Buy One Get One Free at Eyebuydirect.com 12/3

BOGO BONUS! Buy One, Get One Free with code SALEDAY11, only on 12/3 at EyeBuyDirect.com! 

 

 

Prefect time to get the glasses you need for your prepping supplies and bug out bags. All you need is your current prescription and your pupil distance. Many glasses are only $6.95 + shipping which comes out to about $12(something) a pair vs. the $300 or $400 per pair you would get if you went someplace like Lens Crafters or other optical places. At the time of this posting if you use code SALEDAY8 you get free shipping, and if you use code TRYUS you get 15% off your over all sale.

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Better Therapies For Cardiovascular Disease May Be Product Of Protein Tug Of War

Two proteins are in a tug of war that determines how much the body makes of superoxide, a highly reactive and potentially destructive product of oxygen that's dramatically elevated in cardiovascular disease, researchers report.
Their finding indicates an antiulcer drug just may help the body reduce excessive levels.
Hsp90 and Hsp70 are both heat shock proteins but appear to have opposite effects on reactive oxygen species production, said Dr. David J.R. Fulton, Interim Director of the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.
"Our studies show that Hsp90 promotes the activity of Nox enzymes, the source of reactive superoxide and all of the reactive oxygen species that descend from it, while Hsp70 has an opposing action that inhibits Nox," Fulton said.
When researchers gave Hsp90 inhibitors, the binding of Nox enzymes to Hsp90 was reduced, its binding to Hsp70 increased and reactive oxygen species production decreased. The inhibitors also reduced reactive oxygen species production in blood vessels from obese mice, where it contributes to the loss of elasticity and narrowing that are hallmarks of cardiovascular disease. While Hsp90 inhibition was known to suppress inflammation and reduce cardiovascular damage, just how it made these positive changes was unknown.
The yin and yang the researchers found points toward a targeted therapy that should give Hsp70 the edge, said Dr. Feng Chen, postdoctoral fellow. Chen is first author of the study in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
Hsp90 inhibitors are used to treat cancer, which depends on Hsp90 to support rapid cell division. But they also target proteins that help blood vessels relax, such as nitric oxide synthase, so probably are not a good choice in cardiovascular disease. "Cardiovascular disease is a chronic disease, and we want to minimize negative side effects while providing protection," Fulton said.
In this case, a better approach appears to be directly increasing the expression of Hsp70 with a drug such as geranylgeranylacetone, or GGA, an antiulcer drug used in Japan with relatively few side effects, Chen said. When the MCG researchers treated human aortic vascular smooth muscle cells with the drug, for example, Hsp70's binding to Nox increased while Nox's ability to generate superoxide decreased.
Next steps include looking at whether this increased expression of Hsp70 actually translates to healthier blood vessels in a cardiovascular model. "If we can upregulate Hsp70 without affecting nitric oxide synthase, it should," said Fulton, the study's corresponding author.
Hsp70 and 90 are chaperones that guide protein folding in different ways and can influence more than just whether Nox enzymes are stable or degraded. Hsp70 levels are regulated by the molecule heat shock factor, which is bound to and repressed by Hsp90. That's one reason why Hsp90 inhibitors increase Hsp70 levels.
Reactive oxygen species are not all bad, the researchers noted. At normal levels, they aid cell signaling and homeostasis as well as the mounting of an immune response. However, excessive levels associated with chronic inflammation are thought to accelerate cardiovascular disease. "A little bit is good; you want a well-honed immune system to fend of pathogens," Fulton said. "Chronic inflammation is the problem."
The researchers completed their studies in normal and diabetic mice - diabetes increases the risk of cardiovascular disease by at least 50 percent - as well as the saphenous, or major superficial leg veins, of patients with cardiovascular disease.

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Postpartum Depression May Be Reduced By Eating More Fish

Emerging evidence suggests many pregnant women are deficient in omega-3
Low levels of omega-3 may be behind postpartum depression, according to a review lead by Gabriel Shapiro of the University of Montreal and the Research Centre at the Sainte-Justine Mother and Child Hospital. Women are at the highest risk of depression during their childbearing years, and the birth of a child may trigger a depressive episode in vulnerable women. Postpartum depression is associated with diminished maternal health as well as developmental and health problems for her child. "The literature shows that there could be a link between pregnancy, omega-3 and the chemical reaction that enables serotonin, a mood regulator, to be released into our brains," Shapiro said. "Many women could bring their omega-3 intake to recommended levels." The findings were announced by the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
Because omega-3 is transferred from the mother to her fetus and later to her breastfeeding infant, maternal omega-3 levels decrease during pregnancy, and remain lowered for at least six-weeks following the birth. Furthermore, in addition to the specific biological circumstances of pregnant women, it has been found in the US that most people do not consume sufficient amounts of omega-3. "These findings suggest that new screening strategies and prevention practices may be useful," Shapiro said, noting that the study was preliminary and the further research would be needed to clarify the link and identify the reasons for it.

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Link Between Vitamin D Deficiency And Type 1 Diabetes

A study led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has found a correlation between vitamin D3 serum levels and subsequent incidence of Type 1 diabetes. The six-year study of blood levels of nearly 2,000 individuals suggests a preventive role for vitamin D3 in this disease. The research appears the December issue of Diabetologia, a publication of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).
"Previous studies proposed the existence of an association between vitamin D deficiency and risk of and Type 1 diabetes, but this is the first time that the theory has been tested in a way that provides the dose-response relationship," said Cedric Garland, DrPH, FACE, professor in UCSD's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.
This study used samples from millions of blood serum specimens frozen by the Department of Defense Serum Registry for disease surveillance. The researchers thawed and analyzed 1000 samples of serum from healthy people who later developed type 1 diabetes and 1000 healthy controls whose blood was drawn on or near the same date but who did not develop type 1 diabetes. By comparing the serum concentrations of the predominant circulating form of vitamin D - 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) - investigators were able to determine the optimal serum level needed to lower an individual's risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
Based mainly on results of this study, Garland estimates that the level of 25(OH)D needed to prevent half the cases of type 1 diabetes is 50 ng/ml. A consensus of all available data indicates no known risk associated with this dosage.
"While there are a few conditions that influence vitamin D metabolism, for most people, 4000 IU per day of vitamin D3 will be needed to achieve the effective levels," Garland suggested. He urges interested patients to ask their health care provider to measure their serum 25(OH)D before increasing vitamin D3 intake.
"This beneficial effect is present at these intakes only for vitamin D3," cautioned Garland. "Reliance should not be placed on different forms of vitamin D and mega doses should be avoided, as most of the benefits for prevention of disease are for doses less than 10,000 IU/day."

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Electronic Medical Records

Living in the digital age has brought around new technologies that revolutionize the health care industry. In a day and age where you can keep the contents of your entire computer on something the size of a stick of gum, doctors and healthcare professionals are now pushing for their patients to carry thumb-drives with Electronic Medical Records on it. I know being a Diabetic I carry a thumb-drive with all my medical information on it so that way if I have a medical emergency, doctors and emergency response teams will have my whole history right there at their fingertips. Electronic medical Records Software is typically easy to use and there are companies that will even maintain these records for you. One such company that provides these services is Optimus ERM they offer:

ADT and Resident Information

The Electronic Chart (eChart)

Point-of-Care (POC) Documentation

Automated MDS

Integrated Electronic Heath Records

Fully Integrated Billing and Financial System

Electronic Control Center (eCC)—Management Dashboard

CPOE Physician Order Module

eMAR and eTAR (Electronic Medication Administration Records and Electronic Treatment Administration Records)

Pharmacy and Lab Interfaces

Physician Full Clinical Module

Complete Support for Integrated CCRC Campuses

Full Therapy (Rehab) Module that is Integrated with Resident Clinical Records

I strongly urge everyone to at least get one and update it with your current records and place one in a safety deposit box or on your keychain, you never know when it will save your life.

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Effective Strategies To Prevent Teen Depression And Suicide

Untreated depression is one of the leading causes of teen suicide, and signs of depression can also be a warning that a teen is contemplating suicide. In an article published in the quarterly journal, The Prevention Researcher, University of Cincinnati researchers are describing how positive connections can help offset these tragedies.
In the current issue, titled, "Teen Depression," UC researchers Keith King, a professor of health promotion, and Rebecca Vidourek, an assistant professor of health promotion, report that depression and suicide are "intricately intertwined among teens" in their article, "Teen Depression and Suicide: Effective Prevention and Intervention Strategies."
The authors reveal that teen suicidal warning signs encompass three specific categories:

1. Behavioral warning signs - Traits that teens may display when contemplating suicide include difficulty sleeping or excessive sleeping; changes in school performance; loss of interest in once pleasurable activities; giving away cherished possessions; expressing thoughts of death or suicide.
2. Verbal warning signs - Verbal statements include, "I want to die;" "I don't want to be a burden anymore; "My family would be better off without me."
3. Stressful life events - A traumatic event for the teen, such as a breakup, parental divorce or loss of a loved one.

King and Vidourek also highlight national research that finds that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered teenagers are at an elevated risk for depression and suicide, possibly because of lack of support systems and social acceptance, as well as greater isolation among peers.
The UC researchers say building strong connections with family, schools and the community are key to protection against depression and teen suicide. "Research clearly indicates family connectedness helps to prevent teen suicide, even if teens are socially isolated from peers," write the authors. They add that because teens spend such a large amount of time in school, the authors recommend that schools adopt prevention and intervention programs that include education, early detection and follow-up programs to address teen depression and suicide.
"As research indicates, the key component to effective depression/suicide prevention is the development of positive social and emotional connections among teens and supportive adults," the authors conclude in the article. "Thus, getting teens positively connected to positive people and positive situations should remain the goal."

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Before I Die–post taken from candychang.com

Before I Die originally posted http://candychang.com/before-i-die-in-nola/

I DO NOT OWN THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS POST, I COPY AND PASTE IT TO SHARE. IF REQUESTED BY CANDYCHANG I WILL REMOVE.

What is important to you 2011-present

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget what really matters to you. When I lost someone I loved very much, I thought about death a lot. This helped clarify my life, the people I want to be with, and the things I want to do, but I struggled to maintain perspective. I wanted to know what was important to the people around me and I wanted a daily reminder. So with help from old and new friends, I painted the side of an abandoned house in my neighborhood in New Orleans with chalkboard paint and stenciled it with the sentence “Before I die I want to _______.” so anyone walking by can pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on their lives, and share their personal aspirations in public space.

It was all an experiment and I didn’t know what to expect. By the next day the wall was entirely filled out and it kept growing. Before I die I want to… sing for millions, see my daughter graduate, eat all the candy and sushi in the world, straddle the International Date Line, be someone’s cavalry, live off the grid, build a school, hold her one more time, abandon all insecurities, be completely myself…  People’s responses made me laugh out loud, tear up, and feel consolation during my own tough times. The wall transformed a neglected space into a constructive one. It helped us understand our neighbors in new and enlightening ways. It showed us we are not alone. It provided a contemplative space to restore perspective and remember why we want to be alive in the world today.

I created the original wall in February of 2011 and after receiving hundreds of requests, my Civic Center colleagues and I created a Before I Die toolkit and the project site beforeidie.cc to help people make a wall with their community. You can also download all files for free to remix or create your own stencils. Thanks to passionate people, over 50 Before I Die walls have been created in over 10 languages and in over 20 countries, including Kazakhstan, South Africa, Portugal, Japan, and Argentina. Each wall is unique and reflects the people of that community and each wall is a tribute to living an examined life. The project shows you don’t need a big budget to make a big impact. It also pushes the boundaries of what our public spaces are fundamentally made of. With more ways to share our hopes, fears, and stories in public space, the people around us can not only help us make better places, they can help us lead better lives.

Visit the project website beforeidie.cc for more walls, tools, and resources to make your own wall! FollowBeforeIDieWall on Twitter for the latest news. Have you created a Before I Die wall or remix? Please send your photos and stories to hello@beforeidie.cc!

“One of the most creative community projects ever.” - The Atlantic

Developed with support from the Black Rock Arts Foundation. February 2011 and beyond. 41′ x 8′, Chalkboard paint, stencils, spray paint, chalk. New Orleans, LA. With permission from the property owner, residents of the block, the neighborhood association’s blight committee, the Historic District Landmarks Commission, the Arts Council, and the City Planning Commission. Installation assistance: Kristina Kassem, Alan Williams, Cory Klemmer, Anamaria Vizcaino, James Reeves, Alex Vialou, Earl Carlson, and Gary Hustwit. You have permission to use photos below for publicity of the project. Photos by Civic Center, unless credited otherwise.

The first stencil

First responses

Within 24 hours of stenciling the wall.

Kristina Kassem Once the wall was filled to the max or looking janky, we washed it down and started over again.

"http://candychang.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/before-i-die-writings.jpg" width="720" height="482">

Update Sept 22, 2011: After seven months, the first wall comes to a happy end: the house will be turned into a home again thanks to new owners. We painted over the wall and stenciled one last thing – something Wendell Pierce said a few months ago that has stayed with Candy since: “Our thoughts are to the individual as our art is to the community.” It was ready to go but from the ashes come more.

Update Sept 22, 2011: After receiving many requests, we created a Before I Die toolkit to help people make a wall with their community! It includes a one-column stencil made of thick mylar so it’s easy to hang rigid against a wall. It also includes a title stencil, a guide, metal chalk holders, gloves, and chalk. All files are also available for free download if you’d like to create your own stencils.

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Brooklyn. Photo above by Shake Shack

Brooklyn. Photo above by Shake Shack

Johannesburg. Photo from facebook.com/BeforeIDieSA

Savannah. Photo above by Trevor Coe

Querétaro, Mexico

Thanks to your passion, this participatory public art project is expanding to countries around the world, including Kazakhstan, Mexico, Italy, Australia, Portugal, Argentina, and beyond! See other walls on the project site www.beforeidie.cc and follow BeforeIDieWall on Twitter for the latest news. Have you created a Before I Die wall or remix? Please send your photos and stories to hello@beforeidie.cc!

“Death can inspire life. Especially in New Orleans, on the corner of Marigny and Burgundy, where the Before I Die project has used the specter of urban decay and death to create art and inspire. Using a boarded up house as a canvas, artist Candy Chang transformed a haunting reminder of blight and divestment into a powerful affirmation of human life and imagination.” – Life and Times

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Diet Enriched With Arginine And Proline May Speed Wound Healing In Diabetes

Chronic wounds such as foot ulcers are a common problem for diabetics and are the cause of more than 80 percent of the lower leg amputations in these patients. There is currently no effective way to improve healing of these types of wounds, but new research offers hope.
French researchers found that diabetic rats on a high protein diet with arginine and proline - specific molecules found in protein - showed better wound healing over rats fed either standard or high protein food without arginine and proline supplementation.
The article is entitled "Arginine plus proline supplementation elicits metabolic adaptation that favors wound healing in diabetic rats." It appears in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology published by the American Physiological Society.
Methodology
Researchers divided 18 rats into three groups that were either fed a standard diet, a high-protein diet, or a high protein diet supplemented with arginine and proline (ARG+PRO). On the first day of the experiment, each rat was given an incision, under which a sponge was placed in order to collect wound-healing fluid. To assess skin regrowth and healing, researchers also removed two full-thickness sections of skin from the rats' backs each day from day 1 until day 5, when the experiment ended.
At the end of the experiment, the rats' blood was analyzed for blood sugar, insulin, and amino acid concentrations. The wounds on their backs were examined for skin regrowth and development of new blood vessels. And, finally, macrophages were collected from the sponges and analyzed for indications of cytokine stimulation and pro-inflammatory activity.
Results
Rats on both high protein diets had better nitrogen balance than those on the standard diet. However, the wounds of the rats on the ARG+PRO diet showed more new blood vessel growth on day 5. New blood vessel growth is an essential part of wound healing as the blood vessels supply nutrition and oxygen to growing tissue.
Furthermore, the macrophages in the ARG+PRO group showed less cytokine stimulation and pro-inflammatory activity than the other groups. This indicates a better environment for promoting wound healing, as inflammation slows the healing process.
The researchers did not find a difference in skin regrowth between groups, but their findings may be limited because of the small number of rats in the study. Additionally, researchers did not measure markers of collagen deposition in the wound, and the study cannot confirm the beneficial effect of arginine on collagen deposition and wound breaking strength reported in previous research.
Importance of the Findings
This study suggests that arginine and proline supplementation could offer new hope for effective treatment in diabetic patients with chronic wounds. This is a promising new area of research where there are no existing effective treatments for these patients.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends, family, viewers, and readers. Gobble til you Wobble, and enjoy your day.

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Pathways Of Motivational Pathways Mapped Through the Brain By Optogenetics

Whether you are an apple tree or an antelope, survival depends on using your energy efficiently. In a difficult or dangerous situation, the key question is whether exerting effort - sending out roots in search of nutrients in a drought or running at top speed from a predator - will be worth the energy.
In a paper published online in Nature, Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, and postdoctoral scholar Melissa Warden, PhD, describe how they have isolated the neurons that carry these split-second decisions to act from the higher brain to the brain stem. In doing so, they have provided insight into the causes of severe brain disorders such as depression.

In organisms as complex as humans, the neural mechanisms that help answer the question, "Is it worth my effort?" can fail, leading to debilitating mental illnesses. Major depressive disorder, for instance, which affects nearly 20 percent of people at some point in life, is correlated with underperformance in the parts of the brain involved in motivation. But researchers have struggled to work out the exact cause and effect.
"It's challenging because we do not have a fundamental understanding of the circuitry that controls this sort of behavioral pattern selection. We don't understand what the brain is doing wrong when these behaviors become dysfunctional, or even what the brain is supposed to be doing when things are working right," Deisseroth said. "This is the level of the mystery we face in this field."
Clinicians refer to this slowing down of motivation in depressed patients as "psychomotor retardation." According to Deisseroth, who is also a practicing psychiatrist, patients may experience this symptom mentally, finding it hard to envision the positive results of an action, or, he said, they may feel physically heavy, like their limbs just do not want to move.
"This is one of the most debilitating aspects of depression, and motivation to take action is something that we can model in animals. That's the exciting opportunity for us as researchers," said Deisseroth, who also holds the D.H. Chen Professorship.
Light coercion
Psychiatrists, Deisseroth included, believe the will to act may be born in the prefrontal cortex - the foremost part of the brain that helps plan and coordinate action. It then zips through the brain as a series of electrical signals, passing from neuron to neuron along countless branching pathways until it reaches the nerves that directly implement movement. Until this study, however, it was not clear which of these pathways might control the willingness to meet challenges, or the anticipation that action might be worthwhile in a difficult situation.
To isolate these pathways relevant to depression, Deisseroth's team needed to stimulate specific brain cells in rodents and observe changes in their behavior. They used optogenetics, a technique Deisseroth developed at Stanford in 2005, which has since revolutionized the fields of bioengineering and neuroscience.
The secret is as old as green algae. These single-celled organisms produce a protein called channelrhodopsin that makes them sensitive to sunlight. Borrowing and engineering the gene for this protein, Deisseroth has been able to create neurons that respond to light delivered from fiber-optic cables. He can turn the neurons on and off by sending bursts of light to activate different areas of the brain and then observe the effects on behavior.
Working backward
Surprisingly, the researchers found that simply stimulating the prefrontal cortices of rodents didn't motivate them to try any harder in a laboratory challenge. It turns out that motivation is not as simple as stimulating a region of the brain. Instead of one switch in the prefrontal cortex that turns motivation on, multiple switches work in concert. Some neurons excite motivated activity and others inhibit it. Broadly stimulating the executive part of the brain will not generate a simple effect on behavior.
"It's one step more subtle" said Deisseroth, "but this is something that optogenetics was very well-suited to resolve."
An optogenetic method called projection targeting allowed the scientists to work backward from the brain stem and find the exact pathway from neurons in the prefrontal cortex that signal motivation.
The researchers first introduced their light-sensitive protein into cells in the prefrontal cortex. The light sensitivity then spread out like the branches of a tree through all the outgoing connections and eventually made its way to the brain stem, making those regions light sensitive, too.
Then, illuminating the newly light-sensitive regions of the brain stem thought to control motivational movement, Deisseroth and Warden watched the behavioral effects as a subgroup of neurons in the prefrontal cortex that sent connections to brain stem were activated. They could see not only which cells are possibly involved in motivation, but the way motivation moves from one brain region to another.
Mapping motivation
The researchers suspected that one part of the brain stem in particular, the dorsal raphe nucleus, might be crucial to behaviors that control effort. This cluster of cells is a production hub for serotonin - a chemical messenger that changes the firing behavior of other cells. Serotonin is associated with mood modulation; many antidepressant drugs, for instance, may act by increasing serotonin concentration in the brain.
When the pathway between the prefrontal cortex and the dorsal raphe nucleus was stimulated, rodents facing a challenge in the lab showed an immediate and dramatic surge in motivation.
Curiously, however, when the rodents were relaxing in their home environment, the same stimulation had no effect. The pathway was not merely linked to any action, or to agitation; it was, more specifically, helping to "set the effort that the organism was willing to put forth to meet a challenge," Deisseroth said.
Researchers were also able to produce the opposite effect - reduced effort in response to challenge - by stimulating prefrontal neurons that project to the lateral habenula, a region perched atop the brain stem that is thought to play a role in depression. When this region was getting signals driven optogenetically from the prefrontal cortex, rodents put forward less effort.
Larger puzzles
These findings are part of a larger puzzle that Deisseroth and his team have pieced together by using optogenetics to model human behavior in animal subjects. The work has already helped clinicians and researchers to better understand what is going on in a patient's brain.
Connecting depressive symptoms with brain pathways may be helpful in the development of drugs, but according to Deisseroth, the most important part of this research is its insight into how motivation works in both depressed and healthy people.
He has observed that this insight alone can be helpful to those dealing with mental illness and seeking an explanation for troubling symptoms that feel deeply personal. For those patients, he said, simply knowing that a biological reality underlies their experience can be a motivational force in itself.

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