John Wiens DC

World Health Day April 7th

By John Wiens DC|April 7, 2010|News|

Source CNN

It’s World Health Day on Wednesday, which this year has a special focus on urbanization and health. It’s a theme the World Health Organization (WHO) hopes will highlight the effects urbanization has on the welfare of people who live and work in cities. The campaign will run from 7-11 April with the theme “1000 cities, 1000 lives,” and will look at how the urban environment affects both our collective and individual health.

Six out of 10 people will live in urban areas by 2030, says the WHO, which promotes World Health Day on 7 April each year to commemorate the founding of the organization 62 years ago. Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director General, said: “Cities concentrate threats to health such as inadequate sanitation and refuse collection, pollution, road traffic accidents, outbreaks of infectious diseases and also unhealthy lifestyles.” (more…)

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Browser Performance

By John Wiens DC|April 1, 2010|Computers|

How does yours compare. For the full comparison click here.

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US Health Care Bill

By John Wiens DC|March 22, 2010|Health Care, Health Care Reform|

Source Reuters
Here is a more in depth article from Wikipedia.

WITHIN THE FIRST YEAR OF ENACTMENT

* Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.
* Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
* Young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ health plans until the age of 26. Many health plans currently drop dependents from coverage when they turn 19 or finish college.
* Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.
* A temporary reinsurance program is created to help companies maintain health coverage for early retirees between the ages of 55 and 64. This also expires in 2014.
* Medicare drug beneficiaries who fall into the “doughnut hole” coverage gap will get a $250 rebate. The bill eventually closes that gap which currently begins after $2,700 is spent on drugs. Coverage starts again after $6,154 is spent.
* A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.
* A 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps goes into effect on July 1.

WHAT HAPPENS IN 2011 (more…)

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Scientists Demonstrate Mammalian Regeneration Through a Single Gene Deletion

By John Wiens DC|March 17, 2010|Research|

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2010) — A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander.

In a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from The Wistar Institute demonstrate that mice that lack the p21 gene gain the ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue.

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We’re so good at medical studies that most of them are wrong

By John Wiens DC|March 3, 2010|Research|

Source ars technica

It’s possible to get the mental equivalent of whiplash from the latest medical findings, as risk factors are identified one year and exonerated the next. According to a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, this isn’t a failure of medical research; it’s a failure of statistics, and one that is becoming more common in fields ranging from genomics to astronomy. The problem is that our statistical tools for evaluating the probability of error haven’t kept pace with our own successes, in the form of our ability to obtain massive data sets and perform multiple tests on them. Even given a low tolerance for error, the sheer number of tests performed ensures that some of them will produce erroneous results at random. (more…)

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