Heart Attack Grill
by ilene - August 17th, 2010 1:48 pm
A Meal To Die For, CBS
Looks like an eventual class action suit to me.
H/t Tom Burger
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Recipe for Longevity: No Smoking, Lots of Friends
by ilene - August 1st, 2010 12:41 pm
In case you’re wondering, like I was, whether the meta-analysis excluded suicides, it did. – Ilene
We included in the meta-analysis studies that provided quantitative data regarding individuals’ mortality as a function of social relationships, including both structural and functional aspects. Because we were interested in the impact of social relationships on disease, we excluded studies in which mortality was a result of suicide or injury. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review
Recipe for Longevity: No Smoking, Lots of Friends
By Laura Blue, courtesy of TIME
A healthy social life may be as good for your long-term health as avoiding cigarettes, according to a massive research review released Tuesday by the journal PLoS Medicine.
Researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pooled data from 148 studies on health outcomes and social relationships — every research paper on the topic they could find, involving more than 300,000 men and women across the developed world — and found that those with poor social connections had on average 50% higher odds of death in the study’s follow-up period (an average of 7.5 years) than people with more robust social ties.
That boost in longevity is about as large as the mortality difference observed between smokers and nonsmokers, the study’s authors say. And it’s larger than differences in the risk of death associated with many other well-known lifestyle factors, including lack of exercise and obesity. "This is not just a few studies here and there," says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, lead author on the review and an associate professor of psychology at Brigham Young University. "I’m hoping there will be recognition from the medical community, the public-health community and even the general public about the importance of this."
The friend effect did not appear to vary by sex or by age, with men and women of…
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The Pharma Initiative
by ilene - May 17th, 2010 1:19 pm
Pharmboy discusses Merck, Regeneron, and Vivus and maps out his plans for trading stock and options in these companies. - Ilene
The Pharma Initiative
Courtesy of Pharmboy
Hola fellow PSW subscribers! The week is finally over, and the fluctuations in the market is making many of us jittery. This write up has a few picks for all, one that is conservative, one a bit more risk, and a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants short.
First, let’s take a look at the pharma & biotech sector in comparison to the entire market. The Healthcare Spider (XLV) and now the Biotech Spider (XBI) are now under performing the market. The most logical explanation for this is the passage of the health care bill. If the reimbursement is less, pharma and its compadres will also collect less. Many of the companies have already factored in the hit to earnings, so it is known the ramifications going forward. Drugs will always be needed, as they are one of the scientific advances for extending life (which in turn makes medical care more expensive). The population is not getting any younger, so economies of scale will kick in and increase revenue, giving incremental increases in profit (if it is a well run company). So, on to the picks.
Figure 1. Comparison of XLI & XBI against major market indices.
Merck & Company
Merck & Co. traces its origins to Friedrich Jacob Merck who purchased a drug store in Darmstadt, Germany in 1668; and Emanuel Merck who took over the store several generations later, in 1816. Emanuel and his successors gradually built up a chemical-pharmaceutical factory that produced — in addition to raw materials for pharmaceutical preparations — a multitude of other chemicals.
In 1891, George Merck established his roots in the United States and set up Merck & Co. in NY as the US arm of the family partnership, E. Merck (named for Emanuel Merck), which is now Merck KGaA. Merck & Co. was confiscated in 1917 during World War I and set up as an independent company in the United States. Between the wars and during World War II, the company was led by George W. Merck, who oversaw America’s germ-warfare research at Fort Detrick.
Figure 2. 2010 Merck stock price.
Merck has a broad therapeutic focus, with key products historically positioned within the cardiovascular (Zocor, Cozaar/Hyzaar), infectious diseases, endocrine, respiratory
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Genetic Test Improves Weight Loss Success With Diets
by ilene - March 4th, 2010 1:56 pm
This is an interesting press release from Interleukin Genetics (ILI) about a genetic test that may allow people to better match their diet to their genetics. I admit to a bit of skepticism, but here goes: first background information about the test from Interleukin Genetics’s website, and second, the press release. – Ilene
Weight Management Test
Human obesity arises from the interactions of multiple genes, environmental factors and behaviors, rendering management and prevention of obesity very challenging. According to WHO, lack in physical activity and easy availability of palatable foods are the principle modified characteristic of our modern lifestyle that has contributed a lot to the observed obesity worldwide. Despite the fact that we are all exposed to the same environment, not everyone becomes obese. This could be attributed to individual genetic differences. Genetics determines an individual’s susceptibility to obesity when exposed to an unfavorable environment as well as the way he/she can respond to diet and exercise. There have been multiple reports that describe the heritability of obesity and also utilize genetic association studies to identify the gene-gene, gene environment and gene-diet interactions involved in the development of obesity. These studies have identified a certain number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that respond to diet and/or exercise. For example, some SNPs make some people more sensitive to the amount of fat in the diet, while others make some people more resistant to exercise-induced weight loss.
Interleukin Genetics has developed a genetic test panel in the area of Weight Management (WM), which includes the genes that have been validated as significant modifiers of body weight and responsiveness to diet and exercise. The genes were selected from the Obesity Gene Map Database based on a comprehensive review of the existing scientific literature using very stringent selection criteria by a team of experts from genetics, nutrition, obesity and weight management areas.
The following process was used to develop the Weight Management genetic test panel:
- Dr. Louis Perusse, one of the authors of the Obesity Gene Map review (4), provided a list of all genetic variations that were associated with body weight, body mass index, or body fat and had been replicated in at least three clinical studies. Out of hundreds of genes reported in the scientific literature relative to obesity, only 16 met this first criterion.
- A team of experts then reviewed all evidence on the 16 gene variations
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Obese People Have ‘Severe Brain Degeneration’
by ilene - August 26th, 2009 1:00 am
A twinkie, a donut, a tragedy.
Obese People Have ‘Severe Brain Degeneration’
By LiveScience Staff, LiveScience.com
A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.
Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years.
The results, based on brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent "severe brain degeneration," said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology.
"That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack the brain," said Thompson. "But you can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s, if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control."
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site