Month: March 2014

Depression, anxiety lead to loss of teeth

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Depression and anxiety may be associated with dental decay and tooth loss, a new study has claimed.

Tooth loss from caries and periodontal disease is an outcome from complex, chronic conditions. Seve-ral biopsychosocial factors are involved, including accessing care, said R. Constance Wiener from West Virginia University.

Individuals reporting dental anxiety may avoid dental care and individuals with depression may be negligent in self-care, Wiener said. Experts examined a potential association of tooth loss with depression and anxiety by using data of 451,075 respondents. Analysis involved frequency, Chi square analysis, and complex survey logistic regression. Participants eligibility included being 19 years or older, and having complete data on depression, anxiety and tooth loss.

There were 76,292 eligible participants and 13.4 per cent reported anxiety, 16.7 per cent reported depression, and 5.7 per cent reported total tooth loss.

In Chi-square analysis by tooth loss: depression, anxiety, and a combined category of depression or anxiety were significantly different in tooth loss participants without the conditions, researchers said.

Source: The Asian Age

Stress linked to infertility in some women

Women trying to get pregnant are often told, “Relax and it’ll happen.”  It turns out that the common advice may actually have some merit, according to a new study that suggests stress is linked to fertility problems.

Women who had high levels of a biomarker for stress in their saliva took 29 percent longer to become pregnant, compared to those with lower levels, a study published Monday in the journal Human Reproduction found. And those with high levels of the stress indicator were also twice as likely as others to meet the clinical definition for infertility — having unprotected sex for 12 months without becoming pregnant —by the end of the study.

It’s a common tale: women get pregnant while on vacation, or women with infertility problems become pregnant after adopting, said the study’s lead author, Courtney Lynch, director of reproductive epidemiology at The Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. That’s not always a coincidence, she said.

The new study focused on 401 women ages 18 to 40 who had just decided to try to conceive. The women, who had no known fertility problems at the start of the study, were followed for 12 months, or until they became pregnant.

Saliva samples were collected from the women at the beginning of the study and analyzed for two stress biomarkers: cortisol and alpha-amylase, a digestive protein found in saliva. While levels of cortisol — the hormone most usually associated with stress — didn’t seem to be important, levels of alpha-amylase seemed to predict which women would have the easiest time getting pregnant.

In the big fertility picture, however, stress “is a minor issue,” compared to other factors that can affect it, such as blocked tubes, ovarian problems, smoking or age, Lynch said.

The point of the new research isn’t aimed at blaming the victim, she added. One-third to one-half of fertility issues are related to male factors. “Reducing stress won’t help if your husband has a low sperm count,” she said.

There is no current easy test to see who is is vulnerable to stressors, Lynch said, noting that’s a next step in the research. Infertility specialist Dr. Suleena Kansal Kalra, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, says the new research is interesting, but infertility is a complex problem.

“Women who are doing everything they can to get pregnant often are told by well-meaning people, ‘If you would just relax you would get pregnant.’ That can be very counterproductive.”

Still, women can try to control certain stress factors, perhaps even as soon as they decide they want to become pregnant, said Lynch. A solution can be as simple as making time to exercise 20 minutes to 30 minutes per day.

Abby David, 39, started trying to conceive a decade ago. At the time, she was teaching children with developmental disabilities from 7:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. each day and also trying to start a new school for children with autism. After a year of trying, David started therapy to stimulate her ovaries, to no avail. Only after her school finally opened, did she conceive — with triplets.

If she’d known link between stress and infertility, she might have scaled back, she said. “When you don’t know if you’ll ever have kids, you’re willing to do whatever it takes,” David said.

Some studies show complementary therapies such as acupuncture can help with stress and infertility, said Dr. Joseph Sanfilippo, vice chairman of reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

The bottom line, Sanfilippo said, is there is a delicate balance in the system that controls a woman’s reproductive cycles. “The hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis is the orchestra leader,” he explained. “It’s finely tuned. And stressors can affect it. Diet and exercise can help control stress. Beyond that, I say, look at the menstrual cycle if you are under a lot of stress. If it’s pretty regular, theoretically stress shouldn’t be affecting ovulation.”

Source: today

Is homework making your child sick?

New research shows that some students are doing more than three hours of homework a night — and that all that school work may be literally making them sick.

It may be tempting to dismiss this latest research, conducted in upper-middle-class areas, as yet another manifestation of the eccentricities of the affluent. This is, after all, the same demographic that recently brought us eye-roll-inducing news stories about $250-an-hour tutors who drill preschoolers on their ABCs and 1-2-3s.

Could it be that a few short years later those same tots have graduated to marathon homework sessions?
“The three hours of homework a night was an average, by the way,” says Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate

School of Education

The researchers sought to examine the relationship between homework load and student well-being and engagement, as well as to understand how homework can act as a stressor in students’ lives.

Their findings were troubling: Research showed that excessive homework is associated with high stress levels, physical health problems and lack of balance in children’s lives; 56% of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives.

And while some of the grousing about having too much homework and feeling stressed out may seem like typical adolescent complaints, this latest study joins a growing body of research that paints a disturbing tableau about the unrelenting pressure on privileged children.

That children growing up in poverty are at-risk for a number of ailments is both intuitive and well-supported by research. More difficult to believe is the growing consensus that children on the other end of the spectrum, children raised in affluence, may also be at risk.

“Parents’ first responsibility is to the health of their child,” Pope says. “Parents need to be advocates and cheerleaders, not graders and correctors. And you certainly don’t want to say to your kid, ‘Give me half of the homework!'”

Parents need to advocate for their children with the tools and numbers and research in hand. We’re talking about respectful dialogue.”

Source: CNN

Drug-resistant TB a “global health security risk,” WHO says

Half a million people fell sick with dangerous superbug strains of tuberculosis (TB) in 2012, but fewer than one in four were diagnosed, putting the rest at risk of dying due to the wrong medicines or no treatment at all.

Latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which says drug-resistant TB is a “global health security risk,” showed a third of the estimated 9 million people who contract TB in any form each year do not get the care they need.

This has led to drug resistance spreading around the world at an alarming rate and has given rise to incurable strains of the bacterial infection — known as totally drug-resistant TB — which cannot be treated with any known medicines.

“Earlier and faster diagnosis of all forms of TB is vital,” said WHO director general Margaret Chan as the U.N. health agency published new TB data on Thursday. “It improves the chances of people getting the right treatment and being cured, and it helps stop spread of drug-resistant disease.”

Last year the WHO called for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) to be recognized as a public health crisis. It says the contagious, deadly superbug forms of the disease carry “grave consequences for those affected.”

Treating even regular TB is a long process. Patients need to take a cocktail of antibiotics for six months and many fail to complete the treatment.

This in turn has fuelled the emergence of drug-resistant TB — a man-made problem that has grown in the past decade because people sick with regular TB were either being given the wrong medicines or wrong doses or did not complete their treatment.

Diagnosis gap

Experts say one of the major hurdles to tackling drug-resistant strains effectively is that so many patients who have contracted them do not know it and so continue with the wrong treatments or are not treated at all.

Some of the poorest and most ill-equipped countries have only one central laboratory, which often has limited capacity to diagnose MDR-TB. In other cases, patient samples have to be sent to other countries for testing.

Traditional diagnostic tests can take more than two months to get results, leaving a dangerous gap in which the patient is not getting the right treatment and is putting others at risk of catching the contagious disease.

The WHO says up to 2 million people worldwide may be infected with drug-resistant TB by 2015.

Newer, speedier diagnostic tests have been developed in recent years, but the problem has been getting the technology and know-how to the countries where they are needed most.

However, Chan cited encouraging signs from an international project known as EXPAND-TB (Expanding Access to New Diagnostics for TB), financed by UNITAID, which has helped to triple the number of MDR-TB cases diagnosed in participating countries.

In 2009, UNITAID backed the EXPAND project with $87 million US to new TB diagnostic technologies in 27 low- and middle-income countries, which together account for around 40 per cent of the global MDR-TB burden.

“The gap in access to TB diagnostics and care is far from filled, but it is narrowing,” said Mario Raviglione, director of WHO’s global TB program. “Increased capacity and reduced prices mean that we can reach more people.”

Source: cbc news

Experimental J&J psoriasis drug shows promise in study

An experimental Johnson & Johnson drug for moderate to severe psoriasis proved significantly better at clearing the scaly, uncomfortable skin patches associated with the disease than a placebo, according to data from a midstage study presented on Saturday.

The J&J biologic medicine, guselkumab, achieved the main goal of the Phase II study at all five dosing regimens tested by clearing or reducing the psoriasis to a minimal measure after 16 weeks of treatment in a far greater percentage of patients than in the group that received a placebo. It also appeared to be as good as or more effective than AbbVie’s big selling Humira at four of the tested doses.

“The efficacy of guselkumab in the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis looks promising according to these Phase IIb study results,” Dr. Kristina Callis Duffin, one of the study’s investigators, said in a statement.

Results were determined using Physician Global Assessment (PGA) scores – a zero to 5 scale in which 0 indicates the disease has been cleared, 1 represents minimal disease and 5 indicates the most severe symptoms.

Guselkumab led to scores of 0 or 1 in as high as 86 percent of patients who received 100 milligrams of the drug every eight weeks, and in 83 percent of patients who were injected with 200 mg of the J&J medicine at the start of the trial and at week 4 and then every 12 weeks.

At the lower end, 34 percent of patients who got 5 mg of the drug to start and at week 4 and then every 12 weeks achieved PGA scores of 0 or 1. That was still deemed to be statistically significant compared with 7 percent for those who got a placebo.

In the Humira (adalimumab) group, 58 percent had scores of 0 or 1 after 16 weeks of treatment.

Results of the 293-patient trial, dubbed X-Plore, were presented at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) meeting in Denver. J&J has not yet said which of the treatment regimens would be advanced to larger, pivotal Phase III trials.

Guselkumab, which would be a follow-up treatment to J&J’s Stelara, works by blocking interleukin-23, or IL-23, a protein that has been associated with chronic inflammation and is believed to play a role in psoriasis.

Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said the drug “is really under the radar right now.” He currently sees sales reaching about $500 million several years after approval, but said estimates could change if later Phase III data were impressive.

In addition to the primary goal, significantly higher proportions of guselkumab patients achieved at least a 75 percent improvement in psoriasis as measured by the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI 75) at week 16. Those results ranged from 44 percent of patients taking the lowest dose up to 81 percent at higher dosing regimens. That compared with 5 percent for placebo and 70 percent for Humira.

A 90 percent improvement was seen in as high as 62 percent of patients who got 100 mg of guselkumab every eight weeks.

The results remained consistent or showed additional improvement after 40 weeks of treatment, the company said.

After a year of treatment, serious adverse side effects were reported in 3 percent of those treated with guselkumab and 5 percent for Humira.

There were no cases of tuberculosis or opportunistic infections. One guselkumab patient reported a malignancy and there were three major adverse heart events, including one fatal heart attack, in patients with pre-existing cardiovascular risk factors, the company said.

Psoriasis, an immune-system related disease that causes an overproduction of skin cells resulting in patches of thick inflamed skin covered with silvery scales, affects 125 million people worldwide and about 7.5 million Americans, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation.

Source: healcon

Can drinking water lead to weight loss?

Drinking water is often advised as a way to quicken the weight loss process. However, a nutrition expert from the University of Alabama in Birmingham says water isn’t the ‘magic bullet’ for losing weight. ‘There is very little evidence that drinking water promotes weight loss; it is one of those self-perpetuating myths,’ said Beth Kitchin, Ph.D., R.D., assistant professor of nutrition sciences. ‘I’m not saying drinking water isn’t good; but only one study showed people who drank more water burned a few extra calories, and it was only a couple of extra calories a day.’

Kitchin says another ‘water myth’ is the old advice to drink eight 8 oz glasses per day. ‘Yes, people do need to get fluids; but it does not have to be water,’ Kitchin said. ‘There’s no evidence that it melts away fat or makes you feel fuller, so if you don’t like water it’s OK.’ She notes that water is the best hydrater, but in terms of fluid replacement other options will work, including green tea or mineral water/juice combinations.

Caffeinated beverages such as coffee also provide hydration. ‘People think coffee doesn’t count, but actually it does,’ Kitchin said. ‘When you drink coffee, your body is retaining much of that fluid — especially for people who are habituated to drinking caffeine, as the body adapts, resulting in a reduced loss of fluids.’

The idea that cold water burns more calories, as the body has to work to raise the temperature, is also a myth, according to Kitchin. ‘You will hear that ice-cold water helps burn extra calories,’ Kitchin said. ‘While there may be a few extra calories lost, it won’t be nearly enough to make a dent in your weight-loss endeavours.’ The professor recommends following a long-running, research-based weight management program such as Eat Right by UAB or Volumetrics.

‘These plans were built on the premise that if you eat lower-calorie, ‘heavier’ foods, you’re not going to magically lose 25 more pounds than somebody on a different diet, but it might help you feel fuller and not hungry,’ Kitchin said. ‘While drinking water may not help you lose weight, a focus on eating foods with high water content like fruits, veggies and broth-based soups can.’

Source: The Health site:

Pancreatic cancer and diabetes may be linked

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Australian researchers have found that there is an association between pancreatic cancer and diabetes, reports PTI.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne reviewed data from 1973 to 2013 to conclude there was a time-dependent link between being diagnosed with diabetes and pancreatic cancer. The review of 88 international studies to date, is the largest analysis on the topic published, researchers said.

Dr Mehrdad Nikfarjam, liver, pancreas and biliary specialist from the Department of Surgery at the University of Melbourne said pancreatic cancer was often diagnosed when at an advanced, incurable stage.

“This is an important paper that highlights for doctors and in patients with newly diagnosed diabetes without an obvious cause, a diagnosis of underlying pancreatic cancer should be considered,” Nikfarjam said.

“The study revealed the risk of pancreatic cancer was greatest after the diagnosis of diabetes but remained elevated long after the diagnosis. The presence of diabetes remains a modest risk factor for the development of a cancer later in life,” he added.

“The priority on screening should be on patients with new-onset diabetes but can later be expanded to long-standing diabetic patients,” said Nikfarjam.

“New onset diabetes is more prevalent in people over the age of 55. It may be important to consider screening all newly diagnosed diabetics for pancreatic cancer, particularly those without significant risk factors for developing diabetes in the first place,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Annals of Surgical Oncology.

Source: The free Press Release

India still home to quarter of global TB cases

Despite having a strong public sector programme to contain the disease, tuberculosis still remains a cause of concern for India, which has nearly a quarter of the global burden of TB, health experts said.

Experts said measures which can help strengthen the fight against the disease include involvement of the private sector, more political commitment to create awareness and containing risk factors like malnutrition.

“TB is still a cause for concern. It is the sheer numbers in India and the associated problems like poverty which are responsible for this,” Soumya Swaminathan, director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, an organization under the health ministry, told IANS.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 2.2 million tuberculosis patients in India, which makes it the world’s highest TB-burden country. TB killed 1.3 million people worldwide in 2012 and India alone accounted for 26 percent of the total cases.

She said that China and Brazil have done better in controlling TB in their respective countries and India needs to do more.

“In eight years, India has made tremendous progress as far as containing TB. But it needs to do much more,” she added.

But R. S. Gupta, deputy director general (TB) in the health and family welfare ministry, said: “Treatment success rates have been above 85 percent for several years in the country.”

Gupta told IANS that the overall quality of TB services, including human resources and systems for financial management are being strengthened.

To achieve the National Tuberculosis Programme’s (NTP) ambitious goal of universal health care access for all people with TB by 2017, financial commitments must be maintained by all partners, including international agencies, he said.

The state-run tuberculosis control initiative of the government, NTP provides free of cost, quality anti-tubercular drugs across the country. More than 1.5 million people avail the facility at 13,000 centres.

Gupta said that the private sector should be involved more as most patients are being treated in private clinics.

Agreed Swaminathan, who said that the government needs to work in tandem with the private sector.

“Standard procedures need to be followed for notification of the disease and diagnosis, especially by private practioners,” Swaminathan told IANS.

In 2012, India declared TB to be a notifiable disease. It means that with immediate effect all private doctors, caregivers and clinics treating a TB patient had to report every case to the government.

According to a recent WHO report, India has achieved the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) target for TB which says that the incidence of the disease should be falling. It is on track to reach the 2015 targets for reductions in TB prevalence and mortality.

But it added that India accounts for 31 percent of the estimated 2.9 million missed TB cases — people who were either not diagnosed or diagnosed but not reported to NTP.

It is estimated that about 40 percent of the Indian population is infected with TB bacteria, the vast majority of whom have latent rather than active TB.

Listing the other steps needed, Swaminathan said: “Getting more political commitment and activism from civil society to create awareness about TB like it was done in the case of HIV/AIDS would be a great help.”

India also needs to contain the risk factors associated with the disease. The biggest among them is malnutrition, which makes people more susceptible to the development of active TB. Tuberculosis patients have lower Body Mass Index (BMI), muscle mass and subcutaneous stores of fat.

“Malnutrition is the biggest risk factor and it has been overlooked,” she said, adding that the “disease needs to be fought on a common platform by all stakeholders.”

Source: Zee News

 

Stem cells may help cure bladder issues

Scientists have now managed to produce tissue from human stem cells that could be transplanted into patients with defective or diseased bladder, says a study.

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in coaxing laboratory cultures of human stem cells to develop into the specialized, unique cells needed to repair a patient’s defective or diseased bladder.

The breakthrough was developed at the University of California’s (UC) Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures and published in the scientific journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

It is significant because it provides a pathway to regenerate replacement bladder tissue for patients whose bladders are too small or do not function properly, such as children with spina bifida and adults with spinal cord injuries or bladder cancer, reported Science Daily.

“Our goal is to use human stem cells to regenerate tissue in the lab that can be transplanted into patients to augment or replace their malfunctioning bladders,” said Eric Kurzrock, professor and head of the division of paediatric urologic surgery at UC Davis Children’s Hospital and lead scientist of the study.

Another benefit of the UC Davis study is the insight it may provide about the pathways of bladder cancer, which is diagnosed in more than 70,000 Americans each year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Source: business standard

Woman dies after injecting Vaseline into breasts

A 39-year-old Argentinean woman died after attempting to enhance the size of her breasts by injecting them with Vaseline

Sonia Perez Llanzon was admitted to the Lucio Molas hospital in Santa Rosa, Argentina after experiencing trouble breathing. Though Llanzon initially denied what she had done, she eventually confessed to doctors that she had injected herself with Vaseline several weeks earlier in the hopes of making her breasts larger. Doctors found several lesions on both breasts as a result of the home injections.

The Vaseline had entered Llanzon’s blood stream, causing blood clots that travelled to her lungs. Llanzon experienced a pulmonary embolism – a blockage of an artery in her lung – which resulted in her death.

“In all my medical career, I’ve never seen a case like this. The human body has antibodies to remove bacteria and viruses, but it hasn’t got any mechanisms against this type of product,” Julio Pla Cardenas, chief of surgery at Lucio Molas told La Capital.

Pla Cardenas said he has noticed an increasing number of people using Vaseline injections as a form of body augmentation, including men who have injected the product in the hopes of enhancing penis size.

Source: Fox news