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A healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of dementia in those with type 2 diabetes (T2D), according to a study. The study found that individuals with T2D and an unhealthy lifestyle were much more likely to develop dementia than people without T2D and a very healthy lifestyle. However, a healthy lifestyle almost halved the likelihood of people with T2D developing dementia. An unhealthy lifestyle and T2D are known to individually raise the risk of dementia. It hasn't, been clear, however, whether a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of dementia in those with T2D. The 445,364 participants (54.6% female) had an...

After four years of Donald Trump's incompetence in, well, everything, the Biden argument was that the country badly needed a steady hand on the tiller -- someone who had been there and done that. Someone who didn't need training to do the job. Someone who was exactly the opposite of the guy currently in office. - snip - Seven months into his first term, however, Biden is faced with nothing short of a crisis of that competence, beset on a number of fronts with developments that it appears all of his experience and know-how didn't prevent. The glaring example is,...

Video emerged of Kamala Harris recently speaking about the problems parents face when their schools are closed but they can't afford childcare. This is a serious issue with massive repercussions for children's development and for working mothers. So what did Kamala do? She cracked herself up, laughing so hard she could barely get the words out. What the heck is going on with that woman? Here's the video... If you look up "inappropriate laughter," a few things pop up. It turns out that it can be a nervous system disorder called Pseudobulbar affect (AKA emotional incontinence)....In other words, in addition...

A mysterious illness at a Del Rio detention center that has killed two inmates and hospitalized two others within the past month has baffled health authorities, who have asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for help. All four men — three of them foreign nationals from Honduras and Mexico held on immigration charges, the fourth a Val Verde county prisoner who was one of the dead — were described as in their 20s and 30s, and apparently healthy when they arrived at the Val Verde Correctional Facility and County Jail. The privately operated 850-bed medium-security facility is under...

FORMER BIDEN CAMPAIGN STAFFER: Joe Biden is in the early stages of dementia and is on medication for it. "This is the big one, and the one I have the least direct experience with, but it’s been an open secret for some time. Anyone who has had a relative with Alzheimer’s or dementia can tell you, there are good days and bad days. On the good days, when Joe is at his most lucid, his campaign manager Jen will send him out for photo ops or TV interviews… make hay while the sun is shining, you know? On the bad...

So, did he or didn’t he? Inquiring minds want to know: WTF DID BIDEN SHART???? LISTEN CLOSELY The best part is Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s reaction: Listen to the sound…… then watch Gov. Wolf's reaction

In early July, during another rough patch for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Dan Pfeiffer took to CNN to reassure his party. Pfeiffer used to be President Obama’s top communications aide. The title of his op-ed was “Stop the bed-wetting: Hillary Clinton’s doing fine.” Bed-wetting, Pfeiffer explained, “is a term of art in Obamaland.” Ah, the president and his acolytes. Such sophisticates. Clinton shouldn’t panic, Pfeiffer argued, because she remains ahead in polling and in fundraising, because Bernie Sanders “is not Barack Obama,” and because “Hillary Clinton circa 2015 is not Hillary Clinton circa 2008.” Elections, after all, “are about fundamentals,”...

Democratic lawmakers have vowed all spring to fight spending cuts to programs that serve the poorest Californians, including welfare-to-work and Cal Grant scholarships. In a Capitol where fiscal maneuvers have flourished in recent years, Gov. Jerry Brown says he wants real cuts to health and welfare programs because the state cannot afford what it provides. Facing a Friday deadline to pass a balanced budget, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg are meeting with Brown behind closed doors to find middle ground. Deal or no deal, it is nearly certain that lawmakers will send the...

As the Capitol churns toward Friday's deadline for a new state budget, the macro-issues are well known, such as whether health, welfare and child care services should be slashed by billions of dollars to close the deficit. There are, however, other aspects of the annual budget wrangle that go largely unnoticed, such as the march into secrecy – or, more accurately, sneakiness. For decades, a few key legislators drafted the entire budget in secrecy with virtually no public exposure or input, but about 40 years ago, there was an internal revolt because one powerful senator had loaded up the budget...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – August 9, 2011 – Researchers have built the first functional anal sphincters in the laboratory, suggesting a potential future treatment for both fecal and urinary incontinence. Made from muscle and nerve cells, the sphincters developed a blood supply and maintained function when implanted in mice. The results are reported in the medical journal Gastroenterology. "In essence, we have built a replacement sphincter that we hope can one day benefit human patients. This is the first bioengineered sphincter made with both muscle and nerve cells, making it 'pre-wired' for placement in the body," said senior author Khalil N....

Sorry. I just had to stop a moment and look outside to see if a flock of pigs was flying by. MSNBC is giving Obama both barrels. The usually loathsome Olbermann and the tingly Chris Matthews are tearing into Obama as if he were George W. Bush. They are furious and amazed at tonight's Obama lie fest on the Gulf oil spill. They usually lap-up like poodles Obama's lies, bullying, and incompetence. Not tonight. They are damning him for being completely useless in both stopping the spill and communicating to the public about it. They are all over him for...

Clearly, the Nancy was very happy with her early victory in the health care debate, but I think her joy appears to have been a little overabundant. Two questions coming from this photo (photo credit: MSNBC): 1. Why wasn't the old hag wearing her diapers? 2. Don't we think a stain placed more in the rear would be more fitting a lady? Photo, after the jump.

Dr. Rodriguez discussed use of stem cells for treating SUI (Stress Urinary Incontinence). A stem cell is embryonic, adult, or engineered. Embryonic stem cells come from the blastocyst which is totipotent or pluripotent. These cells are immortal, identical clonal cells with long-term self renewal. Controversies include possible tumor formation, the difficulty maintaining cell cultures and ethical issues. Embryonic stem cells can differentiate into ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Adult stem cells include hematopoetic stem cells, such as derived from bone marrow. This requires a bone marrow harvest, with low yield and difficulty to expand clones. A variety of other tissues have...

The freewheeling tactics of his supporters have made the GOP candidate an Internet sensation and an unlikely phenomenon. The late-fall night fairly crackled with energy -- from a persistent Santa Ana wind, the high-tension power lines overhead and, especially, from the crowd packed inside the living room of a ranch house at the west end of the San Gabriel Valley. Eighty people sat elbow to elbow on tight rows of folding chairs, chattering with enthusiasm and ideas. They would produce wall calendars and a concert. They would reenact the Boston Tea Party on the Santa Monica Pier. They would write...

We often see the stem cell debate in the political arena presented as a singular, boiled-down talking point designed to sway voters one way or the other. What we miss in the three-second sound bite are the numerous ways in which stem cells are being used to combat health care challenges of all kinds, including leukemia, type 1 diabetes, and spinal cord damage. And according to recent research, the day may be coming when we can add incontinence to that ever-growing list. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding the topic of stem cell research all too often obscures the fact that...

Improving urethral function has been an elusive target for researchers seeking viable treatments for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). However, Los Angeles researchers suggest that adipose-derived pluripotent cells may be a viable means to treat SUI and also improve urethral function. Using human cells obtained from liposuction specimens, investigators differenciated stem cells into smooth muscle, seeded the cells on carrier matrices and injected them into the proximal urethra of incontinent nude rats. Abdominal leak-point pressure and retrograde urethral perfusion pressure were measured both pre- and post-operatively. Smooth muscle cells seeded on the carrier matrix demonstrated long-term improvement, providing immediate bulking effects...

Volume 37, Issue 2, Page 46 doi:10.1016/S0300-7073(07)70107-X CHICAGO — Injection of adult autologous stem cells shows an excellent success rate for the treatment of urinary stress incontinence, compared with collagen injections, Dr. Matthias Schurich said at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. In the study of both women and men, 50 (79%) of the 63 patients randomized to transurethral ultrasound-guided injection of adult stem cells were completely continent after follow-up lasting 6–30 months, compared with only 2 (7%) of the 28 patients treated with endoscopic injection of collagen after 6–12 months, he reported on behalf of...

A couple of weeks ago Wake Forest University physicians described the first human recipients of a laboratory-grown organ. In the prestigious medical journal "The Lancet," Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, detailed a series of patients (children and teenagers) who received urinary bladders grown from their own cells. WHAAAAT? Did somebody say "laboratory organs?!" Yes. Perhaps like you, the first reaction of some who heard the news was, “why would anyone need a new bladder?” Well, many infants are born with congenital birth defects a very serous one is spina bifida (incomplete closure of the spine)....

In the first clinical study of its kind in North America, women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) were treated using muscle-derived stem cell injections to strengthen deficient sphincter muscles responsible for the condition. Results of the study, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, suggest that the approach is safe, improves patients' quality of life and may be an effective treatment for SUI. The findings will be presented at an experts' session at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in Atlanta, and will be published in...