Month: June 2014

3D brain view may help treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s

3D brain view may help treat Alzheimer's Parkinson's

In a breakthrough that may help in developing drugs for Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders, researchers have developed a 3D view of an important receptor in the brain.

This receptor allows us to learn and remember, and its dysfunction can result in a wide range of neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and depression.

The unprecedented view gives scientists new insight into how the receptor – called the NMDA receptor – is structured.

And importantly, the new detailed view gives vital clues for developing drugs to combat neurological diseases and conditions.

“This is the most exciting moment of my career,” said Eric Gouaux, a senior scientist with Oregon Health and Science University in the US.

“The NMDA receptor is one of the most essential, and still sometimes mysterious, receptors in our brain. Now, with this work, we can see it in fascinating detail,” he said.

Receptors facilitate chemical and electrical signals between neurons in the brain allowing them to communicate with each other.

The NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor facilitates neuron communication that is the foundation of memory, learning and thought.

Malfunction of the NMDA receptor occurs when it is increasingly or decreasingly active.

The NMDA receptor makeup includes receptor “subunits” – all of which have distinct properties and act in distinct ways in the brain, sometimes causing neurological problems.

Prior to Gouaux’s study, scientists had only a limited view of how those subtypes were arranged in the NMDA receptor complex and how they interacted to carry out specific functions within the brain and the central nervous system.

Gouaux’s team of scientists created a 3D model of the NMDA receptor through a process called X-ray crystallography.

“This new detailed view will be invaluable as we try to develop drugs that might work on specific subunits and therefore help fight or cure some of these neurological diseases and conditions,” Gouaux said.

“Seeing the structure in more detail can unlock some of its secrets and may help a lot of people,” he added.

The findings were published online in the journal Nature.

Source: Hindustan Times

Indo-Canadian duo develops device to detect drug usage

Indo-Canadian duo develops device to detect drug usage

Two Canadians of Indian origin have developed a device that detects marijuana in a person’s breath. Police say it helps to find if a driver is high on the contraband drug.

Vancouver-based Kal Malhi, a former officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the federal police force, has joined hands with Indo-Canadian radiologist Raj Attariwala to develop the device called “breathalyzer” for the police.

A report in the Globe and Mail said Malhi, who worked in the drug investigation branch of the RCMP for four years, believes police badly need a tool that makes it easier to tell if a driver is high.

The breathalyzer is a hand held device that provides accurate reading of marijuana in a person’s breath, says the report. They have applied for the patents of the device and it may take an year before they get it.

“I think it’s more necessary across North America now than it was before, because we’re going through a system when it comes to marijuana, where marijuana is being made readily available across our societies,” Malhi was quoted as saying by the paper.

Colorado and Washington states of teh US have legalised marijuana. So, also the Canadian department of health has allowed medical use of marijuana.

A family doctor can, under certain circumstances, prescribe a dose of up to five grams of marijuana a day (safe dose is 400 mg of Cannabis that contains less than nine percent THC) and should be bought from licensed growers.

After leaving the federal police force in 2011, Malhi reportedly decided to develop the Cannabis Breathalyzer. This test has a major advantage – it can show if a person has smoked marijuana in the past two hours.

According to the report in the Canadian daily, “In saliva and urine tests, marijuana can be detected if it’s been smoked at any point within 72 hours, long after the high has passed.”

“Trying to prove a driver is still high when they’ve gotten behind the wheel,” Malhi said, “can be frustrating for police.”

“It’s largely based on observations you make of the person. And the observations aren’t so obvious for drugged drivers as they are for drunk drivers,” explains Malhi.

Source: healcon

4 Unexpected Benefits of Donating Blood

Benefits of Donating Blood

When’s the last time you stopped to appreciate all the good stuff your blood does for you? Without it, oxygen would never reach your cells and carbon dioxide would be filling your blood vessels as we speak.

Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs blood and more than 41,000 blood donations are needed every day, according to the American Red Cross. So while you may never worry about having enough blood to function, plenty of others aren’t as fortunate. World Blood Donor Day may have passed on June 14, but there’s still more reason than ever to get out and donate.

While giving blood should be all about helping those in need, there are a few things in it for you. Here are four health perks to becoming a blood donor:

Your blood may flow better

“If blood has a high viscosity, or resistance to flow, it will flow like molasses,” says Phillip DeChristopher, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Loyola University Health System blood bank. Repeated blood donations may help the blood flow in a way that’s less damaging to the lining of the blood vessels and could result in fewer arterial blockages. That may explain why the American Journal of Epidemiology found that blood donors are 88% less likely to suffer a heart attack.

It’s not clear if there are lasting health benefits associated with better blood flow. (These kinds of studies can’t prove cause and effect—for example, blood donors might lead healthier lifestyles than the general population.)?“What is clear is that blood donors seem to not be hospitalized so often and if they are, they have shorter lengths of stay,” Dr. DeChristopher says. “And they’re less likely to get heart attacks, strokes, and cancers.”

You’ll get a mini check-up

Before you give blood, you’ll first have to complete a quick physical that measures your temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and hemoglobin levels. After your blood is collected, it’s sent off to a lab where it will undergo 13 different tests for infectious diseases, like HIV and West Nile virus. If anything comes back positive, you’ll be notified immediately.

“If year after year your tests come back negative, then you’ll know for sure there’s nothing you’ve been exposed to,” Dr. DeChristopher says. The physical and blood tests are no reason to skip your annual doctor visit, but they’re good for peace of mind. But you should never donate blood if you suspect you might actually be sick or have been exposed to HIV or another virus.

Your iron levels will stay balanced

Healthy adults usually have about 5 grams of iron in their bodies, mostly in red blood cells but also in bone marrow. When you donate a unit of blood, you lose about a quarter of a gram of iron, which gets replenished from the food you eat in the weeks after donation, Dr. DeChristopher says. This regulation of iron levels is a good thing, because having too much iron could be bad news for your blood vessels.

“The statistics appear to show that decreasing the amount of iron in otherwise healthy people over the long run is beneficial to their blood vessels, and diseases related to abnormalities in blood vessels, such as heart attack and stroke,” he says.

Still, data from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that nearly 10% of women in the U.S. suffer from anemia, a condition where your body lacks red blood cells or hemoglobin (most commonly due to an iron deficiency). In that case, it’s best not to give blood until the anemia is resolved, he says.

Women who haven’t hit menopause yet may find it hard to donate blood, too. “Pre-menopausal females can be somewhat iron depleted with blood counts just under the lower limit,” Dr. DeChristopher says. If you have low iron and you still want to be a donor, taking an oral iron supplement may help you re-qualify, he says.

You could live longer

Doing good for others is one way to live a longer life. A study in Health Psychology found that people who volunteered for altruistic reasons had a significantly reduced risk of mortality four years later than those who volunteered for themselves alone. While the health benefits of donating blood are nice, don’t forget who you’re really helping: A single donation can save the lives of up to three people, according to the Red Cross. “The need for blood is always there,” Dr. DeChristopher says. “It’s important to recognize how important willing donors are.”

Source: TIME

Call to halve target for added sugar

Call to halve target for added sugar

People need to more than halve their intake of added sugar to tackle the obesity crisis, according to scientific advice for the government in England.

A draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) says sugar added to food or naturally present in fruit juice and honey should account for 5% of energy intake.

Many fail to meet the old 10% target. The sugar industry said “demonising one ingredient” would not “solve the obesity epidemic”.

The body reviewed 600 scientific studies on the evidence of carbohydrates – including sugar – on health to develop the new recommendations.

One 330ml can of fizzy pop would take a typical adult up to the proposed 5% daily allowance, without factoring in sugar from any other source.

Prof Ian MacDonald, chairman of the SACN working group on carbohydrates, said: “The evidence that we have analysed shows quite clearly that high free sugars intake in adults is associated with increased energy intake and obesity.

“There is also an association between sugar-sweetened beverages and type-2 diabetes. “In children there is clear demonstration that sugar-sweetened beverages are associated with obesity. “By reducing it to 5% you would reduce the risk of all of those things, the challenge will be to get there.”

The target of 5% of energy intake from free sugars amounts to 25g for women (five to six teaspoons) and 35g (seven to eight teaspoons) for men, based on the average diet.

Public Health England will now reconsider its recommendations on fruit juice and smoothies in its five-a-day campaign.

The current advice from the NHS is that juice counts as a maximum of one portion a day, while a smoothie may count as more than one portion, depending on how it is made.

It will also investigate measures to protect children from food advertising while online and whether a sugar tax would have any merit.

Dr Alison Tedstone, the chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “We are very concerned around sugar intakes in England.

“It doesn’t mean having a completely different diet from today, it is thinking about swapping high sugar foods for a lower sugar alternative.

“Instead of fizzy drink, have water or low-fat milk, instead of a chocolate bar, have a piece of fruit.” There’s something noticeably missing from a call to halve added sugar – how would you go about doing it?

This group was set up to assess the science and determine what we should be eating. Its role was not to come up with policies. The target of 5% is a huge challenge when teenagers are currently getting 15% of their calories from added sugar.

One option that doctors have called for is a tax on sugary drinks. The measure is being tried in Mexico, although there is still little evidence on its impact.

The tough decisions are all still to come – what measures will the public accept and how can we be encouraged to eat less sugar without driving us back into the arms of saturated fat and salt?

The SACN advice echoes an announcement by the World Health Organization in March.

Its draft guidelines reiterated that sugars should constitute no more than 10% of energy intake and that people and governments should be aiming for 5%.

The limits would apply to all sugars added to food, as well as sugar naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.

The Food and Drink Federation, which represents manufacturers, said: “SACN’s comprehensive analysis of the evidence on carbohydrates has looked at the role of carbohydrates, including sugars and fibre in the diet. We will look at the content of the report and its recommendations over the next few weeks with the intention of engaging in the consultation process and related discussions.”

Dr Julian Cooper, head of food science at AB Sugar, said targeting sugar was not a “silver bullet” and people should balance their calorie intake against how much they exercise.

‘Fantastic’
The campaign group, Action on Sugar, said the development was “fantastic” news.

The group’s chairman Prof Graham MacGregor argued: “Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt must start by setting targets for reducing sugar in soft drinks this summer and move responsibility for nutrition to an independent body such as the Food Standards Agency so that the soft drinks and food industry are given a level playing field, with the threat of regulation to ensure the whole of the food industry comply.

“Before another million British kids become obese.”

Public Health Minister for England, Jane Ellison, said: “We know eating too much sugar can have a significant impact on health, and this draft advice confirms that.

“We want to help people make healthier choices and get the nation into healthy habits for life. This report will inform the important debate taking place about sugar.”

Source: bbc news

Pesticide exposure during pregnancy may increase autism risk

Pesticide exposure during pregnancy may increase autism risk

Scientists have long hypothesized that chemicals found in our environment play a role in causing autism. Research published this week in Environmental Health Perspectives supports that theory, finding children whose mothers are exposed to agricultural pesticides during pregnancy may be at increased risk for autism spectrum disorders, or ASD.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, looked at the medical records of 970 participants. They found pregnant women who lived within a mile of an area treated with three different types of pesticides were at a two-thirds higher risk of having a child with ASD or developmental delays. These pesticide-treated areas included parks, golf courses, pastures and roadsides.

The study investigated the use of three classes of pesticides: organophosphates, which include the widely used insecticide chlorpyrifos, as well as pyrtheroids and carbamates.

The study authors also discovered that women exposed to pesticides during their second or third trimesters were even more likely to have a child born with developmental delays or autism.

Until further research determines whether pesticides inside the home pose similar risks, Janie Shelton, one of the study’s authors and a graduate student at UC Davis, advises pregnant woman to limit pesticide exposure as much as possible.

“I would suggest that women who are pregnant or in the process of becoming pregnant avoid using chemicals inside the home,” Shelton said. “Make sure to read the labels and see if any of these chemicals are in the things they use.”

The findings add to the mounting evidence linking autism and developmental delay to pesticide exposure during pregnancy.

“This is the third epidemiological study from California that has shown that prenatal pesticide exposure is associated with ASD,” said Alycia Halladay, senior director of environmental and clinical sciences for Autism Speaks. “It reinforces the advice of public health care experts and doctors to minimize exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy.”

The authors say further research is needed to determine whether a mother’s genes also contribute to the increased risk associated with environmental exposure to pesticides.

Another study published in Pediatrics this week found a link between race and autism spectrum disorders.

The researchers looked at more than 7,500 people and found that children of foreign-born black, Central and South American, Filipino and Vietnamese mothers were at higher risk of developing autism than children of white mothers born in the United States.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that these races are more genetically prone to autism.

“It can be very scary for parents when they hear such high degree of association, but they should also keep in mind that this research is only showing some association and not cause,” William Sharp, director of the Marcus Autism Center and assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine, wrote in an email. Sharp was not involved with either study.

“Not all pregnant women exposed to pesticides or all immigrants from Central (and) South America go on to have children with autism.”

And experts agree there are many other risk factors that could be at play in increasing the autism risk, such as maternal stress after relocating to the U.S., nutritional deficiencies and/or a lack of access to treatment and diagnosis.

“Both studies highlight the need to further enhance our understanding regarding the relationship between environmental events, fetal and early childhood development and autism,” Sharp wrote.

Source: cnn

Rwanda: High Population Density a Challenge for Kigali Health System

High Population Density a Challenge for Kigali Health System

Dr. Blaise Uhagaze, director of health and environment in the city of Kigali, indicates that high population density in the city of Kigali causes a burden to health system.

This was said in Kigali this Tuesday during a workshop organized by the Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC).

Over the past decades, de number of inhabitants in the capital has skyrocketed. Where there were only 6,000 in 1962, in the next 40 years it grew a hundred-fold to reach 765,325 by 2002. The growth rate has further increased in the past decades, to 923,176 inhabitants in 2006 and an estimated 1,220,000 today. According to projections, 2 million people will live in Kigali by 2020.

Uhagaze indicated that as a result the public health system in the capital is overwhelmed. For example, Kigali has the highest prevalence HIV-AIDS prevalence in the country with 7%, against 3% nationwide.

The capital also accounts for more than a third of the tuberculosis cases in the country, and also had a bigger share of other respiratory and non-communicable diseases like asthma and diabetes. In addition, it rates high for drugs abuse, violence and accidents, with which the health system also has to deal.

Against that, the public health sector is woefully lacking in human resources and infrastructure with only 18 health centers and 3 hospitals. This results in too many patients ending up at CHUK, a referral hospital, where it is estimated that 26% of the cases could have been treated at a lower level.

Staff is also insufficient, with just 1 nurse (A2) and 0.4 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants. Needless to say, there is an even greater gap when it comes to specialists, who are mainly to be found in private hospitals and clinics, yet in general those do not accept the public health insurance (mutuelle de santé).

One positive point is that there is reasonable growth in the private health sector at 30%, although currently it mainly caters for out-patients.

Dr. Uhagaze indicated that there is a program to better equip health centers and train nurses to improve treatment of especially non-communicable diseases.

Efforts are also being made to increase infrastructure. For example, with the assistance of BTC four health centers were equipped as a way of increasing quality of care offered at the first level to reduce unnecessary transfers to referral hospitals that receive patients from all around the country.

The health sector seeks to focus on four components namely institutional support, the mental health program, the medical maintenance center as well as the urban health program.

Officials remarked that there is a need for a public-private partnership to promote health services at the lowest community level. In order to effectively provide quality health care, one official in the ministry indicated that an accreditation body to monitor health activities is required.

Source: All Africa

Could a New Blood Test Predict Breast Cancer Risk?

blood test for Breast Cancer

Researchers believe they may have a new way to test a woman’s risk for breast cancer, even if she doesn’t have an inherited genetic mutation.

The test looks not for mutations, but for changes to how DNA functions — in this case, the BRCA1 breast cancer gene.

It’s important because most cases of breast cancer are not caused by inherited DNA mutations. About 40 percent of breast cancer cases can be explained by genetic susceptibility, which leaves most to outside causes such as diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol use.

“Women who carry the signature are at particularly higher risk of developing breast cancer in the future,” said Martin Widschwendter at University College London, who led the study.

The researchers looked for changes made by a process called methylation, which can step up or down a gene’s function.

BRCA1 brakes cell growth, stopping the out-of-control proliferation that turns a healthy cell into a tumor.

Widschwendter and colleagues tested blood from women with and without BRCA1 mutations before they ever developed breast cancer. Both groups had similar changes in the DNA methylation, they report in the journal Genome Research.

“It was able to predict breast cancer risk several years before diagnosis,” Widschwendter said. The changes may be caused by factors that raise breast cancer risk, such as obesity and drinking too much alcohol, he says.

The researchers tested their “signature” in three different groups of women and found it could consistently predict who would develop cancer five to 12 years later.

“I think this is a productive direction,” says Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel, director for clinical cancer genetics at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women. It will be diagnosed in more than 200,000 U.S. women this year and will kill 40,000.

There’s a debate over how best to prevent it and who benefits most from screening. Right now, women get conflicting advice on when to get mammograms — starting at age 40 or age 50, depending on who’s talking. And there’s disagreement over how often women should get one — once a year, every other year or even every three years.

A simple test that could show who’s at the highest risk of the most dangerous types of breast cancer could help women decide. “A test could help us tailor screening and risk reduction for women,” said Weitzel. For instance, recent research suggested that women with the very highest risk should remove their ovaries.

“We know that we can change risk,” Weitzel said.

Women at high risk can also take tamoxifen to reduce that risk and those at the very highest risk can consider having mastectomies to reduce — but not eliminate — the likelihood that they will get breast cancer. “Most of us think the absolute risk should be 50 percent or more before you offer surgical removal,” said Weitzel.

The test is far from ready for prime time. Right now it’s not terribly accurate, says Widschwendter. It was only tried in a few women. And the team tested blood. It might be better to test cervical cells, perhaps as a test alongside the regular Pap smear that many women get, because these cells respond to the same hormones associated with most cases of breast cancer.

Researchers are still working to understand all the underlying causes of breast cancer. Just this month, another team discovered that women with many moles also had a slightly higher-than-usual breast cancer risk.

More than 75 different genes are linked with breast cancer risk. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are the best known.

Source: NBC news

Flu Vaccine Spray Better Than Shots for Young Kids

HOLLAND

Spraying a flu vaccine up young children’s noses is more effective than giving them a shot, a U.S. government panel ruled Wednesday.

The new recommendation, voted on during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, only applies to children aged 2 to 8, according to the Associated Press.

Currently, the only flu vaccine spray on the market is AstraZeneca’s FluMist, and it is approved for people aged 2 to 49. Instead of using a killed virus, the spray is made from a live but weakened flu virus, the wire service reported.

The spray triggers a stronger immune response in children who may have never had the flu before, experts say. Kids within that age group are about half as likely to get the flu if they get the nasal spray vaccine instead of a shot, research has shown, the AP reported.

Although federal health officials usually adopt the recommendations of the committee, the nation’s largest pediatrician’s group objected to the new recommendation, the AP reported.

FluMist is more expensive, it can’t be used for everyone and doctors have already ordered their vaccine doses for the fall flu season, a representative of the American Academy of Pediatrics said during the meeting.

But health officials stressed that flu shots are perfectly fine to use, the AP reported. FluMist costs about $23; shots range from about $8 to $22.

Source: webmd

 

Heal mouth ulcers naturally with honey

heal-mouth-ulcers-with-honey

Mouth ulcers are really painful and can even affect your eating and talking ability. Most of the times they go away on their own but if they are totally ruining your daily life, try this effective home remedy for ulcers – honey.

We all know that honey is anti-bacterial in nature. But it does not work like an antibiotic drug. Honey’s anti-bacterial property is attributed to its highly hygroscopic nature. This means that it has a special property of absorbing water molecules or retaining moisture from the environment. As a result, bacteria that might have caused infection, resulting in ulcers, get killed due to dehydration. Apart from that, it also has a high sugar content which is detrimental to the growth of microbes. It helps in reduction of scarring of the ulcer and stimulates the process of new tissue growth. This, along with its anti-microbial property makes sure that your mouth ulcer heals quickly.

Tip to use honey for ulcers: Dab a little honey onto the area having the mouth ulcer. Alternatively, you can mix a little turmeric with honey and make a paste to apply it directly on the affected area. Here’s another effective remedy for your ulcer: Chew tulsi leaves to get rid of mouth ulcers.
Source: the health site

Noroviruses leading cause of diarrhoea and vomiting: Lancet

Noroviruses leading cause of diarrhoea and vomiting

New estimates have suggested that noroviruses cause around a fifth of all cases of acute gastroenteritis (diarrhoea and vomiting) across all age groups. Noroviruses are responsible for almost a fifth (18 per cent) of all cases worldwide.

According to the authors, new estimates highlight the importance of developing norovirus vaccines.

Lead author Dr Benjamin Lopman from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA, said including data from 48 countries and involving more than 187 000 gastroenteritis cases worldwide, these new estimates are the largest analysis of norovirus infection and disease to date. There has been a proliferation of research on norovirus globally in the last five years, and we harnessed that data for this study.

Lopman and colleagues analysed 175 published reports to compile data on the prevalence of norovirus in individuals with acute gastroenteritis between 1990 and 2014.

They found that norovirus tended to be more common in cases of acute gastroenteritis in the community (24 per cent) and outpatient (20 per cent) settings than in emergency department visits and hospitalisations (17 per cent), supporting the notion that norovirus is a more common cause of mild disease. However, because of its sheer frequency, norovirus causes a substantial amount of severe disease.

Norovirus was also found in a considerable proportion of cases of acute gastroenteritis cases in both developing countries (14-19 per cent) and developed countries (20 per cent). “This highlights that norovirus, unlike bacterial and parasitic pathogens, cannot be controlled just by improved water and sanitation”*, explains Lopman.

The new estimates have been published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Source: yahoo news