Life, Health and Enjoyment

MEN!! Increase your sex hormones by diet

2019-01-10T00:39:00.002-08:00

At the risk of stating the snoringly obvious, testosterone is important for getting the most from your workouts. You see, testosterone is the most significant anabolic hormone in the body. The more of it you have floating around, the easier you'll be able to gain lean body mass and torch body fat. Although women produce less testosterone than men, finding ways to increase testosterone levels naturally can benefit both male and female physiques.

1. Shrimp

Casting your net for seafood like shrimp is a surefire way to boost your level of vitamin D, which has a strong link to the big T. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that men with higher levels of vitamin D also had higher levels of testosterone.

Unfortunately, many people have inadequate vitamin D levels during the in Maldives as well, which could cause your testosterone levels to take a nosedive.

Get even more vitamin D: Cod liver oil, herring, salmon, sardines, mackerel, free-range eggs

2. Pumpkin Seeds

These jack-o'-lantern castoffs are a good source of zinc, a mineral that plays a role in thousands of different enzymatic reactions in the body, including those involved in testosterone production. It's no major surprise, then, that a study published in "Nutrition" found that men with inadequate zinc intake had lower testosterone concentrations.

These jack-o'-lantern castoffs are a good source of zinc, a mineral that plays a role in thousands of different enzymatic reactions in the body, including those involved in testosterone production.

Sneak more testosterone-boosting pumpkin seeds into your diet by adding them to oatmeal, yogurt, and salads, and even blitz them into your protein shakes.

Get more zinc: Oysters, crab, turkey, chicken, steak, wheat germ, sesame seeds, cashews, lentils

3. Coconut

Paleo-worthy coconut can not only help your diet taste like a tropical vacation, it can also keep your T-score at healthy levels. That's because the giant nut is a source of saturated fat, which plays a role in testosterone production.

In a study published in "The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism," investigators found that healthy males who switched from their regular high-fat diet (13 percent saturated fat) to a low-fat diet (5 percent saturated fat) saw significant decreases in their testosterone levels.

While you shouldn't blend porterhouse steaks into your protein shakes, physique-minded individuals can obtain up to 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat to help keep testosterone at its peak without any major concern over increasing your risk of coronary woes.

Get more saturated fat: Butter, full-fat dairy, steak, lamb, red palm oil, chocolate

4. Wheat Bran

Who would have thought that low-brow wheat bran could help jack up your T-levels? But the fiber-rich bran of the wheat kernel is an excellent source of the mineral magnesium.

A study conducted by scientists in Turkey found that subjects with higher intakes of magnesium had increased testosterone swirling around. Of note, the study found that magnesium was more effective at bolstering testosterone if paired with high-intensity exercise.

Who would have thought that low-brow wheat bran could help jack up your T-levels?

Magnesium is required for hundreds of biochemical reactions in the body, and testosterone production is likely one of them. You can sneak more wheat bran in your diet by mixing it into oatmeal, pancake batter, and protein shakes.

Get more magnesium: Cocoa powder, almonds, whole grains, oat bran, sunflower seeds, peanut butter, beans

5. Ricotta Cheese

This lasagna staple is one of the best sources of whey protein in the dairy aisle, making it useful for muscle-minded guys and gals. A recent study by the white coats at the University of Connecticut discovered that subjects who supplemented with whey protein experienced lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol during recovery from lifting weights.

This lasagna staple is one of the best sources of whey protein in the dairy aisle, making it useful for muscle-minded guys and gals.

Whey is a milk protein that's especially rich in branched-chain amino acids, which appear to help blunt the cortisol response during periods of intense training. This is an important perk considering that cortisol can hinder sex hormone production, making it a testosterone-sapper that may also promote body fat storage.

Get more whey: Whey protein powder, milk, yogurt, kefir

6. Strawberries

These rosy berries are a leading source of vitamin C. This is good news for your fitness gains, since higher intakes of this potent antioxidant have been associated with lower testosterone-busting cortisol levels in response to hardcore workouts.

These rosy berries are a leading source of vitamin C.

Cortisol is a catabolic hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to stressful situations, including intense exercise. Unfortunately, cortisol competes with testosterone, so high levels can crowd out testosterone, thereby reducing its anabolic benefits.

Get more vitamin C: Kiwi, oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, red bell peppers, kale, tomatoes, broccoli

Reference: article taken from

https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/the-6-best-testosterone-boosting-foods.html

Reasons Why Your Hips Hurt

2018-09-23T00:51:00.004-07:00

Hips Don't lie

Inside the Joint

Each hip is a ball-and-socket joint. The ball is the top of your thighbone (femoral head). The socket (acetabulum) is in your pelvic bone. Smooth, slippery tissue called cartilage lets the ball and socket glide against each other when you move. A thin lining (synovium) tops the cartilage and makes a bit of synovial fluid, which further eases rubbing. Tendons, ligaments, and muscles complete the joint.

Osteoarthritis

It’s the “wear and tear” type of arthritis that many people get in middle age. Cartilage on the ball end of the thighbone and in the hip socket slowly breaks down and causes grinding between bones. You’ll have stiffness, and you might feel pain in your crotch and at the front of your thigh that radiates to your knee and behind. It’s often worse after a hard workout or when you don’t move for a while.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

With RA, your immune system attacks parts of your body, which can include the synovium. This normally thin lining starts to thicken and swell and to make chemicals that damage or destroy the cartilage that covers the bone. Doctors don’t know why this happens. When one hip is affected, the other often gets it too. The joint may hurt and swell, and you might notice heat and red skin around it.

Sciatica

Too much sitting and too little exercise, among other things, might irritate and inflame the sciatic nerve, the largest in the human body. It runs from the bottom of your spine through your hips and down the back of your leg, which is where you’ll feel the pain when it’s pinched. It will radiate from the hip and might be mild, sharp, tingly, numb, or even like an electric shock.

Hip Fracture

It’s a break in the top part of your thighbone. If you’re young and healthy, it takes a lot of power, like a serious car wreck, to do it. But if you’re over 65, especially if you’re a woman, or you have brittle bones (osteoporosis), even a minor fall can cause it. Your groin and the top, outer part of your thigh will likely hurt, especially when you try to flex the joint. In a complete break, one leg may look shorter than the other.

Dislocation

It happens when the ball on top your thighbone is knocked out of its pelvic socket. It usually takes a lot of force, as when you fall from a ladder or crash a car. All that power often causes other injuries like tissue tears, bone fractures, and could even damage nerves, cartilage, and blood vessels. Get to a hospital. It’s very painful, and you won’t be able to move your leg much, if at all, until your doctor starts to treat it.

Bursitis

It’s when fluid-filled sacs, or “bursae,” that ease friction between muscle, tendons, and bones get irritated and swollen. It can happen on the outside bony part of your hip (trochanteric bursitis), where it causes sharp, intense pain that dulls and spreads out over time. Less often, it happens on the inside (hip bursitis), where it causes pain in the groin. Either may worsen when you walk, squat, or climb stairs.

Labral Tear

You can damage the cartilage at the bony edge of your hip socket that helps keep the joint together. You could injure it suddenly in a twisting fall or an accident, or you might simply wear it away with the same motion over time. You might feel clicking sensations and have pain in your groin or hip. You’re more likely to get it if you play ice hockey, soccer, football, or golf.

Hip Strain

It’s when you overstretch or tear any of the muscles and tendons that help your hip joint move. (It’s a “sprain” when it happens to a ligament.) It could affect lots of muscles like your hip flexors, glutes, abductors, adductors, quadriceps, and hamstrings. The area might swell, weaken, and hurt, especially when you use it. Rest, ice, and over-the-counter pain relievers are often enough to get you healthy again.

RICE: Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate

It’s a good first step for any hip pain. Rest, but don’t stop all movements (that could make things worse), just the ones that hurt. Ice for 20 minutes at a time, and use a cloth so you won’t damage your skin. Compress the painful area with an elastic bandage, but not too much. Loosen it up if you see skin turning blue. Elevate the injured part on a pillow or stool to stop blood from pooling there.

Medications

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, are often used to lessen pain and inflammation for arthritis and other painful hip problems. Most are pills, but creams and gels are also available. Your doctor can help you treat more serious pain and underlying conditions with corticosteroids, pain relievers, and drugs to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

When to Go to the Doctor

If home care doesn't curb your pain, make an appointment with your doctor. Ask someone to drive you to the emergency room if an injury caused your hip pain and your hip doesn’t look normal, or you can’t move your leg or put weight on it. You should also go to the ER if you have intense pain, sudden swelling, or any sign of infection like fever, chills, and red skin.

Prevention

Some of the same things that help treat hip pain can make it less likely for you to get it in the first place. For example, if you're overweight, losing even a few pounds may ease stress on the joint. Exercise (ask your doctor about the right amount) can also help. Take it easy. Start with a warmup and stretch, stop when something hurts, wear the right shoes, and seek soft surfaces like hiking trails, not hard ones like asphalt and concrete.

Permitted non-hormonal performance-enhancing substances

2017-10-29T23:10:00.003-07:00

What? Performance enhancers?

For decades athletes and non-athletes have been using performance-enhancing drugs/supplements> However most of the time the news flash comes when a competitive athlete is caught using banned hormonal & non-hormonal substances.

They can be broadly classified as:

Stimulants
Prescription medications
Blood buffers
Nutritional supplements
Energy beverages

STIMULANTS

They are both physical and cognitive performance enhancers.

Beneficial effects include increase in:

Energy level,
Endurance,
Anaerobic performance, r
Reaction time,
Concentration, and alertness.

Adverse effects include

Headache,
Nausea,
Insomnia,
Anxiety,
Tremor,
Agitation,
Panic attacks,
Hypertension, and tachycardia.

Rarely, stimulants may cause myocardial ischemia, stroke, psychosis, heatstroke, or rhabdomyolysis.

While many stimulants (eg, methylhexanamine, amphetamine, oxilofrine) are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a number are permitted and some are only monitored (eg, phenylephrine, synephrine, caffeine, bupropion).

Caffeine?

Caffeine was included on the prohibited list from 1980 to 2003, but as of 2016, caffeine is only included on the WADA monitoring list. Athletes may ingest caffeine as part of their diet or as a supplement.

Caffeine appears to improve exercise capacity during prolonged submaximal exercise (>90 minutes), sustained high-intensity training (20 to 60 minutes), and even short-duration, high-intensity exercise (1 to 5 minutes) .

Caffeine supplementation is therefore likely to have performance benefits for a wide range of sports, ranging from extended endurance events to field and court sports involving short bursts of activity.

Research has demonstrated improved reaction times and delayed fatigue in simulated taekwondo competition , and improved performance in tennis.

The effects of caffeine on high-intensity, single event sports, such as Olympic weightlifting, high or long jumping, sprinting, and throwing (eg, discus, javelin) are not known, although there may be benefit during multiple attempts.

Traditionally, caffeine was taken as a single dose of 6 mg/kg body weight one hour before exercise, but smaller doses (1 to 3 mg/kg body weight) have been shown to have an ergogenic effect.

No specific dose for eliciting an ergogenic effect during endurance exercise has been defined, but it is thought to be no more than 200 mg total.

Coffee, tea, and cola drinks provide approximately 50 to 150 mg caffeine, but products such as caffeine tablets and some energy drinks contain much higher amounts.

Caffeine's mechanism of action remains unclear, and there is significant variation in individual athlete's responses. It is rapidly absorbed (approximately 99 percent is absorbed within 45 minutes) and peak blood concentrations are seen within about one hour of ingestion, with these levels maintained for three to four hours. When consumed in beverages, caffeine is absorbed rapidly from the gastrointestinal tract and distributed throughout body water. The most rapid absorption occurs by chewing gum or using preparations containing caffeine that allow the compound to be absorbed directly via the oral mucosa [8]. Oral contraceptive use can double the half-life of caffeine via its effects on hepatic microsomal enzyme systems.

Caffeine has a complex range of actions, including:

●Stimulation of adrenaline release

●Increased cardiac muscle inotropy

●Increased skeletal muscle contractility

●Decreased perceived effort and fatigue

●Sparing glycogen and mobilizing fat (although this effect appears to be short lived and inconsistent)

Caffeine is considered safe and in many cultures high daily caffeine intake is the norm. Moderate, daily caffeine intake does not appear to cause dehydration, as was once thought [9,10]. After repeated use, tolerance can develop for some of caffeine's effects, such as its stimulant properties, but the lipolytic actions are not affected.

The effects of caffeine supplementation are variable. Non-responders exist, as do individuals who are more sensitive to caffeine's effects, and who may experience irritability, tremor, sleep impairment, and tachycardia even at low doses. Rarely, individuals experience exaggerated side effects such as nervousness and anxiety that impair performance and they should avoid use. Caffeine withdrawal can cause fatigue and headaches, which may be deleterious to the competing athlete.

Caffeine is used widely among athletes in many sports (eg, distance running, cross-country ski racing) and among military personnel to increase alertness and for other purposes. Among elite distance runners (who drink cooled coffee or diluted soft drink), there is anecdotal evidence that caffeine improves performance near the 20 mile/30 km mark in marathons, possibly due to the glycogen sparing effect, which has increased its popularity for endurance events, including running and cycling.

Ok, so you just wonder how much caffeine is in your system today? and how can you optimise your caffeine and performance.

In the coming articles I will address more in to other substances. Take care for now..

Source:
Uptodate.com

Pregnancy and diet

2017-10-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

Is your diet prior to being pregnant important?

Well researchers and health experts say that it is. As the diet which you were taking before you were pregnant, determines your usual diet plan. Depending on that, the health care professional can assess and recommend to you what is missing in your diet and what needs to be changed.

Did you ever stop to consider what you are eating, when you want to get pregnant? Or when you misses your periods, you just go to the pharmacy and buy a pregnancy test kit and wait for it to show to bars?

Well, if you are thinking to do the above, you seriously need to consider your day to day diet plan when you plan for a child. However, Eighty-five million pregnancies, representing 40% of all pregnancies, were unintended in 2012. Of these 38% resulted in an unplanned birth1. So there is a high chance that your pregnancy falls in to this 40%.

Nevertheless, a good diet plan and a healthy life style won't do harm right? whether you have planned for a baby or not!

So lets fill the questionnaire below and see how good is your pre-pregnancy diet.

Pre-pregnancy diet questionnaire

Afterwards I will mail you the results and suggestions for your diet.

;)

Source:
uptodate.com

Hello all my blog buddies...

2017-10-26T22:28:00.001-07:00

Hello there everyone...

It has been a long time since I posted.

Last few years were the years of studies, without social life, with lots of knowledge pouring in from the Professors & of course from the sources of evidences for the current practised evidence based medicine.

For those who don't know or has forgotten 😄, I am Dr. Mohamed Ali. I finished my Basic Medical Qualification from Ukraine, and completed my specialist training in the field of Internal Medicine from Nepal.

Just 1 year back I was like this in the pic below.

With over 106Kg, well its a little overweight, don't you think?

Well it was around 1 year back. Since then, with 2 of my colleagues & with the help of my wife: we started the journey to lose fat & build muscle. During the studies it was hard, & initial days were very hard. Because once you go to studies, your diet is out of control. Lunch is usually provided at the hospital, most of the time it is a Biryani/Momo/ or some high calorie stuff.

And when you come back, your wife will think you haven't taken any good stuff at hospital, she will prepare something good/tasty/irresistable.

Well, then after a lot of hard work, with a lot of sweat & with a lot of research, I managed to look like this in 11 months. Take a look at the below pic with around 83kg of muscle & frankly I don't know the fat %.

For those who want to lose weight, or build muscle. I will share my experience & research in to this field in future blogs. And for those who are interested to know about how much weight I lost, its around 23 kg.

Hope to see you all around...

Specific UV light kills MRSA without damaging human tissue

2016-06-09T23:08:00.001-07:00

Infections following surgery are a serious and potentially fatal complication. Current methods of combatting infections, especially drug-resistant pathogens, often fall short. New research, looking at a narrow band of ultraviolet light might offer a safe and simple solution.

Far-UVC light could prove to be a life-saver.

A clean surgery refers to an operation carried out in a sterile environment where no inflammation, infection, or unexpected tissue damage occurs.

Even in these ideal situations, an estimated 0.5-10 percent of procedures result in surgical-site infections (SSI).

That equates to around 275,000 patients in the United States per year. Individuals with SSIs have a mortality rate twice that of someone without an infection.

A patient with an SSI stays in hospital, on average, 1 week longer than someone without an infection. In total, SSIs cost the U.S. up to $10 billion a year in patient hospital costs.

An estimated 8,200 deaths are attributed to SSIs each year in the U.S.

Efforts to reduce the number of infections have had limited success; with the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the problem shows no signs of slowing, and some scientists are concerned that the issue may worsen.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have turned their attention to ultraviolet (UV) light as a way to fight these surgical invaders.

Far-UVC and MRSA

Scientists have known for some time that UV light has the ability to kill bacteria, even pathogens like MRSA, referred to as "superbugs." However, the UV lamps required for this type of treatment also pose a significant health threat to patients and medical staff. They can cause a number of health issues, most often damaging the eyes and skin. For instance, UV light is known to induce skin cancer and cataracts.

Over the last few years, researchers led by David J. Brenner, Ph.D., have investigated narrower bands of UV light to find an alternative that is still toxic to pathogens (cytotoxic), but safe for human skin and eyes.

Brenner decided to investigate "far-UVC light," a narrow band of UV light with a wavelength of around 200 nanometers.

They chose this specific range of light because it cannot penetrate the dead layer of skin that coats living, growing skin, or the outer layer of the eye. Light of wavelengths around 200 nanometers is safely absorbed by proteins and other molecules in the skin and is unable to reach the nucleus of the cells.

However, bacterial cells are 10-25 times smaller than human cells and, therefore, still susceptible to the far-UVC's damaging rays.

Far-UVC and skin safety

In a previous study, the team found that this far-UVC light is just as effective at killing MRSA as conventional germicidal UV light. The positive results spurred the team on to investigate whether this range of wavelength might be beneficial in a clinical setting.

Although Brenner and his team had previously shown that far-UVC light did not seem to cause damage in a 3-D model of human skin, they wanted to investigate its effects on living skin. To do this, they used hairless mice, whose skin is known to respond in a very similar way to humans'.

The findings demonstrated that far-UVC light did not damage healthy skin cells.

"Our findings offer a potential practical pathway towards significantly reducing surgical site infection rates without risk to the health and safety of patients and medical personnel."

David J. Brenner, Ph.D., lead author

Next, the team plans to extend this research to surgical settings and larger animals, including humans. Further down the line, they hope to investigate the use of far-UVC in the battle against airborne pathogens, such as tuberculosis and influenza.

If results of the next phases of trials are successful, they could herald a safer, more cost-effective way of managing infections and pathogens in a number of settings. The authors are quick to note that far-UVC light will not completely remove the risk of SSIs, but they also hope that it will save a significant amount of time, money and, most importantly, lives.

Source:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/310818.php

Smoking Causes Diabetes

2014-01-29T08:54:00.001-08:00

Active smokers have a 30% to 40% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared with nonsmokers, according to new data published in the Surgeon General's 50-year anniversary report on smoking.

The Health Consequences of Smoking — 50 Years of Progress , announced at the White House last Friday by current acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak, MD, MPH, highlights diabetes as one of several new diseases causally linked to smoking.

Newer studies have controlled for those and other co founders and have also demonstrated a dose-response relationship, as well as a reduction in diabetes risk following smoking cessation.

So now, the Surgeon General report concludes: "The evidence is sufficient to infer that cigarette smoking is a cause of diabetes."

"The link between smoking and diabetes is really interesting," Serena Tonstad, MD, PhD, MPH, professor at the School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, California, told Medscape Medical News.

Epidemiologic and Biological Evidence

The new report includes a meta-analysis, which updates a 2007 systemic review by adding a further 24 studies. All were prospective cohort studies, and none included individuals who already had diabetes at baseline. In all, the meta-analysis included over 3.9 million subjects, of whom 140,813 subsequently developed diabetes.

The various studies adjusted for many potential confounders, including age, body mass index, physical activity, diet, alcohol consumption, family history of diabetes, gender, race/ethnicity, and educational level.
Compared with nonsmokers, the smokers had a pooled risk ratio for developing type 2 diabetes of 1.37.

Stronger associations were seen in studies that used blood glucose measures to assess the presence of diabetes, rather than in those that relied on patient or physician reports.

A dose-response analysis provides further proof of direct causation. Compared with never-smokers, the relative risk for developing diabetes increased with smoking intensity from 1.14 for former smokers to 1.25 for light smokers (0 – 19 or 0 – 15 cigarettes/day in the various studies) to 1.54 for heavy smokers ( > 15 or > 20), all statistically significant.

A third line of evidence for causation comes from 4 studies on smoking cessation. One review found improved insulin sensitivity among individuals who quit smoking, despite weight gain.

Another large study found that the risk of incident type 2 diabetes among those who quit smoking actually increased in the short term but fell to that of never-smokers by 12 years after cessation, while another found that the risk fell to that of never-smokers after 5 years for women and 10 years for men.
Due to "limited evidence," however, the report does not discuss the effects of passive smoking on diabetes or the adverse effects of smoking on the development of diabetic complications.

But the new Surgeon General's report does provide several possible biologic mechanisms for the causal connection between smoking cigarettes and the development of type 2 diabetes.

For one, smoking promotes central obesity, a well-established risk factor for insulin resistance and diabetes. This effect may be related to higher cortisol concentrations and the differential effect of smoking on sex hormones, the data indicate.

Smoking also increases inflammatory markers and oxidative stress, both implicated in the development of insulin resistance and abnormal glucose metabolism.
And both human and animal studies have found functional nicotinic receptors on pancreatic islet and beta cells. Nicotine could, at least in part, reduce the release of insulin via islet-cell receptors. Animal studies also suggest that prenatal or neonatal exposure to nicotine can cause beta-cell dysfunction and apoptosis, according to the report. Source:
medscape.com
The Health Consequences of Smoking — 50 Years of Progress. published online January 17, 2014.
Report

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) and Onychomadesis

2013-02-27T02:14:00.001-08:00

Introduction

Nails are underutilized as diagnostic tools, despite being involved in many dermatologic conditions. This paper explores new concepts in the treatment of median nail dystrophy (MND), onychomycosis, and the nail pathology of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). A Pubmed database literature search was conducted for MND treatment, onychomycosis treatment, and HFMD nail pathology. Only papers published after January 2008 were reviewed. The results showed that 0.1% tacrolimus ointment can be an effective treatment for MND. Early studies on laser therapy indicate that it is a safe and efficacious treatment option for onychomycosis, compared to conventional oral antifungal agents. Vicks VapoRub (The Proctor & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH) is effective against onychomycosis and is a reasonable option in patients who choose to forgo conventional treatments. Lastly, there is evidence to support a correlation between HFMD and onychomadesis.

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) and onychomadesis

HFMD is usually caused by coxsackievirus A 16. Less commonly, it is caused by coxsackievirus A4, A5, A6, A7, A9, A10, A24, B2 to B5, enterovirus 71, and echoviruses.

All are RNA viruses and they spread by fecal-oral and respiratory routes. Spread to other family members commonly occurs.

HFMD is characterized by vesicular stomatitis and cutaneous lesions on the palms and soles. The disease has an incubation period of 3 to 6 days . There is usually a mild prodrome consisting of low-grade fever, anorexia, sore mouth, and malaise. Children younger than 10 years are most commonly affected. Oral lesions occur chiefly on the anterior buccal mucosa and tongue, where the vesicular surfaces are eroded rapidly, leaving ulcers with erythematous borders.

The lesions on the palms and soles are papules or vesicles on a surrounding zone of erythema. Less commonly, the dorsal or lateral surfaces of the hands and feet may also been affected. Involvement of the buttocks is common, but typically there is a lack of vesiculation.

The eruptions are nonpruritic and usually resolve without crusting. The association between HFMD and onychomadesis was first proposed by Clementz and Mancini in 2000 and Bernier et al. in 2001. Onychomadesis is the spontaneous separation of the nail plate from the matrix starting at the proximal edge and is the result of the temporary cessation of nail formation. Recently, authors in Spain and Finland have brought forth evidence to solidify the association between these conditions.

A study of an outbreak of HFMD in daycare centers and schools during the fall of 2008 in Finland led to one characteristic feature being found amongst the infected population: shedding of the nail plate approximately 1-2 months after the onset of classic HFMD symptoms. Redondo et al. documented a similar onychomadesis observation during an HFMD outbreak in Valencia, Spain in the winter of 2008. Fifteen children and one adult presented with nail changes consistent with onychomadesis, a mean of 6 weeks after the clinical diagnosis of HFMD. The nail changes were temporary with spontaneous normal regrowth in 1–4 months.

Clustered and sporadic HFMD cases, followed by onychomadesis (nail shedding), occurred during summer and fall 2008 in Valencia, Spain. Fecal samples from onychomadesis patients, who did or did not have previous HFMD, and from healthy children exposed to onychomadesis patients tested positive for EV.

The complete viral protein 1 capsid gene sequence was obtained for typing and phylogenetic analysis. Two EV serotypes, coxsackievirus A10 and coxsackievirus B1 (CVB1), were mainly detected as a monoinfection or co-infection in a childcare center where an onychomadesis outbreak occurred. On the basis of our results, and detection of CVB1 in 2 other contemporary onychomadesis outbreaks in childcare centers in Spain, we propose that mixed infection of an EV serotype that causes HFMD, plus the serotype CVB1, could explain the emergence after HFMD of onychomadesis, a rare and late complication.

Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3302018/

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/12/11-0395_article.htm

FDA: 5 Death Reports for Monster Energy Drink

2012-11-25T17:30:00.000-08:00

The FDA is investigating reports of five deaths and a nonfatal heart attack in people who drank high-caffeine energy drinks made by the Monster Energy Company.

Meanwhile, a Maryland couple has filed a wrongful death suit against the company, alleging that their product killed their 14-year-old daughter. They say Anais Fournier, 14, collapsed after drinking her second 24-ounce Monster Energy drink in two days. She died six days later.

The reports are not proof that the drinks caused the deaths, but merely signal there might be a problem. Even if the deaths are determined to be caused by caffeine poisoning, the FDA will consider all sources of caffeine before blaming the deaths on the energy drink.

In addition to caffeine, energy drinks contain other stimulants, including taurine and guarana, a caffeine-containing plant.

Because energy drinks are sold as nutritional supplements, they are not regulated as foods. This means they may exceed the FDA-mandated limit of 71 milligrams of caffeine for a 12-ounce soda.

"FDA continues to evaluate the emerging science on a variety of ingredients, including caffeine," FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said in an email.

The reports aren't the first health warnings about energy drinks. Last year, the U.S. Drug Abuse Warning Network reported a tenfold spike in emergency-room visits involving energy drinks. In some 70% of cases involving teens ages 12 to 17, the energy-drink itself -- not drugs or alcohol -- was the main reason for going to the ER.

Last year, researchers at the University of Miami reviewed the health effects of energy drinks on children, teens, and young adults.

Writing in the journal Pediatrics, they concluded that "energy drinks have no therapeutic benefit" and that "these drinks may put some children at risk for serious adverse health effects."
These "health effects" include irregular heart rhythms and, in children who may have hidden heart risks, sudden death.

Monster Energy Sued Over Death of Teen

In their lawsuit, Fournier's parents report that their daughter bought and drank a 24-ounce can of Monster Energy at a local candy store. The next day, she bought another one and drank it, too.

A few hours later, Anais Fournier's heart stopped. An ambulance took her to the hospital. She was put into an induced coma in an effort to keep her brain alive. But six days later -- on Christmas Eve 2011 -- she died.

The lawsuit notes that Monster Energy does not list the amount of caffeine in Monster Energy. It estimates that each of the two cans the girl drank contained 240 mg of caffeine. Recommended teen and child doses of caffeine should not exceed 100 mg per day; adults should have no more than 400 mg per day.

The lawsuit claims Monster Energy is a dangerous product, that its maker failed to warn consumers of any risk, and that the company is negligent in marketing the product to teens and young adults.

In a news release, Monster Beverage Corp. states that it stands by the safety of its products. “Monster is saddened by the untimely passing of Anais Fournier, and its sympathies go out to her family. Monster does not believe that its products are in any way responsible for the death of Ms. Fournier and intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit. ... Neither the science nor the facts support the allegations that have been made. Monster reiterates that its products are and have always been safe.”

The American Beverage Association, the trade group that represents the soft drink industry, notes that Monster Energy has never been an ABA member.

However, the group notes that energy drinks' "ingredients and labeling comply with all U.S. FDA requirements."

The ABA and its members have developed voluntary guidelines for labeling and marketing energy drinks. The guidelines say ABA members that make energy drinks should:

Identify on their labels the amount of caffeine from all sources in the beverage.
Not promote mixing energy drinks with alcohol or claim that energy drinks counteract the effects of alcohol.
Advise on their labels that energy drinks are not intended or recommended for children, pregnant or nursing women, or others sensitive to the effects of caffeine.
Not market energy drinks as sports drinks.
Not market or sell energy drinks in elementary, middle, or high schools.
Not market energy drinks to children.

Fasting May Not Be Needed Before Cholesterol Test

2012-11-22T04:39:00.002-08:00

The requirement to fast before a cholesterol check can be a major inconvenience.

People who forget to fast may be told to reschedule their appointments. For those who remember, sitting in a doctor's waiting room with a growling stomach can make for a rough start to the day.

Now a large new study shows that cholesterol levels aren't radically different in people who ate compared to those who fasted before their blood was drawn.

The study, which is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that people may not need to fast before they get a cholesterol test.

Experts who were not involved in the research called the results an eye-opener.
"This information is actually very, very interesting. It might change how we approach a patient," says Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Fasting and Cholesterol

For the study, researchers looked at the results of all the cholesterol tests processed at the same lab during a six-month stretch in 2011. Because the lab does all the testing for the entire city of Calgary, Canada, that amounted to test results for more than 200,000 people. Doctors also recorded how long it had been since the patient had last eaten.

When researchers broke down the results by fasting time, they found little change. Overall, total cholesterol and HDL "good" cholesterol varied by less than 2%, depending on when a person had last eaten. Total cholesterol and HDL are important because they are the main measures used to calculate a person's risk for heart-related events.

LDL "bad" cholesterol was less than 10% different in people who'd recently eaten compared to those who had been fasting for at least eight hours.

Triglycerides, or blood fats, were the most sensitive to food. They varied by no more than 20% between people who had fasted and those who had not.

Study Limitations

Because the study is just a snapshot in time, it has important limitations. It doesn't prove that cholesterol levels don't change significantly before and after a meal for individual patients.
Researchers say the small differences noted in the study may matter for some, including those who are taking specific medications to lower their cholesterol or triglycerides. Those patients may still need fasting tests.
But for many others, eating may not make a difference.
"For routine screening, we're suggesting that a 2% variance probably isn't going to be significant," says Christopher Naugler, MD, MSc, chief of clinical pathology at the University of Calgary, Canada.
Other experts agree.

No Fasting Needed?

"I think we've just taken for granted that we should do fasting for lipid testing," says Samia Mora, MD, a preventive cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston.
Mora wrote a commentary on the study, but was not involved in the research.
She says the requirement to fast before a cholesterol test was based on very small studies where researchers fed subjects very high-fat or high-sugar meals.
"Most people aren't having big fat loads before they get their lipids measured," she says.

Currently, guidelines still recommend that people not eat before a cholesterol test. But Mora says a growing body of evidence suggests that fasting isn't necessary.

"We've had several studies now that have all found the same thing," she says.

Source; Rxlist

First At-Home HIV Test

2012-07-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

The FDA has approved the first at-home, over-the-counter HIV test, which could potentially inform thousands of Americans about their HIV status.

The OraQuick In-Home HIV Test can detect antibodies of the virus from a saliva sample. It can provide results without a laboratory in 20 to 40 minutes.

About 1.2 million people in the U.S. are infected with HIV, and an estimated 20% of those infected are unaware that they are HIV-positive, according to the CDC.

The outcome of the test isn't definite or absolute, especially when exposure may have been within the past three months. Clinical studies expect one in 12 tests to read a false negative and one in 5,000 tests to read a false positive. At an FDA Advisory Committee meeting in May, officials said they thought an additional 45,000 people would learn they have HIV through the test.

FDA officials said the test will offer a different testing method for many unknowingly HIV-positive Americans that are unlikely to get tested at clinics and other screening centers.

"The availability of a home-use HIV test kit provides another option for individuals to get tested so that they can seek medical care, if appropriate," Karen Midthun, MD, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says in a news release.

An estimated 50,000 Americans are infected with HIV each year, and the resulting AIDS condition claims 14,000 lives annually, according to the CDC.

The test is made by OraSure Technologies and will be available in October. The company will have a consumer support center available to help users with using the kit and understanding the results. Although no price has been set, a company official said in May that he expected the price to be lower than $60.

New, Noninvasive Paternity Test Developed

2012-05-08T10:54:00.002-07:00

Identify the father of a baby as early as the eighth week of pregnancy.

The new method, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, uses fetal DNA isolated from the mother's blood.

The test has already been used to prove an affair in a murder trial, and experts say it has other significant medical and legal applications.

"The technology is extremely important and really a very, very significant step forward for medical prenatal diagnosis," says Peter Benn, PhD, director of the diagnostic medical genetics laboratories at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. He was not involved in the research.

A previous study by the same researchers showed how the test could be used early in pregnancy to determine whether a fetus has Down syndrome, for example.
"That technology will allow genetic disorders to be identified without going through amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. That's a very important and useful step forward because those tests are not without some degree of risk to the fetus," Benn says.

Amniocentesis, in which a small sample of fluid that surrounds the fetus is removed and analyzed, and chorionic villus sampling, in which a small piece of tissue from the placenta is removed and analyzed, can cause infections, miscarriages, and birth defects. These tests are not able to be done before 10 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.
"Before we could only rely on tests that were invasive and could only be done later in pregnancy," says Jill Rabin, MD, chief of ambulatory care, obstetrics, and gynecology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

"Here you have a blood test with the possibility of giving you an answer so that a woman can decide whether to proceed with a pregnancy or not based on the results of a noninvasive test. That is, right there, a tremendous utility," says Rabin, who was not involved in the research. "This is really cutting-edge stuff. It's very exciting."

Finding Fetal DNA in Mom's Blood

The new test overcomes several significant obstacles.

The first is that while researchers have long known that fetal DNA is present in the mother's blood, they believed it was floating around in such tiny amounts that it was almost impossible to find and analyze.

One of the reasons it was thought to be so rare, says researcher Ravinder Dhallan, MD, PhD, chairman and chief executive of Ravgen Diagnostics in Columbia, Md., is that the mother's blood cells easily burst when blood samples are drawn, which dilutes the fetal DNA.

By mixing a fixative agent into the blood sample, Dhallan says he was able to isolate enough fetal DNA so that it could be tested.

"What we realized was that if you add any fixative, it makes the mother's white blood cells, instead of being like water balloons that easily burst, they become more like ping pong balls that are stiff and won't burst," says Dhallan. "Now you've got 25% fetal DNA instead of 1% fetal DNA" in the blood.

A sample of DNA from a suspected father can then confirm or exclude paternity.

By looking at the baby's DNA, researchers are able to spot places where the gene sequences are different from the mother's by only one letter. That letter will match the father's DNA.

When researchers tested 30 blood samples from biologic mothers and fathers who were grouped with unrelated men, they say they were able to correctly identify paternity in every case.

According to Ravgen's web site, the technology was used in 2009 to help prove that Michael A. Roseboro, who was on trial for his wife's murder, had fathered a baby with another woman. Prosecutors argued that the affair was motive for the murder.

Dhallen says he was motivated to develop the paternity test after being contacted by women who were eager to prove paternity and uncertain about whether to continue their pregnancies after situations involving violence, including rape.

"There are so many situations where people need to identify the paternity before the baby is born that are social, medical, and legal," he says.

Source:
rxlist.com

Obesity Linked to Poor Mother-Toddler Bond

2012-01-04T00:41:00.000-08:00

Tods who have a poor relationship with their moms are more likely to be obese by the time they turn 15, a new study shows.

So just how does a toddler's less-than-stellar relationship with mom affect risk for being obese as a teen?

The reasons are not fully understood, but study researchers suggest these toddlers, when coping with stress, may begin to use food as a source of comfort in place of mom at a very early age. The findings appear in the January 2012 issue of Pediatrics.

One thing, however, is clear: Childhood obesity rates in the U.S. are getting higher. As it stands, about 1 in 3 children in the U.S. are overweight or obese and this includes pre-schoolers. This suggests that whatever is causing the uptick starts pretty early.

Relationship With Mom May Play Role in Childhood Obesity

Researchers analyzed close to 1,000 toddlers' emotional bonds with their moms at 15 months, 2, and 3 years of age. They measured mom's sensitivity during 15-minute videotaped play sessions. Maternal sensitivity refers to a mother's ability to know what her child is feeling and respond with comfort, consistency, and warmth.

The researchers also looked for signs of “secure attachment” among toddlers. This means that an infant or toddler sees mom as a safe home base.

Toddlers who had moms with low sensitivity to their needs and who overall had the poorest-quality relationship with their moms were twice as likely to be obese at age 15, the results show.

“This study provides evidence that paying attention to the quality of the relationship between parents and children could impact children's weight status,” says researcher Sarah E. Anderson, PhD. She is an epidemiologist at the Ohio State University College of Public Health in Columbus. The results “underscore the importance of early childhood for obesity prevention.”
Can Proper Parenting Prevent Child Obesity?

It's possible that some changes in early parenting style may help prevent obesity, says Laurie Miller Brotman, PhD. She is a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry and the director of the Harris Obesity Prevention Effort at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City.

“Good-quality parenting is important for many things, including physical health,” she says. “These findings, as well as the failure of the programs that try to teach kids about what to eat and tell them to exercise more, suggest that the fundamentals of parenting can make a difference.”

These fundamentals include effective limit setting, discipline, and not using foods -- particularly fattening ones like ice cream -- as rewards.

Such parenting will help kids regulate their own emotions and develop coping strategies. “You don't have to use food to cope if you know what to do when you are stressed out,” Brotman tells WebMD.

It's never too early to start developing these skills.

Alan Delamater, PhD, is a professor of pediatrics and psychology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He says the study findings "add to our knowledge about what can affect whether kids become overweight or obese.”

The new study results make sense given the prevalence of obesity in preschoolers, he says.

What is missing is the “black box,” he says. “We need to figure out how the early mother-child relationship affects risk for becoming overweight or obese.”

“It is likely that these children begin eating to soothe themselves starting at very young ages,” Delamater says. “We know that packing on excess weight or fat at an early age makes someone more likely to be overweight or obese as they grow up.”

Source:
rxlist.com

Study Finds Bacteria in Unused Paper Towels

2012-01-04T00:22:00.000-08:00

Recycled Paper Towels Had the Highest Bacterial Counts

Grabbing a paper towel in a public restroom may leave more on your hands than you bargained for.

Researchers say they've found bacteria, including some that are known to make people sick, in unused paper towels. They also found that those bacteria could be transferred to hands after washing.

The study is published in the American Journal of Infection Control. It did not find any illnesses connected to paper towel use.

Experts say the findings are probably most important for people in hospital isolation units and those with weakened immune function who need to be extra cautious about contact with germs.
Germs Lurk in Paper Towels

Researchers at Laval University in Canada tested six brands of commercial paper towels -- the kind doled out in many public bathrooms.

They found bacteria in all of them, but the towels made from recycled fibers were the most heavily contaminated.

“In our study, the concentration of bacteria in the recycled paper was between 100- to 1,000-fold higher than the virgin wood pulp brand,” the researchers write.

Bacterial slime is known to be a problem at recycled paper mills, where it corrodes machines and may damage finished paper sheets.

Researchers say the new paper towel finding fits with other studies that have noted high bacterial counts in other kinds of recycled paper products.

Bacteria may thrive in recycled paper because it contains binding ingredients like starches and fillers that serve as food.

Most of the bacteria found in paper towels were Bacillus bacteria. Many Bacillus strains can produce toxins that cause food poisoning.

One brand of paper towel contained Bacillus cereus bacteria. In addition to food poisoning, B. cereus has been associated with infections of the eyes, lungs, blood, and central nervous system.

Although the found amounts of B. cereus probably wouldn't harm healthy people, researchers note it may be more dangerous for people who have weakened immune systems, like babies and the elderly, and for people who take medications that suppress their immune function.

Germ experts said the study was an eye-opener.

“These findings are interesting in that we do not think of paper towels as being contaminated,” says Elizabeth Scott, PhD, who is co-director of the Center for Hygiene and Health in Home and Community at Simmons College in Boston.

Scott says the study also made her curious about bacteria in other kinds of paper products.

“It makes me wonder about kitchen towels. These are put to all kinds of uses in direct contact with food, for example, covering and wrapping food,” she says. “And what about facial tissues, which come into close contact with our eyes and noses?”

Advice for Consumers

Scott and other experts note that the study did not find paper towels caused anyone to get sick.

Until more is known, experts agree that this one study shouldn't be a reason for healthy people to avoid paper towels.

“People shouldn't think that it's better not to wash their hands if they only have paper towels available to dry them,” says Angela Golden, DNP, who is president-elect of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

She says 20 seconds with soap and water is still the rule, especially after activities that dramatically increase exposure to germs, like handing raw meat.

Golden says air dryers, if they're available, may be the healthiest and most environmentally responsible option of all.

Source:
rxlist.com

Johnson & Johnson baby shampoos contain carcinogens

2011-11-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

Carcinogenic substances were found in children's shampoos by Johnson & Johnson. The lab research of the goods was conducted under the order from US-based non-commercial association Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

The independent laboratory analyzed a series of cosmetic products for children produced by Johnson & Johnson.

Dioxane and quaternium-15 were found in Johnson's Baby and Johnson's Baby Wheat Extract shampoos as well as in Johnson's Baby bubble bath, Independent News Bureau said.

Dioxane is a potentially carcinogenic substance. Quaternium-15 is an antibacterial additive, which emits formaldehyde. The latter is internationally recognized as a carcinogen.

Having received the results of the analysis, spokespeople for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics addressed the administration of Johnson & Johnson. The specialists asked the company to refuse from the use of the above-mentioned substances in the cosmetic products for children, Medikforum.ru website said.

The administration of the cosmetic giant promised to reduce the content of the dangerous substances in the products to undetectable levels. Company officials also said that they would subsequently refuse from their use in children's cosmetics entirely

Source: pravda.ru

Japanese fisherman catches 145,000 dollars

2011-11-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

A resident of the village of Ofunato in Japan's Iwate Prefecture can become the owner of 11 million yens, which is a bit more than USD145,000. The man caught a bag of money in the sea, as he was fishing.

Less than a month ago, the fisherman went fishing as usual. The man cast the net and came back to check the catch the same day at night. He was very surprised to find a large bag in the net, Rosbalt reports. The man opened the bag and saw many banknotes inside. As it turned out later, the fisherman caught 1,100 banknotes worth 10,000 yens each.

According to the laws of Japan, if the owner of a missing thing does not make a statement of themselves for six months, the finding will become the property of the person who found it. Thus, on April 27 2012, the Japanese man may become a millionaire.

We have previously reported that another Japanese worker found a plastic bag with 10 million yens (over 130,000 US dollars). The bag was found on the garbage-sorting factory in Kasai. The 56-year-old man took the money to police straight away.

Source: pravda.ru

Romantic Love Affects Your Brain Like a Drug

2011-10-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

Study Shows a Link Between Intense Feelings of Love and Reward Areas of the Brain

The euphoric “high” that accompanies the passion-filled, early days of romantic love is a common pop music theme, but is it just a metaphor or is love really like a drug?

When researchers examined the question, they found that intense feelings of romantic love affect the brain in the same way drugs like cocaine or powerful pain relievers do.

“The reason people are so attracted to cocaine is that it activates the area of the brain that makes you feel good,” researcher Arthur Aron, PhD, tells WebMD. “The same reward area is activated when people are experiencing the intense desire of romantic love.”

Intense Love = Less Pain

Aron, who is a professor of psychology at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, has been researching the impact of love on the brain for three decades.

Several years ago he and longtime pain researcher Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, began talking at a neuroscience conference and conceived the idea for the study.

Mackey is chief of the division of pain management and an associate professor of anesthesia at Stanford University Medical Center in California.

“He was talking about the neural systems involved with love and I was talking about the neural systems involved with pain, and we realized there was a lot of overlap,” Mackey says.

They recruited couples in the first few months of romantic relationships for the study by posting notices around Stanford University. The researchers specifically focused on the euphoric, obsessive phase of early love rather than more mature romantic relationships.

“Our subjects fit into this category of recklessly, widely, passionately in love, and it was the easiest recruiting we ever did,” Mackey tells WebMD. “The fliers asked ‘Are you in love?' and within hours we had a dozen couples beating on our doors.”

The hypothesis was that love affected the brain in the same way many addictive drugs do, by targeting the “feel good” chemical in the brain known as dopamine. This reward system has also been shown to be critical in pain management.

Targeted Pain Treatments

The study included eight female and seven male students who were asked to bring photographs of their loved one to the lab along with photos of an equally attractive friend of the same sex as their romantic interest.

MRI scans recorded what was happening in their brains as they viewed the pictures while holding in their hands a computer-controlled thermal device that got increasingly hotter as the experiment progressed.

Throughout the experiment, the participants were asked to record the pain they felt from the device on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 representing “no pain” and 10 representing “the worst pain imaginable.”

Because distraction has been shown to affect pain, one phase of the experiment involved distracting the participants by asking them questions that had nothing to do with the study.

The brain imaging showed that both love and distraction reduced pain, but in different ways.

When distracted, the brain pathway affecting the sensation of pain was mostly centered in the higher, cortical part of the brain, while the impact of love was on the brain's dopamine-related reward center.

The study appeared online on Oct. 13, 2010 in the publication PLoS One.

Aron and Mackey agree the findings show the potential for more targeted approaches to pain relieve that may or may not involve drugs.

Mackey says the way we manage pain today will be considered the Dark Ages by future generations.

“Right now we use antidepressants, antiseizure drugs, and cardiac arrhythmia drugs to treat pain in patients who don't have seizures or arrhythmias and may not even be depressed,” he says. “The hope is that in the future we will develop targeted treatments that specifically address the abnormal neural systems involved in pain.”

Source: Rxlist.com

Women's Bodies Selective With Sperm

2011-10-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

A woman's body could reject the sperm of less suitable male partners.

Sperm is more likely to fail if the woman had not been exposed to that man's semen for at least three months.

The research could lead to improved treatments for infertility and miscarriages.

The female body has a quality control system which needs convincing that his sperm is compatible," University of Adelaide professor Sarah Robertson

A woman's body may be unconsciously selective about sperm, allowing some men's to progress to pregnancy but killing off the chances of less suitable matches, an Australian researcher said Wednesday.

University of Adelaide professor Sarah Robertson said her research suggested that sperm contains "signaling molecules" that activate immunity changes in a woman so her body accepts it.

But some apparently healthy sperm failed to activate these changes, leading to the suggestion that the female system can be "choosy" about its biological mate, she said.

"It's rather like a two-way dance," Robertson said.

"The male provides information that increases the chances of conception and progression to pregnancy, but the female body has a quality control system which needs convincing that his sperm is compatible," she added. "That's where the dance can go wrong with some couples -- if the male signals are not strong enough, or if the female system is too 'choosy'."

Robertson said sperm was more likely to fail if the woman had not previously been exposed to that man's semen for at least three months.

"We used to think that if a couple couldn't get pregnant, and the man's semen test was normal, the problem lay with the woman. But it appears this is not always the case," Robertson said.

The researchers plan to continue their work, which they hope will lead to improved treatments for infertility and miscarriages.

Source:
http://news.discovery.com @ Jun 24, 2010

No Link Between Cell Phone Use and Cancer

2011-10-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

In recent years, people have been whipsawed by conflicting studies about the risks posed by low levels of radiation given off by cell phones.

Now, one of the largest and longest-running studies ever to look for a link between mobile phone use and brain tumors shows that cell phone use doesn't increase the risk of brain cancer and other kinds of central nervous system cancers.

The study was conducted in Denmark, a country that's unique because it keeps extraordinary health records on its residents. It's published in the journal BMJ.

Researchers used the country's detailed databases to find out if adults with cell phone contracts before 1995 got brain tumors more frequently that those who didn't subscribe to mobile services.

Because the study stretches back decades, researchers say many of these subscribers were probably using early-generation cell phones that emitted more radiation than newer phones.

Over an 18-year period, 10,729 cancers of the brain and central nervous system were diagnosed;9,883 of these were in 3.2 million Danes in the general population who were thought not to use cell phones and 846 were diagnosed in 358,403 people with cell phone contracts.

The risk of getting a brain tumor was essentially no different between the two groups.

That remained true even when researchers looked just at adults who'd had cell phones contracts the longest, for more than 13 years, and when researchers looked at specific tumor types.

"We didn't find any association," says researcher Patrizia Frei, PhD, who was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen when the study was conducted.

So, Cell Phones Safe or Not?

Federal health agencies, including the FDA, CDC, and National Cancer Institute, have stated that the balance of the evidence shows that cell phones probably don't cause any health problems.

But because so many people use them -- more than 87% of the U.S. population had a mobile phone in 2008 -- these agencies also agree that more research is needed.

In May, a panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization reviewed the evidence and ruled that radiation from cell phones could "possibly" cause cancer, putting the risk posed by cell phones on par with pesticides, some food dyes, and heavy metals.

Jonathan Samet, MD, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles, who led that panel, says these new findings wouldn't have changed their ruling.

"While this study does not show any association, it does not establish "safety" -- that is, the absence of risk," Samet says in an email. "This is a useful addition to the literature, and we need more studies of high quality."

Swiss researchers who wrote an editorial on the study said it had important strengths that should further reassure cell phone users.

Perhaps the biggest advantage was because it used large databases, the study did not need to rely on people to remember details about their cell phone use. Faulty memory can be a major source of inaccurate information in studies.

Why More Research Is Needed

One weakness, though, was that the study used mobile phone contracts as a way to estimate use.

Just having a cell phone contract doesn't mean a person is using a phone regularly, and some people who don't have contracts will have pay-as-you-go phones.

"The resulting misclassification would dilute any association between mobile phone use and cancer risk, and this is important for a ... study like the current one," says Anders Ahlbom, professor of environmental medicine at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in an editorial.

Researchers agree that this study should not be the final word.

"Our study can't answer all the questions," says Frei. For example, she says questions remain about risks associated with continued long-term use of cell phones, for longer than 20 years. And there's been little information about the use of cell phones in children, she says.

"We couldn't say that we've solved all the problems so far. I would still say that we have some limited evidence," she says.

Source:
rxlist.com

Hypertension itself may cause birth defects?

2011-10-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

Pregnant Women With High Blood Pressure May Be More Likely to Have Babies With Birth Defects

Women who take blood pressure drugs called ACE inhibitors during the first trimester of their pregnancy may be no more likely to have babies with birth defects than women with hypertension who take other types of high blood pressure medication or no blood pressure drugs at all, according to a new study.

Frequently prescribed ACE inhibitors include captopril, enalapril, lisinopril, and ramipril.

These findings run counter to a 2006 study that showed women who took ACE inhibitors -- but not other blood-pressure-lowering drugs -- during the first trimester were at greater risk for having babies with heart malformations and other types of birth defects.

The new study suggests that it may be the underlying high blood pressure that increases the risk of birth defects, regardless of treatment.

Women who had high blood pressure during pregnancy were at greater risk for all types of birth defects, particularly heart malformations and neural tube defects.

The findings appear in the journal BMJ.

ACE inhibitors taken during the second and third trimester of pregnancy have been previously linked to birth defects. These drugs must carry a “black box” warning from the FDA concerning these risks. A black box warning is the FDA's most serious warning.

Researchers analyzed data on 465,754 pairs of moms and babies from 1995 to 2008, including information on which medications they were taking. Overall, women who took any blood pressure medication as well as those with untreated high blood pressure were more likely to have a baby with some type of birth defect.

The new study did not look at how high blood pressure during early pregnancy results in birth defects, but Li suggests that it may reduce blood flow to the developing fetus.
Reassuring News for Some Women

The findings are somewhat reassuring for women who became pregnant while they are taking ACE inhibitors, says Howard Strassner, MD. He is the chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

About half of all pregnancies are unplanned, so many women may be taking high blood pressure medications when they learn they are pregnant. ACE inhibitors are commonly prescribed to lower blood pressure.

Women who have any underlying medical conditions, including high blood pressure, should ideally discuss these issues with their doctor before they become pregnant, says Eva K. Pressman, MD. She is professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of maternal and fetal medicine at the University of Rochester.
ACE Inhibitors Risky in Late Pregnancy

"In the ideal world, they would change medications first, but if they are on an ACE inhibitor and become pregnant, they can switch to another by second trimester," she says.

Treating high blood pressure during pregnancy is important, she says. Women who have high blood pressure during pregnancy are at risk for complications including preterm birth and preeclampsia, a potentially fatal pregnancy-related condition, she says.

"The data would suggest that there may be a modest increase in the risk of certain birth defects among women with hypertension, whether it is treated or not," says Allen A. Mitchell, MD, in an email. Mitchell, the director of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University Schools of Public Health & Medicine in Boston, wrote an editorial accompanying the new study.

"Apart from adopting lifestyle behaviors that might reduce the likelihood of developing hypertension (such as diet and exercise), women who do have hypertension may actually take some reassurance from this and earlier reports because they suggest that the medications used to control hypertension do not seem themselves to pose a substantial risk to the fetus,” he says.

"At the same time, it is important for the health of both mother and infant to control maternal hypertension, since the complications of this condition can be quite serious to both."

Source:
rxlist.com

Malarial Vaccine!!

2011-10-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

Study: Vaccine Prevents About Half of Severe Infections

An experimental vaccine cut malaria infections in infants and toddlers by about half, a new study shows.

"This is remarkable when you consider there has never been a successful vaccine against a human parasite nor obviously against malaria," study researcher Tsiri Agbenyega, principal investigator of the study at Agogo Presbyterian Hospital in Agogo, Ghana, says in a news briefing.

The study is the largest test to date of the vaccine, called RTS,S, which has taken 20 years and more than $400 million to develop.

Final results of the trial aren't expected until 2014, but if preliminary findings hold, experts say the vaccine will be a major advance against one of the world's leading infectious disease killers.

“This is the first time anybody has been able to reach this point,” says Alberto Moreno, MD, an assistant professor of infectious disease at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Moreno has studied malaria for more than 35 years, but he was not involved in this study. “In the field, it will have a significant impact.”

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Defeating Malaria

Malaria is caused by a parasite that's most commonly passed to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito.

Although malaria has been eradicated in the U.S. since the 1950s, in other parts of the world it continues to be a major public health menace, causing more than 225 million infections each year and killing nearly 800,000 people. Most of those deaths occur in children in Africa.

So far, scientists have identified five different species of parasites that are responsible for causing malaria infectious. The new vaccine targets the deadliest.

Preventive efforts like bed nets, mosquito spraying, and medications to help control the infection “have made a tremendous dent in malaria, but despite that, over 700,000 children still die every year,” says researcher Mary J. Hamel, MD, a malaria epidemiologist at the CDC and a principle investigator on the RTS,S Malaria Vaccine Trial in Kenya. “So a vaccine like this, with 50% efficacy against severe disease, can have a very important role in controlling malaria and reducing the burden.”

For the study, researchers divided 6,000 African children who were 5 months to 17 months old into two groups. The first group got three doses of the malaria vaccine. The second group received three doses of rabies vaccine for comparison.

A year after both groups got their shots, researchers found that the malaria vaccine reduced the risk of developing malaria symptoms like fevers and chills by 56% and cut the risk of a severe and potentially deadly form of the disease by 47%.

“It's a huge disease burden,” Hamel tells WebMD. “And these children, 75% were using insecticide-treated bed nets. You can imagine what it's like for children who aren't using bed nets.”

Serious adverse events, including seizures and meningitis, occurred in 18% of the experimental vaccine group and in 22% of the comparison group.

The study is being funded by GlaxoSmithKline and by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Next Steps

By 2014, researchers say they will know more about how long protection from the vaccine lasts, how well it works in babies who are 6-12 weeks old, and whether or not children need a booster to maintain their protection.

“There are still important questions to be answered,” Hamel says. “If everything holds up, there's the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives.”

But because it only offers partial protection, researchers say it will need to be used in conjunction with other measures like mosquito nets, spraying, and medications.

“The future would be to make a second-generation vaccine that would be more efficacious, either building on this one, or there are other vaccines that are in early stages of development that are quite different. So one or the other,” Hamel says.

“I think if we end up with the first malaria vaccine, that will push everything forward because we will have shown that it can be done,” she says.

Source:
- rxlist.com
- shutterstock.com

Peppers can help fight cancer

2011-10-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

The power of the pepper is not only to make foods spicy . According to an article published in the journal Cancer Research, a substance contained in its formula, capsaicin, can be a weapon against prostate cancer.

capsaicin, can be a weapon against prostate cancer.

Chili peppers are the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae.

The discovery is still new, but studies claim that capsaicin might be the basis for a remedy in the fight against cancer. The study was made with genetically engineered mice and human cells that had prostate cancer.

They ingested a dose of pepper extract corresponding to three to eight peppers. What was noticed is that capsaicin increased the amount of some proteins involved in the elimination of cells, as well as reducing the number of cancer cells.

When consumed, it binds with pain receptors in the mouth and throat that are responsible for sensing heat. Once activated by the capsaicinoids, these receptors send a message to the brain that the person has consumed something hot. The brain responds to the burning sensation by raising the heart rate, increasing perspiration and release of endorphins.

Capsaicin is also an ingredient in many topical skin preparations used to relieve pain. Capsaicin is available as a cream, ointment, stick, pad, gel, liquid, or lotion. It is marketed under many brand names.

Source:
pravda.ru

US porn industry goes underground comfortably

2011-10-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

What a way to prepare for the DOOMSDAY !!!!

The widely advertised doomsday, which everyone is now expecting in 2012, frightens everyone, including those who stand too far from the traditional Christian lifestyle. A US porn studio said that it was going to relocate its production under the ground. The studio is making the move not to leave the survivors without adult films.

Quentin Boyer of Pink Visual said in an interview with CBC Local that the production of the studio would be relocated to a bunker.

The porn bunker of the studio is not going to be something like a conventional bomb shelter or a tiny underground room for a bunch of people.

In addition to the state-of-the-art porn studio, the bunker will house bars and a large stage. If the end of the world eventually takes place, the visitors of the Pink Visual bunker will not be bored at all.

"Our goal is nothing less than to survive the apocalypse to come in comfort and luxury, whether that catastrophe takes the form of fireballs flung earthward by an all-seeing deity, extended torrential rainfall, Biblical rapture, an earthquake-driven mega-tsunami, radioactive flesh-eating zombies, or some combination of the above," said Pink Visual spokesman Quentin Boyer.

According to Boyer, the website of the studio will continue to work from the bunker even if the servers on the surface of the planet are destroyed.

Mr. Boyer did not unveil the whereabouts of the bunker for security reasons.

The studio is currently picking the lucky ones - the people who will be able to celebrate the doomsday with Pink Vision. Active visitors of the studio's website will most likely be among the chosen. The bunker will be able to accommodate and entertain from 1,200 to 1,500 people.

As for the number of possible survivors of the Apocalypse in 2012, it appears that there will be a great deal of them. Many buy underground shelters in a hope to stay alive after 2012. The demand on bomb shelters in the United States began to grow speedily after the mammoth earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The cost of such shelters varies from $200,000 to $20 million. The price depends on modifications, but any bunker can withstand explosions of up to 50 megatons. Survivors will be able to live in such bunkers for several weeks.

Some companies quickly realized that they could make very good profits from selling luxury bunkers. They are certain that wealthy individuals must save their lives from man-made disasters in comfortable and even luxurious conditions.

Russian entrepreneurs try to keep up with their American colleagues. The construction of Russia's first-ever private bomb shelter is going to be launched in the Altai region.

Danila Andreev, the director of the company that deals with the construction of VIP shelters, said that the shelter will look like a small settlement. The company will build small townhouses in a picturesque location in the mountains of Altai. The settlement will look like a ski resort. However, there will be special bunkers built underneath every house in the settlement. All of the bunkers will be interconnected with each other.

"It will be possible to go there for holidays during the times of peace. The visitors will be able to take a rest there, to do some rafting and biking. It will also be possible to hide there in case of emergency," Andreev said.

"It will be a special club, there will be no come-and-go people there. The project is not going to be commercial for us. The members of the project will get everything at prime cost," the businessman said.

Source:
Pravda.Ru

Sea Levels to Continue to Rise for 500 Years? Long-Term Climate Calculations Suggest So

2011-10-18T01:47:00.000-07:00

Rising sea levels in the coming centuries is perhaps one of the most catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures. Massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations could result from global warming. But how frightening of times are we facing? Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute are part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere using climate models.

The graph shows how sea levels will change for four different pathways for human development and greenhouse gas pollution. The green, yellow and orange lines correspond to scenarios where it takes 10, 30, or 70 years before emissions are stabilized. The red line can be considered to represent business as usual where greenhouse gas emissions are increasing over time. (Credit: Aslak Grinsted)

The results have been published in the scientific journal Global and Planetary Change.

"Based on the current situation we have projected changes in sea level 500 years into the future. We are not looking at what is happening with the climate, but are focusing exclusively on sea levels," explains Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Centre for Ice and Climate, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

Model based on actual measurements

He has developed a model in collaboration with researchers from England and China that is based on what happens with the emission of greenhouse gases and aerosols and the pollution of the atmosphere. Their model has been adjusted backwards to the actual measurements and was then used to predict the outlook for rising sea levels.

The research group has made calculations for four scenarios: a pessimistic one, an optimistic one, and two more realistic ones.

In the pessimistic scenario, emissions continue to increase. This will mean that sea levels will rise 1.1 meters by the year 2100 and will have risen 5.5 meters by the year 2500.

Even in the most optimistic scenario, which requires extremely dramatic climate change goals, major technological advances and strong international cooperation to stop emitting greenhouse gases and polluting the atmosphere, the sea would continue to rise. By the year 2100 it will have risen by 60 cm and by the year 2500 the rise in sea level will be 1.8 meters.

For the two more realistic scenarios, calculation based on the emissions and pollution stabilizing, the results show that there will be a sea level rise of about 75 cm by the year 2100 and that by the year 2500 the sea will have risen by 2 meters.

Rising sea levels for centuries

"In the 20th century sea has risen by an average of 2mm per year, but it is accelerating and over the last decades the rise in sea level has gone approximately 70% faster. Even if we stabilize the concentrations in the atmosphere and stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we can see that the rise in sea level will continue to accelerate for several centuries because of the sea and ice caps long reaction time. So it would be 2-400 years before we returned to the 20th century level of a 2 mm rise per year," says Aslak Grinsted.

He points out that even though long-term calculations are subject to uncertainties, the sea will continue to rise in the coming centuries and it will most likely rise by 75 cm by the year 2100 and by the year 2500 the sea will have risen by 2 meters.

Publisher's note:
I would like to mention the countries which are low lying and which are at the risk of being damaged due to the rising sea levels. According to a small research that i conducted, Maldivian islands will have the highest impact in general, due to sea level rise.

1.Maldives

Islands average only one to two square kilometers in area, and lie between one and 1.5 meters above mean sea level.

2.Seychelles

The coralline Seychelles are, in contrast, low-lying, rising only a few feet above the surface of the sea.

3.Virgin islands
Most of the islands rise only to a few hundred feet above sea level. The highest point is Mount Sage on Tortola in the BVI, which is 1,710 feet high.

4. Bangladesh
Although altitudes up to 105 meters above sea level occur in the northern part of the plain, most elevations are less than 10 meters above sea level; elevations decrease in the coastal south, where the terrain is generally at sea level.

5. Holland
The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 25% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level,[10] and 50% of its land lying less than one metre above sea level.

6.Belgium
The geography of Belgium shows it to have three major areas: lower Belgium (up to 100m above sea level), central Belgium (between 100 and 200m above sea level) and upper Belgium (from 200 to over 500m above sea level).

7.UK
The lowest point in the UK is the Fenlands, which is 4 m below sea level.

8.Spain
Lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Pico de Teide (Tenerife) on Canary Islands 3,718 m

9.Congo
lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Mount Berongou 903 m

Sources:
sciencedaily.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/geography/Britain.html
http://www.belgium.be/en/about_belgium/country/geography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Bangladesh
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_Maldives
http://www.africaguide.com/country/seychel/

Nasty Bugs Lurking on Your Cell Phone

2011-10-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

The next time you reach for your cell phone, consider this: A new study found that 92% of cell phones in the U.K. have bacteria on them - including E. coli -- because people aren't washing their hands after going to the bathroom.

The E. coli came from fecal bacteria, which can survive on hands and surfaces for hours.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London looked at cell phones in 12 cities in the U.K.

They took 390 samples from cell phones and hands, which were then analyzed for germs. People were also asked about their hand hygiene.
Phone Filth and Other Facts

The study found:
92% of phones had bacteria on them.
82% of hands had bacteria on them.
16% of hands and 16% of phones had E. coli bacteria, which is found in feces.

However, 95% of people said they washed their hands with soap where possible, which suggests we have a tendency to lie about our hygiene habits.

"We're pretty shocked to find the vast majority of mobile phones -- 92% -- had bacteria all over them. Often large numbers of bacteria,” said hygiene expert Val Curtis, PhD, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

"That isn't necessarily something that we should worry about, but what is worrying is that 16% of mobile phones had E. coli on them. E. coli comes from human [and animal] feces,” she says. "That means that people with dirty hands are not washing their hands after using the toilet, for example. Then they're handling their mobile phones.”

It's not just cell phones that the dirty hands are touching, Curtis says.

"They're also touching other surfaces as well,” she says. “They're spreading fecal bugs on everything they touch really."

Toilet Texting?

Is there a more worrying way the phones are getting contaminated -- by people using them while they're in the bathroom?

"We didn't ask people whether they'd used their phones in the toilet. That might be something that would be interesting to study," Curtis says. "People do tend to use their mobile phones everywhere they go. Perhaps we should discourage their use in the toilet."

So is having unclean hands a modern-day problem linked to our new technology?

"Humans have had infections since before they were human. It's a really ancient problem," she says. "Bugs are evolutionary masters at getting from person to person.”

Anything that you touch can become a source of infection, Curtis says. So hand washing after using the toilet is crucial.

Excuses, Excuses

Curtis says people can be quick to excuse their nasty habits.

"They say that they're in a hurry, they say that the water's too cold. People don't actually feel that their hands have got contaminated.

"Everyone knows they should do it, so it's not education that's the answer. We need to find other ways to remind people that it's disgusting that their hands are dirty and their hands get smelly and foul after the toilet,” she says. "Disgusting people with the state of their hands is probably the most effective way of getting people to wash their hands."

Source: rxlist.com