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Health Supreme . . . a great online resource
This site is a terrific resource on issues of natural health based on nutrition rather than toxic intervention, alternative economic systems, physics from a generalist perspective, developing revolutionary technologies, human society as a living organism and the mysteries of human potential are some of the areas this site is dedicated to exploring.

Here are just a few of the recent headlines from the blog on this site:

GM Food Safety: Royal Society Suppressed Study . . . Life And Gravity: Sleeping In A Horizontal Position May Be Bad For You . . . Chemical Poisons Cause Increasing Levels Of Illness - Tobacco Blamed . . . Pharma: Side Effects Killed 'Magic Bullet' . . . H.R. 3156 To Tighten Supplement Safety Rules - But Why Only Supplements? . . . Cancer: Pineapple Enzymes 'Discovered' by Australian Researchers . . . Aspartame: Scientific Studies Link Sweetener to Cancers . . . WHO: Codex Alimentarius Must Do More For Health . . . Supplements: EU Court Decision Will Preserve Wide Choice Says ANH

This site also has an RSS feed, which makes it quite easy to keep up with.

Health Supreme RSS feed

posted by LoZo 2:45 PM

 

Clue to why some die during sleep
(BBC NEWS, 8 August 2005)
Scientists believe they may have solved the mystery of why some people stop breathing fatally in their sleep. . . . They say a cumulative loss of cells in the area of the brain that controls breathing is to blame - triggering a condition called central sleep apnoea. . . . However, they believe many such deaths in elderly people are misdiagnosed as heart failure. . . . The study, by the University of California, Los Angeles, is published in Nature Neuroscience. . . . The researchers had previously pinpointed a region of the brainstem they dubbed the preBötzinger complex (preBötC) as the command post for generating breathing in mammals. . . . They had also identified a small group of cells within this area as being responsible for issuing the commands. . . . Lead researcher Professor Jack Feldman said: "We speculate that our brains can compensate for up to a 60% loss of preBötC cells, but the cumulative deficit of these brain cells eventually disrupts our breathing during sleep. . . . "There's no biological reason for the body to maintain these cells beyond the average lifespan, and so they do not replenish as we age. . . . "As we lose them, we grow more prone to central sleep apnoea." . . . The UCLA team believes that central sleep apnoea may pose a particular risk to elderly people, whose heart and lungs are already weaker due to age. . . . They also suspect the condition strikes people suffering the late stages of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease. . . . These people often have breathing difficulties during sleep, and the researchers believe their bodies eventually reach a point where they are unable to rouse themselves from sleep when they stop breathing.

posted by LoZo 6:47 AM

 

Nanotechnology used to kill cancer cells
(BBC NEWS, 2 August 2005)
Nanotechnology has been harnessed to kill cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. . . . The technique works by inserting microscopic synthetic rods called carbon nanotubules into cancer cells. . . . When the rods are exposed to near-infra red light from a laser they heat up, killing the cell, while cells without rods are left unscathed. . . . Researcher Dr Hongjie Dai said: "One of the longstanding problems in medicine is how to cure cancer without harming normal body tissue. Standard chemotherapy destroys cancer cells and normal cells alike. That's why patients often lose their hair and suffer numerous other side effects. For us, the Holy Grail would be finding a way to selectively kill cancer cells and not damage healthy ones." . . . The carbon nanotubules used by the Stanford team are only half the width of a DNA molecule, and thousands can easily fit inside a typical cell. . . . Under normal circumstances near-infra red light passes through the body harmlessly. . . . But the Stanford team found that if they placed a solution of carbon nanotubules under a near-infra red laser beam, the solution heated up to about 70C in two minutes. . . . They then placed the tubules inside cells, and found they were quickly destroyed by the heat generated by the laser beam. . . . Dr Dai said: "It's actually quite simple and amazing. We're using an intrinsic property of nanotubes to develop a weapon that kills cancer." . . . The next step was to find a way to introduce the nantubules into cancer cells, but not healthy cells. . . . The researchers did this by taking advantage of the fact that, unlike normal cells, the surface of cancer cells is covered with receptors for a vitamin known as folate. . . . They coated the nanotubules with folate molecules, making it easy for them to pass into cancer cells, but unable to bind with their healthy cousins. . . . Exposure to the laser duly killed off the diseased cells, but left the healthy ones untouched. . . . The researchers believe it should be possible to refine the technique still further, for instance by attaching an antibody to a nanotubule to target a particular kind of cancer cell. . . . They have already started work on tailoring the technique to target lymphoma in mice.

posted by LoZo 12:17 PM