White Matter Defects May Lead to Schizophrenia

HealthDay News) -- Defects in the brain's white matter, which is responsible for communication between parts of the brain, may be a key genetic factor contributing to schizophrenia, a new study suggests.

"This is the first clear demonstration of a new mechanism by which aspects of schizophrenia and other disorders could be produced," said study senior author Gabriel Corfas, an associate professor of neurology and otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School.

"On the one hand, this may help us to understand and start thinking about novel treatment strategies," added Corfas, a member of the neurobiology program at Children's Hospital Boston. "Secondly, this may help in early detection and, nowadays, we know that this is critical."
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What Do 300 Calorie Meals Look Like?

Here is a selection of meals that are in the 300-400 Calorie range. The visual representation gives an idea of portion size.

Breakfast - 290 Calories
1 whole wheat English muffin
2 pats low fat butter
1 hard boiled egg
1/2 cup of fruit
8 oz fruit juice
8 oz water
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What Everyone Ought to Know About Parasites

Recently my 3 year old son developed a raised circular patch of skin on his foot. We thought it may be ringworm or some other form of parasite which prompted this research. Below you’ll find pictures, symptoms, and cures for the 5 most common parasites that can infect humans.

Hookworms

On the left we have a head shot of a hookworm. On the right we have a ring worm feasting on your intestines. Hookworms enter through the skin and migrate through the bloodstream to the lungs and intestines. The also may be ingested through contaminated food or water. You may have itchiness or redness where the larvae penetrate the skin (most likely your feet). If they make it undetected into your system you may have a dry cough, blood-tinged septum, wheezing, and a low grade fever. If the larvae make it all the way to your intestines they’ll begin sucking blood at which point you’ll lose your appetite, experience ‘knife-in-the-butt”, and most likely double over in abdominal pain, not to mention anemia. Get to the doctor ASAP and he’ll prescribe medicine that will kill the hookworms in about 3 days. It could take up to 3 months for the anemia to resolve itself.
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Moving Your Eyes Improves Memory, Study Suggests

If you’re looking for a quick memory fix, move your eyes from side-to-side for 30 seconds, researchers say.

Horizontal eye movements are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more with one another, and communication between brain hemispheres is important for retrieving certain types of memories.

Previous studies have suggested that horizontal eye movements improve how well people recall specific words they have just seen. But Andrew Parker and his colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University in England wanted to know whether such eye movements might also help people recognize words they have just seen.
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The Road to Weight Loss

Vitals: Andrew Staton, 34, Rehoboth Beach, DE

Occupation: Real-estate agent

Weight before: 317

Height: 5'9"

Time required to reach goal: 5 years

Weight after: 173

Lesson learned: Diet isn't a short-term regimen, it's a lifestyle.

Inspired tip: Win your personal battles, and your professional ones become easier.


The Gain
Staton never knew what it was like to be athletic. "I was a fat kid, a fat teenager, and a fat adult," he says. He passed the 300-pound mark after college, as his career took off and his activity level plummeted. That's when Staton realized his weight was holding him down professionally, too.

The Change
Staton remembers the day he took control of his weight: April 1, 2000. "I just woke up and thought, I'm going to get ahold of my life," he says. Staton halved his calorie intake, hit the elliptical trainer for an hour a day, 6 days a week, and watched the first 60 pounds melt away. He soon moved his workouts from the gym to the road, and just 7 months later, ran his first 10-K. In October 2001, Staton completed the Marine Corps Marathon. "When people notice your weight loss, it gives you a high that drives you forward," he says.
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Cool Whip

Water
It's the main ingredient. But like any whipped product, Cool Whip contains a high percentage of air. At 41 cents per ounce, you're buying mostly water and air for just over twice what it would cost to whip real cream yourself.

Natural and Artificial Flavorings
Cool Whip doesn't really taste like much, but Kraft's recipe for blandness is a trade secret. That means the company doesn't have to disclose the specific flavorings.

Corn Syrup and High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Sugar by other names. Corn syrup is mostly glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is corn syrup treated with amylase and other enzymes, which together help convert glucose into fructose. A diet high in fructose is known to make lab mice fatter than other diets, so keep your research animals away from Cool Whip.
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Study: Fat workers cost employers more

CHICAGO - Overweight workers cost their bosses more in injury claims than their lean colleagues, suggests a study that found the heaviest employees had twice the rate of workers' compensation claims as their fit co-workers.

Obesity experts said they hope the study will convince employers to invest in programs to help fight obesity. One employment attorney warned companies that treating fat workers differently could lead to discrimination complaints.

Duke University researchers also found that the fattest workers had 13 times more lost workdays due to work-related injuries, and their medical claims for those injuries were seven times higher than their fit co-workers.
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Study: Breast-feeding won't deter obesity

ATLANTA - While breast-feeding has many benefits, it won't prevent a child from becoming fat as an adult, says a new study that challenges dogma from U.S. health officials.

The research is the largest study to date on breast-feeding and its effect on adult obesity.

"I'm the first to say breast-feeding is good. But I don't think it's the solution to reducing childhood or adult obesity," said the study's lead author, Karin Michels of Harvard Medical School.
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Study doesn't back abortion-cancer link

CHICAGO - A Harvard study released Monday supports earlier findings by a panel of experts that having an abortion doesn't increase a woman's risk of getting breast cancer.

However, this latest analysis isn't likely to convince all those opposed to abortion. Three states — Texas, Minnesota and Mississippi — require doctors to warn women seeking abortions of the purported link to breast cancer "when medically accurate," letting doctors make that determination based on current scientific evidence.
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Study sees major depression connection to diabetes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Elderly people who are depressed are more likely to become diabetic than those who are not, according to a study that suggests depression may play a role in causing the most common form of diabetes.

Writing on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers said people with a high number of symptoms of depression were about 60 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, than people not considered depressed.

Unlike some other studies examining a link between depression and diabetes, this one looked at the effects not only of single bouts of depression but also of chronic depression and depression that worsened over time. It found an increased risk for diabetes in each of those scenarios.
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Study sees major depression connection to diabetes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Elderly people who are depressed are more likely to become diabetic than those who are not, according to a study that suggests depression may play a role in causing the most common form of diabetes.

Writing on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers said people with a high number of symptoms of depression were about 60 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, than people not considered depressed.

Unlike some other studies examining a link between depression and diabetes, this one looked at the effects not only of single bouts of depression but also of chronic depression and depression that worsened over time. It found an increased risk for diabetes in each of those scenarios.
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Dietary patterns linked to type 2 diabetes risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Avoiding meats and fatty foods and eating lots of salads and cooked vegetables appears to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to study findings published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Dr. Allison Hodge, of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues examined the association between dietary patterns and type 2 diabetes in a 4-year study of 36,787 adults in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort who provided dietary information. During follow-up, 365 new cases of type 2 diabetes were diagnosed.
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God DOES Answer Your Prayers

According to a new, comprehensive analysis of 17 major studies on the effects of intercessory prayer -- prayer that is offered for the benefit of another person -- there is a positive effect for people with both medical and psychological problems.

Some individual studies have found positive results, while others have shown no effect. A meta-analysis of all studies allowed researchers to take into account the entire body of research.

When the effects of prayer were averaged across all 17 studies, controlling for differences in sample sizes, there was a net positive effect on the group being prayed for.
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Extract may help treat bladder infection

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer
Sun Apr 8, 10:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON - An herbal extract that is sold in health food stores and promoted as an allergy and fat loss aid may improve treatment of bladder infections when it is taken with antibiotics, research suggests.

Some 90 percent of bladder infections are caused by E. coli bacteria. They affect women four times more often than men, sometimes recurring over and over.

The bladder is lined with small pouches that allow it to stretch as it fills. Researchers at Duke University reported in Sunday's online edition of Nature Medicine that some bacteria were able to hide in those pouches, escaping the antibiotics used to treat the infection.
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Is bottled water really better than tap?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Bottled water is not necessarily healthier or safer than tap water, Tampa, Florida-based sports nutritionist Cynthia Sass told the American College of Sports Medicine 11th annual Health & Fitness Summit in Dallas.

Twenty-five percent of all bottled water is actually repackaged tap water, according to Sass.

"Bottled water doesn't deserve the nutritional halo that most people give it for being pure," she says. "If you're not an exclusive bottled water drinker, you may find it worthwhile to check into filtering your tap water to save money."
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Most Americans don't eat smart and exercise: CDC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Only one in seven Americans exercises enough and eats enough fruits and vegetables, and men are worse than women, federal health officials said on Thursday.

"These results underscore the need to promote diets high in fruits and vegetables and regular physical activity among all populations in the United States and among racial and ethnic minority communities in particular," U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said in a report.

The CDC tracked the percentage of Americans who eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily and engage in moderately intense exercise for at least 30 minutes five days per week or vigorous exercise for at least 20 minutes three days per week as recommended by the government.
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Do Right-Handed People Live Longer Than Left-Handed People?

Do right-handed people live longer than left-handed people? If so, why?

There’s always been something sinister about being left-handed. But shorter life spans? That’s downright creepy. The notion apparently sprang from a Canadian psychologist named Stanley Coren, who declared in his 1992 book, The Left-Handed Syndrome, that left-handers, on average, lived about a decade less than right-handers do.
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Superfoods: The Next Frontier

Superfoods: The Next Frontier

Had it up to here with broccoli? Join the club. But it's hard to take it off the menu when it's such a great source of vitamins and minerals. Still, is a little variety too much to ask?
Not anymore, thanks to research that's shifting the spotlight to a new generation of health-boosting foods--many of which do double or triple duty to help prevent illness. Here are six on the brink of superstar status.
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10 Foods Tough to Digest

Fried chicken nuggets

Anytime you take a food, dip it in batter and then deep fry it, you turn it into something that can be a bit hard on the gut. Fried foods inevitably are greasy and high in fat, both of which spell trouble for the stomach. If you already suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, greasy foods are especially problematic and can cause symptoms like nausea and diarrhea, says Tara Gidus, a dietitian in Orlando, Fla...more

Rising number of Japan's kids have weight problem

TOKYO (Reuters) - A growing number of Japanese children have weight problems that could set them up for health problems later in life, and standards must be set to deal with the issue, researchers said on Monday.


The Japanese are among the longest-lived people in the world, a phenomenon many attribute to a healthy diet. But health officials say millions of Japanese men and women now suffer from metabolic syndrome, a combination of medical disorders that raises the risk of heart disease and other problems...more

Pregnant moms' weight affects toddlers

NEW YORK - The standard advice for how much weight a woman should gain during pregnancy may need to change, according to a rigorous and provocative study suggesting that even accepted weight gains may raise the risk of having an overweight toddler.
Women in the study who gained the recommended amount of weight ran four times the risk of having a child who was overweight at age 3, compared to women who gained less than the advised amount.
The outcome was about the same for women who gained more than the advisable amount.
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Obesity boosts prostate cancer mortality

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obese men diagnosed with prostate cancer are more than twice as likely to die of the disease than their leaner peers, a new study shows.
They also have more than triple the risk that the cancer will spread beyond their prostate gland, Dr. Alan R. Kristal of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and colleagues found.

"These results provide yet one more important reason for men to adopt healthful patterns of diet and physical activity to achieve and maintain a normal weight," Kristal and his team conclude in the medical journal Cancer.
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Soda-Swillers

MANY STUDIES HAVE linked the consumption of non-diet soda and fruit juices with added sugars to obesity and attendant risks of diabetes. But now a new study of more than 50,000 U.S. nurses dramatically points up these connections and should encourage the efforts of groups seeking to ban in-school sales of such drinks. As in the past, the sugar and soft-drink industries are in a swirl, arguing that all sorts of other factors are contributing to obesity and diabetes ...more

Why should people with diabetes check their feet regularly?

Diabetes can impair both blood flow and nerve sensitivity in the feet. Poor circulation means that tiny cuts, ulcerations, cracks in the skin, or other minor injuries can become infected, and because of poor nerve functioning, a person with diabetes may not notice. Untreated infections can progress so quickly that the foot or lower leg may have to be amputated. There were nearly 82,000 such amputations among diabetics in 2002 alone, according to the National Diabetes Education Program, part of the National Institutes of Health.
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