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Women's Skin Tone Influences Perception Of Beauty
"Until now, skin's overall homogeneity and color saturation received little attention among behavioral scientists. This study helps us better understand that wrinkles are not the only age cue. Skin tone and luminosity may be a major signal for mate selection and attractiveness, as well as perceived age," says lead researcher Dr. Karl Grammer, Founder and Scientific Director of the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology, University of Vienna, Austria......... Posted by: Tom Permalink Source Roasted Garlic Express
(I'm assuming that claim is for garlic roasters.) But still all jokes aside, the Garlic Express allows you to roast up to three medium sized bulbs of garlic at a time, and does so with minimum fuss and hassle. The cook cycle is less than thirty minutes, which sure beats having to turn on and heat your oven, or permanently flavoring whatever else you may use to roast. Another big plus: the little garlic shape is so cute!........ Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Treatment Of Alcohol Dependence
While a number of therapy approaches were found helpful, the authors report that the patients who were most successful in abstaining from alcohol 16 weeks after therapy were those prescribed naltrexone under medical management and those participating in a multi-session program of alcohol counseling delivered by a behavioral specialist. The paper appears in the May 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and reports on the largest clinical trial ever conducted of pharmacologic and behavioral therapys for alcohol dependence. "The most robust finding in the study is that those receiving any medicine did much better than those who received no pills at all," says The Scripps Research Institute's Professor Barbara Mason, an author of the paper. "This should be a wakeup call. With less than one percent of those seeking help for alcohol dependence receiving a prescription, medicine is underutilized. Medication for alcoholism can offer patients an advantage for their recovery, particularly in a real-world setting". Another important aspect of the study, says Mason, is that it offers new safety data on the prescription drugs used in the trial, naltrexone and acamprosate, which were administered at higher-than-standard doses. "We had no serious drug-related events during the course of the research," she says. "That fact should offer prescribing physicians a high degree of comfort"......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Sleepless Nights Causes Weight Gain
This study showed that women who get only 5 hours or less of sleep per day were 32 percent more at risk of developing significant weight gain compared to women who sleep for 7 hours per day. Researchers defined significant weight increase as gain of 33 pounds or more. The study also showed that women who get 5 hours of sleep or less have 15 percent higher risk of becoming obese during the study period of 16 years, compared to women who sleep more. Women who had only 6 hours of sleep per day, stand at 12% increased risk of major weight gain and 6 percent increased risk of obesity when compared to women who regularly get 7 hours of sleep. These results are drawn form a large study, comprising of a total of 68,183 middle-aged women, who were part of the Nurses health study. The study participants were required to give information about their sleeping hours and asked to report their weights every couple of years of years during the 16 years of the study. It was noted that at the beginning of the study women who had 5 hours or less of sleep on an average had 5.4 extra pounds in their body in comparison to women who had 7 hours of sleep on a regular basis. The lead investigator of the study, Dr. Sanjay Patel, says that this is the largest study of sleep habits and weight gain. He says that, this would be the first study to demonstrate that reduced sleeping is associated with increased risk of weight gain over a long period of time......... Posted by: Sean Permalink HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
Basic research has helped us understand how HIV causes AIDS and how the immune system attempts to contain infection. This knowledge has catalyzed significant progress in the development of vaccines for HIV. Since 1987, dedicated researchers supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have enrolled more than 23,000 volunteers in 96 HIV vaccine clinical trials that have tested at least 58 different vaccine candidates. However, an effective vaccine eludes us. We must continue to accelerate efforts in both basic and clinical research to design promising new vaccine candidates and to test their potential for preventing HIV infection. Such research efforts are progressing with a renewed spirit of domestic and international cooperation. Examples of new collaborative initiatives include the Global HIV/AIDS Vaccine Enterprise, an alliance of independent organizations around the world dedicated to accelerating the development of a preventive HIV vaccine; the Center for HIV-AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), a consortium of universities and academic medical centers with the goal of solving major problems in HIV vaccine design and development; and the Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation (PAVE), a voluntary consortium of U.S. government agencies and key U.S. government-funded organizations involved in the development and evaluation of preventive HIV/AIDS vaccines, including the conduct of HIV vaccine clinical trials. In addition, working in close partnership with these groups, the NIAID Vaccine Research Center continues its efforts to develop novel vaccine candidates and to evaluate their potential for inducing protective immunity......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Hurricane Linked To Long-term Mental Distress
The researchers, sociology doctoral student and lead author David Russell and professors John Taylor and Donald Lloyd, presented their findings at the 2006 annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society held recently in New Orleans. Although the short-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Andrew have been documented, this study of adolescents is the first to show that it had long-term effects on mental health. "We found that people who experienced prior stressful events and who had pre-existing symptoms of psychological distress were more adversely affected by exposure to hurricane-related stressful events," Russell said. "Based on our findings, we believe intervention efforts should include assessments of the prior experiences and psychological well-being of disaster victims. Doing so will aid response workers in identifying those most at risk for developing post-disaster psychological problems". The findings suggest that the mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, will be even greater. Although the storms were similar in strength, the human and economic costs associated with Katrina far exceeded those of Andrew. Deaths associated with Katrina were more than 50 times greater than those attributed to Andrew, and economic analysts predict that the total economic cost of Katrina will surpass $200 billion, which is more than five times the cost of Andrew......... Posted by: Tyler Permalink Source Grapefruit Juicecould beDangerous With Some Drugs
For almost a decade, people have been told by their doctors and pharmacists to avoid grapefruit juice if they are being treated with certain medications, including some drugs that control blood pressure or lower cholesterol. Studies have shown that grapefruit juice can cause more of these drugs to enter the blood stream, resulting in undesirable and even dangerous side effects. The drugs affected by grapefruit juice usually have some difficulty entering the body after they are consumed because an intestinal enzyme, CYP3A, partially destroys them as they are absorbed. Grapefruit juice, but not other commonly consumed fruit juices, inhibits this enzyme, allowing more of these drugs to enter the body. It was originally assumed that the ingredients responsible for drug interactions were the flavonoids that give grapefruit juice its bitter taste. The new study shows that a group of chemicals called furanocoumarins are the likely culprit. "This is the best evidence to date that furanocoumarins are the active ingredients in grapefruit juice that cause the interaction with medications," said Dr. Paul Watkins, the Dr. Verne S. Caviness distinguished professor of medicine and director of UNC's General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). Watkins led the study team......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Antidepressant Drug May Help Depression In Diabetics
"That's important not only because people with diabetes will feel better if we can control their depression. It's also key to helping manage blood sugar," says Patrick J. Lustman, Ph.D., principal investigator and professor of psychiatry. "As depression improves, glucose levels also tend to improve". Although depression affects about 5 percent of the general population, the rate is about 25 percent for patients with diabetes. Lustman's team previously demonstrated that treatment with antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy is an effective way to treat depression in patients with diabetes, but often depression would quickly redevelop. "As we better understand depression, it's clear that for many patients, it is a chronic and recurring disease," Lustman says. "That appears to be especially true for patients with diabetes compared to those otherwise free of medical illness". Although they knew that short-term treatment with antidepressants was helpful with mood and with control of blood glucose, Lustman's team didn't know whether the drug could prevent the recurrence of depression in patients with diabetes. He also didn't know what would happen to glucose levels in the months following successful depression therapy......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Gene That Increases Type 2 Diabetes
The finding is important because it provides evidence that the same gene in humans could provide clinicians with a powerful tool to determine the likelihood that some individuals will acquire the condition. Moreover, the finding that the gene works through a pathway not generally studied in the context of diabetes, suggests new avenues to explore in the search for new drugs to treat or prevent the disease, says Alan Attie, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry and the senior author of the study published this week (May 7) in the journal Nature Genetics. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the condition in the United States, with an estimated 16 million Americans afflicted with the disease. It is caused by an inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin, or by the body's reduced ability to respond to insulin, or both. Insulin is necessary for the body to properly utilize sugar. Often, the development of type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity. Obese individuals tend to have insulin resistance; that is, it takes more insulin for the body to respond normally. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreas is unable to manufacture enough insulin to compensate for the body's increased demand for the hormone, which it does by growing more insulin-producing beta cells or by ramping up insulin secretion......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Patients positively weigh in on liposuction
"Liposuction is one of the most satisfying procedures for patients and most effective at eliminating localized fat," said ASPS Spokesperson Jeffrey Kenkel, MD, co-author of study, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "The majority of patients recognize their role in maintaining positive results and pursue a healthy diet and exercise. These patients typically maintain or lose weight after surgery, while those that do not may gain small amounts of weight. Ultimately, one's lifestyle can affect long term-results." As per the study, approximately 57 percent of patients reported no weight change after having liposuction - 46 percent of these patients actually reported a weight loss, losing an average of five to 10 pounds in less than six months. Forty-three percent of patients reported gaining weight, with the majority gaining between five and 10 pounds more than six months after surgery......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source |
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