Month: August 2013

Dancing is good for health of Scots:

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Activities such as dancing, reading and going to the theatre have a “positive impact” on the health of Scots, new research has suggested.

The Scottish government-commissioned study was based on data from the Scottish Household Survey 2011.  It found that people who take part in or attend culture events are more likely to report “good health and life satisfaction” than those who do not.

The report comes on the day Commonwealth Games tickets go on sale.

Glasgow will host the event in the summer next year.

The research found that regardless of factors such as age, economic status, income, education and disability, cultural participation was positive for health and wellbeing.

Its key findings included:

  • Those who attended a cultural place or event in the previous 12 months were almost 60% more likely to report good health than those who did not
  • Those who visited a library or a museum were almost 20% more likely to report good health than those who had not
  • Those who visited a theatre were almost 25% more likely to report good health than
  • Those who participated in dance were 62% more likely to report good health than those who did not
  • And those who read for pleasure were 33% more likely to report good health than those who did not

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said in response to the report, The Impact of Cultural Engagement and Sports Participation on Health and Satisfaction with Life in Scotland 2013, said: “Starting young, and being encouraged to take part in culture as a child, makes it more likely that the benefits of taking part will be experienced as an adult.

“That’s why this government has funded activities like Bookbug, Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years program, which encourages parents and children to read together from birth, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Astar CD, which is helping parents in Scotland to introduce their babies to the joy of music.”

A total of 14,358 households were interviewed in the 2010/11 survey with the questions on culture being put to about 75% of the total sample, giving a sample size of 9,683 adults.

Children need more exercise – especially girls, study says

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University College London researchers found just 51% of the 6,500 children achieved the recommended hour of physical activity each day.

Half of all UK seven-year-old do not do enough exercise, with girls far less active than boys, a study suggests.

University College London researchers found just 51% of the 6,500 children they monitored achieved the recommended hour of physical activity each day.

For girls, the figure was just 38%, compared with 63% for boys.

Half of the group also spent more than six hours being sedentary each day, although some of this would be spent in class, the researchers acknowledged.

The study, published in the online journal BMJ Open, found levels of activity varied among groups.

For example, children of Indian origin and those living in Northern Ireland were among the least physically active with 43% achieving the recommended levels, compared to 53% in Scotland.

But the most marked difference was between girls and boys.

Researchers said this suggested there needed to be a focus on making sport and other activities more attractive to girls.

Prof Carol Dezateux, one of the lead authors, said: “There is a big yawning gap between girls and boys. We need to really think about how we are reaching out to girls.

“The school playground is an important starting point. Often you will find it dominated by boys playing football.”

But she said there should still be concern about the activity levels across the board.

“The findings are particularly worrying because seven-year-olds are likely to become less active as they get older, not more.”

To achieve the one hour recommendation children have to take part in moderate or vigorous activity, which includes everything from brisk walking and cycling to playing football and running.

The UCL research is not the first to suggest children are not active enough, but most previous studies have relied on self-reporting by children or parents estimating levels of exercise, whereas the latest one involved real-time monitoring.

During the study, which took place during 2008 and 2009, youngsters wore an accelerometer to measure exercise levels which was attached to an elastic belt around their waist. It was removed only when bathing or when the children went to bed.

In total, the experts were able to record more than 36,000 days of data based on the children wearing the accelerometer for at least 10 hours a day over the course of a week.

Dr John Middleton, of the Faculty of Public Health, said more research was needed into why certain groups were less active.

“We need our children to grow up to be fit and healthy adults, not just because it’s what any civilised society would want for its children, but it’s also best for our economy too,” he added.

Dr Ann Hoskins, of Public Health England, agreed.

She said: “This study highlights that there is still much to do to keep children and young people active as they grow older, especially girls.

“The new school year is the perfect time to make healthy changes, swapping short car or bus journeys with walking or scooting to school.”

 

 

Dietary Guidelines Aim to Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk

By 2050, Alzheimer’s rates will affect 100 million people worldwide. the International Conference on Nutrition and the Brain presented seven dietary principles to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease affects nearly half of North Americans by age 85, it will triple over the next four decades unless preventive measures are developed, warned the American Academy of Neurology. By 2050, Alzheimer’s rates will affect 100 million people worldwide.

Although treatments for the disease remain unsatisfactory, scientific studies suggest that preventive strategies are now feasible.

According to a special report presented at the International Conference on Nutrition and the Brain in Washington on July 19 and 20, 2013, the seven dietary principles to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s are as follows:
1. Minimize your intake of saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated fat is found primarily in dairy products, meats, and certain oils (coconut and palm oils). Trans fats are found in many snack pastries and fried foods and are listed on labels as “partially hydrogenated oils.”

2. Vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), fruits, and whole grains should be the primary staples of the diet.

3. One ounce of nuts or seeds (one small handful) daily provides a healthful source of vitamin E.

4. A reliable source of vitamin B12, such as fortified foods or a supplement providing at least the recommended daily allowance (2.4 mcg per day for adults) should be part of your daily diet.

5. When selecting multiple vitamins, choose those without iron and copper, and consume iron supplements only when directed by your physician.

6. While aluminum’s role in Alzheimer’s disease remains a matter of investigation, it is prudent to avoid the use of cookware, antacids, baking powder, or other products that contribute dietary aluminum.

7. Include aerobic exercise in your routine, equivalent to 40 minutes of brisk walking three times per week.

 

 

Antipsychotic Drugs Raise Diabetes Risk in Children

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an increased risk for type 2 diabetes associated with the use atypical antipsychotic medications

Prescribing antipsychotic drugs to kids and young adults having behavioral problems or mood disorders could put them at a risk for acquiring type 2 diabetes, a study has showed.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center study shows that young people using medications like risperidone, quetiapine, aripiprazol and olanzapine led to increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes within the first year of taking the drug.

Senior author Wayne A. Ray, Ph.D., professor of Preventive Medicine, said that while other studies have shown an increased risk for type 2 diabetes associated with the use atypical antipsychotic medications; this is the first large, well-designed study to look at the risk in children.

Ray said that as they wanted to address this question of risk for indications for which there were therapeutic alternatives, they deliberately excluded those taking antipsychotics for schizophrenia and other psychoses; thus, our entire sample consisted of patients for whom there were alternatives to antipsychotics.

State-provided, de-identified medical records were examined for TennCare youths ages 6-24 from 1996 through 2007.

During that time children and youth who were prescribed treatment with atypical antipsychotics for attention, behavioral or mood disorders, were compared with similar youth prescribed approved medications for those disorders.

Even with the further elimination of certain disorders that are commonly associated with diabetes, like polycystic ovarian syndrome, those taking antipsychotics had triple the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the following year, with the risk increasing further as cumulative dosages increased. The increased risk persisted for at least a year after the medications were stopped.

Ray and his colleagues point out developing type 2 diabetes are still rare in this age group. Of the nearly 29,000 children and youth in the antipsychotic medication group and 14,400 children in the control group, 106 were ultimately diagnosed and treated for type 2 diabetes.

The study has been published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

 

Long-term study backs early HIV drugs for children

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WHO recommended antiretroviral therapy be started immediately

A landmark five-year trial has strengthened evidence that early use of antiretroviral drugs helps children combat the AIDS virus, doctors reported today.

Conducted in South Africa, the so-called CHER trial made history in 2007, after only two years, when it discovered that early treatment slashed the risk of disease and death from AIDS by 75 percent.

The astonishing finding prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to overhaul its treatment guidelines in 2010 for youngsters with the AIDS virus.

The WHO recommended that antiretroviral therapy be started immediately when HIV is diagnosed in children less than a year old, rather than wait until a threshold of virus infection is reached.

Now completed, the CHER trial takes early-use-is-good a step further, according to results reported in The Lancet.

Children who began an immediate course of drugs were able to interrupt their treatment, giving them a break from the powerful, potentially toxic drugs, researchers found.

Yet even with this interruption, the infants did far better than those who started treatment later.

On average, the children who received the deferred treatment began the drugs about 20 weeks after diagnosis.

Those who began an immediate course of 40 weeks of drugs were able to take a 33-week break before starting treatment afresh. And those who took an immediate 96-week course enjoyed a break of 70 weeks.

The trial was conducted at two sites in South Africa among 377 infants with HIV who were less than 12 weeks old.

The research marks the latest advance in knowledge about antiretroviral drugs, which revolutionised the fight against AIDS from 1996.

The drugs are a lifeline to millions, for they can roll back the virus to below detectable levels.

But if the drugs are stopped, the virus rebounds from boltholes, called reservoirs, in cells in the body.

Two other trials — both small in scale and at a very early stage — have recently raised hopes that hitting HIV with drugs very soon after infection can wipe out this hiding place.

An estimated 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, and about 1.8 million die each year.

Infants are especially vulnerable. If untreated, around half of infected newborns die before their second birthday.

The new work revives hopes that flourished in the late 1990s, before the reservoir problem was identified, that patients could get a temporary holiday from AIDS drugs.

“This important finding indicates we may be able to temporarily stop treatment and spare infants from some of the toxic effects of continuous ART [antiretroviral therapy] for a while, if we can monitor them carefully,” said Mark Cotton, a professor at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town, who helped lead the study.

Caution, though, was sounded in a commentary by Robert Colebunders of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and Victor Musiime of Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda.

Treatment interruption is a risky option in poor countries which lack laboratory facilities to monitor levels of CD4 immune cells, they said.

 

New avian influenza strain found in China

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A new strain of bird flu that can infect and kill animals has been discovered in chickens

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a new virus called H7N7 in chickens

A new strain of bird flu that can infect and kill animals has been discovered in chickens in poultry markets in China, according to a new study.

Having studied samples from birds for the H7N9 virus, researchers at the University of Hong Kong said genetic tests suggested that the virus entered domestic ducks from wild birds and then infected chickens, which are probably the origin of infection in humans, says the study published Wednesday in the journal `Nature`, Xinhua reported.

The research team also discovered a new virus called H7N7 in chickens. Laboratory tests showed H7N7 was also able to cause severe pneumonia in ferrets – a domesticated form of the European polecat – which are usually used as proxies for humans in flu research.

Zhu Huachen, one of the leading authors of the paper, told Xinhua that H7 viruses probably transferred from ducks to chickens on at least two independent occasions and that re-assortment with H9N2 viruses generated the H7N9 outbreak lineage.

Although the H7N7 virus carries only some of the molecular markers present in the human H7N9 isolates, the authors suggested the current pandemic threat could extend beyond H7N9 viruses, and that long-term influenza surveillance was essential for early warning of new viruses and inter-species transmission events.

The H7N9 bird flu has killed 45 people on the Chinese mainland since the first human infection was confirmed in late March this year, a health official said last week.

 

Deadly new MERS virus traced to bats

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(MERS) has been discovered in the bat in close proximity to the first known case of the disease in Saudi Arabia

 

The deadly MERS virus that has claimed many lives has been traced to an insect-eating bat in Saudi Arabia, researchers claim.

A 100 per cent genetic match for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has been discovered in the bat in close proximity to the first known case of the disease in Saudi Arabia, researchers said.

The discovery points to the likely animal origin for the disease, although researchers say that an intermediary animal is likely also involved.

Led by team of investigators from the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University`s Mailman School of Public Health, Eco Health Alliance, and the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia, the study is the first to search for an animal reservoir for MERS in Saudi Arabia, and the first to identify such a reservoir by finding a genetic match in an animal.

“There have been several reports of finding MERS-like viruses in animals. None were a genetic match. In this case we have a virus in an animal that is identical in sequence to the virus found in the first human case.

Importantly, it`s coming from the vicinity of that first case,” said W Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity and a co-author of the study.

MERS was first described in September 2012 and continues to spread. Close to 100 cases have been reported worldwide, 70 of them from Saudi Arabia. The causative agent, a new type of corona virus, has been determined, however, the origin of the virus has been unknown until now.

The researchers collected more than 1,000 samples from seven bat species in regions where cases of MERS were identified in Bisha, Unaizah, and Riyadh.

Extensive analysis was performed using polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing revealed the presence of a wide range of alpha and beta corona viruses in up to a third of bat samples.

One fecal sample from an Egyptian Tomb Bat (Taphozous perforatus) collected within a few kilometers of the first known MERS victim`s home contained sequences of a virus identical to those recovered from the victim.

Bats are the reservoirs of viruses that can cause human disease including rabies and SARS. In some instances the infection may spread directly to humans through inadvertent inhalation of infected aerosols, ingestion of contaminated food, or, less commonly, a bite wound, researchers said.

In other instances bats can first infect intermediate hosts. The researchers suggest that the indirect method for transmission is more likely in MERS.

“There is no evidence of direct exposure to bats in the majority of human cases of MERS,” said Ziad Memish, Deputy Minister of Health, Saudi Arabia, and lead author of the study.

The study appears in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

 

 

New cytometry cell analyzer facilitate multi color experiments

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cytometry cell analyzer BD LSRFortessa X-20 that can be configured with up to five lasers to detect up to 20 parameters

 

BD Biosciences, a part of global medical technology company BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), has launched a high-performance research flow cytometry cell analyzer BD LSRFortessa X-20 that can be configured with up to five lasers to detect up to 20 parameters simultaneously.

According to the company, the BD LSRFortessa X-20 cell analyzer delivers high-performance multi color analysis with the most compact footprint in its class at 30”x29” and a height of 30”. Recognizing that space is a valuable commodity in today’s research environment, BD Biosciences designed the new cell analyzer to be compact without compromising the power needed

While popular laser choices include blue, red, violet, yellow-green and UV, a wide range of up to 34 available laser choices are available as excitation sources. Each excitation source is supported by new polygon detector arrays, and each polygon can support up to eight detectors for maximum flexibility in optical configuration, the company said in a statement.

The new cell analyzer enables customers to configure BD flow cytometers and cell sorters to fit precise research and assay needs. This program is tailored to meet the needs of researchers at the leading edge of biomedical discovery.

“The new BD LSRFortessa X-20 cell analyzer will enable researchers to conduct complex experiments with the additional parameters and increased sensitivity they need,” said Alberto Mas, president, BD Biosciences. “Uncovering dim staining and rare cell populations is extremely valuable to complex multi color assays, which are tools for advanced disease or drug development research.”

 

Biggest heart attack risks for Indians revealed

Indian researchers have conducted a data mining exercise to find out important risk factors in increasing the chances of an individual having a heart attack.

The authors confirm that the usual suspects high blood cholesterol, intake of alcohol and passive smoking play the most crucial role in `severe,` `moderate` and `mild` cardiac risks, respectively.

Subhagata Chattopadhyay of the Camellia Institute of Engineering in Kolkata used 300 real-world sample patient cases with various levels of cardiac risk – mild, moderate and severe and mined the data based on twelve known predisposing factors: age, gender, alcohol abuse, cholesterol level, smoking (active and passive), physical inactivity, obesity, diabetes, family history, and prior cardiac event.

He then built a risk model that revealed specific risk factors associated with heart attack risk.

Chattopadhyay explained that the essence of this work essentially lies in the introduction of clustering techniques instead of purely statistical modeling, where the latter has its own limitations in `data-model fitting` compared to the former that is more flexible.

He said that the reliability of the data used, should be checked, and this has been done in this work to increase its authenticity. I reviewed several papers on epidemiological research, where I`m yet to see these methodologies, used.

The study has been published in International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

 

Genes inherited from mother may induce ageing process

Genes inherited from mother may induce ageing process

A new research has found that ageing is determined not only by the accumulation of changes during our lifetime but also by the genes we acquire from our mothers.

There are many causes of ageing that are determined by an accumulation of various kinds of changes that impair the function of bodily organs.

Of particular importance in ageing, however, seems to be the changes that occur in the cell`s power plant – the mitochondrion.

This structure is located in the cell and generates most of the cell`s supply of ATP which is used as a source of chemical energy.

“The mitochondria contains their own DNA, which changes more than the DNA in the nucleus, and this has a significant impact on the ageing process,” Nils-Goran Larsson, Ph.D., professor at the Karolinska Institute and principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, and leader of the current study alongside Lars Olson, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute, said.

“Many mutations in the mitochondria gradually disable the cell`s energy production,” Larsson said.

For the first time, the researchers have shown that the aging process is influenced not only by the accumulation of mitochondrial DNA damage during a person`s lifetime, but also by the inherited DNA from their mothers.

“Surprisingly, we also show that our mother`s mitochondrial DNA seems to influence our own aging,” Larsson said.

“If we inherit m DNA with mutations from our mother, we age more quickly,” the researcher added.

The study is published in the journal Nature.