Why aren't they hibernating?

What do aging, telomeres and torpor have in common? It may be that torpor slows the process of aging.

Aging is directly linked to telomere lengths. Telomeres, the caps on the end of our DNA, prevent the DNA strands from unraveling with each cell replication. With each replication however, telomeres become a little shorter. Without the ability for cells to turnover, cell death eventually occurs.

Scientists at the Department of Integrative Biology and Ecology from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria have determined that hibernation and natural hypothermia slow the aging process. The researchers were able to measure the relative telomere length in Djungarian hamsters and found that daily torpor is associated with telomere length changes.

Now if only that research could be used to justify daily afternoon naps…

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Just how do the cancer cells get perfectly healthy surrounding cells to self destruct? They do this by releasing hydrogen peroxide which cause the release of free radicals. Free radicals cause oxidative damage to the healthy cell which prompt the cell to begin digesting itself, a process known as “autophagy”. This releases nutrients that eventually become food for the cancer cell.

This new theory, proposed by Michael Lisanti  of the Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, offers a unique way to treat cancer using antioxidants which mop up free radicals. Another approach is to bolster the body’s own defense against unchecked hydrogen peroxide: catalase. This enzyme is used widely in the body to breakdown hydrogen peroxide into its harmless components: water and oxygen.

Lisanti found that treating cancer cells with catalase increased five-fold the rate of cancer cell death.

You can read more about Lisanti’s research at this link. His research was also featured in New Scientist published September 2011.

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According to research, Swain states, “When you perform a continuous exercise, you burn five calories for every liter of oxygen you consume. And running in general consumes a lot more oxygen than walking.”

What is more important however is not the total number of calories burned but rather  the  net number of calories burned. The net burn accounts for the difference between one’s resting metabolic rate, that is the amount of calories one burns at rest, and the total number that are burned with exercise.

According to a formula that appeared in the article, “How Many Calories Are You Really Burning?“,  one’s calorie burn for walking and running can be figured out using the following:

TOTAL CALORIE BURN/MILE                   NET CALORIE BURN/MILE

Running                         0.75 x your wt in lbs                                             0.63 x your wt in lbs

Walking                         0.53 x your wt in lbs                                             0.30 x your wt in lbs

Interestingly,  walking burns more calories than running at speeds of 5 miles or more/hour. Walking at these speeds is a very inefficient way of moving. Heart rate, oxygen consumption and calorie burn increase as a result. Think of it for a moment. Have you ever tried to walk at 5 miles/hr? It would be a most inelegant and extremely difficult gait to maintain – running would be easier and much more efficient!

According to the article, running burns twice as many net calories/mile than walking. Citing research done at Syracuse University, the net caloric burn of running a mile in 9:30 seconds versus walking a mile in 19 minutes is 105 calories compared with 52 calories in men. In women the number is lower because of their lower weight to start. Women burn 91 calories running vs 43 calories walking.

For more information about this research, follow this link. And then get out there and exercise.

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The process involves drying the feces (in the shade – not the sun!), treating it with an organic solvent and then filtering and concentrating the extract in a vacuum.

As fascinating as this is, I can’t help wondering who thought of checking muskrat feces? I mean, how did they know where to look?

You can read about it in New Scientist and if you’re really have some time to kill, the patent describes the process, claims and description in more detail – and it actually makes for interesting, entertaining reading!

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Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation the study found that on average, each hand had over 150 different types of bacteria with more than 4,700 different species identified on the hands of 51 undergraduate students who were involved in the study. Only about 5 of them were common among all the students sampled and there were different kinds of bacteria found between the right and left hands.

As a health care provider, what really surprised me was that hand washing did not seem to affect the diversity of bacteria that were found. Handwashing decreased the overall count of bacteria but didn’t seem to affect the diversity of bacteria that was found.

What does all this mean? Like any good study, it raises more questions than it answers. Why do women have more bacterial diversity than men? What is the role of hormones, pH, topical creams/lotions, sweat glands etc on the diversity of bacteria found between genders? Why does the bacterial type differ depending on dominant vs non-dominat hand? What protective benefits do we get from certain bacteria? What is the safe level of bacteria? Can we predict the health of an individual given the types and counts of bacteria found on the hands?

I’m pretty compulsive about washing my hands especially since our microbiology teacher had us swab anything we wanted and our class swabbed doorknobs, faucets, handles that flush toilets – you get the idea. But after reading this article, I found myself paying even more attention to the palms of my hands. If you’re interested in reading more about this study, click on this link.

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Perforated eardrum from vigorous nose blowing

Ok, so you’re probably wondering what on earth there is to learn about nose blowing. Actually, how you blow your nose is important.

Everyone blows their noses differently. Some are honkers, some blow in short, rapid bursts, others sort of sniff – you get the picture.

Well as it turns out, how vigorously we blow our noses can determine if we end up with a sinus infection. A study done by the National Institutes of Health measured the amount of force that occurs in the nasal passages during nose blowing, coughing and sneezing.  Scientists wanted to measure how much nasal mucus was propelled into the sinus passages during the common cold. So they devised a method of actually measuring how much pressure there is in the nasal passages when you cough, sneeze and blow your nose. As it turned out, the intranasal pressure when blowing your nose is 10 times greater than when you sneeze or cough.

So why is all of this important?

Well up to 1 milliliter of mucus can be propelled into our sinus passages when we blow our nose. Considering that the average person blows her nose up to 45 times a day during the first few days of a cold, that’s a lot of bacteria-laden mucous getting into our sinuses.

The more this mucous build-up occurs, the less functional the tiny little hairs that line our sinus passages become. These mucous-ladened little hairs (“cilia”) can no longer propel the nasal debris out of the sinus cavities. Bacteria becomes trapped and multiplies until, voila! - A sinus infection is born!

What’s the take-home message?

BLOW GENTLY when you have a cold!

For more information on this study, click on this link.

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The flu is different from other viral upper respiratory illness. The common cold does not produce the fever and horrible body aches and pains that is associated with the flu. In fact, the sudden onset of the illness is one of its hallmarks. Those most at risk for dying from the illness are the very young, the elderly and those whose immune systems are compromised. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that between 5% and 20% of people become infected annually during the flu season, which is from November to March.

So what exactly is the flu virus? The virus is classified by its protein structure: hemagluttinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). The first protein, HA, enables the virus to penetrate the host cell while NA enables the virus to exit the cell once it has replicated.

What makes a virus particularly dangerous is its ability to cross-infect different species. The influenza virus is a great example of this. There are 3 types of flu virus: Types A, B and C. Type A infects many animals including pigs, birds, whales, and humans. Type B is transmitted between humans and Type C only causes minor respiratory infections despite being found in dogs, pigs and humans. Type A is the one scientists worry about because it is the most virulent and can cross species.

Each year scientists get together to determine the three most common Type A influenza viruses. Vaccines are then made to protect people against these three strains that are most likely to cause an epidemic.

Because children get the flu more than adults, it’s quite easy for whole families to become infected. If you have young children or you’re in contact with elderly people or if you suffer from a chronic illness such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, etc, then it is really important for you to get the flu vaccine each year.

To find out more about the flu vaccine, incubation periods, and signs and symptoms, check out my article entitled “Flu Vaccine for Flu Prevention – 5 Facts You Should Know”.

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A new on-line tool published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) predicts the amount of time required to reach your weight-loss goals given an estimated amount of exercise and one’s starting weight. The tool estimates how diet and exercise alters metabolism and provides a time-frame to expect  - bottom line is that it shows a much longer time frame than otherwise expected.

That’s why weight loss is all about changing one’s approach to food and diet rather than concentrating on the amount of weight to lose. In other words, it’s not about the numbers but about the commitment to a healthier life-style. The weight will eventually come off as long as one continues to focus on life-style changes rather than trying to lose 1-2#/week – or whatever goal set.

You can check out how long it will take you to reach your weight loss goals by following this link to this site (it does require that you download Java which is free).  If you have any difficulty downloading it, google “body-weight simulator” located at www.bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov

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What interested me was that 3 grams of acetaminophen can cause blood loss equal to that of taking ibuprofen, 12oo mg/day. We tend to think that acetaminophen is more benign than non-steroidal antiinflammatories like Motrin, Aleve etc, but in fact, Tylenol/acetaminophen can increase blood clotting time in those taking warfarin (Coumadin), can cause liver toxicity in previously deemed therapeutic doses (3g/day or 3000 mg/day) and can cause blood loss.

All subjects had documented OA of the knees and were over 40 years old. They were on one of the following regimens:

• ibuprofen 400 mg 3x/day
• acetaminophen 1000 mg 3x/day
• combination of ibuprofen 200mg/acetaminophen 500mg tablet 3x/day or
• combination ibuprofen 400mg/acetaminophen 1000mg 3x/day

Subjects were tracked over 2 time frames: 10 days (short term relief) and 13 weeks (long term relief).

For me, some of the study results were predictable, others were not.

The results were as follows:

• neither the high or low dose combination ibuprofen/acetaminophen was superior to ibuprofen alone (not predictable)
• acetaminophen alone did not provide adequate pain relief (predictable)
• ibuprofen alone or combined is superior to acetaminophen (seems an obvious conclusion given the second statement)
• blood loss was significantly higher in the combination medication group (not a surprise) than in all other groups combined

This study involved over 900 subjects so the results were statistically relevant.

Bottom line? Don’t take either acetaminophen or ibuprofen daily for periods of time longer than several weeks. Acetaminophen is not entirely benign and long term use can cause clinically significant blood loss and liver dysfunction; although ibuprofen provides better pain relief it too causes blood loss).

For more information about this study, go to this link for the complete article.

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It’s important to remember that I’m talking about the absence of food – not water. An adult generally can not survive more than 7-10 days without water but can survive, depending on body mass and initial health status, anywhere from a month to much longer, if water is readily available.

Research on this topic yielded an interesting article published May 29, 1945 by the Royal Society of Medicine. The panel of medical doctors had convened to discuss the treatment of starvation that was discovered among many prisoners of war, the victims of German concentration camps and among the population of war-torn Europe at the end of World War II. The article goes on to discuss the physiology of starvation in some detail.

I learned that “…the deprivation of food progressively destroys the digestive, absorptive and protective functions of the alimentary canal”. This is turn leads to a destruction of the epithelial layer of the digestive tract, explaining why ulcers are found along the digestive tract during post-mortems. The loss of cells that absorb nutrients leads to massive diarrhea when food is introduced orally. Diarrhea of course, leads to further dehydration. In fact, food becomes an irritant to the gut in cases of extreme starvation.

Hunger strikes that have been well documented, such as in the case of Mahatma Gandhi, are rare. In Gandhi’s case, as a 74 y.o. rather thin man to begin with, he succumbed to starvation after 21 days.

Alan Lieberson, a medical doctor, lawyer wrote in Scientific American:

Unlike total starvation, near-total starvation with continued hydration has occurred frequently, both in history and in patients under medical supervision. Survival for many months to years is common in concentration camps and during famines, but the unknown caloric intake during these times makes it impossible to predict survival. What is evident is that the body can moderate metabolism to conserve energy and that individual survival varies markedly.

So after several weeks of not eating, I can only presume that the 2 young Wall Street Occupiers have ended their hunger strike. I hope however, that the OWS movement doesn’t lose its momentum.

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