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Researchers Turn To Bears To Understand Obesity:


Although obesity statistics have somewhat leveled off in recent years, the global burden of this epidemic continues to rear its ugly head at adults and children. Scientists at the U.S. drug maker Amgen Inc. are experimenting with an unorthodox new study method that implores the help of an animal with one of nature’s biggest appetites: the grizzly bear. After watching Yogi Bear on TV, Dr. Kevin Corbit decided to uncover how the chubby cartoon character stayed healthy while gorging on food in preparation for hibernation.

The Washington State University Bear Center was established 27 years ago and served as one of the world’s only research facilities where grizzly bears can be thoroughly examined. Bears are either born at the university or taken from national parks where they were in danger of being euthanized due to close contact with humans. A research team headed up by Dr. Corbit is in the middle of two-year study in which they are drawing blood, running biopsies for fat deposit, and monitoring the heart of 12 grizzly bears.

Dr. Corbit and his colleagues were particularly interested in how a grizzly bear’s cholesterol and blood pressure spikes after they take in upward of 100 lbs. of fruit, nuts, and salmon, yet somehow remain healthy. Not only do grizzly bears lose this weight rapidly after hibernation, but they are also unaffected by the health conditions most obese humans experience such as a heart attack, stroke, or diabetes.

Findings revealed that each bear was able to adjust their hormone insulin sensitivity, which controls the amount of fat and sugars that are broken down and stored away for energy during hibernation. Grizzly bears experience high insulin sensitivity while preparing for hibernation; however, a few weeks into hibernation they completely shut off their insulin sensitivity. Dr. Corbit told The Wall Street Journal that sequencing the bear’s genome “would really accelerate the discovery research for bears.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), obesity on a worldwide scale has doubled since 1980. Over 200 million men and 300 million women over the age of 20 were considered obese in 2008. Around 2.8 million adults die each year as the result of an obesity-related condition, making it the fifth leading cause of death around the world. Forty-four percent of obese people also develop diabetes, 23 percent suffer from heart disease, and between seven percent and 41 percent are affected by a certain type of cancer.

Source: medical daily

Superbug Strain of E. coli Endangers the Lives of Millions

New research shows how antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli evolved from a single source.A single strain of Escherichia coli, or E. coli, is responsible for millions of bacterial infections in women and the elderly, according to new research released today.

The strain, H30-Rx, has the unprecedented ability to spread from the urinary tract into the blood, giving rise to sepsis, the most lethal form of infection.

The new report suggests that H30-Rx may be responsible for 1.5 million urinary tract infections (UTIs) and tens of thousands of deaths annually in the U.S. alone. Researchers say the strain poses a threat to more than 10 million Americans who suffer from UTIs.
The research, published in the American Society for Microbiology’s journal mBio, shows how this bacteria has evolved from a single strain, allowing it to get around the most potent antibiotics available.

Tracing the E. coli Family Tree
The research was led by Lance B. Price, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. He’s also an associate professor in the Pathogen Genomics Division of the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Ariz.

He and fellow researchers James R. Johnson of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Minnesota, and Evgeni V. Sokurenko of the University of Washington School of Medicine, focused on the ST131 group of E. coli.

ST131 strains are a common cause of bacterial infections, but they have become untreatable with standard antibiotics.

The team used advancing genomic techniques to discover that bacteria in the ST131 strains are genetic clones that have all evolved from a single strain of E. coli. Using whole-genome sequencing—which spells out each molecule in a bacteria’s DNA—researchers analyzed samples of E. coli from patients and animals in five countries gathered between 1967 and 2011. They then created a family tree to trace how the antibiotic-resistant clones evolved.

“Astoundingly, we found that all of the resistance could be traced back to a single ancestor,” Price said in a statement. “Our research shows this superbug then took off, and now causes lots of drug-resistant infections.”
For example, researchers said that a strain known as H30 cloned itself into H30-R. This evolved to become fully resistant to the second-generation antibiotic ciprofloxacin, which was considered a wonder-drug when it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1987. From there, the clones evolved into H30-Rx, which is resistant to even third-generation antibiotics like cephalosporins.

“This strain of E. coli spreads from person to person and seems to be particularly virulent,” Johnson said in a release. “This study might help us develop better tools to identify, stop or prevent its spread by finding better ways to block the transmission of the superbug, or by finding a diagnostic test that would help doctors identify such an infection early on—before it might have the chance to turn lethal.”

Dr. William Schaffner, immediate past-president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a professor of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said the new research will change the way problematic strains of E. coli are handled.

“It’s fascinating that they’ve identified a dominant strain of resistant E. coli. We previously thought these strains became resistant independently,” Schaffner, who was not involved in the study, told Healthline. “Resistant E. coli are slowly yet surely becoming a problem for those of us who treat infections.”

Source: health line

Study: Taking A Picture May Not Make The Memory Last Longer

Please, no photos: Snapping pictures of an event or item may not help you remember it later, new research shows.

Researchers took 28 people on a tour of Fairfield University’s Bellarmine Museum of Art in Conn. They were asked to look at 15 different objects and take photographs of 15 others.

The researchers also asked 46 subjects to look at 27 artifacts. They were instructed to examine nine of them, photograph nine others, and photograph a particular portion of the object on another nine artifacts.

The next day the subjects were quizzed both verbally and visually about what they saw. They remembered less about the actual object when they photographed it than when they just stared at it.

However, those who took detailed photos remembered the whole item better, even if the pictures did not pay attention to the other areas.

“These results show how the ‘mind’s eye’ and the camera’s eye are not the same,” lead author Linda Henkel, a psychology researcher at Fairfield University, said in a press release.

Henkel told LiveScience that she got the idea for the study after seeing people at the Grand Canyon snapping pictures without pausing to take in the view.

“It occurred to me that people often whip out their cameras and cellphone cameras to capture a moment and were doing so almost mindlessly and missing what was happening right in front of them,” she said.

Henkel believes that people experienced the “photo-taking impairment effect” because they had counted on the technology to store the experience, not their own mind.

“When people rely on technology to remember for them — counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves — it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences,” she said in the release.

She pointed out that previous studies have shown that memory can be jogged by looking at photos, but only if the person peruses them — not if they just keep the snapshots.

This particular study didn’t allow people to select the photo subjects, so that may have played a role in what they remembered. Henkel’s next study will allow the subjects to choose what they photograph.

The study was published Dec. 5 in Psychological Science.

Source: digtriad

The Amazing Benefits of Local Raw Honey

Raw honey is different from the average honey bought at the grocery store. In fact, using the pasteurized honey from the average store is as unhealthy as consuming refined sugar. Raw honey is different because it has not been pasteurized, heated or processed in any way, and therefore contains many valuable benefits.

Raw honey is full of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and powerful antioxidants. It has anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties.

Other uses:

* Helps digestion
* Strengthens immune system
* Eliminates allergies
* Stabilizes blood pressure
* Balances blood sugar
* Calms nerves
* Relieves pain
* Treats ulcers
* Sore throats
* Colds
* Indigestion

So why local raw honey?

Raw honey is great, but local raw honey is even better! Local raw honey contains pollen that is specific to your area and therefore can really help those local seasonal allergies. Taking a spoonful of raw honey once or twice a day is a great help. It is also advised to begin taking local honey a few months prior to the allergy season; this gets the pollen introduced into the body and gradually builds up the body”s tolerance to seasonal allergies. I purchase my honey by the quart from a man that lives about ten minutes from me.

Raw Oatmeal No-Bakes

One of my favorite ways to consume raw honey is in these easy raw oatmeal no-bakes! If my family has a craving for something sweet, these no-bakes are an easy, quick way to satisfy it. We make these often.

Ingredients:
2 cups Old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/4 cup Raw honey
1/4 cup Dark Chocolate chips
Mix all the ingredients and form into balls. We always test a little to see if a spoonful more of peanut butter or honey needs added.
You can also add flax seeds, coconut, sesame seeds, wheat germ, raisins, etc. Adjust the amount of other ingredients as needed.

External uses of honey

Raw honey has been used for centuries to heal burns, wounds and rashes.

One of my favorite remedies for burns comes from Dr. Christopher”s book Herbal Home Health Care.

The recipe:
1 part Comfrey
1 part Raw Honey
1 part Wheat Germ Oil

Mix all these ingredients together and store in glass jar with a lid. Keep in a cool, dark place, like a cabinet. You can also keep these ingredients on hand and mix them together quickly when needed.

When applying to burn, make sure to cover the burn with half-inch of the paste and cover with a bandage made for burns that will not stick, or cover with a soft leaf and wrap with gauze. Check the burn a few times a day and reapply more paste on top of the original paste to keep the thickness at half an inch. DO NOT REMOVE THE ORIGINAL PASTE until the burn is healed.

To find local honey, visit a health food store or look for local farmers that raise their own bees.

Source: stumble upon

Delhi Hospitals Overflow With an Annual Plague of Dengue

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Factory worker Mohammad Awwal is gripped by fever, sweats and the sort of agonising aches that mean his condition is sometimes called “breakbone disease”. It’s an annual plague in India and a hidden epidemic, say experts.

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease with no known cure or vaccination that strikes fear into the citizens of New Delhi when it arrives with the monsoon rains — just as the scorching heat of the summer is subsiding.

Hospital wards are overwhelmed and tales abound of deaths and cases while New Delhi public authorities insist that only 3,500 have fallen sick so far this year — with only five fatalities.

“I took him first to a government hospital. I was shocked to see that it was packed with dengue patients. There was not even a single bed available,” said Awwal’s mother, Mehrunissa, sitting in her one-room shack in east Delhi.

She is now treating him at their home, giving him multi-vitamins, paracetamol and water as he lies on the floor with two pillows and a bedsheet but no mattress.

In a sign that this year’s outbreak could be as bad as record-breaking 2010, the city’s largest public hospital, Hindu Rao, announced earlier this month that it had suspended all routine surgeries to make room for more dengue patients.

The Delhi government has blamed prolonged monsoons for the hike in infections, but says it has added beds at hospitals and increased resources for spraying insecticides to tackle the mosquito menace.

“It’s nothing to worry about, there is no crisis,” Charan Singh, additional director of Delhi health services, told AFP, dismissing allegations that the city of 17 million under-reports the problem.

“It is a lot of hype going on… The government is in action and we report all cases according to international guidelines,” he added.

Fear of a panic?

The virus — first detected in the 1950s in the Philippines and Thailand — affects two million people across the globe annually, with the number of cases up 30 times in the last 50 years, according to the World Health Organisation.

Transmitted to humans by the female Aedes aegypti mosquito, it causes high fever, headaches, itching and joint pains that last about a week. There are four strains, one of which can cause fatal internal bleeding.

In India, cases have increased sharply over the last five years — there have been 38,000 so far in 2013 — but doctors say these numbers only capture part of the problem.

At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), India’s most prestigious public hospital, doctors are overwhelmed by patients whose beds are squeezed together like Tetris tiles in the emergency ward with saline drips nailed to the walls.

Medics, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that they were seeing 60 new dengue patients a day — an influx they suspected was not reflected in the official figures.

“Maybe it’s because they don’t want to create panic or because they don’t want to be blamed, but if they hide, people won’t know how bad the situation is,” said one doctor.

The former health chief at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said that only positive results from one of the two standard dengue tests — known as ELISA test — was registered.

“There is gross under-reporting of these cases every year. I believe the real numbers are always three times higher than those projected by the MCD,” V.K. Monga told AFP.

Sandeep Budhiraja, internal medicines director at private Max Healthcare hospital in Delhi, blamed city authorities for failing to be prepared and said cases would only decline with the onset of winter next month.

“It’s an epidemic that hits the country every year, yet there is never any preparedness by officials. It just keeps getting worse,” said Budhiraja, adding that Max had opened its fever wards to accommodate dengue patients.

‘No luck’ with treatments

While dengue is painful and debilitating, death is usually rare but patients are vulnerable to other fatal viral infections during or shortly after the time of illness.

There is still no specific treatment, but last year French healthcare giant Sanofi Pasteur said it would begin tests for a dengue vaccine in India before making it available internationally by 2015.

A leading Brazilian biomedical research institute, Butantan, also said last month it was working on a new dengue vaccine that they hoped would be ready by 2018.

British firm Oxitec has also created genetically modified sterile male Aedes mosquitoes – what they call “birth control for insects” – but met with severe criticism for releasing unnatural species into the environment.

The only defence so far is preventive steps, like removing stagnant water near residential areas, spraying insecticide, applying mosquito repellent and wearing long sleeves and trousers.

Many victims in India gulp down papaya-leaf juice believing it to boost blood platelet levels, which are decimated by the virus.

“It is a largely preventive, self-limiting virus, but we still hardly invest in research for treatments,” said Budhiraja from Max Healthcare.

“There are only some vaccines being tried out, but no luck yet.”
Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/510759/delhi-hospitals-overflow-with-hidden-dengue-epidemic#ixzz2iKXoWyCi