31 October, 2013

Early medication for HIV is cost-effective: Study

Cape Town: Treating people with HIV soon after they become infected is cost-effective over the long term, according to a study out Wednesday that focused on South Africa and India. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed the economics of giving antiretroviral drugs to people with HIV before their viral load gets too high.

While researchers have already determined that early treatment has many health benefits, its cost -- about $23,000 a year according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- has remained a concern for considering widespread early treatment in low and middle income countries.

By projecting the treatment costs over time and accounting for the effects of better health and fewer infections, researchers found long-term economic benefits in both countries.

"In short, early ART is a `triple winner`: HIV-infected patients live healthier lives, their partners are protected from HIV, and the investment is superb," said co-author Rochelle Walensky of the Massachusetts General Hospital. "This study provides a critical answer to an urgent policy question."

Researchers chose to focus on South Africa and India because they had the highest numbers of people with HIV among nine countries studied in a clinical trial known as HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 052.

The trial showed that treatment as prevention dramatically reduced the risks of viral transmission and also substantially cut back the development of infections like tuberculosis in the HIV-infected patients. South Africa and India were also representative, respectively, of the middle and lower income countries where these questions persist over how early to treat people for HIV.

Early ART was defined as therapy initiated when the CD4+ T-cell count ranged from 350 to 550 per cubic millimeter, and delayed ART as therapy initiated when the CD4+ count was below 250 per cubic millimeter.

"We found that early ART substantially improved the rate of survival of infected patients, greatly decreased the rate of early HIV transmissions, and provided an excellent return on investment," said the study. For the first five years, the results showed that 93 percent of patients receiving early ART would survive, compared with 83 percent of those whose treatment was delayed.

Life expectancy for the early-treatment group was longer too -- almost 16 years, compared with nearly 14 years for the delayed treatment group.

"Now that we know that early ART not only improves clinical and prevention outcomes but also is a great investment, we need to redouble international efforts to provide ART to any HIV-infected person who can benefit from it," said Walensky.

Source: www.zwwnews.india.com/news/health

31.10.2013

Cancer vaccine developed to boost lifespan of patients

Moscow: Russian scientists have developed a vaccine for the treatment of cancer that can increase the patient`s lifespan more than two-fold, ITAR-TASS reported Wednesday.

The vaccine, developed at the Institute of Clinical Immunology in the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in Novosibirsk, has already successfully passed clinical tests, said institute`s director Vladimir Kozlov.

Currently, it is being administered to patients by injection at the third and fourth stages of cancer.

"We are deriving dendritic cells from the human body and loading them with tumour antigens," Kozlov said.

"Dendritic cells process them, then we inject the cells into the patient and they start working in the body evoking a strong immune response. That is, they are actively fighting the tumour."

The institute`s creation "is not a classical vaccine, which is the means to prevent the illness", Kozlov said. "In fact, it is a cell therapy."

The vaccine is counteracting several types of cancer - colorectal (bowel) cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer - and the institute is ready to start its industrial production, Kozlov added.

However, the scientist added that other types of therapy were to be used as well, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Source: www.zwwnews.india.com/news/health

31.10.2013

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody

Mother Teresa

30 October, 2013

'Having kids early' cause of infant mortality

Researchers have revealed that having children early and in rapid succession are major factors fueling high infant mortality rates in the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal andPakistan, where one in 14 births to young mothers ends with the death of the child within the first year. 

Anita Raj, PhD, professor of medicine and director of the Center on Gender Equity and Health at University of California, San Diego, and colleagues said younger maternal age (under 18 years old) and short intervals between pregnancies (under 24 months) accounted for roughly one-quarter of the infant mortality rate among young mothers in India and Pakistan, a percentage that represents almost 200,000 infant deaths in 2012 for those two nations alone. 

In Bangladesh, only the short inter-pregnancy interval was linked to infant mortality while in Nepal, only young motherhood was associated with infant death. 

Infant mortality is a significant public health issue in South Asia. 

According to United Nations data, the infant mortality rate worldwide is 49.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. In Pakistan, it is 70.90; India, 52.91; Bangladesh, 48.98 and Nepal, 38.71. By comparison, the infant mortality rate in the United States is 6.81 and just 1.92 in Singapore, lowest in the world. 

The new infant mortality findings are based upon analyses of national demographic and health surveys taken in the four countries. 

Raj noted the comparisons may be somewhat skewed by imperfect comparisons. 

She said that the findings still underscore concerns about the social consequences of child marriage and young motherhood. 

In a study published last year, she and colleagues reported that more than 10 million girls under the age of 19 marry each year worldwide, usually under the force of local tradition and social custom. Almost half of these compulsory marriages occur in South Asia. 

The findings are published online in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

30.10.2013

How to manage diabetes in 5 steps

It's a common fact that once you manage to lower your sugar level you need to control in and maintain it so that it doesn't spike.

Besides following a diabetic diet, there are few important parameters that you should have in place. To help you out and to chalk a diabetescontrol plan we have Dr. Shalini Jaggi, Senior Consultant at Action Diabetic Centre, Delhi based Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute. She tells us five basic ways to control and manage diabetes effectively.

How to manage diabetes

Taking regular medications and going for periodic check-ups with doctors helps keep diabetes under control.

Following a strict diet keeps diabetes under check. A person with diabetes should follow a diet which is low in carbohydrates, high in fiber and contains adequate amounts of proteins, vitamins and minerals and avoid fatty foods and sweets. He/she should also take frequent small meals (5 meals pattern).

A person with diabetes should engage in some brisk physical exercise daily for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Such lifestyle modifications keep the disease in control to a great extent.

To keep one's diabetes in check, a person should do a self monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) level.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

30.10.2013

Run if you can’t fly, walk if you can’t run, crawl if you can’t walk. But all means keep moving

Martin Luther King Jr

29 October, 2013

Iranian technology to control dengue

Authorities in Haryana’s Gurgaon district will experiment with an eco-friendly larvicide prepared by an Iranian company to control the spread of dengue and malaria, a spokesman said in Chandigarh on Monday.

A delegation of scientists from Iran Monday met senior officials of the Gurgaon administration and municipal corporation and gave a presentation on how the larvicide could control the spread of these diseases. The delegation offered to give a sample of its technology.

‘This exercise will be completely on no commitment, no costs basis. If the results are found to be fruitful, as per the claims of the delegation, then the larvicide would be used in whole of district Gurgaon on experimental basis as a pilot project,’ the spokesman said.

He said that the delegation had claimed that the larvicide is eco-friendly and only kills larva of mosquitoes.

‘It is harmless to plants, animals and even human beings. The water with this larvicide is safe for human consumption as well,’ the spokesman said, quoting the delegation.

The delegation claimed that since 2000, when this larvicide was used in Iran to control malaria, number of cases of the disease reduced from 20,000 to less than 1,000 annually. It has been used in countries like Oman, Sudan, Turkey, Thailand, Nigeria and Malaysia, he added.

Source: http://health.india.com

29.10.2013

Is the era of antibiotics over?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has announced that the world has reached ‘the end of the antibiotics era period’. ‘Humans and livestock have been overmedicated to the point that bacteria have grown so resistant to antibiotics that we are now in the post-antibiotic era,’ said Arjun Srinivasan, associate director at CDC.

The WHO had earlier warned that simple infections would no longer have a cure and the blame was on the overuse and the misuse of antibiotics for the situation. . ‘We’ve fuelled this fire of bacterial resistance. These drugs are miracle drugs… but we haven’t taken good care of them over the 50 years.’

Doctors according to him are running out of therapies to tackle infections that could be easily treated earlier.  ‘There are bacteria that we encounter … that are resistant to nearly all — or, in some cases, all — the antibiotics that we have available to us,’ he said.

Source: http://health.india.com

29.10.2013

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative selflessness or in the darkness of destructive selfishness

Martin Luther King Jr

28 October, 2013

Now, bracelet that heats or cools your body in one switch

Washington: MIT scientists have developed a novel thermoelectric bracelet that keeps tabs on air and skin temperature and allows you to control your body temperature.

 Heating or cooling certain parts of your body such as applying a warm towel to your forehead if you feel chilly can help maintain your perceived thermal comfort.

Using that concept, four Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineering students developed a thermoelectric bracelet that monitors air and skin temperature, and sends tailored pulses of hot or cold waveforms to the wrist to help maintain thermal comfort.

 Although people would use the device for personal comfort, the team says the ultimate aim is to reduce the energy consumption of buildings, by cooling and heating the individual ? not the building.

 "Buildings right now use an incredible amount of energy just in space heating and cooling. In fact, all together this makes up 16.5 per cent of all US primary energy consumption. We wanted to reduce that number, while maintaining individual thermal comfort," said Sam Shames, a materials science and engineering senior who co-invented the Wristify technology.

 The team estimates that if the device stops one building from adjusting its temperature by even just 1 degree Celsius, it will save roughly 100 kilowatt-hours per month.  Over the course of developing its technology, the Wristify team made a key discovery: Human skin is very sensitive to minute, rapid changes in temperature, which affect the whole body.

 They found they needed to heat or cool any body part (in their case, the wrist) at a rate of at least 0.1 C per second in order to make the entire body, overall, feel several degrees warmer or colder.

 After 15 prototypes, the team landed on its final product, which resembles a wristwatch and can be powered, for up to eight hours, by a lithium polymer battery. The prototype demonstrated a rate of change of up to 0.4 C per second. The "watch" part of the prototype actually consists of the team's custom copper-alloy-based heat sink  - a component that lowers a device's temperature by dissipating heat.

 Attached is an automated control system that manages the intensity and duration of the thermal pulses delivered to the heat sink. Integrated thermometers also measure external and body temperature to adjust accordingly.

 "What we developed is a wearable, wrist-based technology that leverages human sensitivity, can detect and perfect rates of change, and can maintain overall thermal comfort while reducing the need to heat and cool buildings," Shames said.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news/health

28.10.2013

'India needs Rs 1.63 lakh cr investment in healthcare by 2017'

New Delhi: The Indian healthcare sector will need a total capital investment of Rs 1,62,500 crore to provide accessible and affordable healthcare during the 12th Plan period, says a report.

 India will need to add at least 6,50,000 beds by 2017 to help improve access to healthcare infrastructure from the current 1.3 beds per 1,000 population in 2011 to 1.7 beds per 1,000 population by the end of the 12th Plan period in 2017, said a report by by PricewaterhouseCoopers in association with industry body NATHEALTH.

"The addition of 6,50,000 beds in India by 2017 will require a capital investment of Rs 1,62,500 crore. This translates to more than 50 per cent of India's annual healthcare expenditure," it said.

 Elaborating on the requirements, the report said based on the publicly announced government plans approximately 1,30,000 beds will be put up in the government or the public sector.

 "This will necessitate the addition of nearly 5,20,000 beds by the private healthcare providers implying a capital investment of around Rs 1,30,000 crore over the next four years," it added.

 On the funding part, the report said: "Raising the needed Rs 1,30,000 crore will require an equity infusion of Rs 39,000 crore by the private healthcare providers and a long term debt funding of Rs 91,000 crore."

 Calling for government support, it said the scale of creation in healthcare access will require a strong partnership between the public and the private stakeholders.

 The first step in this direction can be by creating healthcare infrastructure by the government through the establishment of a healthcare infrastructure fund (HIF) with an initial corpus of 15,000 crore, the report said.

 Another step can be allowing business trusts and real estate investment trusts (REITS) in healthcare, it added.

 Establishment of a nodal agency for healthcare to spur the growth of the sector and creation of healthcare infrastructure was another important step for increasing the access, it suggested.

 On the cost to patients, the report said a transparent and viable pricing formula for reimbursement is another key factor, while suggesting establishment of a central government Health Scheme (CGHS) pricing formula similar to the one used for the power sector.

 Scaling up public?private partnerships (PPPs) in the creation of healthcare infrastructure and enhancing financial access through Universal Health Coverage for every citizen will be other important factors as per the report.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news/health

28.10.2013

Fear less hope more, talk less work more, hate less love more and all good things are yours

26 October, 2013

How sweat glands could help heal skin injuries

Washington: A team of researchers have determined that under certain conditions, the sweat gland stem cells could heal skin wounds.

They have claimed that the glands can also help regenerate all layers of the epidermis.

USC faculty member Krzysztof Kobielak and his team used a system to make all of the sweat gland cells in a mouse easy to spot: labeling them with green fluorescent protein (GFP), which is visible under ultraviolet light.

Over time, the GFP became dimmer as it was diluted among dividing sweat gland cells. After four weeks, the only cells that remained fluorescent were the ones that did not divide or divided very slowly - a known property among stem cells of certain tissues, including the hair follicle and cornea.

Therefore, these slow-dividing, fluorescent cells in the sweat gland's coiled lower region were likely also stem cells.

Then, the first author of this paper, graduate student Yvonne Leung, tested whether these fluorescent cells could do what stem cells do best - differentiate into multiple cell types.

To the researchers' surprise, these glowing cells generated not only sweat glands, but also hair follicles when placed in the skin of a mouse without GFP.

The study has been published in journal Public Library of Science One (PLOS ONE).

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news/health

25.10.2013

Azad underlines women's health issues in Beijing

New Delhi: Taking up the issue of the large number of unplanned pregnancies across the globe, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Wednesday underlined the importance of women's sexual and reproductive health while speaking at a conference in Beijing.

A staggering 222 million women around the world lack access to contraceptive services, leading to 80 million unplanned pregnancies, 30 million unplanned births and 20 million unsafe abortions every year, Azad said while addressing the "International Inter-ministerial Conference on South-South Cooperation" in the Chinese capital.

"This is a reminder that universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and care is not ensured. It is time we acknowledge that we need to make massive and strategic investments in universal access to affordable and appropriate sexual and reproductive health services," Azad said, according to an official release.

The minister remarked that child marriages, teenage pregnancies, neglected youth and adolescent populations, high levels of malnutrition including anaemia and violence against women are several other issues which need to be addressed to achieve Millenium Development Goals but have not received due attention so far.

He said significant progress has been made since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 and preliminary findings show that globally between 1994 and 2012, fertility fell by 29 percent, contraceptive prevalence for women aged 15 to 49 rose from 58.4 percent to 63.6 percent and the unmet need for modern contraceptive methods declined from 20.7 percent to 18.5 percent.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news/health

25.10.2013

Pessimist is the person who says that ‘O’ is the last letter of ZERO instead of the first letter in OPPORTUNITY

25 October, 2013

80 million unplanned pregnancies and 20 million unsafe abortions every year: Azad

Taking up the issue of the large number of unplanned pregnancies across the globe, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday underlined the importance of women’s sexual and reproductive health while speaking at a conference in Beijing.

A staggering 222 million women around the world lack access to contraceptive services, leading to 80 million unplanned pregnancies, 30 million unplanned births and 20 million unsafe abortions every year, Azad said while addressing the ‘International Inter-ministerial Conference on South-South Cooperation’ in the Chinese capital.  

‘This is a reminder that universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and care is not ensured. It is time we acknowledge that we need to make massive and strategic investments in universal access to affordable and appropriate sexual and reproductive health services,’ Azad said, according to an official release.

The minister remarked that child marriages, teenage pregnancies, neglected youth and adolescent populations, high levels of malnutrition including anaemia and violence against women are several other issues which need to be addressed to achieve Millenium Development Goals but have not received due attention so far.  

He said significant progress has been made since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 and preliminary findings show that globally between 1994 and 2012, fertility fell by 29 percent, contraceptive prevalence for women aged 15 to 49 rose from 58.4 percent to 63.6 percent and the unmet need for modern contraceptive methods declined from 20.7 percent to 18.5 percent.  

Source: http://health.india.com

25.10.2013

New hair loss cure on the cards?

Researchers in the US have claimed that they have invented a hair restoration method that can solve the problem of baldness.

Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC) have devised a hair restoration method that can generate new human hair growth, rather than simply redistributing hair from one part of the scalp to another.

According to the study, published Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers harvested dermal papillae from seven human donors and cloned the cells in tissue culture — no additional growth factors were added to the cultures.

After a few days, the cultured papillae were transplanted between the dermis and epidermis of human skin that had been grafted onto the backs of mice.

In five of the seven tests, the transplants resulted in new hair growth that lasted at least six weeks. 

DNA analysis confirmed that the new hair follicles were human and genetically matched the donors.

‘This approach has the potential to transform the medical treatment of hair loss,’ said first author of the study Claire A. Higgins.  

Source: http://health.india.com

25.10.2013

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing

24 October, 2013

It’s official! Female doctors are better than men

A new study claims that the quality of care provided by female doctors is higher than that of their male counterparts, while the productivity of males is greater. The research team from University of Montreal reached this conclusion by studying the billing information of over 870 Quebec practitioners (half of whom were women) relating to their procedures with elderly diabetic patients.

"Women had significantly higher scores in terms of compliance with practice guidelines. They were more likely than men to prescribe recommended medications and to plan required examinations," lead study author Valerie Martel, who devoted her master's thesis with the Department of Health Administration to the subject, said. To assess quality of care, the researchers relied on the recommendations of the Canadian Diabetes Association, which provides clear guidelines for clinical treatment of the disease.

All patients aged 65 and over with diabetes must undergo an eye exam by an ophthalmologist or optometrist every two years. They must also receive three prescriptions for specific drugs, including statins, and it is recommended they undergo a complete medical examination annually.

Since the Quebec public health insurance board (Regie de l'assurance maladie du Quebec) medical-administrative data bank includes comprehensive information on every medical procedure, the researchers were able to measure these variables. In each case, statistical tests confirm a significant difference between men and women.

Among middle-aged doctors, three out of four women, for example, required their patients to undergo an eye examination vs. 70 per cent of their male counterparts; 71 per cent prescribed recommended medications compared to 67 per cent of male doctors, and a similar proportion prescribed statins (68 per cent vs. 64 per cent); 39 per cent of female doctors specifically asked their patients to undergo a complete examination (vs. 33 percent of male doctors).

In terms of productivity, there is a reversal. On average, male doctors reported nearly 1,000 more procedures per year compared to their female counterparts.

Source: www.timesofindia.com                24.10.2013       

Daily Vit D dose helps stave off diabetes

A daily dose of vitamin D can be used in the battle against Type 2 diabetes, experts have revealed.

Researchers are carrying out a major clinical trial to confirm whether taking vitamin D can prevent or delay the condition, the Daily Expressreported.

They believe that the “sunshine vitamin” may reduce diabetes risk by 25 per cent.

The study led by Professor Philip Raskin, from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas,Texas, is a four-year trial across America which will track 2,500 people age 30 or older who have pre-diabetes.

They will be given daily doses of vitamin D about five times higher than usually recommended.

Source: www.timesofindia.com                

24.10.2013

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve is the fear of failure

Paulo Coelho