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Messy room


"Clean up the rubbish tip that is your room, Arnold!!!" yelled my mum.

"It's a bloody pig sty!!!" she added.

I'm sure we've all heard something similar from our mum's when we were younger - some still do (and I feel for you) - and it still makes me shudder when I recall the times she had to unleash her vocal hairdryer to make me clean up my messy room.


But is being a bit messy really all that bad? Apparently not. According to new research, excessive cleanliness may be to blame for the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes thus adding further weight to claims that our infection wary society is shunting the progression of our immune system to handle disorders like allergies or auto immune diseases.

Scientists say so-called good bacteria in the intestine may have a role in stopping our bodies from developing Type 1 diabetes.

The research published in the latest edition of "Nature" has also found the presence of such bacteria in the gut may also reduce the severity of the illness.

You can read more about this latest research here.

Oh, and the next time your mum gives you grief for not tidying your room, you now have scientific evidence to back up your reasoning. Somehow, I don't think she'll buy it but hey, it's worth trying ain't it? [abc.net.au]



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Diabetes injection kit


Those that know anyone - close friends or family - who suffer from diabetes, especially those that suffer from Type 2, will know how much of an inconvenience it is to be required constant monitoring of blood sugar levels and the unpleasantness of twice a day insulin jabs.

Well, according to the latest research, there could be an end to the twice a day jabs with a replacement jab that is effective for up to a week. This has been made possible due to a new formulation of exenatide, a drug used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus type 2 by increasing secretion of insulin to break down sugar after a meal. The new formulation gives the drug better control of blood sugar levels than the current regime of twice a day jabs, according to the University of Toronto in Canada.

Injecting insulin


The research was conducted over 30 weeks and on 259 patients who were either given a shot of a long-acting form of exenatide once a week, or had the traditional twice-a-day jabs.

The impact of the treatments was assessed by measuring levels of a chemical called haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in the patients' blood. Lower levels of this chemical are an indication that blood sugar levels are being controlled effectively.

Consequently, patients who were given the once a week jab registered a bigger average drop in HbA1c levels than those who had the twice daily jabs. A higher proportion of them also hit the target level for HbA1c during the study.

The were also fewer side effects such as dizziness, headache etc. for the once a week jab.

Details of the study were presented to a European Association for the Study of Diabetes conference in Rome and if confirmed, could transform the lives of Type 2 diabetics around the world. [bbc.co.uk]

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Placebo pills for kids

June 5th 2008 05:08
Obecalp placebo pills

Kids have powerful imagination, and they're easily fooled into believing what they're told. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy become real people, with real backgrounds, causing some measure of devastation when they're told the truth.

This measure of belief can be used for their benefit, though, as the placebo effect is quite powerful in children. Well, at least, it worked for me. Chicken Noodle Soup cures all, doesn't it?

The Placebo Store
sells fake pills, cherry-flavoured, that you can give to kids when they're not really that sick, but they ask for something.

It's not intended to cure anything and, since it's not actually medicine, it can be sold in any store.

Doctors are naturally skeptical, though, as evidenced by this New York Times article:

"“The idea that we can use a placebo as a general treatment method,” Dr. Brody said, “strikes me as inappropriate.”"

Is it a good idea? In my opinion, you'd be better off weaning your kids off their reliance on medicines, rather than giving them cherry-flavoured treats.

At the end of the NYTimes article, doctors suggest that mothers reach for the 'kiss and make it better' approach to home medicine.

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Washing hands with soap
With all these New Age gurus suggested that people drink their own pee, calling it the 'waters of Shiva', you'd think that it'd be OK to pee on your hands a little.

Hasn't science shown that urine is sterile? Why, then, all the backlash against men who don't wash after they pee? Especially in Australia, where some regions are drought-devastated


[ Click here to read more ]
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Are YOU ridiculously good looking?

October 2nd 2007 14:32
Zoolander
Everyone I know have been models at one stage. Either I’m Derek Zoolander, surrounded by beautiful people, or we’re all being duped into thinking we’re more special than we really are.

My neighbour, Pam, in her sixties, recently got a “free photo shoot” with her husband, Richard. All they had to pay was $300 for printing purposes. She assured me that it was half price and worth every cent


[ Click here to read more ]
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Breast Implants – Back To Silicone

November 24th 2006 21:34
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation is the third most commonly performed cosmetic surgical procedure in the United States. In 2005, 291,000 breast augmentation procedures were performed.

Breast implants are usually incorrectly associated with silicone-filled sacs, but for the last 14 years this type of implant has been banned because it was believed that they could trigger connective tissue diseases and other problems. In 1992 the Food and Drug Administration reclassified the devices as experimental and restricted silicone gel-filled breast implants to clinical trials, primarily for women needing reconstruction because of mastectomy (the removal of a breast) or breast deformity, or for women with implants that need to be replaced.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Humans Not As Genetically Identical As We Thought

What’s previously been taught is that of the 6 billion or so people on the planet, we all share 99.9% of each others genes and identity. These results came from the Human Genome Project 5 years ago and are now assumed to be very much wrong. Today, research was published in the journal Nature and ABC Science News reports that we are genetically more varied than what was once assumed.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Australian Stem Cell Research Bill GETS PAST First Vote at Senate

The whole idea of therapeutic cloning is to use an embryo to host the development of ‘stem cells’ (blank cells that have not yet been assigned a purpose like ‘blood cell’ or ‘brain cell’) until they are mature enough to grow by themselves and fully develop. As you may have read in my post last month about a stem cell research breakthrough, stem cells are being intensively studied for their potential to fight against disease as they can repair specific tissues or grow organs. The stem cells that are created with the aid of a human embryo (which is then discarded – hence we have ethical issues) are designated a function and then can be injected into a patient with a failing kidney, lung or other tissue.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Hearing the Heartbeat of Cancer

October 19th 2006 02:04
Hearing the Heartbeat of Cancer…

Some cancers have the ability to spread to other parts of the body through the blood. They can then grow further in these secondary areas. This process is called metastasis, (meta = change, stasis = state) meaning the state (or area) of the cancer has been changed. Malignant tumours can spread by metastasis but benign tumours cannot.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Maggots Eating Your Wounds – Great for Recovery

As absolutely obscure and grotesque as this sounds, maggots actually speed up the healing of wounds. From early days, doctors noticed that soldiers that had maggots on their wounds healed quicker. This is due to the repulsive insects having a liking for eating up dead skin cells and bacteria. Believe it or not, maggots (which are just flies that are still at the larval stage of development) were commonly used for the recovery of wounds before antibiotics were discovered! This is now called Maggot Therapy. Ewww!

[ Click here to read more ]
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Flores Hobbit or Microcephalic Human?

October 14th 2006 00:27
Flores Hobbit or Microcephalic Human? The Debate Continues…

There is still argument over the supposed type of hominid found in Flores in 2003. Some believe that this 18,000 year old individual is from a newfound species, Homo floresiensis – the “Hobbit”. Others reckon the creature is just a diseased early human, one with microcephaly.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Stem Cells Without Embryos or Ethical Objections

The latest breakthrough in stem cell research involves a possibility of creating stem cells without using the cells of an embryo, but using skin cells instead.

[ Click here to read more ]
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How to Distract Your Antibodies

October 4th 2006 03:24
How to Distract Your Antibodies

The ‘hygiene hypothesis’ is an idea that modern life is just so clean that the immune system has little experience with disease and goes for potentially harmless things like grass pollen. Hence we have hay fever, which in this view, is a recent phenomenon brought on by our excessive cleaning habits.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Breast Cancer Drug Now $1,000’s Cheaper

Government subsidies commenced on Sunday for the revolutionary breast cancer drug Herceptin. Its average cost was initially $50,000 per year, but now the drug is on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) people with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer will only pay $520, around 1% of the original cost.

[ Click here to read more ]
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