Weight vs. exercise. The medical upside of the Internet. Common dietary dangers. These are just some of the interesting stories we've uncovered for this week's Medical News Notes:
Size Trumps Exercise in Heart Disease Risk Factors. For some time now, many health science experts have suggested that you can be big and healthy, especially if you exercise regularly. However, a recent study of professional football and baseball players presented at a meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology suggests otherwise. The study of 69 professional football players and 155 pro baseball players revealed that, the heavier the athlete, the more prone he was to heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, fasting glucose levels and insulin resistance. Linebackers, traditionally the heaviest of pro athletes, scored particularly poorly in these areas, this despite the amount of training and exercise they generally endure. If the study's findings are correct, it suggests that weight loss, not exercise alone, is essential to maintaining good cardiovascular health, especially among overweight individuals.,
Internet Use Boosts Brain Activity. Older people with little or no experience with the Internet enjoy a significant degree of increased brain activity after doing online searches for just a few weeks, this according to research recently conducted by the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to view brain activity in volunteers in their 50s, 60s and 70s, the researchers discovered that men and women performing their first Web searches activated key portions of their brains known to be associated with working memory and decision-making. These same areas tend to be highly active with seasoned Web users as well, according to previous research. It's long been known that staying mentally and physically active is important to maintaining optimum brain functions as we age. And with more and more people living longer and longer, perhaps the Internet can serve as a "fountain of youth," keeping our minds sharp and supple long into our Golden Years.
Sodium, Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Kidney Dysfunction. People with a diet high in sodium and that include artificial sweeteners may be at higher risk of losing critical kidney functions, this according to research conducted by doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. One study of more than 3,000 women conducted over an 11-year period associated higher dietary sodium intake with higher-than-average kidney function decline as the participants aged. The second study showed a doubling of kidney function decline among people who drank at little as one artificially sweetened beverage per day; no decline was noted among people who drank sugar-sweetened sodas. The researchers cautioned that the study focused only on older Caucasian women, and that the findings may not apply to men or people of other ethnicities.
Scientists Seek Ways to Eliminate Memories. The 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind found heartbroken Jim Carrey using a fictional brain-altering machine to erase his memories of a failed love affair. Such memory manipulation may soon be more science than fiction. Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., have discovered a "memory gene" that can be chemically manipulated in mice; they hope to use a similar process to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans and others. This is on top of experiments already being conducted with the drug propranolol, which dulls the emotions associated with certain strong memories. But the central question many scientists and doctors are asking is: If you remove someone's memories, do you also change the person? And if you remove the memory of a painful experience, does it increase the odds it will be repeated? Breakthroughs in the not-too-distant future may bring this once-philosophical argument into the medical mainstream.
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