Texas Medical Board may restrict or even block the experimental stem cell procedure that Texas Gov. Rick Perry underwent this summer, under new rules.

The safety and wisdom of the procedure are being questioned by some top scientists and doctors say it may run up against federal rules.

From news.yahoo.com:

The Republican presidential candidate had stem cells taken from fat in his own body, which were then grown in a lab. They were injected into Perry’s back and his bloodstream during an operation in July to fuse part of his spine.

Adult stem cells have long been used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers. While the cells are being studied to treat other ailments, from heart disease to diabetes, experts say it’s too soon to know if the approaches are safe or effective. The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved using adult stem cells to help people heal from surgery — but experimentation is common.

“Texas is a leader in innovation in many fields,” Perry wrote after his surgery. “It is critical that we continue to foster an environment that encourages technological advancement in the health care arena.”

A new study has suggested that an experimental drug that targets and kills fat cells in the blood appears to help obese rhesus monkeys lose weight.

The approach may help obese humans in future to lose weight, as per University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers.

From news.yahoo.com:

However, this new drug works by attaching itself to fat cells in the blood vessels and triggering a synthetic protein that causes the cell to die. These cells are then reabsorbed and metabolized, the researchers explained.

When the drug was tried on monkeys that were naturally obese they lost about 11 percent of their body weight over a month, Arap’s team found.

In addition, the treated monkeys also improved their insulin resistance, which is a marker for developing type 2 diabetes. After treatment, the monkeys used 50 percent less insulin, the researchers found.

The report was published in the Nov. 9 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

On Thursday, Taiwan moved to curb eating contests, a fad that has caused at least one death, and suggested the national health insurance stop paying for participants seeking medical treatment afterwards.

“The frequent ‘big-stomach’ contests not only endanger health but violate the principle of fairness as the contestants who get sick are using the national health insurance resources,” according to the Control Yuan, the top government watchdog, in a statement.

From news.yahoo.com:

The Control Yuan also urged government agencies not to host or sponsor eating contests and called on the media to carry warnings when promoting such events.

Expanding wastelines are a rapidly growing problem in Taiwan, and the number of children on the island classed as overweight or obese has surged from six percent a decade ago to 25 percent in 2009, local data showed.

“It’s something we’re keeping an eye on,” an official with the national health insurance body told AFP. “We’ve started asking the organisers of the competitions to pay for the medical bills.”

In a report released on Thursday, the UK department of health said most adults in the nation of 60 million people are eating about 10 percent more calories than necessary.

Officials said the country needs to collectively trim 5 billion calories from its daily diet to stop the bulging waistlines.

From news.yahoo.com:

But in a slightly confusing twist, the government also issued new calorie recommendations that are about 100 calories higher than the last figures in 1991. Men are now allowed to eat about 2,605 calories of food every day while for women, it’s 2,079.

British officials say the new numbers are based on a better understanding of current activity levels and that an individual’s ideal calorie count varies depending on factors like how much they exercise and their body mass index. Previous calorie recommendations underestimated the impact of physical activity, even though people are now more sedentary than two decades ago.

“This is not a license to eat more,” said Alan Jackson, head of the scientific group that came up with the new recommendations.

There just could not be anything better than inspiration when it comes to health, fitness, and lifestyle.

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. – Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content webcomic, #352, 05-04-05

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.  – Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be. -  Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, 2009

Health is not valued till sickness comes. – Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 – 1734), Gnomologia, 1732

Be not slow to visit the sick. – Ecclesiastes

I have never cared much for fish – it floats in the belly as much as in the pond.  – Erica Eisdorfer, The Wet Nurse’s Tale, 2009

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)

It is amazing how much crisper the general experience of life becomes when your body is given a chance to develop a little strength. – Frank Duff, A Coder in Courierland, 03-20-05

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease. – George Dennison Prentice

Rejecting a U.S. plan that had called for a five-year delay, health ministers from around the world recently agreed to put off setting a deadline to destroy the last known stockpiles of the smallpox virus for three more years.

The 193-nation World Health Assembly agreed by consensus, after two days of heated debate, to a compromise that calls for another review in 2014.

From news.yahoo.com:

The United States had proposed a five-year extension to destroying the U.S. and Russian stockpiles, arguing that more research is needed and the stockpiles could help prevent one of the world’s deadliest diseases from being used as a biological weapon.

But other ministers at the decision-making assembly of the World Health Organization said they saw little reason to retain the stockpiles, and objected to the delay in destroying them.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, head of the U.S. Office of Global Health Affairs and the chief American delegate to the assembly, expressed some disappointment but said the compromise was satisfactory.

“Three years is a reasonable time period in terms of the next review,” he told reporters. “Obviously during that time period, we expect there will be meaningful progress in the research on anti-virals and vaccines and diagnostics.”

The assembly declared smallpox officially eradicated in 1980, and the U.N. health agency has been discussing whether to destroy the virus since 1986.

The assembly “strongly reaffirmed the decision of previous assemblies that the remaining stock of smallpox (variola) virus should be destroyed when crucial research based on the virus has been completed,” as per WHO officials.