Health and Wellness Content Spotlight: The Week of June 5, 2006

This week, some fascinating submissions to the Health and Wellness Category caught my eye. The articles I have chosen to spotlight this week taught me some new information, provided me with valuable nutritional guidance, and gave me food for thought about the advancements in scientific exploration of some very timely medical concerns.

In her article "How to Maintain a Healthy and Safe Home," Associated Content writer Maryellen Cicione imparts the importance of performing a regular health and safety examination of your home. Some home safety guidelines and simple tests that can ensure that her readers' homes are free from some commonly overlooked toxins and safety hazards are described, and she passes on important information about exposure to potentially deadly poisons that are found in many homes.

Some of the home health and safety issues Cicione explores include proper smoke detector placement and maintenance, carbon monoxide detection, lead detection, radon monitoring, and asbestos inspection. She also shares valuable information about the adverse effects these poisons have on the body, and the signs and symptoms of exposure. Cicione's article is well written and informative, and should be required reading for anyone living in a home built before lead and asbestos were discovered to be poisonous.

A frequent contributor of content to the Health and Wellness section, writer Kassidy Emerson submitted a piece this week about the health benefits of one of the only nutritional substances that some people believe human beings could live solely upon, if necessary.

In her article "Healing Powers of Bee Pollen," Emerson explores the long standing use of bee pollen as a nutritional supplement that has traditionally been used to bolster the immune system, to address digestive irregularities, combat infections, and to strengthen the entire network of the body's systems. She also discusses benefits that have been more recently witnessed by researchers, who found advantage to the use of the supplement as a prophylactic treatment for seasonal allergies, to strengthen respiratory and cardiovascular health, to re-energize depressed metabolisms, and to sharpen concentration. It's a nice piece, a well written and interesting submission.

A new contributor to Associated Content made his presence known this week with his impressive first two pieces published by the site. This week, content producer ThomasC published the articles "A Novel Micro-RNA (MiRNA) Regulated Transgene Expression System: Implications for Gene Therapy" and "Was the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Caused by an Avian Flu Virus?" Both articles are extremely well written, well-researched pieces that add strong, timely content to the Health and Wellness library.

In his very first submission, ThomasC explores the potential for the use of new advances in gene therapy for the correction of the "deregulated" genes that are involved in diseases such as Hemophilia and Cystic Fibrosis. Using an article published in a recent issue of Nature Medicine as his source, he provides a brief overview of the science involved in MiRNA, and the potential for correction of impaired genes through gene therapy.

His second submission examines the influenza pandemic of 1918, and recent research that suggests that the outbreak of nearly 90 years ago may have been the result of a strain of avian flu virus. With the world's eye currently focused on the current evidence of avian flu, ThomasC's article is an interesting, scientific examination of the flu and its potential origins. Welcome to Associated Content, ThomasC!