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Sunday, 10 March 2013

North Korea rejects U.N. sanctions, China calls for calm

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea formally rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution on Saturday that demands an end to its nuclear arms program, as China called for calm, saying sanctions were not the "fundamental" way to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Pyongyang said it would pursue its goal of becoming a full-fledged nuclear weapons state, despite the sanctions which were unanimously imposed on Friday by the Security Council.

The sanctions aim to tighten financial restrictions and crack down on North Korea's attempts to transport banned cargo.

The resolution, the fifth since 2006 aimed at stopping the North's nuclear and ballistic missile program, coincides with a sharp escalation of security tensions on the Korean peninsula after Pyongyang's third nuclear test on February 12.

"The DPRK, as it did in the past, vehemently denounces and totally rejects the 'resolution on sanctions' against the DPRK, a product of the U.S. hostile policy toward it," the North's foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.

DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The world will clearly see what permanent position the DPRK will reinforce as a nuclear weapons state and satellite launcher as a result of the U.S. attitude of prodding the UNSC into cooking up the 'resolution.'"

The North's sole major ally China has said it wants sanctions fully implemented, but Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a news conference on Saturday the best way to resolve the problem was still through dialogue.

"We always believe that sanctions are not the end of Security Council actions, nor are sanctions the fundamental way to resolve the relevant issues," Yang said, urging all sides to exercise calm and restraint.

"The only right way to resolve the issue is to take a holistic approach and resolve the concerns of all parties involved in a comprehensive and balanced manner through dialogue and consultations."

AVOIDING INSTABILITY

The sanctions are designed to make punitive measures more like those used against Iran, which Western officials say have been surprisingly successful.

Analysts say China's leaders have become increasingly irritated with North Korea and its recent actions have sparked policy debate within China, but caution that Beijing is not likely to give up on its old friend any time soon.

"The calculus in China is changing to the point where it is starting to ask the question: Is North Korea more of a liability than a benefit?" said Paul Haenle, former China Director on the U.S. National Security Council and White House representative to the Six Party Talks.

"What Yang Jiechi said today is a reflection that it will not be taking actions with respect to North Korea that will cause more instability. It will not change its policy overnight and abandon North Korea."

The United States warned North Korea it will achieve nothing by repeating threats of provocative actions and will only drive itself deeper into international isolation.

"The United States of America and our allies are prepared to deal with any threat and any reality that occurs in the world," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said ahead of his visit to Afghanistan on Friday. "We are aware of what's going on. We have partnerships in that part of the world that are important."

North Korea defied international warnings and conducted a third nuclear test in February, setting off a device that yielded a stronger blast than its previous test in 2009. It claimed it had made progress in miniaturizing an atomic weapon.

Experts are skeptical of such a claim, and the threat this week to attack the United States, seeing them more as an attempt to boost its security leverage in the face of deepening diplomatic isolation and growing military pressure from the United States and South Korea, which are conducting joint military drills to deter any armed aggression from Pyongyang.

North Korea has accused the United States of using military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and declared on Tuesday it would scrap the armistice with Washington that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.

The two Koreas are technically at war because the armistice and not a formal peace treaty ended their 1950-53 conflict.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in KABUL and Ben Blanchard and John Ruwitch in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korea-rejects-u-n-sanctions-declares-pursuit-015810489.html

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Saturday, 9 March 2013

Iowa health insurance exchange gets 'conditional' federal approval ...

Iowa?s plan for a state-federal partnership health insurance exchange has received conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS Secretary Kathleen?Sebelius said the approval is contingent on Iowa?s ability to perform the activities described in the Exchange Blueprint Application it submitted on Feb. 14 and the state?s compliance with the regulations and progress milestones set by federal agencies.

The exchange blueprint spells out that Iowa will continue to regulate insurance plans and that the state will retain plan management in a state-federal partnership exchange. Under the arrangement, the Iowa Insurance Division will maintain oversight of companies participating in the exchange and the qualified health plans they offer within the division?s jurisdiction and authority.

Iowa also reserves the determination of Medicaid and CHIP program eligibility. Iowans will be able to obtain subsidized health insurance coverage from the exchange that will take effect on Jan. 1, 2014.

In a letter to Gov. Terry Branstad notifying him of the conditional plan approval, Sebelius said she recognizes? Iowa is working under intense timelines in coming months as the implementation of the plan proceeds.

?We and other agencies, especially the Department of Human Services, have been working on this for some time, in anticipation of this approval, so we are pleased to see it arrive,? said Insurance Commissioner Nick?Gerhart. ?There is a lot to do, but the implementation process is receiving our full attention as we work to bring the plan to reality.?

The Iowa Blueprint Package can be viewed on the Iowa Insurance Division?s Web site, at www.iid.state.ia.us.

Source: http://thegazette.com/2013/03/08/iowa-health-insurance-exchange-gets-conditional-federal-approval/

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Appetite suppression pills: Good or bad?

Mar. 8, 2013 ? New products are released each year promising to help buyers suppress their appetite to lose weight, but these over-the-counter concoctions may not be as effective as more natural approaches.

A web search of ingredients getting attention recently, like Hoodia gordonii or green coffee bean extract, brings up countless products that cannot always be trusted, according to University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Nutrition Sciences Professor and Chair Timothy Garvey, M.D.

"There are little or no rigorous data addressing the efficacy of these sorts of compounds," Garvey said. "People buying these products are likely to be wasting money."

Instead, Garvey added that patients with obesity complications should seek direction from their health care providers.

"There are proven lifestyle modification programs and medications that can be helpful," Garvey added.

There are steps one can take to naturally lower appetite. UAB Wellness Director Lauren Whitt, Ph.D., recommended starting the day with protein.

"It has long been suggested that people eat breakfast to help with hunger throughout the day, but your breakfast must have protein," Whitt said. "Egg whites or low-fat yogurt are excellent sources of protein that will keep you feeling fuller longer because it takes the body more time to digest and absorb them."

Later in the day, before hunger strikes, Whitt said a portion of an unsaturated fat can do the trick.

"Oleic acid, which is found in unsaturated fats, helps quell hunger," Whitt said. "It may sound counterintuitive, but this is healthy fat, so snack on a couple tablespoons of peanut butter or an ounce of nuts."

Lastly, Whitt said to toss a certain citrus into the mix.

"Eating grapefruit between meals, or with a meal, helps lower the insulin levels in your body," Whitt explained. "Insulin regulates your blood sugar and fat metabolism, so keeping insulin levels in check helps you fight the urge to grab a quick, sugary snack."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham. The original article was written by Nicole Wyatt.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/nutrition/~3/Zx3yCh2fw9Q/130308183710.htm

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Apple News - Mehdi Hosseini, IPhone, Foxconn

By GrabNetworks

Samsung's investment in Sharp could prick AppleApple still No. 1 smartphone makeriOS gains on Android in January as Windows Phone remains stagnantiPhone 5S production reportedly now underway

Related Keywords:Software, Apple Store, Mobile operating system, Information appliances, ITunes, Computer hardware, IOS, Linksys iPhone, Chaebol, Business, S-LCD, Computing, Usage share of operating systems, BlackBerry, Electronics, Steve Jobs, Technology
Related Sites: CEN - Consumer Electronics Net , ? CEN - Audio , ? CEN - PDAs , ? CEN - Phones , ? CEN - iPod

Related Newsletters: CEN - Gadgets Newsletter

Source: http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=2468214

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Friday, 8 March 2013

Federal judge strikes down Idaho ban on late-term abortions

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a 2011 Idaho law that banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, in a decision believed to mark the first time a court has ruled that such a measure was unconstitutional.

Idaho is one of at least eight states that have enacted late-term abortion prohibitions in recent years based on controversial medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.

Arkansas became the latest to enact adopt a "fetal pain" abortion statute last Thursday when the state Senate voted to join the House of Representatives in overriding a gubernatorial veto of the measure.

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Arkansas Legislature overrode a separate veto by Democratic Governor Mike Beebe to enact the most stringent abortion restrictions in the United States - banning the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

That law, the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act, will likely take effect in August, if it survives expected legal challenges.

Idaho's measure made it a felony to perform an abortion after 20 weeks unless there was proof the pregnancy endangered the life of the mother.

Wednesday's decision by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill stemmed from one of the first federal lawsuits challenging such statutes, and it was believed to mark the first time a court has struck down a fetal-pain abortion ban on its merits.

Last August, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a late-term abortion ban in Arizona from being enforced and agreed to an expedited review of that measure in a case that was argued before a three-judge panel in November. A decision is pending.

The Idaho lawsuit was brought in September 2011 by then 33-year-old Jennie Linn McCormack, who according to prosecutors had terminated her own pregnancy at 20 to 21 weeks using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor.

Winmill previously ruled that McCormack had lacked legal standing to seek a temporary restraining order against the "fetal pain" law because she was no longer pregnant and could not demonstrate imminent harm from the statute.

But McCormack's attorney, Richard Hearn, who also is a physician, gained standing to challenge the 20-week cutoff for legal abortions himself.

He also challenged separate Idaho statutes that could penalize a woman if her abortion provider failed to meet state requirements about how and where abortions are performed and a third law that subjects providers to criminal charges under certain conditions.

'ABSOLUTE OBSTACLE'

On Wednesday, Winmill sided with Hearn and McCormack, ruling the statutes in question infringed on a woman's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy under the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade.

That landmark opinion legalized abortion while allowing states to place restrictions on the procedure from the time a fetus could viably survive outside the womb, except in cases in which a woman's health was otherwise at risk.

A fetus is generally considered viable at 22 to 24 weeks. A full-term pregnancy typically is about 40 weeks.

Referring to Idaho's 20-week abortion ban, Winmill wrote, "Here, an outright ban on abortions at or after 20 weeks' gestation places, not just a substantial obstacle, but an absolute obstacle, in the path of women seeking such abortions."

Winmill also chided the Idaho Legislature for enacting the 20-week abortion ban in the face of an opinion by the Idaho attorney general that strongly suggested the law was unconstitutional under existing court precedents.

Sponsors of the measure had argued that such a restriction was needed in Idaho, although state figures showed that about 1 percent of abortions performed there involved pregnancies at 20 weeks or more.

In another portion of his ruling, Winmill said Idaho's restriction of late-term abortions to those performed in hospitals was unconstitutional because it could effectively limit the use of so-called abortion pills, widely known as RU486, that allow women to end their own pregnancies at home.

"The question is not limited to whether the hospital-only requirement substantially burdens a woman's right to choose a medical abortion in her second trimester. Instead, the question is whether the hospital-only requirement substantially burdens a woman's right to choose any type of second-trimester abortion. The Supreme Court has twice answered this question, 'yes,'" Winmill wrote.

Hearn told Reuters that Winmill's decision marked the first time a federal court found it unconstitutional to subject physicians to criminal prosecution for prescribing medicines like RU486 beyond label recommendations that they be used for ending pregnancies up to just seven weeks of gestation.

Marvin Thomas Richardson, an outspoken anti-abortion activist in Idaho, condemned the court's decision, saying "Federal judges have no business ruling on this," adding, "As soon as sperm meets egg, that's a legal person on Earth."

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Steve Gorman, Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/federal-judge-strikes-down-idaho-ban-term-abortions-020506514.html

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Drug Addiction Treatment | Alcohol Self-Help News

Principles of Drug Addiction and Alcoholism Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)

Principles of Effective Treatment

1. Addiction is a complex but treatable disease that affects brain function and behavior.? Drugs of abuse alter the brain?s structure and function, resulting in changes that persist long after drug use has ceased. This may explain why drug abusers are at risk for relapse even after long periods of abstinence and despite the potentially devastating consequences.

2. No single treatment is appropriate for everyone.? Treatment varies depending on the type of drug and the characteristics of the patients. Matching treatment settings, interventions, and services to an individual?s particular problems and needs is critical to his or her ultimate success in returning to productive functioning in the family, workplace, and society.

3. Treatment needs to be readily available.? Because drug-addicted individuals may be uncertain about entering treatment, taking advantage of available services the moment people are ready for treatment is critical. Potential patients can be lost if treatment is not immediately available or readily accessible. As with other chronic diseases, the earlier treatment is offered in the disease process, the greater the likelihood of positive outcomes.

4. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug abuse.? To be effective, treatment must address the individual?s drug abuse and any associated medical, psychological, social, vocational, and legal problems. It is also important that treatment be appropriate to the individual?s age, gender, ethnicity, and culture.

5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical.? The appropriate duration for an individual depends on the type and degree of the patient?s problems and needs. Research indicates that most addicted individuals need at least 3 months in treatment to significantly reduce or stop their drug use and that the best outcomes occur with longer durations of treatment. Recovery from drug addiction is a long-term process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment. As with other chronic illnesses, relapses to drug abuse can occur and should signal a need for treatment to be reinstated or adjusted. Because individuals often leave treatment prematurely, programs should include strategies to engage and keep patients in treatment.

6. Behavioral therapies?including individual, family, or group counseling?are the most commonly used forms of drug abuse treatment.?? Behavioral therapies vary in their focus and may involve addressing a patient?s motivation to change, providing incentives for abstinence, building skills to resist drug use, replacing drug-using activities with constructive and rewarding activities, improving problem-solving skills, and facilitating better interpersonal relationships. Also, participation in group therapy and other peer support programs during and following treatment can help maintain abstinence.

7. Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies.? For example, methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone (including a new long-acting formulation) are effective in helping individuals addicted to heroin or other opioids stabilize their lives and reduce their illicit drug use. Acamprosate, disulfiram, and naltrexone are medications approved for treating alcohol dependence. For persons addicted to nicotine, a nicotine replacement product (available as patches, gum, lozenges, or nasal spray) or an oral medication (such as bupropion or varenicline) can be an effective component of treatment when part of a comprehensive behavioral treatment program.

8. An individual?s treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified as necessary to ensure that it meets his or her changing needs.? A patient may require varying combinations of services and treatment components during the course of treatment and recovery. In addition to counseling or psychotherapy, a patient may require medication, medical services, family therapy, parenting instruction, vocational rehabilitation, and/or social and legal services. For many patients, a continuing care approach provides the best results, with the treatment intensity varying according to a person?s changing needs.

9. Many drug-addicted individuals also have other mental disorders.? Because drug abuse and addiction?both of which are mental disorders?often co-occur with other mental illnesses, patients presenting with one condition should be assessed for the other(s). And when these problems co-occur, treatment should address both (or all), including the use of medications as appropriate.

10. Medically assisted detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long-term drug abuse.? Although medically assisted detoxification can safely manage the acute physical symptoms of withdrawal and can, for some, pave the way for effective long-term addiction treatment, detoxification alone is rarely sufficient to help addicted individuals achieve long-term abstinence. Thus, patients should be encouraged to continue drug treatment following detoxification. Motivational enhancement and incentive strategies, begun at initial patient intake, can improve treatment engagement.

11. Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective.? Sanctions or enticements from family, employment settings, and/or the criminal justice system can significantly increase treatment entry, retention rates, and the ultimate success of drug treatment interventions.

12. Drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously, as lapses during treatment do occur.? Knowing their drug use is being monitored can be a powerful incentive for patients and can help them withstand urges to use drugs. Monitoring also provides an early indication of a return to drug use, signaling a possible need to adjust an individual?s treatment plan to better meet his or her needs.

13. Treatment programs should test patients for the presence of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases as well as provide targeted risk-reduction counseling, linking patients to treatment if necessary.?? Typically, drug abuse treatment addresses some of the drug-related behaviors that put people at risk of infectious diseases. Targeted counseling focused on reducing infectious disease risk can help patients further reduce or avoid substance-related and other high-risk behaviors. Counseling can also help those who are already infected to manage their illness. Moreover, engaging in substance abuse treatment can facilitate adherence to other medical treatments. Substance abuse treatment facilities should provide onsite, rapid HIV testing rather than referrals to offsite testing?research shows that doing so increases the likelihood that patients will be tested and receive their test results. Treatment providers should also inform patients that highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has proven effective in combating HIV, including among drug-abusing populations, and help link them to HIV treatment if they test positive.

More at; http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment

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Source: http://alcoholselfhelpnews.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/drug-addiction-treatment/

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Thursday, 7 March 2013

New study validates longevity pathway: Findings identify universal mechanism for activating anti-aging pathway

Mar. 7, 2013 ? A new study demonstrates what researchers consider conclusive evidence that the red wine compound resveratrol directly activates a protein that promotes health and longevity in animal models. What's more, the researchers have uncovered the molecular mechanism for this interaction, and show that a class of more potent drugs currently in clinical trials act in a similar fashion. Pharmaceutical compounds similar to resveratrol may potentially treat and prevent diseases related to aging in people, the authors contend.

These findings are published in the March 8 issue of Science.

For the last decade, the science of aging has increasingly focused on sirtuins, a group of genes that are believed to protect many organisms, including mammals, against diseases of aging. Mounting evidence has demonstrated that resveratrol, a compound found in the skin of grapes as well as in peanuts and berries, increases the activity of a specific sirtuin,SIRT1, that protects the body from diseases by revving up the mitochondria, a kind of cellular battery that slowly runs down as we age. By recharging the batteries, SIRT1 can have profound effects on health.

Mice on resveratrol have twice the endurance and are relatively immune from effects of obesity and aging. In experiments with yeast, nematodes, bees, flies and mice, lifespan has been extended.

"In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has never been a drug that binds to a protein to make it run faster in the way that resveratrol activates SIRT1," said David Sinclair, Harvard Medical School professor of genetics and senior author on the paper. "Almost all drugs either slow or block them."

In 2006, Sinclair's group published a study showing that resveratrol could extend the lifespan of mice, and the company Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which was started by HMS researchers, was founded to make drugs more potent than resveratrol. (Sinclair is a co-founder of Sirtris, a GlaxoSmithKline company, and remains a scientific advisor. Sirtris currently has a number of sirtuin-activating compounds in clinical trials.)

But while numerous studies, from Sinclair's lab and elsewhere, underscored a direct causal link between resveratrol and SIRT1, some scientists claimed the studies were flawed.

The contention lay in the way SIRT1 was studied in vitro, using a specific chemical group attached to the targets of SIRT1 that fluoresces more brightly as SIRT1 activity increases. This chemical group, however, is synthetic and does not exist in cells or in nature, and without it the experiments did not work. As a response to this, a paper published in 2010 surmised that resveratrol's activation of SIRT1 was an experimental artifact, one that existed in the lab, but not in an actual animal. SIRT1 activity in mice was, the paper claimed, at best an indirect result of resveratrol, and perhaps even a sheer coincidence.

As a result, a debate erupted over the particular pathway that resveratrol and similar compounds affected. Does resveratrol directly activate SIRT1 or is the effect indirect? "We had six years of work telling us that this was most definitely not an artifact," said Sinclair. "Still, we needed to figure out precisely how resveratrol works. The answer was extremely elegant."

Sinclair and Basil Hubbard, then a doctoral student in the lab, teamed up with a group of researchers from both the National Institutes of Health and Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to address this question.

First, the team addressed the problem of the fluorescent chemical group. Why was it required for resveratrol to rev up SIRT1 in the test tube? Instead of dismissing the result as an artifact, the researchers surmised that the chemical might be mimicking molecules found naturally in the cell. These turned out to be a specific class of amino acid, the building blocks of proteins. In nature, there are three amino acids that resemble the fluorescent chemical group, one of which is tryptophan, a molecule abundant in turkey and notable for inducing drowsiness. When researchers repeated the experiment, swapping the fluorescing chemical group on the substrate with a tryptophan residue, resveratrol and similar molecules were once again able to activate SIRT1.

"We discovered a signature for activation that is in fact found in the cell and doesn't require these other synthetic groups," said Hubbard, first author of the study. "This was a critical result, which allowed us to bridge the gap between our biochemical and physiological findings.

"Next, we needed to identify precisely how resveratrol presses on SIRT1's accelerator," said Sinclair. The team tested approximately 2,000 mutants of the SIRT1 gene, eventually identifying one mutant that completely blocked resveratrol's effect. The particular mutation resulted in the substitution of a single amino acid residue, out of the 747 that make up SIRT1. The researchers also tested hundreds of other molecules from the Sirtris library, many of which are far more powerful than resveratrol, against this mutant SIRT1. All failed to activate it.

The authors propose a model for how resveratrol works: When the molecule binds, a hinge flips, and SIRT1 becomes hyperactive.

Although these experiments occurred in a test tube, once the researchers identified the precise location of the accelerator pedal on SIRT1 -- and how to break it -- they could test their ideas in a cell. They replaced the normal SIRT1 gene in muscle and skin cells with the accelerator-dead mutant. Now they could test precisely whether resveratrol and the drugs in development work by tweaking SIRT1 (in which case they would not work) or one of the thousands of other proteins in a cell (in which they would work). While resveratrol and the drugs tested revved up mitochondria in normal cells (an effect caused activating by SIRT1), the mutant cells were completely immune.

"This was the killer experiment," said Sinclair. "There is no rational alternative explanation other than resveratrol directly activates SIRT1 in cells. Now that we know the exact location on SIRT1 where and how resveratrol works, we can engineer even better molecules that more precisely and effectively trigger the effects of resveratrol."

The researchers plan on continuing academic-industry collaborations with the goal of bringing to fruition drugs that treat diseases associated with aging.

This research was funded by the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, NIH and NIAID grants (RO1AG028730, PO1AG027211; RO1 AG019719), an NSERC fellowship, the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation, the Intramural Research Program, and NIH/NHLBI.

Sinclair is a consultant and inventor on patents licensed to Sirtris, a GSK company.