Health Notes

Two antiviral drugs, oseltamivir and zanamivir, have apparently proved effective in reducing the spread of flu virus. That’s good.

This is a very interesting article on the 1918 flu that killed 50 million people.

Most of us should be thankful we don’t live near the Houston Ship Channel in Texas. Children who live within two miles of that port are thought to have a 56 percent greater chance of getting acute lymphocytic leukemia than children who live ten miles away.

I feel bad for the people who responded to the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11/2001. Their conscientiousness and sense of duty may have cost them their health. I visited ground zero at Christmas 2001. I was struck by the metallic and electrical odors that were in the air, and this was three months after the attacks. I sort of regret going. Ground zero may have still been dangerous when I went, but it was definitely dangerous in the days immediately after the attacks. I am afraid that all the victims of 9/11 have not died yet.

Scientists have figured out how to genetically engineer certain plants so that they produce vaccines in abundance, and thereby cut the cost of manufacturing the vaccines. I hope there are plenty of safety measures in place. I just don’t trust genetic engineering all that much.

People who eat a lot of carbohydrates and sugar may have low levels of HDL cholesterol, which is not a good thing.

A consumer group tested 21 brands of multivitamins and found that less than half “met the stated claims on their labels or satisfied other quality standards.” One vitamin even contained lead. You might want to try and get your vitamins from actual food.

All breast cancer patients may not be treated equally. That’s one reason why women should try to avoid breast cancer in the first place.

This article says, “If you're trying to trim your waistline, you have to count your calories, and take in fewer than you use.” I agree with that.

Genes may not be the major reason for obesity, as some people would like to believe. I go back to the importance of counting calories.

And while we’re on that subject, if a person consumes a lot of calories and doesn’t burn them off, that may increase his or her risk of cancer.

Can blood pressure medications increase someone’s risk of developing diabetes? Let's hope not.

What is the greatest medical breakthrough since 1840? I thought it would be penicillin, but I was wrong, although antibiotics did come in second in this poll.

The Tao of Bird Flu
2. We have heard about bird flu for a long time. Bird flu has been around much longer than that.


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Note: links that look good today often are no longer good in the future. I make every effort to create good links. When I discuss a topic, I also attempt to provide enough pertinent information so that readers won’t have to rely solely on the link at hand for their understanding, or for their further research.

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