Now, Pollution Linked To Diabetes Too

                Long term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes – especially for people with impaired glucose metabolism. Air pollution exposure at the place of residence increases the risk of developing insulin resistance as a prediabetic state of type 2 diabetes. Whether the disease becomes manifest and when this occurs is not only due to lifestyle or genetic factors, but also due to traffic related air pollution. For the current study, researchers from the German Centre for Diabetes Research (DZD) analyzed the data of nearly 3,000 participants of the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg (KORA) study who live in the city of Augsburg and two adjacent rural counties.

                All individuals were interviewed and physically examined. The researchers took fasting blood samples, in which they determined various markers for insulin resistance and inflammation. In addition, leptin was examined as adipokine which has been suggested to be associated with insulin resistance. Non-diabetic individuals underwent an oral glucose tolerance test to detect whether their glucose metabolism was impaired. The researchers compared these data with the concentrations of air pollutants at the place of residence of the participants, which they estimated using predictive models based on repeated measurements at 20 sited (for particle measurements) and at 40 sited (for nitrogen dioxide measurements) in the city and in the rural countries.

                The results revealed that people who already have an impaired glucose metabolism, so-called prediabetic individuals, are particularly vulnerable to the effect of air pollution. In these individuals, the association between increases in their blood marker levels and increases in air pollutants concentrations is particularly significant. Thus, over the long term – especially for people with impaired glucose metabolism – air pollution is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Dreams Do Boost Our Memory

Dreams appear to help people remember facts they value better than those they do not, according to a new study which adds weight to the theory that the sometimes bizarre imagery has a deeper purpose. The reasons why people dream are still controversial. According to some experts, they are just random noise as the brain takes a rest. But others believe they are actually part of the process of filing newly acquired knowledge and memories and an important way of coping with traumatic events. In a study, participants were taught Welsh phrases and then tested on how much they could remember. Those who got a good night’s sleep fared better than those who learned the words in the morning and were tested later that day. But people who placed a particular value on the Welsh language got more of a benefit from sleeping on what they had been taught.

Statins Safer Than We Thought

The potential side effects of statins are largely exaggerated and the cholesterol reducing tablets are safe and effective, a major medical review has found. Statins, the most-prescribed drug in the UK, are taken by around six million people every day, but unreliable studies have overstated their dangers, according to the study. Safety concerns could have led hundreds of thousands of people to stop taking the life-saving treatment, which has been the subject of years of controversy and conflicting reports. But a review of the available evidence on statins has found that the risks of negative reaction are far outweighed by the benefits. Too much weight has been placed upon unreliable evidence from observational studies, while the results from randomized drugs trials, which are reliable, have not been properly acknowledged.

The report has been released in a bid to avert an MMR style public health scare, when there was a significant decline in the uptake of the vaccine after a report, which has since been completely discredited, linked it to autism. Researchers saw in a very painful way the consequences of publishing a paper which had a huge impact on the confidence in a safe and effective vaccine. They have learnt lessons from that episode and those lessons need to be widely propagated. Statins help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack or stroke, by helping to lower harmful cholesterol levels in the body. Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in the UK, and statins prevent 80,000 heart attacks and strokes every year.