The following audio will treat a Sweden research that wanted to demonstrate if there was a link or correlation between a set of mental illness and creativity. The evidence after being analyzed showed encouraging results for some people and some no encouraging for others. Before we go on we will like you to remember or track if your family holds any record of psychiatric disorders and if you or any member of your family is a bit more creative than the others.
Have you ever made love in the middle of the
night and suddenly realized that your partner is still asleep? Well, if you
have, your partner is suffering from a strange disorder: Sexsomnia.
Also known as Sleep sex, this condition is
part of a sleep disorders group called Parasomnias. This disorder involves
having heterosexual or homosexual intercourse in the middle of the night; it
also includes oral sex and masturbation.
One of the factors of this disorder that you
do not remember anything the following morning, and the causes may be stress,
not having slept enough, or excessive consumption of drugs or alcohol. It is
more common in men than in women.
This year in the UK, a man named Stephen
Davies was accused of raping a teenage girl, and he claims that he suffers from
this disorder. He stated that he is innocent and that he doesn’t remember
anything of what happened. The accused presented evidence that their previous
partners had also experienced this “problem” when they were with him. On the
other hand, the defense assures that he was conscious during the act.
This case hasn’t got to a solution yet, but
researchers are starting to investigate more about this disorder, its causes, the
advantages and disadvantages, and how it can be treated.
Should this man be acquitted from his
charges?
Can you blame a disorder or an illness for a
crime you commit?
In one hand, we have Vitamin E which
is a group of 8 fat-soluble vitamins which help prevent oxidative stress
to the body, and other vitamins within the body. Dysmenorrhea,
on the other hand, is the term that describes painful menstruations, and they affect
almost 50% of women.
Here is a video that gives more
details about dysmenorrhea:
This pain is usually
located in the lower abdomen area and can radiate to the lower back and inner
thighs. Women with dysmenorrhea may also experience diarrhea, headaches,
nausea, breast tenderness, and bloating.
In the study, pain
was significantly less and of shorter duration among the women in the Vitamin E
group at two and four months than among the women in the placebo group. Women
in the Vitamin E group also lost significantly less blood than women in the
placebo group. There were no significant side effects associated with vitamin E
treatment.
But do you know
what foods are high in Vitamin E? According to Health Aliciousness, some
of them are sunflower seeds, almonds, peanuts and dried herbs.
If you are a girl, how have you dealed with menstrual cramps? And after reading about dysmenorrhea and Vitamin E, will you consider the importance of this vitamin in your organism? If you are a boy, would you tell your female friends, mother, sisters, and
others that Vitamin E may relieve their menstrual cramps?
This is the second OP . In this case we have chosen to talk about a topic that has a great deal of importance in our western society. Taking a rest, sitting down, or simply watching the televition for a too long period of time may be very hazzarous for our health.
This OP, deals with 2 different ways of viewing the problem. A sciencetific posture, which by the analysis of lots of data available concludes that sedentarism is not harfull but a key factor that promotes heart problems in the future. In the other hand, a broadsheet posture on the topic, that states a more generalistic idea of the topic, a bit careless in details but very informative at the same time.
We have chosen this topic mainly because we live in a very sedentary society, and we should be aware of the negative consecuences this illness can bring to our life. We hope youl all enjoy our presentation.
According to the publication in the prestigious
medical journal, The Lancet, women who give up smoking by the age of 30 almost
completely avoid the risk of dying early from tobacco-related diseases, such
as: breast, lung, and skin cancer.
The researchers tracked the first generation of
women who started to smoke between the 50’s and 60’s. The scientific team was not worried about the
amount of cigarettes that those women smoked, but rather “the time” spent
smoking.
“What we’ve shown is that if women some like
men, they will die like men”, said the lead researcher Professor Sir Richard
Peto, from Oxford University.
The records from the study exposed that over
1.2 million women showed that even those who smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes a
day were more likely to die sooner. Regarding the British Lung Foundation data, the
perspectives for long-term health were much better if people stopped smoking
before the thirties, which doesn’t mean that this is a license to smoke as much
as you want in you 20’s.
The UK’s administration, specifically the Department
of Health, is taking part of this fight against this unhealthy habit by
creating a campaign called “Stopober”, the UK’s first ever mass event to stop
smoking.
What about you? If you are a smoker, are you
going to be able to stop smoking before your thirties? Have you already tried
to give up smoking and you couldn’t?
Find attached the link in which the Dr Peter
Mackareth, clinical lead for smoking cessation for the Christie NHS Foundation
Trust, expands on the topic: giving up smoking before the thirties.
Breakthrough
research from Social Psychologist and Professor Amy Cuddy at Harvard Business
School, along with coauthors Dana Carney at Berkeley and Andy Yap at
Columbia proves that body language and body positioning directly
impact self-confidence and feelings of power. It is claimed that
body
language are non verbal behaviors that influence the inferences people make about
others. For example, people’s gestures, movements, and poses may determine who
gets promoted, who gets hired, or who gets asked out in a date. Why we think a
person is strong, powerful, smart, trustful, or confident, among others relates
directly with posture.
The study, conducted this year, revealed that if a person tweak
his/her non verbal behaviors in very easy ways for a short period of time, it
is going to make him/her feel
more powerful through physiological changes in
his/her body.
In the study, about 50 subjects
were chosen randomly. First, they were taken a hormone sample. Then, 25 of them
spent 2 minutes in power poses while the 25 left spent two minutes in low power
poses (in these positions the person gets really
small. Arms are crossed or by the sides, head is down, shoulders are rounded
and eye contact is averted. Often, the person looks sad or depressed). After this, they
were given the opportunity to gamble in order to test risk tolerance. Past 60
minutes, they were taken another hormone sample.
The study acknowledged that assuming power poses for a period of 2 minutes
increases the levels of testosterone—the dominant hormone related to confidence—
and decreases the levels of cortisol— the hormone related to stress and low
status.
The same was done with people before
a job interview and the ones who were chosen were those who had practiced power
poses during 2 minutes before entering the room.
The advice is: “Do not fake it until you make it. Fake it until
you become it.” Do not make yourself small. Stretch out. Have your feet and
arms spread. Practice power poses in private before an interview, an oral test,
or a speech. This will make you feel more confident and enthusiastic.
Do you think you can become a
more confident person by faking different power postures? If so, are you
willing to try them? What if you start faking your attitude in other aspects of
your life? Could it affect your social relationships?
If you have
heard about “Redbull”, “Monster”, or “Burn”, you may already know what I’m
referring to. An energy drink is a carbonated beverage that contains caffeine
and other energetic components such as taurine or ginseng and is intended to boost
the drinker’s energy.
According
to a study carried out by Dr. Matteo Cameli and a team of scientists from University of Siena, energy drinks could improve heart function, since after conducting a trial on 35
healthy people, the researchers discovered that that these beverages
enhanced contractions of both the left and right ventricles of the heart, thus
delivering a positive effect on myocardial function.
However, it
has been proved that over-consumption of energy drinks could lead to unusually high heart rates, increase of blood pressure and other heart issues. If the consumer has preexisting
heart diseases, the effects could be more dangerous.
This was
the case of Anais Fournier, a 14-year-old girl who died on 2011 after consuming
2 cans of Monster drink within a period of 24 hours. After her autopsy, it was concluded
that the girl died of cardiac arrhythmia as a result of caffeine toxicity.
She had an inherited disorder that can deteriorate blood vessels.
Her death
raised awareness alarmingly on the subject, since energy drinks contain
unregulated amounts of caffeine. Several studies are being conducted in order
to know the numerous effects of these beverages.
Take a look
at NBC's Tom Costello report on the subject.
In the previous leg of blogging a saw a post by Vera that told us about the effects that some drugs can cause on their users, and if I remember corretly the main idea was the "flesh eating" or "zombie behavior" and that was it. But I found a drug that actually makes you look like a zombie, moan and cry for your brainless attitude . The following image is not make up for Halloween party:
Very hard to look at, isn't? It is called Krokodil and it was "created" in the land of Vodka and Stalin. Is the russian cheap version of heroin. The price of heroin in Russia is a bit high (50 Euros a dose) but Krokodil can be "cook" so is reacheable for most of the junkies that can't afford heroin."It seems to have first appeared in Siberia and the Russian Far East around 2002, but only in the past three years has it spread throughout the country. Since 2009, the amount of krokodil seized in Russia has increased 23-fold, according to the head of the Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov. In the first three months of this year alone, the service says, it confiscated 65 million doses"
The main component is codeine, a wadely sold-over-the-counter (this means that you can get it in a drug store without a prescription.) painkiller that is not harmful by it self. "But to produce krokodil, whose medical name is desomorphine, addicts mix it with ingredients including gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous, which they scrape from the striking pads on matchboxes" (Taken from http://world.time.com/ "The curse of the crocodile: Russia's deadly designer drug").
According to some offcial sites (not mentioned by the article pointed previously) more than 2 millions junkies in Russia are using this drug and has been considered an epidemic. Those who are hooked to this have a life expectation of no more than 3 years. Three year of being a rotten walking body. And this is how addicts to it look like:
The "rotting" explains the drug's nickname. At the injection site, which can be anywhere from the feet to the forehead, the addict's skin becomes greenish and scaly, like a crocodile's, as blood vessels burst and the surrounding tissue dies. Gangrene and amputations are a common result, while porous bone tissue, especially in the lower jaw, often starts to dissipate, eaten up by the drug's acidity.
More and more people are awere of the effects of this drug, and even being awere of them the amount of junkies goes higher and higher as time passes by. Some people are okey with drugs, some people reject them, some other use them to "expand" their minds, and sadly, some others use them for a lame 2 hour "happy time"; which will cost their lifes, or if they are very lucky, their limbs.
After reading this, and now that you know what Krokodil contains (gasoline, paint thinner, among others) would you even consider try it out? After all, there must be a reason why Russians are so into it. Or maybe you can try to understand why they use it.
A final image for you to think it over.
Many sites have covered this. If you want to read more about it, here go a cuople of links:
Ladies may not tell anybody
about their unfortunate situation, yet people will find out sooner or
later—rather sooner; their bodies will talk by themselves. How does it happen?
This answer is provided by hormones such as oxytocin, prolactin or cortisol, which
emanation ends up increasing drastically in moments of severe stress for an
extended period.
Professors Susana
Pilar Gaytán,
Ana María Gómezand María
Rosario Pásaro
from the Department of Physiology in the University of Seville,
Spain
affirm that, even though the violence has ceased, the level of these hormones
does not decrease in a long time; hence, if a woman has been abused for a
protracted period and then this dreadful episode has come to its conclusion, this
probably is not the actual end of it.
The main purpose for this assembly of practitioners to conduct this research is
to find out the biological aspects that can make an individual vulnerable to
this kind of attacks.
The levels of oxytocin, prolactin
and cortisol, among other hormones, are related to the resilience of the
person—i.e., the capacity that a person possesses of getting her (or his, given
that there are cases of men being
abused) strength back from any hideous event such as having become a victim of
mistreatment. Just a blood sample would be necessary to let everybody know that
she spent part of her life with a sadistic human being.
Which alternative do you think that
would be more suitable to take? Would you just let your feelings out or go
through a blood test? Let’s consider that the second option would give away the
fact that the person could be lying.
Misoprostol, according to
the webpage thefreedictionary.com, is a synthetic PROSTAGLANDINE1 analogue used to treat gastric irritation resulting from long-term therapy withNONSTEROIDAL ANTIINFLAMMATORY DRUGS (drugs used to treat a variety of painful conditions, including arthritis, and cancer). By itself, or in combination with Mifepriston, it causes abortion.
Misoprostol
causes several contractions of the womb, and as a result of this, the uterus
breaks, expelling the baby and finishing with the pregnancy. The effects of
taking this drug include: painful cramps, vaginal blood loss
that is more than a normal menstruation, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea (taken
from womenonwaves.org)
The
following video shows how Misoprostol works, and the risks of taking it:
This
pill can be bought in pharmacies without a prescription, and it is available
online.
As
you could notice there are several problems related to this drug:
1. It
can end with pregnancy in countries where abortion is illegal.
2 Misoprostol
is easy to get, which increases the danger that teenagers consume this product,
putting in risk their lives.
3.Women can have a miscarriage without their permission. How? Everyone has access to Misoprostol, so someone could give it to you (without knowing what you’re consuming) and cause a miscarriage.
Misoprostol
causes abortion, and anyone can have access to it. Are you ok with this?
Should authorities do something about it? Should they forbid the production of
this drug? Could you mention another problem related to Misoprostol?
The organ donation is a worldwide issue which affects
some countries more than others. However, regardless of the place where an
organ is needed for transplant, there are many myths that surround organ
donation. It is imperative to be informed about what is truth and what is not
at the moment of deciding whether are you going to be a donator or not. The
mayo clinic conducted a research about the most common myths that are firmly
established in the popular consciousness, and the findings are conclusive.
•Most people believe that if they agree to be donators,
the doctors won’t make a great effort to save their lives. Reality tears down
this myth immediately because the doctors that work to save a person’s life
have nothing to do with the organ recovery process or the transplantation
itself.
•Another common belief has to do with age. Some people
think they are too old to donate. That is completely false. A ninety-years-old
person can have a perfectly healthy organ to donate as well as a
twenty-years-old person.
•Contrary to popular myth, even a person who suffers
from diabetes or a heart disease is able to be an organ donor. Only a
few medical conditions automatically ban a person from being a donator.
So, are you a donator? If not, after reading these facts,
are you sure you don’t want to give the gift of life? If you're still not convinced, click HERE.
Diabetes, deafness, eye disorders and gastrointestinal
disorders are some of the diseases that are hereditary, but there is a group of
scientists in the United States that is trying a new procedure to prevent these
diseases.
The scientists are from the Oregon
University and they were able to substitute with success the mitochondrial DNA
in sixty-five human oocytes—immature eggs—and they have already observed how
the fertilization rate after the handover is similar to healthy oocytes.
The researchers had observed that almost
the half of the oocytes were able to grow in a perfect way until the
blastocysts are generated; on the other hand, the rest of the oocytes developed
chromosomal defects.
“With this process the scientists have
demonstrated that the mutated DNA from the mitochondria can be replaced for
healthy copies of human cells” explains Shoukhart Mitalipov, principal author
of this investigation. “Meanwhile the human cells in our research can only
develop themselves until the stage of the embryonic stem cells; this method
could be an alternative to prevent hereditary diseases”.
Even though, a lot of studies are necessary
to utilize this procedure therapeutically, to the authors the investigation
represent that the test can be possible, because this procedure was already
tested in animal oocytes with totally success… now they are making a lot of
efforts to be able to make it possible for human beings.
Women, if you were future mothers who
suffer from one of these diseases, would you go under this procedure to benefit
your child?
We know you might get scared because of a tremor, or an earthquake, but did you know about the real impact this natural event can have on humankind? A group of researchers, led by the Dr. Hiroaki Shimokawa explains how natural disasters can affect our heart, causing cardiovascular deseases.
He used The Great East Japan Earthquake (2011) as a reference to conduct a study, providing impresive figures about the rising of people that suffered from different kinds of cardiovascular desease after the earthquake.
Is important to say that in terms of natural disasters, Japan is not too different to Chile, so take a look to our presentation and draw your own conclusions.
It is very known that psychiatric diseases and electroshocks
have been associated for many years. In fact, cultural depictions of asylums
and psychiatric institutions always show us this “stereotypical couple”. People
could think that this brutal technique is past. However, ECT (Electroconvulsive
therapy) is back to treat bipolar disorder.
The purpose for this treatment is stimulating a
patient’s brain through mild electric currents. Results have been successful in
75% of the trials. This led scientists to go beyond and improve this technique
making it less painful and more effective. Recent studies—conducted by experts
from the University of New South Wales, Australia—have demonstrated that
electric currents can improve patients’ life, and even be more effective than
antidepressants.
In contrast to old use of electroshocks, now
these are controlled by the doctor in order to avoid any problem with the
patient. The patient is put under general anesthesia, and then the current is
applied. Experts suggest this treatment is effective if it is applied 3 times a
week, for 3 or 4 weeks.
Perhaps a con that this treatment may have is
side effects. ECT can cause headaches, jaw pain and nausea. Nevertheless, these
could be considered “details” if they compared to the horrible effects that
bipolar disorder carry.
It is impossible to not think of those terrible
old psychiatric hospitals with this therapy, and many people think it is the
same. So, could modern medicine open the doors to an old-school technique?
Could be better to take action in another way, like improving antidepressants?
For more information, please check the links below:
Several foods have
been associated with treatment of harmful diseases or medical conditions, so
the interest of scientists for their properties has widely increased during the
last 50 years. A recent study has discovered a relation between cherry intake
and the decrease of risk of gout attacks. In this presentation, we developed a meticulous
analysis between a scientific publication and a newspaper article; regarding the
methods, findings, and language used to describe this scientific breakthrough. Enjoy our presentation! :)
Have you ever heard about food security? The World Health Organization describes it as having food availability, which means having enough quantities of food on a consistent basis; having food access, that considers having sufficient economic and physical resources to obtain food; and having food use, which is the appropriate use of food considering basic nutrition and care. However, it is well-known that our world is going through food insecurity rather than food security (click here to watch an explanation).
In theory, there is enough food in the world for everyone; the problem is that it is not well distributed. Governments should try to redistribute that food in order to feed their population, but what if it is not enough? The world’s population is likely to rise from 6 billion today to 8 billion in 2020 and 11 billion by 2050 (click here) and, probably, 95% of the increase will occur in the world’s poorest nations. What should governments do then?
GM foods have been considered as a possibility in the challenge of producing enough food to feed the world. This technology may not only benefit the world’s poor by altering the nutritional contents of food, but could also help reduce crop losses and increase food production without the need for additional farmland.
The controversy goes on because opponents of GM claim that GM is a bad idea because it is “unnatural”, and hunger is not caused by farming problems, but by political circumstances related to poverty and unfair trading practices.
What do you think? Are GM foods a practical solution to an impossible problem?
For further information: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/in-focus/hungry-world/
A crew of doctors from
the Netherlands conducted a study on more than four thousand expectant ladies
that led them to the conclusion of that the excess of physical effort from
pregnant women may alter the growth of the foetus by decreasing it in a three
percent. These elements that can affect the embryonic development are the overload
of work, long walks, extended periods of time standing, among others. In the
link below you will find a presentation that shows some aspects of the research
and a comparison between the original version of the scientific investigation
and an adaptation from the media.
As incredible as it seems, myocardial infarctions (MI), better known
as cardiac arrests or heart attacks, might be no longer a matter of dreadful
surprise; a study conducted by a group of scientists from San Diego, California
demonstrated that the presence of Circulating Endothelial Cells—CEC’s,
non-hematopoietic cells (i.e.: units that hold back hematogenesis, the formation
of blood cells such as hemoglobin)—can be related to the possibility of an imminent
cardiac arrest. In the next presentation, we are going to show you how
different can be the information provided by the media from a scientific
article on the same subject.
Have you ever heard that multivitamins prevent you from some illnesses such as the flu or diarrhea? But what about cancer? According to a recent study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, these pills may be able to reduce the likelihood of developing cancer. The following research is called “Multivitamins in the Prevention of Cancer in Men”, and its objective was to determine whether the intake of daily multivitamins reduces the risk of cancer among men or not.
The subjects of study were only male physicians who had to take daily multivitamins from 1997 to 2011. The results showed that a small (but important) amount of the total of participants of this study reduced the risk of developing cancer.
This research was carried out by Dr. Michael Gaziano and his team, which consisted of Howard D. Sesso, William G. Christen, Joanne P. Smith, and Jean MacFadyen.
After listening to our presentation on multivitamins, what do you think of this discovery? Are multivitamins going to be considered to fight diseases as the one previously mentioned?
For further information about this breakthrough, you can visit the following web pages:
The famous five-second rule —the one that says that if
you drop a piece of food on the floor and pick it up very quickly within five
seconds, it is still safe to eat— has been exposed again!
Researchers showedin2010,last yearandmany other timesthat germs do attach themselves to
different surfaces even within the amount of time stated in the rule, which may
lead to different types of diseases, such as a simple cold or even bronchitis.
A new study co-funded
by Clorox and conducted by researchers at San Diego State University
found that germs do attach themselves to food items when dropped on the floor. Using
carrots, researchers dropped the food on various surfaces such as countertops,
kitchen sinks, floor carpets, tiled floors and tables. None of the surfaces was able keep food clean for a full 5 seconds.
The countertop was found to be the
dirtiest surface, with the carpeted and tiled floors following in
second and third place.
But there is a big difference between picking up a grape from the floor
versus a jelly sandwich that falls face down in a house with pets: it all
depends on the surface in which food is dropped and the amount of germs that it
may hold.
In the following video, some other details about the five-second rule are shown:
Another important fact is that according to a survey conducted by researchers
at San Diego State University, 65% of parents said they had used the five second rule in
their homes.
"Turns out, the five-second rule is something your parents invented
because they were too lazy to get you new Cheerios after you dumped them on the
floor."
Have you ever applied the five-second rule? Do you think it is healthy or unhealthy?
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