Month: January 2009

Medical Students Often Depressed

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New research reveals the extent of how medical students frequently suffer from depression. Sergio Baldassin, from the ABC Regional Medical School, Brazil, led a team of researchers who carried out a study on 481 medical students. He said, “We used cluster analyses to better describe the characteristics of depressive symptoms – affective, cognitive, and somatic. This is the first study to directly evaluate, in a cross-sectional design, the characteristics of depressive symptoms by applying such clusters”. Affective symptoms represent the core symptoms of a depressive mood, based on students’ reported levels of sadness, dissatisfaction, episodes of crying, irritability and social withdrawal. The cognitive cluster assessed pessimism, sense of failure or guilt, expectation of punishment, dislike of self, suicidal ideation, indecisiveness and change in body image. Finally, the somatic cluster assessed the presence of slowness, insomnia, fatigue, loss of weight and … Read more

Stress Affects Memory In the Brain

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Researchers using functional MRI (fMRI) have determined that the circuitry in the area of the brain responsible for suppressing memory is dysfunctional in patients suffering from stress-related psychiatric disorders. “For patients with major depression and other stress-related disorders, traumatic memories are a source of anxiety,” said Nivedita Agarwal, M.D., radiology resident at the University of Udine in Italy. “Because traumatic memories are not adequately suppressed by the brain, they continue to interfere with the patient’s life.” Dr. Agarwal and colleagues used brain fMRI to explore alterations in the neural circuitry that links the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus, while study participants performed a memory task. All patients reported s varying degrees of stressful traumatic events, such as sexual or physical abuse, difficult relationships or bullying or harassment – in their lives. The fMRI images revealed that the prefrontal cortex, which … Read more

Wisdom Teeth Removal Book

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I recently finished a book called Wisdom Teeth Removal : Lessons Learned, Healthcare Problems, and How to Be Better Prepared It discusses in detail my story and experience with doctors and the health system. It provides detailed information on how to better make a decision regarding the extraction of wisdom teeth by discussing complications and shortcomings of the health and legal systems. Twelve key takeaways from my experience with wisdom teeth removal and my health problems are presented and explained. The book is 61 pages in length, contains much of the information on http://www.teethremoval.com along with new information and additional information. The price for the book is currently twelve dollars and can be purchased easily with paypal. To add the Wisdom Teeth Removal book to your shopping cart visit this link and select “Wisdom Teeth Removal Book.” If you have … Read more

Colon Cancer and Inflammation

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Researchers led by Dr. Brian Iritani at The University of Washington found that mice that lack the immune inhibitory molecule Smad3 are acutely sensitive to both bacterially-induced inflammation and cancer. I actually study some of the Smad moelecues in Biology classes at University by performing Western blot plots. Absence of Smad3 inhibits inflammation and  increase susceptibility to colon cancer. To examine whether Smad3 signaling contributes to development of colon cancer, mice deficient in Smad3 were studied. It was found that these mice are acutely sensitive to bacterially-induced inflammation and cancer due to both deficient T regulatory cell function and increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines. “That the inflammatory response to microorganisms is a key event in these results reveals important ‘tumor-suppressive’ functions for Smad3 in T effector cells, T regulatory cells, and intestinal epithelial cells, all of which may normally limit … Read more

High School Senior Drug Use

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Parents have long worried whether their kids at college are drinking too much or just abusing drugs. Lately there have been a large number of young people abusing prescription opiates. It is rather common knowledge now that several years ago, attention-deficit drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall became popular among students. This was so that they could improve concentration or lose weight. Now more dangerous drugs and powerful painkillers are being used largely by such students such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet. Earlier this month, several drug experts testified at a congressional hearing named Generation Rx In 2006, 2.2 million people ages 12 and older said they started abusing pain relievers within the past year. It has also been seen that young adults ages 18-25 show the greatest overall use of any age group. Even so, these drugs are still … Read more