Altermedicine.org

On a summer evening in Tucson, Tom Boyle Jr. saw a Camaro had hit a cyclist. One of the cyclist’s legs was pinned between chassis of the car and the frame of his bike, the other jammed between the bike and the asphalt. After 20 or 30 feet, the Camaro slowed and stopped. Without stopping to think, Boyle reached under the frame of the car and lifted. With a sound of groaning metal, the chassis eased upward.

To this day there's something about that evening that Boyle can't figure out. It's no mystery to him why he did what he did, but he can't quite figure out how. "There's no way I could lift that car right now," he says.

Under acute stress, your body's sympathetic nervous system prepares your body for sustained, vigorous action. The adrenal gland dumps cortisol and adrenaline into your blood stream. Blood pressure surges and your heart races, delivering oxygen and energy to your muscles. It's the biological equivalent of opening the throttle of an engine.
   
The mechanisms by which you brain is able to summon greater reserves of power have not been well explored, but it may be related to another of fear's superpowers: analgesia, or the inability to feel pain. Under intense pressure, you might not feel the ache of your muscles straining -- you just do what needs to be done.

Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become thinner, more porous and break more easily. Osteopenia is different from osteoporosis -- it is a slight thinning of the bones that occurs naturally as women get older and typically doesn't result in disabling bone breaks.

Osteopenia is a condition that only recently started to be thought of as a problem that required treatment. Until the early 1990’s, only a handful of people had even heard the word. But osteopenia has transformed from a rarely heard word into a problem that millions of women swallow pills to treat.

The term “osteopenia” was never originally meant to be considered as a disease -- it was a research category used mostly because some thought it might be useful for public health researchers who like clear categories for their studies.

But in 1995, a man named Jeremy Allen was approached by the drug company Merck. The pharmaceutical giant had just released a new osteoporosis drug called Fosamax. Since osteoporosis is a serious problem that affects millions of women, the potential market for Fosamax was enormous. But the drug wasn’t selling well.

Allen persuaded Merck to establish a nonprofit called the Bone Measurement Institute. On its board were six of the most respected osteoporosis researchers in the country. But the institute itself had a rather slim staff: Allen was the only employee. In 1997 the institute and several other interested organizations successfully lobbied to pass the Bone Mass Measurement Act, a piece of legislation that changed Medicare reimbursement rules to cover bone scans. More and more women got bone density tests (at Merck’s urging), and the very existence of the word "osteopenia" on a medical report had a profound effect.

Millions of women were worried by the diagnosis. And when clinicians saw the word 'osteopenia' on a report, they assumed it was a disease. Merck did not disabuse them of the notion.

There are no long-term studies that look at what happens to women with osteopenia who start Fosamax in their 50’s and continue treatment long-term in the hopes of preventing old-age fractures. And none are planned.

Running shoes decked out with the latest cushioning, motion control and arch support technologies may not be as beneficial to your feet and joints as you might think.

A new study finds that running shoes may actually put more of a strain on your joints than if you were to run barefoot or even to walk in high-heeled shoes, and the increased pressure could lead to knee, hip and ankle damage.

The study enrolled 37 women and 31 men who ran recreationally, at least 15 miles per week. The subjects were then studied in a "gait laboratory," running either barefoot or with a typical running shoe. The researchers found an increase in torque for the knees, hips and ankles when the participants were wearing running shoes as compared with when they were running barefoot.

Specifically, they saw a 38 percent increase in torque in areas of the knee where osteoarthritis develops. They found such a large increase surprising, because it was greater than the increase in knee torque observed for women wearing high heels, which was only 20 percent to 26 percent.

Young children may be more apt to have high blood sugar, a precursor to diabetes, if they average 8 hours or less of sleep a night. This risk may be even greater among obese youngsters.

Shorter sleep seemed to influence blood sugar independently of a large variety of risk factors, including age, gender, birth-related influences, early life feeding or later diet, recent illness, physical activity, body mass, and waist girth.

The researchers investigated sleep duration and blood sugar levels in more than 1,200 children who were 3 to 6 years old and free of diabetes or blood sugar problems.