Health News

Stress in job linked to later health problems

More strain at work might mean more illness in old age, according to a new study from Finland. The study found both physical and mental job strain were tied to hospital stays later in life.

Mental job strain can come from tight deadlines, high demands and having little control over one’s work. Physical strain includes sweating, breathlessness and muscle strain.

“Job strain is something that is individually perceived, so persons working in similar jobs can report different amounts of job strain,” lead researcher Mikaela von Bonsdorff said. “When talking about job strain it is important to remember that occasional feelings of job strain are not necessarily a bad thing, but persistent high job strain has been identified as a health hazard.”

Recent studies have linked long-term job strain to lower functioning that lasts into old age, added von Bonsdorff. She is a gerontology researcher at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

The new findings come from a study of more than 5,000 middle-aged Finnish public sector employees who were initially surveyed about stress at work in 1981.

The researchers combined that information with data from national hospital records spanning the next 28 years.

With higher strain in midlife, days in the hospital tended to increase, especially for physical strain.

For instance, for every 1,000 men with low physical job strain, about eight days were spent in inpatient hospital care every year, on average. That compared to almost 13 days for every 1,000 men with high physical job strain, according to findings published in Age and Ageing.

“What was interesting was that these associations were clear also when we looked at hospital care that took place after the individuals had turned 65, indicating that these associations were also robust in older age and not that the association was due to hospital care that took place immediately after the baseline assessment of job strain,” von Bonsdorff said.

For both men and women, hospital days increased as physical strain increased. But for mental strain, the link was only clear among men.

“Job strain of some sort can occur in basically any type of employment,” Loretta Platts told Reuters Health.

“Although physical job strain is confined to certain sorts of occupations, such as manual occupations or low-level service occupations like being an electrician, caretaker, driver, builder, cleaner, waiter, waitress, cook or shop assistant,” she said.

Platts is a doctoral candidate at Imperial College London. She studies how various factors influence quality of life after retirement and was not involved in the new research.

“The mechanism might be the development of musculoskeletal disorders from high physical strain jobs, which are often irreversible and painful, and can lead to osteoarthritis, a leading cause of hospital admissions in older people,” Platts said. “In addition, immobility can be related to weight gain, which in turn leads to heart failure, high blood pressure and diabetes.”

Mental strain has been linked to heart disease, another cause of hospital stays.

Still, the study can’t prove that job strain causes poor health and more hospital stays, Platts pointed out.

High-strain jobs might be undesirable for many people, so it’s possible people working those kinds of jobs were unable to get less stressful jobs for an unknown, but relevant, reason. That reason could also be connected to their healthcare use.

It’s also possible that 28 years later, the people spending the most time in hospitals happened to think more negatively about their work in 1981, she said.

“This study was only of public sector employees and came from a country with a very developed welfare state. The consequences for people working in the private sector and in countries with less generous welfare states are likely to be worse,” Platts said. “The public sector in Finland is probably a best-case scenario.

Source: GMA News

Hand, face transplants regulated like other organs

Sure your liver or kidney could save someone’s life. But would you donate your hands, or your face? Signing up to become an organ donor may get more complicated than just checking a box on your driver’s license.

The government is preparing to regulate the new field of hand and face transplants like it does standard organ transplants, giving more Americans who are disabled or disfigured by injury, illness or combat a chance at this radical kind of reconstruction.

Among the first challenges is deciding how people should consent to donate these very visible body parts that could improve someone’s quality of life — without deterring them from traditional donation of hearts, lungs and other internal organs needed to save lives.

”Joe Blow is not going to know that now an organ is defined as also including a hand or a face,” said Dr. Suzanne McDiarmid, who chairs the committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, that will develop the new policies over the next few months.

Making that clear to potential donors and their families is critical — ”otherwise we could undermine public trust,” said McDiarmid, a transplant specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

”The consent process for the life-saving organs should not, must not, be derailed by a consent process for a different kind of organ, that the public might think of as being very different from donating a kidney or a heart or a liver,” she added.

These so-called ”reconstructive transplants” are experimental, and rare. The best estimates are that 27 hand transplants have been performed in the U.S. since 1999, and about seven partial or full face transplants since 2008, said Dr. Vijay Gorantla, of the University of Pittsburgh reconstructive transplant program.

But they’re gradually increasing as more U.S. hospitals offer the complex surgeries, the Defense Department funds research into the approach for wounded veterans — and as transplant recipients go public to say how the surgeries have improved their lives.

”These hands are blessed hands to me,” said Lindsay Aronson Ess, 30, of Richmond, Va., who received a double hand transplant in 2011. She had lost her hands and feet to a life-threatening infection in 2007.

Until now, deciding who qualifies for a hand or face transplant, and how to find a match and approach a potential donor’s family all have been done on an informal, case-by-case basis.

There has been no way to tell which hospitals’ techniques work best and how patients ultimately fare.

There have been reports of two deaths related to face transplants in other countries, and some transplanted hands have had to be amputated.

Source: Teleram news

Inexpensive hearing devices bring gift of sound to less fortunate

It’s said the clacking of dominoes is the music of the Dominican Republic, but it’s been years since the game sounded so good to retiree Fernando Velverde Baez, who lost his hearing because of old age.

“The difference is that you hear the sound even of the air, and the breeze,” said Baez. “I hear a little bird, that little bird, that just chirped.”

Baez can hear the birds again because of Stavros Basseas, and a remarkable device from his company Sound World Solutions.

Basseas used two technologies, common even in the poorest countries, a smartphone that works with a personal sound amplifier in the ear, connected by Bluetooth. An app lets users raise or lower the volume, and adjust treble and bass.

If you are someplace that doesn’t even have cell phone service, you don’t need it, according to Basseas.

At up to $4,000, the tiny, high-tech hearing aids Americans can buy are too expensive for most of the estimated 365 million people worldwide with severe hearing loss.

Only seven million hearing aids were sold last year, and 85 percent of them ended up in American and European ears.

Basseas said his goal has been to “give people solutions in developing countries that don’t exist.”
And give them a price low enough that people can afford it — between $100 and $300.

The company plans to introduce the device in Africa and South America in the coming months. There may be profits down the road, but the goal for the moment is about helping.

Baez doesn’t care if his hearing aid is a little bulky or looks unfashionable, as long as he can now hear his wife say one thing. He said, “She would say, ‘I love you,’ and I wouldn’t be able to hear well. Now she can whisper it to me, and I’ll hear her.”

Source: one news page

17 holiday health tips

Follow this advice to enjoy a little holiday indulgence without sacrificing your health goals.

Indulging Without Overindulging
Relax. You won’t gain 10 pounds. It’s a misconception that you’ll need to go up a pant size in January. The average person gains only about a pound during the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. That’s no excuse to eat with abandon, though. (After all, gaining one pound every year can add up in the long run.)

But a study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology notes that people who had an attitude of forgiveness and self-compassion after one high-calorie setback were less likely to give up and keep bingeing. So if you lose control with a dish of chocolate truffles, don’t think, I’ve blown it. Might as well move on to the eggnog. Just forgive yourself for the truffles.

Don’t skip meals.
It seems logical: Forgo lunch; leave more room for pigs in blankets later. But arriving starved may result in overeating, and drinking on an empty stomach will give you a quicker buzz, which is more likely to lead to mindless munching. Eat normally during the day, and be strategic at the buffet. Don’t bother with things you don’t absolutely love. Splurge on something special (hint: It’s not those cubes of Cheddar), then stop.

Count your bites.
“A lot of appetizers are about 60 calories a bite,” said Karen Diaz, a registered dietitian in Wyckoff, New Jersey. Just five bites is around 300 calories. “That’s about half of what you might eat for dinner,” said Diaz. Keep a mental tab—or fill a small plate, once—so you don’t go overboard.

Turn down Aunt Jan’s pie.
“It’s better to sit with a little guilt than to overeat just to please loved ones,” Diaz said. If you can’t say no to Jan’s face, try “Maybe later,” then hope she forgets.
Give yourself a break from the gym.
According to a Gallup poll, the percentage of people who exercise regularly is lower in December than at any other time of the year. So don’t beat yourself up—you’re not the only one who’s too busy for Spinning class.

But try to stay active in other ways. Speed-walking with shopping bags counts. So does cleaning, said Mark Macdonald, the author of Body Confidence. Add some toning by tightening your core muscles as you vacuum or reach for scattered toys (imagine trying to get your belly button to touch your spine). And most important: Get back into your regular exercise routine once the holidays end.

Weigh yourself every day.
Or try on a pair of snug-fitting jeans to gauge those subtle ups and…OK, just ups. The point isn’t to get obsessive and berate yourself over every ounce gained; it’s to prevent yourself from completely letting go of good habits.

“Breaking the rhythm of healthy behaviors that you’ve built up is the real danger. You don’t want to have to start from scratch on January 1,” Macdonald said.

Drinking Responsibly
Practice moderation (really). Drinking too much may not just mean a terrible hangover. Around this time of year, doctors report seeing a spike in erratic heartbeats—dubbed “holiday heart syndrome.” It is more common among people who usually aren’t heavy drinkers but drink in excess for a short time.

“Alcohol may be toxic to enough cardiac cells that it disrupts the coordination required to maintain a normal heart rate,” said Kenneth Mukamal, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston.

“Women should have no more than three drinks on any occasion and seven per week,” said Michael Weaver, an associate professor of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, in Richmond. “So a woman can have up to three drinks in a night and go out two nights, but that’s it for the week—or else the chances of problems go way up.”
Keep it on the rocks.
Melting ice dilutes a cocktail and creates more liquid. So order your drink on the rocks to try to avoid a quick buzz—and to sip longer before a refill. Use soda water as a mixer for liquor (a cocktail with liquor and club soda is only about 100 calories), and don’t be ashamed to add ice cubes to bubbly. In France, it’s called a piscine. Très chic.

Put a cork in it early.
Alcohol may help you to conk out quickly; the problem comes when it starts to wear off. The period in which your body is metabolizing the alcohol is when sleep is disrupted. You may wake up frequently in the middle of the night (even if you don’t remember doing so) and miss out on restorative rest. The best strategy is to allow time for the alcohol levels in your body to drop before going to sleep; at the very least, retire your flute several hours before bedtime.

Don’t let late nights make you fat.
“People who sleep less over time tend to be heavier,” said Lawrence Epstein, the chief medical officer of the Sleep Health Centers, in Brighton, Massachusetts. But it doesn’t take long for the cycle to start. “If you pull one all-nighter or miss a few hours each night over a week, your body releases hormones that prompt eating and weight gain,” Epstein said.

Use the weekend to catch up.
Most of us have sleep debt: the difference between the number of hours we need every night (which varies per person) and how many we get. If you feel best after seven hours a night and you get five for three nights in a row during a busy week, you have a sleep debt of six hours (two missing hours for three nights). Erasing that debt requires you to get six extra hours over the course of a few days, but they don’t have to be consecutive, Epstein said.

David F. Dinges, the chief of the division of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, conducted a study in which participants were restricted to about four hours of sleep for five consecutive nights, then allowed to sleep for 10 hours or more on the sixth night. The researchers found that after the recovery night, participants regained some of their previous levels of alertness and ability to concentrate.

So while you should focus on eliminating your sleep debt completely, just one good snooze (a few hours more than you normally need) can give you a fresher start.

Watch out for hidden caffeine.
Think hot cocoa is a soothing way to end a winter’s night? Hold on to your marshmallows. Chocolate, even the powdered kind, contains caffeine, as do many over-the-counter pain medicines that you might pop at night to get a head start on a hangover. Excedrin Extra-Strength Caplets, for example, contain 65 milligrams of caffeine; by comparison, the average cup of coffee contains 50 to 100.

Skip the sliders.
Foods that are high in fat or protein require your body to work harder at digestion. When your body is busy breaking down mini hamburgers, your sleep is more likely to be hampered. Watch the clock; an early cocktail party is the perfect time to snack on something more substantial. As the night wears on, taper off. Or, if you’re still hungry, have some complex carbohydrates, like whole-wheat crackers or a handful of crudités.

Don’t assume that this is the most depressing time of the year.
Contrary to popular belief, depression isn’t more common during the holidays. In fact, suicide rates in the United States are actually lowest in December, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This may be a result of more social interaction, which has been found to enhance happiness,” said Caroline Adams Miller, the author of Creating Your Best Life. But that doesn’t mean that you’re immune to the holiday blues, especially when you’re missing a family member or stressed-out by the in-laws. Make plans with friends if your family is far away—or, on the flip side, opt out of events if your schedule is overwhelming.

“You don’t have to be a type E personality—everything to everyone,” said Ronald Nathan, a psychologist in Albany.

Consider a supplement.
Is there a magic pill that will cure the blues? Of course not. But some research shows that omega-3 fatty acids may relieve depression; other research has found that vitamin D may improve mood. Add a daily supplement of omega-3 or vitamin D to your diet. Or increase your intake of vitamin D–fortified milk or foods rich in omega-3s, such as fish, flaxseed, and walnuts.

Take Facebook with a grain of salt.
You’ve seen the status updates: “Hope Santa can find us in ARUBA!” or “Mmm, homemade cider, kids making cookies, life is good.” And you know what? Those people have bad days, too. Remember: Most people put their best self forward on Facebook and Twitter. Don’t compare your life with those dreamy-sounding posts.

Make plans for January.
“If you have social events coming up with people you like, you’ll be upbeat about what’s to come,” said Alison Ratner, a clinical social worker in Atlanta. Plan a weekend getaway or an Oscar-nominated–movie marathon. Or, ahem, if you did gain that holiday pound, might we suggest a jogging club?

Source: fox news

Toys, Books Spread Infectious Bacteria

All those Christmas toys and books may spread more than good cheer. A new study has concluded that two common bacteria that cause colds, ear infections, and strep throat can live for long periods on the surfaces of toys, stuffed animals, books, cribs, and other child-related items — even after being cleaned.

The findings, published in the journal Infection and Immunity and reported by Medical Xpress, indicate Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes persist on surfaces for far longer than has been believed.

The researchers said the study suggests that additional precautions may be necessary to prevent infections, especially in settings such as schools, day care centers, and hospitals.

“These findings should make us more cautious about bacteria in the environment since they change our ideas about how these particular bacteria are spread,” said Anders Hakansson, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “This is the first paper to directly investigate that these bacteria can survive well on various surfaces, including hands, and potentially spread between individuals.”

S. pneumoniae, a leading cause of ear infections in children and respiratory illnesses, is widespread in daycare centers and a common cause of hospital infections, noted Hakansson. S. pyogenes commonly causes strep throat and skin infections in children and adults.

To reach their conclusions, the UB researchers tested the surfaces of toys and surfaces in a day care center. They found four out of five stuffed toys tested positive for S. pneumonaie and several surfaces, such as cribs, tested positive for S. pyogenes, even after being cleaned. The testing was done just prior to the center opening in the morning so it had been many hours since the last human contact.

“Bacterial colonization doesn’t, by itself, cause infection but it’s a necessary first step if an infection is going to become established in a human host,” he explains. “Children, the elderly and others with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable to these infections.”

Source: news max health

Shock Therapy Can ‘Erase’ Bad Memories, Brain Researchers Show

In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, unhappy lovers undergo an experimental brain treatment to erase all memories of each other from their minds. No such fix exists for real-life couples, but researchers report today in Nature Neuroscience that a targeted medical intervention helps to reduce specific negative memories in patients who are depressed.

“This is one time I would say that science is better than art,” says Karim Nader, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the research. “It’s a very clever study.”

The technique, called electroconvulsive (ECT) or electroshock therapy, induces seizures by passing current into the brain through electrode pads placed on the scalp. Despite its sometimes negative reputation, ECT is an effective last-resort treatment for severe depression, and is used today in combination with anaesthesia and muscle relaxants.

Marijn Kroes, a neuroscientist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and his colleagues found that by strategically timing ECT bursts, they could target and disrupt patients’ memory of a disturbing episode.

A matter of time
The strategy relies on a theory called memory reconsolidation, which proposes that memories are taken out of ‘mental storage’ each time they are accessed and ‘re-written’ over time back onto the brain’s circuits. Results from animal studies and limited evidence in humans suggest that during reconsolidation, memories are vulnerable to alteration or even erasure.

Kroes and his team tested this idea in 42 patients who had been prescribed ECT for severe clinical depression. In an initial session, the researchers showed two disturbing slide-show narratives: one depicting a car accident, and the other a physical assault.

The team later prompted patients to recall only one of the stories by replaying part of that slide show. Immediately afterwards, when the reactivated memory is thought to be vulnerable, the patients received electroconvulsive therapy.

One day later, when given a multiple-choice memory test, patients were significantly worse at remembering details from the reactivated story, performing near chance. Patients’ memory of the other story, however, remained largely unscathed. But when researchers administered the memory test 90 minutes after treatment, patients showed no differences in their ability to recall the two stories. This suggests that the therapy blocked the time-dependent process of reconsolidation, rather than causing sudden memory loss.

“This provides very strong and compelling evidence that memories in the human brain undergo reconsolidation, and that a window of opportunity exists to treat bad memories,” says Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York who also studies memory reconsolidation.

Thinking ahead
Schiller says more work is needed to establish how long the ECT effects last, and whether the technique works as effectively on older or more complex memories from real-life experiences, says Schiller.

Kroes adds that ECT may not be the best option for most patients, but says that these results could guide the development of less invasive interventions that target memory reconsolidation. Eventually, he says, the idea could be extended to memories involved in post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“The ability to permanently alter these types of memories might lead to novel, better treatments,” says Kroes.

Source: huffington post

 

Breast-feeding longer than six months tied to better cognitive development

Breast-feeding’s benefits have been backed by yet another study, the latest finding kids who were breast-fed for more than six months scored the highest on cognitive, language and motor development tests as toddler.

Earlier research tied breast-feeding to better thinking and memory skills. But how it’s related to language skills and movement and coordination had been less clear.

The new study, out of Greece, doesn’t prove breast-feeding is responsible for better development, but it shows a strong association, researchers said.

Most evidence “pretty clearly shows there are significant medical benefits of breast-feeding,” Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, told Reuters Health in an email.

“I think that the evidence is now of sufficient quality that we can close the book on these benefits and focus instead on how do we succeed in promoting breast-feeding because all of the studies, including this one, that have looked at it have found a linear relationship, which is to say that the benefits accrue with each additional month that a child is breast-fed,” added Christakis, who was not involved in the study.

In the U.S., about 77 percent of new moms breast-feed their babies, according to an August study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Almost half follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation of breast-feeding exclusively for first six months of a newborn’s life. Moms are also recommended to provide supplemental breast milk until a child is aged 1 year old or older.

The World Health Organization recommends breast-feeding even longer with complementary foods through age 2 and beyond.

But a March 2013 study found 40 percent of parents introduce solid foods too soon, before a baby turns 4 months old.

Given these rates, health officials often urge longer breast-feeding because it may protect against gastrointestinal tract infections, diabetes, respiratory infections, asthma and obesity, although one recent study did not find protections against childhood obesity. Moms have also been found to be less likely to develop breast and ovarian cancer if they breast-fed.

For the new study, Dr. Leda Chatzi from the University of Crete and her colleagues used data from a long-term study of 540 mothers and their kids.

When the babies were nine months old, researchers asked moms when they started breast-feeding and how long they breast-fed. They updated the information when the children were 18 months old. Psychologists also tested children’s cognitive abilities, language skills and motor development at 18 months.

About 89 percent of the babies were ever breast-fed. Of those, 13 percent were breast-fed for less than one month, 52 percent for between one and six months, and 35 percent for longer than six months.

Children who were breast-fed for any amount of time scored higher on the cognitive, receptive communication and fine motor portions of the test than children who weren’t breast-fed.

Scores on the cognitive, receptive and expressive communication and fine motor sections were highest among children who were breast-fed for more than six months, the researchers reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

For instance, on cognitive assessments with a normal score of 100, toddlers who were never breast-fed scored about a 97, on average. Kids who were breast-fed for more than six months scored a 104.

Chatzi and her colleagues expected to see more breast-feeding than they did.

“We were surprised by the fact that breast-feeding levels in Greece remain low, even though there is an ongoing effort by the Greek State to promote breast-feeding practices,” Chatzi told Reuters Health in an email.

“One of the reasons we see such a big drop off in the United States and elsewhere around four months is because women return to work,” Christakis said.

“The real challenge we have is with sustaining breast-feeding,” he said. “I believe very strongly that we need a public health approach to doing so because these are public health issues – improving child cognition and improving in this case as they showed a child’s physical development, benefits society as a whole and society has to support women achieving that goal.”

“We need to have baby-friendly work places that help women continue to either breast-feed or pump when they return to work,” Christakis said. “There’s that African proverb, ‘it takes a village to raise a child,'” he said. “It takes a village to breast-feed a child as well, and all sectors have to contribute.”

Source: Reuters

The 10 most filling foods: Feel leaner and lighter with these filling foods

Noodle soup made with ramen noodles and tofu or Quorn
This watery nutritious combination contains all the ingredients to activate your ‘feeling-satisfied’ cascade. Generally a bowl of ramen noodles contains a lot of water, green vegetables and a source of protein (tofu or Quorn), as well as starch-rich noodles. High fibre (whole wheat) noodles are best for feeling as full as possible. Pot Noodles don’t count.

Eggs
Are superbly versatile: whether eaten boiled, poached, scrambled or fried, they are an excellent source of protein, which is cracking news

Lean meat
Protein is the most filling macronutrient (more so than carbohydrate, fats or alcohol). Lean meat is primarily protein while much of the muscle tissue is water.

Mushy peas
A school classic, good old mushy peas are high on the satiety index because they are low in fat, low in energy density, and high in carbohydrate, protein and fibre.

Potatoes with skins
Potatoes are full of starches, which are digested and absorbed more slowly than simple sugars. When boiled they also absorb a lot of water, making them more filling, while leaving the skins on means that the fibre content is higher too. You say potato, I say…

Tuna chunks in spring water or fresh tuna
Tuna tinned in water or brine is virtually fat free, even if you eat the tin. It is very high in protein, which is great for helping you feel fuller for longer and fairly low in energy density.

Mexican-style three-bean salad
All beans including classic baked beans are high in protein, low in fat and sugar, high in fibre and high in moisture content. They take time to chew and digest and will fill you up for hours.

Boiled wild rice
Wild rice is higher in fibre than white rice and when boiled is low in fat and high in moisture. By the way, leaving it outside for a few days doesn’t make it wild.

Natural low-fat yoghurt and skimmed-milk soft cheeses
Yoghurt to know about this one. These are low in fat and high in moisture content and are a good source of protein. For maximum effect on satiety and slimming effectiveness it is best to eat yoghurts with soluble fibres such as insulin added to them and avoid those with added sugar.

Fresh fruit and vegetables
Fruit and vegetables are a very low energy density food that is high in water content, low in saturated fat and a good source of fibre while containing some protein. From apricots to bananas and tomatoes to watermelon, filling up on unlimited amounts make fruit and vegetables your best friend, and you don’t even have to get a round in.

Source: mens health

Google Glass surgeon’s new best friend? What one surgeon is saying about tech

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It’s hard to think of a way we live that Google hasn’t touched. And now, you can add surgery to the
list.

It all starts with Google Glass, which lets an expert lend a helping hand in the operating room, even
when he or she is in another state.

At the University of Alabama-Birmingham, orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Brent Ponce, prepared for a shoulder
replacement. Behind his face shield he wore Google Glass — the wearable computer. Its built-in camera
streamed live video of the procedure to another surgeon 150 miles away in Atlanta, where Dr. Phani
Dantuluri not only watched the surgery, but offered a virtual hand.

A ghostly projection of Dantuluri’s hands was superimposed over what Ponce saw on the operating table.
The merged images appeared in Ponce’s Google Glass display.
Asked what it was like when he first put on the Google Glass, Ponce said, “There’s a little bit of a
light bulb experience. We were able to say, not just ‘go left or right’ or ‘up or down,’ but we were
able to say ‘right here,’ ‘right there,’ ‘go faster from here to here’.”

On one day, Ponce and Dantuluri were testing Google Glass paired with VIPAAR, a videoconferencing
platform that allows users to interact with the picture.

It may be another year before the combined technology goes mainstream. Ponce is the only doctor testing
it in surgery.
Ponce said, “With this technology, if I’m struggling, another surgeon is able to say, ‘Hey, get your
head in the game. Let’s do this, let’s do this.’ And they’re able to walk through it together. So it’s a
little bit more of a safety net.”

Asked if it turns surgery into collaboration, Ponce replied, “Without question.”

VIPAAR plans to expand the pilot program to include more surgeons by the end of next year.

Source: cbs news

Testosterone may make men likely to get the flu, study finds

Just in time for flu season’s peak, science may have figured out a reason why some men make wimpy, needy patients compared to women when it comes to infectious diseases.

A report released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) links testosterone levels with response to flu vaccine, showing that, as a group, men with higher levels of the male hormone are more likely to have weak, or no response to a flu vaccine, meaning that their bodies don’t mount a strong defense.

In short, they have weaker immune systems than do women, leaving them more vulnerable to severe infections.

“Men are suffering!” Mark M. Davis, the Avery Family Professor of Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, told NBC News. “They aren’t as resistant. Women are superior. There’s no way around it.”

Science has known for some time that there are gender differences between the immune systems of men and women, differences that can have profound impacts for health and medicine.

For example, while women tend to develop a more robust immune reaction to infection, that strength comes with a cost. Women are much more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases like lupus, and they are more likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to have severe cases of viral, bacterial and parasitic infections.

What mechanisms underlay this phenomenon has been somewhat mysterious. The study released today might help tease apart some of that mystery.

The multinational team from Stanford, France, and the University of North Carolina took blood from 54 women and 37 men of different ages, then studied a variety of immune system proteins and cells using complex systems to detect gene expression. Then they gave flu vaccines to these people and checked for any changes in these parameters. Sure enough, men, as a group, had a more muted response to the vaccine.

Thirty-three women and 10 men responded to the vaccine for the seasonal H3N2 flu strain. Twenty women and 24 men did not respond. (The remaining participants weren’t included due to incomplete or flawed results.)

“Lots of male non-responders had high levels of testosterone,” Davis explained, “while the men with lower testosterone levels had roughly equal responses to females. The high-T men were crappy responders.”

When the team completed the complicated genetic analysis, it found that genes involved with lipid (fats) metabolism – such as the manufacture of cholesterol by the liver – were powerfully associated with response to the vaccine. The more strongly those genes were expressed, and the higher the testosterone, the weaker the response to the vaccine.

To Carol Colton, a Duke University Medical Center professor of neurology who studies the interaction of hormones and the immune system, especially their effects on brain diseases, “that makes perfect sense” because our bodies make estrogen and testosterone from cholesterol, a lipid. The differences between men and women, she explained “are inherent, right down to the gene level.”

Why would evolution instill such differences? Davis speculated – and Colton heartily agreed – that higher testosterone in men is anti-inflammatory and aids the healing of injuries and wounds. Males of most species are more likely than females to suffer trauma. “If you’re in a battle, having lots of testosterone is wonderful,” Colton said.

“So you take a hit to your resistance to infectious disease,” Davis said, “but you gain in case of trauma.”

Davis said he hoped studies like this one would help inform scientists and physicians as new immune-therapies, like cancer vaccines, are developed. “There’s been some neglect in this area,” he said, “that I hope our study, and others, will help to correct.”

And for those who got the flu vaccine but still get sick, a prescription antiviral therapy can lessen symptoms and shorten the duration of the virus, if taken within 48 hours.

Source: FCN