Month: April 2014

5 Ways to Use Breathing Techniques to Get a Better Workout

“Don’t hold your breath!” It’s something we’ve all heard before while working out…and for good reason. “When you hold you breath, the energy in your cells plunges and you feel fatigued during your workout way before you should,” says Belisa Vranich, Psy.D., creator of the OXYGEN breathing class at WILLSPACE in NYC.

But that doesn’t mean your regular ol’ breathing pattern will do. You actually need to think about and control your breath during your workout for peak performance. And when it comes to breathing, one method does not fit all workouts. So check out these expert tips on how to breathe during your favorite workouts:

During Weight Lifting
“Inhale on the less strenuous phase of the exercise, and exhale on the more demanding phase of the exercise,” says personal trainer Mike Donavanik, C.S.C.S. If you’re hitting heavy weights, though, Donavanik recommends the Valsalva maneuver: You inhale on the easy part, hold you breath for just a short second as you approach the hardest part of the exercise (commonly called the “sticking point”), and once you’ve completed it, you exhale per usual. The maneuver helps you tighten your core muscles and maintain proper form. However, it does briefly increase blood pressure. So if you have any cardiovascular problems, the move isn’t for you.

During Cardio
“Continuous breathing will help you to increase nitric oxide, an important gas that relaxes the arteries and keeps the blood flow that you need to sustain your rhythmic activity,” says exercise physiologist Marta Montenegro, C.S.C.S. Instead of breathing in an even pattern, though, try inhaling for three seconds and then exhaling for two, suggests Budd Coates, M.S., author of Running on Air: The Revolutionary Way to Run Better by Breathing Smarter. While it takes some serious concentration at first, research shows that the greatest running impact occurs when your foot strike coincides with the beginning of your exhale. So by keeping a 3:2 breath tempo, you’ll minimize your chance of injury.

During Plyometrics
Like we learned with the Valsalva, briefly holding your breath helps stabilize your body, which comes in handy during explosive moves. “Imagine that you are doing a jump to box,” says Montenegro. “Hold your breath when you make contact with the floor so that your body is more rigid, which will help with the rebound.”

During Stretching
Stretching is all about loosening up—so focus on inhaling deeply. It relaxes your muscles so you can get a better stretch and lower your risk of pulling anything, says Montenegro. The exhale will follow naturally.

During Recovery
Ever finished a set of squats, thought “that wasn’t so bad,” and then started huffing and puffing? That’s because your body needs oxygen to replete its energy stores. So in between sets of exercises, practice diaphragmatic breathing, says Donavanik. Diaphragmatic breathing allows you to get more oxygen into your lungs—and to your muscles—per breath so you can hit your next exercise hard. To do it, focus on filling and emptying your abdomen with each breath rather than raising and lowering your chest.

Source: Women’s health

IBM’s Watson supercomputer takes aim at brain cancer

IBM’s Watson supercomputer is being re-tasked to help clinicians create personalized treatments for a common form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The project, which is a collaboration between IBM and the New York Genome Center (NYGC), hopes to make use of Watson’s artificial intelligence to analyze vast quantities of data in order to suggest a personalized life-saving treatment based on the patient’s individual case.

Over the years, Watson has become faster and more compact. It differs from most ordinary computers in that, rather than simply observing patterns in data, Watson will actively learn and apply information to come to a reasoned hypothesis along with a level of confidence. Thus its cognitive process is more like that of a human being than a conventional computer. Furthermore, with the new Watson Discovery Advisor, the processing power and vast medical knowledge of Watson is accessible to clinicians via the cloud, allowing them to draw on the supercomputer’s analytical prowess from wherever they may be.

This is not the first time that Watson has been tasked with aiding in treatment for individuals suffering from cancer. The supercomputer was recently at work at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where it aided and received tutelage from the staff, amassing an impressive medical database.

How will it work?
Watson’s general knowledge is about as comprehensive as it gets, having access to the entire volume of Wikipedia as well as a wealth of information from other sources. However, it is Watson’s ability to understand natural language and sift through vast quantities of case studies and articles, learning as it goes, that will be the key to allowing doctors to tailor patient specific treatments. IBM is hoping to utilize the NYGC’s expertise in the field of genomics to further develop and streamline Watson’s cognitive reasoning in the field of oncology.

Watson will interpret genomic data from a set of patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer responsible for the deaths of around 13,000 Americans each year. The cloud-based prototype will attempt to expose the underlying genetic characteristics of this malignant cancer, using a combination of modern genomic analytics and its extensive bio-medical literature database.

Dr. Robert Darnell, CEO, President and Scientific Director of the NYGC, stated regarding the difficulties of targeted treatment that “The real challenge has been making sense of massive quantities of genetic data and translating research findings into better treatments and outcomes for patients.”

This is where Watson excels, applying its substantial computing power to observe gene sequence variations between ordinary and cancerous tumors. It consults clinical records and medical literature as it does so, swiftly giving doctors a variety of treatments to choose from, tailored to the patient’s individual instance of cancer.

Watson’s ability to achieve this task at a much higher speed than is otherwise possible, will prove to be greatly beneficial to those suffering from glioblastoma, as the general prognosis (depending on the spread of the cancer) is often less than one year. Ordinarily a significant portion of this time is spent interpreting the data manually to divine the best course of treatment. However, with Watson’s computing power, this can be achieved in a fraction of the time, allowing clinicians to begin life-saving treatment much sooner.

Dr. John E. Kelly, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research, believes that application of the cloud-based system will eventually extend beyond the targeted treatment of glioblastoma, stating that “With this knowledge, doctors will be able to attack cancer and other devastating diseases with treatments that are tailored to the patient’s and disease’s own DNA profiles. This is a major transformation that can help improve the lives of millions of patients around the world.”

The following video outlines how Watson will seek to streamline the current treatment process.

source: gizmag

Sleep quality does affect decision-making ability

Fragmented or lower sleep efficiency may affect executive function as it is linked to decline in cognitive abilities of older people over a period of three to four years, a study has found.

Poor sleep quality is associated with a 40 to 50 percent increase in the odds of clinically significant decline in executive function, which was similar in magnitude to the effect of a five-year increase in age.

“This study provides an important reminder that healthy sleep involves both the quantity and quality of sleep,” said M. Safwan Badr, president of American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The study involved 2,822 community-dwelling older men at six clinical centres in the US
Participants had a mean age of 76 years.

An average of five nights of objective sleep data were collected from each participant using a wrist actigraph.

Cognitive function assessment included evaluation of attention and executive function using the Trails B test.

According to the study authors, executive function is the ability for planning or decision making, error correction or trouble shooting and abstract thinking.

The study appeared in the journal Sleep.

Source: Khaleej times

Worst Ebola Outbreak in Seven Years Kills 83 in Guinea

The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in seven years climbed to 83 in Guinea as the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said the disease’s geographical spread marks the flare-up as unprecedented.

In neighboring Liberia, one of two confirmed cases has died, while a second person who died with a suspected Ebola infection tested negative for the virus, the World Health Organization said in a statement. Both confirmed cases in Liberia were exposed to Ebola in Guinea, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, said on Twitter.

The outbreak is the first in Guinea, which reported five new cases, raising the total to 127 suspected or confirmed illnesses, Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman in Guinea, said today. The pattern of infection, with patients found in the coastal capital of Conakry as well as villages in the country’s southern area, marks this outbreak as different, according to Mariano Lugli of Doctors Without Borders.

“We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases,” Lugli, coordinator of the organization’s project in Conakry, said in a statement. The group “has intervened in almost all reported Ebola outbreaks in recent years, but they were much more geographically contained and involved more remote locations.”

Guinea’s government has asked people not to eat monkeys, chimpanzees and bats and to avoid travel in the affected areas, while Senegal closed its southern border with Guinea. The WHO said it doesn’t recommend any restrictions on travel to or trade with Liberia or Guinea.

No cases have been reported in Sierra Leone, which shares borders with Guinea and Liberia near the worst affected area.

Serious Threat

The Economic Community of West African States expressed “deep concern” over the outbreak and asked for international help in combating the “serious threat” to regional security.

The Guinean towns of Gueckedou and Macenta, near the border with Liberia, have been hardest hit, with 55 and 14 deaths respectively, according to the nation’s health ministry. There are 11 confirmed cases in the capital Conakry, and three deaths, Jasarevic said yesterday by phone from Guinea.

The WHO has distributed single-use protection equipment and hygiene kits to health-care workers in hospitals in an effort to stem the spread of Ebola, Jasarevic said.

The virus, first identified in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is transmitted to people through the blood and other secretions of wild animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, bats and porcupines, according to the WHO. Humans transmit the virus to each other through contact with blood and other body fluids.

All the outbreaks of the past decade have been in Congo, the neighboring country of the Republic of Congo, and Uganda, with the exception of one in Sudan in 2004.

There are no drugs or vaccines approved to treat or prevent Ebola.

Source: Bloomberg

Men living alone at high skin cancer death risk

Living alone? You may be at a higher risk of death from skin cancer, especially if you are male, an alarming study claims.

Single men of all ages are more likely to die of cutaneous malignant melanoma – a most aggressive form of skin cancer – as there are differences in prognosis depending on cohabitation status and gender.

“We are able to show that living alone among men is significantly associated with a reduced melanoma-specific survival, partially attributed to a more advanced stage at diagnosis,” said Hanna Eriksson from department of oncology-pathology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“Our study shows that this applies to men of all ages, regardless of their level of education and place of residence,” Eriksson added.

By using the unique data from the Swedish Melanoma Register, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Linkoping University made a detailed study of the link between the prognosis of cutaneous malignant melanoma and whether the patient lives alone or with a partner.

The researchers examined the risk of dying from melanoma among more than 27,000 melanoma patients in relation to their cohabitation status at the time of diagnosis.

The analysis looked into factors already known to affect the prognosis such as the characteristics of the tumour, gender, educational level and body site of the tumour was.

The researchers also found that older women living alone have a more advanced disease at diagnosis but for single living women as a group, there was no effect on the melanoma-specific prognosis.

According to the researchers, one possible explanation, particularly for the men and older women diagnosed with melanoma in later stages, are differences in taking on board information about the disease.

But it could also relate to insufficient access to skin examinations, said the study published in the scientific Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Source: Times of India

Autism Awareness Day: Dearth of doctors to treat the disease

India faces a dearth of doctors and experts to treat autism, the incidence of which is slowly rising, with the illness being considered wrongly by many as mental retardation, experts said.

Moreover, awareness about the neuro-biological disorder is still very low despite the fact that there are more than four million people with autism in the country. Though, there is no official figure, experts said, the figure is growing.

And with just a few to treat this ailment, diagnosis often gets delayed, they added “It may not be wrong to say that there are only a handful of doctors in our country who can provide the right treatment for autism.

“Now with the cases of autism on the rise the need for experts is being acutely felt,” Arun Mukherjee, director of Udaan – a centre for the disabled, told IANS. He said though the situation is improving in metropolitan cities, the situation is still grim. “A lot needs to be done in smaller towns,” Mukherjee added.

Autism affects the functioning of the brain, making it difficult for people afflicted with the disorder to process the information received from various sensory organs. The Indian government only recognised the disorder in 2001.

Autistic individuals exhibit behaviours like spinning, flapping of hands, talking to themselves, constant jumping, attention deficit and hyperactivity. “There is lagging awareness about autism among Indians,” said Usha Verma, principal of Tamana Autism Centre and School of Hope.

“For most of them, it is still a mental illness and that perception has to change. Due to this lack of awareness, parents do not consider it to be important enough for diagnosis,” Verma informed.

Tamana is a special school established in 2003 that caters to autistic children. Samir Parikh, director, mental health and behavioural sciences at Fortis Hospital, said: “The treatment for autism is a multi-disciplinary approach. There is a wide spectrum and children fall in various ranges. So the treatment varies depending on the level of sickness.”

Being a disorder affecting the brain, autism severely affects speech, language, communication and social interaction. Hence there are two major therapies for autistic individuals — speech and occupational therapy.

“A person who has autism often has trouble communicating and interacting with other people; his or her interests, activities, and play skills may be limited. While occupational therapy helps develop these skills, speech therapy can help address a wide range of communication problems,” Parikh informed.

Though, there are treatments for the disorder, for Indian parents getting an accurate diagnosis also pose a hurdle.

Surabhi Verma, director, Sparsh for Children said: “It is only speech delay because of which parents visit paediatricians, where most of the time they assume that the kids are just slow.

“Diagnosing autism becomes a long drawn process and such delays tend to affect treatment process,” Verma infromed. Sparsh trains autistic children and even those with other disability to help them become part of mainstream schools. Experts said that if right therapy for autism is made available early, a child can develop skills better.

“A two-year old child will be able to learn faster. While after three years the learning process takes longer and extra attention as well,” said Verma.

Experts said that the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, does not include autism, but the government plans to cover the condition in the revised act, which has lapsed in parliament.

Autism is now covered under the National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999.

“Just adding autism to the Disability Bill is not enough. Government needs to devise new curriculum and start specialisation courses so that the country gets more experts to treat autism,” added Mukherjee.

Source: Zee news

Medical Graduates Should Be Offered Diploma Courses To Make Them Specialists

To tide over the acute shortage of medical specialists in India, the country needs medical educational institutions on the line of the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) in Maharashtra which would offer diploma courses in fields like anaesthesia, gynaecology, and paediatrics to medical graduates, according to experts.

Talking about the acute shortage of medical specialists in the country, Dr Devi Shetty, founder and chairman, Narayana Health, recently pointed out that while the US has 19,000 undergraduate medical seats and 32,000 postgraduate seats, in India it is the opposite – the country has close to 50,000 undergraduate medical seats but only 14,000 PG seats.

“The low number of PG seats results in a shortage of specialists. This can have terrible consequences on the ground. For example, India has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and this is unrelated to the amount of money we spend on healthcare. The reason is that we have created a regulatory structure where only a specialist can perform certain tasks, and the country simply doesn’t produce enough of these specialists,” he said.

Dr Shetty suggested that to tide over the problem, the country needs medical educational institutions on the line of the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) in Maharashtra which would offer diploma courses in fields like anaesthesia, gynaecology, and paediatrics to medical graduates.

“This can convert the entire 50,000 medical graduates produced in India every year into specialists who can then help reduce maternal mortality in India,” Dr Shetty said, adding, “If we want to deliver better healthcare outcomes, India doesn’t require money. We only require policy changes. This will not happen till the Government looks at medical education as integral part of the country’s development.”

Dr Shetty was speaking at ‘The Future of Healthcare: A Collective Vision’, a global healthcare conference that was held here on March 3-4. The event, hosted by The Healthcare Alliance, witnessed the participation of thought leaders, policy makers, senior government officials, and business and health leaders from over 15 countries.

Calling for major changes in the existing health system, Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman and managing director, Global Health (Medanta-The Medicity), said, “Healthcare is basically disease management. We should build our system from the ground up to create a new blueprint of India’s healthcare.”

“We have over 800,000 ASHAs (Accredited Social Healthcare Activists) in India but they are ill trained and don’t have any medical skills. Their costs are a huge burden on the exchequer and nothing gets accomplished in return. All we have to do is to upscale their skills so that they can be the eyes and ears of the healthcare system on the ground. They need to monitor hygiene and find out who in the community needs medical assistance. This will be a big help in ensuring quick diagnosis of diseases and reducing the incidence of NCDs (non-communicable diseases),” Dr Trehan said.

Outlining his views on the role of technology in ensuring greater access to quality healthcare, Shivinder Mohan Singh, executive vice chairman, Fortis Healthcare, said, “Technology has played a vital role in healthcare in the last 30 to 40 years, whether it is diagnosis or treatment. Going forward it is going to trigger more changes in healthcare than any other factor.”

Singh said, “Healthcare access will get radically transformed with technology whether it is in terms of proximity through devices planted in our bodies or by low-cost healthcare using innovative technological solutions or the speed with which information is shared.”

“A healthcare ecosystem would be created in future where different silos begin to talk to each other about patients and exchange information. Healthcare delivery is going to become more personalized in terms of tailor-made treatments for an individual,” he added.

Talking about the need for better integration of different systems of medicine, Singh said: “Allopathy has taken a predominant share of the existing market in healthcare, but I think we can’t avoid for too long the benefits that other health sciences bring to the table. Some kind of integration of different health disciplines is bound to happen in future.”

He also emphasized that the onus of taking charge of one’s health has to rest on the individual. “We need to be more concerned for what we do to our health rather than what healthcare would do to us. We need to take ownership of our own bodies and mind and not outsource these to healthcare providers. People need to focus more on preventive care rather than just landing in sick care – this is going to the mantra of healthcare in future,” he said.

Dr Shetty expressed concern about the nursing profession in India, which he said would die down in a few years if urgent measures were not taken.

“There is zero career progression for nurses. Nursing is now considered a dead-end career. Admissions to nursery colleges in India have come down by 50 per cent. Half of the nursing colleges in Karnataka have shut shop. In the years ahead, there will be an acute shortage of nurses in the country,” he said.

Dr Shetty further said, “There is a critical need to empower nurses by offering them a path to upgrade their skills and become specialists. About 67 per cent of anaesthesia in the US is given by nurse anaesthetists. In India, we don’t allow a nurse who has worked in critical care for 20 years to even prescribe a Paracetamol tablet!”

Dr Shetty also highlighted the need to look for alternative ways of funding healthcare, such as by a surcharge on mobile phone bills, to bring down the cost of building hospitals, develop patient management software, and establish one or two health cities with 3,000 to 5,000 beds in each metro where cutting-edge work can be done.

Source: India medical times

Beard transplants a growing trend

beard

Rudy Ionides recently had a beard transplant and has absolutely no regrets.

“I felt uncomfortable growing out a beard before because I had some patches that didn’t grow in the same way. Now I’m much more confident.”

And he’s not the only one. Beard transplants are a growing trend — literally. The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery ( an association of physicians) found that the number of facial hair transplants increased by 9.5 per cent globally from 2010 to 2012.

Dr. Jamil Asaria, a facial plastic surgeon in Toronto specializing in this procedure, has noticed a similar trend in Canada.

“It’s something that in our clinic we would see patients for maybe once or twice a year a few years ago, and now we’re doing it on a weekly basis,” Asaria said in an interview.

He said the growth is primarily in the major cities, with three or four surgeons who perform this in Toronto and one or two people offering it in Western Canada. Fifty per cent of Asaria’s patients are from out of town, including Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and the U.S.

The procedure costs anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000 for a major restoration. The cost depends on the number of hairs transplanted — each hair follicle has to be individually harvested from one part of the body and transplanted onto the face. The number of “grafts” or follicles can range from 500 to 2,000.

Facial hair transplant procedure

Beard transplants can take a few hours to almost a full day. They are usually done under local anesthetic.

Asaria said side-effects are minimal, and include:

Infection — one per cent risk of “folliculitis” or infection of the follicle. To prevent this, patients are given antibiotics for a week.
Swelling that can last up to a week (during which time patients may choose to work from home). Rejection of the follicle can be up to 10 per cent, lower than with scalp hair.

In-grown hairs.
Patients are usually able to shave 10 to 14 days after the procedure. Asaria said most patients do quite well and have minimal complications.

“I’m 100 per cent happy with the results,” says Ionides, one of Asaria’s Toronto patients. “The opportunity to have a beard is fantastic.”

The scalp and beard aren’t the only place hair is being transplanted. Asaria’s practice is 15 per cent hair restoration, and includes not only facial hair for men, but eyebrow restoration, eyelash restoration and even chest hair transplantation.

In fact, facial hair transplants (1.5 per cent) are the third most popular hair transplantations worldwide, behind scalp (92.9 per cent) and eyebrow (4.5 per cent), according to the international society.

Why the ‘growing’ popularity?

“I think it’s a societal trend,” Asaria says. “If we look at Hollywood as a reflection of society, this year at the Oscars we saw men like Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jared Leto, all these celebrities who are known for their clean-cut appearance who were all sporting full beards at the Oscars.”

Not to mention U.S. Press Secretary Jay Carney and all those guys who take part in Movember, the November campaign to raise awareness of male cancers.

But while facial hair is part of the current “hipster” culture, Ionides says for him, it was just awareness.

“I’d always wanted to have a beard, and when I heard about the procedure through my social network and the news I started thinking about making it happen.”

For Ionides it doesn’t seem to be a body image issue either; he jokingly told CBC News that he was “always hot,” but now he gets to be hot with a beard.

Asaria says that beard transplants are being done across every demographic and age group for a variety of reasons.

“For some people, facial hair is much more important than their receding hairline. So some people will say, ‘You know, I’ve had receding hair for a long time, my whole family has receding hair, I’m happy with that. But I want a fuller, thicker beard.'”

In the Middle East, where beards are strongly linked to masculinity, the International Society of Hair Restoration found in its most recent census that beard transplants went up 263 per cent between 2010 and 2012. The census also showed that the procedure was most common in Asia (1,904), with the U.S. (1,315) and Middle East (1,017) following.

“There’s no question that it’s a sign of masculinity,” Asaria said. “I’ll get patients coming in from the Middle East who already have a full beard but just want more beard.”

To naysayers who believe this procedure is a form of ‘beard cheating,’ Asaria says “it’s no different from a nose-job or other cosmetic procedure like laser hair removal. The safety profile is great and patients are very happy with the results. And unlike other trends where the change is permanent, you can always shave it off.”

Are beards the new male sex symbol?

According to several members of The Toronto Facial Hair Club, if they are not a sex symbol, beards certainly attract attention.

“I’ll get people come over and just start touching it and I have to be like, ‘Hey, hands off the merchandise (unless she’s hot, in which case I sometimes let it go).'” said one member.

“My girlfriend told me she loves it. She’d never let me get rid of it,” said another.

“Sometimes when people talk to me, they are actually looking at the beard. I have to say, ‘Hey! Eyes up here!’ said a third.

They say that they started their beards long before the trend and will be sporting them long after the trend is over. And that beards have changed their lives.

“It does make it easier when applying for jobs and things”” says Samuel Jamzen of the club. “People used to see the beard and do a double take and I wouldn’t get a job because of the beard. Now it’s okay. It also gives me a lot more credibility in my band. Before when I played, people would think it was just okay. Now I get way more credit for my music.”

But not everyone is giving the beard trend a warm welcome.

“I don’t like beards because they get all wiry and you can get food in them. Especially the longer ones,” says Cassandra Toris, who echoed the sentiments of others CBC interviewed on the streets of Toronto.

David Hughes from the Toronto Facial Hair Club disagrees.

“Women love it! Before my beard I barely got any female attention. Now I get women wanting to touch my beard all the time.”

“My daughter won’t even come out with me in public anymore because women keep coming up to me and engaging me in conversation, about the beard,” says Mark Wrzesniewski, another proud club member.

It just so happens, Wrzesniewski won the Gold Medal for best Fu Manchu at the World Beard Championships in Las Vegas last year. The Toronto Facial Hair club thinks that its chances at this year’s world championships are better than ever.

“Women are hit and miss. I’ll tell you that,” Asaria says. “There are women who hate facial hair ‘I do not want you to have it,’ and some women who love it. I don’t think a lot of people are in that middle ground.”

At least for the time being, beards are no longer unacceptable. The Society of Bearded Gentlemen, an international, online community dedicated to “all beard wearing folks and those who admire them” has 4159 members and has been “serving the bearded community since 2009” as stated on its website. Founder Gary Norman says it helps form a natural bond among men, and is a forum where men can discuss issues like ‘beard maintenance tools,’ ‘beard discrimination’ and ‘grooming techniques.’

And for people like Rudy Ionides who have been thinking about growing a beard for some time, this new cultural ‘green-light’ combined with the relative success of beard transplants has made this possible.

Source: CBC news

 

Scientists Grow Muscles in the Lab That Can Heal Themselves

Biomedical engineers have developed lab-grown skeletal muscles that can flex as strongly as the natural-born items, work the way they’re supposed to when they’re implanted in mice — and even heal themselves if they’re hurt.

“The muscle we have made represents an important advance for the field,” Duke University’s Nenad Bursac said in a news release about the project. “It’s the first time engineered muscle has been created that contracts as strongly as native neonatal skeletal muscle.”

The results were published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers have been working on engineered muscle fibers in the laboratory for years, but it’s a challenge to come up with muscles that are as strong and responsive as the real thing. To answer that challenge, the Duke team found a way to create little niches among the fibers where muscle stem cells, also known as satellite cells, could make their home.

When a natural-born muscle is injured, the satellite cells are activated to begin the regeneration process. The researchers found that their lab-grown muscles did likewise when they were damaged with a toxin found in snake venom.

In a more ambitious test, engineered muscles were inserted into a small glass-covered chamber placed on the backs of living mice. These muscles were genetically modified to produce fluorescent flashes when they contracted. Over the course of two weeks, researchers could look through the glass and watch the flashes become stronger as the muscles matured.

Now the team is looking into whether lab-grown muscles can be used to repair actual muscle injuries and diseases. “Can it vascularize, innervate and repair the damaged muscle’s function?” Bursac asked. “That is what we will be working on for the next several years.”

Source: NBC news

Study: Eat 7 servings of fruit, veggies daily

You know the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”? Turns out eating one apple isn’t enough. A new study suggests people who eat up to seven servings of fruit and vegetables a day can cut their risk of death by 42% – and that vegetables may be more important than fruit to your overall health.

The study, conducted by scientists in the United Kingdom, was published online Monday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The study

Researchers looked at data from more than 65,000 adults over age 35 who participated in the Healthy Surveys for England study between 2001 and 2008.

HSE surveyors had asked participants about their fruit and vegetable consumption during a 24-hour time period. Portion sizes were defined by the UK’s Department of Health to be about 80 grams (equivalent to just under 3 ounces). The new study authors compared this nutrition information to mortality data for the group over the following eight or so years.

The results

The participants ate an average of 3.8 servings of fruit and vegetables per day. Older, non-smoking women tended to eat more than other demographic groups. Produce consumption was also linked to participants’ body mass indexes; those who ate more fruit and vegetables tended to have a lower BMI.

The researchers found that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables can be protective against cancer, heart disease and all other causes of death. Eating at least seven servings was best, but each serving increase was associated with a lower risk of death.

To make sure they weren’t counting people who were seriously ill at the time of the survey, researchers excluded deaths that occurred in the year following the data collection. When they did so, they found that people who ate at least seven daily servings of fruit and vegetables had a 42% lower risk of death from all causes than those who ate less than one daily serving.

When researchers broke it down by cause of death, veggie lovers had a 25% lower risk of dying from cancer, and a 31% lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke.

Vegetables seemed to provide a greater health benefit than fruit. Eating more than three or four servings of fruit daily didn’t increase a study participant’s chance of survival, the study authors concluded.

Study limits

HSE surveyors only recorded one day of each study particpant’s fruit and vegetable consumption. On that day, the participant could have eaten more or less produce than they would normally consume.

Researchers also did not include participants’ total caloric intake, salt consumption or fat consumption in their analysis.

As the study authors say, their data shows a “strong association, but not necessarily a causal relationship.”

Takeaway

Eat more vegetables. Even if you, like many of the study participants, believe you’re eating an overall healthy diet, you “need to aim higher,” according to an editorial accompanying the study.

This study follows previous research presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual session last week. Dr. Michael Miedema and his colleagues found that women who ate eight to nine servings of fruit and vegetables in their 20s were 40% less likely to have dangerous plaque in their arteries in their 40s.

“There is value in knowing how the choices we make early in life have lifelong benefits,” Miedema said in a press release.

So fill up on salad. Snack on raw carrots. And yes – eat that apple.

Sorce: CNN