Health News

IIT Kharagpur students propose mobile app for fast and accurate diagnosis of skin cancers

A group of students from IIT Kharagpur has won the sixth edition of ‘GE Edison Challenge’ for their solution that proposed a hardware software co-designed mobile phone app for fast and accurate diagnosis of skin cancers and related abnormalities, enabling high-precision point-of-care healthcare delivery in resource constrained base of pyramid and rural populations.
As a part of the GE Edison Challenge 2013, which was held at the GE India Technology Centre here, students were required to create “an idea for India and the world” in the field of affordable and accessible healthcare.

The winning team — Team SinCLAIR from IIT Kharagpur that consisted of Debdoot Sheet (team leader), Kausik Basak, Sri Phani Krishna Karri and Tamoghna Ojha — was awarded an incubation prize of Rs 10 lakh.

Sukla Chandra, general manager, GE Global Research Bangalore and director, Patents and Analytics Centre of Excellence, said, “The GE Edison Challenge is a unique initiative to nurture the Edisons of tomorrow. The contest aims to promote the culture of innovation among the science and engineering students of India. It is an opportunity for them to showcase their ideas for a better future. This year’s Challenge was to present solutions for the healthcare industry and I am impressed with the balance of innovative technology and business strategy demonstrated by the teams.”

Team OM from IIT (BHU) Varanasi, which included Sritam Parashar Rout (team leader), Himanshu Gangwar and Aditya Garg, was chosen as the runner-up and won an incubation prize of Rs 5 lakh for their proposed solution that consists of a non-invasive and highly portable method of malignant tumour detection.“This year’s GE Edison Challenge was based on affordable healthcare which is one of most pressing issues in developing countries like India. We challenged teams to address problems in the healthcare system such as lack of access to quality care or affordability of quality care. Teams had to come up with solutions targeting care areas of Maternal and Child Health, Oncology or Cardiology or focus on expanding care access via mobile platform. I was glad to see that all the teams kept the cost parameters and their customers in mind while working on the solutions,” Vikram Damodaran, director, Healthcare Innovation India, GE Healthcare, said.

A panel of internal and external experts evaluated the entries based on technical and commercial feasibility as well as originality of the solution. The presentation abilities of the finalists were also tested to see if they could deliver their message clearly, bring clarity of data and solutions and showcase creativity and imagination in the tools used for presentation.

According to GE India, the GE Edison Challenge is a unique science and engineering competition that challenges the imagination and technical expertise of tomorrow’s inventors.

GE launched this annual contest in 2008 with the aim of finding the best scientific and engineering talent in the country.

The Challenge epitomizes imaginative thinking, analytical skill, technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. The competition provides an opportunity for the best and brightest students of India’s finest technical institutions to provide solutions to some of the country’s most pressing issues, a statement by the company said.

Source: India Medical Times

Chennai hospital to attempt surgical separation of Pygopagus twin boys

The surgical separation of a pair of Pygopagus twin boys at the Apollo Specialty Hospital in Vanagaram will be the first-ever attempted in India.

Prayers are indeed necessary for the survival and speedy recovery of nine-month-old Ericana and Eluidi, hailing from Kasumulu village in Tanzania, who are joined at the tail-end of their spines and share a single anus and rectum, for they will be undergoing an 18-hour-long ordeal at the operating table.

According to Dr Venkat Sripathi, Senior Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, Apollo Hospitals, conjoined twins are seen in one in 200,000 deliveries, with 60 per cent of them being stillborn and 35 per cent of the remaining dying within a few days or months of birth. “However, fusion at the buttocks (Pygopagus) is very rare and account for less than 17 per cent of all conjoined twins,” he said at a media briefing here on Friday.

“Till now in medical literature, only 30 sets of Pygopagus twins have been reported, out of which 26 are female and only four are male,” he pointed out.

The male twins arrived at the Apollo Hospitals for surgical separation under a joint project ‘Save a child’s heart initiative’ with the Tanzanian government. The cost of the surgery, estimated to be around `30-40 lakh, will be met by the Tanzanian government.

Dr Sripathi said the unique and challenging aspect of the separation was the fused phallus, which had to be delicately separated to give each baby a functional penis. A team of 20 doctors from the specialties of neurosurgery, plastic surgery, paediatric surgery and paediatric urology would attempt the separation. “The twins have a 75 per cent chance of survival,” he said to a query.

Awaiting their most transforming moments in their life, the bubbly boys have learnt to speak Tamil from the nurses and lisp words such as athai and thatha.

Source; New Indian Express

Free insulin for poor children in Delh

Many diabetic children from the economically weaker sections of the society in the national capital will be provided insulin free of cost, said a Delhi based diabetic centre on Sunday.

Delhi Diabetic Research Center (DDRC) will provide insulin free of cost to 150 poor children suffering from Type 1 diabetics.

The initiative was announced by DDRC at a day-long event at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi.

“Children with Type 1 diabetes need daily dose of insulin, regular monitoring of glucose level, periodic visits to the doctors and subsequent pathology tests, which becomes a bit unaffordable for the weaker section of the society,” said Ashok Jhingan, diabetologist and chairman, DDRC.

All the children provided free insulin are between the age group of 0-18.

“Initially we will provide free insulin to 150 children and slowly shall extend the reach to more children,” Jinghan added.

Source: ndtv

 

Exercise helps prevent diseases in kids

New studies have shown that when children increase their level of physical activity, they experience positive health benefits, which include less body fat, increased muscular strength and reduced risk factors for major diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other metabolic and lifestyle-related disorders, quickly.

The studies were conducted in a lab led by David Nieman,Dr.P.H., FACSM, a professor of health and exercise science in Appalachian’s College of Health Sciences.

In the study, 200 obese Chinese children were split into two groups. One group took part in a summer camp where they exercised three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon doing a number of activities that included swimming, running, cycling and ping pong.

The second group continued with their normal lives. Both groups maintained a caloric intake of 1,600 to 2,000 calories a day. The average child in the summer camp lost six to eight kilograms or 13 to 17 pounds.

“All of that exercise and weight loss combined to bring most of their risk factors down,” Nieman said. “Their blood pressure went down and insulin sensitivity improved. They were able to handle their glucose better. They had a reduction in total cholesterol. So the overall metabolic health of these children improved in just six weeks.”

In another study conducted as part of the BioMoto STEM Initiative, Nieman’s laboratory tested seventh and eighth graders from the greater Charlotte area using a sophisticated battery of physical fitness tests. They found a key concern for these youth is their body fat levels.

The study is published in journal of Sport and Health Science.

Source: deccan chronicle

 

4 ways to fight seasonal depression naturally

The shorter days of winter can give you the blues, and for some people, it may even lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or seasonal depression.

While many people know that they don’t feel their best during the winter months, they might not be aware that they could be suffering from a specific form of depression that begins in the late fall, peaks around January and February, and then starts to fade by early spring.

Some experts believe the increased darkness disrupts the brain chemicals that affect mood, such as melatonin and serotonin, and others believe that the reduced sunlight causes vitamin D deficiencies, which can translate to depressive feelings.

Symptoms of SAD include depression, anxiety, loss of energy, social withdrawal, loss of interest in normal activities, weight gain and appetite changes, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Instead of living with this every year, you can take steps to keep your mood boosted and avoid falling into a winter slump.

Exercise consistently
Getting regular exercise can alleviate stress and anxiety; its effects may even last longer than antidepressants. This beneficial side effect happens because exercise enhances the action of endorphins in the body, chemicals that circulate in the body which improve immunity, reduce the perception of pain and help improve mood. The neurotransmitter norepinephrine is also stimulated during exercise, which can also help improve mood and ease the symptoms of depression.

Check your vitamin D levels
The easiest way to get vitamin D is through direct sunlight on the skin; during the cold winter months we lose most of our access to natural vitamin D in the form of sunlight. Vitamin D deficiencies have been linked with increased rates of depression, so winter is an important time to speak with your doctor about taking a supplement.

The Institute of Medicine recommends 600 international units of vitamin D for most people, which is almost impossible to get through food alone. The best sources include cod liver oil, oysters, caviar, and fatty fish, such as herring and salmon.

Increase your omega-3 intake
These healthy fats can help relieve symptoms of depression as well as help maintain healthy levels of the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin. Fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon, herring and anchovies are the best sources since they contain both EPA and DHA, which are forms of omega-3 fatty acids that are easily assimilated by the body. Vegan sources such as flaxseed, hemp and walnuts contain another source of omega-3 known as alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), which the body converts into EPA and DHA in small amounts.

Choose snacks wisely
A symptom of SAD is an increased craving for carbohydrates, which may be due to the decreased serotonin activity in the brain. In an effort to increase these low levels, the body craves foods that promote the production of serotonin. Choosing the right carbohydrates is critical. Processed or sugary carbohydrates will quickly raise blood sugar levels and cause an insulin spike. Once the sugar is metabolized there will be a sudden drop in blood sugar that can cause fatigue and irritability. Choose brightly colored vegetables to keep carbohydrate cravings under control, aiming for three to four cups per day, and be sure to include some protein with every meal and snack.

Source: Fox news

Energy efficient light bulbs could pose UV-risk to skin, trigger migraines

Starting in January, traditional incandescent bulbs will be on their way out the door. A 2007 bill is setting new efficiency standards for light bulb manufacturers, stating that 40 watt bulbs must draw just 10.5 W, and 60 W bulbs can only draw 11 W.

So how does this translate? Essentially, it means that incandescents will be going dark, while newer compact fluorescents (CFLs) and LED bulbs will be lighting up.

While this move is ultimately meant to conserve the nation’s available energy, the transition may actually not be so beneficial in other aspects. Broader use of CFLs may actually come with some unwanted health risks – most notably in regards to people’s skin.

The danger lies in the CFL design. Current fluorescent bulbs house a small tube of liquid mercury, and when the light is turned on, the incoming electricity changes some of that mercury into gas. This excited vapor emits invisible ultraviolet (UV) light, which is then absorbed by the bulb’s phosphor coating. The coating serves two purposes, both re-emitting the UV rays as visible light and shielding human skin from harm.

“Ultraviolet light is similar to the ultraviolet wavelengths found in natural sunlight, and we do not want huge amounts or extra amounts of ultraviolet light on our skin because it can cause biological effects that can lead to cancer,” Dr. Elma Baron, director in the lasers and photomedicine department at UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland, told FoxNews.com. “I think the chance of that happening, having UV light emission from the new bulbs, is only present when there is a defect in the coating.”

However, it seems that these defects are a definite possibility. A 2012 study from Stony Brook University found that the twisty CFL bulbs, which also use mercury, are much more likely to leak UV light compared to traditional fluorescent bulbs.

According to the research, many of these bulbs “have cracks in the phosphor coating, probably due to the fact that the coating is brittle and has trouble making the tight bends required to make these bulbs compact,” explained the study’s lead author Miriam Rafailovich, a professor of materials science and engineering at Stony Brook.

As a result, the researchers found that exposure to CFL bulbs caused damage to healthy human skin cells, similar to damage seen from ultraviolet radiation. However, it remains unclear how much exposure to a cracked CFL bulb is enough to cause serious adverse health effects.

“When you’re talking about skin effects of light, it all has to do with wavelength; what’s the wavelength being emitted?” Baron said. “A 5 Joule of UVA light may not do anything, but once you get to a 20 Joule of UVA, that might cause some redness or alter some processes in the skin. So it’s a matter of dose, and I don’t think anyone has quantified what the dose is through one of those sources if something is cracked.”

Another concern surrounding CFL light bulbs has to do with their potential to trigger migraine headaches. According to Dr. Mark Green, director of the Center for Headache and Pain Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, current fluorescent lights are reviled by many migraine suffers, who claim certain forms of lighting can prompt painful attacks.

“The reality is [fluorescent lighting] rarely does trigger migraines, but it’s possible, and the reason for that is there is a flicker rate – the lights fire off at a certain rate,” Green told FoxNews.com. “The way we trigger migraines in the lab is to give people a strobe effect, using high density lights at a high flicker rate… So we don’t like fluorescent lights in migraine people in general.”

Green said that most migraine sufferers enjoy incandescent lighting, since it doesn’t produce any flickering sensations and has a nice warm feel. But with this change, it’s going to be harder for individuals to avoid fluorescent lights, and for the 1 or 2 percent of people who experience migraines, CFLs may exacerbate their symptoms.

“We’re all going to be living in a world of fluorescent light,” Green said. “So what we do as doctors, since we can’t change the world, we just try to treat the migraines more aggressively. When you use preventive migraine therapy, you reduce sensitivity of that part of the brain. We can’t change the trigger but we can try to change the brain’s response to the trigger.”

Fortunately, there is still an option for people worried about the potential health effects from CFLs. Considered to be the future of bulb technology, LED lights don’t contain any filaments that will burn out, and they don’t heat up very much either. Instead, they are illuminated by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, causing no flickering and emitting almost no UV light.

Yet, there’s a catch. LED lights are much more costly for consumers, with a six-pack of 60-Watt LEDs from Cree selling for $77.82 – $12.97 each. So if you’re looking to make the switch to LEDs, it may burn a few holes in your pockets.

Source: News.nom

Three killed in attacks targeting Pakistan’s anti-polio programme

Two policemen and a polio worker were killed Friday in attacks on polio teams and their police escorts in Pakistan, authorities said.
A policeman was killed and another injured when unidentified gunmen fired on a polio security team in Swabi, in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, District Police Officer Sajaad Khan told CNN.

One policemen, Ijaz Ali, was killed immediately, while the second, Iftikhar Ali, died a few hours later at a hospital. Both were shot in the head, said an officer who saw their bodies.

Swabi is the hometown of Khalid Sheik Haqqani, a senior Taliban official. The officers were there to protect polio workers, who have come under increasing attack in the past year.

The second victim, a polio worker, was shot dead by unknown men in Jamrud, in Pakistan’s tribal Khyber Agency, an official said.
Unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle killed polio vaccination team member Muhammad Yousaf Afridi near his house. He was killed
while returning from dispensing oral polio drops to children, said Muhammad Asif, a local official.

Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who heads the Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, condemned the targeting of polio workers in a statement released by his party.

Khan called on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s chief minister and the federal government to take “strong action” to arrest those responsible and to provide security for polio workers.

The PTI party holds the majority of seats in the coalition running Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial government. Militants have targeted anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan since U.S. intelligence officials used a fake vaccination program to help in their hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Under cover of the programme, the CIA sought to collect DNA samples from relatives of the al Qaeda leader to verify his presence in a compound in Abbottabad.

More than 20 polio workers have been killed since July 2012. Some mullahs have also preached against the polio campaign, claiming falsely that the oral vaccine leaves Pakistani children sterile.

Last year, a Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan announced a ban on polio vaccines for children in the region as long as the United States continued its campaign of drone strikes.

Pakistan stepped up its eradication efforts after cases spiked in 2011, but cases continue to be diagnosed. At least 16 cases of polio have been reported this year in Khyber Agency.

Polio, which can cause permanent paralysis in hours, remains endemic only in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Among those strongly opposed to the polio drops project is Mullah Fazlullah, who was recently appointed to head the Taliban after his predecessor was killed in a drone strike.

In June 2012, the Taliban announced its opposition to polio vaccination efforts. Since then, there have been more than two dozen deaths involving vaccination teams and their security details.

Source: Big News Network

Healthy eating costs an extra $1.50 per day: study

That healthy foods cost more has become conventional wisdom, but a new study is the most thorough yet in calculating how much more: about a dollar and a half.

“Before now, we’ve seen studies looking at prices of one or a few foods or diets, in one city and from one store,” said Mayuree Rao. “And the results have been mixed, with some studies finding that the healthier options cost more and some studies finding they don’t.”

Rao is a junior research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and a medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She led the study that was published in BMJ Open.

The research team identified 27 previous studies from 10 countries that met their inclusion criteria and reviewed each of them. Fourteen studies were conducted in the U.S, two in Canada, six in Europe and five in other countries including South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Brazil.

Twelve of the studies were market surveys that evaluated the prices of anywhere from two to 133 foods each and included up to 1,230 stores.

Fifteen studies were dietary surveys that ranged from 30 participants to more than 78,000.

The researchers compared the costs of the healthiest eating patterns with the least healthful and found that the healthiest diets cost on average $1.47 more per day based on actual food intake, or about $1.54 more per day for every 2,000 calories consumed.

The studies in the review used various definitions of “healthy” – including comparing the amount of fat or sugar in similar products, or comparing whole grain versus refined carbohydrate versions, or looking at total fruit and vegetable intake or overall calories.

But all the findings were consistent across current standards for healthy eating, such as the Mediterranean diet, or Harvard’s Alternative Healthy Eating Index.

The researchers also compared price differences in food groups – healthier meats and proteins had the largest difference between healthy and unhealthy choices – about 29 cents more per serving.

It’s important to consider what an extra $1.50 per day can mean for individual as well as family budgets, according to Rao.

“It translates to about $550 more per year for one person, and that could be a real barrier to healthier eating. We need better policies to help offset these costs,” she said.

“On the other hand, $1.50 is about the price of a cup of coffee – just a drop in the bucket when you consider the billions of dollars spent every year on diet-related chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. When you look at the long-term health impact, the extra $1.50 is a good investment,” she said.

Rao says that determining why healthier diets are more expensive is certainly an interesting topic for more investigation.

“Other research from our group has observed that over the past century, the U.S. has developed a complex system of farming, storage, transportation, processing, manufacturing, and marketing that favors a lower cost of highly processed foods,” Rao said. “We just don’t have the same system to support healthier foods like fruits and vegetables.”

That extra daily cost can be a burden for low-income families said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health. He was not involved in the new research, but some of his work was included in the review.

“An additional $1.50 represents a 15-25 percent increase for the average American,” Drewnowski said. “It does not sound like much but low-income families spend about $6 on food. So here, $1.50 represents a 25 percent increase.”

“Also remember that $1.50 per person per day represents $540 per year, or $2,200 for a family of four. When you multiply by 200 million American adults (I am being conservative here), you get a total cost of 108 billion dollars – more than the entire USDA budget for food assistance,” he told Reuters Health in an email.

Drewnowski points out that dollar figure is about the same as the estimated cost of obesity to society, said to be on the order of $100 billion per year.

“So – are we asking consumers to spend another 108 billion in order to eat healthier? I wish they would, but I am not optimistic. At the very least we need a recognition that nutrition education needs to be accompanied by some economic measures,” he said.

Drewnowski thinks the main problem is that empty calories have become extremely cheap.

“Sugar, refined cereals and vegetable oils have made the food supply relatively inexpensive. However, those foods provide calories and (sometimes) few nutrients – so that obesity and hidden hunger can coexist,” he said.

“Subsidizing healthy foods and taxing unhealthy foods are evidence-based ways to address the price imbalance and nudge people towards a healthier diet. These are strategies that policymakers in many countries should be looking at,” Rao said.

Source: updated news

U.S. states affected by deadly pig virus now at 20 – USDA

Nebraska has become the latest U.S. state to be hit by a deadly pig virus, bringing the total number of states affected to 20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week.

The Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) had never been reported in North America until May, when it was discovered in the United States.

The virus has fueled market concerns that U.S. hog supplies will decline steeply next spring and summer.

PEDv causes diarrhea, vomiting and severe dehydration. Hog epidemiologists have found that a large number of very young piglets infected with the virus die.

While the disease has tended not to kill older pigs, mortality among very young pigs infected on U.S. farms is commonly 50 percent, and can be as high as 100 percent, according to veterinarians and scientists studying the outbreak.

To date, more than 1,500 cases, each of which could represent thousands of infected animals, have been reported in 20 states across the Hog Belt. The states include such major pork producers as Iowa, North Carolina, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

As defined by the USDA, each diagnostic case could represent multiple animals at either a single farm site or several locations. The USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network released its latest pig virus data on Wednesday.

Nebraska, the sixth-largest pork production state, had 1.35 million hogs spread over 2,200 operations as of Sept. 1, according to USDA data.

The spread of the disease has heightened scrutiny of the U.S. trucking industry, as livestocktransportation vehicles have been targeted as a possible means of transmission.

The National Pork Board has issued biosecurity guidelines urging transporters to clean, disinfect and dry vehicles that are used to transport pigs and hogs.

The guidelines also include stricter standards for handling of manure by producers and commercial haulers.

Source: Godlike productions

Flu vaccine prevented 6.6 million illnesses last year, says CDC

According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu vaccines prevented 6.6 million illnesses and 79,000 hospitalizations last year. Health officials urge people to get flu shots to prepare for upcoming “peak” months of this flu season.

Federal health officials are urging all Americans six months and older to get the flu vaccine in preparation for this year’s flu season, after evidence showed that the vaccine protected more people against the disease last year.

Last year’s flu season was more severe than recent seasons, according to findings by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The season started earlier than expected, causing 381,000 people to become hospitalized and 169 children to die from the flu last year.

There is good news, however. Although the virus impacted many lives, the flu vaccine also prevented millions more from becoming ill.
“We estimate that during last year’s flu season, flu vaccination prevented 6.6 million people from getting sick with flu, 3.2 million from going to see a doctor and at least 79,000 hospitalizations,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a CNN article Thursday, calling the findings on the flu vaccine and protection “eye-opening”

Although Friden explained the importance of getting vaccinated, less than half of Americans — 40 percent—have gotten the flu shot this year. To put the findings by health officials into perspective, if 70 percent of Americans had gotten the flu vaccine last year, another 4.4 million cases of flu and 30,000 hospitalizations would have been prevented. As the flu season begins to pick up across the country, especially in some Southeastern states, Frieden and other health officials now use the data to urge people to get vaccinated.

“We know that it will increase in the coming weeks and months, but we cannot predict where and when and how severe this year’s flu season will be,” Frieden stated in an article for WebMD. “What we can predict is that the best way you can protect yourself against flu is to get a flu vaccine. “It’s not too late to get vaccinated.

CDC’s Center for Global Health Director Dr. Anne Schuchat also spoke of the importance of getting vaccinated as soon as possible, noting that flu season typically peaks between January and March. She also explained that it was particularly important for children to get the flu shot.

“Already, three children have died this year from the flu,” Shuchat said in an article for CNN. “We hate to see anyone die from the flu, but particularly children. I really urge parents to make sure their children are vaccinated.”

Source: digital journal