Category Archives: Medicine

Study: Alzheimer’s symptoms reversed within minutes

This is great news: a recent study showed a remarkable improvement in Alzheimer’s patients given a drug designed to treat immune-related disorders. In one case, the patient’s symptoms were reversed quickly:

The new study documents a dramatic and unprecedented therapeutic effect in an Alzheimer’s patient: improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine.

“It is unprecedented that we can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention,” said Griffin [the author of commentary on the study]. “It is imperative that the medical and scientific communities immediately undertake to further investigate and characterize the physiologic mechanisms involved.”

Fighting Alzheimer’s has been pretty-near-hopeless before now, so this is fantastic news. It would be great to see Alzheimer’s turned into just another treatable issue.

Fever can unlock autism’s grip

Looks like there’s been some progress in figuring out how to reverse the effects of autism, at least temporarily. According to a recent study, some children have shown improvement while they have a fever over 100 degrees:

More than 80 percent of those with fever showed some improvements in behavior during it and 30 percent had dramatic improvements, the researchers said. The change involved things like longer concentration spans, more talking, improved eye contact and better overall relations with adults and other children.

Obviously this doesn’t help in terms of home remedies, but it does indicate that autism isn’t completely irreversible.

Yet another reason not to buy products made in China

As y’all know my aunt and uncle have been heavily involved with the fight against asbestos in this country. Their latest endeavor has been assisting with consumer product testing. The results were released to the press this week. Seattle PI ran an exclusive article last Tuesday. Some highlights are below:

Asbestos has been found in a variety of consumer products, including one of this season’s biggest-selling Christmas toys, according to the nation’s largest asbestos victims organizations.

The CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit, two brands of children’s play clay, powdered cleanser, roof sealers, duct tapes, window glazing, spackling paste and small appliances were among the products in which asbestos was found by at least two of three labs hired by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization . . .

. . . The kit, made in China, is one of several items licensed by CBS after its popular “CSI” science-crime shows. This model has an extensive array of plastic tools, inks and three types of very fine powders — white, black and glow-in-the-dark. The analysis done for the victim’s organization found high levels of two types of asbestos in the white and the glow powder

Physicians are especially concerned because of the significant likelihood of children breathing in asbestos fibers as they hunt for fingerprints and use a soft-bristled brush to move the powder around.

news roundup

I read news from a bunch of different sources each day, including Google News, Reddit, and a whole host of blog feeds. Some items are worth commenting on here, but often I just want to say “hey, read this one” instead of finding something specific to comment on.

So, I’m going to try a new feature here on Global Spin: the News Roundup. Each post is a list of timely articles with excerpts but little or no commentary, perhaps updated over the course of the day. If you find them useful, let me know. If you find them annoying, mention that too.

Doctors refuse to take bitter no-gift medicine (Chicago Tribune)

Whether it be Subway sandwiches for the office staff or reimbursement for continuing education, gifts showered upon doctors by drug- and medical device-makers have become so pervasive that they are a standard part of virtually every U.S. physician’s practice.

Despite self-policing initiatives launched by organized medical groups and the drug and device makers to curb the cozy relationship between physicians and industry, 94 percent “or virtually all” physicians have at least one type of relationship with the drug industry, according to a study scheduled to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Stephen Hawking set to fly weightless (Houston Chronicle)

For a few seconds on Thursday, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking expects to feel the exhilaration of escaping his paralysis and floating free in zero gravity. The 65-year-old was set Thursday to become the first person with a disability to experience the Zero Gravity Corp. flight.

Canada Announces Greenhouse Gas Targets (Washington Post)

Canada’s Conservative government said Wednesday it will cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and ban inefficient incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 as part of a national environmental initiative.

The plan, dubbed “Turning the Corner,” includes various measures to stop the rise of greenhouse gases in three to five years. Once the gases stop rising, the government plans to reduce them by 150 million tons by 2020, or about 20 percent the level of current emissions.

British backtrack on Iraq death toll

British backtrack on Iraq death toll, from the Independent Online:

British government officials have backed the methods used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, the BBC reported yesterday.

The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet in October. But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.

The study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.