There are strange infections – and even stranger ones because we never thought they were virally transmitted and coming from bacteria, instead of just resulting from unhealthy lifestyle, genetics, or ageing. ‘A growing number of diseases that were thought to be down to genetics or lifestyle turn out to have an infectious origin.’ For starters, stomach ulcers were thought to be triggered by stress. In the 1980s, many such cases were found to have been caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori.

Here are some more surprises (and alarming alerts):

Some stomach bugs can bring about diabetes. Animal feces are a definite source of germs and bacteria that can bring about a myriad of diseases. ‘A parasite that lurks in cat faeces could be linked with schizophrenia.’

Breast cancer attributed to genes may only apply to 1 in 10 cases. The mouse mammary tumor virus may also cause the dreaded disease. Better screening techniques could be developed to confirm or negate the theory that prostate cancer is linked to a certain kind of infection.

Obesity, long held as caused by an unfortunate possession of a fat-retaining gene or by eating too much of the wrong foods, may possibly be caused by the ‘wrong kind of cold.’ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, long thought to be caused by genes or a bad childhood, may also be triggered by infections.

Via NewScientist

Bisphenol A (BPA) is practically everywhere: in CDs, many food and soda containers, bottled water containers, baby bottles, as well as many plastics. It has become ubiquitous that most people have already taken its existence for granted.

Harvard School of Public Health researchers have recently confirmed that ‘college kids who drank from polycarbonate bottles showed a two-thirds increase of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine.’ The potentially harmful chemical has already been banned in Canada. However, ‘no study has convincingly shown adverse effects from BPA on human health.’ But it still remains that the recommended daily allowance for BPA is zero.

Where lies the health threat? ‘BPA is an endocrine-disruptor that can initiate early onset of sexual maturation. It also might be associated with heart disease and diabetes. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) ranks this chemical as posing “some concern” for adverse effects on brain development for fetuses, infants and children; “minimal concern” for early puberty; and “negligible concern” for the reproductive health of adults.’

The Harvard study is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA. Another study, coming from the University of Rochester, reveals that ‘BPA lingered in the body for longer than the expected half-life of just a few hours. This may be indication that BPA is lodging itself in fat tissue.’

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Via Live Science

A person’s temperament can have impact on his or her physical health. According to Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center, “The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that’s been around for a long time. We’re just now getting a handle on to what extent they do.” Fact is mental health affects physical health. There are deadly mental attitudes that impact a person’s state of bodily health.

Cynicism, the tendency to be suspicious and mistrustful of others, increases the risk of developing heart disease in a person. Hostile individuals tend to be under more stress, and this in turn ‘can cause spikes in an immune-system protein called C3 that has been linked with various diseases, including diabetes.’

A person who lacks a sense of purpose or meaning in life has his physical health in danger. On the other hand, purposeful and motivated individuals ‘readily derive meaning from and make sense of the events of their lives, and likely engage in behaviors and activities that they deem important.’

Fretful people who are constantly worried and anxious are said to be highly-neurotic, and are prone to depression. Also, they have most likely taken up the destructive habit of smoking.

Those who are more conscientious, organized, and self-disciplined live longer than those who lack self-control and are impulsive. Conscientious individuals are less likely to smoke, drink, or lead stressful lives.

Anxiety kills, literally. The risk of dementia was found to be 50 percent lower for calm people with mellow demeanor than with those who are frazzled and prone to distress. Dementia can be caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses.

People ‘suffering from peripheral arterial disease (plaque buildup in the arteries) with so-called type D, or distressed, personality, have increased odds of dying sooner than other people. Type-D people are more likely to experience negative emotions while at the same time hold in their feelings.’ These are the gloomy and inhibited people who always doom themselves to doom.

Highly-stressed people are ‘nearly twice as likely as others to develop type 2 diabetes, in which a person’s body becomes resistant to the sugar-regulating hormone called insulin.’ They are under severe mental strain.

Via Live Science

In New York, there is a campaign war against soda and other sweetened drinks. The city’s health department has launched ‘a public-awareness campaign, which includes posters in the subway system and a multilingual Health Bulletin’ that began on the end of August and will run for three months.

The new campaign asks New Yorkers if they’re “Pouring On the Pounds.” Highlighting the health impact of sweetened drinks, this is the Health Department’s tactic ‘to encourage consumers to choose beverages with less sugar.’

Says New York City Health Commissioner Thomas A. Farley, “Sugary drinks shouldn’t be a part of our everyday diet. Drinking beverages loaded with sugars increases the risk of obesity and associated problems, particularly diabetes but also heart disease, stroke, arthritis and cancer.”

This war on soda is explosive since soft drinks are part of everyday life in metropolitan areas such as New York. The situation must be really bad for the city to slam head on against the soda industry. The health and diet statistics may have been enough reason to launch such a campaign: ‘On average, Americans now consume 200 to 300 more calories each day than we did 30 years ago. Nearly half of these extra calories come from sugar-sweetened drinks. When Health Department researchers surveyed adult New Yorkers about their consumption of soda and other sweetened drinks, the findings showed that more than 2 million drink at least one sugar-sweetened soda or other sweetened beverage each day – at as much as 250 calories a pop. Daily consumption was highest among Bronx residents, followed by residents of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Sweetened-beverage consumption is higher among men than among women, and especially prevalent among 18- to 44-year-olds and among adult blacks and Hispanics.’

Desperate times need desperate measures, hence.

The citizens of New York are confronted with a visual of a soda, cola, sports and energy drink, or sweetened iced tea being poured into a glass. What gets poured are gooey, yucky blobs of fat, the kind that is suctioned off during a liposuction procedure, thereby evoking images of obesity. The cautionary reminder goes: “Don’t drink yourself fat” with these high-calorie beverages.

Via The New York Times

A recent study entitled Optimism, Cynical Hostility, and Incident Coronary Heart Disease and Mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative, published in the journal Circulation, argues that optimism as applied philosophy of life is a protective shield for women against heart disease and other disorders, even to the extent of reducing female mortality.

The research conducted through a sample of 97,253 postmenopausal women (89,259 white and 7994 black, aged between 50 and 79 years, free of cancer and cardiovascular disease), reveals that positive attitude reduces risk of coronary disorder among postmenopausal women.

The research team was headed by Hilary A. Tindle, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in the US. The authors used two specialized questionnaires that determined the ‘life orientation’ with which the participants were faced with on a day to day basis.

According to Tindle, “This study represents a key step for future research in this area, both on how attitudes can affect health in the conduct of randomized controlled trials to examine whether attitudes can be modified to improve health.”

The findings reveal that optimistic women showed less proneness to diabetes and hypertension, cholesterol and depressive symptoms, and also showed a lower incidence of risk factors and behaviors such as smoking, sedentary lifestyle, or high body mass index.

The study proves the inverse relationship between optimism and coronary heart disease as risk of death.

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Via Circulation

Obesity and diabetes are raging concerns in the oil-rich Gulf monarchies. A combination of diet with too many calories and sedentary lifestyle has brought about the disturbing reality. Authorities have come to realize the gravity of the situation and are now increasing awareness in the hope of appeasing the taste for foods high in calories served in restaurant chains that have proliferated in the region.

Young people are also encouraged to get into sports. In malls where people spend much of their free time in these countries, facilities for diabetes detection have been put up.

According to recent official statistics, 70 percent of adults and 12 percent of children in the UAE are overweight. A fifth of these overweight children are at risk of becoming diabetic. Of the six Gulf monarchies, Emirates is the country most affected. Statistical data from 2005 showed that 19.6 percent of the population suffered from diabetes, the second highest rate in the world. In fact, official statistics predict that if nothing is done to prevent this, the proportion of people in the country that will have diabetes by 2025 is 28 percent.

The remaining countries of the region are not far behind. In Qatar, 15 percent of the population has diabetes. In Bahrain, 14.3 percent are diabetes sufferers. The corresponding figure in Oman is 13 percent. In Saudi Arabia, 25 percent of those over 30 years of age have the disease.

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Via Gulf Daily News/HubPages

The term preexisting condition has always had a negative connotation because it prevents an ordinary citizen from availing timely and appropriate health insurance coverage or making him or her pay a hefty cost when coverage is acquired. Each insurance company can have its own arbitrary list of pre-existing conditions that can be excluded from the insurance coverage, such as pregnancy, obesity, arthritis, diabetes, and depression (Preexisting Conditions and Health Insurance).

Banning insurers from excluding pre-existing conditions from a person’s coverage has been one of the US Congress’ selected insurance reforms for over a decade now. It was such during a Republican-led Congress and will be the same in the now Democrat-led Congress. This reform is meant to move towards making a universal coverage of basic care.

Section 3, Article I of H. R. 2833, a bill filed in the 110th Congress, entitled ‘Preexisting Condition Exclusion Patient Protection Act of 2007,’ specifically states that “a health insurance issuer that provides individual health insurance coverage may not impose preexisting condition exclusion…” (Text of H.R.2833).

While insurance businesses have to make a profit, health care is a basic human right of all citizens of the country. Basic care should be universal. The duty of the US Congress is to protect patients. The mandate of legislators in a democracy is to ensure the welfare of the greater many, as well as safeguard the interest of their constituents. It is only expected of Congress to protect the population more than the business sector. Therefore, the US Congress should ban the use of pre-existing condition by insurance companies.

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Via Los Angeles Times/The New York Times

Scientists have recently linked the two pathologies of Alzheimer’s and diabetes. On one hand, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is increased by the onset of diabetes, particularly if it appears in a person before age 65. On the other, insulin which is a key hormone that lowers sugar levels in the blood would have a protective role in the connections between nerve cells involved in memory.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is characterized by the pathological accumulation of a protein called beta-amyloid. Other forms of dementia exist, resulting from diseases of the blood vessels in the brain. It seems that the vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, excessive cholesterol, and diabetes promote not only vascular dementia but also Alzheimer’s disease.

An American-Swedish team reports in the January issue of the journal Diabetes the results of a study conducted on more than 13,000 twins. The value of this type of research is to eliminate genetic factors. Of these twins, 467 had dementia, including 292 cases of Alzheimer’s disease, and nearly 1,400 were diabetic. The study reveals that “genetic and environmental factors could contribute to the association between diabetes and late-onset dementia, but the environment for adults (food and lifestyle) may be responsible for the association between diabetes in middle age and dementia.”

Another research that came out in the February 10 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests the possibility of a third type of diabetes where the action of insulin on the brain would be reduced, inter alia with age.

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Via vitabeat

If you were worried about having blood sugar not being normal or if you already have one of the two types of Diabetes, checking sugar levels consistently is something that is very important. It turns out you no longer have to go through unpleasant procedures to check your blood sugar levels.

All you would need to do is, get yourself a tattoo! Well, not a regular tattoo but get this tattoo made of Nano Ink and you could adjust your diet, your sugar level etc. The nano-ink blood sugar monitoring tattoo has been developed by draper Laboratories and the nano ink would allow the monitoring of blood sugar levels. It also uses glucose detecting molecule, colour changing dye, and glucose mimicking molecule.

It comes with colour codes and you would know when your blood sugar level is going up or down. It is not necessary to have a heart shaped tattoo and you could possibly have any tattoo you want. However, it is quite depressing to me at least to know that your tattoo is not about how well you rock, but how unwell you are!

Via: Techchee

Sugar has always been linked to brain impairments and now a study conducted by researchers has revealed that rising blood sugar could irreparably affect brains in ageing people. Sugar increase in the blood has been now linked to cognitive impairment and motor deficits both of which are related to degenerated brain. This means that blood sugar levels positively correlate with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other such neurological and degenerative diseases.

However, exercise has been found to help not only the aged but also those with high blood sugar levels. It may be almost necessary to make sure that people who have high blood sugar exercise well and that too regularly as it has been found that it could help in arresting the degeneration of the human brain.

If you are middle aged and have blood sugar, you must perhaps workout more. Even a light workout about 3 times a week with some cardiovascular exercises could limit the degeneration caused to the brain. On the contrary, strenuous exercise could lead to cardiac failure.

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Via: Health