Who Lives, Who Dies My internist cousin says he knows who will live and die among his older patients: those who own dogs. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) provisionally agrees. They believe the data show that dog (and cat) ownership can lower: Blood pressure Feelings of loneliness Cholesterol and triglyceride levels While increasing – […]
Supercharged breast implants (1/9/12)
Fuel Additives and Industrial Silicone What are fuel additives doing in breast implants? That’s the question asked by French national radio station RTL after a prominent toxicologist declared he discovered baysilone – sometimes used as fuel additive and lubricating grease – silopren and rhodorsil in the frequently rupturing 300,000 silicone implants made by Poly Implant […]
Is there an epidemic of sleep apnea in our police? (1/6/12)
Sleepy Police Especially when you’re young, sleep apnea can kill you. When old, it can really muck up your life. And American and Canadian police appear to suffer sleep apnea in epidemic numbers. That’s not the public conclusion reached on an important Harvard study on 5000 American and Canadian police. Media reports declared a third […]
The War on Cancer and the War on Terror – what they have in common (1/3/12)
Who Wins? Historians often view wars as ending with winners and losers. We “won” World War II – and the Germans and Japanese lost. In most human conflicts results are less clear-cut. People don’t tend to think of the “War on Cancer” – started by President Nixon – and the “War on Terror” – begun […]
What you eat changes your genes – quickly (12/28/11)
Food Just Got a Lot More Complicated – Which Is a Good Thing Food changes gene expression – directly. Eat a bowl of rice and you can turn off genes controlling cholesterol synthesis. Right out of the pot. You’ve been eating genetic information – probably all your life. The data come from China, from Lin […]