Who said black cats bring bad luck? In Rhode Island, a two-year old white feline named Oscar joining you in bed means you're going to die a few hours after.

The Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and other illnesses are treated, adopted Oscar as a kitten. Six months have passed before they noticed that he does his rounds, sniffing and observing patients, before curling up beside those that will die in less than four hours.

After observing Oscar in 25 cases, the staff came to believe that the cat is very accurate. Since then, family members of patients "chosen" by the furry death bringer are notified on what's about to happen. Even David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University, believes Oscar's ability. He stated in an essay on the New England Journal of Medicine:

He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die. Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one.

Another doctor from the nursing house, Dr. Joan Teno, who specializes in treating the terminally ill, said that Oscar is better in predicting death than people who work there.

Oscar is serious about his work, and very moody about it. "This is not a cat that's friendly to people," said Dosa. Once, a family wanted the cat off the dying patient's bed. He was taken out, but his meows were nothing but signs of displeasure.

Up to now, it can't be explained how the feline can "predict" death. Teno suggests that the cat may be using the scents of dying patients, or he can tell by looking at the nurses' behavior. Staff in the nursing center don't mind if Oscar is left shrouded with mystery. A wall plaque was even given to him for his "compassionate hospice care."

Photo from Associated Press

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that a person's chance of becoming obese increases by a whopping 57% if they have an obese friend. Surprisingly, family members had less of an influence than friends with the greatest influence being between mutual close friends.

Those who conducted the study noted that the same effect can be found for weight loss as well. However, since most people have been gaining and not losing weight over the last 32 years, the result is an obesity epidemic.

A physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study Dr. Nicholas Christakis noted that this might be caused by the way friends view fatness, i.e. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad.

This new study has not been fully accepted by obesity researchers. The director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University Kelly Brownell expressed a pretty strong opinion regarding this: "I think there's a great risk here in blaming obese people even more for things that are caused by a terrible environment."

Obesity has become a problem which has can have many detrimental effects on ones health. If this study is true, then the best way to help a friend from becoming obese and remaining fit and healthy is by keeping yourself in good condition. Remember that the next time you're tempted to snack on that candy bar instead of a healthier banana.

Remember that old (by old we mean 1990) Nintendo related medical condition where people's thumbs got sore because they played on their NES way too much? "Nintendinitis" was the term for the condition, and it was first used by a Wisconsin doctor to describe the condition of a 35-year-old lady who played too much. Well, news is that Nintendo once again gets some marketing support from the medical folks. This time the condition is called "Wiiitis."

The Doctor responsible for the term is Dr. Julio Bonis, and apparently this doctor played a bit too much. The good doctor writes in the New England Journal of Medicine:

The variant in this patient can be labelled more specifically as "Wiiitis" ...The treatment consisted of ibuprofen for one week, as well as complete abstinence from playing Wii video games. The patient recovered fully.

Reuters reports that the good doctor was convinced to write a case report on "Wiiitis" because a friend of his suffered from a similar condition. Bonis supposedly found other cases similar to this and he feels that he should give a name for the undiagnosed condition.

Yes, it's not tennis elbow, it's Wiiitis. Having said that, we now wonder what they'll call that pain in the wrists that FPS experts get when they compete at a LAN party non-stop for 24 to 48 hours. Would Carpal Tunnel Syndrome still be an apt description? Or should they start calling it FPS-itis?

A study conducted in Africa and published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" shows that women taking the medicine valacyclovir had less HIV in their blood. Valacyclovir is a drug used to treat herpes.

Many people with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, the virus that causes AIDS) also have the herpes type 2 virus. Herpes sores on the genitalia will triple the chance of getting infected with HIV and of transmitting the virus to somebody else (we previously reported that circumcision lowers the risk of getting infected).

This is good news for doctors with poor patients. Many patients, especially those living in poor countries, can't afford AIDS medication. Also, the social shame associated with AIDS prevent people from buying AIDS medication.

This is also good news because a lower HIV count generally means a lower risk of infecting somebody else. In other words, valacyclovir may slow down the spread of AIDS. According to Excite News (where we found this news item), there are 40,000 new cases of HIV infection in the US each year. Worldwide, there are 4.3 million new cases.

However, it seems unlikely that valacyclovir will be used as "the first line of defense". There are better medicines available; but in poor countries, valacyclovir is something they could use.

The study was conducted by researchers from France, the United Kingdom, and Burkina Faso. It was funded by ANRS (Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le Sida), the French national AIDS research agency.

In other news, the b12 antibody may lead to an AIDS vaccine, and researchers continue to look for a genetic switch for HIV and herpes. Of course, all this work can only bear fruit if companies and foundations continue to donate funds (like the AIDS research and treatment foundation founded by Bill Gates).