Supplemental diet

Medical experts consider eating disorders predominantly the domain of women. But researchers at Alliant International University’s School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles believe the issue has become a bit more gender-inclusive. A significant number of men who use over-the-counter supplements to improve performance or enhance appearance develop symptoms common to eating disorders, according to the researchers.

“Body-conscious men who are driven by psychological factors to attain a level of physical or masculine ‘perfection’ are prone to use these supplements and drugs in a manner that is excessive and which was demonstrated in this study to be a variant of disordered eating,” said researcher Richard Achiro at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention.

The researchers surveyed 195 men who use over-the-counter performance or appearance-enhancing drugs such as whey protein, creatine, or L-carnitine. Twenty-two percent of the men admitted they replace regular meals with supplements and 3 percent said they were hospitalized for associated kidney or liver problems.

Achiro said manufacturers elicit young men’s underlying insecurities about appearance and masculinity and then market the supplements as the perfect solution.

Healing hands

Six years ago doctors amputated 2-year-old Zion Harvey’s hands and feet to treat a serious infection. Now Harvey looks forward to a day when he can throw a football and swing on monkey bars. Harvey has new hands, thanks to the first bilateral hand transplant doctors have performed on a child.

During the complex, 10-hour procedure, a team of surgeons from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn Medicine, and Shriners Hospitals for Children attached the forearms and hands of a donor to Harvey’s arms. After the doctors connected the bones with steel plates and screws, they attached the blood vessels. Once blood was flowing into the hands, the surgeons individually connected each muscle and tendon before they reattached the nerves.

Harvey will take immunosuppressant medications for the rest of his life to prevent his body from rejecting his new hands.

Surgeon Scott Levin told CNN similar procedures could help others: “I hope he’s the first of literally hundreds or thousands of patients that are going to be afforded this surgery.” —J.B.

Genetic changes

Researchers have developed a “gene drive” technology that may eliminate insect-borne diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Lyme disease, as well as eradicate crop pests and invasive species such as rats.

But some experts worry the technology that produces “supercharged” genetic modifications could, in the wrong hands, become a threat to human health and environmental safety.

“Just as gene drives can make mosquitoes unfit for hosting and spreading the malaria parasite, they could conceivably be designed … for delivering lethal bacterial toxins to humans,” Tel Aviv University geneticist David Gurwitz told The Independent.

The gene drives allow a genetically modified gene to jump from one chromosome to another within an individual so eventually all of the individual’s sperm or eggs carry the modified trait. The modified genes then could spread as rapidly as a viral infection within a population in the wild, said Kevin Esvelt, a gene drive expert at Harvard Medical School’s Wyss Institute.

The researchers wrote safety rules to prevent laboratory escapes of genetically modified organisms, and a group of senior geneticists want international safeguards. —J.B.