Archive for September 8th, 2010

Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don’t drink tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren’t entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one’s risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. (See pictures of booze under a microscope.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Carpal tunnel syndrome and gynaecomastia during growth hormone treatment of elderly men with low circulating IGF-I concentrations
by Cohn L, Feller AG, Draper MW, Rudman IW, Rudman D.

Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: We studied the relationship between plasma level of insulin-like growth hormone I (IGF-I), changes in lean body mass and in adipose mass, and adverse side-effects during human growth hormone (hGH) treatment of elderly men who had low IGF-I levels.

DESIGN: The first six months was a period of baseline observation. The subjects were then randomized into two groups so that during months 7-18, men in group I received hGH, and men in group II served as untreated controls.
Read the rest of this entry »

Capacity for Exercise Can Be Inherited: Finding Suggests Pharmaceutical Drugs Can Be Used to Alter Activity Levels in Humans

ScienceDaily – Biologists at the University of California, Riverside have found that voluntary activity, such as daily exercise, is a highly heritable trait that can be passed down genetically to successive generations.

Working on mice in the lab, they found that activity level can be enhanced with “selective breeding” — the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Their experiments showed that mice that were bred to be high runners produced high-running offspring, indicating that the offspring had inherited the trait for activity.

“Our findings have implications for human health,” said Theodore Garland Jr., a professor of biology, whose laboratory conducted the multi-year research. “Down the road people could be treated pharmacologically for low activity levels through drugs that targeted specific genes that promote activity. Pharmacological interventions in the future could make it more pleasurable for people to engage in voluntary exercise. Such interventions could also make it less comfortable for people to sit still for long periods of time.”
Read the rest of this entry »