Month: July 2013

How lack of sleep can harm mental health?

Sleepless nights could lead to serious mental health problems like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, a new research has claimed.

The study, conducted by Oxford University, has found that circuits in the brain are shared by mechanisms that control sleep and mental health, and therefore if your sleep is disrupted, your mental health could be too, the Daily Express reported.

Professor Russell Foster told the publication that the appalling sleep-wake cycle in schizophrenia is independent of medication and social constraints and is something fundamentally wrong with the body clock of patients with the disease.

The research also identified a genetic mutation that triggers schizophrenia-like symptoms in mice, which also appears to disrupt their body clocks.

According to Foster, young people are at high risk of bipolar because of their abnormal sleep-wake pattern.

 

As a precaution, TB tests urged for students, staff at Virginia High School

The Fairfax County Health Department is recommending that students and staff at a northern Virginia high school be tested for tuberculosis.

The health department said Monday that 1,900 letters were sent to affected staff and students at Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield. Tests will be done at the school in August.

Last month, the county reported three active TB cases at the school. At the time, the county recommended only a limited

number of people be tested.

But those tests showed a higher number than expected tested positive for exposure to the disease on their skin, so the county is recommending a wider testing as a precaution.

Health department spokesman Glen Barbour said no additional active TB cases have been found beyond the three cases already reported

Heart Attack Risk may rise if you continuously skip break fast

Skipping breakfast may increase chances of a heart attack. A study of older men found who continuously skipped breakfast had a 27 percent higher risk of a heart attack than those who have a morning meal. There’s no reason why the results wouldn’t apply to other people, too, the Harvard researchers said.

Other studies suggested a link between breakfast and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other health problems seen as symptoms to heart problems.

Why would skipping breakfast be a heart attack risk?

People who don’t take breakfast are hungrier later in the day and eat larger meals in the afternoon. This means the body gets a larger amount of calories in a shorter amount of time. By eating so the sugar levels in the blood will increase and perhaps clogged arteries.

But eating syrupy pancakes, eggs and bacon really better than eating nothing? “We don’t know whether it’s the timing or content of breakfast that’s important. It’s probably both,” said Andrew Odegaard, a University of Minnesota researcher who has studied a link between skipping breakfast and health problems like obesity and high blood pressure.

The new research was released Monday by the journal Circulation. It was an observational study, so it’s not designed to prove a cause and effect. But when done well, such studies can reveal important health risks.

The researchers surveyed nearly 27,000 men about their eating habits in 1992. About 13 percent of them said they regularly skipped breakfast. They all were educated health professionals — like dentists and veterinarians — and were at least 45.

Over the next 16 years, 1,527 suffered fatal or non-fatal heart attacks, including 171 who had said they regularly skipped breakfast.

In other words, over 7 percent of the men who skipped breakfast had heart attacks, compared to nearly 6 percent of those who ate breakfast.

The researchers calculated the increased risk at 27 percent, taking into account other factors like smoking, drinking, diet and health problems like high blood pressure and obesity.

18 percent of U.S. adults regularly skip breakfast, according to federal estimates. So the study could be important news for many, Rimm said.

“It’s a really simple message,” he said. “Breakfast is an important meal.”

 

Alcohol deaths in young women on rise

Deaths in young women from alcohol-related disease are rising, a study says. Experts study about deaths in men and women of all ages in Glasgow, Liverpooland Manchester from 1980 to 2011.

They said the results for women born in the 1970s should be a “warning signal” about their drinking habits.

Almost 9,000 people die from conditions related to alcohol each year in the UK. This study, detailed in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, of alcohol-related mortality in the three cities, which all have similar patterns of deprivation, poor health and industrialization.

It compared alcohol-related deaths born between 1910 and 1979.

Men were much more likely to die from alcohol-related disease than women – and the age range most affected was people in their 40s and 50s.

But this rate even fallen for the youngest group of women – those born in the 1970s – this death rate increased in all three cities.

‘Cultural influences’

The team behind the report suggests that cheaper alcohol, and longer drinking hours will all have played their part in fuelling the problem.

Dr Shipton told the BBC it was “a shame” minimum pricing had been rejected in England and Wales. Lucy Rocca: “Heavy drinking was glamorized and became a habit”

She said it was one measure which would help tackle the problem, although it would not address the “deep-rooted cultural influences at play”.

He added: “We know that more action is needed to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol.

“That’s why we’re banning alcohol sales below the level of duty plus VAT to tackle the worst cases of cheap and harmful alcohol. “We’re also strengthening the ban on irresponsible promotions in pubs and clubs and challenging industry to increase its efforts through the responsibility deal.”

Avoiding estrogen therapy proved deadly for nearly 50, 000 women

Doctors believe that misconceptions about the risks of estrogen therapy have led to the premature deaths of nearly 50,000 women in the past 10 years, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Estrogen therapy has long been a controversial topic in the medical world. Before 2002, more than 90 percent of women who underwent a hysterectomy were treated with some type of hormone therapy, to help manage symptoms related to early menopause triggered by the procedure.

However, in 2002, a Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study suggested that combination estrogen-progesterone treatments could potentially increase women’s risk for cancer and other health issues.

In the 10 years after that study was published, the numbers of women choosing to receive any type of hormone treatment post-hysterectomy dropped dramatically.

Now, in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers are arguing that misconceptions about hormonal treatments also led women to reject estrogen-only treatments, which have numerous health benefits including reduced mortality and lower incidences of breast cancer and heart disease.

Using data to analyze a population of women ages 50 to 59 who had undergone hysterectomies, researchers estimated that up to 48,835 women died prematurely between 2002 and 2011 because they failed to use estrogen therapy treatments, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“What has happened is an avoidance of use of estrogen, not because of the [study] findings, but because of the way they were communicated and understood,” lead study author Dr. Philip Sarrel said, in a video interview released Thursday by Yale. “None of those women lived to be 70 years old. They were all women aged 50 to 59 who would have used estrogen but did not use it,” because of unfounded fears, he added.

 

Polio: The outbreak in the Horn of Africa is expanding

Somalia hadn’t had a case of polio for nearly six years. But in the past few months the East African country has the worst polio outbreak anywhere in the world.

Twenty new cases of polio were identified this week by the Global Polio Eradication. That brings the total number of cases in the Horn of Africa to 73. The rest of the world combined has tallied only 59 cases so far this year.

Health workers are worried that the virus could gain a foothold in the Horn of Africa and jeopardize the multibillion-dollar effort to wipe out the virus worldwide. Last year the number of children paralyzed by polio hit a record low at 223.

This year it was looking like there were going to be even fewer cases. The last significant pockets of the virus appeared to be isolated in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Then in May, 2-year-old girl in Mogadishu became the first confirmed case of polio in Somalia in more than six years.

The number of polio cases in Somalia is increasing by the day, says Dr. Nasir Yusuf, who leads UNICEF’s immunization efforts in eastern and southern Africa.

In response to this, there have been five emergency polio immunization campaigns in Somalia since May. The women had been working in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, where eight new polio cases were in May.

The current outbreak is forcing governments throughout the region, including parts of the Middle East, to launch supplemental vaccination drives, Yusuf says, because polio is capable of spreading quickly.

“After a week, one of the viruses got into the Somali refugee camp in the most eastern part of Kenya,” he says. “So that tells you how fast this virus made it.”

The virus reproduces inside the human gut, and many people carry it but show no symptoms. This gives the virus the opportunity to travel long distances inside people and then get shed into the environment through feces.

The World Health Organization traced the poliovirus in Somalia to one in West Africa. Nigeria is the only place there where polio is still endemic.

The Somali outbreak is now forcing UNICEF, the WHO and other international agencies to dedicate vast resources to boost polio vaccination coverage throughout East Africa and parts of the Middle East. Those are resources that can’t be used to attack the virus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria — which appeared, until now, to be the last few places where polio had a foothold.

 

Regular exercise can cut down your stroke risk- especially in men

 

A new research says Regular exercise lowers the risk of having a stroke. A stroke is that a blood vessel in the brain gets blocked. So the brain cells won’t get enough oxygen and other nutrients and  as a result it dies

There may be some reasons for having stroke been identified, including smoking, high blood pressure, and diabetes and being inactive.

Michelle N. McDonnell, Ph.D., from the University of South Australia, Adelaide and her colleagues obtained data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study.

REGARDS is a large, long-term study funded by the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to look at the reasons of stroke mortality among African-Americans and other residents living in the Southeastern United States.

The researchers also gathered health measures such as body mass index and blood pressure.
At the beginning of the study, the researchers asked participants how many times per week they exercised vigorously enough to work up a sweat.

The researchers contacted participants every six months to see if they had experienced a stroke or a mini-stroke known as a transient ischemic attack (TIA). To confirm their responses, the researchers reviewed participants` medical records.

The researchers reported data for over 27,000 participants who were stroke-free at the start of the study and followed for an average of 5.7 years. One-third of participants reported exercising less than once a week.

Study subjects who were inactive were 20 percent more likely to experience a stroke or TIA than participants who exercised four or more times a week.

The findings revealed that regular, moderately vigorous exercise, enough to break a sweat, was linked to reduced risk of stroke. Part of the protective effect was due to lower rates of known stroke risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and smoking.

Chinese bird flu could spark global outbreak – US news

The deadly H7N9 bird flu virus will be easily transmitted from human to human, a new study says.

Chinese scientists have found that the virus is highly transmissible between ferret, a mammal often used to study possible virus transmission between humans. This discovery could portend a time where the virus might become pandemic, the researchers added.

So far, more than more 130 people in China have been infected with the H7N9 flu, and at least 37 have died, the researchers noted.

However, one U.S. expert stressed that it isn’t known whether large-scale spread among humans will actually occur.

“We already know H7N9 can spread human-to-human,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. ” The new study shows that the H7N9 virus does not sicken poultry, Chen said. This can make the virus hard to track as it infects people, since they can be around infected birds without being aware of it.

“Our results suggest that the H7N9 virus is likely to transmit among humans, and immediate action is needed to prevent an influenza pandemic caused by this virus,” Chen said.

The new report was published July 18 in the online edition of the journal Science.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is keeping a close eye on the H7N9 virus.

“Anytime a new flu virus emerges, especially one that can cause severe disease in humans, it’s a virus we get very interested in,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC’s Influenza Division.

Bresee noted that, so far, the H7N9 virus does not spread easily from human to human, but it is still concerning. “It can cause severe disease and deaths in humans. The one thing that gives us comfort so far is that it doesn’t seem to be able to spread efficiently between humans and that’s what allows a flu virus to develop into a pandemic virus,” he said.

Not only is the CDC watching this virus, Bresee said: “The whole world is watching.”

The agency is studying the virus, watching for mutations and trying to understand what medicines work against it. Moreover, the CDC is developing a vaccine against the H7N9 flu, he said.

“When the virus was first discovered and we got our samples here at CDC, we started vaccine development right away,” Bresee said. “The U.S. government is developing and testing vaccines just in case we need to use them at some point.”

The Chinese researchers investigated the virus from a variety of sources.

Chen’s team identified dozens of H7N9 strains from more than 10,000 samples taken from poultry markets, poultry farms, wild bird habitats and slaughterhouses across China.

The researchers looked at the genetic makeup of these strains, comparing them with the genetic makeup of five of the strains found in people.

All strains of the virus could go to airway receptors in humans, and some could be transmitted to birds as well.

All of the H7N9 strains from birds easily went to chickens, ducks and mice without causing any disease. The human strains, however, caused mice to lose up to 30 percent of their body weight, the researchers said.

In addition, one of the human strains easily went from ferret to ferret.

Whether the virus will mutate, making it easier to transmit from human to human, is not assured, Siegel said.

“That’s probably better left to science fiction, because mutations also occur that make something more benign,” he said.

Smart Surgery knife detects cancer instantly

Cancer Knife 1_AP_July 18 2013.jpgAn experimental surgical knife can help surgeons make sure they’ve removed all the cancerous tissue. Surgeons typically use knives that heat tissue as they cut, producing a sharp-smelling smoke. The new knife analyzes the smoke and can instantly signal whether the tissue is cancerous or healthy.Now surgeons have to send the tissue to a lab and wait for the results.

Dr. Zoltan Takats of Imperial College London suspected the smoke produced during cancer surgery might contain some important cancer clues. So he designed a “smart” knife hooked up to a refrigerator-sized mass spectrometry device on wheels that analyzes the smoke from cauterizing tissue.

The smoke picked up by the smart knife is compared to a library of smoke “signatures” from cancerous and non-cancerous tissues. green means the tissue is healthy; red means cancerous and yellow means unidentifiable.

To make sure they’ve removed the tumor, surgeons now send samples to a laboratory while the patient remains on the operating table. It can take about 30 minutes to get an answer in the best hospitals, but even then doctors cannot be entirely sure, so they often remove a bit more tissue than they think is strictly necessary.

If some cancerous cells remain, patients may need to have another surgery or undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

“(The new knife) looks fabulous,” said Dr. Emma King, a head and neck cancer surgeon at Cancer Research U.K., who was not connected to the project. The smoke contains broken-up bits of tumor tissue and “it makes sense to look at it more carefully,” she said.

The new knife and its accompanying machines were made for about $380,000 but scientists said the price tag would likely drop if the technology is commercialized.

That was then used to analyze tumors from 91 patients; the smart knife correctly spotted cancer in every case. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The research was paid for by groups including Imperial College London and the Hungarian government.

At a demonstration in London on Wednesday, doctors used the new knife – which resembles a fat white pen – to slice into slabs of pig’s liver. Within minutes, the room was filled with an acrid-smelling smoke comparable to the fumes that would be produced during surgery on a human patient. He added the knife could also be used for other things like identifying tissues with bad blood supply and identifying the types of bacteria present.

Some experts said the technology could help eliminate the guesswork for doctors operating on cancer patients. “Brain cancers are notorious for infiltrating into healthy brain tissue beyond what’s visible to the surgeon,” said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. “If this can definitively tell doctors whether they’ve removed all the cancerous tissue, it would be very valuable,” he said.

Lichtenfeld said it’s unclear whether more widespread use of the smart knife will actually help patients live longer and said studies should also look into whether the tool cuts down on patient’s surgery times, their blood loss and rate of wound infections.

“This is a fascinating science and we need to adopt any technology that works to save patients,” Lichtenfeld said. “But first we have to be sure that it works.”

 

 

Lack of sleep during pregnancy: lead to complications:

Scientists have proved that lack of sleep during pregnancy can lead to severe complications and hinder immune processes, says a study.

Scientists at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine conducted the research and the study was published in the journal “Psychosomatic Medicine”.

“Our results show the importance of identifying sleep problems in early pregnancy, especially in women experiencing depression,” said Michele Okun, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt`s School of Medicine and lead author. “The earlier that sleep problems are identified, the sooner physicians can work with pregnant women to implement solutions.”

There is a dynamic relationship between sleep and immunity, and this study is the first to examine this relationship during pregnancy as opposed to postpartum,” added Dr. Okun.

 

Tips to get better sleep:

The following tips may help you to get sound sleep during pregnancy. However, if your sleep disturbances are severe, consult your doctor.

  1. Extra pillows: Pillows can be used to support both the tummy and back. A pillow between the legs can help support the lower back and make sleeping on your side easier. Some specific types of pillows include the wedge-shaped pillow and the full-length body pillow.
  2. Nutrition: Drinking a glass of warm milk may help bring on sleep. Foods high in carbohydrates, such as bread or cakes, can also promote sleep. In addition, a high protein snack can keep blood sugar levels up and could help prevent bad dreams, headaches, and hot flashes.
  3. Relaxation techniques: Relaxation can help calm your mind and muscles. These techniques include stretching, yoga, massage, and deep breathing.
  4. Exercise: Regular exercise during pregnancy promotes physical and mental health. Exercise also can help you sleep more deeply. However, vigorous exercise within four hours of bedtime should be avoided.
  5. Prescription and over-the-counter medications: Ideally, all medications should be avoided during pregnancy. Some drugs can hurt the developing baby. However, there are some medications that are considered safe to take during pregnancy and that might help you sleep better. Always talk to your doctor before taking any kinds of drugs. This includes over-the-counter drugs, herbs and dietary supplements.