Dementia progress ‘achingly slow’ says global envoy

Dementia progress 'achingly slow'

Progress on research and treatment for dementia has been “achingly slow”, an expert says ahead of a London summit.

Dr Dennis Gillings said a pledge by G8 countries to find a cure or treatment by 2025 would be “impossible” without better incentives for investment. Dr Gillings, appointed world dementia envoy by UK PM David Cameron six month ago, called for faster and cheaper clinical trials for dementia drugs.

Hosting the event, the PM will call for a “big, bold global push” on dementia.

He is expected to pledge a new drive by the UK to discover new drugs and treatment for the condition, and a focus on how to bring forward specific proposals on patent extensions as well as how to give patients earlier access to new drugs.

Mr Cameron is expected to tell the summit: “In the UK alone there are around 800,000 people living with dementia, worldwide that number is 40m – and it is set to double every 20 years. “We have to fight to cure it. I know some people will say that it’s not possible, but we have seen with cancer what medicine can achieve.”

‘Special case’
Six months since the UK hosted a G8 summit on the disease at which the 2025 target was set, the prime minister is speaking at a follow-up event in central London where he will commit to accelerating progress on dementia drugs.

Experts and health officials from other G8 countries are expected to attend. Dr Gillings warned: “Just as the world came together in the fight against HIV/AIDS, we need to free up regulation so that we can test ground-breaking new drugs.

“The amount of scrutiny by regulators is considerable, but there probably needs to be a special case made for dementia by regulators so they can help move things through more quickly…

“Simplify the clinical trials process or simplify the sort of data being demanded.”

Source: bbc news

Too Much Sitting Tied to Risks for Certain Cancers

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You may want to stand up to read this.

A new study suggests that people who spend the bulk of their day sitting — whether behind the wheel, in front of the TV or working at a computer — appear to have an increased risk for certain kinds of cancers.

Previous studies have tied too much time spent sedentary to a variety of health problems, including heart disease, blood clots, a large waistline, higher blood sugar and insulin, generally poor physical functioning, and even early death.

For the new study, researchers zeroed in on 43 studies that specifically looked at the link between sitting and nearly 70,000 cases of cancer.
After combining the results from individual studies — a statistical tool that helps to reveal trends in research — there was good news and bad news.

The good news? Being sedentary did not appear to be linked to every kind of cancer. Scientists found no relationship between sitting and breast, ovarian, testicular or prostate cancers, or cancers of the stomach, esophagus and kidneys, or non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The bad news was that there did seem to be a consistent relationship between hours spent sitting and an increased risk for colon and endometrial cancers.

People who spent the most time sitting during the day had a 24 percent increased risk of getting colon cancer compared to those who logged the least number of hours in a chair, according to the study.

When the researchers looked just at time spent watching TV, the risk jumped even more. Those who clocked the most hours glued to the tube had a 54 percent increased risk of colon cancer compared to those who watched the least.

That may be because viewers tend to consume unhealthy snacks and drinks while watching TV, said study author Daniela Schmid, an epidemiologist at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

For endometrial — or uterine — cancer, the risks were even higher. There was a 32 percent increased risk for women who spent the most time seated compared to those who sat the least, and a 66 percent increased risk for those who watched the most TV, the study authors said.

Moreover, every two-hour increase in sitting time was linked to an 8 percent increased risk of colon cancer and a 10 percent increased risk of endometrial cancer.

The risks remained even for “active couch potatoes” — folks who squeeze in some time at the gym but still spend most of their day off their feet. This suggests that regular exercise can’t offset the risks of too much sitting, the study authors said.

The findings, published June 16 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, make sense to Dr. Graham Colditz. He’s the associate director for prevention and control at Washington University’s Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis.

“High blood sugar and high insulin is a clear sort of pathway to colon cancer, and we know from intervention studies that walking lowers insulin and getting up after meals lowers blood sugar compared to sitting,” said Colditz, who was not involved in the research.

As for endometrial cancer, “Obesity is a phenomenally strong cause. In fact, it is the main modifiable risk factor for endometrial cancer,” he said.

“So for me, the likely scenario there is that the sitting, the weight gain and obesity really go together and exacerbate the risk of endometrial cancer,” he added.

Because the studies included in the review only looked at broad relationships, they can’t prove that sitting, by itself, causes cancer. But the findings appeared to be remarkably consistent across studies, so Colditz thinks they should be taken seriously.

The study authors agree.
“Cutting down on TV viewing and sedentary time is just as important as becoming more active,” said Schmid. “For those whose jobs require them to sit at a desk most of the day, we recommend breaking up the time spent sitting by incorporating short bouts of light activity into the daily routine,” she added.

Source: webmd

This Microwave Helmet Can Sense Strokes

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Scientists in Sweden have invented a helmet that can identify whether a person has experienced a stroke, the BBC reports.

The headwear can further determine what kind of a stroke has occurred, allowing doctors to quickly diagnose and treat patients.

The helmet works by bouncing microwaves off a person’s brain and identifying whether there’s a bleed or a clot within it. Initial tests, involving 45 patients, proved successful. The helmet’s inventors now plan to roll the device out to ambulance teams and eventually put the technology in pillows as well.

At present, doctors treating stroke victims need to determine whether a clot or a leaking blood vessel caused the stroke. A CT scan is able to show this, but CT scanners aren’t available in every hospital and a scan can take time to set up. Delays in stroke treatment can be serious — brain tissue can begin to die if more than four hours passes between a stroke and treatment. The microwave helmet could reduce such delays, though researchers say more testing is required.

Some doctors have suggested that the helmet won’t completely replace other forms of diagnosis.

Dr. Shamim Quadir from the UK’s Stroke Association said that “while this research is at an early stage, microwave-based systems may become a portable, affordable, technology that could help rapidly identify the type of stroke a patient has had, and get them treated faster.”

Source: Time

Staring at screens all day linked to changes in eye secretions

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Office workers who spend long hours looking at computer screens have changes in their tear fluid similar to people with the disease known as dry eye, according to a study from Japan.

The protein MUC5AC, secreted by cells in the upper eyelid, makes up part of the normally occurring mucus layer, or “tear film,” that keeps the eye moist. But study participants with the most screen time had MUC5AC levels nearing those of people with diagnosed dry eye.

“To understand patients’ eye strain, which is one of major symptoms of dry eye disease, it is important that ophthalmologist pay attention to MUC5AC concentration in tears,” said Dr. Yuichi Uchino, an author of the new study.

Uchino is an ophthalmologist at the School of Medicine at Keio University in Tokyo.

“When we stare at computers, our blinking times decreased compared to reading a book at the table,” he told Reuters Health by email.

People staring at screens also tend to open their eyelids wider than while doing other tasks, and the extra exposed surface area in addition to infrequent blinking can accelerate tear evaporation and is associated with dry eye disease, he said.

Dry eye may be chronic for some but can be managed with over the counter or prescription eye drops.

Past research suggests that up to 5 million men and women over age 50 in the United States suffer from dry eye disease, the researchers write in their report. In Japan, tens of millions of people report some dry eye symptoms, often associated with computer work, they add.

The study team tested the tears from both eyes of 96 Japanese office workers, about two-thirds of them men, and measured how much of the total protein content of the tears was MUC5AC.

Workers employed in jobs involving computer screens filled out questionnaires about their working hours and symptoms of any eye problems.

Seven percent of men and 14 percent of women were diagnosed with ‘dry eye disease,’ meaning they reported symptoms of eye problems like irritation, burning or blurred vision and had poor quality or quantity of tear film, according to the tests.

Overall, participants looked at screens for work for just over eight hours a day and had an average of about 6.8 nanograms of MUC5AC per milligram of protein in each eye.

However, people who worked with computer screens for more than seven hours per day had an average of 5.9 ng/mg of MUC5AC, compared to 9.6 ng/mg for people who spent fewer than five hours daily with screens.

Similarly, people with definite dry eye disease had an average of 3.5 ng/mg of MUC5AC compared to 8.2 ng/mg for people without the disease.

“Mucin is one of the most important components of the tear film,” said Dr. Yuichi Hori, who was not a part of the new study. “Mucins (like MUC5AC) function to hold water on the ocular surface of the epithelia that synthesize them, hence, they are major players in maintenance of the tear film on the ocular surface,” Hori told Reuters Health by email.

He is chair of the department of Ophthalmology at Toho University Omori Medical Center in Tokyo.

Concentration of the protein was also lower for people with symptoms of eye strain than for people without symptoms, according to the results published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

People with dry eyes at work tend to be less productive and are more likely to be depressed, according to previous studies, Uchino said.

Office workers who are worried about dry eye can make some simple changes to decrease their risk, Uchino said.

“The exposed ocular surface area can be decreased by placing the terminal at a lower height, with the screen tilted upward,” Uchino said.

Doctors also recommend using a humidifier at the office and avoiding being in the direct path of the wind from an air conditioner, he said.

“We advise the office workers suffering from ocular fatigue and dry eye symptoms that they should blink more frequently in an intended manner during (screen use), and that they should use artificial tears,” Hori said.

“And they should ask an eye care doctor if their symptoms still remain.”

Source: fox news

Smart yoga mat can be used as personal trainer

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This smart yoga mat has been developed by a Munich-based company Lunar Europe. The mat dubbed Tera is embedded with sensors and a constellation of LED lights.

The embedded sensors would help in tracking pressure and shifts in body movement while the data is used to cue patterns in the lights, designed to guide stance and posture.

According to a report, an app connects to the mat through Bluetooth, cueing up lights along the way.

The mat is designed in a circular shape, which helps to accommodate the natural radius of human motion, making transitions between poses and keeping up the flow of the practice easier.

Tera can accommodate yoga meant for weight control or strengthening back muscles.

Source; post

Induced births falling in the U.S.

Induced births

Today’s expectant moms and their doctors have decided it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. Rather than inducing labor, they’re letting nature take its course, with the length of pregnancies in the U.S. on the upswing, according to a new study by the CDC.

The study released Wednesday tracks labor started through surgical or medical means during the years 2006 through 2012. The researchers found that induction rates at 38 weeks — once considered full-term gestation but now called an early-term gestation — declined for 36 states and the District of Columbia during this six-year period. Declines ranged from 5 percent to 48 percent.

Geography didn’t seem to matter. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia posted declines of at least 10 percent. The researchers did find that trends in induction rates at each week from 35 weeks, considered late pre-term, to 38 weeks, varied by maternal age. At 38 weeks, though, induction rates declined for all maternal age groups under 40, dropping 13 percent to 19 percent for women in their 20s and 30s.

This is a sharp reversal of trends tracked from 1981 through 2006 in which the proportion of babies born at less than 39 weeks gestation increased nearly 60 percent, while births at 39 weeks or more declined more than 20 percent.

“We were surprised that the overall induction rate went down,” says lead researcher Michelle Osterman, a health statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the CDC.

And it is welcome news, too. “For years we were taught that the 37th or 38th week of pregnancy was full term, but we did not appreciate the neonatal outcomes,” says ob/gyn Dr. Nancy Cossler, vice chair for quality and patient safety at University MacDonald Women’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.

“It was an ingrained part of our culture that 37 weeks is OK, but it’s not necessarily OK for the baby,” she says, citing issues such as hypothermia, feeding difficulties and respiratory distress among infants born early.

Historically, MacDonald Women’s Hospital had a rate of about 11 percent for labor induction for non-medical reasons among patients who were 37 to 38 weeks pregnant. Today, it’s nearly zero. In 2013, only one birth among the 37 to 38 week gestational age was done through induction. The patient had metastatic breast cancer, which is not among the usual listed criteria for medical induction, and needed to start chemotherapy and needed an early delivery, says Cossler.

Indeed, there is a big push nationally for longer-term births, such as the large-scale educational program called the 39-Week Initiative, supported by the March of Dimes and other groups. It seeks to end non-medically indicated deliveries prior to 39 weeks. Last year, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine even recommended the label “term” in pregnancy, be replaced with categories based on gestational age. Today, babies born at 39 weeks through 40 weeks and six days of pregnancy are considered “full term.” Babies born at 37 to 38 weeks are now considered “early term.”

“I think this study is very positive since several of us have now provided evidence that babies have better outcomes (with longer term births),” says Dr. Kimberly Noble, assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University.

In a study published in the journal Pediatrics of 128,000 New York City public school children, Noble and her colleagues found that compared to children born at 41 weeks, those born at 37 weeks had a 33 percent increased chance of having third-grade reading problems, and a 19 percent increased chance of having moderate math issues.

But doctors do worry that the pendulum could swing too far and patients may be afraid of induced deliveries.

“Studies can’t differentiate between induction done for medical reasons and induction done for convenience, and if your doctor says this baby needs to come out at 37 weeks because of a problem, you need to trust your doctor,” says Noble, citing issues such as maternal or fetal distress as a cause for earlier delivery. What patients and doctors shouldn’t do is schedule an earlier delivery because of a vacation or other issue. “We know that 38 weeks and beyond is good for the baby,” she says.

Source: today

Zambia: HPV Vaccine One Year On – Part 1

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Zambia is currently ranked number one in the world as the country with the most cases of cervical cancer. Believe it or not Zambia is also number one in terms of deaths from this disease.

This condition is basically the uncontrolled growth of cells on the cervix and is caused by infection with the Human Papillomavirus, HPV. Medical and scientific studies point to the fact that the HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, STIs. These studies have also proven that HPV infection can be prevented by behaviour change and vaccination which is primary prevention and screening which is secondary prevention.

So the vaccination of young girls against the HPV is a programme that must be supported if Zambia is to eventually improve its global rating in as far as cervical cancer prevalence and mortality are concerned.

Hailed as a success, when it was first rolled out in Zambia in May 2013, the programme targets to vaccinate 50,000 grade four girls and out of school girls aged 10 years against the HPV by December 2014 in the three selected districts of Lusaka, Chongwe and Kafue.

The vaccination programme by the Zambian government with assistance of co-operating partners is being rolled out the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health. Investigations on the ground have proved that this is an elaborate programme.

The fact that even though the initial target provided by the Ministry of Education was 25,000 girls almost 30, 000 eligible girls were found when the immunisation rolled out in 2013. This obviously created inaccurate targets.

It also turned out that in the capital, Lusaka, alone many private schools were not registered with the Ministry of Education because over 823 schools have been documented by the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health compared to initial number of 505 given by education authorities.

Even though Lusaka targeted 823 private and government schools only 536 schools were visited in 2013. 123 schools were visited in Chongwe and 139 were visited in Kafue. But perhaps what is more worrying is that in 23 schools parents refused to consent to the HPV vaccinations and vaccination teams were denied access by teachers in some private schools.

Challenges in rolling out the HPV vaccination programme have been identified as data management, planning and co-ordination, social mobilisation, logistics and service delivery.

Part 2 will delve into these challenges as well as lessons learned from them. But all in all, stakeholders seem to agree that the HPV vaccination programme in Zambia needs continuous and vigorous sensitisation.

Source: all africa

Govt to strengthen eye health care system: Saira

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Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Saira Afzal Tarar on Tuesday said that the government is attaching high priority to strengthening of eye health care system in the country.

She was addressing the launching ceremony of three projects included Pakistan Australia – prevention of avoidable blindness project by the Fred Hollows Foundation Australia, strengthening of Pakistan’s response to diabetic retinopathy project by Sightsavers, UK and the regional contaract program CBM Germany, organized by National Committee for Eye Health (NCEH).

The minister said after devolution the responsibility is now shifted to the provinces, however the federal government is working on different projects for eliminating avoidable blindness.

She thanked the government of Australia for its assistance for reducing blindness in Pakistan and expressed the hope that such support will continue in future also.
She appreciated the performance of National Committee for Eye Health and particularly sincere efforts of committee’s chairman. She urged other medical professionals to come forward and play their due role in the development of health sector.

Australian High Commissioner Peter Heyward said that the government of Australia is delighted to support Pakistan in health sector and pledged to continue such support in future.

He expressed the hope that with start of these projects in Pakistan, the government will be able to achieve the goal of elimination of avoidable blindness in Pakistan.
National Coordinator and Chairman National Committee for Eye Health (NCEH), Prof Dr. Asad Aslam Khan said that prevalence of blindness is 0.9% and cataract surgical rate has crossed 4000 per Ophthalmologist per year, meaning that on an average a Pakistani Ophthalmologist is doing more than 10 cataract surgeries per day.

He added, teaching hospitals have optometrists, Refractionists, Orthopists, Oph Technicians and 50% DHQ and THQ hospitals across the country are having Refractionists, Oph Technicians working there and post of Ophthalmologists have been created at THQ hospital level in Punjab, KPK and Sindh and are gradually being filled up.

He said NCEH made its modest start in 1980 National Eye Camp and gradually evolved through the stages of National Committee for PBL in 1982, NSC For PBL in 1994 to present NCEH in 2008.

Dr Asad said that the committee with the generous support of WHO and INGOs FHF, Sightsavers, CMB, SCB, DFID and DFAT worked day and night for prevention of blindness and promotion of Eye health in Pakistan.

He said that the committee has been working for up gradation of eye health services in Pakistan on public private partnership with the support of International NGOs like Fred Hollows Foundation Australia, Sightsavers International UK and CBM Germany, AUS AID, DFAT, DFID and Corporate Sector SCB.

He added the partnership has resulted in many successful outcomes for the country, including establishment of Pakistan Institute of Community Ophthalmology (PICO), Peshawar, establishment of College of Ophthalmology and Allied Vision Sciences (COAVS), King Edward Medical University/Mayo Hospital Lahore, up gradation of eye departments of all teaching hospitals in countryand up gradation of Eye units of 120 DHQ hospital in the country.

He added other achievements included integration of Primary Eye Care in Primary Health Care, National Survey of Blindness and Low Vision 2002-2004, National Survey of Trachoma, National survey of Cataract surgical services, National Survey of Refractive Error services, National Programme for Prevention and Control of Blindness, 1993-1998 and 1999-2004 and 2005-2010 and devolved National Programme for Prevention of Blindness 2012-2015.

Source: business recorder

Girl’s uncontrollable laughter caused by brain tumor

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They say laughter is the best medicine. But what if laughter is the disease?

For a 6-year-old girl in Bolivia who suffered from uncontrollable and inappropriate bouts of giggles, laughter was a symptom of a serious brain problem. But doctors initially diagnosed the child with “misbehavior.”

“She was considered spoiled, crazy — even devil-possessed,” Dr. José Liders Burgos Zuleta, ofAdvanced Medical Image Centre, in Bolivia, said in a statement.

But Burgos Zuleta discovered that the true cause of the girl’s laughing seizures, medically called gelastic seizures, was a brain tumor.

After the girl underwent a brain scan, the doctors discovered a hamartoma, a small, benign tumor that was pressing against her brain’s temporal lobe.The doctors surgically removed the tumor, and the girl is now healthy, the doctors said.

The girl stopped having the uncontrollable attacks of laughter and now only laughs normally, the doctors said.

Gelastic seizures are a form of epilepsy that is relatively rare, said Dr. Solomon Moshé, a pediatric neurologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The word comes from the Greek word for laughter, “gelos.”

“It’s not necessarily ‘hahaha’ laughing,” Moshé told Live Science. “There’s no happiness in this. Some of the kids may be very scared,” he added.

The seizures are most often caused by tumors in the hypothalamus, especially in kids, although they can also come from tumors in other parts of brain, Moshé said. Although laughter is the main symptom, patients may also have outbursts of crying.

These tumors can cause growth abnormalities if they affect the pituitary gland, he said.

The surgery to remove such brain tumors used to be difficult and dangerous, but a new surgical technique developed within the last 10 years allows doctors to remove them effectively without great risk, Moshé said.

The doctors who treated the girl said their report of her case could raise awareness of the strange condition, so doctors in Latin America can diagnose the true cause of some children’s “behavioral” problems, and refer them to a neurologist.

Source: cbs news

Chikungunya virus infects 12 more in Guyana

chikungunya-fever

Guyana is reporting at least 12 more cases of a mosquito-borne virus that causes severe joint pain and fever for many of its victims.

Health Minister Bheri Ramsarran says the Caribbean Public Health Agency confirmed the new cases of chikungunya among 130 blood samples sent from the South American country.

The minister said late Wednesday that the infections occurred near the border with Suriname and about 32 kilometres from where the first two cases were documented last week.

The government is spraying pesticides to control the two species of mosquitoes that spread the virus.

The Pan American Health Organization reports more than 100,000 cases of chikungunya since the first locally transmitted case on the generally non-fatal virus in the Caribbean in French St. Martin in December.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested local public health departments perform surveillance for chikungunya cases in returning travellers and be aware of the risk for possible local transmission in areas where Aedes species mosquitoes are active.

“Local transmission has been identified in 17 countries or territories in the Caribbean or South America (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Maarten),” the CDC’s weekly report on illness and death said.

“As of May 30, 2014, a total of 103,018 suspected and 4,406 laboratory-confirmed chikungunya cases had been reported from these areas.”

Source: cbc news