http://healthblogs.org A free health blogs community Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:58:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_128" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Vitamin D molecule image from worldofmolecules.com"][/caption] Vitamin D, also called the sunshine vitamin, has already been shown in studies to be important for a healthy immune system, preventing & even reversing cancer, as well as strong bones. A recent study published in the Archives of Neurology has ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/30/study-vitamin-d-insufficiency-linked-to-parkinson%e2%80%99s-disease/ [caption id="attachment_125" align="alignleft" width="253" caption="HIV 2 photo from Stanford University"][/caption] LONDON — The virus that causes AIDS could theoretically be eliminated in a decade if all people living in countries with high infection rates are regularly tested and treated, according to a new mathematical model. read more | digg story http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/30/study-hiv-could-be-eliminated-in-a-decade/ Academics calculate that sociopaths -- those suffering from "anti-social personality disorder" -- account for about 3-4% of the male population and under 1% of the female population. Dr. Martha Stout explains that since everyone assumes that conscience is universal, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.read more ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/29/spotting-a-sociopath-why-its-so-difficult/ With Congress ready to spend $700 billion to prop up the U.S. economy, enacting health-care reform may seem about as likely as the Dow hitting 10,000 again before the end of the year. But it may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/23/5-myths-about-our-ailing-health-care-system/ Online support sites for high survival rate cancers have more emotional support content than sites for low survival rate cancers. Researchers assessed differences in emotional and informational social support content in online communities for cancers with high and low survival rates.read more | digg story http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/23/cancer-survival-affects-online-support/ Medical tourism, which used to be mainly for elective surgery, and aimed at people who could afford weeklong trips to Brazil, is becoming an increasingly viable source of more basic health care for some of those sidelined by the insurance system in America, where 47 million people are uninsured and ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/21/american-companies-building-hospitals-in-mexico-near-border/ A new study from Georgia Tech shows that when patients with macular degeneration focus on using another part of their retina to compensate for their loss of central vision, their brain seems to compensate by reorganizing its neural connections. Age –related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/21/brain-reorganizes-to-adjust-for-loss-of-vision/ Are our brains being rewired by using the Internet? The evidence tends to be pointing that way. With internet usage, a significantly bigger piece of neural real estate lit up on the fMRI indicating that more parts of the brain were engaged.read more | digg story http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/17/are-our-brains-becoming-%e2%80%9cgooglized%e2%80%9d/ If you need help getting started, visit the Health Blogs home page for links to training videos.  You can also see what others are writing about by looking at the recently updated sites.  If you don't find what you're looking for, search the blogs.  You can also search the store ... http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/14/need-help-getting-started/ Turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically counted very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza. read more | digg story http://healthblogs.org/2008/11/12/google-is-now-tracking-flu-trends/