Month: November 2013

Identical twins share breast cancer, rare surgery

Identical twins Kelly McCarthy and Kristen Maurer have shared a lot in their lives so when one was diagnosed with breast cancer, she urged the other to get tested, too.

“You just do everything together, don’t you,” the doctor told Maurer before delivering the bad news that she, too, had the disease.

Now the 34-year-old twins from Crown Point, Ind., are sharing a medical rarity: Maurer donated skin and fat tissue for McCarthy’s breast reconstruction.

“It wasn’t a question, she didn’t have to ask me,” said Maurer, a college enrollment counselor. “Having a twin is very like having a child. You would do anything for them … in a heartbeat.”

The first successful organ transplant was between identical twins in Boston in 1954 and involved a kidney.

Since then, identical twins have been involved in many other transplant operations, involving kidneys and other organs, bone marrow, and stem cells. But breast reconstruction between identical twins has only been done a handful of times; Maurer and McCarthy, a nurse, are among the youngest patients.

Identical twins are ideal donors because their skin, tissue and organs are perfect genetic matches, explained Dr. David Song, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center. And that eliminates the need for anti-rejection medicine, he said.

Song performed the twins’ surgeries on Tuesday and both fared well.

Typically, breast reconstruction surgery involves implants and/or a woman’s own tissue, sometimes taken from the abdomen, thighs or buttocks. But McCarthy is among women who don’t have enough extra tissue; plus, radiation treatment damaged tissue near her breasts. So Maurer offered to be a donor.

McCarthy said her sister’s sacrifice, “just so I can feel better about myself … is really humbling.”

With their blonde bobs, sparkling brown eyes and easy, engaging smiles, the twins are clearly mirror images of each other. Discovering breast cancer in identical twins isn’t unusual because of their exact genetic makeup, Song said. With twins, there’s also often a “mirroring effect,” with breast cancer developing in the opposite breast, he said. That’s what happened with McCarthy and Maurer.

While their mother died from colon cancer last year, there was no family history of breast cancer.

McCarthy was diagnosed first, in December 2011, with triple-negative breast cancer, a hard-to-treat form of cancer whose growth is not fueled by hormones. She was nine months pregnant and her son was born a week later. Soon after she started treatment, chemotherapy, surgery to remove her right breast, and radiation.

Maurer was diagnosed with a very early-stage cancer in her left breast a few months after her sister.

“Kelly was more upset than I was during my diagnosis, and likewise, when she was diagnosed I was a mess,” Maurer said.

Maurer had a double mastectomy, recommended because her sister’s cancer was so aggressive, but she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation. She had reconstruction with implants after the birth of her second child last March.

McCarthy’s operation this week involved a second mastectomy, and reconstruction of both breasts. Some of her own tissue was used to fashion one breast. At the same time, surgeons essentially performed a “tummy tuck” on Maurer, removing lower abdominal skin and fat tissue and transplanted it to her sister to create a second new breast.

The twins have always been extremely close, sometimes speaking in unison or completing each other’s sentences. But now, McCarthy said, “I feel closer. Her tissue is over my heart.”

Source: Yahoo news

 

Genetically engineered tomatoes could help improve cholesterol levels

Researchers have reported that small amounts of a specific type oflipid in the small intestine could play a greater role than earlier thought in generating the high cholesterol levels and inflammation that lead to cloggedarteries.

The tomatoes, created at UCLA, produce a small peptide called 6F that mimics the action of apoA-1, the chief protein inHDL.

Researchers added 2.2 percent (by weight) of freeze-dried tomato powder from the peptide-enhanced tomatoes to low-fat, low-cholesterol mouse chow that was supplemented with LPAs.

They also added the same dose of the peptide-enhanced tomatoes to the high-fat high- cholesterol diet.

They found that this addition to both diets prevented an increase in the level of LPAs in the small intestine and also stopped increases in “bad” cholesterol, decreases in “good” cholesterol and systemic inflammation. Tomatoes that did not contain the peptide had no effect.

According to senior author Dr. Alan Fogelman, executive chair of the department of medicine and director of the atherosclerosis research unit at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the peptide-enhanced tomatoes may work in large part by reducing the amount of the LPAs in the small intestine.

The study has been published in the Journal of Lipid Research.

Source: News track India

Drinking three cups of tea a day can cut stroke risk by 20

Drinking three cups of tea a day can cut the risk of a stroke by a fifth, research claims.

An overview of previous studies found Britain’s favourite drink protects against the brain clots that kill 200 people every day.

A new study has revealed that just three cups of tea a day can slash the risk of a stroke by around 20 percent.

Source: Express

 

Bird flu strain infects human for 1st time

A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say.

On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu that has been spreading in China since first being identified last spring, which is feared to have pandemic potential.

The woman, 20, was hospitalized in May with a lung infection. After being treated with Tamiflu and antibiotics, she was released. One of her throat swabs was sent to the Taiwan Centres for Disease Control. Experts there identified it as the H6N1 bird flu, widely circulating in chickens on the island.

The patient, who was not identified, worked in a deli and had no known connection to live birds. Investigators couldn’t figure out how she was infected. But they noted several of her close family and friends also developed flu-like symptoms after spending time with her, though none tested positive for H6N1. The research was published online Thursday in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Since the H5N1 bird flu strain first broke out in southern China in 1996, public health officials have been nervously monitoring its progress — it has so far killed more than 600 people, mostly in Asia. Several other bird flu strains, including H7N9, which was first identified in China in April, have also caused concern but none has so far mutated into a form able to spread easily among people.

“The question again is what would it take for these viruses to evolve into a pandemic strain?” wrote Marion Koopmans, a virologist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, in a commentary accompanying the new report.

She said it was worrying that scientists had no early warning signals that such new bird flus could be a problem until humans fell ill. Scientists often monitor birds to see which viruses are killing them, in an attempt to guess which flu strains might be troublesome for humans — but neither H6N1 nor H7N9 make birds very sick.

Koopmans called for increased surveillance of animal flu viruses and more research into predicting which viruses might cause a global crisis.

“We can surely do better than to have human beings as sentinels,” she wrote.

The vaccine news is on the H7N9 bird flu that has infected at least 137 people and killed at least 45 since last spring. Scientists from Novavax Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland, company, say tests on 284 people suggest that after two shots of the vaccine, most made antibodies at a level that usually confers protection.

“They gave a third of the usual dose and yet had antibodies in over 80 percent,” said an expert not connected with the work, Dr. Greg Poland of the Mayo Clinic. “This is encouraging news. We’ve struggled to make vaccines quickly enough against novel viruses,” he said.

Results were published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

In a separate announcement on Thursday, Switzerland-based Novartis announced early tests on its H7N9 vaccine in 400 people showed 85 percent of them got a protective immune response after two doses. The data has not yet been published

Source: Yahoo news

Asthma May Lengthen Time to Get Pregnant

Getting pregnant may take longer for women with asthma, a new study from Denmark suggests.

Researchers analyzed information from more than 15,000 women in Denmark, including 950 who had asthma.

When asked whether they had ever spent more than a year trying to become pregnant, 27 percent of women with asthma said yes, compared to 21 percent

Women were particularly likely to experience a delay in pregnancy if they had untreated asthma, or if they had asthma and were over age 30.

The link between asthma and a prolonged time to pregnancy held even after the researchers took into account factors that could affect pregnancy chances, such as the woman’s age, body mass index and smoking status.

Overall, women with asthma had the same number of children as women without the condition, a finding that may be due, in part, to women with asthma having their first child at younger ages, said study researcher Dr. Elisabeth Juul Gade, of the Respiratory Research Unit at Bispebjerg University hospital in Copenhagen.

The reason why women with asthma generally took longer to become pregnant is not known.

It could be that women with asthma are not able to attempt pregnancy (through unprotected sex) as frequently as women without the condition, said Dr. Avner Hershlag, chief of the Center For Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., who was not involved in the study.

“If you have any major medical condition that really interferes with your daily life, it’s bound to also affect your conception,” or efforts to get pregnant, Hershlag said. “When someone is sick and asthmatic, their focus changes, from ‘I’m going to get pregnant,’ to ‘I’m going to get better,'” Hershlag said.

When a woman is in stable condition and no longer having frequent attacks, she is healthier and her body may be better able to handle pregnancy, Hershlag said.

An earlier study of nearly half a million people found that women with asthma had about the same fertility rate (number of live births per 1,000 people) as those without asthma.

“Long term, there is absolutely no effect on fertility for patients with asthma,” Hershlag said.

However, the researchers hypothesized that asthma could have an effect on the uterus, and thus, potentially impact fertility. At least one previous study found an increased risk of miscarriage among women with asthma.

The inflammation that’s characteristic of asthma has been shown to affect organs other than those of the respiratory system, the researchers said. Such inflammation might alter the blood supply to the uterus, which could impair the ability of an egg to implant there, the researchers said.

Ultimately, more research is needed to determine the reason for the link between asthma and a prolonged time to pregnancy. The researchers are now carrying out such a study, and will ask women about lifestyle factors, to determine if they play a role, Gade said.

The study is published in today’s (Nov. 14) issue of the European Respiratory Journal

Source: Live Science

Eating tips to boost fertility revealed

Women watching their weight and closely following a Mediterranean-style diet that is high in vegetables, vegetable oils, fish and beans may boost their chance of becoming pregnant, according to dietitians.

Brooke Schantz, MS, RD, CSSD, LDN, LUHS, said that establishing a healthy eating pattern and weight is a good first step for women who are looking to conceive.

She said that not only will a healthy diet and lifestyle potentially help with fertility, but it also may influence foetal well-being and reduce the risk of complications during pregnancy.

Schantz said that reduced intake of foods with trans and saturated fats while increasing intake of monounsaturated fats, like avocados and olive oil could help women who are looking to conceive.

Another tip was lower intake of animal protein and adding more vegetable protein and fibre to their diet.

She also said that incorporating more vegetarian sources of iron like legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds and whole grains may help women in their endeavour.

Source: ANI news

 

Let The Sunshine In for Healthy Bones

You may already know that Vitamin D stimulates the absorption of calcium and magnesium, both essential to maintaining strong and healthy bones and living happily without the fear of fractures.

But what is surprising is that scientists agree that dietary sources (like food and supplements) account for very little of the amount of D circulating in our blood.

So where can we get all the Vitamin D we need?

Time to let the sunshine in… Studies have shown that sunlight is an excellent natural source of Vitamin D3, the best form of Vitamin D, also known as Cholecalciferol.

What’s unique about Vitamin D3 is that with the help of the sun, our own bodies can produce it! How beautiful… think about this: we can build healthier bones while our bodies – hand in hand with Mother Nature – do all the work for us.

And as if the Vitamin D benefit wouldn’t be enough, you’ll be happy to know that sunlight triggers an increase in the feel-good brain chemical Serotonin. This neurotransmitter controls sleep patterns, body temperature, our sex drive, and also lifts our mood and wards off depression. No wonder we all have fun in the sun!

Spending just 20 minutes or so a few days a week in the sun, without sunscreen, can provide you with a healthy amount of Vitamin D3, that will help you build stronger bones and improve your mood as well.

It’s important to remember that the fairer your skin the less direct exposure is needed to activate Vitamin D synthesis. For people with very fair skin, just a short burst of sunshine on their skin would also be enough.

And if you’re afraid of the risks of going out to the sun without sunscreen lotion, just remember that the benefits of the moderate sun exposure outweigh the risks.

So go out and enjoy… Oh, and don’t forget to smile.

Source: Save our bones

 

Include broccoli in your diet to keep diseases at bay

Scientists hope that the harvesting of what they call ”booster broccoli” — containing more vitamins and nutrients than other vegetables — will soon begin.

Bred from strains of the vegetable naturally high in antioxidants, it joins a growing crop of ”super foods” that are believed to be good enough to prevent heart disease, cancers and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and help weight control.

Vital Vegetables chairman John says that capsicums with extra vitamins A, C and E levels, and tomatoes that can reduce risks of prostate cancer will be released in the next 12 months.

According to him, supermarkets will soon stock foods ‘boasting higher levels of goodness’ for the time poor.

”Our lifestyles seem to get faster all the time. If you can get the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables through eating less, isn’t that kind of the way we are going in the world these days?” the ‘Age’ quoted him as saying.

”I think consumers are looking at things that are better for them. And here you’re going to get more bang for your bite,” he added.

Two breakfast cereals with the potential to reduce the risk of colon and bowel cancers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and to help control weight were released by the CSIRO last month.

Dr Bruce Lee, director of the CSIRO’s Food Futures National Research Flagship, says that other super grains to be used in breads, biscuits and pasta can be released by 2012.

”You can take supplements or you can get people to eat a healthy diet, but often it is hard to get people to change their dietary habits. ”The beauty of these types of foods is that you can add the wholegrain into the food – you are not forcing consumers to change their diet to something else,” he says.

Source: Indian Express

 

Is pickled turnip a miracle flu remedy? Hardly

“Suguki” – better known as pickled turnip – as a flu remedy, when it is no such thing. Think of this as an urban myth gone viral.

Let’s start with the facts and then move into the dark realm of stark speculation. The source of this story comes from a mouse study conducted by a company that pickles turnips. Their name is Kagome, Ltd., and they are based in Japan. They are, by their own account, pioneers in the Japanese tomato business and offer an impressive array of tomato products – including ketchup and juice. They also pickle turnips, a traditional Japanese food called Suguki. From what I can glean, they are very big in agriculture, and are multi-national. They seem to be very sophisticated.

According to statements issued by spokespeople at Kagome, Suguki contains friendly bacteria called Lactobacillus brevis KB290. This bacterium, they say, may help to stop the flu virus. After all, it helped to stop the virus in some mice.

According to studies found in the U.S. National Library of  Medicine, Lactobacillus brevis KB290 is a beneficial probiotic that shows benefit in improving gut health and enhancing immune function. That’s good, and it is consistent with what a great many other friendly bacteria do in the human body. This strain also may prove beneficial in certain cases of raw fish poisoning caused by a very unfriendly bacterium known as Vibrio parahaemolyticus, but so far the only work on this has been performed with cells in a lab. So wait and see on that one, and don’t let up on hygienic kitchen procedures.

In one published human clinical study, Lactobacillus brevis KB290 consumption led to some improvement in cases of irritable bowel syndrome. In the study, participants who were given capsules of the bacteria fared better than those who had been given a placebo. If other studies continue to show benefit, these bacteria may be one of several useful remedies against this pernicious intestinal problem. That’s definitely a plus.

Now we come to the big flu news that has swept the media. A Kagome-conducted mouse study, published in the November 6 issue of Letters in Applied Microbiology, has caused this frenzy, thanks mostly to a well executed PR campaign.  In the study, 60 mice were divided into three groups. One group was exposed to the H1N1 flu, one group was not exposed to the flu, and one group was given the flu virus and also given the bacteria Lactobacillus brevis KB290. The conclusion. Mice given the bacteria were less likely to catch the flu.

One problem I have with this is that it’s a mouse study and not an especially stunning study at that. Mice are not humans, and the flu virus mutates constantly. So what do we know about the flu protective properties of these bacteria in pickled turnip? Not much.

Even worse, several published stories have suggested thatLactobacillus brevis KB290 may protect us humans (without any science at all to support this) against numerous viral infections, including potentially fatal bird flu. Really? One claim repeated in several stories is that the scientists who conducted the study “think that there could be protection….against the deadly H7N9 flu,” recently found in China. This all sounds very promising, but there is no evidence at all to support this lavish idea. In fact, this is potentially deadly speculation.

Undeterred by the lack of any evidence that Lactobacillus brevisKB290 has anti-flu properties in people, articles have gushed with headlines that jubilantly trumpet “how to prevent flu” and “a new super food to fight the flu,” and on and on, all of them proclaiming Suguki as the second coming. Even worse, when perusing various articles, it’s apparent that most has simply grabbed information from the Kagome Limited website and has culled language from other published stories without doing any real digging into the topic.

As an advocate for safe, effective natural remedies, I’m always happy to spread the word about a good cure from nature. But flu is serious and often fatal, and thousands of people die each year from the flu virus. It’s just plain irresponsible to blare that Suguki, also known as pickled turnip, is a flu buster when there is no evidence to support the claim.

I’ve personally eaten plenty of pickled turnip at sushi restaurants, and I like it very much. But until there is solid, human clinical evidence, published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, showing that Lactobacillus brevis KB290 actually fights flu in humans, don’t give it a second thought. As a food and for enhancing digestion, pickled turnip may be just the thing. But as flu cure? Forget it.

Source: Heal con

Car mechanic invents new device to aid in childbirth

Health experts say the Odon Device has the potential to save lives around the world.

Argentinean Jorge Odon is a car mechanic by trade, and a tinkerer by nature. Recently, Odon watched a video about an easy method for removing a cork stuck in a wine bottle. And in the middle of the night it dawned on him that the same “trick” could be used during childbirth to help a baby that is stuck in the birth canal.

Obstructed labor — when the baby’s head gets stuck in the birth canal — is a major complication of childbirth. Doctors may use forceps or suction cups to try to pull the baby out. These procedures can lead to a number of complications on their own, and still are not guaranteed to succeed. In wealthier countries, the mother and baby may be whisked off to the operating room for an emergency C-section. In poor countries, or communities without access to advanced health care, this type of surgery is not an option.

Odon’s children were fortunately born without complications, but his aunt suffered nerve damage during childbirth, so Odon was familiar with the potential complications. In an interview with the New York Times, Odon explained that after seeing the wine bottle trick, it dawned on him that this could be used during childbirth.

With the help of his wife, he constructed a prototype using his daughter’s baby doll, a glass jar and a fabric bag.

In time, and with several revisions of his design, Odon’s idea — the Odon Device — won the endorsement of the World Health Organization (WHO), big-time donors, and a medical technology company that wants to develop it for production.

Here’s how it works:

Using the Odon Device, a lubricated plastic sleeve is slipped around the baby’s head and inflated until it forms a grip. Doctors then pull on the bag until the baby emerges. According to Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of WHO, the Odon Device has the potential to save babies in poor countries, and reduce the number of emergency cesareans in rich ones.

“The Odon Device, developed by WHO and now undergoing clinical trials, offers a low-cost simplified way to deliver babies, and protect mothers, when labour is prolonged. It promises to transfer life-saving capacity to rural health posts, which almost never have the facilities and staff to perform a C-section. If approved, the Odon Device will be the first simple new tool for assisted delivery since forceps and vacuum extractors were introduced centuries ago,” Chan said in a speech to the 65th World Health Assembly.

Source: mnn.com