Annotated Bibliography

Chan, L Amanda. “The Life Cycle of the Flu (INFOGRAPHIC)”. Huffpost Healthy Living. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

Chan describes the life cycle of a flu virus that gets into your body. She starts with the first 24-48 hours. The flu virus gets inside the body through your respiratory tract. Then the virus starts to make its way into the cells lining the respiratory tract and begin to multiply. She also explains the symptoms that a typical person with the flu has. She makes her way through the life cycle ending with the last few days. She notes that if the flu virus is completely gone, the inflammation will decrease. Her explanation about the life cycle of the flu virus seems to very accurate and credible. Chan makes her point very clear and concise.

“CDC Says “Take 3” Actions to Fight the Flu”. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 17 Aug. 2015.

The primary goal of this article was to talk about prevention. The people of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), compose three basic actions we should take to help prevent the flu. The three basic actions are: Take time to get a flu vaccine, Take everyday preventive actions to stop the spreading of germs, and Take flu antiviral drugs if your doctor prescribes them. They go into detail about how and what exactly you should do during these steps. The CDC has a very good reputation and has very credible sources. This article will be very important for the closing of my blog post.

Brian Alexander. NBC News. “Testosterone may make Men more likely to get the Flu”. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.

Alexander’s article discusses how men with higher levels of testosterone may be more likely to get the flu than men with lower levels and women. He discusses how the high testosterone levels cause the men to have weak, or even no response to the flu vaccine. He talks about a study that a multinational team from Stanford, France, and the University of North Carolina conducted where they took blood from 54 women and 37 men of different ages, then studied a variety of immune system proteins and cells using complex systems to detect gene expression. They then gave flu vaccines to these people and checked for any changes in these parameters. The study found that men as a group, had a more muted response to the vaccine. To sum it up, Alexander states that basically men have weaker immune systems due to genetics and gene expression.

Jennie Dusheck. Stanford Medicine. “Women’s Immune System genes operate differently from Men’s”. Web. 29 Jul. 2015.

In this article, Dusheck talks about how immune system genes switch on and off differently in women and men. She informs the readers on how there is a new technology that can reveal the immune system genes that switch on and off that vary between men and women. One discovery that she mentions is that the genes that switch on and off differently from person to person are more likely to be associated with autoimmune diseases. In the article, Dusheck includes a study where researchers took blood samples from 12 volunteers to measure how certain genes are turned on and off from person to person. In the study, they found that 20 out of the 30 genes showed significant differential activity between men and women. This article helps readers get a better understanding of why women’s immune systems are stronger than men’s and why it’s harder for men to fight off flu viruses than women.

News Medical Life Sciences of Medicine. “Estrogen Helps Women fight flu viruses better than Men”. John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Web. 20 Jan. 2016.

In this article, Sabra L Klein discusses how the female hormone Estrogen can help fight off flu viruses in women but not in men. It suggests an advantage to the female hormone that naturally is found in women’s bodies, as well as artificial forms given for hormone replacement therapy and estrogen-like chemicals found in the environment. Recent studies have proven that estrogen can decrease the replication of viruses including HIV, Ebola, and Hepatitis. This can lessen the infection’s severity and make it less likely to spread to other people. Klein and her colleagues conducted research to see how infected nasal cells from males and females respond to different types of estrogen. Klein’s research seems to have been very influential and has been reported in several articles. With this research she has shown another potential benefit from using the hormone estrogen.

Brian Koo

Willis, Debra A. “Animal Therapy.” Rehabilitation Nursing 22.2 (1997): 78-81. Wiley Online Library. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.

Animal therapy has been dated back since the early Greeks where horses were used to raise the spirits of people who had a terminal illness.  It has been shown over time that animal therapy is a common type of therapy that has been used all over the world.  Be it dogs or horses, these animals were used to help people feel better from having an illness or being in a state of depression.  This report gave the benefits of using animal therapy (not specifically to dogs but dogs were the main type of animals used) on patients at healthcare locations that treated diseases such as Alzheimer’s.  The results showed that patients who interacted with the therapy dogs on 30-minute sessions became more openly to the workers that were tended to them.  They started conversing a lot more with the workers who had stated before the treatments some patients would hardly ever speak.

“Consumer Health.” Pet Therapy: Man’s Best Friend as Healer. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

This short article explains why and how dog therapy is used in the medical world.  It gives different examples of which type of patients would want to have dog therapy such as children who are having dental procedures.  The article also states the potential risks on having dog therapy and the biggest concern was sanitation.  It explains, however, that strict rules are enforced with therapy dogs to ensure they are vaccinated and well trained.

Odendaal, J.S.J. “Animal-assisted Therapy – Magic or Medicine?” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 49.4 (2000): 275-80. ScienceDirect. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Although this article from the journal is from 2000, the information is still relevant to this day.  A researcher wanted to find out the physiological aspects of humans and dog interactions.  There were 18 people and 18 dogs that took part of this experiment.  The experiment was not directly related to dog therapy but the results supported the positive aspects of dog therapy.  The results came to conclude that different hormones rose in levels in both humans and dogs such as beta-endorphins and prolactin.  Both beta-endorphins and prolactin have been shown to be released at higher levels when a person feels stressed.  However, the main difference between the hormones levels were the results of oxytocin.  It was significantly higher in humans after interacting with their dogs.  Oxytocin usually is a good indicator of the neurochemicals measured for social attachment on intraspecies basis.

Nahm, Nickolas, Jill Lubin, Jeffrey Lubin, Blake K. Bankwitz, McAllister Castelaz, Xin Chen, Joel C. Shackson, Manik N. Aggarwal, and Vicken Y. Totten. “Therapy Dogs in the Emergency Department.” Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Irvine. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

A study had been conducted on patients at a large, Midwest, urban teaching hospital.  Patients and workers were both given surveys to fill out after therapy dogs were brought into patients.  The article clearly explained that patients who were in critical condition were not conducted in the study.  The total number of patients and workers that the survey was given to were 125 and 105 respectively.  The data gathered showed that 117 patients and 100 workers agreed that therapy dogs helped deal with the anxiety and stress of being at a hospital.

Jalongo, Mary R., and Theresa McDevitt. “Therapy Dogs in Academic Libraries: A Way to Foster Student Engagement and Mitigate Self-Reported Stress during Finals.” Public Services Quarterly. 7 July 2015. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.

Stress is a common reaction to a student when a major test or project is coming up.  This article went on to explain why there should be therapy dogs and show the results of experiments that were conducted at a college library.  The library was at Indiana University and the first experiment was conducted on December 2014.  The reason why this month was chosen was because it was the start of finals for the fall semester.  It was perfect since there were many students at the library studying.  This allowed the students to interact with the therapy dogs and this raised publicity for the dogs throughout the campus.  The same experiment was repeated in May 2015 which both produced similar results of students reporting that they enjoyed the therapy dogs and feel a lot less stressed out from worrying about their finals.