Idea Lab - The Worm Turns - Curing Diseases With Parasites? - Idea Lab - NYTimes.com
Topic: Health and Wellness
9:14 am EDT, Jun 30, 2008
As Weinstock considered the I.B.D. puzzle, he wondered if immune manipulation by worms could incidentally protect against other diseases.
Comparison of the prevalence of I.B.D. and surveys of worm-infestation rates revealed a telling pattern. About 10 years after improved hygiene and deworming efforts reduced worms in a given population, I.B.D. rates jumped. Weinstock had his hypothesis: after a long coevolution, the human immune system came to depend on the worms for proper functioning. When cleaner conditions and new medicines evicted the worms from our bodies, the immune system went out of kilter. “Hygiene has made our lives better,” says Weinstock, now at Tufts University. “But in the process of eliminating exposure to the 10 or 20 things that can make us sick, we’re also eliminating exposure to things that make us well.” nullnull
Weinstock spotted a prime candidate on pig farms. Pig farmers are chronically exposed to Trichuris suis, the pig whipworm, and tolerate it with no apparent side effects. (This is not the potentially dangerous worm found in undercooked pork.)
In 2005, he published results from two human studies. After ingesting 2,500 microscopic T. suis eggs at 3-week intervals for 24 weeks, 23 of 29 Crohn’s patients responded positively. (Crohn’s disease belongs to the I.B.D. family, which also includes ulcerative colitis.) Twenty-one went into complete remission. In the second study, 13 of 30 ulcerative colitis patients improved compared with 4 in the 24-person placebo group.<
Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good Life
Topic: Health and Wellness
10:10 am EDT, Apr 14, 2008
This report on the attitudes and lives of the American middle class combines results of a new Pew Research Center national public opinion survey with the center's analysis of relevant economic and demographic trend data from the Census Bureau. Among its key findings:
Fewer Americans now than at any time in the past half century believe they're moving forward in life.
For decades, middle-income Americans had been making absolute progress while enduring relative decline. But since 1999, they have not made economic gains.
About half of all Americans think of themselves as middle class. They are a varied lot.
For the past two decades middle-income Americans have been spending more and borrowing more. Housing has been the key driver of both trends.
At a time when these borrow-and-spend habits have spread, Americans say it has become harder to sustain a middle-class lifestyle.
Economic, demographic, technological and sociological changes since 1970 have moved some groups up the income ladder and pushed others down.
Most middle class adults agree with the old saw that the Republican Party favors the rich while the Democratic Party favors the middle class and the poor.
Oh, the things that get posted to Memestreams that you miss and then happen upon while drunk and trying to dig up a link you forgot. Be sure to watch the replies...
Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers - health - 17 January 2007 - New Scientist
Topic: Health and Wellness
2:18 pm EST, Jan 17, 2007
It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.
It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
RE: Rape victim: 'Morning after' pill denied | The Arizona Daily Star
Topic: Health and Wellness
10:09 am EDT, Oct 25, 2005
Mike the Usurper wrote:
When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.
But if I go to a non-kosher butcher for bacon (which they have) and get told, "No, I won't give you bacon because it's against my religion," then that person is working in the wrong place.
I hate pharmacists. They get paid a professional salary to operate a cash register and hand me a box (which usually takes about 20 minutes). Pharmacists are not needed anymore. There are cheaper ways to ensure that people get the drugs they are supposed to get. Those that want personal assistance with the drugs should pay for it, rather then forcing the rest of us to prop up this beaurocratic niche in the midst of skyrocketing healthcare costs. I do not think it ought to be legal for a pharmacists to refuse to fill a perscription for personal reasons. Thats between me and my doctor. This is not the only context in which I have seen this kind of thing occur. Pharmacists should not be empowered to exercise their personal whims over people's healthcare.
Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod
Topic: Health and Wellness
1:32 pm EDT, Jul 12, 2005
Last year, Mr. King was referred to Dr. Victor Aziz, a psychiatrist at St. Cadoc's Hospital in Wales. Dr. Aziz explained to him that there was a name for his experience: musical hallucinations.
