20, August 2014

Bond with neighbours to reduce heart attack risk

New York: Friendly neighbours may be good for your heart. Researchers have found that bonding well with your neighbours might extend social support network which is linked to lower cardiovascular disease risk.

"Perceived neighbourhood social cohesion could be a type of social support that is available in the neighbourhood social environment outside the realm of family and friends," said researchers from University of Michigan in the US.

For the study, the researchers tracked the cardiovascular health of over 5,000 US adults with no known heart problems over a period of four years, starting in 2006. Their average age was 70, and almost two thirds were women and married.

All the study participants were taking part in the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative study of US adults over the age of 50, who are surveyed every two years.

During the four year monitoring period, 148 of the 5,276 participants (66 women and 82 men) had a heart attack.

Analysis of the data showed that each standard deviation increase in perceived neighbourhood social cohesion was associated with a 22 percent reduced risk of a heart attack.

When put another way on the seven-point scale, each unit increase in neighbourhood social cohesion was associated with a 17 percent reduced risk of heart attack.

This association held true even after adjusting for relevant sociodemographic, behavioural, biological, and psychosocial factors, as well as individual-level social support.

The study appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Source: www.zeenews.india.com

20.08.2014

New pain-free needles for blood tests

New Delhi: Patients no longer need put off blood tests for fear of painful needle prick. Butterfly needles are here, making blood collection a pain-free exercise.

The high-end technology needles, unveiled by an NCR-based pathology diagnostic centre, are a relatively pain-free tool for collecting blood from patients - especially those who are hypersensitive to pain, have syringe phobia, children, newborn babies, or have very fragile or small veins.

Elaborating, Dr B.R. Das of the Delhi-based SRL Diagnostics Limited pointed out that accessing the vein is not always easy in certain cases. Newborn babies and children have very thin and superficial veins; older or geriatric patients often have with tremors, some combative patients are aggressive), and for some patients it may be necessary to draw blood from the back of the hand.

When the butterfly needle is inserted into the vein, a 'flash’ can be seen. The ‘flash’ is a small amount of blood that flows into the hub connected to the needle when the needle enters a vein. This gives the lab technician an assurance he is “in” the vein. The butterfly needle is typically held by folding the ‘wings’ and then placed into the vein generally at a shallow angle.

Normally, the technician has used what is called a "vacutainer" where the blood is drawn through a needle into a tube which has vacuum with the appropriate material to prevent the blood from clotting in certain cases.

The butterfly needles serve another purpose of safeguarding the lab technicians from accidental needle stick injuries that are a crisis in the healthcare systems around the globe. Therefore, safer blood drawing devices like butterfly needles help mitigate the dangers of needle stick injuries during routine blood draws.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com

20.08.2014

Attitude makes you different from others, while Ego makes you alone from others