Those hard plastic bottles made of polycarbonate -- convenient and inexpensive -- do apparently let the controversial chemical bisphenol A leach out into the liquids being held, that much seems fairly clear.
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health decided to test the connection between the containers' use and urinary concentrations of bisphenol A, or BPA. For a week, 77 students participated in a "washout phase" in which they quaffed their cold beverages from stainless steel bottles. They then took part in the hard-core phase of the study in which they quaffed their beverages from polycarbonate bottles.
Urine samples were tested before the polycarbonate phase and afterward. Yep, the stuff showed up. And how. BPA concentrations rose 69% after the polycarbonate-container week.
The researchers wrote:
"Despite within-person variability resulting from other sources of BPA exposure, a measurable increase in urinary BPA resulted from only one week of exposure to beverages contained in polycarbonate bottles. Replication of this study in other populations may help to inform public health policy regarding the use of BPA in polycarbonate food and beverage containers."
Of course, what effect such exposure could have on long-term health is still the subject of considerable debate. And study.
Here's the easy-to-digest Harvard School of Public Health news release.
And here's the full study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
-- Tami Dennis
Photo: What you use to hold this stuff could affect the chemical makeup of your urine; the other potential effects are still being studied.
Thread-lifts -- less pricey kinds of face-lifts that tug the facial skin upward using implanted metal barbed threads -- don't work well and cannot be recommended, according to a study in the May/June Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery. Here's the abstract -- this is one of those journals that won't let you read the whole article unless you pay -- and here's a Reuters story on the study.
You can see why people have opted for the thread-lifts: they cost $1,500 to $4,500, according to the Consumer Guide to Plastic Surgery (www.yourplasticsurgeryguide.com). Face-lifts, according to the same site, cost $6,000 to $15,000.
In the small study of 33 patients, New York state researchers (using independent assessors) compared the results of three kinds of treatments: thread-lifts alone, other kinds of procedures such as fat injection and chemical peels, or thread-lifts plus those other kinds of procedures.
At one month, all three groups showed improvement. But when faces were assessed an average of 21 months on -- a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 31 months -- improvements persisted only in the groups who'd had nonsurgical treatments, plus or minus thread-lifts. Those who'd had thread-lifts alone showed no persistent improvement.
The authors' conclusion: thread-lift improvements probably relied only on temporary facial swelling. Once the swelling went away -- pretty much nada.
"Given these findings, as well as the measurable risk of adverse events and patient discomfort, we cannot justify further use of this procedure for facial rejuvenation," the authors concluded.
Technically, it's called hyperkyphosis; untechnically, it's called dowager's hump.
Whatever you call the condition -- an excessive forward curve of the upper spine often seen in elderly women -- it appears to be connected to a higher rate of earlier death in those who also have vertebral fractures.
In a study published in the May 19 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at UCLA found that the greater the curvature, the higher the risk of death within the study period. This held true regardless of age, the problems caused by the basic spinal osteoporosis or the severity of the fractures.
basic information about the condition from osteopenia3.com;
and a blog, Dowagers Humps, that though not especially active, does appear to target folks looking for practical solutions and support.
As for what women can do to improve their quality of life, a small unrelated pilot study, also from UCLA and published in the American Journal of Public Health a couple of years ago, found that yoga might help produce better posture in women with hyperkyphosis.
Those researchers said such improvements could have included "increased strength and flexibility (attested to by improvements in physical function measures) and heightened attention to alignment (as reflected in women’s diary entries)."
Photo: Yoga seems unlikely to hurt, and it might provide some benefits.
The Los Angeles Marathon is a mere five days away, but there's good news for you impulse runners: you can still register to run.
Late registration for all events happening Monday -- the marathon, the Acura L.A. Bike Tour and the 5K run/walk -- is available at the Run/Ex/09 Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The expo is also where runners and cyclists can pick up their race-day necessities such as bibs, timing chips and T-shirts.
Race day registration is available only for the 5K run/walk, starting at 7 a.m. at the Gil Lindsay Plaza in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center near Pico Boulevard and Figueroa Street. The race begins at 8:30 a.m. at 11th and Figueroa streets.
The weekend expo features numerous booths with the latest in shoes, clothes and sports nutrition, and even runners who aren't entering the marathon should find it fun. A word of caution to those who are racing Monday -- try to conserve your energy for the big day, limiting the time you spend on your feet over the weekend. Also, watch what you eat.
Need more information about the marathon and those who run it? Here are some stories from our archives:
Personal and family secrets are contributing factors toward poor mental health, says Maureen McCormick, a star of the 1970s sitcom "The Brady Bunch." Appearing at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. on Tuesday in San Francisco, McCormick described discovering her family’s history of mental illness as a child and her own reluctance to tell her daughter, now 20, about her own battles with drug addiction, bulimia and depression.
“Secrets are no good," said McCormick. "I was brought up in a family where we had so many secrets. It felt so good to let the world know I was human and suffered from depression and I wasn’t that perfect person everyone thought I was."
McCormick, 52, appeared on “The Brady Bunch” from 1969 to 1974 as the sweet and popular Marcia Brady. But after the show ended, McCormick battled severe drug addiction (cocaine, quaaludes), bulimia and depression. She re-entered the TV world in 2007 appearing as a contestant on “Celebrity Fit Club,” which follows celebrities as they try to lose weight. McCormick won the contest, and talked about the link between her weight gain and depression. After the show, she realized she wanted to publicly address her mental health and addiction problems. The result was a book, published late last year, titled “Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice,” and a commitment to fighting the stigma and silence that can surround mental illness.
McCormick has a horrifying family history of mental illness, from suicidal grandparents to a mentally ill mother to brothers who are schizophrenic. In her appearance at the APA, she described feelings of emotional pain and sadness that began early in her life, even before she discovered her family’s turbulent mental health history.
“I felt alone and had this deep down sadness, that I didn’t know what it was," she said. "It was this pain that didn’t go away."
McCormick appeared at the event as part of the annual "Conversations" series at the APA conference that showcases unique perspectives on mental illness from well-known people. "Conversations" is in its eighth year and, by now, it should be apparent that being wealthy and famous and admired isn’t protection against mental illness. Past speakers have included Patty Duke, Brooke Shields, Mariel Hemingway, Greg Louganis, George Stephanopoulos, Tipper Gore and Carrie Fisher.
-- Shari Roan
Photo credit: Maureen McCormick / American Psychiatric Assn.
You know them. I know them. And, increasingly, psychiatrists know them. People who feel they have been wronged by someone and are so bitter they can barely function other than to ruminate about their circumstances.
This behavior is so common -- and so deeply destructive -- that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder. The behavior was discussed before an enthusiastic audience Monday at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. meeting in San Francisco.
The disorder is modeled after post-traumatic stress disorder because it too is a response to a trauma that endures. People with PTSD are left fearful and anxious. Embittered people, however, are left seething for revenge.
"They feel the world has treated them unfairly. It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless," says Dr. Michael Linden, a German psychiatrist who named the behavior.
Embittered people are typically good people who have worked hard at something important, such as a job or a relationship or activity, Linden says. When something unexpectedly awful happens -- they don't get the promotion, the wife files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team -- a profound sense of injustice overtakes them. Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters.
"Embitterment is a violation of basic beliefs," Linden says. "It causes a very severe emotional reaction.... We are always coping with negative life events. It's the reaction that varies."
There are only a handful of studies on the behavior, but psychiatrists meeting Monday were in agreement that much more research is needed on identifying and helping these people. One estimate is that 1% to 2% of the population are embittered, says Linden, who has published several studies on the behavior.
"These people usually don't come to treatment because 'the world has to change, not me,' " Linden says. "They are almost treatment resistant.... Revenge is not a treatment."
Nevertheless, Linden suggests that people once known as loving, normal individuals who suddenly snap and kill their family and themselves may have post-traumatic embitterment syndrome. That's reason enough for researchers to study how to treat the destructive emotion of bitterness.
We frequently receive pitches for marathons, 10K runs, triathlons and walks to raise money and awareness for various charitable organizations. But a recent press release caught our eye. It read: "Please, Don’t Let Them Die Without Saying A Word."
Hmmm.... OK. Then we read further:
"You Report The News for a Living.... Don't You? So, why don't you say something? Would you say something if a loved one was abusing themselves as a smoker, a drug user or addict? YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP!" (Emphasis theirs).
The pitch was for an upcoming fund-raising walk called The Walk From Obesity. Or, as the press release put it, "The Walk From Obesity To Raise Awareness In Memorial of Obesity Related Deaths." We read the attached release, which provided copious stats about the effects of being severely overweight.
It said the walk was to help the ASMBS & OAC "raise funds and awareness of the prevention and treatment of obesity and to help stop Obesity, save lives and save U.S. taxpayers billions, too."
Sounds good, right? But just who are the ASMBS & OAC? The release offered no information, so we checked the website, which said funds raised will support "the ASMBS Foundation and its research and professional education initiatives and also support the patient and general public educational and advocacy programs of the Obesity Action Coalition."
It went on to say, "In 1997, members of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, the largest society for this specialized branch of medicine in the world, formed the ASMBS Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to raising funds to help support obesity research and to increase professional and public awareness of bariatric surgery and its role in treating the devastating disease of morbid obesity." (Emphasis ours).
Among the sponsors of the events (there are other walks in various parts of the country) are the pharmaceutical company Allergan, Bariatric Advantage Nutritional Supplments, and Sizewise, makers of bariatric medical equipment.
No doubt bariatric surgery has helped many people whose health would have been severely compromised without it. And while it’s great to walk, it’s important to know for whom you're walking.
There is good news and bad news to report about marathon runners and their hearts -- a new study shows that while some people may experience heart abnormalities after a race, those changes seem to be only temporary.
Previous studies on marathon runners have shown cardiac irregularities. One in the journal Circulation in 2006 found evidence of cardiac dysfunction and injury among 60 non-elite runners who ran the Boston Marathon, most notably in those who trained less than 35 miles a week.
The study, presented this week at the International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego, claims it's the first to use cardiac magnetic resonance imaging after a marathon to test for heart injury. CMRI allows physicians to assess cardiac function and health.
Researchers from the University of Manitoba in Canada studied 14 casual runners who ran in the 2008 Manitoba Marathon. They were tested before the race for cardiac biomarkers that revealed the health of their hearts. After the race, they were given additional blood tests, plus echocardiograms and CMRIs.
The bad news: Results of the echocardiograms and CMRIs immediately after the race showed abnormalities on both sides of the heart. Also, the pumping capabilities of the right ventricle went from 64% to 43%. The good news: even though cardiac biomarkers were irregular after the marathon, researchers concluded that there was no sign of permanent injury to the heart muscle.
Plans are in the works by the researchers to conduct further studies to see if these abnormalities cause any permanent damage in people who run more than one marathon a year.
Taking Viagra, Levitra or Cialis improves erectile function. That much we now know. Again.
What we still don't know is which medication works best.
At the request of the American College of Physicians, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, set out to assess the impotence drugs' effectiveness and their risk of side effects. Doctors apparently like to have as clear a picture as possible before prescribing the drugs to patients.
The report, released today, distills evidence from 126 randomized controlled trials of the drugs technically known as oral phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors. But only four trials compared sildenafil (Viagra), vardenafil (Levitra) and tadalafil (Cialis) against each other, making cut-and-dried conclusions difficult.
Researchers have a pretty good idea of the drugs' benefits. And of their risks -- most common are headaches, flushing, dyspepsia (indigestion -- here's an explainer from MedicineNet) and rhinitis (inflammation of the nose's inner lining -- and another explainer). They just can't tell doctors which one should be prescribed.
But the report does offer one-place-shopping for information on dose-response effect of the individual drugs (higher doses tended to get better results), plus less-conclusive assessments of injections, suppositories, topical treatments, hormones and drugs prescribed off-label. The researchers also tried to evaluate the usefulness of routine blood tests in identifying (and thus, treating) hormonal disorders. The limited amount of data made this problematic.
For most men, and their doctors, the report largely means: If you're looking for a thorough comparative summary of the data on these drugs, now you have one.
Of note, the big three drugs tended to work fairly well across the board. That is, they helped men regardless of the cause of erectile dysfunction. (Here's a primer on causes, courtesy of the Urology Channel.)
And men tended to prefer tadalafil (Cialis) over its cousins, partly because the drug's effects last longer.
The researchers wrote: "There is still insufficient information regarding the effectiveness and safety related to the use of different treatment modalities in various clinical subgroups of patients (e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular disease). Furthermore, there is insufficient data with regard to long-term adverse effects of oral ED medications that have been used by millions of users for over a decade."
Translation: We need more data, especially about how the drugs might affect men with diabetes and heart disease. And long-term data -- we definitely need more of that.
-- Tami Dennis
Photo: Viagra has been often discussed, but not often compared -- clinically speaking -- to its cousins Levitra and Cialis.
A demonstration on cooking healthful foods on a shoestring budget will be held Sunday at Superior Grocers in Los Angeles. The event is sponsored by Network for a Healthy California to help people learn to include more fruits and vegetables in their diets. The event, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will showcase Champion Moms, women who will share their stories about making healthy lifestyle changes for themselves and their families.
The day will include educational sessions, food demonstrations, advice from registered dietitians on grocery shopping and free blood pressure and diabetes screenings. Superior Grocers is at 8811 S. Western Ave. The event is free.
Four decades of research on infertility has yielded a lot of knowledge about the basics of human reproduction. But many mysteries still remain about this most fundamental aspect of biology. In a study published this week in the journal Science, researchers have moved a little closer to understanding how ovulation takes place.
During ovulation, an egg (or sometimes two or more eggs) are released from the ovary. But before this can occur, a series of finely tuned chemical actions must take place, according to the researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and UC San Diego. Working with mice, the scientists found that two proteins, called ERK1 and ERK2, are critical in fostering the maturation and release of the egg from the ovary. The mice used in the study lacked genes needed to produce ERK1 and ERK2 and were compared with mice that produced the proteins.
"Ovulation results from a complex interplay of chemical sequences," Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said in a news release. "The researchers have identified a crucial biochemical intermediary controlling the release of the egg." The study was funded by NICHD and the National Cancer Institute.
Here are the gory details: An immature egg is contained in a layer of cells, called granulosa cells. Each month, the brain releases follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone that cause the egg and the granulosa cells to grow and mature. Later, the brain releases more luteinizing hormone that signals the follicle to rupture and release the egg. The new research shows that luteinizing hormone actually signals the release of ERK1 and ERK2. Those molecules direct the chain of events that allows the egg to be released.
In the big picture, this means that these two proteins can perhaps be manipulated to facilitate ovulation in women with infertility or to prevent ovulation as birth control. But researchers still need to identify other components in the intricate chemical sequence that makes up ovulation, said the study's project officer, Louis V. De Paolo, chief of the NICHD Reproductive Sciences Branch.
Women have had access to home ovulation test kits for years, but more options are becoming available to men to measure their lack, or abundance, of sperm.
In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first at-home test kit for men to use aftera vasectomy to make sure they have achieved sterility. Called SpermCheck Vasectomy, the test measures a protein called SP-10 that is present in each sperm head. The test may be useful because sperm can remain in the male reproductive tract for weeks or months after a vasectomy. Men are advised to follow up with their doctors to determine if the operation was successful. But a study in the British Journal of Urology showed high numbers of patients fail to follow up with their doctors. The kit will be available in drug stores by the end of the year and is available now from doctors or from the manufacturer, ContraVac.
The company also expects to release a home test kit to assess sperm counts for men who are hoping to father a child. A couple of home sperm test kits are already on the market. ContraVac is also developing a test kit that will be used to help evaluate the effectiveness of male contraceptives.
The evolution in assessing male fertility has been aided by 25 years of research by John Herr, a professor of cell biology at the University of Virginia. Herr and his colleagues identified the SP-10 protein.
-- Shari Roan
Photo: John Herr, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Research in Contraceptive and Reproductive Health. Credit: University of Virginia
If you're interested in why we act the way we do, and the extent to which biology, shaped by evolution, governs our behavior, you'll be interested in a whole series of essays, now online, by notable scientists and thinkers who were posed the question, "Does evolution explain human nature?"
The 12 essays, also available in booklet form, were commissioned by the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports "research on what scientists and philosophers call the Big Questions," according to a blurb on the back of the booklet. The effort is one part of the foundation's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.
The answers to that question?
"Obviously," says Emory primate researcher Frans de Waal.
"Yes," says Robert Wright, author of "The Moral Animal" and other books on evolution.
"Except where it matters," says Simon Conway Morris, professor of evolutionary paleobiology at the University of Cambridge.
"Not entirely," says Dr. Francis Collins, ex-head of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
This and more. It's an interesting read. Go here to check out all the essays.
The Food and Drug Administration has cracked down on several manufacturers of dietary supplements lately. In March, the FDA identified three weight-loss products that were tainted with active pharmaceutical ingredients -- bringing the list of tainted products to 72. And earlier this month, the manufacturer of the weight-loss supplement Hydroxycut recalled the product after the FDA linked it to 23 cases of liver damage and one death.
Some nutritional supplements have real value. Folic acid taken by women of reproductive age can help protect against some birth defects and premature birth. Lutein improves eye health. Calcium helps bones. Vitamin D is important for numerous body functions. And omega-3 fatty acids can boost heart health. Others, too, appear to have at least some modest benefit.
But the 1994 passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act paved the way for a marketplace in which manufacturers of dietary supplements can churn out pure trash -- or worse, dangerous products -- with few repercussions. The situation is detailed in an in-depth piece in this week's Sports Illustrated titled "What you don't know might kill you." The article, by David Epstein and George Dohrmann, focuses in large part on sports supplements, but the lack of consumer protections extend to all forms of supplements.
According to the Sports Illustrated story:
The industry is a "Pandora's Box of false claims, untested products and bogus science."
"Today some of the biggest [supplement] companies are just big marketing departments."
The industry "remains fertile ground for kitchen chemists with little or no formal education in science and nutrition -- and in some notorious cases former steroid users and dealers."
Of DSHEA: "That legislation, heavy with lobbyists' fingerprints, razed virtually every barrier to entry into the marketplace."
It's good to see the FDA apparently stepping up its efforts to root out the bad players in the marketplace. But the agency is swimming upstream. It's time to re-examine the farcically named Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (just how is this educational?) and implement laws that prevent consumers from becoming guinea pigs for unscrupulous kitchen chemists.
As waistlines grow from stress eating, it's time to chuck the cupcakes and do some exercises. What's that you say? You don't know how to do exercises properly and you have no budget for a trainer?
No worries. IDEA Health & Fitness Assn., a San Diego-based member organization of fitness and health professionals, has released 30 short fitness videos on its website that are free to the public (members can access all online videos).
Exercises include the usual suspects, such as bent-over alternate dumbbell rows and push-ups. But some unusual ones are in the mix, like the standing 3-plane active hip flexor stretch, a dynamic three-part stretch that involves the upper body. The split squat with crossover dumbbell reach is another dynamic move that combines a squat with upper body strength training using dumbbells that targets the lats. Even veteran fitness types will surely discover some new tricks.
Narrating the exercises are Keli Roberts and Anthony Carey; Roberts is a trainer at Equinox in Pasadena as well as an author and host of her own fitness videos. She was also the 2003 IDEA International Fitness Instructor of the Year. Carey is an author and owner of Function First, a pain relief-based exercise facility in San Diego.
In the videos, viewers are walked through each demonstrated exercise, and Roberts and Carey explain how to do the moves with proper form and what muscle groups are being used. Some routines are also modified to make them more difficult or easy. We appreciate the little twists, such as the use of paper plates to make feet slide more comfortably in the hamstring curl alt. Some light equipment, such as dumbbells, stability balls and bands, are incorporated on certain exercises.
IDEA plans to add more free and members-only videos to the site, so stay tuned.
... if it's loaded with antioxidants, that is. New research suggests that such vitamins can actually make exercise less beneficial than it otherwise would be, at least in terms of insulin sensitivity and thus the risk of diabetes.
In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere studied the vitamins' effect on 39 young men. Half of the participants regularly got more than six hours of exercise per week and were assessed as pretty darn fit; the other half normally got less than two hours of exercise a week, which included the not-too-strenuous demands of daily life.
During the study, some of the men got extra daily doses of vitamin C and vitamin E (1,000 milligrams and 400 IU, respectively). Some of them didn't. All were put through a four-week regimen of exercise.
And those workouts did increase insulin sensitivity -- as such exercise is supposed to do -- but only among the men not taking the vitamins.
The key here is free radicals -- much-maligned molecules that we're all happy to fight, regardless of whether we understand their function. Antioxidants, of course, are free-radical fighters -- noble chemicals we're all happy to purchase and consume, regardless of whether we understand their impact.
In this case, free radicals seem to enhance the body's sensitivity to insulin. And antioxidants get in the way of that. Even in nutrition, few things are black and white.
Here's an explainer from the Nutrition Blog on about.com:
"The increased levels of free-radicals stimulates your body to take certain steps to protect itself -- like increasing insulin sensitivity. Taking those antioxidant vitamins may wipe out enough free-radicals so that threshold isn't reached. It doesn't mean the exercise isn't beneficial for other reasons, but at least in this study, the lack of free radicals appear to have reduced some of the benefit of exercise."
The Big Money posits that this is further evidence we should avoid vitamin supplements.
And FuturePundit offers some additional context and the conclusion that, really, we just need an all-benefits-of-exercise-with-no-downside pill.
As for the post-workout smoothie, seriously, have you considered the calories in those things? Here's a look, courtesy of ABC News.
-- Tami Dennis
Photo: Don't kid yourself. The message here is not "don't exercise."
Think about it. What is there to be afraid of in the 21st century? Everything? [Scaredy cat]. Nothing? [Fatalist]. There must be some happy medium, right?
Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams take on the media, scare tactics and worldwide causes for panacea in their new book "Panicology: Two Statisticians Explain What’s Worth Worrying About (And What’s Not) in the 21st Century"(Skyhorse Publishing).
They take a hard look at the numbers, and basically measure what is worth our emotional fear and what just isn’t. Bird flu? Swine flu? Nuclear warfare? American obesity? Who is the biggest, baddest wolf of them all in a modern world filled with constant stories of terror, disease, natural disaster and general social mayhem?
In short, they say, bird flu, flying and terrorism might not be worth so much of your time. However, driving an automobile and global climate changes are probably worthy of your attention. The book also comes equipped with "A Skeptic's Toolkit" to help readers approach news with a greater sense of balance. The authors lay out buzz words to question and how to decipher surveys.
Briscoe, statistics editor for the Financial Times in the U.K., and Aldersey-Williams, science book author and writer, make a skeptical team. Together they break through the panic, laying out the hot topics and then putting them to task.
We chatted with the two writers in their U.K.-based offices about the book and what we’re all so afraid of:
LAT: You open your book with: “We live in a complex world and we don’t want to die.” Based on this premise alone, is that why media outlets are able to create panic throughout the public? Briscoe: Yes. It’s just complex. It’s more complex than that. We also love these stories. You don’t have to wait very long before a book or a movie comes out. Towering inferno, killer bees, the perfect storm. The line between entertainment and serious news has been blurred. I think media outlets have veered toward entertainment to keep their figures.
We have to take personal responsibility. There has been something called the death of common sense. If every viewer made a little more demand as to whether this really is a threat. If we did that, we would spend a lot less time worrying about things that aren’t worth worrying about.
LAT: What is it about our collective psyche that makes us worry about topics like nuclear warfare and SARS? In general are we all a bunch of scaredy cats? Or just gullible? Briscoe: There are certainly a lot of gullible people around. Nowadays you have to make many more decisions for yourself than there were a few generations ago. And if you are very gullible, you won’t be doing yourself any favors in the struggle to live a longer, happier life.
LAT: “Journalism is industrialized gossip” is also a quote from the introduction. Is this true? Do you think there are accurate stories out there? Briscoe: I would like to think you and I work at organizations that are at the responsible end of this. My entire day job at the Financial Times is to make sure we are accurate.
But now there are lots of free newspapers. And we have 24-hour media, which requires people who are not experts to comment on events that they know very little about.
There’s also the Internet. Your organization and mine work much more with the Internet now. That doesn’t mean you have to lose your standards. But not every organization is as responsible as yours or the FT’s.
LAT: Why do we love to be scared? Briscoe: I think it's pure entertainment. I mentioned "The Perfect Storm." It’s a fantastic film. But, for me, that is very obviously entertainment. But there are people and organizations that will take that and try to use it to cause fear.
Aldersey-Williams: It’s titillation really. It’s a thrill. It’s something to talk about. It’s how we learn to deal with things. We deal with things in our head in case we need to deal with them in fact.
LAT: What should we actually be afraid of? Driving a car? Briscoe: You’re absolutely right. I wish newspapers could have a little dial showing the number of people dying from car accidents versus people dying from swine flu. The problem with traffic accidents is that people think they are in control. If it was only drivers of cars dying, I wouldn’t worry so much. I would guess, though, that in the U.K. three-fourths of the people dying are passengers.
Aldersey-Williams: We should worry less. Worry can have no practical effect on actual fear. It is silly to worry about the ones you can’t do anything about.
LAT: Anything else beside car accidents that people should fear? Briscoe: Debt and the housing market were highly rated. I have no doubt though that the panic has made things worse.
LAT: How can people read the news without panicking? Briscoe: I think it’s quite difficult. We give people a few tips at the end of the book. It’s very difficult. I think with swine flu, I think World Health authorities were far too fast to move this to a level 5 crisis.
Aldersey-Williams: Well, carefully. Skeptically. Selectively. The advice is not to always believe everything you read. There are tricks and ticks to look for. When people are presenting half the statistics. They give you a figure, but nothing to oppose it.
LAT: Let’s go topic by topic. So let’s talk about swine flu. This topic isn’t in the book, but is the latest worldwide panic. How afraid of it should we be? Aldersey-Williams:Well, I think they should be more worried about it than bird flu. Unfortunately, it has come after bird flu and SARS, so there is sort of a cry-wolf feeling. Unlike bird flu, though, this is a human-to-human transmittable virus.
On one hand this gives us license to dismiss it as a regular flu. On the other hand, because it came across in this scary pandemic sort of way, it has possibly made us pay more attention to the regular flu as a real problem.
LAT: Obesity in America? Aldersey-Williams: It’s a difficult one, like a lot of the scares we talked about — one scare runs into another. Some worries are often interconnected. I don’t know enough about how exactly America covers obesity, but it's gaining attention here. The remedies, as we know, are simple. Eat less, exercise more.
LAT: The “marriage squeeze.” The idea that there are not enough available partners out there? Aldersey-Williams: I don’t know that’s still being written about. It sort of worked itself out. People are getting married later.
A few years ago it was certainly exaggerated like crazy in the papers and in sitcoms and soap operas on the telly.
LAT: Bird flu? Aldersey-Williams: I suppose scientists would say bird flu is still out there. It still has potential to become a human transmittable virus.
LAT: The credit crunch and the housing crisis? Aldersey-Williams: If you’ve lost your job, it’s obviously affected you badly. Some people have done reasonably well out of it though. Mortgage rates have dropped.
With all these things there is a sense of proportionality about it. When something happens you realize you can deal with it, and get through it, and go on. There are winners and losers.
LAT: Worldwide terror? We certainly haven’t let go of that issue since 2001. Aldersey-Williams: Certainly in this country and in the U.S., as well. It suits governments because they can keep people acquiescent. They’ll issue a statement: “There’s a high state of alert. Stay vigilant.” That’s actually useless information you can do nothing with. They don’t tell you what to stay vigilant for. So what it does is puts people in a state of flap.
No, one shouldn't laugh, this is seriousahahaha...Tuesday morning, a long-forgotten lunch in an office fridge at an At&T call center in San Jose so nauseated employees that the hazmat guys were brought in, according to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, and "325 AT&T employees poured out to a parking lot that was the company's designated evacuation site. A total of 50 firefighters and 18 emergency vehicles raced to the scene. Seven employees, who were vomiting or complaining of nausea, were treated at area hospitals."
The article doesn't say what the long-forgotten food item used to be, although meat was suspected because of the telltale aroma of rotting flesh.
What is it, anyway, that makes rotting flesh so nasty to us? Probably it's innate, for obvious survival reasons. Rotting flesh can make people sick. In an article about odors in Scientific American, writer Jesse Bering notes: "Rotting flesh ... [is] only perceived this way by the human mind .... I can assure you that whatever particular scents you find repulsive, my dog, Gulliver, would likely perceive as irresistibly appealing. And I mean rotting flesh and just about anything else you can think of."
You might also be interested to know that scientist Pam Dalton at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia concocted, a few years back, what may be the world's worst smell (with Department of Defense funding .. the department had a weapon in mind). Here's a write-up Aaron Zitner of the Los Angeles Times did on her work that begins:
"Pamela Dalton has uncorked the foulest smell on earth. It comes from one of the vials that Dalton keeps under a ventilated hood in her laboratory, where the bottles carry impish labels: Burned Hair. Bathroom Malodor. And worst of all, Stench Soup, an odor so reeking of ripe Porta Potties -- or is it dead possum? -- that it fills the mind with white noise. 'That one takes over every aspect of your consciousness,' Dalton says proudly of her creation, made in search of the world's most offensive odor."
Surveys show people are going to fairly great lengths to avoid infection with H1N1 influenza. But a review of scientific evidence published Tuesday shows the best way to curb respiratory illnesses is to keep little hands clean. Very little hands. And very clean.
Scientists at the Cochrane Library reviewed 51 studies that examined various ways to contain respiratory virus epidemics, such as flu outbreaks. They found that frequent hand washing; using gloves, gowns and masks with filtration, and isolating sick people were all effective measures. But the tactic with the biggest impact was concentrating on children's hygiene.
"The evidence in children is clear. Hand washing offers protection against a lot of things, not just respiratory viruses," the lead author of the report, said Dr. Tom Jefferson, of the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group in Rome, in a news release. "Acting on children is probably the best, most effective intervention."
One large study cited in the review involved 4,332 children in Pakistan. Children who washed their hands several times a day with plain or antibacterial soap had 50% fewer episodes of respiratory illness compared with children with standard hygiene practices. Another study found that children who used alcohol hand gels in conjunction with hand washing had a 43% lower rate of absenteeism at school.
Flu is thought to be transmitted from young children to older children and adults. Thus, cleaning up those little buggers' hands might go a long way toward keeping everyone healthy. Parents should teach their young children how to wash their hands properly, and parents and teachers should work together to implement hand-washing routines at school, the authors said.
Fortifying flour and pasta with folic acid has led to a significant drop in congenital heart defects in Canada, researchers said today. Scientists already knew that folic acid supplements can sharply reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in newborns, and research presented Monday showed that long-term use of the supplements can reduce the risk of extremely premature births. Based on animal studies, researchers had also suspected that folate could reduce heart defects, but the new study is the first to demonstrate it.
Dr. Louise Pilote of McGill University in Montreal and her colleagues studied all births in Quebec between 1990 and 2005. Among the 1,324,440 births during this period, there were 2,083 infants born with severe congenital heart defects.
The researchers reported in the online version of the British Medical Journal that, during the 1990s, the incidence of such defects rose slightly each year, averaging about 1.57 cases per 1,000 births. After the introduction of fortification with folate in January 1999, however, the rate fell by an average of 6% per year, declining to about 1.1 cases per 1,000 births in 2005.
Most women, unfortunately, do not get enough folate in their diet even with fortification. American health authorities therefore recommend that all women of child-bearing age take supplements containing 400 micrograms of folate each day. In the rest of the world, meanwhile, only 66 countries have fortification --and only 47 of them by mandate. Among those who don't are Britain and most countries in Europe.
Tami Dennis, who takes the word "skeptic" to previously uncharted territory, is the Times' Health and Science editor. She's adamant that pitches promoting awareness days, weeks or months are, by their nature, non-stories. And, because she's an adult, she refuses to use words like "veggies," "tummy" and "yummy."
Rosie Mestel, deputy Health and Science editor, studied genetics before abandoning flies, fungi and DNA for health/medical writing. Her hero is the biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose jellyfish paintings inspired snazzy chandeliers. Her favorite toast-spread is Marmite, a British delicacy made of yeast extract. Her least-favorite word is "millenniums."
Melissa Healy is a staff writer for the Health section reporting from Washington D.C. Healy's a veteran of The Times' National staff, having covered the Pentagon, Congress, poverty and social welfare, the environment, and the White House before shifting to Health in 2003. She writes frequently about mental health and human behavior, about federal health policy, prescription medication and ethics in medicine. More wonk than wellness freak, Healy chooses to believe in the health benefits of coffee and wine, and considers water a better work-out medium than beverage.
Karen Kaplan covers genetics, stem cells and cloning. She and colleague Thomas H. Maugh II comprise about 25% of the unofficial MIT-Alumni-in-Journalism Club, and she is proud to have taken more math (5) than English (0) courses in college. Her contributions to Booster Shots will, she hopes, appear more frequently than postings to her mommy blog.
Thomas H. Maugh II has been a science and medical writer at the Times for 23 years. Before that, he was on the staff of the journal Science for 13 years.
He has bachelor's degrees in English and chemistry from MIT and a doctorate in chemistry from UC Santa Barbara.
After a brief stint as a sports writer, Shari Roan turned to health journalism and has covered the topic for The Times for 18 years. She is the author of three books and the mother of two daughters, both teenagers who refer to her as a "health freak." She likes to jog, watch baseball and is very happy that dark chocolate contains some health benefit.
Jeannine Stein writes about fitness, sports medicine and obesity for the Health section. She’s a gym rat from way back and never met an elliptical trainer she didn’t like. Well, maybe one or two. She tempers exercise with a steady diet of reality television because she believes it’s all about balance.
