Life, Health and Enjoyment

The FDA has approved the first at-home, over-the-counter HIV test, which could potentially inform thousands of Americans about their HIV status. The OraQuick In-Home HIV Test can detect antibodies of the virus from a saliva sample. It can provide results without a laboratory in 20 to 40 minutes. About 1.2 million people in the U.S. are infected with HIV, and an estimated 20% of those infected are unaware that they are HIV-positive, according to the CDC. The outcome of the test isn't definite or absolute, especially when exposure may have been within the past three months. Clinical studies expect one in 12 tests to read a false negative and one in 5,000 tests to read a false positive. At an FDA Advisory Committee meeting in May, officials said they thought an additional 45,000 people would learn they have HIV through the test. FDA officials said the test will offer a different testing method for many unknowingly HIV-positive Americans that are unlikely to get tested at ...

Identify the father of a baby as early as the eighth week of pregnancy . The new method, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine , uses fetal DNA isolated from the mother's blood. The test has already been used to prove an affair in a murder trial, and experts say it has other significant medical and legal applications. "The technology is extremely important and really a very, very significant step forward for medical prenatal diagnosis," says Peter Benn, PhD, director of the diagnostic medical genetics laboratories at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. He was not involved in the research. A previous study by the same researchers showed how the test could be used early in pregnancy to determine whether a fetus has Down syndrome , for example. "That technology will allow genetic disorders to be identified without going through amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling . That's a very important and useful step forward b...

Tods who have a poor relationship with their moms are more likely to be obese by the time they turn 15, a new study shows. So just how does a toddler's less-than-stellar relationship with mom affect risk for being obese as a teen? The reasons are not fully understood, but study researchers suggest these toddlers, when coping with stress, may begin to use food as a source of comfort in place of mom at a very early age. The findings appear in the January 2012 issue of Pediatrics. One thing, however, is clear: Childhood obesity rates in the U.S. are getting higher. As it stands, about 1 in 3 children in the U.S. are overweight or obese and this includes pre-schoolers. This suggests that whatever is causing the uptick starts pretty early. Relationship With Mom May Play Role in Childhood Obesity Researchers analyzed close to 1,000 toddlers' emotional bonds with their moms at 15 months, 2, and 3 years of age. They measured mom's sensitivity during 15-minute video...

Recycled Paper Towels Had the Highest Bacterial Counts Grabbing a paper towel in a public restroom may leave more on your hands than you bargained for. Researchers say they've found bacteria, including some that are known to make people sick, in unused paper towels. They also found that those bacteria could be transferred to hands after washing. The study is published in the American Journal of Infection Control. It did not find any illnesses connected to paper towel use. Experts say the findings are probably most important for people in hospital isolation units and those with weakened immune function who need to be extra cautious about contact with germs. Germs Lurk in Paper Towels Researchers at Laval University in Canada tested six brands of commercial paper towels -- the kind doled out in many public bathrooms. They found bacteria in all of them, but the towels made from recycled fibers were the most heavily contaminated. “In our study, the concentration of ba...

Carcinogenic substances were found in children's shampoos by Johnson & Johnson. The lab research of the goods was conducted under the order from US-based non-commercial association Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. The independent laboratory analyzed a series of cosmetic products for children produced by Johnson & Johnson. Dioxane and quaternium-15 were found in Johnson's Baby and Johnson's Baby Wheat Extract shampoos as well as in Johnson's Baby bubble bath,  Independent News Bureau  said. Dioxane is a potentially carcinogenic substance. Quaternium-15 is an antibacterial additive, which emits formaldehyde. The latter is internationally recognized as a carcinogen. Having received the results of the analysis, spokespeople for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics addressed the administration of Johnson & Johnson. The specialists asked the company to refuse from the use of the above-mentioned substances in the cosmetic products for children,  Medikforum.ru ...

A resident of the village of Ofunato in Japan's Iwate Prefecture can become the owner of 11 million yens, which is a bit more than USD145,000. The man caught a bag of money in the sea, as he was fishing. Less than a month ago, the fisherman went fishing as usual. The man cast the net and came back to check the catch the same day at night. He was very surprised to find a large bag in the net, Rosbalt reports. The man opened the bag and saw many banknotes inside. As it turned out later, the fisherman caught 1,100 banknotes worth 10,000 yens each. According to the laws of Japan, if the owner of a missing thing does not make a statement of themselves for six months, the finding will become the property of the person who found it. Thus, on April 27 2012, the Japanese man may become a millionaire. We have previously reported that another Japanese worker found a plastic bag with 10 million yens (over 130,000 US dollars). The bag was found on the garbage-sorting factory in Kasa...

Study Shows a Link Between Intense Feelings of Love and Reward Areas of the Brain The euphoric “high” that accompanies the passion-filled, early days of romantic love is a common pop music theme, but is it just a metaphor or is love really like a drug? When researchers examined the question, they found that intense feelings of romantic love affect the brain in the same way drugs like cocaine or powerful pain relievers do. “The reason people are so attracted to cocaine is that it activates the area of the brain that makes you feel good,” researcher Arthur Aron, PhD, tells WebMD. “The same reward area is activated when people are experiencing the intense desire of romantic love.” Intense Love = Less Pain Aron, who is a professor of psychology at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, has been researching the impact of love on the brain for three decades. Several years ago he and longtime pain researcher Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, began talking at a neuroscience...