The Health Blog

TINY MICROBES: LETHAL THREATSIn the 1950s and 1960s scientists thought that with an arsenal of antibiotics and infection control practices, they would conquer infectious diseases. But in the twenty-first century they know better. Today’s arsenal of antibiotics appears to be increasingly ineffective, with penicillin-resistant strains of diseases on the rise as microbes are able to outlast and outsmart even the best of our antibiotic weapons. Old scourges are back, and new ones are emerging, wreaking havoc from remote third world villages to modern first world cities. Consider the following:
“Mad Cow Disease” The British beef industry is in crisis, and meat eaters from Europe to the United States are nervous about the possibility of dying of that burger that they ate last year. Known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or “mad cow disease,” the disease is thought to have been transmitted when cows were fed a protein-based substance (slaughterhouse leftovers from sheep and other cows) to help them put on weight and grow faster. Failure to treat this protein by-product sufficiently to kill the BSE organism left it to proliferate in and eventually infect the cows to which it was fed. The disease is believed to be transmitted to humans through the meat of these slaughtered cows. The resultant variant of BSE in humans, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and characterized by progressively worsening neurological damage and possible death, was noted in ten people in England and linked by some studies to the BSE-diseased cows. With that, the mad-cow scare emerged. As scientists continue to look at this possible link, it should be noted that such a link has not yet been scientifically verified.
Dengue and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever Dengue viruses are the most widespread arthropod viruses in the world and are transmitted by mosquitoes. Today, dengue is found on most continents, and over one half of all United Nations member states are threatened. Dengue symptoms include flu-like nausea, aches, and chronic fatigue and weakness. As urban areas become increasingly infected with mosquitoes, nearly 1.5 billion people, including about 600 million children, are at risk. Each year, it is estimated that over 100 million people are infected, and over 8,000 die. A more serious form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever, can kill children in 6 to 12 hours, as the virus causes capillaries to leak and spill fluid and blood into surrounding tissue. Dengue is on the rise in the United States, largely due to increases in international travel by infected persons.
EbolaAlthough some may think the Ebola virus makes for a good movie plot, its shocking symptoms are grim reality. Ten recent victims in Gabon, Africa, pose grim testimony to its virulence. In 1995, an outbreak in Zaire killed 245 of the 316 people infected, forcing strict quarantine of the region. Subsequent infections in other regions of the world have caused increasing concern in the global community. Ebola virus, which causes fever and massive internal hemorrhaging, is fortunately not as prevalent worldwide as dengue fever.
CryptosporidiumIn 1993, the United States was shaken by the largest water-borne coccidian protozoan disease outbreak ever recognized in this country, as this once obscure intestinal parasite (Cryptosporidium) infected the municipal water supply of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, causing many deaths and illness for hundreds of thousands of people and over 4,500 hospitalizations. Exactly how the water supply became infected remains in question; however, the fact that humans, birds, and animals can carry the infective agent opens the door for many possible routes.*22/277/5*

THE OTHER SIDE OF SLEEP: NIGHTMARE TRIGGERSNightmares are often triggered by stress and trauma. For example, studies focusing on combat veterans, victims of accidents or disasters, and Holocaust survivors find a high incidence of disturbed dreams, which are directly linked to the subjects’ past experiences. Such dreams can persist for decades after the actual event; the severity of their impact is directly related to the time that has passed since the trauma occurred. In one such study victims of a disaster at sea were found to relive the crisis on an almost nightly basis. Their REM periods were fragmented and interrupted; during their dreams of the disaster, they would cry out in fear and move about so violently that they sometimes fell out of bed. A man who had survived the Holocaust at the age of six continued to experience the same nightmare of persecution several times a night, during both REM and NREM sleep, nearly forty years after the event. When monitored by the EEG, long-term sufferers of nightmares are found to have shorter REM sleeps and longer REM latency than other people. Interestingly, the ability to recall our nightmares diminishes with the passage of time; perhaps such amnesia is the brain’s way of trying to minimize the damage or to compensate in some way for causing disturbed sleep.*301\226\8*

CAUSES OF ALLERGIC RHINITIS: MYTHS ABOUT ALLERGY TO CATS AND DOGSThe First Myth: “I’m Not Allergic to My Dog, But I Can’t Get Near My Neighbor’s Dog.” This is a comment usually made by people whose dog lives inside, and in close relationship with them. The observation is partially true: such a person may not notice that her symptoms are triggered by her dog. However, the fact that she does not notice them doesn’t mean that she isn’t allergic to her dog.Dog-allergic people whose pets live indoors frequently have daily symptoms that wax and wane in severity. Such people either cannot identify anything specific that triggers symptoms, or they tend to perceive that “everything” causes symptoms. The truth is their symptoms have become a daily affair: They are exposed to dog allergen many hours out of each day because their dog lives indoors.When this dog owner goes to her neighbor’s home, she becomes exposed to a different amount of dog allergen. If this exposure is more intense than what she gets from her own dog, she will experience a flare-up of symptoms. To her, it seems as if she is allergic to the neighbor’s dog and not her own, when, in truth, she is actually allergic to both her pet and her neighbor’s. The increased degree of exposure to dog allergen at her neighbor’s accounts for her increased symptoms while there.
The Second Myth: Short-Hair Dogs or Cats Cause Fewer Allergy Problems Than Their Long-Haired Counterparts. Remember this: Dogs is Dogs! Cats is Cats!Also, in contrast to popular belief, dog and cat hair are far less important as causes of allergic symptoms than are shed skin cells and saliva. Therefore, don’t judge the allergy-causing ability of a dog or cat by the length of its hair.
The Final Myth: “I’m Allergic to Cocker Spaniels But Not to Labradors.” This statement implies that you can be allergic to one breed of dog, but not to another. This isn’t true, although it may seem to be. Be aware that some breeds of dog either shed more “doggy” allergen in their skin and saliva than do other breeds, or they simply shed a greater volume of skin cells and saliva. Either results in a greater exposure to allergen from one breed than another, and therefore, in more allergic symptoms. But doggy allergen is doggy allergen; it is not unique to any breed. If you hang around the breed you think you are not allergic to long enough, you will eventually expose yourself sufficiently to develop symptoms.*20/322/5*