25 January, 2014

You can smell out dangerous illnesses

Even diseases have particular smells. Hard to believe?

If we look into a thrilling research, humans are able to smell sickness in someone whose immune system is highly active within just a few hours of exposure to a toxin.

‘There may be early biomarkers for illness in the form of volatile substances coming from the body,’ explained Mats Olsson of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

To test this hypothesis, Olsson and his team injected eight healthy people with either lipopolysaccharide (LPS) – a toxin known to ramp up an immune response – or a saline solution.

The volunteers wore tight t-shirts to absorb sweat over the course of four hours.

Participants injected with LPS did produce a noticeable immune response, as evidenced by elevated body temperatures and increased levels of a group of immune system molecules known as cytokines, said the study published in the journal Psychological Science.

Now, the researchers asked a separate group to smell the sweat samples from t-shirts.

They rated t-shirts from the LPS group as having a more intense and unpleasant smell than the other t-shirts.

That is, the greater a participant’s immune response, the more unpleasant their sweat smelled, the study noted.

‘While the precise chemical compounds have yet to be identified, the fact we give off some kind of aversive signal shortly after the immune system has been activated is an important finding,’ said the researchers.

People with diabetes, for example, are sometimes reported to have breath that smells like rotten apples or acetone.

Being able to detect these smells would represent a critical adaptation that would allow us to avoid potentially dangerous illnesses.

Source: http://health.india.com

25.01.2014

If your spouse has diabetes, you chances of having it rises by 26%

You are at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes if your spouse has it.

According to a new research led by an Indian-origin scientist at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) in Montreal, Canada, living together under one roof could also imply sharing diabetes.

‘We found a 26 percent increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes if your spouse also has type 2 diabetes,’ says senior author Kaberi Dasgupta, an associate professor of medicine at McGill University.

‘This may be a platform to assist clinicians to develop strategies to involve both partners. Changing health behaviour is challenging and if you have the collaboration of your partner it’s likely to be easier,’ she added.

Dasgupta’s team wanted to see if risk behaviours like poor eating habits and low physical activity could be shared within a household, said the study published in the journal BMC Medicine.

They analysed results from six selected studies that were conducted in different parts of the world and looked at key outcomes such as age, socio-economic status and the way in which diabetes was diagnosed in over 75,000 couples.

Most of the studies relied on health records which may not always accurately record diabetes.

Those that used direct blood testing suggested that diabetes risk doubles if your partner has diabetes. A strong correlation with pre-diabetes risk was also found.

‘When we look at the health history of patients, we often ask about family history. Our results suggest spousal history may be another factor we should take in consideration,’ said Dasgupta.

According to Dasgupta, spousal diabetes is also a potential tool for early diabetes detection.

‘The results suggest that diabetes diagnosis in one spouse may warrant increased surveillance in the other,’ stressed Dasgupta.

Moreover, it has been observed that men are less likely than women to undergo regular medical evaluation after childhood and that can result in delayed diabetes detection.

As a result, men living with a spouse with diabetes history may particularly benefit from being followed more closely, the study concluded.

Source: http://health.india.com

25.01.2014

The naked truth is always better than best dressed lie