Can taking the pill dull a woman's desire forever?
"Can taking the pill dull a woman's desire forever?
Special Report from New Scientist Print Edition, May 27, 2005
ORAL contraceptives may free a woman to have sex without fear of getting pregnant, but they could also extinguish her desire.
The pill has been associated with many side effects, including blood clots, migraines and weight gain. Perhaps least talked about is its tendency to dull libido by decreasing testosterone levels.
Contraceptive drugs curb the hormone's production in the ovaries and also raise levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), a substance that takes it out of play. But it is unclear how common problems are in pill users. Until now, any sexual dysfunction, including loss of libido, muted or non-existent orgasms or painful intercourse, was thought to be reversible when women stopped taking the drug.
Irwin Goldstein, Claudia Panzer and their colleagues at Boston University studied 125 young women who attended a sexual dysfunction clinic. Sixty-two of them were taking oral contraceptives, 40 had previously taken them and 23 had never taken them. The team measured levels of SHBG in the women every three months for a year, and found that in pill users they were seven times as high as in women who had never taken them. Levels had declined a bit in women who had stopped taking the pill, but remained three to four times as high as in those who had never taken it, the researchers told a meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists in Washington DC last week. 'There's the possibility it is imprinting a woman for the rest of her life,' says Goldstein."
Read the entire article
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
"Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times, May 31, 2005
New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.
Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.
In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.
It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers."
Read the entire article
"Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain
By BENEDICT CAREY
New York Times, May 31, 2005
New love can look for all the world like mental illness, a blend of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family and prompts out-of-character behavior - compulsive phone calling, serenades, yelling from rooftops - that could almost be mistaken for psychosis.
Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.
In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal.
It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.
The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers."
Read the entire article
Coming Clean: Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year
Coming Clean: Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year
"Coming Clean
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY, The New York Times, June 6, 2005
INFECTIONS that have been nearly eradicated in some other countries are raging through hospitals here in the United States. The major reason? Poor hygiene. In fact, hygiene is so inadequate in most American hospitals that one out of every 20 patients contracts an infection during a hospital stay. Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year, as many as AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined.
And the danger is worsening as many hospital infections can no longer be cured with common antibiotics. One of the deadliest germs is a staph bacteria called M.R.S.A., short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which lives harmlessly on the skin but causes havoc when it enters the body. Patients who do survive M.R.S.A. often spend months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue. In 1974, 2 percent of staph infections were from M.R.S.A. By 1995, that number had soared to 22 percent. Today, experts estimate that more than 60 percent of staph infections are M.R.S.A.
Hospitals in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands once faced similar rates, but brought them down to below 1 percent. How? Through the rigorous enforcement of rules on hand washing, the meticulous cleaning of equipment and hospital rooms, the use of gowns and disposable aprons to prevent doctors and nurses from spreading germs on clothing and the testing of incoming patients to identify and isolate those carrying the germ.
Too few hospitals in the United States are using these precautions, though where they are used they are highly effective. In a pilot program, the veterans hospital in Pittsburgh reduced M.R.S.A. 85 percent, and the University of Virginia Medical Center eradicated it. Unfortunately most hospitals have not shown the will to defeat infections.
More than half the time, doctors and other caregivers break the most fundamental rule of hygiene by failing to clean their hands before treating a patient.
Hospital infections can be stopped, but most hospital administrators have not made prevention a top priority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also to blame. While the C.D.C. has made some efforts to curb hospital infections, they have failed to ask hospitals to follow the rigorous precautions that are working in other countries and in those American hospitals where they have been tried.
In 2003, a task force for the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists of America chastised the C.D.C. for this failure, but the C.D.C. has still not acted. Every year of delay is costing thousands of lives.
Many hospital administrators say they can't afford to take the necessary precautions, but they can't afford not to. Infections erode hospital profits because rarely are hospitals fully paid for the added weeks or months that patients must spend in the hospital when they get an infection. Studies show that when hospitals invest in these proven precautions, they are rewarded with as much as tenfold financial return. These infections add about $30 billion annually to the nation's health costs. This tab will increase rapidly as more infections become drug-resistant.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that it will not support the growing demand to make hospital infection rates public. That's a shame because if you need to be hospitalized, you should be able to find out which hospitals in your area have the worst infection problems. This secrecy may allow some hospitals to save face, but it won't save lives or money."
Read the entire article
"Coming Clean
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY, The New York Times, June 6, 2005
INFECTIONS that have been nearly eradicated in some other countries are raging through hospitals here in the United States. The major reason? Poor hygiene. In fact, hygiene is so inadequate in most American hospitals that one out of every 20 patients contracts an infection during a hospital stay. Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year, as many as AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined.
And the danger is worsening as many hospital infections can no longer be cured with common antibiotics. One of the deadliest germs is a staph bacteria called M.R.S.A., short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which lives harmlessly on the skin but causes havoc when it enters the body. Patients who do survive M.R.S.A. often spend months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue. In 1974, 2 percent of staph infections were from M.R.S.A. By 1995, that number had soared to 22 percent. Today, experts estimate that more than 60 percent of staph infections are M.R.S.A.
Hospitals in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands once faced similar rates, but brought them down to below 1 percent. How? Through the rigorous enforcement of rules on hand washing, the meticulous cleaning of equipment and hospital rooms, the use of gowns and disposable aprons to prevent doctors and nurses from spreading germs on clothing and the testing of incoming patients to identify and isolate those carrying the germ.
Too few hospitals in the United States are using these precautions, though where they are used they are highly effective. In a pilot program, the veterans hospital in Pittsburgh reduced M.R.S.A. 85 percent, and the University of Virginia Medical Center eradicated it. Unfortunately most hospitals have not shown the will to defeat infections.
More than half the time, doctors and other caregivers break the most fundamental rule of hygiene by failing to clean their hands before treating a patient.
Hospital infections can be stopped, but most hospital administrators have not made prevention a top priority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also to blame. While the C.D.C. has made some efforts to curb hospital infections, they have failed to ask hospitals to follow the rigorous precautions that are working in other countries and in those American hospitals where they have been tried.
In 2003, a task force for the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists of America chastised the C.D.C. for this failure, but the C.D.C. has still not acted. Every year of delay is costing thousands of lives.
Many hospital administrators say they can't afford to take the necessary precautions, but they can't afford not to. Infections erode hospital profits because rarely are hospitals fully paid for the added weeks or months that patients must spend in the hospital when they get an infection. Studies show that when hospitals invest in these proven precautions, they are rewarded with as much as tenfold financial return. These infections add about $30 billion annually to the nation's health costs. This tab will increase rapidly as more infections become drug-resistant.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that it will not support the growing demand to make hospital infection rates public. That's a shame because if you need to be hospitalized, you should be able to find out which hospitals in your area have the worst infection problems. This secrecy may allow some hospitals to save face, but it won't save lives or money."
Read the entire article
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Obesity as a Major Malnutrition Issue
Obesity as a Major Malnutrition Issue
"The Changing Face of Malnutrition
Reported by Chris Burslem, International Food Policy Research Institute, October 2004
For as long as the world has known it, malnutrition has been associated with hunger, conjuring up images of gaunt and prematurely aged children and adults. In 2004, malnutrition is still very much with us, and it is taking on a new form as well.
To be sure, there are still far too many hungry and underfed people--1.1 billion at last count. But over one billion people are now overweight and obese.
Perhaps most surprisingly, these aren't all cheeseburger-eating Westerners. Most are Asians, Pacific islanders, and Latin Americans, in particular urban women, living in developing countries. Usually poor, they are succumbing in alarming numbers to the misleadingly named 'diseases of affluence'--obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes--that arise from changing diets, lifestyles, and economies.
Chronic non-communicable diseases now cause close to 60 percent of all deaths worldwide. Surprisingly, nearly 80 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries.
Overweight and obesity, the most glaring outward sign of the changing face of malnutrition in developing countries, increase the chances of a person falling prey to the other non-communicable diseases.
Nutritionists working in developing countries once thought that if people obtained enough energy in their diets, they would obtain enough minerals, vitamins, and other micronutrients. But that is clearly not the case. Malnutrition is not simply caused by a lack of food overall, but by a lack of high-quality foods such as whole grains, fiber, fruits, and vegetables. Diets can also be injurious to health if they contain an excess of components such as saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar.
"Sadly, it seems that we have somehow managed to bypass good health, moving from hunger to obesity in a single generation in many parts of the world," says Marie Ruel, interim director of IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division.
Perhaps most worrying is that obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases are reaching epidemic levels in countries that are still struggling to eliminate hunger and poverty, encumbering them with a double health burden.
In some cases, undernutrition and obesity can even be found under the same roof. The prevalence of households with both overweight and underweight members in Brazil, for example, stands at 11 percent. In Asia it ranges between 3 and 15 percent, with households typically containing an underweight child and an overweight, nonelderly adult.
This one-two health punch has the potential to cause an economic and human disaster in countries whose medical systems are woefully unprepared to deal with diseases requiring long-term care."
Read the entire article
"The Changing Face of Malnutrition
Reported by Chris Burslem, International Food Policy Research Institute, October 2004
For as long as the world has known it, malnutrition has been associated with hunger, conjuring up images of gaunt and prematurely aged children and adults. In 2004, malnutrition is still very much with us, and it is taking on a new form as well.
To be sure, there are still far too many hungry and underfed people--1.1 billion at last count. But over one billion people are now overweight and obese.
Perhaps most surprisingly, these aren't all cheeseburger-eating Westerners. Most are Asians, Pacific islanders, and Latin Americans, in particular urban women, living in developing countries. Usually poor, they are succumbing in alarming numbers to the misleadingly named 'diseases of affluence'--obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes--that arise from changing diets, lifestyles, and economies.
Chronic non-communicable diseases now cause close to 60 percent of all deaths worldwide. Surprisingly, nearly 80 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries.
Overweight and obesity, the most glaring outward sign of the changing face of malnutrition in developing countries, increase the chances of a person falling prey to the other non-communicable diseases.
Nutritionists working in developing countries once thought that if people obtained enough energy in their diets, they would obtain enough minerals, vitamins, and other micronutrients. But that is clearly not the case. Malnutrition is not simply caused by a lack of food overall, but by a lack of high-quality foods such as whole grains, fiber, fruits, and vegetables. Diets can also be injurious to health if they contain an excess of components such as saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar.
"Sadly, it seems that we have somehow managed to bypass good health, moving from hunger to obesity in a single generation in many parts of the world," says Marie Ruel, interim director of IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division.
Perhaps most worrying is that obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases are reaching epidemic levels in countries that are still struggling to eliminate hunger and poverty, encumbering them with a double health burden.
In some cases, undernutrition and obesity can even be found under the same roof. The prevalence of households with both overweight and underweight members in Brazil, for example, stands at 11 percent. In Asia it ranges between 3 and 15 percent, with households typically containing an underweight child and an overweight, nonelderly adult.
This one-two health punch has the potential to cause an economic and human disaster in countries whose medical systems are woefully unprepared to deal with diseases requiring long-term care."
Read the entire article
Our Grass Could be Greener
Nationwide, we’ve planted enough lawn to cover the state of
A gas-powered mower pollutes as much in one hour as a car driven for 350 miles, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. About 30 million tons of fertilizer and pesticides, many containing chemicals known to cause birth defects, cancer and damage to the reproductive system, are dumped annually on residential lawns. The runoff from those lawn treatments pollutes groundwater and nearby lakes, bays and oceans.
Want to make your lawn a kinder, gentler part of the landscape? Start here:
- Switch to electric or battery-powered mowers, or, for a smaller lawn, use a reel mower.
- If you use a gas-powered mower, opt for a four-stroke model rather than a two-stroke one. They emit about half the carbon monoxide and one-tenth the hydrocarbons.
- Reduce mowing time and watering demands. Grow low-maintenance, slow-growing grasses. Or convert part of your lawn to ornamental native plants.
- Switch to organic fertilizers – naturally occurring animal and plant byproducts such as manure, fish, bone and blood meal, and fruit scraps. A good buying guide: If the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium ratio equals more than 15, or if one of the numbers is higher than 8, then it’s not likely organic.
Nation Wastes Nearly Half Its Food
Nation Wastes Nearly Half Its Food
"Nation Wastes Nearly Half Its Food
By Jeff Harrison, November 18, 2004
America has been long been the poster child for the "throw-away society" and researchers have known for years about the volumes of food Americans toss into the trash. Only recently, though, has that been quantified as a percentage of what is produced. A new study from the University of Arizona in Tucson indicates that 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.
Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, has spent the last 10 years measuring food loss, including the last eight under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jones started in the farms and orchards, went on through the warehouses, retail outlets and dining rooms, and to landfills.
What he found was that not only is edible food discarded that could feed people who need it, but the rate of loss, even partially corrected, could save U.S. consumers and corporations tens of billions of dollars each year. Jones says these losses also can be framed in terms of environmental degradation and national security.
On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.
Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem. (In addition to farms and households, Jones also is currently researching retail food waste, again a sector where annual losses run in the tens of billions of dollars.)
Cutting food waste would also go a long way toward reducing serious environmental problems. Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides."
Read the entire article
"Nation Wastes Nearly Half Its Food
By Jeff Harrison, November 18, 2004
America has been long been the poster child for the "throw-away society" and researchers have known for years about the volumes of food Americans toss into the trash. Only recently, though, has that been quantified as a percentage of what is produced. A new study from the University of Arizona in Tucson indicates that 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.
Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, has spent the last 10 years measuring food loss, including the last eight under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jones started in the farms and orchards, went on through the warehouses, retail outlets and dining rooms, and to landfills.
What he found was that not only is edible food discarded that could feed people who need it, but the rate of loss, even partially corrected, could save U.S. consumers and corporations tens of billions of dollars each year. Jones says these losses also can be framed in terms of environmental degradation and national security.
On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.
Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem. (In addition to farms and households, Jones also is currently researching retail food waste, again a sector where annual losses run in the tens of billions of dollars.)
Cutting food waste would also go a long way toward reducing serious environmental problems. Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides."
Read the entire article
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)