Environmental Medicine News

The News Review:

- CPC shifts focus to social services while still centering on economic…
- New data hint at oncoming cocaine epidemic
- Three-dimensional, Miniature Endoscope Opens New Diagnostic Possibilit…
- Suicide More Common in Cancer Patients
- Texas Calls for Testing of HS Athletes
- Revere: Fishing trip nets big catch for UA, ASU
- Women On Hormone Therapy Regain Emotion Response

CPC shifts focus to social services while still centering on economic…
People's Daily Online - Oct 19, 2006
It says a basic healthcare system should be built to cover both urban and rural residents. Exorbitant medical service charges have kept many sick people out of hospital, triggering strong demand for medical system reform. Under the current system, doctors benefit from the amount of medicine they prescribe to patients. The higher the medicine costs, the higher a doctor’s salary. As a result, many doctors do not prescribe low-cost but effective medicine. Penicillin, a low-cost medicine, is rarely prescribed in large hospitals nowadays. The resolution urges the acceleration of the construction of a public cultural service system, ensuring television programs are transmitted to all villages and establishing cultural centers in communities and townships… 11, says social services will be improved dramatically while the county continues to center on economic development. The resolution says the creation of jobs should become a major objective of economic and social development and adjustment of economic structure. It calls for the development of labor-intensive industries, the service industry, private businesses and small and medium-sized businesses to expand employment and promote harmony between employers and employees. According to a survey frequently cited by Chinese experts, 25 million unemployed urban people competed for 11 million newly created jobs this year. The number of unemployed urban people will stay at around 10 million for several years. The resolution says the growth rate of fiscal spending on education should be markedly higher than the growth rate of fiscal revenue. The ratio of fiscal spending on education to GDP should be raised to four percent.

New data hint at oncoming cocaine epidemic
innovations report - Oct 19, 2006
What's happening in Florida is likely occurring coast to coast, says Mark Gold, M. , a distinguished professor of psychiatry, neuroscience, anesthesiology and community health and family medicine at UF's College of Medicine. Gold and colleagues analyzed FDLE data gathered in Florida and presented their findings Oct. 15 at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in Atlanta. "Our data is closest to real time to any data available in the United States," Gold said. "With death reports, there is no fudge factor… "Prescription drugs, often abused for the immediate rush of euphoria they trigger, can cause sudden respiratory or cardiac arrest. In contrast, cocaine's cumulative effects - including blood vessel damage that increases the risk of heart attack or stroke over time - can unexpectedly kill years after abuse begins, Gold said. "Cocaine gives them a feeling of incredible mastery, that they are immune to the laws of nature," said Gold, who is affiliated with UF's McKnight Brain Institute. "But it causes consequences. You can't say you are out of the risk window simply by surviving the use event. Death can come some time in the future. " Cocaine temporarily induces a high but depletes the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, which in turn triggers a craving for more of the drug.

Three-dimensional, Miniature Endoscope Opens New Diagnostic Possibilit…
Science Daily - Science Daily (press release) - Oct 19, 2006
19, 2006) — Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have developed a new type of miniature endoscope that produces three-dimensional, high-definition images, which may greatly expand the application of minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. In the October 19 issue of Nature, the team from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at MGH describes their prototype device and a demonstration of its use in a mouse model. See also: Health & MedicineMedical ImagingToday’s HealthcareObesityMatter & EnergyMedical TechnologyOpticsTechnology Reference… He and his colleagues are working on adapting the SEE device for human studies in the near future. Additional co-authors of the Nature report are Imran Rizvi, Matthew White, MD, Jason Motz, PhD, Tayyaba Hasan, PhD, and Brett Bouma, PhD — all of the Wellman Center. The research was supported by grants from the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, the National Science Foundation and the Whitaker Foundation. Adapted from materials provided by.

Suicide More Common in Cancer Patients
ABC News - Oct 19, 2006
Cancer stem cells are more protected from chemotherapy, so they are less likely to be killed off during treatment. The lingering cancer stem cells then make more copies of themselves and the tumor reappears. In the new study published in the journal Nature, scientists find that brain tumor cancer cells have more ability to repair damaged DNA, which makes them less vulnerable to radiation and chemotherapy. TESTOSTERONE NO FOUNTAIN of YOUTH The hormones DHEA and testosterone do not improve health, ability, or quality of life in elderly men or women, finds a new two-year study from the Mayo Clinic. The seniors who were randomly assigned to take DHEA or testosterone did not improve their body composition, muscle strength, or other health measures compared to seniors who were taking a placebo. However, as long as DHEA remains unregulated by the U… Food and Drug Administration and people believe hormones help fight aging, sales of DHEA will likely still flourish. These findings were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. STAT is a brief look at the latest medical research and is compiled by Joanna Schaffhausen, who holds a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience. She works in the ABC News Medical Unit, evaluating medical studies, abstracts and news releases.

Texas Calls for Testing of HS Athletes
Washington Post - Oct 19, 2006
Steroids can lead to dramatic mood swings, heart disease and cancer among other complications. Richard Auchus, associate professor of internal medicine and endocrinology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a consultant for the U. Anti-Doping Agency, said his greatest concern about steroid use in young athletes is the potential for mental side effects. “People can become psychotic and depressive,” Auchus said. “To me, that’s the most dangerous thing about these, the effects on the brain and the unpredictable nature of it… Anti-Doping Agency, said his greatest concern about steroid use in young athletes is the potential for mental side effects. “People can become psychotic and depressive,” Auchus said. “To me, that’s the most dangerous thing about these, the effects on the brain and the unpredictable nature of it. “In 2005, state lawmakers considered a testing program but instead directed the UIL to develop an education plan about the dangers of steroid use. The UIL is surveying school districts to gauge how well that program is working. The results are due in December. “We believe students are learning to make better decisions,” to avoid steroids, said Charles Breithaupt, UIL athletic director.

Revere: Fishing trip nets big catch for UA, ASU
Tucson Citizen - Oct 19, 2006
"It is true that Gary Stuart, Michael Crow and I were on a fishing trip that (UA law school benefactor) Jim Rogers does every year in Canada. It’s not a place where people go to drink beer and pull fish out of the water. It’s a fairly high-level activity in terms of the nature of agenda and dialogue. " Sounds a lot like a day with your fishing buddies, doesn’t it? Anyway. "Gary Stuart told us he wanted to come to a clear understanding of the expansion of the medical school to Phoenix," Likins continued… People were amazed the UA and ASU could agree on something," Likins said. "It was understood in the document that it would be a University of Arizona department in Phoenix, collaborating with ASU. " Crow got the stronger link he wanted with UA’s College of Medicine and a biomedical research campus in Phoenix that opened last week. UA, meanwhile, remains the only Arizona university to boast a medical school, with all the Phoenix-based faculty being part of the College of Medicine. And residents can look forward to better access to health care. What more could you want from a fishing trip? "We came home with an MOU, but we also caught three fish," Likins said. "Gary likes to say ‘Pete caught the smartest fish, Michael caught the biggest fish and Gary caught the last fish.

Women On Hormone Therapy Regain Emotion Response
Medical News Today - Oct 19, 2006
Their performance also was compared to that of young women ages 24 to 40, also on no hormone therapy. The groups participated in two studies about emotion, including one in which they viewed scenes that had positive, neutral or negative emotional content A negative scene might contain a dead person, while a positive scene might contain puppies. The women then rated the scenes for valence, or the positive or negative nature of the scene, and arousal, or the intensity of the emotion. The women’s memory for the scenes was then tested one to two weeks later. While younger and older women, regardless of their hormone status, had similar valence ratings and similar patterns for memory, the groups differed in their ratings of arousal for the scenes. Women on hormone therapy rated negative scenes as more arousing than positive scenes, and just the opposite was found in the women without hormone therapy. Similar results were found for responses to a story that contained negative content… But that sensitivity to negative emotional events, such as viewing a photograph of a dead person, doesn’t necessarily mean women taking estrogen remember those events any better. In the study by researchers in the Cognition & Aging Laboratory at the OHSU School of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, hormone therapy in women appears to reverse the age-related loss of arousal to negative emotional events experienced by the elderly. It also points to specific changes in the brain’s arousal system, in the regions that process emotion, and intensification of negative emotions. The results were presented 16 October 2006 at Neuroscience 2006, the Society for Neuroscience’s 36th annual meeting at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. Scientists have suspected a link between sex hormones and emotion. Strengthening this theory is the fact that brain regions tuned for processing emotion and storing emotional memory - the amygdala and hippocampus - also respond to sex hormones and contain hormone receptors.