Study Finds Stevia Kills Lyme Disease Pathogen Better Than Antibiotics

A little weird, but interesting.......

https://goo.gl/Vt48vq

CDC studies reveal that “the number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease each year in the United States is around 300,000. Notably, these estimates do not affect our understanding of the geographic distribution of Lyme disease. Lyme disease cases are concentrated in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with 14 states accounting for over 96% of cases reported to CDC.”

A recent study published in the European Journal of Microbiology and Immunology would seem to suggest so, having discovered that Stevia has the potential to terminate late state or chronic Lyme disease.

The CDC says that, though 80-90% of the cases reported are considered resolved with the treatment of antibiotics, 10-20% of patients go on to develop the chronic form, which is a persistent and sometimes devastating illness that can harm any organ of the body, including the brain and the nervous system.

The study on Stevia, titled “Effectiveness of Stevia Rebaudiana Whole Leaf Extract Against the Various Morphological Forms of Borrelia Burgdorferi in Vitro,” was conducted by researchers from the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven in West Haven, Connecticut. The researchers concluded that “Stevia whole leaf extract, as an individual agent, was effective against all known morphological forms of B. burgdorferi.”

The stevia extract was found to work against even the most antibiotic-resistant of the bacteria, known as the biofilm. The individual antibiotics, on the other hand, actually increased the biofilm rather than eliminating it.

The clinical study will need more investigation and trials to move forward, but offers promising hope that we will soon see a better and safer treatment for even the most persistent forms of Lyme disease. The study even found the extract was able to lower high blood pressure and reduce blood glucose in type II diabetics.

Research Survey: Are You Over 21 and ‘Sensitive’ to Environmental Pollutants?

https://goo.gl/EPgb44

WOMEN OVER AGE 65 STUDY MODIFIED TO INCLUDE PERSONS 21 OR OVER WITH ENVIRONMENTAL SENSITIVITIES

(CHEMICAL OR ELECTRICAL)

The James Madison University Environmental Sensitivities Research Team is inviting adults aged 21 and over who have experienced environmental sensitivities (chemical and/or electrical) to participate in on online study of how their needs are being met as they grow older with sensitivities.

If you are interested in participating, please click on the link below to see the consent form and learn more about the study.

If you are unable to complete the survey online, you are welcome to request a hard copy that can be mailed to you.

To request a hard copy please email gibsonpr@jmu.edu or call 540-568-6195 and leave a message with you name (clearly stated) and your complete address.

Thank you ahead to everyone who helps me with this study.

To take the survey online, click on the link or copy this url into your browser:

http://jmu.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_4YGd1uBrKkxx8nr


These 80 Programs Would Lose Federal Funding Under Trump’s Proposed Budget

Includes nice infographic....

https://goo.gl/KT5dP5

U.S. President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal includes massive cuts across most of the federal government. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture face unprecedented discretionary funding cuts in excess of 25 percent, as Trump attempts to boost the military and national security.

Trump’s budget also proposes eliminating discretionary funding altogether for at least 19 agencies and 61 other programs. Plans for new NASA missions, climate change research, aid for low-income families and funding for commercial flights to rural airports would all be on the chopping block. Trump says many of these programs are inefficient or duplicative. All this could change; Trump will deliver a final budget in May and Congress would have to approve the cuts—something they have often resisted in the past.


Statins linked to higher risk of diabetes in older women

https://goo.gl/Hq0cdM

The research - by a team at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia - is published in the journal Drugs & Aging.

The study finds that among a group of more than 8,000 women aged 75 and over, those taking statins had a 33 percent higher chance of being diagnosed with new-onset diabetes.

Lead author Dr. Mark Jones, of the UQ School of Public Health, says that statins are highly prescribed for this age group, but there are few clinical trials studying how they affect older women. "The vast majority of research is on 40- to 70-year-old men," he notes.

Statins are a class of drug designed to lower blood cholesterol, most of which is made in the liver.

They reduce liver production of cholesterol and also help the liver to remove cholesterol from the blood.

While the body needs cholesterol, if there is too much of it in the blood it can lead to buildup of plaque in the walls of arteries, which is a risk factor for stroke and heart disease - the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States.

The women were free of diabetes at the start of 2003, and the team assessed statin exposure based on prescriptions dispensed between 2002 and 2013.

Over the 10 years of follow-up, the team found that 49 percent of the women had filled prescriptions for statins and 5 percent had begun treatment for new-onset diabetes.

Statistical analysis revealed that statin exposure was linked to a 33 percent higher risk of developing diabetes. The risk increased with dose of statin - up to 51 percent for the highest dose.

Dr. Jones says that he and his team were most concerned to find this dose-response effect between statin use and risk of diabetes, especially as, "over the 10 years of the study most of the women progressed to higher doses of statins."

He concludes that doctors and their elderly female patients should be aware of these findings, and urges:

"Those elderly women taking statins should be carefully and regularly monitored for increased blood glucose to ensure early detection and management of diabetes."


Epileptic activity in Alzheimer's disease: causes and clinical relevance

Important info, and a rational alternative to the overuse of anti-psychotics....

https://goo.gl/aQR5mt

Epileptic activity is frequently associated with Alzheimer's disease; this association has therapeutic implications, because epileptic activity can occur at early disease stages and might contribute to pathogenesis. In clinical practice, seizures in patients with Alzheimer's disease can easily go unrecognised because they usually present as non-motor seizures, and can overlap with other symptoms of the disease. In patients with Alzheimer's disease, seizures can hasten cognitive decline, highlighting the clinical relevance of early recognition and treatment. Some evidence indicates that subclinical epileptiform activity in patients with Alzheimer's disease, detected by extended neurophysiological monitoring, can also lead to accelerated cognitive decline. 

Treatment of clinical seizures in patients with Alzheimer's disease with select antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), in low doses, is usually well tolerated and efficacious.


Pain in the Neck: Using CRISPR to Prevent Tissue Damage and Neck Pain

Interesting use of CRISPR.........

https://goo.gl/Nqg4Pt

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery.

But researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

“This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases,” Bowles says. “It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being delivered to inflammatory environments that need to be protected from inflammation.”

The team’s discovery was published in a new paper this month, “CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing of Cytokine Receptors for the Promotion of Cell Survival and Tissue Deposition in Inflammatory Environments,” in a special issue of Tissue Engineering. University of Utah bioengineering doctoral student, Niloofar Farhang, co-authored the study, which is a collaborative project between the University of Utah, Duke University and Washington University in St. Louis.

In chronic back pain, for example, slipped or herniated discs are a result of damaged tissue when inflammation causes cells to create molecules that break down tissue. Typically, inflammation is nature’s way of alerting the immune system to repair tissue or tackle infection. But chronic inflammation can instead lead to tissue degeneration and pain.

Cystic fibrosis sufferers live 10 years longer in Canada than they do in America, staggering new study reveals

https://goo.gl/gzSYpf

Although the neighboring countries have the same proportion of CF patients, Canadians are far more likely to receive a lung transplant.

While exercise can help extend lifespan, a transplant is the only concrete effective treatment for people suffering from the incurable genetic disease that causes a build-up of mucus in the airways. 

The two other compelling factors were childhood nutrition and healthcare coverage. 

There appears to be greater awareness of childhood nutrition needs in Canada compared to the US, and the lifespan of a patient in the US is far more dependent on their healthcare coverage than in Canada. 

Experts warn the staggering disparity in lifespan highlights significant shortfalls in the US healthcare system. 

Even after adjusting for patient characteristics, such as age and severity of disease, the risk for death among people with cystic fibrosis was 34 percent lower in Canada than in the United States.

Differences in survival between U.S. and Canadian patients varied according to U.S. patients' insurance status (Canadians have universal, publicly funded health care coverage).

Asthmatics less able to fight off flu

https://goo.gl/cuZEb7

People with asthma are likely to have worse symptoms when they get the flu because they have weaker immune systems, new Southampton research has shown..

A study led by Dr Ben Nicholas, of the University of Southampton, and published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, assessed lung samples from asthmatics and healthy volunteers.

The samples were exposed to influenza and their reactions analysed.

Dr Nicholas, who led the study under the NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, said: "We wanted to look into whether immune system differences explain why asthmatics are more likely to end up in hospital if they get flu than the general population. This is important, as flu can cause a person's asthma symptoms to get worse. The samples from healthy people showed a strong immune system-triggering reaction to the flu virus. But in lung samples from asthma patients, this reaction was much weaker.

"We hope these results help researchers better understand why asthmatics are more affected by influenza and help find new treatments for common lung infections, which often make asthma symptoms worse."


Beyond Lyme: New Tick-Borne Diseases On The Rise In U.S.

Michigan is relatively spared so far.......

https://goo.gl/ajZ4WL

It all started in the shower. Tucker Lane looked down, and there they were.

"Two ticks, on my right hip, directly next to each other," he says.

At the time, Lane didn't think much about it. He grew up on Cape Cod. Ticks are everywhere there in the summer. "Just another tick bite. Not a big deal," he thought.

That was June. In September, everything changed.

The world is in a new age of infectious diseases.

Over the past 60 years, the number of new diseases cropping up per decade has almost quadrupled. The number of disease outbreaks each year has more than tripled since 1980.

The U.S. is no exception.

The country is a hot spot for tick-borne diseases. In the past 50 years, scientists have detected at least a dozen new diseases transmitted by ticks.


Voices from the Last Days of Obamacare: A Reading List

https://goo.gl/4ipnLD

Last week, the House Republicans unveiled draft legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, seven years in the making. The American Health Care Act shares part of the old plan’s name, but not many of its current features. Everything from the insurance mandate to Medicaid expansion is missing from the new plan, and leaders from both sides are unhappy with the half-baked results.

1. “I Work in the Restaurant Industry. Obamacare Saved My Family’s Life.” by Allison Robicelli (Eater, January 2017)

Robicelli draws from a career in the food service industry to illustrate what’s at stake if the ACA goes away. Robicelli, a stage IV cancer survivor and baker owner, uses her own brush with death to show how repeal could affect the hospitality industry, a sector known for low pay and a lifestyle that can be brutal on the body. “Most people working in the restaurant industry have at best a casual relationship with health insurance,” she writes. But Obamacare changed that:

Before the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2009, I spent a few years unable to see my doctors. Cancer is a hell of a preexisting condition—insurers aren’t particularly keen on bringing on new customers who are already cancer patients, and those who were willing to offer me coverage offset the inconvenience of my cancer with premiums of a few thousand a month, deductibles in the tens of thousands. Thanks to Obamacare, which meant my preexisting conditions were no longer allowed to be held against me, I was able to afford coverage that got me tests, scans, biopsies — the whole fun-time package I had missed so much. There were plenty of things to be scared of, but that fear of being left out in the cold to die so insurers could please their investors was finally gone.