Health & Medicine

The skinny on fat cats

By Bianca Haase
Cats are among the most common household pets and they share the same environment with humans and thus many of the risk factors. Obesity is a growing problem for feline health for the same reasons as it is in humans and has become a serious veterinary problem. Multiple diseases, such as type II diabetes mellitus and dermatosis, are associated with excess body weight and obesity in cats and may result in a lowered quality of life and potentially lead to an early death. Appleton et al. demonstrated that about 44% of cats developed impaired

“Her home contains tens of thousands of pieces of clothing…”

By Christiana Bratiotis

Sharon is a 53-year-old white woman who is unmarried and lives alone in a multi-family home in a northeastern suburb. Sharon recently lost her job due to her multiple mental and physical health disabilities. Because of her job loss, Sharon is unable to afford her rent. She is now 3 months in the rears and her landlord is demanding payment. He recently stopped by to talk with Sharon. She was home but did not answer the door.

Philanthropic foundations and the public health agenda

By Bill Wiist
In 2009, there were 2,733 corporate foundations with assets of more than $10 billion and an annual donation of $2.5 billion. In that year foundations made grants of more than $38 billion of which $15.41 billion was from family foundations. In 2009, the 50 largest contributors to health donated more than $3 billion through almost 5,000 grants. The extent of corporate-based foundation funding in public health raises two critical questions for public health policy, research, and programming. First, should corporate-based foundations be setting the public health research and program agenda?

Cancer is personal

By Lauren Pecorino
The statement “cancer is personal” can have several meanings. The fact that cancer affects one in three people over their lifetimes means that it is a disease that will hit close to home for everyone. Everyone will have family or friends that will be affected and loved ones will become cancer patients. Cancer is personal. Luckily, we are living in a new age when cancer patients are more likely than ever to be cancer survivors. There are 28 million cancer survivors in the world today. Out of approximately 12 million cancer survivors in the United States, 4.7 million received their diagnosis at least ten years ago. The good news that everyone should know is that there is progress in cancer management.

Still don’t understand the Affordable Care Act? You’re not alone.

I recently stumbled across the site Act of Law, on which an anonymous woman is reading the entire ACA aloud. “I will read the law for two hours each week and post videos of each reading here on this site,” she writes. “It is 906 pages long (table of contents included) and I estimate that it will take about 60 hours to read.”
The most recent video she posted covers hours 23 and 24 of this project. It appears below with permission.

SciWhys: How does the immune system work?

By Jonathan Crowe
Each day of our lives is a battle for survival against an army of invaders so vast in size that it outnumbers the human population hugely. Yet, despite its vastness, this army is an invisible threat, each individual so small that it cannot be seen with the naked eye. These are the microbes – among them the bacteria and viruses – that surround us every day, and could in one way or another kill us were it not for our immune system, an ingenious defence mechanism that protects us from these invisible foes.

Sexuality in older age

By Abi Taylor

Old people having sex…funny? embarrassing? disgusting? Or a normal part of healthy ageing?

Most people don’t tend to think about the sexuality of older people. There are general assumptions that older people aren’t having sex, aren’t interested in sex, and couldn’t do it even if they wanted to. And, if they were interested in sex they

A fairer future for social care?

By Tom Dening
Social care remains high on the political agenda as the Commission on Funding of Care and Support has this week presented its report to the Chancellor and to the Secretary of State for Health. The Commission comprised the commendably small number of three members – Andrew Dilnot, an economist and Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford; Dame Jo Williams, Chair of the Care Quality Commission; and Lord Norman Warner, former Health Minister and erstwhile head of Kent Social Services. In their report, Fairer Care Funding, the Commission has proposed major changes to the current system.

Beach body brief

By Erik N. Jensen

Summer officially arrived on June 21, and as Americans anticipate lounging by pools and vacationing on beaches, they also look in the mirror and worry about how that midriff will look, once it’s squeezed into a swimsuit. Despite the country’s rising obesity rates, our society has not grown more accepting of different body types and sizes. We seem, if anything, to have become less accepting of them. Women in the 1950s and

Lead pollution and industrial opportunism in China

By Tee L. Guidotti

Mengxi Village, in Zhejiang province, in eastern coastal China, is an obscure rural hamlet not far geographically but far removed socially from the beauty, history, and glory of Hangzhou, the capital. Now it is the unlikely center of a an environmental health awakening in which citizens took direct action by storming the gates of a lead battery recycling plant that has caused lead poisoning among both children and adults in the village.

Last refuge or no hiding place? The last scene of all.

By David Jolley
As young fit people, few of us have ambition to spend our last days with others in a Home shared with others who have become impaired, disabled and dependent on care from others. Older and nearer this reality we may find that it has its attractions.

On the future of medical textbooks

By John Firth
Medical textbooks are often spoken of as dinosaurs – they may have dominated the medical world years ago, but things have moved on, and they’re now out-of-date and heading towards extinction with the Dodo. While there is some truth in this, it’s not the whole truth, and it’s my feeling that medical textbooks will continue to play a big part in the future of medical publishing, albeit in a different form.

Long term care and older people

By Tom Dening
Suddenly care homes are hot news. As I drove to work this week, the two leading national stories were both on this topic. First was the shocking care provided to the residents of Winterbourne View in Bristol. As one scene of abuse was followed by another, the whole effect was increasingly distressing and I could only watch to the end in order to ensure that action was going to follow. ‘Call the police’ was going through my head throughout. The second story was about Southern Cross, the care home provider that expanded rapidly but has now run into trouble as its income can no longer finance the rents for the homes.

Neuromania

By Paolo Legrenzi and Carlo Umlitá
Increasingly often, the press offers explanations of human behaviour by drawings, photographs, and graphic descriptions of sections of the brain which show that part of our grey matter that is activated when we think about something or plan an action. We are told that how we behave depends on the functioning of certain neurons. We hear about new disciplines such as neuroeconomics, neuroaesthetics, neuroethics, neuropolitics, neuromarketing, and even neurotheology (over 20,000 results on Google!).

Fertility and the full moon

By Allen J. Wilcox

In her novel, Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver celebrates the lush fecundity of nature. The main character marvels at the way her ovulation dependably comes with the full moon.

It’s a poetic image – but is there any evidence for it?

Actually, no. It’s true that the length of the average menstrual cycle is close to the length of the lunar cycle. But like

For ‘in vitro’, 15 is the perfect number

By Dr Sesh Kamal Sunkara

In vitro fertilization (IVF) involves the retrieval of an egg and fertilization with sperm in the laboratory (in vitro) as opposed to the process happening within the human body (in vivo), with a natural conception. IVF was first introduced to overcome tubal factor infertility but has since been used to alleviate all types of infertility and nearly four million babies have been born worldwide as a result of assisted reproductive technology.