may be heard by the person experiencing the ear ringing. It appears as a humming, chirping, hissing, ringing, roaring, ticking or buzzing sound. Every person suffering from the same condition may then describe the noise differently and may hear the noise at different intensities.

Ringing of the Ears

clipped from www.squidoo.com Ringing of the Ears  A ringing of the ears may be a very common condition but most people do not easily recognize it as a problem especially during the onset of the condition. The person who experiences a mild ringing of the ears usually ignores the symptom that they have, as it does not really bother them at all. There are cases of a ringing of the ears, which are just temporary since it is caused only by a temporary partial hearing obstruction which can give a person a temporary partial hearing loss and which would cause the ringing of the ears. A very classic example of a partial hearing obstruction is one that is caused by impacted earwax. There are some people who ignore the problem that impacted earwax can bring to one's hearing and they fail to clean their ears regularly, causing the earwax to be deposited in the ears and be impacted.

clipped from tinnitustreatment.wetpaint.com Natural Tinnitus Treatments Tinnitus is a condition which may arise due to a medical problem in the ear, head or neck, but there is another type or tinnitus known as the pulsatile tinnitus which is believed to be caused by some fluid and arterial problems which can also bring about some problem in the ears. Natural tinnitus treatments are suggested treatments not only for the pulsatile type of tinnitus but also for the non-pulsatile type since there are instances when the tinnitus can be affected or aggravated by some factors in our environment and diet.

Brain game(s) can boost IQ

according to one group of brain doctors at the University of Michigan....see site for more info on games; cost of games, etc., not all games are free nor found on internet

clipped from tech.yahoo.com Brain game can boost IQ - Here's 5 new brain games to play now According to one group of brain doctors at the University of Michigan, at long last a mental exercise has been discovered that could really make you smarter. Literally, if the research is correct, the more you play and the harder you play it, the smarter you get. In tests, 20 minutes of daily training over a varying period of time led to "significantly" increased IQ vs. a control group, and the longer people played the game, the higher their IQ got. The study is of course contested for a variety of reasons: Primarily, that it was too small to be scientifically rigorous. But if it pans out, this is good news for people who want to improve their intelligence through video games, or at least help stave off the effects of old age with them. Lumosity (Web) Brain Challenge (Xbox Live Arcade) Rocky & Bullwinkle (Xbox Live Arcade) Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship (PSP) Wild Earth: African Safari (Wii)

Why hip fat is good, but pot bellies are bad

We all know this, but some of us like to be reminded that we need a bit there for illness.

clipped from www.newscientist.com Not all body fat is bad. Your body may store "good" fat and "bad" fat, similar to good and bad cholesterol. The finding could explain why liposuction has few health benefits. Researchers know that not all body fat is equal. The worst kind is excess fat on the internal organs, which causes a pot belly and is known as visceral fat. People with this are more likely to suffer from heart disease and insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes, than those who put on fat under their skin on their hips and thighs. But it was assumed that such subcutaneous fat was merely the lesser of two evils.

Doctor advises French countrymen to fart!

Guess its all part of a master plan. I suspect it will affect the French olfactory organs aimed at a progressive perfumes market to flourish locally as well!

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Throw caution to wind, France told A French doctor is urging his countrymen to give free rein to flatulence, sweating and other bodily taboos to reduce the risk of cancer. In his book, Le Grand Ménage (Spring cleaning), Frédéric Saldmann invites them to embrace the stereotypical British view of the French and to have a relaxed attitude to bodily functions. Dr Saldmann also recommends cutting down on chewing gum, never eating while walking and reducing the intake of fizzy drinks. Similarly, he says his countrymen should feel free to belch at will and certainly after each meal. This, he says, is the best way to reduce the risk of getting a hiatal hernia, an ailment which affects almost a third of French people. Keeping air in the stomach leads to more heartburn, which increases the risk of cancer of the oesophagus. The rise of this disease in France, he says, is due to "the burp that we no longer do".

Tantalizing questions about obesity

clipped from www.iht.com Every year, whether you are fat or thin, whether you lose weight or gain, 10 percent of your fat cells die. And every year, those cells that die are replaced with new fat cells, researchers in Sweden reported Sunday. The result is that the total number of fat cells in the body remains the same, year after year throughout adulthood. Losing or gaining weight affects only the amount of fat stored in the cells, not the number of cells. The finding was published online Sunday in the journal Nature. Obesity investigators say the study raises tantalizing questions: What determines how many fat cells are in a person's body? When is that number determined? Is there a way to intervene so people end up with fewer fat cells when they reach adulthood? Could obesity be treated by making fat cells die faster than they are born? "This is a new way of looking at obesity," said Lester Salans, an obesity researcher and emeritus professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

A Video Game That Helps Kids Fight Cancer

clipped from www.healthbolt.net Fighting cancer is no game. But thanks to HopeLab, there is a video game designed to help empower kids with cancer. The video game is Re-Mission and it features an intrepid nanobot called Roxxi who journeys through cancer patients bodies, destroying the cancer cells, fighting the infections, and dealing with the side effects usually associated with different cancers and cancer treatments. If you think it’s just another video game, think again. To ensure that Re-Mission was on track to help cancer suffers, a controlled research study was undertaken prior to the game’s release. 375 cancer patients between the ages of 13 and 29 from the United States, Australia, and Canada were recruited to test the games effectiveness. Here are the results… Young people who played Re-Mission maintained higher blood levels of chemotherapy and showed higher rates of antibiotic utilization than those in the control group.” Re-Mission is available free of charge to young people with cancer. View the tralier here