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While everyone was talking about the swine flu, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found the reason why its far-scarier cousins, the avian flu strains, didn’t become a full-blown pandemic. Turns out, we have our cold noses to thank:
All and all, 248 humans have died from the H5N1 according to WHO data as of January 2009. H5N1, as a strain, infects more species than any previously known flu virus, is deadlier than previous strains, and continues to evolve becoming both more widespread and more deadly. But even still, fears of a pandemic have yet to be realized. Now, researchers might have found the reason: our noses are too cold for the Avian flu. [...]
The difference in temperature, internally, between a human and a bird isn’t all that different – people maintain an internal temperature of about 37 degrees celcius, whereas birds stay a little warmer, around 40 degrees celcius. Researchers from the University of North Carolina wanted to know how these temperature differences might affect avian influenza viruses. They took a avian virus strain, H4N6, and human flu H3N2, and tried to infect human airway epithelial cells – the cells that line our noses and lungs. Both, they found, could infect and replicate quite quickly human airway epthelial cells at 37 degrees celcius, though the avian ones were a little slower in general than the human ones. But when the temperature was dropped to that of our noses – a bit cooler 32 degrees celcius – the avian virus replication slowed to a snail’s pace, 3-5 log units below the human virus’ speed. They tried a different avian strain – H5N3 – and found the same results. So they tried the deadly virus itself, H5N1 isolated from a dead person, and even it fared poorly. It seems that something about avian flu viruses simply can’t function right in cooler temperatures.
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After putting long hours at work and navigating the treacherous waters of office politics, you’ve finally landed that promotion you’ve been after – but is it good for you?
Not according to this study by economic and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick in England. They found that job promotions can be downright dangerous to your health:
Economics and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick in England found that promotion produces 10% more mental strain and leaves up to 20% less time to visit the doctor in the event of illness.
The team tested the widely held assumption that an improvement in job status leads to better health due to an increased sense of self-worth.
Using data collected in Britain on about 1,000 individual promotions from 1991 to 2005, they found no evidence of improved physical health after promotion. But they did find that people thrust into more senior jobs suffered significantly greater mental strain.
So, would it be an act of compassion for your boss to deny you that promotion? 
Foreign accent syndrome, exploding head syndrome, werewolf syndrome, alien hand syndrome … walking corpse syndrome? Have you heard of any of these baffling (but completely real) medical conditions?
Werewolf Syndrome: Hypertrichosis, or werewolf syndrome, is a medical condition that causes the excessive growth of body hair — typically on the upper body, including the face. There are only 50 or so documented cases, and sufferers generally acquire it through genetic inheritance.
Link Link redirected for some people to a spammy page, which ain’t cool. Too bad, because it was an interesting article.
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Wow … we all knew fast food was bad for us, but really? For starters, their burgers can apparently last for 20 years … longer than the average vehicle. Next up: you would have to walk for seven hours to burn off a Super Sized Coke. Seriously.
Heck, even pet food can be healthier than McDonalds according to a recent study – and the list goes on. So, before you head out for your next set of burger and fries read this and be amazed (or utterly disgusted). Of course you could also watch Supersize Me but this list arguably tops even some of his encounters.
In 2007, the employees of an Orlando-area McDonald’s were caught on camera pouring milk into the milkshake machine out of a bucket labeled “Soiled Towels Only.” That particular restaurant had already been cited for 12 different sanitary violations. Though McDonald’s proudly stands by its safety standards, and not every restaurant has such notorious incidents, the setting of a fast food restaurant staffed with low-paid employees at a high turnover rate arguably encourages bending the rules. (McDonald’s isn’t alone in this, of course – Burger King is actually ranked as the dirtiest of all the fast food chains.)
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To paraphrase Animal Farm, “some fats are more equal than others”.
While putting on weight in general can have negative effects on your health, abdominal weight gain (visceral fat) is particularly unhealthy. Since visceral fat is buried deep in your abdomen, it may seem like a difficult target for spot reduction. But this fat is actually quite sensitive to exercise and calorie reduction.
In addition to diet and exercise for reducing overall fat, eMedExpert Blog has five tips for reducing belly fat in particular. Link -Thanks, Karen!
It may be the wrong time of year to think about how fat you are -or maybe it’s the best time of year to change your habits before you put the pounds on! HealthAssist lists 14 habits you want to examine to turn your health around and either lose weight or avoid becoming fat. Some you are familiar with, but others may be news. Who knew the way you dress makes a difference in how active you are? Link -Thanks, Karen!
In America, most of us believe that we shouldn’t discriminate based on characteristics that people can’t control (e.g. race, gender, etc.). However, we also believe that weight is something that people can control, and while that is correct to a certain extent, there are other factors that prevent people from achieving their ideal weight.
A new study from Yale University claims that weight discrimination is more widespread than previously imagined. Some of its findings:
– Men are not at serious risk of discrimination until their BMI reaches 35, while women begin experiencing an increase in discrimination at BMI 27.
- Moderately obese women with a BMI of 30 to 35 are three times more likely than men in the same weight group to experience weight discrimination.
- Compared to other forms of discrimination in the United States, weight discrimination is the third most prevalent cause of perceived discrimination among women (after gender and age) and the fourth most prevalent form of discrimination among all adults (after gender, age and race.)
As for how much control people can exert over their own weight, according to Rebecca Puhl (the study’s author):
We place a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility for body weight. Our billion-dollar diet industry is founded on that premise. Your weight is modifiable. But that does not reflect the current state of science. We know from hundreds of randomized clinically controlled trials that it’s very difficult to sustain weight loss over time with our existing treatment methods. That has compelled a number of expert panels, like the National Institutes of Health, to conclude that we really can’t expect you to lose more than 10 percent of your body weight and be able to keep that off.
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