What? Blowing your nose is bad for you!

Apparently so...

Blowing one's nose to try and relieve nasal congestion, actually seems to increase and prolong congestion. This is according to a University of Virginia study reported in the NYTimes. They report:

Coughing and sneezing generated little if any pressure in the nasal cavities. But nose blowing generated enormous pressure — “equivalent to a person’s diastolic blood pressure reading,” Dr. Hendley said — and propelled mucus into the sinuses every time. Dr. Hendley said it was unclear whether this was harmful, but added that during sickness it could shoot viruses or bacteria into the sinuses, and possibly cause further infection.

So what are we to do?

The proper method is to blow one nostril at a time and to take decongestants, said Dr. Anil Kumar Lalwani, chairman of the department of otolaryngology at the New York University Langone Medical Center. This prevents a buildup of excess pressure.

Tracking flu outbreaks through Google

Google's philanthropic division has revealed a tool that predicts flu outbreaks across the United States using search trends. The idea is simple: When people get flu-like symptoms, they use search engines like Google to search for information and cures for these symptoms. They've proven, as it can be assumed, that there is a link between the actual number of people having the flu, and the sheer numbers of searches for flu-like symptoms. Turns out that search engine data can actually predict flu outbreaks up to 2 weeks before the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports it. The NY Times has a great picture showing this trend:
So what does 2 more weeks of knowing about an outbreak give us? Why is it important? From their blog:

For epidemiologists, this is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected. If a new strain of influenza virus emerges under certain conditions, a pandemic could emerge and cause millions of deaths (as happened, for example, in 1918). Our up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics and — though we hope never to find out — pandemics.

Here is graph for New Jersey. Looks like we're getting closer to an outbreak... So currently this is limited to the United States, but obviously this can be expanded to other countries as well. It also doesn't have to be limited to the flu. Think of the possibilities: it can be used by health agencies worldwide to prepare for the worst. Apart from the privacy issues, I think its fantastic how collecting search engine data can be used in such a useful way.

Everyone's a hypochondriac nowadays

Someone sneezes near me. Uh oh! Does she have a cold? Is it the flu? No...maybe its just the allergies.

Hmm....Maybe it's serious. Did she travel abroad this past month? Let me get away and take a sip of dayquil anyway!

Thoughts like these run through my head whenever someone displays symptoms. I'm a weird chap anyway. My close friends will tell you I'm always thinking up strange scenarios in my head, conjuring up situations, repeating phrases in my head, repeating dialogues and conversations...That's why I murmur so much! But assuming that perhaps someone has some strange ailment, or something contagious around me is something i feel, I'm not alone in thinking.

Diseases are getting harder to tackle, and outbursts are getting more sporadic in random regions of the world. The world itself, is getting smaller. There are businessmen and Paris Hilton types that could be seen on 3 different continents on the same day. Who knows what they are carrying? I believe that we, as humans, are becoming a lot more panic-stricken when it comes to symptoms and health related issues. Even the smallest of symptoms are dealt with in the most therapeutically tough way. We've overloaded our bodies with antibiotics, so much so, that we're born allergic to them. I, for one, was born allergic to penicillin.

A not so recent NYTimes article about the "Epidemic of Diagnoses" caught my eye last year and I've been meaning to highlight it on this blog. The writes bring another angle to this issue by claiming its the fault of the medical community for over-diagnosing us. We have medicines for the oddest of 'illnesses' now. I remember back home, when one couldn't sleep, you'd count sheep or have a glass of milk. Nowadays, you can take a bunch of drugs promising you 8 hours of distraction free sleep. I watch TV late at night sometimes, and I see commercials for the strangest of ailments, restless leg syndrome, unhappiness, poor sex lives...to name a few. Call me insensitive, but my cure for these would be to get better shoes, adopt a puppy and find a girlfriend, respectively. According to the article there are 2 main reasons for this:

Two developments accelerate this process. First, advanced technology allows doctors to look really hard for things to be wrong. We can detect trace molecules in the blood. We can direct fiber-optic devices into every orifice. And CT scans, ultrasounds, M.R.I. and PET scans let doctors define subtle structural defects deep inside the body. These technologies make it possible to give a diagnosis to just about everybody: arthritis in people without joint pain, stomach damage in people without heartburn and prostate cancer in over a million people who, but for testing, would have lived as long without being a cancer patient.

Second, the rules are changing. Expert panels constantly expand what constitutes disease: thresholds for diagnosing diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and obesity have all fallen in the last few years. The criterion for normal cholesterol has dropped multiple times. With these changes, disease can now be diagnosed in more than half the population.

I think this needs to change. We are pumping our bodies full of drugs, for which we're not 100% certain what the side effects are or what the future implications could be. The writers of the NYTimes article recommends the following... I know most of my peers are usually put of with scientific and health related subjects that I write about, but I strongly encourage us to think about this:

As more of us are being told we are sick, fewer of us are being told we are well. People need to think hard about the benefits and risks of increased diagnosis: the fundamental question they face is whether or not to become a patient. And doctors need to remember the value of reassuring people that they are not sick. Perhaps someone should start monitoring a new health metric: the proportion of the population not requiring medical care. And the National Institutes of Health could propose a new goal for medical researchers: reduce the need for medical services, not increase it.

Why is protein folding so important?

I work in a lab that works, in part, on understanding protein folding and misfolding. I'm not involved in this project, but I still find it fascinating and enjoy talking about it. Being around people who are working on it, is obviously interesting too. Anyway, not everyone in my life, outside of the field understands the complexity of the problem, as the language of scientific discussion can pose a barrier, so I thought I'd break it down as best as I can...

Proteins are essential to life and carry out a multitude of tasks in the body; carry the oxygen you breathe, break down the food you eat, attack antigens that could harm your body etc. Each protein is made up of a specific sequence of amino acids and could range from 10 to 500 amino acids long. Now imagine this: Let's say a protein is 100 amino acids long. Since there are 20 kinds of amino acids, there are 20 choices for every single position on that sequence. Which means that there are 20 choices for the first position, 20 for the next and so on, till all the 100 positions have some amino acid on them. Each amino acid has unique chemical characteristics, ranging from how much it likes water, how many electrons it has, whether it is polar (has a negative and positive charge on it) or not, which give the eventual protein its function. The number of combination's of amino acids to make up a sequence of 100 is a massive number. So much so that my calculator can't figure it out. However, it's fascinating in its own right, how nature and evolution have found 1 specific ideal combination of amino acids for whatever purpose that protein is about.

Anyway, this sequence of specific amino acids now has to fold a specific structure in order to function. In vivo and in vitro, proteins fold on the microsecond timescale or lower. That's crazy. So in a tiny, tiny amount of time, no matter how many times one tries it, this seemingly random sequence of amino acids, fold into a specific structure every single time! Think about it. If you had a thread that was 100 units long, with each unit made up of up to 20 colors, would you be able to fold this thread into a shape within a few microseconds into the same shape every single time?

The picture I have shown above is a cartoon of HIV Protease, a 99 residue long dimer (it is made up of 2 chains), and is an example of a folded protein.

So folding is tough, but why is it important?

Well for one thing, proteins are extremely important for our biological function and it would be great to know exactly how they work. And the protein folding issue was initially considered a theoretical problem but now it has medical implications. When proteins don't fold correctly, or misfold, diseases occur. Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis, Mad Cow disease and some cancers are caused by misfolded proteins. So in order to therapeutically tackle these diseases, it is important to understand why they occur. As a result, understanding the process of folding, and misfolding, will undoubtedly aid us in our quest to cure these diseases.

Forget the gym - I have my six-pack right here

That's right! Well almost....

A recent study by a Danish group has found that the benefits of alcohol and exercise are comparable, when weighed against the risks of heart disease. This study was highlighted in a recent Time article which caught my eye. In their words...

People who don't drink at all and don't exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. Teetotaling exercisers had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes. "There's an additional protective effect to doing both," says Gronbaek. "That's the new finding."

Who said research isn't inspiring?

Indian survey reveals condoms too big

This story must have been the most emailed article of the week. It was forwarded to me by pretty much everyone!

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.

The study found that more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.

I noticed that a bunch of amused Pakistani bloggers had it up on their sites too. Funny part is, if the survey were to be held in Pakistan, I'm sure the results would have been similar. After all, we're the same race right.

Either that, or they already ship smaller sized condoms to us!

E. Coli outbreak at one of my regular eateries

Lucky break for me. This was awfully close to home. An E. Coli outbreak is suspected at the South Plainfield Taco Bell, which I frequent since its the closest one to my residence. It's also a drive through and since my car has died, I haven't gotten to it in the past few weeks. But this was a close shave. This is more of a reminder that I should focus on eating healthy and at home now...

From www.chron.com...

An E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 22 people _ two of them seriously _ was linked by health investigators Monday to three Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey. Investigators also were examining whether an outbreak on Long Island was connected to the fast-food chain.

All but two of the people who fell ill in New Jersey had eaten at one of the fast-food restaurants between Nov. 17 and Nov. 28, authorities said. But exactly what food contained the bacteria was still unclear.

"We have to find the food they all had in common," said David Papi, director of health for Middlesex County.

All but four of the victims are under 18, authorities said.

Five of the New Jersey victims were in the hospital Monday, including two in serious or critical condition with hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can permanently damage the kidneys, officials said.

Twenty of those infected, including two restaurant employees who tested positive for E. coli but did not get sick, ate at a Taco Bell in South Plainfield; another ate at a Taco Bell in Edison; and one ate at a Taco Bell in Franklin Township, authorities said.

In Long Island, an E. coli outbreak sickened at least 14 people, including 10 who ate at Taco Bell. Four restaurants were closed as a precaution in Suffolk County, and Nassau County officials asked that four additional restaurants be closed, health officials said.

Taco Bell Corp., based in Irvine, Calif., had no immediate comment Monday.

The fast food chain closed its South Plainfield restaurant last week when it first appeared that the infection might have come from there. It was not until Monday that suspicion fell on two more Taco Bells.

Company spokesman Rob Poetsch said in a statement over the weekend that employees are required to adhere to strict food-handling rules.

"We have taken every precaution, including temporarily closing the restaurant until the investigation is completed, as nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our customers and employees," Poetsch said.

E. coli, or Escherichia coli, is a common and ordinarily harmless bacteria the feces of humans and livestock, but certain strains can cause abdominal cramps, fever, bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, blindness, paralysis, even death.

Most E. coli infections are associated with undercooked meat. The bacteria also can be found on sprouts or leafy vegetables such as spinach. Earlier this year, three people died and more than 200 fell ill from an outbreak that was traced to packaged spinach grown in California. The bacteria also can be passed from person to person if they do not thoroughly wash their hands after going to the bathroom.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dangerous E. coli strain 0157:H7 infects about 73,000 Americans a year and kills 61.

Symptoms usually show up three to four days after a person eats contaminated food, although in some cases it can be as long as eight days, said Stephanie Brown, an epidemiologist for Middlesex County.

"If they are having symptoms, then the most important thing they need to do is contact their health care provider," Brown said.