Deadliest known substance kept secret’ – botox super-toxin

SCIENTISTS have discovered a new type of botox they believe is the “deadliest substance known to man” and have withheld the DNA sequence because an antidote is not known.

 It is the first time the scientific community has made such a move to withhold such information but security concerns have dictated that they do so.

New Scientist reports that just 2 billionths of a gram, or inhaling 13 billionths of a gram, of the protein botulinum produced by the soil bacterium Clostridium botulinum will kill an adult.

The toxin blocks the release of acetylcholine, the chemical secreted by nerves that makes muscles work. People who accidentally ingest it, as can happen when the bacteria grows in food, develop botulism and often die of paralysis.

Victims are treated with antibodies that are produced artificially and react with the seven families of botulinum – named A to G – discovered so far.

Stephen Arnon and colleagues at the California Department of Public Health in Sacramento reported this week that they have found an eighth toxin – type H – in the faeces of a child who had the typical symptoms of botulism.

“Because no antitoxins as yet have been developed to counteract the novel C. Botulinum toxin, the authors had detailed consultations with representatives from numerous appropriate US government agencies,” editors of the Journal of Infectious Diseases said.

Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo tried to release Botulinum in downtown Tokyo in the 1990s.

 

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Fit mother’s Facebook post ignites controversy

What’s your excuse?” asks mother of three Maria Kang, whose Facebook post of herself in a sports bra, toned abs and three young boys is generating quite a bit of discussion. Those who support her say her picture inspires them and assures them it is possible to be fit post-kids. Others feel that she is unfairly targeting overweight women and telling them they have no excuse not to look like her.

Michelle Wyatt, who clearly takes odds with Maria’s post, comments, “I’m not fat so please don’t take it as I’m ‘miserable’ and ‘unhappy’ with myself, but not everybody wants to look just like you!! Just saying! Posting pics of yourself and your hot body and telling everybody that they don’t have an excuse and that they should look just like you is NOT ok! We all can see that you have a hot body, but posting pics and telling people that they should look just like you will only make them feel worse about themselves when they realize that they can’t!!”

But more are coming to Maria’s side.

Wayne Rainey wrote, “No need for apologies. If people would wake up and realize that there is indeed a growing epidemic of obesity in this country then maybe there would be less hate.”

Jessie Hollifield wrote, “I have two kids. I’m overweight. I saw this picture and said, ‘I wish I had her motivation!’ Good for her, people are too sensitive these days. If you got offended by this picture then maybe you need to get up and change something about yourself!”

The photo now has close to 20,000 comments, and because many lash out at her, Kang felt prompted to write an apology of sorts:

“The first step in owning your life, your body and your destiny is to OWN the thoughts that come out of your own head. I didn’t create them. You created them. So if you want to continue ‘hating’ this image, get used to hating many other things for the rest of your life.”

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TV watching linked to young adults’ heart risk

Watching a favorite television show may feel relaxing, but in a new study, the longer 30-somethings spent in front of the TV, the stiffer their arteries – a sign of likely heart disease in the future.

 “The fact that your arteries aren’t elastic, it predisposes you to develop hypertension in later age and cardiovascular disease,” Isabel Ferreira, senior epidemiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said.

Previous studies have linked TV watching to increased weight, cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes, she and her colleagues write in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

It’s thought that people who spend more time in front of their TVs are less likely to get up and be physically active throughout the day, leading to a variety of problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle.

For the new study, researchers wanted to see whether early signs of damage caused by too little activity could be detected in younger adults.

They used data collected from 373 women and men, who filled out questionnaires about their TV viewing, exercise and other habits at age 32 and then again at age 36.

At age 36, each participant also had an ultrasound measurement of the stiffness of several major arteries in the body.

The researchers found those with the stiffest carotid artery, which is the main blood vessel in the head and neck, spent an average of about 20 more minutes per day watching TV, compared to people with the most elastic carotid artery.

Similar results were seen for stiffness of the femoral arteries in the legs.

Ferreira said the “critical cutoff” was about two hours per day of sitting. That’s in line with current recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics for maximum screen time for children.

What’s more, the negative effects of sitting did not appear to be offset by exercising.

“The funny thing is even if they do physical activity… that doesn’t correct the bad effects of sedentary time,” Ferreira said.

Joel Stager, a professor at the Indiana University-Bloomington School of Public Health, told Reuters Health that those with stiff arteries wouldn’t face immediate health problems. But it raises their risks later on.

“To be honest about this particular measure, it’s more of an association of future problems,” he said. “In other words, it’s predictive of cardiovascular disease down the road.”

Stager was not involved with the new study, but has researched arterial stiffening among college-age people.

“We are catching the early stages of this process,” Ferreira said.

Stager also added that the new study cannot prove watching TV is what caused people’s arteries to stiffen. It could be some other factor that goes along with TV watching, for instance, or young people with stiff arteries might be more likely to stay in and watch TV.

Ferreira told Reuters Health that more research into how watching TV may be tied to arterial stiffness is needed. But she said there is a take-home message for the average person.

“To put it simply, be active,” she said. “And on top of that don’t spend more than two hours sitting in front of your television, computer or laptop per day.”

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Natural weight-loss food: whole-wheat bread

You probably know whole wheat is the best type of wheat, but just because your bread is brown doesn’t mean it’s whole wheat. Even if the label proudly boasts “wheat” bread and lists “wheat flour” as the first ingredient, your bread may still not be whole wheat. Confused?

“Wheat” simply refers to the grain the flour comes from. Anything made with the flour from wheat — even refined white bread — can be called “wheat” and can list “wheat flour” as an ingredient. (The brown color often comes from caramel coloring.)

Are manufacturers lying to consumers? No. But are their labeling practices misleading? We think so. Being informed will guard you from being misled. Learning the facts will help you choose the right bread.

Mistakenly, many people still think bread is fattening. On the contrary, bread can be the best fat-fighting friend in your diet. Bread is naturally low in fat and can be high in fiber. Because it is so versatile, you can easily eat many servings a day in place of other higher-calorie foods. As long as you don’t pile on fatty spreads or fillings, bread can help you lose weight. In fact, studies have proved that people who eat 8 to 12 slices of bread a day still lose weight as long as their total diet is low in calories. The trick is keeping yourself from slathering that hearty bread with butter or margarine. Use a little olive oil instead for a taste treat and your heart health.

Health Benefits

Whole-wheat bread, in particular, is good for you for a number of reasons. It’s high in complex carbohydrates, low in saturated fat, a source of protein, and a storehouse of nutrients and fiber–a microcosm of what your diet should be.

To understand what’s so special about whole wheat in particular, you need to understand the structure of wheat grain. There are three layers to the grain — endosperm, germ, and bran. When whole-wheat flour is milled (refined) to make white bread, the inner germ and outer bran layer are removed, leaving only the starchy endosperm. Unfortunately, more than half the fiber of wheat is in that bran, along with almost three-quarters of the vitamins and minerals in the germ. Besides nutrients, the milling process also removes nonnutrient components — phytoestrogens, phenolic acids, oryzanol, and lignans — that may have health benefits, like reducing your risk of cancer and heart disease. A study of more than 74,000 women over a 12-year period showed that women who ate more whole-grain foods weighed less than those who ate fewer whole grains.

What milling removes, manufacturers try to put back in. Lost B vitamins — thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid — and iron are added back to form enriched bread products. Many other nutrients, especially minerals and fiber, don’t get added back. So if you eat white bread, you’re definitely missing a nutrient-rich and fiber opportunity.

Source: http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/food-nutrition/natural-foods/natural-weight-loss-food-whole-wheat-bread-ga.htm

Novel brain monitoring technique could lead to ‘mind-reading’ devices

 

Many movies and novels speculate as to what it would be like to peek inside a person’s mind and know what he or she is thinking. But up until recently, such a skill has only existed in the realm of science fiction.

Now, scientists may be turning fantasy into reality, having created a novel brain monitoring technique that could lead to the development of “mind-reading” applications in the distant future.

Utilizing a series of electrodes attached to portions of a patient’s brain, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine were able to eavesdrop on a person’s brain activity as he or she performed normal, daily functions – a process they termed “intracranial recording.”

The team conducted a number of these recordings on three epilepsy patients who had been admitted to the hospital for observation, allowing the researchers to identify a brain region that is activated when a person performs mathematical calculations. Additionally, researchers were able to determine that this area of the brain is similarly activated when an individual uses numbers – or even quantitative expressions such as “more than” – in everyday conversation.

 

Detailed in the journal Nature Communications, the findings provide a new framework for studying how the brain works under normal day-to-day circumstances.

“The beauty of this paper is not just to report another experimental finding, but it is a breakthrough in terms of methodological advancement in terms of being able to record from brain activity in real life, natural conditions,” lead author Dr. Josef Parvizi, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences and director of Stanford’s Human Intracranial Cognitive Electrophysiology Program (SHICEP), told FoxNews.com.

As the director of SHICEP, Parvizi was able to direct this research on seizure patients who had been admitted to the hospital for epilepsy surgery evaluations.  During these visits, patients have a portion of their skull temporarily removed so that intracranial electrodes can be attached to the exposed brain surface.  They are then monitored for up to a week as the electrodes pick up electrical activity in the brain, allowing neurologists to observe the patients’ seizures and pinpoint the exact portion of the brain from which the seizures are originating.

Throughout the course of their hospital stay, these patients are mostly confined to their rooms, as they cannot be disconnected from the monitoring apparatus.  However, they are comfortable, alert and free of pain – making them great test subjects for understanding how the human brain operates in everyday scenarios.

To test their intracranial recording technique, Parvizi and his team recruited three patient volunteers, asking them to solve mathematical equations and various true/false questions that appeared on a computer screen. Some of the true/false questions required the use of simple mathematical calculation, such as verifying whether or not 2 + 2 = 5.

“They had to press ‘1’ for correct or ‘2’ for incorrect for a statement like, ‘I had coffee today,” or, “I took a cab this morning,” Parvizi explained. “So the answer to the first question is ‘yes’ and the answer to the second question is of course ‘no,’ because they are in the hospital; they can’t take a cab.”

For posterity, the entirety of the patients’ stay at the hospital was monitored by a video camera.

After analyzing the volunteer’s electrode records from these experiments, the researchers saw a spike in the electrical activity of the brain’s intraperietal sulcus when the patients performed calculations.  They also found that activity in this brain region spiked several other times throughout the day, prompting Parvizi and his team to turn to their video surveillance to better understand what initiated the electrical bursts.

The footage revealed that when a patient mentioned a number – or even spoke in quantitative terms, such as saying the phrases “more than” or “many” – the same spikes were seen in the intraperietal sulcus.  This finding was mostly unexpected for the researchers.

Given the success of their study, Parvizi said their intracranial recordings could completely change the way researchers observe the brain.  He noted that current brain monitoring techniques, such as the use of functional magnetic resonance imagining (MRI), do not provide a very accurate picture of the human brain as it is in normal settings.

“The MRI scanner is several tons, and you can’t actually take an MRI scanner home, but this (apparatus) is something you can walk with – as a patient of course,” Parvizi said.  “So subjects that are implanted with these spying electrodes, they were walking and talking… We have a new method by which we can study the brain activity in natural environments, so it’s totally different than other experiments.”

Parvizi said this technique has the potential to lead to very beneficial medical applications, especially for patients whose brains or nervous systems have been severely damaged.

“If we’re able to decipher the code of brain activity, let’s say beyond mathematics, then patients who are unable to speak, for example (due to) stroke, or are unable to move, we could use this deciphering method to communicate with machines so that machines can do (the talking),” Parvizi said.  “Or we can somehow try to understand what’s going on in the brain activity without even patients talking.”

While some experts have speculated that Parvizi’s new technique could one day be used in a sinister way to read a patient’s private thoughts, Parvizi said that is still a very fictional concept.

“This is too far-fetched.  We are not there yet.  We are light years away from mind-reading,” Parvizi said. “I don’t want people to get scared (thinking) doctors are mind-reading their patients.”

Source : Fox News

Oreo cookies are as addictive as drugs

If you’ve ever been unable to stop yourself from eating too many Oreo cookies it may not be your fault–a new college study says one of America’s favorite desserts is just as addictive as drugs in lab rats.

The study by students at Connecticut College found that when the rats ate Oreos they formed an equally strong association with the cookies as when other rats were injected with cocaine or morphine.

Additionally, researchers found eating the cookies activated even more neurons in the rats’ brain “pleasure centers” than the addictive drugs.

“Our research supports the theory that high-fat/ high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,” Neuroscience Professor Joseph Schroeder said in a school press release. “It may explain why some people can’t resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them.”

The student behind the study says she wanted to explore how foods with high fat and sugar content contribute to obesity in low-income communities, and that the results are troubling.

“Even though we associate significant health hazards in taking drugs like cocaine and morphine, high-fat/ high-sugar foods may present even more of a danger because of their accessibility and affordability,” Jamie Honohun said.

On a lighter note, Honohun says they also got a surprise when watching the rats eat the Oreos.

“They would break it open and eat the middle first,” she said.

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Wal-Mart takes the lead in fighting toxins – who’s next?

Wal-Mart, the country’s largest retailer, recently announced that it would require suppliers to disclose and eventually phase out nearly 10 hazardous chemicals from fragrances, cosmetics, personal care products and household cleaners sold at its stores nationwide.

The company declined to name specific chemicals as it familiarizes suppliers with the new policy, but noted it would apply the same standard to its own line of cleaning products.

This is not because of people like me, who have for years been sounding alarms about the harmful health effects of dangerous chemicals in scores of products used in the home. This is because of you, and millions of other consumers, demanding better with your wallets – because you know better, because you expect better. And now, at least in Wal-Mart, you’ll get better.

Wal-Mart’s announcement comes on the heels of California’s new Safer Consumer Products regulations which will require manufacturers to seek safer alternatives to the harmful chemical ingredients currently found in commonly used products.

Wal-Mart and the state of California might be motivated by different goals (profit versus public health), but their decisions to take on toxic chemicals are similar in scope. California is the most populous state in the country and Wal-Mart is the largest retailer. If manufacturers want to do business with either, they’ll be forced to make some serious changes to their hazardous products currently on the market.

This is cause for celebration, but also for continued concern – why aren’t more local or state governments following suit? Of even greater concern – why isn’t the federal government leading the way? If elected officials took this issue seriously and banned certain known carcinogens found in everyday products, it would send a message not only to manufacturers but also to citizens that just because a product lines the shelves at a popular store like Wal-Mart, it’s not necessarily safe.

Instead, Wal-Mart has stepped up, and for this they are to be commended, particularly in light of a report released last month by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Among other recommendations, the report suggests doctors ask mothers-to-be about their exposure to different chemicals, and urges health care professionals to teach women how to avoid substances considered most worrisome during pregnancy.

Let’s hope more retailers follow in Wal-Mart’s footsteps, and that Wal-Mart delivers on its substantial promise. Meanwhile, be your own regulator. a list of dangerous chemical ingredients that will help you interpret confusing product labels as you navigate the aisle in your local drugstore.

For now, you have to do the work – but being a smarter, more informed consumer will pay dividends in the long run.

Read more at http://www.i4u.com/2013/10/wal-mart/takes-lead-toxins-fighting-whos-wal-mart-next#XUypEYqo5wbBpEWQ.99

Most Twin Deliveries Can Happen Without C-Section

The latest study on labor and delivery for moms of multiples found that moms of twins can safely deliver their babies without having a c-section. The study, performed all over the world, is the latest to question the need for c-section births. Currently one-third of all births in the US are via c-section; three-fourths of which are twin births and studies, much like this one, continue to challenge the long-held beliefs that women delivering more than one baby should deliver by c-section and not vaginally.

Lead researcher Dr. Jon Barrett of Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto pioneered a study in 25 countries on 2,800 women pregnant with twin babies. Of all the moms-to-be included in the study, 1,800 were scheduled to deliver via c-section and the remaining half planned to deliver vaginally. As their due dates approached, researchers noted that 40 percent of the moms who planned to deliver vaginally ended up having a c-section and about 10 percent of the moms in the c-section group ended up delivering their babies vaginally. Barrett and his team noted that though 2 percent of the newborns died at birth or were born with health problems, the method of birth made no difference and didn’t affect the rate of complications in moms.

The study was paid for by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and published in the New England Journal of Medicine and is the latest research performed that goes against the grain that moms of multiples must have a c-section. Though they’re still medically recommended for moms (or babies) at risk of complications, Dr. Michael Greene from Massachusetts General Hospital was quoted in the publication saying that though the findings don’t prove that all sets of twins should be delivered vaginally, it does give moms-to-be the room to plan to deliver vaginally so long as her personal doctor is experienced in twin deliveries and knows when a c-section is necessary.

Earlier research found that women pregnant with twins labor longer, which actually reduces their risk of c-section. Using the numbers from a national database of labor and delivery information from several clinical centers, lead researcher Dr. Heidi Leftwich and her colleagues found that twins required about one to three hours more than single babies in the first stage of labor. The researchers defined the first stage of labor as when the cervix opens until it is wide enough for the baby to pass through. They defined the second stage of delivery as the actual birth of the baby. Researchers then compared data from about 900 twin pregnancies with 100,500 singleton pregnancies. The single-birth pregnancies served as the control group. Researchers measured the time it took for a woman’s cervix to dilate to 1 centimeter and found that in twin pregnancies, it took an average of 12.7 hours for the cervix to progress from 4 to 10 centimeters (which was defined as fully dilated). In single birth pregnancies, it took an average of 9.6 hours. “Doctors could let twins labor longer before calling it ‘failure to progress’,” Dr. Heidi Leftwich said.

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Novartis overhauls Japanese unit after drug scandal

Novartis AG said on Thursday it had overhauled management operations and sanctioned key staff in Japan after a scandal involving research into its Diovan blood pressure drug in the country.

The Swiss company’s pharmaceutical head David Epstein said the episode would not have a significant impact on the group’s profits, although he acknowledged sales of the drug had fallen.

“Overall Diovan is a relatively small part of our portfolio, given the breadth of the medicines that we have, so the impact should not be significant,” Epstein said.

Epstein told a news conference that oversight at its Japan unit had fallen short and, as a result, Novartis was setting up a compliance advisory panel to prevent future such problems.

“Clearly there should have been more control as well as better training in Japan,” Epstein said. “Unfortunately that was not the case. Those controls are now in place so that this cannot happen again.”

He also acknowledged, in response to a reporter’s question, that the company should have paid more attention to questions raised by some outside experts about the studies into Diovan.

A Japanese health ministry panel this week called for the ministry to investigate Novartis Pharma, the company’s Japanese arm, saying it may have violated the law when it cited studies based on allegedly manipulated data.

Japan accounted for around a quarter of Diovan’s global sales before the scandal and, overall, it made up 9 percent of total group sales in 2012, or $5.36 billion.

Diovan was once Novartis’ top-selling product but its importance is declining and the patent on the medicine is due to expire in Japan this year.

Several Japanese hospitals have stopped offering Diovan after two Japanese universities retracted papers regarding the drug’s efficacy in reducing the incidence of stroke and angina.

While Novartis has said a former employee who assisted in the trials had acted inappropriately, the interim report said the case involved the company as a whole.

Epstein said the report left unclear who manipulated data and for what purpose, but acknowledged potential damage from the scandal to the company’s reputation.

“Clearly if something happens in one market and impacts our reputation, that’s something that we feel acutely all around the world. So we will work very hard to regain your trust,” he said.

Epstein said the company was setting up a panel of seven to nine members, including outside experts, to advise the Japan unit on how to prevent further such problems.

Novartis global Chief Commercial Officer Eric Cornut will be transferred from headquarters to serve as Japan unit’s chairman. The previous head of the unit left the company as of Monday and two other senior executives are taking a 30 percent pay cut until the case is resolved.

Japan’s pharmaceutical lobby group, the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, said on Thursday it was suspending Novartis’s membership rights in the organisation.

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New insect repellent could mean bye-bye to DEET

Researchers said Wednesday they had discovered four natural mosquito repellents to succeed DEET, a compound whose origins go back to World War II.

DEET — the abbreviation for N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide — was introduced by the US Army in 1946 after troops deployed in the Pacific theatre fell sick from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
It remains the primary insect repellent in use today, but has many limitations. It has to be applied frequently and is expensive, which rules it out for combating disease in regions where malaria is endemic. It also dissolves types of plastic, synthetic fabrics and painted surfaces.

More worryingly, there is some evidence that flies and mosquitoes are developing resistance to it, and that the chemical disrupts an important enzyme in the mammalian nervous system called acetylcholinesterase.

In experiments that combined entomology and data-crunching computing, scientists at the University of California at Riverside uncovered four alternatives that may send DEET into retirement after 67 years.
“The candidates contain chemicals that do not dissolve plastic, are affordable and smell mildly like grapes, with three considered safe in human foods,” says their study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “Our findings pave the way to discover new generations of repellents that will help fight deadly insect-borne diseases worldwide.”

The scientists’ first step was to understand how mosquitoes sense DEET and become repelled by it. For this, they turned to a cousin of the mosquito called the fruit fly, or Drosophila melanogaster, one of the most closely-studied lab creatures of all.

The answer, they found, lies in a receptor called Ir40a, found in nerve-system cells in a pit-like structure in the fruit fly’s antenna.

The next step was to look for an odor molecule that would fit and activate the receptor, rather like a key turns a lock. It also had to be a natural substance, found in fruits, plants or animals.
Screening exercise

The data pool proved to be a mini-ocean, comprising nearly half a million potential compounds. This was whittled down to nearly 200. Of these, 10 compounds seemed the most promising and were put to the test on fruit flies.

Of the 10, eight turned out to be good repellents on fruit flies. Four of them were then tested on mosquitoes, all of which worked.

The good news is that out of the four, three have already been approved as food flavours or fragrances by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Called methyl N,N-dimethyl anthranilate, ethyl anthranilate and butyl anthranilate, they can be applied to bed nets, clothes and curtains to ward off insects, say the scientists.

The secret behind the breakthrough was to locate the Ir40a receptor and develop an algorithm to screen potential chemicals, said Anandasankar Ray, an associate professor of entomology. Ir40a, according to the probe, is highly conserved; a scientific term meaning that it shows little signs of evolutionary change.

That, too, is good news. One of the problems for drug designers is when they face a moving target — a mutational shift in DNA that means the treatment becomes less effective. The receptor is also common across many flies and other insects that are a pest for humans and plants.

“Our findings could lead to a new generation of cheap, affordable repellents that could protect humans, animals and, in the future, our crops,” said Ray.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/health