Hey fatty... I'm gonna beat you up!

This is interesting ... I don't know about you, but all the bullies in my elementary school were big fatty fatheads. I find it surprising that bullies will pick on gigantic fatties, and I wonder if fatty-bashing vernacular is the same as what I remember:

- two ton tess
- "don't sit on me, fatty!"
- fatty fatty two by four
- fatso

But then I suppose it is all fun and games for the bully until the fatty eats them for dinner.
How do you bully a fatty? Take away his twinkies!

I used to bully a fatty in school, until I got sat on! HAR HAR HA HA HO HO HO HI HI HO HA.
At least you can hear the fatty coming when they back up ... they beep.
I knew tons of fatties, they always ordered 5 meals and a Diet Coke to drink.

Remember those Yo Momma jokes? My favorites: "Yo Momma so fat when she wears high heels they turn into flats." "Yo Momma so fat she bleeds crisco." "Yo Momma so fat they named a State after her."

Anyway, I figured you'd like those fatty jokes. Remember, most all health problems in the US can be attributed to two things: SMOKING and BEING A FATTY. I urge everyone out there to laugh at two smokers and two fatties today. Perhaps only thru "bullying" will they stop their behavior.

And, no, you're not just big boned.

Here's the article:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_98305.html

Bullies Target Obese Kids
Being overweight is prime factor regardless of race, family income, study finds

MONDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- For kids, a few extra pounds may invite trouble from the schoolyard bully.

New research suggests that just being overweight increases the risk of being bullied. And factors that usually play a role in the risk of being bullied, such as gender, race and family income levels, don't seem to matter if you're overweight -- being overweight or obese trumps all those other factors when it comes to aggressive behavior from other children.

The study found that being overweight increased the risk of being the target of bullying by 63 percent.

"One of the reasons we started this study is that obesity is so much more common today. Now that about half of kids are overweight or obese, it doesn't make you such an outlier anymore, so we thought maybe kids wouldn't be bullied for being overweight anymore," said study author Dr. Julie Lumeng, an assistant research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She added that the researchers also hoped they might be able to find some protective factors against being bullied, such as doing well in school.

"What we found, much to our dismay, was that nothing seemed to matter. If you were obese, you were more likely to be bullied, no matter what," she said.
Results of the study will be published in the June issue of Pediatrics, but were released online May 3.

The study included 821 boys and girls from a nationally representative sample of children selected from 10 sites around the United States. Bullying behaviors were assessed in third, fifth and sixth grades. The youngsters were mostly white, half of them were male and 15 percent were overweight in the third grade.

By sixth grade, teachers reported that 34 percent of the study children had been bullied, and mothers reported that 45 percent of the children had been bullied, while 25 percent of the children themselves said they had been bullied.

Previous research has shown that boys, minorities and children from low-income groups are more likely to be bullied, so the researchers took these factors into account to see if they made a difference. The study authors also considered a child's social skills and academic achievement in their analysis.

"No matter how much we retested, the findings were very robust. Obese kids are more likely to be bullied," said Lumeng.

She said that one of the reasons she believes the findings were so consistent is that prejudice against overweight or obese people is "so pervasive that it's acceptable." But, she added, "Obesity is really complex. It's not all about willpower. It's a brain-based disorder, and I hope that message becomes clearer."

Dana Rofey, an assistant professor with the Weight Management and Wellness Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said she wasn't surprised by the findings. "Bullying is the most common psychosocial complaint that our patients present with," she said.

"For parents and pediatricians, one of the issues our study raises is that if you're caring for a child who's overweight, you need to be alert to this and you might want to gently bring it up with the child. Ask, 'How are things at school going?' or 'Does anyone ever say something that makes you feel bad?' because this may be an issue that's difficult for kids to bring up," said Lumeng.
If your child lets you know that he or she is being bullied, Lumeng said your first response should be to validate your child's feelings and let them know that it's not OK for someone to treat them like that.

What to do next can be tricky, agreed both experts.
"Be supportive, and let your child know that you'll help them. Consult with your child and ask how he or she would like you to get involved," advised Rofey. Many youngsters may ask their parents to take a hands-off approach, she said. But she recommends setting some guidelines. "Say something like, 'It seems you have this under control right now, but let's keep talking and checking in about it.'"

Rofey also recommends teaching your child how to avoid situations that might lead to teasing or bullying, and talking with your child about how to reach out to adults if they need to. Depending on the situation, she said that parents may need to step in and advocate for their children at the school. But, she advised always letting your children know what steps you'll be taking.

Let's all chew Khat

I never heard about Khat until I read this stroy. Now I have to go and find some and see what happens! Apparently, you're not going to get liver disease unless you do it A LOT - and abuse it. Seems like that is the case for most drugs ... even the LEGAL ones in your medicine cabinet. Eat enough Tylenol and you'll end up with liver problems.

I have no idea what it looks like or where to get it. More research to come! Stay tuned.

Here's the story about chewing khat:

Chewing Khat Linked to Severe Liver DamageHerb appears to lead to liver failure in some, British researchers say

WEDNESDAY, April 28 (HealthDay News) -- Chewing khat leaves for a mild high is popular in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and the practice is also seen among certain immigrant groups in Great Britain and the United States.

But chewing khat can cause severe liver damage and even death, British researchers report.
Khat contains cathinone, an amphetamine-like stimulant that causes euphoria, excitement and loss of appetite. Although banned in the United States, it finds its way to North America from Britain, where it is readily available, the researchers reported in a letter to the editor in the April 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Eugene Schiff, director of the Center for Liver Diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida, said the danger posed by khat "is well established in the literature."

"We see this in a variety of herbal substances," he added.

In their letter, Dr. Michael H. Chapman, of University College London Medical School, and his colleagues reported on six patients in Britain who had either died of liver failure or needed liver transplants. The common denominator and suspected cause was the chewing of khat leaves.
The patients were seen over five years and all had been cautioned about khat's risks. One of the patients died and five needed liver transplants, the researchers said.

Chapman's group found no other potential causes for liver damage. Five of the patients had a history of unexplained hepatitis.

Khat has also been linked to mental problems and heart disease, the researchers noted.
While it's not exactly known how khat damages the liver, Chapman's team speculates that it triggers low-level hepatitis, and repeated use leads to chronic liver disease.

Schiff said that when doctors see liver problems associated with a drug as widely used as khat, "it usually means that that particular person is metabolizing it differently, because otherwise you would see it in thousands of people."

Chapman's team thinks that doctors should consider khat as a cause of unexplained liver disease among patients from ethnic communities where khat chewing is common.
Schiff agreed that doctors should suspect khat as a cause of unexplained liver disease in appropriate patients. But, he added, even if you know the cause, patients with this degree of liver failure will still need a transplant.

"People who are doing this are taking it on their own and have no idea that it is toxic to the liver," Schiff said, adding that users need to be better informed about the risks.

Chocolate IS good for you! HURRAY

Second to peeps would be chocolate anything. Here's a study that says eating chocolate will prevent stoke! Unfortunately for me, it is DARK chocolate. I like my chocolate like I like my women ... lite! Oh well, maybe one say they'll find out that PEEPS are good for you!
Here's the article:


http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_98577.html
Ingredient in Dark Chocolate Could Guard Against Stroke

SUNDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Something in dark chocolate seems to help protect the heart, and now researchers say they have identified the molecular mechanism by which a compound found in cocoa can guard against the damage of a stroke.

The compound, a flavanol called epicatechin, triggers two built-in protective pathways in the brain, according to a report published online last week in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism. The research team was led by Sylvain Dore, an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and pharmacology and molecular sciences at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Animal studies raise the possibility that epicatechin may someday be used to treat strokes in humans, since its protective effect can be seen more than three hours after a stroke. Existing stroke treatments typically have a shorter window of activity.

While the cardioprotective effect of dark chocolate seen in several human studies appears to open the possibility that eating lots of chocolate is healthy, "I prefer to focus on cocoa," Dore said. "Cocoa is not like chocolate, which is high in saturated fat and calories. Cocoa can be part of a healthy diet, combined with fruits and vegetables."

It was a study of the cocoa-drinking Kuna Indians, living on islands off the coast of Panama, that led researchers to study epicatechin. An unusually low incidence of stroke and other cardiovascular disease in that population could not be explained by genetic studies, and eventually was attributed to consumption of a very bitter cocoa drink.

Studies by a number of scientists, including Dr. Norman K. Hollenberg of Harvard Medical School, identified epicatechin as the protective ingredient in dark chocolate and cocoa.
The latest research looked at the mechanism of protection in mice who were induced to have strokes. "We gave different doses of epicatechin in mice 90 minutes before a stroke and found that it reduced infarct [stroke damage] size," Dore explained. "When we gave epicatechin after a stroke, it had a protective effect up to 3.5 hours later, but not after six hours."

Detailed studies showed that the flavanol activated two well-known pathways that shield nerve cells in the brain from damage, the Nrf2 and heme oxygenase pathways, Dore said. Epicatechin had no protective effect in mice bred to lack those pathways.

The possibility of using epicatechin to limit human stroke damage is distant, Dore said. "We have to be very careful," he said. "There are a lot of steps before going to human trials, potential risks and side effects. We need more work and more funding."

Dore's long-term plan calls for studies of epicatechin metabolites and derivatives, in cardiac disease as well as stroke. "At this point, we are using only the pure compound," he said.

Dr. Martin Lajous, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health who took part in one study that showed a reduced incidence of stroke in people who ate dark chocolate regularly, agreed with Dore in saying that eating a lot of chocolate is not a healthy dietary move.

Not all chocolate is created equal, Lajous said. "That's why we did the study in France, where they eat dark chocolate that is rich in flavanols," he said. "Chocolate comes with a lot of calories. I would talk about small amounts of dark chocolate rather than chocolate in general."

And the protective mechanism by which chocolate might prevent stroke isn't yet clear, Lajous added. The main effect appears to be the lowering of blood pressure, he said. "Flavanols are hypothesized to affect relaxation of smooth vascular muscle, such as the endothelial lining of blood vessels," Lajous said

Smokin' and Eatin'

We are a nation full of chimney-smoking fatties. This is why our life expectancy has GONE DOWN! People in Iceland live longer??? That's just wrong. How about this? If we extract all the fatties and smokers, I'll bet the US life expectancy will jump at least 15-20 years.

I read so much about diseases and it all boils down to being a smoker, or a fatty. Fatties don't exercise and eat like crap, which in turn makes them obese and get The Die-Be-tis (like the Oatmeal Man says it), stroke, heart disease and cancer. Smokers get heart disease, cancer and all sorts of lung conditions.

I know how we ought to fix insurance reform... put on huge fatty and smoker taxes, which will force these people to get into the gym and put down the fork and cigarettes!

If you're wondering, here's the article:

Iceland has longest-lived men, U.S. scores poorly

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AIDS, smoking and obesity are reversing progress made in helping people live longer around the world, with mortality rates worsening over the past 20 years in 37 countries, researchers reported on Thursday.
They found Icelandic men have the lowest risk of premature death, while Cypriot women do. Some rich countries such as the United States and Britain scored relatively poorly, the survey found.

In most places, men have twice the relative mortality rate of women, Dr. Christopher Murray of the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues reported in the Lancet medical journal. "Worldwide, the 1990s reversal in the trend in adult mortality is probably a result of the HIV pandemic and the sharp rise in adult mortality in countries of the former Soviet Union," the researchers wrote.

"One of the most striking patterns is the rapid decline in adult female mortality in south Asia; in 1970 this was the region with the highest risk of female mortality and by 2010, (the risk of dying before age 60) had fallen by 56 percent."

Murray and colleagues used a complex formula to calculate the probability that someone aged 15 will die before they reach 60. They believe their method paints a more accurate picture than methods used by the United Nations, and can be used to compare countries with populations of different ages.

In the 40 years since 1970, they found, adult mortality risk fell by 34 percent among women and 19 percent in men globally.

REVERSING PROGRESS But some places had notable reversals in rank, including the former Soviet Union. Russia has fallen from 43rd place for female mortality in 1970 to 121st."Research shows that across countries, inequality in adult mortality has grown to the point where adult men in Swaziland -- the country with the worst mortality rate -- now have a probability of premature death that is nine times the mortality rate of the best country, Cyprus," Murray's team wrote.

The United States, where 60 percent of adults are overweight or obese, fell in overall rankings, from 34th in the world in female mortality and 41st in male mortality in 1990 to 49th for women and 45th for men in 2010 -- behind Chile, Tunisia, and Albania.
But mortality rates fell 50 percent over the same time in South Korea. Murray said he wanted to study adult mortality globally because so much emphasis goes into helping very young children survive.

"Every year, more than 7.7 million children die before their fifth birthday; however, over three times that number of adults -- nearly 24 million -- die under the age of 60 years," his team wrote.

"The prevention of premature adult death is just as important for global health policy as the improvement of child survival." According to the United Nations, 8.8 million children under the age of 5 died in 2008.

Oaktown's Mayor Doesn't Take Paycut

Isn't that a hilarious headline I just posted! Of course he didn't.

Bay Area politics has always been pretty crooked. Dellums is a crook, as was the Mayor For Life, Willie Brown. Some of you on the East Coast may call "Mayor for Life" Mr. Marion 'Bitch Set Me Up' Barry.

Willie Brown dressed nice, at least. The problem was that he used TAX PAYER money! HA HA HA HA HA... still he was elected to the California State House of Representatives a gazillion times and Mayor of San Francisco at least 3 times.

The funny thing about the story below is that the Oaktown Mayor SAID he was going to not take his yearly pay increase ($18K or so), but then he did because he had 'unexpected' costs due to a death in the family. The crazy thing is that he makes $180K and Gavin Newsom makes $209K. Where can I sign up to be Mayor???

Anyway, happy Cinco De Mayo! But if you're in Arizona you better not be outside celebrating and if you are you better have your passaporta!


Here's the full story:

Oakland mayor breaks promise to take pay cut

Despite his pledge last year to join Oakland city workers being forced to take a 10 percent pay cut, Mayor Ron Dellums has never stopped collecting his full $183,000-a-year salary.

When the City Council suggested last June that Dellums take a pay reduction and cut his staff to help Oakland balance its budget, the mayor's public stance was that he was on board. "I am in no way interested in a fight at a time of significant economic despair and economic problems," he said. "This is a time we need to close ranks."

It turns out, however, that closing ranks didn't mean taking less money.

Dellums' spokesman, Paul Rose, declined on Thursday to say why the mayor didn't forgo $18,300 in pay this past year. A statement issued by Dellums' office said only that "changed family circumstances following the death of a close family member made it (taking the pay cut) impossible."

Rose said he did not know whether the statement referred to the August 2008 death of Willa Dellums, the mayor's mother, whose Oakland home Dellums is now trying to sell to help pay off looming debts. Dellums' father-in-law also died in November.

Dellums and his wife, Cynthia, owe the Internal Revenue Service more than $252,000 in back taxes and penalties.

The mayor came under fire from critics soon after he was elected when the City Council granted his request for a $68,000 raise - money Dellums said he needed after giving up a lucrative lobbying job in Washington.

Dellums, who served 27 years in the House and two years on active duty in the Marines, also collects a government pension that tax experts estimate at well over $100,000 a year.

Virtually everybody working for the city was forced to take a pay cut last year - whether through a furlough or actual salary reduction, or both. However, City Attorney John Russo ruled that elected officials couldn't be ordered to comply.

City Council President Jane Brunner ticked off for us a list of those who had gone along with the cut. Three names were conspicuously absent - council members Larry Reid and Desley Brooks, and Russo.

"If you ask employees to take a 10 percent cut, as elected officials we all should be doing the same," Brunner said. "And I personally felt it this year."

Reid, noting that he took a 5 percent cut a year earlier, said his $73,000-a-year salary paled compared to what Brunner and some other colleagues make. He noted that they have second jobs or other sources of income.

"This is what I do full-time, because it takes doing this job full-time," Reid said.

Brooks announced last year that she wouldn't be taking the pay cut. She said the public was already getting more than its money's worth from her office.

"Because I handle a significant amount of the workload in my office, I have been able to return between $150,000 and $200,000 in salary savings to the general fund," she told us Thursday in an e-mail. "This amount by far exceeds the total reduction taken by all of the elected officials combined."

For his part, Russo said he had never promised to take a cut to his $207,000 pay. He said he already took more than a 15 percent hit a year earlier when he gave up his vacation and management and sick leaves - money, we should note, that is typically reserved for nonelected department heads and managers.

The revelation about Dellums and the other officials came at a particularly inopportune time for city officials trying to persuade police to accept cuts in their benefits.

It also looks bad when Oaklanders look across the bay to San Francisco - where Mayor Gavin Newsom has reduced his pay 15 percent, to $209,000 a year.

NYC Almost-Bombing

Did you hear? They caught that idiot terrorist that was trying to blow up his SUV in downtown New York City (near Times Square). That’s great. How you spare us the trial and blow him up in a car!

Anyway, we are very fortunate that these knuckleheads are so very, very, very stupid!!!! They caught him because he bought a ticket to Dubai in CASH on the SAME DAY he was trying to fly out! Hmmm, that’s normal, NOT. What a moron. That’s good, though, because if he booked his flight through normal methods (credit card), to a NON-ARAB country (like Spain), booked a month early, and left on the same day he planned to blow up that SUV – he would have easily got away. Amazing.

I suppose that is why most of these idiots get caught.

Did you hear about the morons who were planning to blow up a building in DC. Well, they got caught because the FBI was notified when a Walmart photo processing employee, who was converting a video tape to a DVD, noticed these dummies were yelling about jihad, death to the great Satan, and were waving around AK-47s. That is pretty bad when you get busted by some teen age flunkey.

How the crackpots pulled off 9-11 still baffles me. I suppose they got lucky by taking flying lessons from another idiot that thought, “Gee, I guess it is normal that they don’t care to learn how to take-off or land the plane. They just want to know how to fly it once it is in the air.” Yeah, normal. Charge THAT GUY with stupidity! Oh and did I mention, they could hardly speak English!

Anyway, Leno can add this guy to his Stupid Criminal bit!

Here’s an article about that idiot:

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/suspect-faisal-shahzad-arrested-in-new-york-times-square-bomb-plot/19463656?ncid=webmaildl1

OpenSecretes.Org

I recently found the following website called, OpenSecretes.org. As they say in Boston (or if you're Shibon Magnus) it is a wicked cool site. This is from their website:

OpenSecrets.org is your nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy. Whether you’re a voter, journalist, activist, student or interested citizen, use our free site to shine light on your government. Count cash and make change.

Awesome!!

See, the problem why there is not a third party (Nationally) is cash. A third party will need to compete with the Dems and Repubs to get cash from these companies. In local government elections, where you do not have corporations "buying" and controlling elections because they don't care, as a result there are a lot more Independents and Libertarians elected.

Most people are like sheep and they blindly follow media ads (or media outlets) that tell them who to vote for, or they simply vote their party because that is what they have always done. This is the problem.

As it turns out, most corporations donate to BOTH sides. The Dems and Repubs really are almost the same, they just move taxpayer money to one side or another. They love to spend spend spend and enact rules and laws to impede on society!

Check out who is giving money to these congress people.
When you get fed up: Vote Libertarian!

Roids!

In addition to steroids shrinking your balls and giving you a small pee pee - it will also destory your heart - the below research suggests. I would assume there will be a lot of baseball players dropping dead in a few years.


Here's the article:

http://americanheart.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1021
Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken heart more than previously thought

Study highlights:
Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken the heart more than previously thought.
Steroid-related heart impairment is severe enough to potentially increase the risk of heart failure.

The left ventricle, the heart muscle primarily responsible for pumping blood throughout the body, was significantly weaker among steroid users.

DALLAS, April 27, 2010 — Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken the heart more than previously thought and may increase the risk of heart failure, according to research reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal. Anabolic-androgenic steroids mimic the naturally occurring testosterone, a muscle-building hormone that promotes male sexual characteristics.

"Anabolic steroids, in addition to being illegal, have important health consequences,” said Aaron L. Baggish, M.D., lead author of the study and instructor in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “I think for the first time we’re starting to realize that the heart is one of the organs that is negatively impacted by long-term steroid use.”

In the small study, investigators found that the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber, was significantly weaker during contraction (systolic function) in participants who had taken steroids compared to a group of similar non-steroid users.

A healthy left ventricle pumps out 55 percent to 70 percent of the blood that fills the heart (a measurement known as ejection fraction). Eighty-three percent of steroid users in the 12-person study had a low pumping capacity (ejection fraction less than 55 percent) that previous studies have linked to increased risk of heart failure and sudden cardiac death. In contrast, only one of the non-steroid users had a low ejection fraction.

Steroid users also exhibited impaired diastolic function, which is when the left ventricle relaxes and fills with blood. The researchers showed that ventricle relaxation among steroid users, as demonstrated by the left ventricle’s ratio of early-to-late blood filling, was reduced by almost half (0.93 compared with 1.80 among non-users).

The left ventricle’s structure was similar in both steroid-users and non-users. Baggish and his co-investigators used a technique known as Doppler echocardiography to examine the left ventricle’s function and structure. The test uses high-frequency sound waves, or ultrasound, to create moving pictures of the heart and its blood flow.

The steroid-using group included 12 male weight lifters, average age 40, who reported taking about 675 milligrams of steroids per week for nine years. The control group was seven age-matched, male weight lifters who reported no steroid exposure. Both groups had similar durations of past and current weight lifting and other physical activity, as well as similar cardiac risk factors other than steroid use.

Although the users and non-users had comparable body-mass indices and body-surface areas, the steroid users had more muscle mass than the non-users. Despite the small sample size, the statistically significant differences in heart function suggest a strong link between steroid use and heart impairment, said investigators who are conducting further studies to confirm their findings.

In previous studies, the precise effects of steroid use on heart dysfunction have been unclear. Part of the problem with conducting studies of steroid-related heart injury is that illegal anabolic steroid use is relatively recent. In the United States, these drugs first became widespread among athletes in the 1980s; so many steroid users from that era are now reaching the age when heart problems often surface. “What we hope is that people start recognizing steroid use as a potential cause of heart disease and a cause of otherwise unexplained heart dysfunction in young people,” Baggish said.

Co-authors are: Rory B. Weiner, M.D.; Gen Kanayama, M.D., Ph.D.; James I. Hudson, M.D.; Sc.D.; Michael H. Picard, M.D.; Adolph M. Hutter, Jr., M.D.; and Harrison G. Pope, Jr., M.D.

They finally Choked!

Last night the unbelieveable happened! The Caps choked their 3-1 lead to the 8th seeded Montreal Expos.... I mean, Canadians.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/recap.htm?id=2009030117

Some stats:

- Caps outshot them: 292-194
- Alexander Semin, who had 40 goals in the regular season, didn't score a single one during the seven-game series despite leading the League in shots on goal with 44. He was 0-for-8 Wednesday night.
- That goalie guy made 37 saves in Game 5, another 53 saves in Game 6 and 41 more in Game 7.
The funny thing is the stupid Montreal coach benched that goalie guy in Game 3 and 4, which they loss, allowing the Caps to go up 3-1! Too bad he didn't bench him for ANY of the last three games!!!!!

Stress is tied to Obesity

Recently, a study was released linking stress to obesity. You'd think it'd be the opposite - that people who worry and are nervious get skinny. But I guess much McDonalds when stress comes!

Here's the article:

Discovery Of A Gene That Ties Stress To Obesity And Diabetes

The constant stress that many are exposed to in our modern society may be taking a heavy toll: Anxiety disorders and depression, as well as metabolic (substance exchange) disorders, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and arteriosclerosis, have all been linked to stress. These problems are reaching epidemic proportions: Diabetes, alone, is expected to affect some 360 million people worldwide by the year 2030. While anyone who has ever gorged on chocolate before an important exam understands, instinctively, the tie between stress, changes in appetite and anxiety-related behavior, the connection has lately been borne out by science, though the exact reasons for this haven't been crystal clear. Dr. Alon Chen of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department and his research team have now discovered that changes in the activity of a single gene in the brain not only cause mice to exhibit anxious behavior, but also lead to metabolic changes that cause the mice to develop symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes. These findings were published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

All of the body's systems are involved in the stress response, which evolved to deal with threats and danger. Behavioral changes tied to stress include heightened anxiety and concentration, while other changes in the body include heat-generation, changes the metabolism of various substances and even changes in food preferences. What ties all of these things together? The Weizmann team suspected that a protein known as Urocortin-3 (Ucn3) was involved. This protein is produced in certain brain cells -- especially in times of stress -- and it's known to play a role in regulating the body's stress response. These nerve cells have extensions that act as 'highways' that speed Ucn3 on to two other sites in the brain: One, in the hypothalamus - the brain's center for hormonal regulation of basic bodily functions -- oversees, among other things, substance exchange and feelings of hunger and satiety; the other is involved in regulating behavior, including levels of anxiety. Nerve cells in both these areas have special receptors for Ucn3 on their surfaces, and the protein binds to these receptors to initiate the stress response.

The researchers developed a new, finely-tuned method for influencing the activity of a single gene in one area in the brain, using it to increase the amounts of Ucn3 produced in just that location. They found that heightened levels of the protein produced two different effects: The mice's anxiety-related behavior increased, and their bodies underwent metabolic changes, as well. With excess Ucn3, their bodies burned more sugar and fewer fatty acids, and their metabolic rate sped up. These mice began to show signs of the first stages of type 2 diabetes: A drop in muscle sensitivity to insulin delayed sugar uptake by the cells, resulting in raised sugar levels in the blood. Their pancreas then produced extra insulin to make up for the perceived 'deficit.' '

We showed that the actions of single gene in just one part of the brain can have profound effects on the metabolism of the whole body,' says Chen. This mechanism, which appears to be a 'smoking gun' tying stress levels to metabolic disease, might, in the future, point the way toward the treatment or prevention of a number of stress-related diseases.

Participating in the research were research students Yael Kuperman, Orna Issler, Limor Regev, Ifat Musseri, Inbal Navon and Adi Neufeld-Cohen, along with Shosh Gil, all of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department.

Dr. Alon Chen's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Croscill Home Fashions Charitable Trust; the Irwin Green Alzheimer's Research Fund; Gerhard and Hannah Bacharach, Fort Lee, NJ; Mark Besen and the Pratt Foundation, Australia; Roberto and Renata Ruhman, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Barry Wolfe, Woodland Hills, CA. Dr. Chen is the incumbent of the Philip Harris and Gerald Ronson Career Development Chair.