(Mirror Daily, United States) – After more than a year since a Canadian teen’s mysterious death, the coroner’s report confirmed that the 16-year-old girl was killed by a condition called the toxic shock syndrome (TSS).
TSS usually affects women that use super-absorbent tampons.
In March 2017, Sara Manitoski was discovered lifeless in bed during a school trip close to Vancouver Island. The girl’s friends thought that she was asleep and left to have breakfast. When they returned, they found the girl unresponsive. Paramedics were unable to save her life via CPR.
This month the BC Coroners Service reported that the girl was killed by a severe infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus. The bacteria were found on the girl’s tampon. Sara had reportedly experienced symptoms linked to TSS before her sudden death.
TSS is a rare condition caused by toxic bacteria. It usually affects women using super-absorbent tampons. However, men, postmenopausal women, and children could also be affected.
Toxic Shock Syndrome Is Not That Rare
Dr. Dee Hoyano underlined that TSS appears when a person has the bacteria in their system. Usually, prolonged tampon use is linked to the infection. Doctors recommend changing tampons frequently.
The Canadian girl’s sister warned other women on Facebook that TSS is not extremely rare as people tend to believe. She disclosed that she knows two people that were diagnosed with the syndrome, with one “barely surviving.”
Can it really be that rare? My sister complained of stomach cramps before going to bed and then she never woke up,
the woman wrote on Facebook.
She insisted that her late sister had no other health condition that could have led to her death. So, women should get more educated on the issue to prevent other tragic and unnecessary deaths form happening.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – Most people are aware that uncontrolled sun exposure can boost the risk of skin cancer and premature aging, but very few people wear sunscreen daily.
In addition, many sun lovers are sabotaging their skin safety without even knowing it.
Experts recommend applying sunscreen when going outside or spending long hours in your car in the summertime. You should do it daily regardless of the weather forecast because harmful UV radiation can reach your skin even on cloudy, windy, or chilly days.
To make sure that you keep cancer at bay always wear sunscreen. However, not all SPF products are created equal. You can compromise your skin safety by just spending time at the pool and not wearing high enough SPF.
Other Common Mistakes
What’s more, there are things most people do that slash the protection of their sunscreen. For instance, many people do not apply enough sunscreen to their skin. If you are going to the beach for a tan, ensure that you are very generous when applying the product.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, you should use an ounce of sunscreen for the entire body and four times less of it for your face. Also, reapply the product every two hours if you are swimming, staying outdoors in direct sunlight, or sweating too much.
Experts explained that our skin absorbs the sunscreen in two hours or less. Therefore, we should reapply it frequently.
Another common mistake is to use sunscreen on top of makeup. Experts recommend applying sunscreen to a clean face for the most protection. Also, ensure that the jawline, hairline, neck, and sides of the cheeks are protected. Most users tend to use less product or no product at all on these areas because they start to apply sunscreen to the center of their face.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – A woman from San Francisco called the police on a little girl for selling bottled water close to her business location. The woman claims that the girl was too loud and disturbed her business.
The story went viral on the social media with the angry woman being nicknamed PermitPatty. The girl’s mother Erin filmed the woman while dialing 911 and posted the video on Instagram.
The angry neighbor reported Jordan Austin, 9, for selling water to passers-by without a permit. The girl’s cousin, Raje Lee, posted the story on Twitter with the #PermitPatty hashtag.
So my little cousin was selling water and didn’t have a permit so this lady decided to call the cops on an 8 year old. #PermitPatty pic.twitter.com/SiL61pnAgl
— Raj 🌹 (@_ethiopiangold) June 23, 2018
Raje claims that the lady approached the kid and asked to see the permit. When Erin defended the girl, the woman called authorities. The video showing the incident accrued more than 7 million views in just two days.
Angry Neighbor Is Selling Pot
The angry neighbor is reportedly running a marijuana business. The drug is legal in California. At least one company promised to sever ties with the woman’s business after the incident.
The woman insists that she called the cops because she was stressed about Jordan being loud on the street. She acknowledged that she overreacted and apologized. But the girl’s mother believes that it all had to do with skin color even though the woman dismissed “any racial component” from her actions.
The angry neighbor later said that she only “pretended” to call the cops on the little girl. After she reportedly received death threats online, she complained about being discriminated against.
It is not the first time a child selling something without a permit is reported by neighbors. In May, two Colorado boys shut down a stand after the police showed up. In 2017, a California man threatened a little girl to call the police on her for not having a business license to sell lemonade.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – Starting this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) will no longer consider transgender people mentally ill.
The international organization has reclassified transgenderism, aka gender dysphoria, as a “sexual health” condition called “gender incongruence.”
This means that gender dysphoria will no longer feature as a mental health illness in the group’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a generally accepted guide to diagnosis for medical professionals.
The organization argued that labeling transgender people as mentally ill can cause “enormous stigma” The WHO added that there is “clear” evidence suggesting transgenderism is not a mental illness.
While trans advocates were celebrating the decision, some health professionals and policymakers wondered if transgender people should still have access to taxpayer money for gender reassignment surgeries, counseling, and hormonal therapies.
Departing from reality has consequences even for transgender activists with the initials MD or PhD after their names,
noted the American College of Pediatricians’ head Dr. Michelle Cretella.
Should We No Longer Consider Transgender People Mentally ill?
Dr. Cretella believes that the WHO has indirectly admitted that gender reassignment surgeries and hormonal therapies for transgender people are just cosmetic interventions and should no longer be funded by governments.
The medic added that “normal” is everything that fulfills its function, like being in accordance with physical reality. Thoughts that challenge this reality are not normal. Dr. Cretella explained that gender dysphoria is very similar to body integrity identity disorder and anorexia nervosa.
Also, the idea that transgenderism may be innate has been challenged by research which found no structure in a newborn’s brain that remains unchanged as years go by and which may explain the transgender belief.
Walt Heyer, a former transgender woman, underlined that gender dysphoria is just a moniker for a type of dissociative identity disorder. Heyer is now helping transgender people facing transition regret to de-transition.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – A new study has found that being too much into alcohol can boost the risk of developing cancer.
Researchers also found that those who drink the most are the most likely to die prematurely when compared with other drinkers. In addition, the research revealed that drinkers who consume alcohol in moderation have the lowest combined risk of cancer and premature death. Moderate drinking means drinking one to three beverages per week.
However, cancer risk increases with each extra drink per week, the research shows.
Light drinkers were the least likely to die early when compared with non-drinkers and other types of drinkers. Researchers insisted that they have found only a link between cancer and drinking, not a causal relation.
Andrew Kunzmann noted that the team had expected to find a similar risk in light drinkers and non-drinkers. But the findings were a big surprise. It is unclear why light drinkers have a slightly lower risk of early death than non-drinkers.
Never Drinkers May Have Underlying Health Issues
Some people might speculate that certain alcoholic drinks, especially red wine, have a protective role for the heart, which can dramatically reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Other explanations may include light drinkers’ social-economic status, as they tend to have more money and be more educated than some non-drinkers.
What’s more, never drinkers might steer clear of alcohol because they have other health issues they are trying to keep in check. Those issues could boost their risk of premature death, researchers speculated.
The latest study involved nearly 100,000 Americans within the 55-74 age bracket. Participants were tracked for 8.9 years on average. Researchers had access to their cancer diagnoses from medical records.
The study appeared this week in the journal PLOS Medicine.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – The World Health Organization has recently decided to include “gaming disorders” in its list of mental health conditions.
The decision has spurred a hot debate whether a behavior not involving a substance can be classified as an addiction. The answer depends on some factors.
An addiction is a disease caused by changes in the addict’s brain. The addict ends up damaging his health, social and financial life, and other parts of a normal life.
Extensive research has shown that too much gaming can impact a gamer in similar ways, including the changes-in-brain-chemistry part. Scientists have long known that addiction involves “extreme behavior” that consumes the addict and prevents him from doing what he should be doing in life.
The American Psychiatric Association has stopped short of labeling excess gaming as a disorder. The group uses the term “condition”. This means that in APA’s view, excess gaming is not an addiction. APA wants more research before labeling the issue as such.
So, What Makes Some Things Addictive?
Dr. Andrew Saxon explained that drugs and alcohol are so addictive because they prompt the brain to release huge amounts of dopamine. A healthy person’s brain only releases dopamine when stimulated by healthy behaviors that help survival, like drinking water and eating.
Because drugs and alcohol can be so rewarding, users cannot get enough of them. What’s more, addicts need to boost the amounts of drugs to get the same feel-good sensation as before. In the process the brain chemistry changes which prevents the user from having any control of the behavior.
Caffeine works in a similar way but on a much lower scale. If a coffee drinker decides to quit coffee, he’ll have to face some withdrawal symptoms like tiredness and headaches. The WHO thinks that people can have a caffeine dependence and has qualified it as a disorder.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – Recent research suggests that being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in middle age could herald pancreatic cancer.
The new study is in line with past research that has shown that diabetes can double the risk of this type of extremely deadly cancer.
Researchers at the University of Southern California have found that developing the metabolic disease after the age of 50 can be a telltale sign that you already have pancreatic cancer.
The analysis revealed that 53% of diabetes patients with pancreatic cancer have learned that they have diabetes less than three years before they were diagnosed with cancer.
It is also possible that the cancer can lead to diabetes.
Researchers couldn’t explain the link between the late onset of type 2 diabetes and the risk of pancreatic cancer.
Late-Onset Diabetes Tied to Pancreatic Cancer
According to a CDC report published last year, more than 100 million people in the U.S. live with prediabetes or diabetes. Prediabetes can morph into a full-fledged diagnosis within five years if left untreated.
In 2015, 30.3 million people in the U.S. had type 2 diabetes. In the U.S.A., diabetes is currently the seventh top killer. In 2016, 53,000 Americans were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease with very low survival rates if it is spotted too late.
Nearly 50% of pancreatic cancer cases are people aged 75 or older. The disease is very uncommon in younger people. Unfortunately, around 80% of pancreatic cancer cases are diagnosed too late.
The latest study shows that middle-aged and older diabetics have a twofold risk of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer later on than young diabetes patients. Also, pancreatic cancer patients are three times more likely to have late-onset diabetes as well than other cancer patients.
The study appeared this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – A major drinking study that was funded by Big Alcohol had to be shut down by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for its questionable findings.
The controversy comes in the midst of reports that some NIH officials asked funding from the industry to complete the study.
NIH Director Francis Collins recently told the press that the agency has strong policies when it comes to its employees’ conduct. NIH employees are reportedly barred from receiving gifts and rig grant competitions.
We take very seriously any violations of these standards,
Collins said.
The agency launched a probe into the study’s findings following a disturbing report by the New York Times showing that some NIH officials lobbied the industry to give funds for the study. In return, those officials promised to reach the conclusion that moderate drinking is healthy.
The Study to Be Shut Down Soon
On Friday, the agency published an internal report, which revealed that those officials infringed the agency’s policies and stifled fair competition for research funding. NIH promised to “take appropriate personnel actions”. It refused, though, to comment on the personnel matters.
The report revealed that the officials courted Big Alcohol in a way that appeared to convince the industry to shell the necessary cash for the randomized clinical trial. The trial tried to find whether one serving of alcohol per day would prevent the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
NIH researchers noted that past studies have found that moderate drinking could lead to unexpected health benefits. The agency will shut down the study “within the next few months,” as the group is working on an “orderly closeout.”
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism, moderate drinkers should consume up to three drinks per day if they are women and up to four drinks per day if they are men.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to a new report, religious people can live up to four years longer than atheists do. Study authors found that there are plenty of benefits to being religiously affiliated.
In their study, researchers analyzed 1,000 obituaries. They interviewed families on the deceased people’s religious belief. The analysis revealed that churchgoers live longer than people who do not believe in God.
Study authors believe that religious people tend to live longer because they are engaged in more face-to-face social activities. Social interactions have been often linked to better health and longevity. Nevertheless, researchers acknowledged that the many benefits of being religious cannot be explained only by looking at those people’s social activities.
There’s still a lot of the benefit of religious affiliation that this can’t explain,
lead author Laura Wallace said.
Co-author Dr. Baldwin Way of the Ohio State University agrees that the link between having faith and longevity cannot be fully explained.
The Study
The initial research revealed that religious people tend to live up to 9.45 years longer than atheists. After the study was adjusted for other factors that might influence the outcomes, like sex and marital status, the figure dropped to 6.48 years. That research involved over 500 obituaries of people who died in Des Moines, Iowa, between January and February 2012.
A separate research focusing on 1,096 obituaries in 42 municipalities revealed that people who had a religious affiliation lived 3.82 years longer than their peers with no religious affiliation. The study was adjusted for sex and marital status.
Scientists also found that social activities like volunteering or active involvement in a charity only accounted for one year of longer life. So, the rest of the longevity boost offered by being religious is likely linked to a less promiscuous life, no alcohol abuse, or addictions.
Also, religious people destress through prayer and practicing gratitude, which can lead to a longer life, too.
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(Mirror Daily, United States) – Two new studies have found that a groundbreaking DNA-editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9 could boost cancer risk in patients that use the tech to get rid of hereditary diseases.
Researchers explained that the CRISPR tool can become cancer-causing when it is used to replace unhealthy genes with healthier ones.
Two separate studies, one funded by Novartis and another one conducted by Sweden-based Karolinska Institutets, show that, during a CRISPR-Cas9 edit, the tweaked cells no longer have a cancer-suppressing protein dubbed p53, which can boost cancer risk.
P53 protects cells from cancer and lowers gene-editing methods’ success rate. The protein is essential in keeping cancer at bay, but when researchers use CRISPR-Cas9 to get rid of some inherited conditions, p53 can make cells self-destruct.
Karolinska Institutet researchers raised concerns about the safety of such gene-editing tools as the methods seem to prevent p53 from working properly.
“If transplanted into a patient, as in gene therapy for inherited diseases, such cells could give rise to cancer,
lead researcher Emma Haapaniemi of the Karolinska Institutet warned.
The DNA Editing Tool Has Many Risks
A dysfunctional p53 can dramatically increase cancer risk. The protein’s mutations are behind 43% of colon cancers, 50% of ovarian cancers, and multiple cases of stomach, liver, lung, pancreatic, and breast cancers.
Bernhard Schmierer of the Karolinska Institutet praised the CRISPR-Cas9 tool for its “staggering therapeutic potential.” But he added that the method does have its risks just like drugs have side-effects.
Researchers plan to further study the mechanism that prompts a p53 mutation when gene-editing is applied.
CRISPR-Cas9 can correct genetic mutations that can lead to diseases. The tool can do this by either gene replacement or gene disruption. When the gene is disrupted, p53 seems to not be affected.
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