medical news

Biofuel Crops ‘May Amplify Mosquito-Borne Disease’

The expansion of the some biofuel crops may unwittingly increase the risk of mosquito-borne disease by altering the insects’ life cycle, a study suggests.

The so-called first-generation biofuel crops, most notably maize, are increasingly being replaced by second-generation biofuel crops, such as perennial grasses, which require less energy, water, fertilisers and pesticides to thrive.

Yet ecological changes brought about by large-scale biofuel farming may alter the transmission of vector-borne diseases, by affecting vector behaviour, survival and abundance, for example.

In the paper published in this month’s edition of Global Change Biology – Bioenergy, researchers from the University of Illinois, United States, looked at the egg-laying behaviour of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, in water that contained leaves of different types of biofuel crops in laboratory experiments, as may happen in the field.

They show that leaves from different types of biofuel crops can affect the chemical properties of the water in which mosquitoes lay their eggs, as well as the mosquitoes’ preference for where to lay eggs and the survival of those eggs.

The researchers show, for example, that more eggs reached adulthood when they were laid in water that was infused with leaf material from the second-generation biofuel crops, switchgrass and Miscanthus, than that infused with maize leaves.

“It may appear that the transition to second-generation biofuel crops could increase mosquito production and consequently the risk of mosquito-borne disease,” they write.

But they add that these crops are also expected to improve wildlife diversity, which may reduce infection prevalence by redirecting mosquito bites to other hosts.

“We recommend further studies to explore the pathways by which these crops are likely to influence disease risk so that any potential negative impacts on human health can be identified and mitigated,” they conclude.

Nick Hewitt, an atmospheric chemist at Lancaster University, United Kingdom, tells SciDev.Net: “Large-scale land-use change is bound to have unintended consequences. In this study, an important unintended second-order consequence of biofuel crop production is identified: changes in water chemistry may change mosquito breeding patterns and hence may have effects on the prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases.”

The study, he says, highlights the “critical need for full life-cycle and environmental impact assessments of crops and agricultural practices”.

Source: All Africa

Making music videos ‘helps young cancer patients cope’

Music therapy can help teenagers and young people cope better when faced with treatment for cancer, a study in Cancer journal suggests.

American researchers followed the experiences of a group of patients aged 11-24 as they produced a music video over three weeks.

They found the patients gained resilience and improved relationships with family and friends.

All the patients were undergoing high-risk stem-cell transplant treatments.

To produce their music videos, the young patients were asked to write song lyrics, record sounds and collect video images to create their story.

They were guided by a qualified music therapist who helped the patients identify what was important to them and how to communicate their ideas.

When completed, the videos were shared with family and friends through “premieres”.

Positive effect
After the sessions, the researchers found that the group that made music videos reported feeling more resilient and better able to cope with their treatment than another group not offered music therapy.

Also, 100 days after treatment, the same group said they felt communication within their families was better and they were more connected with friends.

These are among several protective factors identified by researchers that they say help teenagers and young adults to cope in the face of cancer treatments.

Lead study author Dr Joan Haase, of Indiana University School of Nursing, said: “These protective factors influence the ways adolescents and young adults cope, gain hope and find meaning in the midst of their cancer journey.

“Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness, gain a sense of mastery and confidence in how they have dealt with their cancer, and demonstrate a desire to reach out and help others.”

When researchers interviewed the patients’ parents, they found that the videos also gave them useful insights into their children’s cancer experiences.

‘Feel connected’
Sheri Robb, a music therapist who worked on the study, explained why music was particularly good at encouraging young people to engage.

She said: “When everything else is so uncertain, songs that are familiar to them are meaningful and make them feel connected.”

Cancer Research UK says music therapy can help people with cancer reduce their anxiety and improve their quality of life. It can also help to reduce some cancer symptoms and side-effects of treatment – but it cannot cure, treat or prevent any type of disease, including cancer.

Previous studies looking at the effects of music therapy on children with cancer found that it could help reduce fear and distress while improving family relationships.

A spokesperson for Teenage Cancer Trust said getting children with cancer to co-operate and communicate was most important.

“Every day in UK, around seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer. We know that being treated alongside others their own age makes a huge difference to their whole experience, especially if it’s in an environment that allows young people with cancer to support each other.”

Source: BBC news

Almost 200 years later, are we living in the final days of the stethoscope?

stethescope2

An editorial in Global Heart, journal of the World Heart Federation, suggests the world of medicine could be experiencing its final days of the stethoscope, due to the rapid advent of point-of-care ultrasound devices that are becoming increasingly accurate, smaller to the point of being hand-held and less expensive as the years roll by.

The editorial is by Jagat Narula, editor-in-chief of Global Heart (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York) and Bret Nelson, also of Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

In the editorial, a brief history of both the stethoscope (invented in 1816) and the ultrasound (invented in the 1950s) is given, with the authors suggesting that the stethoscope could soon be exiled to the archives of medical history.

They say: “At the time of this writing several manufacturers offer hand-held ultrasound machines slightly larger than a deck of cards, with technology and screens modelled after modern smartphones.”

Compared with expensive, bulky, ultrasound machines of the past, the authors say, “Hand-held ultrasound devices introduced an alternative concept of relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use machines which could generate images interpretable by a wider spectrum of clinicians at the point of care. Soon concerns about smaller machines having inferior image quality compared to devices many times larger and more expensive were outweighed by evidence that rapid diagnostic decisions could be made with portable machines.”

The editorial highlights that nowadays, more than 20 medical specialties include use of point-of-care ultrasound as a core skill, and that mounting evidence suggests that compared with the stethoscope ultrasound technology can reduce complications, assist in emergency procedures and improve diagnostic accuracy.

The authors say: “Thus, many experts have argued that ultrasound has become the stethoscope of the 21st century. While few studies have pitted ultrasound head-to-head against the stethoscope, there is evidence that ultrasound is more accurate even than chest x-ray in the detection of pneumothorax, pleural effusion, and perhaps even pneumonia. Ultrasound allows visualisation of cardiac valve function, contractility, and pericardial effusions with greater accuracy than listening with the stethoscope. And beyond the heart and lungs lie dozens of other organs and structures — well-described in the literature of point of care ultrasound — which are opaque to the abilities of the stethoscope.”

Asking why the stethoscope has not yet made way for its more technically advanced counterpart, ultrasound, the authors say that while the cheapest available stethoscopes are literally disposable (though many can cost hundreds of dollars), the cost of the cheapest ultrasound devices is still several thousand dollars, making roll-out, especially in developing nations, much more difficult.

There may also be resistance from the older generation of healthcare workers who were not originally trained with this technology. Yet all the evidence shows that ultrasound can diagnose heart, lung, and other problems with much more accuracy than the 200-year-old stethoscope.

The authors conclude: “Certainly the stage is set for disruption; as LPs were replaced by cassettes, then CDs and .mp3s, so too might the stethoscope yield to ultrasound. Medical students will train with portable devices during their preclinical years, and witness living anatomy and physiology previously only available through simulation. Their mentors will increasingly use point-of-care ultrasound in clinical environments to diagnose illness and guide procedures. They will see more efficient use of comprehensive, consultative ultrasound as well — guided by focused sonography and not limited by physical examination alone. And as they take on leadership roles themselves they may realise an even broader potential of a technology we are only beginning to fully utilize. At that point will the “modern” stethoscope earn a careful cleaning, tagging, and white-glove placement in the vault next to the artefacts of Laennec, Golding Bird, George Cammann, and David Littmann? Or, as some audiophiles still maintain the phonograph provides the truest sound, will some clinicians yet cling to the analogue acoustics of the stethoscope?”

Source: India Medical Times

 

Turning off your smartphone at night can make you more productive at work

What does it mean for you?

Switching off your smartphone at night means better productivity at work the next day.

‘Smartphones are almost perfectly designed to disrupt sleep,’ said Russell Johnson, assistant professor of management at Michigan State University in the US.

‘Because they keep us mentally engaged late into the evening, they make it hard to detach from work so we can relax and fall asleep,’ he warned.

How was the study conducted?

In a pair of studies surveying a broad spectrum of workers, his team found that people who monitored their smartphones for business purposes after 9 p.m. were more tired and were less engaged the following day on the job.

Many of us consider the devices to be among the most important tools ever invented when it comes to increasing productivity of knowledge-based work, said the research published in the journal Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes.

For the first study, the researchers had 82 upper-level managers complete multiple surveys every day for two weeks.

The second study surveyed 161 employees daily in a variety of occupations – from nursing to manufacturing and from accounting to dentistry.

Across both studies, the surveys showed that night-time smartphone usage for business purposes cut into sleep and sapped workers’ energy the next day in the office. (Read: Lower brightness of smartphones to get better sleep)

Why are smartphones bad for sleep?

In addition to keeping people mentally engaged at night, smartphones emit ‘blue light’ that appears to be the most disruptive of all colours of light.

Blue light is known to hinder melatonin, a chemical in the body that promotes sleep, Johnson said.

‘The night-time use of smartphones appears to have both psychological and physiological effects on people’s ability to sleep and on sleep’s essential recovery functions,’ he added.

Source: newsr

GSK’s diabetes drug set for European approval

GlaxoSmithKline said on Friday European regulators had given the green light to its once-weekly diabetes drug albiglutide, which it is marketing as Eperzan.

Albiglutide belongs to the same class of injectable GLP-1 drugs as Victoza, from Novo Nordisk, and Byetta and Bydureon, from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.

A positive recommendation for a drug by the European Medicines Agency is generally followed by a marketing authorization by the European Commission. GSK said a final decision was anticipated later this quarter.

Last year regulators in the United States pushed back an approval decision on the drug until April 15.

Source: Reuters

First-Time Cesarean Rates Dipped in 2012: CDC

Efforts to curb cesarean birth rates in the United States might be working, with health officials reporting a 2 percent decline in the number of first-time surgical deliveries between 2009 and 2012.

Cesarean delivery rates in 19 states reporting to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention averaged 21.9 percent in 2012, the CDC said in a report released Thursday. This represented a return to the rate last recorded for those states in 2006.

Report co-author Michelle Osterman, a statistician at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, said the turnaround was significant. “The rates had been going up every year, but in 2009 they either stabilized or started to come down,” she said.

The real impact might be felt in the overall cesarean rate, Osterman said.

“Because primary cesareans are starting to decline, the overall cesarean rate will be impacted because there is only a 10 percent chance that a woman who has had a cesarean is going to have a vaginal birth afterward,” she said. The overall rate has stabilized at about 33 percent of all births in the United States, Osterman said.

One expert said the report indicates slight progress.

“At least the rate stopped going up,” said Dr. Mitchell Maiman, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. “After decades of climbing, there seems to be a hold to it. But we could do a lot better.”

The risks to the mother and baby are much higher in a cesarean birth than in a vaginal birth, Maiman said.

“Once you have the first cesarean, you’re overwhelmingly likely to have repeat cesareans,” he said, noting the odds for complications and death rise dramatically with each additional C-section. “It’s also worse for the baby as multiple studies have proven.”

Risks to the mother include infection, excessive bleeding and blood clots traveling to the legs or lungs. Risks to the baby include injury during delivery, breathing problems and the potential need for intensive care.

“Vaginal delivery is the preferred method for having a baby,” Maiman said. “Cesarean should only be resorted to when it’s absolutely necessary.”

Maiman said the cesarean rate is so high because doctors fear malpractice lawsuits.

“The pressure is on physician practices because it takes so much time and energy to stay with a patient for hours for a vaginal delivery, compared to the quickness of a cesarean,” he said. “Most of the lawsuits are for the failure to do a cesarean in a timely fashion.”

In a separate reporting region, the researchers found that in 28 states and New York City, the first-time cesarean rate dropped from 22.1 percent in 2009 to 21.5 percent in 2012.

Source: news.nom

Hormone Therapy & Joint Replacement in Women

Women who start hormone replacement therapy after having had hip or knee replacement surgery may cut their risk of needing another procedure in the same joint by nearly 40 percent, a new study suggests.

About 2 percent of those who have a hip or knee replacement need another surgery within three years. Most of these additional procedures are needed because of a complication known as osteolysis, which happens when tiny pieces of the implant seep into the tissue around the implant, causing inflammation that destroys the bone around the implant, the British researchers explained.

“There is evidence that drugs like hormone replacement therapy, used usually to prevent osteoporosis and fractures, might have a beneficial effect on implant survival in patients undergoing knee or hip replacement,” said lead researcher Dr. Nigel Arden, director of musculoskeletal epidemiology at the University of Oxford in England.

“These findings must be confirmed in further studies, but they are consistent with previous reports by our group showing an association between use of other drugs that have similar effects on bone and the risk of implant revision [surgery],” he said.

However, many women are nervous about taking hormone replacement therapy because of previously reported increased risks for heart disease and cancer. Since the risk of a second surgery is small, the question remains whether or not it’s worth starting hormone replacement therapy at all.

“Indeed, this is only a small added benefit of hormone replacement therapy. However, it is a relevant piece of information for women who have received a total knee or hip replacement and are considering hormone replacement therapy for menopausal symptoms,” Arden said.

The report was published online Jan. 22 in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

For the study, Arden and his colleagues collected data on more than 21,000 women who had not used hormone replacement therapy after a hip or knee replacement. The investigators compared these women with more than 3,500 women who had taken hormone replacement therapy for at least six months after surgery.

The researchers found that women who had taken hormone replacement therapy for six months after surgery were 38 percent less likely to need another surgery than those who had not.

Moreover, women who took hormone replacement therapy for a year or more after surgery were more than 50 percent less likely to need another surgery over three years of follow-up.

Taking hormone replacement therapy before joint replacement, however, didn’t make a difference in the risk for a repeat procedure, the researchers noted.

Dr. Neil Roth, an orthopedic surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, thinks there may be a role for drugs that help build and strengthen bone after knee and hip replacement surgeries. Based on this study, hormone replacement therapy might also be helpful, he added.

Roth noted, however, that this study only showed an association, and not a cause-and-effect link, between hormone replacement therapy and a lowered risk for another surgery.

“Right now, I wouldn’t make any changes in the way I clinically treat things based on this study, but I think it deserves further investigation,” he added.

Source: web md

Consumer Reports: Too many sodas contain potential carcinogen

A chemical found in many sodas may be dangerous to your health, Consumer Reports says. And no, it’s not sugar (this time).

The golden-brown color of many soft drinks comes with a dose of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MeI. On U.S. product labels it appears simply as “caramel coloring.”

Those who say the chemical may possibly cause cancer include the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and the state of California, which now limits manufacturers to 29 micrograms of exposure for the average consumer per day.

Foods exceeding that limit have to carry a warning label that reads: “WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer.”

But when Consumer Reports purchased sodas in California and had them analyzed by a lab, it found that one 12-ounce serving of Pepsi One or Malta Goya exceeded the levels permitted without a warning label.
Ten other brands tested by the group did meet the California standard, which is estimated to limit the risk of cancer from 4-MeI to one case in every 100,000 lifetimes of daily exposure.

“We are concerned about both the levels of 4-MeI we found in many of the soft drinks tested and the variations observed among brands, especially given the widespread consumption of these types of beverages,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a Consumer Reports toxicologist, in a statement.

“There is no reason why consumers need to be exposed to this avoidable and unnecessary risk that can stem from coloring food and beverages brown.”
The Food and Drug Administration does not set federal limits on 4-MeI in food, and the data gathered by Consumer Reports show that in some cases consumers outside California are drinking a slightly different ingredient. For example, Pepsi One purchased by the group in December in New York contains four times as much 4-MeI as the same product bought that same month in California.

What is clean eating?
Currently the FDA has no reason to believe that 4-Mel poses a health risk to consumers at the levels found in foods with caramel coloring, agency spokeswoman Juli Putnam told CNN in an e-mail. The government agency is testing a variety of food and beverages with the chemical and reviewing safety data to determine if any regulatory action needs to be taken, she said.

Consumers interested in more information on 4-Mel can check out the FDA’s FAQ page.
In a statement to Consumer Reports, PepsiCo Inc. said data indicate that the average person consumes less than one-third a can of diet soda per day; therefore, its product meets the California standard, even if a complete serving exceeds that limit.

In addition to new federal standards, Consumer Reports is calling on the FDA to “require labeling of specific caramel colors in the ingredient lists of food where it is added, so consumers can make informed choices.”

“First and foremost, consumers can rest assured that our industry’s beverages are safe,” the American Beverage Association said in a statement. “Contrary to the conclusions of Consumer Reports, FDA has noted there is no reason at all for any health concerns, a position supported by regulatory agencies around the world.

“However, the companies that make caramel coloring for our members’ soft drinks are now producing it to contain less 4-MeI, and nationwide use of this new caramel coloring is underway.”

Source: CNN

Marriage at 25 or older good for men’s bones

Researchers at UCLA have suggested that marriage is good for the health of men’s bones, but only if they marry when they’re 25 or older.

In a new study, researchers found evidence that men who married when they were younger than 25 had lower bone strength than men who married for the first time at a later age.

In addition, men in stable marriages or marriage-like relationships who had never previously divorced or separated had greater bone strength than men whose previous marriages had fractured, the researchers said. And those in stable relationships also had stronger bones than men who never married.

Although for women there were no similar links between bone health and being married or in a marriage-like relationship, the study authors did find evidence that women with supportive partners had greater bone strength than those whose partners didn’t appreciate them, understand how they felt or were emotionally unsupportive in other ways.

This is the first time that marital histories and marital quality have been linked to bone health, the study’s senior author, Dr. Carolyn Crandall, a professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said.

“There is very little known about the influence of social factors – other than socioeconomic factors – on bone health,” Crandall said.

“Good health depends not only on good health behaviors, such as maintaining a healthy diet and not smoking, but also on other social aspects of life, such as marital life stories and quality of relationships,” she said.

The associations between marriage and bone health were evident in the spine but not the hip, possibly due to differences in bone composition, the researchers said.

The data suggested several significant correlations between marriage and bone health – but only for men.

The study authors found that men in long-term stable marriages or marriage-like relationships had higher bone density in the spine than every other male group, including men currently married who had previously been divorced or separated, men not currently in a relationship and men who had never been married.

Among men who first married prior to turning 25, the researchers found a significant reduction in spine bone strength for each year they were married before that age.

For instance, the authors said, those who marry young are likely to be less educated, leading to lower pay and more difficulty in making ends meet.

The study is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Osteoporosis International.

Source: zee news

Large amounts of folic acid could lead to development of breast cancer

A scientist shown for the first time that folic acid supplements in doses 2.5 to five times the daily requirement “significantly promotes” the growth of existing pre-cancerous or cancerous cells in the mammary glands of rats.

Dr. Young-In Kim said that this is a critically important issue because breast cancer patients and survivors in North America are exposed to high levels of folic acid through folic acid fortification in food and widespread use of vitamin supplements after a cancer diagnosis.

The amount of folic acid consumed in North America has increased dramatically in the past 15 years. Women are routinely advised to take folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and while pregnant to prevent neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida.

His research was published in the online journal PLOS ONE.

Source: healcon