Med Journal Watch

Joy of free thinking

2008-01-30T18:18:00.001+01:00

Free thinking is good for your health because it is real stuff, based on science, and more than a placebo. This is my conclusion after ten months of blogging here at Med Journal Watch and after some posts about the placebo effect of religion and its common traits with quackery.I have learnt a lot, plunged into tons of medical science news stuff and tried to sort out the most relevant of it. My

One single cigarette may be addictive

2008-01-29T15:02:00.000+01:00

Be warned against just trying it out because as little as one cigarette may be sufficient to get you hooked on nicotine. For all those who might have thought this danger to be low - me included, I must admit, before I have come across this study on diminished autonomy over tobacco - it is high time to learn that 25 to 30 percent of all young people, after having lit up once, feel some troubles

The subtle balance of human cooperation

2008-01-28T15:15:00.000+01:00

Cooperation between strangers can only evolve if the cost of altruistic punishment is low and its impact on free riders is high. This is the result of a web based Dutch experiment with more than eight hundred participants where the cost of altruistic punishment and the impact on free riders have been varied, using real money in a public game. It came out that the decision whether to punish free

Would you like to become a digital zombie?

2008-01-27T14:34:00.002+01:00

The survival instinct of the human mind is so strong that the idea of afterlife has survived religion and entered freethought in the twilight zone between science fiction and science facts. Why else would Steven Novella, a leading skeptic, post a long article on digital immortality plus follow-up? I have come across this old post (published a year ago) while gathering information about the fact

Centenary of the camp toothbrush

2008-01-25T14:31:00.000+01:00

Robert Baden-Powell has become famous as founder of the Boy Scout movement, but his role as pioneer of dental care is less known. A hundred years ago, in May 1908, in his bestseller "Scouting for boys", he has charged boys to be careful with their teeth, brushing them twice a day. In case toothbrushes should be missing, he showed how to make a camp toothbrush out of a dry twig, frayed out at the

Our ears grow throughout lifetime

2008-01-24T15:07:00.001+01:00

The outer ears are the only parts of the human body that continue to grow until death. Head, trunk, arms, legs, hands and feet, all the inner and outer organs stop when fully grown in adult age. Even the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac did not grow forever. Hair and nails do, but these are expendable items that constantly must be replaced. In contrast, the human outer ear is something very special. In

Four years of dementia lifespan

2008-01-23T14:46:00.000+01:00

Four to five years after the onset of dementia, half of the affected persons have died but this is only an average, largely depending on the age at onset. Such is the result of a fourteen years follow-up statistics in more than four hundred aged persons with dementia in England and Wales. The median lifespan of aged people with dementia, that is the time from onset of the disease until half of

Understanding the French Obesity Paradox

2008-01-22T14:48:00.000+01:00

The French eat more fat, are less diet obsessed but also less obese than Americans; a new study has found a reason, possibly the most important one. It is about the cues that lead a person to stop eating. For this decision, the French rely mostly on cues from the gut, the Americans from the environment. This is the outcome of a study on internal and external cues for meal cessation. Looking at

Health Blog Carnival Watch 1:15

2008-01-22T10:29:00.000+01:00

Grand Rounds4:18 at ButYouDontLookSick4:17 at Sharp Brains4:16 at Pathtalk4:15 at Other Things AmanziSkepticism, Freethinking, HumanismSC #78 at The Skeptical SurferCotG #82 at Axis of JaredHS #13 at Faith in Honest Doubt

Frequent flyers think twice about jogging!

2008-01-21T16:32:00.000+01:00

All those with an elevated thrombosis risk, frequent flyers as well as elderly, may fare better with walking than with jogging. This is the conclusion of a study about exercise and thrombosis in the Netherlands. Venous thrombosis, the formation of blood clots in the deep leg veins, has also been called economy class syndrome because it often has been observed after long-haul flights. Advanced age

Vitamin C as a training killer

2008-01-18T14:35:00.000+01:00

Muscles gain less endurance with the same amount of training when supplemented with vitamin C, so athletes may be better off with both less efforts and less vitamins. This tip, based upon new research done in Spain, seems to be badly needed given all the marketing claims I have found, googling for vitamin supplements and training. Two things are for sure. Training increases the so-called

Sense of value adds pleasure

2008-01-17T16:37:00.001+01:00

Expensive wines taste better also because the sense of value turns on a pleasure mechanism in the frontal brain - this is real stuff and not just an illusion. That is, the wine taster really perceives a better taste as can be shown by brain magnetic resonance imaging. This is more than a simple expectation of the type "it's a Chateau, must be good" as a neural marketing experiment at Caltech has

Face death and enjoy life more

2008-01-16T15:28:00.001+01:00

Dare it, do it, because an unconscious tuning mechanism of the human brain will help you. This is really exciting. You do not have to take painful efforts for reaching this goal. In people facing the inevitable fact that they must die, tuning thoughts from terror to joy works automatically, according to experiments that have been performed at the Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky,

First sex step by step is safest

2008-01-15T16:19:00.000+01:00

Young people who proceed with sex step by step, from the first kiss to fondling of growing intensity up to intercourse, take less risk than those who leave out one or more steps. This is the result of a Dutch study about a link between sexual trajectories and sexual risk. More than two thousand young Dutch of both genders who had engaged in sexual intercourse, aged 12 to 25, have been interviewed

No moral without a free will

2008-01-14T15:39:00.001+01:00

Ethical feelings are weakened by the belief that human behaviour is determined by environmental and genetic factors. This has been shown in a psychological experiment at the Carlson School of Marketing, University of Minnesota, finding that encouraging the belief in determinism increases cheating. Oh yes, this not only proves the old French saying to be true: "Tout comprendre, c'est tout

Tango beats exercise for Parkinsonians

2008-01-11T15:24:00.000+01:00

Any type of physical activity may prevent frailty but tango seems to be best when it comes to balance and fall prevention. These issues are particularly important in frail elderly, and they are most pronounced in people suffering from Parkinson's disease. For this reason, a group of Parkinsonians have been chosen for a preliminary experiment comparing tango dancing with conventional exercise.

Schizophrenia: A hundred years of a dubious concept

2008-01-10T15:43:00.000+01:00

The idea of a split mind has been introduced 1908 by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, replacing Kraepelin's idea of premature dementia, but modern science has found that Kraepelin got closer to the point. The zeitgeist of the Freudian era in the early 20th century was in favour of the view that psychic diseases can be cured by cognitive interventions. Bleuler's new term schizophrenia (Greek

The final checkmate

2008-01-09T13:32:00.003+01:00

When it comes do death, some know that the game definitely is over and some believe that the pieces are set up anew somewhere they don't know - this post is in memoriam of my old chess team pal Kurt. He has been a pillar for us in many team matches. He has been the best supporter of young players at our club (see photo). He has got so frail that, in his last days, he wished to die as one of our

Good sex every day keeps the doctor away

2008-01-08T16:00:00.000+01:00

Enjoy the feeling every day and the doing from time to time, without stress for body and mind, and a look at how well you achieve may be the easiest way to check your health status. Sorry girls but this post is based upon a study in men. Yet I suspect that its findings may also apply to women, at least in part. Okay boys, here we are. The relations between sexual symptoms, life satisfaction, and

Old body mass, fat mass, and fitness

2008-01-07T17:36:00.001+01:00

The problem of obesity in old age may be due to a lack of fitness, but it remains unclear which is the cause and which is effect. Body mass index in elderly people has a serious drawback because, as people get older, muscles and bones (the fat-free mass) are being reduced and body fat mass is increasing. Thus, in spite of being weight stable, seniors may become "fat". They may be better off

Skeptical remarks on the definition of overweight

2008-01-04T15:18:00.000+01:00

Currently, a body mass index of more than 25 is considered overweight, but this should be checked against the newest mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In compliance with my good blogging intentions for 2008, I forget all my earlier posts about body weight, reset all my opinions to zero and have a new, fresh and unbiased look at the data. Not just some data, but

It ain't necessarily helpful

2008-01-03T14:50:00.001+01:00

Religious beliefs, if not being true, should at least help in coping with disease and disasters, but a new study sheds doubt on this pragmatic approach. Christian religious functioning and trauma outcomes have been assessed in more than three hundred church-going trauma survivors in Minnesota. Looking at the outcomes, I hear the sound of Ira Gershwin's great skeptic sermon song of Sportin' Life:

Welcome new science based medical blog

2008-01-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

This blogging year has seen a good start with a brand new blog aimed at promoting a science based view on health and countering false claims. The first real post of today is about the false dichotomy of "good" plants versus "bad" chemical pharmaceuticals. This distinction not only lacks scientific basis but is also a source of vulnerability to quackery. A very needful and relevant post. Here is

Intentions 2008

2008-01-01T14:46:00.001+01:00

Looking at facts with an open mind and with as little bias as possible, looking for more hot issues such as obesity and health and avoiding getting obsessed with any single theme or opinion, these are my most important blogging intentions for 2008. I hope we'll have a good time together, and I wish that things can be debated in a fair way. Some fellow bloggers have missed the possibility to leave

Best of 2007

2007-12-31T17:50:00.000+01:00

I conclude this year with an overview of what I have found to be the most interesting or intriguing facts and opinions about really good news, body weight and obesity, the drawback of weight concerns, passive smoking, lies, damned lies, and statistics, and much more. My first post, back in April, was about a study failing to report an effect of garlic on cholesterol. Today I would comment a bit