health tips

Dengue cases in New Delhi reach 5,462

The number of dengue cases in the capital has reached 5,462, a municipal health officer said Monday.

Though the number reported every week has reduced, the cases are still being witnessed in different parts of the city.

Most cases have been reported from the north zone (2,167), followed by south (1,642) and east (1,508) zones.

An additional 69 cases have been reported from the National Capital Region, including parts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Having surpassed the 2012 figure, the number of cases this year is nearing the 2010 figure (6,229).

Source: New Indian Express

Hide and seek: Brain cancer cells ‘lose’ mutations to evade cancer drugs

Brain cancer can play a deadly game of hide and seek.

A new study published in the journal Science has revealed that brain cancer cells can actually evade many current cancer drugs – by temporarily scaling down a certain genetic mutation that the drugs target. Additionally, once therapy has stopped, the cancer cells can then intensify the mutation once again.

According to the researchers, this study has huge implications for the future treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) – a brain cancer that is in desperate need of effective therapies.

“It’s one of the most common types of adult brain cancer and one of the most lethal of all types of human cancers,” study author Dr. Paul Mischel, a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and a professor in the department of pathology at the University of California, San Diego, told FoxNews.com. “And there are a number of real challenges [in treatment]. There are no good early detections for the disease, and the tumor cells invade through the brain, so it’s almost completely impossibly to surgically remove the entire tumor.”

Mischel also noted that GBM becomes resistant to modern chemotherapy and radiation treatments relatively quickly.

Recently, alternative cancer drugs have emerged that are capable of targeting specific genetic mutations in cancer cells. About 60 percent of GBM cells express a mutated variant of the epidermal growth factor receptor – also called EGFRvIII.  Found in the extrachromosomal DNA of these cancer cells, EGFRvIII helps to promote tumor growth and proliferation, and many targeted therapies work by targeting and suppressing this specific mutation.

However, these drugs ultimately haven’t translated to better outcomes for GBM patients.

“You would think that drugs that are used to target that receptor would be effective, but the results have been very disappointing,” Mischel said.

In order to better understand why, Mischel and his research team analyzed the genetic makeup of GBM tumors. When they treated the cancer cells with targeted therapies, they found that the pieces of mutant EGFRvIII DNA, which normally float outside the cancer’s chromosomes, temporarily jumped onto an obscure chromosome — where they could “hide” from the drugs. Then, once they ceased treatment, the DNA pieces removed themselves from the chromosome and floated freely once again, promoting cancer cell proliferation.

So in essence, the cancer cells were able to “shut down” the expression of the mutation while the cancer drugs were present in the body.

“This was a real surprise,” Mischel said. “…Those pieces of extra chromosomal DNA ‘disappeared’ when treated with the drug. It’s truly a hide-and-seek mechanism, because when the drug was removed, it jumped back off the chromosome.”

Mischel said it is still not understood exactly how the cancer can detect the presence of the drugs in the body, but the researchers have a few preliminary ideas.

“The mechanism by which the DNA is sensing the drug is really not understand,” Mischel said. “But the theory is that the DNA is sensing the signals that are being sent indirectly by the drug.”

The study’s findings help better explain why GBM becomes resistant to targeted therapies and it may help doctors determine a better course of treatment for patients. Mischel argued that the discovery could completely change how physicians treat patients with other types of cancer as well.

“It’s really a complete paradigm shift in how we begin to think about treating people with targeted therapies,” Mischel said. “…This find has big implications for this disease, because other types of cancers have these mutations present on extra chromosomal DNA….How we dose these tumors could change. The data we have in hand would suggest a very different type of dosage for targeted cancer treatment.”

Source: all voices

Testosterone-heart disease link explained

In recent months, there has been a great deal of contradictory information regarding testosterone. So much so that it is hard for any man to decipher what level is right, and whether seeking an “optimal” level is the preferred course of action.

In 2011, 5.3 million prescriptions for testosterone were written in the United States. The rate of prescriptions has tripled since 2000, and sales reached $1.6 billion in 2011. There has obviously been a lot of marketing for testosterone and low-T syndrome, but what exactly is testosterone is and what would are the benefits of treatment?

Testosterone is a hormone which helps regulate heart function and plays a part in sperm production, bone health, energy levels, concentration and muscle mass. This essential hormone does much more than just fuel a man’s sex drive. The problem is, most men experience a natural decline in testosterone as they age starting at 30, and testosterone supplementation is commonly prescribed to help these men regulate their hormone levels. The benefits and risks of the long-term use of testosterone therapy however, are not well known.

In a new study, the University of Texas looked at 9,000 male veterans who had undergone coronary angiography between 2005 and 2011, a procedure for testing the arteries when people have symptoms such as chest pain or are at high risk for heart problems.

The study found that men with signs of heart problems who take injections of testosterone or use gel containing the hormone had a 30 percent increased risk of heart attack, stroke or dying, compared with men who didn’t use the hormone. The study was stopped early due to higher rates of heart problems in the group receiving the hormone.

It is important to note that all of the men in the study more severe medical conditions including coronary artery disease, diabetes and previous heart attacks, than men in the general population. These risk factors may have been part of the reason testosterone treatments were harmful to them, but more research is needed to know for sure.

It is not hard to see why medical professionals would also be divided when it comes to testosterone treatment. Some side effects include acne, enlarged breasts, prostate problems, testicle shrinkage and limited sperm production. Similarly, once you start on it, you suppress your own production of testosterone and injections become a lifetime commitment.

As is the case with most hormones, testosterone needs to be kept in balance, and your physician can decide what level is right for you since this, too, can vary from man to man, and from lab to lab. A treatment program should be frequently monitored through lab tests, paying attention to potential side effects.

Men with prostate cancer should not receive testosterone as it could speed up cancer growth. Testosterone is not thought to cause prostate cancer, but may speed up the severity of the disease.

Source news.nom

Patients who came into direct contact with cobalt-60 likely to die

Six people have reportedly been admitted to a hospital in Mexico for radiation exposure after they came into contact with, or were in the vicinity of, stolen containers of highly radioactive cobalt-60.

Earlier reports indicated that the stolen containers had been broken open, and if this is the case, one expert said any patient who came into direct contact with the radioactive material may be vulnerable to central nervous system failure – a condition that results in the swelling of the brain and paralysis, and can lead to death in a matter of hours.

“All you can do is supportive care, perhaps steroids and IV fluids and monitoring and doing what you can,” Dr. James O’Donnell, division chief of nuclear medicine at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, told FoxNews.com. “If you know someone is exposed above (a certain) point, if they do experience central nervous system collapse, our experience in [the] medical world is there’s not an awful lot you can do, it’s not likely to be successful and they’re likely to die.”

Cobalt-60 is an isotope typically only used in machinery, or in radiation therapy for cancer patients, according to O’Donnell. The health effects of exposure to cobalt-60 depend upon the length of time a person is exposed, their distance from the radioactive material, and whether or not any type of shielding was present – for example, if the radioactive material was stored in a container.

While any patients who experienced direct contact with cobalt-60 may be at risk of death, O’Donnell said that others who were simply in the vicinity of the material may experience lesser side effects, such as skin burns or blisters, or gastrointestinal problems.

“With the kinds of exposures they were getting, I would guess it isn’t going to be really hyper-acute, like a bomb, but more gastrointestinal, which means they could get cramping, nausea, vomiting, bleeding that would be hard to control,” O’Donnell said.

Reports indicate that one patient admitted was experiencing dizziness and vomiting, according to FoxNews.com.

Risk to hospital workers

Depending on whether or not the admitted patients experienced direct contact with cobalt-60, other patients or hospital workers may be at some risk for exposure to the radioactive material, O’Donnell noted.

“If someone is (externally) exposed to gamma rays, the treatment of the patient is external and there’s no real hazard to any health care personnel or anyone taking care of them. You’re not going to catch someone else’s sunburn,” O’Donnell said. “But if they broke into the container and scraped it, or got it on them, now they’re contaminated and if someone else were to get it on them, now they could be exposed because the actual source of the radiation is there.”

However, he noted that most hospitals are equipped to deal with radiation exposure and are well-versed on techniques that can limit the exposure of hospital workers, or other patients.

“Everything stops, you try to put down absorbent paper, cover things up, cover things with a lead apron, try to isolate the contamination away from people. Then clean up the patient, wash them up, hose them off,” O’Donnell said. “And that’s where the radiation safety people at the hospital get involved with radiation detectors, and try to get (the radiation) back down to the background level.”

Any hospital with a radiology department would have access to dosimeters, which track exposure to radiated energy, according to O’Donnell. As a result, they would be able to ensure that hospital workers limit their exposure. Long-term exposure to radiation has been associated with an increased risk for certain cancers like lymphoma or leukeumia.

“You can never say the risk of anything is zero, but the foreseeable risk would be low enough for occupation workers,” O’Donnell said. “It’s based on our experience that for people who get no more (a certain amount of exposure), there’s no increase in cancers.”

Source: healcon

Camp Lejeune water contamination linked to birth defects

Water pollution at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina has been linked to increased risk of birth defects and childhood cancers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A study released by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry on Thursday confirmed a long-suspected link between chemical contaminants in tap water at the Marine Corps base and serious birth defects such as spina bifida

It also showed a slightly elevated risk of childhood cancers including leukemia.

Dr. Vikas Kapil, a medical officer and acting deputy director of the CDC agency that produced the study, said it surveyed the parents of 12,598 children born at Lejeune between 1968 and 1985, the year most contaminated drinking water wells at Camp Lejeune were closed.

From that same group of participants, 106 cases of birth defects and childhood cancers were reported. But Kapil said researchers could only confirm the diagnoses in 52 cases.

Computerized birth certificates first became available in 1968. The study’s authors said they could not prove exposure to the chemicals caused specific individuals to become ill.

The CDC has linked the contamination to a number of sources including leaking underground storage tanks, industrial spills, and an off-base dry cleaning firm.

Lejeune spokeswoman Captain Maureen Krebs said the Marine Corps has supported scientific and public health organizations studying the health impacts of the contamination.

“These results provide additional information in support of ongoing efforts to provide comprehensive science-based answers to the health questions that have been raised,” Krebs said in a statement.

“The Marine Corps continues to support these initiatives and we are working diligently to identify and notify individuals who, in the past, may have been exposed to the chemicals in drinking water.”

The Veterans Administration has already been providing disability compensation claims to the affected families and personnel exposed to the contaminated water.

Source: Reuters

J&J, Pharmacyclics leukemia drug effective long term: study

The oral drug, ibrutinib, last month won U.S. approval to treat a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma known as mantle cell lymphoma. It is awaiting a Food and Drug Administration decision on treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a slowly progressing form of blood cancer that primarily affects people aged 65 and older.

Some industry analysts had expected the CLL approval to come at the same time as the lymphoma decision. Data from this and other studies being presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in New Orleans could give regulators additional comfort about the medicine’s safety and effectiveness in treating CLL.

“Patients receiving ibrutinib are doing much better than historically what we’re used to seeing with CLL,” Dr John Byrd, a co-leader of the study, said in a telephone interview.

The 148-patient ibrutinib extension study looked at both previously untreated CLL patients and those who had relapsed or stopped responding following prior therapies.

With a median follow-up of more than 27 months of treatment, nearly all of the previously untreated, or treatment-naive, patients and almost three quarters of the relapsed and refractory patients had no evidence of the disease progressing.

REMISSIONS CONTINUE

“With extended follow-up the remissions with ibrutinib appear to be continuing and the safety of this long-term is being maintained,” said Byrd, professor of internal medicine and director of hematology at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus.

“There has not been an increase of infections or other late-term complications, suggesting that it’s going to be a drug that patients can take for a continued, extended period of time without it being a detriment,” he added.

Researchers had not yet been able to determine median progression-free survival – the point at which the disease begins to worsen for half the patients in a study.

Among previously untreated patients, about 96 percent had not yet experienced disease progression, with just one of 31 patients in that group relapsing so far, researchers said.

Typically you would expect about 50 percent to see disease progression at two years, Byrd explained.

“You don’t even need a statistician to see the difference. The data are better,” he said.

Of the 117 previously treated patients in the extension study, 21 had experienced disease progression and 11 had died within 30 days of receiving their last dose of the drug. That left more than 70 percent whose disease remained in check.

“Ibrutinib is the single most active drug that’s come into the clinic for CLL in terms of the durability of remission induced with it, so it’s going to be a game-changer in CLL,” Byrd predicted.

“A lot of the patients from the initial phase II study have been on drug for two to three years,” he added.

Serious adverse side effects, such as pneumonia, declined after the first year of treatment, researchers said. The incidence of serious side effects was twice as high in patients who had received prior therapies, which may have had more to do with the state of their disease than a reaction to ibrutinib, they said.

“Long term follow-up has only shown a low risk of infection that you would expect to see in this patient population,” said Byrd. “Otherwise the safety has been very favorable relative to other things that have been used in this patient population.”

RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee is forecasting eventual annual worldwide sales of $5 billion for the medicine, now being sold for lymphoma under the brand name Imbruvica.

About 15,000 Americans are diagnosed with CLL each year, according to ASH. While there are effective treatments for the disease, such as chemotherapy combined with Roche’s Rituxan, current therapies can be highly toxic.

Ibrutinib is one of several new medicines for CLL – including one in late stage development from Gilead Sciences Inc – that have fewer toxicities and safety issues and may lead to better quality of life for patients being treated.

“The future will hold combining this with some of the other new targeted therapies that we have coming forward to get complete remissions and hopefully get us onto the path of cure,” Byrd said.

Source: health render

Georgetown hospital receives US$10,000 donation of urology equipment

Members of the visiting Caribbean Medical Mission on Tuesday presented medical equipment to the Urology Clinic of the Georgetown Public Hospital valued around US$10,000 to 15,000.

The team is a part of the Organisation for Health Advancement for Guyana/ Caribbean. Dr Winston Mc Grill, a member of the team (residing in New Jersey) told Guyana Times that the gesture was initiated through good relationships he shared with friends in Guyana.
Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) Chief Executive Officer Michael Khan said the donation was timely, and noted that Dr Mc Grill will be conducting surgery with the Guyana team today.

Dr Chris Prashad of the Urology Clinic said the hospital needed new equipment since the old ones have deteriorated, pointing out that the fight is on to battle cervical and prostate disease.

Dr Mc Grill said this is his first visit to Guyana but will not be his last as the tour was worthwhile and visibly appreciated by those seen and treated. He further noted that there is much more to be done and his mission will continue.

During the simple presentation ceremony, questions were raised about prostate cancer, more specifically if it is true that men are reluctant to do checkups because they are ridiculed by their womenfolk.

Dr Prashad, who responded, said this is not so since women often urge their husbands, fathers or other male relative to take necessary actions as the need arises.

Though there is no data on men suffering from prostate cancer, Dr Mc Grill said the number of African men affected has been on the increase.

Source: Guyana Times

Artist carves stunning portraits in Oreo frosting

We’ve all been taught not to play with our food, but for Massachusetts artist Judith Klausner playing with food is a craft.

Since 2010, Klausner has been creating works of art from items like Oreo cookies and Chex cereal for her “From Scratch” series on expertly altered food stuffs.

The series includes embroideries made on toast, portraits carved in Oreo frosting, wallpaper painted with condiments, cross-stitching in Chex cereal and stained glass made from gummies.

“This nostalgia for the culinary past—before packaged foods and high-fructose corn syrup—fails to take into consideration just how much time it takes to make three full meals a day from scratch,” Klausner writes on her blog. “Today, as we come to realize that something has been lost in the mechanization of everything around us, there is a return to the idea that making something from its most basic parts has great value.”

Source: Fox news

9 Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Oranges

Orange is one such food-medicine marvel, containing a broad range of compounds increasingly being recognized to be essential for human health. We consider it a sweet treat, its juice a refreshing beverage, but do we ever really reflect on its medicinal properties? GreenMedInfo.com has indexed no less than 37 distinct health benefits its use may confer, all of which can be explored on our Orange Medicinal Properties research page. What follows are some of its most well-established therapeutic applications, divided into three parts: the juice, the peel and the aroma:

The Juice of the Orange
Many of us mistakenly look to orange juice today as a dangerous source of highly concentrated fructose – simple “carbs” – without recognizing its profound medicinal properties. We sometimes think we can get the vitamin C activity oranges contain through the semi-synthetic ‘nutrient’ ascorbic acid, without realizing that an orange embodies (as do all whole foods) a complex orchestra of chemistries, the handiwork of millions of years of evolution, which is to say a process of intelligent biological design. The ‘monochemical nutrient’ – ascorbic acid – is merely a shadow of the vitamin C activity that is carried and expressed through only living foods. The orange, after all, looks like a miniature sun, is formed as a condensation of energy and information from sunlight, and therefore is capable of storing and after being eaten irradiating us with life-giving packets of information-dense gene-regulating nutrition, by a mechanism that will never be fully reducible to or intelligible by the chemical skeleton we know of as ascorbic acid.

Orange Juice Improves “Good” Cholesterol: While it is debatable that lowering so-called “LDL” cholesterol is nearly as good for heart health as statin drug manufacturers would like for us to believe, raising “HDL” cholesterol does seem to have real health benefits. This is, however, quite hard to do with diet and nutrition, and impossible through medication. Other than taking high-dose fish oil, few things have been studied to be effective. Except, that is, orange juice. A 2000 study found that the consumption of 750 mL of orange juice a day, over a 4 weeks, improved blood lipid profiles by decreasing the LDL-HDL cholesterol ratio by 16% in patients with elevated cholesterol.

Orange Juice Boosts Bone Health: A 2006 animal study in male rats found that orange juice positively influenced antioxidant status and bone strength.

Orange Juice (mixed with Blackcurrant Juice) Reduces Inflammation: A 2009 study in patients with peripheral artery disease found that orange and blackcurrant juice reduced C-reactive protein (11%) and fibrinogen levels (3%), two concrete measures of systemic inflammation.[3] A 2010 study found that Orange juice neutralizes the proinflammatory effect of a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal and prevents endotoxin induced toxicity.

Orange Juice Boosts Weight Loss: A 2011 study found that children who regularly drank orange juice consumed an average of 523 calories a day more than children who did not drink orange juice regularly. Yet surprisingly, there was no difference in the weight levels between the orange juice consumers and the non-orange juice consumers.

Orange Juice May Dissolve Kidney Stones: A 2006 study found that orange juice consumption was associated with lower calculated calcium oxalate supersaturation and lower calculated undissociated uric acid, two indices of lowered urinary calcium stone formation.

Orange Juice Extract Suppresses Prostate Proliferation: Despite the fructose content, a 2006 study found a standardized extract of red orange juice inhibited the proliferation of human prostate cells in vitro.

The Peel of the Orange

The peel of the orange contains a broad range of potent, potentially therapeutic compounds. These include pectin and flavonoid

constituents, such as hersperiden, naringin, polymethoxyflavones, quercetin and rutin, various carotenoids, and a major odor constituent known as d-limonene, which makes up 90% of the citrus peel oil content, and is a compound that gets its name from the rind of the lemon, which contains a significant quantity of it. It is listed in the US Code of Federal Regulations as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and is commonly used as a flavoring agent. D-limonene has been studied to have potent anti-cancer properties, including against metastatic melanoma.

Source; Green med info

Online medical education tool aspires to improve patient interactions in challenging situations

Drexel University College of Medicine has developed an online medical education program to help healthcare professionals hone those skills in simulated interactions with patients and their families.

Although the goal is to improve performance by physicians and other healthcare professionals, it is also designed to help hospitals boost patient satisfaction scores, which impact Medicare reimbursement. This is one trend in healthcare that startups are increasingly addressing.

Dr. Christof Daetwyler of Drexel University College of Medicine will use the $100,000 he received from the University City Science Center QED Proof of Concept award to fund a pilot program with a well-known hospital next year and build a company around the technology.

In an interview with MedCity News, Daetwyler said one of Drexel’s collaboration partners is the Gift of Life donor program in Philadelphia, which licensed the technology.

A prototype of the technology was developed in 2002 at the Technology in Medical Education group at Drexel. It was used as a video conferencing tool to help medical students prep for the Objective Structured Clinical Examinations through simulated patient interactions.

Since then, technology advancements have made it easier to bring the platform online. User interactions with simulated patients are recorded online. Users get structured feedback on performance. They can also access videos that offer examples of best practice. In addition to organ donation and breaking bad news, it also includes modules on how to broach other difficult situations such as smoking cessation.

A separate joint venture between the College of Medicine and the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare, Doc.Com, produced 41 modules to improve communication skills.

The company’s approach also helps address the physician shortage, which is projected to worsen as Obamacare extends healthcare access to millions of people.

Several other health IT companies are taking different approaches to medical training using simulators. Shadow Health and Kognito Interactive have focused on developing patient simulator tools to improve patient and physician communication. SimplySim developed a way to train physicians to properly use a stethoscope and CaseNetwork developed a training tool to reduce readmissions. The idea is to provide more meaningful interactions to improve adherence and so that healthcare professionals better understand their patients’ needs.
Source : Med City News