health care, public health ,fitness diet ,healthcare ,health center ,health science ,health problems

LSD and other psychedelics not linked with mental health problems Aug. 19, 2013 — The use of LSD, magic mushrooms, or peyote does not increase a person's risk of developing mental health problems, according to an analysis of information from more than 130,000 randomly chosen people, including 22,000 people who had used psychedelics at least once. Researcher Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Neuroscience, used data from a US national health survey to see what association there was, if any, between psychedelic drug use and mental health problems. The authors found no link between the use of psychedelic drugs and a range of mental health problems. Instead they found some significant associations between the use of psychedelic drugs and fewer mental health problems. The results are published in the journal PLOS ONE and are freely available online after 19 August. Symptoms and mental health treatment considered The researchers relied on data from the 2001-2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in which participants were asked about mental health treatment and symptoms of a variety of mental health conditions over the past year. The specific symptoms examined were general psychological distress, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and psychosis. Armed with this information, Krebs and Johansen were able to examine if there were any associations between psychedelic use and general or specific mental health problems. They found none. "After adjusting for other risk factors, lifetime use of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline or peyote, or past year use of LSD was not associated with a higher rate of mental health problems or receiving mental health treatment," says Johansen. Could psychedelics be healthy for you? The researchers found that lifetime use of psilocybin or mescaline and past year use of LSD were associated with lower rates of serious psychological distress. Lifetime use of LSD was also significantly associated with a lower rate of outpatient mental health treatment and psychiatric medicine prescription. The design of the study makes it impossible to determine exactly why the researchers found what they found. "We cannot exclude the possibility that use of psychedelics might have a negative effect on mental health for some individuals or groups, perhaps counterbalanced at a population level by a positive effect on mental health in others," they wrote. Nevertheless, "recent clinical trials have also failed to find any evidence of any lasting harmful effects of psychedelics," the researchers said, which supports the robustness of the PLOS ONE findings. In fact, says Krebs, "many people report deeply meaningful experiences and lasting beneficial effects from using psychedelics." "Other studies have found no evidence of health or social problems among people who had used psychedelics hundreds of times in legally-protected religious ceremonies," adds Johansen. What's the bottom line on psychedelic use? Psychedelics are different than most other recreational drugs. Experts agree that psychedelics do not cause addiction or compulsive use, and they are not known to harm the brain. When evaluating psychedelics, as with any activity, it is important to take an objective view of all the evidence and avoid being biased by anecdotal stories either of harm or benefit, the researchers say. "Everything has some potential for negative effects, but psychedelic use is overall considered to pose a very low risk to the individual and to society," Johansen says, "Psychedelics can elicit temporary feelings of anxiety and confusion, but accidents leading to serious injury are extremely rare." "Early speculation that psychedelics might lead to mental health problems was based on a small number of case reports and did not take into account either the widespread use of psychedelics or the not infrequent rate of mental health problems in the general population," Krebs explains. "Over the past 50 years tens of millions of people have used psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of long-term problems," she concludes. Both researchers were supported by the Research Council of Norway. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease: Number may be 10 times more than reported Aug. 19, 2013 — Preliminary estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the number of Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year is around 300,000. The preliminary estimates were presented Sunday night in Boston at the 2013 International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis and Other Tick-Borne Diseases. This early estimate is based on findings from three ongoing CDC studies that use different methods, but all aim to define the approximate number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease each year. The first project analyzes medical claims information for approximately 22 million insured people annually for six years, the second project is based on a survey of clinical laboratories and the third project analyzes self-reported Lyme disease cases from a survey of the general public. Each year, more than 30,000 cases of Lyme disease are reported to CDC, making it the most commonly reported tick-borne illness in the United States. The new estimate suggests that the total number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease is roughly 10 times higher than the yearly reported number. This new estimate supports studies published in the 1990s indicating that the true number of cases is between 3- and 12-fold higher than the number of reported cases. "We know that routine surveillance only gives us part of the picture, and that the true number of illnesses is much greater," said Paul Mead, M.D., M.P.H, chief of epidemiology and surveillance for CDC's Lyme disease program. "This new preliminary estimate confirms that Lyme disease is a tremendous public health problem in the United States, and clearly highlights the urgent need for prevention." CDC continues to analyze the data in the three studies to refine the estimates and better understand the overall burden of Lyme disease in the United States and will publish finalized estimates when the studies are complete. Efforts are also underway at CDC and by other researchers to identify novel methods to kill ticks and prevent illness in people. "We know people can prevent tick bites through steps like using repellents and tick checks. Although these measures are effective, they aren't fail-proof and people don't always use them," said Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H, director of CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases. "We need to move to a broader approach to tick reduction, involving entire communities, to combat this public health problem." This community approach would involve homeowners trying to kill ticks in their own yards, and communities addressing a variety of issues. These issues include rodents that carry the Lyme disease bacteria, deer that play a key role in the ticks' lifecycle, suburban planning, and the interaction between deer, rodents, ticks, and humans. All must be addressed to effectively fight Lyme disease. Most Lyme disease cases reported to CDC through national surveillance are concentrated heavily in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with 96 percent of cases in 13 states. Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. Typical symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. CDC recommends people take steps to help prevent Lyme disease and other tickborne diseases: Wear repellent Check for ticks daily Shower soon after being outdoors Call your doctor if you get a fever or rash For more information on Lyme disease, visit www.cdc.gov/lyme. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html Tick by tick: Studying Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus carried by ticks Aug. 19, 2013 — When University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers set out to study Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, they faced a daunting challenge. The deadly virus requires biosafety level 4 containment, and it's carried by ticks. That meant that if scientists wanted to study the transmission of the virus, they had to do something that had never been done before: find a way to work safely with the tiny, tough bugs in a maximum containment "spacesuit lab." "It was completely new territory for us," said UTMB assistant professor Dennis Bente, senior author of a paper describing the BSL4 tick work in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology. "Ticks are very small, and in the BSL4 you have two pairs of gloves on, you have this bulky suit, you have the plastic visor -- all these things are a huge handicap. So how do you make sure you contain them?" The answer: step by painstaking step. Bente and his collaborators first attached small "feeding capsules" onto mice, and then placed ticks of a species that carries Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus into the capsules. Unlike mosquitoes that feed quickly and fly off, most ticks attach and feed slowly over the course of several days. Once the ticks were attached and began feeding, they and the mice were moved into a room in the Galveston National Laboratory BSL4 set aside for tick research. There, in a sealed glove box lined with sticky tape to capture any ticks attempting to escape, the mice were inoculated with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus. The feeding-capsule enclosed ticks, each of which, tick by tick, was individually accounted for at every stage of the experiment, then acquired the virus when they fed on the infected mice. "We did hours upon hours of testing to get this system working," Bente said. "We tested different types of sticky tape to determine the one that best inhibited the ticks' mobility, we tried different gloves, we tested the work flow, we checked to see how long a tick could last if you submerge it in disinfectant." (The answer: more than 24 hours) The result, Bente said, is a tool that will give researchers a crucial window into a virtually unknown aspect of one of the world's most widely distributed hemorrhagic fever viruses -- a pathogen responsible for outbreaks from Greece to India to South Africa. "Ticks play such a vital role in the epidemiology of the disease -- they're not only the vector but they are also the reservoir for the virus, yet nobody really knows what's happening to the virus in the ticks, because there's been no way to study it in the laboratory," Bente said. "Now we can look at the complete transmission cycle in a controlled setting, examining how the virus is passed from infected animal to the uninfected tick, and from the infected tick to the uninfected animal. That's something that people studying this in the field haven't been able to do before now." Among other things, the new system will enable the researchers to study the virus' transmission by a variety of tick species. On the list are North American ticks, to investigate the possibility that Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, like West Nile virus, could be introduced into the United States. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: 'You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say' - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html ©2013 marites |

This email was sent to bloggeradmin294.diet-diet@blogger.com. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. View this email on the web here. You can also forward to a friend. Unsubscribe

Powered by Mad Mimi ®