Highlight HEALTH

With crude oil hitting a record high this week, gas prices here in the U.S. are soaring. According to CNN.com, the $100 fill-up has arrived in the United States.

Want to reduce your stress level, spend less money at the pump and do your part to help save the planet? Here’s one of the most simple yet effective tips that will accomplish all three: Slow Down.

Improve Your Financial Health: Use Less Gas

At highway speeds, wind resistance increases exponentially and fuel economy is reduced by approximately 4 miles per gallon for every 10 mile per hour increase [1]. Thus, the faster you drive, the more it will cost you. Consider this [1].

In a typical family sedan, every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like the price of gasoline going up about 54 cents a gallon. That figure will be even higher for less fuel-efficient vehicles that go fewer miles on a gallon to start with.

That’s based on a $3.25 price per gallon, which is less than the current price of gas. So we’re talking more than 54 cents a gallon.

Additionally, if you do the math, speeding doesn’t save you anywhere near the time you might think it does. An average 30 mile commute traveling at 65 miles/hour takes 28 minutes, while that same trip at 80 miles/hour takes 23 minutes. You save a whole 5 minutes by driving 15 MPH faster.

How much money is that 5 minutes worth?

Reduce Stress and Stay Safe

Moderate levels of stress from a variety of sources, including other motorists, traffic congestion and roadway conditions, are common in everyday driving. However, driver stress has been shown to also be influenced by a combination of situational and personal factors, including factors external to the driving context [2].

Not surprisingly, studies have found that life stress is associated with higher rates of accidents and disease [3]. It’s been estimated that drivers who have experienced a recent stressful event are five times more likely to cause fatal accidents than unstressed drivers [4].

If you’re running late, remember that no matter how fast you drive, you’re still going to be late. If you’re under a great deal of personal stress, it’s probably best to avoid driving altogether.

Statistically, people who drive too fast cause or contribute to almost one-third of all fatal crashes. In 2006,13,543 lives were lost in speeding-related crashes [5]. Excessive speed does a number of things:

• it increases the distance a vehicle travels when a driver reacts to a dangerous situation
• it reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around objects in the road
• it extends the distance necessary to stop

Want to reduce your stress level, spend less money on gas and do your part to help save the planet?

      Just Slow Down!

David over at The Good Human has some additional tips on saving money, saving fuel and saving the environment.

References

1. Slow down a little, save a lot of gas. Issue #1: America’s Money. CNN Money. 2008 Mar 27.
2. Hennessy et al. The Influence of Traffic Congestion, Daily Hassles, and Trait Stress Susceptibility on State Driver Stress: An Interactive Perspective. Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research 5(2);162–179
   doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9861.2000.tb00072.x
3. Stuart and Brown. The relationship of stress and coping ability to incidence of diseases and accidents. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 25(4), 255-260. 1981.
   View abstract
4. Brenner and Selzer. Risk of causing a fatal accident associated with alcoholism, psychopathology, and stress: further analysis of previous data. Behav Sci. 1969 Nov;14(6):490-5.
   View abstract
5. Traffic Safety Facts 2006 Data. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration National Center for Statistics and Analysis. 2006.

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We’ve talked previously about bioethanol and its impact on health. According to Juan Enriquez, Chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy, a life sciences research and investment firm, and a member of the management team at Synthetic Genomics, a company dedicated to commercializing synthetic genomic processes and naturally occurring processes for alternative energy solutions, bioethanol is not bioenergy.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a global and growing community that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, and challenges them to give the talk of their lives in just 18 minutes. In September 2007, TED hosted a salon on climate change with the goal of exploring some radical scientific solutions that just might be ideas worth spreading. Juan Enriquez gave a talk about the potential of applying biological principles to the problem of fuel creation and the lessons we can learn from agriculture.

Enriquez predicts that shifting the mapping of the human genome from the world of science to the world of commerce will reshape vast sectors of the world economy and blur the boundaries between businesses - agribusiness and chemicals to healthcare and pharmaceuticals to energy and computing [1]. Almost 10 years ago, he suggested that energy companies may eventually engineer energy sources from plants rather than resorting to fossil fuels [2].

What does all this have to do with health? Imagine a world where energy is extracted from coal, not by burning it, but by having something process it in a biological fashion. Coal-burning power plants are the single largest industrial source of air pollution [3]. Imagine the impact not burning coal would have on the air we breathe.

In his TED talk, Enriquez advances that:

Bioenergy is … beginning to understand the transition that occurred in agriculture from brute force into biological force …

His lecture is a facscinating look at how a number of very smart people are thinking of how to apply biological principles to grow our own energy as efficiently as we grow wheat.

References

1. Enriquez and Goldberg. “Transforming Life, Transforming Business: The Life Science Revolution.” In The Digital Enterprise: How To Reshape Your Business For A Connected World, edited by Nicholas G. Carr. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2001.
2. Enriquez J. Genomics and the world’s economy. Science. 1998 Aug 14;281(5379):925-6.
   View abstract
3. Power Plants, Your Health and the Environment. Clear the Air, a joint project of the Clean Air Task Force, U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and the National Environmental Trust. 2002, Aug 21.

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In participation with Blog Action Day, an event where bloggers from around the world unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment - today’s article discusses recent advances in the use of biodegradable materials for drug and gene delivery.

Drug delivery

Last month, we discussed how green chemistry was recently used by two research groups to mimic the cellular process of drug synthesis, imitating complex biosynthetic processes outside the cell to create antibiotics. Green chemistry attempts to reduce or eliminate the generation and use of hazardous substances in the design and development of chemical products and processes, minimizing its impact on patients and the environment.

Now chemists at the University of Nottingham are using green chemistry to develop new methods for coating drugs in plastics [1]. While conventional methods use high temperatures and volitile solvents such as benzene and chloroform, green chemistry techniques allow for the coating of drugs without damaging or degrading the active ingredients. This means the drugs are free of toxic chemical residues and are more effective.

The Clean Technology Group at Nottingham is exploiting the use of supercritical carbon dioxide, which under high pressure at room temperature is a solvent that can use biodegradable plastics to make polymer drug coatings [2]. The polymer (meaning a material composed of molecules with repeating structural units that form a long chain) is used to encapsulate a drug prior to injection in the body and is based on lactic acid, a compound normally produced in the body, and is thus able to be excreted naturally. The coating is designed for controlled release over a period of time, reducing the number of injections required and maximizing the therapeutic benefit.

Professor Steve Howdle, whose research is focused on exploiting the unique properties of supercritical carbon dioxide, said [1]:

Biodegradable polymers are particularly attractive for use in drug delivery, as once introduced into the body they require no retrieval or further manipulation and are degraded into soluble, non-toxic by-products. Different polymers degrade at different rates within the body and therefore polymer selection can be tailored to achieve desired release rates.

Gene delivery

Another interesting recent development is a report by MIT researchers that they have found a way to create gene carriers from biodegradable polymers instead of viral materials [3].

Gene therapy is the introduction of a gene or genes into the cells of a tissue to treat disease. Although 1,180 gene therapy clinical trials have been conducted since 1989 [4], there are no FDA-approved gene therapies, in part because viruses are used as gene carriers. Viruses present a number of potential problems, including toxicity, immune response and targeting issues.

The MIT study focused on three poly(beta-amino-esters) chains of alternating amine and diacrylate groups that spontaneously assemble with DNA to form nanoparticles when mixed together. The polymer-DNA nanoparticle can act like an artificial virus and deliver DNA when injected into tissue. Researchers chemically modified the ends of the polymer chains using a library of small molecules to attenuate and optimize nanoparticle formation and DNA delivery.

According to Daniel Anderson, the study leader and research associate in MIT’s Center for Cancer Research [5]:

Just by changing a couple of atoms at the end of a long polymer, one can dramatically change its performance. These minor alterations in polymer composition significantly increase the polymers’ ability to deliver DNA, and these new materials are now the best non-viral DNA delivery systems we’ve tested.

Degradable polymers are used in dissolvable stitches and have been utilized in the pharmaceutical industry in various forms for decades. Using the technologies described above, not only are we able to produce purer products that offer therapeutic benefits, but both the processes and products are cleaner and safer for the environment.

References

1. Using green chemistry to deliver cutting-edge drugs. The University of Nottingham. 2007 Sep 13.
2. Tai et al. Putting the fizz into chemistry: applications of supercritical carbon dioxide in tissue engineering, drug delivery and synthesis of novel block copolymers. Biochem Soc Trans. 2007 Jun;35(Pt 3):516-21.
   View abstract
3. Green et al. Combinatorial Modification of Degradable Polymers Enables Transfection of Human Cells Comparable to Adenovirus. Advanced Materials. 2007 Oct;19(19):2836-42.
4. Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Worldwide. Provided by the Journal of Gene Medicine. Updated 2007 July.
5. MIT works toward safer gene therapy. MIT News. 2007 Sep 7.

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