In the News
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Walking the Tight Rope Again
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — ABC is turning Nik Wallenda's attempted tightrope walk over Niagara Falls into a prime-time television event next month, devoting a full three hours to the daredevil's June 15 walk.
Wallenda is a seventh-generation member of the famous daredevil family the Great Wallendas, also known as the Flying Wallendas, whose history as a traveling circus troupe dates to 1780.
"It's a return to some of the great events you've seen on television over the years," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. "I think back to my own childhood and Evel Knievel where literally the whole country would gather around the set and watch one of these extraordinary stunts."
Wallenda said he's adamantly opposed to tethering himself to the 2-inch wire to remove the life-or-death element.
"It's family history. This is what we do," Wallenda said Friday, a day before starting daily sessions on a practice wire outside the Seneca Niagara Casino. "I feel like that's taking away from it. I feel like I'm cheating at that point."
He said he's trained to grab the wire if there's trouble.
Part of the three television hours will be an examination of the greatest stunts of all time, with the live walk between the New York and Canada shores expected to take about 30-40 minutes.
While Wallenda's family history includes success across generations, it's not been without tragedy. In 1978, his great-grandfather, Karl, fell to his death in a tightrope walk in Puerto Rico at age 73. A misstep during a signature seven-person chair pyramid killed three men in 1962 in Detroit.
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Can You Die From Heartbreak?
Saturday, 18 February 2012
With the caveat that it is difficult to establish a link between emotional stress and physiological health, all the evidence suggests the answer is yes. Former prime minister, Jim Callaghan died just 11 days after his wife of 67 years, Audrey. Sadly, this is something of a familiar pattern among long-term partners.
The first study to look at the issue was published in the British Medical Journal in 1969. Researchers followed 4,500 widowers, all 55 years or older, for nine years and found that the risk of dying in the first six months after bereavement was 40% higher than expected, then it gradually fell back to normal.
A bigger study, published in 1996, confirmed these results. Scientists looked at more than 1.5 million people aged between 35 and 84, and found that, in the six months after losing a spouse, the risk of dying from a heart attack increased by 20 to 35%. They also found that the risk of dying from an accident, violence or from alcohol-related problems nearly doubled. And in most cases, the risk of death was greater for men.
Why bereavement might trigger death or illness is largely unknown, but speculations are rife. When people lose the lifetime support offered by a partner, they are more likely to get stressed. This might have acute effects on the body and, the more elderly the person, the more pronounced those effects may be.
People suffering from stress due to losing a loved one have reported a range of health problems - from gastro-intestinal complaints to muscular pains. The sudden stress could also trigger more serious underlying problems, such as heart disease.
How psychological pain turns into a physical problem is also an active area of research. The accepted wisdom is that the brain, after registering the psychological and social variables around it, will signal instructions to release certain hormones into the bloodstream and these affect mood as well as subsequent health.
Psychologists have found, for example, that people going through a rough patch in their relationship were more likely to catch a cold or flu. In a study of 2,000 people in various emotional states last year at the Medical Research Council's social and public health sciences unit in Glasgow, researchers found that stress or bereavement was linked to a decrease in the levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which is the body's first defence against foreign microbes.
Why this happens is unknown, but researchers believe it might be down to high levels of the hormone cortisol, which tends to increase during stressful situations.
Article published in The Guardian.
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Lack of Scientific Evidence for Pelvic Exams
Friday, 30 December 2011
According to a study published in the December 12/26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, routine pelvic examinations conducted by U.S. physicians, lack scientific evidence supporting their use for women.
Analia R. Stromo, BS and colleagues from the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia and researchers from the Soltera Center for Cancer Prevention and Control Research, Tucson, Arizona, reviewed data from the 2009 DocStyles survey of 1,250 U.S. internists, family practitioners, general practitioners and obstetrician/gynecologists.
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Allergy Tests No Magic Bullet
Friday, 30 December 2011
Two leading allergists, Robert Wood of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Scott Sicherer of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, urge pediatricians to use caution when ordering allergy tests for children.
In an article, published in the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers warn that blood tests and skin-prick testing should never be used as stand-alone diagnostic strategies. These tests should be used only to confirm suspicion and not to look for allergies in an asymptomatic patient.
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Avoiding Brain Shrink
Thursday, 17 November 2011
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Walking at least six miles a week may be one thing people can do to keep their brains from shrinking and fight off dementia, according to U.S. researchers.
A study of nearly 300 people in Pittsburgh who kept track of how much they walked each week showed that those who walked at least six miles had less age-related brain shrinkage than people who walked less.
