Conclusion Low levels of vitamin D were associated with substantial cognitive decline in the elderly population studied over a 6-year period, which raises important new possibilities for treatment and prevention.
Not Here Yet
Scary Charts have historically been focused on the US economy but I couldn’t resist posting this chart.
Have a nice meeting with your CTO.
The Stuxnet Sting – Microsoft Malware Protection Center – Site Home – TechNet Blogs
Saturday mornings are a great time to catch up on the news. I regularly follow nearly 100 RSS feeds through my reader. The number and content type change periodically as my personal and business interests evolve (or when I forget my Adderall). When I came across this article I was surprised not about the content but more so about the fact that my computer security RSS feed stopped working.
I hate that when that happens.
Free Management Consulting Tip of the Day
Ask your tech guys if your remotes can infect the corporate systems using this sneaker net USB memory stick method.
I don’t know is an unacceptable answer.
Stuxnet spyware targets industrial facilities, via USB memory stick – CSMonitor.com
“We have not seen anything like this before aimed directly at the industrial control system environment,” says Walt Boyes, a control systems security expert and editor in chief of Control magazine. “It’s a clear-cut case of industrial espionage. We don’t know its ultimate aim yet.” But, he says, the attack is aimed specifically at the company that sells the lion’s share of industrial automation software to the electric power sector in North America and Western Europe. “That’s really scary,” Mr. Boyes adds.
Press Release: SEC Releases Report of the Life Settlements Task Force; 2010-129; July 22, 2010
This link takes you to the SEC website where the report can be downloaded.
BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » Richard Lehman’s journal blog, 19 July 2010
You don’t want to miss Richard’s comments on obstetric anal sphincter injury.
I am still holding out for lower prices on my Ebook reader of choice. Besides I like dead tree versions of books.
Amazon: Kindle Books Now Outselling Hardcovers
E-books have hit a significant milestone. In each of the last three months, Amazon reports that sales of books for Kindle have outpaced the sale of hardcover books, and that growth is only accelerating.
In a statement, Amazon says that, “over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.”
Gunmen Kill 17 at Party in Mexico – NYTimes.com
Across northern Mexico, there have been increasing reports of mass shootings at parties, bars and rehab clinics.
In the worst such massacre this year, gunmen raided a drug-rehab center in the northern city of Chihuahua and killed 19 people last month. In January, gunmen barged into a private party in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and killed 15, many of them high school or university students. Relatives say the January attack was a case of mistaken identity, while state officials claim someone at the party was targeted, although they have not said who it was.
The killings in Torreon came three days after the first successful car bombing by drug cartels, an attack that introduced a new threat to Mexico’s raging drug war.
Mexico car bomb: ‘Colombianization’ of Mexico nearly complete – CSMonitor.com
Mexico had already overtaken Colombia in terms of kidnappings. The public has long gotten accustomed to a censored press, threats to politicians, and grisly violence that includes decapitation and bodies hanging from highway overpasses. Now, it appears, Mexico has moved even closer to the kind of violence that plagued the South American nation in its darkest days.
A well-orchestrated car bomb exploded in Ciudad Juarez late Thursday, across from El Paso, Texas, killing at least three and sparking panic among the Mexican population. It is the first known use of a car bomb against authorities and the local population, and marks a troubling new level of violence as traffickers seeking to control the drug trade battle one another and Mexican authorities.
In the first longitudinal study to explore this possible connection, Knekt and colleagues analyzed data from the Mini-Finland Health Survey, which was carried out between 1978 and 1980.
Participants provided information on socioeconomic background, medical history, and lifestyle; serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D were determined by radioimmunoassay.
Among the 3,173 participants included in the analysis, there were 50 incident cases of Parkinson’s disease during a 29-year follow-up.
A significant inverse association was seen between age- and sex-adjusted levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D and Parkinson’s disease, with the relative risk between the highest and lowest quartiles of serum concentration of the vitamin being 0.35 (95% CI 0.15 to 0.81, P for trend=0.006).
The association persisted after adjustment for body mass index, leisure-time physical activity, month of blood draw, education, marital status, smoking, and alcohol consumption.
Participants whose serum concentration of the vitamin was at least 50 nmol/L had a 65% lower risk than those whose levels were below 25 nmol/L.
Low levels of vitamin D appear to be associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline among older people, according to researchers.
In an observational study conducted among more than 800 Italians ages 65 and older, severe vitamin D deficiency was associated with a 60% increase in the risk of substantial cognitive decline (by a standard measure), according to David Llewellyn, PhD, of the University of Exeter in Exeter, England, and colleagues.
The findings — if confirmed by further studies and randomized clinical trials — “open up important new possibilities for treatment and prevention,” Llewellyn and colleagues wrote in the July 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
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