Xango – a Life-Saving Fruit Drink

Sometime in 2012, Mrs Ireen Sitenge Nyambe travelled to Namibia. Her trip was prompted by her niece’s illness.

According to doctors, Mrs Nyambe’s niece was in the last stages of kidney failure which had crippled her kidneys. In other words, Mrs Nyambe’s niece was dying.

“This patient was really in the last stage because both her kidneys had stopped working. She had been on dialysis from 2011 and now the dialysis could not continue because the veins had collapsed.

“Even the doctors had lost hope. She was about to be taken to South Africa but the doctors said we could not take her because even if we took such a patient it would be meaningless. So we were just waiting for anything,” Mrs Nyambe recounted.

At that time, the patient was swollen as a result of the body accumulating liquids and doctors had advised that she should not take any fluids, including water.

She was restless. She could not hear. She could not eat unaided neither could she be left unattended for fear that she could fall off the hospital bed due to the restlessness.

Mrs Nyambe said her niece barely had days to live, until a stranger came to the private ward where the patient was. The stranger was selling a fruit juice called Xango.

The fruit-drink vendor encouraged Mrs Nyambe to give the juice a try, saying the drink had helped many people recover from their death beds.

True to the words of the stranger, Mrs Nyambe’s niece, who had at the time been retired from her job on medical grounds, recovered and was able to leave the hospital she had been admitted to barely a week after starting to take the fruit juice.

“The doctor, a white man who has been in the profession for a long time said he had never seen a person coming out of such a stage. And even when we were discharged, the same bottle that the patient had started drinking from had not even been emptied yet,” Mrs Nyambe said.

The niece eventually recovered fully and was given back her job by her employers.

Puzzled by the turn of events, Mrs Nyambe who was diabetic and had arthritis, bought a box of the fruit drink and came back to Zambia with it. She was not yet convinced about taking the drink herself. But she had her neighbours in mind. She told herself that if the fruit juice worked on the neighbours, then it really was a baffling wonder.

Source: All Africa

Nutritional do’s and don”ts for pregnant women!

You’ve just received the good news that a little one is on the way! Congratulations, you’re pregnant!

Pregnancy is beautiful, magical and even empowering! Whether you are elated or in a wee bit of shock, remember pregnancy is an immense physical, psychological and emotional experience whatever the circumstances surrounding it.

Once it sinks in that you are on your way to motherhood you may find yourself thinking, what”s next? Expect a lot of changes in your lifestyle which include some dietary modifications because your growing baby is absorbing everything you”re eating.
You will be snowed under with advice from family, friends and yes, even complete strangers about what foods are safe and what aren’t during pregnancy, enough to confuse anyone.

First and foremost you’ll need protein and calcium for your baby’s tissues and bones, extra folic acid to protect against neural tube birth defects and iron to help red blood cells carry oxygen to your baby. Although it is imperative that you discuss your diet with your doctor, we at MedGuru give you some dos and don’ts that will help get you started!

Foods to eat during pregnancy:-
Whole grains
Try incorporate whole grains that are fortified with folic acid and iron into your daily diet. Eat oatmeal during breakfast, whole-grain bread at lunch and brown rice for dinner.

Leafy greens, fruits
Increase intake of green veggies broccoli and spinach, food items like muesli and fruits like Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries which are a good source of iron that a woman”s body needs to produce all the blood needed to supply nutrition to the placenta.

Eggs
Apart from being rich in protein, eggs provide amino acids, vitamins and minerals, including choline, which is good for baby”s brain development. Refrain from eating under-cooked or raw eggs as they may be tainted with bacteria.

Sea food
Fish, touted for omega-3 fatty acids that help the baby”s brain development and eyes is a good meal choice during pregnancy. It is absolutely safe to consume up to 12 ounces of low-mercury fish, such as salmon per week. Try it grilled, broiled, or as a salad.

Low-fat yogurt
Low-fat yogurt is rich in calcium, high in protein and it sans the added sugar of flavored yogurts. Blend it with fruit into smoothies or sprinkle it with nuts or muesli for a tasty crunchy snack.

Foods to avoid during pregnancy:-
Liver or liver-containing products such as liver pâté, liver sausage or haggis should be eaten only occasionally as they contain large amounts of vitamin A which may cause damage to the embryo.

Avoid drinking too much of coffee, tea and colas as caffeine based beverages may affect the growth of baby.

Skip unpasteurized cheeses, blue-veined cheeses like brie or camembert to avert the possible risk of transmission of infectious diseases such as Listeria. However, varieties such as cheddar and mozzarella can help in meeting your calcium requirements.

Source: med guru

Premature babies may be disadvantaged later in life

Children born prematurely may be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives by poor understanding of their needs, according to experts.

Paediatricians’ research has shown premature babies are more likely to have difficulties at school but few teachers are aware of this. The number of children born prematurely is rising because women are having babies later in life.

Researchers say the education system should adapt to reflect this change. They are calling for a child’s gestation to be recorded on their education records as a way of flagging up any problems.

‘Greater risk’
“We know from a Scottish study that the earlier you are born the more likely you are to have have problems at school”, said Glasgow paediatrician Dr Nashwa Matta.

“But these children may still be clever and the problems don’t appear until the workload increases at primary or secondary school.” Children born prematurely are more likely to be emotionally immature, lonely and at greater risk of bullying.

They ma y have visual perception issues, including difficulties with numbers and mathematics. Further traits of prematurely born children may include short memories, attention spans and problems with multi-tasking.

Some premature children are also disadvantaged if they are born at the end of the school year because they are effectively sent to school a year early. If they had been born full term they would have gone to school the following year. Around 4,000 babies are born prematurely every year in Scotland.

‘Behavioural issues’
Dr Matta has organised a one-day conference to highlight the issue at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

“The simplest thing to do is to put child’s gestation on their school entry form,” said Dr Matta. Then, when a teacher has a child with difficulty with attention, certain work, and memory then they will know he’s born prematurely and can find out what can be done so gap doesn’t get bigger.”

Three-year-old Findlay Masterton was born three months early. His mum Lorraine is worried he won’t be able to cope when he goes to school. “He has behavioural issues, there’s a strict regime of how he likes things done,” she said.

She added: “Findlay has different wee issues that a kid born full term wouldn’t have and I think these might show up when he goes to school next year.

“There’s nothing stated for schools that they have to do anything about this or give them extra time for their lessons. “Schools recognise medical problems, but pre-term? I don’t think it’s taken seriously enough.”

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) backed the call for tailored support for children with additional support needs.

An EIS spokesperson said: “Teachers and other education professionals working in our schools are aware of the broad range of additional support that is sometimes needed to allow all children to benefit fully from their education.

“There is a requirement for continuing investment in adequate ASN resources in all schools, and for teachers and other professionals to have access to ongoing professional development to ensure that they can continue meeting the particular needs of all pupils.”

Source: BBC news

Doctors grow ears, noses using body fat stem cells

British scientists are aiming to grow ears and noses in a laboratory to transplant then into humans.

Scientists from Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London have managed to use abdominal body fat and turn it into cartilage. It is now hoped that the technique could help patients who have been born with microtia, which means the ear fails to develop properly, or who have been in an accident.

At the moment, surgeons take cartilage from other parts of the body to treat children with facial defects. The painful procedure sees them shape the nose or ear, and implant it into the child

The new technique would mean that doctors ‘grow’ the organ separately using a tiny sample of fat from the child. Stem cells would be extracted and grown from it. Scientists would place an ear-shaped ‘nano-scaffold’ into the stem cell broth so that they take on the correct shape and structure.

This would then be placed beneath the skin. Although it would not help with hearing it would be biologically the same as the real thing, the Telegraph reports.  The breakthrough has been published in the journal Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine.  Neil Bulstrode, consultant plastic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, co-authored the research.

He said: ‘It is such an exciting prospect. If we could produce a block of cartilage using stem cells and tissue engineering, this would be the holy grail for our field.’ Each year thousands of children are born with a congenital deformity called microtia, when the external ear is not fully developed. Many have an intact inner ear, but experience hearing loss due to the missing external structure.

But the research could also have implications for the future of other transplants, and could be used to create bone and other tissue. The report said the technique procedure could ‘help to improve stability, integration and functionality of engineered transplants while avoiding tissue rejection’.

Dr Patrizia Ferretti, the head of developmental biology at UCL, said it would be useful for children because it means there is no need for immune suppression.

She said: ‘At the moment we take cartilage out of the ribs which means a major additional surgical procedure that creates a permanent defect, as the rib cartilage does not regrow.
‘But with this technique you could seed the stem cells on to a mould of a healthy ear, or use 3D printing to make the ear shaped scaffold-containing cells that can then be turned into cartilage.’

Source: Daily mail

Restless legs syndrome linked to bigger underlying health problems

A new study has revealed that Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) may be a possible biomarker for other underlying disease.

The study done by a nationally-recognized sleep expert found that patients with RLS have a higher mortality rate and are prone to cardiovascular diseases and hypertension.

Boston Medical Center neurologist Sanford H. Auerbach said that men with RLS were more likely to be diagnosed with lung disease, endocrine disease, diseases of nutrition and metabolism and immune system problems.

The study was published in Neurology the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Source: Yahoo news

 

Alzheimer’s disease may kill as many as cancer in US

Deaths from Alzheimer’s disease are under-reported in the United States and the most common form of dementia may be taking as many lives as heart disease or cancer.

Alzheimer’s disease currently ranks sixth among causes of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heart disease is first, and cancer second.

But researchers reported in the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, that Alzheimer’s-linked deaths could be six times more common than thought.

“Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are under-reported on death certificates and medical records,” said study author Bryan James of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

“Death certificates often list the immediate cause of death, such as pneumonia, rather than listing dementia as an underlying cause.”

For the study, researchers followed more than 2,500 people aged 65 and older who were tested annually for dementia.

A total of 559 participants developed Alzheimer’s disease during the course of the study, and the average time span from diagnosis to death was four years.

People aged 75 to 84 who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s were also four times more likely to die than those without it.

One third of all deaths among those aged 75 and older were attributable to Alzheimer’s disease, said the study.

According to James, the findings would translate to an estimated 503,400 deaths from Alzheimer’s in the US population over age 75 in 2010.

That figure is six times higher than the 83,494 reported by the CDC based on death certificates.

“Determining the true effects of dementia in this country is important for raising public awareness and identifying research priorities regarding this epidemic,” said James.

Source: Channel news asia

 

Nine-month-old baby may have been cured of HIV

A 9-month-old baby who was born in California with the HIV virus that leads to AIDS may have been cured as a result of treatments that doctors began just four hours after her birth, medical researchers said on Wednesday.

That child is the second case, following an earlier instance in Mississippi, in which doctors may have brought HIV in a newborn into remission by administering antiretroviral drugs in the first hours of life, said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatrics specialist with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, at a medical conference in Boston.

“The child … has become HIV-negative,” Persaud said, referring to the 9-month-old baby born outside Los Angeles, who is being treated at Miller Children’s Hospital. The child’s identify was not disclosed.

That child is still receiving a three-drug cocktail of anti-AIDS treatments, while the child born in Mississippi, now 3-1/2 years old, ceased receiving antiretroviral treatments two years ago.

Both children were born of mothers infected with HIV, which wipes out the body’s immune system and causes AIDS.

Speaking at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Persaud credited the early use of antiretroviral therapies with improving the children’s health but warned that more research must be done.

“Really the only way we can prove that we have accomplished remission in these kids is by taking them off treatment and that’s not without risk,” Persaud said. “This is a call to action for us to mobilize and be able to learn from these cases.”

The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, surfaced more than 30 years ago and now infects more than 34 million people worldwide. Prevention measures, including condoms, have helped check its spread and antiretroviral drugs can now control the disease for decades, meaning it is no longer a death sentence.

Source: Reuters

 

New sponge-like gel steers tooth formation

Inspired by this embryonic induction mechanism, Ingber and Basma Hashmi, a Ph.D. candidate at SEAS who is the lead author of the current paper, set out to develop a way to engineer artificial teeth by creating a tissue-friendly material that accomplishes the same goal. Specifically, they wanted a porous sponge-like gel that could be impregnated with mesenchymal cells, then, when implanted into the body, induced to shrink in 3D to physically compact the cells inside it.

To develop such a material, Ingber and Hashmi teamed up with researchers led by Joanna Aizenberg, Ph.D., a Wyss Institute Core Faculty member who leads the Institute’s Adaptive Materials Technologies platform. Aizenberg is the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at SEAS and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.

They chemically modified a special gel-forming polymer called PNIPAAm that scientists have used to deliver drugs to the body’s tissues. PNIPAAm gels have an unusual property: they contract abruptly when they warm.

But they do this at a lukewarm temperature, whereas the researchers wanted them to shrink specifically at 37°C — body temperature — so that they’d squeeze their contents as soon as they were injected into the body. Hashmi worked with Lauren Zarzar, Ph.D., a former SEAS graduate student who’s now a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for more than a year, modifying PNIPAAm and testing the resulting materials. Ultimately, they developed a polymer that forms a tissue-friendly gel with two key properties: cells stick to it, and it compresses abruptly when warmed to body temperature.

As an initial test, Hashmi implanted mesenchymal cells in the gel and warmed it in the lab. Sure enough, when the temperature reached 37°C, the gel shrank within 15 minutes, causing the cells inside the gel to round up, shrink, and pack tightly together.

“The reason that’s cool is that the cells are alive,” Hashmi said. “Usually when this happens, cells are dead or dying.”

Not only were they alive — they activated three genes that drive tooth formation.

To see if the shrinking gel also worked its magic in the body, Hashmi worked with Mammoto to load mesenchymal cells into the gel, then implant the gel beneath the mouse kidney capsule — a tissue that is well supplied with blood and often used for transplantation experiments.

The implanted cells not only expressed tooth-development genes — they laid down calcium and minerals, just as mesenchymal cells do in the body as they begin to form teeth.

“They were in full-throttle tooth-development mode,” Hashmi said.

In the embryo, mesenchymal cells can’t build teeth alone — they need to be combined with cells that form the epithelium. In the future, the scientists plan to test whether the shrinking gel can stimulate both tissues to generate an entire functional tooth.

When the temperature rises to just below body temperature, this biocompatible gel shrinks dramatically within minutes, compressing tooth-precursor cells (green) enclosed within it.

As a new bioinspired, sponge-like gel shrinks, it squeezes cells (green) inside it, triggering them to shrink, round up, become denser, and begin to deposit the minerals that harden teeth.

Source; Science2.0

 

Metallic toys may harm your kid’s health

Dazzling metallic toys attract your kids in no time but they may end up harming their health and have irreversible effects on their intellectual development, a new study has found.

This is because metallic toys and low-cost jewellery often contain toxic substances such as lead and cadmium.

As babies and young children often put the things they play with in their mouth, they may inadvertently swallow some of these toxic substances too.

The study shows that these metals can be mobilised into digestive fluids once contaminated items are swallowed.

“We observed that cadmium and lead contamination, both very toxic metals, are a major problem, especially when it comes to metallic jewellery and toys. Copper, nickel, arsenic and antimony were also present in some samples,” said Gerald J. Zagury, a professor at the Polytechnique Montreal in Canada.

The researchers examined metal contamination in a selection of 72 toys and jewellery items purchased in the North American market.

They then conducted tests on 24 samples by recreating the biochemical conditions of the gastrointestinal system in the lab in order to get an accurate answer.

The researchers also observed that cadmium, lead and nickel in some samples exceeded the safety threshold levels that a child can be exposed to without suffering acute harmful effects like abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

The study appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Source: Business standard

Laptop theft exposes thousands of hospital records

Computer stolen from Etobicoke General had personal details of 5,500 patients

Medical records for thousands of patients at Etobicoke General Hospital could be in the wrong hands following the theft of a laptop.

The personal details of 5,500 patients — including names, dates of birth and diagnostic reports — were on a laptop that was stolen in mid-January from a lab used to test brain activity.

The lab was locked but the laptop was not password-protected — contrary to hospital policy according to Ann Ford, chief privacy officer for William Osler Health System.

We have a policy for protection and in this instance it just was not protected,” said Ford.

The laptop had information on patients who were tested between January 2011 and 2014. The hospital informed patients of the theft over the last two weeks.

There is a risk the information could be used for illegal purposes such as identity theft, but hospital administrators say there is little patients can do.

“We think that there’s no further action they need to take,” said Ford. “But, however, if they feel comfortable contacting their financial institution we leave that up to them.”

The hospital has since beefed up its security. All laptops are now secured by cable locks. Toronto police say the case is still open.

Source: cbc news