Doctor of Medicine 5.5 Years

5.5 md

The Doctor of Medicine (MD) is a four-year full-time course designed for students who have completed their undergraduate studies with Science background. The curriculum is structured after the best US and Caribbean Medical Schools, the MD delivers outstanding clinical and academic training, ensuring you are well prepared for the challenges of internship and future professional training.

Overview The 5.5 years Doctor of Medicine program is divided into 3 Parts. The Pre Medical Part: Duration 18 Months The Pre Clinical { basic Science } part: 2 Years Clinical Part 2 Years in Guyana (or) 2 Years in USA for US track

Eligibility: Students from 10 to 12 years of Education or Equivalent Student with NON – Pre medical College Credits Students who have earned 90 college level credit hours from undergraduate institutions or concurrently during the completion of secondary school are encouraged to apply to the 4 years MD Medicine Program, where the student will join the program at Pre-Clinical phase since those science based 90 college level credit hours will be considered in the admissions process. For more details please register here

Watch Doctor of Medicine Video here 

Erasing (And Restoring) the Brain’s Memories

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In recent years, researchers studying the brain have implanted false memories, caused patients to hallucinate while sleeping, and even tricked the brain into hearing sounds that don’t exist.

Now, a team of neuroscientists has manipulated brain cells to both erase and then restore a memory, a finding that could help with treatment of brain diseases like Alzheimer’s or PTSD.

“Technologically, it’s a huge achievement,” said Steve Ramirez, a graduate student in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not part of the study, but has published work on creating memories. “It renders that possibility (of manipulating memory) is no longer science fiction, but something you can tackle experimentally in the lab.”

In a paper published today in the journal Nature, a team at the University of California San Diego created a memory in a rat and then erased it by stimulating the connections, or synapses, between nerve cells at different frequencies.

The first step was to create a memory. They did this by stimulating a group of nerves in the rat’s brain (which equated to the sound of a tone) that had been genetically modified to respond to light, while shocking the animal’s foot at the same time. From the rat’s perspective, the sound of the tone (done by stimulating the nerve cells) was equated with the fear of getting a mild shock.

Then the team weakened the connection between the brain cells, which had the effect of erasing that memory. But in a twist, they were also able to recover the fear-pain memory by strengthening the synaptic connection by stimulating the synapse with a different frequency.

“We can form a memory, and then turn it off and turn it on by selectively turning on synapses,” said Robert Malinow, professor of neurosciences and an author on the paper. “It puts together a number of things we have known and learned to produce this effect. It reinforces that synapses are important and can control memory.”

Malinow says the finding could open the door to manipulating the creation of memories in humans as well. In PTSD, memories of certain traumatic events cause severe anxiety, depression and other problems in patients, while Alzheimer’s disease causes us to lose our memories.

Simulating The Human Brain
A post-doctoral student in Malinow’s lab, Sadegh Nabavi, conducted the experiments and is the lead author on the Nature paper.

One expert, however, cautioned that it’s still too early to take these findings as a road map creating memories in an artificial brain, for example.

“We don’t understand enough about the brain to take those principals and make computers,” said Mark Mayford, a neuroscientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. “Instead, people are trying to take a few principals and put them in standard computer software like learning algorithms.”

Source: discovery news

Sleepless nights raise brain levels of Alzheimer’s protein, study finds

Sleepless nights

After a night of no sleep, even a healthy brain has higher than normal levels of the protein that forms the signature tangles in Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from the Netherlands.

“We think normal healthy sleep helps reduce the amount of (amyloid) beta in the brain and if your sleep is disturbed this decrease is prevented,” said the study’s senior author Dr. Jurgen Claassen, from Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen.

In people who repeatedly fail to get a good night’s sleep, the amyloid-beta concentration may build up and could be one factor in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, he said.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death for older Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million Americans have the condition.

Distinct from other forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s is partly defined by accumulations in the brain of the amyloid-beta protein. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is not known, but the amyloid-beta plaques have long been thought to play an important role.

Claassen and his colleagues point out in JAMA Neurology that studies on mice have found decreases in the amount of amyloid-beta in healthy animals’ brains after a good night’s sleep. That suggests sleep plays a role in cleaning out the protein overnight.

To see if the same is true in people, the researchers recruited 26 middle-aged men with normal sleep habits to have their protein levels measured before and after sleep, or a lack of it.

The men were brought into the clinic, where a catheter was put into their spine to take fluid samples before they went to bed and after they woke up. Half of the men were randomly assigned to get a good night’s sleep while the other half were kept awake.

The researchers found that the men who got a good night’s sleep had amyloid-beta levels in their spinal fluid about 6 percent lower in the morning than when they had gone to bed. The men who were kept awake all night had no change in their amyloid-beta levels.

The quality of sleep men got was also linked to how much of a decrease in amyloid-beta was measured, which suggests more of the amino acid is cleared out with better sleep, the team writes.

“We think the beta is cleared from the brain or less produced during sleep,” Claassen told Reuters Health, adding that it could be both.

While most people may not stay up all night for weeks at a time, Claassen also said that even partly-sleepless nights can add up.

“We did a complete night of sleep deprivation which is kind of extreme, but it’s similar to a week of partial sleep deprivation,” he said.

“Based on this and other studies, it would be good to have people look at their sleep behaviors, but not be frightened themselves if they miss a good night’s sleep,” he added.

Dr. Michael Shelanski, co-director of Columbia University Medical Center’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain in New York City, cautioned that the new study can’t prove the amyloid-beta proteins have anything to do with Alzheimer’s risk.

“We really don’t have any evidence from this paper that that’s the case,” said Shelanski, who was not involved in the new study.

“This is an interesting study,” he said. “It’s a good study, but it doesn’t really say anything about Alzheimer’s disease other than you should look further and see if the sleep patterns are related to these things.”

Claassen acknowledges that his team’s results do not prove that getting ample sleep will prevent Alzheimer’s disease, or that an amyloid-beta build-up causes the condition. Sleep may be just one of many risk factors for the illness, he said. Others include genetics, high blood pressure and obesity.

“We think it’s a disease that has several causes not just one, but we don’t know which ones,” he added.

Source: Fox news

Physically-fit kids have more robust brains

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Children who are physically fit have faster and more robust neuro-electrical brain responses during reading than their less-fit peers.

Children who are physically fit have faster and more robust neuro-electrical brain responses during reading than their less-fit peers, a new study has found.
These differences correspond with better language skills in the children who are more fit, and occur whether they’re reading straightforward sentences or sentences that contain errors of grammar or syntax.

The findings do not prove that higher fitness directly influences the changes seen in the electrical activity of the brain, the researchers say, but offer a potential mechanism to explain why fitness correlates so closely with better cognitive performance on a variety of tasks.

“All we know is there is something different about higher and lower fit kids,” said University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Charles Hillman who led the research.

“Now whether that difference is caused by fitness or maybe some third variable that (affects) both fitness and language processing, we don’t know yet,” said Hillman.
The researchers used electroencephalography (EEG), placing an electrode cap on the scalp to capture some of the electrical impulses associated with brain activity.
The readouts from the electrodes look like seismic readings captured during an earthquake, and characteristic wave patterns are associated with different tasks.
These patterns are called “event-related potentials” (ERPs), and vary according to the person being evaluated and the nature of the stimulus, graduate student Mark Scudder said.

For example, if you hear or read a word in a sentence that makes sense, the component of the brain waveform known as the N400 is less pronounced than if you read a sentence in which the word no longer makes sense, Scudder said.
The researchers found that children who were more fit (as measured by oxygen uptake during exercise) had higher amplitude N400 and P600 waves than their less-fit peers when reading normal or nonsensical sentences.

The N400 also had shorter latency in children who were more fit, suggesting that they processed the same information more quickly than their peers.
Most importantly, the researchers said, these differences in brain activity corresponded to better reading performance and language comprehension in the children who were more fit.

“Previous reports have shown that greater N400 amplitude is seen in higher-ability readers,” Scudder said.

“Our study shows that the brain function of higher fit kids is different, in the sense that they appear to be able to better allocate resources in the brain towards aspects of cognition that support reading comprehension,” Hillman said.
The study was published in the journal Brain and Cognition.

Source: The Indian Express

Want gorgeous glow on skin? Eat and apply the right vitamins

Want gorgeous glow on

Are you eating all the right veggies and fruits but your face still lacks the luminescent glow? Believe it or not the skin care regime is missing some essential vitamins.

The aging signs can be reversed by the help of nutrients. Even if a balanced diet holds the key to a gorgeous skin , according to Mary Lupo, MD, clinical professor of dermatology, “the body delivers only a certain percentage of vitamins to your skin, no matter how much you ingest.” The diet does keep the skin superfine but it may not do the needful for the blemishes, under eye skin and facial marks. This means that we have to topically apply the vitamins in the skin to make it glow and look better.

Vitamin A- the age fighter

This is an important part of the night creams and OTC lotions. They contribute greatly to the removal of blemishes like brown spots and reduction of the wrinkles; they also help in smoothening the rough skin. They help in reducing age lines and thus make the person look younger. Make sure that you apply the cream at night as the sunlight works negatively on the vitamin and neutralize its action. The creams with retinoids may cause irritation and redness so apply in very little quantities, every alternate day in the beginning.

Vitamin B3 to reduce redness

The skin is protected by an outer barrier made up of fatty acids and ceramides. This helps the skin retain moisture and ward off substances that cause skin irritations. So if the skin is sensitive and prone to dryness then use Vitamin B3 creams for reducing skin redness and keeping the skin hydrated. It also helps in minimizing the dark spots if used in morning and night. Mixing a retinoid cream with niacinamide or Vitamin B3 provides great anti aging benefits.

Vitamin C- the all around vitamin that keeps age at bay

Skin care benefit is maximum from the creams that show a concentration of more than 5% of vitamin C and are stored in air tight containers. Vitamin C helps ward off the sagging skin by making it firm and also helps in treating brown spots. Discolorations and fine lines lighten up tremendously with the regular use of Vitamin C.

Moisturize the skin with Vitamin E

Generally all after sun products and the sunscreens contain this Vitamin and help the skin retain the hydration and also quell dryness. It helps neutralize the harmful and damaging free radicals keeping it less dry and inflamed. It’s best used before heading out to the sun and also after sun exposure. Vitamin E in the skin is destroyed by UV light or sun exposure so just pick the right cream and slather it on generously.

Vitamin K for brighter eyes

Brighten the under eye skin with creams containing Vitamin K. The capillaries below the eyes are very fragile and the blood in them sometimes leaks into the skin causing the dark eyes. The Vitamin helps in lighten the under eye skin by lightening the melanin. Generally the Vitamin K is complemented by the retinol, says Dr. Baumann, “the retinol may enhance K’s ability to penetrate skin and knock out darkness.”

Remember now it’s not only the greens that you gorge on, concentrate on the Vitamin applications for that extra glow.

Source: the med guru

14 Surprising Causes of Dehydration

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Your body is about 60% water. Lose even 1.5% of that H2O—the tipping point for mild dehydration—and your mood, energy levels, and cognitive function all drop, according to research from the University of Connecticut. And while there are obvious reasons you can end up dehydrated—a sunny day, exercise, or not drinking enough in general—other triggers are less obvious. Check out these 14 surprising causes of dehydration and how to prevent them.

Diabetes

People with diabetes—especially people who don’t yet realize they have it—are at increased risk for dehydration. When levels of sugar in the blood are too high, the body tries to get rid off the excess glucose through increased urine output, says Robert Kominiarek, DO, a board-certified family physician in Ohio. All of those extra trips to the bathroom can be dehydrating. If you’re diabetic and suffer from frequent thirst or urination, talk to your doctor about how you can work together to improve your blood sugar control. And if you’re experiencing excessive thirst along with these other type 2 diabetes symptoms, it’s time to pay a visit to your doctor.

Your period

Is it that time of the month? Drink an extra glass of water. Estrogen and progesterone influence your body’s hydration levels, and when the two are roller-coastering, like when you’re in the throes of PMS, you may need to increase your fluid intake to stay hydrated, Dr. Kominiarek says. What’s more, for some women who have excessively heavy periods, the amount of blood lost is enough to deplete fluid levels, says OB-GYN Marielena Guerra, MD, of Elite OB/GYN in Florida. If you think the latter might be you, start counting your tampons. If you have to change them more than once every two hours, talk to your gyno.

Prescription meds

Check your prescription’s list of side effects. Many medications act as diuretics, upping your urine output and your risk for dehydration, Dr. Kominiarek says. Blood pressure medications are a common example. Plus, any drug that lists diarrhea or vomiting as a potential side effect could end up causing dehydration if you experience those side effects. If your prescription hits any of the above, increase your fluid intake.

Low-carb diets

Carbohydrates are stored in your body right along with fluids. That’s why you drop a couple pounds of water weight when you eliminate carbs. That might look good on your scale, sure, but it’s bad news for your hydration levels, says dietitian Jaime Mass, RD. Plus, since whole carbs such as oatmeal, whole grain pasta, and brown rice all soak up water during the cooking process, eating them can actually increase your hydration levels. Cut them from your diet and you could be unwittingly reducing your fluid intake, too.

Stress

When you’re under stress, your adrenal glands pump out stress hormones. And if you’re constantly under pressure, eventually your adrenals become exhausted, causing an adrenal insufficiency, Dr. Kominiarek says. Problem is, the adrenals also produce the hormone aldosterone, which helps regulate your body’s levels of fluid and electrolytes. So as adrenal fatigue progresses, your body’s production of aldosterone drops, triggering dehydration and low electrolyte levels, he says. While increasing fluid intake can help in the short term, mediating your stressors is the only real long-term solution.

Irritable bowel syndrome

As if irritable bowel syndrome wasn’t terrible enough on its own, its symptoms (such as nausea and chronic diarrhea) can cause dehydration, Kominiarek says. What’s more, many people who suffer from this conditions place themselves on elimination diets to avoid what they believe may be trigger foods, Mass adds. If those diets nix any fluids or fluid-rich foods, they could end up further contributing to dehydration.

Your workout

We typically think of post-workout dehydration as a problem reserved for endurance athletes, but any time you break a sweat, be it an hour-long spin class or quick jog around the block, you’re losing water, Mass says. And, week after week, if you are sweating out more than you’re sipping, you could become dehydrated. Try this: Weigh yourself immediately before and after your workout. For every pound you’ve lost (the goal is not to!), drink 16 to 20 ounces of water, she suggests.

Pregnancy

Has your baby got you feeling bloated? Chances are your body is retaining water in an attempt to offset dehydration, Guerra says. During pregnancy, your overall blood volume and cardiac output increase, which can thereby increase your fluid requirements. What’s more, nausea and vomiting associated with morning sickness can also take their toll on hydration levels, she says. If you are suffering from morning sickness, don’t just accept it as a given. Talk to your doc about how to ease your symptoms.

Aging

As you age, your body’s ability to conserve water as well as its sensation for thirst declines, meaning it’s easier so become dehydrated and more difficult to tell when you’re fluids are low, says Mass. If you have trouble remembering to drink water throughout the day, try making a game of it. Keep a bottle of water near you at all times and, each day, keep a running total of how much you’ve consumed.

Dietary supplements

Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean is can’t send your bladder into overdrive. For example, parsley, celery seed, dandelion, and watercress have all been shown to increase urine output, which could potentially lead to dehydration, Mass says. If you are thinking about taking a dietary supplement—or are already taking one—it’s best to speak with a nutritionist, primary care doctor, or naturopathic physician about any potential side effects.

High altitudes

When you travel to high altitudes, your body acclimates by speeding up your breathing as well as increasing your urine output. While both are necessary to a healthy adjustment to the altitude and its oxygen levels, constantly peeing and panting—which causes you to exhale more water vapor than usual—can cause dehydration.

Drinking alcohol

Forget hangovers. Even a well-behaved happy hour could deplete your fluid levels. Why? Because drinking makes you go to the bathroom. Alcohol inhibits an antidiuretic hormone that would normally send some of the fluid you’re consuming back into the body, and instead sends it to your bladder. Meanwhile, thanks to the diuretic effect of alcohol, your cells shrink, pushing more water out to your bladder. All this lowers your body’s hydration levels, Mass explains. What’s more, since alcohol impairs your ability to sense the early signs of dehydration—such as thirst and fatigue—it’s easy to drink well past your dehydration point.

Eating too few fruits and vegetables

Filling half of your plate at each meal with produce can score you up to two extra cups of water a day. So, put another way, if you don’t eat your five-a-day, and don’t compensate (at least from a fluid perspective) by drinking extra water, you could easily wind up dehydrated.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is all about moving water—not to mention electrolytes, proteins, minerals, and other ingredients—from mom’s body to baby’s. So of course it can lower your hydration levels, Dr. Guerra says. If you start to have trouble producing, increase your fluids and talk to your doc. It may be a sign of serious dehydration.

Source: Time health land

10 Easy Ways to Slash Sugar from Your Diet

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You may not be eating Oreos by the roll or guzzling cans of Coke, but that doesn’t mean sugar’s absent from your diet. You’re likely eating sugar throughout the day without even realizing it, says Amari Thomsen, RD, owner of Chicago-based nutrition consulting practice Eat Chic Chicago. Sugar is added to foods that don’t even taste all that sweet, like breads, condiments, and sauces. And it adds up: although the American Heart Association recommends women consume no more than six teaspoons of added sugar per day (or about 100 calories), most of us take in double that. (One note: we’re talking about added sugar, not the naturally occurring sugars found in dairy and fruit.) A high-sugar diet boosts your odds of tooth decay, heart disease, and diabetes, not to mention weight gain. Slash your sugar intake now with these 10 expert tips.

Learn sugar’s aliases

When you read food labels, you’ll need to look for more than just the word “sugar.” Sugar hides under several sneaky names, including high fructose corn syrup, dried cane syrup, invert sugar, molasses, sucrose (or any word ending in “-ose”), brown rice syrup, honey, and maple syrup. These can be listed separately on ingredients lists, so many foods, even seemingly healthy ones like yogurt and cereal, may contain three or four different types of sweetener. If several sugars appear on the label, it’s an indication that the food is less healthy than you may think.

Buy unsweetened

Once you know where sugar hides, you can start making changes. One strategy: buy foods labeled “no added sugar” or “unsweetened.” You’ll find unsweetened versions of these common foods in most grocery stories: non-dairy milk like almond and soy, nut butters (look for those made with only nuts and salt), applesauce, oatmeal, and canned fruit (they should be packed in juice—not syrup).

Don’t go cold turkey

Going cold turkey on sugar isn’t realistic for most people. Thomsen suggests cutting back slowly. If you normally put two packets of sugar in your coffee, for instance, try one for a week, then half, and finally add only a splash of milk. For your yogurt, mix half a serving of sweetened yogurt with half a serving of plain, and eventually move on to adding natural sweetness with fresh fruit.

Think protein and fat

Unhealthy carbs loaded with sugar can cause blood sugar to rise rapidly (and dive just as quickly, leaving you hungry again). To minimize this rapid rise and fall, pair protein, healthy fats, and fiber with your meal, all of which can slow down the release of blood sugar in your body and keep you full for longer. (At breakfast, that means adding almonds to your usual oatmeal or pairing eggs with your morning toast, and for your midday snack, a slice of turkey breast or cheese along with your apple, suggests Thomsen.) Fats are a key player because they help keep you fuller for longer, thus helping to decrease your desire for sugar, adds Sanfilippo. Focus on fats like avocados, nuts, seeds, and heart-healthy oils like olive oil, walnut oil, and coconut oil.

Never go fake

When you’re reducing your sugar intake, you may be tempted to switch to artificial sugars for your sweet fix. But resist reaching for the diet soda, sugar-free candy, and packets of fake sugar in your latte. “These can mess up your taste for sweet,” says Sanfilippo. “When you eat something sweet, your body expects calories and nutrition, but artificial sugars don’t give your body those things.” That may be why fake sugars are associated with weight gain—not loss, according to a 2010 review in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

Add more flavor

Sanfilippo loves using vanilla bean and vanilla extract, spices, and citrus zests to add sweetness to foods without having to use sugar—and for zero calories. Order an unsweetened latte and add flavor with cocoa or vanilla powder. Skip the flavored oatmeal and add a sweet kick with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. One bonus for sprinkling on the cinnamon: according to a meta-analysis in the Journal of Medicinal Food, the spice has been shown to naturally regulate blood sugar, which helps control your appetite.

Don’t drink it

Avoiding soda is a good idea, but that’s not the only sugar-packed drink out there. Even drinks that are considered healthy can contain more of the sweet stuff than you’re supposed to have in an entire day. Case in point: “enhanced” waters (eight teaspoons per bottle), bottled iced teas (more than nine teaspoons per bottle), energy drinks (almost seven teaspoons per can), bottled coffee drinks (eight teaspoons per bottle), and store-bought smoothies (more than a dozen teaspoons—for a small).

Enjoy dessert

You can still indulge in an occasional sweet treat after you resolve to slash sugar. The idea is to avoid wasting your daily sugar quota on non-dessert foods like cereals, ketchup, and bread. To avoid overdoing it, set specific rules about when you may enjoy dessert: only after dinner on the weekends or at restaurants as a special treat, Thomsen suggests.

Stick with it!

At first, cutting down on sugar can feel like an impossible task. Eventually, though, your taste buds will adjust. Super-sweet foods like ice cream and candy will start to taste too sweet. When you could have a whole slice of cake before, now a couple bites will be enough. You’ll notice the natural sweetness in fruits and vegetables—and yep, they’ll taste better, too.

Source: Time

Innovative new treatment for depression offers hope to patients

depression

Depression is a serious medical condition that affects millions of Americans — and nearly twice as many women as men.

Symptoms can include persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and loss of interest in activities that were once pleasurable, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Other symptoms include feelings of guilt or worthlessness, irritability, changes in appetite, increased fatigue, difficulty concentrating — even recurrent thoughts of suicide.

About 12 million American women suffer from depression each year, women like Debi Lee. The pastor and mother of three tells NBC Special Anchor Maria Shriver that she was first diagnosed in high school, but her condition became debilitating after the birth of her children.

“It’s a struggle,” said Lee. “There’s definitely a stigma still. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I should be able to control this.”

Although depression is treatable, most commonly with medications or counseling, many never seek help, often because they are too embarrassed or ashamed.

“Depression is really a physical illness,” said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, a psychiatrist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at University of California, Los Angeles.

It’s a disorder that even can be seen in brain scans, with images clearly showing the difference between a normal functioning brain and the brain of someone suffering from depression.

“When you show this image to a person who’s struggling with depression and you show them that their brain looks different than the quote so-called healthy person, what’s their reaction?” Shriver asked.

“It’s commonly one of relief,” Leuchter said.

Now, Dr. Leuchter says there’s an innovative new treatment called synchronized transcranial magnetic stimulation, or sTMS, that may have the potential to provide relief. Dr. Leuchter, a consultant and stockholder in the company behind sTMS, says it syncs to each patient’s brain, then stimulates it with low levels of magnetic energy, 30 minutes a day for several weeks.

“And when that happens, normal moods can start to come back,” said Dr. Leuchter.

His unpublished study of 120 patients found the treatment significantly decreased depression in some patients, compared to the placebo. The treatment is currently being studied, but not yet approved for the public.

Dr. Matthew Rudorfer, associate director of treatment research for the National Institute of Mental Health, said sTMS “represents an exciting advance for people who don’t want to take medications, can’t take medications, or who do not respond to medications.”

Currently under FDA review, sTMS treatment is not yet approved for the public but might one day offer hope for patients with depression, such as Lee, who would like to be medication-free.

“It made me feel normal,” she said.

Source: today

Centenarians ‘outliving diseases of old age’

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Centenarians have found a way to beat the common diseases of old age, such as cancer and heart disease, research suggests.

The study by King’s College London found they were more likely to die of infections such as pneumonia, unlike younger groups of elderly people.

Researchers said 28% of 100- to 115-year-olds died of “old age” and a fifth of pneumonia. Cancer claimed the lives of fewer than 5% and heart disease fewer than 9%.

The study was based on an analysis of 36,000 death certificates. By comparison, these diseases were the most common reasons for death among the 80- to 84-year-old age group, with cancer responsible for 25% of deaths and heart disease nearly a fifth.

Boost high quality care
Lead researcher Dr Catherine Evans said the findings raised important questions for health and care services.

“Centenarians have outlived death from chronic illness, but they are a group living with increasing frailty and vulnerability to pneumonia and other poor health outcomes.

“We need to plan for healthcare services that meet the ‘hidden needs’ of this group, who may decline rapidly if they succumb to an infection or pneumonia.

“We need to boost high-quality care-home capacity and responsive primary and community health services to enable people to remain in a comfortable, familiar environment in their last months of life.”

The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, said this was going to become even more important as the number of centenarians increased.

According to latest Office for National Statistics data, there are more than 13,000 centenarians living in the UK, but by 2066 that number is expected to increase to more than 500,000.

The researchers pointed out that, in the UK, far fewer very old people ended up dying in care homes compared with other European countries, such as the Netherlands and Finland.

Dr Evans added: “Hospital admission in the last weeks of life accounts for a third of the total cost of end-of-life care per patient.”

Source: BBC news

Birth control pill for males will have to wait

rsfertilityrev

Much research is underway to find a safe and effective male contraceptive pill. Though it was speculated that a male contraceptive pill is just around the corner but now people will have to wait more. Researchers have found that hormonal male contraception via testosterone does not stop the production of healthy sperm.

Based on the study involving mice it was found out that a previously developed male hormonal oral contraceptive method (via testosterone) is unable to stop the production and/or the release of sperm.

Ilpo Huhtaniemi from the Imperial College of London in Britain said that, “Our research explains why the efficacy of male hormonal contraception is not as effective as expected and it provides clues on how to improve the method”.

Scientists demonstrated that the male contraception approach by testosterone has an inherent problem – spermatogenesis – where production of sperm from the primordial germ cells does not stop.

They found that administering increasing doses of testosterone to infertile mutant mice did allow sexual function to return at a certain dosing threshold which was expected.

What was not expected, however, is that spermatogenesis also returned at that dose. This suggests that it is impossible to give a single dose of testosterone that allows for sexual function and the suppression of pituitary gonadotropin secretion, but also does not initiate sperm production.

Source: zee news