Mediterranean diet

This article is about the dietary recommendation that became popular in the 1990s. For food of the areas around the Mediterranean Sea, see Cuisine of the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean diet is a modern nutritional recommendation inspired by the traditional dietary patterns of Spain, southern Italy, Greece and specifically the Greek island of Crete, and parts of the Middle East.
On November 17, 2010, UNESCO recognized this diet pattern as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Italy, Greece, Spain and Morocco, thus reinforcing it not only as a fundamental part of their history and background, but also as a great contribution to the world. Despite its name, this diet is not typical of all Mediterranean cuisine. In Northern Italy, for instance, lard and butter are commonly used in cooking, and olive oil is reserved for dressing salads and cooked vegetables. In North Africa, wine is traditionally avoided by Muslims. In both North Africa and the Levant, along with olive oil, sheep's tail fat and rendered butter (samna) are traditional staple fats.                                                                            
The most commonly understood version of the Mediterranean diet was presented, amongst others, by Dr Walter Willett of Harvard University's School of Public Health from the mid-1990s on,including a book for the general public. Based on "food patterns typical of Crete, much of the rest of Greece, and southern Italy in the early 1960s", this diet, in addition to "regular physical activity," emphasizes "abundant plant foods, fresh fruit as the typical daily dessert, olive oil as the principal source of fat, dairy products (principally cheese and yogurt), and fish and poultry consumed in low to moderate amounts, zero to four eggs consumed weekly, red meat consumed in low amounts, and wine consumed in low to moderate amounts". Total fat in this diet is 25% to 35% of calories, with saturated fat at 8% or less of calories.
The principal aspects of this diet include high olive oil consumption, high consumption of legumes, high consumption of unrefined cereals, high consumption of fruits, high consumption of vegetables, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate to high consumption of fish, low consumption of meat and meat products, and moderate wine consumption.
Olive oil is particularly characteristic of the Mediterranean diet. It contains a very high level of monounsaturated fats, most notably oleic acid, which epidemiological studies suggest may be linked to a reduction in coronary heart disease risk. There is also evidence that the antioxidants in olive oil improve cholesterol regulation and LDL cholesterol reduction, and that it has other anti-inflammatory and anti-hypertensive effects

Diabetes mellitus

Diabetes mellitus
Classification and external resources
Universal blue circle symbol for diabetes.
ICD-10	E10–E14
ICD-9	250
MedlinePlus	001214
eMedicine	med/546 emerg/134
MeSH	C18.452.394.750

Diabetes mellitus, often simply referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced. This high blood sugar produces the classical symptoms of polyuria (frequent urination), polydipsia (increased thirst) and polyphagia(increased hunger).

There are three main types of diabetes:

• Type 1 diabetes: results from the body's failure to produce insulin, and presently requires the person to inject insulin. (Also referred to as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, IDDM for short, and juvenile diabetes.)
• Type 2 diabetes: results from insulin resistance, a condition in which cells fail to use insulin properly, sometimes combined with an absolute insulin deficiency. (Formerly referred to as non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, NIDDM for short, and adult-onsetdiabetes.)
• Gestational diabetes: is when pregnant women, who have never had diabetes before, have a high blood glucose level during pregnancy. It may precede development of type 2 DM.

Other forms of diabetes mellitus include congenital diabetes, which is due to genetic defects of insulin secretion, cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, steroid diabetes induced by high doses of glucocorticoids, and several forms of monogenic diabetes.

All forms of diabetes have been treatable since insulin became available in 1921, and type 2 diabetes may be controlled with medications. Both type 1 and 2 are chronic conditions that usually cannot be cured. Pancreas transplants have been tried with limited success in type 1 DM; gastric bypass surgery has been successful in many with morbid obesity and type 2 DM. Gestational diabetes usually resolves after delivery. Diabetes without proper treatments can cause many complications. Acute complications includehypoglycemia, diabetic ketoacidosis, or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma. Serious long-term complications include cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal damage. Adequate treatment of diabetes is thus important, as well as blood pressure control and lifestyle factors such as smoking cessation and maintaining a healthy body weight.

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features.

This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern) as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or Taxon and its component parts.

Branches of morphology

• Comparative Morphology is analysis of the patterns of the locus of structures within the body plan of an organism, and forms the basis of taxonomical catorization.

• Functional Morphology is the study of the relationship between the structure and function of morphological features.

• Experimental Morphology is study of the effects of external factors upon the morphology of organisms under experimental conditions, such as the effect of genetic mutation.

The field of morphology is divided into two distinct branches.

• "Anatomy" is the study of the form and structure of internal features of an organism.

• "Eidonomy" is the study of the form and structure of the external features of an organism.

Morphology and classification

Most taxa differ morphologically from other taxa. Typically, closely related taxa differ much less than more distantly related ones, but there are exceptions to this. Cryptic speciesare species which look very similar, or perhaps even outwardly identical, but are reproductively isolated. Conversely, sometimes unrelated taxa acquire a similar appearance as a result of convergent evolution or even mimicry. A further problem with relying on morphological data is that what may appear, morphologically speaking, to be two distinct species, may in fact be shown by DNA analysis to be a single species. The significance of these differences can be examined through the use of allometric engineering in which one or both species are manipulated to phenocopy the other species.

Pulse Pressure

Pulse Pressure is most easily defined as being the amount of pressure required to create the feeling of a pulse. Measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg), the pressure difference between the systolic and diastolic pressures give you the amount of pressure change to create the pulse, which is the pulse pressure. If your resting blood pressure is (systolic/diastolic) 120/80 millimeters of mercury (mmHg), your pulse pressure is 40 — which is considered a normal and healthy pulse pressure

Calculation

Formally it is the systolic pressure minus the diastolic pressure.

Theoretically, the systemic pulse pressure can be conceptualized as being proportional to stroke volume, or the amount of blood ejected from the left ventricle during systole and inversely proportional to the compliance of the aorta.

The aorta has the highest compliance in the arterial system due in part to a relatively greater proportion of elastin fibers versus smooth muscle and collagen. This serves the important function of dampening the pulsatile output of the left ventricle, thereby reducing the pulse pressure. If the aorta becomes rigid in conditions such as arteriosclerosis or atherosclerosis, the pulse pressure would be very high.

• Systemic pulse pressure = P_systolic - P_diastolic = 120mmHg - 80mmHg = 40mmHg
• Pulmonary pulse pressure = P_systolic - P_diastolic = 25mmHg - 10mmHg = 15mmHg

Low (Narrow) Pulse Pressure

A pulse pressure is considered abnormally low if it is less than 25% of the systolic value. The most common cause of a low (narrow) pulse pressure is a drop in left ventricular stroke volume. In trauma a low or narrow pulse pressure suggests significant blood loss (insufficient preload leading to reduced cardiac output).

If the pulse pressure is extremely low, i.e. 25 mmHg or less, the cause may be low stroke volume, as in Congestive Heart Failure and/or shock.

A narrow pulse pressure is also caused by aortic valve stenosis and cardiac tamponade.

Aorta

The aorta   is the largest artery in the body, originating from the left ventricle of the heart and extending down to the abdomen, where it bifurcates into two smaller arteries (the common iliacs). The aorta distributes oxygenated blood to all parts of the body through the systemic circulation. 

Artery: Aorta

The course of the aorta

The aorta is usually divided into five segments/sections

• Ascending aorta—the section between the heart and the arch of aorta
• Arch of aorta—the peak part that looks somewhat like an inverted "U"
• Descending aorta—the section from the arch of aorta to the point where it divides into the common iliac arteries
• Thoracic aorta—the half of the descending aorta above the diaphragm
• Abdominal aorta—the half of the descending aorta below the diaphragm

In other animals

All amniotes have a broadly similar arrangement to that of humans, albeit with a number of individual variations. In fish, however, there are two separate vessels referred to as aortas. The ventral aorta carries de-oxygenated blood from the heart to the gills; part of this vessel forms the ascending aorta in tetrapods (the remainder forms the pulmonary artery). A second, dorsal aorta carries oxygenated blood from the gills to the rest of the body, and is homologous with the descending aorta of tetrapods. The two aortas are connected by a number of vessels, one passing through each of the gills. Amphibians also retain the fifth connecting vessel, so that the aorta has two parallel arches  

What Is Heart Disease?

What Is Heart Disease?

The heart is the center of the cardiovascular system. Through the body's blood vessels, the heart pumps blood to all of the body's cells. The blood carries oxygen, which the cells need. Cardiovascular disease is a group of problems that occur when the heart and blood vessels aren't working the way they should.

Here are some of the problems that go along with cardiovascular disease:

• Arteriosclerosis (say: ar-teer-ee-oh-skluh-row-sus): also called hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis means the arteries become thickened and are no longer as flexible.
• Atherosclerosis (say: ah-thuh-row-skluh-row-sus): a buildup of cholesterol and fat that makes the arteries narrower so less blood can flow through. Those buildups are called plaque.
• Angina (say: an-jy-nuh): people with angina feel a pain in the chest that means the heart isn't getting enough blood.
• Heart attack: when a blood clot or other blockage cuts blood flow to a part of the heart.
• Stroke: when part of the brain doesn't get enough blood due to a clot or a burst blood vessel.

How Do You Get Heart Disease?

Heart disease isn't contagious — you can't catch it like you can the flu or a cold. Instead, certain things increase a person's chances of getting cardiovascular disease. Doctors call these things risk factors.

Some of these risk factors a person can't do anything about, like being older and having other people in the family who have had the same problems. But people do have control over some risk factors — smoking, having high blood pressure, being overweight, and not exercising can increase the risk of getting cardiovascular disease.

What Are the Signs of Heart Disease?

Many people do not realize they have cardiovascular disease until they have chest pain, a heart attack, or stroke. These kinds of problems often need immediate attention and the person may need to go to the emergency department of a hospital.

If it's not an emergency and a doctor suspects the person could have cardiovascular disease, the doctor can do some tests to find out more about how the heart and blood vessels are working. These tests include:

• Electrocardiogram (say: eh-lek-tro-kar-dee-uh-gram). This test records the heart's electrical activity. A doctor puts the patient on a monitor and watches the machine to see the heart beat and determine if it's normal.
• Echocardiogram (say: eh-ko-kar-dee-uh-gram). This test uses sound waves to diagnose heart problems. These waves are bounced off the parts of the heart, creating a picture of the heart that is displayed on a monitor.
• Stress test. For this test, the person exercises while the doctor checks the electrocardiogram machine to see how the heart muscle reacts.
• Catheterization (say: kah-thuh-tuh-ruh-zay-shun). In this test a long, thin tube is inserted into the patient's body to inject a special dye, which can show narrowed areas in arteries due to plaque buildup and find other problems.
• Carotid (say: kuh-rah-tid) artery scan. This test uses sound waves to check for blockages in the carotid artery, a large blood vessel in the neck that supplies blood to the brain.

NASA discovers black hole with 'heartbeat'

Houston: Soon after finding the largest black hole last week, NASA has now found another black hole, but it is the tiniest one and with a heart beat. 

A NASA satellite has detected what astronomers said was a "heartbeat" of what could be the smallest known black hole. 

The star-sucker could weigh less than three times the mass of the sun, placing it near the minimum mass required for a black hole to be stable. 

Using the NASA's Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), which detects X-rays coming from cosmic sources, a team of astronomers identified a specific X-ray pattern, nicknamed a "heartbeat", that indicates that a black hole is present in a binary system with the ordinary star. 

The "heartbeat" pattern is caused by the regular cycles of matter accumulated into the black hole from its neighbouring star. 

"Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant's, the heartbeat signals from these black holes scales according to their masses," said Diego Altamirano, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, who worked on the NASA project. 

The heartbeat was referring to the intermittent X-ray bursts as gas is sucked from stars, forming a disc around the black hole, where it's heated by friction to millions of degrees, hot enough to emit X-rays. Astronomers have named the new discovery - IGR J1091-3624. 

Astronomers first became aware of the binary system during an outburst in 2003. Archival data from various space missions show it becomes active every few years. 

Its most recent outburst started in February and is ongoing. The system is located in the direction of the constellation Scorpius, but its distance is not well established. It could be as close as 16,000 light-years or more than 65,000 light-years away. 

The potential discovery comes as NASA announced earlier this month the discovery of one of the largest black holes on record. 

Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. 

This discovery from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. 

NASA officials say the pair of projects represent the first step and is just the start of a larger program to compare both of these black holes in detail using data from RXTE, NASA's Swift satellite and the European XMM-Newton observatory.