health tips

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

 

Mother-to-child HIV infections decreasing: UN

The U.N. Children’s Fund says it is alarmed about increasing HIV and AIDS rates among adolescents over the last seven years and is advocating an aggressive program that includes condom distribution and antiretroviral treatment.

In a more positive development, UNICEF found that mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus has been dramatically reduced and estimated that some 850,000 cases were prevented in low- and middle-income countries.

Its 2013 Stocktaking Report on Children and AIDS released Friday said AIDS-related deaths among those aged 10 to 19 increased between 2005 and 2012 from 71,000 to 110,000. About 2.1 million adolescents were living with HIV in 2012.

Nearly 90 percent of children newly infected with HIV live in just 22 countries. All except one are in sub-Saharan Africa.

“If high-impact interventions are scaled up using an integrated approach, we can halve the number of new infections among adolescents by 2020,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “It’s a matter of reaching the most vulnerable adolescents with effective programs – urgently.”

High-impact interventions include condoms, antiretroviral treatment, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, voluntary medical male circumcision, communications for behavior change and targeted approaches for at-risk and marginalized populations.

UNICEF found dramatic improvement in prevention of new HIV infections among infants. Some 260,000 children were newly infected with HIV in 2012, compared to 540,000 in 2005.

New, simplified life-long antiretroviral treatment known as Option B+ provides the opportunity to effectively treat women with HIV and to prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies during pregnancy, delivery, and through breastfeeding.

The treatment involves a daily one-pill regimen.

Some of the most remarkable successes were in sub-Saharan Africa. New infections among infants declined between 2009 and 2012 by 76 percent in Ghana, 58 percent in Namibia, 55 percent in Zimbabwe, 52 percent in Malawi and Botswana and 50 percent in Zambia and Ethiopia.

UNICEF said that globally, the number of AIDS-related deaths overall fell by 30 percent between 2005 and 2012

Source: Deccan Chronicle

 

MERS virus found in camels in Qatar, linked to human spread

Scientists have found cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in camels in Qatar, health officials said on Thursday, fuelling speculation that camels might be the animal reservoir that allowed the virus to infect and kill humans.

The SARS-like coronavirus, which emerged in the Middle East last year and has killed almost 40% of the around 170 people so far infected, was found in three camels of a herd in a barn also linked to two human cases of MERS infection.

“The three camels were investigated among a herd of 14 camels, and the samples were collected as part of the epidemiological investigation,” Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health said in a statement. It added that the two confirmed human cases linked to the barn “have since then recovered”.

Ab Osterhaus, a professor of virology at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Netherlands who worked on the camel study, told Reuters the results were confirmed by a range of tests including sequencing and antibody testing.

Scientists around the world have been seeking to pin down the animal source of MERS virus infections ever since the first human cases were confirmed. World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its latest MERS update on 22 November that of the 176 laboratory-confirmed and probable reported human cases to date, 69 people have died.

British researchers who conducted some of the very first genetic analyses on MERS last September said the virus, which is from the same family as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), is also related to a virus found in bats.

Dutch scientists said in August they had found strong evidence that the MERS virus is widespread among one-humped dromedary camels in the Middle East—suggesting people who become infected may be catching it from camels used for meat, milk, transport and racing.

And Saudi officials said earlier this month that a camel there had tested positive for MERS a few days after its owner was confirmed to have the virus.

Human cases of MERS, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Tunisia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain.

Osterhaus, whose team worked with the Qatar’s health and environment ministries on the study, said that at this stage “no more details can be disclosed” about these latest findings since a scientific paper is in the process of being prepared and submitted for peer review and publication.

The Qatari health council however said that as a precaution, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses should avoid any close animal contact when visiting farms and markets

Source: Live Mint

 

Israel’s medical tourism at the crossroads

Income from medical tourism increased sharply in 2011 and 2012 to reach $140 million in 2012, according to data collected by the Health Ministry and the non-government organization Hatzlaha.  The Israeli government is exploring whether to curb or regulate medical tourism; despite the revenue it brings in-with worries that locals could suffer. The ministry has a dilemma that many hospitals have cited commercial issues for refusing to co-operate with official enquiries on how many medical tourists they actually get, as nobody has been able to find out the real numbers.

 The public hospitals took in NIS 291 million from medical tourism in 2012. Health maintenance organization Clalit reported that its 10 hospitals had revenues of NIS 70 million from medical tourism in 2012. Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem had revenues totaling NIS 108 million.

Private hospitals, including Assuta in north Tel Aviv, also had sizeable revenue from medical tourism but refused to provide numbers. One estimate indicates that Israel’s hospitals had revenues of more than half a billion shekels from medical tourism.

The public hospital with the highest medical tourism revenues was Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, with NIS 130 million a year – up nearly 70% since 2010. It was followed by Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, which had revenues of NIS 99 million (up 44% since 2010), and Beilinson Hospital, Petah Tikva, at NIS 39 million – a 490% increase over the figure from 2010.Other public hospitals with medical tourism revenue were Rambam in Haifa, with NIS 36.4 million in revenues; Assaf Harofeh Hospital, Tzrifin, at NIS 15.9 million; and Schneider Children’s Medical Center, with NIS 13.6 million.

A subcommittee within the health ministry has been set up in an attempt to regulate medical tourism, which has no government oversight or standards. Many attempts have been made to set standards and regulations for medical tourism- all have failed to happen. In May 2013 the committee said that medical tourism should account for no more than 10% of a hospital’s revenues from operations. But it has yet to submit its recommendations, so this limit is not official, and it may be impossible to enforce.

Medical tourism is a very sensitive issue for Israel’s health system. Every medical tourist admitted raises the question of whether that person is taking the place of an Israeli patient, particularly given that the hospitals are very overcrowded and the wait for treatment is long.

Medical tourists come primarily from the former Soviet Union and from Mediterranean nations. They visit for a fixed duration, and may receive treatment ahead of Israelis.

For hospitals, medical tourists are very attractive and lucrative patients. Hospitals charge them much more than they receive from Israeli patients, and one of the reasons some hospitals refuse to co-operate with the ministry is a suspicion that they greatly increase the prices for medical tourists- so increased revenue may not equate with increases numbers- but be due to severe price increases and a concentration on more expensive surgery. Unlike insurers, the medical tourists pay the hospitals immediately, and in cash. The money goes into the hospitals’ parallel business operations, as opposed to the budget subject to government oversight, which means the hospital directors have more control over the money.

Source: IMTJ

How superbugs develop antibiotic resistance

A team of researchers used quantitative models of bacterial growth to discover the bizarre way by which antibiotic resistance allows bacteria to multiply in the presence of antibiotics.

According to UC San Diego biophysicists understanding how bacteria harbouring antibiotic resistance grow in the presence of antibiotics is critical for predicting the spread and evolution of drug resistance.

In the study, the researchers found that the expression of antibiotic resistance genes in strains of the model bacterium E. coli depends on a complex relationship between the bacterial colony’s growth status and the effectiveness of the resistance mechanism.

According to Terry Hwa, a professor of physics and biology who headed the research, the interaction between drug and drug-resistance is complex because the degree of drug resistance expressed in a bacterium depends on its state of growth, which in turn depends on the efficacy of drug, with the latter depending on the expression of drug resistance itself.

For a class of common drugs, the researchers realized that this chain of circular relations acted effectively to promote the efficacy of drug resistance for an intermediate range of drug doses.

The use of predictive quantitative models was instrumental in guiding the researchers to formulate critical experiments to dissect this complexity. In their experiments, E. coli cells possessing varying degrees of resistance to an antibiotic were grown in carefully controlled environments kept at different drug doses in “microfluidic” devices-which permitted the researchers to manipulate tiny amounts of fluid and allowed them to continuously observe the individual cells.

Hwa and his team found a range of drug doses for which genetically identical bacterial cells exhibited drastically different behaviours: while a substantial fraction of cells stopped growing despite carrying the resistance gene, other cells continued to grow at a high rate.

This phenomenon, called “growth bistability,” occurred as quantitatively predicted by the researchers’ mathematical models, in terms of both the dependence on the drug dose, which is set by the environment, and on the degree of drug resistance a strain possesses, which is set by the genetic makeup of the strain and is subject to change during evolution.

“Exposing this behavior generates insight into the evolution of drug resistance,” says Hwa. “With this model we can chart how resistance is picked up and evaluate quantitatively the efficacy of a drug.”

The study is published in the journal Science.

Source: ANI

Dutch sound alarm about possible risks of e-cigarettes

The Dutch Health Ministry sounded an early warning on Thursday about the possible health risks of electronic cigarettes, announcing plans to clamp down on labeling ahead of European regulations.

The move followed an analysis of existing scientific research by the National Institute for Public Health, the leading Dutch government health advisory body.

The institute said it was concerned about a lack of evidence on the possible health effects of e-cigarettes, and said that as a precaution, they should not be used by pregnant women or in the vicinity of children.

Some health experts say e-cigarettes—battery-powered metal tubes that turn nicotine-laced liquid into vapor—may be the answer to helping millions of smokers to quit cigarettes and thereby avoid the damaging health effects of smoke.

Smoking tobacco causes lung cancer and other chronic respiratory diseases and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, the world’s number one killer.

Tobacco has an annual death toll of six million people, and the World Health Organization says that could exceed eight million by 2030 unless something urgent is done to stop people smoking.

All the top tobacco companies are investing in e-cigarettes, which some analysts have predicted may outsell conventional cigarettes in 10 years.

But they are far from universally accepted as a public health tool—with some critics worried they will not break nicotine addiction and may be a “gateway” to regular cigarettes—and the fast-growing market is largely unregulated.

The Dutch institute also recommended banning flavor and scent enhancers in e-cigarettes that contain nicotine because of concerns they may attract children to smoking.

Citing the institute’s findings, Dutch deputy health minister Martin Van Rijn argued that e-cigarettes are as addictive as tobacco cigarettes because they contain nicotine, and he said there was no proof of claims by manufacturers that they help smokers quit.

“There is insufficient scientific evidence to be able to say whether the quantities of toxins in the exhaled air are dangerous for bystanders,” Van Rijn wrote in a letter to parliament on Thursday.

“In advance of European regulations, I will take measures in national legislation in regard to advertising, safety, quality and labeling of e-cigarettes,” the letter said.

Additional research will be conducted by the institute to learn more about e-cigarettes, the ministry said.

The warning came as Britain signaled it would force tobacco companies to scrap branded cigarette packaging on Thursday in an attempt to reduce the number of children who may be drawn to smoking by striking and brightly colored packs.

The Dutch institute raised concerns on its website last week that e-cigarettes are attractive to young people because of bright colors, flashing lights and jewelry-like appearance.

Roughly 11 to 18 percent of Dutch smokers have tried the e-cigarette, while about 5 percent said they use it regularly, the ministry said.

Market consultant Euromonitor estimates the world market for electronic cigarettes was more than $2 billion last year, with the United States accounting for a quarter of that.

A few countries have banned them outright—such as Brazil, Norway, and Singapore—while others are opting for varying degrees of regulation, in some cases including limits on advertising and curbs on their use in public places.

Big tobacco companies are grappling with declining sales of tobacco in a number of markets due to increasing government regulation and more health-aware consumers, as well as smuggling and an economic downturn.

Philip Morris International Inc, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, said this month it plans to enter the e-cigarette market next year, saying it is the “greatest growth opportunity”.

Imperial Tobacco Group plans to launch two electronic cigarettes in its new fiscal year.

Source: GMA

1163 HIV positive people in Meghalaya: MACS

 

Health authorities in Meghalaya today said the number of people living with HIV/AIDS virus has increased many folds since 2007 when only 14 persons were tested positive.

Today 1163 persons are living with the virus and authorities believed there could be more who are yet to come forward to test.

For a small state with a population of about three million people, the number is staggering and the trend is increasing every year with as many as 79 positive people have succumbed to the virus in which the international watchdogs on HIV have categorized the state as ‘low prevalence but high risk.’

“The cumulative figures till October this year is 1163 positive cases in the state,” Meghalaya Aids Control Society (MACS) director F Kharkongor said.

The MACS chief said that only 527 positive persons have turned up for treatment at the three Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) Centers set up in the state even as she expressed concerned at the low turnout of the patients at the designated hospitals.

The first tests were started in 2007 in which 14 persons only were tested positive, she said, adding that the figure increased every year, 54 in 2008, 131 in 2009, 245 in 2010, 452 in 2011, 731 in 2012 and 1008 till March 2013.

The number of deaths has also increased every year since 2008 when only one patient died, in 2009 four died, in 2010 eight patients died taking the cumulative figure to 12, Kharkongor said.

The cumulative deaths in 2011 increased from 12 to 22 and then 37 the following year, she said, adding that the number of victims almost increased almost doubly during the period from March 2012 to March 2013 with 25 deaths.

From March to October this year the number of deaths recorded stands at 17, also the highest during the same period in the past six years, the official said.

According to a data compiled the MACS, 43 per cent of the victims are of the age group from 25-34 and mostly are the active inject drug users.

However, the female sex workers working in the coal belts and along the National Highways in the state also constitute a huge chunk of those people living with the HIV virus.

The others are men who have sex with men and children born out of positive parents.

Source: Press Trust of India