Encouraging Health

Cure for Baldness?

A cure for baldness may be on the horizon following the discovery that hair follicles can be regenerated in mammalian skin.

Scientists made the breakthrough in mice after identifying a mechanism that allows dormant genes to re-awaken.

According to ABCnews..go.com, A US company, Follica Inc, has now licensed the technology in the hope of developing new treatments for hair loss and acne.

While adult mammals can repair injuries to themselves, they lack the ability to rebuild lost parts of their bodies - unlike newts and salamanders which can sprout entirely new limbs.

Experts previously thought it was equally impossible for adult skin to regenerate hair follicles.

This is an exciting time to live in! Personally, I’d rather go bald gracefully than to resort to extreme measures for new hair, but for those who miss theirs, this is great news.

For more information, watch the video and read the story.

baldness, hormones, regeneration

baldness, hormones, regeneration

Herpes has a good side according to MSNBC. com.

The article states the herpes family of viruses can have a surprising upside — it can protect against the bubonic plague and other bacterial contagions, at least in mice.

These new results do not mean people should go out and get infected with herpes, Virgin stressed. They probably already are. Nearly all humans become infected with multiple herpes virus family members during childhood. These germs not only include the herpes simplex viruses, which lead to cold sores and possibly genital herpes, but also the diseases responsible for chickenpox and “mono,” as well as several less well-known ailments. Herpes infections have bedeviled animals for more than 100 million years.

The scientists discovered latent infections with these viruses could protect mice from bacterial infections, including Yersinia pestis, which causes bubonic plague, and Listeria monocytogenes, which causes one kind of food poisoning, findings detailed in the May 17 issue of the journal Nature.”

This goes to show there’s an upside to almost everything in life. Are you looking for the dark cloud in every silver lining, or vice versa?

herpes, bubonic plague, food poisoning

herpes, bubonic plague, food poisoning

Asian-American women have higher suicide rates.

From the article:

First and foremost, they say “model minority” pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.

“In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor,” says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who’d attempted or contemplated suicide. “Sometimes it’s very overt — parents say, ‘You must choose this major or this type of job’ or ‘You should not bring home As and Bs, only As,” she says. “And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well.”

Family pressure often affects girls more than boys, according to Dr. Dung Ngo, a psychologist at Baylor University in Texas. “When I go talk to high school students and ask them if they experience pressure, the majority who raised their hands were the girls,” he said.

Asian-American parents, he says, are stricter with girls than with boys. “The cultural expectations are that Asian women don’t have that kind of freedom to hang out, to go out with friends, to do the kinds of things most teenagers growing up want to do.”

Asian-American Women, suicide

Asian-American Women, suicide

This articleshows that Just 10 minutes of exercise a day can help even the most inactive overweight women, U.S. researchers reported Tuesday.

From the article:

Tests on overweight and obese women, many of whom had high blood pressure, showed that even small amounts of exercise improved their fitness and toned them up enough to lower their overall risk of early death.

The study is the first to reinforce using hard medical data what other studies have suggested — that exercise does not have to be an all-or-nothing venture, Dr. Timothy Church of Louisiana State University and colleagues said.

So, women, start by taking small walks around the house or at work.

women, exercise

women, exercise

Too many vitamins may be the cause of some Prostate Cancer, says “Heavy multivitamin users were almost twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills, concludes the study in Wednesday’s Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Here’s the twist: Overall, the researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer.

The researchers speculate that perhaps high-dose vitamins had little effect until a tumor appeared, and then could spur its growth.”

So, gentleman, ask your doctor about your Prostate and vitamins.

vitamins, prostate, cancer

vitamins, prostate, cancer

According to Mark Sisson on his blog , men have to workout and exercise twice as hard as women to stay just as healthy.

Mark references this article, which states:

“The reasons for the troubled state of men’s health are complex. Biology — such as the different ways men and women react to stress — likely plays a role. And men, taught since boyhood to be stoic in the face of pain, often are their own worst enemy, avoiding doctors and engaging in risky behaviors such as reckless driving that threaten health. Men’s health issues also get less public attention and funding at a time when women’s health concerns — such as breast cancer — are in the national spotlight.”

I agree that Men’s health isn’t as well documented in the media. Men, on the other hand, need to take a more active role in their healthcare. What should you ask about? Glad you asked. How about Heart attacks? Testicular Cancer? Prostate Cancer? Breast Cancer?

Feel squeamish? Good! Now, call your Doctor.

Mens Health

Mens Health

courtesy of www.DiscoveryHealth.com

From the article:

–Avoid refined, processed foods — skip anything with white flour.
–Avoid fried foods and foods with hydrogenated oils — they’re toxic.
–Eat berries, soybeans and cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cabbage, brussel spouts, kale)
–Keep 2 medium-weight dumbbells by your bed. Do a few reps before sleeping and when you wake up.

To read the rest, click the above link.

[men, healthy[/tag]

Heart gives two different people chance at life
This article shows why organ donation is so important. There are not enough organs available for the growing need for those on the long list. I recurred a kidney in 2003 after mine failed.

I am pleading for my readers to place on your Drivers license that you want to bean or garn donor and tell your friends and familyI write $ down in a burning will. I have done all three; how could I be selfish now?

From the article:

“Two months ago at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, surgeons removed a transplanted heart from a patient who had died and re-transplanted it in another recipient.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time this has been done with a transplanted heart,” Dr. Lawrence S. C. Czer, medical director of the center’s heart transplant program, told Reuters. “Even with other organs, repeat transplantation is very rare.”

The second patient was a 45-year-old man with noncompaction syndrome, a rare cardiac condition in which the heart assumes a sponge-like appearance. The disease is progressive, and the man’s heart became more and more disabled despite the best medical therapy.

According to Czer, the patient first went on the waiting list for a heart transplant in 2002 but he improved and came off the list for several years. About a year ago, his condition worsened and again he was placed on the list.”

transplant, heart

transplant, heart

Teen shares positive thinking, courtesy of cnn.com, showcases this teens battle with cancer. He doesn’t let it get him down, and the public has latched onto his blog.

From the article:

“He nods supportively when his pals brag about their college acceptances and throws a gentle arm around a girlfriend who has ringlets of long, brown hair. But at night, this 18-year-old blogs from a world as sobering as his chalk-white skin and shiny bald head.

“All that stressing about which Ivy League they’d be going to while I’m stressing about whether those suspicious scans meant cancer and The End or not,” he writes. (Watch how a teen facing death shows others how to value life )

“That everyone would be moving on to the next stage of life … the whole College Experience … onwards to young rising professionals and newly weds and fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers and retirees … but my life ends here; this is my stop, a couple months short of graduating high school.”

His bloggings, posted on his hospital Web site at http://www.carepages.com/ (register, then type LevinStory) have reached well beyond the world of high school.”

teen, cancer, inspiration, blog

teen, cancer, inspiration, blog

Skinny people are Fat!, according to a Cnn.com article.

“Some doctors now think that the internal fat surrounding vital organs like the heart, liver or pancreas — invisible to the naked eye — could be as dangerous as the more obvious external fat that bulges underneath the skin.

“Being thin doesn’t automatically mean you’re not fat,â€? said Dr. Jimmy Bell, a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, London. Since 1994, Bell and his team have scanned nearly 800 people with MRI machines to create “fat mapsâ€? showing where people store fat.”

to read more, check the link.

skinny, fat

skinny, fat