Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Spreading Rapidly In Europe

How Is Your Thyroid?

"SARA was deeply grieved over the loss of her baby during her first trimester. About a year later, she lost another baby. Several medical tests failed to reveal the cause. As the years went by, Sara started to gain weight, even though she monitored her food intake and exercised regularly. She also developed cramps in her legs and an increased sensitivity to cold. Finally, blood tests and an ultrasound of her thyroid gland revealed that Sara had a disease called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a possible cause of her miscarriages.*

Like most people, Sara had rarely given thought to her thyroid. But her deteriorating health revealed just how important that gland is.

The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland situated in the front of the neck just below the Adam’s apple. The thyroid has two lobes that wrap around the trachea, or windpipe, and the whole gland weighs a little under an ounce. It is part of the body’s endocrine system, a group of organs and tissues that produce, store, and secrete hormones—chemical messengers—directly into the bloodstream."

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Baby-by-Number: Parents’ New Obsession With Data

"Allen Fawcett admits he and his wife are mildly addicted to keeping track of their babies’ schedules. The pair of economists have been recording every diaper, feeding and nap since they became parents.

With the help of the Trixie Tracker website, they know they’ve changed exactly 7,367 diapers for their three-year-old son and 969 for their three-month-old daughter. They also have a graph of precisely how many minutes each of their children slept on nearly every day since birth. During their daughter’s first month, the data shows she averaged 15 hours of sleep a day, which is two hours more than her brother at the same age and well above average for other Trixie Tracker babies.

“People look at us and say, ‘My goodness, how do you spend so much time on this?’” Fawcett said. “But each record takes just a few iPhone clicks, so it’s really not as time-consuming as it looks.”

The Fawcett family may take schedule tracking to the extreme, but they’re certainly not the only parents who are measuring, recording and comparing minute details of their kids’ lives.

Fifteen years ago, tracking your baby’s development meant going to the pediatrician every few months and recording his growth on a simple height and weight chart. Today, baby tracking is a booming business. In addition to websites that let you track your infant’s schedule, there are iPhone apps that translate and record your baby’s cries, wearable devices that keep track of how much you talk to your child, and even electronic toys that record how your child plays with them, so you can compare his progress to developmental norms.

As a soon-to-be mom expecting my first child in less than a month, I sympathize with the desire to keep close tabs on a baby. Almost the instant a second line appeared on my pregnancy pee stick, I found myself seized by a strong desire to make sure my baby was developing normally.

I managed to refrain from buying a home Doppler device to monitor my kid’s heartbeat, and I skipped the special Kickbee belt that detects fetal kicks and tweets every time baby wiggles in the womb. But once my first son makes his appearance, I know I’ll be tempted to try some of the infant-tracking technology. Who wouldn’t want more ways to record their child’s health and well-being?

According to pediatricians and child development experts, however, this new obsession with quantifying our kids has a potential downside, especially when parents cross the line from merely tracking an infant’s schedule to obsessing over developmental milestones and worrying about how baby measures up to her peers."

Read the full story at Wired by Hadley Leggett

Respirator or face mask? Best H1N1 protection still debated

Youths wearing protective masks share a bottle of vodka in Lviv.

"(Health.com) -- A preliminary report suggesting that N95 respirators -- filtering devices worn over the mouth and nose -- protect against swine flu better than surgical face masks seems to be incorrect, researchers revealed during a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

In fact, surgical face masks, which are cheaper and easier to wear, may be just as good as N95 respirators. At the very least, researchers can't prove that one is better than the other. It's the latest wrinkle in a continuing debate over how to protect health-care workers from the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu."

Read the full story at CNN

Vitamin D & You

You may know Steve Gibson from the excellent Security Now! podcast and of the Gibson Research Corporation recently spoke about the importance of Vitamin D in Security Now 209: The Vitamin D Story. If your interested in your health then do visit the links above.

20 Most Surprising Health Benefits of Coffee

Although coffee gets a bad rap, it’s actually a medicinal food. In fact, this stimulating bean isn’t nearly so bad as we’ve all been taught. Although I’m skeptical about grande latte supplementation in the long run (it’s a drug, after all), I found myself surprised by much of the science on coffee. Poor Ponce de Leon; all this time he should have been searching for the espresso machine. Step aside, acai. Here are 20 surprising health benefits of coffee.

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Tea 'Healthier' Drink Than Water

The work in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition dispels the common belief that tea dehydrates.Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers, UK nutritionists found.Experts believe flavonoids are the key ingredient in tea that promote health. They found clear evidence that drinking three to four cups of tea a day can cut the chances of having a heart attack, protected against cancer, protection against tooth plaque and potentially tooth decay, plus bone strengthening.

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Russians listed among world’s cleanest nations

"Russian citizens take the third place in the world among clean and neat nations, following the Hindus and the Americans. Ecologists say that a habit of daily showers and baths may lead to an ecological disaster, since the planet runs out of its fresh water reserves very quickly. One should keep in mind the fact that a regular shower requires about 50 liters of water, whereas a bath needs 120 liters. Such a habit looks insane against the background of a serious shortage of fresh water in the world. Unlike Europeans, Russians do not even try to economize water." It's way better to be clean then stinky!

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