MY BEST FRIEND--THE SCALE!!

FINALLY!!!!! The stubborn little stinker of a scale has FINALLY GONE DOWN!! All the dieting and working out I did, and the stubborn little stinker...

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http://www.obesitydiscussion.com/forums/exercise-weight-training-and-cardio/my-be
st-friend-the-scale-19685.html

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MS Patients' Risk Tolerance May Change in a Year

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today
Published: June 03, 2012Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse PlannerSAN DIEGO -- Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients reported that they may change their minds about the acceptability of risk associated with disease-modifying therapies in as little as 1 year, a researcher said here.More than 20% of MS patients queried about their tolerance of treatment-associated risk gave substantially different answers than they did in an identical survey a year earlier, said Sneha Ramesh, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic.The findings suggest that MS patients on treatments that pose serious risks, such as natalizumab (Tysabri), which has been linked to a life-threatening form of brain inflammation, should have regular discussions with clinicians about whether treatment risks continue to be acceptable.Ramesh presented the survey results in a poster session at the joint meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers and the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.The new findings were from a follow-up to a survey of risk tolerance reported last year by the same researchers.Read more


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http://wwwmsviewsandrelatednews.blogspot.com/2012/06/ms-patients-risk-tolerance-m
ay-change.html

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Lab Notes: FDA Warns Parents of Dangers of
Teething Gel; South Korean FDA Approves Generic Viagra

On our Lab Notes page CalorieLab’s editors select and rank the day’s essential health news items in real time. Readers can suggest, vote and comment on items. Below are brief summaries of yesterday’s (June 3, 2012) Lab Notes items. To see today’s items, visit Lab Notes.

1. FDA Warns Parents of Dangers of Teething Gel

Benzocaine gels and liquids that treat pain in the gums and mouth may cause a rare, but potentially fatal condition known as methemoglobinemia, and children under 2 years old face a greater risk, warns the FDA.

2. South Korean FDA Approves Generic Viagra

The courts in South Korea have determined that pharmaceutical companies can start selling Generic Viagra and even before Pfizer appeals the decision many companies have gotten approval to sell their own version of the popular erectile dysfunction drug.

3. Americans’ Heads Growing Along with Bodies

Americans? heads have increased in size along with their bodies since the mid-1800s, with white males? skulls in particular having grown by 200 cc, or the approximate size of a tennis ball. Overall,l U.S. skulls have increased by nearly 7 percent.

(By CalorieLab editors)

Lab Notes: FDA Warns Parents of Dangers of Teething Gel; South Korean FDA Approves Generic Viagra is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

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As You Build It, So It Will Build You: The Brain,
Neurogenesis and What You Need to Know

Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

For the longest time, scientists felt that soon after the age of 2, the brain completes its growth. Then, following groundbreaking research, we discovered that the brain continues to build neural pathways (neurogenesis) throughout life.

All the new work that came in after this discovery was so positive. Learn a new dance, new neural pathways. A new language, new pathways. Establish a healthy habit, new reinforcing pathways. It was all so grand!

Ebenezer Scrooge Could Have Been a Scientist

Our intrepid researchers just couldn’t let a good thing alone, though, because they have now thrown a “Bah Humbug!” into that smooth-running, happy-pathway-building brain theory of ours. They are telling us that our brain will build a bad habit just as well as a good habit, and it isn’t pretty.

In a newly published research paper, scientists from the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have declared like the London town crier that “Neurogenesis Spurred By a High Fat Diet Encourages More Eating and Fat Storage.”

Although it’s been known for a while that the brain can form new nerve cells for our entire lives, until now researchers had felt that this neurogenesis only occurred in two brain areas: the hippocampus, involved in memory, and the olfactory bulb, involved in smell. Recent research, however, suggested that a third area, the hypothalamus — which is associated with, among several other functions, hunger and thirst — can also produce new neurons.

Previous studies have suggested that animals raised on a high-fat diet are at significantly greater risk of wearing the chains of obesity and metabolic syndrome as adults, so study leader Seth Blackshaw, Ph.D. and his research team decided to further investigate whether hypothalamic neurogenesis might play a role in this phenomenon.

Unlike what was the usual for the Cratchit family, the study mice were fed a fabulous spread of high-fat Christmas chow starting at weaning and examined for evidence of neurogenesis. What was discovered was that the adult mice that had eaten the high-fat fare since birth had four times the hypothalamic neurogenesis. These animals also gained more weight and had higher fat mass than animals raised on normal peasant chow.

With the impressive recidivist rehabilitating skills of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the scientists then irradiated and destroyed these new neurons in the high-fat eaters, resulting in the mice finding a whole new attitude! These newfound fitness mice gained significantly less weight and fat than animals who had eaten the same diet and were considerably more active, suggesting that these, now functionless, neurons had been directly involved with regulating weight, fat storage and energy expenditure.

“People typically think growing new neurons in the brain is a good thing, but it’s really just another way for the brain to modify behavior,” said Dr. Blackshaw. Although there may have been environmental advantages for this in our early human development, Dr. Blackshaw believes that now with our almost-unlimited access to food, this neurogenesis is not beneficial and would encourage excessive weight gain and fat storage when they are certainly not necessary for our present survival. He believes that doctors might eventually treat obesity by inhibiting hypothalamic neurogenesis, either by irradiating specific hypothalamic areas or developing drugs that inhibit the cellular growth.

Even Dickens never considered the possibility that we might need to expose ourselves to cell-killing radiation to stop our rush to obesity!

Maybe it can become a new anti-obesity app for our cellphone? That would be rad!

God radiate us, every one!

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As You Build It, So It Will Build You: The Brain, Neurogenesis and What You Need to Know is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

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