Your Health Blog

Researchers recently discovered that a bacteria, Heliobacter pylori, found in our digestive tracts, actually protects children from developing ashtma.

Ashtma rates have nearly doubled since 1970 and the disappearence of H. pylori may be why. WIth the increased use of antibiotics, H. pylori is becoming less and less prevalent in American stomachs.

Scientist say that the bacteria’s presence triggers the production of Th17, a regulatory cell that deals with foreign bacteria and pollution.

On the flipside H. pylori has also been linked to stomach ulcers and cancers. So it’s good for one aspect of our health but bad for another.

Tasmanian devils may be a thing of the past someday soon. A contagious form of cancer has cut the Tasmanian Devil population in half over the last few years.

This facial tumor disease is fatal to Tasmanian Devils at the age of about 2 years, which is a Tasmanian Devils typical breeding year. However, it seems that Tasmanian Devils are adapting to the disease.

Tasmanian Devils are now found to mate as early as 1 year of age, which may be their last hope to keep their species alive. If the rate of extinction continues Tasmanian Devils could be extinct within a couple decades.

With the Beijing Olympics coming up there has been a lot of talk about how the pollution in China has become very bad. But did you know this little fact. China uses less gasoline than the state of California alone.

Not only that, but California uses more gas than any other country in the world. That’s right, just California. WIth all the alternative fuel acts that California has passed this is a very surprising statistic. California gas consumption has also increased 50% since 1988.

This is all lookin at transportation gas, if you look at oil consumption, China has California beat hands down.

As our climate changes humans become susceptible to different types of disease. As the earth heats up, diseases like malaria become more prevalent. But did you know kidney stones will as well?

Kidney stones are deposits of minerals that form in your bladder. When you’re dehydrated kidney stones are more likely to form. A more hot and humid climate will cause you to become more dehydrated so as the earth heats up, you’re more likely to develop kidney stones.

You’d think you could ward off kidney stones just by telling people to stay hydrated, but it doesn’t work. Most people are only cautious of an imminent threat, not threats that build up over years.

A red blood cell mutation commonly found in people of African descent has been found to cause a 40% increase in people’s likelihood of being infected by HIV. This has caused some scientists to point out that HIV drugs should be created to tailor to this gene mutation.

The mutation causes a lack of chemokines which lack onto the same white blood cell proteins that HIV latches onto. A decrease in chemokines means that HIV has a better chance of latching on to white blood cells in their absence.

New drugs could be formed that could rely on a person’s geneotype. If you have this blood mutation you would get a certain type of drug, if you didn’t you’d get a different type.

This country is absolutely insane about their pets, so it was only a matter of time that owners started to medicate their pets for depression.

A New York Times Magazine article recently pointed out that pets may indeed be feeling the blues, because of us. We’ve created a stressful environment for ourselves that created the need for anti-depressants and now we’ve thrown our pets into this hectic environment.

Sounds like a load of bollocks to me, called me old fashioned if you will.

A small Japanese town, Kamikatsu, has taken drastic measures to reduce its waste. They have stop collecting trash. All organic materials are put into compost and everything else can be taken to a recycling plant.

The town is following the model after other towns had successfully pulled it off. We’ll see if they can do it.

231 species of coral reef sealife have been labelled endangered compared to only 13 species that would have made the list 10 years ago. Explantions for the decline in coral life so far are polution, climate change, and ocean acidification caused by excess CO2 in the environment.

This isn’t just a fish problem as the reefs provide a natural baracade to many towns and cities during storms along the seaside. The annihliation of the coral reefs would spell big trouble for coastal cities.

In April the FDA declared an outbreak of salmonella poisoning had been linked to tomatoes, jalapenos, and Serrano peppers. The FDA just declared that tomatoes are now safe again to eat.

Not that I ever stopped eating any of those foods to start with. I mean, the odds are very low that it’s actually in your tomato, and even if it is, salmonella is a very treatable bacteria. So for those of you who did stop eating these foods, it’s now safe to go back to them.

Russian cosmonauts had to remove an explosive bolt from their space station yesterday. The bolt was supposed to release, but a malfunction caused the bolt to stay on the ship. Leaving the bolt in place would have caused problems for the cosmonauts on reentry, so the explosive bolt had to be removed manually.

In order to get to the bolt the cosmonauts had to cut through the insulating layer of the spacecraft to reach the bolt. They successfully removed the bolt without any problems and the bolt is being stowed away for analysis back on earth.