Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old policeman in Oxford, England, was pruning his roses one fall day when a thorn scratched him at the corner of his mouth. The slight crevice it opened allowed harmless skin bacteria to slip into his body. At first, the scratch grew pink and tender. Over the course of several weeks, it slowly swelled. The bacteria turned from harmless to vicious, proliferating through his flesh. Alexander eventually had to be admitted to Radcliffe Hospital, the bacteria spreading across his face and into his lungs.

Alexander’s doctors tried treating him with sulfa drugs, the only treatment available at the time. The medicine failed, and as the infection worsened, they had to cut out one of his eyes. The bacteria started to infiltrate his bones. Death seemed inevitable.

But then, on February 12, 1941, Alexander was injected with an experimental drug: a molecule produced by mold.

The molecule was, of course, penicillin. It had been discovered thirteen years earlier but soon abandoned because there didn’t seem to be any way to turn it into an effective drug. In the late 1930s, Howard Florey and his colleagues at the University of Oxford revived the drug and began testing it on mice. They found the penicillin could cure them of infections by killing their bacteria. Florey then gave a dose of penicillin to a woman dying of cancer and found that it wasn’t toxic to her.

Now Florey and his colleagues wanted to see if it could stop an infection in a human being. Alexander, with nothing left between him and death, was their first subject.

“Striking improvement” was how Florey described what happened next. Within a day, Alexander’s infections were subsiding. After a few more days, his fever broke and much of his face cleared up.

Florey could have saved Alexander’s life, if he hadn’t run out of penicillin after a few days. Nobody but Florey knew how to make the stuff, and his recipe only yielded a tiny amount at a time. To stretch out their supply of penicillin, a member of Florey’s lab would visit the hospital each morning to collect Alexander’s urine. He would carry it back by bicycle to the lab, where the scientists extracted the penicillin that Alexander’s body hadn’t absorbed. Alexander’s doctors then injected the recycled antibotic into Alexander’s arm. […]

Now that they can fish out the DNA of the microbiome, scientists are beginning to get a sense of the staggering diversity of microbes we harbor. Each of us is home to several thousand species. (I’m only talking about bacteria, by the way–viruses, fungi, and protozoans stack an even higher level of diversity on top of the bacterial biodiversity.) My own belly button, I’ve been reliably informed, contains at least 53 species. Many of the species I harbor are different than the ones you harbor. But if you look at the kinds of genes carried by those species, our microbiomes look very similar. […] The microbiome keeps us healthy. It breaks down some of our food into digestible molecules, it detoxifies poisons, it serves as a shield on our skin and internal linings to keep out pathogens, and it nurtures our immune systems, instructing them in the proper balance between vigilance and tolerance. It’s a dependence we’ve been evolving for 700 million years, ever since our early animal ancestors evolved bodies that bacteria could colonize.

{ National Geographic | Continue reading }

photo { Jason Florio }

{ Squeezing breasts can stop cancer, study says | Why where you work could influence risk of breast cancer }

For thousands of years, a core pursuit of medical science has been the careful observation of physical symptoms and signs. Through these observations, supplemented more recently by investigative techniques, an understanding of how symptoms and signs are generated by disease has developed. However, there is a group of patients with symptoms and signs that, from the earliest medical records to the present day, elude a diagnosis with a typical ‘organic’ disease. This is not simply because of an absence of pathology after sufficient investigation, rather that symptoms themselves are inconsistent with those occurring in typical disease. In times past, these symptoms were said to be ‘hysterical’, a term now replaced by the less pejorative but no more enlightening labels: ‘medically unexplained’, ‘psychogenic’, ‘conversion’, ‘non-organic’ and ‘functional’.

There are numerous historical examples of patients identified as having hysteria who would now be diagnosed with an organic medical disorder. Some have assumed that this process of salvaging patients from (mis)diagnosis with hysteria would continue inexorably until a ‘proper’ medical diagnosis was achieved. Slater (1965), in his influential paper on the topic, described the diagnosis of hysteria as ‘a disguise for ignorance and a fertile source of clinical error’. In other words, with increasing medical knowledge, all patients would be rescued from a diagnostic category that did little more than assert that they were ‘too difficult’.

This has not come to pass (Stone et al., 2005). Recent epidemiological work has demonstrated that neurologists continue to diagnose a ‘non-organic’ disorder in ∼16% of their patients, making this the second most common diagnosis of neurological outpatients.

{ Brain/Oxford Journals | Continue reading }

photo { Paul Himmel }

The sperm count of French men fell by a third between 1989 and 2005, a study suggests.

The semen of more than 26,600 French men was tested in the study, reported in the journal Human Reproduction.
The number of millions of spermatozoa per millilitre fell by 32.3%, a rate of about 1.9% a year. And the percentage of normally shaped sperm fell by 33.4%. [..]

“To our knowledge, this is the first study concluding a severe and general decrease in sperm concentration and morphology at the scale of a whole country over a substantial period.” […]

Prof Richard Sharpe, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “Something in our modern lifestyle, diet or environment like chemical exposure, is causing this. “We still do not know which are the most important factors, but perhaps the most likely is a combination, a double whammy of changes, such as a high-fat diet combined with increased environmental chemical exposures.”

{ BBC | Continue reading | Thanks GG }

The past couple of years have seen findings, that, taken together, suggest that we should embrace coffee for reasons beyond the benefits of caffeine, and that we might go so far as to consider it a nutrient. […]

Coffee, researchers found, appears to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. […]

Caffeine might also function as a pain reliever. […]

While a small study this month found that concentrated amounts of caffeine can increase positivity in the moment, last September the nurses’ cohort demonstrated a neat reduction in depression rates among women that became stronger with increased consumption of caffeinated coffee. […]

Findings have been supporting that coffee can protect against some cancers. […]

If you have fatty liver disease, a study from last December found that unspecified amounts can reduce your risk of fibrosis.

{ The Atlantic | Continue reading }

It’s not surprising that social norms influence consumer behavior. When everybody else wants to spend $400 on the new iPad, it makes sense that you’ll be more willing to spend $400 on a new iPad. The question is, how far does this social influence extend?

A new study led by Ivo Vlaev examines how social norms influence spending on a good that ought to be on the opposite end of the social influence spectrum from consumer electronics: pain reduction. If somebody stabs you in the foot with a steak knife, you would assume your desire to alleviate that pain has nothing to do with the decision of somebody else who suffered the same stabbing. But that’s not what Vlaev and his team found. When it came to avoiding a painful electric shock, people didn’t just make decisions based their own pain, they also took into account how much other people wanted to reduce that same pain. […]

The fact that our desire to alleviate pain is subject to social influences has important implications for health care systems. For example, if it seems like back pain is something you’re expected to live with, people might be less willing to seek treatment for it.

{ peer-reviewed by my neurons | Continue reading }

Michael McAlpine’s shiny circuit doesn’t look like something you would stick in your mouth. It’s dashed with gold, has a coiled antenna and is glued to a stiff rectangle. But the antenna flexes, and the rectangle is actually silk, its stiffness melting away under water. And if you paste the device on your tooth, it could keep you healthy.

The electronic gizmo is designed to detect dangerous bacteria and send out warning signals, alerting its bearer to microbes slipping past the lips. Recently, McAlpine, of Princeton University, and his colleagues spotted a single E. coli bacterium skittering across the surface of the gadget’s sensor. The sensor also picked out ulcer-causing H. pylori amid the molecular medley of human saliva, the team reported earlier this year in Nature Communications.

At about the size of a standard postage stamp, the dental device is still too big to fit comfortably in a human mouth. “We had to use a cow tooth,” McAlpine says, describing test experiments. But his team plans to shrink the gadget so it can nestle against human enamel. McAlpine is convinced that one day, perhaps five to 10 years from now, everyone will wear some sort of electronic device. “It’s not just teeth,” he says. “People are going to be bionic.”

{ ScienceNews | Continue reading }

For more than 60 years, Robert Martensen’s lung cells replicated without a hitch, regulated by specialized enzymes called kinases. Much like thermostats that adjust the temperature in a room to make sure it’s not too hot or too cold, kinases make sure that the right number of new cells are created as old ones die. But sometime in his early sixties, something changed inside Martensen. One or more of the genes coding for his kinases mutated, causing his lung cells to begin replicating out of control.

At first the clusters of rogue cells were so small that Martensen had no idea they existed. Nor was anyone looking for them inside the lean, ruddy-faced physician, who exercised most days and was an energetic presence as the chief historian at the National Institutes of Health. Then came a day in February 2011 when Martensen noticed a telltale node in his neck while taking a shower. “I felt no pain,” he recalls, “but I knew what it was. I told myself in the shower that this was cancer—and that from that moment on, my life would be different.”

Martensen initially thought it was lymphoma, cancer of the lymph glands, which has a higher survival rate than many other cancers. But after a biopsy, he was stunned to discover he had late-stage lung cancer, a disease that kills 85 percent of patients within a year. Most survive just a few months. […]

He heard about a new drug being tested at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Developed by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the drug had dramatically reduced lung cancer tumors and prolonged life in the couple hundred patients who had so far used it, with few side effects. But there was a catch. The new med, called Xalkori, worked for only 3 to 5 percent of all lung cancer patients.

{ Discover | Continue reading }

photo { Patrick Romero }

Research shows that friends influence how girls and women view and judge their own body weight, shape and size. What Wasylkiw and Williamson’s work sheds light on, is how much of a young woman’s body concerns are shaped by her perceptions of peers’ concerns with their own body versus her peers’ actual body concerns. […]

They found that the more women felt under pressure to be thin, the more likely they were to have body image concerns, irrespective of their actual weight and shape. Interestingly, body talk between friends that focussed on exercise was related to lower body dissatisfaction.

{ Springer | Continue reading }

Singapore plans to restrict advertising for “unhealthy” food and drink aimed at children, as countries across Asia grow increasingly concerned about obesity rates. […]

About 11 per cent of adults in the island nation of 5.3m are considered obese, compared with an OECD average of 17 per cent and a US figure of more than 35 per cent. […]

About 60 per cent of Singaporeans eat out four times a week or more, mostly in “hawker stalls” and food courts scattered across the city state that sell cheap dishes based on rice and noodles that are often heavy on cooking oil. Fast food outlets such as McDonald’s and KFC are also popular. […]

The government has been working with food stall owners to cut the amount of oil and salt used in cooking and persuade them to use brown rice, considered healthier than polished white rice.

It has also introduced a system of early morning “mall walks” designed to encourage shoppers in Singapore’s numerous malls to exercise before stores open.

{ FT | Continue reading }

Othello Syndrome is a type of delusional jealousy, marked by suspecting a faithful partner of infidelity, with accompanying jealousy, attempts at monitoring and control, and sometimes violence. The problem is named for Shakespeare’s Othello, who murdered his beautiful wife Desdemona because he believed her unfaithful.

I came across Othello Syndrome because of a fascinating article at The Dana Foundation, When a drug leads to suspicions of infidelity. Here we have a mental illness induced as a side-effect in some patients as a result of taking dopamine to help with Parkinson’s disease.

In rare cases the treatment, which attempts to boost dopamine levels, brings on this stubborn delusion, which can transform a previously trusting relationship into a nightmare of suspicion, bitterness, and relentless accusations of infidelity.

{ PLoS | Continue reading }

Taphophobia means “fear of graves” (taphos = tomb, and phobia = fear of), but its common use is “fear of being buried alive.” Premature burial is not an urban legend, incidents have been documented in nearly every society. […]

Many cultures built time delays into their death rites to make sure someone was truly dead. Greeks washed the dead… and some would wake up. In more difficult cases, they would cut off fingers or dunk the bodies in warm baths. The custom of the Irish wake began with the Celts watching the body for signs of life. But mistakes were made, often in times of epidemic. The hopes of preventing the spread of infection often lead to burying the dead before they were quite dead. […]

In her 1996 book, The Corpse: A History, Christine Quigley documents many instances of premature burial and near-premature burial. Skeletons were outside their coffins, sitting up in the corner of their vault after being opened years later. Others were found turned over in their caskets, with tufts of their own hair in their hands.

How might this happen? What conditions might make it look so much like you were dead that even your loved ones would let them plant you in the ground? The list is long and varied, but here are some of the more common things that can make you look dead:

Asphyxiation […]

Catalepsy […]

Coma […]

Apoplexy

{ As Many Exceptions As Rules | Continue reading }

When humans evolved bigger brains, we became the smartest animal alive and were able to colonise the entire planet. But for our minds to expand, a new theory goes, our cells had to become less willing to commit suicide – and that may have made us more prone to cancer.

When cells become damaged or just aren’t needed, they self-destruct in a process called apoptosis. In developing organisms, apoptosis is just as important as cell growth for generating organs and appendages – it helps “prune” structures to their final form.

By getting rid of malfunctioning cells, apoptosis also prevents cells from growing into tumours. […]

McDonald suggests that humans’ reduced capacity for apoptosis could help explain why our brains are so much bigger, relative to body size, than those of chimpanzees and other animals. When a baby animal starts developing, it quickly grows a great many neurons, and then trims some of them back. Beyond a certain point, no new brain cells are created.

Human fetuses may prune less than other animals, allowing their brains to swell.

{ NewScientist | Continue reading }

It was not until 1943, amid world war, that penicillin was found to be an effective treatment for syphilis. This study investigated the hypothesis that a decrease in the cost of syphilis due to penicillin spurred an increase in risky non-traditional sex.

Using nationally comprehensive vital statistics, this study found evidence that the era of modern sexuality originated in the mid to late 1950s. Measures of risky non-traditional sexual behavior began to rise during this period. These trends appeared to coincide with the collapse of the syphilis epidemic. Syphilis incidence reached an all-time low in 1957 and syphilis deaths fell rapidly during the 1940s and early 1950s. Regression analysis demonstrated that most measures of sexual behavior significantly increased immediately following the collapse of syphilis and most measures were significantly associated with the syphilis death rate. Together, the findings supported the notion that the discovery of penicillin decreased the cost of syphilis and thereby played an important role in shaping modern sexuality.

{ PubMed }

Technically, physical pain could be banished in humans and nonhumans alike. […]

From an engineering perspective, pain is unnecessary.

{ David Pearce/io9 | Continue reading }

images { 1. Richard Kalvar | 2. Ellsworth Kelly, Black and White, 1961 }

One prerequisite for being a vampire is that you have a taste for blood. […] Almost every culture consumes blood. Many people eat cooked blood. The Poles eat blood soup (czernina), and the Brits love their blood pudding as much as the Chinese love their fried blood tofu. The next time you go to a French restaurant for the coq au vin, remember that the sauce is made with rooster blood.

There are also those cultures that drink blood. The inuit peoples drink fresh seal blood, and the Maasi in Africa rely on a mixture of cow’s milk and cow’s blood as a staple of their diet. And why not, blood is a decent source of nutrition.

Blood has a lot of protein and is a good source of lipids. Of course it is iron rich, and is a source of fluid and salt if you happen to be caught in the desert. If a vampire happens to pick out an uncontrolled diabetic, a drink of blood could also be a good source of carbohydrates.

[…]

Congenital Erythropoietic Porphyria (CEP) is by far the disease most often associated with vampirism. […] The symptoms of the porphyrias do make you think of vampires: sun sensitivity with extreme burning, white skin, bloodshot eyes, sensitive eyes, anemia (low number and therefore a need for red blood cells), reddish tears, reddish urine, red pigment in the enamel of the teeth (erythrodontia). […] Porphyrias also bring increased body and facial hair (hirsutism), so they may contribute to the werewolf legend as well.

{ As Many Exceptions As Rules | Continue reading }

photo { Janine Antoni }

The first rapid [20 minutes] home-testing kit for H.I.V. has just gone on sale for $40, marketed as a way for people to find out privately if they have the virus that causes AIDS.

But some experts and advocates say that another use, unadvertised, for the OraQuick test — to screen potential sexual partners — may become equally popular and even help slow an epidemic stuck at 50,000 new infections each year in the United States.

There are reasons to think that screening might make a difference. Studies have found that a significant minority of people who are H.I.V.-positive either lie about their status or keep it secret, infecting unsuspecting partners.

And though the manufacturer, OraSure Technologies, is not promoting the use of the test for screening, 70 percent of the 4,000 men and women in the company’s clinical trials said they would either definitely or very likely use it that way. Some even suggested that the company sell boxes of two so couples could be tested together. […]

The OraQuick test is imperfect. It is nearly 100 percent accurate when it indicates that someone is not infected and, in fact, is not. But it is only about 93 percent accurate when it says that someone is not infected and the person actually does have the virus, though the body is not yet producing the antibodies that the test detects.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Emmet Gowin }

For a small group of people—perhaps just 1% to 3% of the population—sleep is a waste of time.

Natural “short sleepers,” as they’re officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.

They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious, according to the few researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families. […]

Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night. […]

Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.

Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too.

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

photo { Diane Arbus }

According to an influential and controversial theory, autism is the manifestation of an “Extreme Male Brain.” The reasoning goes something like this - the condition is far more prevalent in males than females; people with autism think in a distinctive style that’s more commonly observed in men than women (that is, high in systematising and low in empathising); and greater testosterone exposure in the womb appears to go hand in hand with an infant exhibiting more autism-like traits in later childhood.

Simon Baron-Cohen, the psychologist who first proposed the theory, always conjectured that there may also be such a thing as an “Extreme Female Brain.” Now in a new paper, a pair of researchers in the USA have made the case that the Extreme Female Brain exists, it’s highly empathic, and it comes with its own problematic consequences, in terms of a fear of negative evaluation by others, and related to that, a greater risk of eating disorders (which are known to be far more prevalent in women than men).

{ BPS | Continue reading }

photo { Andrew Miksys }

Large-scale surveys indicate that on average people spend more time sleeping than working. […]

Negative effects of sleep deprivation are especially problematic in contemporary organizations, given recent research indicating that sleep has decreased at a rate of about 5 minutes per decade for the past three decades.

A large-scale study indicates that 29.9% of Americans get less than 6 hours per day; for those in management and enterprises, 40.5% get less than 6 hours. Large- scale studies from Korea, Finland, Sweden, and England also indicate high proportions of people functioning on low quantities of sleep or poor sleep quality. Probably as a result of insufficient sleep, 29% of Americans report extreme sleepiness or falling asleep at work in the past month. Thus, across many countries, there is an abundance of employees who work after a short night of sleep or poor quality sleep. […]

Organizational psychology researchers have recently begun to investigate this topic, highlighting effects of low sleep quantity and poor sleep quality on job satisfaction, unethical behavior, workplace deviance, lack of innovative thinking, and high risk of work injuries.

{ SAGE | PDF }

art { Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538 }