CBS: New Research Says The Best Place To Have A Heart Attack Is Not In A Hospital

An overview of a heart and coronary artery showing damage
(dead heart muscle) caused by a heart attack.
Image from NIH via Wikimedia

Today's article comes from CBS; it is about the findings of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In this study researchers investigated the death rate from a specific type of major heart attack. They found that heat attack victims who were already in the hospital were less likely to survive than those who arrived at the ER. The news piece and the research article both state that this pattern persisted even when the difference in health of the patients was taken into account (people in the hospital are, on average, sicker than those not in the hospital). But does the data really show that you're better off having your heart attack at home?

Entropy: Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases

This is relevant, I promise. Image from xkcd.com

I've chosen this journal article because I saw some blog posts about it spreading around Facebook recently, though I think this all started back in February. I am not going to dignify these blog posts with link backs. I will, however, summarize the contents; if you want to find the original post I'm sure you won't have any trouble.

The other reason I chose this article is that this is, in a way, a topic near to my heart. My PhD thesis was on spreading glyphosate resistance in the agricultural pest Amaranth. All that time in the lab left me with a lot of expertise to share regarding glyphosates biochemistry and utilization, and also with the distinct idea that agriculture is both really important to human health and a really misunderstood science (by the general public, I mean). People all over the internet are talking about GMOs and Monsanto, but there seems to be a lot more hysteria than science. I'd like to see that start to change. Starting with this: is there research showing that there are negative health effects for humans from the consumption of crops treated with glyphosate?

BBC News: Weight Surgery Lowers Diabetes Risk

Eight obese women (each have a BMI of 30) with different
distributions of that weight and different waist sizes.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Today's article, published BBC, is about a paper just published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology that investigates the incidence rate of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in individuals who have undergone bariatric (weight loss) surgery. The news article is very brief, and states simply that researchers found an 80% reduction in the risk of T2D in individuals who have had weight loss surgery. The article also tells us that the UK NHS (their universal health insurer) is considering expanding the availability of covered weight loss surgery based on these findings. Let's see what the paper's authors actually say; does this new research show that bariatric surgery is a viable intervention to prevent or cure T2D?

Medpage Today: Enterovirus infection linked to type 1 diabetes in children?

An insulin pump. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today's article, published in Medpage Today, is from a few days ago; it is about a paper just published in Diabetologia that shows a possible link between Enteroviruses and type 1 diabetes. Enterovirus has been in the news lately because the US has been suffering an outbreak of EV-D68 since August, putting many children in the hospital. Seven children have died. EV-D68 a nasty virus, a distant cousin of Polio, that causes a respiratory infection with coughing, wheezing, and fever in children. In rare cases the infection causes paralysis, much like Polio. EV-D68, Polio, and Coxsackie A virus, which causes Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, are all specific types of Enteroviruses. Does this new research show that in addition to respiratory disease and possible paralysis that this viruses cause diabetes?