Study probes odor sleep and memory link

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:54:12 GMT

WASHINGTON - Doctors have long advised that a good night's sleep is important for memory — but researchers now say a familiar scent wafting in the bedroom might help sometimes, too. The caveat: In the study, being published Friday in the journal Science, it only worked for some kinds of memories and during one stage of sleep, meaning it's not the answer for people hunting a quick memory boost.
German scientists used medical students as their guinea pigs, having them play a computer version of a common memory game: They turned over pairs of cards to find each one's match.

Some played in a rose-scented room. Later that night, while they were in a deep stage of sleep known as slow-wave sleep, researchers gave them another whiff of roses.

The next day, the rose-scented sleepers remembered the locations of those cards better than people who didn't get a whiff — they answered correctly 97 percent of the time compared with 86 percent.

People exposed to the odor during the lighter dream stage of sleep known as REM sleep saw no memory boost.

Nor did scent aid memory when the students tried a different trick, learning a finger-tapping sequence, neurobiologists from the University of Lubeck reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

What happened? Anyone who's ever gotten a whiff of a particular odor and flashed back to an emotional memory — grandma's apple pie, say — knows that scent and memory can be intertwined.

With the card game, the odor reactivated the day's new memories of object placement, allowing a now-resting brain to consolidate them, the researchers wrote. But because different parts of the brain are involved with different types of memory, the odor didn't play a role with the more numerical finger-tapping test.

Madison Wis. named most walkable

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:54:37 GMT
By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. - With the thermometer hovering at 22, and the wind ripping off a frozen Lake Mendota, Rink DaVee and his brother Jim decided to take a stroll. And why not? After all, according to a recent top 10 list, there's no better place in the country for walking than the capital city of a state known more for cheese and beer than exercising.
"It makes you feel better," DaVee said during a break in his walk Wednesday, standing on the icy, snow-covered trail that extends out over the lake. "It gets you through a cold month of March."

Prevention magazine named Madison — 1,300 miles north of sunny Miami — as the most walkable of the country's 100 most populated cities. The list was commissioned by the American Podiatric Medical Association based on certain criteria. It ran in editions of the magazine released this week.

Madison beat out the likes of Austin, Texas , San Francisco and Miami, which barely cracked the list at No. 98.

Factors contributing to the ranking were air quality, the percentage of people who walk to work, access to parks, number of athletic shoes sold, and weather.

Number of beaches versus frozen lakes apparently was not a factor. Crime rate, unfortunately for Miami, was.

Adopting a walker-friendly plan 10 years ago was a major plus for Madison, said Prevention magazine's deputy editor Karyn Repinski. That plan focused on maintaining and improving the city's walkability and requires that when roads are redeveloped, they should accommodate not just cars, but bikes and pedestrians, too.

But don't be fooled by all the signs of fitness around town. Madisonians also love their beer, bratwurst and Wisconsin cheese. The city of 250,000 plays host to a four-day extravaganza dubbed "The World's Largest Brat Fest," where nearly 200,000 brats are consumed over four days.

Madison was the only city in the walking top 10 in a state that's not in the South or the West, a point of pride for people like Kathy Andrusz, coordinator of the Fit City initiative. Started in 2003 by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the program is a collaboration between Madison city officials and more than 30 other groups to combat obesity and get people moving.

"We're definitely touting it," Andrusz said of the walking rating. "We're definitely proud of it and will be able to use it as a sense of pride, if nothing else."

Madison is no stranger to No. 1 rankings. People still talk about Money Magazine naming it the best place to live in 1998, although that ranking dropped to 53rd last year. Outside Magazine named it the best road biking city in August, and other high rankings have come for its being vegetarian-friendly, gay-friendly, environmentally friendly, and, well, according to Midwest Living in 2003, the overall friendliest city in the Midwest.

Even with all that love going around, who wants to break out the walking shoes in the middle of winter? Especially this winter, with snow on the ground every day since Jan. 14 and an average high temperature in February of just 21.7 degrees and an average low of 7.2 degrees. It also snowed 22 inches last month.

"Winter weather is only a barrier if you let it be," Andrusz said. "It's a matter of attitude."

Repinski, the magazine editor who spoke from New York City, which ranked 39th, said only a cynic would let a little winter weather get in the way of walking.

"I walked a mile this morning and I was walking in an inch of snow," she said. "The conditions don't have to be perfect for walking, that's what's nice about it."

Downtown Madison lies on an isthmus with Lake Mendota to the north and Lake Monona to the south. Stretching to the west from the state Capitol is State Street, which is crammed full of bars, restaurants and boutiques, but no cars. It's perfect for, you guessed it, walking.

At the west end of State Street rests the University of Wisconsin, where students are known to complain about the steep climb up Bascom Hill to the administration building, which offers a stunning view of the city and the Capitol dome.

Even with 40,000 students mostly walking to and from class — and bars at night — Madison has a remarkable bike trail system, with more than 30 miles of trails and 110 miles of bike lanes even on the busiest of streets. Not to mention the 6,000 acres of parkland.
Zac Stencil, 23, a senior at the university, said he walks about two miles every day to and from classes.
"You can meet cool groups of people who are walking beside you," Stencil said. "Plus, when the lakes are frozen you can walk right across."
___
On the Net: Prevention magazine: http://www.prevention.com/cities
APMA: http://www.apma.org
Madison Visitors Bureau: http://www.visitmadison.com/visitorinfo/award
s.php
Madison walking routes: http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/mayor/getFit/walk
.html

Kroger No refusing morningafter pill

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:55:41 GMT
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - Kroger Co. said Friday it was reiterating its drug policies to all of its pharmacists after a Georgia woman claimed she was denied the so-called "morning after" pill at one of the company's stores.
The Cincinnati-based grocery chain said if its pharmacists object to fulfilling a request, the store must "make accommodations to have that prescription filled for our customer."

"We believe that medication is a private patient matter," said Meghan Glynn, a Kroger spokeswoman. "Our role as a pharmacy operator is to furnish medication in accordance with the doctor's prescription or as requested by a patient."

Abortion rights activists in Georgia announced a statewide campaign Friday to raise awareness about the contraceptive.

Among them was Carrie Baker, who said a Kroger pharmacist in her hometown of Rome, Ga., refused to supply her with the contraceptive. The 42-year-old married mother of two said she asked the store's manager in December to order the contraceptive but was told that the pharmacist refused, even though the decision contradicted company policy.

"I believe this was a responsible decision and the best way to care for my family and myself," she said. "But Kroger doesn't care."

Sold as Plan B, emergency contraception is a high dose of the drug found in many regular birth-control pills. It can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Girls 17 and younger still need a prescription to buy the drug, which the FDA made available over-the-counter to adults in August.

Supporters of the drug say widespread availability will cut down on unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

Critics argue it encourages promiscuity and unprotected sex and some consider it related to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill http://www.kroger.com

NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia: http://www.prochoicegeorgia.org/

Prescription drug sales rise 8.3 percent

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:55:06 GMT
By THERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - U.S. prescription drug sales rose 8.3 percent to $274.9 billion last year, fueled by the Medicare drug benefit, increased use of generic medicines and new treatments for diseases such as cancer and diabetes, according to a new report. This year, the pace of sales growth is expected to slow but remain in a compounded annual rate of between 6 percent and 9 percent through 2010 as the Medicare drug benefit is annualized and more generic products enter the market, according to the report released late Thursday by IMS Health.
IMS Health provides data to the pharmaceutical and health care industries.

U.S. drug sales rose 5.8 percent to $253.7 billion in 2005.

But in 2006 the Medicare drug benefit offered prescription coverage to some individuals who were previously uninsured or underinsured. Prescriptions dispensed through the Medicare drug benefit accounted for 17 percent of retail prescriptions by the end of the year, the report said.

Sales of unbranded generics rose 22 percent to $27.4 billion, driven by prescriptions for medicines such as the copycat versions of cholesterol agent Zocor and antidepressant Zoloft.

IMS also noted some new drugs performed well last year, such as cancer agent Sutent from Pfizer Inc. and diabetes treatments such as Eli Lilly and Co.'s Byetta and Merck & Co.'s Januvia.

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