Report:

http://www.ecnp.eu/~/media/Files/ecnp/communication/reports/ECNP%20EBC%20Report.ashx

Service Details

Internet Essentials participants will receive:

* Residential Internet service for $9.95 a month plus applicable taxes;
* No price increases, no activation fees, or equipment rental fees;
* A voucher to purchase a low-cost computer for $149.99 + tax;
* Access to free digital literacy training in print, online and in-person.

Additional benefits include the Norton™ Security Suite ($160 value), which provides comprehensive online security protection at no additional charge.

Eligibility

A household is eligible to participate in the Internet Essentials program if it meets all of the following criteria:

* Is located where Comcast offers Internet service;
* Has at least one child who is eligible to receive a free school lunch under the NSLP;
* (As an example, according to the Department of Agriculture, a household of three would have to make less than $25,000 a year in income);
* Has not subscribed to Comcast Internet service within the last 90 days;
* Does not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment.

Comcast will sign up eligible families in the program for at least three years, through the end of the 2013-2014 school year. Any household that qualifies during this three-year period will remain eligible for Internet Essentials provided a child eligible for a free lunch remains living in the household.

For general information about Internet Essentials, please visit www.internetessentials.com for English and visit www.internetbasico.com for Spanish. Educators or third-parties interested in helping to spread the word can find more information at www.internetessentials.com/partner. Parents looking to enroll in the program can call 1-855-846-8376, or for Spanish, 1-855-765-6995.

http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.ashx?PRID=1107

The latest study, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, centres on a technique for counting the bacterial genes in the human intestine. It found that lean people are likely to have a more diverse community of gut flora compared to obese individuals.
The study investigated the bacterial genes found in the gut flora of 177 Danish people, 55 of whom were lean, with the rest either overweight or obese. Scientists in the Meta-HIT consortium found that most people in the study carried in their intestines around 600,000 distinct bacterial genes. But about a third of the obese participants had only about 360,000 bacterial genes – about 30 or 40 % fewer – which suggests they possessed a distinctly poorer community of gut flora, which is typically composed of about 160 different species of microbial lifeforms.

Microbes that live inside us

* The healthy human gut contains 100 trillion microbial cells, 10 times as many as the human cells that comprise the body.

* About 1,000 species of microbe can live in the human gut, but at any one time a person typically has about 160.

* Members of the same family tend to have similar communities of gut bacteria.

* The two dominant groups of gutbacteria, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes, help us to break down food.

Source:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/antibiotics-that-reduce-gut-bacteria-linked-to-obesity-2278042.html

http://www.international.inra.fr/content/download/1885/23793/version/1/file/INRAFood-and-health.pdf

The Affordable Care Act guarantees that every American, regardless of who insures them, is protected from industry abuses while helping to ensure access to quality affordable coverage.

Two new rules, in particular, provide unprecedented scrutiny and transparency in the health insurance market and press insurers to do more to control premiums and limit administrative costs. The first is the new rate review rule which requires insurers to justify unreasonable premium rate increases and post that information on the Web for the public to see. The second is the medical loss ratio rule which ensures that a greater percentage of consumers’ premiums are being spent on health care and improving the quality of care, not on advertising and executive salaries. We have also provided States – including California – with additional resources to strengthen their review of proposed premium increases or to help change State law to give the State the authority to block or deny increases that are found to be unjustifiably high.

Working together with the comprehensive reforms included in the Affordable Care Act, these rules work to create a new marketplace to help put consumers in better control of their health care.”

Background on the Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act includes a wide variety of provisions designed to promote a high-quality, high-value, health care system for all Americans and to make the health insurance market more consumer-friendly and transparent. Some of the provisions that have already taken effect include prohibitions on pre-existing condition exclusions for children; prohibition on lifetime dollar limits in all health plans; extended access to insurance for many young adults; and an unprecedented level of transparency about health insurance through www.HealthCare.gov. When the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014, individuals and small businesses will have access to affordable coverage through a new competitive private health insurance market – State-based Health Insurance Exchanges.

The researchers made the discovery by creating human MGmin-LDL in the laboratory, then studying its characteristics and interactions with other important molecules in the body.

They found that MGmin-LDL is created by the addition of sugar groups to ‘normal’ LDL – a process called glycation – making LDL smaller and denser. By changing its shape, the sugar groups expose new regions on the surface of the LDL. These exposed regions are more likely to stick to artery walls, helping to build fatty plaques. As fatty plaques grow they narrow arteries – reducing blood flow – and they can eventually rupture, triggering a blood clot that causes a heart attack or stroke.

The discovery might also explain why metformin, a widely prescribed type 2 diabetes drug, seems to lead to reduced heart disease risk. Metformin is known to lower blood sugar levels, and this new research shows it may reduce the risk of CHD by blocking the transformation of normal LDL to the more ‘sticky’ MGmin-LDL.

Dr Naila Rabbani, Associate Professor of Experimental Systems Biology at Warwick Medical School, who led the study, said:

“We’re excited to see our research leading to a greater understanding of this type of cholesterol, which seems to contribute to heart disease in diabetics and elderly people. Type 2 diabetes is a big issue – of the 2.6 million diabetics in the UK, around 90 per cent have type 2. It’s also particularly common in lower income groups and South Asian communities. (2, 3)

“The next challenge is to tackle this more dangerous type of cholesterol with treatments that could help neutralise its harmful effects on patients’ arteries.”

Dr Shannon Amoils, Research Advisor at the BHF, which funded the study, said:

“We’ve known for a long time that people with diabetes are at greater risk of heart attack and stroke. There is still more work to be done to untangle why this is the case, but this study is an important step in the right direction.

“This study shows how the make-up and the shape of a type of LDL cholesterol found in diabetics could make it more harmful than other types of LDL. The findings provide one possible explanation for the increased risk of coronary heart disease in people with diabetes.

“Understanding exactly how ‘ultrabad’ LDL damages arteries is crucial, as this knowledge could help develop new anti-cholesterol treatments for patients.”

The research was published in the journal Diabetes.

One in six men in the United States will get prostate cancer during their lifetime.

The risk factors are typically linked to high-fat diets, heredity, alcohol and exposure to pollutants and toxic fumes.

The study examined 47,911 US men who reported on how much coffee they drank every four years from 1986 to 2008.

Over the course of the study, a total of 5,035 cases of prostate cancer were reported, including 642 fatal, or metastatic, cases.

The lower risk seen in coffee drinkers remained even after researchers allowed for other factors that typically boost risk and were more often seen in coffee drinkers than in abstainers, such as smoking and failure to exercise.

Source:
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/17/jnci.djr151.abstract

“If the brain is changing, then that could support altered functioning, altered behavior, altered mood, throughout the rest of the day and not just while you’re sitting and meditating.”

The study used breath awareness meditation, yoga and body scan meditation.

“All three of these meditation techniques are taught in a way to enhance mindfulness. It’s been defined as paying attention in the present moment, on purpose, with a specific non-judgmental attitude.”

The study in the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Journal was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Most types of meditation have four elements in common:

• A quiet location. Meditation is usually practiced in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible. This can be particularly helpful for beginners.
• A specific, comfortable posture. Depending on the type being practiced, meditation can be done while sitting, lying down, standing, walking, or in other positions.
• A focus of attention. Focusing one’s attention is usually a part of meditation. For example, the meditator may focus on a mantra (a specially chosen word or set of words), an object, or the sensations of the breath. Some forms of meditation involve paying attention to whatever is the dominant content of consciousness.
• An open attitude. Having an open attitude during meditation means letting distractions come and go naturally without judging them. When the attention goes to distracting or wandering thoughts, they are not suppressed; instead, the meditator gently brings attention back to the focus. In some types of meditation, the meditator learns to “observe” thoughts and emotions while meditating.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Nicholas Garlow.