health Archives - Page 3 of 4

This is one of those stories I find almost too scary to be true…yet I don’t see reason to doubt it. A study by the Biodiversity Research Institute (link) found that 84% of fish have levels of mercury that are unsafe, posing a health risk to humans. So on the one hand, we’re told to eat more fish, it’s good for you…yeah well except for the mercury part of it. 🙁 Relative to other countries, fish in the US tested better, with a bit more than 40% of samples above the recommend mercury levels. Most other countries ranked higher, in the 90+% range. Swordfish and tuna rank as the worst (highest mercury concentrations).

(via CBS News)

Check out the video below of a bionic arm and what a bit difference it can make in one person’s quality of life. Even with relatively simple motions (open, close, rotate), it facilitates things like tying shoes, walking the dog, etc. Cool technology.

I came across a really interesting article over at Care2 that talks about the health impacts of not getting enough sleep. I think everyone knows they ‘should’ get plenty of sleep, but why? Just to feel happier? Nope. It turns out that not sleeping enough can affect many aspects of your health:

1. Neuropsychiatric disorders, impaired alertness and cognition, and headaches
2. Vision problems, including blurred vision, floppy eyelid syndrome, glaucoma, even temporary blindness
3. High blood pressure
4. Increased levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress
5. Cancer
6. Difficulty with sexual functioning
7. Increased food cravings and hunger
8. Insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes
9. Hearing loss
10. Muscle weakness and decreased athletic performance
11. Heart disease
12. Skin problems and rashes, including eczema
13. Hair loss
14. Disrupted metabolism, weight gain and obesity

Or to put it another way…just about everything you can think of. My personal metric for whether I’m getting enough sleep, is if I wake up on my own, feeling well-rested, before my alarm goes off. For me, it’s just a matter of getting to bed at a decent time and letting the body do its thing.

Imagine a world where tooth decay was a thing of the past, without having to resort to extreme levels of brushing and flossing. We’re close to that point. A new molecule has been discovered that kills the bacteria responsible for causing tooth decay. This could potentially be added to chewing gum, candy, anything really. Human trials are starting soon, and under a best-case scenario, this could be on the market in a little more than a year.

Read more over at smartplanet.com.

Forbes has an interesting article looking at the health effects of different energy sources, more specifically, the number of (human) deaths per unit of energy produced. For all the publicity nuclear energy accidents get, it’s worth noting that the mortality rate from nuclear energy is about 90 deaths per tkWhr (trillion kilowatt hour of energy produced), while coal is 170,000 deaths per tkWhr! To be fair, that coal rate is the global average and the US is much better than that (mainly because of existing pollution controls)…but even then, it’s a whopping 15,000 deaths per tkWhr. The complete list:

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average 170,000    (50% global electricity)

Coal – China 280,000   (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S. 15,000    (44% U.S. electricity)

Oil 36,000    (36% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000    (20% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass 24,000    (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop) 440    (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150    (~ 1% global electricity)

Hydro – global average          1,400    (15% global electricity)

Nuclear – global average            90    (17% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

You can read more over at Forbes.com.

Tag: health

Study finds 84% of all fish have unsafe levels of mercury

Bionic arm improving quality of life

Negative health impacts of too little sleep

The end of tooth decay and cavities?

Deaths by energy source