More walking tied to lower stroke risk among men

Older men who spend several hours walking each day are less likely to have a stroke than their peers who rarely walk, a new study suggests. And walking pace didn’t seem to matter.

Researchers said few studies have looked specifically at how both walking speed and walking time or distance is linked to stroke risk.

“Stroke is a major cause of death and disability and it is important to find ways to prevent it, especially in older people who are at high stroke risk,” Barbara J. Jefferis told Reuters Health in an email. She led the research at University College London in the UK.

“Our study suggests that maintaining an active lifestyle, specifically by spending more time on all forms of walking, could be an important part of stroke prevention strategies in older people,” Jefferis said.

She and her coauthors analyzed data from men enrolled in a long-term British heart study.

The men entered the study in 1978 to 1980. In 1998 to 2000, when they were in their 60s and 70s, they filled out surveys about how often they were physically active.

The new analysis includes 2,995 men who had not had a stroke or heart disease at the time of that survey. Researchers followed them for another 11 years.

More than half of the men walked an hour or less each day. About one in six reported walking more than two hours per day.

During the follow-up period, 195 of the men had a stroke. The researchers found that the more time men spent walking, the lower their risk of stroke.

Men who walked four to seven hours each week were 11 percent less likely to have a stroke than men who walked for three hours per week or less. But that difference could have been due to chance, Jefferis and her colleagues reported in the journal Stroke.

A stronger finding was that men who walked the most – for more than three hours each day – had a two-thirds lower risk of stroke than those who spent the least time walking.

Walking pace was also tied to stroke risk, such that average-pace or brisk walkers had a 38 percent lower risk of stroke than slow walkers. But distance walked explained that finding: men who walked at an average or brisk pace also walked further than their slower peers, according to the study.

The findings don’t prove walking prevents strokes. But they could not be explained by factors known to increase a person’s risk of stroke, like age, blood pressure and cholesterol. More recently identified markers of stroke, such as proteins associated with inflammation; blood clotting or heart muscle damage also weren’t behind the link.

“What we found was that all of these factors explained only a small amount of the relationship between time spent walking and onset of stroke,” Jefferis said. “This suggests that there may be other factors operating which explain why walking protects against stroke.”

Her team’s study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and the British Heart Foundation.

Although it only included men, Jefferis said other research has suggested walking is good for women, too.

For instance, a team of Spanish researchers reported late last year that women who walked briskly for at least three and a half hours per week had a lower risk of stroke than inactive women

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close to 800,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke every year, and strokes are the most common cause of serious long-term disability.

“Getting into the habit of walking every day for at least an hour could protect against stroke,” Jefferis said. That can include walking that is done while running errands, walking for leisure in a park or just walking around indoors.

Both the World Health Organization and CDC recommend adults get at least two and a half hours of moderate exercise each week.

Source: Reuters

 

Exercise can help kids stave off negative effects of maternal obesity

Researchers have found that off springs whose mothers were fed a high-fat diet during pregnancy and nursing were able to stave off some of the detrimental health effects of obesity by exercising during their adolescence.

It was found that even though the rat offspring weighed the same as their sedentary counterparts, the exercising rats had fewer fat deposits and their brains were better able to respond to a hormone known to suppress the appetite, long after they stopped running on their exercise wheels.

Because mammals (including rats and humans) share much of their biology, the findings suggest that childhood exercise might help mitigate some of the risks that human children of obese parents are biologically primed to follow in their parents’ footsteps and to develop diabetes and other obesity-related disorders.

“Just three weeks of exercise early in life had a persistent effect on the satiety centres of the brains of these rat pups,” study’s lead author Kellie L. K. Tamashiro, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said. “If we can find a way to take advantage of th

at phenomenon in humans that would be great, because preventing obesity is probably going to be much easier to do than reversing it.”

Tamashiro and her colleagues fed pregnant rats a high-fat diet and continued that diet while they were nursing their pups. The animals were weaned on a healthier, standard low-fat diet and at four weeks of age, the equivalent of rodent early adolescence, some were given free access to running wheels in their cages, while the others remained sedentary.

To determine the impact of the exercise on appetite, at 14 weeks of age, the rats’ brains were injected with the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. Those that had exercised weeks before ate less, while the sedentary rats showed no differences in their appetites.

The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology

Four tips to stay warm this winter

The chill of winters has set in and staying warm has become a priority. We have some pointers here to beat the cold and enjoy this season:

Dress smart

Wear multiple layers of light and warm clothes as it will keep your body heat insulated. Choose clothes made of wool, cotton or fleeced synthetic fibres.

Keep your extremities covered as they are the first parts of your body to lose circulation in cold temperatures. Wear a scarf, mitten and woollen cap when you are heading out.

Eat right

Eat at regular intervals as the burning of food will keep your body warm. Include lots of food items which are rich in protein.

Take hot drinks often to maintain your body temperature.

Move your body

Physical activity helps generate heat and fight cold. Engage in your daily exercise and chores to stimulate blood circulation and also prevent joints and muscles from stiffening.

Use hot water bottle

Stay warm with a hot water bottle. You will find hot water bottles in any department store or you can make one yourself by filling a glass bottle with hot water and wrapping it with a towel.

Source: inagist

 

Too much exposure to TV can stall preschoolers’ cognitive development

A new study has suggested that preschoolers who have a TV in their bedroom and are exposed to more background TV have a weaker understanding of other people’s beliefs and desires.

Amy Nathanson, Molly Sharp, Fashina Alade, Eric Rasmussen, and Katheryn Christy, all of The Ohio State University, interviewed and tested 107 children and their parents to determine the relationship between preschoolers’ television exposure and their understanding of mental states, such as beliefs, intentions, and feelings, known as theory of mind.

Parents were asked to report how many hours of TV their children were exposed to, including background TV. The children were then given tasks based on theory of mind. These tasks assessed whether the children could acknowledge that others can have different beliefs and desires, that beliefs can be wrong, and that behaviours stem from beliefs.

The researchers found that having a bedroom TV and being exposed to more background TV was related to a weaker understanding of mental states, even after accounting for differences in performance based on age and the socioeconomic status of the parent.

However, preschoolers whose parents talked with them about TV performed better on theory of mind assessments.

“When children achieve a theory of mind, they have reached a very important milestone in their social and cognitive development. Children with more developed theories of mind are better able to participate in social relationships. These children can engage in more sensitive, cooperative interactions with other children and are less likely to resort to aggression as a means of achieving goals,” lead researcher Nathanson said.

The study is published in the Journal of Communication.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

8 Interesting facts about your heart

Did you know these cool facts about your heart?

1.The average adult heart beats 72 times a minute; 100,000 times a day; 3,600,000 times a year; and 2.5 billion times during a lifetime.

2. The heart produces enough energy to drive a truck 20 miles. So,in a lifetime, that is equivalent to driving to the moon and back!

3. The heart pumps nearly 1.5 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime which is enough to fill 200 train tank cars.

4. Laughter really works wonders for your heart and is perfect remedy for stress .A good hearty laugh can send 20% more blood flowing through your entire body. So indulge yourself in funny movies and create a group of jovial and cheerful people.

5. The stethoscope was invented by French physician Rene Laennec when he felt it was inappropriate to place his ear on his large-buxomed female patients’ chests.

6. A woman’s heart typically beats faster than a man’s. The heart of an average man beats approximately 70 times a minute, whereas the average woman has a heart rate of 78 beats per minute

7. Studies show Monday blues affect the heart the most as the majority of heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 -9 am on Mondays.

8. It is thought that the heart got its love association in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene due to the Silphium plant with its heart-shaped seed pods that grew in the region.

Source: Zee news

India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient completes 15 years

UPA chairperson and Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi felicitates India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient as he completes 15 years post transplantation.

UPA chairperson and Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi felicitates India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient as he completes 15 years post transplantation.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Monday felicitated Sanjay Kandasamy, India’s first successful liver transplant recipient, as he completed 15 years post transplantation.

Kandasamy, 16, had undergone the path-breaking procedure as an 18-month-old in 1998 at Apollo Hospital here.

Gandhi interacted with the teenager and his family at her residence here.

“It is a testament not only on India’s medical acumen but also of the tenacity of this young man,” Gandhi was quoted by an official statement issued by the hospital.

Kandasamy, who hails from Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, was born with a rare condition seen in one one in 12,000 babies.

“Sanjay now leads a completely normal life, goes to school like other kids, enjoys meals, plays football and wants to become a doctor to save lives. Sanjay’s success helped establish liver transplantation in India,” said Anupam Sibal, senior paediatric gastroenterologist in the hospital.

Source: Business Standard

 

 

 

New technique to treat parasitic cystic tumour of kidney

Dr Santosh Kumar, assistant professor, department of urology, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has developed an innovative surgical technique to treat parasitic cystic tumour of kidney, a rare disease that can lead to destruction of kidney.

In this Santosh PGI Technique, Dr Kumar operated a 22-year-old woman by single 2 cm incision through umbilicus, the natural scar given by god, using conventional port and instrument.

The innovative surgical technique is described in a paper published in the Asian Journal of Endoscopic Surgery, a journal of the Japan Society of Endoscopic Surgeons.

According to Dr Kumar, the new minimal invasive technique helped the patient recover fast and without scar. Her kidney was saved. “We believe it is the first case of this kind in this large hydatid parasitic tumour in which this technique was used,” he said.

Parasitic cystic tumour is common in canine, dogs, sheep etc. Humans get infected by eggs and embryo in contaminated vegetable and meat. The patient may not have any symptoms, can present with palpable tumour in abdomen, allergic reaction and obstruction of kidney, according to a statement by PGIMER.

Rupture of parasitic cystic tumour like mass can lead to shock and death. Removal of kidney by open surgery used to be traditional treatment, the statement said.

Treating a giant parasitic tumour kidney was earlier reported by Dr Kumar in the Journal of Endourology, an American Endourological Society journal. In this article he described how he performed treatment of various genitourinary hydatid cystic mass by laparoscopy by three small incisions.

Talking about his latest innovation, Dr Kumar said, “In our case the patient was newly married, who had been deserted by her husband because of unfortunate social condition and risk of morbidity of disease and surgery. Single hole surgery with this new technique through natural scar i.e. umbilicus guided by nephroscope, which is very common armamentarium of urologist, was an excellent advantageous condition for her.”

“It is interesting to say that after successful surgery the husband united with her wife happily,” he added.

Source: India Medical Times

Two Fortis cardiologists nominated to Medical Council of India

Two eminent cardiologists from Fortis Healthcare, Dr Ashok Seth chairman Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi, and Dr Vivek Jawali director and chief cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, Fortis Hospital, Bangalore, have been nominated to the newly constituted Medical Council of India (MCI), the premier statutory body that governs the standards of medical education and recognition of medical qualifications in the country.

A gazette notification of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, published recently, announced the names of the council members. Apart from elected members, the Central and state governments nominate medical professionals of pre-eminence to the MCI. While, Dr Seth was nominated by the Delhi government, Dr Jawali was nominated by the Karnataka government, both for a period of four years.

Source: Times of India

 

Big Changes Ahead in Medical Education

The U.S. should be prepared for massive changes in the next few years in the way physicians are trained, experts said here Thursday.

Change will have to start with inter professional education, George Thibault, MD, president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation in New York, said at an event sponsored by Health Affairs to promote its theme issue on medical education. “We know all health professionals are going to work together in formal and informal teams, yet we educate them separately and then are surprised when they don’t work together well.” Instead, professionals should be educated together so they are prepared to work together as teams, he said.

In addition, a new model of clinical education is needed, Thibault continued. “The [current] model is very fragmented and still too hospital-based to take care of a population with chronic illnesses who are largely outside the hospital. The model needs to be more longitudinal and community-based.”

Then there is the content of the curriculum. “Since [the Flexner report], biological sciences have been the basis for medical education,” he noted. “We need to add social sciences, systems management, economics, and medical professionalism.”

Thibault also suggested that medical schools move away from time-based education and toward education based on development of competencies, “so learners move through as they are ready to move through. We cannot continue to have a locked-up approach determined by everybody doing the same thing or determined by just time and place. This can lead to a more efficient system … and to professionals who are specifically prepared for the careers they’re going to take on.”

Several speakers lamented the lack of medical students willing to go into primary care. “Part of that is the culture of medical school — what’s conveyed to students plays a major role,” said Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University in New Jersey.

“You come home and you say, ‘I’m a pediatrician,’ or you say you’re like Sanjay Gupta — a neurosurgeon. What gets you the date?” he said.

Although people often point to medical education debt as a barrier to pursuing the lesser-paid primary care specialties rather than the more well-paid specialties, Reinhardt disagreed that it’s a major problem. “Look at medical school indebtedness — on average it’s about $220,000,” he said. “I always tell physicians who bellyache, ‘you know that guy who just opened a restaurant — what do you think they pay on a mortgage?’ It’s probably close to your [loan], and somehow they make do.”

“Debt is a nuisance, but not prohibitive,” he added, noting that the Association of American Medical Colleges is trumpeting record medical school enrollment despite students’ debt problems.

For the primary care situation to change, “we need accountability,” said David Goodman, MD, of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in New Hampshire and a co-principal investigator of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. “The best way is with public guidance leading to peer review that leads to public funding,” with priorities that are set annually. “That might [include] increase in primary care [residency] funding — putting a thumb on the scale allows being a priority.”

Goodman proposed a scheme in which each year, 10% of physician training programs would need to reapply for their funding. Programs that are reapplying would be competing with other established programs as well as new residency programs. Applications would be peer-reviewed, and successful applicants would get an interim review to make sure they were on track.

Under such a system — which would mean that each program would be reviewed once per decade — meritorious training programs would be able to expand, while weaker programs would lose 10% to 15% of their funding. And because the awards would be made every year, it would give the system “the ability to change priorities with each succeeding year, over time,” he said. “Sure, we’ll make mistakes, but they’ll be smaller mistakes.”

Audience members also heard from Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.)who are co-sponsoring the “Training Tomorrow’s Doctors Today Act,” a bill that would increase the number of graduate medical education (GME) slots by 15,000 over a 5-year period. “This is an issue that’s uniting [Republicans and Democrats] on Capitol Hill,” Shock said.

Both Schock and Schwartz also expressed support for legislation that would repeal and then replace Medicare’s much-maligned sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for physician reimbursement. Schock noted that one reason the House Energy and Commerce Committee was able to get unanimous support among its committee members for its SGR repeal proposal, which would cost an estimated $179 billion, was that “they didn’t say how they’re going to pay for it.”

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee — which is charged with coming up with ways to pay for legislation such as an SGR fix — has been briefing committee members on possible “pay-fors,” said Schock, who is a member of the committee. “So stay tuned” to see what happens, he added.

Schwartz said she hopes that GME reform may eventually be included in an SGR fix bill should one be passed. “When we do something about the SGR, there might be a moment when we could slip this [GME] legislation into our discussion,” she said.

Source: Med Page today

 

Nigeria: 700,000 adults living with HIV/AIDS in Benue

At least 700,000 adults out of the 4.3 million population of people in Benue State are still living with HIV/AIDS, Weekly Trust learnt yesterday.

Of the number which excluded children, only 50,000 persons living positively with the virus are registered with the Benue Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS.

Benue State Coordinator for PLWHA, Stephen Yongo revealed this at a one-day HIV/AIDS Review Meeting of Media Forum organized by the Ministry of Information and Orientation in conjunction with Benue State Action Committee on AIDS (BENSACA).

Yongo in a paper presentation entitled  “Stigma, Discrimination and Their Implications on HIV/AIDS  Programming”, explained that the 2010 sentinel report puts Benue at 12.7 per cent on HIV/AIDS prevalence rate.

He said his association has sent an Anti-Stigmatization Bill to the State Assembly to seek punitive measures against willful infection of innocent people by those already living with the virus.

Earlier,   Executive Secretary of BENSACA, Mrs. Grace Ashi Wende solicited strong partnership with the media in the campaigns against HIV/AIDS as they plan this year’s World AIDs Day with the theme “Take Charge of Your Life,  know your HIV Status”.

Source: Weekly Trust