Dracunculus medinensis, is a parasitic nematode that causes the dreadful Dracunculiasis disease, (commonly called Guinea Worm Disease). It is commonly found in the lakes, rivers and streams that provide much of Africa with drinking water. Infection is caused by drinking water with Dracunculus larvae in it. About a year after initial infection, a meter long worm burrows out of the infected person, leaving a painful skin wound. Not a pleasant image, is it?
Luckily, this terrible disease is easily prevented, since any filtering of the water, even with fine cloth, is sufficient to strain out the larvae. So eradication is mostly a matter of education, and for the past 22 years various organizations have worked together to encourage that process. More than 650,000 cases of Dracunculiasis were reported in Nigeria in 1989. In 2007 there were only 73 cases reported there. Eleven African countries have completely eliminated infection from this horrible parasite, only four countries still have active cases — and all of those report much reduced frequencies compared to a few years ago. The goal is to completely eradicate the disease next year. But don’t worry about old Dracunculus medinensis, it will still be there, lurking in the water should people let their guard down. There are plenty of other animal hosts that will keep these monsters alive when humans have learned to avoid them.
Once hailed as ‘the Kiss of Life’, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation has been the method of choice for maintaining cardiac arrest victims until the medics arrive with bottled oxygen and other techno-wonders that save lives. Introduced to the world by Dr Peter Safar in the 1950s, the mouth-to-mouth technique was combined with chest compression techniques in the 1960s to form the modern method of CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation). Until now.
American Heart Association has announced that it no longer recommends mouth-to-mouth for CPR, but rather suggests that repeated rapid chest compressions (100 per minute) are equally effective. There goes the fantasies of many a young male who imagined encountering a Hollywood diva in the throes of a heart attack — just so they would have an excuse (and opportunity) to lip-lock them. Sorry guys. And remember, the chest compressions are at the center of the chest, watch those hands if you ever do witness a diva collapse.
No doubt you have seen people walking around carrying little dumbbells in their hands (no I’m not referring to their children). Others have weighted ankle-bracelets. Both of those help tone specific muscles and incidentally contribute a slight increment to calories burned when walking.
Now the talk is about Walkvest, which shifts this idea up to the center of the body. A heavy (and hot) looking vest is worn while walking or exercising, and it has little pockets where you can put weights. They claim it will help you lose weight. In fact, they say:
In our studies, individuals who walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes without the WALKVEST (and with no coaching by Debbie) burned from 150 to 230 calories. Those same individuals walked on the same treadmill while wearing the WALKVEST with 4 to 6lbs. and they burned 250-330 calories in 45 minutes. When they walked on the treadmill wearing the WALKVEST with 4 to 6lbs. and working out with Debbie on CD, they burned between 370-540 calories in 45 minutes.
Now most people burn about 50-60 calories per mile walking for each 100 pounds they weigh. So for simplicity, say a person weighing 100 pounds walked three miles in those 45 minutes on the treadmill (a fast pace but it keeps the math simple, for illustration sake), and burned the 150 calories given as the low-end example. Add six pounds of weight, and the same walk, and they should burn 159 calories — but here they claim 250 or even 370!
Of course, the only difference, besides the weight, is the “coaching by Debbie”, which apparently accounts for the other 91 calories burned. Hmmm. Vest adds 9 extra calories burned, coaching adds 91. I think I’d skip the $60 vest and just take the $15 coaching CD (that is if I really believed these figures).
In a new study out of the University of Helsinki, Music therapy was proven an effective aid in recovery from the effects of stroke. A group of 60 patients who had suffered strokes and who were under age 75 were each assigned to one of three test groups at random. The first group received the usual treatment. The second group, in addition to the usual treatment, listened to recordings of audio books. The third group listened to music.
Testing after three months showed the verbal memory of the music-listeners increased by 60% while those of the audio book listeners increased only 18% and the control group by 29%. There was no explanation mentioned for why the audio book group should fare worse than the control group, but the fact that the music listeners did much better than the control is certainly encouraging. The music group also showed a 17% improvement when tested for their ability to focus attention, while the other two groups showed no change.
The subjects were allowed to choose which type of music they listened to; it would be interesting to know if the type of music they chose had different levels of effectiveness. My bet is that Classical was more effective than the Sinatra fans. I doubt any of the group was listening to Rap — no doubt that would set them back.