| 2461/
Chemist Eric Block of the State University of New York, Albany,
examined the contents of garlic with an atomic emission detector.
He and his colleagues found several selenium compounds that
are known to reduce atherosclerosis in animals and blood lipids
in humans. The bad news is that the useful selenium compounds
are closely associated with the sulfur compounds that give
garlic its characteristic odor. That means that scent-free
garlic pills are also free of the possibly health-enhancing
selenium compounds.
2462/ A gene is a sequence
of DNA that codes for a protein and passes on inherited information;
a genome is the complete set of genetic information for a
species.
2463/ Thalidomide then
was a popular sedative in Europe and Japan, where it was often
prescribed for pregnant women because it eased symptoms of
morning sickness. Taken early in pregnancy, the drug stopped
limb growth in human embryos. Nearly 10,000 so-called "thalidomide
babies" were born with malformed or virtually nonexistent
legs and arms. Thalidomide was taken off the market, and became
a nightmarish example of medicine gone awry.
2464/ Adults lose nearly
one percent of their natural ability to mend genetic damage
with each year that passes. The older you are, then, the less
able your system is to fix the cell errors that lead to cancer.
It has also been found that young people with skin cancer
have the repair capacity of people 30 years older.
2465/ Older women, those
past menopause, retain 25 to 30 percent more skin repair capacity
for their age if they are receiving estrogen-replacement therapy.
2466/ A mature yew (if
stripped) will yield between five and 20 pounds of bark.
2467/ William Anderson,
a scientist and surgeon for Captain Cook, could diagnose but
not cure his own fatal tuberculosis; he was buried at sea
off St. Lawrence Island in 1778.
2468/ TB is the leading
cause of death from infectious disease worldwide: 2.9 million
people each year die of tuberculosis.
2469/ Blood taken from
Polar Bears during the seal-free season showed levels of cholesterol
nearly 25 percent higher than blood taken while the bears
had plenty of seal blubber to eat.
2470/ A well-fed polar
bear's blood has 10 times more omega-3 fatty acid-- than in
a fasting bear. Studies with human volunteers have shown that
omega-3 fatty acids in the diet reduce cholesterol in the
blood stream.
2471/ Heart disease amongst
the Canadian Inuit population is only one-fourth that of the
Canadian population as a whole.
2472/ Melanoma occurrence
increased in Scotland by 82 percent between 1979 and 1989.
2473/ In the U.S. diabetes
is the leading cause of adult blindness and leads to a third
of all kidney failures.
2474/ Research with mice
and rats has shown that if young rodents are put on severe
diets, given enough essential nutrients with 30 to 40 percent
less food than normal, they will live half again as long as
rats fed standard amounts.
2475/ Crowded together,
200 to a cubic-foot cage, male houseflies die after about
16 days. With 100 flies in the same cage, they are less agitated
by their cagemates, fly about less and live 20 days. Put into
a vial by themselves, the solitary (and probably bored) flies
last 50 days.
2476/ Temperature also
can affect longevity. Take that housefly and chill its vial
down to 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fly will live more
than six months.
2477/ Linus Pauling,
a distinguished chemist and Nobel laureate, did much to popularize
vitamin C’s therapeutic benefits. Pauling advocated
big doses, up to 300 times the daily amount deemed necessary
by dieticians, for helping stave off disease.
2478/ A study in which
a dozen healthy women exercised on treadmills for 45 minutes
on each of two successive Sundays showed a 6.2 percent elevation
in their measured HDL (good cholesterol) which was considered
a small but significant effect, and lasted about 90 minutes
after the exercise.
2479/ In a healthy person,
clusters of specialized cells---islet cells---in the pancreas
gland manufacture insulin, a protein hormone essential for
metabolizing carbohydrates. In a person with diabetes, these
islet cells degenerate and die, no longer providing the necessary
insulin.
2480/ The first accurate
account of hay fever entered medical annals only in 1819,when
a London physician described his own "unusual train of
symptoms." The first American description of hay fever
didn't appear until 1852. In Japan, it was virtually unknown
before the 1950s.
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