Underdiagnosed Syndrome May Affect 5 Percent To 10 Percent Of U.S. Population:

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) may sound like something right out of a 1950s horror flick. And for some sufferers, it is. This affliction causes an irresistible urge to move the legs often accompanied by creepy-crawly sensations in the legs. The sensations are only relieved by movement, and become worse as the sun goes down. Night after night this sleeplessness occurs for the millions who suffer with RLS and their partners.

Because little is known about what causes RLS, researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University went looking for answers. The team, led by James Connor, Ph.D., professor and interim chair, Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy, Penn State College of Medicine, performed the first-ever autopsy analysis of the brains of people with RLS. This research, presented today (June 5, 2003) at the Association of Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Chicago, uncovered a possible explanation for this syndrome.

“We found that, although there are no unique pathological changes in the brains of patients with RLS, it appears that cells in a portion of the mid-brain aren’t getting enough iron,” Connor said. “It was a relief to many that there was no neurodegeneration, or loss or damage of brain cells, like we see in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.”

The discovery of a physical cause for this disorder establishes it as a sensory motor rather than a psychological disorder. Because cells aren’t lost or damaged but rather iron-deficient, there is more hope that treatments can be developed. ScienceDaily News

Mourning the Death of American Radio NY Times editorial

A reader with WebTV says the layout of FmH is awry to the point that much of the content cannot be read because of overlapping columns. Does anyone else read this weblog over WebTV? If so, can you drop me a line if it formats correctly, or if you are having the same difficulties? Thanks in advance…

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse



to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;



when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder-blades,



I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?



And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,



and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,



and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,



and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.



When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.



When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.



I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

— Mary Oliver (1991)

To beat bugs?? “Humans may have lost their body hair to reduce their vulnerability to fur-loving parasites and therefore attract the opposite sex, a new evolutionary theory proposes.

The nakedness of the human species is extremely rare among the 3000 or so living mammal species. Other naked mammals include elephants, walruses, pigs, whales and the bizarre naked mole-rat.

A widely accepted view is that humans lost their hair to help control their body temperature as they evolved into upright creatures on the warm plains of the African savannah. But this theory has problems that researchers believe the new theory can solve.” New Scientist

I thought this might be interesting even for non-medical readers who might be consumers of medical care for a painful condition at some point.

“…(P)hysicians face serious issues when it comes to prescribing opiates. Legitimate worries include not only fears about addicting patients to painkillers, but concerns about sanctions for overprescribing the drugs.

…(But physicians can) aggressively manage pain using all means at their disposal, especially opiates. (S)trategies focus… on setting appropriate dosages, minimizing side effects and avoiding trouble with local medical boards… (N)ew ideas about pain began to alter practice patterns about 20 years ago. Instead of viewing pain as a symptom of disease or injury, he explained, physicians began to view it as a problem in its own right… (C)ontrasting old and new ways of thinking:

• Pain scale

  Old: Treat patient pain only when patients rank it 10 on a 10-point scale.

  New: Anticipate pain and treat it before it reaches unacceptable levels (usually between four and six on the 10-point scale).
  

• Dosages

  Old: Give a maximum of 10-15 mg of morphine per hour.

  New: Use whatever is needed to treat pain.

• Drug choices

  Old: Use only morphine or another opiate for pain.

  New: Use multiple medications and combine morphine with adjuvant medications for better pain control.

• Act vs. react

  Old: Administer treatment “as needed” when patients report pain symptoms.

  New: Use a steady-state treatment and build up a steady level of narcotics to provide complete relief.

• Drug action

  Old: Use short-acting preparations.

  New: Combine longer-release medications with short-acting preparations for incidents of breakthrough pain.”
  

Feared medical complications such as respiratory depression, somnolence and confusion, or addiction; and concerns about possible regulatory trouble from opiate prescribing patterns hamper physicians’ effectiveness in treating their patients’ pain. The article takes these concerns in turn and suggests ways to address or bypass them. ACP (American College of Physicians) Observer

Here are the “Model Guidelines for the Use of Controlled Substances for the Treatment of Pain” from the Federation of State Medical Boards. The guidelines acknowledge the important role opiates play in pain management and were designed to alleviate physician uncertainty and encourage better pain treatment.

All well and good to address these ‘rational’ if misguided concerns. However, IMHO it is often an irrational, attitudinal reluctance to adequately treat pain that is more at issue. In a strange unconscious sense, physicians may begrudge patients the relief of their distress, since the physician’s identity is so built around the central experience of their training that suffering and deprivation builds professional competency and self-esteem. A workshop to enhance physicians’ effectiveness in managing pain should, in this manner, include a component on managing their own pain in a sense.

Lobbying Starts as Groups Foresee Supreme Court Vacancy:

Interest groups on the left and the right are beginning full-scale political campaigns — including fund-raising, advertising and major research — to prepare for what many expect to be a Supreme Court vacancy in the next several weeks.

While none of the justices have said they plan to retire, any decision would traditionally be announced at the end of the court’s term in late June.

Both conservatives and liberals say the time is right for a change in at least one and perhaps two seats, given the age of several justices and the general recognition that this is President Bush’s last chance to name a justice before the presidential campaign begins in earnest. NY Times

Former Opposition Leaders Considered Unrepresentative and Too Disorganized

“Former Iraqi opposition leaders, many of whom were brought back from exile by the U.S. government with the expectation that they would run the country, have been largely sidelined by the U.S.-led occupation authority here, which views them as insufficiently representative and too disorganized to take charge.” Washington Post

Since longstanding U.S. allies mean little to us anymore, why should we care about recent friends or those to whom we might be obliged?

protest government cybersnooping by spoofing a terrorist conspiracy .

Since and even well before the 11th of September laws have been passed in the United States and in Europe, that permit certain nations to keep all e-mail traffic under close surveillance… SuPerVillainizer is a project aimed at ridiculing the notions of “the enemy” or the “bad guy” that these data retention surveillance scenarios are based on.

SuPerVillainizer is about creating profiles of villains, rogues, bad guys, and scapegoats, equipping them with real email accounts at a Swiss provider, uniting them into conspiracies, and then watching as the villains start to automatically communicate with each other using SuPerVillainizer-generated conspiracy content, infiltrating the carefully planned surveillance system with more and more disinfoming mails every day.

British film 28 Days Later… dir. Danny Boyle, reviewed:

An excess of grainy news images rains down with each one showing a different picture of terrible violence. When the camera slowly tracks back to reveal several TV screens apparently running on a loop the recipient of this information turns out to be a monkey. This opening few seconds of 28 Days Later… sets the tone for what is a weird, tense and bloody scary British film.

The premise for the film is simple. A corporation doing experiments has managed to come up with a ‘rage’ virus that spreads like wildfire should an infected subject bite you or get their blood into you. Within 20 seconds you are infected with a raging desire for flesh. Some animal activists release a chimp that is infected and therefore trigger the start of an epidemic.

“Stories of children rescued from the wilderness have for centuries inspired awe, fascination and disbelief; (a review of) a phenomenon that helps to define the frontier between human and animal.” Fortean Times

“Come on, poor babe:

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens

To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,

Casting their savageness aside, have done

Like offices of pity.”

[Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale, Act II, scene 3, line 185.]

Underdiagnosed Syndrome May Affect 5 Percent To 10 Percent Of U.S. Population:

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) may sound like something right out of a 1950s horror flick. And for some sufferers, it is. This affliction causes an irresistible urge to move the legs often accompanied by creepy-crawly sensations in the legs. The sensations are only relieved by movement, and become worse as the sun goes down. Night after night this sleeplessness occurs for the millions who suffer with RLS and their partners.

Because little is known about what causes RLS, researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University went looking for answers. The team, led by James Connor, Ph.D., professor and interim chair, Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy, Penn State College of Medicine, performed the first-ever autopsy analysis of the brains of people with RLS. This research, presented today (June 5, 2003) at the Association of Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Chicago, uncovered a possible explanation for this syndrome.

“We found that, although there are no unique pathological changes in the brains of patients with RLS, it appears that cells in a portion of the mid-brain aren’t getting enough iron,” Connor said. “It was a relief to many that there was no neurodegeneration, or loss or damage of brain cells, like we see in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.”

The discovery of a physical cause for this disorder establishes it as a sensory motor rather than a psychological disorder. Because cells aren’t lost or damaged but rather iron-deficient, there is more hope that treatments can be developed. ScienceDaily News