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You are 100% correct. I passed out in boot camp because I was overhydrated. The Drill Instructors kept having me drink water and the symptoms wouldn't go away. I eventually pissed myself and passed out in the chow line. That's when they realized what was really wrong and the simple solution was to wait it out. It could have been much worse though. I don't really believe that they were ignorant either, it's just that the symptoms are so similar, and recruits more commonly suffer dehydration than superhydration. People also do this to themselves purposefully to get a high, although that may also be an urban legend in itself.

One factor in prospensity to cirrhosis seems to be how much coffee you drink ("at least two cups daily can translate to...an 80% drop in liver cirrhosis risk" - http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/80/96454.htm ). One instance where two "wrongs" do make a right?

Is this news to just e.g. the US or what? Because it has been quite established that moderate alcohol may not be enough to cause the ill effects, while preserving the good ones, like reduced blood pressure.

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/94/102702.htm

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/104/107515.ht m
^-- Just included for the fun factor when comparing with the above from the same site :-)
(note that it also claims it's healthy in "moderate amounts" though)

Is this news to just e.g. the US or what? Because it has been quite established that moderate alcohol may not be enough to cause the ill effects, while preserving the good ones, like reduced blood pressure.

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/94/102702.htm

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/104/107515.ht m
^-- Just included for the fun factor when comparing with the above from the same site :-)
(note that it also claims it's healthy in "moderate amounts" though)

arthrograms

You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

According to the Center for On-Line Addiction, warning signs for video game addiction include:

* Playing for increasing amounts of time
* Thinking about gaming during other activities
* Gaming to escape from real-life problems, anxiety, or depression
* Lying to friends and family to conceal gaming
* Feeling irritable when trying to cut down on gaming

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

Marijuana Unlikely to Cause Head, Neck, or Lung Cancer
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_57309

Wow. You have my admiration. Weight loss is so hard because it requires lifestyle changes. Coupled to depression, it is even harder.

I do not know whether depression manifests as physical pain, but I am sure about the phenomena being related. Depression makes pain worse, and pain makes depression worse. Sleep is in the mix, too. Irregular sleep makes depression and pain worse. Depression and pain make sleep more difficult. They are all so coupled that it is difficult to parse causes and effects.

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/81/96896.htm

What you have done is commendable. It is difficult in ways that are difficult to recognize because it requires so many examinations and changes. How do I eat? How do I sleep? How do I spend my waking hours outside work? How do I make permanent changes to all of these aspects of my life to align them with my goals. I wish you the best in continuing it.

That's already a problem!

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/107/108476.ht m

Diet soda is more about marketing.

Switching to chemical drinks or chemical food will not magically make you loose weight. If it did, you should be alarmed.

If your body/mind craves sugar/fat, and you give it fake sugar or fake fat, not only will it taste bad, but your body/mind will find other foods to make up for the false foods.

Moderation would be the key thing to learn. If you switch to diet soda, and then find your self up-sizing to the half-gallon diet soda, then obviously you have not figured out moderation.

I don't know if this new drink is just the latest fake food from coke, but I am pretty sure it's not going to magically make skinny people.

As far as I know, there has never been a study that shows that Diet soda leads to weight loss.

But the opposite has been shown.

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/107/108476.ht m

Are you being treated for your Asperger's?

i didn't infer that the parent was exclusively referring to tobacco.

there are other things to smoke.. such as cannabis, perhaps? (yes, there might be other long-term health risks, but apparently cancer isn't one one of them)

This also brings us closer to the day when we can re-program our brains to a desired previous state. This is something you might want to do after (for example) learning Esperanto or how to speak very fluent Klingon, when you start to think that Jon Katz news items make perfect sense, having gone to see "Gigli" or "Star Trek 10", having seen the Goatse image one too many times (once is too much!) or getting infected with an embarassing Olivia Newton-John earworm: things you'd really not have in your wetware. Perhaps Symantec should roll out a new version of Norton Ghost. One that uses real ghosts, this time.

That would be a triathlon ... I'll stick to training for the pizza toss and computer unplugging biathlon for the 2008 Fall Games in Texas.

Let's get some facts straight. Here's a site I found: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004395.html

Some European countries are falling, like Germany and Italy, and they have negative growth rates. The United States, however, has a 0.9% growth rate. We're getting bigger, not smaller.

Now, I might have seen the problem with your math. Keep in mind that, in 2004, 36% of all babies were born to single women. http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/114/111283.ht m

Why are we lead to believe that birth rates are too low? Because in our welfare/social security society, we need more workers than retired people. That's why Europe and Japan are all in a fluster. If less tax money is coming in, governments have to shrink. They don't like that.

Of what? He's only 39, at the mid-point of (U.S.) life expectancy.

Maybe you mean this. In that case, he's died many times. Usually from rockets, but the chainsaw or even plain fists is sometimes fun.

Okay, first off, the person who said "just stop caring" and all the people who modded him up are idiots.

Panic and Anxiety disoreders are not a joke. They are a poorly understood physiological problem that is (as you discovered) way unpleasant.

I'm guessing the special process includes a medical and/or psychiatric examination, but if not, hie thyself off to a doctor.

Don't associate it with the test --- it's not actually all that highly correlated with stress. I had a panic attack, my first one, in church during a boring sermon.

There's a good page on panic attacks at Web MD.

For all this discussion has focused on the "debate" about global warming, if you think that political interference is limited to environmental science, you're missing a very, very big picture.

Let me start off by saying that scientific advancement is not a left-right issue, and should never be viewed through the narrow prism of party politics. However, the United States has fallen into a (man-made) rut of EVERYTHING being split down partisan lines (even national security, even voting integrity, even scientific research) so that is the playing field we are on, whether we like it or not. Wedge politics infect every issue now.

Under this administration, the religious right has exerted undue influence over decisions ranging from:

• blocking OTC access to emergency contraceptives
• stalling approval of a vaccine for HPV which would prevent cervical cancer
• censoring vital information about sex by imposing abstinence-only education on teens
• forcing doctors by law to peddle phony information about a phony link between abortion and breast cancer

(source article for that list, a must-read)

And without going on a daylong linkhunt, they are passing bad information about condom effectiveness, intimidating non-profit organizations which do not toe the party line on reproductive issues, and denying USAID funds to overseas orgs which even mention abortion, or distribute condoms as part of family planning efforts. (Imagine sending $15B to Africa to fight AIDS without distributing or even even mentioning condoms! Talk about throwing good money away...It's like fighting fires without water, it's that foolish.)

And don't even let's discuss the bi-partisan support for embryonic stem cell research which has been effectively neutered under this administration. Or the medical expertise of Dr. Bill Frist in the case of a braindead woman he never examined, or his patently absurd claim that AIDS may be transmitted via tears and sweat.

Sadly, I could document this sort of war on objective science all day, but I think I've made my point. It infests the policy debate over far more than global warming, and if you think there's no difference between the parties on this, you're sadly, tragically mistaken.

Apparently anyone born after 1965 and before 1980 needed/needs to get revaccinated (when they went to the 2 dose vaccinne for MMR). Although the "R" part of the vaccine wasn't in place until 1969. When I went to grad school at GaTech in 1991 (sigh), I had to get revaccinated because the vaccines back then apparently didn't last. I asked for and received an official explanation at the time. So, what we have is anyone over 25 and under 41 didn't get a strong enough/long lasting vaccine. Those under 25 probably didn't get a booster. In general: anyone under 41 is most likely NOT vaccinated against MMR. As a side-bar: Rubella was declared eliminated in the U.S. last year (WebMD).

Although, depending on how much you use your computer, it may be cheaper than having children.
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/98/104676.htm ?z=1728_00000_1000_nb_01

Would you mind relaying to me which stem cell trials are curing paralysis?

Like one? It's not perfect, as the article points out, but it's working for some people, which seems to satisfy your criteria.

I'll just ignore the baiting in the "in a healthy environment" part, given that children raised by same sex couples grow up equally well socially adjusted to the general population. Instead, I'm going to just focus on your comment about "violating its very purpose".

In 1995, 4.1 million women in America were "voluntarily childless". Double this to get the total number of people. The trend has been continually rising - almost three times the percentage as in 1982. 18.4% of married childbearing-age women have no children. Where's your self-righteous rage at them?

What percentage of Americans are gay? That number is highly contentuous (and partly depends on definitions), but usually ranges between 1% and 10%, usually around 2% of adults in a same sex relationship at a given point in time. Lets say that 1.5% of Americans are in a long-term (marriage-equivalent) same sex relationship. That's 4.2 million people. Hardly a staggering number compared to the 8.2 people in 1995 (probably near 10 million now) who are voluntarily childless, and the many millions more who are involuntarily childless.

At a more fundamental level, "violating its purpose". So, when your children are raised, is it time for a divorce? No? Then it's not solely about raising children. But even if it was, same sex couples who raise children have the exact same *purpose* as straight couples.

The supposed "link" between the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine and autism, based on the notion that the mercury in MMR causes autism, has been studied over and over again. NO credible studies have turned up any links. The one famous study in the Lancet that *did* allege a link turned out to have falsified data. Do the reading here, here, and here.

Despite the clear research, my wife gets several patients per year whose parents have been "educated" by reading anti-vaccine junk on the Web. As a result, they refuse to vaccinate their kids. That's nutty. I'm all in favor of reducing environmental risks, but avoiding vaccines is not an effective route to doing so. The diseases that vaccines protect against are far more likely to be dangerous to a child than any supposed benefit obtained by avoiding vaccines.

Secondly, you cannot expect me to accept "I work in the scientific community" when you provide no credentials to me whatsoever. If you intend to have a debate with me on this, and you are so confident in your scientific qualifications, why not forgo the anonymous coward route?

Onto the "meat and potatoes" of your post (if you will)...
"The study suggests that there is no substantial risk of acoustic neuroma in the first decade after starting mobile phone use. However, an increase in risk after longer term use or after a longer lag period could not be ruled out." -- This is the last line of your first source, did you even read this? The risk increases were marginal, and could be ruled as coincidental. It's also important to note that acoustic neuroma is neither a brain tumor, nor a cancer. (Also, it's rather bothersome to me that none of your reports are full-text, how can I draw accurate judgment of your sources without full text? That is like reviewing a book by reading its sleeve.)

You extol Alasdair Philips as an expert and one who is qualified to make conclusions about the dangers of EMF and microwave affects on people, yet he doesn't seem to be a doctor, and the medical condition he speaks of isn't listed on WebMD or Wikipedia leading me to think that it's likely a farce. In fact, if one takes even a short browse of his website, they will find several dubious looking things, all of which are enough to evoke the skepticism of someone of such esteemed scientific credentials as yourself.

You scoff at me for talking about the EMF of other devices and state that they only operate on the 50-60 Hz frequency range, and from that I can deduce that you mean to tell me that this frequency range is not dangerous to humans however, the man you speak of as being some sort of expert on the subject has posted a number of papers on how living under or near power lines can raise cancer risk.

And finally, you cannot tell me that "money-grabbing wacky organizations" cannot get significant coverage on large networks. In the United States, every news network in the entire country has covered right-wing religious organizations and their attempts at banning the teaching of evolution to children in schools and its replacement with the pseudo-scientific hokum that is "intelligent design." These groups have not only gotten coverage from media outlets, but they have even received what could be considered positive coverage by some. Extreme and sensationalist points of view make good news, they entertain people and they get more viewers, it's not at all surprising that your news outlets covered Mr. Philips for this reason.

Your argument holds very little water, while you're correct on two things: that it has not been unquestionably proven that EMF does not cause cancer, and we are being exposed to more microwaves than ever before, you fail to provide any proof that Alasdair Philips is anything more than a opportunistic hack, or that microwave EMF causes cancer. Your subsequent source postings are lackluster google attempts at finding something to back up your assertions and, perhaps worst of all, it seems that the goal of your post was simply to insult me. You can walk around in

My eyedoc told me this:

reading in low light causes your eyes to strain. It is similar to trying to read blurry words. Or to stare for a long time at something too far away or small. eye strain can cause eye fatigue. This can cause some short term blurring of the vision but will not cause vision loss. Nor will sitting too close to the tv:

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/64/72257.htm

I found this article on WebMd particularly insightful into the "imminent" pandemic. I'm sure that you will agree that all of the publicity surrounding bird flu is an attempt to create a climate of fear in the United States. Please read what the doctors say in "Bird Flu: 10 Questions, 10 Answers": http://www.webmd.com/content/article/113/110741.ht m

Certain alcoholic drinks, like red wine, contain substances that do offer health benefits. But the alcohol does not.

Or maggots! http://my.webmd.com/content/article/94/102721.htm
http://www.larve.com/Images/ mmmm tasty!

Look at that snippet. What does it involve?

• Metrics contrasting 1996 vs. 2003, which are pretty much useless for drawing conclusions about the consequences of the Bayh-Dole Act - which was passed in 1980 and took effect in 1981. In case you're really not following this, I'll spell it out for you: they might have instead compared the period before the Bayh-Dole Act took effect vs. the period after the Bayh-Dole Act took effect. That would have been a little more insightful.

• Some unrelated metrics about the death rates for diabetics in 1977 vs. today. Last I checked, diabetes was not the kind of disease that we control with drugs, but with supplements of the natural hormone called "insulin." Weight loss and diet are also crucial factors, and coincidentally, both weight and diet have gotten much worse in America over the past 25 years. My point is that death rates for diabetics have little or nothing to do with the productivity (or any facet) of the pharmaceutical industry.

• A spurious quote about patients with neurological conditions anxiously awaiting new drugs. This is where Fortune really loses its grip on reality. Consider:
  • Alzheimer's: link - "For some people in the early and middle stages of the disease, the drugs tacrine (Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), or galantamine (Razadyne, previously known as Reminyl) may help prevent some symptoms from becoming worse for a limited time. Another drug, memantine (Namenda), has been approved to treat moderate to severe AD, although it also is limited in its effects."

  • Parkinson's: link - here is a list of 16 drugs that are useful for treating Parkinson's. Many of these are pretty recent, if my memory is correct.

  • Multiple sclerosis: link - five new drugs are on the market for treating MS. In fact, these drugs are amazing - a weekly injection of Avonex essentially halts and reverses the progression of MS. I have personally witnessed this with a family member.

  In other words, we have great new drugs for all three conditions. The fact that Fortune tried to bolster its argument with a comment that is so demonstrably false is indicative of its overall sloppiness.

• A factoid about the efficacy of new cancer drugs. This doesn't change the fact that we have 71 new cancer drugs on the market since 1990, which, in fact, seems like quite a brisk pace of inventing new drugs. More importantly, the factoid suggests that 53 of the drugs don't have improved survival benefits - might they have other benefits, like reduced side effects, easier administration, etc.? (If not, then why is the FDA approving them?

- David Stein

I try and drink 2 glasses of Tea a day. Also try blueberries. Boysenberries taste great but aren't listed.

Oh yeah , Vitamins may not work and make corporations rich.
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/08/05/do_vi tamin_pills_really_work.php

List of most powerful antioxidant fruit and vegetable.
http://www.mdsupport.org/library/antiox.html

http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/104/107639.htm

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/supplements/a/anti oxidants.htm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5489179/

I don't want to respond to intelligent, useful questions like these with a variation of "Google it, you @#?!". However, if one readjusts one's information resources for the fact that one is searching for disease info, it is still practical to read the FAQ and use a search engine.

Context-based ads, of course

Great... clippy for IM only more effective.

"It looks like you are chatting about your boss during business hours! Would you like to check out this site?"

"It looks like you are chatting about STDs. Perhaps this or this might interest you."

This seems like the right time to toss in a line about welcoming our new overlords or something.

"The bottom line is we see three things," Kieffer tells WebMD. One is short-term change toward more aggressive behavior. Two, there are gender differences: Boys play more often and they are more likely to be at risk of behavior changes. And three, some more vulnerable kids are drawn to these games -- kids who are already more violent, and those with low self-esteem."

Committee on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media: Elizabeth Carll, PhD, and Dorothy Singer, EdD co-chairs; Craig Anderson, PhD, Brad Bushman, PhD, Karen Dill, PhD and Lilli Friedland, PhD.

Exercise generally does squat to retain or build bone mass. NASA research has been indicating that it's the vibrations which occur while you're exercising that actually stimulate the bone growth.

http://www.nasa.gov/lb/vision/earth/everydaylife/w eak_knees.html

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/34/1728_85890

http://www.galileo2000.nl/home/Eng-galileo.htm

Astronauts will still have to do exercise to keep from losing excessive muscles but in the future we'll just vibrate them a bit while they're in orbit to keep them from losing bone density.

"Does anybody have some links?"

Sure, here's a few after a quick Googling. I'm sure there are better ones, but I don't have time to find them right now.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_56903. htm
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/54/65223.htm
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/Vide o_Game_FAQs.html
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers /walsh.html
http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html

"Does anybody have some links?"

Sure, here's a few after a quick Googling. I'm sure there are better ones, but I don't have time to find them right now.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_56903. htm
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/54/65223.htm
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/Vide o_Game_FAQs.html
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers /walsh.html
http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html

http://www.webmd.com/ is pretty good.

Bad news, someone already beat you to the punch.

Drink water and unsweetened tea or coffee as Diet Soda causes people to gain weight.

I thought I was going to have to get circumcised.

... when button-style ads were the only ads. A small 160x90px button that linked somewhere. Maybe the button was flashy, maybe it was Spartan, maybe nobody clicked it.

The internet started as a mostly academic venture. The early adopters of most internet protocols (Gopher, email, NNTP, even HTTP) were government agencies and universities. If I lost free access to http://www.webmd.com/, I'd live. The truly good sites are the primarily free sites, such as http://www.wikipedia.com/. If the internet moved away from corporatization, it'd be better (like it was in the olden days). No spam, no ads, no crap, no millions of business websites that add no value to the global community. In other words, aside from the folk at DoubleClick losing their jobs, who really loses out here?

There's actually been a fair amount of studies done on optimal sleep lengths.. but it really varies a lot from person to person, and also varies as people age. 8-9 hours is generally accepted as a healthy length for most people to sleep at night.

WebMD has some good advice about finding your optimal sleep length:
"Starting on a Sunday, do not drink alcohol or caffeine; do not smoke; go to sleep about the same time every night; and get an uninterrupted seven to eight hours of sleep for the next six nights. Then, on Saturday morning, sleep in. See how long your body will let you sleep. If you sleep longer than you did during the week -- then you have a sleep debt. So you should consider getting more sleep each night to replenish that sleep debt."

"We must remember that Darwins theory is just that, AN UNPROVEN THEORY"

How do you think we got the modern crop of super bacteria resistant to our anti-biotics? Super bugs as they are called in the media.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/64/72307.htm

Evolution is based on variation/challenge/survival & reproduction:

Variation: successive generations will have differences. Species members of current generation also are variants. This is an observable fact. Is there a Counter argument?

Challenges: Anything that could hamper reproduction. Diminishing food resources, death by predation, environmental stress (toxins, water supply etc). Also observable fact. Is there a counter argument?

Survival & Reproduction: Advantageous genes are passed on selecting this set of genes over those which were not succesful in reproduction. Any counter argument with this?

Frankly the forces at work are so simple basic and obvious, I doubt any rational being with an open mind could deny them.

Evidence: Everywhere, we are creating acellerated evolution all the time when we try to wipe out pests.

We poison rats/roaches and insects that eat our food crops, with a few generations they are immune to out toxins.

We have antibiotics for numerous infectious bacteria, but because we have used them so much the bacteria after many generations are growing immune.

Now I doubt this is because God is saying, "Damn those pesky humans are getting the upper hand on vermin, time to introduce super vermin"? How many really believes this? You may as well say gravity is invisible trolls pulling me to earth with ropes.

It is because of small variations/changes in organisms, and the fact that the survivors had some small advantage that they pass on to the next generation. In a couple of generations of only the strongest resistors producing off-spring, you have an immune population. IOW evolution.

Evolution is happening all around every day. Denying it is lunacy. The principles are simple and easy to see and verify. This is a working force that is nearly unassailable.

Combine this force with the fossil records and you have the most logical explanation for the species that have inhabited this planet.

What amuses me is that arch conservatives are often at the same time dead set against Scientific Evolution, but seemingly love to practice social darwinism.

Well, there was a Japanese study1 2 that linked computer use to glaucoma, but it doesn't seem to distinguish between people who use LCDs and CRTs.

We probably don't know the full effects of what we're doing. Doctors often don't know the root cause of problems, but it's typically considered a success if you can reduce people's chances of getting it by even a few percent.

I'm no doctor, but it would make sense that looking at close objects for long periods of time might increase your risk of myopia- countries with heavy computer use have high rates of myopia, and places like 3rd world countries where people have to look at far objects more have lower rates. It's a known fact that you adapt to changes, maybe people like myself have glasses because we use computers so heavily? But I would imagine that reading books at an early age might also cause that...so there's not much we can do about it :-) Oh well, glasses fix the problem anyways ;)

500 micrograms

Also known as the placebo effect.

There are well-known drugs that are effective in the microgram range, you know.

The MIT neuroscientist who's credited with discovering the sleep-inducing properties of supplemental melatonin says the most effective dose is around 300ug, and that higher doses can be less effective (besides having stronger side effects).

I occasionally take it (very rarely), and the melatonin tablets I have are 0.5 mg = 500ug strong. I find them effective (though of course that's anecdotal evidence).

I know, oxycotton. I was kidding.

Spelling rarely rises to such levels of hilarity as it does on Slashdot

Feb. 9, 2001 -- The official name is OxyContin, but on the street it's known as "oxycotton." And at a dollar a milligram, it's the drug du jour from the coal-mining country of Kentucky to the bleak factory towns of rural Maine.

My point was, though, that without patents the drugs never would have been developed in the first place.

Under our current system, yes.

That doesn't mean that under no possible system would the drugs have been developed.

The problem is, human HDL is unpatentable, so nobody makes such a treatment. If this is true (even if it's not), how many drugs out there are not made because there's no reason to make them?

If there is a cheap effective treatment that's not being used because no one can make high profits off it, that's a symptom that the system we have is badly broken, too beholden to the profit-seeking behavior of big pharma.

Surgical techniques can't be patented (despite a push a few years ago); yet research into surgical technique progresses. (Of course, surgical instruments and devices can be patented.) Certainly lifestyle patterns can't be patented (Dean Ornish can't patent his method for reversing heart disease), yet research continues.

Smokers have the right to...raise the cost of health care for everyone
Like, say, the health care costs of obesity in people who regularly eat at McDonalds?

cause cancer in people that are affected by their second-hand smoke
Is that anything like, say, the health problems caused by SUV emissions?

shirk taxes that have been levied on products they purchase
Like anyone who has ever purchased an item online without paying the sales tax does?

I find it disturbing that smokers have become such convenient whipping boys recently...it may not exactly be a public service to light up, but it's no worse for society than many other common actions that are nowhere near as villified.

But it is true that they are stockpiling WMDs and occupying Palestinian land. What about the UN resolutions on those topics? It is far too easy to claim anti-semitism and basically give Israel immunity from all UN resolutions.

I agree that FGM needs to be condemned, but then there should also be UN resolutions against male circumcision of babies that involves sucking the blood from a freshly circumcised baby's penis. Here is a picture on a not so good site (notice the domain name). I too thought that claims of this practice were anti-semitic bullshit... until I read all of the reputable news reports, CNN. Hell circumcising males using a medical instrament as opposed to a rabbi's mouth should also be prohibited, unless there is an urgent medical reason for doing so (none of that "it helps keep it clean crap", we don't cut our ears off do we) or the person is an adult and consents.