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Can ‘toxic’ bilirubin treat a variety of illnesses?
Generations of medical and biology students have been instilled with a dim view of bilirubin. Spawned when the body trashes old red blood cells, the molecule is harmful refuse and a sign of illness. High blood levels cause jaundice, which turns the eyes and skin yellow and can signal liver trouble. Newborns can’t process the compound, and although high levels normally subside, a persistent surplus can cause brain damage. Yet later this year up to 40 healthy Australian volunteers may begin receiving infusions of the supposedly good-for-nothing molecule. They will be participating in a phase 1 safety trial, sponsored ...
Source: ScienceNOW - June 8, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news

The final puff: Can New Zealand quit smoking for good?
Smoking kills. Ayesha Verrall has seen it up close. As a young resident physician in New Zealand’s public hospitals in the 2000s, Verrall watched smokers come into the emergency ward every night, struggling to breathe with their damaged lungs. Later, as an infectious disease specialist, she saw how smoking exacerbated illness in individuals diagnosed with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. She would tell them: “The best thing you can do to promote your health, other than take the pills, is to quit smoking.” Verrall is still urging citizens to give up cigarettes—no longer just one by one, but by the thousands. As New...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 9, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news

How to Keep Alzheimer ’s From Bringing About the Zombie Apocalypse
I tried to kill my father for years. To be fair, I was following his wishes. He’d made it clear that when he no longer recognized me, when he could no longer talk, when the nurses started treating him like a toddler, he didn’t want to live any longer. My father was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He took the diagnosis with the self-deprecating humor he’d spent a lifetime cultivating, constantly cracking jokes about how he would one day turn into a zombie, a walking corpse. We had a good 10 years with him after the diagnosis. Eventually, his jokes came true. Seven years ...
Source: TIME: Science - November 20, 2019 Category: Science Authors: Jay Newton-Small Tags: Uncategorized Alzheimer's Disease Source Type: news

Can You Think Yourself Into A Different Person?
For years she had tried to be the perfect wife and mother but now, divorced, with two sons, having gone through another break-up and in despair about her future, she felt as if she’d failed at it all, and she was tired of it. On 6 June 2007 Debbie Hampton, of Greensboro, North Carolina, took an overdose of more than 90 pills – a combination of ten different prescription drugs, some of which she’d stolen from a neighbor’s bedside cabinet. That afternoon, she’d written a note on her computer: “I’ve screwed up this life so bad that there is no place here for me and nothing I can contr...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - November 19, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news

The Man Who Grew Eyes
The train line from mainland Kobe is a marvel of urban transportation. Opened in 1981, Japan’s first driverless, fully automated train pulls out of Sannomiya station, guided smoothly along elevated tracks that stand precariously over the bustling city streets below, across the bay to the Port Island. The island, and much of the city, was razed to the ground in the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 – which killed more than 5,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 of Kobe’s buildings – and built anew in subsequent years. As the train proceeds, the landscape fills with skyscrapers. The Rokkō mounta...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - October 11, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news

7 Keys To A Happy, Healthy Brain
Why are some people sharp as a tack at 95 years old, while others begin struggling with mental clarity in their 50s? A lot of it has to do with genetics, but certain lifestyle factors also play an important role in how our brain ages. So while you can't control your genes, you can take advantage of the latest science to keep your grey cells strong: Get your olive oil Foods high in sugar, unhealthy fats and processed foods -- i.e., the typical American diet -- can wreak havoc on your brain over time. Studies have shown that excess sugar consumption can impair learning and memory, and increase your vulnerability to neurod...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - September 26, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery review
Patients see neurosurgeons as gods, but what is the reality? Henry Marsh has written a memoir of startling candourWe go to doctors for help and healing; we don't expect them to make us worse. Most people know the aphorism taught to medical students, attributed to the ancient Greek Hippocrates but timeless in its quiet sanity: "First, do no harm." But many medical treatments do cause harm: learning how to navigate the risks of drug therapies, as well as the catastrophic consequences of botched or inadvised surgical operations, is a big part of why training doctors takes so long. Even the simplest of therapies carries the ri...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - March 19, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Gavin Francis Tags: The Guardian Private healthcare Culture Society Reviews Books Neuroscience UK news Hospitals NHS Source Type: news

No pain, no gain? Getting the most out of exercise
Staying in shape has all sorts of benefits, from maintaining heart health to warding off dementia and cancerInactivity – fuelled by cars and a sedentary work life – has been dubbed the biggest public health problem of the 21st century, a global pandemic with dramatic impact on peoples wellbeing. The latest reports suggest that around the world it was responsible for 5.3 million deaths in 2008 – around one in 10 – more deaths than smoking.Not only does exercise make you fitter, it can also ward off numerous and often unexpected diseases, from heart attacks, to diabetes, some forms of cancer and dementia. There are t...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 13, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Catherine de Lange Tags: Cycling Fitness Sport Running Transport Yoga Weightlifting Features UK news Life and style Cycle hire schemes The Observer Swimming Science Source Type: news