University of Minnesota create beating heart

New hope may lie in lab-created heart

Excerpt:

The process is called "decelluarization." To do this, Taylor and her team hung up the heart from a dead rat, introduced a regular soap solution into the top of the organ, and let gravity do the work. The soap moved through the heart's blood vessels, dissolving existing cells, which dropped out of the bottom. This process was repeated until only the outermost casing of the heart was left, resulting in a "white, almost gelatin-looking heart," Taylor explained. This would be the equivalent of the gutted house.

The rebuilding started with injecting new heart cells, in this case cells from baby lab rats, and pumping them through the heart. By treating the cells as heart cells would be treated and using a pacemaker to help them learn how to pump, they grew into a heart that could pump -- essentially rebuilding the organ's interior.

Comment: Truly amazing!

7 Medical Myths

British Medical Journal: Medical myths

Excerpt:

People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day

The advice to drink at least eight glasses of water a day can be found throughout the popular press.w1-w4 One origin may be a 1945 recommendation that stated: A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 litres daily in most instances. An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 millilitre for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods. If the last, crucial sentence is ignored, the statement could be interpreted as instruction to drink eight glasses of water a day.

Another endorsement may have come from a prominent nutritionist, Frederick Stare, who once recommended, without references, the consumption "around 6 to 8 glasses per 24 hours," which could be "in the form of coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks, beer, etc." The complete lack of evidence supporting the recommendation to drink six to eight glasses of water a day is exhaustively catalogued in an invited review by Heinz Valtin in the American Journal of Physiology. Furthermore, existing studies suggest that adequate fluid intake is usually met through typical daily consumption of juice, milk, and even caffeinated drinks. In contrast, drinking excess amounts of water can be dangerous, resulting in water intoxication, hyponatraemia, and even death.


The List:

1. People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
   
2. We use only 10% of our brains
   
3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
   
4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
   
5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
   
6. Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
   
7. Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.
   
   

Comment: I had my own encounter with medical myth # 1 this year. I saw a throat specialist and then visited a speech therapist twice (I was hoarse). The speech therapist said I should drink my weight ÷ 2 ounces of fluid a day. I weigh 235 so that would be 117 oz a day. The speech therapist told me that juice, milk, diet soda, and coffee did not count. It had to be 117 oz of water! I take a large thermos (32 oz) of water to work every day. One day I tried to drink that times 2. 64 oz is a lot of water! I never made it to the 117 oz!

As for medical myth # 4, my bald pate is proof of this myth!

Influenza di freddo, or “influence of the cold.”

Study Shows Why the Flu Likes Winter

Health / Research
Study Shows Why the Flu Likes Winter
By GINA KOLATA
Published: December 5, 2007
Researchers believe the flu virus is more stable and stays in the air longer when air is cold and dry.

Excerpt:

Flu viruses spread through the air, unlike cold viruses, Dr. Palese said, which primarily spread by direct contact when people touch surfaces that had been touched by someone with a cold or shake hands with someone who is infected, for example.

Flu viruses are more stable in cold air, and low humidity also helps the virus particles remain in the air. That is because the viruses float in the air in little respiratory droplets, Dr. Palese said. When the air is humid, those droplets pick up water, grow larger and fall to the ground.

Comment: My Father (b 1918), and Kathee's parent's (Father (b. 1913), Mother (b. 1917)) all survived the 1918 influenza outbreak. This is a good read!

Is socialized medicine better?

Who's Really 'Sicko': In Canada, dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week. Humans can wait two to three years.

Excerpts:

Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor.
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In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery.
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France's system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration.
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... government-run health systems have turned out to be less than utopian. The stories are the same: dirty hospitals, poor standards and difficulty accessing modern drugs and tests.

Comment: I had to wait just a week to get an MRI on my back!