1. While Americans Sleep, Our Corporate Overlords Make Progress Impossible

2. Biden sued by Air Force officers who compare vaccine rule to death sentence

3. There’s a Multibillion-Dollar Market for Your Phone’s Location Data

4. The Climate Crisis Is Dimming Earth’s Light, Study Finds

5. All You Need To Know About Merck’s Covid Pill Molnupiravir

6. Tylenol Could Be Risky for Pregnant Women – A New Review of 25 Years of Research Finds Acetaminophen May Contribute to ADHD and Other Developmental Disorders in Children

7. Lead contamination found in blood of half of young kids in U.S.

8. More Evidence That Vitamin D Protects Against Severe COVID-19 Disease and Death

9.  Why won’t the US medical establishment “believe women”? Covid-19 vaccines do not warn about menstrual disruption

10.  Assembly Bill A416

11.  Explosive! Public Health Data: 80% Of Covid-19 Deaths In August Were Vaccinated People

TODAY’S VIDEOS:

1. 1. NURSE WHISTLEBLOWER UPSET THAT HER DOCTOR AND NURSE COLLEAGUES WANT UNVACCINATED PEOPLE TO DIE (AFTER MUSIC)

   2. Maryland Nurse Reports On Vaccination Catastrophe (after break) 

   3. Kim Iversen: Is Fauci’s Botched Handling Of The AIDS Epidemic Being Repeated?

   4. Here’s Fauci Pre-Pandemic Laughing At The “Paranoid” Idea That Masking Is Effective Against Infectious Disease

   Can Eating Peppers Help You Live Longer
   
     
   
   

   Tulane University   September 28, 2021

   People who have a taste for chili peppers and other hot spicy foods may live longer, research suggests.

   A new study of more than 500,000 Chinese adults over seven years finds that participants who ate foods flavored with chili peppers every day reduced their risk of premature dying by 14 percent, as compared to people who ate chili peppers less than once a week.

   But, don’t sweat it: you don’t’ have to indulge every day to reap the benefits.

   “Even among those who consumed spicy foods less frequently [one to two days a week], the beneficial effects could be observed,” says Lu Qi, professor of epidemiology at Tulane University. “Indeed, moderate increase of spicy foods would benefit.”

   In China, chili pepper is a popular spice, and participants reported eating their peppers fresh, dried, and in sauce or oil. In the United States, hot pepper sauce has increased in popularity over the last decade, according to market research.

   While his study, published in the BMJ, doesn’t address other foods, earlier research has indicated that horseradish, black pepper, garlic, and ginger may offer similar benefits.”There also is preliminary data from other studies showing such potential,” Qi says.

   Capsaicin in chili peppers may be what protects health, Qi says. It reduces risk of obesity, offers antibacterial properties, and helps protect against diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other conditions. Chili peppers also improve inflammation and reduce blood pressure and oxidative stress.

   Adjusting fatty acid intake may help with mood variability in bipolar disorders

   Penn State University, September 28, 2021

   Can specific dietary guidelines help people living with bipolar disorders better manage their health? Maybe someday, according to a new study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Clinical trial results showed that a diet designed to alter levels of specific fatty acids consumed by participants may help patients have less variability in their mood.

   Bipolar disorders, which affect up to 2.4% of the population, are mental health conditions where individuals experience cyclic and abnormally elevated and/or depressed mood states. During acute episodes, parts of the brain that regulate emotions are underactive, leading to either manic highs or depressive lows. Researchers are identifying ways to help patients with the symptoms they experience between episodes, which can include pain, anxiety, impulsivity and irritability.

   “As clinicians, we understand that if we can help our patients better control these symptoms between episodes, it could help reduce the number of times they relapse into acute episodes,” said Dr. Erika Saunders, Shively-Tan Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. “Our goal with this trial was to see if specific dietary interventions could help patients with mood variability between episodes.”

   Saunders and her colleagues designed a diet to alter the levels of specific polyunsaturated fatty acids—nutrients found in many foods—participants consumed while participating in usual care for bipolar disorders, including mood‐stabilizing medication. Prior research showed that medications for treating bipolar disorders change the way bodies break down, or metabolize, fatty acids. The byproducts of this process activate different parts of the immune system and include other chemical processes that affect how the body perceives pain, a common symptom reported by people living with bipolar disorders.

   The researchers hypothesized that by changing the type and amount of fatty acids consumed, the body would generate metabolites with specific purposes, such as reducing pain or inflammation. The experimental diet decreased omega-6 fatty acid consumption by limiting red meat, eggs and certain oils, and increased omega-3 fatty acid consumption by adding flax seed and fatty fishes like tuna and salmon. To keep participants unaware of which group they were in, the team gave participants specific meal plans with instructions on how to prepare their food as well as unlabeled cooking oils and specially prepared snack foods and baked products.

   More than 80 people with bipolar disorders participated in diet counseling and were given specific foods to eat for a 12-week period. Twice a day they completed surveys on their mobile devices about their mood, pain and other symptoms. Throughout the study participants also had bloodwork taken so researchers could measure fatty acid levels and how the food was affecting their bodies. According to the researchers, the experimental diet improved mood variability in patients with bipolar disorders. The results were published in the journal Bipolar Disorders.

   “At this time, we can’t yet recommend this type of diet for patients with bipolar disorders, although we found the diet to be safe,” said Saunders, noting that follow up studies are needed. “This carefully constructed nutrition plan shows promise for regulating mood between manic and depressive episodes, but we’re not sure if this could be widely adopted since it would be challenging for patients to follow this rigorous program.”

   In the future, the research team will continue to assess how fatty acid metabolites may affect pain in bipolar disorders. Saunders said that by replicating the study, they hope to make sound, scientific dietary recommendations for people with bipolar disorders that could be more easily implemented in their everyday lives.

   “This diet isn’t meant to be a treatment for people with bipolar disorders who are experiencing acute, severe depression or mania,” Saunders said. “Rather, our goal is to develop solutions to help patients have better long-term management of their symptoms, including pain.”

   Science backs nature as key to children’s health

   Washington State University, September 29, 2021

   The presence of greenspaces near homes and schools is strongly associated with improved physical activity and mental health outcomes in kids, according to a massive review of data from nearly 300 studies.

   Published online Sept. 29 in the journal Pediatrics, the review conducted by Washington State University and University of Washington scientists highlights the important role that exposure to nature plays in children’s health. Importantly, some of the data examined the effects for kids from historically marginalized communities and showed that the benefits of nature exposure may be even more pronounced for them.

   “By looking at the full scope of existing quantitative evidence, we were able to see the importance of ready access to nature for both physical and mental health outcomes in childhood,” said Amber Fyfe-Johnson, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor with WSU’s Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH) and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. “Access to nature – and the benefits that come with it – are a necessity, not a nicety. Unfortunately, not all kids are able to have regular nature contact. This is due partly to urbanization, increased screen time and more sedentary indoor lifestyles.”

   Lack of nature exposure disproportionately impacts historically marginalized communities that typically have fewer nearby residential parks and access to outdoor spaces, Fyfe-Johnson added. Families with limited resources and transportation options also face barriers to accessing parks and natural areas outside the city.

   Although these findings may seem self-evident to some, and the American Academy of Pediatrics routinely recommends outdoor play time, convincing data on the health benefits associated with nature exposure have been lacking, due partly to inconsistencies in study methodologies and definitions of outdoor time. The authors point out that not all time spent outside is equal – a parking lot is not a park, and an urban playground without natural elements is not a garden. And without strong evidence to support the benefits to kids of spending time outside, in nature, there has been little political will to enact or enforce policies that ensure equitable nature contact, said Fyfe-Johnson.

   The researchers position their findings in the context of the nation’s urgent public health crises around physical inactivity and poor mental health, in addition to fundamental sociodemographic inequities in access to nature. These disparities and public health emergencies have only become further magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic, noted Dr. Pooja Tandon, the study’s senior author.

   “Making this information available to pediatric health care providers and policy makers provides support for practices and policies promoting environmental justice and equitable nature contact for kids in places where they live, play and learn,” said Tandon, an associate professor at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

   Fyfe-Johnson points to prior evidence suggesting that contact with nature and greenspace may offer even greater health benefits to disadvantaged populations by counteracting some of the toxic effects of poverty.

   “We sincerely hope our work will help lead to improved access to nature and health outcomes for kids, in addition to reducing health disparities in childhood,” she said.

   Vitamin B12 and Alzheimer’s: Study with worms provides intriguing results

   University of Delaware, September 29, 2021

   Worms don’t wiggle when they have Alzheimer’s disease. Yet something helped worms with the disease hold onto their wiggle in Professor Jessica Tanis’s lab at the University of Delaware.

   In solving the mystery, Tanis and her team have yielded new clues into the potential impact of diet on Alzheimer’s, the dreaded degenerative brain disease afflicting more than 6 million Americans.

   A few years ago, Tanis and her team began investigating factors affecting the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. They were doing genetic research with C. elegans, a tiny soil-dwelling worm that is the subject of numerous studies.

   Expression of amyloid beta, a toxic protein implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, paralyzes worms within 36 hours after they reach adulthood. While the worms in one petri dish in Tanis’s lab were rendered completely immobile, the worms of the same age in the adjacent petri dish still had their wiggle, documented as “body bends,” by the scientists.

   “It was an observation my master’s student Kirsten Kervin made,” said Tanis, an assistant professor in UD’s Department of Biological Sciences. “She repeated the experiment again and again, with the same results.”

   After years of research, the team finally turned up an important difference, Tanis said. While all the worms were grown on a diet of E. coli, it turns out that one strain of E. coli had higher levels of vitamin B12 than the other. Although Tanis’s work was focused on genetic factors at the time, she redirected her research to examine this vitamin and its protective role.

   Learning from worms

   1. elegans is a nematode, a slender, transparent worm only about a millimeter long, that lives in soil, where it eats bacteria. Since the 1970s, this worm has been viewed as a model organism, the subject of numerous studies because it is a much simpler system than us humans for studying cell biology and diseases.

   “As humans, we have immense genetic diversity and such complex diets that it makes it really hard to decipher how one dietary factor is affecting the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s,” Tanis said. “That’s where the worms are amazing. The worms we use all have exactly the same genetic background, they react to amyloid beta like humans do, and we can exactly control what they eat, so we can really get down to the molecular mechanisms at work.”

   In the brains of humans with Alzheimer’s, the buildup of amyloid beta over the years causes toxic effects in cells, resulting in reduced energy, fragmentation of the mitochondria—the cells’ power plants, and oxidative stress from an excess of free radicals. The same thing happens in C. elegans, Tanis said, but in a matter of hours. Amyloid beta causes paralysis in the worms.

   “The read-out is black or white—the worms are either moving or they are not,” Tanis said. “When we gave vitamin B12 to the worms that were vitamin B12 deficient, paralysis occurred much more slowly, which immediately told us that B12 was beneficial. The worms with B12 also had higher energy levels and lower oxidative stress in their cells.”

   The team determined that vitamin B12 relies on a specific enzyme called methionine synthase to work. Without the presence of that enzyme, B12 has no effect, Tanis said. Also, adding the vitamin to the diet only worked if the animals were deficient in B12. Giving more B12 to animals with healthy levels does not help them in any way. The team also showed that vitamin B12 had no effect on amyloid beta levels in the worms.

   Tanis team power

   Tanis credits her students for their hard work and contributions. The first author on the research article, Andy Lam, is pursuing a dual degree at UD—a doctorate in biological sciences and a master of business administration. He spent years working on the laboratory protocols critical to the study. He ran dozens and dozens of experiments and documented observations overnight numerous times.

   A future goal is to automate these experiments using a high-throughput system at UD’s Bio-Imaging Center coupled with deep learning analysis to detect if the wormsare moving or not. That would allow the team to more rapidly examine the interactions between diet and genetics.

   “We’ve essentially identified this molecular pathway and we’re looking to see what else it activates,” Tanis said. “Can B12 be protective for multiple neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Parkinson’s? We’re looking into it.”

   While Kirsten Kervin graduated from UD with her master’s degree and is now a research scientist at WuXi AppTec in Philadelphia, it was her astute observation about C. elegans that set the project into motion.

   “That initial observation opened up an entirely different world,” Tanis said, “which is somehow the story of my research career here at UD. I came here thinking I would be studying one thing, but now I’m studying another. So it hasn’t been straightforward, but it has opened up an entirely new research area we are pursuing.”

   That “we” working on this project now includes two graduate students, a postdoctoral research associate, three undergraduate students and collaborations with the Bio-Imaging Center and multiple UD labs.

   “Right now, there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease,” Tanis said. “There are certain factors that you cannot change—you cannot change the fact that you age, and you cannot change a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease. But one thing you can control is what you eat. If people could change their diet to affect the onset of disease, that would be fantastic. That’s something my lab is excited to continue to explore.”

   The research is published in the Sept. 28 issue of Cell Reports.

   What Our Wandering Thoughts Can Teach Us About Mental Health

   University of Arizona, October 1, 2021

   Where does your mind wander when you have idle time? A University of Arizona-led study published in Scientific Reports may offer some clues, and the findings reveal a surprising amount about our mental health.

   78 participants were trained to voice their thoughts aloud for 10 minutes while sitting alone in a room without access to electronic devices. Researchers used audio equipment to record those thoughts, then transcribed the recordings and analyzed them for content. In total, more than 2,000 thoughts were analyzed.

   “We wanted to mimic the small breaks we have throughout the day, such as when waiting in line at a café, taking a shower, lying in bed at night and so on. These are all times during which external demands are minimal and internal thoughts tend to creep in,” said first author Quentin Raffaelli, a graduate student in the UArizona Department of Psychology.

   Most psychology research addressing human thought either tells people what to think about, asks participants to remember what they were thinking about minutes before, or uses self-report questionnaires to capture freeze-frame snapshots of thoughts at different moments in time, according to the authors.

   “While insightful in its own right, this snapshot approach doesn’t tell us much about how thoughts unfold and transition over time—features of thinking that we think are important for our mental health. To capture these dynamic properties of thinking, we need a method that records thoughts in real time and for extended periods,” said co-author Jessica Andrews-Hanna, an assistant professor of psychology who oversaw the research in her lab.

   Other co-authors include Caitlin Mills, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire, as well as UArizona associate professors of psychology Mary-Frances O’Connor, Matthias Mehl and Matthew Grilli, graduate student Eric Andrews, undergraduates Kate Chambers, Nadia-Anais de Stefano and Surya Fitzgerald, lab coordinator Ramsey Wilcox, as well as Kalina Christoff, a professor at the University of British Columbia.

   A window to the mind

   The researchers sought to measure patterns of thinking. They were especially interested in capturing ruminative thinking, continuously thinking about the same negative thoughts, which is a common symptom of depression.

   “Whereas most participants spent the 10 minutes thinking about the present or the future in an emotionally neutral way, participants who scored high on a rumination questionnaire experienced thoughts that were more past-focused and negative,” Raffaelli said. “Ruminative individuals were also more likely to think about themselves.”

   The authors followed certain thoughts over time, measuring how long they lasted and how narrow or broad in focus they were. Ruminative individuals had negative thoughts that lasted longer than positive thoughts, and those negative thoughts became progressively narrower in topic over time.

   “We were able to witness how some people became trapped in perseverative cycles of thinking,” Andrews-Hanna said. “We recruited a random group of people without knowing if they were diagnosed with any clinical condition for this study, yet it’s striking that in just 10 minutes of down time, we can capture thought processes that speak to many different mental health conditions.”

   Some people, on the other hand, found the 10 minutes to be productive and inspirational.

   “Some participants thought about positive topics or goals they wanted to reach,” Andrews-Hanna said. “Other people’s thoughts were quite creative. Many participants found that the exercise offered a refreshing break from the busy world around them.”

   The exercise wasn’t designed for any therapeutic potential, yet many people viewed it as a therapy session with themselves.

   “There is research on the power of externalizing our inner thoughts via journaling or sharing thoughts with others that I think this study taps into indirectly,” Andrews-Hanna said.

   Idle thinking as a skill

   The study ended before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the results seem more relevant than ever as many people have experienced more solitary idle time over the last year and half than at any other point in their lives.

   The authors also conducted a version of this study during the grips of the pandemic and are now in the process of analyzing the results.

   “Having to sit at home for such a long time affected people’s mental well-being dramatically,” Raffaelli said. “We saw this with the increase in anxiety and depression during the pandemic and the surge in substance abuse.”

   When not in lockdown, idle time can be rare.

   “Taking mental breaks seems to be increasingly undervalued in today’s busy and distracted society,” Andrews-Hanna said. “Western societies seem to reinforce a lifestyle where we’re always on the go, bringing our work home with us or distracting ourselves with email or social media.”

   Although the study didn’t measure it, the authors speculate that training people as early as childhood to be comfortable during idle time may help maintain mental well-being.

   “By taming our go-to reflex of taking out our phone whenever there’s a moment of silence, we can more fully realize the benefits of breaks on our mental health and creativity,” Raffaelli said.

   The next step

   Andrews-Hanna and her lab team are interested in the default mode network, a brain network that plays an important role in internal thoughts. They have been studying its functions and chipping away at how it might go awry in people with dysfunctional thinking styles, such as rumination or intrusive thoughts.

   Their work has potential ties to functional magnetic resonance imaging, or resting-state fMRI, a popular method of brain imaging used by neuroscientists for brain imaging. The technique involves placing a person in a brain scanner for about 10 minutes and recording the patterns of brain activity and connectivity as spontaneous thoughts emerge.

   “Eventually, we hope to connect the psychological characteristics of idle thought to the biological patterns of activity and connectivity changing across time to provide a fuller picture of consciousness and mental health,” Andrews-Hanna said. “We hope that one day, our inner mental lives won’t be as much of a mystery.”

   Study reveals a biological link between stress and obesity

   Hebrew University of Jerusalem, September 21, 2021

    

   Metabolic and anxiety-related disorders both pose a significant healthcare burden, and are in the spotlight of contemporary research and therapeutic efforts. Although intuitively we assume that these two phenomena overlap, the link has not been proven scientifically.

   Now, a team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, headed by Prof. Hermona Soreq from the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, revealed the molecular elements that bridge anxiety and metabolism – a type of microRNA that influences shared biological mechanisms.

   “We already know that there is a connection between body and mind, between the physical and the emotional, and studies show that psychological trauma affects the activity of many genes. Our previous research found a link between microRNA and stressful situations – stress and anxiety generate an inflammatory response and dramatically increase the expression levels of microRNA regulators of inflammation in both the brain and the gut, for example the situation of patients with Crohn’s disease may get worse under psychological stress,” says Prof. Soreq.

   “In the present study, we added obesity to the equation. We revealed that some anxiety-induced microRNA are not only capable of suppressing inflammation but can also potentiate metabolic syndrome-related processes. We also found that their expression level is different in diverse tissues and cells, depending on heredity and exposure to stressful situations,” explains Prof. Soreq.

   The family of microRNA genes is part of the human genome, which was considered until not too long ago as “junk-DNA”. However, microRNAs are now known to fulfill an important role in regulating the production process of proteins by other genes. These tiny RNA molecules, which are one percent of the average size of a protein-coding gene, act as suppressors of inflammation and are able to halt the production of proteins.

   The research paper, published in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, details the evidence linking microRNA pathways, which share regulatory networks in metabolic and anxiety-related conditions. In particular, microRNAs involved in these disorders include regulators of acetylcholine signaling in the nervous system and their accompanying molecular machinery.

   Metabolic disorders, such as abdominal obesity and diabetes, have become a global epidemic. In the USA, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome is as high as 35 percent. In other countries, such as Austria, Denmark and Ireland it affects 20-25 percent of the population.

   Anxiety disorders are harder to quantify than metabolic ones. They include obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobia. The full burden of the anxiety spectrum is difficult to assess, due to under-diagnosis and poorly defined pathophysiological processes.

   This newly revealed link offers novel opportunities for innovative diagnoses and treatment of both metabolic and anxiety-related phenomena.

   “The discovery has a diagnostic value and practical implications, because the activity of microRNAs can be manipulated by DNA-based drugs,” explains Prof. Soreq. “It also offers an opportunity to reclassify ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ anxiety and metabolic-prone states, and inform putative strategies to treat these disorders.”

    

   Intermittent fasting makes fruit flies live longer—will it work for people?

   Columbia University, October 1, 2021

   Whether intermittent fasting is called the 5:2 diet or the 16/8 method, celebrities swear that these eating regimens are a great way to lose weight. Fasting is now trendy, but real science backs up claims that fasting two days a week or restricting eating to an eight-hour window each day leads to weight loss.

   And scientists have found intermittent fasting has even more health benefits that are not related to weight: Studies in mice and other animals show that intermittent fasting also increases longevity.

   But for those who want to adopt intermittent fasting to slow the aging process, there is a catch. In modern society, people are used to three meals a day, and intermittent fasting is hard.

   Can the benefits of fasting be packaged in a pill? A new study of fasting fruit flies by Columbia University researchers suggests the answer may be yes.

   The study, published Sept. 29 in the journal Nature, revealed how intermittent fasting works inside cells to slow the aging process (at least, for fruit flies) and points to potential ways to get the health benefits of fasting without the hunger pangs.

   Intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding in general limit food, but not overall caloric intake, to specific hours of the day. (In contrast, dietary restriction, which also has been shown to increase longevity, reduces caloric intake.)

   “Because intermittent fasting restricts the timing of eating, it’s been hypothesized that natural biological clocks play a role,” says Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, Ph.D., associate professor of genetics & development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and an expert in circadian rhythms, who led the study.

   Shirasu-Hiza and Matt Ulgherait, Ph.D., an associate research scientist in her lab, turned to fruit flies to investigate. Fruit flies have similar biological clocks to humans, staying active during daylight and sleeping at night, while also sharing roughly 70% of human disease-related genes. Fruit flies are an excellent model for aging, Shirasu-Hiza says because fruit flies and humans age in similar ways, but since fruit fliesonly live for two months, aging experiments are more technically feasible.

   The researchers put their flies on one of four different schedules: 24-hour unrestricted access to food, 12-hour daytime access to food, 24-hour fasting following by 24-hour unrestricted feeding, or what the researchers called intermittent time-restricted fasting or iTRF (20 hours of fasting followed by a recovery day of unlimited feeding).

   Among the four eating schedules, only iTRF significantly extended the lifespan—18% for females and 13% for males.

   And the timing of the 20-hour fast was critical: Lifespan increased only for flies that fasted at night and broke their fast around lunchtime. The lifespans of flies that instead fasted all day, eating only at night, did not change.

   For the researchers, the role of time was a big clue to how fasting is linked to longevity. They found that a cell-cleaning process kicks in after fasting, but only when fasting occurs during the night. Scientists call the cell-cleaning process autophagy (Greek for self-eating), and the process is known to slow aging by cleaning up and recycling damaged components of the cell.

   “We found that the life-extending benefits of iTRF require a functional circadian rhythm and autophagy components,” Shirasu-Hiza says. “When either of those processes were disrupted, the diet had no effect on the animals’ longevity.”

   iTRF not only increased the flies’ lifespan, the eating regimen also improved the flies’ “healthspan,” increasing muscle and neuron function, reducing age-related protein aggregation, and delaying the onset of aging markers in muscles and intestinal tissues.

   Human cells use the same cell-cleaning processes, so the findings raise the possibility that behavioral changes or drugs that stimulate the cleaning process could provide people with similar health benefits, delaying age-related diseases and extending the lifespan.

   “Any type of restricted eating is difficult,” says Ulgherait. “It requires a lot of discipline, and most studies of time-restricted fasting in humans have built in a cheat day to make it more tolerable. It would be much easier to get the same health benefits if we could enhance autophagy  pharmacologically, specifically at night.”