A new study has found that "survivors of severe cases of food-borne illnesses can suffer lifelong health problems." Tanya Roberts, a board chairwoman of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention tracked five major pathogens which "can cause paralysis, kidney failure, heart infections, neurological problems, and, in children, mental retardation, according to a white paper co-authored by Roberts that the center released Thursday." The group "is a member of the Make Our Food Safe coalition, which is pressing Congress to pass legislation by the end of this year that would strengthen the Food and Drug Administration's power to police domestic and imported food."
Recently in research Category
Patients who die in the hospital in the United States are almost five times as likely to have spent part of their last hospital stay in the ICU than patients in England. What's more, over the age of 85, ICU usage among terminal patients is eight times higher in the US than in England, according to new research that compared the two countries' use of intensive care services during final hospitalizations.
Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington. Half of the schools were randomly assigned to the experimental intervention; teens in these schools were invited to take part in confidential, personalized telephone counseling designed to help motivate them to quit. COMMENT. Despite the praise for the study, the difference in quit rates for test and control groups was only 4%. This was despite a highly intensive effort. No Cost[benefit analysis was done but it is highly unlikely for the process to work in the general population because of cost.
ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2009) — A person, usually a child, dies of rabies every 20 minutes. However, only one inoculation may be all it takes for rabies vaccination, according to new research published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases by researchers at the Jefferson Vaccine Center.
According to a recent study by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder, dirty showerheads in homes may well be a potential breeding ground for infectious bacteria - Mycobacterium avium, which can cause lung infections when inhaled or swallowed. The study, funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is part of a larger effort that is analyzing the microbiology of the indoor environment and its role in spreading to illness within the house. Comment: BUT, what evidence is there that people have been made ill by taking a shower? This seems to be an example of money looking for a spending source. In a depressed economy it is this kind of research that makes academics look bad, It is certainly not a random sample of homes in the US. Ivan Illich would have loved this action.
In a study published in the current online edition of the journal Human Brain Mapping, senior author Paul Thompson, a UCLA professor of neurology, lead author Cyrus A. Raji, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and their colleagues compared the brains of elderly people who were obese, overweight and of normal weight to see if they had differences in brain structure — that is, if their brains looked equally healthy. They found that obese individuals had, on average, 8 percent less brain tissue than people of normal weight, while overweight people had 4 percent less tissue.
Scientists have used a new production technology to develop a vaccine for norovirus, the unpleasant package of diarrhea and vomiting that has destroyed the costly holidays of thousands of cruise ship vacationers. Norovirus is the second most common viral infection in the U.S. after the flu, “can spread like wildfire through passenger liners, schools, offices and military bases.”
The September 2009 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports the results of 3 human studies designed to better delineate the relation between animal foods and breast cancer risk. "These studies highlight two very important points," said American Society for Nutrition Spokesperson Shelley McGuire, PhD. "First we all need to remember that there are really no such things as 'bad' foods. Second, observational studies that show associations between diet and health need to be considered with a proverbial grain of salt. These studies clearly provide additional and strong evidence that consumption of meat and dairy products by women does not, by itself, increase breast cancer risk. Further, moderate and mindful consumption of these foods can be very important in attaining optimal nutrition for most women who often do not consume sufficient iron and calcium."
Harvard scientists, alongside researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, "analyzed data from two large ongoing studies, the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study." In total, they looked at data on "nearly 1,300 people with colorectal cancer who'd been followed for an average of 12 years. All the patients in the study had surgery for colon cancer and many also had chemotherapy." The editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Daniel G. Haller, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center, says that "they (the data) are not persuasive because, as observational studies, they do not rise to the level needed to change guidelines," Comment: This will lead to the newest fad in use of aspirin which has many side effects, including spontaneous bleeding.
The Los Angeles Times reports, "If people would just do four things -- engage in regular physical activity, eat a healthy diet, not smoke, and avoid becoming obese -- they could slash their risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke or cancer by 80 percent," CDC researchers found. "But less than 10 percent of the 23,153 people in the multiyear study -- published in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine -- actually lived their lives this way." Further participants "who followed all four lifestyle factors had a 78 percent lower risk of developing a chronic disease than those with no healthy factors.” Comment: Ts is not much different to the Alameda Study on lifestyles published 35 years ago by Anne Somers et al, where they pinpointed nine behaviors, that if followed ensured 11 years extra quality life. Unfortunately the knowledge about behaviors has not translated into change, Behavioral Medicine, like Economics, is a “Dismal Science” The major problem is that most people do not want some government agency to tell them how to live. Further just as with other addiction than food, such as tobacco and alcohol, long term change is rare...
