Endochondral Ossification:  Most bones begin as hyaline cartilage and are converted to bones through endochondral ossification.

• Chondrocytes, cartilage cells, in the center of bone begin to enlarge, causing the cartilage itself to increase in size.  As this occurs, the matrix begins to calcify thwarting diffusion of nutrients through the calcified cartilage.  As a result, the chondrocytes die and disintegrate due to the lack of nourishment.

• Soon blood vessels grow and spread around the edges of the cartilage, also known as perichondrium.  This results in the cells within perichondrium to differentiate into osteoblasts which work to create a thin layer of bone around the shaft.  Osteoblasts are responsible for manufacturing and releasing the organic and protein components of bone matrix.  The perichondrium then turns into periosteum since it has transformed from cartilage to bone.  Periosteum is a fibrous outer layer and a cellular inner layer which wraps around the bone.

• The increase in activity in the periosteum causes blood supply to increase.  Soon the capillaries and fibroblasts invade the center of the cartilage causing the calcified matrix (in the center) to break down.  The fibroblasts also specialize to form osteoblasts which turn the matrix into spongy bone.  The center where all this is taking place is known as the primary ossification center which soon spreads outward.

• As the bone continues to grown, marrow cavity is formed through the process of remodeling.  The osteoclasts secrete acids and proteolytic enzymes to dissolve the matrix, resulting in the formation of marrow cavity.  The bone grows both in length and in width.

• Soon secondary ossification center forms as the ends of the bones which become calcified.  The capillaries and osteoblasts migrate into the center of the epiphyses, ends of the bones.  The same process that occurred at the primary ossification center occurs in the epiphyses.

• The epiphysis is occupied with spongy bone; however, some of the original cartilage remains exposed to the joint cavity called articular cartilage.  The articular cartilage thwarts damage to bones when they are in contact.  The epiphysis  is separated from the diaphysis (shaft of the bone) by epiphyseal cartilage or epiphyseal plate.  The epiphyseal plate is usually located at the metaphysis (where epiphysis and diaphysis come together).

Intramembranous Ossification:  This process occurs when osteoblasts differentiate within mesenchymal or fibrous connective tissue to form bones.

• Mesenchymal cells start the process of ossification as they gather together and produce organic components of matrix, resulting in mineralization of the osteoid (tissue which turns into bone).  These mesenchymal cells then differentiate to form osteoblasts while calcification takes place.  Calcification is the process of depositing calcium or calcium salts.  The bone then grows out from the ossification center in spicules which are small struts.  Some of the osteoblasts become trapped in the process of ossification, forming osteocytes.

• In order for the bones to continue growing and for the cells to stay alive, they require oxygen and nutrients.  As a result, the fusing of spicules traps some of the blood vessels within the bone.

• At first, the bone is composed of only spongy bone.  However, through remodeling, compact bone and marrow cavity could be formed.

Within 90 minutes five of the teachers became ill and reported symptoms to authorities.  The brownies tested positive for cannabinoids and after seeking medical advice two of the teachers were also tested positive for THC, an active substance in marijuana.

“They didn’t know they were eating pot brownies, so it’s not the same symptoms as someone who deliberately ate them at a party and got high,” Ms. Fogleman, one of the teachers reported.

The teachers eventually recovered and the sidewalk vendor also disappeared after making a meager $1.50 for each brownie.

…wonder how the teacher didn’t realize she was buying a stash of ‘special’ brownies.

The Process of Hair Pigmentation

Process of Hair Pigmentation

Like our skin, hair get’s its natural pigment from the formation of melanin.  Melanin consists of cells known at melanocytes that position themselves at the openings of hair follicles on the skin’s surface in order to inject themselves into the keratin that our hair is composed of.  Now hair has two types of melanin pigments, a darker brownish pigment known as eumelanin and phaeomelanin, a lighter yellow pigment.  The combination of these two results in the wide array of hair colors.

Throughout the growth of your hair melanocytes continue to pass pigment to keratinocytes, the primary protein substance in hair and nails.  The combination and continual injection of melanocytes leads to different pigments in hair.

So, Why does it Gray?

Pigment production is a complex process and varies depending on genetic factors, one being the Mc1R gene.  The gene is known to have some control associated with the red pigment in human hair and a few other species.  So now what does that have to do with gray hair?

Many families studied have had members with graying hair at early ages, some even as early as their 20’s, clearly proving that genetics plays an important role in determining your hair’s health.  Researchers believe that ethnicity and stress can also be key factors in the production of melonacytes.  Stress harmones may impact the activity and growth of melanocytes, however, a clear link has not yet been found between stress and graying hair.

“Graying could be a result of chronic free radical damage,” says Ralf Paus, professor of dermatology at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Lübeck, Germany. Stress hormones produced either systemically or …could produce inflammation that drives the production of free radicals—unstable molecules that damage cells—and “it is possible that these free radicals could influence melanin production or induce bleaching of melanin,” Paus says. “There is evidence that local expression of stress hormones mediate the signals instructing melanocytes to deliver melanin to keratinocytes,” notes Jennifer Lin, a dermatologist who conducts molecular biology research at the Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center in Boston.

Another research group suggests that the graying of hair occurs due to a chemical chain reaction caused by a drop in the levels of catalase.  Less catalase means that the hydrogen peroxide in our hair cannot be broken down leading to an eventual build up that bleachers our hair from inside out.  The study hopes to aid in the development of new “anti-graying” products.

Hopefully that answers some of your questions, but a ‘true’ link to the graying of hair has not been clearly defined yet.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDHqWcK3XNo

Cause of Hangovers & Prevention

Hangovers  take place for a number of reasons, the primary one being that alcohol works as a diuretic, in other words, it makes you urinate…a lot.  This leads to a loss of fluids causing your body to dehydrate, and in turn, weakening your muscles, stomach, and making your mouth feel as if it’s stuffed with dry cotton swabs when you wake up.  Toxic by-products created after the metabolism of alcohol such as acetaldehyde and the depletion of vitamins A,B, B6, and C all add up to create a severe hangover.  Drinks also contain toxins known as congeners that are created during fermentation.  They give the liquor its array of colors and flavors.   Drinks with more congeners usually mean a more critical hangover in the morning.

Congeners in Alcohol:

• Scotch usually has four times more congeners than gin.
• Vodka has fewer congeners than gin.
• Red wine has a greater amount of congeners than white wine.
• Brandy and rum usually has thirty times more congeners than vodka.

So what does all that wind down to?  Well one thing for sure brandy and rum usually cause the worst hangovers.  Older wine contains less congeners.  Also mixing drinks makes it more difficult for the body to process and neutralize different congeners.  Often individuals tend to drink beer before getting to the hard liquors.  Beer is a carbonated beverage, and carbonation speeds up the rate of absorption, causing spirits to hit you harder and faster.

Prevention:

• Avoid mixing drinks and try using non-carbonated mixers.
• Drink plenty of water throughout the night so that your body does not become as dehydrated the following morning.
• Try drinking a glass of milk before consumption.  It coats the stomach and lowers the rates of absorption.
• Have a snack.  Eating before drinking also lowers the rate of absorbtion.
• Cheese and some small snacks have fatty content, therefore, slowing down the rate of absorbtion once more.
• Pop a vitamin B supplement before going to bed.  Alcohol uses up a lot of vitamin B in your body which results in a much more sever hangover the next morning.

Remedies & “Cures” for Hangovers

Allright so you know what causes hangovers and how to prevent them but still didn’t listen and now…you have a hangover.  Below are a series of tips you can follow to cure a hangover by relieving yourself of its symptoms.

• DRINK FLUIDS.  Your body is very dehydrated due to alcohols diuretic effects.  Drinking plenty of room temp. water will help you get back on track much quicker.
• Take an aspirin.  AVOID acetaminophen (Tylenol), the alcohol and Tylenol together is lethal to your liver!  To be honest, it is just best to avoid medications, even aspirin is known to upset the stomach of some people.
• Try taking a walk or doing a few light exercises to get your blood flowing again.
• Take a vitamin supplement with B vitamins in the morning.
• Eat a nice breakfast high in protein and with a bit of fat.  Milk and eggs would be a great option.
• Personally, I do not recommend coffee or other caffeinated beverages.
• Try drinking Ginger Ale or candied ginger.
• The best cure is PREVENTION!

Hope these tips help you in next time you decide to party hard.  If you have any comments, questions, or tips of your own please comment!

Although the gene mutation was found in only two women, the research has much significance and potential because when the gene for shortened sleep was replicated in mouse and fruit fly, it was quiet successful.

While screening through blood samples during a sleep study, researchers from University of California found two women with abnormal copies of a gene called DEC2, which affects circadian rhythms.  By working backwards, they found a mother and daughter who seemed to receive only 6 hours of sleep a night.  However, unlike most of us, they were able to carry on their daily routine without feeling any symptoms of sleep deprivation.

Unlike other short sleepers, these two women usually go to bed around 10 or 10:30 and wake up without an alarm.  Not only do they feel like they have had enough sleep, but they also feel energized and ready to work, unlike most of us who suffer from sleep deprivation.

Ying-Hui Fu, co-author of the study and professor of neurology at University of California said, “The two women, one in her 70s and the other in her 40s, go to bed around 10 or 10:30 at night and wake up alert and energized around 4 or 4:30 in the morning.  When they wake up in morning, they feel they have slept enough.”

These two women are natural short sleepers, as they do not use stimulants and alarm clocks in order to shorten their sleep patterns.

“Many people get only six hours of sleep a night, but we drink coffee and tea to make ourselves stay up,” Dr. Fu said. “That’s a very different thing.”

In order to examine their findings, the scientists bred mice with the exact same mutation.  The mice with the mutation, not only slept for a shorter time, but were also able to recover quickly from sleep deprivation compared to the regular mice.

This new discovery can help researchers gain insight into human sleep patterns and treatments for sleep disorders such as insomnia. However, Dr. Fu believes that research will be much more beneficial if the same exact gene is identified within other individuals.  The genetic mutation is extremely rare as only one family out of 70 families with sleep problems carried this particular mutation.

But Dr. Fu remains hopeful as she stated, “We essentially do not know anything about how sleep is regulated. But this gene is kind of opening a door for us to say, ‘Now we have this gene and we know it affects human sleep quantity.”

With optimism, she years to find a treatment which would allow people to stay awake for longer periods of time with less sleep, without it being detrimental upon the person’s health.

A new research on rats discovered that 10 days of eating high-fat diet resulted in short-term memory loss and made it much more difficult for the rats to exercise.  Although this might not come off as a big surprise, how the researchers interpreted the results might.  Apparently, researchers believe this study indicates that high-fat diets make humans “lazy and stupid.”

Researchers hope that this particular study will compel people to pay better attention to their diets and health.  Andrew Murray, co-author of the study from University of Cambridge in UK said, “Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention. We hope that the findings of our study will help people to think seriously about reducing the fat content of their daily food intake to the immediate benefit of their general health, well-being, and alertness.”

Murray and other researchers compared rats that ate a low-fat diet (7.5% of calories as fat) with rats that ate a high-fat diet (55% of calories as fat).  The results were astounding as the rats eating the high-fat diet had muscles that were less able to use oxygen to make energy and had hearts that increased in size and were pressured to work harder.  Also, after nine days on the high-fat diet, the rats took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes compared to the rats on low-fat diet.

The rat’s inability to use oxygen was due to increased levels of uncoupling protein 3.  As a result, the rats were inefficient at producing the oxygen required to make energy, which is highly necessary for running.

However, the results of this study are not 100% accurate, as the same, exact study must be conducted in human trials to confirm the hypothesis. Also, rats have a shorter life span which suggests that the effects from the study may play out in a shorter time scale than in humans, making the changes seem much more quicker and significant.  But for now, rodents are good correspondents to human studies and should compel people to take further steps in becoming healthier.

In a simple conclusion, Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of FASEB journal said, “It’s nothing short of a high-fat hangover. A long weekend spent eating hotdogs, French fries, and pizza in Orlando might be a great treat for our taste buds, but they might send our muscles and brains out to lunch..”

Another great video by him: Anaesthetists Hymn

Watched it three times already and it still hasn’t bored me. The singer makes a great song on ‘Careless Surgeons’.  Anyway great video, worth the watch.

Lina Medina and her doctor

The youngest mother, how old could you expect her to be? Ten, Eleven, or Twelve? Those were the ages that first came across my head as I began to read about five-year-old Lina Medina, who gave birth to a 6 lb child at the Andean village of Ticrapo in 1939. It was a very phenomenal case and the likelihood of it was so rare that many individuals still believe it is not true. Most girls begin to develop their reproductive organs around the age of 12 when they hit puberty, however, doctors found that Medina had a regular cycle of periods since the age of 3. According to her doctor, Escomel, she had a hormonal disorder of the pituitary gland that became the cause for this early development. Around the age of 4 1/2 Medina’s mother began to believe she had some type of tumor in her stomach and after taking her to a local doctor was it found that the girl was pregnant. Much speculation has been made that the father of the child was Lina’s father. He was put in jail for a short period of time but later released because of a lack of evidence. After giving birth to Gerard (name of Medina’s doctor), Medina’s psychological behavior remained the same. She would prefer playing with dolls rather then her own child. Also her son Gerard believed his mother was just his sibling but around the age of 10 found out the truth as local boys teased him about it.  Both grew up to have healthy lives and Lina married at the age of 33 and had a second child.

The History

So where did the myth originate?  One possibility is the heavy campaigning that took place for the vegetable by the British government and airforce during World War II.  The British government didn’t want the Germans to know of their newly acquired radar technology, so instead spread the word that eating plenty of carrots was what was helping their pilots see at night.  The propaganda was further fueled by the over emphasis placed on the importance of carrots to one’s health.  And you ask why carrots?  Well, Britain was facing a major food scarcity and carrots were one of the most abundant and cheap vegetables around.  Carrot fields sprang up around the country very quickly during the campaigning.  All of that led to a big part of today’s myth, that carrots can heal your vision.

The Facts

Carrots, vegetables, and many dietary supplements contain provitamin A carotenoids or beta-carotene which your body converts into Vitamin A.  Beta-Carotene has a variety of health benefits which can include prevention against cancer and heart disease, helps to boost immunity, and assists in the prevention of cataracts.  Studies show that myopia commonly known as nearsightedness is usually caused by environment factors and not by genetics.  Constant stress to the eyeball caused by computers, reading, and focusing on close objects causes it to elongate.  Once elongated the eye has trouble focusing on distant objects.  The only way to fix this is laser surgery or by wearing glasses/contact lens, carrots play no roll in lens correction.  They myth is alive because of its historical background and the fact that it has helped individuals that are Vitamin A deficient.  On the other hand, too much vitamin A can become a harmful toxin for the body.  Studies conducted on nepali and middle eastern citizens, that are vitamin A deficient have proved that a sufficient increase in the vitamin has helped individuals see clearer in the dark, but does only that.  Carrots have never been a factor in decreasing nearsightedness or improving eyesight in general.