Gout sufferers: Advised to abate forgo sugary drinks

Gout sufferers: Advised to abate forgo sugary drinks

Sufferers of gout might soon be advised to forgo sugary drinks to avoid pain and flaring up of the crippling affliction, according to a New Zealand study released Thursday.

Scientists at the University of Otago and the University of Auckland have discovered a human gene variant that can “turn bad” when affected by sugary drinks, Xinhua reported citing the study.

It showed that when the variant of the gene SLC2A9 behaved correctly, it helped transport uric acid out of the bloodstream and facilitated its excretion through the kidney.

“But when people with this gene variant consume sugary drinks, the apparent function of the gene variant reverses, such that we think uric acid is instead transported back into the blood stream and the risk of gout is increased,” Tony Merriman, associate professor in University of Otago’s biochemistry department, said in a statement.

SLC2A9 is a newly identified urate transporter influencing serum urate concentration, urate excretion and gout.

“So not only does sugar raise uric acid in the blood due to processing in the liver, but it also appears to directly interfere with excretion of uric acid from the kidney. This was a quite unpredictable interaction,” he said.

“Daily 300-millilitre serving of sugar-sweetened drink increases the chance of gout by 13 percent,” said the professor.

He recommended people with gout to avoid sugary drinks.

Gout is caused when uric acid in the blood crystallises in the joints, causing them to become inflamed. It is the most common form of arthritis in New Zealand, particularly among men.

The disease has strong links with other metabolic diseases such as diabetes, heart and kidney disease.

 Source: Zee News

High-fat diets interrupt stomach’s signals to the brain

the nerves in the stomach which signal fullness to the brain appeared to be desensitised after long-term consumption of a high-fat diet.

Indulging in fatty foods could destroy stomach’s signals to the brain, according to a new study which gives insight why many dieters tend to regain the weight after losing it.

New University of Adelaide research has found the nerves in the stomach which signal fullness to the brain appeared to be desensitised after long-term consumption of a high-fat diet.

The findings could explain why many dieters tend to regain the weight they have lost.

PhD student Stephen Kentish investigated the impact of high-fat diets on the ability of the gut to signal its fullness, and whether those changes revert back to normal by losing weight.

Study leader Associate Professor Amanda Page said laboratory studies showed the stomach’s nerve response does not return to normal upon a return to a normal diet.

“This means you would need to eat more food before you felt the same degree of fullness as a healthy individual,” she said.

“A hormone in the body, leptin, known to regulate food intake, can also change the sensitivity of the nerves in the stomach that signal fullness.

“In normal conditions, leptin acts to stop food intake. However, in the stomach in high-fat diet induced obesity, leptin further desensitises the nerves that detect fullness.”

Associate Professor Page said the two mechanisms combined meant that obese people needed to eat more to feel full, which fuels their obesity cycle.

She said the results had “very strong implications for obese people, those trying to lose weight, and those who are trying to maintain their weight loss”.

“Unfortunately, our results show that the nerves in the stomach remain desensitised to fullness after weight loss has been achieved,” she said.

Associate Professor Page says the researchers were not yet sure whether the effect was permanent or just long-lasting.

Source: Zee News

Womb cancer link to diet, exercise and possibly coffee

The risk of womb cancer can be reduced by exercise, diet and possibly drinking coffee, research suggests.

Almost half of cases of womb cancer in the UK – about 3,700 a year – could be prevented through keeping slim and active, a review of data shows.

Researchers at Imperial College, London, say women can reduce their risk with at least 30 minutes of daily exercise and keeping a healthy weight.

The World Cancer Research Fund report also found that coffee may reduce risk.

But experts say there is not yet enough evidence to recommend drinking coffee to protect against the disease.

Endometrial cancer – cancer of the womb lining – is the fourth most common of all cancers in women in the UK.

In the first global analysis since 2007, Imperial College London researchers collated and reviewed scientific research on endometrial cancer, and links with diet, physical activity and body weight.

The study found evidence that about 3,700 cases could be prevented every year if women were active for 38 minutes a day and maintained a healthy body weight.

In the UK only 56% of women follow recommendations to be physically active for at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week, while only 39% have a healthy weight.

Study author Dr Teresa Norat of Imperial College told the BBC: “If you are physically active and if you don’t have excess body weight you can reduce your risk of womb cancer and improve your health in general.”

Karen Sadler, executive director of the World Cancer Research Fund added: “The evidence on coffee is very interesting and is a further indication of the potential link between coffee and the risk of cancer but a lot more work still needs to be done.

“We need to consider the possible effect on other cancers as well as the impact on other health conditions and we are now looking to conduct further research into this issue.”

 

The final nail in the Jurassic Park coffin

It is hardly possible to talk about fossil insects in amber without the 1993 movie Jurassic Park entering the debate. The idea of recreating dinosaurs by extracting DNA from insects in amber has held the fascination of the public for two decades. Claims for successful extraction of DNA from ambers up to 130 million-years-old by various scientists in the early 1990s were only seriously questioned when a study at the Natural History Museum, London, was unable to replicate the process. The original claims are now considered by many to be a text-book example of modern contaminant DNA in the samples. Nonetheless, some scientists hold fast to their original claims.

Research just published in the journal The Public Library of Science ONE (PLOS ONE) by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester can now confirm that the existence of DNA in amber fossils is highly unlikely. The team led by amber expert Dr David Penney and co-ordinated by ancient DNA expert Professor Terry Brown used highly-sensitive ‘next generation’ sequencing techniques – the most advance type of DNA sequencing – on insects in copal, the sub-fossilized resin precursor of amber.

The research was conducted wearing full forensic suits in the dedicated ancient DNA facility at The University of Manchester, which comprises a suite of independent, physically isolated laboratories, each with an ultra-filtered air supply maintaining positive displacement pressure and a managed access system.

According to Professor Brown: “In the original 1990s studies DNA amplification was achieved by a process called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which will preferentially amplify any modern, undamaged DNA molecules that contaminate an extract of partially degraded ancient ones to give false positive results that might be mistaken for genuine ancient DNA. Our approach, using ‘next generation’ sequencing methods is ideal for ancient DNA because it provides sequences for all the DNA molecules in an extract, regardless of their length, and is less likely to give preference to contaminating modern molecules.”

The team concluded that their inability to detect ancient DNA in relatively young (60 years to 10,600 years old) sub-fossilized insects in copal, despite using sensitive next generation methods, suggests that the potential for DNA survival in resin inclusions is no better, and perhaps worse, than that in air-dried museum insects (from which DNA has been retrieved using similar techniques). This raises significant doubts about claims of DNA extraction from fossil insects in amber, many millions of years older than copal.

Dr Penney said: “Intuitively, one might imagine that the complete and rapid engulfment in resin, resulting in almost instantaneous demise, might promote the preservation of DNA in a resin entombed insect, but this appears not to be the case. So, unfortunately, the Jurassic Park scenario must remain in the realms of fiction.”

Source: BBC News

Students reminded to manage allergies away from home

In the next few weeks thousands of young people will be starting university – and many of those will be embarking on a new life away from home.

For students like Helen Kitley, 21, from Kent, going to university in Southampton meant more than just learning to do her own washing and cooking.

It entailed coping with a severe allergy to hazelnuts, which almost put her off the whole idea of living in student accommodation.

It seems reckless to me not to take it [Epipen] with you. I bring it everywhere because I just don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

Helen Kitley

“Every student kitchen has Nutella in it – students are nuts about it – but for me it was like a little pot of poison looking at me.”

Severe allergic reactions, known as anaphylaxis, are very dangerous and can be fatal. There are thought to be about 20 deaths every year in the UK from anaphylaxis – and five of those result from food allergies.

‘Reckless’

But according to a survey of 500 young people aged 15 to 25, carried out by the charity Anaphylaxis Campaign, more than a third said they don’t always carry their life-saving adrenaline with them.

Adrenaline auto-injectors, such as Epipens, are the only effective emergency treatment for anaphylaxis which can be used as soon as the allergic reaction takes hold, while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

For Helen, her adrenaline pen is something she is never without.

“It seems reckless to me not to take it with you. I bring it everywhere because I just don’t think it’s worth the risk.

“I don’t always know where I will be eating so it’s just good sense to pop it in my handbag.”

Angela Simpson, professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Manchester, says that teenagers and students are in the highest risk group for anaphylaxis.

She says this is part of this age group’s bid for independence.

“It’s about mums no longer supervising what they eat, it’s about drinking a bit too much alcohol and not wanting to embarrass themselves if they can’t eat somewhere when everyone else wants to.”

Helen considered staying at home because of her allergy, but changed her mind.

“I really wanted the proper uni experience,” she says. “I asked lots of different universities about their policy on allergies and I was impressed when I heard that Southampton was so clued up about it.”

Although Helen’s allergy is specific to hazelnuts, she cannot eat other nuts either, which means that wherever she lives has to be a nut-free zone.

In her first year she plumped for catered accommodation where she could choose her meals and in her second and third years she lived in a shared house with five student friends where she had to manage food more carefully.

Her house mates agreed they would not bring nuts into the kitchen or in any communal areas, but she still remembers finding a gateau with a hazelnut topping in the fridge, muesli in the cupboard and Quality Streets in the living room.

“I don’t blame them because you just don’t think about it if it doesn’t affect you, but they are generally very good because they don’t want to be the cause of me having an allergic reaction,” she says.

Better evidence

A major international study into allergies, called iFAAM, began earlier this at the University of Manchester. It is searching for answers to why the prevalence of food allergies has increased over the past 20 years, whether there is a link between childhood diet and allergies and what makes certain foods cause allergic reactions.

As part of the study, researchers plan to analyse the molecules that make up peanuts in minute detail using new, ground-breaking equipment to find out more about why they are so dangerous for some people.

It is already known that the reaction from boiled peanuts is much less than from roasted ones, for example.

Prof Clare Mills, a molecular scientist working on the study, says there could be years of work ahead on allergies.

“Food is taken as an everyday given, it’s just seen as a part of everyday living but it’s very complicated – even roasting a peanut.”

At the end of the study she hopes they will have much better evidence on allergens and better tools to help the food industry manage nuts during the manufacturing process.

– BBC News

A novel use for mosquito nets

A novel use for mosquito nets

We live in an age where the latest technology and gadgets are king, but sometimes the most low-tech methods can produce good medical results.

Mosquito nets, key in the fight against malaria, are now also being used to repair hernias – the most common operation in the world.

The hope is to save some of the estimated 50,000 lives lost in Africa each year to untreated hernias.

  • The two most common types of hernia are called ‘inguinal’ (75% of cases) and ‘umbilical’ (10-15%).
  • Inguinal hernias appear in the groin and mostly affect children under two and men over 55.
  • If left untreated, inguinal hernias can balloon to massive proportions – known as wheelbarrow hernias (see image).
  • Men are more susceptible than women due to a natural weakness in the abdominal wall caused by the spermatic cord exiting the body to connect with the testes.
  • Hernias can have a dramatic impact on people’s lives and ability to work. If the blood supply to the hernia is cut off when it becomes too large, the patient can die.

Globally, one in four men will be affected during their lifetime.

“In the UK and US, we usually mend hernias with surgical mesh, but these cost around US$30 each and are too expensive for hospitals in resource-poor countries,” says Prof Andrew Kingsnorth, a hernia specialist at Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital.

“Then a doctor in India called Ravi Tongaonkar came up with the idea of using mosquito mesh as an alternative.”

Beating the bulge

Hernias occur when a part of the bowel gets pushed through a hole or tear in the muscle wall of the abdomen. This is usually caused by straining, heavy lifting, chronic constipation or even having a severe cough.

Due to a quirk of anatomy, men are nine times more susceptible than women.

In most people, a hernia first appears as a small lump in the groin, which pops out when a person coughs or strains. But if left untreated, more intestine can be pushed out – resulting in hernias the size of a football.

Even more serious is when the hole in the abdominal wall starts restricting the blood supply to the intestines on the outside, causing a painful and potentially life-threatening ‘strangulated hernia’.

The most effective way to treat hernias is to patch up the hole with a piece of mesh. It’s a simple procedure that completely cures the problem.

But in 1994, Indian surgeon Dr Ravi Tongaonkar investigated using sterilised mosquito mesh as a low-cost substitute for the expensive commercial meshes currently in use.

“Polypropylene mesh is the best material available, but it’s very costly,” says Dr Tongaonkar. “In a developing country like India, poor patients cannot afford this.”

His mosquito meshes work out around 4,000 times cheaper than imported mesh and he has used them to fix 591 hernias.

But using them doesn’t necessarily mean they’re as good as the real thing.

‘Makes no difference’

To investigate their effectiveness, specialist gastrointestinal surgeon David Sanders carried out a study which looked at the two meshes under powerful microscopes and performed stringent tests on their physical properties.

He found that it was pretty much impossible to tell them apart.

The only difference is the polymer used to make them,” says Dr Sanders, “but it makes no difference clinically.”

Sanders is also keen to point out that doctors should not go out and use any old mosquito mesh, as they are not all made in the same way and some are impregnated with chemicals such as DEET.

“It’s really important to standardise the type of mesh that’s used so we know it’s safe,” he told the BBC. “These experiments mean we now know what it should look like.”

Prof Kingsnorth, who leads the charitable organisation Operation Hernia, is now looking to introduce the mosquito mesh in places where hernia repair costs are currently prohibitive.

“We have trained surgeons in Ghana, Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Gambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, India, Moldova, Ukraine and Cambodia,” he told the BBC.

“In mid-September we will also be travelling to a remote area of Mongolia.”

Not everyone is convinced by using mosquito mesh. In Rwanda for example, it’s been decided that hospital staff must stick to using conventional surgical brands.

But evidence is already building that could one day see mosquito mesh as an alternative in which people can feel confident.

And a long-term follow-up study of over 700 patients has shown that even 10 years later, mosquito mesh was still going strong.

Source: BBC News

Deaths in children’s intensive care at ‘all time low’

World Health Organization, 37% of Syrian hospitals have been destroyed and a further 20% severely damaged.

A group of 50 doctors, including Nobel Prize winners, say Syria’s health system is at breaking point as medics are forced to flee the fighting.

The signatories to the letter in T

The Lancet say it is “arguably one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises since the end of the Cold War”.

According to the Violations Documentation Centre, 469 health workers are currently imprisoned.

Some 15,000 doctors have left Syria, says the Council on Foreign Relations.

Of the 5,000 physicians in Aleppo before the conflict started, only 36 remain.

Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick”

The signatories to the letter in The Lancet

According to the World Health Organization, 37% of Syrian hospitals have been destroyed and a further 20% severely damaged.

“Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick,” says the letter.

It warns that horrific injuries are going untended; women are giving birth with no medical assistance; men, women, and children are undergoing life-saving surgery without anaesthetic; and victims of sexual violence have nowhere to turn to.

“The Syrian population is vulnerable to outbreaks of hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. The lack of medical pharmaceuticals has already exacerbated an outbreak of Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a severe infectious skin disease that can cause serious disability, there has been an alarming increase in cases of acute diarrhoea, and in June aid agencies reported a measles epidemic sweeping through districts of northern Syria,” the letter says.

The signatories, which include former WHO chief Gro Harlem Brundtland, demand that medical colleagues in Syria be allowed and supported to treat patients, save lives, and alleviate suffering without the fear of attacks or reprisals.

“We call on the Syrian Government and all armed parties to refrain from attacking hospitals, ambulances, medical facilities and supplies, health professionals and patients,” they say.

 

 

Syrian hospitals at ‘breaking point’ as medics flee

Injured man being treated by doctorsA group of 50 doctors, including Nobel Prize winners, say Syria’s health system is at breaking point as medics are forced to flee the fighting.

The signatories to the letter in T

he Lancet say it is “arguably one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises since the end of the Cold War”.

According to the Violations Documentation Centre, 469 health workers are currently imprisoned.

Some 15,000 doctors have left Syria, says the Council on Foreign Relations.

Of the 5,000 physicians in Aleppo before the conflict started, only 36 remain.

Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick”

The signatories to the letter in The Lancet

According to the World Health Organization, 37% of Syrian hospitals have been destroyed and a further 20% severely damaged.

“Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick,” says the letter.

It warns that horrific injuries are going untended; women are giving birth with no medical assistance; men, women, and children are undergoing life-saving surgery without anaesthetic; and victims of sexual violence have nowhere to turn to.

“The Syrian population is vulnerable to outbreaks of hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. The lack of medical pharmaceuticals has already exacerbated an outbreak of Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a severe infectious skin disease that can cause serious disability, there has been an alarming increase in cases of acute diarrhoea, and in June aid agencies reported a measles epidemic sweeping through districts of northern Syria,” the letter says.

The signatories, which include former WHO chief Gro Harlem Brundtland, demand that medical colleagues in Syria be allowed and supported to treat patients, save lives, and alleviate suffering without the fear of attacks or reprisals.

“We call on the Syrian Government and all armed parties to refrain from attacking hospitals, ambulances, medical facilities and supplies, health professionals and patients,” they say.

the article originally appeared in BBC news

Child cataract blood test developed

Child cataract blood test developed

A blood test that may improve treatment for children born with congenital cataracts has been developed by researchers in Manchester.

It analyses every known mutation in the DNA which can cause the condition.

The team, which is presenting the test at the British Society for Genetic Medicine, hope it will spread up diagnosis and help decide the best treatment.

The charity RNIB described the test as a “welcome step forward”.

About 200 children are born with cataracts in the UK each year.

“Diagnosing a congenital cataract is very easy at birth, but diagnosing the cause takes considerably longer,” Prof Graeme Black, from the University of Manchester, said.

The problem is there are more than 100 different mutations in a child’s DNA which have been linked to congenital cataracts.

“If you have a child with no family history then finding the cause can take months or years,” he told the BBC.

‘Faster treatment’

A complete diagnosis can help doctors work out the best course of treatment, inform families on the risks of cataracts if they have more children or diagnose severe diseases which have cataracts as an early symptom.

At the moment, each mutation has to be tested for individually.

A team of researchers, at Manchester University and the Central Manchester Health Care Trust, has used advances in genetics to look for all the errors in the genetic code in a single test.

Dr Rachel Gillespie said: “Our test looks at all of these genes in parallel, so patients can be diagnosed much faster and receive the treatment, clinical management and genetic counselling they need.”

Hospitals in Manchester will begin offering the test from December.

Steve Winyard, from the charity RNIB, said: “This is very interesting research as approximately 200 children in the UK are born with some form of congenital cataract every year.

“Any development which enables children to be diagnosed quicker and gain faster access to treatment is a welcome step forward.

“It will be exciting to watch how this research progresses and how the genetic information might be used to manage congenital cataracts in the future.”

Source: BBC News

Dreaming is possible even when the mind is blank

patients with Auto-Activation Disorder have the ability to dream and that it is the “bottom-up” process that causes the dream state.

Isabelle Arnulf and colleagues from the Sleep Disorders Unit at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) have outlined case studies of patients with Auto-Activation Deficit who reported dreams when awakened from REM sleep – even when they demonstrated a mental blank during the daytime. This paper proves that even patients with Auto-Activation Disorder have the ability to dream and that it is the “bottom-up” process that causes the dream state.

In a new paper for the neurology journal Brain, Arnulf et al compare the dream states of patients with Auto-Activation Deficit (AAD) with those of healthy, control patients. AAD is caused by bilateral damage to the basal ganglia and it is a neuro-physical syndrome characterized by a striking apathy, a lack of spontaneous activation of thought, and a loss of self-driven behaviour. AAD patients must be stimulated by their care-givers in order to take part in everyday tasks like standing up, eating, or drinking. If you were to ask an AAD patient: “what are you thinking?” they would report that they have no thoughts.

During sleep, the brain is operating on an exclusively internal basis. In REM sleep, the higher cortex areas are internally stimulated by the brainstem. When awakened, most normal subjects will remember some dreams that were associated with their previous sleep state, especially in REM sleep. Would the self-stimulation of the cortex by the brainstem be sufficient to stimulate spontaneous dreams during sleep in AAD patients?

Discovering the answer to this question would go some way to proving either the top-down or bottom-up theories of dreaming. The top-down theory stipulates that dreaming begins in higher cortex memory structures and then proceeds backwards as imagination develops during wakefulness. The bottom-up theory posits that the brainstem structures which elicit rapid eye movements and cortex activation during REM sleep result in the emotional, visual, sensory, and auditory elements of dreaming.

Thirteen patients with AAD agreed to participate in the study and record their dreams in dream diaries during the week leading up to the evaluation. These patients were compared with thirteen non-medicated, healthy control subjects. Video and sleep monitoring were performed on all twenty six participants for two consecutive nights. The first night evaluated the patient’s sleep duration, structure, and architecture of their dreams. During the second night of sleep evaluation, the researchers woke the subjects up as they entered the second non-REM sleep cycle, and again after 10 min of established REM sleep during the following sleep cycle, and asked them what they were dreaming before being woken up. The dream reports were then independently analysed and scored according to; complexity of dream, bizarreness, and elaboration.

Four of the thirteen patients with AAD reported dreaming when awakened from REM sleep, even though they demonstrated a mental blank during the daytime. This is compared to 12 out of 13 of the control patients. However, the four AAD patients’ dreams were devoid of any complex, bizarre, or emotional elements. The presence of simple yet spontaneous dreams in REM sleep, despite the absence of thoughts during wakefulness in AAD patients, supports the notion that simple dream imagery is generated by brainstem stimulation and sent to the sensory cortex. The lack of complexity in the dreams of the four AAD patients, as opposed to the complexity of the control patients’ dreams, demonstrates that the full dreaming process require these sensations to be interpreted by a higher-order cortical area.

Therefore, this study shows for the first time that it is the bottom-up process that causes the dream state.

Yet, despite the simplicity of the dreams, Isabelle Arnulf commented that the banal tasks that the AAD patients dreamt about were fascinating. For instance, Patient 10 dreamt of shaving – an activity he never initiated during the daytime without motivation from his caregivers, and an activity he could not do by himself due to severe hand dystonia. Similarly, Patient 5 dreamt about writing even though he would never write in the daytime without being invited by his caregivers to do so.

Interestingly, there were no real differences in the sleep measures between the AAD patients and the control patients apart from 46% of the AAD patients had a complete absence of sleep spindles (a burst of oscillatory brain activity visible on an EEG that occurs during stage 2 sleep). The striking absence of sleep spindles in localized lesions in the basal ganglia of these 6 AAD patients highlights the role of the pallidum and striatum in spindling activity during non-REM sleep. This is a key distinction between the AAD patients and the control patients; all thirteen control subjects displayed signs of sleep spindles.

Source: Medical News today