Tag Archives: health

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New resin for growing flesh

biodegradable_resinResearchers at the University of Twente have developed a biodegradable resin that can be used to create precise replicas of forms within the body around which new tissues can be grown:

The resin can be given different properties depending on where in the body it is to be used. Cells can be sown and cultured on these models, so that the tissues grown are, in fact, produced by the body itself. The new resin has been developed by Ferry Melchels and Prof. Dirk Grijpma of the UT’s Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials research group. An article on this breakthrough will be appearing in the authoritative specialist journal, Biomaterials

The method used to recreate the specific forms is called stereolithography, the improvement in this system is that the resins have hitherto not been biodegradable. This means:

If, for example, a child has a heart valve disorder, a 3D digital image of the heart valve can be created using a CT scanner. The model in the stereolithograph can be copied exactly with the new resin. If the structure is made porous, the child’s own cells can be placed on it. This porosity also gives nutrients access to the cells. Ultimately, after the carrier structure has broken down, only the natural tissue remains.

Which is a rather wonderful development.

[from Physorg]

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Viruses used to kill cancer cells

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tamedviruswiA fascinating concept: researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a method that uses modified viruses to destroy cancerous cells, whilst leaving healthy cells intact:

The research team modified a common virus – called an adenovirus – so that it could deliver genetic therapy to destroy tumours without poisoning the liver.

The changes enabled the virus to keeps its natural ‘infectious’ characteristics to replicate in, and kill, cancer cells in mice.

But for the first time the virus is also recognised and destroyed by healthy mouse liver cells, so it is no longer toxic.

Poachers make the best gamekeepers, no?

[from Physorg][image from Physorg]

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Ubiquitous urinary analysis?

toilet bowl with mobile phoneIf you want futurist thinking that looks at the little things rather than the large, you can’t do much better than to follow Jan Chipchase as he bounces around the world researching how people use things… and how things use people.

Here’s a prime example of science fictional thinking processes applied to that most everyday of objects, the toilet.

… the light blue rinse that you see above is an indicator of what is, ahem, yet to pass. The colour of the liquid in the toilet bowl will be the most commonly used mechanism to feedback relatively minor but good-to-know status updates about the state of your body, a simply chemical adaptation of what many of you already do today. (The critical stuff will sent directly to your doctor/insurance company, so that they can break the news to you gently, unless of course you think you can handle staring down at a blood red toilet bowl).

Given human limitations – whether its remembering which colours are associated with what, to our ability to effectively distinguish between colours, what are the other parameters can will be put into play by tomorrows porcelain experience designers?

Where does this lead to in the future perfect? Lower insurance premiums for your employer when they install (and allow the remote monitoring of) your [insurance company] sponsored washroom. Automated devices travelling the sewage systems monitoring dye pigmentation by sewage outlets of the stars? That you are willing to walk an extra three blocks to use a unmonitored public toilet.

Given the UK government’s seemingly unstoppable obsession with monitoring its citizens and telling them how to live, it’s almost depressing how plausible Chipchase’s speculation seems from where I’m sat right now – even though I suspect it’s meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Insert your own joke about “the power behind the throne” here…

Though it should be noted that science fiction pipped Chipchase to the post on this one; “Alone With an Inconvenient Companion” by Jack Skillingstead (as anthologised in Fast Forward 2) features hotel urinals that provide the protagonist with a ‘complementary urinalysis’. Or at least he thinks they do. [image by jurvetson]

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‘Craveable’: Does the food industry play with our heads?

big-boy1Trying to write an optimistic science fiction story for a change has led to some fascinating research avenues. If we want to give our poor put-upon planet a bit of a break, wouldn’t it make sense to change the way we eat? Think of the fuel we could save, the waste we could cut back on…

Not so fast, though. Former U.S. Food & Drug Administration commissioner (under Clinton and W.) and pediatrician David Kessler says one of the reasons Americans overeat is because the food industry, not unlike tobacco before it, is messing with our minds.

At first glance, that sounds obvious, given the myriad of junk-food choices and the constant blare of advertisement. Kessler digs deeper, though, in his new book The End of Overeating:

“The food the industry is selling is much more powerful than we realized,” he said. “I used to think I ate to feel full. Now I know, we have the science that shows, we’re eating to stimulate ourselves. And so the question is what are we going to do about it?”

In good dramatic fashion, Kessler says it’s partly his fault: when he headed the FDA he won battles for better labeling of processed foods, but didn’t push much for labels in restaurants.

His own dumpster-diving research (note to Hollywood: this book needs to be a movie) led him to the conclusion that not only are seemingly healthy menu choices like grilled chicken or spinach dip larded with “fat on fat on salt on sugar on fat on fat,” but that they are more or less deliberately designed to goad you brain into craving more, even when your stomach has had more than enough. He estimates that 15% of the U.S. population is vulnerable to “conditioned overeating.”

(And everytime I visit another country I see more U.S.-based food chains — sorry about that, but I’m guessing this is not just an issue for my own country.)

Willpower, yes; government oversight, maybe, says Kessler. Far better to change the way we look at food – to break the emotional association with good times. Perceptions have changed for the better before this, he points out: consider shifting attitudes towards cigarettes, driving without a seat belt, or drunk driving.

By now some readers are thinking “That’s obvious,” or rolling their eyes at the prospect of more nanny-statism. (I did both.) Skepticism is healthy, too. For starters, I’d like to know more about the neuroscience of those “reward circuits.” Here’s a taste, though:

Yale University neuroscientist Dana Small had hypereaters smell chocolate and taste a chocolate milkshake inside a brain-scanning MRI machine. Rather than getting used to the aroma, as is normal, hypereaters found the smell more tantalizing with time. And drinking the milkshake didn’t satisfy. The reward-anticipating region of their brains stayed switched on, so that another brain area couldn’t say, “Enough!”

You can hear some NPR interviews with Kessler here, there, and everywhere.

[Image: Iconic US diner mascot Big Boy by Patrick Powers]

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Upsides to the downturn – work less, die later

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Chinese card playersPeriods of economic recession are bound to affect your health negatively, right? Well, not according to Christopher Ruhm, economics professor, whose research suggests that health actually improves in recessions:

In studies over the past 10 years, Ruhm has consistently found death rates decline during recessions and rise when the economy expands. If unemployment rises 1 percent, he estimates the death rate will fall by about half a percent.

“I tracked things like unemployment and mortality and found that they were almost a mirror image of each other,” Ruhm said.

Other researchers have found evidence of improved health during economic downturns in Cuba, Germany, Japan and Spain. Think of it as a silver lining — and perhaps a measure of how much our unhealthy lifestyles and workaholic tendencies can get the best of us during boom times.

[…]

Some experts remain skeptical, in part because of overwhelming evidence that people who lose jobs suffer poor health because of it. Depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and anti-social behavior become significantly more likely after a person gets laid off.

As with so many articles of this type, there’s actually no conclusive proof either way. The causality of changes in the death rates is going to be affected by a multitude of interdependent factors, of which the state of the economy is just one (albeit a fairly significant and influential one). [via MetaFilter; image by SocTech]

That said, there’s a nugget of appealing logic at the core of Ruhm’s research. How much does the amount we work (and what we get paid for that work) really compensate us for the loss of what might be a somewhat spartan but more leisurely lifestyle? If the link was found to be explicit, what trappings of your current life would you be willing to sacrifice in exchange for a happier, healthier life? Or is this just another rehashing of Walden Pond for the modern age, a desperate grab for a silver lining in a cloudy sky?