A group of scientists that won the Nobel prize last year, have seem to found a great advancement of how the body ages. They have found that there are little things, like the plastic tip of a shoe string, called telomeres on the ends of our chromosomes, which contain our DNA. These caps (telomeres), when duplicated tend to fray and shrink. When this happens the DNA tends to change slightly, which could possibly be the cause of some age related illnesses such as heart disease and some cancers. Although, they don’t yet know if the telomeres have anything to do with a person’s appearance.
The teams are still doing many different tests to help pinpoint a link to the length of telomere. They have found the gene that has to do with different lengths of telomere in different people. Right now they have found 500,000 genetic markers to using the whole genome and hopfully finding around 50 million markers.
Once they find out the missing pieces, they will be able to make new treatments to many age related diseases. But the treatments that we have now found might be more hurtful then helpful. They have found that if the fix the genes for heart disease then it could possibly cause the genes to carry cancer cells longer. Everyone has a certain amount of cancer cells but with the telomeres fraying they lose the trait after a few duplications, and fixing the cells could possibly stay longer causing the cancer cells to potentially become harmful.
Wow this is great news. Next thing we know they will be making a cure for aging. We might live forever. But is this a great idea? Should we really be messing with peoples genes so much? Oh well, I still feel that this is a great advancement in the field and we are now just one more step to a cure to all major disease. This is great for the future of man and our fight to survive.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
First lady calls for united effort to fight childhood obesity
The first lady announced that she is setting up a national effort to end childhood obesity. The reason she is speaking out against the topic is that children are getting type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, which is something that we usually don’t see until adulthood.
She wants more teachers and coaches to help with her by having them look at the “Let’s Move Web site.” She says that 1/3 the population’s children are obese, and hopes that with this program they will be able to end childhood obesity within a generation, because it’s something that needs to be dealt with now because they have now termed this as an epidemic which needs to end soon.
Many high officials have now joined her in her race against “one of the most urgent health issues that we face in this country.” They have decided that people need to give support in promoting healthy choices that may be difficult to obtain. Like turning off the TV serving smaller portions and drink more water.
To help parents she wants labels should be easier to read and wants the nutrition facts to be moved onto the front of the packaging. She also wants this labeling put on eh front of pop cans so they can easily be seen from the inside of vending machines.
But her plans are not only for at home, she wants to spend $10 billion over a 10 year span to improve the nutrition in school food. The funds will include providing more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy products. Food suppliers have to also decrease the amount of sugar and fat in the foods.
She wants Pediatricians to also start measuring children’s BMI frequently to stop obesity before it gets too bad.
Finally! We are always saying that something needs to be done soon because all of our kids are getting fat, yet not very many people do anything about it. It’s just all words and no action. But now with such a planed program being set up, I really think that it will actually start to work and we will probably see a great change in our near future. But will it actually end childhood obesity in one generation? I’m not sure. We are all in a rut right now. We have been told that it’s bad for you to eat bad food and not exercise but yet we don’t have easy access to anything that will really help us with this task. This project will really help everyone to learn what is good for us and be able to easily use our knowledge to make smart, healthy choices.
She wants more teachers and coaches to help with her by having them look at the “Let’s Move Web site.” She says that 1/3 the population’s children are obese, and hopes that with this program they will be able to end childhood obesity within a generation, because it’s something that needs to be dealt with now because they have now termed this as an epidemic which needs to end soon.
Many high officials have now joined her in her race against “one of the most urgent health issues that we face in this country.” They have decided that people need to give support in promoting healthy choices that may be difficult to obtain. Like turning off the TV serving smaller portions and drink more water.
To help parents she wants labels should be easier to read and wants the nutrition facts to be moved onto the front of the packaging. She also wants this labeling put on eh front of pop cans so they can easily be seen from the inside of vending machines.
But her plans are not only for at home, she wants to spend $10 billion over a 10 year span to improve the nutrition in school food. The funds will include providing more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy products. Food suppliers have to also decrease the amount of sugar and fat in the foods.
She wants Pediatricians to also start measuring children’s BMI frequently to stop obesity before it gets too bad.
Finally! We are always saying that something needs to be done soon because all of our kids are getting fat, yet not very many people do anything about it. It’s just all words and no action. But now with such a planed program being set up, I really think that it will actually start to work and we will probably see a great change in our near future. But will it actually end childhood obesity in one generation? I’m not sure. We are all in a rut right now. We have been told that it’s bad for you to eat bad food and not exercise but yet we don’t have easy access to anything that will really help us with this task. This project will really help everyone to learn what is good for us and be able to easily use our knowledge to make smart, healthy choices.
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