Month: February 2014

Diabetes: Tips for stable, steady blood sugar levels

Diabetes is a lifelong medical condition that makes people resistant to insulin, a hormone that allows blood glucose to enter the body’s cells where it is used as energy.

Diabetics have too much glucose in the blood because the body cannot use it properly and they need extra insulin to allow their cells to take in sugar from their blood.

Diabetes has three distinct classifications. These include Type 1 Diabetes wherein a glitch in immune system attacks its own beta cells in the pancreas. A person with type 1 diabetics is dependent on insulin shots for life.
Type 2 Diabetes is triggered by reduced insulin sensitivity combined with reduced insulin secretions. As the disease progresses therapeutic replacement of insulin becomes necessary. The third, gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancies and is fully treatable but requires careful medical supervision throughout pregnancy.

What causes diabetes?
According to experts, nature as well as nurture play a vital role in triggering diabetes. Though, the ailment is said to be passed down from parents to offspring, the gene susceptibility is just 25 percent. A sedentary lifestyle, adhering to unhealthy diet high in saturated fats and junk food, makes us more vulnerable to the ailment.

If diabetes goes uncontrolled it can lead to loss of eye sight, renal failure, cardiovascular problems, gangrene, and amputations, hence maintaining blood sugars within the target range is crucial.

Tips to control diabetes
Though not many can control diabetes without medication, awareness of what makes your blood sugar spike, plus a few simple lifestyle changes can make a real difference.

Diet
In terms of food intake, what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat is paramount for diabetes management. Switch to vegetables and fruits, whole grains, lean meats, or proteins and avoid heavy, processed or refined foods and sweets. Eat five to six small portions throughout the day at a regular time rather than when you feel like it. Balance out all the nutrients in every meal as this will help you keep your insulin level on an even keel.

Regular exercise regimen
Diabetes need to adhere to a regular exercise regimen. Physical activity not only increases insulin sensitivity, but it reduces stress, improves blood pressure and cholesterol and also controls weight. Aim to exercise at least 30 minutes a day, five times a week. Any activity ranging from brisk walking, using stairs instead of elevators, vacuuming that raises metabolic rate and levels out blood sugar counts toward your daily total.

Keeping weight in check
Being overweight is an indicator of diabetes. Excess body fat, especially stored around the abdomen, can increase the body’s resistance to the hormone insulin. Though shedding pounds and keeping it off is a challenging task, losing even a relatively small amount of weight can go a long way in keeping blood sugars levels steady.

Eyes
Visit an ophthalmologist experienced in treating diabetic to look for diseases such as retinopathy, one of the most common complications of the disease.

Quit smoking
Smokers are twice as likely to develop diabetes as opposed to non-smokers. Lighting up reportedly increases insulin resistance and also narrows blood vessels which in turn limit circulation to your legs and feet.

Drink moderately
Excessive alcohol consumption can pile on the pounds and also spike blood pressure and triglyceride levels. Two standard drinks a day for men and no more than one for women is recommended

Get enough sleep
Adjust the hours so that you get a consistent eight hours of shut eye. Researches have established that inadequate sleep has a significant effect on your blood sugar and insulin levels.

Stay hydrated.
Drink water to stay energized and hydrated. Swapping coffee, soda or juices with water will slash the total sugar and calories in your diet. You can add a dash of lemon or lime or an orange wedge for flavor.

Diabetes is serious, but is a manageable disease. Just incorporate these simple tips to prevent or delay some of the serious problems related with diabetes.

Source: the med guru

7 ways to bathe your baby right

Babies smell good and look fresh all the time. But that’s no reason why they should miss out on a good bath. It’s not their fault; often new mums are scared and anxious when it comes to offer a newborn a bath. Sure your newborn doesn’t need all that scrubbing or cleaning like you every day. But they do need a bath to feel fresh and clean. Bathing also has a lot to do with your baby’s wellbeing and the hidden reward is it enhances the mother-baby bonding. Here’s how to do it right

Invest in a good baby bath tub. If you want to invest in a tub that can be used for both babies and toddlers make sure you also buy a bath seat or a bath cradle that supports your baby’s back during the initial months and keeps your hands free for cleaning and sponging your baby. Buy baby towels preferably two, one to wrap your baby and the other to clean your baby. A baby mug, especially designed to restrict too much off water flow at a time. If you plan to give your baby a bath in the family tub get a baby mat.

Make sure you have the tub ready, the towels in place, the baby soap at your reach, the bathroom stool (for you to sit on) next to the baby bath before you start. Set the things right before you enter the bathroom with your baby. Remember you should never leave your baby alone in the tub ever. Your baby can trip and drown even in water as shallow as 3cms. Also in your bedroom keep a diaper and the clothes ready to be worn after the bath.

This is tricky; you need to be very sure about the temperature of water used to bathe your baby. Ideally the water temperature should be 37C. You can use a thermometer to check the temperature. Don’t use your palm or fingers to check if the water is warm, instead dip your elbow. If you feel it’s too hot add water to bring the temperature down.

When you put your baby in the tub, make sure you are still holding your baby with one hand despite the bath seat or the bath cradle. Do not pour water directly into your baby’s sensitive skin. Instead keep your palm between your baby’s skin and the mug. Let the water from the mug fall into your palm first and then on your baby. This way it would save your baby from being hit hard with the gushing water. If your baby can’t sit upright yet then wet her body with your palms or cup water in your palms and bathe your baby.

If you use soap, though it is not recommended for newborns, do not rub the block directly onto your baby’s body. Make a soapy solution in a separate mug and dip a clean hand towel. Rub your baby with the soapy towel gently. Next wash her off as mentioned before

This is quite a task even for moms who are blessed with a second baby. Be very careful while giving a head bath. If your baby is too small, wrap her in a towel and take her in your arms. Let her head rest on the crook of your arms. Cupping water in your palms, gently pour it down your baby’s head. Ideally you can do the same with your toddler too. If you are applying a shampoo make a solution of it and again follow the same process.

Once you are done, pat dry your baby with the towel and rub the head gently. Never be harsh with your baby. Wrap your baby with a dry towel and carry her into the room. Dress her up soon, preferably making her wear the top first and not the diaper. Next help your baby with the diaper and pajama. If it’s windy get the jacket or the sweater. Or just wrap your baby with a blanket. If you have a toddler go to the verandah and play in the sun for a while to warm her up.

Source: the health site

Student With Hole in Heart to Undergo N3.47 million for Surgery

An 11-year-old student of Federal Government College, Gusau has been diagnosed with a heart condition that will cost an estimated N3.47 million for corrective surgery in an Indian hospital.

Ifeoma Igbo was born with patent ductus arterosus (PDA) a congenital heart condition that’s left an open hole at the top of her heart.

She has been hospitalized with a “history of difficulty in breathing and lower respiratory tract infection during infancy and early childhood,” her medical report at Usman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital said.

Dr Usman Sani, consultant paediatric cardiologist at UDUTH, reported a heart murmur on examination but said Ifeoma had been only on “conservative management” and referred her to Madras Medical Mission in Chennai, India for surgery.

Ifeoma’s father, Donatus Igbo, a technician based in Zamfara, said the condition has hugely disrupted his daughter’s schooling.

PDA results when a major vessel at the top of heart crucial to breathing and feeding in foetuses fails to close after birth.

The condition puts a strain on the heart, causing shortness of breath and an increased risk of cardiac arrest.

Last year, a two-year-old girl with PDA successfully underwent corrective surgery at Garki Hospital in Abuja.

Source: All Africa

 

New F.D.A. Nutrition Labels Would Make ‘Serving Sizes’ Reflect Actual Servings

The Food and Drug Administration for the first time in two decades will propose major changes to nutrition labels on food packages, putting calorie counts in large type and adjusting portion sizes to reflect how much Americans actually eat.

It would be the first significant redrawing of the nutrition information on food labels since the federal government started requiring them in the early 1990s. Those labels were based on eating habits and nutrition data from the 1970s and ’80s, before portion sizes expanded significantly, and federal health officials argued that the changes were needed to bring labels into step with the reality of the modern American diet.

“It’s an amazing transformation,” said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the F.D.A. “Things like the size of a muffin have changed so dramatically. It is important that the information on the nutrition fact labels reflect the realities in the world today.”

The proposed changes include what experts say will be a particularly controversial item: a separate line for sugars that are manufactured and added to food, substances that many public health experts say have contributed substantially to the obesity problem in this country. The food industry has argued against similar suggestions in the past.

“The changes put added sugars clearly in the cross hairs,” said Dr. David A. Kessler, who was commissioner during the original push for labels in the 1990s. “America has the sweetest diet in the world. You can’t get to be as big as we’ve gotten without added sweeteners.” Millions of Americans pay attention to food labels, and the changes are meant to make them easier to understand — a critical step in an era when more than one-third of adults are obese, public health experts say. The epidemic has caused rates of diabetes to soar, and has increased risks for cancer, heart disease and stroke.

The proposal will be open to public comment for 90 days, and it will take months before any change is made final. In a special concession to industry, the agency is allowing companies two years to put the changes into effect.

Source: New York Times

MMR vaccine linked to lower risk of serious infections

The MMR vaccine may not only protect you from measles, mumps, and rubella — it may lower your risk of contracting other serious infections as well, according to a new study from Statens Serum Institute in Denmark.

Dr. Signe Sørup, lead author of the paper, said that the findings underscore the numerous benefits of following the immunization schedule that has been a mainstay of public health since the 1970s. “MMR may have a general immune stimulating effect preventing hospital admissions for unrelated infections,” she wrote in an email to Medical Daily. “It highlights the importance of receiving the MMR vaccine on time.”

The study, which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, surveyed nearly half a million Danish children born between 1996 and 2006. Over a period ranging from 11 months to two years, the researchers tracked immunization among these children. Besides an MMR shot at 15 months, the recommended vaccine schedule included shots for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, and Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTaP-IPV-Hib) administered at three, five, and 12 months.

The researchers found that receiving the MMR vaccine on time — that is, after the DTaP-IPV-Hib shot — corresponded to a lower risk of being involved in one of the 56,889 hospital admissions for general infections attributed to the sample. This relationship was particularly clear for lower respiratory tract infections and complications requiring longer hospitalization. But while the results point to new benefits, they also illuminate a waning compliance with public health recommendations.

“The coverage with MMR is suboptimal in many high-income countries; in the present study, about 50 percent of children were not vaccinated on time,” Sørup and colleagues write. “Physicians should encourage parents to have children vaccinated on time with MMR and avoid giving vaccinations out of sequence, because the present study suggests that timely MMR vaccination averted a considerable number of hospital admissions for any infection between ages 16 and 24 months.”

Source: Medical Daily

Admissions closing down:Apply for online clinical research degree

Texila American University‘s distance and online education program is one of the flexible ways for students to get educated being in their own town. Students can be benefited by this flexible Online Learning from Web Campus i.e., TAU Online Learning Management System and earn a online Clinical Research degree

Programs Offered:

1. MSc in clinical Research (Research Based)

Duration : 2 years

2. PhD in Clinical Research (Doctoral Program)

60 credits:
Duration:3 years

75 credits:
Duration:3.5 years

Salient Features of the program

  • International curriculum with all the latest updates in the field included
  • Students from over 50 Countries
  • Better carrier prospects especially in developing counties
  • Knowledge and skill development content included in the curriculum
  • Globally Valid , IAU Listed university offering the Degree
  • Well trained and expert faculty members
  • The unique scope to do article reviews and journal reviews where the selected cases will be published in international journal
  • Get employed in Clinical Research Organizations & Pharmaceutical companies that are in Clinical trials

TAU – UCN Partnership

TAU and UNESCO-IAU (International Association of University) listed Universidad Central de Nicaragua (UCN), have signed an agreement to collaborate academically and also in scientific research. Students will receive degree/certification from UCN.

Apply Online

The better your mood the healthier you eat!

Previous research has found that emotions affect eating, and that negative moods and positive moods may actually lead to preferences for different kinds of foods. For example, if given the choice between grapes or chocolate candies, someone in a good mood may choose the former while someone in a bad mood may choose the latter. The research reported in this article looks at the “why:” Why, when someone is in a bad mood, will they choose to eat junk food and why, when someone is in a good mood, will they make healthier food choices?

To get at the “why,” we married the theories of affective regulation (how people react to their moods and emotions) and temporal construal (the perspective of time) to explain food choice. Conceptually, when people feel uncomfortable or are in a bad mood, they know something is wrong and focus on what is close in the here and now. We hypothesized and demonstrated that this kind of thinking gets us to focus on the sensory qualities of our foods – not things that are more abstract like how nutritious the food is. Analogously, we hypothesized and demonstrated that when people are in a good mood, things seem okay and they can take a big picture perspective. This kind of thinking allows people to focus on the more abstract aspects of food, including how healthy it is.

We studied these hypotheses in four laboratory experiments. In the first study, we investigated the effect of a positive mood on evaluations of indulgent and health foods by examining 211 individuals from local parent-teacher associations (PTAs). Next we studied whether individuals in a negative mood – who had read a sad story– evaluated indulgent foods more positively and whether those who were in a positive mood indicated a desire to remain healthy into their old age. 315 undergraduate students participated in this study. In the third study, involving 151 undergraduate students, we altered participants’ focus on the present versus the future along with their mood and measured how much healthy and indulgent food they consumed. To get more direct insight into the underlying process, the fourth study, involving 110 university students, focused specifically on the thoughts related to food choice and differentiated concrete taste versus nutrition benefits.

Ultimately, the findings of all the studies combined demonstrated that individuals select healthy or indulgent foods depending on whether they are in a good or a bad mood, respectively. The findings also indicate the integral aspect of the time horizon, showing that individuals in positive moods who make healthier food choices are often thinking more about future health benefits than those in negative moods, who focus more on the immediate taste and sensory experience. Finally we found that individuals in negative moods will still make food choices influenced by temporal construal which suggests that trying to focus on something other than the present can reduce the consumption of indulgent foods.

Source: eureka Alert

Study suggests blood pressure should be measured in both arms

New research published in The American Journal of Medicine suggests that there is an association between a difference in interarm systolic blood pressure and a significant increased risk for future cardiovascular events, leading researchers to recommend expanded clinical use of interarm blood pressure measurement.

While blood pressure is a widely used medical metric, most measurements are taken only using one arm. Measuring interarm blood pressure involves taking two readings, one for each arm. Increased interarm systolic blood pressure differences are defined as 10 mmHg or greater, and while a link between interarm blood pressure and cardiovascular risk was suspected, little data existed to support the hypothesis until now.

This new study examined 3,390 participants aged 40 years and older from the Framingham Heart Study. All subjects were free of cardiovascular disease at baseline, but investigators found that participants with higher interarm systolic blood pressure differences were at a much higher risk for future cardiovascular events than those with less than a 10 mm Hg difference between arms.

“In this large prospective, community based cohort of middle-age men and women free of cardiovascular disease, an increased interarm systolic blood pressure difference was found to be present in nearly 10 per cent of individuals and is associated with increased levels of traditional cardiovascular risk factors,” explains lead investigator Dr Ido Weinberg, Institute for Heart Vascular and Stroke Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “Furthermore, an increased interarm systolic blood pressure difference is associated with an increased risk for incident cardiovascular events, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors.”

Researchers also found that participants with elevated interarm blood pressure difference were older, had a greater prevalence of diabetes mellitus, higher systolic blood pressure, and a higher total cholesterol level.

According to these findings, investigators suggest practitioners should consider including blood pressure readings in both arms in order to get the most accurate readings possible and detect any differences in interarm blood pressure.

“Even modest differences in clinically-measured systolic blood pressures in the upper extremities reflect an increase in cardiovascular risk,” says Dr Weinberg. “This study supports the potential value of identifying the interarm systolic blood pressure difference as a simple clinical indicator of increased cardiovascular risk.”

Source: India Medical Times

Eat strawberries to lower bad cholesterol

A rich source of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients, strawberries offer a range of health benefits.

Adding to the long list is a recent study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, which found that incorporating strawberries into your daily diet could help lower cholesterol and boost cardiovascular health.

Researchers from the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy and their colleagues from the Universities of Salamanca, Granada and Seville (Spain) studied 23 healthy volunteers over a month. 500g of strawberries were added to their daily diets and blood samples were taken before and after the experiment.

At the end of the study, the high-density lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol) levels remained unchanged, whereas low-density lipoproteins (LDL or bad cholesterol) and the quantity of triglycerides fell to 8.78 percent, 13.72 percent and 20.8 percent respectively.

Other parameters such as the general plasma lipid profile, antioxidant biomarkers (such as vitamin C or oxygen radical absorbance capacity), antihemolytic defences and platelet function also improved at the end of the study. However, all parameters returned to their initial values 15 days after abandoning the ‘treatment’ with strawberries.

The flavonoids and antioxidants in the fruit prevent buildup of bad cholesterol which can clog the arteries among other cardiovascular benefits.

Including this power packed fruit in your daily diet helps boost immunity, protects against infections, regulates blood sugar levels, suppresses growth of cancer cells, slows down ageing process, prevents hair loss and boosts brain power.

So if you’re not already a fan of red, juicy, heart-shaped delights, then it’s high time that you add it to your daily diet.

Source: Zee news

Eating vegetarian diets may help lower BP

A new study has revealed that eating a vegetarian diet is associated with lower blood pressure (BP), and the diets can also be used to reduce blood pressure.

Factors such as diet, body weight, physical activity and alcohol intake play a role in the risk of developing hypertension. Dietary modifications have been shown to be effective for preventing and managing hypertension.

The authors analyzed seven clinical trials and 32 studies published from 1900 to 2013 in which participants ate a vegetarian diet. Net differences in BP associated with eating a vegetarian diet were measured.

In the trials, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a reduction in the average systolic (peak artery pressure) and diastolic (minimum artery pressure) BP compared with eating an omnivorous (plant and animal) diet.

In the 32 studies, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with lower average systolic and diastolic BP, compared with omnivorous diets.

The study was published in the journal JAMA.

Source: DNA India