Slow Food: Can You Eat Well and Save the World?

By LISA ABEND Friday, Oct. 29, 2010

A man holds tomatoes at the Salone del Gusto gastronomy fair on Oct. 22, 2010

Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images

At midday on Oct. 23, some 300 young people sat down to eat in a shopping mall in Turin, Italy. But instead of the usual food-court fare of burgers and Cinnabons, lunch for these mostly 20-somethings consisted of rice-and-broccoli salad, stewed sweet potatoes and hand-chopped beef tartare — all of it served on recyclable paper plates draped with raw kale leaves. If that seems a surprisingly wholesome meal for the setting, that's kind of the point: the "eat-in," organized by the Youth Food Movement — an arm of the Slow Food organization — was devised in part as a protest against fast food. "By doing this and by making Slow Food work, we're saying no to the industrial food that most people are forced to eat," says Gabriel Vidolin, a 21-year-old Brazilian chef who helped prepare the meal./.../

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2027978,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily#ixzz13kWHN0js

Dra. Valderês Robinson Achutti: 50 anos de Medicina

Dra. Valderês, minha esposa e AMICOR, comemora com seus colegas de turma Jubileu de Ouro de Medicina.
Além de nosso amor de quase 60 anos e nossos filhos, agradeço a ela ter me seduzido para a Medicina e me acompanhado como parceira no exercício profissional.

Drug Reverses Age-Related Memory Loss in Mice

Promising Drug Candidate Reverses Age-Related Memory Loss in Mice

ScienceDaily (Oct. 13, 2010) — Researchers at the University of Edinburgh report a new experimental compound that can improve memory and cognitive function in aging mice. The compound is being investigated with a view to developing a drug that could slow the natural decline in memory associated with aging.

Many people find they become more forgetful as they get older and we generally accept it as a natural part of the aging process. Absent mindedness and a difficulty to concentrate are not uncommon, it takes longer to recall a person's name, and we can't remember where we left the car keys. These can all be early signs of the onset of dementia, but for most of us it's just part of getting old.With support from a Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery award, the team has identified a preclinical candidate that they hope to take into human trials within a year.

Such memory loss has been linked with high levels of 'stress' steroid hormones known as glucocorticoids which have a deleterious effect on the part of the brain that helps us to remember. An enzyme called 11beta-HSD1 is involved in making these hormones and has been shown to be more active in the brain during aging.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the team reports the effects of a new synthetic compound that selectively blocks 11beta-HSD1 on the ability of mice to complete a memory task, called the Y maze.

Professor Jonathan Seckl from the University of Edinburgh, who discovered the role of 11beta-HSD1 in the brain, described the findings: "Normal old mice often have marked deficits in learning and memory just like some elderly people. We found that life-long partial deficiency of 11beta-HSD1 prevented memory decline with aging. But we were very surprised to find that the blocking compound works quickly over a few days to improve memory in old mice suggesting it might be a good treatment for the already elderly."

The effects were seen after only 10 days of treatment.

Professor Brian Walker and Dr Scott Webster from the University of Edinburgh are leading the drug development programme. Professor Walker added: "These results provide proof-of-concept that this class of drugs could be useful to treat age-related decline in memory. We previously showed that carbenoxolone, an old drug that blocks multiple enzymes including 11beta-HSD1, improves memory in healthy elderly men and in patients with type 2 diabetes after just a month of treatment, so we are optimistic that our new compounds will be effective in humans. The next step is to conduct further studies with our preclinical candidate to prove that the compound is safe to take into clinical trials, hopefully within a year."

The 11beta-HSD1 enzyme has also been implicated in metabolic diseases including diabetes and obesity by the Edinburgh team, and similar drugs that block its activity outside of the brain are already under investigation.

This study was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council (MRC). The drug development programme in Edinburgh is supported by a Seeding Drug Discovery award from the Wellcome Trust.

Dr Rick Davis of the Wellcome Trust commented: "Developing drugs that can selectively inhibit this enzyme has been a challenge to the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 10 years. Advancing this compound towards clinical trials takes us a step closer to finding a drug that could have far reaching implications as the population ages."

Journal Reference:

1. Karen Sooy, Scott P. Webster, June Noble, Margaret Binnie, Brian R. Walker, Jonathan R. Seckl, and Joyce L. W. Yau. Partial Deficiency or Short-Term Inhibition of 11β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 1 Improves Cognitive Function in Aging Mice. Journal of Neuroscience, 2010; 30: 13867-13872 DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2783-10.2010

Exercise And Mental Stimulation Both Boost Mouse Memory Late In Life (Aug. 6, 2007) — Physical exercise is known to be good for the aging brain, but what about mental stimulation? Does enrichment that helps older people work well for the young and middle-aged, or do they need ...  > read more

What Is Epigenetics?

Science 29 October 2010: Vol. 330. no. 6004, p. 611 DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6004.611

INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUE

INTRODUCTION:

What Is Epigenetics?

Guy Riddihough and Laura M. Zahn

The cells in a multicellular organism have nominally identical DNA sequences (and therefore the same genetic instruction sets), yet maintain different terminal phenotypes. This nongenetic cellular memory, which records developmental and environmental cues (and alternative cell states in unicellular organisms), is the basis of epi-(above)–genetics.

The lack of identified genetic determinants that fully explain the heritability of complex traits, and the inability to pinpoint causative genetic effects in some complex diseases, suggest possible epigenetic explanations for this missing information. This growing interest, along with the desire to understand the"deprogramming" of differentiated cells into pluripotent/totipotent states, has led to "epigenetic" becoming shorthand for many regulatory systems involving DNA methylation, histone modification,nucleosome location, or noncoding RNA. This is to be encouraged, but the labeling of nongenetic systems as epigenetic by default has the potential to confuse (see the related video atwww.sciencemag.org/special/epigenetics/).

So what is epigenetics? An epigenetic system should be heritable, self-perpetuating, and reversible (Bonasio et al., p. 612). Whether histone modifications (and many noncoding RNAs) are epigenetic is debated; it is likely that relatively few of these modifications or RNAs will be self-perpetuating and inherited. Looking beyond DNA-associated molecules, prions (infectious proteins) are clearly epigenetic, perpetuating themselves through altered folding states. These states can act as sensors of environmentalstress and, through the phenotypic changes they promote, potentially drive evolution (Halfmann and Lindquist, p.629).

All-TIME 100 Gadgets

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    Select a SectionIntroductionEntertainmentComputingCommunicationLifestyleCamerasHomeHealthFive Gadgets Ahead of Their TimePoll Results

FROM LEFT: NOVATEL WIRELESS; GETTY IMAGES; NIKON; GETTY IMAGES

TIME technology editor Peter Ha picks the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the presentMore »

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2023689,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily#ixzz13T8vXdnR

Informações úteis

Três informações úteis enviadas pela AMICOR 

Maria Ines Azambuja

    1. Cópia da Certidão de Nascimento, ou de Casamento, não precisa mais ir até um cartório,
    O Cartório Eletrônico, já está no ar! www.cartorio24horas.com.br
    Nele você resolve essas (e outras) burocracias, 24 horas por dia, on-line.
    Cópias de certidões de óbitos,imóveis, e protestos também podem ser solicitados pela internet.
    Para pagar é preciso imprimir um boleto bancário. Depois, o documento chega por Sedex.
     2. AUXÍLIO À LISTA
    Telefone 102... não!  Agora é: 08002800102
       NA CONSULTA AO 102, PAGAMOS R$ 1,20 PELO SERVIÇO.
    3. Documentos roubados - BO (boletim de occorrência) gratuito - Lei 3.051/98. Muita gente não sabe que esta Lei nos dá o direito de em caso de roubo ou furto (mediante a apresentação do Boletim de Ocorrência), gratuidade na emissão da 2ª via de tais documentos

como:
    Habilitação (R$ 42,97);
    Identidade (R$ 32,65);
    Licenciamento Anual de Veículo (R$ 34,11).
    Para conseguir a gratuidade, basta levar uma cópia
(não precisa ser autenticada) do Boletim de Ocorrência e o original ao
Detran p/ Habilitação e Licenciamento e outra cópia à um posto do IFP.

Diabetes Rates Expected to Soar

By Alice Park Friday, October 22, 2010 |

MARK HARMEL

Experts have been projecting a rise in diabetes cases for years now,owing largely to the growing number of overweight and obese

individuals, who are at higher risk of developing the disease.
But never before have the numbers soared this high—according
to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of Americans
with diabetes will likely triple by 2050.

Currently, one in 10 adults has diabetes, a condition in which
the body is unable to properly process the sugars found in food
without the help of insulin injections. That number may climb
to 33% of the adult population in a few decades./.../

Galaxy is most distant object yet

The faintest of faint dots - a signal from the edge of the observable Universe

A tiny faint dot in a Hubble picture has been confirmed as the most distant galaxy ever detected in the Universe.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

If you look at the object in the Hubble image, it really isn't much”

Matt LehnertObservatoire de Paris

This collection of stars is so far away its light has taken more than 13 billion years to arrive at Earth./.../

Kids and Mental Health

Keeping Young Minds Healthy

By JEFFREY KLUGER Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010

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TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD FOR TIME

Bethany hated fifth grade. She didn't much care for sixth, seventh or eighth either, but fifth grade was when the trouble really started.

Fifth grade was the year Bethany started to notice boys — and to wonder if she was noticing them quite enough. The girls she knew were already swooning over Kirk Cameron, Michael J. Fox and other teen heartthrobs of the day. She was swooning too, she guessed, but in the same way her friends were? And what about when it came time to kiss a real boy in her own world? Would she want to?
Tales of boys and girls who doubt their sexual stirrings this way often end with their discovering — and eventually embracing — the fact that they're gay. But Bethany (not her real name) wasn't gay, and she knew it instinctively, even if she doubted it constantly. Her anxiety grew from an increasingly common form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in which people who may have no moral or cultural qualms about homosexuality suddenly begin despairing of the possibility of ever knowing with blood-test certainty just what their sexuality is. Uncertainty is the fuel for OCD, and the harder a sufferer tries to answer the unanswerable, the hotter the obsessional bonfire burns./.../

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2026672_2026712,00.html#ixzz135yVPPBN

Perspective

Why Health Care Is Going Home

Steven H. Landers, M.D., M.P.H.

October 20, 2010 (10.1056/NEJMp1000401)

Article

References

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Buffalo, New York,1 acutely ill patients have been sent out of the emergency department for hospital-like care at home. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Little Rock, Arkansas, home health agencies provide chronic care management services, emphasizing care coordination and support for patients' management of their own conditions. In San Diego, California, physicians arrive at patients' homes with a new version of the black bag that includes a mobile x-ray machine and a device that can perform more than 20 laboratory tests at the point of care. Several engineering and electronics companies have developed products for monitoring health at home. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is experimenting with Internet videoconferencing to permit virtual visits from patients' homes.

In my Cleveland Clinic practice, I work in my patients' homes, using a cellular broadband connection to the same electronic record system used by my colleagues in offices and hospitals. I learn practical information about my patients' medications, management of chronic illnesses, and nutrition and check in on how their caregivers are coping. Patients often see the home visit as a gesture of caring, and many of my older patients express nostalgia for an era when house calls were common. Hundreds of other U.S. physicians are also emphasizing home-based care, many of them now as members of the American Academy of Home Care Physicians./.../

Save our cities

Appointed by the AMICOR Maria Ines Reinert Azambuja

Nature

 

467 ,

 

883–884

 

(21 October 2010)

 

doi:10.1038/467883b

Published online

 

20 October 2010

Scientists researching problems such as water management should focus more on urban areas.

Subject terms:

• Society
• Research community

Article tools

• 

Scientists are city people. More than one-tenth of the workforce in the Washington DC metropolitan area are scientists and engineers. Beijing has more than 160,000 professionals in research and development. Worldwide, resources such as universities and researchers are concentrated in urban areas. So why do so many scientists ignore the needs of our cities? It is time to encourage scientists and universities to pay more attention to urban areas, and Nature this week includes a package of articles about researchers and cities (see page 899)/.../.

C. Diff No Match for Cheap Spice

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: October 19, 2010 Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner SAN ANTONIO -- A component of the inexpensive curry spice turmeric may help ward off infection withClostridium difficile in hospitals, researchers said here. Curcumin -- the active ingredient in the spice turmeric -- inhibited the growth of various strains of C. difficile in vitro, according to Rattan Patel, MD, of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and colleagues. "It's likely that daily use of turmeric in hospital settings, in food products like curry or soup, can potentially decrease the incidence of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea," Patel said at the American College of Gastroenterology meeting./.../

Second earth will soon be needed

http://www.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/10/wwf-second-earth-needed/1
The over-use and pollution of Earth's natural resources have become so extreme that, at current rates, a second planet will be needed by 2030 to meet the world's needs, a new report warns.
The planet's 6.8 billion people were living 50% beyond Earth's sustainable means in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the biannual "Living Planet" report by WWF, a conservation group previously known as the World Wildlife Fund./.../

Biodiversity and World Heritage

World Heritage magazine devotes issue 56 to Biodiversity and World Heritage 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, and the 10th Conference of Parties to the Biodiversity Convention has just begun in Nagoya, Japan. With the latest news on biodiversity and World Heritage sites, issue 56 of World Heritage focuses on: §  Synergies between World Heritage sites and key biodiversity areas §  Kew Gardens (UK) – from a royal garden to a global botanic resource §  Marine World Heritage §  Climate change §  Cultural diversity and biodiversity §  Western Ghats (India): biodiversity, endemism and conservation To see the issue, click on the e-version below: §  English §  French §  Spanish World Heritage is UNESCO’s quarterly magazine featuring in-depth articles, news reports and key interviews with the people behind the preservation and management of the world's most outstanding sites. Stunning photographs present monuments, cities, natural parks and landscapes from around the globe. This magazine is particularly designed to reflect and enhance UNESCO’s dedication to World Heritage sites: our legacy from the past, our responsibility for the present and our duty to future generations.

Social Capital and Mental Health

Social Capital and Mental Health in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis

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• Metrics
• Related Content

1 Organisation for the Promotion of Project Research, Shimane University, Matsue, Japan, 2 Department of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, Shimane University School of Medicine, Izumo, Japan, 3 Division of Public Policy, School of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan, 4 Department of General Studies, Akashi National College of Technology, Akashi, Japan, 5 Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of AmericaTsuyoshi Hamano^1,2*, Yoshikazu Fujisawa³, Yu Ishida⁴, S. V. Subramanian⁵, Ichiro Kawachi⁵, Kuninori Shiwaku²

Abstract Top

Background

A national cross-sectional survey was conducted in Japan. This is because the growing recognition of the social determinants of health has stimulated research on social capital and mental health. In recent years, systematic reviews have found that social capital may be a useful factor in the prevention of mental illness. Despite these studies, evidence on the association between social capital and mental health is limited as there have been few empirical discussions that adopt a multilevel framework to assess whether social capital at the ecological level is associated with individual mental health. The aim of this study was to use the multilevel approach to investigate the association between neighborhood social capital and mental health after taking into account potential individual confounders./.../