Adventure Ausrama Blog

Biology: monitoring of levels of polluted in the air is needed. Want to lose weight? Just stop breathing. It is as easy as that. Pregnant rats in China got fat because they breathed in polluted air.  People face the same problem.  Babies being born fatter may be desired.  However, it could indicate a lifetime of illness for those living in polluted regions. The rat's cholesterol went through the roof. They also became insulin resistant with diabetes just a short way down the track. Livers and lungs were inflamed. The longer they breathed the bad air, the fatter they got. Baby rats from the pregnant females were much sicker. Inflammation per se is directly related to obesity which is a precursor to diabetes, or even synonymous with it. Cancer, stroke and heart attacks are related to bad air. Poor health from polluted air is not just a Chinese problem. Western countries do not monitor bad air very intensely. A case in point is Brisbane in Australia where...

The hope of genetic treatment may be scuttled as it is becoming known that we have good and bad genes but their behavior depends on whether they are turned on or off. Apparently this changes throughout the day let alone over the years. A new endeavor to study diabetes and diet could also be a waste of time. Even sufferers know that diabetes type 2 is caused by eating the wrong food. However, few people will change their lifestyle. A genetic predisposition could add to this. Yet, with the number of medications taken today the link between long term prescription use, genetics and food is a hard nut to crack. Including a third factor makes understanding the issue much more difficult. As always, research will be done on mice for the genetic/food duo. Unfortunately, mice may be mammals, but they ain't human. Finding a cure for diabetes 2 is way down the track. Scientists will be messing around in the lab collecting data on mice for at least 10 years. ◆ Genetics ...

With today's technology why can't an artificial pancreas be put into a patient's body? Well, now it can! Xavier Hames is only four years old. Autoimmune disease has destroyed his pancreas. An artificial one is working very well indeed inside his body. The artificial pancreas is more a computer than a body organ. It monitors low insulin levels, even predicting its future trends, then controls insulin delivery. It is particularly useful as night when external insulin treatment can fail resulting in a coma. Preparations are in train to implant another artificial pancreas in an adult, Jane Reid. This could mean an end to eight jabs a day to test blood levels of insulin and continuous injections to control it.  This could save governments millions of dollars in the long term. ✴  Health by Ty Buchanan  ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml . . . . . ....

In the twentieth century Australia was dominant in swimming at international events. This was largely due to the high consumption of meat in the diet of Australians. As time went by other nations noticed this and their athletes ate more meat. Today, Even small island nations have access to reasonably priced beef, pork, lamb and poultry. Consequently, Australia's dominance has waned. Despite consuming a lot of meat, Australians did not die at a young age. Indeed, longevity was extended. New research points to an increase in heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes that do tend to shorten life. An example was given of Hawaii where these diseases are rapidly increasing. Red meat is seen as the major cause. This research has flaws. Higher red meat consumption cannot be directly linked to more "modern" maladies. It could be coincidence. No tests were done on the rising consumption of refined carbohydrates. The call for more vegetables in the diet will improve ...

Claims about consuming certain things to improve health are way off beam. Every now and then supposed new research shows that if you eat this or don't eat that your health will improve. Years late we discover that the "experts' were totally wrong and your health was actually damaged. This happened with margarine, milk, eggs and so on. What is the latest? Well, apparently drinking up to three cups of coffee or tea each day reduces the risk of getting diabetes. Look around. Do you see people who drink these beverages regularly with diabetes? You sure do. There are thousands of them. The University of Sydney says “If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes mellitus, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial.” Their trials must be wrong. Surely millions of regular drinkers who have diabetes are thinking, "Why me? Why have I got the disease...

We are consuming sugar in increasingly greater amounts as more of it is being added to processed food. Some blame the obesity epidemic on sugar intake alone because people on high-fat, low-carb diets lose weight. There is an unclear link between high sugar intake on levels of heart disease and diabetes. Whether high-carb causes cancer is even less clear. Half of table sugar is fructose which causes fat to build up on the liver. The liver is put out of balance so the body's insulin level is raised. More palmate is also created by the liver which leads to heart disease. Hypertension is believed to increase breast cancer and cancer of the colon. The combination of high blood sugar, excess body fat and high blood pressure in a patient is called metabolic syndrome. Sufferers ultimately get very sick. Mankind in the natural state has relied on tubers, fruit, meat and fish for sustenance. Sugar is a new substance and human beings do not have natural resistance to cope with it...

First we have a clean childhood leading to Crohn's disease. Now we have cleanliness causing type 1 diabetes. Both, apparently, are caused by the same thing - the lack of "bugs" in the stomach. In the case of Crohn's disease it is the absence of worms. With diabetes it is too few bacteria. Tests on mice showed that a completely germ free environment when young increased the frequency of mice developing type 1 diabetes. Much fewer mice got diabetes when exposed to bacteria. Future treatment could involve people taking medication containing bacteria. Potential sufferers of diabetes can already be identified by testing their genetic make-up. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Health

It seems odd than in a country with the brightest sunlight of just about any nation on earth that women could possibly lack vitamin D. But "experts" are squabbling over screening for vitamin D deficiency. The government is saying that the cost is far too high and the value of doing this has questionable benefits. At present obstetricians have to decide whether to test pregnant women who appear to suffer from a shortage of vitamin D. Australia's health system is already "cracking at the edges". Funding is a serious problem. With the Endocrine Society of Australia and the Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group Assuming the government will take the advice and test all pregnant women, GPs are confused. The number of women tested for vitamin D has gone up by an incredible 5,000 per cent over the last decade. Idle claims that diabetes and heart disease are "caused" by not enough vitamin D in the body are not proven. Many health professionals still q...

Major medical advances are a long time coming. Development of a reliable blood sugar level monitoring method for type 1 diabetes is a case in point. It has been claimed as a revolutionary achievement. It consists of a monitor connected to an insulin pump. With all the money being poured into research this should have been done years ago. Heart surgery hasn't moved much further forward than the first transplant in South Africa decades ago. Stents are still the primary treatment. The number of heart transplant recipients remains very small indeed. Artificial hearts are still not safe enough for general use. Cancer shrinking techniques have been identified but they have not been perfected. DNA treatment is a long way down the track. Much hope had been raise over stem cell research. This has slowed right down. Surgical "tricks' have been done in one-off procedures. Getting them into general hospital systems is not happening though. Drug companies are pushing very expensive med...