By DONNA DE LA CRUZ WASHINGTON -- The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday fined the marketers of four weight loss pills millions of dollars for making false advertising claims ranging from rapid weight loss to reducing the risk of cancer. FTC Commissioner Deborah Platt Majoras said the products would remain on store shelves, but that the companies would have to stop making the false claims. "What we challenge is the marketing of the claims," she said. "The marketers are required to back up the claims with the science and if they can't do that they can't make the claim. But we don't ban the products from the shelves." The FTC investigated a variety of claims made _ including rapid weight loss and reduction in the risk of osteoporosis, Alzheimer's and even cancer, Majoras noted. Fines were levied against marketers of Xenadrine EFX, One A Day Weight Smart, Cortaslim and TrimSpa. Majoras did not specify how much each marketer was being fined and did not identify the marketers. The FTC scheduled a new conference later Thursday to announce details. Efforts to reach the product manufacturers were not immediately successful. © Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9811 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALEX BERENSON At first, the psychiatric drug Zyprexa may have saved John Eric Kauffman’s life, rescuing him from his hallucinations and other symptoms of acute psychosis. But while taking Zyprexa for five years, Mr. Kauffman, who had been a soccer player in high school and had maintained a normal weight into his mid-30s, gained about 80 pounds. He was found dead on March 27 at his apartment in Decatur, Ga., just outside Atlanta. An autopsy showed that the 41-year-old Mr. Kauffman, who was 5 feet 10 inches, weighed 259 pounds when he died. His mother believes that the weight he gained while on Zyprexa contributed to the heart disease that killed him. Eli Lilly, which makes Zyprexa, said in a statement that Mr. Kauffman had other medical conditions that could have led to his death and that “Zyprexa is a lifesaving drug.” The company said it was saddened by Mr. Kauffman’s death. No one would say Mr. Kauffman had an easy life. Like millions of other Americans, he suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized by periods of depression and mania that can end with psychotic hallucinations and delusions. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Obesity
Link ID: 9810 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALEX WILLIAMS FOR those who have failed in a decade or three’s worth of New Year’s resolutions to become better workers, spouses, parents, athletes or lovers, there is a new frontier in personal growth — or at least a proliferation of products, mostly hawked over the Internet, that promise to help turn the last bit of untrammeled downtime (sleep) into an opportunity for improvement. New health products have emerged, often from the margins of commerce. Old self-help approaches like subliminal “sleep learning” have evolved and found new life on the Web. “While you sleep!” has become an Internet marketing catchphrase. The idea plays on two classic, if contradictory, American impulses: the desire to get ahead, and the compulsion to avoid the slightest expenditure of effort. There are diet pills sold under names like Lose and Snooze and Sleep ’n Slim, which contain collagen and which the makers say can help maximize the body’s metabolism. There are foot pads from Japan that look like tea bags and promise to drain toxins and restore energy while you sleep. On one Web site, hypnotictapes.com, besides recordings designed to improve public speaking or break addiction to alcohol or heroin, there are programs promising to help you, at least partly while sleeping, “Overcome Fear of Clowns” and “Master the Bagpipes.” Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 9809 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DENNIS OVERBYE I was a free man until they brought the dessert menu around. There was one of those molten chocolate cakes, and I was suddenly being dragged into a vortex, swirling helplessly toward caloric doom, sucked toward the edge of a black (chocolate) hole. Visions of my father’s heart attack danced before my glazed eyes. My wife, Nancy, had a resigned look on her face. The outcome, endlessly replayed whenever we go out, is never in doubt, though I often cover my tracks by offering to split my dessert with the table. O.K., I can imagine what you’re thinking. There but for the grace of God. Having just lived through another New Year’s Eve, many of you have just resolved to be better, wiser, stronger and richer in the coming months and years. After all, we’re free humans, not slaves, robots or animals doomed to repeat the same boring mistakes over and over again. As William James wrote in 1890, the whole “sting and excitement” of life comes from “our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago.” Get over it, Dr. James. Go get yourself fitted for a new chain-mail vest. A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 9808 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researcher uses a comparative approach to study plasticity of recall Why is it that amnesia patients can't remember their names or addresses, but they do remember how to hold a fork? It's because memories come in many flavors, says Fred Helmstetter, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM). Remembering what is not the same as remembering how. "Different circuits in the brain are activated when you remember what you had for breakfast this morning versus when you fell off a bicycle in second grade," says Helmstetter, who researches the brain's regulation of memories, emotions and learning. And it's those distinctive connections in the brain's communication network that differentiate between the "aware," or conscious, memories and the unconscious ones, some of which Helmstetter calls "emotional memories." Selectivity is one of the many aspects of memory that intrigues him, and it's key to his research into the specific brain process that is responsible for making you aware of what you've learned or remembered. Dissecting the mechanisms behind emotional memory is important because the region of the brain that governs this also controls fear and anxiety. That is why an emotional memory, such as a traumatic car accident, can activate the autonomic nervous system, causing bodily responses like an increase in heart rate, sweating and blood pressure – even if you don't realize it.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9807 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Alex Kirby The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour. He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do. N'kisi's remarkable abilities feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine. N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world. About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material. He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive. One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York. When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?" He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera." Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication". In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards. Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance. (C)BBC

Keyword: Language; Animal Communication
Link ID: 9806 - Posted: 01.04.2007

Brain scans have given US scientists a clue about how we create a mental image of our own future. The Washington University team say that specific areas of the brain are active when thinking about upcoming events. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study could help doctors trying to understand damage inflicted by strokes, injuries or diseases. The findings tally with damage spotted in the brains of patients who have lost the ability to 'think ahead'. The brain remains the most poorly understood organ of the body, but the use of MRI scans to examine the way they work has taken off in recent years. When patients or volunteers are placed in the functional MRI scanner and asked to think or move in a particular way, specific areas of the brain 'light up' on the scan image, corresponding with increased electrical activity in those regions. The technique has developed to the extent that scientists can almost know what patients are thinking about simply by looking at the brain areas they are using. The latest project looked at one of the qualities thought to be unique to humans - the ability to create a mental picture of events that have not yet happened. The researchers placed 21 volunteers into the MRI machine, then contrasted the scan results when they were asked to imagine vividly future events and recollect past memories. (C) BBC

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 9805 - Posted: 01.04.2007

By Gene Emery and Toni Clarke BOSTON (Reuters) - Two Parkinson's disease drugs cause the same kind of heart damage that led to the withdrawal of the diet drug combination "fen-phen," according to two studies published on Wednesday. Patients taking the drugs pergolide, developed by Eli Lilly & Co. and sold under the brand name Permax, and cabergoline, developed by Pfizer Inc. and sold under the brand Dostinex, had a sharply higher risk of heart valve damage than those taking other therapies, the studies said. The studies, one of which analyzed the records of 11,417 patients in Britain and one of which tested 245 patients in Italy, reinforce the results of earlier, smaller studies showing drugs that activate a cellular receptor known as 5-HT2b can cause damage to the heart valve, a serious condition that can lead to heart failure and sudden death. "We recommend that physicians not prescribe drugs that have this biochemical property," said Bryan Roth, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the trials, but viewed the data and commented on it in The New England Journal of Medicine, where both studies appeared. Michael Berelowitz, a Pfizer senior vice president, said cabergoline has very modest sales and is only approved in the United States for hyperprolactinemia -- a condition in which excessive amounts of the hormone prolactin enter the bloodstream due to benign tumors of the pituitary gland. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 9804 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In 1997 a cloned sheep named Dolly brought the issue of cloning to the public's attention. Then it was quickly proven that other animals, including pigs and cows, could also be cloned. But, it still had to be proven that it was safe to consume products from cloned animals. In a study published in 2005 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang, director of the Center for Regenerative Biology at the University of Connecticut, found that meat from two cloned bulls and a thousand samples of milk from cloned Holstein Dairy Cows meet industry standards for beef and milk from naturally produced cattle. The study was more than just curiosity, because as Yang points out, "One of the applications for cloning farmed animals, including cattle, pigs is really for improving agriculture, for better milk production, for better meat production." But, until the FDA approval, no country had allowed consumption or marketing of products from cloned animals. Yang says cloning cattle could improve agricultural efficiency. "If we can clone highly producing top genetic cows in the U.S. or for developing countries, we actually can increase the number of animals for high-level production. Or, if you have enough milk already, you can reduce the number for the same amount of milk production." © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 9803 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Trans fat, often used to fry fast foods, has been blamed for increasing obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Studies have shown that trans fat can raise levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), also known as "bad cholesterol," and decrease high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good cholesterol." This can lead to a higher risk of heart disease, one of the leading killers in the United States. But Wake Forest University School of Medicine pathologist Kylie Kavanagh says that studies linking trans fat with diabetes have been less conclusive since studies in people are hard to control. "There was some evidence in some large studies that there might've been an association with diabetes," she says. "But the problem with looking at people and diabetes is that those people that ate trans fats also tended to eat snack foods, junk foods, other things that were high in sugar and fat." To test only the effects of trans fat, Kavanagh fed male vervet monkeys a controlled diet for six years, the equivalent of 20 people years. While all the monkeys got the same amount of calories every day, half of them got food containing natural oils (like olive oil) while the other half had trans fat. "The two diets are identical in the way that they look, the way that they taste, there's no difference that you could have ascertained by eating, looking, or touching it," Kavanagh says. © ScienCentral, 2000-2007.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9802 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Estrogen regulates the brain's energy metabolism in the same way as the hormone leptin, leading the way to a viable approach to tackling obesity in people resistant to leptin, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the December 31 online issue of Nature Medicine. "We found that estrogen suppresses appetite using the same pathways in the brain as the adipose hormone leptin," said lead author Tamas L. Horvath, chair and professor of Comparative Medicine and professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine. Horvath and his team studied the regulation of obesity in mice with mutations in leptin or estrogen signaling. They analyzed the effect of estrogen on the ability of nerve cells to make new connections in the hypothalamus. They also measured the associated feeding behavior and energy expenditure of the animals. According to their report, estrogen is a strong regulator of energy metabolism through the brain. They show that while the pathway of estrogen-induced intracellular signaling merges with that of leptin, estrogen's effect on feeding and obesity is independent from leptin or the leptin receptor. "Impaired estrogen signaling in the brain may be the cause of metabolic changes during menopause," said Horvath. "Brain-selective mimics of estrogen could be a viable approach to tackle obesity in the case of leptin resistance."

Keyword: Obesity; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 9801 - Posted: 01.04.2007

Helen Pearson A genetic tweak has converted mice into endurance runners by enriching a little-known form of muscle fibre. The discovery could help boost sporting abilities, or reveal ways to slow muscle wasting. Human muscles are made of four main types of fibre, including two 'slow-twitch' varieties and one 'fast-twitch' muscle type that are suited to endurance and sprint activities respectively. Little has been known about the fourth type, called IIX fibre, because it is scattered throughout different muscles. Now a Boston team has hit upon a genetic switch that converts almost all mouse muscle fibres into type IIX. The result is startling. "Damn, they're good athletes," says Bruce Spiegelman of Harvard Medical School, who led the team. The mice were able to run on a mouse treadmill for 25% longer than normal before reaching exhaustion. The discovery hints that the elusive type IIX muscle fibres are an underappreciated contributor to athletic ability. It is possible, for example, that world-class athletes are naturally endowed with more of these fibres than the average person — or that hard training generates more of them. If so, notes study researcher Zoltan Arany, also of Harvard Medical School, future athletes might try to take advantage of the discovery. It is possible, he predicts, that "someday we'll have drugs that switch on the production of these fibres and they'll be abused by sportsmen". ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Muscles
Link ID: 9800 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Paul Elias, Associated Press — Scientists have genetically engineered a dozen cows to be free from the proteins that cause mad cow disease, a breakthrough that may make the animals immune to the brain-wasting disease. An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Japan reported Sunday that they had "knocked out" the gene responsible for making the proteins, called prions. The disease didn't take hold when brain tissue from two of the genetically engineered cows was exposed to bad prions in the laboratory, they said. Experts said the work may offer another layer of security to people concerned about eating infected beef, although though any food derived from genetically engineered animals must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. "This research is a huge step forward for the use of animal biotechnology that benefits consumers," said Barbara Glenn of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Washington industry group that includes the company that sponsored the research as a member. "This a plus for consumers worldwide." The surviving cows are now being injected directly with mad cow disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, to make certain the cattle are immune to it. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 9799 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ABBY ELLIN IN the past, you could learn a lot about a person from a group of letters: Ph.D., D.D.S., V.F.W., D.W.I. Now another set looms ahead, and it affects everyone from teeny tiny models to adoptive parents to schoolchildren: B.M.I. or Body Mass Index. But few people actually know what it means. “I know that having a low B.M.I. is supposed to be a good thing, but I have no idea what it really is or how to figure it out,” said Hilary Black, 35, the editor of Tango, a magazine about relationships. “Keeping track of my weight is more important to me than keeping track of my B.M.I.” Ms. Black is not interested in adopting a child from China. If she were, she might be very concerned with her index rating. Last week, the government-run China Center of Adoption Affairs mandated that prospective adoptive parents have, among financial, educational, marital and other health requirements, an index rating under 40. Ms. Black does not have children. If she did, and if she lived in Arkansas or Tennessee, she would receive a report card noting her children’s index figures, in addition to their ability to play nice with others. Ms. Black might also be worried about her index number if she were a model: In September, organizers in Madrid banned from its runways five models whose index rating was below 18.5. In Milan, fashion industry officials have also barred knife-thin models from its February shows. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9798 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CARL ZIMMER You may enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning, but it is not the coffee itself that you are smelling. The human nose can only smell molecules that escape liquid, float into the nostrils, and dissolve into the thin layer of slime coating the olfactory nerves. Stick your nose directly into the coffee, and you will be too busy coughing and sneezing to enjoy the bouquet. Scientists have long assumed that smelling underwater, like smelling under coffee, was impossible for mammals. “It was something that mammals couldn’t do,” said Dr. Kenneth C. Catania, a biologist at Vanderbilt University. But Dr. Catania has discovered, much to his surprise, that moles and shrews can do it. They did not evolve a radically new nose, however. They just starting blowing bubbles. Dr. Catania’s first clues came in the 1980s, when he was a graduate student studying star-nosed moles kept at the National Zoo. The moles hunt for prey underground and underwater. Dr. Catania noticed that when they were underwater, they sometimes released a stream of bubbles, at about two bubbles a second. If the moles were holding their breath, it did not make much sense for them to be leaking. “It seemed unusual,” Dr. Catania said. “I couldn’t think of any good reason for an animal to do this.” Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 9797 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CARL ZIMMER If you happen across a pond full of croaking green frogs, listen carefully. Some of them may be lying. A croak is how male green frogs tell other frogs how big they are. The bigger the male, the deeper the croak. The sound of a big male is enough to scare off other males from challenging him for his territory. While most croaks are honest, some are not. Some small males lower their voices to make themselves sound bigger. Their big-bodied croaks intimidate frogs that would beat them in a fair fight. Green frogs are only one deceptive species among many. Dishonesty has been documented in creatures ranging from birds to crustaceans to primates, including, of course, Homo sapiens. “When you think of human communication, it’s rife with deception,” said Stephen Nowicki, a biologist at Duke University and the co-author of the 2005 book “The Evolution of Animal Communication.” “You just need to read a Shakespeare play or two to see that.” As Dr. Nowicki chronicled in his book, biologists have long puzzled over deception. Dishonesty should undermine trust between animals. Why, for example, do green frogs keep believing that a big croak means a big male? New research is offering some answers: Natural selection can favor a mix of truth and lies, particularly when an animal has a big audience. From one listener to the next, honesty may not be the best policy. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Animal Communication
Link ID: 9796 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Pam Belluck PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island: Is there hope for your hippocampus, a new lease for your temporal lobe? Science is not sure yet, but across the United States brain health programs are springing up, offering the possibility of a cognitive fountain of youth. From "brain gyms" on the Internet to "brain-healthy" foods and activities at assisted living centers, the programs are aimed at baby boomers anxious about entering their golden years and at their parents trying to stave off memory loss or dementia. "This is going to be one of the hottest topics in the next five years — it's going to be huge," said Nancy Ceridwyn, co- director of special projects for the American Society on Aging. "The challenge we have is it's going to be a lot like the anti-aging industry: How much science is there behind this?" Dozens of studies are under way. Organizations like the AARP, an organization for retired persons, are offering brain health tips. And the Alzheimer's Association conducts hundreds of Maintain Your Brain workshops, many at corporations like Apple Computer and Lockheed Aircraft. There are Web sites like HappyNeuron.com, which offers subscribers cranial calisthenics, and MyBrainTrainer.com, marketed to anyone who ever wanted to "be a little quicker, a little sharper mentally." © 2006 the International Herald Tribune

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 9795 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Most young smokers between the ages of 16 and 24 years who try to quit are not using recommended smoking cessation methods, according to a report in the current Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This could explain why younger smokers have higher failure rates when they try to quit than do older smokers, the CDC notes in the article. In it, they described results of the 2003 National Youth Smoking Cessation Survey, which looked at quitting behavior in 1,827 young "established" smokers aged 16 to 24 years. "Smokers who had ever tried to quit were asked about their knowledge of, and perceived availability of, and use of assisted and unassisted quitting methods," the report states. Of the six recommended quitting methods for adults -- talk to a health professional, use nicotine-replacement products, use bupropion (eg, Zyban), talk with a counselor, attend a program or class, and call a helpline -- only one (talk with a health professional) was tried by at least 20 percent of young people surveyed. On the other hand, six of the 11 unassisted methods that are not recommended by the US Public Health Service were each used by at least 36 percent of respondents. The most common unassisted strategy (cutting back on the number of cigarettes smoked in a day) was tried by 88.3 percent of would-be quitters. © 1996-2006 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9794 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Casey, Associated Press — Wah, wow, hoo! Turns out humans aren't the only primates using songs to warn of life's dangers and travails. White-handed gibbons in Thailand's forests have been found to communicate threats from predators by singing — the first time the behavior has been discovered among non-human primates, researchers said Wednesday. While other animals have been shown to use song to attract mates or signal danger, researchers writing in this month's science journal PLoS One said their study was the first to show gibbons — a slender, tree-dwelling ape — issuing song-like warnings to each other. "This work is a really good indicator that non-human primates are able to use combinations of calls ... to relay new and, in this case, potentially lifesaving information to one another," said Esther Clarke, a University of St. Andrews graduate student and co-author of the study. "This type of referential communication's commonplace in human language, but has yet to be widely demonstrated in some of our closest living relatives — the apes," she said. © 2006 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 9793 - Posted: 06.24.2010

(Bronx, NY) -- A gene variant linked to living a very long life--to 90 and beyond--also serves to help very old people think clearly and retain their memories, according to new research by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings are published in the December 26, 2006 issue of Neurology. Led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Einstein, the researchers examined 158 people of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish descent who were 95 or older. Compared with elderly subjects lacking the gene variant, those who possessed it were twice as likely to have good brain function based on a standard test of cognitive function. Later the researchers validated their findings independently in a younger group of 124 Ashkenazi Jews between the ages of 75 and 85 who were enrolled in the Einstein Aging Study led by Dr. Richard Lipton. Within this group, those who did not develop dementia at follow up were five times more likely to have the favorable genotype than those who developed dementia. Dr. Barzilai and his colleagues had previously shown that this gene variant helps people live exceptionally long lives and apparently can be passed from one generation to the next. Known as CETP VV, the gene variant alters the Cholesterol Ester Protein. This protein affects the size of "good" HDL and "bad" LDL cholesterol, which are packaged into lipoprotein particles. Centenarians were three times likelier to possess CETP VV compared with a control group representative of the general population and also had significantly larger HDL and LDL lipoproteins than people in the control group.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9792 - Posted: 12.28.2006