Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/diet

  • Biology Explainer: The big 4 building blocks of life–carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids

    …e X Extra: A triglyceride can have up to three different fatty acids attached to it. Canola oil, for example, consists primarily of oleic acid, linoleic acid, and linolenic acid, all of which are unsaturated fatty acids with 18 carbons in their chains. Why do we take in fat anyway? Fat is a necessary nutrient for everything from our nervous systems to our circulatory health. It also, under appropriate conditions, is an excellent way to store up…

    Authored by on June 8, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    Protip: Don’t diagnose based on speculation. by Jessica Wright                Attention journalists: If you’ve been calling people “nuts” or “deranged” in your stories, the Associated Press is recommending that it’s time you stopped. This guideline — along with the common-sense assertion that writers shouldn’t diagnose individuals with a mental illness based entirely on speculation — is part of a new recommendation added to the AP styleboo…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

  • Depressing genes

    …ch experience — yet it was obvious he didn’t have the knack for it. This student’s dogged pursuit of a mental health career made me wonder what kind of emotional turmoil he experienced which would make him think, at age 19, that psychiatry was the only vocation worth working towards. Then there were the two graduate students who both worked incredibly hard and were both prone to obsess about their experiments. Each burned off stress in quit…

    Authored by on May 17, 2013

  • Gluten sensitivity

    …ay cause “gluten sensitivity,” many questions remain. In the meantime, for those whose doctors recommend a diet sans gluten, there will be plenty of food to choose from, as the gluten-free market continues to boom. References 1. Aziz, I., Hadjivassiliou, M., & Sanders, D.S. (2012). Does gluten sensitivity in the absence of coeliac disease exist?. British Medical Journal, 345, e7907. 2. Fasano, A. (2009, August). Surprises from Celiac Disease….

    Authored by on March 15, 2013

  • A history lesson written in … plaque?

    …and health. As they describe in the journal Nature Genetics, the researchers collected calculus samples (ewww) from 34 human skeletons dating from between 400 (late medieval) and 7,500 years ago (mesolithic), as well as from 10 members of the research team for a modern comparison. (Worst. Cleaning. Ev-ah.) They extracted and amplified specific diagnostic segments of microbial DNA from the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, and then sequenced what they foun…

    Authored by on March 18, 2013

  • If you try one detox this year, make it this one

    …I eat whole grains and fruit and avoid beef and pork and, after a humiliating experience involving stuffing semisweet baking chips into my mouth with both hands, I no longer allow chocolate in the house. Even though I can run 13.1 miles in one shot, I don’t look like a model. And when it comes to the reckoning on the elliptical with that pink pile of glossy magazine paper in front of me, the images under my nose tell me that my body is riddled wi…

    Authored by on January 21, 2013

  • I Am Mental Illness: Anorexia–Biting Back

    Battling the uninformed, insurance companies, and your own compulsions [Ed. note: This post is the first in our series, “I Am Mental Illness,” bringing you personal experiences living with a mental illness. It’s likely that no single one of us lives a life untouched by mental illness, our own or that of someone we know. Yet in spite of their high prevalence, these disorders remain stigmatized and undersupported. To learn more about mental illnes…

    Authored by on January 25, 2013

  • Real science vs. fake science: How can you tell them apart?

    …211;and answer–before shelling out the benjamins for anything, whether it’s anti-aging cream, a diet fad program, books purporting to tell you secrets your doctor won’t, or jewelry items containing magnets: 1. What is the source? Is the person or entity making the claims someone with genuine expertise in what they’re claiming? Are they hawking on behalf of someone else? Are they part of a distributed marketing scam? Do th…

    Authored by on December 11, 2011

  • The Vampire of Venice Returns, or What Is that Brick Doing in that Skull’s Mouth?

    [ We're delighted to feature another post from our favorite bioarchaeologist, Kristina Killgrove, who first blogged about the Vampire of Venice at her site, Powered by Osteons. Kristina previously told DSXers about the history of childbirth and caesarian sections. ] It seems like every spring there is renewed coverage of a partial skeleton that was found on the island of Lazaretto Nuovo (one of two 15th-16th century leper colonies near Venice)…

    Authored by on July 11, 2012

  • Autism and the DSM-5

    …questions in the context of these criteria. I’ve expanded on a couple of these reports at length elsewhere, as have others with an interest in the subject. The short version is that studies overall indicate that at the least, 10% of people who would currently have an autism diagnosis under the DSM-IV-TR criteria would lose that diagnosis under the DSM-5, and some studies go as high as 55% in their estimates. Even more troubling? The committee’s s…

    Authored by on April 23, 2013

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