20, May 2014

Infertile men at higher risk of death: Study

Researchers have said that men, who are infertile because of defects in their semen, appear to be at higher death risk compared to men with normal semen. According to a study led by a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine, men with two or more abnormalities in their semen were more than twice as likely to die over a roughly eight-year period as men who had normal semen, the study found.  

In the new study, Michael Eisenberg, MD, PhD, assistant professor of urology and Stanford’s director of male reproductive medicine and surgery, and his colleagues examined records of men ages 20 to 50 who had visited one of two centers to be evaluated for possible infertility. In all, about 12,000 men fitting this description were seen between 1994 and 2011 at Stanford Hospital and Clinics or between 1989 and 2009 at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. At both clinics, data were available for several aspects of a patient’s semen quality, such as total semen volume and sperm counts, motility and shape. (Dolores Lamb, PhD, and Larry Lipshultz, MD, of Baylor were senior authors of the study.) By keying identifiers for the patients to data in the National Death Index and the Social Security Death index, the investigators were able to monitor these men’s mortality for a median of about eight years.  

While no single semen abnormality in itself predicted mortality, men with two or more such abnormalities had more than double the risk of death over the eight-year period following their initial fertility examination compared with those with no semen abnormalities. The greater the number of abnormalities, the higher the mortality rate, the study found. Of the 11,935 men who were followed, 69 died during the follow-up period — a seemingly small number. This reflects, first and foremost, the patients’ relative youth: Their median age was 36.6 years. But it also reflects the fact that men who get evaluated for infertility tend to have a higher-than-average socio-economic status and have accordingly better diets, education and access to health care.  

The new study has been published online in the journal Human Reproduction.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

20.05.2014

Study shows many smokers don’t know about its dangers yet!

Researchers have found that many smokers still find accurate and detailed facts about the dangers of tobacco both new and motivating in terms of their desire to quit. One of the study’s authors James Thrasher, associate professor at the University of South Carolina Arnold Schotol of Public Health, said the tobacco industry systematically deceived the public for decades, denying that smoking was dangerous or addictive.  

Thrasher added that smokers indicate that receiving factual, corrective information about the dangers of smoking motivates them to quit; also that members of groups that are highly targeted by the tobacco industry were especially responsive to the corrective statements. These groups include women, African Americans, Latinos and lower-income people. ‘This study suggests that the longer we wait to give smokers this information about the tobacco industry’s lies, the more smokers will continue to consume tobacco’ noted Thrasher.

1,404 smokers ranging in age from18 to 64 years old and of diverse ethnic, gender and income groups were presented with the corrective statements. Between one half and one third of the study participants stated that some information in the corrective statements was novel to them. Those who experienced novelty were likelier to express anger at the industry, to find the message(s) relevant and to feel motivated to quit by the message(s). Novelty ratings ran consistently higher among African Americans and Latinos than among non-Hispanic whites.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

20.05.2014

Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it will always get you the right ones

19, May 2014

Vitamin D has limited benefits in asthma treatment

Washington: A study has revealed that adding vitamin D to asthma treatment to improve breathing only appears to benefit patients who achieve sufficient levels of the supplement in the blood.

According to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, overall, the ability to control asthma did not differ between a study group that received vitamin D supplements and a group that received placebo.

In the study, all patients took an inhaled steroid daily to control their asthma, and all had rescue inhalers in the event of an asthma attack.

The patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The treatment group received a loading dose of 100,000 international units of vitamin D3 followed by daily doses of 4,000 units, and the placebo group received identical looking but inactive capsules.

The investigators found no differences between the two groups in all major measures of asthma control. The groups showed no significant differences in the number of treatment failures requiring patients to take more medication, no difference in the number of asthma attacks and no difference in their need for emergency care. Patients taking vitamin D did not report improved quality of life, based on questionnaires.

One way the groups differed, however, was in how successfully they were able to reduce their daily dosages of inhaled steroids. After the first 12 weeks of the study, if the patient's asthma was well-controlled, the investigators cut in half the daily dose of inhaled steroid, reducing it from 320 micrograms per day to 160. Then, after eight more weeks, if the disease remained controlled, they cut the dose in half again. While both groups were able to taper off their doses of inhaled steroid, the vitamin D group was able to reduce its medication more. 

By the end of the 28-week study, the vitamin D group was taking an average of 111 micrograms per day, and the placebo group was taking an average of 126.

Compared with placebo, the patients in the treatment group that achieved vitamin D sufficiency in the blood (with an average of 42 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter) did show improved asthma control. They had 40 percent fewer treatment failures that required more medication and half the number of asthma attacks.

The study has been published online in JAMA. 

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

19.05.2014

Vitamin C supplements may improve lung function in newborns of smoking women

Washington: Researchers have suggested that supplemental vitamin C taken by pregnant smokers improved measures of lung function for newborns and decreased the incidence of wheezing for infants through 1 year.

Cindy T. McEvoy, M.D., M.C.R., of Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, and colleagues randomly assigned pregnant smokers to receive vitamin C (500 mg/d) (n = 89) or placebo (n = 90).

One hundred fifty-nine newborns of pregnant smokers (76 vitamin C treated and 83 placebo treated) and 76 newborns (reference group) of pregnant nonsmokers were studied with newborn PFTs (performed within 72 hours of age).

The researchers found that newborns of women randomized to vitamin C, compared with those randomized to placebo, had improved measures of pulmonary function.

Offspring of women randomized to vitamin C had significantly decreased wheezing through age 1 year (15/70 [21 percent] vs 31/77 [40 percent]. There were no significant differences in the 1-year PFT results between the vitamin C and placebo groups.

"Although smoking cessation is the foremost goal, most pregnant smokers continue to smoke, supporting the need for a pharmacologic intervention," the authors write. Other studies have demonstrated that reduced pulmonary function in offspring of smokers continues into childhood and up to age 21 years. "This emphasizes the important opportunity of in-utero intervention.Individuals who begin life with decreased PFT measures may be at increased risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease."

" Vitamin C supplementation in pregnant smokers may be an inexpensive and simple approach (with continued smoking cessation counseling) to decrease some of the effects of smoking in pregnancy on newborn pulmonary function and ultimately infant respiratory morbidities, but further study is required," the researchers conclude.

The study has been published in JAMA. 

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

19.05.2014

You have to suffer the WORST to learn how to appreciate the BEST

17, May 2014

New technology may improve light-based cancer treatment

Researchers have developed a new technology that could bring photodynamic therapy (PDT), which uses lasers to activate special drugs to treat easily accessible tumours such as oral and skin cancer, into areas of the body which were previously inaccessible. The procedure, till now, has not been adept at fighting cancer deep inside the body. The approach involves using near-infrared beams of light that, upon penetrating deep into the body, are converted into visible light that activates the drug and destroys the tumour.  

‘We expect this will vastly expand the application for an effective cancer phototherapy that is already in use,’ said Tymish Ohulchanskyy, associate professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The researchers used the tumour’s natural environment to tune the light into necessary wavelengths. For example, the near-infrared laser beam can interact with the natural protein collagen, which is found in connective tissues. The interaction changes the near-infrared light to visible light, a process known as second harmonic generation.  

Likewise, natural proteins and lipids within the cells can interact with near-infrared laser light and change it to visible light through another process called four-wave mixing. Thus, visible light can be generated in tumours deep inside the body, and it can be absorbed by the drug. This activates the drug, which then destroys the tumour, researchers said. The study appeared in the journal Nature Photonics.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

17.05.2014

Women with more feminine faces do better in politics

Researchers have highlighted voters’ perception of traditional femininity, political competence. According to the Dartmouth College-led study, female politicians’ success can be predicted by their facial features, especially in conservative states where women with more feminine faces tend to do better at the ballot box. The researchers used software called MouseTracker that was developed by the study’s senior author Jon Freeman, an assistant professor and director of the Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab at Dartmouth.

The Dartmouth-led study demonstrates for the first time that gendered cues uniquely predict female politicians’ electoral success above and beyond competence, suggesting a discrepancy between traits used to evaluate male and female politicians. Freeman said that it’s important to examine how facial cues could inadvertently affect female politicians’ electoral success, especially given the possibility of a female U.S. president in the near future and the rising number of women in Congress.

The researchers tracked the computer mouse movements of nearly 300 participants who were shown politicians’ faces – the winners and runners-up in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections between 1998 and 2010 — and asked to categorize them as male or female. About 10 percent of the participants were Dartmouth students who viewed the politicians’ faces in a controlled lab setting and were asked whether they would vote for them, although no information was provided about the politicians’ background, competence or other factors. The other 90 percent of participants lived across the United States and took the facial test over the Internet, providing a diverse national sample.

The results showed that the more participants were drawn to select the male response when categorizing the gender of a female politician’s face, the less likely she was to win her election. In other words, female politicians with more feminine features tend to win elections, while those with more masculine features tend to lose. The study has been published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

17.05.2014

Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you

16, May 2014

Polio vaccine being given under army cover in Pakistan

Islamabad: Polio workers continued to administer polio drops Thursday under the protection of the army in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region in the fourth phase of polio vaccination drive.

Under the protective cover of the army and Frontier Corps personnel, the polio workers administered vaccine to children less than 10 years of age in the Malikdin Khel area Thursday.

Militants’ activities in the region have rendered Malikdin Khel volatile and a no-go area for sometime.

The polio workers said each phase has a target of over 75,900 children.

The fourth phase is currently in progress and, despite adverse circumstances, the polio campaign has achieved 60 percent of the target so far, the report said.

About 120,000 children have been vaccinated in various parts of the Khyber region since the campaign started in 2012.

Wazir Akbar of the National Staff Transmission of Polio in the Khyber tribal area said that polio drops were administered to about 26,878 children during the current phase, which started May 6.

The drive will go on till the end of this month.

Akbar added that “the army and the Frontier Corps (FC) were providing security cover to the teams that were carrying out the campaign”.

He said the situation in Bara has improved as only two polio cases were reported so far in 2014, as compared to 14 in 2013.

The Khyber tribal area, especially Bara, remained inaccessible to polio workers due to terrorist threats.

Pakistan will put into effect from June a WHO recommendation that requires all travellers from this south Asian country to carry a polio vaccination certificate.

Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended the measure due to the alarming increase in the number of polio cases in the country (61 so far compared to the total of 91 in 2013).

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

16.05.2014

Now, a blood test to predict premature delivery

Toronto: In view of the fact that a lot of pregnant women get hospitalised because of false labour pain, researchers have developed a new blood-based diagnostic test to determine whether or not women with threatened pre-term labor (TPTL) would give birth prematurely.

The diagnostic test accurately predicted whether 70 percent of female study participants with TPTL would or would not give birth prematurely.

"We want to develop a test that can differentiate between true and false labour so that women in true labour can receive the appropriate medical care while women in false labour will receive supportive care and be discharged," said professor Stephen Lye from Mount Sinai Hospital in Canada.

The current premature labour diagnostic test, fetal fibronectin (fFN) test is easily influenced by factors that can cause false positives.

Thus, many women are ineligible for fFN testing.

In an effort to develop a method that can be used in all cases, scientists used microarrays to study differential whole blood gene expression associated with spontaneous premature birth within 48 hours in women admitted with TPTL - an important window for the clinical management of TPTL.

Blood samples were collected prior to treatment from 150 TPTL women. The fFN test was also performed on eligible participants (60 women), and the results were compared.

The researchers discovered that a set of nine genes, coupled with clinical blood data, could classify whether 70 percent of participants would or would not have a spontaneous premature birth within 48 hours of hospital admission.

In addition, the nine genes coupled with clinical blood data outperformed the fFN test.

The study appeared in the journal PLOS ONE.

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

16.05.2014

Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own

15, May 2014

Messenger implants to help your doctor plan his treatment soon?

What if your doctor can implant an electronic device in your body that informs him about what is happening inside your body for best-suited treatments? Researchers have now developed electronic devices that become soft when implanted inside the body and can deploy to grip 3D objects such as large tissues, nerves and blood vessels.

‘These biologically adaptive, flexible transistors can change shape and maintain their electronic properties after they are implanted in the body,’ said Jonathan Reeder, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at University of Texas at Dallas. You need the device to be stiff at room temperature so the surgeon can implant the device, but soft and flexible enough to wrap around 3D objects so the body can behave exactly as it would without the device. ‘By putting electronics on shape-changing and softening polymers, we can do just that,’ Reeder added. Shape memory polymers developed by Walter Voit, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering, are key to enabling the technology. The polymers respond to the body’s environment and become less rigid when they are implanted.  

In addition to the polymers, the electronic devices are built with layers that include thin, flexible electronic foils. The Voit and Reeder team fabricated the devices with an organic semiconductor but used adapted techniques normally applied to create silicon electronics that could reduce the cost of the devices. The rigid devices become soft when heated. Outside the body, the device is primed for the position it will take inside the body. ‘The next step is to shrink the devices so they can wrap around smaller objects and add more sensory components,’ Reeder noted. The research is now available online on the journal Advanced Materials’ website.  

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

15.05.2014

Canadians top drinkers, Indians not far behind: WHO

The bubbly flows freely among Canadians and Americans. In a latest survey released by the WHO, Canadians are drinking more alcohol than most of the rest of the world – followed by Americans. Drinking is also going up in India. ‘The amount of drinking around the world is going up, especially in India and China, where incomes are rising and alcohol marketing is active,’ the report noted. Americans drink 7.5-9.9 litres of alcohol per person per year while Canadians gulp down more than 12.5 litres each as do Russians and Australians, the data revealed.  

Africans do not drink as much as Americans and residents of Islamic countries drink the least of all. Worldwide, almost a quarter (24.8 percent) of all alcohol consumed is in the form of unrecorded alcohol, the World Health Organisation (WHO) report said.  Unrecorded alcohol is alcohol made at home, alcohol meant for other purposes (like medical) or smuggled. Around the world, just over half of recorded alcohol intake is in the form of spirits.   

Next comes beer, accounting for about 35 percent of consumption, and 55 percent of drinking in WHO’s Americas region.  Overall, wine consumption comprises just eight percent of global consumption. The WHO report also took a look at how drinkers drink and what that means for their health risk.  ‘Alcohol consumption also contributes to about 10 percent of the disease burden due to tuberculosis, epilepsy, haemorrhagic stroke and hypertensive heart disease in the world,’ the report added. Drinking with meals or drinking daily or nearly daily presented the least health risk to the drinker, the report said.  

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

15.05.2014

If you walk in the footprints of others, you wont make any of your own

14, May 2014

How you sleep: What does it mean?

The way you sleep may not be a hot topic around the dinner table—or any other table for that matter—but maybe it should be. 

Studies show that there are various insights to be gleaned from how someone sleeps. Here we examine a few, and explain what you might be able to learn about yourself from your own sleep habits.

Personality

A study conducted by Chris Idzikowski, who heads the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service in the UK, focused on the six most common sleeping positions and how they reflected people's personalities. Here they are, in order of prevalence.

"The Fetus" is the most common position, with the sleeper lying curled up on their side. It is said to reflect someone with a tough exterior shell but a soft, sensitive core.

"The Log" position is that of someone lying on their side with their arms down. "Log" sleepers are sociable and outgoing, but gullible.

"The Yearner" sleeps on their side as well, but with their arms stretched out in front of them. This positions tends to reflect a cynical straight shooter: someone who is hesitant to commit or trust but once they do, they're all in and mean business.

"The Soldier" position is on the back with the hands at the side. This is a common one for more reserved, less dramatic folks.

"The Starfish" is the least common position, but when you find a "Starfish" sleeper, hang onto them! This position is associated with people who are selfless, generous, humble individuals.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

14.05.2014

Even neighbour's foreclosed property can give you BP

Are you living next to a property that is caught in legal tangles? Go get your blood pressure checked as living near foreclosed property may increase your risk of higher blood pressure, an alarming research indicates. 

Foreclosures are legal courses of action that are taken against people who can not make house payments. 

Neighbourhood environment is an important social determinant of cardiovascular health, including blood pressure, researchers said. 

"The increases in blood pressure observed could be due in part to unhealthy stress from residents' perception that their own properties are less valuable, their streets less attractive or safe and their neighbourhoods less stable," explained Mariana Arcaya, Yerby post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Safety could also be a concern that affects their ability to exercise in these neighbourhoods. 

Researchers reviewed data from 1,740 participants. They distinguished between real-estate-owned foreclosures and foreclosures purchased by third-party buyers. 

Researchers found each additional foreclosed property within 100 metres of participants' homes was associated with an average increase of 1.71 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading). 

The association only applied to properties that were real-estate owned and there was no effect from foreclosed properties more than 100 metres from participants' homes. 

Other risk factors include genetics, advanced age, poor nutrition and excessive body weight and alcohol consumption. 

Stress and other factors may also contribute to high blood pressure, said the study published in American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

14.05.2014

Always desire to learn something useful

Sophocles

13, May 2014

Convit, creator of anti-leprosy vaccine, dead

Caracas: Venezuelan physician and scientist Jacinto Convit, creator of the anti-leprosy vaccine and one of the leading researchers in the study of tropical diseases, died Monday in Caracas. He was 100.

Convit, the 1987 winner of Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific Research, invented a vaccine to prevent and cure leprosy, which in turn provided the basis for creating an immunotherapy for leishmaniasis, and contributed to the study of other illnesses like Chagas disease.

Declared a Public Health Hero by the Pan American Health Organisation, Convit worked and taught in the US for years.

Upon his return to Venezuela, he founded the Institute of Biomedicine.

Among the distinctions he received was France's National Order of the Legion of Honour in 2011.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news

13.05.2014

WHO wants action as alcohol kills 3.3 million people in 2012

London: More than 3 million people died from using alcohol in 2012, for reasons ranging from cancer to violence, the World Health Organisation said on Monday, as it called on governments to do more to limit the damage.

"More needs to be done to protect populations from the negative health consequences of alcohol consumption," said Oleg Chestnov, a WHO expert on chronic disease and mental health.  

He added there was "no room for complacency", warning that drinking too much kills more men then women, raises people`s risk of developing more than 200 diseases, and killed 3.3 million people in 2012.

On average, according to the WHO report, every person in the world aged 15 years or older drinks 6.2 litres of pure alcohol per year. But less than half the population - 38.3 percent - drinks, so those who do drink on average 17 litres of pure alcohol a year.

"We found that worldwide about 16 percent of drinkers engage in heavy episodic drinking - often referred to as `binge-drinking` - which is the most harmful to health," said Shekhar Saxena, director for mental health and substance abuse at the WHO. Poorer people are generally more affected by the social and health consequences of alcohol, he said: "They often lack quality health care and are less protected by functional family or community networks."

The global status report on alcohol and health covered 194 countries and looked at alcohol consumption, its impact on public health and policy responses.

It found that some countries are already strengthening measures to protect people from harmful drinking. Those include increasing taxes on alcohol, limiting its availability by raising age limits and regulating marketing.

More countries should take similar action, WHO said. More also needed to be done to raise awareness of the damage alcohol can do to people`s health and screen for those who may need earlier intervention to cut down or stop. Globally, Europe consumes the most alcohol per person. Some of its countries having particularly high rates of harmful drinking.

A study published earlier this year found that a quarter of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-fifties, largely from drinking to excess. Some men in that study reported drinking three or more bottles of vodka a week. The WHO said global trend analyses showed that drinking has been stable over the last five years in Europe, Africa and the Americas. But it is growing in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.

Source: www.zeenews.india.com/news

13.05.2014

Be  patient and tough, someday this pain will be useful to you

Ovid