Month: January 2014

chikungunya virus infects people on 5 Caribbean islands

Chikungunya, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes, has been confirmed in people on several Caribbean islands, the Public Health Agency of Canada says in a travel health notice.

“There have been confirmed cases of chikungunya on the Caribbean islands of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy and the British Virgin Islands,” the agency says. “These cases in the Caribbean mark the first time that locally acquired transmission of chikungunya has been detected in the Region of the Americas.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said local transmission means mosquitoes in the area have been infected and are spreading it to people.

The chikungunya virus can cause fever along with an arthritis-like pain in the joints and a rash. It is spread to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. Although caused by a different virus, the symptoms of chikungunya can appear very similar to those of dengue fever.

Dominica and French Guiana have each reported a case of chikungunya related to travel from within the Caribbean, the Canadian agency said.

The disease is typically found in Africa, Asia and the Indian subcontinent, according to the World Health Organization. In recent decades mosquito vectors of chikungunya have spread to Europe and the Americas.

Federal public health officials advise travellers to take precautions, such as protecting yourself from mosquito bites, particularly during peak mosquito biting times in the early morning and late afternoon.

The Public Health Agency also recommends that people consult a health care provider or visit a travel health clinic at least six weeks before you travel.

It says if you develop flu-like symptoms when you are travelling or within 12 days after you return, see a health care provider and tell them where you have been travelling or living.

Source” Cbc news

 

Health Benefits of Spinach Include Improving Memory

spinach111The standard American diet (SAD) depletes your body of the fiber, amino acids and B vitamins that keep your brain and memory strong and clear. Never fear — health benefits of spinach to the rescue!

This humble green is a powerhouse of folate and other B vitamins, L-tyrosine and fiber. It’s the perfect combination to improve neurotransmitter function and guard against the chronic inflammation that leads to cognitive decline and memory loss.

1. Spinach is high in brain-friendly folate. B vitamins play a starring role in the memory healing diet. Folate, in particular, helps synthesize and regulate the chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which send messages between brain cells.

An Australian study of more than 200 women found that a diet high in folate and vitamin B6, such as that found in spinach and other dark leafy greens, helped improve mental ability and short-term memory.

2. Folate reduces inflammation that harms brain function. Folate lowers the amount of homocysteine, a dangerous pro-inflammatory amino acid, in your body. According to a study published by the American Journal of Psychiatry, high levels of homocysteine disrupt the function of neurotransmitters, which can lead to cognitive decline.

3. Load up on folate-filled spinach for memory health. Folate deficiency is serious. Symptoms include mental fatigue, nonsenile dementia, anxiety, depression, forgetfulness and confusion.

The poor Western diet, based on refined carbohydrates, sugar, unhealthy fats, alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, rapidly depletes your body’s store of B vitamins. Just 1 cup of steamed spinach contains more than 65% of your Daily Value (DV) for folate and more than 20% of your DV for vitamin B6.

4. L-tyrosine in spinach improves mental focus. L-tyrosine is an amino acid critical to synthesizing dopamine and norepinephrine, the neurotransmitters responsible for keeping your brain alert and focused. Dopamine affects your mood, while norepinephrine offers a mental lift and improves learning, problem-solving ability and memory function.

A recent study found that tyrosine helped improve memory during the increased stress of multitasking. One cup of steamed spinach provides 20% of your DV for tyrosine.

Besides being one of the health benefits of spinach, tyrosine is also found in wild salmon, yellowfin tuna, meat, poultry, whole grains, yogurt, avocados, beans, walnuts and seeds.

5. High-fiber spinach reduces inflammation. There’s an important connection between eating high-fiber foods and healthy brain function.

While the typical SAD diet leads to an increased risk for inflammatory diseases and conditions like memory loss, a high-fiber cognitive decline and loss of memory, the low-GI diet, high in fiber, prevents the wild swings in blood sugar and insulin levels that lead to chronic inflammation.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that elderly people who ate a diet high in dietary fiber scored higher in cognitive tests than those who did not. One cup of boiled spinach contains more than 17% of your DV for dietary fiber.

Source: underground health reporter

7 Dangerous Acts After A Meal

1. Don’t smoke : Experiments from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meal is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher)

2. Don’t eat fruits immediately: Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruits 1 -2 hours after meal or 1 hour before meal.

3. Don’t drink tea: Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the protein content in the food we consume to be hundred thus difficult to digest.

4. Don’t loosen your belt: Loosening the belt after meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted and blocked.

5. Don’t bathe: Bathing after meal will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs and body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease, this will weaken the digestive system in our stomach.

6. Don’t walk about: People always say that after ameal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In actual fact this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system to be unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake.

7. Don’t sleep immediately: The food we intake will not be to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric and infection in our intestine.

Source: Nairaland

Health benefits of Natural Wonders – Amla

For centuries, we have seen the benefits of Ayurveda – the age-old therapeutic science that originated in India and is now accepted across world as an alternative form of medicine. The very basis of Ayurveda is to enhance life by emphasizing on using resources found in nature in the form of fruits, vegetables, animal products and minerals. And one the most beneficial fruits, according to Ayurveda, is the Indian gooseberry, or what we commonly call ‘alma’.

Amla is considered to be an especially revitalizing herb with multiple nutritional qualities. This highly fibrous round fruit with 6 vertical lines contains a variety of flavours, ranging from sweet and salty to bitter and sour.
Amla and its rich nutrients

Amla is one of the richest natural sources of Vitamin C – 100 gram of Amla contains 700 mg of Vitamin C or ascorbic acid which is 20 times more than that found in other fruits. Amla is also an excellent anti oxidant and one of its best qualities is that the nutrients don’t reduce on cooking or drying. Amla is 80% moist and contains calcium, carotene, iron, phosphorous and many essential oils. Even the leaves and bark of Amla plant are a good source of tannin (tannin works as an astringent).

Health benefits of amla:

Including amla in your diet can be highly beneficial:
Treats respiratory system: Amla acts as an astringent and helps in drying cough. Being a good source of vitamin C, it’s very helpful when it comes to treating cold, bronchitis and respiratory problems

Treats constipation: The fruit is a good source of fibre and has proved to be an effective laxative. It’s been known to reduce constipation and even helps in the treatment of piles.

Treats skin ailments: Amla contains antibacterial properties which prevent skin disease and ulcers. It can even help in treating acne.

Good for hair: Amla can do miracles with hair problems and is an important ingredient in many products made for stimulating hair growth. Amla soaked in water and kept in an iron utensil overnight could be used as a shampoo-conditioner-hair colour to check hair greying and to make it shiny.

Read Also http://www.texilaconnect.com/ayurvedic-remedies-for-hair-loss/

Improves vision: Amla is good for the eyes and can help in correcting eye problems like trachoma, glaucoma and cataract.

Treats acidity: One gram of Amla powder with a little sugar if taken with milk or water can help reduce acidity.

Treats cardiac disease: Cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes are ailments that contribute to heart disease. Vitamin C helps in widening blood vessels and strengthening heart muscles which can reduce the chances of getting a stroke because of high cholesterol levels which may have accumulated on the walls of blood vessels. Regular intake of a powder mix of Amla and sugar candy taken with water can help stabilize cholesterol levels. If taken in powder form or as triphala – a mixture of Amla with two other herbs; harada and bihara – helps in controlling blood pressure. Amla mixture taken with jamun and bitter gourd powder helps to normalize an enzyme – alanine transaminase found in liver responsible for high level of diabetes.

Good for reproductive health: Amla can act as an aphrodisiac and is supposed to increase sperm count. Dried amla seeds mixed with honey can help reduce white discharge in women.

Treats anaemia: Amla is high in ascorbic acid, which helps in good iron absorption, thus reducing deficiency.

Good for general fitness: The multi-beneficial fruit that amla is, it’s been known to improve metabolism, thus helping in maintaining body weight. Furthermore, it improves human immunity, and provides all-round health benefits.

Source: mdhil

 

Health Benefits of Laughing

Laughter works wonderfully well in the moment, but it also has some surprising long-term health benefits

What can laughter do?:

  • Lower blood pressure
  • Increase vascular blood flow and oxygenation of the blood
  • Give a workout to the diaphragm and abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles
  • Reduce certain stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline
  • Increase the response of tumor- and disease-killing cells such as Gamma-interferon and T-cells
  • Defend against respiratory infections–even reducing the frequency of colds–by immunoglobulon in saliva.
  • Increase memory and learning; in a study at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, humor during instruction led to increased test scores
  • Improve alertness, creativity, and memory
  • Humor and creativity work in similar ways, says humor guru William Fry, M.D., of Stanford University–by creating relationships between two disconnected items, you engage the whole brain.

Humor works quickly. Less than a half-second after exposure to something funny, and electrical wave moves through the higher brain functions of the cerebral cortex. The left hemisphere analyzes the words and structures of the joke; the right hemisphere “gets” the joke; the visual sensory area of the occipital lobe creates images; the limbic (emotional) system makes you happier; and the motor sections make you smile or laugh.

Source: care2

 

ATTENTION WOMEN ;side effects of lipsticks

men:
Do not forget to pass this message to their wives, girlfriends, friends or colleagues.
Women: Lip Care for using!

Dr. Elizabeth Ayoub, biomolecular and medical is issued an alert for lipsticks containing lead, which is a carcinogen.
Recently the brand ‘Red Earth’ decreased prices of R $ 67.00 to R $ 9.90!
Why? Because it contained lead.
The brands that contain lead are:

RED EARTH (Lip Gloss)
CHANEL (Lip Conditioner)
MARK AMERICA MOTIVES LIPSTICK
AVON

The higher the lead content, the greater the risk of causing cancer. After doing a test on lipsticks, lip was observed in the highest level of lead AVON. Care for those lipsticks which are supposed to have greater fixation. If your lipstick is fixed but is due to high levels of lead.
Take this test:
1. Put some lipstick on your hand;
2. With a gold ring on this lipstick pass it;
3. If the lipstick color changes to black, then you know that contains lead.

Source: daily inspirations for healthy living

 

Football ‘can tackle male obesity’

Football participation is a good way to get men to slim down, a Scottish study published in The Lancet shows.

Some 374 overweight soccer fans were invited to take part in a 12-week program of training sessions at their local football club.

A year later, the men had lost and kept off about 11lb (5kg) each compared with 374 overweight fans put on a waiting list for the programme.

The Glasgow researchers say it proves male-friendly weight loss plans work.

All 748 men in the study were offered healthy-eating advice and tips on weight management, but only half were invited to professional football clubs for weekly training sessions.

Thirteen clubs took part: Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Dunfermline Athletic, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Rangers, St Johnstone and St Mirren.

As well as losing weight when they were on the 12-week programme, nearly 40% of men who participated in the programme maintained a weight loss of at least 5% of their original body weight 12 months later.

Co-author Prof Kate Hunt, from Glasgow University, said: “Weight management and dieting are often wrongly viewed as women’s issues, meaning that some men do not want to take part in existing weight management programmes.”

But given the right circumstances, men are also keen to slim, she says.

“Participants really enjoyed being with other men like them, with a shared interest in football and similar health issues to address. They loved having the opportunity to spend time at the club, using parts of the stadium that they couldn’t ordinarily access.

“And they appreciated the chance to be encouraged, trained, and informed by the club’s coaches. This model has real potential for the future.”

Source: BBC news

Fever-reducing meds encourage spread of flu

Taking over-the-counter medications for the aches, pains and fever caused by flu may make people feel somewhat better, but it also could make them more contagious — resulting in increased cases and more deaths among the population, a study suggests.

Researchers at McMaster University say medicines like ibuprofen and acetaminophen can ease some flu symptoms, including bringing down fever.

“People often take — or give their kids — fever-reducing drugs so they can go to work or school,” said David Earn, a professor of mathematics who led the study.

“They may think the risk of infecting others is lower because the fever is lower,” said Earn. “In fact, the opposite may be true: the ill people may give off more virus because fever has been reduced.”

That’s because fever has been shown in a number of studies to lower the amount of some viruses in the body. Suppressing that uptick in temperature — one way the immune system fights infection — appears to leave a person with a greater amount of virus to shed, making them more infectious to others.

“We’ve discovered that this increase has significant effects when we scale up to the level of the whole population,” said Earn, who specializes in mathematical projections of infectious disease transmission.

“I think it’s really something that people should consider,” he said Tuesday from Hamilton. “And all they need to do is remember that they could be more infectious if they take this medication and so should be cautious.”

Using complex mathematical modelling, Earn and his co-authors estimated that fever-reducing medicines could raise the number of flu cases by five per cent, a figure that would account for tens of thousands of cases and an estimated extra 1,000 deaths across North America each year.

In other words, an estimated 1,000 of the roughly 40,000 annual flu deaths might not have occurred, the study suggests.

But the researchers, whose report is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, say that doesn’t mean people should stop taking medicines to get relief from flu symptoms.

“That’s not what we’re saying,” stressed Earn. “Our paper isn’t about whether or not you should take medication to reduce your fever. That’s something that ideally you should decide in consultation with a physician — for you, individually, whether it’s good or bad for your health.

“The point that we’re making is that if you take the medication, then there’s an effect on others that people don’t realize. And that’s that you could be more infectious than you were without taking the medication. So you need to be extra cautious about transmitting the infection to others.”

To come up with their estimate, the researchers used data that included experiments on ferrets — considered the best animal model for human influenza — showing increased virus shedding in the absence of fever-reducing drugs, called antipyretics.

They then used the mathematical model to compute how the increase in the amount of virus given off by a single person taking fever-reducing drugs would increase the overall number of cases in a typical year, or in a year when a new strain of influenza caused a pandemic, such as H1N1 did in 2009.

“This research is important because it will help us understand how better to curb the spread of influenza,” said Dr. David Price, chair of family medicine at McMaster.

“As always, Mother Nature knows best,” he said. “Fever is a defence mechanism to protect ourselves and others. Fever-reducing medication should only be taken to take the edge off the discomfort, not to allow people to go out into the community when they should still stay home.”

Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, agreed the study raises important questions that need to be answered.

“I don’t think you can take away from this, though, that antipyretics increase the spread of human influenza or that we can in any way quantitate that,” McGeer said.

“The data, for instance, on increased shedding is in ferrets. And ferrets are not humans. It might well be the same in humans … but it’s not something we know the answer to.”

The study’s conclusions also hinge on the idea that people who take fever-reducing medicines are more likely to interact with others, she said, but that research has not yet been done.

“We know substantially how to prevent seasonal flu — it’s called vaccination,” said McGeer.

“It’s clearly an important question, but I don’t think that should change what we’re telling people to do at the moment: vaccinate, hand-wash and stay home when you’re sick.”

Earn agreed that more research is needed to pin down the magnitude of the fever-reducing effect on flu spread, but he would not be surprised if it is even slightly higher.

He suggests that if parents give children a fever-reducing medicine for flu, they should be discouraged from visiting older people or those with underlying medical conditions, who are more prone to complications if they contract the infection.

“If they feel better, they might go and sit on Granny’s lap,” he said. “There’s no problem if you take the medication if you stay at home. You can’t infect them.”

Source: yahoo news

Sleep During the Day May Throw Genes Into Disarray

Sleeping during the day a necessity for jet-lagged travelers and those who work overnight shifts disrupts the rhythms of about one-third of your genes, a new study suggests.

What’s more, shifted sleep appears to disrupt gene activity even more than not getting enough sleep, according to the research.

For the new study, which was published in this week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, British researchers put 22 healthy, young volunteers in a dimly lit sleep lab for three days.

During the first day, they disrupted the participants’ sleep at regular intervals to reset their body clock to its innate rhythm. On the second and third days, the volunteers ate and slept on a 28-hour schedule, so their longest period of sleep was from noon until about 6:30 p.m.

The researchers drew blood samples all three days so they could watch what happened to the timing of gene activity.

During the first day, when the body reset its circadian rhythm, nearly 1,400 genes — about 6.4 percent of all genes that were analyzed — were in sync with that rhythm. On the days of shifted sleep, however, the number of genes tied to the body’s clock dropped dramatically, to 228 genes, or only 1 percent of genes analyzed.

The researchers estimated that the sleep disruptions would ultimately impact about a third of a person’s genes.

That’s an even greater disruption than scientists saw in a previous study when they tested the effects of sleep deprivation on gene activity. In that study, which had study volunteers sleeping about five and half hours each night, the number of genes that were in sync with the body’s clock dropped from about 9 percent to 7 percent.

“These are quite fundamental processes that are being affected,” said senior study author Derk-Jan Dijk, a professor of sleep and physiology at the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom.

“We think that may be related to the negative health outcomes associated with long-term shift work,” Dijk said. Shift workers are at higher risk for many health problems, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, disrupted menstrual cycles and cancer, he said.

This study didn’t directly connect health problems and night-shift work, but experts said it does start to help them understand why sleep might have such a powerful influence on a person’s health.

“This study suggests that mistimed sleep can alter circadian rhythms, so the cycling of many, many genes is impaired,” said Dr. Mark Wu, assistant professor of neurology, medicine, genetic medicine and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. “What this could cause, they can’t really say — except it’s probably not good.” Wu was not involved in the new research.

Genes carry the instructions for making proteins. Proteins make up just about every kind of chemical signal, hormone and tissue in the body, the researchers said.

The timing of when proteins are made is important because their production should correspond to our behaviors, said Frank Scheer, a neuroscientist at Harvard and director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

When the body anticipates a meal, for example, the liver has to stop releasing into the blood the carbohydrates it has stored and the pancreas has to make more insulin, while the muscles have to become more sensitive to insulin that’s released so they can take in blood sugar, Scheer said.

Source: web md

Device uses heartbeat to create electrical source in body

Imagine if one day, a person’s heart and other organs could be used to power medical devices in their body that they need to survive.

That day may be closer than you think. Researchers have developed a tin, flexible device that generates electricity when moved. Then, they implanted the item directly on animal hearts, lungs and diaphragms to see if the natural processes of the body could create power.

“If you look at the trends these days, you’re seeing more and more electronic implantable devices,” author John Rogers, director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, said to New Scientist. “I think there’s going to be a growing demand for in-body power.”

The researchers relied on the concept of the piezoelectric effect, which is when electricity is created in certain kinds of solid materials when something puts continuous force on it. In this case, they created nanoribbons made from a piezoelectric-able material called lead zirconate titanate. These nanoribbons were placed on a flexible silicone surface that could be put on an organ and move as it moved.
The researchers found that the best place to put these devices without interfering with the body’s natural processes and movements was on one of the heart’s ventricles. At its best, the device created 0.2 microwatts per square centimeter, which was enough to power an average pacemaker.

While this isn’t the first study to look at this kind of technology, it was the first time it was tested in animals that had organs that were comparable in size to humans. This device can also be stacked on top of each other to create more electrical power if necessary. Rogers said it was a good start but further research needs to be done.

“I think the concept of creating electrical power from motions in internal organs is really interesting,”Rogers said. “The key thing is, if you’re going to do this, you need to be able to achieve efficiency and ultimately power output that is of practical use.”

Their research as published Jan. 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Michael McAlpine, a professor of mechanical engineering at Princeton University who was not involved in the research, told The Scientist that the technology is important because it could mean less surgery for people who have battery-powered devices like pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, neural devices and cochlear implants.

“A pacemaker runs off a battery and it’s installed in your body. Every time the battery dies, they actually have to open up your chest to replace the pacemaker completely,” he explained. “If there was some way that you could . . . harvest power from (organ) motion, maybe you could prolong the life of the battery or even replace the battery all together.”

Some experts voiced concern that the device was made out of a lead-based material, and even though it is sealed up, it could leak. However, McAlpine said there are other non-lead based piezoelectric materials that are almost as efficient as lead zirconate titanate, and further research in this area may reveal a better alternative.

“The innovation of this paper is taking what has been done on a small scale and integrating it up to a much more significant scale,” McAlpine.

Source: one news page