Health A-Z

Doctors remove large cockroach from man’s ear

A man in Australia had to be rushed to hospital in terrible pain after a large cockroach crawled into his ear as he slept, and an attempt to suck it out with a vacuum cleaner failed.

Medical treatment initially only caused the inch-long insect to burrow further into the head of Hendrik Helmer.

The unwelcome invader was eventually extracted by a doctor with forceps, but only after Helmer had endured the unpleasant sensation of it being in the “throes of death-twitching.”

His ordeal began in the early hours of Wednesday morning when he was woken by a sharp pain in his right ear, according to Australian TV.

He said: “I was hoping it was not a poisonous spider … I was hoping it didn’t bite me.”

Source: Fox news

Positive thinking may increase effectiveness of migraine drugs

Headache_Use

Boston researchers recruited 66 migraine patients in an attempt to quantify how much of their pain relief came from a medication and how much was due to what’s called the placebo effect, the healing power of positive belief.

More than 450 headaches later, they reported Wednesday that it’s important for doctors to carefully choose what they tell patients about a powerful medicine – because the message could help enhance its benefits, or blunt them.

“Every word you say counts, not only every gram of the medication,” said Harvard professor Ted Kaptchuk, who led the new study with a team at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.

Here’s how it worked. First, the patients who suffer regular migraines agreed to forgo pain relievers for several hours during one attack, recording their symptoms for comparison with later headaches.

Then for each of their next six migraines, the patients were given a different pill inside an envelope with a different message. Sometimes they were told it was an effective migraine drug named rizatriptan, a positive message. Other times they were told it was a placebo, a dummy pill, suggesting no benefit. Still other times they were told the pill could be either one, a neutral message.

Sometimes the doctor’s message was true – they were told they got rizatriptan and they really did. Sometimes it was false because researchers had secretly switched the pills.

Mixing up the possibilities allowed researchers to tease out how the same person’s pain relief differed from migraine to migraine as his or her expectations changed.

Of course the real migraine drug worked far better than the dummy pill. But remarkably, people who knew they were taking a placebo still reported less pain than when they’d left their migraine untreated, the researchers found.

The surprise: Patients’ reports of pain relief more than doubled when they were told the migraine drug was real than when they were told, falsely, that it was a fake, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

In fact, people reported nearly as much pain relief when they took a placebo that they thought was the real drug as they did when they took the migraine drug while believing it was a fake.

“The more we gave a positive message to the patient, the bigger the placebo effect was,” Kaptchuk said.

He said that effect probably isn’t purely psychological, saying the ritual of taking a medication may trigger some subconscious memory that could leave people feeling better even if they knew they’d taken a fake drug.

Scientists have long known that some people report noticeable improvements in pain and certain other symptoms when they’re given a placebo, which can be a sugar pill or sham surgery or some other benign intervention. Some studies even have documented that a placebo actually can spark a biological effect.

But scientists don’t know why the placebo effect works or how to harness its potential benefit.

The new research is an interesting attempt to answer some of those questions, at least for one kind of pain, said Dr. Mark Stacy, vice dean for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center, who wasn’t involved with the work. And learning how much of an impact it makes could help design better studies of new drugs, to ensure the phenomenon doesn’t skew the results, he added.

For now, it shows “the power of positive thinking may be helpful in taking care of your migraine,” he said

Source: airing news

Birth control through surgery

Birth control through surgery

Laparoscopic tubal ligation is an elective surgery performed on women who want to prevent pregnancy.

The surgeon begins by making a tiny incision near the bellybutton, and another just above the pubic bone.

Carbon dioxide is administered through a tube in the upper incision. This inflates the abdominal cavity, allowing the surgeon to clearly see and work around your internal organs.

Next, a lighted instrument called a laparoscope is placed through one of the incisions.

The laparoscope projects images of the inside of the abdomen, onto a monitor.

The fallopian tubes are grasped with surgical instruments to close them off, using the cutting, tying, blocking, or sealing technique.

After the carbon dioxide is released from the abdomen, the incisions are closed with dissolving stitches.

For most women, recovery usually takes less than a week.

Source: Fox news

`Poppy` family plant may hold key to relieving arthritis pain

A new pill made from natural painkillers may help relieve arthritis pain.

Scientists from the University of California have found a plant, which belongs to the poppy family, could be the key as it contains a powerful pain-relieving compound in its roots which could make it a side-effect-free remedy.Researchers identified the compound dehydrocorybulbine in corydalis, which was effective against the three types of pain, which are, acute, inflammatory and neuropathic or chronic.

However, researchers have warned that DHCB needs further toxicity testing before it can be used to relieve the crippling agony of arthritis.

Source: Zee news

FDA approves diabetes pill that eliminates excess sugar through urine

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new diabetes drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca that uses a novel approach to reduce blood sugar.

Farxiga is a once-a-day tablet designed to help diabetes patients eliminate excess sugar via their urine. That differs from older drugs that decrease the amount of sugar absorbed from food and stored in the liver.

The drug is the second product approved in the U.S. from the new class of medicines known as SGLT2 drugs. In March the FDA approved Johnson & Johnson’s Invokana, which also works by eliminating excess sugar through patients’ urine.

The agency cleared Farxiga tablets for patients with type 2 diabetes, which affects about 24 million people in the U.S. The approval marks a comeback for the drug, which was previously rejected last year after studies raised concerns about links to bladder cancer and liver toxicity.

Ten cases of bladder cancer were found in patients taking the drug in clinical trials, so Farxiga’s label warns against using it in patients with the disease. A panel of FDA advisers last month said that the uptick in cancers was likely a statistical fluke, and not related to the drug. But the FDA is requiring Bristol and AstraZeneca to track rates of bladder cancer in patients enrolled in a long-term follow up study. The companies will also monitor rates of heart disease, a frequent safety issue with newer diabetes medications.

The most common side effects associated with Farxiga included fungal and urinary tract infections. The drug can be used as a stand-alone drug or in combination with other common diabetes treatments, such as insulin and metformin.

People with type 2 diabetes are unable to properly break down carbohydrates, either because their bodies do not produce enough insulin or have become resistant to the hormone, which controls blood sugar levels. Diabetics often require multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action to control their blood sugar levels.

New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and London-based AstraZeneca PLC already co-market the diabetes drug Onglyza, which increases insulin production while reducing glucose production.

Source; Fox bangor

Laser Hair Removal’s Risks

The first two laser hair-removal sessions went smoothly, but the third ended with burning pain that persisted for weeks, a 26-year-old Brooklyn woman recalled. Then the marks appeared: long red stripes along the backs of her legs. Over the next few months, the stripes turned dark brown.

“It was horrifying,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified in order to preserve her privacy. “It wasn’t something you would see on a normal person.”

Laser hair-removal procedures have become immensely popular in recent years. Nearly half a million such treatments were performed by dermatologic surgeons in 2011, the last year for which figures are available, according to the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery. But an unknown number of procedures are performed each year by nonphysicians who may have minimal training.

The treatments are not without risk. Performed improperly, they can cause disfiguring injuries and severe burns in sensitive areas, like the bikini line and the mustache area above the lips, and, rarely, even death.

The percentage of lawsuits over laser surgery that involved a nonphysician operator rose to 78 percent in 2011 from 36 percent in 2008, according to a study published in JAMA Dermatology in October. Laser hair removal was the most commonly performed procedure cited in the litigation. Another popular treatment, intense pulse light, is used to “rejuvenate” aging skin and get rid of wrinkles.

“Not a week goes by that I don’t see a complication from a laser,” said Dr. Tina Alster, founding director of the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery. She and other physicians worry about the proliferation of nonmedical facilities like so-called medical spas that offer laser treatments and other cosmetic treatments but may not have licensed medical personnel on site.

“There’s a perception by the public that anybody can do this,” Dr. Alster said. “People need to remember, it’s not the laser doing the work, it’s the operator.”

In the case of the Brooklyn woman, the laser operator, who was not a doctor, scheduled repeat treatments of her legs four weeks apart instead of the 10 to 12 weeks for legs and the back recommended in a treatment protocol, according to her lawyer, Harry Rothenberg. She sued and reached a confidential settlement with the laser operator.

The licensing and training of laser hair-removal operators varies from state to state, resulting in a patchwork of rules and regulations, said Dr. Mathew M. Avram, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Dermatology Laser and Cosmetic Center and an author of the new study.

In laser hair removal, pulses of light are used to destroy hair follicles. The treatment is considered to be the practice of medicine in some 35 states; however, nonmedical personnel who offer the treatment are required to have on-site medical supervision in only 26 states.

New York, Virginia and Georgia do not consider laser hair removal to be a medical treatment, and 11 states simply don’t have laws regulating it.

“It’s basically the Wild West of medicine,” Dr. Avram said. “Some states are legislating and protecting patients, but a great many are not. The average person walks into a spa and sees someone with a white coat on and may assume they’re a physician.”

Even doctor-owned facilities may not have one on the premises when procedures are being done, Dr. Avram said. And states that require medical supervision may not require training and licensing of laser operators; training often is left up to the manufacturers that sell the laser equipment.

But the operator makes critical assessments of an individual’s skin type and how far apart to schedule treatments, as well as other decisions. Among those with the greatest risk of complications are people with more natural pigment in their skin or those who are tan.

A laser operator with no medical training also may treat something that looks like a sun spot but is actually a skin cancer, obscuring the disease until it is much more advanced, Dr. Avram said.

Allan Share, president of the International Medical Spa Association, agrees that there is very little oversight of medical and day spas, and he urges consumers to do research before seeking treatment. “It’s always important for a consumer to do their own due diligence,” he said.

For those considering laser hair removal, here are some factors to consider:

Ask whether the facility is owned by a medical doctor and whether he or she is immediately available during procedures. Ask the provider to review your medical history. Ask what procedures are in place in case of an emergency.

Ask who will actually perform the procedure. What licensing and training does the operator have? How many times has the operator performed laser hair removal? Has he or she done it on the part of the body that you want treated?

Ask whether laser treatment is appropriate for your skin type, hair color, complexion and body area. Suggest that the operator test a small patch of skin before you undergo the procedure. Consumers with conditions like diabetes, a difficulty with wound healing, or a tendency toward keloid scarring may be especially vulnerable to complications and should talk to a doctor before undergoing laser treatment.

If you experience pain or discoloration after a procedure, don’t wait — call your doctor right away.

Source: The Newy York times

Medical glue ‘can fix broken heart’

A medical superglue has been developed that has the potential to patch heart defects on the operating table or stop bleeding on the battlefield.

The new adhesive may eventually replace stitches and staples in heart, gut and blood vessel surgery, says a US team.

Tests on pigs show it can seal cardiac defects in seconds and withstand the forces inside the heart.

The glue, inspired by the sticking abilities of slugs, could be available for human use in two years.

Skin glue is a special type of medical adhesive used to join the edges of a wound together, while the wound starts to heal.

Medics may use skin glue to close wounds, instead of other methods such as stitches or staples.

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However, until now medical glue has not proved strong enough to withstand the forces inside the pumping chambers of the heart or major blood vessels.

Inspired by slugs
The new glue, developed by Harvard Medical School, can provide a waterproof seal that is bonded in a few seconds with a shine of UV light.

Study co-author Prof Jeffrey Karp, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, told. “We have developed a surgical glue that can be used in open and more invasive procedures and seal dynamic tissues such as blood vessels and the heart, as well as the intestines.

“We think that our glue could augment stitches or staples or possibly replace them.

“More importantly, this should open the door to a greater adaptation of minimally invasive procedures.”

The polymer adhesive, which is both blood and water repellent, is inspired by the ability of animals, such as slugs, to cling to surfaces using sticky secretions that work in the wet.

The researchers tested the glue on the hearts of pigs, which resemble human hearts, during surgery, and found that it could effectively repair heart defects in the animals.

They say further studies testing the safety of the glue in humans are needed, but the results suggest the new surgical glue could be used for sealing open wounds quickly in trauma.

Prof Karp said he expected the glue to be available in two to three years, after undergoing human testing.

Dr Sanjay Thakrar from the British Heart Foundation said: “The cardiovascular system is a dynamic environment where there is continuous blood flow and tissue contractions and existing glues often don’t work well in these conditions.

“These researchers seem to have found an innovative way to overcome these issues, which could be especially useful during minimally invasive procedures.”

“As the scientists only measured the effectiveness of the glue over a short time period, it is important to see how the glue performs for longer durations.”

The research is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine

Source: BBC news

The truth behind baby carrots

Baby carrots have become a lunch box staple. Parents love them for their convenience and because they’re seen as a healthy food choice. Kids love them because they’re sweet and fun to eat.

But what’s the real deal behind baby carrots?

After all, they’re not like regular carrots. They’re perfectly shaped with rounded edges; they don’t have the same thick core; and, even peeled, they’re bright orange. And a quick Google search of baby carrots turns up some frightening information on how they’re made and whether they’re really “soaked in chlorine.” What’s up with that?

We decided to dig up the truth on baby carrots, and here’s what we found.

Most baby carrots sold in U.S. supermarkets are really what the industry calls “baby cuts” – made from longer carrots that have been peeled and cut into a smaller size. These carrots have been specifically bred to be smaller in diameter, coreless and sweeter than regular carrots.

Bob Borda, a spokesman for Grimmway Farms, the world’s largest carrot grower (it ships 10 million pounds every day), says that over the years the company has developed a hybrid that combines the best qualities from over 250 known commercial varieties.

But baby carrots didn’t start out that way. Prior to the mid-1980s, broken and misshaped carrots were discarded, leaving some farmers with as little as 30 percent of their crop to take to stores. Tired of throwing away perfectly good food, California carrot farmer Mike Yurosek took the carrots and used a potato peeler to reshape them into small pieces more suitable for quick munching. Yurosek purchased an industrial green bean cutter to quickly whittle the carrots into the familiar 2-inch portions we still see today — and their popularity took off.

Baby carrot products have been the fastest growing segment of the carrot industry since the early 1990s and are among the most popular produce items in the supermarket aisle – more than potatoes and celery, according to a 2007 USDA report.

While Yurosek’s baby cut carrots have evolved, there has remained a persistent concern from some consumers over how they’re grown and processed.

In order to create thinner vegetables, baby carrots are planted closer together than traditional carrots. In as little as 120 days from planting, the carrots are dug up and trucked to the processing house to be cut and peeled. But before packaging, all carrots receive a brisk scrub accompanied by a chlorine bath.

Wait, what? Chlorine, you say, as in the same chemical you put in your pools?

Borda says Grimmway Farms, whose labels include Cal-Organic, uses a chlorine solution on all its carrots – organic and non-organic — to prevent food poisoning, before a final wash in water. Grimmway says the chlorine rinse is well within limits set by the EPA and is comparable to levels found in tap water.

Ashley Bade, nutritionist and founder of Honest Mom Nutrition, says the chlorine bath is a standard practice in many pre-cut food items. “The chlorine-water solution is a needed step in the process to limit the risk of food-borne illnesses such as E.coli,” she says.

Yet the controversy over chemical rinsing has caused a minor uproar among organic communities and concerned parents wanting to rid their children’s lunchboxes of potentially dangerous chemicals.

In fact, when FoxNews.com contacted Bolthouse Farms, the nation’s second largest carrot producer, spokeswoman Kathleen Corless said the company didn’t want to be interviewed for this story. “We don’t want to keep perpetuating the myth that baby carrots are dyed or bleached,” she said.

“I have had clients bring up concerns regarding baby carrots after some rumors about the processing of baby carrots involving ‘soaking them in chlorine or bleach,’” Bade said, adding that the carrots are safe to eat.

The truth is that baby carrots are no different from packaged lettuce or any other prepared produce — like bagged lettuce—you find in the grocery store.

Nutritionists say consumers concerned about the chlorine can just buy whole, unprocessed carrots and wash, peel and cut them themselves.

But Dr. Aruna Weerasooriya, researcher and professor of agricultural sciences at Prairie View A&M University, says a perhaps larger, less known health concern is how the manipulation of certain vegetables degrades their nutritional value.

“When you look at wild carrots, they have high levels of Thymol, a phyto-chemical that is essential for the body to control bacteria and ward off viral infections,” he said. “Now, when you look at some of these new carrot breeds, this type of phytochemical just isn’t there.”

Weerasooriya believes that carrot companies are trading in nutritional value for increased convenience to the customer – and profit for themselves. “Research should focus on how to retain some of these nutrients, but instead companies are probably more concerned about a longer shelf life.”

Source: fox news

Unexpected diagnosis: Some medical tests may be harmful to your health

Everyone’s heard a story: Someone got an MRI for a sports injury or dizziness and the radiologist found a tumor, just in the nick of time. Or maybe it was an aneurysm, just about to burst. Lives were saved. It was great luck.

Some of the stories are dramatic. Joan Rachlin of Boston got what seemed to be a routine Pap smear 27 years ago. Like most Pap smears, it was deemed normal. “I got a call something like seven months later from a gynecological pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston,” Rachlin told NBC News.

“He was doing research on Pap smear tissue and he had come across mine. He discovered that my Pap smear had been misread and that, in fact, I had a cancerous lesion.”

It’s what’s called an incidental finding — the researcher, who Rachlin says does not wish to be named, was studying something else and in fact had to go to some trouble to match the sample to a real person. “He thought my Pap smear had really been so poorly interpreted that my life was in danger,” said Rachlin, who is executive director of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research. “I am alive today because a very, very conscientious researcher had read my Pap and decided to break the code and find me.”

Joan Rachlin found out she had cancer 27 years ago, purely by accident. There were no guidelines at the time for telling her.
Courtesy of Joan Rachlin
Joan Rachlin found out she had cancer 27 years ago, purely by accident. There were no guidelines at the time for telling her.
There were no guidelines — the researcher just went rogue. More checks showed Rachlin did indeed have cancer, but it was early stage and surgery took care of it.

Today whole industries are building up around the possibility that a test will find a medical problem that was just about to kill you. The latest entry — whole genome tests that promise to detail your medical future in a drop of spit.

But it’s starting to become clear that not all these findings are lifesaving, and some can be downright harmful. Take the case of the elderly woman whose chest lung X-ray showed what looked like lung tumors. She had a biopsy done — a tricky procedure that involves poking a long needle through the chest wall, or sending a bronchoscope down into the delicate lungs. Her lung collapsed and she died. The tumor, it turned out, was harmless. Were it not for the scan, she would have still been alive.

Her case is outlined in a report issued last month by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

As more and more tests become available and standard, from MRIs to CT scans, to genetic tests and ultrasounds, these issues will come up more often. There’s even a name for these often harmless tumors that get discovered — they’re called incidentalomas.

For instance, 10 percent of brain scans and more than 30 percent of abdominal CT scans turn up something that doctors weren’t looking for and that may need more tests, says Dr. Stephen Hauser, who heads the neurology department at the University of California, San Francisco and who helped lead the Bioethics Commission panel in its report on the issue.

Source: Nmc news

Diet and exercise: cancer benefits in huge study of women’s health

In a large study of women’s health, postmenopausal women who followed a healthy lifestyle were at a third lower risk of death, including a 20% smaller chance of dying from cancer, than women who did not follow guidance on diet, weight, physical activity, and alcohol intake.

“While it is well recognized that tobacco cessation is the lead behavioral change to reduce cancer risk,” the authors write, they analyzed the effect of other cancer prevention recommendations.

The researchers used data gathered by the observational study in the women’s health initiative of the US National Institutes of Health, which was launched in 1992 with a $140 million, 15-year contract: “the largest coordinated study of women’s health ever undertaken.”

Cynthia Thomson PhD and her colleagues analyzed data from 65,838 postmenopausal women age between 50 and 79 years.

The participants were enrolled in the women’s health initiative between 1993 and 1998 at 40 clinical centers across the country, and the team’s analysis represents the “largest study of postmenopausal women in the US.”

Those women who adhered most to lifestyle recommendations had a 22% lower risk for breast cancer and a 52% lower risk for colorectal cancer, compared with women who did not closely follow guidance.

The recommendations being followed were the American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines on nutrition and physical activity, which have four central planks:

“Achieve and maintain a healthy weight throughout life”
“Be physically active”
“Eat a healthy diet, with an emphasis on plant foods”
“If you drink alcohol, limit your intake.”
Dr. Thomson, professor of public health at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says:

“The message is simple and clear: If you want to reduce your risk for cancer, even later in life, eat a healthy diet, be active daily, avoid or limit alcohol, and don’t smoke.”

“Our results support the ACS guidelines for cancer prevention,” Thomson adds, but she calls for more support for other factors that can reduce the risks further, “because diet and activity alone do not account for the majority of risk.”

The researchers scored women’s adherence to the lifestyle advice on cancer prevention.

Zeroes were given for “behaviors least consistent with the recommendations” and scores of one or two were given for healthy lifestyle actions, adding these up to a maximum level of compliance represented by a total score of eight.

Most of the women in the study had final scores between three and six. Fewer than 1% of the women scored eight after following all of the recommended lifestyle choices.

Analysis of almost 9,000 cancers
Data on the women were collected over an average of 8.3 years, a period that witnessed the diagnosis of 8,632 cancers and 2,356 cancer-related deaths.

The women whose lifestyles were rated the healthiest (a score of seven or eight) showed a lower risk of overall cancer compared with those given low scores (from zero to two).

This included a reduction by a fifth in their risk for breast cancer, and by half for colorectal cancer.

The healthier lifestyles were also associated with a lower risk of death from other causes not related to cancer.

The authors note that guidelines for healthy lifestyle in the prevention of cancer have been based on evidence from few such prospectively identified associations.

The researchers’ conclusions are drawn from the women’s health initiative, which was a study designed at the outset to track future health changes over time.

Such prospective studies result in comparisons that are controlled and more reliable than can be drawn retrospectively, by looking back on data that was not collected for the purpose.

Lifestyle effect was greater in some groups of women
The analysis found an even lower incidence of cancers and lower overall death rate among women from certain ethnic groups as a result of the lifestyle measures, and the paper calls for more research into this difference.

Dr. Thomson says:

“We found that the association was stronger for Asian, African-American, and Hispanic women, compared with non-Hispanic white women.

It is possible that different ethnic groups may have differential disease course with varied response to environmental and/or behavioral exposures.”

Source: medical news today