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Active ingredient in cannabis delta-9-THC is linked to psychosis effects Scientists do not fully understand mechanisms that cause these effects Yale team found delta-9-THC increases random neural activity, or noise Believe increased neural noise plays role in psychosis triggered by drug Experts say effects are similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia Smoking cannabis can induce psychosis-like effects, similar to the symptoms people diagnosed with schizophrenia endure, scientists have said. While past research as come this this conclusion in the past, the mechanisms underlying these effects are less clear. Now, a team of scientists at Yale School of Medicine have found...

Many of us remember at least this first line from Lydia Maria Child’s “The New-England Boy’s Song About Thanksgiving Day” (1844). Child was an ardent abolitionist, advocate of women’s rights, and spoke out about the mistreatment of Indians. Were she to return today, I suspect that Ms. Child would have a few things to say about our healthcare system. Here are two disturbing current events: 1. Duodenoscopes, AERs, and the FDA This one just seems to stay in the news. In fact, it gets worse and more convoluted as 2015 races into the history books. The latest wrinkle occurred on...

A physician has been nicknamed Dr Angel after her swift response and ability to turn everyday items into medical equipment saved a man's life at 35,000 feet on Thanksgiving. Dr Patricia Quinlan was travelling from Philadelphia to San Francisco with her family when she saw the man fall out of a seat in front of her. She quickly realized he had not simply fallen asleep, and was actually in dire straights, with a weak pulse and dangerously low blood pressure.

Sobering report. If you have cancer, you should avoid sugar of any kind. If you don't want cancer, I suggest that you limit your sugar intake. Avoid "high fructose corn syrup", and processed sugars. If you want to lose weight, avoid things that quickly become sugar (white breads, potato, rice, alcohol, etc). Reducing these things has a major impact on your liver and pancreas. Eat lots of green things!

Emerging evidence indicates that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease involving disturbances in energy production through respiration and fermentation. Cancer is suppressed following transfer of the nucleus from the tumor cell to cytoplasm of normal cells containing normal mitochondria. These findings indicate that nuclear genetic abnormalities cannot be responsible for cancer despite commonly held beliefs in the cancer field. The genomic instability observed in tumor cells and all other recognized hallmarks of cancer are considered downstream epiphenomena of the initial disturbance of cellular energy metabolism. The disturbances in tumor cell energy metabolism can be linked to abnormalities in the structure...

Mountains of Obamacare-related paperwork and the threats of severe fines for the slightest errors are forcing many doctors to retire and others to shut down their practices and work under the protection of hospitals, and all of it spells bad news for patients.Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says the exodus is alarming, as evidenced by a Physicians Foundation report showing the number of doctors who say they run an independent practice has dropped from 62 percent in 2008 to 35 percent in 2014. The survey of 20,000 physicians also shows only 17 percent in solo practice. Eighty-one percent of doctors are at full capacity...

A large segment of white middle-aged Americans has suffered a startling rise in its death rate since 1999, reversing decades of progress, according to a new review of statistics published Monday. The mortality rate for white men and women between the ages of 45 and 54 with less than a college education increased by half a percent per year between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol, and suicide, according to the study released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... The rising death rate was accompanied by a parallel increase...

AAPS Executive Director Jane Orient, MD points out that: The provision states that uninsured patients, and ONLY uninsured patients may use credit, a credit card, a check, or a draft (but not cash). This implies two things: (1) Insured patients cannot pay for pain treatment that their insurance supposedly covers but denies in their case. (2) Uninsured patients who are hard up and don't have a checking account or credit cannot buy this type of medical care. Why should they not be allowed to use currency that is legal tender (and does not involve paying fees to a bank)? And...

An Oregon couple who prayed and rubbed olive on their dying son following a home birth rather than call 911 and seek help will continue to serve six years in prison each after a judge upheld their manslaughter conviction. Dale and Shannon Hickman, both 30, were both convicted in 2011 of second-degree manslaughter for the death of their son, David, who died nine hours after his home birth in 2009. David was born two months early at his grandmother's home with undeveloped lungs, and died after having trouble breathing and turning blue. The Hickman's - members of a controversial faith-healing...

FULL TITLE: Watchdog Says Report of 10,000 Toddlers on ADHD Drugs Tip of the Iceberg—274,000 0-1 Year Olds and 370,000 Toddlers Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs Mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights says a new report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the 10,000 toddlers being prescribed ADHD drugs, is only the tip of the iceberg regarding children being prescribed psychiatric drugs in the U.S. According to IMS health, more than 274,000 0-1 year olds are being prescribed psychiatric drugs and a staggering 370,000 toddlers.

SYNOPSIS The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered...

Three scientists whose discoveries have driven scourges of the developing world to the brink of eradication have been awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. The Nobel Committee announced Monday it had awarded the 2015 prize to 85-year old William C. Campbell, 80-year-old Satoshi Omura and 85-year-old Youyou Tu of China for their discoveries leading to the development of antimicrobial treatments for such tropical diseases as river blindness, lymphatic filariasis (also known as elephantiasis) and malaria. Campbell, an Irish biochemist and parasitologist at Drew University in New Jersey, and Omura, a bioorganic chemist at Kitasato University in Japan and...

3D printing is proving to be a potential game changer for a wide variety of fields. One group in particular that could benefit is the medical community, thanks to a recent development by scientists that could make it easier to print organs from living tissue. How? By printing structures inside of special gel that provides support during the build process. New Scientist reports that researchers from the University of Florida in Gainesville came to the breakthrough method while searching for a way to enable the printing of items that cannot support their own weight. The technique prints objects inside a...

Researchers have successfully created a new test that could eliminate the need for needles in testing for viruses — and dramatically increase the success rate of doctors trying to diagnose an illness. It’s called ViroCap, and while the test is not ready for use in patients just yet, it has passed a big clinical trial that is paving the way for its eventual entry into the market, according to a UPI report. ViroCap supposedly can detect any virus known to man — and animals — and it could help doctors who don’t know what they’re looking for spot a virus...

There is only one guaranteed way to get fired from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Falsifying records won’t do it. Prescribing obsolete drugs won’t do it. Cutting all manner of corners on health and safety is, at worst, going to get you a reprimand. No, the only sure-fire way to get canned at the VA is to report any of these matters to authorities who might do something about it. That, at least, is what the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recently reported to the president of the United States. The Special Counsel’s office is the agency to which government...

C'mon folks, this isn't complicated. Hill used Indian government data on the cost of pharmaceutical ingredients and allowed for a 50-percent profit margin - but no money for investment in research - to work out the costs of producing certain drugs. On this basis, he found that Novartis' leukaemia drug Glivec actually cost $159 for a year's treatment, against the $106,000 charged in the United States. Roche's Tarceva for lung cancer cost $236, against a U.S. price of $79,000, and Novartis' Tykerb cost $4,000 against a price of $74,000. In all these cases the U.S. cost was far above that...

In Brief Japanese researchers have successfully grown kidneys from stem cells that worked as they were supposed to after being transplanted into rats and pigs. The Breakthrough With all the parts, grown, the kidney was placed inside a rat, then the pathway was added, followed by the bladder they’d grown—the new bladder was then connected to the rat’s native bladder. After sewing up the rat, they found the whole system worked. The team then repeated what they had done with a much larger animal, one much closer in size to humans—a pig—and found the same results. The paper was published...

The glaring unfairness of ObamaCare can be seen in the anonymous analysis done by a well salaried California engineer and his very low paid girlfriend, a part time mail clerk. The lady friend earns $18,000 per year to his yearly income of $60,000 to $ 125,000. “For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, with a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 a month. His gal friend, holding the exact same policy with the same deductible, pays $1.00 a month! “That’s right, $1.00 per month. I’m not making this up,” he said. Can you...

As the vital relationship between 3D printing and medical science continues to flourish, potentially life-altering developments continue to be made. A national team of researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind, 3D-printed guide that helps regrow both the sensory and motor functions of complex nerves after injury. The groundbreaking research, undertaken in Minnesota, has the potential to help more than 200,000 people annually who experience nerve injuries or disease. Nerve regeneration is a complex process. Because of this complexity, regrowth of nerves after injury or disease is very rare, according to the Mayo Clinic. Nerve damage is often permanent. While the peripheral...

Blocking D1 receptors in brain blocks alcohol cravings: study. Scientists say a cure for alcoholism could be on the horizon thanks to the remarkable discovery of neurons in the brain that play a role in whether one glass of wine turns into a bottle. Texas A&M researchers explain the part of your brain known as the dorsomedial striatum contains neurons with spiny protrusions, each with two types of dopamine receptors. One type, called D1, encourages action but is structurally altered when large amounts of alcohol are consumed. The alteration causes the neurons to activate with less stimulation and the result...