'Pick the right veg' for health

Papaya is a fruit rich in beta-cryptoxanthin

Obvious choices of fruit and vegetables are not necessarily the healthiest, say researchers.

According to US experts, making simple swaps like eating sweet potatoes instead of carrots and papaya rather than oranges could make a difference.

Foods, like raspberries, watercress and kale, are richer in phytonutrients which may help prevent disease, they told a US meeting.

UK nutritionists said a balanced diet is essential to good health.

The British Nutrition Foundation warned that relying on eating a few select food types to boost health was ill-advised and said there was no such thing as a "superfood".

No one food can give you everything you need Dr Emma Williams of the British Nutrition Foundation

Experts recommend five portions a day of fruit and veg in a healthy diet.

Plant foods are known to contain "phytonutrient" chemicals that can protect the heart and arteries and prevent cancers.

But the most popular varieties may not be the best, according to US researchers.

They analysed data from US health surveys of people's dietary habits to look at the most common sources of phytonutrients.

They found that for 10 of the 14 phytonutrients studied, a single food type accounted for two-thirds or more of an individual's consumption, regardless of how much fruit and veg they ate overall.

Carrots were the most common source of beta-carotene, oranges and orange juice the most common source of beta-cryptoxanthin, spinach the most common source of lutein/zeaxanthin, strawberries the most common source of ellagic acid and mustard the biggest provider of isothiocyanates.

However, for each of these phytonutrients there was a richer food source available.

Richer foods

Switching from carrots to sweet potatoes would nearly double beta-carotene intake, say the researchers.

Similarly papaya contains 15 times more beta-cryptoxanthin than oranges, while kale has three times more lutein/zeaxanthin than spinach.

Raspberries have three times more ellagic acid than strawberries and one cup of watercress contains as much isothiocyanate as four teaspoonfuls of mustard.

Study leader Keith Randolph, who is a technology strategist for the supplement company Nutrilite, said: "These data highlight the importance of not only the quantity but also the significant impact the quality and variety of the fruits and vegetables you eat can have on your health."

Dr Emma Williams of the British Nutrition Foundation said: "They are right that some foods are richer sources of phytonutrients.

"But at the end of the day, to be healthy you need to make sure you have a varied and balanced diet.

"No one food can give you everything you need."

The findings were presented at the 2010 Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, California.

Source

Watching TV 'is bad for children

Watching TV 'is bad for children'

Some children watch too much TV

Children under two should not be allowed to watch any TV, experts say.

Older children should watch no more than two hours a day, the researchers at the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Centre in Seattle said.

Each hour in front of the TV increased a child's chances of attention deficit disorder by 10%, their research in the Pediatrics journal showed.

The study of 1,345 children showed three hours TV a day made children 30% more likely to have the disorder.

Dr Dimitri Christakis at the children's hospital led the study. He said: "The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It's really being wired."

TV can cause the developing mind to experience unnatural levels of stimulation Dr Dimitri Christakis

Children who were exposed to the unrealistic levels of stimulation at a young age continued to expect this in later life, leading to difficulty dealing with the slower pace of school and homework, he said.

"TV can cause the developing mind to experience unnatural levels of stimulation," he said.

Rapid

This was made worse by the rapid image change that television makers used to keep young children interested, Dr Christakis added.

Parents were questioned about their children's viewing habits and asked to rate their behaviour at age seven on a scale similar to that used to diagnose attention deficit disorders.

The youngsters who watched the most television were more likely to rank within the top 10% for concentration problems, impulsiveness, restlessness and being easily confused.

Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington in Seattle, another of the authors, said it was impossible to say what a "safe" level of TV viewing would be for children between the ages of one and three.

HAVE YOUR SAY As an parent trying to combine child rearing with long hours in the office, the last thing I needed was a further guilt trip an exhausted father, Scotland Send us your comments

"Each hour has an additional risk. You might say there's no safe level since there's a small but increased risk with each hour," he said.

"Things are a trade-off. Some parents might want to take that risk. We didn't find a safe level in that sense."

Between three and five per cent of children in the US are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.

The researchers admitted there could be problems in the study as the parents' views may not be totally accurate.

Also it was not possible to know whether the children already had attention problems early on that attracted them to TV viewing.

Source

A Dark View Into the Future of Game Addiction

A Dark View Into the Future of Game Addiction

A truly shocking illustration of young boy’s unfortunate addiction to the popular massively multiplayer online video game World of Warcraft.

From the artist Eran "pyxelated" Cantrell:

First, World of Warcraft- and videogames in general- were not specific inspirations in the creation of this picture. Obviously these "total experience" VR goggles don't really exist. I was more concerned with escapism in general. Not just the fact that it is a pervasive facet of our culture, but the fact that it is downright EASY. It's easy to relate to it, because everyone escapes into something when they can't handle life. I, personally, used to escape into books to avoid my problems.

Books, videogames, drugs, food, TV- anything can be used as a tool for escapism. Videogames, and other such distractions, are not the cause of the problem, they are only a symptom. If efforts are to be made, it should be at the source of things- the very nature of our society, and of our species. By attacking the symptom, and not the problem, we compromise ourselves, our civil rights and the very cause that we hoped to accomplish in the first place.

Reality by Eran "pyxelated" Cantrell [deviantART]

Source

Synthetic biology cells produce light show

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

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The cells produce waves of light as they express a fluorescent protein

Scientists have produced a very unusual light show, engineering bacterial cells to fluoresce in synchrony.

The researchers turned the cells into synchronised "genetic clocks" - programming them to switch a fluorescent protein on and off.

These waves of activity could eventually be used to make biological sensors, or to programme cells to release timed doses of medicine.

The researchers report the advance in the journal Nature.

Synchronised waves, or oscillations, are important to scientists because they control crucial functions in the human body, such as the sleep-wake cycle, learning processes and the regular release of substances including insulin.

This same team of researchers, which was led by Dr Jeff Hasty from the University of California San Diego, US, first produced "flashing" cells a year ago. These bacterial clocks could be tuned to alter the rate at which they blinked on and off.

But this latest advance allows the cells "talk to each other" and synchronise their activity as they grow into a colony.

"If you want a sensor - if you want to use the rate at which the cells switch on and off to signal something about the environment, you need a synchronised signal," explained Dr Hasty.

To achieve this, he and his team incorporated two genes into the bacterial cells.

The real breakthrough will be when we can do this in mammalian cells Professor Martin Fussenegger ETH Zurich

One of the genes produced what he described as "a negative feedback system". This was the key component that stimulated oscillations in the cells - effectively switching the fluorescent protein on and off.

The other gene produced a chemical that travelled between the cells, allowing them to talk to each other and communicate the rate of his oscillation.

Professor Martin Fussenegger, a scientist from the Swiss science and technology university ETH Zurich, who was not involved in the study, said that this was "the first time that time-keeping devices in different individual cells had been synchronised".

"It's a dramatic achievement. The real breakthrough [will be] when we can do this in mammalian cells, and this has laid the foundation for that," he told BBC News.

"Oscillators could eventually be designed to produce insulin every six hours [in diabetic patients].

"When doctors tell you to take this pill three times a day, that's this is nothing more than an oscillation - a dose at a frequency. An engineered oscillator could do this automatically."

In this same issue of Nature, the editors have marked what many scientists consider to be the 10th anniversary of the birth of synthetic biology - the discipline that sets out to engineer or manipulate life.

"Part of the whole excitement of synthetic biology was to make a branch of molecular biology into an engineering discipline," said Dr Hasty. "The aim is to use computational tools to design biological circuits from scratch.

"We're not quite there yet, but we can already design some of these [simple] systems."

Source

Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2010

Why Genes Aren't Destiny

By John Cloud

ENLARGE PHOTO+

Three generations: Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, with son Magnus, and grandson Ludvig, in Stockholm.

Lars Tunbjork / VU

The remote, snow-swept expanses of northern Sweden are an unlikely place to begin a story about cutting-edge genetic science. The kingdom's northernmost county, Norrbotten, is nearly free of human life; an average of just six people live in each square mile. And yet this tiny population can reveal a lot about how genes work in our everyday lives.

Norrbotten is so isolated that in the 19th century, if the harvest was bad, people starved. The starving years were all the crueler for their unpredictability. For instance, 1800, 1812, 1821, 1836 and 1856 were years of total crop failure and extreme suffering. But in 1801, 1822, 1828, 1844 and 1863, the land spilled forth such abundance that the same people who had gone hungry in previous winters were able to gorge themselves for months. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

In the 1980s, Dr. Lars Olov Bygren, a preventive-health specialist who is now at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, began to wonder what long-term effects the feast and famine years might have had on children growing up in Norrbotten in the 19th century — and not just on them but on their kids and grandkids as well. So he drew a random sample of 99 individuals born in the Overkalix parish of Norrbotten in 1905 and used historical records to trace their parents and grandparents back to birth. By analyzing meticulous agricultural records, Bygren and two colleagues determined how much food had been available to the parents and grandparents when they were young.

Around the time he started collecting the data, Bygren had become fascinated with research showing that conditions in the womb could affect your health not only when you were a fetus but well into adulthood. In 1986, for example, the Lancet published the first of two groundbreaking papers showing that if a pregnant woman ate poorly, her child would be at significantly higher than average risk for cardiovascular disease as an adult. Bygren wondered whether that effect could start even before pregnancy: Could parents' experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring? (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.)

It was a heretical idea. After all, we have had a long-standing deal with biology: whatever choices we make during our lives might ruin our short-term memory or make us fat or hasten death, but they won't change our genes — our actual DNA. Which meant that when we had kids of our own, the genetic slate would be wiped clean.

What's more, any such effects of nurture (environment) on a species' nature (genes) were not supposed to happen so quickly. Charles Darwin, whose On the Origin of Species celebrated its 150th anniversary in November, taught us that evolutionary changes take place over many generations and through millions of years of natural selection. But Bygren and other scientists have now amassed historical evidence suggesting that powerful environmental conditions (near death from starvation, for instance) can somehow leave an imprint on the genetic material in eggs and sperm. These genetic imprints can short-circuit evolution and pass along new traits in a single generation.

For instance, Bygren's research showed that in Overkalix, boys who enjoyed those rare overabundant winters — kids who went from normal eating to gluttony in a single season — produced sons and grandsons who lived shorter lives. Far shorter: in the first paper Bygren wrote about Norrbotten, which was published in 2001 in the Dutch journal Acta Biotheoretica, he showed that the grandsons of Overkalix boys who had overeaten died an average of six years earlier than the grandsons of those who had endured a poor harvest. Once Bygren and his team controlled for certain socioeconomic variations, the difference in longevity jumped to an astonishing 32 years. Later papers using different Norrbotten cohorts also found significant drops in life span and discovered that they applied along the female line as well, meaning that the daughters and granddaughters of girls who had gone from normal to gluttonous diets also lived shorter lives. To put it simply, the data suggested that a single winter of overeating as a youngster could initiate a biological chain of events that would lead one's grandchildren to die decades earlier than their peers did. How could this be possible?

Meet the Epigenome
The answer lies beyond both nature and nurture. Bygren's data — along with those of many other scientists working separately over the past 20 years — have given birth to a new science called epigenetics. At its most basic, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above). It is these epigenetic "marks" that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.

See how to prevent illness at any age.

See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.

Epigenetics brings both good news and bad. Bad news first: there's evidence that lifestyle choices like smoking and eating too much can change the epigenetic marks atop your DNA in ways that cause the genes for obesity to express themselves too strongly and the genes for longevity to express themselves too weakly. We all know that you can truncate your own life if you smoke or overeat, but it's becoming clear that those same bad behaviors can also predispose your kids — before they are even conceived — to disease and early death.

The good news: scientists are learning to manipulate epigenetic marks in the lab, which means they are developing drugs that treat illness simply by silencing bad genes and jump-starting good ones. In 2004 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an epigenetic drug for the first time. Azacitidine is used to treat patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (usually abbreviated, a bit oddly, to MDS), a group of rare and deadly blood malignancies. The drug uses epigenetic marks to dial down genes in blood precursor cells that have become overexpressed. According to Celgene Corp. — the Summit, N.J., company that makes azacitidine — people given a diagnosis of serious MDS live a median of two years on azacitidine; those taking conventional blood medications live just 15 months. (See 25 people who mattered in 2009.)

Since 2004, the FDA has approved three other epigenetic drugs that are thought to work at least in part by stimulating tumor-suppressor genes that disease has silenced. The great hope for ongoing epigenetic research is that with the flick of a biochemical switch, we could tell genes that play a role in many diseases — including cancer, schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer's, diabetes and many others — to lie dormant. We could, at long last, have a trump card to play against Darwin.

The funny thing is, scientists have known about epigenetic marks since at least the 1970s. But until the late '90s, epigenetic phenomena were regarded as a sideshow to the main event, DNA. To be sure, epigenetic marks were always understood to be important: after all, a cell in your brain and a cell in your kidney contain the exact same DNA, and scientists have long known that nascent cells can differentiate only when crucial epigenetic processes turn on or turn off the right genes in utero.

More recently, however, researchers have begun to realize that epigenetics could also help explain certain scientific mysteries that traditional genetics never could: for instance, why one member of a pair of identical twins can develop bipolar disorder or asthma even though the other is fine. Or why autism strikes boys four times as often as girls. Or why extreme changes in diet over a short period in Norrbotten could lead to extreme changes in longevity. In these cases, the genes may be the same, but their patterns of expression have clearly been tweaked. (See the best pictures of 2009.)

Biologists offer this analogy as an explanation: if the genome is the hardware, then the epigenome is the software. "I can load Windows, if I want, on my Mac," says Joseph Ecker, a Salk Institute biologist and leading epigenetic scientist. "You're going to have the same chip in there, the same genome, but different software. And the outcome is a different cell type."

How to Make a Better Mouse
As momentous as epigenetics sounds, the chemistry of at least one of its mechanisms is fairly simple. Darwin taught us that it takes many generations for a genome to evolve, but researchers have found that it takes only the addition of a methyl group to change an epigenome. A methyl group is a basic unit in organic chemistry: one carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms. When a methyl group attaches to a specific spot on a gene — a process called DNA methylation — it can change the gene's expression, turning it off or on, dampening it or making it louder. (See more about DNA.)

The importance of DNA methylation in altering the physical characteristics of an organism was proposed in the 1970s, yet it wasn't until 2003 that anyone experimented with DNA methylation quite as dramatically as Duke University oncologist Randy Jirtle and one of his postdoctoral students, Robert Waterland, did. That year, they conducted an elegant experiment on mice with a uniquely regulated agouti gene — a gene that gives mice yellow coats and a propensity for obesity and diabetes when expressed continuously. Jirtle's team fed one group of pregnant agouti mice a diet rich in B vitamins (folic acid and vitamin B12). Another group of genetically identical pregnant agouti mice got no such prenatal nutrition.

The B vitamins acted as methyl donors: they caused methyl groups to attach more frequently to the agouti gene in utero, thereby altering its expression. And so without altering the genomic structure of mouse DNA — simply by furnishing B vitamins — Jirtle and Waterland got agouti mothers to produce healthy brown pups that were of normal weight and not prone to diabetes.

See TIME's genetics covers.

See pictures from an X-ray studio.

Other recent studies have also shown the power of environment over gene expression. For instance, fruit flies exposed to a drug called geldanamycin show unusual outgrowths on their eyes that can last through at least 13 generations of offspring even though no change in DNA has occurred (and generations 2 through 13 were not directly exposed to the drug). Similarly, according to a paper published last year in the Quarterly Review of Biology by Eva Jablonka (an epigenetic pioneer) and Gal Raz of Tel Aviv University, roundworms fed with a kind of bacteria can feature a small, dumpy appearance and a switched-off green fluorescent protein; the changes last at least 40 generations. (Jablonka and Raz's paper catalogs some 100 forms of epigenetic inheritance.)

Can epigenetic changes be permanent? Possibly, but it's important to remember that epigenetics isn't evolution. It doesn't change DNA. Epigenetic changes represent a biological response to an environmental stressor. That response can be inherited through many generations via epigenetic marks, but if you remove the environmental pressure, the epigenetic marks will eventually fade, and the DNA code will — over time — begin to revert to its original programming. That's the current thinking, anyway: that only natural selection causes permanent genetic change. (See "The Year in Health 2009.")

And yet even if epigenetic inheritance doesn't last forever, it can be hugely powerful. In February 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a paper showing that even memory — a wildly complex biological and psychological process — can be improved from one generation to the next via epigenetics. The paper described an experiment with mice led by Larry Feig, a Tufts University biochemist. Feig's team exposed mice with genetic memory problems to an environment rich with toys, exercise and extra attention. These mice showed significant improvement in long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of neural transmission that is key to memory formation. Surprisingly, their offspring also showed LTP improvement, even when the offspring got no extra attention.

All this explains why the scientific community is so nervously excited about epigenetics. In his forthcoming book The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ Is Wrong, science writer David Shenk says epigenetics is helping usher in a "new paradigm" that "reveals how bankrupt the phrase 'nature versus nurture' really is." He calls epigenetics "perhaps the most important discovery in the science of heredity since the gene." (See the top 10 nonfiction books of 2009.)

Geneticists are quietly acknowledging that we may have too easily dismissed an early naturalist who anticipated modern epigenetics — and whom Darwinists have long disparaged. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) argued that evolution could occur within a generation or two. He posited that animals acquired certain traits during their lifetimes because of their environment and choices. The most famous Lamarckian example: giraffes acquired their long necks because their recent ancestors had stretched to reach high, nutrient-rich leaves.

In contrast, Darwin argued that evolution works not through the fire of effort but through cold, impartial selection. By Darwinist thinking, giraffes got their long necks over millennia because genes for long necks had, very slowly, gained advantage. Darwin, who was 84 years younger than Lamarck, was the better scientist, and he won the day. Lamarckian evolution came to be seen as a scientific blunder. Yet epigenetics is now forcing scientists to re-evaluate Lamarck's ideas.

Solving the Overkalix Mystery
By early 2000, it seemed clear to Bygren that the feast and famine years in 19th century Norrbotten had caused some form of epigenetic change in the population. But he wasn't sure how this worked. Then he ran across an obscure 1996 paper by Dr. Marcus Pembrey, a prominent geneticist at University College London.

Published in the Italian journal Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, Pembrey's paper, now considered seminal in epigenetic theory, was contentious at the time; major journals had rejected it. Although he is a committed Darwinist, Pembrey used the paper — a review of available epigenetic science — to speculate beyond Darwin: What if the environmental pressures and social changes of the industrial age had become so powerful that evolution had begun to demand that our genes respond faster? What if our DNA now had to react not over many generations and millions of years but, as Pembrey wrote, within "a few, or moderate number, of generations"?

This shortened timetable would mean that genes themselves wouldn't have had enough years to change. But, Pembrey reasoned, maybe the epigenetic marks atop DNA would have had time to change. Pembrey wasn't sure how you would test such a grand theory, and he put the idea aside after the Acta paper appeared. But in May 2000, out of the blue, he received an e-mail from Bygren — whom he did not know — about the Overkalix life-expectancy data. The two struck up a friendship and began discussing how to construct a new experiment that would clarify the Overkalix mystery.

Pembrey and Bygren knew they needed to replicate the Overkalix findings, but of course you can't conduct an experiment in which some kids starve and others overeat. (You also wouldn't want to wait 60 years for the results.) By coincidence, Pembrey had access to another incredible trove of genetic information. He had long been on the board of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a unique research project based at the University of Bristol, in England. Founded by Pembrey's friend Jean Golding, an epidemiologist at the university, ALSPAC has followed thousands of young people and their parents since before the kids were born, in 1991 and 1992. For the study, Golding and her staff recruited 14,024 pregnant mothers — 70% of all the women in the Bristol area who were pregnant during the 20-month recruitment period.

Read "Can Genetics Help You Find Love?"

Read about the increasing number of genetic tests for newborns.

The ALSPAC parents and kids have undergone extensive medical and psychological testing every year since. Recently, I met an ALSPAC baby, Tom Gibbs, who is now a sturdy 17-year-old. I accompanied him as clinicians measured his height (178 cm, or 5 ft. 8 in., not including spiked blond hair), the bone density of his left femur (1.3 g/sq cm, which is above average) and a host of other physical traits.

All this data collection was designed from the outset to show how the individual's genotype combines with environmental pressures to influence health and development. ALSPAC data have offered several important insights: baby lotions containing peanut oil may be partly responsible for the rise in peanut allergies; high maternal anxiety during pregnancy is associated with the child's later development of asthma; little kids who are kept too clean are at higher risk for eczema. (See the most common hospital mishaps.)

But Pembrey, Bygren and Golding — now all working together — used the data to produce a more groundbreaking paper, the most compelling epigenetic study yet written. Published in 2006 in the European Journal of Human Genetics, it noted that of the 14,024 fathers in the study, 166 said they had started smoking before age 11 — just as their bodies were preparing to enter puberty. Boys are genetically isolated before puberty because they cannot form sperm. (Girls, by contrast, have their eggs from birth.) That makes the period around puberty fertile ground for epigenetic changes: If the environment is going to imprint epigenetic marks on genes in the Y chromosome, what better time to do it than when sperm is first starting to form?

When Pembrey, Bygren and Golding looked at the sons of those 166 early smokers, it turned out that the boys had significantly higher body mass indexes than other boys by age 9. That means the sons of men who smoke in prepuberty will be at higher risk for obesity and other health problems well into adulthood. It's very likely these boys will also have shorter life spans, just as the children of the Overkalix overeaters did. "The coherence between the ALSPAC and Overkalix results in terms of the exposure-sensitive periods and sex specificity supports the hypothesis that there is a general mechanism for transmitting information about the ancestral environment down the male line," Pembrey, Bygren, Golding and their colleagues concluded in the European Journal of Human Genetics paper. In other words, you can change your epigenetics even when you make a dumb decision at 10 years old. If you start smoking then, you may have made not only a medical mistake but a catastrophic genetic mistake.

Exploring Epigenetic Potential
How can we harness the power of epigenetics for good? In 2008 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it would pour $190 million into a multilab, nationwide initiative to understand "how and when epigenetic processes control genes." Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who directed the NIH when it awarded the grant, said at the time — in a phrase slightly too dry for its import — that epigenetics had become "a central issue in biology." (See TIME's health and medicine covers.)

This past October, the NIH grant started to pay off. Scientists working jointly at a fledgling, largely Internet-based effort called the San Diego Epigenome Center announced with colleagues from the Salk Institute — the massive La Jolla, Calif., think tank founded by the man who discovered the polio vaccine — that they had produced "the first detailed map of the human epigenome."

The claim was a bit grandiose. In fact, the scientists had mapped only a certain portion of the epigenomes of two cell types (an embryonic stem cell and another basic cell called a fibroblast). There are at least 210 cell types in the human body — and possibly far more, according to Ecker, the Salk biologist, who worked on the epigenome maps. Each of the 210 cell types is likely to have a different epigenome. That's why Ecker calls the $190 million grant from NIH "peanuts" compared with the probable end cost of figuring out what all the epigenetic marks are and how they work in concert.

Remember the Human Genome Project? Completed in March 2000, the project found that the human genome contains something like 25,000 genes; it took $3 billion to map them all. The human epigenome contains an as yet unknowable number of patterns of epigenetic marks, a number so big that Ecker won't even speculate on it. The number is certainly in the millions. A full epigenome map will require major advances in computing power. When completed, the Human Epigenome Project (already under way in Europe) will make the Human Genome Project look like homework that 15th century kids did with an abacus.

But the potential is staggering. For decades, we have stumbled around massive Darwinian roadblocks. DNA, we thought, was an ironclad code that we and our children and their children had to live by. Now we can imagine a world in which we can tinker with DNA, bend it to our will. It will take geneticists and ethicists many years to work out all the implications, but be assured: the age of epigenetics has arrived.

Source

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Commentary

As I've mentioned to my friends and other peers in the Biological sciences, epigenetics is the key we've been missing in Biology for the past century.

Using epigenetics we were able to create IPS cells or Induced Pluripotent stem cells, from skin cells. We frankly just turned on 5 genes and these 5 genes gave us the power to differentiate these skin cells into a number of other cells.

It's amazing, just the power of 5 genes working together. Imagine what will happen when they map the epigenetic genome. You were forced into obesity, now with a small pill or an injection your epigentics have been reset and your body will not excrete hormones or proteins that you were predisposed to.

ENVIRONMENT has won the fight. It has enslaved DNA once and for all with these clues into genetics. Even before all this I refused in Middle school and High school to believe the notion that I was a slave to my genes. We are slaves no more to our Genes, and soon we'll be freed from our epigenetic markers as well.

Here is a similar slideshow about Epigenetics that will explain the situation better for people who might still be having trouble grasping what epigenetics is:

How You Can Change Your Genes

Dr. Lars Olov Bygren's research helps explain how a father's diet might affect certain traits he passes to his son

The human body has trillions of cells, each one with a nucleus, its command center. In each nucleus, DNA is tightly coiled around proteins called histones that work as support structures for genes

The Role of DNA and Genes
Genes contain the codes for cells to produce the various proteins that organisms need to function. Humans have approximately 25,000 genes. Darwin and his followers taught us that it takes many generations to rewrite this basic

Where to Find Epigenetic Marks

Just as genes provide the codes for producing proteins, various chemicals called epigenetic marks sit atop genes and offer basic instructions to them, telling them to switch on or off

Epigenetic Marks Define Cell Types

All cell types — muscle cells, nerve cells, etc. — contain the exact same DNA. Epigenetic marks silence certain gene sequences and activate others so that nascent cells can differentiate. If the marks don't work properly, cancer or cell death is possible

How Environment Changes the Marks

Stressors like a rich diet can activate epigenetic marks, modifying histones or adding methyl groups to DNA strands. These changes can turn genes on or off and may affect what gets passed down to your offspring

What Epigenetic Changes Can Mean

If you overstimulate genes for, say, obesity or a shortened life span, your kids can inherit these overactivated sequences. That could mean a lifetime of battling unfavorable gene expression

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also here is a similar story about epigenetics I posted here back in October. It's about two twins and it asks "Why am I the short and Fat one?". Epigenetics is our future and as a Bio-technician it's my job to find ways to manipulate it to cure or alleviate people's suffering.

Afghan aid fails to feed the hungry

Parwan province is quiet, but signs of discontent are growing

By Peter Greste BBC News, Parwan province, Afghanistan

It is not hard to see why Alla Gul is upset. Her two-year-old daughter cries weakly in her arms with barely enough energy to eat.

The child stares vacantly at the other patients in the Charikar hospital ward, her muscles wasted with malnutrition, her angular bones protruding like twigs beneath her papery skin.

When Alla Gul returned with her family from a refugee camp in Iran six years ago to Afghanistan, they expected better things.

The Taliban had fallen, security had returned and international aid began pouring in - billions of dollars' worth.

"It's indeed very difficult. For months, we haven't been able to afford to buy meat for our children. It's very painful to watch," she said.

Alla Gul's two-year-old daughter is weak with hunger

Alla Gul says she never wanted handouts. But she and her husband - a contract farmer who gets a portion of the produce from the land he works - always believed they would lead a comfortable life.

Now, he simply can't earn enough to feed the family.

Dr Aslam Fawad is despairing. Each day he walks the malnutrition ward, watching more and more patients arrive from across this otherwise fertile farming district.

Poverty is so deep that even many farmers are unable to feed their families.

Dr Fawad does his best to help, but the dire state of the economy means that some patients keep returning, time after time.

"The malnutrition problem in Afghanistan, and especially Parwan province, is very bad. That's because of the years of fighting, the damage to our infrastructure and rising unemployment.

"It's all helped to make things worse," he said.

Deep discontent

The statistics bear him out: officially, unemployment is about 40%, though it is probably far higher than that; of those who do have a job in Parwan, 45% earn less than one dollar a day; chronic malnutrition for children under five across Afghanistan is 54%.

And perhaps most surprising of all, on a UN scale of human development indicators, Afghanistan has slipped from 117th in the world, to 181st - second from the bottom - since the Taliban were ousted.

Professor Sayed Massood, an economist from Kabul University, believes that backsliding is responsible for much of the deep discontent with the government, and growing support for the insurgency.

Even farm workers are suffering from malnutrition

He blames the crisis of public confidence on the policy of pouring billions of dollars in development aid into regions where the insurgency is strongest.

"Instead of the benefits [of aid] going to friends, they are going to enemies. We needed to spend money in the places where the people believe in democracy and work for the government.

"But instead only the enemies are getting rich," he said.

"We need to set examples of peaceful provinces that are also prosperous, but that's just not happening."

Prof Massood argues that the international community has adopted an aid policy that has been entirely counter-productive.

"They have politicised aid; they have tried to use their money to bring about political change in the frontline provinces - they have tried to bribe their enemies.

"But they don't understand that it works the other way around. If you improve the economics of the people, the politics will follow. If you don't, you will lose them."

That might explain why the insurgency appears to be spreading to parts of the country that until now have been relatively peaceful.

Slowly switching sides

Rural Parwan province, just to the north of Kabul, is still quiet, but there are growing signs of discontent with the government, and resentment at the way the people have been neglected.

Some patients keep returning to the malnutrition ward in Charikar hospital

Abdullah Khan heads another family struggling to find enough food. He is a tractor driver, working the fields for neighbouring farms.

But a month ago, his two-year-old daughter Rabia also had to be admitted to hospital with severe malnutrition.

Rabia is recovering with Dr Fawad's help, but several days ago his wife gave birth to another girl - one more mouth to feed just when they can least afford it.

"Instead of aid going to those like me who need it, it goes to rich, corrupt people. I'm very angry at the government," Abdullah Khan said.

The government badly needs the trust of Abdullah Khan and those like him - moderates who just want a peaceful life.

But the more Afghanistan's children suffer, the more support for the government slips, and the more it grows for the insurgency.

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Rising alcohol addiction costs 'could cripple the NHS'

Alcohol misuse is a major problem for the NHS

The cost of treating the growing number of people drinking heavily threatens to cripple NHS hospitals, warn experts.

If the trend continues the burden will be unsustainable, the Royal College of Physicians and NHS Confederation say.

With a quarter of England's population consuming hazardous amounts, alcohol addiction already costs the NHS more than £2.7 billion a year.

Services need work together to avert a crisis, with the emphasis on prevention, they say in a joint report.

Currently, most of the money is being spent on hospital and ambulance services.

This burden is no longer sustainable Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians

But hospital care alone cannot solve the problem, the report says.

Increasing out-of-hospital provision could be more cost effective, it says.

This would include GPs screening and counselling their patients on alcohol misuse.

Trials suggest that brief advice from a GP, or practice nurse, leads to one in eight people reducing their drinking to within sensible levels.

This, says the report, compares well with smoking cessation, where only one in 20 change their behaviour.

Changing the way alcohol-related services are delivered could save hospitals 1,000 bed days and Primary Care Trusts up to £650,000 a year, experts estimate.

Breaking point

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: "The nation's growing addiction to alcohol is putting an immense strain on health services, especially in hospitals, costing the NHS over £2.7 billion each year."

And this sum has doubled in under five years.

"This burden is no longer sustainable," he said.

"The role of the NHS should not just be about treating the consequences of alcohol related-harm but also about active prevention, early intervention, and working in partnership with services in local communities to raise awareness of alcohol-related harm."

Steve Barnett, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: "We hope this report helps to outline the scale of the problems facing the NHS and acts as a warning that if we carry on drinking in the way that we are currently, the bar bill will be paid in worse health and a health system struggling to cope."

A Department of Health spokesperson welcomed the report: "We agree the level of alcohol-related hospital admissions, crime, and deaths are still unacceptable.

"We are now seeing a real will by the NHS for change and improvement in alcohol services.

"Two thirds of PCTs have adopted reducing alcohol-related hospital admissions as a local priority for the first time.

"The department is providing Primary Care Trusts with the support, tools and incentives to deliver alcohol services in their own areas effectively according to local needs."

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Abuse in Russian jails exposed - 16 Nov 09

Another Cause of Obesity: The Bacteria in Your Gut?

By Alice Park Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009

Peter Dazeley / Getty

If you have ever fought the battle of the bulge, then you are all too familiar with its key players: diet, exercise and your genes. The less you move (calories out) and the more you eat (calories in), the more fat you gain — an equation that may be heavily influenced by your particular genes. But scientists have long known that these three factors do not adequately explain every case of obesity, and now researchers are discovering increasingly convincing evidence of another important contributor to body weight, one that until recently has been almost completely ignored: the bacteria that live in your gut.

Technically, they're known as the gut microbiota, a universe of tens of trillions of microbes, which live and thrive in the human intestinal tract and colon and most of which survive without oxygen. These microbes perform an enormous range of vital functions, including helping regulate the calories the body obtains from food and stores as fat. In other words, they may help regulate weight. And a new study published on Nov. 12 in Science Translational Medicine suggests that the particular type and balance of bugs you harbor in your gut may help push your body toward either obesity or leanness and that these microbe populations might even be manipulated to potentially change your weight. (Watch a video about obesity and social networks.)

The new study builds on previous research in mice that suggests that heavy bodies may have a different makeup of gut bugs than thin ones. The gut microbiota of obese mice has been shown to have significantly more of one main type of bacteria called Firmicutes and fewer of another kind called Bacteroidetes (both types populate human guts as well); in normal mice, the distribution is the opposite. Jeffrey Gordon at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., who conducted the previous research, experimented again with mice for the new paper. This time, however, he and his team used human microbiota to colonize mouse guts and then fed the rodents the equivalents of typical human diets to see how their microbes — and their weight — changed.

Researchers started with mice that were specially bred to be germ-free — with no gut microbiota of their own — and to be able to nurture human gut microbiota. Researchers injected the mice with samples of fresh and frozen human feces, the bacteria from which took hold and colonized in the gut of the mice. If that surprises you, it absolutely stunned the researchers. "We were surprised that so much of the diversity present in human microbial communities could be recaptured in mice," says Gordon, who has been studying gut microbiota for more than five years.

The fact that the human gut flora flourished in the rodents was indeed an experimental coup. Since the mice were genetically engineered to be germ-free, lacking a functioning immune system, the scientists could be certain that any bug colonies that took hold in the mouse guts originated entirely from the human sample, not the mice. Being able to recreate the living human gut environment so faithfully in an animal was a welcome prize. (Read "The Year in Medicine 2008: From A to Z.")

The main advantage was that Gordon and his team now had the cutting-edge DNA-sequencing capability to scan and analyze all the genes contained in those bacteria. That meant researchers could determine not only which species of bacteria were present and in what proportions, but also which genes these bugs were actively using in different conditions. Before such genomic-analysis technology became available, researchers could study only the gut microbes (animal or human) that could be cultured outside their intestinal home — something that not all of the oxygen-shunning bugs were amenable to — but never the complete microbiota of the gut. "We cannot recapitulate the entire microbial diversity that exists in these complex communities. We simply don't know how to culture them, so we could miss a lot of diversity," says Gordon.

That diversity and its impact came into plain view when the researchers started experimenting with the rodents' diet. When one group of mice was fed a typical Western diet, high in fat and sugars, they tended to gain weight and grow more Firmicutes gut bacteria and fewer Bacteroidetes. In mice given a low-fat plant-based chow, the distribution of the two groups of bugs flipped and the animals remained lean. It's not clear whether the balance of gut bugs causes weight gain or is a result of it, but the findings suggest that a "gut profile" could potentially serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying who might have a propensity for obesity. If, for instance, your gut environment contains a preponderance of Firmicutes, then your body may be predisposed to digest calories in a way that leads to greater fat storage. In fact, in Gordon's earlier work with identical twins of different weights, he found that the obese twin tended to have more Firmicutes colonies than the leaner one.

Gordon also found in his mouse populations that changing the animals' diet caused a dramatic and rapid shift in the population of bacteria in their gut. Switching a mouse from low-fat plant chow to a high-fat Western diet resulted in an explosion of Firmicutes in less than a day.

That suggests that factors like gut microbes, which scientists traditionally would not think exerted influence on genes, may have a surprisingly powerful effect, changing how a body's genes would normally control the way the body digests food and breaks it down into energy. It makes sense, when you consider that the great majority of the cells and genes in the typical human body belong to the microbiota. "There is a vast reservoir of attributes associated with our human physiology that is derived from our gut microbial communities," he says. "Our genetic landscape is actually an amalgam, so it's slightly different from the genetic determinism of human genes flowing from parent to offspring. It's also the microbial genes that are acquired from early environmental exposures and transmitted within families as well."

Ultimately, says Gordon, with additional research, this work could lead to the identification of microbial markers that would make up a kind of obesity or leanness profile — a vital-stats sheet of the gut world that would help people understand how their bodies are likely to respond to calories. Beyond that, the possibilities are even more exciting. With more research, Gordon sees potential even for applying to agriculture the knowledge gained from these mice — we could grow more foods that are specifically designed to provide the optimal balance of nutrients and energy for various life stages. "This vast universe of microbes that live on and in us is terra incognita, but it is becoming more cognita every day," he says. "We are beginning to develop the toolbox necessary to describe not only which microbes live within us but to observe the consequences of our symbiosis with them on our health, our biology and our genetic landscape. There is a great deal of excitement but also a great deal of work that still needs to be done in this area."

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You can reuse plastic bottles and Freeze them - Just don't heat them.

Researcher Dispels Myth of Dioxins and Plastic Water Bottles

Rolf Halden, PhD, PE

The Internet has been flooded with false email warnings to avoid freezing water in plastic bottles so as not to get exposed to carcinogenic dioxins. One hoax email has been erroneously attributed to Johns Hopkins University since the spring of 2004. The Office of Communications and Public Affairs discussed the issue with Rolf Halden, PhD, PE, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Center for Water and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Halden received his masters and doctoral degrees researching dioxin contamination in the environment. We sat down with him to set the record straight on dioxins in the food supply and the risks associated with drinking water from plastic bottles and cooking with plastics.

Question: What are dioxins?

Answer: Dioxins are organic environmental pollutants sometimes referred to as the most toxic compounds made by mankind. They are a group of chemicals, which include 75 different chlorinated molecules of dibenzo-p-dioxin and 135 chlorinated dibenzofurans. Some polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also are referred to as dioxin-like compounds. Exposure to dioxins can cause chloracne, a severe form of skin disease, as well as reproductive and developmental effects, and more importantly, liver damage and cancer.

Question: Where do dioxins come from?

Answer: We always thought dioxins were man-made compounds produced inadvertently during the bleaching of pulp and manufacturing of pesticides like Agent Orange and other chlorinated aromatics. But dioxins in sediments from lakes and oceans predate these human activities. It is now generally accepted that a principal source of dioxins are various combustion processes, including natural events such as wild fires and even volcanic eruptions.

Today, the critical issue is the incineration of waste, particularly the incineration of hospital waste, which contains a great deal of polyvinyl chloride and aromatic compounds that can serve as dioxin precursors. One study examined the burning of household trash in drums in the backyard. It turns out that these small burnings of debris can put out as much or more dioxins as a full-sized incinerator burning hundreds of tons of refuse per day. The incinerators are equipped with state-of-the-art emission controls that limit dioxin formation and their release into the environment, but the backyard trash burning does not. You set it ablaze and chemistry takes over. What happens next is that the dioxins are sent into the atmosphere where they become attached to particles and fall back to earth. Then they bind to, or are taken up, by fish and other animals, where they get concentrated and stored in fat before eventually ending up on our lunch and dinner plates. People are exposed to them mostly from eating meat and fish rich in fat.

Question: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims dioxins can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?

Answer: No. This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics. In addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals. Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which would limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we don’t think there are.

Question: So it’s okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?

Answer: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the water they are drinking rather than the container it’s coming from. Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy bottled water instead. The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.

Question: Water bottles aside, are plastics products for daily use a potential concern? What are phthalates?

Answer: Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called phthalates. Phthalates are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle, although they are not typically found in plastics used for water bottles sold in the United States. Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and food.

Question: What about cooking with plastics?

Answer: In general, whenever you heat something you increase the likelihood of pulling chemicals out. Chemicals can be released from plastic packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals. Some drinking straws say on the label “not for hot beverages.” Most people think the warning is because someone might be burned. If you put that straw into a boiling cup of hot coffee, you basically have a hot water extraction going on, where the chemicals in the straw are being extracted into your nice cup of coffee. We use the same process in the lab to extract chemicals from materials we want to analyze.

If you are cooking with plastics or using plastic utensils, the best thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that are specifically meant for cooking. Inert containers are best, for example heat-resistant glass, ceramics and good old stainless steel.

Question: Is there anything else you want to add?

Answer: Don’t be afraid of drinking water. It is very important to drink adequate amounts of water and, by the way that’s in addition to all the coffee, beer and other diuretics we love to consume. Unless you are drinking really bad water, you are more likely to suffer from the adverse effects of dehydration than from the minuscule amounts of chemical contaminants present in your water supply. Relatively speaking, the risk from exposure to microbial contaminants is much greater than that from chemicals.

And here’s one more uncomfortable fact. Each of us already carries a certain body burden of dioxins regardless of how and what we eat. If you look hard enough, you’ll find traces of dioxins in pretty much every place on earth. Paracelsus the famous medieval alchemist, used to put it straight and simple: it’s the dose that makes the poison.--Tim Parsons

Read the response from Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center regarding similar cancer-related hoax emails

Public Affairs media contact for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Tim Parsons at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.

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China 'running illegal prisons'

By Michael Bristow BBC News, Beijing

Former inmates claim they were beaten and raped in the jails

China is running a number of unlawful detention centres in which its citizens can be kept for months, according to Human Rights Watch.

It says these centres - known as black jails - are often in state-run hotels, nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals.

Among those detained are ordinary people who have travelled to Beijing to report local injustices.

China says it is a country ruled by laws, but there are other sources to suggest that black jails do exist.

'Punched and kicked'

The human rights group report, entitled An Alleyway in Hell, says ordinary people are often abducted off the streets and taken to illegal detention centres.

They are sometimes stripped of their possessions, beaten and given no information about why they have been detained.

Legal detention centres have also come in for criticism

Human Rights Watch said it collected information for the report by interviewing 38 detainees earlier this year.

"I asked why they were detaining me, and as a group [the guards] came in and punched and kicked me and said they wanted to kill me," one former detainee told the group.

"I loudly cried for help and they stopped, but from then on, I didn't dare [risk another beating]."

Many of those held are petitioners, people who travel to Beijing to present their complaints to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls.

This national government department is supposed to help ordinary people across the country redress their grievances.

But some petitioners are detained by plainclothes security officers when they arrive in Beijing.

"The existence of black jails in the heart of Beijing makes a mockery of the Chinese government's rhetoric on improving human rights and respecting the rule of law," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

Outcry over deaths

State-run media outlets have reported the existence of black jails.

The China Daily last week carried a report about the trial of a black jail guard accused of raping a 20-year-old woman who had been detained.

Despite that, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday denied that China has illegal detention centres.

"I can assure you that there are no so-called black jails in China," he said at a regular press briefing.

But when pressed on the issue he added that there were "existing problems" that were being dealt with.

Black jails are just one aspect of China's detention system that have come in for criticism over recent months.

There has been a public outcry over the numbers of deaths in prisons and detention centres, a situation the government has promised to stamp out.

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Emanuel on Health Care Realism

From The New York Times:

“Let's be honest."

"The goal isn't to see whether I can pass this through the executive board of the Brookings Institution. I'm passing it through the United States Congress with people who represent constituents."

"I'm sure there are a lot of people sitting in the shade at the Aspen Institute — my brother being one of them — who will tell you what the ideal plan is. Great, fascinating. You have the art of the possible measured against the ideal."

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The US health system 'headache'

When the BBC's David Willis recently found himself caught up in the American healthcare system in Los Angeles, he says he only just lived to tell the tale.

The healthcare system is a huge topic all over the US

It is amazing how within a matter of minutes fate can build you up almost beyond recognition, only to deliver a well-aimed slap across the backside.

Going through the mail last week, the first envelope was marked US Immigration and Naturalisation Service and contained a laminated piece of plastic, confirming that my application for permanent residency had finally been approved.

Holding my green card up to the light, I was just about to break into an interpretative dance of celebration.

Then I spotted the second envelope in the pile, and the exhilaration evaporated instantaneously.

The letter was from a company which oversees the BBC's health insurance plan.

Tearing open that envelope, I was confronted with news that my coverage - extended after I left the BBC to go freelance - had come to an end.

The news itself was hardly unexpected, but seeing it in black and white filled me with horror.

Even if you are a picture of good health, all it takes is a freak accident and you are toast

Now I was on my own, it was me against the system.

I had the feeling things were about to get ugly, because when it comes to health insurance, the Americans could teach the British a thing or two about bureaucracy.

Big hypochondriac

It is difficult to overstate how vital health insurance is in America.

Find yourself in the emergency ward, strapped to machines which go "bip" and surrounded by sullen doctors who have been called in from the golf course just to deal with you, and if you do not have health insurance the chances are you will be paying for your visit until the end of time.

About 47 million Americans currently have no health insurance

Even if you are a picture of good health, all it takes is a freak accident and you are toast.

An expatriate friend of mine spent a week in "outpatients" after having the misfortune of flying a small aeroplane in to the sea.

His bill was around $100,000 (£60,000). He told the cashier he had come in for treatment - not to buy the hospital.

Being uninsured was especially worrying for me because I am, well, the world's biggest hypochondriac.

If I get a headache, I instantly assume I am haemorrhaging.

The longer it continues, the wilder my doom-laden diagnoses becomes. What, for example, if it is tapeworm larvae burrowing a hole in my brain?

Such fears have led me to have virtually every test under the sun.

I have donated blood by the bucketful and enough urine to float a battleship, because I know my body is trying to fool me.

Yes, I feel as fit as a fiddle, but it is a facade.

My body is lulling me into a false sense of security, while some deadly virus, some terminal disease - holed up in some dark corner of my insides - marshals its forces and starts plotting my untimely demise.

By the time he had finished, I felt like a winner on "The Price Is Right". The cost - £5,500 a year!

Given the fact that visits to the doctor are therefore a weekly occurrence for me (I prefer to think of it more as a pastime than an addiction) you can see how distressing the prospect of being without insurance could be.

And so, with heavy heart, I set about taking on the many-headed hydra that is the American healthcare system.

For some reason, there was no way of simply continuing the policy the BBC had in place and paying the premiums myself.

So I had to apply as if I had never had coverage before.

I found myself talking to Steve, a chirpy salesman at one of the larger insurance companies, who ran me through the details of one of their more popular policies.

Yes, I would still have to pay to see either a doctor or a specialist but he would throw in a prostate exam - and a colonoscopy every 10 years.

By the time he had finished, I felt like a winner on "The Price Is Right". The cost - $9,100 a year!

Tenterhooks

President Obama has made healthcare reform a big priority

Steve sent me a form which delved into my every malady since emerging from the womb. I was reminded that there is one thing that health insurance companies absolutely hate - sick people.

Sick people have the audacity to require treatment, which not only eats into profits, but upsets the accountants' balance sheets. Too much of that and you could completely spoil their day.

Having explained away virtually every cough and sneeze over the course of the last 49 years, I got to question 41: Has the person applying for coverage consumed any alcoholic beverage in the last six months?

I read that several times, even at one point substituting a different pair of glasses, and no, I was not mistaken - it really did say six months.

Not six days, or six minutes, but six months.

By the time I had finished the form I had a headache and eye strain, and so I went back and added those to my pre-existing conditions and then sent the form off to Steve.

He told me my application would be assessed by an underwriter - which conjured up images of Lloyds of London weighing the fate of the QE2, or in my case, the Titanic.

And so I wait on tenterhooks to learn whether my application has been approved.

The tension is killing me. And at my age that is no good for the blood pressure.

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