Jess

Week One =Coffee lovers can finally have hope! People have believed that coffee has nothing but negative effects on the body for a long time. However, current research says it actually does have some positive effects. A study recently done shows that more than 400,000 people that drink coffee have reduced their risk of death from heart disease, stroke, and some infections. They found that people who drank more than two cups of coffee per day were 10 to 16 percent less likely to die. Women benefited even more than men did: by drinking six cups per day, they reduced their risk of death by an astonishing 15% while men only reduced it by 10%. However, drinking one cup per day showed little benefits for these people. = []

Although scientists say that caffeine is not the substance that causes these benefits, this study still gives me peace of mind to know that drinking that morning cup of coffee isn't all that bad for you!

Week Two  Finally there may be a way to cure one of the most awful cancers there is, right inside your medicine cabinet! Although the study is still inconclusive, it shows that drugs such as aspirin (NSAIDs) have been found to reduce the risk of skin cancer. A study done of 200,000 adults in northern Denmark that filled two prescriptions  or more showed that 15% had a lower risk of squamous cell carcinoma and 13% had a lower risk of melanoma as compared with those people who filled one prescription or less. The study also showed that the people with the lowest risk for skin cancer were those that had been prescribed high doses for seven years or more. Although this seems like a direct correlation, no proof can be shown from it because of the other variables that were not controlled such as lifestyle, skin type, and amount of exposure to the sun's rays. The study also had no way of knowing if the patients were truly taking their medicine as much as they were prescribed to or not. However, it is very probable that NSAIDs are able to reduce the risk of cancer because of the way they function. NSAIDs reduce pain and inflammation by binding to the cylooxgenas enzymes. By binding to these enzymes they are also interfering with things related to skin cancer, such as blood flow to the tumor, and programmed cell death. Although this was not the mechanism being monitored in this study, it is very likely that NSAIDs interference with these enzymes is the reason that those with higher prescriptions have a lower risk of skin cancer. Although studies of the correlation are still inconclusive, hopefully this particular study will catch the interest of researchers so that they can further look into the link between NSAIDs and skin cancer, and see if we truly can be cured just by taking a pill we can almost all find in our medicine cabinet. [|Click here for the article!]

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//Week 3 // ===Pregnancy is a magnificent, yet incredibly risky situation for women to undergo. Women spend about 40 weeks trying to perfect their habits, fostering the best possible chance for a healthy child. Recent studies have shown that smoking while pregnant can lead to the child later developing asthma. This article depicts recent developments in knowledge about the prenatal effects of smoke. The Center for Disease Control notes that about 14% of women smoke while pregnant. On a racial basis, they describe that 19% of African American, 6% of Puerto Rican and less than 4% of Mexican women smoke while pregnant. They performed a study on 2,500 African American and Latino children, and their results showed that the children were 50% more likely to have asthma later in life if the mother smoked while pregnant and the chid was exposed to this smoke for the first 9 months of life. More research needs to be performed, but the hypothesis is that the smoke effects the developing DNA of the fetus. So, we all know that smoking is bad. Although the conclusion is still a little premature, this study affirms our knowledge that we should not smoke (especially while pregnant!) ===

[|Click to read the article!!]



//Week 4 // All humans need water to survive. Because of this fact, it comes as no surprise that people would be willing to fight to the death for water. Only 3% of the world's water is pure, most of it being in the polar ice caps. The water that is accessible to us, though, is being minimized by humans through hyper land use, deforestation, and over grazing. Minimizing the amount of water is distorting the water cycle, and causing it to rain plentifully in some places, while others get no rain at all and suffer from droughts. According to the article, only a fifth of the world's population has access to pure drinking water. This would mean that 4/5 of the world will soon be competing to obtain the very small percentage of pure water (just under 3%) being held in the polar ice caps. Certainly, this could mean World War III. [|Click here to see the article]