Supreme Court greets healthcare mandate with skepticism

WASHINGTON — The legal fate of President Obama's embattled healthcare law has always turned on winning over the center of the Supreme Court: JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy.

But as the court considered whether the federal government could require most Americans to get health insurance, Kennedy appeared to deal the president and his allies a heavy blow.

The mandate, he said, "changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way." Kennedy called the insurance requirement "concerning" and suggested it might be "unprecedented."

Predicting decisions based on justices' comments during arguments can be risky. And on the second day of oral arguments over the landmark law, Kennedy and Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.at times seemed to agree with the government's view that because everyone is likely to need medical care at some time, Congress might have more latitude to require purchase of insurance than of some other product.

But those moments were exceptions. Overall, the clear skepticism about the insurance mandate expressed by Roberts and Kennedy seemed to set the stage for a 5-4 decision, with the court's five Republican appointees pitted against its four Democrats.

Such a ruling would strike out the heart of Obama's healthcare law, his signature domestic achievement, in the middle of the presidential campaign, which could become a significant, and unpredictable, factor in the election. Not since the mid-1930s has the Supreme Court struck down a major regulatory act of Congress.

A ruling against the mandate would not necessarily overturn all of the healthcare law. The question of how much might be left is one the justices will grapple with in Wednesday's arguments, the finale of three days of debate over the law. But on Tuesday, at least, the administration's supporters were dispirited.

"It certainly didn't go as well as I had hoped it would for the government," said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and an authority on healthcare law. "It was always fairly certain they had four votes. It's clear now they are going to have a hard time pulling a fifth."

Kennedy and Roberts, along with fellow conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., repeatedly questioned where the limit on federal power would be if the mandate was upheld. Justice Clarence Thomas was silent, as is his habit, but is expected to vote to strike down the mandate.

"If the government can do this, what else can it … do?" Scalia asked, suggesting Congress might require Americans to buy broccoli or automobiles.

Roberts suggested that the government might require Americans to buy cellphones to be ready for emergencies.

Kennedy, who is often the court's swing vote, seemed to suggest that a mandate directed at individuals could be upheld only if the government offered an extremely powerful justification. And his comments from the bench raised considerable doubt about whether he thought the administration had met that test.

Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's top lawyer, tried to argue that the insurance mandate would not open the door to other requirements to buy products because healthcare is unique.

"Virtually everybody in society is in this market," said Verrilli, who appeared to struggle to answer conservative justices' probing questions. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other liberal justices intervened at points to help him along, defending the new law as a reasonable means to cope with the uninsured.

From the start, the mandate to buy insurance has been seen as the central and most controversial provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is by far the one most Americans say they oppose, according to polls.

Under the law, many of the nearly 20% of individuals in the U.S. who do not have health insurance will have to sign up for a plan starting in 2014 that meets a basic set of standards or pay a tax penalty that will rise from $95 in 2014 to $695 in 2016. Health policy experts warn that without some incentive to buy insurance, people could wait until they got seriously ill to sign up for coverage, pushing up premiums for everyone.

In defense of the mandate, Verrilli said that if a person elected not to get health insurance but then got sick — as nearly everyone will at some point — that person would pass along costs to everyone else.

To prevent that, the Obama administration has argued that Congress can use its authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution to impose the mandate as a way to regulate health insurance. Roberts and Kennedy in the past have supported the federal government's broad authority to regulate commerce.

The Constitution says Congress has the power to "regulate commerce" and to impose taxes to promote the general welfare. The court has upheld federal laws regulating all manner of business, including agriculture, aviation and who can be served at the corner coffee shop.

The few positive moments for the administration came when the law's opponents got their turn to argue. Kennedy and Roberts pressed them to address the unique dynamics of the healthcare market, in which people who do not get health coverage affect everyone's costs.

"That is not true in other industries," Kennedy said at one point. "That's my concern in the case."

In his closing comments, Verrilli shifted gears and tried to convince the conservative justices of the virtues of judicial restraint.

"The Constitution leaves the democratically accountable branches of government" the choice of how best to regulate business and commerce, he said. "That is exactly the kind of thing that ought to be left to the judgment of Congress."

After Wednesday's third day of arguments, the justices will meet behind closed doors Friday to cast their votes and begin working on opinions.

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7:10 PM | 0 comments

Is healthcare a privilege or a right?

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota One of the most striking take-aways from this week's U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the healthcare reform law was the steadfast insistence on the part of Republicans to deny affordable and accessible medical treatment to as many people as possible.

The party is determined to maintain the status quo of healthcare being a privilege and not a right — putting us at odds with just about every other developed nation on the planet and, not coincidentally, resulting in about 50 million people being uninsured.

The bulk of attention this week was on Tuesday's hearing on the so-called mandate, the reform law's requirement that most people sign up for health insurance or face a modest tax penalty. Judging from some of the questions posed by conservative justices, this is where the law may fall apart.

But some of the most telling remarks came a day later when the attorney representing 26 Republican-led states argued that the law's expansion of Medicaid violates states' rights and represents an act of coercion by the federal government, even though the federal government, and not the states, will foot the bill for nearly all of that additional coverage.

This is a key piece of the reform puzzle. As it stands, the law won't provide coverage to all 50 million now left to fend for themselves (and thus pass along the cost of their care to other taxpayers and ratepayers). It will instead bring about 30 million into the insurance fold.

More than half of that number — about 17 million — will receive insurance through Medicaid. Mostly we're talking about low-income people who are not currently eligible for the program in most states.

Paul Clement, the lawyer for the states, argued that the federal government is twisting the arms of state officials by putting current Medicaid funds on the line. In other words, if states don't agree to expand coverage, they could lose the billions they now receive for the program.

This is a breathtaking assertion on a number of levels. First, no one forces a state to participate in Medicaid. If it doesn't like the federal government's terms, it can walk away from the program.

Second, if a state participates in Medicaid so it can insure some people, why wouldn't it be in favor of any move that allows it to insure more people?

Then there's the core belief among Republicans that the public sector has virtually no role to play in extending health coverage to as many people as possible, even when the private sector has failed miserably in meeting this responsibility.

As I wrote earlier this month, Republican attacks on the mandate as a threat to freedom and liberty ignore the real-world realities of the insurance business.

By allowing people to avoid buying insurance until they need it, and then requiring insurers to cover anyone who comes knocking at their door regardless of medical condition, you create a risk pool of exclusively sick people.

This is a recipe for financial catastrophe, all but ensuring that premiums rocket skyward and thus making health insurance less affordable and accessible for everyone. That's not political ideology talking; it's simple economics.

Opposing an expansion of Medicaid is no less reckless. As things stand, family insurance rates are now as much as $1,500 higher annually because of the cost of treating the uninsured, according to a study by the advocacy group Families USA.

If we can all agree that having tens of millions of people uninsured is not just a national disgrace but also an unfair financial burden for people who do have insurance, then one of our priorities must be to extend coverage to as many people as we can.

This has been accomplished in part by the reform law's provision that young adults can stay on their parents' plans to age 26. According to census figures, young adults are the age group least likely to have health insurance.

In terms of income, nearly two-thirds of the uninsured are in households making less than $50,000 a year. Expanding Medicaid eligibility would thus be the most effective and efficient means of bringing coverage to this segment of the population.

Needless to say, all these problems would be moot if the United States followed the example of its economic peers in Europe and Asia and adopted some sort of Medicare-for-all system guaranteeing universal coverage.

But since that's not going to happen any time soon, our sole alternative is to work within the existing system. And that means some sort of requirement that everyone have health coverage — a proposal originally championed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and embraced by leading Republican politicians (until they realized it was actually a Marxist plot to destroy the healthcare system).

It also means opening the door wider to lower-income folk through the Medicaid program, which, subsidized almost entirely by the federal government, is hardly an abrogation of states' rights and is instead more akin to a gift from Washington.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum showed up outside the Supreme Court earlier this week to say that only "our creator" can bestow rights on people. The inference was that lawmakers have no business fostering a right to healthcare, or even the expectation of such a right, among Americans.

Santorum's 3-year-old daughter has a severe genetic disorder called Trisomy 18. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, half of all infants with the ailment do not survive beyond the first week of life. "Some children have survived to the teenage years, but with serious medical and developmental problems," it says.

Luckily for this little girl, her father has reported earning more than $3.6 million since he left Congress in 2007, so she'll probably never want for insurance coverage.

But do Santorum and his Republican allies truly think that others who lack such good fortune deserve less, or perhaps no, medical care? Do they believe that other children with preexisting conditions have less of a right to treatment?

Or is there perhaps room to acknowledge that simple standards of human decency make clear that society has certain obligations, and in the United States, as of this moment, those obligations are not being met?

 

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2:38 PM | 0 comments

Dr. Paul H. Crandall dies at 89; invented techniques for diagnosing, treating epilepsy

Dr. Paul H. Crandall, un neurochirurgo UCLA pioniere ora ampiamente utilizzato tecniche per diagnosticare la fonte di zollbeschlagnahmungen epilettica nel cervello e rimuovendo le cellule incriminate, morte il 15 marzo dalle complicazioni di polmonite a Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Egli era 89.

Crandall, che ha fondato il dipartimento di neurochirurgia UCLA, "era il padre del programma di epilessia di UCLA," Dr. Neil Martin, l'attuale Presidente di neurochirurgia presso Geffen School della UCLA of medicine, ha detto in un comunicato. "Il suo lavoro clinico pose le basi per le nostre attuali strategie trattare epilettica zollbeschlagnahmungen e la sua ricerca scientifica informa trattamento dei neurochirurghi dell'epilessia oggi."

Epilessia può essere trattato con farmaci in circa il 60% dei casi. Chirurghi abbiano tentato di curare altri zollbeschlagnahmungen con chirurgia cerebrale dal presso almeno tardo XIX secolo, ma i medici spesso rimosso enormi quantità di tessuto senza avere alcuna comprensione di dove nel cervello il zollbeschlagnahmungen erano in realtà originarie.

I ricercatori in Francia avevano tentato l'impianto di elettrodi nel cervello per registrare l'attività cerebrale durante la zollbeschlagnahmungen, ma gli elettrodi sono stati lasciò nel solo durante l'operazione stessa e forniti solo le informazioni minime.

Crandall e Dr. Richard Walter, poi capo della neurologia presso la UCLA, perfezionato la capacità dell'impianto di elettrodi nel cervello dei pazienti epilettici e lasciarli per lunghi periodi. All'inizio negli anni sessanta, i pazienti sono stati portati in laboratorio ogni giorno e collegati ad una macchina di EEG che ha registrato un impulso elettrico su strisce di carta, producendo cumuli di carta. Ma i ricercatori non riuscì a catturare qualsiasi zollbeschlagnahmungen.

Crandall, è capitato di essere a guardare una delle prime Gemini orbitale missioni della NASA in televisione quando ha sentito il controllo missione annunciare la frequenza cardiaca dell'astronauta. Incuriosito, ha chiamato la NASA e ha chiesto come hanno fatto egli è ciò che ha detto che l'agenzia usato recentemente inaugurato radio banda FM, mettendo i diversi canali di informazioni su una frequenza FM che cosa poi con travi torna alla terra. Ha immediatamente chiesto per uno dei dispositivi.

Dopo quasi due anni di negoziati, NASA, lo inviò a dispositivo di telemetria FM, che gli ha permesso di collegare gli elettrodi del cervello del paziente per un piccolo trasmettitore. Il segnale che viene poi registrato su un registratore a nastro bobina a bobina, consentendo il monitoraggio 24 ore su 24. Crandall conquistò il suo primo sequestro nel 1968. Più tardi, il team ha aggiunto registrazione video di correlare il comportamento paziente con attività cerebrale.

Incorporando gli elettrodi presso i siti stessi in ogni paziente, squadra di Crandall, che è in grado di gradualmente a concentrarsi su gruppi di cellule dove attività anomale che si verificano, che consente la rimozione delle cellule e attenuanti zollbeschlagnahmungen. E rimuovendo i ciuffi di cellule intatte, i ricercatori sono riusciti a studiare in laboratorio come le interazioni delle cellule di prodotti zollbeschlagnahmungen.

Il team ha sviluppato il protocollo e la nomenclatura che è ancora utilizzata da neurochirurghi per trattare l'epilessia: fase 1, un EEG normale con elettrodi di superficie per la diagnosi di epilessia; Fase 2, uso di elettrodi impiantati per localizzare le cellule colpite; e la fase 3, la rimozione chirurgica delle cellule.

"Il suo contributo non è solo quello che ha trovato, ma così l'approccio di come fare per fare questo," ha detto Dr. Gary Mathern, UCLA professore di neurochirurgia.

Paul Herbert Crandall nacque Feb. 15, 1923, bambini in Essex Junction, VT, il più giovane di sette. Ha ricevuto la laurea dall'Università del Vermont, nel 1943, poi si arruolò nell'esercito degli Stati Uniti, dove lui cosa scelti per frequentare la scuola medica, ricevendo la laurea in medicina dal Vermont nel 1946. Dopo la residenza presso l'Università di Chicago, si riunì la Army Medical Corps nel 1952, che servono due anni come capo di neurochirurgia presso un ospedale militare a Francoforte, Germania.

Nel 1954, è arrivato alla UCLA, dove egli come uno dei tre soci fondatori della divisione di neurochirurgia, che è stato aggiornato a un reparto nel 2008. Si ritirò nel 1988 ma continuò le sue ricerche.

Crandall servito su Commissione della US Department of Health nazionale per l'epilessia dal 1976 al 1977. perché il suo lavoro aveva dimostrato il valore di monitoraggio a lungo termine della zollbeschlagnahmungen e delle sue procedure per la gestione dei casi difficili, la Commissione ha raccomandato l'istituzione di centri specializzati epilessia nelle grandi aree urbane, una raccomandazione che successivamente è stata implementata.

Il suo lavoro anche contribuito a estendere la chirurgia ai bambini per il controllo zollbeschlagnahmungen.

Nel 1977, Crandall ha suonato chirurgia 18 anni Alfonsina "Nina" Davies cui genitori avevano cercato inutilmente per una cura per il suo grave epilessia. L'intervento chirurgico fermato il zollbeschlagnahmungen e Nina completato college di guadagnare il dottorato nel campo dell'istruzione e diventando a sovrintendente assistente per il Santa Ana Unified School District. Purtroppo, morì nel 2011 di una condizione nota come improvvisa morte inspiegabile, l'epilessia, risultato di un raro della malattia.

Nel ottobre 2011, i suoi genitori, Thomas e Nadia Davies, ha donato $2 milioni alla UCLA per la ricerca di epilessia, dotandola di una sedia in onore di Crandall.

Crandall è sopravvissuto dalla moglie, Barbara, UCLA professore emerito di pediatria e genetica; quattro figli; e tre nipoti.

Maugh è un ex scrittore medico del Los Angeles Times.

News.obits@latimes.com

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11:37 AM | 0 comments

Legality of taxation is the key to health reform

The underlying connection was closed: A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server. Error in deserializing body of reply message for operation 'Translate'. The maximum string content length quota (8192) has been exceeded while reading XML data. This quota may be increased by changing the MaxStringContentLength property on the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas object used when creating the XML reader. Line 1, position 8864. One afternoon in 1934, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone decided to quietly help Labor Secretary Frances Perkins out of a jam.

Her quandary was how to write a Social Security law that would survive scrutiny by the court's conservative bloc. Stone, a progressive, pulled her aside during a tea party at his home, glanced around to make sure he wasn't overheard, and whispered, "The taxing power of the federal government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need."

As Stone counseled, the court had earlier held that the government's taxing power was virtually absolute. And so it was that tax provisions were liberally sown throughout the bill enacting the nation's landmark social insurance program, which handily survived Supreme Court challenge a few years later.

Nor is there any mystery why a federal tax is the hub of the federal healthcare reform act's individual mandate, the constitutionality of which is being argued this week before the current Supreme Court. The tax is the mechanism for enforcing the mandate — if you don't have insurance, you'll pay a tax. Or why the court's upholding of Social Security in 1937 has been cited repeatedly in their briefs and oral arguments by the lawyers defending the mandate, not to mention by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during oral arguments Tuesday.

The tax issue pervades the judicial debate over the healthcare law, but whether Congress' clever maneuver was enough to inoculate the act from court hostility is open to question. At least, that's one question. You don't have to go as far as the attack brief by a lobbying group for small business, which calls the mandate an "unprecedented … threat to individual liberty," to understand that no act of Congress in recent times has a greater potential effect on how businesses perform, government regulates, individuals conduct their lives.

The court acknowledged the act's importance by scheduling an unprecedented six hours of arguments on its constitutionality over three days, including a two-hour session Tuesday on the individual mandate and its associated tax penalty alone.

As befits a measure implicating legal and ideological principles so directly, the discussion was a dramatic one. Three conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, and purported swing voter Anthony Kennedy, worried the law's defender, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., as mercilessly as dogs with a bone, leading some court watchers to declare the mandate dead.

Once the lectern was turned over to lawyers for the challengers, including the small-business group and 26 states, that wasn't so clear. Kennedy and Roberts both indicated that they were at least receptive to the government position that healthcare is an interstate market that involves virtually every American, and is therefore ripe for congressional regulation.

"The young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries," Kennedy said. "That's my concern in this case."

Of course, it's well understood that projecting the court's ultimate decision, which won't come for months, from the justices' comments during oral arguments is a mug's game. As in sports, you have to let the contest play out — sometimes Lehigh will beat Duke, after all.

Fundamental to the question of whether and how the federal government should regulate the delivery of health coverage is society's unwillingness to let people sicken and die without care. That's why Congress in 1986 passed the Emergency Treatment and Active Labor Act, which forbids emergency rooms to turn away patients regardless of their ability to pay.

It's why Americans end up spending more than $116 billion a year in treatment for the uninsured, a bill that ends up being covered out of premiums charged to those who do have insurance to the tune of an average $1,000 per family policy. The figures, which are from the government's Supreme Court brief, lie at the heart of the government's argument that the uninsured are inextricably part of the web of interstate commerce that brings the health insurance market into Congress' regulatory ambit.

Although critics of the healthcare law would have us think otherwise, the Supreme Court well knows that this is not the first time that Congress has taken up social welfare as a fundamental concern or fashioned an all-encompassing mandate to address it. The precedent is Social Security, which addressed a crisis of poverty among the elderly that didn't look as if it would be going away.

Supporting the elderly was going to be society's responsibility any way you cut it, Congress was told by Edwin Witte, the Social Security bill's chief architect; the question was how to do it humanely, efficiently and effectively. "This growing number of old people will have to be supported," he said, "and whether you do it in the form of pensions or in some other way, that cost is there."

The option Congress chose was a contributory pension scheme designed to apply to every wage-earner. (The law initially left out many workers, including domestic workers, but was consistently broadened until today only a limited number of state and local government workers remain outside the system.)

As Ginsburg observed, Social Security faced many of the same criticisms laid against the individual mandate. "A lot of people said — maybe some people still do today — I could do much better if the government left me alone.... They're forcing me to paying for this Social Security that I don't want." But it was constitutional.

Then, as now, the new program was seen as a novel approach to both a novel social problem and the novel recognition that social welfare had to be seen as a federal responsibility.

Social Security had been brought before the court essentially as a tax case — was the employers' share of the payroll tax constitutional? But then, as perhaps will happen now, that issue became a springboard for a broader consideration of how law and our interpretation of the constitution must evolve to accommodate the modern world.

"Needs that were narrow or parochial a century ago may be interwoven in our day with the well-being of the nation," wrote Justice Benjamin Cardozo, delivering the Court's 7-2 opinion upholding Social Security. "What is critical or urgent changes with the times.... The purge of nationwide calamity that began in 1929 has taught us many lessons. Not the least is the solidarity of interests that may once have seemed to be divided."

President Franklin Roosevelt had made that point earlier, kicking back at the court's nullification of a key New Deal program in a decision that turned, as do this week's arguments, on the reach of the Constitution's commerce clause, which defines the limits of congressional authority.

"The country was in the horse-and-buggy age when that clause was written," FDR groused. "Probably 80 or 90% of the human beings in the 13 original states were completely self-supporting." Constitutional interpretation, he maintained, had to keep up with "present-day civilization." That's the heart of the debate the court will have to undertake as it digests this week's oral arguments over the Affordable Care Act: whether it wishes to rest on principles with a reach not far beyond the 19th century, or adjust them to the undeniable realities of the 21st.

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7:04 AM | 0 comments

Supreme Court again looks primed to confound a president

WASHINGTON — Eight years ago, George W. Bush administration lawyers went before the Supreme Court arguing that the justices should defer to the president during wartime and allow the commander in chief to decide how to treat "enemy combatants" held at Guantanamo Bay.

To their surprise, they lost. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined with the liberal bloc to rule that these prisoners had a right to a judicial hearing.

This week, President Obama's lawyers went before the Supreme Court arguing that the justices should defer to Congress when it comes to regulating health insurance. But they too ran into sharply skeptical questioning, this time from Kennedy and the court's conservatives.

The tenor of the comments over three days of oral arguments suggested the nine justices had made up their minds.

On Friday morning they will meet in private to cast their votes. Their decision will be kept secret within the court and is not likely to be announced until late June. Then, the court will issue a lengthy opinion for the majority explaining its ruling, along with one or more strong dissents.

Although the opinions will be revised and rewritten throughout the spring, the outcome will almost certainly depend on the votes cast Friday. It's rare for a justice to switch sides in a major case after the vote is taken.

This week's arguments cheered conservatives and shook liberal supporters of the federal healthcare law.

"I left the court each day feeling as good as could be," said Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett, a libertarian and the leading academic critic of the law's mandate that all Americans buy health insurance. The arguments, he said, "couldn't have gone much better for our side."

Barnett has argued that although Congress has broad power to regulate commerce, it cannot force any person to buy a product or engage in commerce. For that reason, he contends that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Kennedy, seen as the crucial swing vote, seemed to adopt this view in Tuesday's arguments. He called the mandate to have insurance "unprecedented" and "a step beyond what our cases have allowed." He said the government had "a heavy burden" to justify such a law because it "requires an individual to do an affirmative act."

If President Obama's healthcare law is struck down, "this will be the second consecutive presidency in which the Supreme Court imposed significant limits on the primary agenda of the sitting president," wrote George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr, a former Kennedy clerk.

Liberal advocates were taken aback by the hostile questioning from the court's conservative wing.

"I was very surprised to see how it played out. But I'm not completely despondent," said Ian Millhiser, a lawyer and policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. He said he remained hopeful that Kennedy and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would not go so far as to strike down a major piece of social legislation.

The nine justices meet alone in an ornate, wood-paneled conference room. The chief justice will begin the discussion, describe the issue to be decided and then say how he will vote. From there, the discussion moves in order of seniority, from Justice Antonin Scalia to the newest, Justice Elena Kagan.

If Roberts is in the majority, he will decide who writes the opinion. But since four separate questions raised by the healthcare law are before the court, there could be more than one majority opinion.

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3:28 AM | 0 comments

Green coffee beans show potential for losing weight

When roasted at 475 degrees, coffee beans are sometimes described as rich and full-bodied. But for the full-bodied person who is not so rich, unroasted coffee beans — green as the day they were picked — may hold the key to cheap and effective weight loss, new research suggests.

In a study presented Tuesday at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in San Diego, 16 overweight young adults took, by turns, a low dose of green coffee bean extract, a high dose of the supplement, and a placebo. Though the study was small, the results were striking: Subjects lost an average of 17.5 pounds in 22 weeks and reduced their overall body weight by 10.5%.

If green coffee extract were a medication seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration, these results would make it a viable candidate — more than 35% of subjects lost more than 5% of their body weight, and weight loss appeared to be greater while subjects were taking the pills than when they were on the placebo.

But as a dietary supplement, green coffee extract does not require the FDA's blessing. In fact, it is already available as a naturopathic medicine and antioxidant.

Joe Vinson, the University of Scranton chemist who conducted the pilot study, said the findings should pave the way for more rigorous research on coffee bean extract's effects. A larger trial involving 60 people is being planned.

Vinson, whose research focuses on plant polyphenols and their effects on human health, said it appears that green coffee bean extract may work by reducing the absorption of fat and glucose in the gut; it may also reduce insulin levels, which would improve metabolic function. There were no signs of ill effects on any subjects, Vinson reported Tuesday.

The study used a "cross-over" design, which allowed each subject to serve as his or her own comparison group. For six weeks, volunteers swallowed capsules three times a day, ingesting either 700 or 1,050 milligrams of green coffee extract a day or taking a placebo. After a two-week break, they moved, round-robin style, to another arm of the trial.

Subjects did not change their calorie intake over the course of the trial. But the more extract they consumed, the more weight and fat they lost. Altogether, they reduced their body fat by 16%, on average.

Of the 16 volunteers, six wound up with a body mass index in the healthful range.

One downside is that the extract is "extremely bitter." It would be difficult to take without a lot of water, Vinson reported.

At roughly $20 per month, however, green coffee extract is much less expensive than any of the weight-loss medications available over the counter or by prescription.

The trial was conducted in India and paid for by Applied Food Sciences Inc. of Austin, Tex., a manufacturer of green coffee bean extract.

The pilot study drew strong cautions from several scientists who weren't involved in the research.

"This is certainly a provocative study," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, a physician and biochemist at New York University. But he said nutrition experts would want assurances that green coffee beans do not cause "malabsorption" within the human gut — a condition that would lead to weight loss as well as malnutrition, heart arrhythmias and other problems because vitamins and minerals are not passing through the intestine.

Dr. Arthur Grollman, a pharmacologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said coffee beans contain about 250 different chemicals — some with positive and others with negative effects on human health. Though Vinson identified polyphenols and chlorogenic acid as the agents that appear to promote weight loss, Grollman said that claim needed further study. In the meantime, he said, consuming an extract that contains both good and bad chemicals in dense concentration seems an unwise thing to do.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

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11:53 PM | 0 comments

Supreme Court appears poised to nullify entire healthcare law

Paul Clement, wearing a blue tie on right, an attorney representing 26 states challenging the federal healthcare law, leaves the Supreme Court with others after Wednesday's arguments. (Jonathan Ernst, Reuters / March 28, 2012)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, after three days of arguments on President Obama's healthcare overhaul, appeared ready to strike down not just the requirement that individuals have insurance, but the entire law, invalidating a major piece of domestic legislation for the first time since the Depression.

That prospect, unthinkable to many experts as recently as last week, will not be certain until the justices rule on the case, probably in June.

But the electric set of arguments that ended Wednesday revealed profound skepticism about the law by the court's five-member conservative majority, which appeared openly hostile to its scheme for mobilizing the federal government to achieve universal healthcare.

In question after question the nine justices revealed themselves as sharply divided as Congress and the American public over the virtues of Obama's law.

But unlike Congress — whose slim Democratic majority allowed passage of the law in 2010 — the court has a narrow majority of Republican appointees. If united, the five conservatives could vote to strike down the entire law. And during arguments Wednesday, they sounded prepared to do just that, including scrapping a major expansion of the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

"One way or another, Congress is going to have to reconsider this," said Justice Antonin Scalia, an appointee of President Reagan. "Why isn't it better to have them reconsider it in toto?"

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senior liberal, appealed for a more cautious approach. She said the court should do a "salvage job" rather than undertake a "wrecking operation." But she looked to be outvoted by the conservatives.

The justices will meet in private Friday to cast their votes. Their comments during oral arguments do not always forecast the eventual ruling. And it has been widely assumed that the justices, particularly Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.and JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy, would try mightily to avoid striking down a major law by a 5-4 vote. Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's top lawyer, pleaded with the court for restraint Wednesday.

"Congress struggled with the issue of how to deal with this profound problem of 40 million people without healthcare for many years. And it made a judgment," Verrilli said as he wrapped up his arguments.

"This was a judgment of policy that democratically accountable branches of this government made by their best lights, and I would encourage this court to respect that judgment," he said.

The cause was taken up by the court's four liberal members, who urged their colleagues not to throw out the entire law, even if they find the provision requiring Americans to have health insurance unconstitutional.

"What's wrong with leaving it … in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The administration was prepared to accept a ruling that if the mandate was struck down, some other provisions should fall as well, such as the requirement that insurers sell coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

But there were few signs, if any, that any of the five conservatives were persuaded, including Kennedy, long considered the court's swing vote.

Like the other conservatives, Kennedy signaled deep unease with the provision that would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance starting in 2014.

On Wednesday, he seemed reluctant to excise that provision alone from the sweeping law for fear of harming the economic interests of the insurance companies, which he said would be "a more extreme exercise of judicial power … than striking the whole."

Scalia appeared openly scornful of the suggestion that Congress could fix the law if the court threw out the insurance mandate. "Don't you think it's unrealistic to say leave it to Congress, as though you're sending it back to Congress for Congress to consider it dispassionately?" he said.

Roberts and Justice Samuel A. AlitoJr.appeared equally leery. Justice Clarence Thomas, the fifth member of the conservative wing, did not ask any questions but is widely seen as eager to invalidate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

On Wednesday, the conservative justices targeted a provision that provides funding for states to enroll 17 million more people in their Medicaid programs over the next decade, a key pillar of the law's program for expanding coverage.

Kennedy seemed to accept the argument by 26 states challenging the law that they are being unjustly forced to administer a massive Medicaid expansion.

Verrilli tried to persuade the justices that the law's provision providing hundreds of billions of dollars to states to expand their Medicaid programs in 2014 was not "coercive."

Under the act, the federal government would pay more than 90% of the cost of expanding Medicaid to cover all poor Americans, while each state would retain responsibility for administering its own program, as has been the case since Medicaid was created in 1965.

That is a "big gift," said Justice Elena Kagan, who was joined by the three other liberal members of the court in defending the Medicaid expansion.

But the conservative justices appeared far more in line with Paul Clement, the attorney for the states. He argued that the aid would undermine state authority by leaving states effectively no choice but to expand Medicaid or face the possibility that the secretary of Health and Human Services would cut off all their aid.

"Why shouldn't we be concerned about the extent of authority that the government is exercising, simply because they could do something less?" Roberts said, brushing aside Verrilli's efforts to assure the court that no administration would actually take such a step.

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7:43 PM | 0 comments

On healthcare, not what the doctor ordered

Mitt Romney marked the second anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by calling for its repeal. Referring to the act as "an unfolding disaster," he advocated free-market initiatives to improve access to care. Yet Romney never explained how the free market could help uninsured individuals like my longtime patient Joyce.

Joyce, a diabetic in her 60s, works for a Los Angeles church and spends much of her time doing charitable work in Africa. The church does not offer health insurance. As a diabetic with high cholesterol, Joyce has been virtually uninsurable for most of the time I've treated her. With her preexisting conditions, no insurer would take her even if she could afford the premium. Insurers know that diabetics like Joyce are much more likely to become ill and generate expensive bills, and the free market incentivizes them to identify high-risk individuals and exclude them.

Free-market advocates seldom focus on the plight of those priced out of the insurance market. These patients tend not to get care when they need it, and when they do, their physicians face inevitable conflicts between providing high-quality care and keeping costs down.

This week, for example, I received a reminder from my medical group's pharmacist that Joyce's cholesterol is too high despite the medication she takes to control it. The pharmacist recommended switching her to a more potent drug. But when I checked online, the cheapest local pharmacy I could find was charging $120 for a month's worth of the recommended drug, versus $6 for her current one. I told the pharmacist that I would refill her current medicine and that we should recheck in three months to see if the price for the other had dropped. Should doctors really have to follow drug prices like market analysts in order to care for their patients? Welcome to the free market in healthcare.

Despite her tight finances, Joyce makes an effort to get the preventive care I recommend, including mammograms, pap smears and blood tests for her diabetes. Sometimes, though, cost considerations interfere. As a diabetic, Joyce faces risk of retinal eye injury that can cause blindness. Although such injury is preventable with routine eye care, Joyce has not visited an eye doctor for more than two years. A colonoscopy to prevent colon cancer is now recommended at age 50. Joyce is more than 10 years overdue for hers. Why? It would cost well over $1,000.

Joyce's experiences outside my office have been even worse. When I called to discuss her cholesterol medication, she mentioned to me that she recently suffered a bout of chest pain and visited a small community hospital near her home. The doctors told her she needed overnight observation. She went home the next day with a hospital bill of more than $19,000, plus hundreds more in physicians' charges. Were the services Joyce received necessary? She's not sure.

Fortunately for Joyce, her healthcare nightmare is ending. She has just turned 65 and will now be eligible for Medicare. Soon she will be able to get the basic tests and medications that she needs after years of devoting herself to the impoverished in Africa. But I can't help but wonder why so many of those younger than 65, living in one of the world's richest nations, must avoid care or risk financial ruin.

Despite Romney's optimism, free markets will never solve the problems Joyce faced. Health insurance for someone like Joyce, if obtainable, would cost thousands of dollars a year, and no free-market approach to healthcare will make that affordable to her. If universal coverage is the goal, there is no alternative to subsidies funded by employers and taxpayers. These subsidies — along with an individual mandate designed to bring younger, healthier people into the pool — form the basis for President Obama's healthcare plan. Those who call for "repealing and replacing" it should explain who would be covered by the "replacement" and how the care would be funded.

The national debate on healthcare will take center stage this fall as Obama squares off against his Republican opponent. The country deserves a frank discussion of the major policy questions raised by the plight of the country's many Joyces. We have to ask ourselves the tough questions: Should healthcare coverage for the uninsured be broadly subsidized? Are we comfortable with millions of Americans continuing to live in terror that something serious will go wrong with their health?

This is a conversation we need to have as a nation, without the partisan political posturing and gamesmanship that so often cloud the issues.

Daniel J. Stone practices internal medicine and geriatrics in Beverly Hills.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

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3:39 PM | 0 comments

Living 'gut-on-a-chip' to help study intestinal disorders

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The silicon polymer device, lined by living, human cells, mimics the 3D structures, behaviors, and environment of the human intestine.

Blue and red liquid is pumped through the device's upper and lower microchannels.

(Credit: Harvard)

After describing a living, breathing "lung-on-a-chip" in Science back in the summer of 2010, Harvard researchers are now reporting in the journal Lab on a Chip on their latest endeavor: a human gut-on-a-chip.

These bio-inspired micro devices that mimic the structures, behaviors, and environments of human organs could help scientists better understand the inner workings of a variety of diseases and disorders -- in this case intestinal ones such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis -- without resorting to often less reliable animal testing.

The latest so-called "gut-on-a-chip" is a silicon polymer device whose central chamber is lined by a single layer of human intestinal epithelial cells that recreate the intestinal barrier by growing on a flexible and porous membrane. The device mimics the movement of food along the digestive tract as well as the flow of blood through capillaries.

The researchers report that they were even able to grow (and support) common intestinal microbes on the surfaces of the intestinal cells, mimicking various physiological features that could help understand diseases.

"Because the models most often available to us today do not recapitulate human disease, we can't fully understand the mechanisms behind many intestinal disorders," lead researcher Donald Ingber, a founding director of Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, said in a news release. This means, he adds, "that the drugs and therapies we validate in animal models often fail to be effective when tested in humans."

In addition to being an in vitro diagnostic tool to help develop new therapeutics, Ingber's gut-on-a-chip might even be able to test the metabolism and oral absorption of drugs and nutrients.

The institute is also using DARPA funding awarded in 2011 to develop a spleen-on-a-chip to treat sepsis, a bloodstream infection that can be fatal.

See the team's video on their original lung-on-a-chip below:

Lung on a Chip -- Wyss Institute from Wyss Institute on Vimeo.

From advancements in electronic health records to cutting-edge surgical tools, CNET covers the medical-technology news buzzing through operating and waiting rooms.

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11:14 AM | 0 comments

MIT study: Light alone can activate specific memories

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Researchers say that using optogenetics to artificially reactivate memories could advance the study of neurodegenerative disorders.

A transgenic mouse hippocampus.

(Credit: Nikon Small World Gallery)

In a famous surgery in the early 1900s, Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, trying to treat epilepsy, found that stimulating specific neurons while patients were under local anesthesia caused them to vividly recall complex events. The mind, then, is based on matter, Penfield concluded.

Now researchers at MIT say they put this observation to the test in a rigorous study showing that the direct reactivation of specific hippocampus neurons can lead to very specific memory recall. And to do this, all they used was light.

"We demonstrate that behavior based on high-level cognition, such as the expression of a specific memory, can be generated in a mammal by highly specific physical activation of a specific small subpopulation of brain cells -- in this case by light," Susumu Tonegawa, a biology and neuroscience professor at MIT, Nobel laureate and lead author of the study, said in a news release.

For the study, published online today in the journal Nature, researchers used optogenetics, a technique that combines optical and genetic methods to control specific events in specific cells. (The tech was co-invented by MIT's Ed Boyden, who last year proposed using optogenetics to induce light sensitivity in the retina and ultimately restore sight in the blind.)

Using optogenetics to stimulate memory, the researchers first learned which brain cells in the hippocampus were active in a mouse exploring a new environment. They then coupled the genes activated in those brain cells with the genes for channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), a light-activated protein used in optogenetics.

"We wanted to artificially activate a memory without the usual required sensory experience, which provides experimental evidence that even ephemeral phenomena, such as personal memories, reside in the physical machinery of the brain," said co-author Steve Ramirez, a graduate student in Tonegawa's lab.

The team then used tiny optical fibers to pulse light to neurons with this genetic couplet so that, by seeing the neurons associated with experiential learning light up, they could tag the physical network of neurons associated with a specific memory.

Their final step was to observe mice entering an environment, deliver a mild shock to their feet to teach the mice to fear the environment, tag the brain cells that were activated with ChR2, and then expose only those brain cells to pulses of light in a totally different environment. Sure enough, the mice assumed defensive, immobile crouches -- a sign that they were recalling the fear they experienced in the initial environment.

These findings are only preliminary, but the researchers believe that this light-induced fear demonstrates that the mice were remembering the shocks from a different time and place, and that light alone artificially re-activated that specific memory by stimulating the neurons they had tagged.

Tonegawa says their findings call into question Descartes' declaration that the mind is distinct from the body and cannot be studied as a natural science: "He was wrong. This experimental method is the ultimate way of demonstrating that mind, like memory recall, is based on changes in matter."

The researchers suggest that their method could advance the study of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. "The more we know about the moving pieces that make up our brains," said grad student Ramirez, "the better equipped we are to figure out what happens when brain pieces break down."

From advancements in electronic health records to cutting-edge surgical tools, CNET covers the medical-technology news buzzing through operating and waiting rooms.

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7:03 AM | 0 comments

Paging Dr. iPhone: ThermoDock takes your temperature

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Is it hot in here, or is it just me? You can find the answer to that question with the iPhone ThermoDock.

Measure your hotness in degrees.

(Credit: Firebox)

The Medisana ThermoDock gets you one step closer to having a medical toolkit like Dr. McCoy on "Star Trek." This is an infrared device that plugs into your iPhone. Point it at your forehead, your dog, or your iPad 3, and take its temperature.

The nice thing about infrared is that you don't have to stick the ThermoDock where the sun don't shine. That means your iPhone stays at a safe distance from steaming coffee mugs, people carrying around flu germs, and grumpy children.

This gadget can also be used to check the ambient temperature of your room or the great outdoors. As we like to say here in New Mexico, "It's a dry heat!"

The ThermoDock works with the free VitaDock app to track data. You can see how steamy you get before, during, and after a workout, for example.

The hardware component costs about $95 through Firebox.

So go ahead. Get hot under the collar. Watch a pot as it boils. Burn the candle at both ends. With a ThermoDock, you'll know exactly how hot that is.

The name says it all. Crave is our blog about gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. If you would like to contact Crave with a tip or comment, please write to: crave@cnet.com

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3:57 AM | 0 comments

Gaming can inspire healthy behavior, study shows

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I ricercatori di Stanford e HopeLab trovano che ri missione, un videogioco che coinvolge uccidere le cellule tumorali, attivano parti del cervello coinvolto nella motivazione.

Giallo/rosso/arancio mostra maggiore attività nel cervello di un partecipante al gioco ri missione, mentre spettacoli blu è diminuito di attività.

(Credito: screenshot da Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)

In re-mission il video gioco, i giocatori sono compiti di pilotare il microscopico robot Roxxi alle cellule tumorali lontano mentre lei Esplora i corpi dei pazienti affetti da cancro immaginario esplosione.

Un nuovo studio che ha preso tempo reale funzionale scansioni MRI di 57 persone assegnate casualmente a giocare il gioco o guardarlo in riproduzione ha trovato che coloro che hanno giocato esposte aumentata attività nei circuiti di motivazione positiva del cervello, mentre coloro che semplicemente osservato non esposto nessun aumento in attività.

"Identificando un collegamento diretto tra la stimolazione dei circuiti neurali e il gioco è una chiave passo nel liberare il potenziale per gli strumenti basati sui giochi ispirare il comportamento positivo e migliorare la salute," Brian Knutson, professore associato di psicologia e neuroscienze dell'Università di Stanford e co-autore di un articolo su nuovi dati, detto in un comunicato stampa ieri.

Knutson testato gli effetti di giocare ri missione con i ricercatori alla HopeLab, una fondazione senza scopo di lucro che si propone di sviluppare prodotti che influenzano positivamente i comportamenti di salute di quelli con l'aspettativa di cronica. I risultati appaiono questa settimana sulla rivista PLoS ONE.

Studio del gruppo si basa su ricerche precedenti, che indica che l'attivazione di questi circuiti ricompensa è direttamente connesso con una Spinta in aderenza ai trattamenti chemioterapici e antibiotico.

In questo studio, scansioni fMRI specificamente mostrarono che i circuiti implicati nella ricompensa (caudato, nucleo accumbens e putamen) erano attivi quando i partecipanti giocato ri missione, ma non quando essi passivamente osservato o erano a riposo. I ricercatori concludono che questi circuiti neurali mesolimbico sono attivati dalla effettiva per il gioco, non la stimolazione sensoriale che può verificarsi quando dire, guardare la TV.

Co-autore Steve Cole, vicepresidente di HopeLab di ricerca e sviluppo e un professore di medicina presso la University of California a Los Angeles, dice che hopelab consiste nell'applicare queste scoperte a lavorare ad una nuova generazione di ri missione di videogiochi per giovani malati di cancro.

La partita in corso re-mission è gratuite (donazioni opzionale) ma disponibile solo per Windows in formato CD o DVD.

Guarda un frammento video qui sotto:

Da progressi in cliniche elettroniche per strumenti chirurgici all'avanguardia, CNET copre le notizie di tecnologia medica ronzio attraverso operativo e sale d'attesa.

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11:25 PM | 0 comments

Can IBM's Watson help cancer patients?

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Watson's "Jeopardy"-winning AI skills will be put to use at a New York hospital to help diagnose and treat cancers.

(Credit: IBM)

Patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center may receive cancer diagnoses and treatment with the help of IBM's Watson supercomputer by the end of 2013.

Watson would make diagnoses and suggest treatment approaches that take into account individual patient concerns, the Associated Press reported today.

Using its natural-language processing powers, the artificial intelligence system will study textbooks, oncology studies, and medical records if patients give permission. An advisory panel will test its assessments of increasingly complicated cancer cases.

If the collaboration proves successful, Watson's knowledge base could be used to help treat cancer around the world.

"The capabilities are enormous," Larry Norton, deputy chief for breast cancer programs at Sloan-Kettering, told the Associated Press. "And unlike my medical students, Watson doesn't forget anything."

Built as a collection of 90 IBM Power 750 servers, Watson can process the equivalent of 1 million books (some 200 million pages of data), analyze what it has looked at, and give precise answers -- all in less than three seconds.

Following the system's "Jeopardy" win last year, IBM inked a deal with health insurer WellPoint to use Watson for suggestions about diagnoses and patient treatment. The companies said they aim for better patient care and lower costs.

I doubt Watson will have any interaction with patients. But if it did, what do you think its bedside manner would be like? And could you imagine a scenario in which Watson would be allowed to tell you that you have cancer?

The name says it all. Crave is our blog about gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. If you would like to contact Crave with a tip or comment, please write to: crave@cnet.com

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7:22 PM | 0 comments

Hospital alarm system will sound when people light up

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An alarm-and-loudspeaker system at a Scottish hospital is designed to shame seditious smokers and stem the smattering of cigarette butts.

The trial alarm will be installed at the hospital's main entrance.

(Credit: Forth Valley Royal Hospital)

Calling itself one of the most modern and well-equipped hospitals in all of Europe, Scotland's 2-year-old and $480 million Forth Valley Royal Hospital is hoping that a new alarm system will help deter smokers who continue to ignore no-smoking signs outside the main entrance.

The alarm, which is followed by a presumably shaming loudspeaker message to stop breaking the rules, is sensitive enough to be triggered by a single smoker lighting up. A representative of the company that installed the machine said in a hospital statement that its purpose is twofold: to encourage better health and to keep the hospital grounds tidier.

"Despite warning signs telling patients, visitors, and staff that smoking is banned in the hospital ground, people continue to smoke," according to the statement. "It is a constant battle picking up discarded tabs."

The hospital says roughly 30 percent of the local adult population smokes (above the national average of 25 percent) and that in 2010, nearly 3,000 people in Scotland's Forth Valley died from smoking-related illnesses. The Scottish government has charged the hospital with helping 5,000 people in Forth Valley quit smoking by March 2014. In 2011, facility personnel apparently helped roughly 1,600 people permanently put out their cigarettes.

Meanwhile, hospitals elsewhere in the world are starting to enforce bans on smoking anywhere on hospital grounds, including one hospital in Canada that, starting April 1, will even ban smoking in the hospital system's parking lots and bus shelters.

If the alarm at Forth Valley helps cut down the number of smoking instances at the hospital's main entrance, the hospital will install others at various points around the hospital perimeter.

While Forth Valley Director of Public Health Anne Maree Wallace said she's has no doubts that "the vast majority of staff, patients, and visitors want a smoke-free environment, and agree that people smoking outside hospital entrances is unacceptable," it remains to be seen which will prove more annoying to the staff and patients: cigarette smoke at the entrance or the sounding of the alarm.

From advancements in electronic health records to cutting-edge surgical tools, CNET covers the medical-technology news buzzing through operating and waiting rooms.

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3:38 PM | 0 comments

Biochips chip to quickly diagnose the flu

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I ricercatori miniaturizzare un test diagnostico più costoso in una diapositiva di chip microfluidici monouso circa le dimensioni di un miscroscope.

Durante la pandemia di influenza H1N1 del 2009, che si estende su più di 200 paesi e ucciso più di 18.000 persone, esso divenne chiaro quella diagnosi di influenza che cosa prendendo spesso troppo lungo e risultante in frequente falso negativo.

All'incirca le dimensioni di un vetrino da microscopio standard, il chip attualmente costa $10 e produce risultati in poche ore.

(Credito: Boston University)

Oggi, i ricercatori della Boston University, Harvard e il Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center stanno segnalando nella rivista PLoS ONE che essi hanno costruito un chip microfluidici che rivaleggia con precisione il gold standard diagnostico provare conosciuto come RT-PCR, ma è più veloce, più economico e USA e getta.

Per i quattro anni studio, che ha coinvolto 146 pazienti con sintomi simil-influenzali e ciò che è finanziato da istituti nazionali di salute, i ricercatori essenzialmente miniaturizzato il test di RT-PCR in un chip le dimensioni di un vetrino da microscopio standard e analizzati due tipi di esemplari nasali nel modo più accurato come metodo di laboratorio.

"Abbiamo voluto dimostrare che la nostra tecnica era fattibile su campioni del mondo reale," rattle Catherine io, per associare il professore che ha condotto lo studio, ha detto in un comunicato stampa. "Rendendo ogni uso singolo chip diminuisce la possibilità di contaminazione incrociata tra gli esemplari e piccola dimensione del chip rende un ottimo candidato per il vero test point-of-care".

Il chip è costituito da una colonna superiore che estrae RNA da proteine firma associate con il virus dell'influenza, una camera centrale che converte il RNA in DNA e un clima controllato inferiore canale che si replica il DNA abbastanza volte per essere rilevato da un lettore esterno.

Il team ha scoperto che non solo i loro chip rivali RT-PCR, dicono di così ha superato altri test diagnostici influenza comuni, tra cui cultura virale (che in genere richiede giorni a una settimana per i risultati), rapida analisi immunologica (immagina un test di gravidanza che è solo il 40 per cento accurata) e DFA (diretto fluorescente antigene test, che è ad alta intensità di laboratorio).

"Il nuovo test rappresenta un importante miglioramento rispetto cultura virale in termini di tempo, corso rapido di immunoassay prove in termini di... la capacità di individuare il virus dal materiale campione minimal e sopra DFA e in termini di facilità d'uso e capacità del porto, RT-PCR" rattle, ho detto.

Il team sta lavorando per migliorare ulteriormente il suo chip che costa solo $5 e in grado di produrre risultati in ogni ora.

Molte persone con l'influenza non di cercare effettivamente cura medica, secondo ai centri per il controllo delle malattie e prevenzione, ma il numero di piccolo che è testato e spesso a maggiore rischio di gravi complicazioni e persino la morte. Un test più veloce, più accessibile con un minor numero di falso negativo potrebbe contribuire a stelo focolai e in definitiva a salvare vite.

Da progressi in cliniche elettroniche per strumenti chirurgici all'avanguardia, CNET copre le notizie di tecnologia medica ronzio attraverso operativo e sale d'attesa.

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10:44 AM | 0 comments

Pocket Brain app offers searchable 3D atlas of the brain

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Users can navigate eight layers of brain anatomy, view cross sections and nerve pathways, insert notes, and peruse clinical findings.

The app includes 30.000 neuroanatomy words.

(Credit: Screenshot by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)

Of all the subjects taught in the best 3D anatomy has got to be up there. And when it comes to human anatomy, the brain is arguably the most complex organ, if not system of them all.

So it's fitting that 3-year-old medical education app publisher eMedia out of Ireland is adding the Pocket Brain app to its suite of 3D Pocket Anatomy offerings. (First came the body and the heart.) For $ 19.99, the interactive app for iPhone and iPad renders the old-fashioned textbook pretty close to obsolete.

A few particularly inspired features: 3D rotating the brain includes nine layers to explore; relevant clinical cases; easy note insertion; various quizzes; and more. And because all content lives in the app itself, no Wi-Fi or 3 g is required.

Clearly designed with medical and nursing students in mind, Pocket Brain may also serve as the ideal "I'd like to kill some time" tool for those of us who get our thrills memorizing things we're only ever really tested on during trivia night.

The app's developers enjoy a sense of humor, too. Check out their teaser below, aptly choreographed to "If I Only Had a Brain."

From advancements in electronic health records to cutting-edge surgical tools, CNET covers the medical-technology news buzzing through operating and waiting rooms.

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7:38 AM | 0 comments

No more Photoshopping models without disclosure -- in Israel

In an effort to reduce eating disorders, a new Israeli law requires advertisers to fess up to certain types of digital editing.

Under the new law, Israeli model top ADI Neumann, above, is forbidden to her current weight to appear in the local classifieds.

(Credit: screenshot by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)

A law passed late Monday in Israel is not only ban underweight models to appear in local advertising, so is that they require publications to divulge when models-male or female-were digitally edited to appear slimmer than they are.

"We want to break the illusion that the model that we see is real," Liad Gil-har, the Assistant to the sponsor of the law, told the associated press.

Supporters of the law, which seems to be the first of its kind anywhere, say that they hope will help reduce the rate of eating disorders, which in many developed countries (including Israel and the United States) is estimated to be severe in 2-3 per cent of teenage girls.

The first part of the law is clear: every photoshoot that can be used on the Israeli market, models must produce a medical report that is no more than three months of age, stating that the model is not malnourished according to the standards of the World Health Organization, which sets to be underweight to the body mass index of a body under 18.5 (this means a woman who is 5 feet 8 inches to more than 120 kilos).

The law is hazier, but on how it will affect the models to look slimmer. In some cases, the change can be evident (the famous chopping out the brain of a Ralph Lauren model comes to mind), but who decides if a slight reshaping of cheekbones or shadowing eyes count?

Critics of the law argue that it should focus on the health of a template instead of weight, so that naturally skinny models are not banned from work. Thus, the actual effect of the law on girls in Israel may be limited, given that there are only a few hundred Israelis professional models.

The law is supported by ADI Barkan, an agent of Israel top model that indicates that during 30 years working in industry he watched women become more ill try to keep lower and lower weight ideals. "They look like girls death," said the REV.

It is worth noting that ADI Neumann, a top Israeli model, not be allowed to appear in Israeli publications she says she eats well you current BMI of 18.3 and exercises and argues that instead of a strict weight requirement should instead impose law healthy behaviors.

Of course with any new law there are new ways to skirt in this case, a template might well eat a huge meal first document and then weigh vomit soon after obtaining a certificate of approval. Unfortunate, Yes, but if two kilos is the difference between a salary and no control, such a scenario could not be recovered.

Progress in electronic health records to cutting-edge surgical tools, CNET covers the medical technology news buzzing through operating and waiting rooms.

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2:53 AM | 0 comments

4WD Permoveh wheelchair turns on a dime

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Questa sedia a rotelle da Kyoto University dispone di rulli entro le sue ruote, che gli permette di spostare lateralmente e in diagonale.

Reinventare la ruota: Masaharu Komori demo Permoveh, una sedia a rotelle con ruote omnidirezionale.

(Credito: video screenshot da Tim Hornyák/CNET)

Ricercatori giapponesi guidati da Masaharu Komori, professore associato di ingegneria meccanica all'Università di Kyoto, recentemente demoed il Permoveh, o veicolo mobilità personale, come una sedia a rotelle di generazione del prototipo.

Il Permoveh ha quattro ruote delle stesse dimensioni, e ogni ruota contiene 32 rulli che possono ruotare in una direzione perpendicolare al bordo. Come il vid sotto mostra, il veicolo può muoversi in qualsiasi direzione quando l'utente opera un controllo manuale.

Quando avanti o indietro l'utente vuole viaggiare, spostare le ruote da soli; Quando andando lateralmente, spostare i rulli. Quando si viaggia in diagonale, si muovono entrambi ruote e rulli.

La tecnologia è progettata per consentire agli utenti di sedia a rotelle navigare più facilmente gli spazi più stretti.

Proprio ora la velocità massima del Permoveh è appena 3,7 km/h. Il prototipo, quindi il costo per produrre circa 3 milioni di yen ($36.300).

Komori e associati sono al fine di renderla più leggero e più compatto, mentre abbattere il costo di due terzi. Che lo renderebbero ancora una sedia a rotelle molto costoso, ma il team vuole commercializzare in tre-cinque anni.

La tecnologia di ruota Permoveh potrebbe essere adatta per uso in trasportatori nelle fabbriche e nei magazzini, secondo per l'Università.

Il nome dice tutto. Bramano è il nostro blog sulla splendida gadget e altre cose crushworthy. Se desideri contattare bramano con un suggerimento o commento, si prega di scrivere a: crave@cnet.com

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Europe Approves Stevia - Health Supreme NewsGrabs 20 November 2011

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European Commission approves stevia based sweetener

The European Commission said it gave approval of the natural sweetener for use in the food industry from December 2 on the recommendation of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).

'Clandestine' Stevia - all we could find some years ago in a health fair in Italy were little stevia plants - no sweetener.

Stevia rebaudiana, sometimes known as sweatleaf or sugarleaf, is part of the sunflower family. Its steviol glycoside extracts can be far sweeter than sugar, making it attractive for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar foods.

Stevia is widely used in Asia and South America.

Stevia is also a natural substitute for the controversial amino-acid and methanol based artificial sweetener aspartame that was forced onto the market by Donald Rumsfeld three decades ago. Perhaps now, with an alternative sweetener available, aspartame will finally be phased out.

USA: Don't Let the FDA Outlaw New Supplements!

The Life Extension Foundation says: "FDA just issued draconian proposals as to how it intends to regulate what it now calls “new dietary ingredients.” If implemented, some of the most effective nutrients you are taking will be removed from the market. This includes many fish oil formulas and natural plant extracts.

These oppressive rules are exactly what the 1994 law (DSHEA) sought to prevent. The FDA is using its authority in direct violation of congressional intent.

In order for these ingredients you are using today to return to the market, the FDA will require manufacturers to conduct outrageously expensive studies using absurdly high doses, in some situations multiplied by a “safety factor” up to 2,000 times the recommended dosage on a per product basis."

USA: Thanks to the FDA, You Really Have No Idea What's In Your Food

For years, polls have shown that about 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMO). That's about as close to a consensus as you're going to get in this country. But amazingly, in this supposed bastion of freedom and democracy we're denied the fundamental right to know what's in our food -- a right that more than 50 other nations, including China and Russia, offer their citizens.

In the U.S., it's estimated that 60-70 percent of processed food may contain some GMO, but the food is not required to be labeled.

Study links Parkinson's disease to industrial solvent

Researchers found a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinson's in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene (TCE).

Although many uses for TCE have been banned around the world, the chemical is still used as a degreasing agent.

Parkinson's can result in limb tremors, slowed movement and speech impairment, but the exact cause of the disease is still unknown, and there is no cure.

Vultures dying at alarming rate

Vultures in South Asia were on the brink of extinction until Lindsay Oaks and Richard Watson, from The Peregrine Fund in the US, undertook observational and forensic studies to find out why the number of birds was falling so rapidly. They discovered the vultures were being poisoned by residues of an anti-inflammatory drug (diclofenac) used in cattle and other livestock, whose carcasses they feed on.

I can't for the life of me imagine - but could that poison that kills the vultures be good for humans?

European Union sounds alarm over resistance to antibiotics

With some 25,000 Europeans dying each year from infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria, European health commissioner John Dalli said "we need to take swift and determined action if we do not want to lose antimicrobial medicines" for humans and animals.

Antimicrobials include antibiotics and can also be used as disinfectants and antiseptics.

I say it's time to prohibit the use of antibiotics in animal feed as a first step. Then, look into antimicrobials that microbes cannot develop resistance to, like oxygen (ozone) and silver. Two easy stop-gap measures. THEN do more research...

By Refusing to Ban Giving Healthy Livestock Daily Doses of Antibiotics, the FDA Puts Corporate Profits Above Consumers’ Health

In 1999, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petitioned the FDA to stop the common practice of feeding perfectly healthy livestock antibiotics, not to cure disease, but merely to make them pack on weight more efficiently. Of particular concern to the organization were antibiotics used to treat disease in humans. That petition came 22 years after the FDA itself said that such “sub-therapeutic” use of penicillin- and tetracycline-containing products in animals should be halted because it had “not been shown safe.”

Last week, the FDA denied the petition, along with a similar one filed in 2005 by Environmental Defense.

Video: Infowars on Fluoride Water Treatment
... undercover footage shot at the Austin Water Treatment Facility showing the process of adding the corrosive and highly toxic chemical to the water supply.

Vitamins Decrease Lung Cancer Risk by 50%

A recent study of the effect of B vitamins on a large group of participants reported an inverse relationship between blood serum levels of vitamin B6, methionine, and folate and the risk of lung cancer. High serum levels of vitamin B6, methionine and folate were associated with a 50% or greater reduction in lung cancer risk. This exciting finding has not been widely reported in the media, but it confirms a growing body of evidence gathered over the last 40 years that B vitamins are important for preventing diseases such as cancer.

Vitamin D Proven Far Better Than Vaccines At Preventing Influenza Infections

A clinical trial led by Mitsuyoshi Urashima and conducted by the Division of Molecular Epidemiology in the the Department of Pediatrics at the Jikei University School of Medicine Minato-ku in Tokyo found that vitamin D was extremely effective at halting influenza infections in children.

The results are from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving 334 children, half of which were given 1200 IUs per day of vitamin D3. In other words, this was a "rigorous" scientific study meeting the gold standard of scientific evidence.

First do no harm - When will doctors start to nurture their patients?

Medicine is a dangerous thing. In fact it’s likely the most dangerous thing you will encounter in your life. It’s a peculiar thought when it’s meant to be the very thing to help us stay healthy. Our issue is that medicine has forgotten that staying healthy is all about nurturing. And, unsurprisingly, the best way of nurturing is with nature.

New Drug Increases HDL, Decreases LDL, But What About Heart Disease?

A new study shows that so-called “good” cholesterol, HDL, is increased, and so-called “bad” cholesterol, LDL, is decreased by a new, as yet unreleased drug, evacetrapib. To be published this week in theJournal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study demonstrates that HDL can be more than doubled compared with placebo and LDL decreases up to one-third.

That does, of course sound good. Having higher HDL levels and lower LDL levels are good for us, right?

Not necessarily. The error comes in mistaking markers of cardiovascular health with actual health. It is true that cholesterol levels are markers for cardiovascular health, but they are only part of the story. Most significantly in regard to this study, it has never been shown that artificially raising or lowering cholesterol benefits heart health or improves survival.

See also "The Cholesterol Myths" by Uffe Ravnskov, MD

UK: Cervical cancer jab left girl, 13, in 'waking coma'

Lucy Hinks started suffering tiredness and flu-like symptoms after having the first two injections of the Cervarix anti-cancer vaccine last autumn.

Weeks after having the final injection in May, her health went rapidly downhill and her parents Steve and Pauline say she now sleeps for up to 23 hours a day.

They say doctors are now "95 per cent sure" that Lucy has Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

While the Hinks, from Port Carlisle in Cumbria, are not certain it is an adverse reaction to the jab, they believe it a strong possibility.

Video: Thimerosal (Ethylmercury), Vaccines and Autism: Part 1 of 6

Part 1 brings highlights from a two-day conference held on September 24-25, 2008 at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. The "Task Force on Autism Spectrum Disorders" was created by Governor Charlie Crist by Executive Order 08-36 on March 7, 2008.

Smoke, Mirrors, and the “Disappearance” Of Polio

But there is a more sinister reason for the “decline” in polio during those years; in 1955, a very creative re-definition of poliovirus infections was invented, to “cover” the fact that many cases of ”polio” paralysis had no poliovirus in their systems at all. While this protected the reputation of the Salk vaccine, it muddied the waters of history in a big way.

Even during the peak epidemics, unifactorial poliovirus infection, resulting in long-term paralysis, was a low-incidence disease that was falsely represented as a rampant and violent crippler by Basil O’Connor’s “March Of Dimes” advertising campaigns. At the same time as Basil O’Connor was pulling in 45 million dollars a year to fund the Salk vaccine development, scientists started to realize that other viruses like Coxsackie, echo and enteroviruses, could also cause polio. They also discussed the fact that lead, arsenic, DDT, and other commonly-used neurotoxins, could identically mimic the lesions of polio.

Included under the umbrella term “Acute Flaccid Paralysis” are Poliomyelitis, Transverse Myelitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, enteroviral encephalopathy, traumatic neuritis, Reye’s syndrome etc.

Before you believe that polio has been eradicated, have a look at this graph of AFP and Polio...

Annual childhood flu vaccines may interfere with development of crossresistance

In unvaccinated children, the investigators found that the number of virus-specific T cells rises with age, while such an increase was absent in children vaccinated annually. In fact, vaccination appeared to interfere with induction of such killer T cells, says Bodewes.

FDA, Texas Medical Board Fight To Kill Cancer Cure

After a ten year court battle that ended in the Texas Supreme Court in 1996 that resulted in a "not guilty" verdict for Dr. Burzynski the Texas Medical Board, pressured by the FDA and the AMA, is back for another try.

The Texas Medical Board has scheduled a new hearing to revoke Burzynski's medical license. If it succeeds it will, very likely, result in Antineoplaston not gaining FDA approval. This, of course, will set personalized gene therapy back another decade. If it's not approved, you can bet that once Burzynski's patent-rights to Antineoplaston expire, Big Pharma will grab the patent rights and claim they have discovered a universal cancer cure—that only the elite and the favored can afford.

STAY AWAY FROM CHEMOTHERAPY AND RADIATION

Dr. Ralph Moss Ph.D relates that “Conventional Cancer therapy is so toxic and dehumanizing that I fear it more than I fear death from cancer. Yet most alternative therapies regardless of potential or proven benefit, are outlawed, which forces patients to submit to the failures that we know don’t work because there is no other choice. Dr. Moss was employed as a science writer for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

HIV/AIDS exemplifies scientific illiteracy

HIV was never shown to have caused AIDS.
Nevertheless, during three decades huge arrays of people and organizations have become engaged in a variety of activities based on the mistaken belief that HIV is an infectious immune-system-killing virus that caused and continues to cause AIDS.
That such a mistake could metastasize so massively seems incredible to the conventional wisdom, which regards it as impossible that “science” could go so wrong — after all, this is a scientific age in which all manner of technological marvels are accomplished all the time; and science itself can’t go wrong because it uses the scientific method and is self-correcting.

The conventional wisdom can hardly accept that it’s wrong about HIV/AIDS so long as it doesn’t realize that it’s wrong about science. It needs to be understood that
1. Science is not self-correcting.
2. Science is not done by “the scientific method”.
3. Scientists are not the appropriate experts to explain science to policymakers, the public, or the media. On the whole*, scientists know only the technical intricacies of what they do; they don’t understand the epistemology and sociology of science and they are ignorant of or mistaken about the history of science.

The science relating to HIV and to AIDS has never supported the mainstream assertions. Vested interests determined the course of events: careerism, political exigencies, empire-building in government agencies, financial benefits for companies and individuals. Once an activity commands billions of dollars of annual expenditure, mere scientific findings can exert little if any practical influence.

Europe Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports

The European Union prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing.

The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the EU's 27 member countries, adopted the rule “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.”

USA: TSA Puts Off Safety Study of X-ray Body Scanners

The head of the Transportation Security Administration has backed off a public commitment to conduct a new independent study of X-ray body scanners used at airport security lanes around the country.

Earlier this month, a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation found that the TSA had glossed over research that the X-ray scanners could lead to a small number of cancer cases. The scanners emit low levels of ionizing radiation, which has been shown to damage DNA.

UK: Armed forces minister sorry for misleading MPs over depleted uranium

The armed forces minister has been forced to apologise over misleading statements he made regarding the legality and dangers of depleted uranium weapons.

Nick Harvey admitted that he had inadvertently misled MPs about a Ministry of Defence review that he said had concluded the weapons were permissible on humanitarian and environmental grounds under the Geneva conventions.

It subsequently emerged that the review had never happened, and Harvey has apologised for the error...

Depleted uranium weapons "permissible"? That would be like saying "kill them all" and getting away with it! No, they are not humanitarian weapons. Their use is a war crime.

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You need to enter your email in the space provided at the top of the page at health supreme , top of right side column, and click "subscribe me" and watch for a confirmation email.

If you find a particularly interesting story somewhere else, please tell me about it.

You can email me at (sepp@lastrega.com).

You can also find me on facebook (facebook.com/hasslberger)
and on Twitter

If you are interested in more than just health, also check out my other site on physics, economy and new energy

More information out there...

There is a lot more information out there about natural health and pharmaceutical medicine that I cannot cover ... but fortunately other sources for this kind of information exist.

Dr Mercola has a good health blog
Mike Adams publishes Natural News.
In the UK we have the One Click Group.
The Dr Rath Foundation campaigns for a New Healthcare System.
Natural health and nutrition on La Leva di Archimede
Food, Agriculture and more on the Organic Consumers Association site.

I'm experimenting with a new tool to collect these news ...

The individual is supreme and finds the way through intuition

posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Sunday November 20 2011
updated on Monday January 2 2012

URL of this article:
http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2011/11/20/europe_approves_stevia_health_supreme_newsgrabs_20_november_2011.htm

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

These articles are brought to you strictly for educational and informational purposes. Be sure to consult your health practitioner of choice before utilizing any of the information to cure or mitigate disease. Any copyrighted material cited is used strictly in a non commercial way and in accordance with the "fair use" doctrine.

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Does smoking tobacco fulfill a nutritional need?

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As counter-intuitive as this question might seem, nicotine is actually a nutrient source. It is one form in which we can obtain a vital nutrient: vitamin B3, also called niacin or nicotinic acid.

I have never seen this angle to smoking discussed in a clear form until I came across, through some friends on facebook, a very informative but kind of hidden away write-up by a parent who refused to just accept as fact what "everybody knows" - that kids start to smoke because of tobacco company propaganda.

Ironically, the article was languishing in a place called the CyberCemetery, an archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report).

The source URL is at govinfo.library.unt.edu/tobacco/

Here is the text...

Archive

teenage smoking and tobacco company coverups - video4@ckt.net, 2/23/01 1:57AM

A cursory study into tobacco use by teenagers appears to have discovered a new door into the causes of teenage smoking. Nicotine has long been accepted as the addictive portion of tobacco products, but what is apparently little known is that nicotine and niacin (vitamin B3) are analogues. An examination into this previously untrod avenue may yield significant new data into the treatment of teenage tobacco use.

Much research has been done establishing that teenagers do use tobacco, but very little has looked into the actual causes and none could be found on E.R.I.C. that has been done from the aspect that tobacco may fulfill a nutritional need.

As a parent of six children and a non-traditional graduate student, adolescent smoking is something I have had to deal with at least six times. As a graduate student with a grounding in communication, it is of primary concern to me, with all the information targeting teen smoking, that there has not been a more significant effect on the target audience -- adolescents.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (1998) shows a steady increase in smoking in that while 9% of the children in the 8th grade surveyed admitted to smoking every day, 24.6% of the 12th graders smoke daily. The Federal Interagency Forum offered no answers but did recommend more study.

The statistics would seem to show that Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, L. 1957) does not apply to smoking. Applying Festinger's theory, a greater amount of resources dedicated to preventing teen smoking should have led to a greater decrease in teen smoking, but that does not seem to be the case. In fact, the opposite seems to have occurred. The teenagers exposed to the larger amount of anti-smoking information (the 12th Graders) were almost 3 times as likely to be smokers. This led me to ask whether the addictiveness of nicotine might have some influence on why a theory like Festinger's, so well grounded in other areas, did not seem to work here.

Teenagers use tobacco. That is an established fact. What is up for contention is why do teenagers use tobacco, in spite of all the propaganda cultural pressure aimed at telling them not to. Many court cases have been fought on this issue but there is still little current information due to the mutability of the subject matter, children.

If teenagers' diets are niacin deficient and their bodies know what their minds don't ( and their teachers won't tell them), that niacin and nicotine are the same thing, their bodies would make them crave tobacco as the source of a necessary nutrient, but being a matter of taste, they would not be able to describe it scientifically. An anecdotal reply might be -- "I don't know why I like it; I just do," with no understanding that it's fulfilling necessary needs of the nervous system, like orange juice provides antioxidants for the body.. B Complex vitamins are just as important as vitamin C. A lack of vitamin C compromises the immune system; a lack of B vitamins compromises the nervous system.

Another example is Iodine. Iodine is a poison but it is also a necessary nutrient. The body only needs a thimble full of Iodine for a lifetime but without that thimble full a lifetime is only a few years. The endocrine system self destructs without it. A smoker may only get a thimble full of Niacin from a lifetime of smoking (10-20mcg per cigarette), but at least they have that lifetime to discover and correct the problem (poor diet, alcoholism or malabsorptive bowel), which is how to get the Niacin without the other 43 carcinogenic substances the American Cancer Society has identified in Tobacco smoke.

The intention of this study is to discover if teenage tobacco use, smoking and other, may be the result of a niacin deficient diet, not tobacco advertising. There may appear to have been an intentional deception in hiding the fact that niacin and nicotine are basically the same thing, but simply put, it's because until now there has been no funding to look at tobacco from the point of view of a nutritional function. Tobacco has been used for a wide range of other maladies from Asthma ( Niacin prevents Histamine release Robert Thompson Cybervitamins.com) to Bowel obstruction (A Modern Herbal guide 1931).

My argument is that the real cause has been overlooked in the "rush to judgment" and nutritional deficiencies have been misdiagnosed as mere addictions, subject to whim and will. The body needs niacin and it knows nicotine will work if niacin isn't available. This is not a conscious function.

The objective is to decrease adolescent smoking by removing the dietary deficiency, hence the body's need for the nicotine. The U.S. RDA for niacin ranges from about 15mg to about 20mg per day, but to get that much a person needs to eat a serving of chicken, a serving of turkey, a serving of Spinach and a bowl of fortified cereal each day or smoke 2 packs of cigarettes.

This shed an entirely new light on the problem of teen smoking. It meant that teens might not be smoking because it was "cool" or because the nicotine was addictive; it might be because tobacco was fulfilling a nutritional deficiency in their diets. Niacin deficiency is common outside the United States and, in its severest form, Pellagra, it can kill. It is rare in this country because since Dr Goldberger discovered niacin as a nutrient in 1895, corn meal and wheat flour have been fortified much the same way as salt is fortified with iodine.

Iodine, as a substance, is a poison, but in very small amounts, it is required by the body for thyroid function and preventing unwanted growths like goiters. A body requires less than a thimbleful of iodine for a lifetime, but without that thimbleful, it doesn't have a life. Niacin is similar in that it doesn't take a lot (20 mg RDA) and too much is toxic. A single gram of niacin is toxic to most humans. [Actually, the writer here may have some false information of niacin toxicity. People have been known to take several grams of niacin without any toxic effects. - Sepp]

Niacin, like iodine, is hard to find in the diet without supplementing it somewhere. For example, to receive the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of niacin (20 mg), a person would need to eat 3 servings of poultry, 3 servings of pork and a baked potato with skin to get 20 mg of natural niacin. Other alternatives would include 5 bowls of fortified cereal or 15 servings of french fries. Another problem is that some people with gastrointestinal problems have trouble absorbing niacin, even if it is in the diet.

I realized that there was nothing wrong with Festinger's Theory; what was wrong was the current view of nicotine as a cultural or behavioral symptom. A person has only 2 choices when it comes to oxygen, do it or die. The same choice applies to niacin and iodine. Without it we die. Lack of niacin or iodine may not be as quick a death as a lack of oxygen, but the results are just as certain.

The result of this information was the formulation of a theory that teenagers may be smoking to fulfill the nutritional need for niacin. In order to test this, a comparison will be done comparing teen smoking and diet. The best way to do this is with a controlled survey of the high schools. If the information from the survey supports that teen smoking has a dietary link, then efforts will be made to improve the nutritional levels of that segment of our society that seems to have the least concern for nutrition, teenagers.

posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday January 25 2012

URL of this article:
http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2012/01/25/does_smoking_tobacco_fulfill_a_nutritional_need.htm

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

These articles are brought to you strictly for educational and informational purposes. Be sure to consult your health practitioner of choice before utilizing any of the information to cure or mitigate disease. Any copyrighted material cited is used strictly in a non commercial way and in accordance with the "fair use" doctrine.

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