Tag Archives: times

“Body Worlds” exhibit: Real human organs teach lessons about health

At the “Body Worlds” exhibit in New York’s Times Square, visitors will find a unique collection of nearly 200 human specimens on display – from full bodies to single organs. Donated human organs, presevered through a process called plastination, were first used to teach anatomy at universities. With the “Body Worlds” exhibit, they are being used to teach viewers important lessons about health. “People really feel inclined to strive towards a healthier life, stop smoking, strive for healthier food, exercise (and) more,” said Dr. Angelina Whalley, the curator of the “Body Worlds” exhibit. “So, that's really very educational, but also (an) emotional experience that people have in ‘Body Worlds.’” Whalley and her husband, who invented the plastination process, have been curating these exhibits around the world since 1995. The “Pulse” exhibit, displayed in New York, shows the effects that disease, the environment and lifestyle choices have on a person’s health.  Among the items on display are a heart that suffered a heart attack, a spleen that became enlarged due to leukemia, a smoker’s lung and a brain that had suffered a stroke. Another exhibit shows lungs from a donor who lived in a big city. Viewers can see black dots on the organ, from where smog and pollution took their toll. “Normally we think of our body only when it is distressed, when it is diseased,” Whalley said. “We normally take it for granted but we are…living in a stressful world, and also generations get older and older. It is our responsibility to stay healthy over (our) lifetime. The fate of our body is really in our hands.” The body donation program was started in the 1980s and has had more than 13,000 volunteers. Hollis Waite, 37, says he is donating his body to science after he dies, because he was taught not to be wasteful. When Waite first visited the “Body Worlds” exhibit, he didn’t have health insurance – but he quickly changed that after seeing the displays. “I'm hoping that they can show me as the longest lasting person, someone who is advanced age, as an example of that,” Waite said.  For more information, go to BodyWorlds.com.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/17/body-worlds-exhibit-real-human-organs-teach-lessons-about-health/

Head impact detectors tested at New York high school

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. – & Students at a New York high school are helping to test new technology that could someday alert football coaches that an athlete might have suffered a concussion. The Times Herald-Record, of Middletown, reports that students at Middletown High School wore impact-sensing mouth guards during three days of intramural practices over the past week. The devices are being developed by a Connecticut company, i1 Biometrics. They contain a gyroscope and feed wireless data about jarring head movements to a laptop. The idea is to give coaches a way of detecting dangerous hits while a game is still in progress. The company hopes to use data collected in the Middletown sessions to refine its software. More testing is planned next fall at Purdue University and the University of South Carolina.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/08/head-impact-detectors-tested-at-new-york-high-school/

Multiple concussions may be causing increase in military suicides, study finds

New research has revealed that soldiers who experienced multiple concussions during active service are much more likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who sustained just one injury or never had a concussion, the Los Angeles Times reported. The study relates to two disturbing trends U.S. military has experienced over the last decade: an increase in suicides and an increase in concussions.  In 2012, the Army experienced a record 324 suicides, exceeding the number of combat deaths in Afghanistan for that year. And numerous roadside bombs have caused thousands of military personnel to suffer from damaging concussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).   Many studies have speculated that these growing number of concussions may lead to an increase in military suicides, and this new paper, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, further highlights that relationship.   Craig Bryan, the study’s lead author and an Air Force psychologist who served in Iraq in 2009, analyzed 161 military subjects, most of whom were men serving in the Army.  The subjects had been referred to Bryan for suspected concussions and were subsequently questioned about their history of head trauma, depression, PTSD and suicidal tendencies. Among the 85 subjects who had suffered two or more concussions, 12 percent reported they had considered suicide.  However, of the 58 subjects who had experienced only one concussion, just 3 percent had thought about suicide. None of the remaining 18 subjects, who had never experience a concussion, reported any suicidal thoughts. “All of a sudden the likelihood of being suicidal increased dramatically once you had the second head injury,” Bryan, now head of research at the University of Utah’s National Center for Veterans Studies, told the Los Angeles Times. Both depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were controlled for in the study, meaning TBI is potentially a significant component of suicides. While researchers do not fully understand why TBI contributes to suicide, it is possible that mild TBI can impair problem-solving skills and the ability to fit in socially, leading doctors to speculate that these impairments may lead to suicidal ideation. Bryan also noted that it’s possible another factor is causing the two trends – impulsiveness.  The trait is a well-known risk factor for suicide, and impulsiveness can also increase the likelihood of suffering from a concussion, Bryan said. Overall, Bryan said the topic needs further research, as various studies involving football, ice hockey and other contact sports have also shown a similar relationship between TBI and suicidal behavior. Click for more from the Los Angeles Times.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/16/multiple-concussions-may-be-causing-increase-in-military-suicides-study/

CNN anchor says she has breast cancer, is getting mastectomy

CNN anchor Zoraida Sambolin says she has breast cancer and is getting a double mastectomy. Sambolin, who anchors CNN's “Early Start” morning show, talked about her condition on the show Tuesday while discussing the recent double mastectomy of actress Angelina Jolie. Sambolin said wanting to be there for her children helped her make the decision. In a New York Times op-ed, Jolie announced she has had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it extremely likely she would get breast cancer. Jolie writes that she made the choice with thoughts of her six children after watching her own mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, die too young from cancer.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/14/cnn-anchor-is-getting-mastectomy/