Recently in Health & Medicine Category

Many mornings find me riding a stationary recumbent bike while watching TV (usually catching up on TiVo'd episodes of 'Daily Show') and I often wonder how something that marries the two would work.  Here's the concept:

When you buy the Adventurecise package, you get a piece of exercise equipment, such as a stationary bike or treadmill, and a box that hooks up between your TV and your input source (cable DVR, DVD player, whatever).  The equipment talks to the box over wireless (Bluetooth would work well...perhaps Wireless USB) and transmits your current status (speed, resistance/intensity setting, treadmill angle, etc.) every second or so. The box does a number of things.  The simplest of these is that it overlays a progress/pace meter on top of whatever you're watching.  Once you set a pace goal, the overlay will tell you how far behind/ahead you are, as well as your overall progress, in the corner or on one side of the TV screen.  Plus, you could have the option of the box disabling your input source if you drop below your desired pace (a not-so-subtle reminder that you're slacking off).

But that's just the beginning, and pretty tame to what this setup COULD do, and should do to earn the title Adventurecise.  If the box is networkable, or even just has a USB port you can stick a flash drive in, then you can have it run downloadable, user-driven adventure movies where physical activity (e.g., running or pedaling) is essential to making progress in the adventure.  For example, the movie starts out that you're being chased by zombies and need to outrun them to deliver the antidote serum to a lab (yes, we skip all the plot-building and character development in favor of quick exercise startup). 

All the camera footage would be first-person, a la Blair Witch, so you feel like you are the one running.  Then, every few minutes, you have to make a decision -- take a shortcut through a warehouse or go the long route through the park? -- indicating that using one or more buttons on the treadmill or bike.  The decisions you make determine the scenery you're running through, the things that happen around you, and the future decisions you have access to.  Typical choose-your-adventure stuff.  But, if you run/pedal too slowly -- after all, you're on an exercise machine that knows how fast you're pushing it -- you get caught by the zombies.

I think these interactive videos could be produced pretty cheaply so as to give people many different options (not everyone wants to have their exercise motivated by flesh-eating zombies).

Anyway, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you've seen or heard of something similar already in existence.

Let's keep the need for health care in perspective.  Compared to terrorism and foreign aggression, you're at least 32,000 times more likely to die from one of the many diseases our health care system prevents and/or treats.
In contrast, our federal 2008 budget for the military (not including FBI, CIA, etc.) was $613 billion, whereas our healthcare budget (Medicare and Medicaid) was $682 billion -- just 11% more.

On a per-death basis, that is ~$350,000 per healthcare-related death and approximately $11,000,000,000 per terrorism/foreign aggression-related death.  Quite a disparity, no?

I'm not suggesting we spend the same per capita for defense and healthcare.  That would be foolish, for one death doesn't risk the downfall of the entire country.  However, it seems obvious that we can, and should, allocate more of our budget towards healthcare, as it's one of the most significant threats against Americans' well-being.

September 11, 2001 was a bad day all around. Planes being flown into two iconic buildings, as well as the Pentagon and the ground, killed just less than 3,000 people. That event has resulted in a massive sociopolitical change in the United States, a change many argue is largely for the worse. But let's look at 9/11 in the context of other recent events:

September 11, 2001 = 2,998 killed ^cite
2008 Sichuan, China Earthquake = 70,000+ killed ^cite
2004 Boxing Day Tsunami = 230,000 killed ^cite

Compared to these two more recent disasters, 9/11 looks pretty tame in terms of casualties.

Some will counter "but 9/11 happened to people in MY country." Fine...let's take a look at a "disaster" on the order of 9/11 that happens every week in the United States.

During 2007, 45.7 million Americans, or roughly 15% of the population, went without health insurance at some point. ^{cite, cite}

Last year, approximately 75,000 died due to lack of care that would have been prevented had they had insurance. ^cite That number is expected to rise in 2008.

So, while we mourn the loss of life associated with 9/11, we should also realize that the fact that the US is the only industrialized country to not offer health coverage for 100% of its citizens results in more than 20 times as many deaths every year as that one event. The US could end up spending $2.4 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or roughly $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. ^cite

Are we really better off spending that money on a "war on terror" than we would be investing it in a "war on disease?" The numbers seem to suggest that we are not.

Another medical professional has come out publicly warning those who will listen that cellphones may cause cancer. Or they may not. They're not sure, but why risk it, right?

"I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe."
   -- Devra Lee Davis, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology

Next week, the University of Pittsburgh will be issuing warnings about the possible cancer-causing side effects of:
• Cheddar cheese
• Paperclips
• Lingering too long in the grocery's produce aisle
• Sudoku
• Your aunt's meatloaf (actually, that's probably true), and
• Reading medical news stories late at night

Check out the full article (CNN.com)

Time.com has positively deviated from the typical "gas prices are awful, aren't they?" approach most journalists take when writing about the fuel situation. Instead of adding to the incessant yammering about how life is going down the crapper because of $4 gas, they decide to highlight 10 positives that might come about because of it:

1. Globalized jobs return home
   
2. Sprawl stalls
   
3. 4-day work weeks
   
4. Less pollution
   
5. More frugal use of transportation
   
6. Fewer traffic deaths
   
7. Cheaper car insurance
   
8. Less traffic
   
9. More cops out of their cars
   
10. Less obesity

Now, I'm not confident all these will happen just because of high gas prices, but you have to give them a nod for at least trying to remind us that some good will likely come out of this.

Read the whole story here.

Mitch, seeing my Hot/Not list from yesterday, compiled his own, so here it is:

HOT

• iPod Touch - I tried the Archos 605 Wi-Fi first and its mediocrity makes the Touch that much more delightful. I really love well done user interfaces and this one is first rate. My only complaint is its picky eating habits when it comes to video formats.
  
• iMac - I waited longer than any other tech purchase to finally go with Apple's all-in-one desktop PC. I opted for the top of the line 3.06 GHz 24" model and have been completely blown away by it. So far I have found no flaws. It is stunning.
  
• High Gas Prices - Innovation rocks and if it takes $5/gallon gasoline to get us out of this oil addiction then I'm more than willing to pay my dues. Fewer SUVs and pickups, electric cars, solar energy, alternative fuels, more big butts on bicycles, less traffic congestion; I'm all for it. Let's drop our consumption by half and let OPEC drink their devalued crude.
  
• Synology - A NAS will soon be as ubiquitous on a home network as the router is today. The clever, feature-filled offerings from Synology are the best of the breed. I'll have a DS508 please!
  
• Subaru - Totally agree with Craig here. I've been
  in Imprezas now going on six years and I still feel like I'm cheating when I share the road with normal cars. Scoobys are fabulous.
  
• Ken Follett's Historical Novels - "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" are two of my favorite books of all time and I just took them in this Spring. I listened to both on my iPod (over 40 hours each) after downloading them from Audible and they made a month of 1000 mile weekly commutes totally enjoyable. Masterful stuff.
  
• CrossFit - I was in good shape 20 years ago and at 44 I can wipe the floor with my 24 year old self (if that was possible). I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now and some of the things I can do now would have seemed outlandish back then.

NOT

• General Motors - If you Google dinosaur, out of touch, lethargic, and unimaginative you should pull up GM's home page. I used to be a fan, but they have been disappointing me for 25 years now and don't seem to be planning any big changes. The sooner they finish themselves off, the better off we'll be.
  
• Labor Unions - Working in the industrial world I cross paths with unions
  of all sorts way more than I would like. I completely understand why our manufacturing sector is fleeing to other countries. I have never seen such a lazy, selfish, destructive, regressive bunch of people in my life. They can't all be like that, but the ones I've met surely are.
  
• Sheeple-Filled Corporate IT Departments - My 26,000 strong corporation is going to switch to Vista because they don't want to be left with no anti-virus support for their XP platform. Goodbye nice warm frying pan and hello fire.
  
• Cable/Satellite TV - I'm SO tired of paying $80 a month for a bunch of
  garbage that I would never watch even if I had the time. It won't be long until I cut that cord and start rolling my own TV. If I could just decide which way I want to do it!
  
• Global Markets - I realize that even the lowliest trader in/on most investment banks/trading floors/commodities exchanges is smarter than I am, but I would really love to see them use those brains rather than run with every emotion that riffles through the world markets. Do investors even pay attention to P/E ratios or supply and demand or is it all about what the hot analyst is saying or the sheeple are doing?

Remember that pack of teenage girls behaving like lunatics and videotaping the beating they planned and dished out on another girl?

Well, the supposed "ringleader" of that group has been bailed out of jail (for $30,000) by...Dr. Phil! Supposedly so that the Dr. Phil Show will have exclusive rights to interview her.

It takes a lot of gall to glorify adolescent violence (purely in the name of ratings) and then decry it as a social evil.

I don't know if there's a TV Personality Scumbag award, but if there is, I'm sure Dr. Phil is a shoe-in.

I work from home a few days a week. Unfortunately, my office, which transitions to a guest room when the grandparents visit, is cramped. My desk was way too large for the space, and my chair kept bumping into the bed. I was on the lookout for a new desk.

In the back of my mind was another issue. I have terrible posture when working. I slouch. I can almost always be found working with my laptop in my lap and my feet kicked up, resting on my desk. It's just not good, in general, for my over 6-foot frame.

So I performed an experiment -- I killed my desk.

The amount of carcinogenic crap (tar, etc.) extracted from just 400 cigarettes is stunning...and disgusting. Think of all that in your lungs!

Still Smoking? Watch This !!

A few days ago, I posted about the recently demonstrated Wii Balance Board hardware accessory for the Wii Fit game forthcoming for Nintendo's Wii gaming console. In a nutshell, it's a small step-board (shown to the left) that detects foot pressure and wirelessly conveys that data back to the Wii.

Today, it occurred to me how Nintendo (or any third-party developer) could combine the Wii's standard handheld controllers -- the Wiimote and the Nunchuk (shown to the right) -- with the Wii Balance Board to offer a very interactive, full-body gaming experience.

Imagine a first-person shooter where, to walk or run forward, the user walks or runs in place on the Balance Board. Or, perhaps if that's too much effort, leaning forward or backward could control movement in those directions. Jumping, a common activity in FPS games, would be accomplished by doing the physical analog (bunny-hopping becomes much less of an issue, then). The two handheld controllers could then be used for more precision-oriented input, such as view direction, weapon selection, and firing.

Or, alternately, think about how many sports-oriented games require foot/leg-based movement that could be handled instead via the Wii Balance Board. Snowboarding and skiing would be natural treatments.

What about side-scrollers? Imagine Super Mario Brothers where you need to walk on the Balance Board to move Mario left and right. Would it be more fun? I dunno, but it would certainly be more work (and a better workout) than simply pressing a button with your thumb.

Anyway, I'm sure this is just the tip of the virtual iceberg. I look forward to Nintendo and its development partners coming out with even more innovative uses for all these nifty, wireless controllers. I hope gaming in 10 years looks little like the sedentary, sit-on-the-couch-and-stare-at-the-TV activity that it has for 20-some years now.

New Dangers of Secondhand Smoke (Time.com) is an interesting story about a new study that measured the immediate effects of second-hand smoke on nonsmokers:

...the researchers found that waitstaff and bartenders working a typical night shift gradually accumulated higher levels of NNK, a carcinogen in cigarette smoke, at the rate of 6% each hour they worked. NNK is known to be involved in inducing lung cancer in both lab rats and smokers.

Contributed by Mitch:

The word is out in a major way about the Nike/Apple partnership and their Nike+ campaign. Reviews are starting to abound so I won't re-hash what you can read elsewhere. If you are just crawling from under some nice rock, I'll be brief. For $29 you can purchase a kit consisting of a transmitter for your running shoe and a receiver for your iPod Nano.

While you run and listen to your Nano, the system will measure your time, pace and calories burned and a nice person will "coach" you at five minute intervals. After you finish your workout data will be sent to the Nike+ website during the next Nano synch. It's very simple, very effective and how they did this for $29 a pop I will never know.

I am a Mac user and the whole system worked 100% perfectly for me from the automatic firmware update on my Nano to linking with the shoe sender to the final transfer of data to the Nike+ website. No reboots, no driver updates, no connection problems, no muss, no fuss...amazing.

As an excellent partner to this new system, I discovered a podcast called Podrunner (recently rose to #2 on the iTunes' Podcast Top 10) that offers free running mixes from LA's own dj steveboy. These hour long mixes are built at a set number of beats per minute and make keeping your pace a simple thing.

I already enjoyed running, but now even more so with this latest bit of gadgetry.

Per CNN.com, the US Surgeon General today released a report making it clear that the dangers of second-hand smoke are beyond a resonable doubt and should be considered settled as fact:

Steer clear of smokers and any of their drifting fumes. That's the advice of the surgeon general, who on Tuesday declared the debate about the dangers of secondhand smoke over.

"The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance but a serious health hazard," said Richard Carmona.

There is no safe level of secondhand smoke -- even a few minutes inhaling someone else's smoke harms nonsmokers, he found. And separate smoking sections, even the best ventilated ones, don't protect enough.

Read the rest of the story.

I really wish city leaders would stop bowing to the pressure of local restaurant and bar owners to water down smoking controls in public places and entertainment/dining venues. History has shown that such bans do not have a significant deleterious effect on such establishments, and in fact, in some places there have been elevated levels of business within a year after bans took effect.

The Houston Chronicle has a story from the Associated Press that discusses how a new Canadian study offers broader, statistically significant evidence that homosexuality in men is likely the result of effects prior to birth.

Men with several older brothers have a greater chance of being gay -- whether they were raised together or not -- a finding researchers say adds weight to the idea that sexual orientation is based in biology.

One day pretty soon, I suspect, there will be amassed so complete an evidential trail that homosexuality is an innate quality, akin to gender, height, and eye and skin color. When that happens, I expect people like those in the Center for Marriage and Family Studies ("We don't believe that there's any biological basis for homosexuality," Dailey said. "We feel the causes are complex but are deeply rooted in early childhood development," as quoted in the article) will fall into two camps: (A) the deeply apologetic that gays have been so maligned (e.g., constitutionally prevented from marrying) who will work to counteract these prejudices and social injustices, and (B) the offensively ignorant who will continue to refute sound science (as they have with global warming, evolution, and a host of other topics) and "believe" that this subset of the population is unfit for society. And unfortunately, those falling in camp (B) have had a lot of practice preaching intolerance already.

Working to eradicate a social problem (e.g., ignorance or poverty) is charity; working to eradicate a biological trait in those who don't want to change is genocide. Learning to tell one from the other is apparently something that many in our society haven't learned how to do yet.

Read the full news story.

Weather Underground (at wunderground.com) has an interesting new feature: an animated, weekly map of flu (influenza) activity in the US.

Basically, technology is killing you slowly. Yesterday, we found out that constant email use makes you retarded. Now, the Washington Post has a story about how thumbboards (a la Blackberries and Treos) can hurt the nerves and tendons in your hands:

Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as "overuse syndrome" or "BlackBerry thumb." In some patients, the disability has become severe.

The American Society of Hand Therapists issued a consumer alert in January saying that handheld electronics are causing an increasing amount of carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis. With that warning, the society included directions on how to properly hold the devices, urging users to take breaks and, if possible, place pillows in their laps so their wrists are in a more upright position.

The obvious conclusion is for scientists to hurry up and get us those neural implants we've been asking for.

Interesting study reported on by CNN Europe:

LONDON, England -- Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard.

So that's why I've started getting the munchies after sitting at my desk for a while!

Read the entire story.

From the "Glass is Half Full" department comes a study suggesting that rising obesity in the US may shorten average lifespans enough to offset some of the financial woes facing the Social Security system. Read more....

According to Wired, the United Nations has passed a non-binding resolution urging member states to ban all forms of human cloning "...in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life."

The document, which has no legal force, passed 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions. The United States was joined by many African, Arab and Latin American states in voting for it; mostly European and Asian countries opposed.

In speeches after the vote, several nations including Britain, South Korea and the Netherlands flatly rejected the resolution. They promised to push ahead with therapeutic cloning, which scientists believe may lead to new treatments for diseases.

US leaders are apparently quite satisfied with joining forces with many of the developing world's countries that base their policies primarily on religious zealotry and short-term wealth-creation opportunities for the nation's powerful. Yes, we may not be able to provide 21st century healthcare to our citizenry, but we'll have the Ten Commandments in every school, a bible under every pillow, and no scrap of public land will go without its own oilwell.

It was nice being a world leader...I'll miss that.

My township's uncontrolled suburban sprawl has actually produced a lovely little enclave called "The Streets of West Chester" and we went there last weekend to the grand opening of the new Borders bookstore. Along with the live Irish band (very good), Bravo was spooning out heaps of free pasta, the bakery had free cookies and Starbucks was pouring free joe. Free is good.

I am not a coffee drinker; in fact, I hate the stuff. But, after the pasta I needed something to drink and a big cup of Cafe Vienna seemed like a good idea. I doctored it with enough sweetener and milk to take most of the coffee taste away and with it being lukewarm I was able to gulp it pretty quickly. Not bad. Not worth the $3-4 that Starbucks charges normally for it.

This is where my problems began. In just a few minutes I got a big caffeine rush that kept me feeling edgy all through dinner. After dinner I started getting dizzy and feeling nauseous. I hadn't felt like that since OD'ing on No-Doz during an allnight thrash to Hilton Head in college. When I got into bed 2-1/2 hours after drinking the coffee, I had honest to goodness bedspins! I haven't had bedspins in years and never from caffeine.

I started doing some investigation and found this article on the caffeine content of Starbucks coffee. Holy Schnikes! That cup of java potentially had 10 times the caffeine of my usual poison, a Diet Coke. Now I understand the insane queues at all the Starbucks in the airports. These poor folks are addicted to the hard stuff! I wonder if Starbucks has come up with a way to super-caffeinate their coffee? If so, it reminds me of the nicotine level work that the cigarette companies have been practicing for years. Something to think about...

Well, if it isn't, it should be, with the number of miracle cures being attributed to it. Aspirin is already being used by millions to relieve headaches, the pain of arthritis and as a preventative to heart attacks and stroke.

Now comes a report that a major clinical study is being launched to see if aspirin can protect against certain cancers.

The trial will focus on the action of aspirin against a condition known as Barrett's oesophagus, which is a pre-condition to cancer of the esophagus.

It will involve 5,000 subjects and last 10 years. Cancer Research UK, which is funding the study, believes successful treatment of the pre-condition could prevent up to 50 per cent of cases of cancer in the trial.

Researchers are hypothesizing that aspirin may cut cancer risk by affecting an enzyme called cyclooxegenase-2, which causes inflammation and is also linked to cancer development.

Before you think - Antimatter? What are they thinking? - consider that the common medical imaging technique called PET, or positron emission tomography, already employs the antimatter equivalent of electrons to detect tumors.

Now researchers working at CERN have found that another antimatter particle, the antiproton, has potential not merely to detect cancer, but to effectively treat it.

At CERN, researchers have been studying how antiproton beams interact with living cells. As expected, antiprotons strip electrons off atoms in the cells, a process called ionization. The process rips the host molecules apart, killing the cell they are in. If the energy of the antiproton beam is chosen carefully, it can be aimed precisely at a tumour within a human body.

A proton beam could be used for ionization just as well, but when the particles in an antiproton beam eventually come to a stop at the focus, they drift until they collide with ordinary protons. This collision results in the annihilation of both particles in a matter-antimatter reaction, releasing a huge amount of energy (in the context of a single cell)....which is much more effective at killing selected cells than simple ionization.

CERN scientists estimate that routine clinical application of matter-antimatter annihilation to cancer treatment should be a reality in 10-15 years.

A new report spotlights a daring experiment to combat brain tumors. Researchers from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center have merged the cancer-killing properties of poliovirus with a genetic element from the common cold to produce a anti-cancer agent that rapidly killed cancer cells in laboratory cultures and in animals.

The key to success was disabling the poliovirus' ability to kill brain cells while retaining its ability to kill cancer cells in the brain. To do this, the team swapped a critical genetic element from the common cold "rhinovirus" - which doesn't affect the human brain - with the corresponding genetic element from the poliovirus.

"We made a drug out of a virus by engineering its destructive abilities from a foe into a friend," said Matthias Gromeier, M.D., who led the team. "The rhinovirus acts as the trigger that activates gene expression, but the genes being expressed - the silver bullets in the gun, so to speak - are all from the poliovirus [which] kills the cancer cells quickly and efficiently."

Tests in mice and primates confirm that the modified poliovirus kills brain tumor cells but doesn't affect normal motor neurons. The therapy is promising because it doesn't carry the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, and can be introduced directly into the tumor.

Testing of the new viral agent in humans should begin within two years.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled early this month that milk and meat products from cloned animals were safe for human consumption.

So when will we see cloned turkeys for Thanksgiving?

John Kirby, a professor of poultry science at the University of Arkansas, notes that the FDA referred to clones from embryonic cells. The process makes use of blastodermic cells capable of dividing, multiplying and developing into identical embryos capable of producing genetically identical animals. The structure of birds’ eggs makes this process much more difficult for poultry.

"On top of that," says Kirby, "It would be prohibitively expensive to produce cloned birds for mass consumption."

Larger, tastier birds have been successfully produced simply through selective breeding, so there isn't much call to explore costly and controversial techniques like cloning.

His conclusion: "We’ll be eating good old fashioned turkey for decades to come."

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, in collaboration with Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms, have collaborated to produce the first genome map of the domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo).

Previous research has succeeded at mapping the chicken genome, but the turkey equivalent remained a tantalizing challenge - until now.

The report, "A first-generation map of the turkey genome" is being published in Genome, a journal of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Research Press.

Dr. David Harry, a key researcher, noted, "Finding a way to breed a turkey with naturally occurring beneficial traits is clearly of interest to the poultry-producing industry. Using naturally occurring variations, it is possible build a better turkey..."

Beijing biotechnology firm Kexing Bioproducts (Sinovac) is ready to test a vaccine against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) on humans. SARS cases to date have numbered ~8,000, with ~700 fatalities.

The Sinovac vaccine has been successfully tested on animals, but the company is waiting for the World Health Organization to review the technique with respect to safety and side-effects.

Numerous laboratories around the world have been attempting to synthesize a SARS vaccine, but Sinovac will likely be the first to be able to conduct human trials.

China's State Food and Drug Administration confirmed that the new testing series SARS vaccine could start as early as mid-December. Formal approval of any vaccine will still probably take more than a year after human trials have proven successful.

Researchers at the University of Washington have designed and constructed the first new functional protein not found in nature.

Lead researcher David Baker said the problem of creating artificial proteins is similar to putting together the outline of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, using as pieces the 20 known amino acids in nature, which can also be rotated in many ways.

“The number of alternatives can be huge," notes Baker. "Even for one fixed backbone conformation, you have an astronomical number of possible amino acid sequences." The solution was a computational algorithm - embodied in their RosettaDesign program - to search for stable combinations of possible amino acid sequences and orientations.

The result: a 93-amino acid protein structure researchers call Top7. When synthesized, the actual Top7 protein matched the computer-predicted structure perfectly.

Protein engineering is predicted to lead to new medicines and industrial catalysts. Researchers are already using the lessons learned in designing Top7 to synthesize new artificial proteins with specific functions.

Can you banish your deepest fear by popping a pill? A recent report suggests that you soon may be able to.

In a study reported to the Society for Neuroscience, a team led by Michael Davis of the Emory University School of Medicine reported that a tuberculosis drug, D-cycloserine (Seromycin), helped people terrified of heights get over that fear.

The study offered D-cycloserine or dummy pills to 27 subjects on virtual reality (VR) therapy - using computerized goggles to simulate going up a glass elevator - to help unlearn their acrophobia.

At the end of two VR sessions, the 10 patients who had gotten placebos did slightly better than they had at the start. But the 17 on the drug did as well as or better than people who had finished the full course of eight VR sessions.

Furthermore, those who had taken the drug were twice as likely as their counterparts to go up elevators, drive across high bridges and do other things that acrophobia had kept them from doing.

Leeches have been used medicinally since ancient times, perhaps most famously as a technique for drawing out poison from an afflicted person.

Now, a paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports a more modern application - as a treatment for osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis (arthritis) of the knee is a painful and potentially debilitating condition. Treatments include topical medicines and steroid injections to address inflammation and pain, but provide little relief. In some cases, surgical replacement of the knee becomes necessary.

Researchers undertook to find if leech saliva - containing a substance known to decrease inflammation - might help patients. In the study, 51 patients were assigned either leech therapy or treatment with diclofenac gel. Leech therapy consisted of applying 4 to 6 leeches to the affected knee for just over an hour (until the leeches detached themselves).

Researchers fround that patients receiving leech therapy reported less stiffness, better function, and fewer total arthritis symptoms through the full three months of the study. The results are encouraging, and studies are ongoing to compare leech therapy with other arthritis treatments, and over longer periods of time.

Nearly 1 million North Americans will experience a stroke this year. This is one of the leading causes of death in the US, and survivors are often left disabled and helpless.

But a new experimental device - the MERCI Retriever - is offering hope even for the most devastating strokes.

Tests with patients not responsive to clot-busting drugs like TPA have shown restored blood flow in nearly half the subjects.

In use, a thin tube is inserted into the patient and threaded through the body to the location of the clot. The tube contains a wire made of nitinol, a shape-memory alloy, which coils into a corkscrew shape as it's pushed out of the tube.

The nitinol corkscrew engages the clot like a wine cork, then is retracted, taking with it the problem clot and releasing the blockage.

The MERCI Retriever is at times nothing short of miraculous. At the bedside of the first patient ever treated, doctors reportedly gave each other high-fives as their patient - paralyzed for six hours - began to speak.

TPA is effective primarily within three hours of the stroke, and only for smaller clots. The MERCI Retriever has the potential to work as late as eight hours after the first symptoms, and is able to handle larger clots....giving to stroke victims another lease on life.

Elixir Pharmaceuticals has an incredible mission: To slow aging, forestall the disease and disability that accompany aging and extend life's most productive period.

Elixir co-founder Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, recently gave an interview to New Scientist, on her research into aging, and why she thinks that we are very close to synthesizing a drug to extend human lifespans.

According to Kenyon, "Not very long ago, most people thought that aging was something that just happened. We just wear out, like cars. Not true!"

Kenyon's early research was able to double the lifespans of nematode worms. This came about not by changes in diet or reproduction, but by something akin to gene therapy.

More recent studies have found similar processes affecting the longevity of flies and mice - in some cases resulting in animals that live six times as long as normal.

More incredibly, those long-lived animals stay active and healthy until the very end.

And would this apply to humans? Kenyon notes, "In genetics everything else that has been found to be true in mice, flies and worms has also been found in humans....On rational scientific grounds the chances are very high." And that's one of the reasons she co-founded Elixir.

So what do you think? What would it be like, what would you do, if you could live - vibrant and healthy - to 100, 200, 500 or more?

Researchers may have stumbled on a way to eliminate the need for reading glasses in older adults: removing the fluid filling of the eye's lens and replacing it with a synthetic gel.

This article in New Scientist describes how the procedure, which could take as little as 15 minutes in an an outpatient facility, could work.

Testing is currently being done primarily on animals, but human testing could be close to follow if the results continue to be as promising. Between this and cataract surgery and Lasix, treatment of common eye maladies are definitely seeing a lot of headway. Now if we can just get some better progress made on treating macular degeneration, that'll be something.

1,000 kilometers. 621 miles. It's not that far, but it has taken me eight months to cover that distance on my Concept 2 Model C Rowing Ergometer. If that's your first time seeing those words and letters arranged just so, the C2 as it's universally known is the defacto standard in indoor rowing machines. It was developed by Dick and Peter Dreissigacker back in 1981 and has gone through three model iterations, hence the current Model C designation. If you want to know more, see this complete history.

If anyone who rows asks you, "What is your 2K?", the question is really, "How fast can you row 2000 meters on a Concept 2 rowing ergometer?" It is an extremely accurate gauge of your performance as a rowing athlete. The world's elite do a 2K in about 5'46" whereas I can do it in 7'22" and not be able to walk or catch my breath for several minutes afterward. Rowing is a tremendously demanding sport with aerobic requirements nearing those of cross country skiing. Top rowers consume 7.0 liters/minute of oxygen which is outrageous.

I received mine last Christmas as a present from my wife and then used it to compete in an office weight loss contest. After the contest ended and an unwanted 20 pounds had disappeared, I set my sights on my first 1,000,000 meters and the free t-shirt and certificate associated with that milestone.

My C2 is hooked to my PC which runs a neat training and racing program called eRow. Using eRow, I set up all of my workouts and can even enter online races with rowers around the world. It keeps track of my time, heartrate, pace, stroke rate, splits...it does it all. Working out is fun and those 30 minutes every morning at 6AM jump start my metabolism and my day with a boost of energy.

I use the Concept 2 website's personal logbook feature to record all of my workouts and enter my work ranking times for comparison against other rowers. To keep my cool during workouts, I use a little device called a CBreeze which re-directs all the air you move with the C2 back at your body. Every C2er should have a CBreeze.

Now it's on to my second million meters!!!