“Tell me what kinds of toxins are in your body, and I’ll tell you how much you’re worth,” could be the new motto of doctors everywhere. In a finding that surprised even the researchers conducting the study, it turns out that both rich and poor Americans are walking toxic waste dumps for chemicals like mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and bisphenol A, which could be a cause of infertility. And while a buildup of environmental toxins in the body afflicts rich and poor alike, the type of toxin varies by wealth.

People who can afford sushi and other sources of aquatic lean protein appear to be paying the price with a buildup of heavy metals in their bodies, found Jessica Tyrrell and colleagues from the University of Exeter.

{ Quartz | Continue reading }

As newborns, we encounter our first microbes as we pass through the birth canal. Until that moment, we are 100 percent human.

Thereafter, we are, numerically speaking, 10 percent human, and 90 percent microbe.

Our microbiome contains at least 150 times more genes, collectively, than our human genome.

{ Mother Jones | Continue reading | via Sunday Reading/TNI }

photo { Matthu Placek }

When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office at first said it did not know, and then gave her a range of $4,000 to $45,000. […]

Like Ms. Martin, plenty of other pregnant women are getting sticker shock in the United States, where charges for delivery have about tripled since 1996, according to an analysis done for The New York Times by Truven Health Analytics. Childbirth in the United States is uniquely expensive, and maternity and newborn care constitute the single biggest category of hospital payouts for most commercial insurers and state Medicaid programs. […]

The average total price charged for pregnancy and newborn care was about $30,000 for a vaginal delivery and $50,000 for a C-section, with commercial insurers paying out an average of $18,329 and $27,866, the report found. […]

Two decades ago, women typically paid nothing other than a small fee if they opted for a private hospital room or television.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

{ Mouse cloned from drop of blood }

A study has found for the first time that thirdhand smoke — the noxious residue that clings to virtually all surfaces long after the secondhand smoke from a cigarette has cleared out — causes significant genetic damage in human cells.

{ ScienceDaily | Continue reading }

Why do humans menstruate, when most animals don’t? When you shake the tree of life, you find that only a handful of mammals aside from us – primates, a small number of bat species, and the elephant shrew – have opted for the monthly bleed.

Evolution is often viewed in terms of a cost-benefit ledger: if something is costly, it must have some benefit. Women lose over half a standard glass of wine’s worth in iron-rich blood and tissue – about 90 millilitres – each time they menstruate, so the process does seem quite costly. And in the predator-filled environs of our early ancestors, leaving a trail of blood was presumably not advantageous.

So how did menstruation arise? Over recent decades, evolutionary biologists have come up with three key theories to explain human menstruation.

{ United Academics | Continue reading }

Sitting in front of a computer monitor all day may soon be officially against doctors’ advice.

{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }

The US Supreme Court today ruled that Myriad, the US biotech company that holds a monopoly on testing for a set of breast-cancer related genes, can’t hold a patent on genetic material. But after the news broke, Myriad’s stock shot up.

Here’s why: […] While the court ruled that a gene in its natural state is something that can’t be owned—even if it’s been isolated, which Myriad argued warranted a patent—it also ruled that complementary DNA, or cDNA, could be proprietary. Created artificially in the lab, the cDNA version of the BRCA genes lack so-called “junk” DNA, the pieces that don’t contribute to the gene’s production of proteins. This technical difference, according to the ruling, makes the genes unique enough to be distinguished legally from their natural cousins.

{ Quartz | Continue reading | Washington Post }

A new study by Michigan State University researchers found that only 5 percent of people who used the bathroom washed their hands long enough to kill the germs that can cause infections. What’s more, 33 percent didn’t use soap and 10 percent didn’t wash their hands at all. Men were particularly bad at washing their hands correctly. […]

Hand washing is the single most effective thing one can do to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Failing to sufficiently wash one’s hands contributes to nearly 50 percent of all foodborne illness outbreaks. It takes 15 to 20 seconds of vigorous hand washing with soap and water to effectively kill the germs, the CDC says, yet the study found that people are only washing their hands, on average, for about 6 seconds.

{ Michigan State University | Continue reading }

art { Georges Hugnet }

When we age, our brain gradually looses the ability to give birth to new neurons (neurogenesis). This sad decline is linked to impairments in cognitive functions such as learning and memory. The brain, like any other organ, feeds off of nutrients and chemicals in the blood to keep it going. This made researchers wonder: is something in the blood affecting neurogenesis as we age?

To explore this, researchers hooked up the circulation of young and old mice (with young-young & old-old pairing as control) so that their blood intermixed.[…] Several weeks after the surgery, researchers examined the animals’ brains to look for changes in neurogenesis. Young mice, when linked with older mice, had significantly fewer newly born neurons and neural progenitor cells than young-young controls.

{ Neuroxia | Continue reading }

photo { Bill Brandt }

After a test showed that Kathleen didn’t have the BRCA breast cancer gene, her surgeon, Dr. Sonya Sharpless, suggested that environmental factors might be implicated. […] Did a lifetime of using cosmetics cause or contribute to Kathleen’s breast cancer? We don’t know. But here are some facts that every American woman and her loved ones should absorb.

The European Union bans nearly 1,400 chemicals from personal care products because they are carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction. But in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration entrusts safety regulation of cosmetics to a private entity that is housed and funded by the industry’s trade association. To date, this entity has found only eleven chemicals to be “unsafe for use in cosmetics.” The FDA has no oversight of cosmetics products before they come on the market and, unlike the EU, leaves it to the cosmetics industry to determine which ingredients should be banned.

{ The Investigative Fund | Continue reading }

related { Disclosures reveal that corporations and lobbying firms award six-figure bonuses to staff who leave to take powerful positions on Capitol Hill. }

Skipping meals can sabotage your shopping – and your diet, according to a new Cornell study. Even short term food deprivation not only increases overall grocery shopping, but leads shoppers to buy 31% more high calorie foods.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

A new molecule has been created by researchers in Chile that could make teeth ‘cavity proof’, killing the bacteria known to cause caries in less than 60 seconds.

Named ‘Keep 32′ after the number of teeth in the mouth, researchers Jose Cordova and Erich Astudillo hope the product could be used in toothpastes, mouthwashes, floss and even food. Chemical trials have shown that the cavity-causing bacteria Streptococcus mutans can be eliminated for hours with the molecule. […]

Procter & Gamble and five other chemical giants are fighting for the patent.

{ British Dental Journal | Continue reading }

Frances Kaye, a publicity agent, described a movie party she attended at a Palm Springs resort. A live orchestra entertained a thousand-odd guests while a fountain spouted champagne against the backdrop of a desert sky. As partiers circulated, a doctor made rounds like a waiter, dispensing drugs to guests from a bulging sack. On offer were amphetamines and barbituates, standard Hollywood party fare, but guests wanted Miltown. The little white pills “were passed around like peanuts,” Kaye remembered. What she observed about party pill popping was not unique. “They all used to go for ‘up pills’ or ‘down pills,’” one Hollywood regular noted. “But now it’s the ‘don’t-give-a-darn-pills.’”

{ Andrea Tone/Mindhacks | Continue reading }

{ 1. Awaiting the Ambulance, 1959 | 2. Rimantas Dichavičius }

{ Cocaine Caused Financial Crisis, Ex-UK Drug Czar Says | Thanks GG }

oil and varnish on birch-ply { James White }

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.

It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep. […]

In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks. […]

Much like the experience of Wehr’s subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep. […] During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.

And these hours weren’t entirely solitary - people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.

A doctor’s manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day’s labour but “after the first sleep”, when “they have more enjoyment” and “do it better”.

Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century.

{ BBC | Continue reading }

According to a meta-analysis published in the August edition of the Journal of Family Medicine, colon cleansing provides no known health benefits, only dangerous side effects including, in rare cases, death.

{ Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News | Continue reading | via Improbable }

Coffee enemas are the enema-related procedure of inserting coffee into the anus to cleanse the rectum and large intestines.

How to Make a Coffee Enema

It is best to arise early enough each morning to allow time to take the enema in a relaxed, unhurried state.

The coffee must be organic, non-decaffeinated coffee. It must be prepared in enamelware, Corning ware, glass or stainless steel, or by the tricolator filter method. Aluminum or Teflon should not be used at anytime!! We have found that the coffee that is prepared via the “drip method” is preferable. Use 3 to 4 teaspoons of ground coffee to four (4) cups of reverse osmosis water increasing after several uses to seven to eight (7-8) teaspoons of ground coffee to an equal number of cups of reverse osmosis water. This allows more therapeutic value to the treatment. Do not use ice cubes to cool the coffee because of the poor quality of water in the ice maker, despite the mfg’s filters. […]

How to Take a Coffee Enema

First, attempt a normal bowel movement. The enema is much more effective if the colon has been evacuated. One should not become disturbed, however, if there are no regular bowel movements, or very few, during the program. In many cases, not enough bulk collects to instigate a normal bowel movement. When no normal bowel movements are forthcoming during the frequent enemas the enema cleans the colon adequately. The ultimate goal is to have no less than one bowel movement daily.

{ Heise Health Clinic | Continue reading }

Prince Charles has never made a secret of his love affair with alternative medicine. Now he has infuriated the medical profession by backing a controversial cancer treatment which involves taking daily coffee enemas and drinking liters of fruit juice instead of using drugs.

{ Guardian | Continue reading }

oil on paper laid down on canvas { Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1969 }

Feb. 19
First male patient, 87, became ill with H7N9

Feb. 27
Second male patient, 27, became ill with H7N9

March 4
First male patient dies

March 9
First female patient, 35, from Anhui province became ill with H7N9

March 10
Second male patient dies
Initial report of over 900 dead pigs in Shanghai’s Huangpu River (as of Saturday, March 9)

March 11
Count of dead pigs in rivers near Shanghai reaches nearly 3,000

March 13
Officials say the number of pig carcasses in Huangpu River has risen to 6,000

March 14
Workers continued to haul dead hogs from a river in the Shanghai suburbs Thursday, where the pig body count now exceeds 6,600, according to the municipal government
Farm in Zhejiang province confesses to dumping pig carcasses into river

March 20
The number of dead pigs discovered in Chinese rivers around Shanghai has risen to almost 14,000

March 22
50 pigs wash up onshore in Changsha, Hunan province; ~1,000 dead ducks are also discovered
Number of dead pigs found in Shanghai river rises to 16,000

March 25
China pulls 1,000 dead ducks from Sichuan river
Government officials say that 1,000+ rotten duck carcasses pose no threat to human and livestock along river banks
Illegal Zhejiang pork found in food chain

March 26
Dumping of thousands of dead pigs linked with Chinese crackdown on pork black market

April 1
Dr. Michael O’Leary, World Health Organization, says that there is no evidence to show that a type of bird flu which has killed two Chinese men can be transmitted between people

April 2
Shanghai Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center tested 34 samples of pig carcasses pulled from Huangpu River and found no flu viruses

{ Foreign Policy | Continue reading }

What do you do if you drop your sandwich on the floor? Pick it up within five seconds and just continue eating? […]

American researchers wanted to test  how long food has to be on the floor before it becomes contaminated. They dropped sausages and bread onto different surfaces, such as carpet, wood and tiles, and examined  the transfer of Salmonella bacteria.

They found that of all the bacteria that contaminated the food, 99 percent of them  had transferred already in the first five seconds. The time it took them was influenced by the kind of surface the bacteria were on, yet only a little. Bacteria on carpet took more time to get onto the sausages than those on wood or tile.

{ United Academics | Continue reading }

photo { Bobby Doherty }