Thunderstorms plus mobile phones equal a dangerous combination
According to British doctors people who use mobile phones outdoors during a thunderstorm, put themselves at risk of being struck by lightning.
Consultant surgeon Ram Dhillon along with two colleagues Swinda Esprit and Prasad Kothari, say using a mobile phone or an iPod during a thunderstorm can kill you.
According to the doctors from Northwick Park Hospital in northwest London, when someone is struck by lightning the high resistance of human skin results in lightning being conducted over the skin without entering the body; this is known as flashover.
Environment Plays Big Role in Women Starting to Smoke
Researchers have long known that reasons for smoking include social pressure and other environmental factors, as well as genetic factors based on results of previous twin studies. Now a more comprehensive study of twins by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) has provided a better understanding of these complex influences. They found that women are far more likely than men to start smoking because of environmental factors, whereas genetic factors appear to play a larger role in influencing men to start smoking.
However, the study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, found no differences between the sexes in factors related to continued smoking, which appeared to be strongly influenced by genetics.
The study, entitled “Gender Differences In Determinants of Smoking Initiation and Persistence in California Twins,” looked at factors that influenced twins to start smoking and to continue smoking.
Study Reveals How ADHD Drugs Work in Brain
Although millions depend on medications such as Ritalin to quell symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), scientists have struggled to pinpoint how the drugs work in the brain.
But new work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now starting to clear up some of the mystery. Writing in the journal Biological Psychiatry, UW-Madison researchers report that ADHD drugs primarily target the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a region of the brain that is associated with attention, decision-making and an individual’s expression of personality.
The finding could prove invaluable in the search for new ADHD treatments, and comes amidst deep public concern over the widespread abuse of existing ADHD medicines.
New Hope for Wet Macular Degeneration Patients
New imaging technologies for the eye pioneered at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, coupled with advanced medical treatments, are rapidly changing the outlook for many patients with macular degeneration, a retinal disease that in its worst form is a major cause of blindness in the United States.
“OCT-SLO in an innovative imaging technology that vastly improves our ability to manage the care of patients with ‘wet’ macular degeneration, the worst form of the disease,” said Richard Rosen, MD, a retina specialist at the Infirmary. “This leap in diagnostic capabilities, combined with the recent success of anti-angiogenic drugs, such as Avastin, which halt the progression of ‘wet’ macular degeneration, and in many cases improve eyesight, heralds new opportunities for treating a devastating disease.”
OCT-SLO, in addition to exceptionally high-resolution images of the retina, provides a way to precisely localize aberrant blood vessels which cause the disease. As a result, treatments can be localized and better monitored, as well. (Colorful diagnostic images are available).
China and bird flu - the plot thickens
The plot has thickened when it comes to China and bird flu.
It appears one of the researchers who reported that a Chinese man may have died from avian influenza before anyone else in China was known to have the disease, has denied trying to retract the article.
Dr. Wu Chun Cao of the State Key Laboratory of Pathogens and Biosecurity in Beijing says that e-mails bearing his name sent to the The New England Journal of Medicine were not written or sent by him.
Coffee drinking may lower diabetes risk
Consumption of coffee, particularly the decaffeinated variety, is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study is not the first to document this association. However, in previous studies it was unclear if the relationship was true among people of different ages and body weights and if the caffeine component was the ingredient primarily responsible for the anti-diabetes effect.
Dr. Mark A. Pereira, from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues addressed these uncertainties by analyzing data from 28,812 women enrolled in the Iowa Women’s Health Study, which ran from 1986 to 1997. All of the women were free from diabetes and heart disease when the study began.
Maternal smoking linked with severe tic disorder
Women who smoke during pregnancy appear to have a very strong risk of having a child with severe symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome and the risk of having obsessive-compulsive disorder is also increased in these children.
Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder that develops in childhood or adolescence in which patients have involuntary tics involving sudden movements or vocalizations that are rapidly repeated. The symptoms usually occur several times a day, every day or intermittently and are usually mild, but can be severe.
The condition is believed be to associated with many genetic and environmental factors, Dr. Carol A. Mathews and her associates note. While few studies have examined the role of environmental factors, there are suggestions that incidents before or just after birth, as well as the mother’s prenatal habits, effect the development of the disorder, its severity, and the risk of having another neurologic condition.
Journal corrects conclusion of Vioxx risk study
A critical study showing the heart attack and stroke risk of Merck and Co.’s now-withdrawn arthritis drug Vioxx contained statistical errors that incorrectly showed that the risk changes over time, The New England Journal of Medicine reported on Monday.
The journal and the authors, including a team at Merck, are issuing a correction to the May 2005 study to show the risks do not, as originally shown, greatly increase after 18 months.
In fact, it is not possible to tell when the risk of heart attack or stroke shoot up, Journal editor Dr. Jeffrey Drazen said.
China scraps move to criminalise gender selection
China has scrapped plans to make sex-selective abortion a crime, state media said on Monday, more than a year after announcing penalties were necessary to correct gender imbalances among newborns.
China has 119 boys born for every 100 girls, an imbalance that has grown since it introduced a one-child policy more than 25 years ago to curb population growth—a restriction that bolstered traditional preferences for boys.
But lawmakers could not agree on the amendment to the criminal law, the China Daily said, citing Zhou Kunren, the vice-chairman of the parliamentary Law Committee.
