To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Good morning.  December is already zooming by.  Hope your week went well, and hope your weekend is even better.  Here's the weekly recap:

• Imagine going to the doctor for your annual physical.  They take some blood for the usual workup, and this time they also report back to you that there is NO cancer in your body.  Researchers at the University of Queensland (Australia) have come up with a blood test that is 90% accurate in detecting all forms of cancer.  Read that again…ALL forms of cancer.  This may be remembered as one of those watershed moments in medical history. 
• “Biohackers” attempt biological adjustments or enhancements.  Picture the guy who implants devices under the skin of his wrist to allow him to open the car door without a key.  I imagine that soon we’ll see foolhardy folks embedding antennas in their skulls that link to tiny microphones in their ears….or google glasses sewn to their heads. 
• A 45-year old pregnant woman dies of a stroke.  Doctors quickly remove her uterus – with the fetus inside – and surgically place the uterus within a 32-year old woman who was born without a uterus (a rare syndrome).  This had been tried 10 times before unsuccessfully, but this time it worked, and a healthy baby girl is born. 
• What’s In My Food? -- What’s In My Dog’s Food? this week: 
• Salmonella in millions of pounds of raw beef in 25 states could still be in your freezers.  Look for beef labeled with the establishment number “EST. 267” -- this is usually inside the USDA mark of inspection.  From the list of stores and states impacted, I see Sprouts (TN), Harvey’s (GA), and Winn Dixie (GA) 
• Some dog foods such levels of Vitamin D that it can cause kidney failure and death.  Recalls issued for Nature’s Promise (sold at Giant) and Abound (Krogers), plus many others. 
• Oils from garlic, myrrh, thyme, cinnamon, allspice and cumin can kill Lyme disease. 
• You know you need sleep…but how much?  An 8-year study in Europe found that 6-8 hours is the sweet spot.  More than 8 hours increases your risk of heart disease and death:  8-9 hours a night increases risk by 5%; 9-10 hours a night increases risk by 17%; and 10 or more hours of sleep a night increases risk by 41%. 
  
• Study finds that 9 out of 10 UK citizens are leading unhealthy lives, as defined by drinking or eating too much, not exercising, and public displays of affection in the country that originated prudes.

Bioengineered Humans

Happy Friday.

It's now officially the holiday season.  We've noticed several neighbors who've already put up Christmas lights.   

We, on the other hand, still had the Halloween pumpkins on the porch.

In this week's health news recap: 

• a Chinese scientist admitted that he used CRISPR technology to edit the genes of embryonic twin girls who were born this month.  We mentioned CRISPR a few news cycles ago, after it first popped up (watch the 60 Minutes video).  The Chinese government has called a temporary halt to the research, but honestly...the train has already left the station.  There will soon be mad-hat researchers in hidden labs across the globe editing embryos to create super, enhanced men and women.  We are entering Sci-Fi territory.  

• also a few news cycles ago, we noted that hospitals can be dangerous to your health.  Evidently, those same illnesses on the rise in hospitals (e.g., diarrhea and deadly intestinal infections) are on the rise outside of hospitals, too.  So, what's the culprit?  Probably it's overuse/abuse of antibiotics that weakens and kills friendly intestinal microbes we need to live.  These "microbiomes" protect us from germs and help to break down food and translate it to energy.
• "What's In My Food" this week:  FDA says it's again safe to eat romaine lettuce, unless it came from California.  All packages should tell you point of origin.
• "it rubs the lotion on it's skin"     The National Institute of Health is evaluating a contraceptive gel for males, Nestorone.  The lotion is rubbed on the back and shoulders, and apparently it blocks the production of testosterone that goes only to the testes to produce sperm -- while not harming the production of testosterone used elsewhere by men.  I dunno...call me a skeptic, but I'm imagining all sorts of unintended consequences for men.
• judging by the number of stories in this issue, the Congo is disintegrating into chaos.  Start with the Ebola outbreak, mix in some rival militia groups fighting each other and threatening humanitarian groups with machetes, and top if off with some malaria. 
• 36% of all female suicide deaths across the globe occur in only country -- India.  Imagine the pain when a girl who grows up in that country discovers how limited her life is going to be.
• that rare polio-like illness has now stricken 116 children across the US, according to the CDC.    Still no idea what it really is or how to treat it.
• thousands of gallons of oil have been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico...for 14 years.  Taylor Energy Co. owns the disaster and has received an order from the US Coast Guard to cap the spill.  Estimates are that the leak rivals the spill from the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The complete Weekly Update is here.         

Hope everyone has a wonderful week.  It's time for us to start decorating the house with lights!

Tale of Two Tribes

Once more, Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which means Christmas is also right around the corner.  For family, please do NOT NOT NOT buy any gifts for me or Donna.  We have everything we need or want, plus a whole bunch of extra dreck that between now and next year we will have to move, sell, or give away.  I plan on sending out Christmas cards this year, full of warm, heart-felt wishes for a wonderful holiday season, but will NOT be sending out gifts except to the nieces and nephews :)

 Here’s the weeks health news recap:

• Although you might not guess it from watching the news, the fertility rate for many countries are falling to less than half of what they need to maintain their population size.  On a global scale, in 1950 women had an average of 4.7 children each.  By 2017, that rate was only 2.4 children.
• Cool story about how horses, mules, dogs, pigeons and a baboon played roles in helping the Allies during World War I.
• Related story about how the VA is sacrificing dogs by using them for medical experiments that may one day benefit veterans.  The VA claims that at least for some experiments they are removing part of the dogs’ brains before killing them.  Somehow that isn’t comforting.
• Fish oil reduces the risk of heart attack by 28%, and vitamin D reduces the risk of death by cancer by 25% (not the risk of getting cancer in the first place).  Hey, this actually makes me want to stop off at the grocery and stock up.

• Two tribes live close to each other in South America.  One tribe lives in near total isolation from Western influences – especially Western food.  The other tribe eats some Western processed foods and salt.  Guess which tribe is healthier?  The take-away is that high blood pressure may NOT be a normal outcome from aging, but instead may be purely the product of our piss-poor diets.
• The military, and especially the Army, has been criticized for the last decade for having a rate of suicide higher than the rest of America.  The CDC is now reporting that the overall U.S. suicide rate has increased 34% since 2000.  They list the most dangerous occupations, should you want to know what NOT to do for a living.

  Hope everyone has a wonderful week...please leave me some turkey!

In A Pig's Eye

Not that any of you apparently missed it, but I couldn’t publish the last two weeks of updates due to work and the flu.    

Here are the absolute highlights from the 2 & 9 Nov editions of Army Public Health Weekly Updates. 

• The World Health Organization estimates that 93% of the world’s children breathe in air so polluted that it poses serious health and developmental risks – 600,000 die from acute respiratory infections caused by pollution, or put another way, 1 in every 10 deaths in children under the age of 5. 
• Back in 2011, doctors started urging teenage girls to get immunized against human papillomavirus (HPV).  Originally developed for cervical cancers, boys were not considered for vaccination.  Now, it looks as though oral cancer in men is on the rise, which appears to be the result of sexual activities between young people.  This one is worth a look -- you parents of boys should consult with your doctors. 
• “What’s In My Food?” this week: 
• Cornell University researchers have found traces of Monsanto’s Round-Up weed killer in all 28 oat-based breakfast cereals tested (26 of them above “safe” levels for children) and all 18 pet foods tested. Worst of the worst was Quaker’s Oatmeal Squares. A spokesman for Monsanto said, “don’t get all hysterical and stuff”. (Story provided courtesy of our ace cub reporter in Pulaski) 
• Salmonella in ground beef has sickened 30 folks in New Mexico – 4 taken to the hospital.  Their tacos came with an extra kick.
• Remember the outbreak of swine fever in Chinese pigs that they’d rather you didn’t know about?  Officials in Taiwan claim the virus has been found in sausage exported by China. Any of you remember that Smithfield Foods was sold to a Chinese company in 2013?  Hmmm…. 
• 45 in Canada have been sickened by cucumbers carrying Salmonella – 10 taken to the hospital. 
• Conagra cake mixes (Duncan Hines) may contain Salmonella
• The Africa Misery Index:  
• Children in the Congo are dying at record rates from Ebola, largely from poor sanitation at clinics 
• Yellow fever in the Ethiopia has killed 10 so far, but the rate will increase 
• I loved this headline:  “Anti-vaccine stupidity returns, as measles cases rise and California parents evade the law”.  I didn’t know that in 2015, California abolished all “personal belief exemptions” from child vaccination mandates. 
• Related story:  Islamic clerics in Indonesia have declared vaccines against measles-rubella (MR) to be “haram” (forbidden) because they contain pig components.  We all know who is going to suffer in the future as vaccination rates plummet. 
• If you’ve looked at hospital accreditation status to guide a decision on where to go for medical help, you may be surprised to learn there are no differences in patient outcomes (e.g., death) from accredited versus unaccredited hospitals.  
• You’ve likely heard of the caravan of South Americans marching to the US border.  Many are from Venezuela, where basic law and order have broken down, and food and medicine are scarce.  Those that still in the country face new outbreaks of measles and diphtheria. 
• A small-scale study in Britain found that artificial “machine learning” can identify and diagnose Alzheimer’s 6 years before regular doctors can.  Machine learning in this instance is defined as a computer able to teach itself patterns based on a set of 2,100 brain scans of 1,002 patients.  Don’t you wish these scans could also detect early-onset dumbassery?
• Study #1:  Exposure to excessive noise increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. 
• Study #2:  Older adults with untreated hearing loss have higher total health care costs compared to those who don’t have hearing loss.  Untreated hearing loss increases the risk of dementia and cognitive decline, falls, depression and lower quality of life. 
• So yea, turn down that awful television. 
• And finally, watch this short video of tiny robots swimming through a pig’s eyeball.In the not-too-distant future, doctors may be using microscopic bots to treat glaucoma and macular degeneration from diabetes.