Month: November 2013

Rotavirus Vaccination Protect Children Against Seizures

A new study suggests an additional—and somewhat surprising—potential benefit of vaccinating children against rotavirus, a common cause of diarrhea and vomiting. Besides protecting kids from intestinal illness caused by rotavirus, immunization may also reduce the risk of related seizures, according to findings published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online.

Lead study author Daniel C. Payne, PhD, MSPH, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and colleagues from CDC and other institutions carried out a retrospective analysis that included roughly a quarter of a million U.S. children born between March 2006 and November 2009. All were enrolled in the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a nationwide project that collects data for vaccine safety research, and included 186,502 children fully immunized against rotavirus (74.4 percent) and 64,099 who were not (25.6 percent).

The researchers found that children who were fully vaccinated against rotavirus had an approximately 20 percent reduced risk of seizure-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits during the year following vaccination, compared to unvaccinated children. “The protective association we found between rotavirus vaccination and seizures is another good reason for having your child fully vaccinated against rotavirus,” Payne says.

Although several mechanisms could explain the protective association, the most probable, the study authors wrote, is that “vaccination directly prevents systemic rotavirus infection, including extra-intestinal complications involving the central nervous system.” Seizures have been observed in children with acute intestinal illness caused by rotavirus: A large multi-center Canadian study from 2007, for example, estimated that 7 percent of young patients hospitalized with rotavirus illness experienced seizures.

The authors of this latest study estimated that rotavirus vaccination could potentially save more than $7 million in U.S. health care costs each year by preventing approximately 1,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 emergency room visits for seizures among young children. “Caring for children who have seizures can be expensive and emotionally taxing for families,” Payne says. “Seizures sometimes lead to painful procedures, medication regimens, trips to the emergency room, or hospital stays.”

The reduction in seizure risk the researchers found complements the already well-documented benefits of vaccinating kids against rotavirus—declines in doctor’s office visits, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations for severe diarrhea—noted Geoffrey A. Weinberg, MD, of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, in an accompanying editorial.

“Work such as this not only is interesting scientifically, but provides yet another reason to strongly promote universal rotavirus immunization,” Weinberg wrote. “In addition, the work provides us an opportunity to reflect on the fact that sometimes, unexpected effects of vaccination are beneficial and are a cause for celebration, rather than the more commonly publicized concern for unexpected adverse effects.”

Source : ICT

How a Vitamin D test misdiagnosed African-Americans

By the current blood test for vitamin D, most African-Americans are deficient. That can lead to weak bones. So many doctors prescribe supplement pills to bring their levels up, according to NPR.

 But the problem is with the test, not the patients, according to a new study. The vast majority of African-Americans have plenty of the form of vitamin D that counts — the type their cells can readily use.

The research resolves a long-standing paradox, NPR reports.

Source: News Ok

Babies Seem To Know Themselves Soon After Birth

Understanding you exist as a person happens a lot sooner than you might think.

A study involving 40 cute, pudgy babies found that they were aware of their bodies — and even displayed a sense of ownership of them — less than two days after being born.

Both of those qualities are key ingredients in realizing your own existence, says the study’s lead author, Maria Laura Filippetti, a doctoral candidate specializing in cognitive development at Birkbeck College, University of London.

“Body awareness refers to the feeling of being alive,” she told Shots. “Body ownership refers to the feeling of having a body, the sense that this body belongs to me.”

Past studies reveled how important these two aspects of human life were for infants, but this study was the first to discover it in newborns at birth.

How did the researchers figure it out? Filippetti and her colleagues tested the infants’ ability to recognize themselves using a test similar to the old rubber hand illusion.

That test tricks the mind into thinking a fake rubber hand actually belongs to a person’s body. Researchers lightly stroke a person’s real hand with a paintbrush while it’s hidden from his or her view. Simultaneously, the researchers stroke a rubber hand that’s in plain sight. Stroking the two at the same time and in the same places means the person feels the paintbrush while seeing the action elsewhere.

Normally, a person’s brain associates the feeling of one’s hand with the sight of the hand. But the brain can be confused by a trick like this and start to think the rubber hand is the one it should pay attention to.

For the infants, the test was very similar. Again, a paintbrush was used, but this time the researchers stroked the babies’ cheeks as they watched a video of the same thing happening to another baby.

The researchers tested how the babies behaved when the paintbrush was touched at different times and at the same time on their faces. Since babies can’t talk, their researchers gauged the babies’ reactions by measuring how long they looked at the baby in the video, Filippetti says.

“A longer looking time for a stimulus compared to another one is a measure of discrimination and preference for that stimulus,” she tells Shots.

The newborns did watch the other baby in the video longer when the paintbrush strokes on both happened simultaneously, rather than at different times, or not at all. That response to simultaneous stimulation shows a sense of body awareness and ownership, the researchers say. Here’s a video of how the test went.

The researcher also performed a second experiment with a twist: They showed the babies the same video turned upside down. The babies tested didn’t respond to the simultaneous paintbrush strokes.

The study was published Thursday in Current Biology.

Filippetti concedes that her tests don’t prove with absolute certainty that the infants identified themselves. But she says the work suggests that “the same factors known to be involved in body awareness in adults are present at birth.”

Filippetti says that understanding the typical development of self could someday lead to insights into atypical developments, such as autism spectrum disorder.

For the babies in the experiment, a long nap was probably a richer reward than any contribution to science they might have made.

Source: NPR

Video Game Creators Are Using Apps To Teach Empathy

Much of the modern education reform movement has centered around the drive for data. Standardized tests now gauge whether children are at grade level seemingly every few months. Kids are observed, measured and sorted almost constantly.

In Silicon Valley, a $20 billion industry does much the same thing — but for a different purpose.

Video game design has become a data-driven industry where games evolve depending on how they are played.

Now, some game designers are hoping to take these new skills and apply them back to education. But not in a classroom — they want to teach with a game on an iPad.

From Football To Feelings

More than 30 years ago, Trip Hawkins left Apple and founded Electronic Arts, the company behind EA Sports. The man who helped make Madden NFL a cultural icon now has a new vision for games: He wants to teach.

For sports video games, Hawkins brought game designers together with experts in the field — athletes and statisticians. Now he’s bringing counselors into the mix. He wants to give those counselors data about what kids are actually doing in the games they play.

Analyzing data on how people play has become a huge part of the gaming industry.

“It’s incredibly important,” Hawkins says. “In the past you couldn’t do it at all because the customer was playing a game in the basement on a machine that’s not hooked up to the Internet. Once you bring the Internet into the equation, it’s much easier to figure out what your problem is and how to improve the product.”

So now, he says, they can apply that to other new markets, like education and social development.

Hawkins thinks a well-designed video game can teach kids empathy — how to listen to each other and control negative emotions. It could teach children basic skills that would ultimately help them get along better with each other and adults out in the real world.

Working Through Failure

Hawkins has gathered experts in social development and learning, and they’re creating a new game called If. In the game, players visit an imaginary village called Greenberry.

“Greenberry is a world in which there are cats and there are dogs, and they don’t get along well,” says Jessica Berlinski, who helped design and write the game’s story. “So part of the challenge is to figure out why, and then working to heal that.”

As kids progress through the game, they begin to rebuild the village of Greenberry. And kind of like in Pokemon, they collect magical creatures who enhance their power.

Sometimes the creatures might die — but the game does something totally different: It helps them work through it. There’s a virtual counseling session with a community leader, who teaches kids deep breathing exercises and has a dialogue about feelings of loss.

Berlinski, a founder of the educational tech company If You Can, says one goal of the game is to get kids to navigate interpersonal challenges and failures.

“The messaging that kids get in real life and certainly in schools is not that failure is OK — but in game environments, 80 percent of the time, gamers are failing, yet they are completely motivated to keep going,” she says. “So something is going on there that is very positive. And we need to capitalize on that.”

Will It Work?

But Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist at Harvard and author ofThe Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age, is concerned that kids and their parents already spend too much time on devices.

“Nothing — no new app, no new game — can replace the old truth, I think, that children thrive, that families thrive, in the context of healthy real-life relationships,” she says.

Still, Steiner-Adair says, a game that helps kids practice skills like listening and working through difficult emotions might be useful if it’s played in moderation. “I am cautious, but I am guardedly optimistic that there could be some kind of computer game that could strengthen children’s social and emotional intelligence,” she says.

In the end, even Hawkins is the first to admit that kids won’t actually play this game or learn anything unless the game is fun.

And building a kind of virtual counseling session into a fun video game is a tough trick.

Source: KAWC

Headache: Top 5 tests and treatments to avoid

Doctors who specialize in treating head pain, such as chronic migraines, are the latest to list the procedures and treatments they think have risks or costs that may outweigh the benefits to patients.

The American Headache Society’s list is part of the Choosing Wisely campaign from the ABIM Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation established by the American Board of Internal Medicine. The campaign has seen cancer doctors, eye doctors and chest surgeons naming the overused or unproven practices their peers should avoid and patients should question.

The newest Choosing Wisely list was published Thursday in the journal Headache.

“The article and recommendations identify situations that are felt by experts to be cases where patients and doctors should think very carefully before they decide to use that particular treatment or intervention,” said Dr. Elizabeth Loder, an author of the new recommendations.

Loder is the president of the American Headache Society, and chief of the Division of Headache and Pain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

All tests and treatments have risks, Loder said. For example, imaging techniques such as CT scans expose patients to potentially cancer-causing radiation, and certain pain medications sometimes used to treat headaches are easy to get hooked on.

The goal of the recommendations is to encourage discussion between patients and their doctors about which tests are overall beneficial to patients, she said.

“The purpose is to start a conversation about situations, tests, procedures and interventions that do not necessarily benefit the patient, and sometimes can even cause problems,” Loder said.

To come up with the recommendations, Loder and her coauthors asked physician members of the American Headache Society (AHS) to identify tests and treatments they view as being used incorrectly or too often, and which methods of care had benefits too small to outweigh the risks.

The researchers evaluated more than 100 items suggested by AHS members, distilling the list down to five items based on current evidence.

The guidelines advise against imaging the brains of patients who get headaches that have not changed over time.

They also discourage the long-term use of over-the-counter pain pills to treat headaches, and recommend that physicians avoid using certain pain medications – opioids like oxycodone and drugs containing butalbital like Fioricet – for patients who get headaches often.

Finally, physicians should not perform computed tomography, or CT, on a patient with a headache when magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, is available, except if it’s an emergency, the recommendations state.

The recommendations, Loder said, “are a nice distillation for patients when thinking about their care.” Patients and their families can use the guidelines to start a conversation with their doctor about the pros and cons of a given test or procedure.

“In addition to thinking about the good things that may come about from interventions, it’s also important to think about situations in which caution can be used,” Loder told Reuters Health.

Source: Global post

Better diet tied to higher quality of life in old age

Older adults who follow dietary guidelines tend to have a better quality of life and less trouble getting around and taking care of themselves, according to a new study.

Not many prior studies had tried to tackle that issue, researchers said.

“Our paper showed that maintaining an overall optimal diet quality will be beneficial for preserving the general well-being of older adults,” lead author Bamini Gopinath told Reuters Health in an email.

Gopinath is a senior research fellow with the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.

“Adhering to national dietary guidelines which is typified by high intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fish could be beneficial in maintaining a good quality of life and functional ability such as shopping, household duties, meal preparation, and taking their own medication,” she said.

Her study included 1,305 men and women age 55 and over that were part of a large Australian study of common eye diseases and general health.

Participants filled out questionnaires about what they ate and how often in 1992 to 1994.
Researchers scored each person’s diet on a scale from 0 to 20 based the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating. Higher scores indicated better diets.

The one-quarter of participants with the highest-quality diets had scores above 11.1. The one-quarter with the poorest diets scored 8.1 and below, the researchers reported in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Five and ten years after reporting on their diets, participants completed surveys assessing their quality of life with regard to physical health, mental health, social functioning and vitality. Each area was measured on a scale of 0 to 100.

On average, participants with the highest diet scores also reported a better quality of life.

Physical function was almost six points higher among the healthiest eaters than the least healthy. General health was four points higher among healthy eaters and vitality was five points higher.

However, there were no differences on measures of mental health or social functioning, based on diet.

The researchers also assessed how well people could perform basic and instrumental activities of daily living 10 and 15 years after the diet surveys.

Basic activities include being able to eat, dress and groom without assistance and the ability to walk alone. Instrumental activities include the ability to go shopping, use a telephone, handle money and travel beyond walking distance.

There was no difference in how well people performed basic activities of daily living based on their diets. But participants with the highest diet scores were half as likely to be impaired when it came to instrumental activities compared to those with the worst diets.

The findings don’t prove diet, itself, was responsible for the differences in quality of life and how well people performed daily tasks.

But Gopinath believes they could contribute to the evidence needed to come up with strategies that help an aging population make dietary changes.

“If older adults didn’t make healthy choices when they were younger, they may need to change their habits to get the necessary nutrients for a better quality of life. In fact, many older adults are coming up short, when it comes to essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber,” Ruth Frechman told Reuters Health in an email.

She is a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and was not involved in the study.

Frechman said people can turn to the US Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate guide for help with healthy eating.

“To reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, half of the grains should be whole grains, such as whole grain pasta, brown rice or oatmeal. It’s also important to include low-fat or fat-free sources of dairy for healthy bones,” she added.

Source: GMA News

Adopt healthy pregnancy habits to avoid preterm birth

Being pregnant is one of the happiest moments in life. Despite the excitement that comes with it, it could be hard for you as you need to take extra care of your body and the fetus inside you during this time. What is preterm birth? According to World Health Organization (WHO), preterm is defined as babies born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed.

There are sub-categories of preterm birth, based on gestational age:

Extremely preterm (born at less than 28 weeks of pregnancy).
Very preterm (born between 28 to 32 weeks of pregnancy).

Moderate to late preterm (born between 32 to 37 weeks of pregnancy).
Sometimes, even a healthy pregnancy may make you go into preterm labor because it is usually not anticipated. Preterm birth also happens because the causes are not completely understood.

But adopting healthy pregnancy habits may help keep your baby until he or she is fully ready to face the world.

How to prevent it?
Below are some simple tips as suggested by health experts that may help avoid preterm birth:
Eat healthy: This is the time that you eat a balanced diet which is good for you, your baby and pregnancy. Make sure that you get all necessary nutrients in right proportions every day — such as Vitamins A, C, E, omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc and most importantly, the well-known baby- friendly folic acid. This can help avoid preterm labour.
Adopt healthy lifestyle: If you smoke, drink or use any kinds of drugs, you must quit.

Get enough fluids: Remember to take at least 8 glasses of water or fluids daily to keep yourself hydrated. Dehydration can cause premature contractions. Keeping yourself hydrated can also increase the chances of keeping baby put.

Say ‘no’ to stress: Stress is not directly linked to preterm, but try not to take stress for your own benefit during this time. Instead ask for help and try to relax. Check your weight: Gaining too much or too little weight during pregnancy can up your preterm labour risk. Being overweight can increase your odds of getting gestational diabetes and preeclampsia (both of which up preterm) whereas being underweight can advance your due date as well as make your baby born too small.

Prenatal vitamins: Do not neglect taking those pills, they are not just good for you and your growing baby’s health, but will also increase the chances that you’ll carry to term.
Don’t hold your urine: During pregnancy, you should never hold your urine. Doing that can inflame your bladder and as a result of which, your uterus could be aggravated leading to contractions. Holding your pee could also cause urinary tract infections (UTI), another source of preterm contractions.

Source: Journey Line

‘Painful’ pinpricks may soon be history for diabetics

A new nanotechnology-based technique for regulating blood sugar in diabetics may give patients the ability to release insulin painlessly using a small ultrasound device, allowing them to go days between injections – rather than using needles to give themselves multiple insulin injections each day.

The technique involves injecting biocompatible and biodegradable nano particles into a patient’s skin. The nanoparticles are made out of poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) and are filled with insulin.

Each of the PLGA nanoparticles is given either a positively charged coating made of chitosan (a biocompatible material normally found in shrimp shells), or a negatively charged coating made of alginate (a biocompatible material normally found in seaweed).

When the solution of coated nanoparticles is mixed together, the positively and negatively charged coatings are attracted to each other by electrostatic force to form a “nano-network.”

Once injected into the subcutaneous layer of the skin, that nano-network holds the nanoparticles together and prevents them from dispersing throughout the body.

The coated PLGA nanoparticles are also porous. Once in the body, the insulin begins to diffuse from the nanoparticles. But the bulk of the insulin doesn’t stray far – it is suspended in a de facto reservoir in the subcutaneous layer of the skin by the electrostatic force of the nano-network. This essentially creates a dose of insulin that is simply waiting to be delivered into the bloodstream.

Using the new technology developed by Dr. Zhen Gu, senior author of a paper on the research and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill, and his team, a diabetes patient doesn’t have to inject a dose of insulin – it’s already there. Instead, patients can use a small, hand-held device to apply focused ultrasound waves to the site of the nano-network, painlessly releasing the insulin from its de facto reservoir into the bloodstream.

The study has been published online in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

Source: Yahoo News

5 Easy Ways to kick up Your Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical transformations within the cells that is necessary for the maintenance of life. Putting it simple, right from breaking down the food to transforming it into energy, metabolism is the sum total of the entire internal biological processes.

Some people have great metabolism, as what they eat is never seen on their bodies, whereas some have it real slow. Though you can’t blame yourself for the slow metabolic rate you can definitely notch it up by following the simple tips:

Don’t skip your breakfast: ‘Eat breakfast like a king’ goes the adage. Your metabolism slows down during the night and if you skip your breakfast it further goes for a toss to conserve energy. This in turn can lead to unhealthy food choices in the day leading to weight problems. Having a healthy breakfast helps improve metabolism.

Exercise: Muscle burns more calories than fat. So, the harder your muscles work, the more post-workout rebuilding they have to do, thus increasing your metabolic rate. Go for 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day and 30 to 40 minutes strength training twice a week to keep your metabolism up

Switch to Green tea: Green tea contain antioxidant catechin which according to researchers help improve fat oxidation and thermogenesis, your body’s production of energy, or heat, from digestion.

Spice it up: Capsaicin, which gives peppers and spices their heat, helps increase energy expenditure by 50 calories a day. So if you like it spicy, do not worry, all that spice only gives that extra need kick to your metabolism.

Sleep well: Not getting enough sleep throws off your levels of leptin and ghrelin, the hormones that help regulate energy use and appetite thus slowing the metabolism and increasing the risks of obesity.

Source: Mens health

Is Your Child Getting Enough Fiber?

Three out of four children aren’t getting enough fiber, which puts them at high risk for chronic constipation, among other things. Here are some ways to make sure your child isn’t at risk and how to incorporate more fiber in your family’s diet.

Why Fiber is Important 

Fiber is the part of natural foods (plant foods, the only place fiber is found) that isn’t digested. It provides “roughage” for everything that you eat and helps things move through the digestive process. In Dr. Rex Russell’s book, What The Bible Says About Healthy Living, he notes the importance of fiber based on a group of African men, some living in Africa and some attending school in England. The African natives ate a traditional high-fiber diet and rarely needed medical attention. The Africans who were at school in England were enjoying processed foods without fiber. They suffered from episodes of appendicitis, hemorrhoids, ulcers, and gallstones.

The term “processed foods” refers to products made with grains that are heavily processed and very far from their natural state. These include products like enriched macaroni, cookies, cakes, pies, and cereals.

Inadequate fiber intake is also believed to contribute to, and sometimes even cause, heart disease, colon cancer, high blood pressure, and adult onset diabetes. Without sufficient fiber to move food through the body, toxins and bodily waste can fester inside the body for extended periods of time.

A lack of fiber also highly contributes to obesity problems in America. Part of this results from the negligible amount of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed by Americans. Both fruits and vegetables, along with other natural foods, contain two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Soluble is the kind of fiber that changes as it moves through your digestive system, while insoluble doesn’t change; both are equally important.

Soluble fiber is most often found in dried beans, oats, barley, fruits and vegetables. It stabilizes blood sugar, reduces blood pressure and cholesterol, and speeds up your body’s transit time (the time it takes to move food through your digestive system and complete the digestion process). Most Americans’ transit time is around 50 to 60 hours. That’s a long time, considering the normal transit time should be around 12 to 18 hours. (If you’re interested in finding out your child’s transit time, watch her bowels after she’s eaten corn. Since corn does not digest, you will see it in her bowels and be able to estimate her transit time starting from when she ate the corn to when it was in her bowel.

How Much Fiber Do Children Need? 

Currently, children ages four to 19 years get around 12 grams of dietary fiber per day, according to Dr. Christine Williams, previously with the American Health Foundation. Dr. Williams recommends that children get at least their “age plus five” grams of fiber per day. For eight year olds, this means at least 13 grams of dietary fiber per day.

A minimum of five fruits and vegetables per day, as recommended by the USDA Food Pyramid, will give your child a large percentage of his necessary fiber. The remaining amount should come from sources such as whole grain products, beans, nuts, and seeds.

Source: Pediatrics for parents