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Takashi Kadowaki and colleagues at the University of Tokyo administered adiponectin to obese mice fed a high fat diet & to mice w/reduced levels of body fat, improving insulin resistance & lowering blood glucose levels in both sets of mice.

"Decreased free testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-S) levels in women with decreased libido."

"According to a small German study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers found that DHEA improved sexuality and well-being in 24 women diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency. The double-blind study found that women who took 50 mg of DHEA daily reported significant increases in how often they thought about sex, how interested they were in sexual activity, and their levels of both mental and physical sexual satisfaction. These women also reported improvement in mental health issues such as obsessive-compulsive traits, depression, anxiety, and other psychological conditions. The most significant improvements were seen four months after treatment began. "

"Women with low libido: correlation of decreased androgen levels with female sexual function index"

Abstract: A new class of patient-driven health care services is emerging to supplement and extend traditional health care delivery models and empower patient self-care. Patient-driven health care can be characterized as having an increased level of information flow, transparency, customization, collaboration and patient choice and responsibility-taking, as well as quantitative, predictive and preventive aspects. The potential exists to both improve traditional health care systems and expand the concept of health care though new services. This paper examines three categories of novel health services: health social networks, consumer personalized medicine and quantified self-tracking.

"Lancet 2010: There is a U-shaped relationship between glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and mortality in people with diabetes, say researchers, meaning that intensive glucose-lowering therapy could be as harmful as uncontrolled hyperglycemia.\n\nWriting in The Lancet, Craig Currie and team (Cardiff University, UK) conclude that if their findings are confirmed, then diabetes guidelines may need to be revised to include a lower as well as an upper HbA1c threshold.\n\nCurrie's team used the UK General Practice Research Database from November 1986 to November 2008 to obtain data on two cohorts of patients aged 50 years and older with Type 2 diabetes.\n\nThe patients comprised 27,965 individuals whose treatment had been intensified from oral monotherapy to combination therapy with oral blood-glucose lowering agents, and 20,005 who had changed to insulin-containing regimens."

"new research demonstrates that ingested vitamin D is immunosuppressive and that low blood levels of vitamin D may be actually a result of the disease process. Supplementation may make the disease worse. "

This article discusses new Duke University research showing a highly significant correlation (p = 0.007) between higher vitamin D intake and MRI brain lesions (http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/21/6/A1072), as well as the potential for lesion reversal. These lesions have been associated with cognitive impairment, stroke, psychiatric disorders and mortality. This article also discusses the levels of vitamin D and calcium needed to avoid osteoporosis and vascular calcification in the light of new research on blockage of the vitamin D receptor due to bacterial products and elevated 25D.

"A recent article in the New York Times highlighted an ongoing problem with the accuracy of vitamin D testing at the largest commercial clinical laboratory, Quest Diagnostics. It has become clear from shared experience among vitamin D experts, including myself, that Quest Diagnostics has a problem with seemingly random over-estimation of vitamin D levels."

Molecular immunological approaches to biotherapy of human cancers--a review, hypothesis and implications.\nBecker Y.\nAnticancer Res. 2006 Mar-Apr;26(2A):1113-34. Review.\nPMID: 16619514 \n\nPolarized Th1 cells produce interleukin (IL)-2, IL-12 and interferon (IFN)-gamma, and polarized Th2 cells and the hematopoietic cells produce IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-13. In healthy individuals there is a Th1/Th2 cytokine balance, but during microbial-induced inflammation the pathogens induce an overproduction of the Th2 cytokines that inhibit the adaptive immune response against the pathogen. A review of studies on the Th1/Th2 cytokine balance in humans harboring different tumor types revealed that tumor cells induce increased Th2 cytokine levels in patients' sera that can serve as indicators for the existence of tumors. I\n

Antidepressants, despite their popularity, are no more effective than sugar pills for most people with mild or moderate depression. For severe depression, they're somewhat more effective, but far from a cure.

"Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos

"Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos