Health and Medicine

Dengue cases cross 1900 in Delhi - The Times of India

2010-09-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

Dengue cases cross 1900 in Delhi - The Times of India

BBC News - Drinking a glass of milk can stop garlic breath

2010-08-31T05:50:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Drinking a glass of milk can stop garlic breath

Plain water before meal enables weight loss

2010-08-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Sci Tech : Plain water before meal enables weight loss

The Hindu : Sci Tech : Exercising reduces food intake

2010-08-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Sci Tech : Exercising reduces food intake

Artificial way to grow stem cells discovered - Sci/Tech - DNA

2010-08-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Artificial way to grow stem cells discovered - Sci/Tech - DNA: "MIT researchers have made this first synthetic material that allows single cells to form colonies of identical cells and could be very helpful in treating ailments like Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries, reports Nature"

BBC News - Scientists say vaginal gel cuts HIV-infections by half

2010-07-20T02:44:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Scientists say vaginal gel cuts HIV-infections by half

BBC News - Malaria-proof mosquito engineered

2010-07-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Malaria-proof mosquito engineered

No more multiple insulin jabs

2010-07-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

No more multiple insulin jabs

Lauki juice dangerous for health? - Hindustan Times

2010-07-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

Lauki juice dangerous for health? - Hindustan Times

Glass of beetroot juice a day keeps BP in check - India - The Times of India

2010-06-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Glass of beetroot juice a day keeps BP in check - India - The Times of India

Alzheimer's 'is brain diabetes': BBC Report

2009-02-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

There is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease
The most common form of dementia may be closely related to another common disease of old-age - type II diabetes, say scientists.
Treating Alzheimer's with the hormone insulin, or with drugs to boost its effect, may help patients, they claim.
The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports insulin could protect against damage to brain cells key to memory.
UK experts said the find could be the basis of new drug treatments.

The most exciting implications are that some diabetes drugs have the potential to be developed as Alzheimer's treatments
Spokesman, Alzheimer's Research Trust
The relationship between insulin and brain disease has been under scrutiny since doctors found evidence that the hormone was active there. More

Study: Diabetes Linked to Cognitive Decline
By ALICE PARK Monday, Jan. 05, 2009
Studies have shown that diabetes may speed up aging-related deficits in mental function and lead to a twofold increase in the risk of dementia. Some researchers have speculated that diabetes could even boost the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Roger Dixon, a psychologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, wanted to learn whether this was true and set out to study exactly how uncontrolled blood sugar affected the brain.

Dixon and his colleagues studied 41 adults with diabetes and 424 healthy adults between the ages of 53 and 90, and reported their findings in the journal Neuropsychology. After testing the participants on memory, recall, verbal fluency, executive functions involving critical thinking and the speed of their mental faculties, researchers found the most significant deficits in diabetes patients on tasks of executive function and speed. These problems showed up in the youngest patients as well as the older ones, and once the cognitive symptoms appeared, they did not seem to worsen or change over time. Although Dixon's study failed to add new information on the question of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, other experts view these results as useful fodder in the growing field of diabetes research.

"This study in general supports what we understand," says Dr. Alan Jacobson, chief of psychiatric services at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. "It's another study adding to our recognition that Type 2 diabetes portends some type of problem in terms of cognitive function." More

Leprosy Patients - India's legally untouchables

2009-02-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

People with leprosy are legally banned from travelling by train and applying for a driving licence, and leprosy is listed as a ground for a divorce under almost every marriage and divorce law. Some states — Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh — don’t even allow people with leprosy to contest local body and panchayat elections.

“The Special Marriage Act of 1954 declares leprosy incurable, which is ridiculous. The disease is completely curable, with a person getting cured within six to one year. Even infection stops after the first dose of medicine is taken,” said Dr P.K. Gopal, president, National Forum of Leprosy-affected People, for whom the worst humiliation was when he and other delegates at a conference in Chennai were asked to vacate the hotel immediately after the staff discovered it was a leprosy meet.

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is quick to admit that many laws discriminate against leprosy-affected people. “Leprosy is less infectious than the common cold and completely curable, yet laws stigmatise as much as people do. As the nodal agency, the Ministry of Health has already taken up the issue of discriminatory acts/laws against leprosy with the concerned ministries, and we are waiting for their response,” he said.

Even with only 87,206 leprosy cases on record at end of March 2008, India accounts for 54 per cent new cases detected globally. Since 1985, multi-drug therapy given free under the NLEP cures leprosy within six months to a year, but social stigma continues because of the visible physical deformities. If treated in the early stages, no deformities occur, but to treat those with deformities, the ministry announced a grant of Rs 5,000 for BPL families to undergo reconstructive surgery for disfigurements in identified hospitals, which would be given an additional Rs 5,000 for each surgery done. Read it all

Weight-loss drug orlistat to be available soon

2009-01-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

gets final OTC permission
22 Jan 09

By Lilian Anekwe

The European Commission has granted permission for the 60mg dose of the weight-loss drug orlistat to go on sale over the counter in pharmacies.

Orlistat will be available to all adults with a BMI of 28 kg/m2 or more, under the brand name alli.

The drug’s manufacturer, GSK, said it would run a ‘comprehensive training programme’ to help pharmacy staff provide appropriate advice and support.

Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern and a GP in Nottingham, said: ‘It can work, the risks are minimal, but I don't want to see the public being exploited. They have got to use it with knowledge.

‘This plays a part in the a weight management regime - but lifestyle changes in terms of eating a better diet must come first and last.’

But Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: 'My worry is that a lot of people will take these pills without proper advice and support about dieting and exercise.

'It's all too easy to pop a pill instead of making the lifestyle changes we need to keep our weight under control. This will only work if pharmacists can spend a lot of time giving ongoing advice.' more

Dementia drug threat to life

2009-01-09T02:00:00.000-08:00

Experts have condemned the commonplace prescribing of sedatives to people in the UK with dementia.
It comes as a three-year study published in The Lancet Neurology reports a doubling of the risk of early death in those on the drugs long-term.
As many as 100,000 people in UK care homes with dementia are routinely prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for aggressiveness or agitation.
Ministers said they were reviewing the use of the drugs in dementia care.
Current guidelines state that anti-psychotics can be given to patients who are severely agitated or violent for short periods of time.
However, figures suggest the drugs are overused and are given for an average of one to two years.
Warnings
The latest research is not the first time the dangers of anti-psychotics in dementia patients have been reported. more from BBC

Documentary on Orgasm During Childbirth

2009-01-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

Some Women Report Having An Orgasm During Childbirth

First thing next month (Friday January 2) will be the primetime debut of a film that has been making the "under the radar" rounds of women and film festivals since May. ABC's 20/20 will air the documentary "Orgasmic Birth", by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, a childbirth educator and a doula, which asks the question: What would happen if women were taught to enjoy birth rather than endure it?

Some women will see this film as a declaration of emancipation from the medicalization of childbirth. Others will see it as yet one more way to raise expectations and make new mothers feel inadequate if they do not experience the "ideal" birth. more

Feed a fever, say researchers

2009-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

'Keep off dieting' to avoid flu

Dieting at this time of year could impair your body's ability to fight the flu virus, a study warns.
US researchers found mice who were put on a calorie-controlled diet found it harder to tackle the infection than those on a normal diet.
The findings, published in the Journal of Nutrition, suggest that contrary to the old adage "starve a fever", those with a temperature should eat well.
Flu cases in England and Wales are currently approaching a nine-year high.
Killer cells need food
The team at Michigan State University found even though the mice on the lower calorie diet received adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, their bodies were still not able to produce the amount of killer cells needed to fight an infection. more

HIV virus millions of years old.

2008-12-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

HIV may prove an ancient virus

Peter Beaumont
Lemur provides “missing link”
A mouse-like primate threatened with extinction has provided the “missing link” in the evolutionary history of the HIV virus, promising to transform the scientific understanding of the family of viruses to which HIV belongs.

Research into the Madagascan grey mouse lemur published by a team from Stanford University School of Medicine, California, suggests the family of primate lentiviruses of which HIV is a member may be scores of millions of years old. more

Fat people to be paid to walk

2008-11-10T15:54:00.000-08:00

Pay the obese to take a walk: New £30m health drive sees fat people paid to walk their children to school

By DANIEL MARTIN
Last updated at 11:00 PM on 10th November 2008

Exercise routine: The daily walk to school may earn points

Overweight parents will be paid to walk their children to school under plans to tackle the obesity epidemic.

Those who attend keep-fit classes, weight-loss clubs or even go for a run in the park would also be eligible for rewards.

They will collect points on supermarket-style loyalty cards which would be redeemed against healthy food, sports equipment or gym sessions.

Obesity - the biggest health challenge

2008-11-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

"Obesity is the biggest health challenge we face" Photo: PA

The figures emerge as the Government launches its most extensive drive to stem the growing epidemic by encouraging people to eat more healthily and take regular exercise.

Statistics now suggest obesity is increasing to such an extent that within the next 50 years around 90 per cent of adults will be obese.

Around 9,000 people now die prematurely of obesity-related conditions each year and a third of 11- and 12-year-olds are overweight.

Mr Johnson said: "It's the curse of modern life. We eat too much and don't take enough exercise to burn off the calories.

"If this trend continues, by 2050 nine out of 10 adults and two thirds of all children will be overweight or obese.

"Obesity is the biggest health challenge we face."

Obesity drug withdrawn due to risk of psychiatric disorders

2008-10-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

Drug used by about 3,000 Irish people to treat obesity

A DRUG used by about 3,000 Irish people to treat obesity has been withdrawn from the market after it was found to double the risk of psychiatric disorders, writes Genevieve Carbery

The prescription drug, Acomplia, used in Ireland since 2006, was suspended by the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) following a recommendation by the European Medicines Agency yesterday.

"There is an approximate doubling of the risk of psychiatric disorders in obese or overweight patients taking Acomplia compared to those taking a placebo," the agency said in a statement. more

Such psychiatric side-effects include depression, sleep disorders, anxiety and aggression, the agency said. Warnings about the side effects have been included in the product information.

Scout motto Be Prepared to include visits to sexual health clinics

2008-10-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sex guidance will help scouts be prepared

John Carvel, social affairs editor
The Guardian,
Monday October 20 2008
Article history

Scouts will for the first time will be given sexual health advice and may be issued with condoms to prevent unprotected sex, under guidelines to be issued today by the Scout Association.

In a new interpretation of the scout motto Be Prepared, visits to sexual health clinics will also be included.

The visits are suggested for explorer scouts aged 14-18 "to break illusions of what these services are and improve the uptake of advice".

The association's chief scout, Peter Duncan, said: "We must be realistic and accept that around a third of young people are sexually active before 16 and many more start relationships at 16 and 17.

"Scouting touches members of every community, religious and social group in the country so adults in scouting have a duty to promote safe and responsible relationships and, as an organisation, we have the responsibility to provide sound advice about how to do that."

The scouting movement has about 400,000 young members in Britain, approximately 85% of them boys.

The association said the new sexual health guidance was designed to help young people develop the confidence, maturity and self-esteem to resist peer pressure to be sexually active until they are ready to make safe and informed decisions.

Other suggested activities for explorer scouts include role plays on learning to say no. source

“In-built defence system against HIV in human body”

2008-10-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Hindu, October 13, 2008

New Delhi: Scientists have decoded an in-built defence system of human body against the HIV, giving a new approach to drug development.

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have unravelled the long-sought atomic structure of an enzyme APOBEC-3G which is capable of stopping HIV at the very first stage of its attack on the body.

“We now understand how this enzyme can interact with DNA,” one of the researchers and a professor at USC Xiaojiang Chen said.

“This understanding provides a platform for designing anti-HIV drugs.” more

Jam and jelly join the fight against cancer

2008-10-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

http://news.scotsman.com/health/Jam-and-jelly-join-the.4583955.jp
Published Date: 13 October 2008
By Lyndsay Moss
Health Correspondent
AN INGREDIENT found in jelly and jam could help prevent the spread of cancer, research suggested yesterday.
A study found that pectin – a natural fibre found in fruit and vegetables and widely used in food processing – played a role in fighting the progress of the disease. more

No more free treatment at Bowring

2008-10-06T17:53:00.000-07:00


tBy Gayathri L, DH News Service, Bangalore: Deccan Herald Ocober 7, 2008



Totally free healthcare would be a thing of the past at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, thanks to the Hospital's now active "autonomy".

Patients availing treatment at Bowring Hospital in the near future, will have to foot bills which is expected to be “almost on par with corporate hospitals,” a highly placed official revealed. The Hospital has begun charging patients for healthcare services from September 25. Bowring, along with four other government hospitals in Bangalore, were granted autonomous status through a Government Order (HFW19MPS2005) dated November 16, 2006. While the administrative transition had begun then, the financial part will begin to hurt the patients only now. Till now, Bowring Hospital used to treat 1200 out patients and admit 30 to 40 new in-patients everyday, free of cost. Only a small user fee was charged for admissions and in certain cases, for diagnosis. This was possible with an annual budget of Rs 15 crore, which came from the government.

Smoking would Kill 83m in China in 25 years

2008-10-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

China lung disease 'to kill 83m'

By Jill McGivering
BBC News

One in three cigarettes in the world is smoked in China

A US study has suggested that more than 80 million people in China will die in the next 25 years as a result of lung disease.

The research says the vast majority of those premature deaths are preventable.

The study focused on the devastating impact of smoking and the widespread practice of burning wood or coal at home for cooking and heating.

The Harvard School of Public Health research looked at a 30-year period, spanning the last five and the next 25.

Respiratory disease is already a leading cause of death in China, but this latest study suggests a startling rise.

In the 30-year period, it calculates, about 83 million Chinese people will die prematurely of lung disease. more

Deadly Rugby Virus

2008-09-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Spreads In Sumo Wrestlers
ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2008) — Rugby players may get more than just the ball out of a scrum – herpes virus can cause a skin disease called "scrumpox" and it spreads through physical contact. Researchers have studied the spread of the disease among sumo wrestlers in Japan and have discovered that a new strain of the virus could be even more pathogenic, according to a new article.

"Scrumpox", or herpes gladiatorum, is a skin infection caused by the herpes virus, which can cause coldsores. It is spread through direct skin-to-skin contact so it is common among rugby players and wrestlers. Symptoms can start with a sore throat and swollen glands and the telltale blisters appear on the face, neck, arms or legs. The disease is highly infectious, so players who are infected are often taken out of competition to stop the virus from spreading... more

Surgery is 'only means to healthy weight loss'

2008-09-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Tuesday, 9 September 2008

This Morning presenter Fern Britton had a gastric band fitted two years ago, which enabled her to lose 5 stones

The number of Britons undergoing drastic stomach surgery to treat obesity will have to soar in the coming years because it will be the only way that many people are able to maintain the weight loss necessary for a healthy life, scientists have said.

Dieting and other lifestyle changes can lead to substantial weight loss. But many people, the scientists said, find it hard to maintain the loss because hormone levels change, making the body want to produce more fat.

"Once you start losing weight by decreasing calorie intake, your body interprets this as starvation and goes into emergency status, fighting to lay down fat deposits where possible," explained Rachel Batterham of University College London. "Therefore you are fighting against your body when losing weight."

Stomach surgery such as gastric bypass operations should not only be carried out on severely obese people, but offered to overweight men and women as a form of disease prevention, in much the same way statins are offered to prevent heart disease, they said. Read full story

Girls to have cervical cancer jab

2008-09-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

The vaccine does not reduce the need for women to have smear tests.

Every Year 8 schoolgirl in Wales is to be offered a vaccination against the virus which causes most types of cervical cancer, from this month.

Some 20,000 secondary school girls aged 12 and 13 will be offered the vaccine against the human papillomavirus(HPV).

The jab protects against two viruses responsible for about 70% of cases. Wales has around 170 cases a year. Read more

Treatment For Hearing Loss? Scientists Grow Hair Cells Involved in Hearing

2008-08-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2008) — Oregon Health & Science University scientists have successfully produced functional auditory hair cells in the cochlea of the mouse inner ear. The breakthrough suggests that a new therapy may be developed in the future to successfully treat hearing loss. The results of this research was recently published by the journal Nature.

Earwax protects and lubricates ear canal: New guideuidelines for its removal

2008-08-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

Earwax: Too Much of a Good Thing?
New Guidelines Set for Safely Removing Excess Earwax
By Kelley Colihan
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Aug. 29, 2008 -- The body is a miraculous mechanism. Consider the once-lowly earwax. People used to try to remove it. Now, we now know that earwax has a job to do.

Think of it kind of like the oil in your car, except it doesn't ever have to be changed.

Earwax is created by a mixture of secretions from glands that line the ear canal, sloughed-off skin cells, and bits of hair.

It acts as a cleaning agent, which also protects and lubricates part of the sensitive ear canal.

Normally, excess wax eases its way out of your ear without any prompting on your part, helped along by the movement of your jaw.

That's when it can be cleaned out a bit, but it's advised that you not go looking for it and only clean out earwax once it emerges on its own.

So, although earwax is essentially good, too much of it can cause problems.

Read More

2008-08-26T05:48:00.000-07:00

Thatcher's Daughter Dishes on Mom's Memory Loss

Is It Alzheimer's or Dementia? Margaret Thatcher's Loss Stirs Sympathy, Indignation

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Aug. 26, 2008

RSS

Dubbed the "Iron Lady," Britain's hard-nosed former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was revered for her nimble command of world events and her quick verbal repartee.

Baroness Margaret Thatcher, 82, and her daughter Carol Thatcher, 55, who has written a memoir...

(Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

But today, in a soon-to-be-published memoir, her daughter Carol describes an 82-year-old woman -- the world leader once feared and admired -- as humbled by memory lapses so severe she doesn't even know that her longtime husband has died.

Serving as prime minister from 1979 to 1990, she had been an intellectual powerhouse, reportedly sleeping just four hours a night. Her daughter Carol Thatcher, a television personality, said she first noticed her mother's memory problems in 2000.

----------------------
Dementia -- a Latin word for "irrationality" -- is an umbrella term for more than 100 diseases that affect the brain in old age, according to the National Institutes for Health. An estimated 2 million to 4 million Americans have some form of the disease.
Perhaps the most highly publicized case was that of former President Reagan -- Thatcher's conservative political soul mate. He went public with his diagnosis in a televised statement in 1994, a decade before he died of the disease.

Goldwater, Heston Also Sufferers

Other powerful figures who suffered from dementia were Hollywood icon and Reagan friend Charlton Heston, as well as 1964 Republican presidential contender Barry Goldwater and professional boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

Read more

Cell Self-destruction for the Greater Common Good

2008-08-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

Cell Self-destruction for the Greater Common Good

2008-08-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Obesity In Elderly A Ticking Time Bomb For Health Services

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2008) — Research carried out at the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England has discovered that obesity in later life does not make a substantial difference to risks of death among older people but that it is a major contributor to increased disability in later life – creating a ticking time bomb for health services in developed countries.

'Good' Fat to Prevent Obesity

2008-08-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

Study Identifies Protein That Produces 'Good' Fat: Finding May Lead To Ways To Treat, Prevent Obesity

ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2008) — A study by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center has shown that a protein known for its role in inducing bone growth can also help promote the development of brown fat, a "good" fat that helps in the expenditure of energy and plays a role in fighting obesity.

"Obesity is occurring at epidemic rates in the U.S. and worldwide and that impacts the risk and prognosis of many diseases," said Yu-Hua Tseng, Ph.D. an Assistant Investigator in the Joslin Section on Obesity and Hormone Action and lead author of the paper published in the August 21 issue of Nature. "We hope this study can be translated into applications to help treat or prevent obesity."

Read it all

New Reasons To Avoid Grapefruit And Other Juices When Taking Certain Drugs

2008-08-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

The researchers have reported at the 236th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society that they have new evidence to show that grapefruit and other common fruit juices, including orange and apple, can substantially decrease the absorption of certain drugs, including some that are prescribed for fighting life-threatening conditions such as heart disease, cancer, organ-transplant rejection, and infection, the researcher says potentially wiping out their beneficial effects.

Read it all from ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2008)

Many Think God's Intervention Can Revive the Dying

2008-08-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Survey: Many Americans believe God's help can revive dying patients, despite medical evidence
By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO August 18, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press

An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors "need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle."

More than half of randomly surveyed adults — 57 percent — said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.

"Sensitivity to this belief will promote development of a trusting relationship" with patients and their families, according to researchers. That trust, they said, is needed to help doctors explain objective, overwhelming scientific evidence showing that continued treatment would be worthless.

Pat Loder, a Milford, Mich., woman whose two young children were killed in a 1991 car crash, said she clung to a belief that God would intervene when things looked hopeless.

While doctors should be prepared to deal with those beliefs, they also shouldn't "sugarcoat" the truth about a patient's condition, Loder said.

Being honest in a sensitive way helps family members make excruciating decisions about whether to let dying patients linger, or allow doctors to turn off life-prolonging equipment so that organs can be donated, Loder said.

Read it all here

Diabetes drug Byetta causes deaths: FDA Warns

2008-08-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

Several deaths were reported with the medication of diabetes drug, Byetta, marketed by Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co.

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it has received six new reports of patients developing a dangerous form of pancreatitis while taking Byetta. Two of the patients died and four were recovering.

Regulators stressed that patients should stop taking Byetta immediately if they develop signs of acute pancreatitis, a swelling of the pancreas that can cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. The FDA warned that it is very difficult to distinguish acute pancreatitis from less dangerous forms of the condition.

The FDA announcement updated an October alert about 30 reports of Byetta patients developing pancreas problems. None of those cases were fatal, but Byetta's makers agreed to add information about the reports to the drug's label.

Byetta competes against blockbuster drugs from GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Takeda Pharmaceuticals in the $24 billion global market for diabetes medications, according to health care research firm IMS Health.

More than 700,000 patients with type 2 diabetes have used the injectable drug since it was launched in June 2005.

Read it full

Art and Films: Actor-comedian Bernie Mac's Death Raises Sarcoidosis Awareness

2008-08-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

Art and Films: Actor-comedian Bernie Mac's Death Raises Sarcoidosis Awareness

ABC News: Kids Can Have Strokes Too, AHA Warns

2008-07-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Kids Can Have Strokes Too, AHA Warns

Kids Can Have Strokes Too, AHA Warns
Condition More Common in Children Than Many May Realize
By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN
ABC News Medical Unit

July 17, 2008 suffered a stroke that changed her life, weakening the right side of her body and, doctors thought at the time, potentially hurting her future ability to speak.
Childhood Stroke Survivor Michelle Ballasiotes, 10 (right) suffered a stroke while she was still in the womb. Michelle and Anna are wearing T-shirts from a support group founded by their mother, Mary Kay, for the families of children who have suffered strokes.
Future ability, because at that point Michelle had never spoken. Unlike many of the millions of Americans who suffer strokes, Michelle suffered hers in the womb; she had not yet even been born.

As the American Heart Association releases the first comprehensive guidelines for childhood stroke on Thursday, Michelle, now 10, is among those hoping it will bring increased awareness of the fact that strokes can occur in children who need immediate assistance from doctors.

"I don't really know why I had a stroke, and that bothers me a little bit because I want to know why, and if there's any possible way that we could have prevented it from happening," she told ABC News.

Michelle has, in many ways, overcome the devastating effects that can follow stroke. She can speak without any noticeable sign of the affliction.

"I try not to let it hold me back, and I don't think it does," she said.

But she was also lucky. Doctors found evidence that something had happened while she was still in the womb, and she was able to receive treatment almost immediately after birth, having been diagnosed with stroke when she was three days old.

"She was one of the fortunate ones to get diagnosed so early," said her mother, Mary Kay Ballasiotes.

Michelle started physical therapy at six months.

"I think that has given her the head start to be normal … It's amazing, because she's been going to therapy every week for 10 years," said Mary Kay. "She's never had a day of speech therapy."

But many children are not as fortunate as Michelle, and Dr. E. Steve Roach, who headed the committee for the AHA's stroke guidelines, hopes this new paper will increase doctors' awareness of childhood stroke and change all that.

"There's a lot of expertise about it, but that expertise is clustered in a few places," he said.

Roach, a pediatric neurologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Ohio State University Medical Center, noted that childhood stroke receives little attention, even though it is more common than childhood brain tumors, affecting one out of every 3,000 to 4,000 children.
ABC News: Kids Can Have Strokes Too, AHA Warns">
Read more

Smoking can boost memory-Health/Sci-The Times of India

2008-07-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

Smoking can boost memory-Health/Sci-The Times of India

Smoking can boost memory
14 Jul 2008, 1805 hrs IST,PTI

LONDON: Scientists attempting to create a nicotine pill to treat Alzheimer's disease have suggested that smoking can help boost memory and concentration.

Nicotine has long been known to have a stimulating effect on the brain. However, the deadly side effects of cancer, stroke and heart disease, mean its benefits have been largely set aside by medical research.

Now researchers, who hope to develop drugs which copy the active ingredients in tobacco without causing heart disease, cancer, stroke or addiction, discovered that nicotine can boost the intelligence and recall ability of animals in laboratory experiments.

The researchers, who plan to present their latest findings at the Forum of European Neuroscience in Geneva, hope that the new drugs, which will be available in five years, may have fewer side effects than existing medicines for dementia.

However, the scientists stressed the new treatment at best will only give patients a few extra months of independent life instead of fully freeing them of Alzheimer's disease.

"The substances that we call drugs have, in the majority of cases, do have a mixture of beneficial and harmful effects and nicotine no exception to this," Professor Ian Stoleman of Britain's King's College was quoted as saying by the Mail online.

Researchers led by Prof Stolerman studied how nicotine alters the brain's circuitry to boost concentration and memory. In his study, he showed that the concentration power in rats went up by 5 per cent when injected with nicotine, the report said.

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

2008-07-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

tag: health

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

Wednesday,9 July 2008 17:35 hrs IST
Prefer paranthas over bread for breakfast
-
Ludhiana: Paranthas are more nutritious than bread and consumption of a nutritious breakfast is associated with better physical and mental performance as it quickens reactive time, decreases muscular fatigue, increases pulse rate, influences mood and improves cognitive performance.

''Breakfast is the foundation of healthful diet as it provides an individual with energy and other nutrients for the day'', research study conducted by Dr J S Sidhu and Dr S Verma, nutritional scientists of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has observed.

As per the study a dietary survey was carried out on 80 families to find out their pattern of breakfast. Commonly consumed breakfast preparations were selected for analysis.

Eleven preparations like stuffed paranthas, plain paranthas/chapati with seasonable vegetable and sandwiches were prepared in the laboratory, based on the recipes followed commonly in the Punjabi families. The whole wheat flour used for each parantha was 40 grams and the amount of stuffing varied with the stuffing material.

Seasonal vegetables like potato, cauliflower, raddish and fenugreek leaves were used. In 'missa' parantha, 10 g of wheat flour was replaced with gram flour. Refined groundnut oil was used for shallow frying of the paranthas and for vegetable preparation.

Boiled, mashed potatoes with addition to spices were used for potato sandwich, whereas tomato and cucumber slices with a pinch of salt and black pepper powder were used for vegetable sandwich. The developed products were analysed for their proximate composition.

According to the study the results revealed that the parantha had 4.2 to 5.0 g of protein and 209 to 258 kcal of energy per 100 g.

The protein content of both the combinations of chapati and vegetable and parantha and vegetable preparation was same (5.3 g per 100 g) but the energy value of the latter was higher because of the fat content which goes into the preparation of paranthas.

Plain bread had lowest values for both protein (2.28 per 100 g) as well as energy (69 kcal per 100 g) on fresh basis.

ABC News: 70-Year-Olds Having Best Sex Ever

2008-07-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

ABC News: 70-Year-Olds Having Best Sex Ever

Study Shows Sexual Satisfaction at 70 Improving
The Over-65-Set Reports Higher Levels of Sexual Satisfaction
By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN
ABC News Medical Unit
July 10, 2008

As media attention focuses on issues like teenage pregnancy and rates of sexual activity among the young, a new Swedish study reinforces what many professionals in the area have long suspected -- sexual activity and satisfaction are on the rise among the elderly.
Senior Citizens and Sex
In a new study, researchers found that today's 70-year-olds are having more sex -- and enjoying more satisfying sex -- than ever before.
(Getty Images)

The study, from Gothenburg University in Sweden, showed that self-reported levels of sexual satisfaction among 70-year-olds in Gothenburg has been on the rise, from 58 percent of 70-year-old men reporting satisfaction in 1976-77 to 71 percent reporting sexual satisfaction in 2000-01. Among women, the increase was from 41 percent to 62 percent during the same period.

"I think it's very important for older people to know that it's quite normal to have sexual feelings, and it's important for health professionals to know that they are sexually active or would like to be, and they should take that into consideration," said Nils Beckman, a doctoral student at Gothenburg and the lead author of the study.
Related
'The Last Taboo': Sex and the Elderly
Brinkley's Soon-to-Be Ex Addicted to Sex?
Finally, a Reason Why Nice Guys Finish Last

The findings are published in the most recent issue of the British Medical Journal.

Although the study was done exclusively in Sweden, researchers here seem to believe the findings are applicable to the United States as well, even if the rate is not quite as high.

"There is no question that people in their 70s today are like people in their 60s from the last decade," said Judith Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist, sex therapist and faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College.

"People are staying younger older, as they work out, look better, feel better and therefore are physically as well as psychologically more interested -- as well as more capable -- of being sexual."

The findings may support a trend; a study published last August in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 53 percent of people between the ages of 65 and 74 had recently engaged in sexual activity.

Shifting Norms

Researchers have proposed a number of reasons for the rise.

"One reason might be that today 70-year-olds are healthier than they were 30 years ago, but other studies have shown that people who have a good sex life in earlier years usually have a good sex life in old age," said Beckman.

Slow eating reduces weight

2008-07-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph - Indian Newspapers in English Language from Kolkatta (Calcutta) India.
Mothers right about slow eating, say scientists

New York, July 8 (Reuters): Your mother was right when she told you to take the time to chew your food. Eating slowly, research suggests, can encourage people to eat less, and enjoy the meal more.

Researchers found that when they had 30 young women eat a lunch of pasta, tomatoes and cheese, the diners consumed an average of 70 fewer calories when they ate the meal slowly.

The findings give scientific support to a long recommended weight-control tactic, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The theory has been that a leisurely dining pace allows time for the body’s natural fullness signals to kick in, explains Ana M. Andrade. Stomach distension and changes in several appetite-related hormones, for example, alert the body that it's time to stop eating. But these processes take time.

ABC News: Cholesterol Tests for One-Year-Olds?

2008-07-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Cholesterol Tests for One-Year-Olds?

Cholesterol Drugs Recommended for Some 8-Year-Olds
Pediatrics academy urges cholesterol drugs for some 8-year-olds to fight heart disease
By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO July 7, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
52 comments
FONT SIZE
EMAIL
PRINT
SHARE
RSS

For the first time, an influential doctors group is recommending that some children as young as 8 be given cholesterol-fighting drugs to ward off future heart problems.
kids
For the first time ever, a doctors group is recommending that some children as young as 8 take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.
(Getty/ABC News)

It is the strongest guidance ever given on the issue by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which released its new guidelines Monday. The academy also recommends low-fat milk for 1-year-olds and wider cholesterol testing.

Dr. Stephen Daniels, of the academy's nutrition committee, says the new advice is based on mounting evidence showing that damage leading to heart disease, the nation's leading killer, begins early in life.

It also stems from recent research showing that cholesterol-fighting drugs are generally safe for children, Daniels said.

Several of these drugs are approved for use in children and data show that increasing numbers are using them.
Related
Doctors: Public Not Ready for OTC Statins
Statin Users Shouldn't Fear the 'Big C'
Chinese Supplement May Cut Heart Risk

"If we are more aggressive about this in childhood, I think we can have an impact on what happens later in life ... and avoid some of these heart attacks and strokes in adulthood," Daniels said. He has worked as a consultant to Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co., but not on matters involving their cholesterol drugs.

Drug treatment would generally be targeted for kids at least 8 years old who have too much LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, along with other risky conditions, including obesity and high blood pressure.

For overweight children with too little HDL, the "good" cholesterol, the first course of action should be weight loss, more physical activity and nutritional counseling, the academy says.

Pediatricians should routinely check the cholesterol of children with a family history of inherited cholesterol disease or with parents or grandparents who developed heart disease at an early age, the recommendations say. Screening also is advised for kids whose family history isn't known and those who are overweight, obese or have other heart disease risk factors.

Screening is recommended sometime after age 2 but no later than age 10, at routine checkups.

Fake virus could make safe new vaccines

2008-06-30T09:37:00.001-07:00

Fake virus could make safe new vaccines

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Sat Jun 28, 1:50 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "wimpy" artificial virus protected mice against polio, and the approach might be used to make a range of safer new vaccines against viruses, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The team at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, had created the first artificial virus, a synthetic version of polio, in 2002.

Reporting in the journal Science, they said they used it to vaccinate mice, and then infected the mice with what should have been a deadly dose of polio. The mice survived.

"Ultimately we created a wimpy poliovirus that can be customized and does not cause disease unless given at high doses," Bruce Futcher, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology who worked on the study.

"These viruses are still far from suitable vaccines for humans, but there is a lot of potential for this approach," he added in a statement.

The researchers used a unique method to make their virus, relying on a built-in redundancy in DNA, the material that carries genetic instructions in organisms.

DNA's code is written using just four nucleic acids, represented by the letters A, C, T and G. These are combined in various ways to make amino acids, which in turn make proteins.

It is possible to make an amino acid with more than one combination of these letters -- for example, GCC and GCG both code for the amino acid alanine. For unknown reasons, organisms favor certain combinations.

SAFER VACCINES?

Futcher's team made their polio virus using the less-favored combinations of the virus's genetic code.

They hoped these would stimulate the immune system in the same way as "wild-type" polio, without causing disease, and that is what appears to have happened, they wrote.

Each difference in the genetic code weakened the virus in a different way.

"This 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy could be generally applicable to attenuating many kinds of viruses," they wrote.

"Even for an inactivated rather than live virus approach, these features would allow a vaccine to be made from a safer starting material than the corresponding wild-type virus."

Polio vaccines have virtually eradicated the disease in most countries. But an oral vaccine that uses a weakened version of a live polio virus can sometimes get back into the water supply and mutate into a form that can infect people.

Doctors have been looking for a safer yet effective polio vaccine that is as easy to administer as the drops. Dr. Jonas Salk's original polio vaccine, which effectively rid the United States of the feared virus in the 1950s and 1960s, used a "killed" polio virus but had to be injected.

The letter-by-letter changes needed the help of a powerful computer, said computer science professor Steven Skiena, who worked on the project.

"Sophisticated computer algorithms are necessary to design the hundreds of changes to sufficiently cripple the virus for our 'death by a thousand cuts' approach," Skiena said in a statement.

"Because of the large number of changes, the weakened virus can never mutate back to wild-type."

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Eric Walsh)

New clue to Alzheimer's found

2008-06-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

New clue to Alzheimer's found

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers have uncovered a new clue to the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

The brains of people with the memory-robbing form of dementia are cluttered with a plaque made up of beta-amyloid, a sticky protein. But there long has been a question whether this is a cause of the disease or a side effect. Also involved are tangles of a protein called tau; some scientists suspect this is the cause.

Now, researchers have caused Alzheimer's symptoms in rats by injecting them with one particular form of beta-amyloid. Injections with other forms of beta-amyloid did not cause illness, which may explain why some people have beta-amyloid plaque in their brains but do not show disease symptoms.

The findings by a team led by Dr. Ganesh M. Shankar and Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe of Harvard Medical School were reported in Sunday's online edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The researchers used extracts from the brains of people who donated their bodies to medicine.

Forms of soluble beta-amyloid containing different numbers of molecules, as well as insoluble cores of the brain plaque, were injected into the brains of mice. There was no detectable effect from the insoluble plaque or the soluble one-molecule or three-molecule forms, the researchers found.

But the two-molecule form of soluble beta-amyloid produced characteristics of Alzheimer's in the rats, they reported.

Those rats had impaired memory function, especially for newly learned behaviors. When the mouse brains were inspected, the density brain cells was reduced by 47% with the beta-amyloid seeming to affect synapses, the connections between cells that are essential for communication between them.

The research, for the first time, showed the effect of a particular type of beta-amyloid in the brain, said Dr. Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, director of the division of neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, which helped fund the research.

It was surprising that only one of the three types had an effect, she said in a telephone interview.

Morrison-Bogorad said the findings may help explain the discovery of plaque in the brains of people who do not develop dementia. For some time, doctors have wondered why they find some brains in autopsy that are heavily coated with beta-amyloid, but the person did not have Alzheimer's.

The answer may lie in the two types of beta-amyloid that did not cause symptoms.

Now, the question is why one has the damaging effect and not others.

"A lot of work needs to be done," Morrison-Bogorad said. "Nature keeps sending us down paths that look straight at the beginning, but there are a lot of curves before we get to the end."

Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, said that "while more research is needed to replicate and extend these findings, this study has put yet one more piece into place in the puzzle that is Alzheimer's."

In addition to the Institute on Aging, the research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland, Wellcome Trust, the McKnight and Ellison foundations and the Lefler Small Grant Fund.

__
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NBC's Tim Russert's sudden death: A warning

2008-06-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

Russert's 'Silent' Heart Problem Common in U.S.
How Russert's Death May Be a Wake-Up Call for Many
By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit
June 16, 2008

The death of Tim Russert, a robust man who was only 58, was shocking to so many not only because of his celebrity but because he had few outward signs that he was in danger.

Russert, according to his doctor, had diabetes, heart disease and was overweight. The massive attack that felled the popular political analyst as he working in NBC's Washington bureau last Friday is a grim reminder that the first signs of heart disease should not be ignored because they can be fatal.

The catastrophic medical event that killed Russert is called sudden cardiac death, a change to the heart that can come on with or without a heart attack.

Sudden Death

Russert's physician, Michael Newman, told NBC News that plaque from a clogged artery ruptured, traveled to his heart and blocked it. The result is a quickly cascading chain of events that Russert may not have even felt coming.

Mandeep Mehra, chief of cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, explains that the blockage likely disrupted the rhythm of Russert's heartbeat, sending it into a state called ventricular fibrillation, where electrical signals get confused in the heart and cause it to beat hundreds of times per minute.

"It's such a high heart rate that the heart just starts to quiver and it's unable to pump blood," said Mehra, "You won't be able to pump blood to the brain and you won't be able to pump blood to the rest of the body."

The condition typically causes death in between three and seven minutes, according to Dr. Douglas P. Zipes, director emeritus of the division of cardiology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and former president of the American College of Cardiology.

US Life Expectancy Tops 78 but still behind Japan and 30 other countries

2008-06-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

US Life Expectancy Tops 78 as Top Diseases Decline
US life expectancy rises at faster pace, reaching 78, but still behind Japan, other nations
By MIKE STOBBE AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA June 11, 2008 (AP)

For the first time ever, U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, government researchers report.

For the first time, U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, the government reported Wednesday, although the United States continues to lag behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span.

The increase is due mainly to falling mortality rates in almost all the leading causes of death, federal health officials said. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2006 was about four months greater than for children born in 2005.

Japan has the longest life expectancy — 83 years for children born in 2006, according to World Health Organization data. Switzerland and Australia were also near the top of the list.

"The international comparisons are not that appealing, but we may be in the process of catching up," said Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer. He is co-chairman of a National Research Council panel looking at why America's life expectancy is lower than other nations'.

The new U.S. data, released Wednesday, come from the National Center for Health Statistics. It's a preliminary report of 2006 numbers, based on data from more than 95 percent of the death certificates collected that year.

Life expectancy is the period a child born in 2006 is expected to live, assuming mortality trends stay constant.

The 2006 increase is due mainly to falling mortality rates for nine of the 15 leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, accidents and diabetes.

"I think the most surprising thing is that we had declines in just about every major cause of death," said Robert Anderson, who oversaw work on the report for the health statistics center.

The overall death rate fell from 799 per 100,000 in 2005 to about 776 the following year.

Health statisticians noted declines of more than 6 percent in stroke and chronic lower respiratory disease (including bronchitis and emphysema), and a drop of more than 5 percent in heart disease and diabetes deaths. Indeed, the drop in diabetes deaths was steep enough to allow Alzheimer's disease — which held about steady — to pass diabetes to become the nation's sixth leading cause of death.

The U.S. infant mortality rate dropped more than 2 percent, to 6.7 infant deaths per 1,000 births, from 6.9.
Chart shows the U.S. life expectancy at birth since 1929;; 2c x 2 inches; 96.3 mm x 50.8 mm
(AP)

Perhaps the most influential factor in the 2006 success story, however, was the flu. Flu and pneumonia deaths dropped by 13 percent from 2005, reflecting a mild flu season in 2006, Anderson said. That also meant a diminished threat to people with heart disease and other conditions. Taken together, it's a primary explanation for the 22,000 fewer deaths in 2006 from 2005, experts said.

U.S. life expectancy has been steadily rising, usually by about two to three months from year to year. This year's jump of fourth months is "an unusually rapid improvement," Preston said.

Life expectancy was up for both men and women, and whites and blacks. Although the gaps are closing, women continue to live longer, almost to 81, compared to about 75 for men. Among racial categories, white women have the highest life expectancy (81 years), followed by black women (about 77 years), white men (76) and black men (70). Health statisticians said they don't have reliable data to calculate Hispanic life expectancy, but they hope to by next year.

Increases in female smoking are a major reason that men's life expectancy is catching up with the women's, Preston said. Improvements in the care of heart disease — a major health problem for black Americans — helps explain an improving racial gap, he said.

About 2.4 million Americans died in 2006, according to the report.

———

Kerala develops 3-D human body to 'virtually' replace cadavers

2008-06-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Kerala develops 3-D human body to 'virtually' replace cadavers
Monday, June 09, 2008
Blue Star

Thiruvananthapuram:A virtual three-dimension human body capable of replacing cadavers in surgical studies has been developed by a medical graduate in Kerala.

The software, titled "3-D Indiana" developed by Dr Jerome Kalister, has been referred to the Medical Council of India (MCI) for tests and approval.

Developed by a 20 member-team led by Jerome, the software could help surgeons to perform robotic surgery on the brain, heart and liver pinpointing the precise location of nerves and organ parts.

"The software has more advantage than cadavers and will be a dominant feature in medical colleges in future. The important thing is that cadavers cannot be reused whereas surgical methods can be always learnt through the 3-D virtual body," Jerome said.

Many uses which cannot be performed on a real body could be used in the 3-D structure to identify the relative orientation, shape, position and texture of the human body with the plenty of options available in the software, he said.

The only objection being raised against the software was that students would not get a "feel" of the human body, but Jerome said, "Skill is not developed by doing cadavers. I do not think students, teachers or anatomists are benefitted by the feel."

If the criteria adopted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) and Anatomical Society of India (ASI) were satisfied, the software could slowly eclipse cadavers.

The software could also be marketed in certain countries where cadavers were not allowed for medical studies, he said.

Source: Business Standard

Weight gain beneficial for diabetics

2008-06-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

Weight gain may actually be beneficial for diabetics

Sat, Jun 7 12:35 PM

Washington, June 7 (ANI): Diabetics are often advised to shed those extra pounds, however a new study suggests that weight gain can actually help people with type 1 diabetes.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health examines 655 patients with type 1 diabetes for 20 years and found that patients who gained weight over time were less likely to die.

Participants with an average age of 28 when entering the study and 44 at its completion were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes between 1950 and 1980.

The team measured patients' body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference and assessed BMI every two years during the study period and over the course of the study, 147 deaths occurred.

The findings revealed that patients whose BMI increased the most during the study (2 to 11 points or about 10 to 55 pounds) were one-third less likely to die than those who had smaller increases in BMI, indicating that weight gain may protect people with type 1 diabetes from premature death.

"Although weight gain in adulthood is typically associated with increased mortality, this may not be the case for those with type 1 diabetes," said Dr Trevor Orchard, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

"Gaining a reasonable amount of weight may be a sign patients are getting enough insulin and appropriately controlling their disease, which may partly explain why those who gained weight over time had lower mortality rates," said Orchard, who also is professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"These results are not a firm recommendation to people with type 1 diabetes to put on weight, but it does raise the possibility that weight recommendations in type 1 diabetes may be somewhat different," added Baqiyyah Conway, M.P.H., lead author of the abstract.

The study was presented at the 68th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco. (ANI)

Health Officials Oppose Menthol

2008-06-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Former Health Officials Oppose Menthol

Published: June 5, 2008

Seven former federal health secretaries joined on Wednesday to protest menthol’s special treatment in a tobacco bill pending in Congress.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Text of Letter to Senators on Menthol Exemption for Cigarettes (June 5, 2008)

The seven, from Democratic and Republican administrations, faxed a letter to members of the Senate and House of Representatives demanding that menthol-flavored cigarettes be banned just like various other cigarette flavorings the legislation would outlaw.

One of the former secretaries, Joseph A. Califano Jr., said the legislation was “clearly putting black children in the back of the bus.” He was referring to menthol cigarettes as being the choice of three out of four black smokers and being frequently preferred by young smokers.

An estimated 80 percent of African-American teenage smokers pick menthol brands, the letter said.

The letter reflects a growing controversy over the bill’s current exemption of menthol from a list of banned flavorings — an exemption some lawmakers said was intended to garner support from Philip Morris. The maker of Marlboro Menthol, the second-leading menthol brand after Lorillard’s Newport, Philip Morris has endorsed the bill, although most other cigarette companies oppose it.

The bill would for the first time give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco. While several groups have said the bill does not go far enough to regulate the tobacco industry and fails to promote safer tobacco products, most major public health advocacy groups have endorsed it.

Some antismoking advocates have said they see the menthol exemption as a necessary compromise toward getting the legislation passed, and they have said that the bill as currently drafted would give the F.D.A. the authority to limit or eliminate additives, including menthol, if they are proved to be harmful.

As now written the legislation would ban cigarettes flavored with strawberry, chocolate and a number of other fruit, candy and spice flavorings. Those flavorings have occasionally been added to cigarettes in what critics say are a lure to children. But the bill specifically protects menthol from the ban, even though menthol is the most widely used flavoring. Menthol brands account for 28 percent of the $70 billion American cigarette market.

The bill has cleared key committees in both the Senate and the House but it is not yet scheduled for floor votes.

Responding to the letter from the former secretaries, the bill’s House sponsor, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Wednesday that he believes an outright ban on menthol is not the best way to address it.

“I’m determined to see tobacco legislation pass Congress that protects all our children,” Mr. Waxman said. “Leading public health experts have told us that giving F.D.A. the authority to ban menthol is the best way to balance both public health considerations with the reality that many adults only smoke menthol cigarettes. I’ll continue our ongoing review to make sure we are dealing with this issue in the most effective way possible."

Menthol is derived from mint and is also available synthetically. Smoking menthol-flavored cigarettes gives the mouth a cool feeling, similar to sucking on a peppermint, and can help mask the harsh taste of tobacco.

The bill’s treatment of menthol “caves to the financial interests of tobacco companies and discriminates against African-Americans — the segment of our population at greatest risk for the killing and crippling smoking-related diseases,” the letter from the former secretaries said. “It sends a message that African American youngsters are valued less than white youngsters.”

Mr. Califano said that even though the bill gives the F.D.A. the authority to remove additives it would require a lengthy process that “could go on and on and on, and you’re talking about years before you get through the administrative process and the courts.”

Mr. Califano, who served as health secretary under President Jimmy Carter, said the idea to send the letter began when Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, the health secretary during the administration of President George H. W. Bush, called him to complain about the bill’s treatment of menthol.

“We both got our blood boiling,” Mr. Califano said in a telephone interview. They also decided to contact other past health secretaries. Five of them were reached and all agreed to sign onto the letter, according to Mr. Califano, who now runs the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

They are Tommy G. Thompson, who was a health secretary under the current President Bush; Donna E. Shalala, from the Clinton administration; Richard S. Schweicker and Dr. Otis R. Bowen, from the Reagan administration; and F. David Matthews from the Ford administration.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Sullivan, the president emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, said, “My issue is that menthol should not be added because it’s added as an inducement, an enabler, to induce young people to smoke.”

In 1990, Dr. Sullivan was instrumental in pressuring R. J. Reynolds not to market its Uptown cigarette, a menthol brand intended to appeal to black smokers.

In addition to the former secretaries, two other people signed the letter. They were Dr. Julius B. Richmond, who served as surgeon general in the Carter administration, and William S. Robinson, the executive director of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, a nonprofit organization in Durham, N.C.

Mr. Robinson’s organization said last week that it was withdrawing its support from the bill because of the menthol exemption.

Memory - Neurotransmitters

2008-05-31T08:32:00.001-07:00

Memory :: Neurotransmitters
A neurotransmitter is a chemical in the brain that helps regulate the electrical signals between neurons. Neurotransmitters exist in little pockets, inside the nerve cells, called vesicles. When an electrical signal triggers the neuron, these vesicles float to the cell membrane and release their neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters then jump across the synapse and bind to receptors on adjacent neurons.

How the adjacent neuron reacts to the neurotransmitters depends on a number of factors. There are many different types of neurotransmitters produce different results. Some cause the adjacent neuron to trigger and others suppress triggering. It is the combined effect of all the neurotransmitters that determines what happens to the signal.

53% of x-rays are of little use in diagnosis: IAEA

2008-05-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

53% of x-rays are of little use in diagnosis: IAEA
31 May 2008, 0150 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha ,TNN

NEW DELHI: Your x-ray may not be giving your doctor a clear picture of what's wrong with your health. In a largescale study done by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 12 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, nearly 53% of the x-ray tests done in 45 hospitals were found to be of poor image quality, compromising the accuracy of the diagnosis and exposing patients to unnecessary radiation.

The study, published in the June edition of the American Journal of Roentgenology, was spearheaded by Dr Madan Rehani of IAEA's division of radiation. Dr Rehani was professor of medical physics at AIIMS till 2001.

Though India was not part of the survey — Thailand being the only Asian country studied — Dr Rehani and experts in India said the standard of x-ray examinations in the country would be just as bad. Dr Rehani told TOI from Vienna that poor image quality of x-rays constituted a major source of unnecessary radiation for patients in developing countries.

"Even as use of x-rays in medical care is growing in developing countries, information about both the quality of x-ray images and patient doses is grossly lacking at many hospitals. Through our study, we found three reasons behind poor x-ray imaging — malfunctioning of x-ray equipment, inappropriate technique and lack of expertise of the operator," Dr Rehani said.

According to IAEA, every day across the world, radiation is used in more than 10 million diagnostic procedures, 1,00,000 nuclear medicine procedures and for the radiation treatment of over 10,000 patients.

Dr Rehani said, "Every day, about 10 million radiological examinations are performed. More than 90% of these are radiographic examinations like chest and abdomen x-ray. In radiographic examinations, our study has shown that poor quality images are very large (4% to 53%). Even if one takes a conservative figure of 10%, it means about a million poor quality images are generated every day."

'Repeated x-rays can lead to cancer'

Dr Madan Rehani of IAEA's division of radiation said that the cost of getting an x-ray should drive providers to ensure that patients aren't exposed to unnecessary radiation.

"The health ministry should be aware of the magnitude of this problem and ensure quality control of x-rays. Our study also showed that improvement in image quality to the tune of 13% in Asia, 16% in Africa and 22% in Europe was achieved by putting in place quality control programmes," Dr Rehani said.

Woman gave birth after carrying an ectopic pregnancy

2008-05-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Baby Born After Rare Ovarian Pregnancy
Australian Woman Gives Birth to Healthy Baby After Rare Full-Term Ectopic Pregnancy
SYDNEY, Australia May 30, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press

Pregnant
Woman gave birth after carrying an ectopic pregnancy to full term.

A woman in a northern Australian city gave birth to a healthy baby girl after a rare full-term ectopic pregnancy, a hospital official said Friday.

Meera Thangarajah, 34, had no symptoms or complications during her pregnancy, so doctors performing a routine Caesarean section Thursday were shocked to find that the baby had developed in the ovary rather than the uterus.

An ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when a fertilized egg develops outside of the uterus, usually miscarries or is terminated by doctors because of the threat it can cause to the mother.

Baby Durga weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces, and both she and her mother are healthy, said Robyn Cahill, general manager of the Darwin Private Hospital.
Related
Elective C-Sections Up Preemie Births
FDA Proposes New Drug Labeling for Women
Shocking the Brain Into Feeling Happy

"We're calling it a miracle," Cahill told The Associated Press.

The baby's father, Ravi Thangarajah, told Nine Network television that doctors had told him, "You're one of the luckiest men in the world at the moment."

But Cahill said the mother had no complications or symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy, and it did not show up on a scan halfway through the pregnancy. She said only 1 in 40,000 fertilizations implant in the ovary, and it is unheard of that one of those fetuses grow to full term, generally 37 weeks.

Durga was born at 38 weeks.

"It is extremely rare," said Mark Erian, a specialist in high-risk obstetrics at the University of Queensland. "I have never seen a case that progresses until fetal viability. She was absolutely lucky to have the pregnancy progress."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Paints damage semen quality: report

2008-05-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 25, 2008
Paints damage semen quality: report

London: Exposure to paints can make you infertile, for a new study has revealed that chemicals used in emulsion damage semen quality in males.

Researchers in Britain have found that men who regularly work with paints that include widely used solvents such as glycol ethers are 2.5 times more likely to have a low sperm count than those who use the substances infrequently.

According to lead researcher Andy Povey of Manchester University, "We know that certain glycol ethers can affect male fertility and the use of these has reduced over the past two decades.
"However, our results suggest that they are still a workplace hazard and that further work is needed to reduce such exposure."

The study, undertaken by the researchers from Manchester and Sheffield Universities, at 14 fertility clinics in 11 cities across Britain, examined the working lives of 2,118 men.

They found that men who had undergone previous surgery to the testicles or who undertook manual work were more likely to have low motile sperm counts, whereas men who drank alcohol regularly or wore boxer shorts were more likely to have better semen quality.

The researchers concluded that, apart from glycol ether, there are currently few work place chemical threats to male fertility. "Glycol ethers continue to be a work place hazard and as such may warrant measures to ensure scrupulous control," the British media quoted Povey as saying.

Added co-researcher Dr Allan Pacey of the University of Sheffield: "Infertile men are often concerned about whether chemicals they are exposed to in the workplace are harming their fertility. Therefore it is reassuring to know that on the whole the risk seems to be quite low." The results of the study have been published in the 'Occupational Environmental Medicine' journal.

© Copyright 2008 HT Media Ltd. All rights reserved.

Older Brain, Wiser Brain

2008-05-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

By SARA REISTAD-LONG
Published: May 20, 2008

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.

Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit.

The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.”

Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.

When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.

“For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”

Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention, like others’ yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speaker’s real impact.

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” Dr. Hasher said. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

In a 2003 study at Harvard, Dr. Carson and other researchers tested students’ ability to tune out irrelevant information when exposed to a barrage of stimuli. The more creative the students were thought to be, determined by a questionnaire on past achievements, the more trouble they had ignoring the unwanted data. A reduced ability to filter and set priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute to original thinking.

This phenomenon, Dr. Carson said, is often linked to a decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Studies have found that people who suffered an injury or disease that lowered activity in that region became more interested in creative pursuits.

Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the current research, said there was a word for what results when the mind is able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place — wisdom.

“These findings are all very consistent with the context we’re building for what wisdom is,” she said. “If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and they’re then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, they’re going to have a nice advantage.” (The New York Times)

Mommy's Bliss Baby's Grief: Harmful Nipple creams

2008-05-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

FDA Warns Mothers About Nipple Cream
FDA warns nursing mothers against using nipple cream
WASHINGTON May 24, 2008 (AP)

nursing mother
The FDA has warned Mommy's Bliss Nipple Cream contains ingredients that may cause respiratory distress, vomiting and diarrhea in infants.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned women not to use or purchase Mommy's Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises Inc. of San Rafael, Calif.

The cream, promoted to nursing mothers to help soothe dry or cracked nipples, contains ingredients that may cause respiratory distress, vomiting and diarrhea in infants, the agency said.

The potentially harmful ingredients in the cream are chlorphenesin and phenoxyethanol.

Mediclaim can't be denied for pre-existing diseases: SC

2008-05-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Mediclaim can't be denied for pre-existing diseases: SC
23 May 2008, 2112 hrs IST,PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has ruled that public sector insurance companies cannot refuse to provide medical cover policies to those suffering from pre-existing diseases and said such an action was arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional.

A bench of Justices S B Sinha and V S Sirpurkar also asked the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) to frame suitable guidelines to ensure that insurance companies, both from public sector and private sector, do not indulge in the unethical practice of denying medical insurance facility to the public.

The apex court said public sector insurance companies in particular cannot indulge in such unhealthy practice as they are "State" within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution and were expected to be fair and reasonable in their dealings with the public.

"Only because the insured had started suffering from a disease, the same would not mean that the said disease shall be excluded. If the insured had made some claim in each year, the insurance company should not refuse to renew insurance policies only for that reason.," the bench said in its judgement.

The apex court passed the observation while dismissing a batch of petitions filed by public sector insurance companies against the Delhi and Gujarat High Court directions that they had no right to deny medical insurance facility to those suffering from pre-existing diseases or diseases contracted during the subsistence of a policy.

The Supreme Court to the rescue of senior citizens

2008-05-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Elderly can't be denied medical insurance: SC
23 May 2008, 0117 hrs IST,Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of senior citizens who are often refused renewal of their mediclaim policies even by public sector insurance firms only because they need frequent hospitalization which leads to higher reimbursement claims.

The court has frowned upon the practice of insurance companies seeking hefty increases in the renewal premium - a clear disincentive for elderly policy holders - as also the insistence on excluding cover for a particular ailment for which hospitalization is required.

The court asked public sector insurance companies not to follow their private sector counterparts in heartlessly turning down requests for renewal of mediclaim policies just because their clients had to be hospitalized.

The Centre, through solicitor general G E Vahanvati, argued that the insurance sector had been opened up and such conditions relating to societal obligations on the public sector players alone would put them in a position of disadvantage vis-a-vis private players.

Differentiating between public-sector and private insurance companies, a bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and V S Sirpurkar said the action of government-supported companies, which could be classified as "state", must be fair and reasonable even in cases of renewal of mediclaim policies.

Observing that it would be unfair on the part of public sector insurance companies to deny senior citizens their rights to hold a mediclaim policy, the court also took a dig at the government’s catchy ‘‘Health for All’’ policy and the abysmal ground realities.

"On one hand, we cannot forget the new market economy and the foreign direct investment, but on the other,
we also cannot shut our eyes to the ground realities. There is a huge gap between the high-sounding words of the government and the realities on the ground," said Justice Sinha, writing the judgment for the bench.

The court agreed with the solicitor general that onerous conditions could not be binding on one player, disadvantaging it in a free market economy, but at the same time, it refused to compromise on its view that PSUs had to share the social commitment objectives propagated by the government.

Anguished at the prevalent practices relating to renewal of mediclaim policies, the court asked the regulatory body, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, to lay down clear guidelines that would be applicable to all players - public sector companies as well as private ones.

Three senior citizens had moved the Gujarat HC against the arbitrary refusal of public sector insurance companies to renew their mediclaim policies even though they had paid the renewal premium. The HC had ruled in their favour. The insurance companies challenged the verdict in the SC.

In the first case, an old man had to undergo angioplasty twice in three years. Though the expenses were reimbursed, the insurance company demanded 300% increase in the premium. When the insured agreed to this and paid the money, the company wanted to exclude heart ailments from his insurance cover.

In the second case, a neurologist, practising since 1961, was also subjected to similar treatment and told that his mediclaim policy would be renewed only if the ailment, which was requiring frequent hospitalization, was excluded from the policy. In the third case, the policy was abruptly cancelled and the insurer was asked to take a policy from another company.

(dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com)

Pune Doctors laparoscopically removes 410 gm adrenal tumour

2008-05-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

Pune doctors seek Guinness fame
21 May 2008, 0529 hrs IST,Umesh Isalkar,TNN

PUNE: A team of surgeons of the Ruby Hall Clinic recently laparoscopically removed an enormous 13.5 cm adrenal tumour weighing around 410 gm from a 36-year-old man. It was done while operating him for adrenal malfunctioning.

This is the first of its kind laproscopic operation in the world in which a tumour of such huge size has been removed, they claim. The surgeons have applied with the Guinness Book of World Records to get a mention of their surgical feat in the book.

"Normally, tumours measuring more than 7 cm are removed through open surgery. The biggest tumour removed laparoscopically before this measured around 9.5 cm. The one we removed measured 13.5 cm and this is a record," said Dr Shashank Shah, one of the senior surgeons in the team.

The patient reported severe right side abdominal pain. He had this complaint for more than three months. "He came to the clinic when the pain started worsening," said Dr Shah. Besides, the patient was also suffering from vomiting intermittently and restlessness, said Shah.

After medical investigations, we found a huge tumour just below the
liver and above the kidney, said
Dr Sanjay Ambagade, one of the team members. The patient weighed 135 kg. Considering the patient's high body mass index, it was difficult to conduct an open surgery due to lot of fat obstruction.
"Even if we had opted for open surgery, the post-operative management would have been difficult both for the patient and the doctors. Therefore,
we decided to go for laparoscopy after getting the patient's consent," said
Ambagade.

With an incision of 4.3 cm, the operation lasted around three-and-a-half hours. A huge tumour made up of adenoid cells and firm in consistency was taken out with the help of abdominal retractor, said Dr Ambagade.
The operation was performed on May 1 and the patient was given discharge on May 4 and now he is doing well, said Dr Ambagade. Dr Jayshree Todkar was one among the team of three surgeons who achieved this surgical feat.

Lifestyle diseases to cost India $237 bn by 2015

2008-05-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

Lifestyle diseases to cost India $237 bn by 2015
20 May 2008, 0304 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: Smoking, consuming high-calorie fast food and being a couch potato will not only cut short your lifespan but will also cost the country dear.

A report, jointly prepared by the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum, says India will incur an accumulated loss of $236.6 billion by 2015 on account of unhealthy lifestyles and faulty diet.

The resultant chronic diseases - heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and respiratory infections - which are ailments of long duration and slow progression, will severely affect people's earnings.

The income loss to Indians because of these diseases, which was $8.7 billion in 2005, is projected to rise to $54 billion in 2015. Pakistan would face an accumulated loss of $30.7 billion with income loss increasing by $5.5 billion to $6.7 billion by 2015.

China, however, will be worse off. While its accumulated loss will stand at $557.7 billion, the loss of income of the Chinese will stand at $131.8 billion, almost eight times what it was in 2005.

According to the report, which was released at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Monday, 60% of all deaths worldwide in 2005 - 35 million - resulted from noncommunicable diseases and accounted for 44% of premature deaths.

What's worse, around 80% of these deaths will occur in low and middle-income countries like India who are also crippled by an ever increasing burden of infectious diseases, poor maternal and perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies.

Almost half of those who die from chronic diseases will be in their productive years.

The report also points to the fact that countries like Brazil, China, Russia and India currently lose more than 20 million productive life-years annually to chronic diseases. And the number is expected to grow by 65% by 2030.

Calling for the promotion and implementation of workplace health programmes globally, the report says it is possible to influence the health behaviour of a large chunk of the population through workplace environments.

In 2007, nearly 3.1 billion people were economically active. The figure is estimated to exceed 3.6 billion in 2020.

"The cost to employers of morbidity attributed to non-communicable diseases is increasingly rapidly. Workplaces should make possible healthy food choices and support physical activity. Unhealthy diets and excessive energy intake, physical inactivity and tobacco use are major risk factors for non-communicable diseases," the report said.

The study cited scientific evidence that healthy diet and adequate physical activity - at least 30 minutes of moderate activity at least five days a week - helped prevent NCDs.

How to combat, prevent and control NCD is one of the main agenda items in this year's WHA, that kicked off on Monday.

WHO has already prepared a draft plan in order to guide member states like India in working towards initiating a national programme to control NCDs. The plan asks member countries like India to reduce the level of exposure of their population to common modifiable risk factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and alcohol consumption.

India has already initiated a National Programme for Prevention and Control of Diabetes, CVDs and Stroke through a pilot project launched in seven states. Health minister A Ramadoss expressed concern.

"In India, 10% of adults suffer from hypertension while the country is home to 25-30 million diabetics. Three out of every 1,000 people suffer a stroke. The number of deaths due to heart attack is projected to increase from 1.2 million to 2 million in 2010," he said.