Monday, March 7, 2011

Tests for Mr. Pine

There is some evidence that women are more predisposed to being affected by both depression and diabetes. This link between diabetes and depression, established in numerous studies over the last 10 years, got some sad reinforcement from a 10 year study that involved over 65000 subjects and a 10 year follow up period, according to a report in the November 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study, conducted with 65,381 women from the ages of 50 to 75, involved taking an initial questionnaire in 1996 and then taking follow up questionnaires for every two years afterward until 2006. The findings would seem to suggest that you were more likely to develop depression if you were diagnosed with diabetes than develop diabetes if you were depressed.

There are a number of stress factors involved with having diabetes that include, but are not limited to: the daily stress of diabetes management--numerous pin pricks, fretting over meals etc., and the physical symptoms that match or mirror depression such as lethargy or exhaustion. The disease of diabetes can seemingly resemble or drive the disease of depression and as the Harvard study shows the reverse can be true at least a quarter of the time.

An Pan, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, recommended that future studies be done in order to figure out other differences in the diabetes/depression relationship in other population groups. Pan recommended  that middle age groups focus on weight control and exercise to decrease the incidence of both diseases.

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(Mubarak has since resigned and the guy who replaced him has resigned! So I just put together some news articles of the day.)

Here's a roundup of the news from Egypt, continuously in flux (a nice way of saying we don't really know who's in charge) as of March 7th, 2011.

From Democracy Now: Egyptian Protesters Hail Selection of New Prime Minister

In news from Egypt, leaders of the pro-democracy movement are hailing the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq. Shafiq was installed by President Hosni Mubarak a few days before he was forced out of office by a popular uprising. Former Transport Minister Essam Sharaf was tapped to replace him. Sharaf spent his first full day in office by visiting Tahrir Square to speak with protesters. The new prime minister was carried to and from the stage on the shoulders of people in the square. Sharaf vowed to join the protest movement if he is not able to institute their demands, which include an end to the longstanding emergency law and the release of political prisoners and other reforms.

From the Washington Post: Egyptian protesters storm torture centers and seize files. According to the story:

The protesters also said they found “the files of well-known Egyptian activists who faced torture,” Motaparthy reported, and demanded that “a representative from the public prosecutor’s office come and oversee safe transport of the documents.”The English-language Ahram Online newspaper added that the activists were “calling on whoever was detained or tortured there to join the protest and not leave before the military takes over.”
Here is a newsreel of news about what's happening in Egypt from Anti War:


Clashes Reported in Cairo for First Time Since Mubarak Ousted
Strife Continues Inside Egyptian State-Owned Media
Answering the Public, Egypt Names a New Cabinet
New Egypt Foreign Minister Likely to Be Tougher on Israel
Egypt: A First Step Towards Prosecutions?
Mubarak's Sons Got Fee From Israeli Gas Deal
German Military Transports Hundreds of Refugees to Egyp

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Possible bad news for any politicians running for office in 2012: mortgage rates for housing is inching upward from their historic lows. Higher mortgage rates translate into decreased home building which leads to lower economic productivity. According to an article from the Associated Press, which is very picky about people excerpting or using segments of their articles: the average mortgage rate was at 5.05 percent, which is almost a full percentage point higher than in November when the rate hit a 40 year low.

The writers of the AP quote business observers that state that while the rates are higher this should not affect the still growing and infant recovery. Those observers said that the rates would have to go to about 6 percent in a very short period of time, like say gasoline prices, to have any effects on the nascent recovery.

Fortune writer  Colin Barr wrote in agreement several weeks ago when he wrote an article titled: Don't sweat rising mortgage rates. He made this argument:

Yet houses are cheap enough that mortgage rates could even rise further without drastically damaging the affordability picture says Paul Dales of of Capital Economics in Toronto. He figures they could rise another point or two without really darkening the affordability picture, which for the past few years has been practically the only bright spot in the housing market. The recent increase in mortgage rates means buying the median house consumes 14% of median income – up from 13% at the October low. That's barely half of the 25% of income Americans were ill-advisely funneling into house purchases at the top of the housing bubble.He also expects low house prices to limit the fallout of higher costs that will result from the Obama administration's makeover of the deeply troubled U.S. mortgage finance system.

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I currently serve as the issues coordinator for the Greater Good Coalition. I have worked as a reporter, media watch columnist, ran a consumer group for three years and been an occasional pro se attorney. I've sold everything from vacuum cleaners to satelite dishes to computers. I am a huge fan (literally, I'm 6' 5") of comics and science fiction and am a Pop Culture addict in general. I am also an English Major.