Health News

Norma Spear: a tragic case of neglect and dehydration

71-year-old from Birmingham died after becoming dehydrated, losing 35lb in five weeks despite being under the supervision of care workers.

When Carol Clay dropped her mother off at the Druids Meadow residential home on the outskirts of Birmingham it was only meant to be a six-week stay.

Norma Spear, a lifelong Brummie approaching her 71st birthday, was increasingly falling while alone at home due to worsening arthritis. After one particularly nasty fall put her in hospital, it was agreed that Norma should move temporarily into a home in September 2010 while her house underwent refurbishment.

Norma, a fiercely independent woman, was against the idea. “She liked her own way and she liked routine,” says Carol, 53, who was Norma’s only child. “She got very frightened of medical people.”

Before arthritis set in Norma would often help out elderly friends who lived close by, pruning flowers in the garden and keeping them company over mugs of tea. Even when her joints began to stiffen she preferred not to be seen in public in a wheelchair, opting for a Zimmer frame instead.

“That’s me done then, isn’t it?” Norma joked with her daughter when told of the plan to move into care. Three years on, the words have lost their humor.

At first Norma settled in well. Carol would visit every day and take her mother out for trips. Aside from some early quibbles over how tough it was to get the staff’s attention, Druids Meadow seemed a safer place to be than home alone.

But things soon turned for the worse. As a coroner would later find, Norma was repeatedly failing to eat enough. She developed a urinary tract infection and begun drinking less and less water, despite being under the supervision of staff.

The situation came to a head in October while Carol was away for the week in London visiting the National History Museum with her daughter Jessica, now 9.

“As the week went on, mum got more and more incoherent, to the point where the phone stopped being answered,” Carol recalls. Despite reassurances from the care home staff, she cut short her trip after sensing something was wrong and rushed to the home.

“From the moment I got there it was apparent that some major change had taken place,” says Carol. “She was dehydrated; there was no doubt about it. … She was very quiet, very sleepy. She would mutter a word and drop off mid-sentence.”

Carol was insistent that her mother was dangerously dehydrated: her inner lips were dry and flaky; she became delirious, envisioning snakes coiled by the light fittings. Yet despite repeated requests for a doctor to treat her mother it was not until November 1 – Norma’s 71st birthday – that she was examined, according to the coroner.

Throughout her birthday Norma sat slumped and motionless in a wheelchair, head down. Three days later she was in hospital. Five days later she was dead.

When Norma passed away on November 6 2010 she weighed just five stone. During five weeks in the home she had lost 35lb. At an inquest earlier this year, neglect was found to have played a part in her death, as did dehydration.

“The failures I found are gross because they were so terribly simple,” concluded Birmingham’s deputy coroner Sarah Ormond-Walshe. “Without one or more of these gross failures, Norma Spear would have survived.”

Speaking almost three years to the day since Norma’s passing, Carol says she still feels guilt. “If I hadn’t gone to London, she would probably have lived … I have got to carry that guilt for the rest of my days,” she says.

But there is also anger at the Britain’s care system. “I don’t actually blame the staff at the care home,” she says. “I blame the total lack of protocol and training which we have in all our assisted care homes.”

When told that more than 1,000 people died dehydrated in care homes over the past decade, Carol says she is saddened but doubts 10 years from now nothing will have changed. “I honestly don’t believe it will stop.”

Source: Healcon

First ever retrograde gene therapy performed on human heart

 

An Indian origin surgeon has performed a historic first retrograde gene therapy, a novel procedure designed to deliver stem cells to the heart to repair damaged muscle and arteries in the most minimally invasive way possible.

Amit Patel, MD, director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering and an associate professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine performed the therapy on American actor, Ernie Lively.

Patel started investigating cell and gene-based therapies for the treatment of heart disease 12 years ago, but only recently received FDA approval to try the therapy on Lively, who was the first of several patients anxious to receive the treatment.

Patel and his team came up with the idea of retrograde heart therapy, a concept that has been discussed for 50 years.

“The genes basically act like a light house with a bright signal. They say, ‘ How can we help the ships that need to get to the port – which is the heart -get there. When the signal, or the light from the SDF-1, which is that gene, shows up, the stem cells from not inside your own heart and from those that circulate from your blood and bone marrow all get attracted to the heart which is injured, and they bring reinforcements to make it stronger and pump more efficiently,” Patel said.

Source: truth dive

`Oldest woman in Europe` reveals diet secrets

Emma Morano, who is the oldest woman in Europe and fifth-oldest person in the world at 114, has shed light on her diet secrets.

According to La Stampa, Morano believes that eating a raw egg every day has helped her live so long, News.com.au reported.

Morano, who was born in 1899, said that for breakfast she eats biscuits with milk or water and during the day she eats two eggs, one raw and one cooked, just like the doctor recommended when she was 20 years old.

For lunch she’ll eat pasta and minced meat then for dinner, she’ll have just a glass of milk, Morano said.

Morano, who goes to bed before 7pm every night and wakes up before 6am, has also credited her sleeping pattern in her longevity.

Source: sify

 

70,000 HIV cases detected in China since January

Around 70,000 new HIV cases were reported in China in the first nine months of the year, bringing the total number of people living with HIV/AIDS to 434,000.

From January to September, 80.7 million people received tests for HIV, an increase of 8.9 percent from the same period last year, reported Xinhua citing a National Health and Family Planning Commission statement.

A total of 3,413 treatment organisations were set up in 31 provincial-level regions.

China tested 7.43 million pregnant women for HIV/AIDS in the first nine months of the year to prevent possible mother-to-child transmission, the statement said.

Source: Two circles

 

Six health benefits of carrots

One of the world’s healthiest foods is Carrot. Carrots are a great way to infuse good nutrition and flavor into your diet. With this power food, you get vitamin A and a host of other powerful health benefits.

– Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the liver which is further converted to rhodopsin, a purple pigment necessary for night vision.

– Beta-carotene in carrot acts as an antioxidant to cell damage done to the body through regular metabolism thus it helps slow down the aging of cells.

– Carrots have not only beta-carotene but also alpha-carotene and lutein which lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

– Studies show that carrots reduce the risk of lung cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer.

– Vitamin A and antioxidants in carrots protect the skin from harmful effects of sun rays. Vitamin A prevents premature wrinkling, acne, dry skin, pigmentation, blemishes, and uneven skin tone.

– Carrots also considerably reduce cholesterol levels because the soluble fibers in carrots bind with bile acids.

Source: Health me up

Research: first functional lung and airway cells from stem cells

Scientists have succeeded in transforming human stem cells into functional lung and airway cells, thus giving way to the possibility of generating lung tissue for transplant using a patient’s own cells.

The study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers has significant potential for modelling lung disease, screening drugs, studying human lung development, and, ultimately, generating lung tissue for transplantation.

“Researchers have had relative success in turning human stem cells into heart cells, pancreatic beta cells, intestinal cells, liver cells, and nerve cells, raising all sorts of possibilities for regenerative medicine,” study leader Hans-Willem Snoeck said.

“Now, we are finally able to make lung and airway cells. This is important because lung transplants have a particularly poor prognosis. Although any clinical application is still many years away, we can begin thinking about making autologous lung transplants-that is, transplants that use a patient’s own skin cells to generate functional lung tissue.”

The research builds on Dr. Snoeck’s 2011 discovery of a set of chemical factors that can turn human embryonic stem (ES) cells or human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into anterior foregut endoderm-precursors of lung and airway cells.

The findings have implications for the study of a number of lung diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), in which type 2 alveolar epithelial cells are thought to play a central role.

The study was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Source: News Track India

Negative results may ‘not always’ imply reduced breast cancer risk

A new study has found that women who are members of families with BRCA2 mutations but who test negative for the family-specific BRCA2 mutations are still at greater risk for developing breast cancer compared with women in the general population.

Women with certain mutations in their BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes are at increased risk for breast cancer. However, the study suggested that it may not always be true.

“We found that women who test negative for family-specific BRCA2 mutations have more than four times the risk for developing breast cancer than the general population,” Gareth R. Evans from University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, said. “We also found that any increased risk for breast cancer is largely limited to BRCA2 families with strong family history and other genetic factors.

Evans said that it is likely that these women inherit genetic factors other than BRCA-related genes that increase their breast cancer risk. About 77 single nucleotide polymorphisms are linked to breast cancer risk.

He said that identification of additional SNPs is necessary to understand why some of the BRCA-negative women from BRCA families are at higher risk.

The authors noted that specialists should use caution when stating that a woman’s breast cancer risk is the same as that of the general population following a negative test, because it may not be true for some women who come from BRCA2 families with a strong family history.

The study is published in journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Source: ANI

Skipping meals can lead to weight gain, diabetes

Are you skipping your meals as part of a quick fix diet plan to lose weight? You are in for trouble. Because skipping meals does more bad than good to your body. Not only is your body deprived of essential nutrients but this also drastically affects the metabolism leading to weight gain and diabetes.

Most people tend to skip breakfast for instant weight loss. But in their desperate attempt they send their metabolism for a toss. Metabolism is the simple process of breaking your food into smaller, usable parts that helps you stay active through the day.  When you skip meals your metabolism has nothing to do. As a result your metabolism is unable to break down portions that you eat later in the day, and the food gets stored as fat leading to weight gain.

Skipping meals also drastically affects blood sugar levels. During metabolism some part of this food that you eat is stored as fat, while other parts enter the bloodstream as sugar, to provide you with energy throughout the day. Not eating at regular intervals can drastically lower your blood sugar levels making you susceptible to developing diabetes later in life.

So eat at the right times, eat healthy and exercise to stay fit.

Source: Zee news

Staying active all day linked to healthy aging

A generally active life, even without regular exercise sessions, was tied to better heart health and greater longevity in a study of older Swedes.

Based on nearly 3,900 men and women over age 60 in Stockholm, the study adds to evidence suggesting that just sitting around may be actively harmful, researchers say.

“We have known for 60 years that physical activity is important for the heart,” said lead author Elin Ekblom-Bak, of the Åstrand Laboratory of Work Physiology of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in Stockholm.

But until recently the research has mainly focused on exercise and has “forgotten” about the background activity that we do during daily life, she told Reuters Health.

Someone exercises vigorously or not, it still usually only takes up a small fraction of the day. That leaves the rest of the time for sitting still or engaging in non-exercise activities, like home repairs, lawn care and gardening, car maintenance, hunting or fishing.

For older people, who tend to exercise vigorously less than younger people, spending more time doing low-intensity activities like these could help cut down on sitting time, Ekblom-Bak and her colleagues write in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Between 1997 and 1999, more than 5,000 60-year-olds were invited to participate in the study, which began with a questionnaire about health history, lifestyle and daily activities, as well as medical tests and measurements.

At the study’s outset, people who were more active on a daily basis, regardless of their exercise levels, tended to have smaller waists and healthier cholesterol levels.

The participants were followed for the next 12.5 years. During that time nearly 500 people had a first-time heart attack or stroke, and nearly 400 people died from any cause.

People who had reported high levels of daily non-exercise activity were less likely to suffer a heart-related event and less likely to die than those who were the least active.

For every 100 people reporting low activity levels who had a heart attack or stroke, for example, only 73 highly active people experienced such events. For every 100 of the least active who died, only 70 of the most active did.

“These are fascinating findings,” said David Dunstan, of the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, “but not really surprising since other studies that have looked at this from a different angle – that is, describing the detrimental relationship between excessive sitting and mortality outcomes – are essentially showing the same thing but in reverse because there is such a high correlation between sitting time and non-exercise physical activity behaviors.”

While sitting, muscles do not contract and blood flow decreases, which reduce the efficiency of many body processes, like absorbing glucose from the blood, said Dunstan, who studies heart health and exercise.

Non-exercise activity likely prevents the general slowing-down associated with sitting, he told Reuters Health.

“In addition to engaging in regular health enhancing exercise, people should be encouraged to also think what they do during the long periods in the day in which they are not exercising,” he said in an email.

“Engaging in regular exercise is still important,” Ekblom-Bak said. “We saw that those who exercised regularly and that also had a daily physically active life had the lowest risk profile of all.”

Moderate-to-vigorous exercise helps strengthen the heart muscle and other body muscles, and may help regulate blood pressure more than general activity, Dunstan said.

But it is important for doctors and society in general to promote daily activity, not just exercise, she said.

“Human beings are designed to move,” said Phillip B. Sparling, a professor of Applied Physiology and Health Behavior at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta who was not involved with the new study.

“Ideally, we should have a mix of all levels of activity,” he said. “But, regardless of whether one exercises or not, the new message is to move more and sit less throughout the day.”

Source: Reuters

New treatment for osteoporosis discovered

After more than four years of investigation, researchers from the Ageing Bone Research Program (Sydney Medical School’s Nepean campus), have found the treatment has shown very promising results in animal experiments.

The compound is called picolinic acid, a product derived of the essential amino acid tryptophan.

Lead researcher Professor Gustavo Duque said the odorless compound can be easily dissolved in water.

“This is a major step in the development of a completely new type of medication for osteoporosis. Instead of stopping bone destruction, our compound instead stimulates bone formation,” he said.

“The product is easily dissolved in water, has a higher level of absorption and did not induce any side effects in the treated mice.

“When this medication was administered in the water of normal and menopausal mice, picolinic acid strongly and safely increased bone mass in normal mice and rescued bone from menopause-associated osteoporosis.”

Professor Duque said the team had patented the compound and will expand their trials to humans in the near future in a bid to address the increasing numbers of people developing the condition.

“Osteoporosis affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide. One in three women over 50 will experience osteoporotic fractures, as will one in five men.

“Despite the current treatments available, by 2050, the worldwide incidence of hip fracture in men is projected to increase by 310 percent and 240 percent in women.

“This increase is explained by the low rate of diagnosis and treatment for osteoporosis, as well as some concerns about the potential side effects of the current treatments.

“There are also close similarities between the majority of the osteoporosis medications in terms of their anti-fracture effect and mechanism of action.”

According to Professor Duque, there is a reduction in bone formation as part of the ageing process that predisposes people to osteoporosis.

“In this case we are targeting the real problem by stimulating the bone forming cells to work and produce more bone, thus increasing bone mass and hopefully preventing new fractures,” he said.

Source: The University of Sydney