Three easy ways to fight against extra weight

Let’s face it! Obesity is a problem nowadays and, as unpleasant it is for me to say it, I deal with the same problem: I am overweight and I’m always searching for a weight loss method. Although we all know that exercising and a healthy diet is the perfect thing for a healthy, supple abdomen, it is always good to have a few quick alternatives at hand, right?

While stumbling the internet in the search for diet recipes (yes, it’s that time of the year when I MUST lose weight) I found a website offering some diet pills that seem to be really interesting. I have never tried such things so if you know anything about them, it would be great to hear.

Because from what I see, they look quite promising. For example this Xenical pill I first found – it’s a pill that helps your digestive system to filter fats faster, therefore forcing our organism to start burning that extra fat we all have round the belly. This does not appear to be one of the dangerous “faster metabolism”, so I found it really interesting.

So I kept digging through the website and found that there are more pills there – all seeming to have the same use: helping people like me lose weight fast and without problems. Reductil for example is another of their products, this time one that does not help eliminate fat faster, but gives you an overall satiety level, therefore reducing the amount of food you eat. Acomplia was another product they offered.

So now I wonder if I should start an order or go back to my exercising… pills are faster and more effective, though. Tough…

Breakthrough in treatment for E. coli toxin

Polymer binds E. coli toxin preventing kidney damage

A University of Alberta researcher has found a possible treatment for the E.coli strain that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ontario, in 2000 and has just been linked to more than 200 illnesses in North Bay, Ontario.

David Bundle, chemistry professor and director of the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Carbohydrate Science, has developed a polymeric drug that binds a naturally-occurring protein in the body with the E.coli toxin, preventing it from affecting the kidneys. The effect of E.coli 0157.H7 on the kidneys can be life-threatening.

New Finding gor Crohn's Disease and Colitis

The tonsils and lymphoid tissues in the intestinal tract that help protect the body from external pathogens are the home base of a rare immune cell newly identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers indicate that the immune cells could have a therapeutic role in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

"These cells have an anti-inflammatory effect," says the article's lead author Marina Cella, M.D., research associate professor of pathology and immunology. "In the gut, we have beneficial bacteria, and it's important that the body does not recognize them as something detrimental and start an inflammatory reaction, which could ultimately promote tissue damage and inflammatory or autoimmune diseases such as IBD. The cells we've discovered are important for keeping such harmful inflammatory processes in check."

The cells are a type of natural killer (NK) cells, which are white blood cells classically known to eliminate tumor cells and cells infected by viruses. Because of their killer tendencies, NK cells are carefully controlled and don't act until they receive the right signal.

Some of the signals that activate the newly discovered cells are the same signals that turn on a different immune cell with strong inflammatory properties that can promote cell death and tissue damage if chronically active. But the anti-inflammatory cells, termed NK-22 cells, that the Washington University researchers discovered have the opposite effect — they promote cell proliferation and wound healing.

"That finding suggests that these cells play a role in maintaining a balance in the immune system between inflammatory processes and anti-inflammatory processes," says coauthor Jason Mills, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of developmental biology. "They make sure that factors that turn up inflammation can be counteracted by the coordinated activation of anti-inflammatory effects."