Health & Fitness

During an appearance on the ABC's Q+A programme, Dr Kerryn Phelps did not hold back when it came to what New South Wales needs to do to avoid a 'Melbourne-style' second wave of coronavirus infections. 

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/33kyQfH

Honey, a complex mixture of sugars, amino acids, phenolics and other compounds, has been valued for its medicinal properties since ancient times. Made from flower nectar and produced by bees, honey's medicinal properties vary depending on what type of flowering plant it comes from.

One of the most heavily researched and renowned is Manuka honey, which is produced from certain Manuka plants — also known as tea trees — of the Leptospermum species, which are native to New Zealand and Australia.¹

Manuka honey is a high-value export in New Zealand, one that prides itself on being a pure, high-quality product. "Our reputation for honey production and export rests on the integrity of our products and the credibility of our systems," wrote New Zealand's Ministry for Prime Industries (MPI).²

Tests by the agency show, however, that even natural Manuka honey is being affected by environmental contaminants — namely the herbicide glyphosate.

Glyphosate Detected in New Zealand Manuka Honey

Glyphosate is most commonly known as the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, but it's found in about 90 different products. Overall, glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the world, including in New Zealand.³

New Zealand Food Safety has been testing honey samples for agricultural compounds, including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and other environmental contaminants for years, but in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, they tested honey samples for glyphosate residues, some of which turned up positive.

In their "National Chemical Residues Programme Report" released January 2020, it's noted that 300 raw extracted archival and retail-packed honey samples were tested for glyphosate residues during 2017/2018, while another 60 retail-packed Manuka honey samples were tested for the herbicide during 2018/2019.⁴

Out of the 300 samples, 22.3% contained glyphosate residues above the laboratory limit of reporting, with clover or pasture floral types testing positive more often than other varieties. About 1.7% of the unblended or unprocessed (raw extracted) honey samples contained glyphosate residues at levels above the regulatory limit.

Among the 2018/2019 retail samples tested, 18.3% contained glyphosate residues, though they were below the regulatory maximum. As for where the glyphosate contamination came from, the report noted:⁵

"Based on reported honey types, the most likely cause of the residues in honey is attributed to unintended exposure of honeybees to glyphosate from its approved use in agriculture.

This causal attribution is in comparable with previous international reports. As a consequence, beekeepers have little practical means of excluding bees from foraging on plants treated with glyphosate.

… To do so, would require the beekeeper to place their hives at the centre of 28 square kilometre area where they had assurance from land owners and managers there was no agricultural compound use."

Glyphosate Residues Pose 'Possible Trade Risk'

New Zealand's health officials maintain that no health risks are posed by the glyphosate residues detected in the honey, but a ministerial briefing document obtained by 1 News labeled the contamination a "possible trade risk … because most countries importing honey from New Zealand have no maximum residue limit (MRL), generally meaning that residues must not be detected at any level."⁶

Further details revealed in the confidential briefing suggest that a honey producer in New Zealand began investigating glyphosate residues in 2018 after the chemical was revealed in its honey by a retail market overseas. According to 1 News:⁷

"'Their investigation into the detections found residues present in unprocessed honey at levels above the New Zealand default maximum residue limit,' it reads. 'Their investigation concluded the likely cause of the residues was the use of glyphosate in pasture renovation/renewal.'"

New Zealand Food Safety reiterated that the glyphosate-contaminated honey posed no food safety concerns, adding:⁸

"For context, a 5-year old child who was consuming honey with 0.1 mg/kg of glyphosate residues (the default maximum residue level in New Zealand) would need to eat roughly 230kg of honey every day for the rest of their life to reach the World Health Organization Acceptable Daily Intake for glyphosate."

However, critics said that even at low levels, glyphosate residues mean the honey is tainted, and not due to the fault of the beekeepers, but to lax environmental regulations.

"If New Zealand wants to be a cheap commodity producer, producing tainted food, then that's New Zealand choice, or we can actually have stronger regulation, which protects our free market," Jodie Bruning of the Soil and Health Association told 1 News.⁹

Glyphosate Detected in Honey Samples Worldwide

Glyphosate has been detected in a variety of honey samples tested worldwide, including that taken directly from 59 beehives on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. There, glyphosate residues were found in 27% of honey samples, at levels as high as 342 parts per billion (ppb).¹⁰ Honey was also detected in 33% of honey samples purchased from stores on Kauai.

Not surprisingly, glyphosate occurrence and concentrations were higher in samples taken from the western, predominantly agricultural half of Kauai. Agriculture land use was strongly associated with glyphosate concentrations in honey from hives nearby, as was having extensive golf courses or highways nearby (glyphosate is not only used in agricultural areas, but also on golf courses and roadsides).

In 2014, researchers also found glyphosate in 45.5% of honey samples labeled organic, while the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found glyphosate in 29.7% of 3,188 food samples tested.¹¹ Likewise, the U.S. FDA began a limited testing program for glyphosate in 2016, in which high levels of glyphosate were found in oatmeal products and honey, but the agency did not release the results publicly.

Internal FDA emails obtained by investigative journalist Carey Gillam through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests reveal Roundup has been found in virtually all foods tested, including granola and crackers.¹² In 2016, Gillam wrote:¹³

"All of the samples the FDA tested in a recent examination contained glyphosate residues, and some of the honey showed residue levels double the legally allowed limit in the European Union, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

… In the records released by the FDA, one internal email describes trouble locating honey that doesn't contain glyphosate: 'It is difficult to find blank honey that does not contain residue. I collect about 10 samples of honey in the market and they all contain glyphosate,' states an FDA researcher."

Glyphosate Is Widespread in the Food Supply

While New Zealand Food Safety suggested a child would have to eat huge amounts of honey daily to even come close to consuming the amount of glyphosate deemed risky by the World Health Organization, this doesn't take into account how ubiquitous this chemical is in the environment.

Honey is unlikely to be a person's only source of exposure, as glyphosate has been detected in a wide variety of commonly consumed foods.

For example, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned three rounds of glyphosate testing on cereals and other foods sold by Kellogg, General Mills and Quaker, the latest of which took place in 2019 and involved 21 oat-based cereal and snack products.

The chemical was found in all 21 products, with all but four of them coming in higher than EWG's benchmark for lifetime cancer risk in children, which is 160 ppb.¹⁴ Glyphosate has also been detected in PediaSure Enteral Formula nutritional drink, which is given to infants and children via feeding tubes,¹⁵ to get an idea of just how widespread it is.

It's also found in air, rain, municipal water supplies, soil samples, breast milk, urine, organic plant-based protein supplements and even vaccines, including the pneumococcal, Tdap, hepatitis B (which is injected on the day of birth), influenza and MMR vaccines.^16,17

Even Low Levels of Glyphosate Pose a Risk

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) identified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015,¹⁸ and in the U.S. about 125,000 claims have been initiated by people who believe exposure to Roundup caused them to develop Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.¹⁹

Research published in Frontiers in Genetics also supports glyphosate's cancer link, finding that exposure even in low concentrations (in parts per trillion) may induce cancer in cells when combined with microRNA-182-5p (miR182-5p).²⁰

MicroRNA-182-5p is a gene regulatory molecule found in everyone, and overexpression of the molecule has been linked to cancer. Michael Antoniou of King's College London, who peer reviewed the study, stated, "These observations highlight for the first time a possible biomarker of glyphosate activity at the level of gene expression that could be linked with breast cancer formation."²¹

Aside from cancer, significant bioaccumulation of glyphosate has been documented in the kidney, an organ with known susceptibility to glyphosate, and glyphosate-induced kidney toxicity has been associated with disturbances in the expression of genes associated with fibrosis, necrosis and mitochondrial membrane dysfunction.²²

Further, research published in 2015 found that glyphosate in combination with aluminum synergistically induced pineal gland pathology, which in turn was linked to gut dysbiosis and neurological diseases such as autism, depression, dementia, anxiety disorder and Parkinson's disease.²³

Bayer Proposes Roundup Lawsuit Settlement

A number of animal and human diseases have been rising in step with glyphosate usage. This includes conditions such as failure to thrive, congenital heart defects, enlarged right ventricle, liver cancer and, in newborns, lung problems, metabolic disorders and genitourinary disorders.²⁴

The environmental risks are also immense. Speaking to Politico, Jeroen van der Sluijs, a professor of science and ethics at Norway's Bergen University, explained:²⁵

"It [glyphosate] kills a lot of non-target plants and it leads to an agricultural practice where you have monoculture with no wild plants left in the fields … If you remove all the wild plants from the fields then you only have the crop that flowers and that's only a very short period in the year. The rest of the year there's nothing to forage on.

… We find [glyphosate] everywhere in surface waters, it is indeed toxic for all kinds of aquatic organisms, so of special concern are amphibians like frogs and salamanders."

Bayer, which acquired Monsanto, Roundup's original maker, in 2018, has been in settlement talks for months to resolve the litigation but continues to deny that the chemical causes cancer. In June 2020, they reportedly reached a settlement agreement with attorneys representing 75% of the claims initiated, in which they said they will provide $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve the litigation.²⁶

However, more than 20,000 additional cases have not agreed to Bayer's settlement offer and intend to proceed through the court system.²⁷

Is There a Way to Find Pure Honey?

Beekeepers are, unfortunately, at the mercy of their neighbors' glyphosate usage, as they can't control which plants their bees choose to visit. Some beekeepers, however, are carefully managing where they put their hives to minimize pesticide exposure and keep track of when spraying occurs to help reduce exposures.²⁸

This is an issue not only for honey purity but also for bee health, as glyphosate is known to harm bees. Even organic honey can be contaminated with glyphosate, though there are some organizations that offer glyphosate-free certifications.

The Detox Project is among them. If you see their glyphosate-residue-free certification on Manuka honey, it means the product has no glyphosate residues down to government-recognized limits of detection (usually 0.01 parts per million), and lower levels than the default government Maximum Residue Limits in the European Union and Japan.²⁹

from Articles https://ift.tt/31iClAu
via IFTTT

As vaccine companies rush to bring a COVID-19 vaccine to market, billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates — who routinely funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to various vaccine projects — warns you will probably need “multiple doses” of any given COVID-19 vaccine for it to be effective.¹

In speaking with CBS News, Gates said, “None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose,” adding that in order to wipe the virus out through universal vaccinations it will require “unbelievably big numbers” of doses. To be effective, he also predicts we will need to vaccinate around 80% of the global population so, yes, we’re talking about tens of billions of doses.

100% of Moderna Vaccine Participants Suffered Side Effects

Gates visibly struggles to maneuver through the pointed questions posed by CBS about the safety of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (currently known only as mRNA-1273), which was recently found² to cause systemic side effects in 80% of Phase 1 participants receiving the 100 microgram (mcg) dose.

Side effects ranged from fatigue (80%), chills (80%), headache (60%) and myalgia or muscle pain (53%). After the second dose, 100% of participants in the 100-mcg group experienced side effects.

In the highest dosage group, which received 250 mcg, 100% of participants suffered side effects after both the first and second doses.³ Three of the 14 participants (21%) in the 250-mcg group suffered “one or more severe events.”

Despite these worrisome results, the trial is being heralded as a big success, and vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit has been quoted⁴ as saying we now know “that it’s safe in 45 people,” and that “it doesn’t have a very common side effect problem.”

Clearly, we have very different perceptions of reality on what “very common” means. If 80% to 100% is considered uncommon, then just what level of harm must be inflicted in order for a vaccine to be viewed as having a questionable safety profile?

According to Gates, those side effects are largely due to the high dosages Moderna had to use in order to achieve the desired antibody levels. But, if high dosages are required to create a robust-enough immune response, and higher dosages also cause systemic side effects in a vast majority of people, just how safe will this global vaccination campaign be?

Keep in mind, the 45 participants in Moderna’s Phase 1 trial were healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 55.⁵ Meanwhile, over 90% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and struggle with chronic health conditions that can make them more prone to vaccine complications.

What’s more, frail elderly are unlikely to survive serious vaccine side effects, yet people over 80 are the most vulnerable to COVID-19 and would theoretically stand to benefit from the vaccine most.

Coronavirus Vaccines Have Been Notoriously Prone to Failure

High risk of side effects is probably to be expected, considering a) the history of coronavirus vaccines in general, b) most of the COVID-19 vaccines under development are relying on mRNA technology that have never been used in vaccine production before now, and c) the vaccines are being fast-tracked, forgoing animal studies.

Starting with the first issue, researchers have been unable to produce a coronavirus vaccine despite decades-long efforts. While SARS-CoV-2 is a novel human coronavirus, there are seven others that cause respiratory illness in humans, including four that trigger the common cold,⁶ which is why vaccine makers have been trying to develop coronavirus vaccines in the past.

Among the coronaviruses that cause respiratory illness are SARS and MERS. Coronavirus vaccine efforts gained speed in early 2002, following three SARS epidemics.

However, such efforts have proven highly problematic as coronavirus vaccines have a stubborn tendency to trigger paradoxical immune responses, and researchers have not been able to find a solution for that. This alone is why fast-tracking a COVID-19 vaccine is a terribly risky decision. As reported by Reuters, March 11, 2020:⁷

“Studies have suggested that coronavirus vaccines carry the risk of what is known as vaccine enhancement, where instead of protecting against infection, the vaccine can actually make the disease worse when a vaccinated person is infected with the virus.

The mechanism that causes that risk is not fully understood and is one of the stumbling blocks that has prevented the successful development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Normally, researchers would take months to test for the possibility of vaccine enhancement in animals. Given the urgency to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, some drugmakers are moving straight into small-scale human tests, without waiting for the completion of such animal tests.

‘I understand the importance of accelerating timelines for vaccines in general, but from everything I know, this is not the vaccine to be doing it with,’ Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told Reuters.”

Why a Vaccine May Trigger More Severe Illness

In my interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who chairs the board of directors of the Children’s Health Defense,⁸ he reviewed some of the failed efforts to produce a viable coronavirus vaccine, starting in 2002, and highlighted the dangers of vaccine exaggeration of the immune response:

“The Chinese, the Americans, the Europeans all got together and said, ‘We need to develop a vaccine against coronavirus.’ Around 2012, they had about 30 vaccines that looked promising. They took the four best of those and … gave those vaccines to ferrets, which are the closest analogy when you're looking at lung infections in human beings.

The ferrets had an extraordinarily good antibody response, and that is the metric by which FDA licenses vaccines … The ferrets developed very strong antibodies, so they thought, ‘We hit the jackpot.’ All four of these vaccines … worked like a charm.

Then something terrible happened. Those ferrets were then exposed to the wild virus, and they all died. [They developed] inflammation in all their organs, their lungs stopped functioning and they died.

Then those scientists remembered that the same thing had happened in the 1960s when they tried to develop an RSV vaccine, which is an upper respiratory illness very similar to coronavirus.

At the time, they did not test it on animals. They went right to human testing. They tested it on about 35 children, and the same thing happened. The children developed a champion antibody response, robust, durable. It looked perfect, and then the children were exposed to the wild virus and they all became sick. Two of them died. They abandoned the vaccine. It was a big embarrassment to FDA and NIH.”

As it turns out, they eventually discovered that there are two kinds of antibodies being produced by the coronavirus. When you read press releases and studies about COVID-19 vaccines, you’ll see them referring to:

• Neutralizing antibodies⁹ that fight the infection, and
• Binding antibodies¹⁰ (also known as nonneutralizing antibodies) that do not prevent viral infection

The binding antibodies, rather than fighting the infection, actually trigger what’s known as paradoxical immune enhancement. As explained above, what this means is that even though you may have a robust antibody response, when you’re exposed to the actual virus, rather than protecting you it actually enhances the virus’ ability to make you sick or even kill you.

Looking at the preliminary findings¹¹ from Moderna’s mRNA-1273 Phase 1 trial, we see that neutralizing antibody responses were quite good, “reducing SARS-CoV-2 infectivity by 80% or more” at day 43. However, we also see that:

“Binding antibody IgG geometric mean titers (GMTs) to S-2P increased rapidly after the first vaccination, with seroconversion in all participants by day 15. Dose-dependent responses to the first and second vaccinations were evident.”

Does this rapid increase in binding antibodies mean paradoxical immune enhancement is a possibility? One of my main concerns with COVID-19 vaccines is, will they actually conduct testing to see if paradoxical immune enhancement occurs? Meaning, will they expose vaccinated participants to SARS-CoV-2, to see what happens?

mRNA Vaccines May Produce Serious Side Effects

Aside from the possibility of a paradoxical immune response, mRNA vaccines may in and of themselves be problematic. Inside your cells, mRNA activate DNA instructions, and act as a template to build a specific protein.

The theory behind mRNA vaccines is that when you inject the mRNA, it will stimulate your own cells to manufacture the virus proteins.¹² In this case, those proteins would mimic the proteins found in SARS-CoV-2.

Conventional vaccines train your body to recognize and respond to the proteins of a particular virus by injecting a small amount of the actual viral protein into your body, thereby triggering an immune response and the development of antibodies.

mRNA vaccines are designed to make your body produce its own viral protein, which your immune system would then mount a response to. No previous vaccines have had your own cells produce the viral proteins responsible for producing immunity.

What might go wrong when you turn your body into a viral protein factory, thus activating antibody production on a continual basis? Well, since there are no mRNA vaccines on the market, it’s hard to tell. But, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University:^13,14

“mRNA vaccines have potential safety issues, including local and systemic inflammation and stimulation of auto-reactive antibodies and autoimmunity, as well as development of edema (swelling) and blood clots.”

Some of these effects, such as systemic inflammation and blood clots, resemble severe symptoms of COVID-19 itself. So, does that mean mRNA vaccines might worsen COVID-19 infection? What’s more, since the mRNA vaccines work on the genetic level and could become integrated into your DNA, might they cause long-term, perhaps even generational, problems?

Some COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Are Not Using Inert Placebos

Some COVID-19 vaccine trials also appear to be structured in such a way as to hide side effects, which does not inspire trust. As noted in a July 21, 2020, Wired article,¹⁵ some trials are using injected meningococcal vaccine rather than a true placebo, and anytime you use another vaccine as a control, certain symptoms of harm are automatically obscured.

Another way to hide side effects is to administer the vaccine along with certain drugs. One example of this is the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine trial, which has one study arm in which subjects are given acetaminophen every six hours for the first 24 hours after inoculation.

Is the pain and fever reducer given to mask and downplay certain symptoms and side effects, such as pain, fever, headache or general malaise? It might. As noted by Wired:¹⁶

“The press release for … results from the Oxford vaccine trials described an increased frequency of ‘minor side effects’ among participants. A look at the actual paper, though, reveals this to be a marketing spin …

Yes, mild reactions were far more common than worse ones. But moderate or severe harms — defined as being bad enough to interfere with daily life or needing medical care — were common too.

Around one-third of people vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine without acetaminophen experienced moderate or severe chills, fatigue, headache, malaise, and/or feverishness.

Close to 10 percent had a fever of at least 100.4 degrees, and just over one-fourth developed moderate or severe muscle aches. That’s a lot, in a young and healthy group of people — and the acetaminophen didn’t help much for most of those problems.”

Gates Continues Push for Global Vaccine Empire

As discussed in several previous articles, including “How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health” and “Deconstructing Bill Gates’ Agenda,” Gates is one of the financial beneficiaries of this pandemic. His foundation both funds vaccine developers and owns stock in them.

While he claims there’s separation between these two, it’s a flimsy one at best, and clearly illegal. While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation doles out grants, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust is a separate entity that manages the Foundation’s assets.

However, these two entities have glaringly obvious overlapping interests, and grants given by the foundation frequently benefit the value of the trust’s assets directly. I wrote about this illegal setup in “Bill Gates — Most Dangerous Philanthropist in Modern History?” This is why, despite giving away billions of dollars, Gates’ “Decade of Vaccines” has doubled his worth, from $54 billion to $103.1 billion.

Since President Trump stopped the U.S. funding of the WHO, Gates is now the largest funder of the World Health Organization, which is laying down the ground rules that all nations are expected to follow, which, of course, includes the recommendation to vaccinate, as soon as a vaccine becomes available.

Gates’ remarkable rise to influence on global health matters is founded not on expertise but on money. Just like John D. Rockefeller before him, Gates gained public adoration by donating money to ostensibly “humanitarian causes” — and purchasing good publicity.

Nowadays, he needs all the good publicity he can buy. As more people are getting wise to his greedy get-rich vaccine schemes, his reputation is rapidly tarnishing.

According to an April 23, 2020, Newspunch article,¹⁷ 410,000 people had signed a White House petition¹⁸ to investigate the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for crimes against humanity and medical malpractice. At the time of this writing, the petition has garnered 628,668 signatures. That’s well over six times the number required to illicit an official response. The petition is still open if you’d like to add your signature.

from Articles https://ift.tt/2Dal04W
via IFTTT

If you're a big fan of walking as your main mode of exercise, accredited exercise scientist Van Marinos has some potentially bad news for you. While great for a myriad or reasons, there's one big factor that means you'll do a little bit more to stay healthy and fit in the long term. 

from Fitness | body+soul https://ift.tt/3k976k5

Breathable, high-performance fabrics that allow you to stay active without compromising your health. 

from Fitness | body+soul https://ift.tt/33oX744

Wearing a dirty face mask is as risky as not wearing one. Here’s everything you need to know about maintaining proper mask hygiene.

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2BZdB7S

With community transmission on the rise in NSW, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has issued new advice on face coverings, including the four key scenarios where you should be wearing one.

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2DgGXiD

"I don't care how uncomfortable you think your face mask is... I'm wearing one all day. I don't want to wear one all day. So please, if you have to wear one when you go out in public, just for half an hour or an hour, please do so. Every little bit helps."

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/3k2LXIl

With active COVID-19 cases increasing in NSW, VIC and SA, governments have introduced new restrictions and health recommendations. Here's everything you need to know to stay on top of the rules and regulations.

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/2EKA09T

Chief Victorian Health Officer Brett Sutton calls it "inconceivable", but with the fourth level of lockdown introduced over the weekend, the possibility of Melbourne entering Stage Five is getting more conceivable by the day. With restrictions already at unprecedented levels, many are asking - what could the next stage entail?

from Health | body+soul https://ift.tt/3i7EplU

A new study has found that sleep disturbances at any age are associated with diminished well-being by the time the children are 10 or 11 years old. The findings suggest health care providers should screen children for sleep problems at every age and intervene early when a sleep problem is identified.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3frvVnC

New genetic and patient analyses suggest severe COVID is linked to overactive complement, one of the immune system's oldest branches, and excess blood clotting.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3k6wvLh

New research reveals how small molecule protease inhibitors show potency against human coronaviruses.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3k9oZPO

The study of cellular dynamics is crucial to understand how cells develop and how diseases progress. Scientist have now created 'scVelo' - a machine learning method and open source software to estimate the dynamics of gene activity in single cells. This allows biologists to robustly predict the future state of individual cells.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/33j9sa9

If chlamydiae want to multiply in a human cell, the first thing they need is a lot of glutamine. Researchers have clarified how the pathogenic bacteria obtain this substance.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2BSog42

An international team of scientists has completed the largest analysis of stroke-risk genes ever undertaken in people of African descent.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/33qZfs7

Inherited mutations in a gene that keeps nerve cells intact was shown, for the first time, to be a driver of a neuropathy known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. This finding presents a clearer picture of the disease's genetic underpinnings that could inform the development of gene therapies to correct it.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/39SMzvi

Researchers have identified that a glycoprotein known as transferrin may critically contribute to severe forms of COVID-19.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2XoWnrR

A new study sheds light on how COVID-19 spreads regionally and between countries, as well as on how effective governmental measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have been to date.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2DyRWUd

The virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, presents at least six strains. Despite its mutations, the virus shows little variability, and this is good news for the researchers working on a viable vaccine.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2BY1Yhu

Targeted protein degradation (TPD) represents a novel paradigm in drug discovery that could lead to more efficient medicines to treat diseases such as cancer. 'Molecular glue degrader'are an emerging but understudied class of small molecules that have been shown to induce degradation of proteins commonly considered 'undruggable'. Researchers have described a strategy that, for the first time, enables the rational and highly scalable discovery of novel molecular glue degraders.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3k4DHrb

New research has found that adolescents who promised to be truthful were less likely to 'cheat' than those who did not, even when they could not be found out.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/39QMcS1

In a reversal of trends, American baby boomers scored lower on a test of cognitive functioning than did members of previous generations, according to a new nationwide study.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/2D5BqeU

They go by different names: goosebumps, goose pimples, goose flesh, and my personal favorite, goose bumples. The medical term is cutis anserine (cutis means skin and anser means goose). I guess the similarity in texture is just too close to goose skin to ignore. Other medical terms for goosebumps are horripilation, piloerection, or the pilomotor reflex.

Each of these terms describes a temporary change in the skin from smooth to bumpy, most commonly developing after exposure to cold.

Many people associate goosebumps with fear, or perhaps more accurately, with horror. Perhaps that’s why a popular series of children’s horror stories by R.L. Stine published in the 1990s was called Goosebumps.

Ever wonder why you get them? Do they serve a purpose? Why do they develop when we’re frightened?

What are goosebumps?

Goosebumps are the result of tiny muscles flexing in the skin, making hair follicles rise up a bit. This causes hairs to stand up. Goosebumps are an involuntary reaction: nerves from the sympathetic nervous system — the nerves that control the fight or flight response — control these skin muscles.

In the animal kingdom, a threatened animal has a similar reaction, causing fur to be puffed out a bit. This makes the animal appear bigger and more dangerous. Perhaps the most dramatic example is the porcupine, which puffs out its quills when sensing danger. This can make a threatening adversary think twice before attacking. That may explain why the sympathetic nervous system controls goosebumps — the reflex is tied into the fight or flight response.

This just in

Researchers studying mice recently linked goosebumps to the regeneration of hair and hair follicles. It seems that the nerves connected to the tiny muscles responsible for goosebumps also connect to hair follicle stem cells, which are the cells responsible for hair growth. So, in response to cold, the nerve tells the tiny muscles in the skin to contract (causing goosebumps) and the same nerve activates hair follicle stem cells for new hair growth.

What purpose do goosebumps serve?

Goosebumps may help you conserve heat when you’re exposed to cold. They may do this in several ways.

• As with larger muscles, contraction of the muscles in the skin (called arrectores pilorum) generates heat.
• The raised hair follicles cause skin pores to close.
• Hairs standing up trap a layer of air near the skin, holding onto body heat.

Each of these might be more important for furry animals than for humans. In fact, it’s not clear how important goosebumps are in humans. For example, if you couldn’t form goosebumps at all, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that you’d have problems with temperature control. Goosebumps may be one of those leftovers from our evolutionary ancestors (like the coccyx, or tailbone) that serve no important purpose.

The new discovery linking goosebumps with hair follicle stem cells might be explained as a longer-term response to cold, at least for animals with fur: they get goosebumps (or the animal equivalent) in the short run to conserve heat, and thicker fur to keep warmer in the long term.

Goosebumps: More than just being cold

Most people associate goosebumps with unpleasant situations, such as feeling particularly cold or feeling afraid. Yet there is more to it than that. The arrectores pilorum are hooked up to the sympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system has input from many parts of the brain, including those involved with motivation, arousal, and emotion. So other stimuli may cause goosebumps, for instance:

• hearing music or seeing art that is particularly moving or completely engrosses you (which is why you might say “it gave me chills”)
• awe
• pride
• excitement
• fear.

Goosebumps and disease

Though rare, goosebumps can be a sign of a seizure disorder called temporal lobe epilepsy, a disorder of the sympathetic nervous system, or other brain disorders. They are also common during heroin or other opiate withdrawal. In fact, one explanation for the origin of the expression “quitting cold turkey” is that goose bumps that develop during withdrawal from heroin mimic cold turkey flesh.

The bottom line

You’ll see goosebumps most often when you’re cold. But don’t be surprised (or afraid or awed) if they appear at other times. They are a universal but poorly understood phenomenon, but our understanding is improving. And the recent discovery linking goosebumps with hair follicle regeneration could lead to more than just a better understanding of goosebumps; it could lead to new ways to fight baldness or improve tissue healing.

In humans, it’s possible that goosebumps will gradually disappear over the coming centuries as with other remnants of evolution, like the tailbone or wisdom teeth. Or they may serve a more important role than we currently understand and continue to puzzle us for years to come.

The post Wondering about goosebumps? Of course you are appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

from Harvard Health Blog https://ift.tt/3i22r1n

Children who suffer trauma from abuse or violence early in life show biological signs of aging faster than children who have never experienced adversity, according to new research. The study examined three different signs of biological aging -- early puberty, cellular aging and changes in brain structure -- and found that trauma exposure was associated with all three.

from Top Health News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/3fq8ScO

If you want to know how to eat for ideal health, look no further than the plates of the pros. Dietitian Susie Burrell deep dives into the diets of her colleagues to reveal their top tips for a healthy diet - and as it turns out, vegetables are the common thread.

from Nutrition | body+soul https://ift.tt/3k9WUYK