Monday 21 January 2013

22 January, 2013


Irregular beats spell higher risk of kidney failure

The risk of kidney failure is greater for people with chronic kidney disease (CKD), especially those suffering from atrial fibrillation - a common form of irregular heart beats in adults, says a study.

The findings by the researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research could open the way to new approaches, with improved outcomes for CKD patients.

Those who suffer with CKD or end-stage renal disease commonly have atrial fibrillation and tend to have a stroke or to die. However, the long-term impact of atrial fibrillation on kidney function among CKD patients has been unknown, the journal Circulation reports.

The new study involved 206,229 CKD patients who were drawn from members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, a large integrated health care delivery system, according to an UCSF statement.

Over the course of about five years, approximately 16,400 patients developed atrial fibrillation, and those who did were 67 percent more likely to progress to end-stage renal disease compared with patients who had CKD, but did not develop atrial fibrillation.

"These novel findings expand on previous knowledge by highlighting that atrial fibrillation is linked to a worse kidney prognosis in patients with underlying kidney dysfunction," said kidney specialist Nisha Bansal, assistant professor of Nephrology at UCSF.

"There is a knowledge gap about the long-term impact of atrial fibrillation on the risk of adverse kidney-related outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease," said senior study co-author Alan S. Go, director of the Comprehensive Clinical Research Unit at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.


22.01.2013


'Good gut bugs keep diabetes at bay'
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The staggering number of good bugs in our lower intestine not only ensure good health but may also help ward off diabetes, researchers say.

These bugs help us digest our food and provide us with energy and vitamins and help ward off the 'bad guys' such as Salmonella that cause infections.

Research groups led by Jayne Danska, from the Sick Children's Hospital, University of Toronto and Andrew Macpherson in the Clinic for Visceral Surgery and Medicine, University of Bern have now shown that the influence of the intestinal bacteria extends even deeper inside the body to influence the likelihood of getting diabetes.

"We hope that our new understanding of how intestinal bacteria may protect susceptible children from developing diabetes will allow us to start to develop new treatments to stop children getting the disease," says Macpherson, according to a Toronto statement.

In children and young people, diabetes is caused by the immune cells of the body damaging the special cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin. By chance, 30 years ago, before the development of genetic engineering techniques, Japanese investigators noticed that a strain of NOD lab mice tended to get diabetes.

These mice (also by chance) have many of the same genes that make some humans susceptible to the disease. With the help of the special facilities of the University of Bern and in Canada, these teams have been able to show that the intestinal bacteria, especially in male mice, can produce biochemicals and hormones that stop diabetes developing.

Even the biochemical reactions that build up and maintain our bodies come from our intestinal bacteria as well as our own cells.



22.01.2013






Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners
 Robert T. Kiyosaki

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