Pennsylvania Forum - Health and Wellness

Pennsylvania Forum - Health and Wellness http://www.talkpa.net/ Talk about health topics here. en Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:44:05 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.talkpa.net/images/misc/rss.png Pennsylvania Forum - Health and Wellness http://www.talkpa.net/ Fish on Prozac: Anxious, anti-social, aggressive http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?31052-Fish-on-Prozac-Anxious-anti-social-aggressive&goto=newpost Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:31:58 GMT When fish swim in waters tainted with antidepressant drugs, they become anxious, anti-social and sometimes even homicidal. New research has found... When fish swim in waters tainted with antidepressant drugs, they become anxious, anti-social and sometimes even homicidal.
New research has found that the pharmaceuticals, which are frequently showing up in U.S. streams, can alter genes responsible for building fish brains and controlling their behavior.

Antidepressants are the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States; about 250 million prescriptions are filled every year. And they also are the highest-documented drugs contaminating waterways, which has experts worried about fish. Traces of the drugs typically get into streams when people excrete them, then sewage treatment plants discharge the effluent.
Exposure to fluoxetine, known by the trade name Prozac, had a bizarre effect on male fathead minnows, according to new, unpublished research by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Male minnows exposed to a small dose of the drug in laboratories ignored females. They spent more time under a tile, so their reproduction decreased and they took more time capturing prey, according to Rebecca Klaper, a professor of freshwater sciences who spoke about her findings at a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry conference last fall. Klaper said the doses of Prozac added to the fishes’ water were “very low concentrations,” 1 part per billion, which is found in some wastewater discharged into streams.

When the dose was increased, but still at levels found in some wastewater, females produced fewer eggs and males became aggressive, killing females in some cases, Klaper said at the conference.
The drugs seem to cause these behavioral problems by scrambling how genes in the fish brains are expressed, or turned on and off. The minnows were exposed when they were a couple of months old and still developing.
There appeared to be architectural changes to the young minnows’ brains, Klaper said at the toxicology conference. Growth of the axons, which are long nerve fibers that transmit information to the body, was disrupted.

read more................http://www.environmentalhealthnews.o...fish-on-prozac

I wonder what it's doing to the humans who ingest Prozac on a regular basis. ]]> Health and Wellness DiamondLil http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?31052-Fish-on-Prozac-Anxious-anti-social-aggressive Central Pennsylvania hospital charges are all over the map http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?31016-Central-Pennsylvania-hospital-charges-are-all-over-the-map&goto=newpost Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:38:37 GMT You had a bad heart attack, but survived. So how much will the hospital charge you?
How about $18,082?
That might sound pricey. But it's better than $26,866. Or $41,080.
Problem is, you could end up being billed any of those amounts, depending on which central Pennsylvania hospital takes care of you.
That was hammered home recently when the federal government, for the first time, revealed what hospitals across the country charge for 100 treatments and procedures.
The charges demonstrate the confounding lack of rhyme or reason pertaining to hospital charges. Many are shockingly high. There's little apparent connection to the actual cost of the medical care. Or how good of a job the hospital did. Or what a hospital 20 miles away charges.
Here, for example, here is what 10 central Pennsylvania hospitals charge for that heart attack with major complications:

Good Samaritan: $18,082;
York Hospital: $23,869;

PinnacleHealth: $26,866;

Carlisle Regional Medical Center: $28,767;
Chambersburg Hospital: $30,517;

St. Joseph Medical Center in Reading: $30,735;

Reading Medical Center: $$36,980;

Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center: $40,001;

Lancaster General: $40,502;

Holy Spirit Hospital: $41,080.

read more...............http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...l#incart_river ]]> Health and Wellness DiamondLil http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?31016-Central-Pennsylvania-hospital-charges-are-all-over-the-map Smoking employees cost $6,000 a year more, study finds http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?30971-Smoking-employees-cost-6-000-a-year-more-study-finds&goto=newpost Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:26:51 GMT Smokers cost their employers nearly $6,000 a year more than staff who don’t smoke, researchers said on Monday in what they say is the first... Smokers cost their employers nearly $6,000 a year more than staff who don’t smoke, researchers said on Monday in what they say is the first comprehensive look at the issue.

And in what some might see as a dark twist, they’ve taken into account any savings that might come because smokers tend to die younger than non-smokers, drawing less in pension costs.

The findings support a growing trend among employers to not only ban smoking in the workplace, but to refuse to hire smokers in the first place, argues Micah Berman of Ohio State University, who led the study.

“I think it’s certainly relevant to the argument,” says Berman, an expert in public health law.

Many studies have shown that smokers cost the health care system more and that they cost health insurers more. Because many companies self-insure – meaning they pay for health care costs even if a health insurance company manages the benefits for them – that means smokers cost their employers more.
There’s also the lost productivity of workers stepping away for a smoke break – and those breaks take longer as more employers ban smoking anywhere in the office or workplace.

But no one study put all these costs together, Berman says. “I was really surprised to see that there wasn’t any really good study out there,” he said in a telephone interview.

So Berman and colleagues with expertise in economics took a look at as many of the studies as they could find – studies on health care costs and so-called presenteeism – when people are at work but not putting in full effort. They looked at studies that calculated the cost of taking more sick days, and the cost of smoke breaks, and, finally, the costs of benefits of not having to pay pensions to employees who die prematurely.

“Our best estimate of the annual excess cost to employ a smoker is $5,816,” they wrote in the journal Tobacco Control. read more ]]> Health and Wellness Mark http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?30971-Smoking-employees-cost-6-000-a-year-more-study-finds Feet home to more than 100 fungi http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php?30828-Feet-home-to-more-than-100-fungi&goto=newpost Thu, 23 May 2013 11:14:06 GMT We all have nearly 200 different types of fungi colonising our feet, scientists have discovered. Fungi live all over the human body, but their... We all have nearly 200 different types of fungi colonising our feet, scientists have discovered.
Fungi live all over the human body, but their favourite spots are the heel, under toenails and between the toes, according to a US study.
A new map of the body's fungal diversity could help combat skin conditions such as athlete's foot, researchers report in Nature journal.
Harmless fungi live naturally on skin but cause infection if they multiply.
In the first study of its kind, a US team catalogued the different groups of fungi living on the body in healthy adults.

A team led by the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, sequenced the DNA of fungi living on the skin at 14 different body areas in 10 healthy adults.
Samples were taken from the ear canal, between the eyebrows, the back of the head, behind the ear, the heel, toenails, between the toes, forearm, back, groin, nostrils, chest, palm, and the crook of the elbow.
The data reveal that fungal richness varies across the body. The most complex fungal habitat is the heel, home to about 80 types of fungi. The researchers found about 60 types in toenail clippings and 40 types in swabs between the toes.

read more................http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22622689

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