In 2005, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare pronounced that roughly one middle-aged person in two was at risk for so-called "metabolic syndrome" -- caused by smoking, drinking, eating and other excesses combined with a sedentary lifestyle -- that raised the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and strokes. The ministry's policy now obliges people between the ages of 40 to 74 to take medical examinations to check for excessive internal fat, high blood pressure and high blood-sugar levels, and to receive health advisories when warranted. [...] The middle-aged spread, reports Asahi Geino (4/24), has given rise to a completely new type of sex business: the "Datsu-metabo fuuzoku" -- sex shops with services designed to help pudgy, middle-aged men bang their way back to health and enjoy themselves in the bargain.

"If she can get my fatty liver back in shape, she'll deserve a Nobel Prize," Asahi Geino's reporter remarks, tongue in cheek....

Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any potential risks. Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Associated Press reviewed grant documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviewed researchers. No one involved with the $446,231 grant for the two-year study would identify the participants, citing privacy concerns. There is no evidence there was any medical follow-up.

Comparable research was conducted by the Agriculture Department and Environmental Protection Agency in a similarly poor, black neighborhood in East St. Louis, Ill. Residents there also were not told of the potential risks.

The researchers said the sludge could help protect the children from brain or nerve damage from lead, a highly toxic element once widely used in gasoline and paint. Other studies have shown brain damage among children, often in poor neighborhoods, who ate lead-based paint that had flaked off their homes. The idea that sludge - the leftover semisolid wastes filtered from water pollution at 16,500 treatment plants - can be turned into something harmless, even if swallowed, has been a tenet of federal policy for three decades.

[...] The Baltimore study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals including lead, cadmium, and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten. The results were published in Science of the Total Environment, a research journal, in 2005. However, there has been a paucity of research into the possible harmful effects of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, other chemicals, and disease-causing microorganisms often found in sludge....

The Associated Press
Tuesday April 1st, 2008

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Some Florida teens believe drinking Mountain Dew or smoking marijuana will prevent pregnancy and that swallowing a capful of bleach will prevent HIV/AIDS. One reason those dangerous myths have spread is the state's reliance on abstinence-only sex education, say advocates of a bill to require a more comprehensive approach in Florida's schools....

...The bill's chances, though, remain slim with the annual 60-day legislative session nearly half over. The bill would have to clear three more committees before getting a Senate floor vote. The House version has yet to get a committee hearing.

"Young people are getting too little information too late,'' said Jenna Cawley, director of education for Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando. Cawley urged the bill's approval as she told the Senate Education Pre-kindergarten-12th Grade Committee about the Mountain Dew, marijuana and bleach myths.

Opponents, including anti-abortion activists, claimed the bill's requirements would result in more, not fewer teen pregnancies as supporters argue. "The only healthy, 100-percent effective way to prevent disease and pregnancy is abstinence,'' said Alison Lambrechts, a field coordinator for Project Reality, which provides sexual, alcohol and drug abstinence materials for schools.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, said Florida's current approach isn't working because the state has the sixth-highest teen pregnancy rate nationally...

Bad (Bad!) Blood (Blood!)

"I be gud preznit!"

Thinking Ape Blues #356: The Nadir of Nader

AS they seek to document and demystify one of life's great thrills, scientists have run across some real head-scratchers.

How, for example, can they explain the fact that some men and women who are paralyzed and numb below the waist are able to have orgasms? How to explain the "orgasmic auras" that can descend at the onset of epileptic seizures -- sensations so pleasurable they prompt some patients to refuse antiseizure medication? And how on Earth to explain the case of the amputee who felt his orgasms centered in that missing foot?

No one -- no sexologist, no neuroscientist -- really knows. For a subject with so many armchair experts, the human orgasm is remarkably mysterious.

But today, a few scientists are making real progress -- in part because they're changing their focus. To uncover the orgasm's secrets, researchers are looking beyond the clitoris, vagina, penis and prostate, to the place behind the scenes where the true magic happens. They're examining the central nervous system: the network of electrical impulses that zip to and fro through the brain and spinal cord.

In an orgasm orchestra, the genitalia may be the instruments, but the central nervous system is the conductor.

Armed with new lab tools and fearless volunteers, scientists are getting first-ever glimpses of how the brain lights up (and, in places, shuts down) when the orgasmic fireworks go off. They're tracing nerves and finding new pathways for pleasure that help explain how people with shattered spinal cords can defy sexual expectations....

Benefits 'O'-verall"
By Regina Nuzzo, Special to The Times
February 11, 2008

Sure, orgasms can put a bounce in one's step, but some studies hint they might also be good for one's health.

* Heart: Lots of studies have looked at whether DHEA, a hormone released into the bloodstream during arousal and orgasm, helps keeps arteries clear and hearts strong. A 2001 study of 1,700 middle-age Massachusetts men found that those with the lowest levels of DHEA were about 60% more likely to develop heart disease than those with the highest. Orgasms aren't the only way to get this hormone, though; your body produces some even without sexual stimulation.

* Breast: Oxytocin -- a hormone released during sexual arousal, orgasm and breast-feeding -- has been linked to reduced risk of breast cancer. And not just for women: A small, 2000 study of 23 Greek men found that those with breast cancer tended to have a history of fewer orgasms than did healthy men in the control group. One 1995 study speculated that the hormone helps flush out carcinogens from breast fluid.

* Prostate: Two large studies, reported in 2003 and 2004, found that middle-aged men who had (or at least remember having) at least four orgasms a week throughout their 20s, 30s and 40s had a reduced risk of prostate cancer by as much as one-third. Some researchers speculate that ejaculations may clear the prostate of carcinogens....