| Meet 30 of the area's most talented people age 30 and under
This year's 30 under 30 list spotlights men and women who have attained a significant position in their field, received an award for their work or achieved physical feats. The list includes East Carolina University and professional athletes, business owners in a variety of fields including mental health, animal services, fashion and tattooing. We've got television reporters, military veterans and even a mayoral candidate. If you know of someone that we didn't include in this year's list, there's always next year, provided your candidate is 30 or under as of November 2008. Send an e-mail to mixer@coxnc.com to tell us about your candidate. Robin Armstrong Age: 26 Occupation: Assistant Director for Graduate Programs at East Carolina University's College of Business Husband: Joshua Why we picked her: Armstrong advises ECU students as they progress through their master's of business adminsitration program.
Clinics far more than last resort
Griselda Ruiz is like thousands of seasonal cannery workers in Stanislaus County. She has employer-provided health insurance when she is sorting vegetables from late August to October, then hopes she doesn't get sick the rest of the year. The Modesto woman was stricken with diabetes when pregnant with one of her two children, and as often happens with gestational diabetes, the disease came back. As her diabetes escalated this past year, Ruiz bought medicine during two trips to Mexico. She sought help at the Golden Valley Health Center on Sixth Street in Modesto last summer after the pills ran out. At the clinic, a test showed her blood sugar was five times above normal and put her at risk of a stroke or going into a diabetic coma. Ruiz, 52, told Marlene Perez, the clinic's health educator, that she hadn't come in sooner because she was unaware of the nonprofit clinic's sliding fee scale.
Smoking snapshots spark debate in India
Health activists said Tuesday that powerful tobacco industry groups could scuttle a federal government decision to require photographs of cancer patients on cigarette packs sold in India by next month. Several other countries have tried similar strategies to discourage smoking. .
Go on, touch someone
London - When Jim Coan scanned the brains of married women in pain, he spotted changes that may help to shed light on an age-old mystery. As soon as the women touched the hands of their husbands, there was an instant drop in activity in the areas of the brains involved in fear, danger, and threat. The women, who had been exposed to experimental pain while they were scanned, were calmer and less stressed, and a similar, but smaller, effect was triggered by the touch of strangers. "It's the first study of the brain's reactions to human touch in a threatening situation, and the first to measure how the brain is involved in the health-enhancing properties of close social relationships," said Dr Coan, a neuroscientist at Virginia University. Touch, a key component of traditional healing, is being increasingly studied in mainstream medicine, with some trials showing symptom benefits in a number of areas, from asthma and high blood pressure to migraine and childhood diabetes.
CT scans to determine heart disease in the emergency room
In the future, patients who arrive at a hospital Emergency Department complaining of chest pain may be diagnosed with a sophisticated CT scan. If the diagnosis is negative, the patient can go home�and the total time at the hospital will be much shorter than it is today. .
Nurses' strike drags on in Appalachia
Jerry Blevins has stood for weeks on a picket line with his fellow nurses, thinking about his mortgage, his tearful wife, his four children. Pam Pace has been called names and listed on the "wall of shame" posted outside her hospital for crossing the picket line and continuing to work. Last week, her tires were slashed. "Someone's got to stay in here and take care of the patients," she said. It's been a stressful seven weeks for the 750 registered nurses at Appalachian Regional Healthcare, the region's largest hospital system, which has nine facilities in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Six hundred nurses have refused to cross the picket line. Some, like Blevins, have put their livelihoods on the line since Oct. 1, saying their goal is to ensure better care for patients.
Study Shows Need To Test More COPD And Asthma Patients For Underdiagnosed Pulmonary Disease
A new study finds that a higher than expected number of COPD and severe asthma patients had abnormal low levels of alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT), suggesting the need for broader criteria for AAT deficiency testing. AAT deficiency, also known as Alpha-1, is a widely undiagnosed hereditary disorder that is usually fatal in its severe form.
Alpha-1 is estimated to affect up to 100,000 Americans, but up to 95 percent are undiagnosed or have been misdiagnosed as having another form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). Details of the study were presented at CHEST, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians held in Chicago from October 20 to 25. Study results are being announced on World COPD Day to focus attention on the need for wider testing for AAT deficiency.
Every School Every Thursday -- Johnston
Beaver Creek students will be participating in two service projects during the month of November. One service project will be connected to the PTO book fair, held in mid-November. Students will be asked to donate coins, and the proceeds will help provide books for students at Beaver Creek who may not be able to purchase a book at the book fair. The other service project will be a canned-food drive for Combat Hunger.
Beaver Creek's Character Counts pillar of the month is citizenship. Students will review ways to be good citizens at home, at school and in the community. Beaver Creek's second "Growing Good Character" assembly will focus on citizenship. This assembly will be held in late November.
Horizon
Horizon students, families and staff celebrated Red Ribbon Week Oct.
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