Complete Guidelines to Health and Fitness

Poverty's most insidious damage is to a child's brain

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 07:00:00 +0000

An alarming 22 percent of U.S. children live in poverty, which can have long-lasting negative consequences on brain development, emotional health and academic achievement. Now, even more compelling evidence has been provided suggesting that growing up in poverty has detrimental effects on the brain.

Low-income children have irregular brain development and lower standardized test scores, with as much as an estimated 20 percent gap in achievement explained by developmental lags in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

Credit: © Phils Photography / Fotolia

An alarming 22 percent of U.S. children live in poverty, which can have long-lasting negative consequences on brain development, emotional health and academic achievement. A new study, published July 20 in JAMA Pediatrics, provides even more compelling evidence that growing up in poverty has detrimental effects on the brain.

In an accompanying editorial, child psychiatrist Joan L. Luby, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, writes that "early childhood interventions to support a nurturing environment for these children must now become our top public health priority for the good of all."

In her own research in young children living in poverty, Luby and her colleagues have identified changes in the brain's architecture that can lead to lifelong problems with depression, learning difficulties and limitations in the ability to cope with stress.

However, her work also shows that parents who are nurturing can offset some of the negative effects on brain anatomy seen in poor children. The findings suggest that teaching nurturing skills to parents -- particularly those who live below the poverty line -- may provide a lifetime of benefit for children.

"Our research has shown that the effects of poverty on the developing brain, particularly in the hippocampus, are strongly influenced by parenting and life stresses experienced by the children," said Luby, the Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Child Psychiatry and director of Washington University's Early Emotional Development Program.

The study in JAMA Pediatrics, by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that low-income children had irregular brain development and lower standardized test scores, with as much as an estimated 20 percent gap in achievement explained by developmental lags in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

"In developmental science and medicine, it is not often that the cause and solution of a public health problem become so clearly elucidated," Luby wrote in the editorial. "It is even less common that feasible and cost-effective solutions to such problems are discovered and within reach."

Based on this new research and what already is known about the damaging effects of poverty on brain development in children, as well as the benefits of nurturing during early childhood, "we have a rare roadmap to preserving and supporting our society's most important legacy, the developing brain," Luby writes. "This unassailable body of evidence taken as a whole is now actionable for public policy."

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis

Using garlic to combat antimicrobial resistant urinary tract infections

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 02:20:00 +0000

Garlic extract may be an effective weapon against multi-drug resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria associated with urinary tract infections (UTI), according to a recent study.

Garlic extract may be an effective weapon against multi-drug resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria associated with urinary tract infections (UTI), according to a recent study published in the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science.

Conducted by researchers at the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences in India, the study found that "even crude extracts of [garlic] showed good activity against multidrug resistant strains where antibiotic therapy had limited or no effect. This provides hope for developing alternative drugs which may be of help in fighting the menace of growing antibacterial resistance," the team states.

Urinary tract infection is the second most common infectious disease encountered in community practice. Worldwide, about 150 million people are diagnosed each year with UTI, at a total treatment cost in the billions of dollars. Although UTI is usually treated with antibiotics, "emerging antimicrobial resistance compels us to look back into traditional medicines or herbal products, which may provide appropriate/acceptable alternative solutions," the authors argue.

Garlic (Allium sativum) has been traditionally used for the treatment of diseases since ancient times. A wide range of microorganisms -- including bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses -- are known to be sensitive to garlic preparations. Allicin and other sulphur compounds are thought to be the major antimicrobial factors in garlic.

In this study, the team found that 56% of 166 bacteria strains isolated from the urine of people with UTI showed a high degree of resistance to antibiotics. However, about 82% of the antibiotic resistant bacteria were susceptible to a crude aqueous extract of Allium sativum. According to the researchers, "ours is the first study to report the antibacterial activity of aqueous garlic extract against multidrug resistant bacterial isolates from infected urine samples leading to UTI."

"To conclude, there is evidence that garlic has potential in the treatment of UTI and maybe other microbial infections," says the team. "However, it is necessary to determine the bioavailability, side effects and pharmacokinetic properties in more detail."

For further information please see:http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika%20PAPERS/JTAS%20Vol.%2038%20(2)%20May.%202015/09%20Page%20271-278%20(JTAS%200616-2014).pdf

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).

Scientists separate medical benefits of cannabis from 'unwanted' side effects

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 02:18:00 +0000

Scientists have found a way to separate medical benefits of cannabis from its unwanted side effects. The research was carried out in mice, but it is hoped that the breakthrough will pave the way for safe cannabis-based therapies that do not cause alterations in mood, perception or memory. Last year the team discovered how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, known as THC, reduces tumor growth in cancer patients.

These findings reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects.

Credit: © William Casey / Fotolia

Scientists at the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have found a way to separate the medical benefits of cannabis from its unwanted side effects.

The research comes from the team that discovered how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, known as THC, reduces tumour growth in cancer patients.

Their latest findings, published today in the journal PLOS Biology, reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects.

That pathway involves both a cannabinoid receptor and a serotonin receptor. When it is blocked, THC can still exert several beneficial effects -- including pain relief -- while avoiding impairment of memory.

The research was carried out in mice, but it is hoped that the breakthrough will pave the way for safe cannabis-based therapies that do not cause alterations in mood, perception or memory.

Dr Peter McCormick, from UEA's school of Pharmacy, said: "THC, the major active component of marijuana, has broad medical use -- including for pain relief, nausea and anxiety. Our previous research has also found that it could reduce tumour size in cancer patients. However it is also known to induce numerous undesirable side effects such as memory impairment, anxiety and dependence.

"There has been a great deal of medical interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms at work in THC, so that the beneficial effects can be harnessed without the side-effects.

"THC acts through a family of cell receptors called cannabinoid receptors. Our previous research revealed which of these receptors are responsible for the anti-tumour effects of THC. This new research demonstrates how some of the drug's beneficial effects can be separated from its unwanted side effects."

The research team carried out behavioural studies in mice and investigated how pathways in their brains operate under THC. They found that the absence of a particular serotonin receptor (5HT2AR) reduced some of the effects of THC -- such as its amnesic effect, based on a standard memory test. But treatment to reduce 5HT2AR did not change other effects of THC, including pain relief.

"This research is important because it identifies a way to reduce some of what, in medical treatment, are usually thought of as THC's unwanted side effects, while maintaining several important benefits including pain reduction."

But Dr McCormick added that patients should not be tempted to self-medicate.

"Patients should not use cannabis to self-medicate, but I hope that our research will lead to a safe synthetic equivalent being available in the future."

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of East Anglia

Basic computing elements created in bacteria

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 08:03:00 +0000

Researchers unveil a series of sensors, memory switches, and circuits that can be encoded in the common human gut bacterium. These basic computing elements will allow the bacteria to sense, memorize, and respond to signals in the gut, with future applications that might include the early detection and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer, they say.

The illustration depicts Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (white) living on mammalian cells in the gut (large pink cells coated in microvilli) and being activated by exogenously added chemical signals (small green dots) to express specific genes, such as those encoding light-generating luciferase proteins (glowing bacteria).

Credit: Janet Iwasa

The "friendly" bacteria inside our digestive systems are being given an upgrade, which may one day allow them to be programmed to detect and ultimately treat diseases such as colon cancer and immune disorders.

In a paper published in the journal Cell Systems, researchers at MIT unveil a series of sensors, memory switches, and circuits that can be encoded in the common human gut bacterium Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron.

These basic computing elements will allow the bacteria to sense, memorize, and respond to signals in the gut, with future applications that might include the early detection and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease or colon cancer.

Researchers have previously built genetic circuits inside model organisms such as E. coli. However, such strains are only found at low levels within the human gut, according to Timothy Lu, an associate professor of biological engineering and of electrical engineering and computer science, who led the research alongside Christopher Voigt, a professor of biological engineering at MIT.

"We wanted to work with strains like B. thetaiotaomicron that are present in many people in abundant levels, and can stably colonize the gut for long periods of time," Lu says.

The team developed a series of genetic parts that can be used to precisely program gene expression within the bacteria. "Using these parts, we built four sensors that can be encoded in the bacterium's DNA that respond to a signal to switch genes on and off inside B. thetaiotaomicron," Voigt says.

These can be food additives, including sugars, which allow the bacteria to be controlled by the food that is eaten by the host, Voigt adds.

Bacterial "memory"

To sense and report on pathologies in the gut, including signs of bleeding or inflammation, the bacteria will need to remember this information and report it externally. To enable them to do this, the researchers equipped B. thetaiotaomicron with a form of genetic memory. They used a class of proteins known as recombinases, which can record information into bacterial DNA by recognizing specific DNA addresses and inverting their direction.

The researchers also implemented a technology known as CRISPR interference, which can be used to control which genes are turned on or off in the bacterium. The researchers used it to modulate the ability of B. thetaiotaomicron to consume a specific nutrient and to resist being killed by an antimicrobial molecule.

The researchers demonstrated that their set of genetic tools and switches functioned within B. thetaiotaomicron colonizing the gut of mice. When the mice were fed food containing the right ingredients, they showed that the bacteria could remember what the mice ate.

Expanded toolkit

The researchers now plan to expand the application of their tools to different species of Bacteroides. That is because the microbial makeup of the gut varies from person to person, meaning that a particular species might be the dominant bacteria in one patient, but not in others.

"We aim to expand our genetic toolkit to a wide range of bacteria that are important commensal organisms in the human gut," Lu says.

The concept of using microbes to sense and respond to signs of disease could also be used elsewhere in the body, he adds.

In addition, more advanced genetic computing circuits could be built upon this genetic toolkit in Bacteroides to enhance their performance as noninvasive diagnostics and therapeutics.

"For example, we want to have high sensitivity and specificity when diagnosing disease with engineered bacteria," Lu says. "To achieve this, we could engineer bacteria to detect multiple biomarkers, and only trigger a response when they are all present."

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scientists separate medical benefits of cannabis from 'unwanted' side effects

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 08:01:00 +0000

These findings reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects.

Credit: © William Casey / Fotolia

The research comes from the team that discovered how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, known as THC, reduces tumour growth in cancer patients.

Their latest findings, published today in the journal PLOS Biology, reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects.

The research was carried out in mice, but it is hoped that the breakthrough will pave the way for safe cannabis-based therapies that do not cause alterations in mood, perception or memory.

"There has been a great deal of medical interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms at work in THC, so that the beneficial effects can be harnessed without the side-effects.

But Dr McCormick added that patients should not be tempted to self-medicate.

"Patients should not use cannabis to self-medicate, but I hope that our research will lead to a safe synthetic equivalent being available in the future."

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of East Anglia.

Rhythm of cells: Daily changes in human cells

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 08:00:00 +0000

Life is subject to natural rhythms, such as the light and dark cycle or seasonal variation in temperature. A recent study shows that the composition of human cell membranes varies depending on the time of day. These cyclical changes in cell membranes could have a significant impact on health and disease, scientists say.

The analysis of cell membranes revealed significant daily rhythms in eleven fatty acids.

Credit: © magann / Fotolia

Life is subject to natural rhythms, such as the light and dark cycle or seasonal variation in temperature. A recent study by researchers at the Vetmeduni Vienna, shows that the composition of human cell membranes varies depending on the time of day. These cyclical changes in cell membranes could have a significant impact on health and disease. The results were published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms.

Fatty acids are important components of cell membranes. They have signalling functions within the cells and play a role in controlling metabolic processes in the entire body. Thomas Ruf and Walter Arnold of the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, investigated these cyclic fluctuations in human cells.

"Nearly all physiological processes in humans and animals, such as body temperature or heart rate, undergo daily rhythms, and many even exhibit annual fluctuations. We wanted to find out if these rhythms are related to changes in cell membranes," explains first author Thomas Ruf.

The researchers investigated buccal mucosa cells in 20 subjects over a period of one year. Study participants collected their cells on a predetermined day every month at three hour intervals by intensively rinsing their mouths with water and then freezing the samples in special flasks.

The composition of fatty acids changes during the course of the day

The analysis of the cell membranes revealed significant daily rhythms in eleven fatty acids. Several fatty acids were present in higher concentrations at night, others during the daytime. "The cellular changes have one thing in common: they always occurred at about the same time in all participants. This shows that a clear rhythm is present," Ruf explains.

"From animal physiology, we know that the fatty acid composition in cell membranes can be remodelled in response to environmental conditions. Fatty acid composition is especially subject to seasonal fluctuations. However, while the participants of our study all showed daily fluctuations, seasonal changes occurred only in individual cases."

In contrast to wildlife, no clear annual rhythm could be seen in the fatty acid patterns of the study participants. Around one half of the subjects showed yearly rhythms, but these were not synchronous. Some participants exhibited a peak in spring or in summer, while in others the same fatty acid had higher concentrations in autumn or in the winter. "In western countries, seasons are having an increasingly smaller impact on the body. This is due to the prevalence of artificial light, which makes for longer days, and the long heating season, which minimises temperature fluctuations. Annual rhythms still exist, but these are no longer synchronised with the seasons," says Ruf.

Certain diseases occur in seasonal rhythms

This remodelling of human cell membranes could be of medical importance. It is known that certain fatty acids such as omega-3 fatty acids offer protection against certain diseases, while others, if taken up in excess, can have negative effects. The composition of the fatty acids in cell membranes may therefore have a variety of different health consequences.

"This may also explain why certain diseases and even death occur at specific times of day. Statistically speaking, heart attacks occur more often in the morning than in the evening. Blood pressure usually rises before noon. We currently do not know exactly what causes the changes in the composition of the cell membranes. The type of food eaten and the time of food intake may also play a role. These questions must still be researched," Ruf points out.

In addition to consuming sufficient quantities of important healthy fatty acids such as omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil or oleic acids in olive oil, it may also be important to choose the right time for intake.

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.

Cell structure discovery advances understanding of cancer development

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:59:00 +0000

A cell structure has been discovered that could help scientists understand why some cancers develop. For the first time, a structure called 'the mesh' has been identified which helps to hold together cells. This discovery changes our understanding of the cell's internal scaffolding.

A 3-D view of the mesh: microtubules (green tubes) of the mitotic spindle are held together by a yellow network, the mesh.

Credit: Warwick Medical School

University of Warwick researchers have discovered a cell structure which could help scientists understand why some cancers develop.

For the first time a structure called 'the mesh' has been identified which helps to hold together cells. This discovery, which has been published in the online journal eLife, changes our understanding of the cell's internal scaffolding.

This also has implications for researchers' understanding of cancer cells as the mesh is partly made of a protein which is found to change in certain cancers, such as those of the breast and bladder.

The finding was made by a team led by Dr Stephen Royle, associate professor and senior Cancer Research UK Fellow at the division of biomedical cell biology at Warwick Medical School. Dr Royle said: "As a cell biologist you dream of finding a new structure in cells but it's so unlikely. Scientists have been looking at cells since the 17th Century and so to find something that no-one has seen before is amazing."

Researchers at the University's Warwick Medical School made the discovery by accident while looking at gaps between microtubules which are part of the cells' 'internal skeleton'. In dividing cells, these gaps are incredibly small at just 25 nanometres wide -- 3,000 times thinner than a human hair.

One of Dr Royle's PhD students was examining structures called mitotic spindles in dividing cells using a technique called tomography which is like a hospital CAT scan but on a much smaller scale. This meant that they could see the structure which they later named the mesh.

Mitotic spindles are the cell's way of making sure that when they divide each new cell has a complete genome. Mitotic spindles are made of microtubules and the mesh holds the microtubules together, providing support. While "inter-microtubule bridges" in the mitotic spindle had been seen before, the researchers were the first to view the mesh.

The study received funding and support from Cancer Research UK and North West Cancer Research.

Dr Royle said: "We had been looking in 2D and this gave the impression that 'bridges' linked microtubules together. This had been known since the 1970s. All of a sudden, tilting the fibre in 3D showed us that the bridges were not single struts at all but a web-like structure linking all the microtubules together."

The discovery impacts on the research into cancerous cells. A cell needs to share chromosomes accurately when it divides otherwise the two new cells can end up with the wrong number of chromosomes. This is called aneuploidy and this has been linked to a range of tumours in different body organs.

The mitotic spindle is responsible for sharing the chromosomes and the researchers at the University believe that the mesh is needed to give structural support. Too little support from the mesh and the spindle will be too weak to work properly, however too much support will result in it being unable to correct mistakes. It was found that one of the proteins that make up the mesh, TACC3, is over-produced in certain cancers. When this situation was mimicked in the lab, the mesh and microtubules were altered and cells had trouble sharing chromosomes during division.

Dr Emma Smith, senior science communications officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Problems in cell division are common in cancer -- cells frequently end up with the wrong number of chromosomes. This early research provides the first glimpse of a structure that helps share out a cell's chromosomes correctly when it divides, and it might be a crucial insight into why this process becomes faulty in cancer and whether drugs could be developed to stop it from happening."

North West Cancer Research (NWCR) has funded the research as part of a collaborative project between the University of Warwick and the University of Liverpool, where part of the research is being carried out.

Anne Jackson, CEO at NWCR, said: "Dr Royle and Professor Ian Prior at the University of Liverpool have made significant inroads into our understanding of the way in which cancer cells behave, which could potentially better inform future cancer therapies.

"As a charity we fund only the highest standard of research, as evidenced by Dr Royle's work.

"All our funded projects undergo a thorough peer review process, before they are considered by our scientific committee. Our specially selected scientific committee includes some of the UK's leading professors, award-winning scientists and pioneering professionals."

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Warwick

Surprising Health Benefits of Sex

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:53:00 +0000

Sexual Health

"When you're in the mood, it's a sure bet that the last thing on your mind is boosting your immune system or maintaining a healthy weight. Yet good sex offers those health benefits and more. That's a surprise to many people, says Joy Davidson, PhD, a New York psychologist and sex therapist. 'Of course, sex is everywhere in the media,' she says. 'But the idea that we are vital, sexual creatures is still looked at in some cases with disgust or in other cases a bit of embarrassment. So to really take a look at how our sexuality adds to our life and enhances our life and our health, both physical and psychological, is eye-opening for many people.'

Sex does a body good in a number of ways, according to Davidson and other experts. The benefits aren't just anecdotal or hearsay -- each of these health benefits of sex is backed by scientific scrutiny." *

Sex Relieves Stress

"A big health benefit of sex is lower blood pressure and overall stress reduction, according to researchers from Scotland who reported their findings in the journal Biological Psychology. They studied 24 women and 22 men who kept records of their sexual activity. Then the researchers subjected them to stressful situations -- such as speaking in public and doing verbal arithmetic -- and noted their blood pressure response to stress. Those who had intercourse had better responses to stress than those who engaged in other sexual behaviors or abstained."

Sex Lowers Blood Pressure

"Another study published in Biological Psychology found that frequent intercourse was associated with lower diastolic blood pressure (the lower, or second, number in a blood pressure reading). This study focused on people living with their sex partner.

Still further research found a link between partner hugs and lower blood pressure in women.

Elevated blood pressure is a risk factor for coronary artery disease, heart attack, kidney disease, and stroke."

Sex Boosts Immunity

"Good sexual health may mean better physical health. Having sex once or twice a week has been linked with higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A or IgA, which can protect you from getting colds and other infections. Scientists at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., took samples of saliva, which contain IgA, from 112 college students who reported the frequency of sex they had.

Those in the 'frequent' group -- once or twice a week -- had higher levels of IgA than those in the other three groups -- who reported being abstinent, having sex less than once a week, or having it very often, three or more times weekly."

Sex Counts As Exercise

"'Sex is a great mode of exercise,' says Patti Britton, PhD, a Los Angeles sexologist and president of the American Association of Sexuality Educators and Therapists. It takes work, from both a physical and psychological perspective, to do it well, she says.

The benefits of sex as a form of exercise are many - sex can improve your cardiovascular fitness, strength, flexibility, and balance, not to mention your emotional health."

Sex Burns Calories

"Thirty minutes of sex burns 85 calories or more. It may not sound like much, but it adds up: 42 half-hour sessions will burn 3,570 calories, more than enough to lose a pound. The number of calories burned during sex is about the same as the number burned by walking at 2 miles per hour.

Doubling up on the 30 minute sessions, you could drop that pound in 21 hour-long sessions."

Sex Improves Cardiovascular Health

"While some older folks may worry that the efforts expended during sex could cause a stroke, that's not so, according to researchers from England. In a study published in theJournal of Epidemiology and Community Health, scientists found that the frequency of sex was not associated with stroke in the 914 men they followed for 20 years.

And the heart health benefits of sex don't end there. The researchers also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month."

Sex Boosts Self-Esteem

"Boosting self-esteem was one of 237 reasons people have sex, collected by University of Texas researchers and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

That finding makes sense to Gina Ogden, PhD, a sex therapist and marriage and family therapist in Cambridge, Mass., although she finds that those who already have self-esteem say they sometimes have sex to feel even better. 'One of the reasons people say they have sex is to feel good about themselves,' she tells WebMD. 'Great sex begins with self-esteem, and it raises it. If the sex is loving, connected, and what you want, it raises it.'"

Sex Strengthens Your Well-Being

"Sex, like any activity that fosters a close and loving connection to your partner, not only raises self-esteem, but strengthens your overall sense of well-being. Studies have shown that people with strong social support networks (which includes lovers) are healthier and happier than their less-connected peers."

Sex Improves Intimacy

"Having sex and orgasms increases levels of the hormone oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, which helps us bond and build trust. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of North Carolina evaluated 59 premenopausal women before and after warm contact with their husbands and partners ending with hugs. They found that the more contact, the higher the oxytocin levels.

'Oxytocin allows us to feel the urge to nurture and to bond,' Britton says.

Higher oxytocin has also been linked with a feeling of generosity. So if you're feeling suddenly more generous toward your partner than usual, credit the love hormone."

Sex Reduces Pain

"As the hormone oxytocin surges, endorphins increase, and pain declines. So if your headache, arthritis pain, or PMS symptoms seem to improve after sex, you can thank those higher oxytocin levels.

Oxytocin – The Love Hormone

"A study published in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine examined the response of the 'love hormone' oxytocin on pain perception in an experiment with 48 volunteers. Study participants inhaled oxytocin vapor and then had their fingers pricked. Those who had inhaled oxytocin lowered their pain threshold by more than half."

Sex Reduces Prostate Cancer Risk

"Frequent ejaculations, especially in 20-something men, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer later in life, Australian researchers reported in the British Journal of Urology International. When they followed men diagnosed with prostate cancer and those without, they found no association of prostate cancer with the number of sexual partners as the men reached their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

But they found men who had five or more ejaculations weekly while in their 20s reduced their risk of getting prostate cancer later by a third.

Another study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that frequent ejaculations, 21 or more a month, were linked to lower prostate cancer risk in older men, as well, compared with less frequent ejaculations of four to seven monthly."

Sex Strengthens Pelvic Floor Muscles

"For women, doing a few pelvic floor muscle exercises known as Kegel exercises during sex offers a couple of benefits. You will enjoy more pleasure, and you'll also strengthen the area and help to minimize the risk of incontinence later in life.

To do a basic Kegel exercise, tighten the muscles of your pelvic floor, as if you're trying to stop the flow of urine. Count to three, then release."

Additional Benefits of Kegel Exercises

"Kegel exercises have a number of proven health benefits in addition to making sex more enjoyable. The strengthening of the pelvic floor muscles can help prevent prolapse (a slipping out of position) of the vagina, uterus, and bladder. Pelvic floor muscles may be weakened later in life as a result of childbearing, being overweight, and aging. Kegel exercises help offset the consequences of weakened pelvic floor muscles."

Sex Helps You Sleep Better

"The oxytocin released during orgasm also promotes sleep, according to research.

And getting enough sleep has been linked with a host of other good things, such as maintaining a healthy weight and blood pressure. Something to think about, especially if you've been wondering why your guy can be active one minute and snoring the next."

Sex As Physical Exercise Also Promotes Sleep

"The physical exercise component of sex can also help you relax and sleep better, in addition to the hormonal effects. People who get regular exercise tend to sleep better and have more restful sleep. Moreover, as we have seen in the earlier part of this slideshow, sex is a great way to get some exercise."

Summary

"Take note that sex is good for you in ways you may never have imagined and that the health benefits extend well beyond the bedroom."

PD Patients Report Better Sleep With Rotigotine Tx

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:35:00 +0000

Patch form of dopamine agonist also lowered nighttime activity

SAN DIEGO -- The rotigotine patch (Neupro) appeared to objectively improve sleep quality in patients with Parkinson's disease with self-reported sleep complaints, Italian researchers said here.

Based on actigraph recordings, overall sleep efficiency was 67.8% in the week before treatment and 73.4% after 4 weeks of treatment with rotigotine patches for a statistically significant difference (P=0.017), according to Federica Provini, MD, of the University of Bologna, and colleagues.

In a poster presentation at Movement Disorders Society annual meeting, Provini's group noted that rotigotine is a dopamine agonist used for the treatment of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Previous reports have suggested rotigotine use led to improvements in subjective sleep in PD patients with sleep complaints.

What was different in this pilot study was that the researchers used the actigraph, which records what really happens during sleep, to confirm the effectiveness of the patches.

"This is the first objective demonstration of rotigotine during sleep," said co-author Pietro Cortelli, MD, also at the University of Bologna. "Our study relied on the actigraph, not on questionnaires. The patients wore the actigraph 1 week before we treated, then we had the recording done after 4 weeks of treatment with rotigotine patches."

Cortelli told MedPage Today that the authors sought to show that the patches had an impact on the patient's sleep only. "We were not trying to determine if the patches improved motor function efficacy. We did not have a placebo group. We were just measuring their sleep efficiency," he said.

The patients were assessed using the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the restless leg syndrome rating scale before the treatment. Their sleep was recorded with the actigraph to provide baseline data. The actigraph used was the Mini Motionlogger Actigraph Advanced by Ambulatory Monitoring.

Twelve of the 15 patients in the study were men and the mean age of all the participants was 67. They had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease for a mean of 5 years. To be eligible for the study, the patients had to have registered sleep complaints and scored 10 or greater on the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale-2; a 3 or greater on the Hoehn and Yahr Score; and, prior to the study, could not have undergone treatment with rotigotine to control motor symptoms.

After 1 week without treatment, patients were treated with a 24-hour patch which was titrated over 1-4 weeks to the optimal dose to subjectively control motor symptom control. The starting patch contained 2 mg of rotigotine and the highest dose patch was 8 mg of rotigotine which was absorbed through the skin in 24 hours.

In addition to sleep efficiency, Provini told MedPage Today that there was a significant reduction in wake after sleep onset time (P=0.013). The wake after sleep onset time was 147.5 minutes in the week before using the patch and 106.5 minutes after the 1-month treatment trial, the researchers said. A longer wake after sleep onset is considered less efficient sleep quality.

The researcher also reported a reduction in the mean duration of wake episodes (P=0.005); improvement in the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-III (P=0.018), and in the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale (P=0.005).

When looking at the patients who had pathological sleep efficiency pre-treatment, the authors reported a significant reduction in the nighttime activity mean (P=0.005) and activity median (P=0.04) post-treatment.

"This pilot study suggests that rotigotine subjectively improves sleep quality and [quality of life] in PD patients with self-eported sleep complaints and induces a significant reduction in nighttime activity, which could contribute to compromised sleep," the authors wrote, adding that in patients with reduced sleep efficiency, rotigotine objectively improved all sleep parameters.

Cortelli and Provini disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.

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ADA: Statins for Young T1D Patients, Too?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:31:00 +0000

Heart risk in 30s might warrant statin use, observational data suggest

BOSTON -- Type 1 diabetes patients younger than 40 may be candidates for statin use, as guidelines recommend after age 40, researchers suggested.

Under the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology definition, the 10-year cardiovascular risk was about 5% for type 1 diabetes patients ages 30 to 39 and about 13% in those ages 40 to 44, Rachel G. Miller, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues found.

Adding coronary revascularization to that definition -- which also included cardiovascular death or nonfatal stroke or myocardial infarction -- brought the 10-year risk to nearly 7% for type 1 diabetes patients in their 30s, the group reported here at the American Diabetes Association meeting.

Although still a little shy of the 7.5% 10-year risk threshold recommended for statin treatment in the guidelines, the 20% of the cohort already on a statin before age 40 was excluded along with a number of events that happened before the start of follow-up.

"We conclude that young adults aged 30 to 39 years with 20 or less years' type 1 diabetes duration are at sufficiently high atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk to merit statin therapy," the group concluded in their poster presentation.

Both the AHA/ACC and the American Diabetes Association guidelines recommend statins after 40 for essentially all diabetes patients and support possible use for younger people with cardiovascular disease risk factors.

"We've been comfortable with the concept that anybody over the age of 40 with type 2 should be on a statin and by extrapolation anybody who has type 1 over the age of 40 should be recommended for statins," commented Naveed Sattar, MD, a metabolic medicine specialist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

"What we now need is good guidance: Who are these people under 40 with type 1 who should get a statin, and how do we recognize them?"

There isn't enough data to develop a risk score for type 1 diabetes yet, he noted. Lifetime risk might be a better criterion in that population than the 10-year risks, which are heavily predicated upon age and which underpin current guidelines, Sattar noted.

"I think in the next 2 or 3 years either from national databases within Scandinavia or Scotland we're going to have a type 1 diabetes risk score that might allow us to look at this question," he suggested.

Comparisons with the general population in the surrounding county showed huge elevations in risk with type 1 diabetes even at these early ages, but absolute event numbers were small in Miller's study.

Among the 517 people under age 45 without pre-existing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease followed from 1996 to 2011 in the Pittsburgh Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications study (a prospective group of childhood-onset cases seen at a single center soon after diagnosis):

One event occurred in 20- to 29-year-olds
18 accrued in those in their 30s
22 occurred in participants in their early 40s

The fatal coronary artery event and nonfatal stroke or MI rates were 134 per 100,000 in the cohort ages 20 to 29, 502 per 100,000 people in their 30s, and 1,336 per 100,000 in the 40 to 44 age range.

Sattar cautioned against overinterpreting the "very crude analysis."

Miller disclosed no relevant relationships with industry. A co-author disclosed relationships with Eli Lilly and Company and Profil Institute for Clinical Research.

Sattar disclosed relationships with Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Sanofi.

Study Questions Statin, Memory Loss Connection

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:29:00 +0000

Statin and nonstatin use both associated with increased complaints of memory loss

Beginning treatment with a statin was associated with a nearly fourfold increased risk of developing acute memory loss within 30 days in a retrospective cohort study, but a similar increase in risk was seen in patients starting non-statin lipid-lowering drugs.

Compared with non-users, both statin and non-statin lipid-lowering drug (LLD) use was found to be associated with acute memory loss in the weeks following treatment initiation, but there was no difference in memory loss when statins and non-statins were compared with each other, researcher Brian L. Strom, MD, of Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., and colleagues wrote online June 8 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The observation that all LLDs were associated with memory loss suggests that either all drugs used to lower lipid levels cause acute memory loss or that the observed memory loss in the study was due to detection bias, Strom said.

In a telephone interview with MedPage Today, Strom said it makes sense that patients on a new drug would be more likely to notice symptoms and attribute them to the drug, and they are also more likely to report such symptoms to their physician.

"Patients might report a memory loss to me that they would otherwise pay little attention to because I am seeing them more often and I ask them about it," he said.

Earlier Statin, Memory Studies Mixed

Several previous studies have shown acute memory loss associated with the use of statins, but others have not shown the association or have even shown improved memory in long-term statin users compared with non-users.

Strom noted that without the non-statin LLD control group in his study, the findings would have shown a strong association between statin initiation and short-term memory loss.

"In the absence of this control group, the finding would have been completely misleading," he said.

The study included data obtained between early 1987 through late 2013 from The Health Improvement Network (THIN), which is a comprehensive database of medical records from general practitioners in the U.K. Patients were excluded from the analysis if they had a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or dementia, if they had received medications used for dementia, or if they had other conditions affecting cognition, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, or vascular dementia.

The analysis compared 482,543 statin users with 482,543 matched non-users of any lipid-lowering drug (control group 1) and with 26,484 users of non-statin LLDs, such as cholestyramine, colestipol hydrochloride, colesevelam, clofibrate, gemfibrozil, and niacin (control group 2).

A secondary case-crossover analysis was performed that included 68,028 patients with incident acute memory loss whose exposure to statins was evaluated during the period immediately before the outcome versus three earlier periods (31 to 60 days prior, 150 to 180 days prior, and 270 to 300 days prior).

Non-statin LLD Users Had 3.6-Fold Risk Increase

The analysis revealed that:

When compared with matched non-users of any LLDs, there was a strong association between first exposure to statins and acute memory loss within 30 days immediately following exposure (fully adjusted odds ratio 4.40, 95% CI 3.01-6.41).
The association was not seen in the comparison of statin versus non-statin LLDs (fully adjusted OR 1.03, 95% CI 0.63-1.66).
The association was seen in the first 30 days following exposure in non-statin LLD users compared with matched non-user controls (adjusted OR 3.60, 95% CI 1.34-9.70).
Both atorvastatin and simvastatin showed an increased OR within the first 30 days after exposure compared with non-users (adjusted OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.42-4.04 and 3.53, 95% CI 2.79 -4.48, respectively).
The case-crossover analysis showed a weak negative association, which was not found to be clinically meaningful.

A potential study limitation cited by the researchers involved a substantial difference in baseline characteristics between users of statins and users of non-statin LLDs, and differences among users of the various statin drugs.

"Bias from confounding by indication is the most serious potential problem in this study, even though we attempted to control for indication variables and a large number of other underlying conditions," the researchers wrote.

The case-crossover analysis was conducted to address this issue because each patient served as his or her own control.

Statin, Memory Issue 'Tempest in Teapot'

The researchers also noted that potential confounding could exist for variables not recorded in the medical records database.

Strom said the study findings should reassure both patients and physicians who prescribe statins.

"This whole issue of short-term memory loss with statins is really a tempest in a teapot," he said. "Statins are very effective drugs, and people should not veer away from them for fear of a short-term memory effect, especially given the data suggesting that long-term statin use improves memory."

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Strom reported receiving research funding from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb and serving as a consultant to Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis and Pfizer. A co-author reported receiving research funding from AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb and serving as a consultant to AstraZeneca, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Merck.

Melanoma: Two Drug Combo Halves Death Risk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:27:00 +0000

Progression, tumor growth slowed, side effects considerable but manageable

CHICAGO -- An immunotherapy combination for untreated melanoma reduced the risk of death or progression by more than half as compared with a drug currently used as a standard of care, a large randomized trial showed.

Patients treated with nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) had a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 11.5 months compared with 2.9 months for ipilimumab alone and 6.9 months with nivolumab monotherapy. Median PFS with the combination and with nivolumab alone increased to 14 months -- more than four times greater than the PFS of patients who received only ipilimumab -- among patients whose tumors tested positive for programmed death receptor ligand 1 (PD-L1), the target of nivolumab.

The rationale for combining the two drugs comes from recognition that cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and PD-1 represent distinct but complementary pathways involved in the negative regulation of anti-tumor immunity. Ipilimumab targets CTLA-4 and nivolumab targets PD-L1. Preclinical and phase I and II clinical studies have consistently shown greater activity (including response, complete response, and survival) with the combination than with ipilimumab alone.

Wolchok reported findings from the first phase III trial to compare nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab versus ipilimumab alone. Investigators in the multicenter trial enrolled almost 1,000 patients with untreated, unresectable, or metastatic melanoma. Patients were randomized to ipilimumab, nivolumab, or the combination. Treatment continued until disease progression or development of unacceptable toxicity.

Data were stratified by PD-L1 expression, BRAF expression, and melanoma stage (byAmerican Joint Commission on Cancer criteria). The trial had co-primary endpoints of PFS and overall survival, and Wolchok reported data for PFS. Secondary endpoints included objective response rate, correlation between PD-L1 expression and efficacy, and safety.

The primary comparison was nivolumab monotherapy and the combination versus ipilimumab alone, which is a current standard of care for the patient population enrolled in the study. The results showed that the combination reduced the hazard for death or progression by 58% versus ipilimumab alone (P<0.00001). Nivolumab alone reduced the hazard by 43% versus ipilimumab (P<0.00001).

An exploratory analysis showed that the combination significantly reduced the hazard for death or progression by 26% versus nivolumab monotherapy (HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.60-0.98).

The level of PD-L1 expression had a major influence on efficacy. Patients whose tumors had expression levels of at least 5% had median PFS of 14.0 months with the combination or nivolumab alone versus 3.9 months with ipilimumab. For tumors with PD-L1 expression <5%, the combination was the clear winner with a median PFS of 11.2 months compared with 5.3 months with nivolumab alone and 2.8 months with ipilimumab monotherapy.

Secondary analyses favored the combination and nivolumab over ipilimumab, including overall response rate (57.6% with the combination, 43.7% with nivolumab alone, and 19.0% with ipilimumab, P<0.001), complete response, and partial response. Median duration of response had yet to be reached in any of the treatment groups but favored the combination (13.1 months) and nivolumab (11.7) over ipilimumab (6.9).

Median reduction in tumor size was 51.9% with the combination, 34.5% with nivolumab, and 5.9% with ipilimumab.

On the basis of the efficacy analysis, the results appeared to be a slam-dunk for the combination. The safety data added a new consideration to the evaluation process.

In the combination arm, 55% of patients had grade 3/4 adverse events, most often diarrhea, elevated liver enzymes, colitis, rash, and fatigue. However, Wolchok emphasized that the rate was in line with earlier studies of the combination. Grade 3/4 adverse events occurred in 16.3% in the nivolumab arm and 27.3% of those treated with ipilimumab alone.

A similar difference existed across treatment groups with respect to the proportion of patients who discontinued because of grade 3/4 adverse events: 29.4% with the combination, 5.1% with nivolumab alone, and 13.2% with ipilimumab alone. However, patients who discontinued the combination had an overall response rate of 68%, and half of the responses occurred after patients stopped treatment, Wolchok said.

The trial had established guidelines for managing adverse effects and stopping treatment, and "clearly, they worked." Overall survival data, which continue to mature, should help inform discussions with patients about choosing between the combination and monotherapy, he added.

"This study highlights just how much progress we've made in the treatment of melanoma," said press briefing moderator Jyoti D. Patel, MD, of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. "Certainly, this is a powerful combination, and it comes with some toxicity, but it is clearly manageable in a global setting.

"The most important thing this study shows is that we are beginning to define which patients may benefit from one drug and those that may benefit from both drugs. That will only inform conversations about toxicity for patients and physicians as they decide the treatment course."

The study was supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Wolchok disclosed relevant relationships with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Medimmune, ZIOPHARM Oncology, Polynoma, Polaris, Jounce Therapeutics, GlaxoSmithKline, Potenza Therapeutics, VesuviusPharmaceuticals, EMD Serono, Janssen Oncology, and Merck.

Too hot to handle: how to avoid heat-related illness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:15:00 +0000

Hot weather can be extremely pleasant and relaxing, but it also comes with its dangers. Sometimes, the human body is unable to handle exposure to extreme heat and maintain the stable core temperature essential for normal bodily functioning.

The hotter it is, the more that needs to be done for the body to regulate its core internal temperature.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there was a total of 7,415 deaths in the US between 1999-2010 as a result of extreme heat. Despite being highly preventable, heat-related illness can be lethal.

In Europe in 2003, unprecedented heatwaves were responsible for an increase in deaths. In England, temperatures reached record highs (101 degrees) over a period of 9 days.

"There is considerable evidence that heatwaves are dangerous and can kill," states Graham Bickler of Public Health England. "In the 2003 heatwave, there were 2,000 to 3,000 excess deaths in England. Across Europe, there were around 30,000 excess deaths."

Extreme heat is defined by the CDC as "summertime temperatures that are substantially hotter and/or more humid than average for location at that time of year." Although certain groups of people are more susceptible to these temperatures than others, anyone can be affected in the wrong situation.

In this Spotlight, we take a look at the effects extreme heat have on the body and the measures that can be taken to prevent dangerous conditions such as heat stroke from occurring.

Regulating core internal temperature

Problems begin to occur in extreme heat when the body struggles to cool itself down properly. The human body has a very precise core internal temperature that needs to be maintained - a state that is known as homeostasis. A healthy core temperature should sit between 98 degrees and 100 degrees.

A part of the brain known as the hypothalamus is responsible for controlling the way in which the body regulates its temperature. If the body's core internal temperature starts to get too low or too high, then it can send signals to glands, muscles, nerves and organs activating mechanisms to adjust the body temperature.

The mechanism the body normally uses to cool itself is sweating. Liquid containing salt is released from the sweat glands, and when this sweat evaporates from the body, the body cools down. However, on some occasions, sweating is not enough.

For example, if humidity is high - when large amounts of damp air are trapped near the ground - sweat will not evaporate as quickly as it normally would, meaning that the body's ability to cool itself down is compromised.

A number of other factors limit how well the body can regulate temperature and, therefore, increase the risk of heat-related illness. These include the following:

Old age
Youth (age 0-4)
Overweight and obesity
Heart disease
Mental illness affecting judgment
Medical conditions that limit activity or restrain blood flow
Sunburn
Use of certain medications
Use of alcohol.

In terms of medication, there are a number of different reasons why these can increase the risk of heat-related illnesses. Some, such as those taken for Parkinson's disease, can inhibit sweating while others, such as diuretic medications or "water pills," alter the balance of fluids in the body.

When the body is struggling or unable to regulate temperature properly, a number of different illnesses can occur. These vary in severity from heat rash - a common problem in hot work environments - to heat stroke, a medical emergency that can kill.

What types of heat-related illnesses are there?

Heat-related illnesses come in all shapes, sizes and levels of severity. Some present solely external symptoms, some only internal symptoms and some a combination of the two. Some can be debilitating, some can be lethal and some require nothing more than keeping an affected area of skin dry.

Heat rash

Probably the least problematic of the heat-related illnesses, heat rash is caused when the skin becomes irritated due to excessive sweating and sweat that does not evaporate. The rash is formed by clusters of red bumps or small blisters on the skin, commonly in areas such as the groin, the upper chest and in folds of the skin.

Moving to a cooler location such as the shade of a tree can help cool the body down and reduce the risk of heat-related illness.

Young children are most likely to be affected by the condition. Heat rash is best treated by keeping the affected area as dry as possible and moving to a cooler, less humid environment.

Heat cramps

Heat cramps are muscle spasms and pains that typically occur in the abdomen, arms and legs. Sweating decreases the level of salt and moisture in the body, and it is low salt levels that cause heat cramps.

These cramps normally occur in association with strenuous activity and exercise, affecting those who sweat a lot during these pursuits. Drinking water and other cool beverages helps, as does stopping strenuous activity for a few hours. If heat cramps persist for an hour, medical attention should be sought.

Heat cramps can also be a sign of more advanced heat-related illnesses - heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Heat exhaustion

Heat exhaustion takes a little longer to develop than the forms of illness above, occurring after several days of exposure to extreme heat and imbalanced body fluid levels. The condition is due to the loss and inadequate replacement of water and salt from heavy sweating.

People with heat exhaustion can appear pale and sweat heavily, leaving their skin cool and moist. Their heartbeat will be fast but weak, and their breathing is likely to be quick and shallow. In addition to muscle cramps, people with heat exhaustion can experience headaches, nausea or vomiting, fainting and fatigue.

Heat exhaustion is most likely to affect older people, people with hypertension and people carrying out activities in hot environments. People with heat exhaustion should cool their bodies by drinking plenty of water or other cool beverages, taking a cool shower or bath and resting in a cooler environment.

Heat stroke

Heat stroke is the most dangerous of all the heat-related illnesses and occurs when the body is unable to regulate its core internal temperature. Within 10-15 minutes, the core internal temperature can rise to over 106 degrees, a dangerous increase that can lead to permanent disability or death if untreated.

The symptoms of heat stroke are far more extreme than those of heat exhaustion. The individual will no longer be able to sweat and, therefore, have red, hot and often dry skin. Their heartbeat will be rapid and strong. Other symptoms include dizziness, throbbing headaches, seizures and unconsciousness.

As heat stroke is a medical emergency, action should be taken as quickly as possible. While immediate medical assistance is summoned, the person's body must be cooled down rapidly by whatever means are available.

Removing clothing, applying ice packs, immersing the individual in cool water, spraying them with a hose, wrapping them in damp sheets, fanning them: all are methods that can help lower body temperature to safer levels.

In all instances of heat-related illness, including heat stroke, moving to a cooler location is one measure that should be taken to improving the situation. This is just one common step that everyone can take to reduce the risk of developing these illnesses.

How to keep your cool

When the body is struggling to cool itself down, cooling down the location that the body is in is a great way to prevent heat-related illness. In fact, the CDC state that "air conditioning is the number one protective factor against heat-related illness and death."

If a person's home is not air conditioned, they can derive benefit from visiting public spaces that are, such as shopping malls or libraries. Exposure to air conditioning for just a few hours a day is enough to reduce the risk of heat-related illness.

The body requires more liquid in extreme heat. Do not wait until feeling thirsty before drinking.

To improve the body's chances of cooling itself down, it is important that people drink enough fluids. In extreme heat, people should drink more water than they normally would and should not wait until feeling thirsty before drinking.

If exercising, the CDC recommend drinking two to four glasses (16-32 ounces) of cool nonalcoholic fluid every hour. Drinking sports beverages can also help by replacing the salt and minerals that are also lost through sweating.

Outdoor exercise is best carried out in the morning and evening rather than the afternoon, as these are the times of day when outdoor temperatures are coolest. Resting in shaded areas will give the body more of a chance to regulate its temperature. It is also important that people take care to pace themselves when exercising or carrying out strenuous activities in hot environments.

Wearing appropriate clothing helps. Loose, lightweight and light-colored clothing is best, as is wearing as little as you can get away with. Accessories that shade the body such as hats and umbrellas are useful. Of course, any skin that is exposed to the sun will need to be adequately protected from its rays.

As sunburn disrupts the skin's ability to cool itself and results in the loss of body fluid, apply sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher around 30 minutes before venturing outside. Be sure to follow the directions on the sunscreen's packaging concerning how frequently it should be reapplied.

In terms of keeping cool, a lot of what can be done is common sense. Large, hot meals should be avoided as they heat the body, as does the use of appliances such as ovens. To cool down, take cold showers or baths or have a swim. Keep an eye on weather reports so you can be prepared for a day of extreme heat if one is forecast.

Look out for each other!

Some of the people who are most at risk from heat-related illnesses are vulnerable individuals who depend on others for care. Be sure to look out for young children, people older than 65, people with chronic and mental disorders and pets during times of extreme heat.

Do not leave children or animals alone in cars, where interior temperatures can rise suddenly in a very short space of time, even when the windows are open slightly.

If working or exercising in hot environments, be sure to monitor the condition of your colleagues and teammates and have them do the same for you. Some heat-induced illnesses can lead to confusion and visible symptoms that others may be better placed to identify.

Most heat-related illnesses are avoidable. By keeping cool, drinking plenty of fluids and being alert, these health conditions should not stop you and others from enjoying a lovely warm summer.

Chocolate: is it really good for our health?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:12:00 +0000

With the average American consuming around 4.5 kg of chocolate each year, it is safe to say it is one of the nation's most loved treats. It is not hard to fathom why; it tastes delicious and stimulates the release of endorphins - the "feel-good" hormones. And according to numerous studies in recent years, chocolate is amazingly good for our health... or is it?

The average American eats around 4.5 kg of chocolate annually.

In this Spotlight, we ask, can chocolate really be good for our health? Or are the potential health benefits of this much-loved treat overstated?

The 'food of the gods'

When we think of chocolate, many of us visualize a big, chunky bar of sweet deliciousness. But originally, chocolate was only consumed as a bitter beverage.

Chocolate - which is made using beans from the cacao tree, native to Central and South America - is estimated to date back as far as 1900 BC, when it was created by pre-Olmec cultures residing in present-day Mexico. The ancient Mesoamericans roasted the cacao beans, or cocoa beans, before grinding them into a paste that was mixed with hot water, vanilla, chili and other spices to make a frothy drink.

The Olmec, Aztec and Mayan civilizations found chocolate to be a mood-lifting drink and an aphrodisiac, so much so that they believed the beverage had spiritual qualities. The Mayans even worshipped a cacao God, and the beverage was used for religious and sacred ceremonies, hence why chocolate is often referred to as the "food of the gods."

It wasn't until 1847 that chocolate became the solid edible bar we know and love today. A British chocolate company called J.S Fry & Sons created it using cocoa butter - vegetable fat extracted from the cocoa bean - cocoa powder and sugar.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, well-known chocolate manufacturers such as Hershey, Cadbury and Mars were formed, and they have been bringing us an array of heavenly sweet treats ever since.

But while we are thankful to these companies for catering to our chocolate needs, they are also responsible for adding potentially unhealthy ingredients to what could be an otherwise healthy - albeit less tasty - food, giving chocolate its reputation as a diet demon.

What is in our chocolate?

Cocoa beans - from which chocolate is made - are believed to contain more than 300 compounds that are beneficial to health.

They are packed full of flavanoids and flavanols, such as anthocyanidin and epicatechins. These are antioxidants, which are known to destroy free radicals in the body - chemicals that can cause damage to DNA and other cell components, accelerating aging and contributing to heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

The main ingredient in chocolate - cocoa beans - contains more than 300 compounds that are beneficial to health.

The darker the chocolate, the more flavanoids and flavanols it contains, which explains why the majority of chocolate studies have hailed dark chocolate - rather than milk or white - for its health benefits.

Cocoa beans also contain dopamine, phenylethylamine and serotonin, all of which are compounds that are known to enhance mood and promote feelings of well-being.

So if the main ingredient in chocolate is full of healthy compounds, why shouldn't we eat it by the bucketload?

Put simply, the negative health effects of chocolate primarily come from the additional ingredients that are added to it during the commercial manufacturing process. Sugar, full-fat cream and milk are just some of these ingredients, and the quantities in which they are added are not slight.

A standard 43 g bar of Hershey's milk chocolate contains 13 g of fat, 24 g of sugar and 210 calories. Eating this product in high quantities could lead to weight gain, and being overweight can increase the risk of numerous health problems, including hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.

Because of its high sugar content, chocolate may also raise the risk of dental problems - including gum disease and cavities - if consumed in high amounts.

Referring back to the Heart study, however, researchers claim that participants who consumed up to 100 g of chocolate a day were at lower risk of stroke and heart disease. This is an amount the equivalent to more than two Hershey's milk chocolate bars each day, which would take a person well above the recommended daily sugar intake of 25 g for woman and 37.5 g for men.

Can eating this amount of chocolate daily really be good for our health? Or has this study and many like it been overstated?

Are we succumbing to the media's hype?

Looking at the results of the Heart study more closely, the average daily chocolate consumption of the almost 158,000 participants studied was 7 g, while only some of the participants consumed 100 g of chocolate each day.

However, the researchers claim that higher chocolate consumption - up to 100 g daily - was associated with a greater reduction in heart disease and stroke risk. But it should be noted that most of these participants were younger with a lower body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure, and they were less likely to have diabetes.

Many studies associating chocolate with health benefits are badly conducted, but many news outlets continue to report their findings.

"It is hard to know if the lower risk comes from chocolate or those other factors," says Science Media Centre - a media watchdog based in the UK. "The authors have tried to account for these as far as possible, but the nature of the study means that it is not possible to do that perfectly. Therefore, it is possible that the protective effect might be because of something else - not chocolate."

Despite this, the Internet was engulfed with media outlets claiming, "Two bars of chocolate a day 'lowers risk of stroke and heart disease'" and "Two chocolate bars a day can SLASH the risk of heart attack and stroke."

Could such media coverage be luring the general public into potentially false beliefs that chocolate consumption can have major health benefits?

Earlier this month, news outlets around the globe reported on a study conducted by Johannes Bohannon, PhD, research director of the Institute of Diet and Health, which claimed people who ate one chocolate bar a day alongside a low-carbohydrate diet lost weight 10% faster than controls.

As MNT revealed, however, the purpose of this study was to see how easy it would be to get badly conducted research into the news. Though the study was real, it was actually conducted by a journalist called John Bohannon, and the Institute of Diet and Health does not exist.

The study, which was published in the International Archives of Medicine and covered by news outlets including the Huffington Post and The Daily Mail, was hugely flawed. It contained only 16 participants who were only assessed for a 3-week period, meaning the findings were insignificant - factors that many news reporters failed to acknowledge.

"It was terrible science," said Bohannon in an article he penned for website io9. "The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded."

Bohannon noted, however, that the general public were very critical of the findings, asking questions that should have been addressed by the reporting journalists. This suggests that many of us are not completely taken in by attention-grabbing headlines hailing the health benefits of chocolate.

However, this is not to say chocolate consumption offers no health benefits. Some well-conducted studies have found it could be good for us.

The potential health benefits of chocolate

For years, numerous studies have associated moderate chocolate consumption with better heart health. As well as the most recent example published in Heart, in February 2014, MNT reported on a study linking daily consumption of dark chocolate to reduced risk of atherosclerosis - thickening and hardening of the arteries.

A study published in 2012, conducted by researchers from the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine, found dark chocolate may benefit patients with advanced heart failure and type 2 diabetes by enhancing the structure of mitochondria - the "powerhouses" of cells - while another study found that cocoa products may help to lower blood pressure.

The heart health benefits of chocolate have been put down to the antioxidants it contains, which, as mentioned previously, are found in cocoa beans. High levels of antioxidants can reduce the amount of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad," cholesterol that build up in artery walls, for example.

More and more studies are emerging in support of the heart health benefits of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate. However, increasingly, studies are suggesting there may be many more health benefits attached to the yummy treat.

In 2013, a study by researchers from Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, claimed drinking two cups of hot chocolate each day may stave off memory decline in older age by preserving blood flow in working areas of the brain.

And another study, published in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry in 2014, suggested a flavanol in cocoa - called oligomeric procyandins - may protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Our Knowledge Center article on the health benefits of chocolate looks at some of the other ways in which it could be good for us.

While numerous studies suggest there may be additional perks to indulging in a chocolatey treat, it should be noted that they are not conclusive, and research is ongoing to determine exactly what health benefits chocolate offers.

What is conclusive, however, is that eating excessive amounts of chocolate - as tempting as it might be - can lead to weight gain, increasing our risk of overweight and obesity and associated conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes.

But this doesn't mean we have to miss out. Like most foods high in sugar and fat, they can be consumed in moderation. As dietitian and spokesperson of the British Dietetic Association Alison Hornby says:

"As an occasional treat, chocolate can be part of a healthy diet. Eaten too frequently, it is an unhealthy choice."

Running a marathon: how to survive the historic endurance race

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:08:00 +0000

As the weather improves, so does the likelihood of people going out and running. While many people go running as a simple way of keeping fit, for others, it is a necessary part of a long-term project; training for a marathon.

Millions of people around the world run marathons every year, often raising large sums of money for charity.

Those who have signed up to take part in marathons this autumn are likely to have already begun training regimes. If they are going to be running in their first ever marathon, it is recommended that they should have done. Meanwhile, others whose local marathons are held in the spring may only now be thinking about participating in one.

Marathons are rightly considered to be one of the most demanding physical challenges that an individual can undertake. They require months of preparation and dedicated training for the running to be a success and not hazardous to the runner's health.

What could possibly motivate someone to take on such an arduous task? And where should one begin when it comes to preparing to take on running a marathon? For many, running a marathon for the first time is a completely different prospect to any form of exercise they will have encountered before.

In this Spotlight feature, we take a brief look at what running a marathon involves, along with what levels of preparation are recommended for someone taking on the challenge.

Why would anyone want to run a marathon?

Last week, Medical News Today reported on two new studies that found exercising at extreme levels such as marathon running could lead to blood poisoning. Studies such as this beg the question: why would anyone want to run a marathon?

One reason is that people might wish to take part in a long tradition of endurance running. A tradition that has its roots in ancient history, inspired by the legend of an ancient Greek who ran from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to spread news of a Greek military victory.

Athens was host to the first organized marathon, held at the 1896 Olympics. The original distance of the marathon was 40 km, representing the distance from Marathon to Athens, but this was extended at the 1908 Olympics in London to accommodate a request from the British royal family.

This increase in distance - allegedly done so that the course started at Windsor Castle and ended in front of the royal box at the Olympic Stadium - then became the official length for a marathon; a distance of 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles) that runners worldwide are now familiar with.

Although once a very exclusive event only open to male athletes, marathon races are now open to all and take place all over the world. In America alone, there are more than 1,100 marathons each year, including the Boston Marathon - the world's oldest annual marathon.

As well as a desire to tackle a historical and immense challenge, marathon runners are often spurred on by charitable motives. At many marathons, elite runners will share the streets with eager amateurs running to raise money for good causes.

Marathon runners generate huge amounts of money for charity, including significant funds for various medical research groups. Last year, the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon raised $27.5 million and $30 million respectively in funds for charities, yet these figures pale in comparison with the estimated $79.1 million raised by the London Marathon.

With figures like these, it is clear to see that marathon runners participating in these races and doing so successfully can make a big difference for charities. There is a lot of pressure to succeed, and so prospective runners do well to spend a lot of time planning out their training regimen.

The importance of well-planned physical training

Running a marathon is without doubt an extreme form of exercise. For this reason, it is recommended that people aiming to participate in one should build up a considerable amount of running experience prior to tackling one for the first time, including running shorter distance races.

It is also recommended that you inform your doctor that you plan to train for and run a marathon. If there are any personal health concerns you need to be aware of, they should be able to let you know and provide advice. You should seek medical clearance before beginning training in case you have a health condition that might make training dangerous.

"While I think that any healthy individual who is willing to commit to the training can complete a marathon, I don't recommend that runners jump right into the marathon distance," states Christine Luff, a running and jogging expert for About Health.

Training for a marathon is a long process that should build up endurance gradually and consistently.

Instead, Luff recommends that beginners first establish a regular running habit, going out around 3-4 times a week, building up a base mileage for runs gradually over the course of 6 months. Once this has been done, runners can get some experience of endurance running by entering shorter distance races, such as a 5K, a 10K or even a half marathon.

Training for a marathon is not just about practicing running for long periods of time. Runners also need to prepare their body for the immense strain that extreme exercise will put it under. Cross-training activities such as cycling and swimming not only improve your aerobic conditioning but also boost the body's resistance to injury.

Activities that increase the body's strength, such as Pilates, Yoga or using weights, can also be beneficial.

A good training schedule for around 20 weeks will include runs over a variety of distances that increase gradually, cross-training and rest days. Rest days can either involve no training at all or "active recovery," a short run at an easy pace to allow the muscles to loosen up.

Shorter training runs should be run at a moderate pace while longer runs - slowly building up toward marathon distance but never reaching it - should be taken slowly, at an easy, conversational pace.

In the final weeks before the marathon, it is important that training is tapered, cutting back on the amount of training that is done in order to allow the body and mind to recover. After 18 weeks of training, fitness is not going to improve any further, so the focus should be on keeping the body as healthy as possible.

Three weeks before the marathon, runners should run their last long run, treating it as a dress rehearsal of sorts. The subsequent weeks should see training reduced gradually, with less attention paid to cross-training and more on easy runs and resting.

Be prepared: eat and dress appropriately

Of course, there are other measures that need to be taken when preparing oneself for a marathon. Improving fitness is crucial, but runners can give themselves a huge advantage by eating properly and wearing the right clothes.

Every runner should have proper footwear. A runner's feet are crucial to their training and their ability to complete the marathon, and so aiding and protecting them with a good pair of running shoes can make a massive difference to a runner's prospects.

With running shoes, there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into consideration when deciding what pair to go for, so discussing the available options with staff in a running store is a good place to start. Runners will need to take into account the running surfaces they will training on when making a purchase.

Appropriate clothing is also important, and women should be sure to find the right sports bra to ensure comfort while running. As a marathon training schedule is likely to take in a variety of seasonal climates, clothing that fits well, allows for good air ventilation and dries quickly is ideal. Again, the staff in a running store will be well-placed to make suggestions.

Eating healthily during the training period is beneficial, but food choices on the day of the marathon - both before and during - can have a big impact too. Dr. Ed Laskowski, co-director of the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center, states that hydration and energy-boosting carbohydrates help toward running a healthy race with a low risk of injury.

In the weeks close to the marathon, a runner's diet should involve eating plenty of complex carbohydrates, such as wholegrain bread and pasta, and drinking lots of fluids. Around 65-70% of total calorie consumption should ideally come from carbohydrates. Alcohol is best avoided as it can dehydrate and disrupt sleep.

To increase fluid absorption during exercise, runners should start drinking fluids at least 4 hours prior to beginning. On the day of the race, Dr. Laskowski states that water, milk, fruit juice and sports drinks can be consumed up to 1 hour before the start.

Sports drinks are a good source of energy while running as their sodium content can replace electrolytes lost through sweat. Other options for mid-race sustenance include energy bars and gels.

When the going gets tough

Everyone who runs a marathon will have different reasons for doing it and different expectations for what they want to achieve. It is important to focus on what you personally want to get out of running a marathon, especially if it is your first time running one.

Of course, some people like to take the challenge further, particularly in the name of charity. At many marathons, spectators are likely to spot participants dressed up in costume eliciting huge cheers from onlookers.

Wearing appropriate, comfortable clothing can be crucial to marathon running success.

These costumes are rarely made for the purpose of endurance running and so present extra challenges for the runner to overcome. They can be hot and heavy, they can chafe and they can restrict vision and breathing. As such, additional preparation is needed for people taking on this extra challenge.

"Training for a marathon is always tough. I'm not the most disciplined runner in history, but adding a 10 kg hippo suit to the mix has certainly given me food for thought," Martin Neal toldThe Guardian, ahead of running last year's London Marathon.

In order to prepare himself for the rigors of running in the suit, he decided to travel to Disney World Florida for a long-distance running event at higher temperatures than he was used to. He also went for several runs while wearing the suit to get his body accustomed the challenge. "It was really hard going, incredibly hot and I used muscles I didn't know I had," he stated.

Meticulous preparation is key to running a successful and enjoyable marathon. Runners should work to prepare both their bodies and minds for all eventualities. Seeking advice from experts - trainers, doctors, people who have ran marathons before - is a great way to do this.

It is important that prospective marathon runners should be well aware of the health risks of the task ahead before beginning and also listen to their body when the going gets tough.

"Pain associated with joint swelling or that causes the joint to feel unstable should be checked," advises Dr. Laskowski. "You should also seek an evaluation for pain that persists or intensifies after rest from running or pain that causes you to compensate, change your running, or change your gait."

Running a marathon when not 100% healthy can be dangerous. Runners should not put their long-term health at risk by forcing their bodies to do things they are not adequately prepared for or able to do.

Marathon running has grown hugely in popularity over the last few decades. Around 25,000 runners were estimated to have finished marathons in the US in 1976, and by 2013 this number is believed to have risen to 541,000. With appropriate preparation, anyone can add to these numbers and if you intend to, good luck!

Can Apple's ResearchKit change the face of medical research?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:07:00 +0000

Every day, Medical News Today reports on a large number of studies. Many of these involve the recruitment of participants so researchers can obtain new and relevant data. The best of these studies will involve the participation of thousands of people, but getting hold of large numbers of willing volunteers can be difficult.

With access to a smartphone, anyone anywhere in the world can now potentially participate in a medical study.

"We have sent out over 60,000 letters," says Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, of Penn Medicine, explaining the recruitment process for a recent study. "Those 60,000 letters have netted 305 women."

Some researchers will acquire a large number of subjects for their studies by using data obtained by previous investigations. This method is much quicker than signing up thousands of volunteers, but it does not give the researcher the control and flexibility that comes with recruiting new volunteers.

In developed countries, smartphones are ubiquitous. Walk down a street in any city and you will likely encounter at least one person with one of these gadgets glued to their hand or head. More than just a way of communicating with other people, for many, smartphones have become an integral part of navigating life due to the wide variety of apps available to users.

iPhones, for example, do not just contain the necessary bits and bobs needed for people to initiate conversations or access the Internet. They contain a myriad of sensors and processors that can track and measure a host of different things. The combination of widespread usage and the capacity to collect data makes smartphones an ideal tool for researchers to utilize.

Here, then, could be a solution to one of the most pressing problems experienced by medical researchers. In this Spotlight, we take a brief look at ResearchKit, the latest initiative launched by Apple, attempting to harness the power of the smartphone to transform how scientists carry out research studies.

Getting started

Smartphone apps are being increasingly used for personal health purposes, both in tracking health and fitness and for detecting illness.

But while these apps can provide users with a perspective on their health, many experts have been critical about the worth of these perspectives, questioning whether they are actually beneficial to users' health.

Last year, Apple launched their Health app and a tool for developers called HealthKit, allowing them to develop software able to pool together health data collected by other apps. The aim of this was to create a range of more empowered health tracking programs, supposedly giving users greater insight into their health than before.

In March, Apple took this work a step further with the launch of ResearchKit, an open source framework that allows developers to create apps specifically for conducting medical research studies. In addition to using data obtained by the Health app, ResearchKit also allows researchers to obtain informed consent from participants remotely.

The Asthma Health app helps people with asthma treat their condition while helping researchers investigate new ways to personalize treatment.
Image credit: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Eric Schadt, from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY, explained to MNT that electronic consenting would eliminate many of the limitations that the traditional consenting process brought to medical research.

"Traditional research has been constrained to informing potential participants about a study, the risks, the benefits and so on, by sitting directly with the participant (or on the phone) to step them through the paperwork and other material to complete the informed consent," he said.

For each participant enrolled into a study, it takes around 30 minutes for a researcher to go through the consenting process. The fact that the process is so time-consuming limits the number of people that can be signed up for a research project due to the amount of time available to researchers.

"With electronic consenting these limitations are all addressed," said Dr. Schadt. "Potential study participants can be stepped through the informed consent using their iPhone, advanced multimedia can be used to more efficiently inform the participant as to the details of the studies as well as the risks and potential benefits."

In order to prevent users from just skipping through the informing stages of the consent process, the apps feature questions to ensure that users can only consent to take part if they fully understand what they are signing up for.

Apple and the researchers behind the first five apps developed using ResearchKit that were launched in March have been very vocal about how the consenting process is a marked improvement on how studies have traditionally been set up.

Dr. Schadt has been involved with one of these first five apps, Asthma Health - an app that combines geolocating data from the phone with air quality information to help users avoid areas where asthma symptoms could be triggered, in turn, collecting data that the developers hope will allow them to discover new ways to personalize treatment of the condition.

On the first day the app was launched, Asthma Health was downloaded by 2,500 people. It would typically take researchers around 1-2 years to recruit this many subjects for a study. In the first month, 7,500 people with asthma had signed up.

This number pales in comparison, however, with the 11,000 people who downloaded the MyHeart Counts app within 24 hours of it becoming available. An element of this may well be the novelty value of being able to sign up to research studies with newfound ease, but initial signs are certainly promising.

Lots and lots of data

The other aspect of ResearchKit that Apple and the app developers are keen to promote is how much data will be obtained by studies built using the framework.

"For the researcher, especially disease research, it is all about the phenotypes," explained Dr. Schadt. "Today, cohorts assembled for disease collect very minimal numbers of phenotypes generally relating directly to the disease, and those phenotypes are collected infrequently - at most, once a year."

Studies conducted via iPhone app will differ in this respect. "With the health apps being built we can collect phenotypes that relate across the disease and wellness spectra and we can do it at high frequency, every day, or 10 or 100 times a day," said Dr. Schadt.

There are a number of inbuilt devices in iPhones that can prove useful to researchers. Data obtained by the microphone, gyroscope, accelerometer, touch screen and the global positioning system of the smartphone can all provide data relevant to research projects.

"All of these variables can be collected numerous times a day over any number of days or years, thus providing a far more detailed profile of the user than could ever be reasonably generated in a medical setting," stated Dr. Schadt.

Not only is the variety of forms of available data beneficial but the frequency by which it is collected is great for researchers too. Many studies are limited by only taking measurements at the baseline - the starting point of the study - and then one or two further times after that.

Infrequent measuring can make results unreliable. Let's say a study wants to examine the effects of a particular diet on body mass index (BMI), and then measures the participants' BMI at the beginning of the study, 6 months later and then after 1 year.

The results of such a study might then show minimal change in BMI after this period. But, if the two periods where BMI was measured came shortly after holidays where the participants drank a lot of alcoholic beverages and did not exercise, the results would inevitably be skewed. This skewing would be exacerbated if the study used a small number of participants.

Such a problem - the ebbing and flowing of symptoms as Apple describes it - is solved by gathering data far more regularly than many studies are able to.

In addition to this, the pool of potential volunteers is much larger with ResearchKit than it is for most studies, typically confined to a small geographic area. The ubiquity of the iPhone means that volunteers can sign up to take part no matter where they live in the world.

This also allows researchers to have access to more varied study populations, although they will be relying on participants that have access to smartphones, still a restricted demographic.

An open source framework for all

What is possibly the most interesting aspect of ResearchKit, however, is that Apple have made the whole thing open source. The core framework can be used by anyone who wishes to use the software to make their own study, and the codes for the five initial apps launched alongside the framework are also available for examination and customization.

While initial access to ResearchKit is confined to iPhones, thanks to the open sourcing of the framework, it will eventually be available to users of every kind of smartphone.

For a company that is renowned for keeping as many aspects of its products as exclusive to the brand as possible, this was a surprising move, but one that could prove incredibly beneficial.

ResearchKit was made available to developers to use from April. Although the initial apps were only available for iPhone users, the fact that the software is open source means that eventually studies will be accessible to users of Android and Windows products.

Science Practice had a go at trying out the newly available framework and commented on how quick it was to construct simple consent forms and participant surveys. Already, too, a small online community has developed in which new ideas and suggestions are being shared on how to use and improve the framework.

A major concern raised with ResearchKit is how private and secure the obtained data will be. Considering how data from the Health app could be loaded up onto the iCloud and how that platform has been hit with several high-profile hacking incidents, the concern is a valid one.

Dr. Schadt informed Yahoo! Tech that "the only people who have access to the data are the investigators of the study," stating that the data is encrypted and meets all industry standards for the transfer of sensitive data. "Apple never touches the data," he reported.

Being an open source framework may also help with privacy, according to Adrian Gropper, chief technology officer of the nonprofit group Patient Privacy Rights.

"Open source encourages people to report bugs in the software and get them fixed," he told Bloomberg Business. "The gold standard is open source because security by obscurity has been shown not to work."

Work in progress

"We believe that these studies represent an entirely new way to perform human health research, putting the participant truly at the center with frequent feedback and control of how their data are used," Dr. Andrew Trister.

"Furthermore, the power of these pervasive devices on quantifying health on an individual is tremendous, opening up real opportunities for truly personalized medicine."

Dr. Trister is a senior physician with Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit research organization that has worked with Apple to develop ResearchKit.

There are still a number of limitations that the studies conducted by these apps will be subject to. Data provided by the instruments in a smartphone may not be as precise as those obtained using specifically-designed medical instruments. With the study being conducted remotely, it is also harder for investigators to assess the suitability of participants for their study.

Developers might argue that the sheer volume of participants now available to researchers may overshadow these limitations. At this stage, before the results of any of the studies have been processed, it feels as though the positive of having increased and easy access to large numbers of participants is the main point to take from the project.

The most reliable studies are those that are conducted over a long period of time and, as a result, it may be some time before we can effectively gauge the contribution that ResearchKit will make to the field of medical research.

What is MERS? What you need to know

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:04:00 +0000

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), previously known as novel coronavirus (nCoV), is a viral respiratory illness, which was first reported in Saudi Arabia, in 2012. The source of MERS is currently unknown, though it is likely to have originated from an animal.

The MERS virus is currently spreading in South Korea. This, in combination with the fact that coronaviruses can often mutate, is leading to increased fears it could become a pandemic.

MERS-CoV is dissimilar to other coronaviruses; there is currently no vaccine.

Most confirmed cases of MERS-CoV have displayed symptoms of severe acute respiratory illness. Approximately 36% of reported patients with MERS have died.

Contents of this article:

MERS Outbreak updates
What is MERS-CoV?
What causes MERS-CoV?
Signs and symptoms
Who is most at risk?
Tests and diagnosis
Treatment and prevention
Confirmed cases and deaths

You will also see introductions at the end of some sections to any recent developments that have been covered by MNT's news stories. Also look out for links to information about related conditions.

Fast facts on MERS

Here are some key points about MERS-CoV. More detail and supporting information is in the main article.

MERS-CoV was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
MERS-CoV belongs to the coronavirus family.
All cases have been linked to countries in and neighboring the Arabian Peninsula.
Cases of MERS-CoV reported in other countries were travel-related and first developed in the Middle East.
It is thought mammals play a role in the transmission of the virus - bats and camels remaining a high contender.
In addition to humans, strains of MERS-CoV have been identified in camels in Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and in a bat in Saudi Arabia.
Doctors describe MERS-CoV as a flu-like illness with signs and symptoms of pneumonia.
Sufferers of MERS-CoV will generally develop severe acute respiratory illness. Some people have reported mild respiratory illness with others showing no symptoms.
There are no specific treatments for patients who become ill with MERS-CoV infection.
Out of the confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, 36% have been fatal.

MERS Outbreak updates

June 5, 2015

In light of the recent outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), WHO and the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare will conduct a joint mission in the Republic of Korea.

This joint mission is to gain information and review the situation in the Republic of Korea including the epidemiological pattern, the characteristic of the virus and clinical features.

Based on current data and WHO's risk assessment, there is no evidence to suggest sustained human-to-human transmission in communities and no evidence of airborne transmission.

June 2, 2015

The outbreak of MERS-CoV in the Republic of Korea continues to evolve. The Republic of Korea's first, or "index", case was confirmed on May 20, 2015.

To date, contact tracing has identified a total of 25 laboratory-confirmed cases, including the index case and among health care workers caring for him, patients who were being cared for at the same clinics or hospitals, and family members and visitors. Two of these confirmed cases have been fatal.

June 2, 2015

A total of 1,179 laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection with MERS-CoV have been reported to WHO since 2012, including at least 442 deaths.

What is MERS-CoV?

MERS-CoV belongs to the coronavirus family. Human coronaviruses were first classified in the mid 1960s. The coronavirus subgroups are referred to as alpha, beta, gamma and delta. There are currently six coronaviruses that can affect humans including:

MERS-CoV belongs to the coronavirus family. Human coronaviruses were first classified in the mid 1960s. MERS-CoV was first reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia.

Alpha coronaviruses

Human coronavirus 229E
Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63, New Haven coronavirus).

Beta coronaviruses

Human coronavirus OC43
Human coronavirus HKU1
SARS-CoV
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

Coronaviruses typically infect one species type or those that are closely related. However, SARS-CoV infects both humans and animals including monkeys, Himalayan palm civets, raccoon dogs, cats, dogs, and rodents.

The common cold is a virally related syndrome. It is connected to over 100 separate viruses, including human coronavirus.

MERS-CoV is a species in lineage C of the genus beta coronavirus, which presently includes tylonycteris bat coronavirus HKU4 and pipistrellus bat coronavirus HKU5.

MERS-CoV is a species in lineage C of the genus beta coronavirus, which presently includes tylonycteris bat coronavirus HKU4 and pipistrellus bat coronavirus HKU5. Although it features in the same subgroup, MERS-CoV is different from the coronavirus that caused severe acute respiratory virus (SARS) in 2003. One parallel between MERS-CoV and SARS is that they both are similar to coronaviruses found in bats.

MERS-CoV appears most closely to resemble the not-yet-classified viruses from insectivorous European and African bats in the Vespertilionidae and Nycteridae families.

All cases have been linked to countries in and neighboring the Arabian Peninsula including:

Bahrain
Iraq
Iran
Israel
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Oman
Palestine
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syria
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
The West Bank
Yemen.

Cases of MERS-CoV reported in other countries were travel-related and first developed in the Middle East. Countries that have declared cases are:

Middle East

Egypt
Iran
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia (KSA)
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Yemen.

Europe

Austria
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
Turkey
United Kingdom.

Africa

Algeria
Tunisia.

Asia

China
Republic of Korea
Malaysia
Philippines.

Americas

What causes MERS-CoV?

The cause of MERS-CoV is not yet fully understood. Although not confirmed, the infection could be primarily zoonotic in nature, with limited human-to-human transmission. It is thought mammals play a role in the transmission of the virus - bats and camels remaining a high contender.

It is thought mammals play a role in the transmission of the virus - bats and camels remaining a high contender.

In addition to humans, strains of MERS-CoV have been identified in:

Camels in Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia
A bat in Saudi Arabia.

MERS-CoV antibodies were found in camels across Africa and the Middle East, indicating that they had previously been infected with MERS-CoV or a closely related virus.

Researchers from three centers in the United States and two in Saudi Arabia conducted complete genetic sequences for MERS-CoV isolates generated from five camels, the results verified them identical to published sequences of human isolates.

Goats, cows, sheep, water buffalo, swine and wild birds have been tested for antibodies to MERS-CoV; none have yet been detected.

The findings above support the hypothesis that camels are a probable source of infection transfer to humans, while bats may be the ultimate reservoir of the virus. The high infectious dose would require very close contact between an infected camel and humans for instigation of human MERS-CoV infection by camels. It has been suggested the virus could infect humans by air, via camel milk or meat.

Experts have commented that although the respiratory route of transmission is the most likely, the paper has exhibited that MERS-CoV can survive in raw camel milk marginally longer than milk of other species, proposing the foodborne path of transmission should be investigated further.

Recent developments on MERS-CoV causes

MERS may have started in bats in Saudi Arabia

Researchers have discovered what they believe could be the animal origin of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) - after examining a bat in Saudi Arabia near where the first person was infected with the mystery virus.

MERS coronavirus: are camels the carrier?

A European study published gives the first hint that camels could be a reservoir for the mysterious MERS virus.

Signs and symptoms of MERS

The most common signs and symptoms of MERS-CoV are:

Fever 100 degrees F or higher
Cough
Breathing difficulties
Chills
Chest pain
Body aches
Sore throat
Malaise - a general feeling of being unwell
Headache
Diarrhea
Nausea/Vomiting
Runny nose
Renal (kidney) failure
Pneumonia.

Doctors describe it as flu-like illness with signs and symptoms of pneumonia. Early reports described symptoms as similar to those found in SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome) cases. However, SARS infections did not cause renal failure, unlike MERS-CoV.

Sufferers of MERS-CoV will generally develop severe acute respiratory illness. Some people have reported mild respiratory illness with others showing no symptoms.

Who is most at risk?

The following groups of people are more susceptible to MERS-CoV infections and complications:

Patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, chronic lung disease and heart conditions
The elderly
Organ transplant recipients who are on immunosuppressive medications
Other patients whose immune systems are weak, such as cancer patients undergoing treatment.

Out of the confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, 36% have been fatal.

Tests and diagnosis

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is used to detect and diagnose infectious disease and can confirm positive cases of MERS-CoV by means of a sample from the patient's respiratory tract.

A blood test can determine if an individual has previously been infected, by testing for MERS-CoV antibodies.

Recent developments on MERS-CoV diagnosis from MNT news

WHO: two confirmed US MERS cases, but still 'no public health emergency'

For the first time, the US has been confronted with two confirmed cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus. Though public health officials are taking great steps to prevent spread of the illness, the World Health Organization say the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern have "not yet been met."

Difference Identified Between MERS-CoV And SARS

Research has identified the key differences between the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and SARS.

CDC concludes Indiana MERS patient did not spread virus to Illinois business associate

After completing additional and more definitive laboratory tests, CDC officials have concluded that an Indiana MERS patient did not spread the virus to an Illinois associate during a business meeting they had before the patient became ill and was hospitalized.

Treatment and prevention

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and WHO (World Health Organization), there are no specific treatments for patients who become ill with MERS-CoV infection.

Most confirmed cases of MERS-CoV have displayed symptoms of severe acute respiratory illness, 36% of these patients have died.

All doctors can currently do is provide supportive medical care to help relieve the symptoms. Supportive care means providing treatment to prevent, control or relieve complications and side effects, as well as attempting to improve the patient's comfort and quality of life. Supportive care (supportive therapy) does not include treating or improving the illness/condition.

Travel advice has been provided to reduce the risk of MERS-CoV infection amongst travelers, which includes information such as:

There is an increased chance of illness for those travelers with pre-existing chronic conditions
There is an increased chance of illness for travelers suffering from flu and traveller's diarrhea
Frequent hand-washing is advised with soap and water
Avoid undercooked meat or food prepared under unhygienic conditions
Ensure fruit and vegetables are properly washed before consumption
If a traveller develops acute respiratory illness with fever, they should minimize close contact with others, wear a medical mask, sneeze into a sleeve, flexed elbow or tissue (making sure it is disposed of properly after use)
If during 14 days after returning from travel acute respiratory illness with fever develops; medical attention should be sought immediately
All cases should be reported to the local health authorities; they monitor for MERS-CoV.

While MERS-CoV is contagious, the virus does not appear to pass between humans without close contact, for example, caring for a patient without protective precaution. Therefore, guidance should be pursued from a health care professional if symptoms materialize.

With so little still known about the virus strain, any advice or recommendation should be considered temporary and subject to change.

Confirmed cases and deaths

The following figures are the total number of MERS-CoV cases and deaths as of June 9, 2015 as reported by WHO.

Total cases confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO):

No. of cases	No. of deaths	Fatality %
1,236	445	36%

Recent developments on MERS-CoV treatment from MNT news

MERS lab strain could lead to vaccine

Scientists have developed a strain of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that could be used to develop a vaccine against the deadly pathogen.

Enzyme discovery holds promise for SARS, MERS vaccine

A study led by researchers from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, details a way of disabling a part of the virus involved in severe acute respiratory syndrome that allows it to hide from the immune system - a finding that may lead to the development of a vaccine against the disease.

The research team says their findings may also lead to the creation of a vaccine against Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) - a virus related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Doctors in bitter divide over e-cigarettes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:58:00 +0000

Are e-cigarettes giving tobacco companies the means to appear benign while actually "killing people softly" or are the alternatives offering the best chance of reducing harm from cigarette smoking? Doctors are bitterly divided over the question.

Glamorizing cigarette smoking or saving lives?

An article in The BMJ reports from both sides of the debate. Simon Capewell, professor of public health and policy at the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society at the UK's University of Liverpool, tells the journal he is suspicious of big tobacco.

Prof. Capewell argues that if the big tobacco companies were genuinely concerned about the disease and the harm they caused, "they would cease production - end of discussion. They would go into e-cigarette production 100%."

Instead, tobacco companies are cynically acting to worm their ways into public bodies, pretending to be part of the solution and deflecting attention away from the harm they do, argue such public health experts.

The argument against e-cigarettes also says they help to glamorize and renormalize smoking. But such an idea is given a strongly-worded dismissal by one organization that has previously been an arch-enemy of the tobacco companies but now appears alongside them at conferences.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the UK charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), says:

"There are people in the public health community who are obsessed by e-cigarettes. This idea that it renormalizes smoking is absolute bullshit. There is no evidence so far that it is a gateway into smoking for young people."

Arnott asks: "Do you want the tobacco industry to carry on making cigarettes which are highly addictive and kill when used as intended, or do you want them to move to a product which is much nearer licensed nicotine replacement therapy and is unlikely to kill anyone?"

But the opposition remains. Public health experts against such positions include 129 who warned the World Health Organization and other public bodies not to "buy into the tobacco industry's well-documented strategy of presenting itself as a partner."

The article in The BMJ characterizes the debate as divided broadly between two types of doctor - public health experts looking at the population effects, and supposedly "idealist" about the issue, and doctors in practise who have a more "pragmatic" view of potential benefits for individuals.

While the debate rages, the reality of smoking versus vaping plays out.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products revealed that the use of electronic cigarettes tripled among middle and high school students between 2013 and 2014.

The news of the findings means that the use of e-cigarettes among this population has exceeded use of all other tobacco products - including conventional cigarettes.

Much of the opposition to the developments is a result of the involvement of tobacco companies, the report in The BMJ says.

"When they first came on the market, 5 or 6 years ago, there was a positive openness and curiosity" about electronic cigarettes, says Karl Fagerström, a Swedish clinical psychologist and a founder of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. But after the cigarette industry became involved, the attitude changed from suspicion to opposition, he adds.

Experts call for dropping of total fat intake limits

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:56:00 +0000

A head of the publication of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, researchers have called for the US government to drop recommended restrictions on total fat consumption.

The researchers state that healthful fats such as those found in nuts, vegetable oils and fish can protect against illnesses such as cardiovascular disease.

The paper, published in JAMA is written by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian from the Friedman School of Nutritional Science & Policy at Tufts University and Dr. David Ludwig from the Boston Children's Hospital.

In the paper, the researchers discuss one of the new recommendations made by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee (GDAC), an independent group of scientists tasked with reviewing existing scientific and medical research on nutrition.

A lot of recent debate has centered around the GDAC's recommendations that a diet higher in plant-based foods is better for the environment than one based more on meat and that taxing sugary snacks and drinks could improve diets. In their paper, however, the researchers focus on a recommendation that may be receiving less attention.

For the first time since 1980, the technical report of the GDAC did not include a recommendation for the restriction of total fat consumption.

"We wanted the emphasis to be on fat quality rather than total fat, because the evidence really emphasizes that saturated fat is the driver of risk rather than total fat intake," says Barbara Millen, chair of the DGAC.

Dr. Mozaffarian supports this, stating that placing limits on total fat intake has no basis and leads to poor decisions from both industry and consumers:

"Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects, particularly for cardiovascular disease. Other fat-rich foods, like whole milk and cheese, appear pretty neutral; while many low-fat foods, like low-fat deli meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. It's the food that matters, not its fat content."

When the dietary guidelines began to recommend low-fat diets, the consumption of low-fat and non-fat products increased. These foods often contain refined grains and added sugars that are associated with increased metabolic dysfunction and obesity.

"Lifting the restriction on total fat would clear the way for restaurants and industry to reformulate products containing more healthful fats and fewer refined grains and added sugars," says Dr. Ludwig.

2015 Dietary Guidelines For Americans: 'a critical opportunity'

Alongside dropping restrictions on total fat consumption from the dietary guidelines, Dr. Mozaffarian and Dr. Ludwig call for the limit on fat intake to be lifted by numerous government agencies and food programs.

One such program is the National School Lunch program that recently banned whole milk from its menus while retaining sugar-sweetened non-fat milk. Other targets include the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who regulate food package labeling and issue diet advice to families and children respectively.

"From agriculture to food producers to school cafeterias to restaurants, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans serve as a beacon for countless dietary choices in the public and private sector," states Dr. Mozaffarian. "With obesity and chronic disease impacting public health so deeply, we can't miss this critical opportunity to improve the food supply."

Not everyone agrees with this viewpoint, however. Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietitian, told Yahoo Health removing restrictions on total fat consumption might not automatically lead consumers to follow balanced, healthy diets.

"If there are no guidelines on how much fat they should be eating, there is a chance that they will eat more fat and, as a result, consume less high-fiber, whole-grain carbohydrates and muscle-preserving lean proteins," she warns.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will refer to the DGAC report when drawing up the final 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are due to be published toward the end of the year.

"The USDA and HHS must use the 2015 guidelines to send the message that limiting total fat provides no benefits and actually leads to confusion and bad dietary choices," Dr. Mozaffarian concludes.

Diets high in fat, sugar may reduce cognitive functioning by altering gut bacteria

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:54:00 +0000

A Diet high in fat or sugar may do more than expand our waistlines. A new study by researchers from Oregon State University finds such diets may lead to reduced cognitive functioning, with a high-sugar diet named as the biggest culprit.

The team found diets high in sugar or fat triggered alterations to the gut microbiome linked to reduced cognitive functioning.

Published in the journal Neuroscience, the study reveals that high-fat and high-sugar diets trigger changes in gut bacteria that are largely associated with loss of "cognitive flexibility" - the ability to adapt to changing situations.

In addition, the high-sugar diet was associated with poorer short- and long-term memory.

Principal investigator Prof. Kathy Magnusson, of the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State, notes there is an increasing amount of evidence emerging that gut bacteria can communicate with the brain.

"Bacteria can release compounds that act as neurotransmitters, stimulate sensory nerves or the immune system, and affect a wide range of biological functions," Prof. Magnusson explains. "We're not sure just what messages are being sent, but we are tracking down the pathways and the effects."

One example of how gut bacteria may interact with the brain was revealed in a study published in the journal Cell in April, in which researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) found that gut bacteria influence the production of serotonin - a neurotransmitter responsible for maintaining mood balance.

Reduced cognitive flexibility with high-fat, high-sugar diets

Prof. Magnusson and colleagues reached their findings using 2-month-old male mice, which were randomized to be fed either a high-fat diet (42% fat, 43% carbohydrate), a high-sugar diet (12% fat, 70% carbohydrate - mainly from sugars) or normal chow.

Prior to dietary intervention and 2 weeks after, the researchers analyzed the feces of the mice in order to establish the composition of their gut bacteria.

The short- and long-term memory and cognitive flexibility of the mice were assessed before and after dietary intervention via water maze testing and novel object and location tasks.

Compared with mice fed normal chow, mice fed the high-fat or high-sugar diets experienced a significant reduction in cognitive functioning - particularly in cognitive flexibility.

Explaining what cognitive flexibility is, Prof. Magnusson asks us to imagine driving home using a route that is very familiar. One day, the road is closed, meaning we need to find a different route.

An individual with a high level of cognitive flexibility would adapt to the situation straight away, immediately seeking out an alternative route. But a person with impaired cognitive flexibility may find the unexpected change in situation very stressful, causing them to become flustered and take longer getting home.

Reduction in cognitive flexibility was strongest for mice fed the high-sugar diet, according to the researchers, and this diet was also found to reduce short- and long-term memory.

Diets altered gut microbiome of mice

The team believes the reduction in cognitive functioning following diets high in fat or sugar was driven by alterations to the composition of gut bacteria, or the gut microbiome.

Both diets were linked to an increase in bacteria called Clostridiales and a reduction in bacteria known asBacteroidales, with such changes associated with reduced cognitive flexibility.

Mice fed the high-sugar diet experienced the highest increases in Clostridiales and the biggest reductions in Bacteroidales, consistent with the largest reductions in cognitive flexibility.

The team says their findings are consistent with some previous studies suggesting that a Western diet - typically high in fat and sugar - may negatively impact cognitive functioning. Past research has associated a Western diet with greater risk of Alzheimer's disease, for example. Their study indicates that such a diet may affect cognitive functioning via alteration of the gut microbiome.

Prof. Magnusson says:

"We've known for a while that too much fat and sugar are not good for you. This work suggests that fat and sugar are altering your healthy bacterial systems, and that's one of the reasons those foods aren't good for you. It's not just the food that could be influencing your brain, but an interaction between the food and microbial changes."

Scientists use 'arousometer' to measure what turns off women most

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:39:00 +0000

Scientists have taken the first biological measure of sexual arousal in women experiencing disgust, and found that feelings of disgust are a bigger turn-off than feelings of fear.

The "arousometer" was a vaginal photoplethysmograph - a clear acrylic tampon-shaped device to measure genital blood flow.

Using a device inserted into women to measure genital blood flow as a gauge of sexual arousal, Diana Fleischman, PhD, an evolutionary psychologist at the UK's University of Portsmouth, investigated 76 heterosexual women aged between 18 and 42 years.

The findings, which also measured the women's self-reported feelings, are published in the online journal PLOS One.

Dr. Fleischman says: "Sex includes increased contact with body odors and fluids which, in other contexts, strongly suggest disease and would elicit disgust.

"Women are more vulnerable to contracting diseases through sex than men and show worse outcomes once infected, so we should expect that women will be especially turned off when they are disgusted."

One group of women in the study were shown disgusting images before watching an erotic film. The second group watched an erotic film and were then shown disgusting images.

The third group were shown frightening images before watching an erotic film. And the fourth watched an erotic film and were then shown frightening images.

Images used to elicit disgust in the women included diseased or injured humans and human corpses, feces and people vomiting. The images designed to elicit fear included violent people, dangerous animals, weapons, heights, tornados and fire.

The erotic films were intended to be sexually appealing specifically to women and were produced and directed by women.

Before the experiments, all the women were asked to insert a vaginal photoplethysmograph - a clear acrylic tampon-shaped device that measures blood flow to the vagina as an indication of sexual arousal. They were also asked to report their own degree of arousal, disgust and fear after their tests.

Women exposed to disgusting images before watching an erotic film were three times less sexually aroused than those who had seen frightening images or those in the control group.

Overcoming disgust to have sex

Dr. Fleischman says: "It makes sense that sexual arousal and disgust would affect one another. Sexual arousal motivates us toward closeness with others and their bodies while disgust motivates us away." He adds:

"Given these competing motivations, every one of our ancestors had to overcome disgust in order to have sexual contact and reproduce."

The researchers found that previous evidence was mixed on the question of whether sexual arousal decreases feeling of disgust in women.

A consistent difference has been found between men and women: men are less sensitive to disgust when it comes to sex.

"Previous studies have found that men and women who are exposed to sexually explicit images report less disgust," Dr. Fleischman explains. "However, our study is the first to measure blood flow to the genitals, which is necessary for sexual arousal, and how it interacts with disgust."

The research found that women who are not very sensitive to feelings of disgust reduce their sensitivity further when sexually aroused.

By contrast, women who are highly disgust-sensitive show greater disgust when they are sexually aroused.

Dr Fleischman says: "When we are deciding whether to have sex, there are trade-offs to consider. On the one hand you must have sex to reproduce, and on the other hand sexual encounters are risky for disease transmission.

"What our results suggest is that the story is more complicated for women and that women differ in how sexual arousal changes their disgust response."

DIabetes: 'smart insulin patch' could revolutionize glucose control

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:37:00 +0000

Patients with diabetes have to control their blood sugar by regularly pricking their finger and giving themselves insulin shots. The procedure is painful and imprecise - injecting the wrong amount of insulin can lead to serious complications, and in some cases, coma and death.

The researchers aim to develop a smart insulin patch that would only need to be changed every few days.
Image credit: Zhen Gu

Now, the development of a "smart insulin patch" could one day make such an ordeal a thing of the past for the millions of Americans who suffer from diabetes, according to the team behind the innovation, which includes members from the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill and NC State in Raleigh.

The smart patch - a square sliver of tape no larger than a penny - has more than a hundred microneedles, each about the size of an eyelash, containing tiny reservoirs of insulin and glucose-sensing enzymes.

The device - which can be placed anywhere on the body - senses when blood sugar levels get too high and rapidly discharges the right amount of insulin into the bloodstream.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the diabetes doctors and biomedical engineers that invented the painless patch describe how they tested it in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes and showed it lowered blood glucose for several hours.

While it shows great promise, it is too early to say if and when the patch can be used in human patients - the team says more tests and then clinical trials are needed.

Patch mimics body's own system for generating insulin

The smart insulin patch works by mimicking the body's own system for generating insulin - the beta cells of the pancreas - which produce and store insulin in tiny sacs or vesicles. They also sense changes in blood sugar and signal insulin to be released from the vesicles as needed.

The team constructed artificial vesicles that perform in a similar way out of two natural materials - hyaluronic acid (HA) used in cosmetics and 2-nitroimidazole (NI), an organic compound used in diagnostics.

Together, the two compounds form a molecule that is water-loving at one end (the HA part) and water-repellent at the other (the NI part). Groups of the molecule self-assemble into vesicles - rather like oil droplets do in water - with the water repellent ends on the inside and the water-loving ends on the outside.

The researchers found they could insert a core of solid insulin and enzymes designed to detect glucose into the artificial vesicles, which in large numbers formed millions of bubble-like nanostructures, each 100 times smaller than the thickness of human hair.

When they tested the intelligent insulin nanoparticles in the lab, the team found they responded to raised blood sugar. The excess glucose molecules entered the artificial vesicles, using up oxygen as the enzymes on board converted them into gluconic acid. This reduction in oxygen or "hypoxia" makes the water-repellent NI end of the molecules that make up the vesicles become water-loving, and the vesicles dissolve and release insulin into the bloodstream.

Patch kept blood sugar normal in diabetic mice for hours

The next step for the researchers was to find a way to administer the artificial vesicles to diabetes patients. This is when they turned to the idea of tiny microneedles incorporated into a patch, rather than rely on the large needles or catheters of the "closed-loop systems" of other approaches to glucose-sensitive insulin delivery.

They eventually produced a silicon strip with over a hundred microneedles that pierce the skin and tap into the blood flowing in the underlying capillaries. Each microneedle contains a reservoir of the artificial vesicles.

The team tested the invention in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes. They gave one group of mice a standard insulin injection - the levels dropped to normal but then quickly rose to hyperglycemic levels.

But when they treated another group of diabetic mice with the patch, their blood sugar levels normalized within half an hour and stayed that way for several hours.

The researchers also found that by varying the dose of enzyme, they could fine-tune the patch to alter glucose levels within certain ranges.

A 'game changer' for diabetes patients

Mice are less sensitive to insulin than humans, so the researchers believe that the patches could last even longer in human patients. The researchers aim to develop a smart insulin patch that would only need to be changed every few days.

Such a prospect would be a "game changer" for diabetes patients, explains co-senior author John Buse, a professor of medicine and past president of the American Diabetes Association:

"The hard part of diabetes care is not the insulin shots, or the blood sugar checks, or the diet but the fact that you have to do them all several times a day every day for the rest of your life."

Co-senior author Zhen Gu, a professor in biomedical engineering, says:

"We have designed a patch for diabetes that works fast, is easy to use, and is made from nontoxic, biocompatible materials. The whole system can be personalized to account for a diabetic's weight and sensitivity to insulin, so we could make the smart patch even smarter."

There are more than 387 million people with diabetes worldwide, and the number is predicted to rise to 592 million by 2035.

Funds from the NC TraCS Institute and the American Diabetes Association helped finance the research.

Eat protein before carbohydrates to lower post-meal glucose

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:35:00 +0000

In a new study, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, NY, found that the order in which different types of food are consumed has a significant impact on post-meal glucose and insulin levels in obese people. Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, the authors suggest their findings may have dietary implications for diabetic and other high-risk patients.

Eating protein, vegetables and fat before carbohydrates in a meal may help to keep glucose and insulin levels low.

For people with type 2 diabetes, it is important to maintain normal glucose levels after eating, because if their blood sugar level spikes then they are at increased risk of complications, including hardening of the arteries and heart disease, which can eventually lead to death.

Some previous studies had found that eating vegetables or protein before carbohydrates could be an effective way to lower post-meal glucose levels. The researchers behind the new study wanted to see whether this association applied to a typical Western diet, with meals consisting of a mix of vegetables, protein carbohydrates and fat.

In the study, 11 patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes who were taking metformin - a drug that helps control glucose levels - ate the same meals in different orders 1 week apart, so that the researchers could observe how their glucose levels were affected.

The set meal consisted of ciabatta bread, orange juice, chicken breast, lettuce and tomato salad with low-fat dressing and steamed broccoli with butter.

Glucose and insulin levels lower when carbohydrates were eaten last

The researchers first took the patients' glucose levels in the morning, 12 hours after they last ate. On the first day of the study, the participants were told to consume the carbohydrates in their meal (ciabatta bread and orange juice) first, and to follow this 15 minutes later by the protein, vegetables and fat in the meal. The participants' glucose levels were checked 30, 60 and 120 minutes after eating.

The experiment was then repeated 1 week later, except this time the food order was reversed - the protein, vegetables and fat were eaten first, with the carbohydrates consumed 15 minutes later.

When the vegetables and protein were eaten before the carbohydrates, the researchers found that glucose levels were 29%, 37% and 17% lower at the 30, 60 and 120-minute checks, compared with when carbohydrates were consumed first. Also, insulin was found to be significantly lower when the participants ate vegetables and protein first.

"Based on this finding, instead of saying 'don't eat that' to their patients, clinicians might instead say, 'eat this before that,'" says senior author Dr. Louis Aronne, the Sanford I. Weill Professor of Metabolic Research and a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. Aronne acknowledges that follow-up work is required - the findings are from a pilot study with a very small sample group - but says that "based on this finding, patients with type 2 might be able to make a simple change to lower their blood sugar throughout the day, decrease how much insulin they need to take, and potentially have a long-lasting, positive impact on their health."

"Carbohydrates raise blood sugar, but if you tell someone not to eat them - or to drastically cut back - it's hard for them to comply. This study points to an easier way that patients might lower their blood sugar and insulin levels," Dr. Aronne concludes.

Fasting: what are the health benefits and risks?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:33:00 +0000

Fasting is commonly associated with the month of Ramadan. As you read this, billions of Muslims around the world are engaging in this declaration of faith that involves abstaining from food and drink from dawn until dusk. While fasting for Ramadan is down to spiritual beliefs, many of us choose to fast with the belief that it benefits our health. But does it?

A number of studies have suggested intermittent fasting has numerous health benefits, including weight loss, lower blood pressure and reduced cholesterol.

In recent years, numerous studies have suggested that intermittent fasting - abstaining or reducing food and drink intake periodically - can be good for us, making it one of the most popular diet trends worldwide.

One of the most well-known intermittent fasting diets is the 5:2 Fast Diet - a plan that involves eating the recommended calorie intake for 5 days a week but reducing calorie intake to 25% for the remaining 2 days - to 500 calories a day for women and 600 a day for men.

According to Dr. Michael Mosley - author of The Fast Diet books - this eating plan can not only help people lose weight, but it offers an array of other health benefits.

"Studies of intermittent fasting show that not only do people see improvements in blood pressure and their cholesterol levels, but also in their insulin sensitivity," he adds.

In June 2014, for example, Medical News Today reported on a study suggesting periodic fasting - defined in the study as 1 day of water-only fasting a week - may reduce the risk of diabetes among people at high risk for the condition.

Another study, conducted by Dr. Valter Longo and colleagues from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, found longer periods of fasting - 2-4 days - may even "reboot" the immune system, clearing out old immune cells and regenerating new ones - a process they say could protect against cell damage caused by factors such as aging and chemotherapy.

But what are the mechanisms underlying the suggested health benefits of fasting?

The potential benefits of intermittent fasting

Since the body is unable to get its energy from food during fasting, it dips into glucose that is stored in the liver and muscles. This begins around 8 hours after the last meal is consumed.

When the stored glucose has been used up, the body then begins to burn fat as a source of energy, which can result in weight loss.

As well as aiding weight loss, Dr. Razeen Mahroof, of the University of Oxford in the UK, explains that the use of fat for energy can help preserve muscle and reduce cholesterol levels.

When the body has used up glucose stores during fasting, it burns fat for energy, resulting in weight loss.

"A detoxification process also occurs, because any toxins stored in the body's fat are dissolved and removed from the body," he adds, noting that after a few days of fasting, higher levels of endorphins - "feel-good" hormones - are produced in the blood, which can have a positive impact on mental well-being.

As mentioned previously, the study by Dr. Longo and colleagues suggests prolonged fasting may also be effective for regenerating immune cells.

"When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged," Dr. Longo explains.

In their study, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the team found that repeated cycles of 2-4 days without food over a 6-month period destroyed the old and damaged immune cells in mice and generated new ones.

What is more, the team found that cancer patients who fasted for 3 days prior to chemotherapy were protected against immune system damage that can be caused by the treatment, which they attribute to immune cell regeneration.

"The good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting," says Dr. Longo. "Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system."

With the potential health benefits of fasting widely hailed by nutritionists worldwide, it is no wonder many of us are putting our love of food to one side in order to give it a try.

But intermittent fasting isn't all bells and whistles, according to some researchers and health care professionals, and there are some people who should avoid the diet altogether.

The health risks

According to the UK's National Health Service (NHS), there are numerous health risks associated with intermittent fasting.

People who fast commonly experience dehydration, largely because their body is not getting any fluid from food. As such, it is recommended that during Ramadan, Muslims consume plenty of water prior to fasting periods. Other individuals following fasting diets should ensure they are properly hydrated during fasting periods.

If you are used to having breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between, fasting periods can be a major challenge. As such, fasting can increase stress levels and disrupt sleep. Dehydration, hunger or lack of sleep during a fasting period can also lead to headaches.

Fasting can also cause heartburn; lack of food leads to a reduction in stomach acid, which digests food and destroys bacteria. But smelling food or even thinking about it during fasting periods can trigger the brain into telling the stomach to produce more acid, leading to heartburn.

While many nutritionists claim intermittent fasting is a good way to lose weight, some health professionals believe such a diet is ineffective for long-term weight loss.

"The appeal is that [fasting] is quick, but it is quick fluid loss, not substantial weight loss," says Madelyn Fernstrom, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Weight Loss Management Center. "If it's easy off, it will come back quickly - as soon as you start eating normally again."

"My experience has been that [this] way of eating does not produce weight loss even in the short term," dietitian and author ofDiet Simple Katherine Tallmadge told ABC News in 2013.

Some health professionals believe intermittent fasting may steer people away from healthy eating recommendations, such as eating five portions of fruits and vegetables a day. Many fear fasting may also trigger eating disorders or binge eating.

In a blog for The Huffington Post last year, fitness and nutrition expert JJ Virgin wrote:

"The 'anything goes' mentality some experts permit during the feeding state could lead someone to overeat, creating guilt, shame, and other problems that only become worse over time. For someone with emotional or psychological eating disorders, intermittent fasting could become a convenient crutch to amplify these issues."

While Dr. Mosely says there is no evidence to suggest the 5:2 Fast Diet is associated with eating disorders, he stresses people who have eating disorders should not engage in intermittent fasting.

Other people who should not follow this diet include people who are underweight, individuals under the age of 18, pregnant women, people with type 1 diabetes and individuals recovering from surgery.

Could we reap the benefits of fasting without fasting?

While intermittent fasting may have health risks, nutritionists claim it can be good for us if individuals consult with their doctors before adopting such a diet and adhere to it correctly.

But could there be a way to reap the potential health benefits of fasting without actually having to fast? Dr. Longo believes so.

Researchers say a fasting-mimicking diet could simulate the effect of fasting without the food deprivation and side effects.

Earlier this week, Dr. Longo and colleagues from USC published a study in the journal Cell Metabolism revealing how a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) triggered immune cell regeneration and extended the lifespan of mice.

What is more, on testing the diet in humans - who adhered to it for only 5 days a month for 3 months - they found it reduced a number of risk factors associated with aging, cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and cancer.

The FMD is low in protein, low in unhealthy fats and high in healthy fats, according to the researchers. It stimulates markers linked to fasting, such as low glucose levels and high levels of ketone bodies, in order to mimic the effects of prolonged fasting.

Dr. Longo and colleagues say their diet could promote immune cell regeneration and longevity associated with fasting without the need for food restriction and the potential adverse effects that come with it.

"Although the clinical results will require confirmation by a larger randomized trial," they add, "the effects of FMD cycles on biomarkers/risk factors for aging, cancer, diabetes, and CVD, coupled with the very high compliance to the diet and its safety, indicate that this periodic dietary strategy has high potential to be effective in promoting human healthspan."

The team hopes that clinicians will one day have the ability to prescribe this diet to patients. "This is arguably the first non-chronic preclinically and clinically tested anti-aging and healthspan-promoting intervention shown to work and to be very feasible as a doctor or dietitian-supervised intervention," says Dr. Longo.

It may be a while before the FMD receives approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use. First, the team needs to put the diet through a rigorous testing process.

Further research is required to gain a better understanding of the exact benefits and risks the FMD poses, and this appears to be the case with existing fasting diets. One thing is clear, however; talk to your doctor before engaging in any form of fasting.

'Fasting-mimicking diet' may promote health and longevity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:30:00 +0000

A new study published in Cell Metabolism suggests following a calorie-restricted diet that mimics fasting for just 5 days a month for 3 months may promote longevity and reduce a number of risk factors for cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Researchers found participants who followed a fasting-mimicking diet experienced a reduction in risk factors linked to aging, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.

Study co-author Valter D. Longo, of the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology in Italy and the University of Southern California, and colleagues say the research demonstrates the first anti-aging, healthspan-promoting intervention that doctors could feasibly recommend for patients.

Previous research from Longo in June last year suggested prolonged fasting - defined as consuming only water for 2-4 days - can "reboot" the human immune system. That is, fasting can help clear out damaged cells and regenerate new ones.

Another study published later that month also found periodic fasting may protect against diabetes among individuals at high risk for the condition.

However, Longo and colleagues note that humans find it psychologically challenging to engage in such extreme dieting, and it can also have adverse health effects - particularly for older individuals.

"These concerns point to the need for dietary interventions that induce prolonged fasting-like effects while minimizing the risk of adverse effects and the burden of complete food restriction," they note.

Fasting diet promoted cell regeneration, extending lifespan in mice

To address this need, the researchers developed a fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) - a low-protein, low-fat diet high in healthy fats. By activating markers associated with prolonged fasting, such as low glucose levels and high levels of ketone bodies, the diet was able to simulate the effects of fasting.

Firstly, the team tested the diet in middle-aged mice, feeding them the diet for 4 days, twice a month. Mice fed the FMD intervention were compared with mice fed a control diet.

The team found mice fed the FMD intervention had much higher numbers of stem cells, and they experienced regeneration of an array of other cell types, including bone, muscle, liver, brain and immune cells, compared with mice fed the control diet.

In addition, the FMD intervention appeared to extend the lifespan of mice and promote better overall health. They experienced better learning and memory, lower incidence of cancer and inflammatory diseases and fat loss without a reduction in lean body mass, compared with control mice.

Reduction in risk factors for aging, CVD, diabetes and cancer in humans

Next, the team tested a similar FMD intervention in a group of 19 generally healthy people aged 18-70. These participants were required to follow the diet for 5 days a month for 3 months. The diet provided them with between 34-54% of their normal caloric intake, as well as 11-14% proteins, 42-43% carbohydrates and 44-46% fat.

The 19 participants following the FMD intervention were compared with a group of 18 generally healthy aged-matched individuals who continued to follow their normal diet.

Compared with the participants who consumed their standard diet, those who followed the FMD intervention experienced a reduction in risk factors linked to aging, cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and cancer, including lowered blood glucose, reduced markers of inflammation and weight loss.

The team notes that only 5% of FMD participants were disqualified from the study for failing to comply with the dietary regime.

Longo and colleagues say their findings indicate that following an FMD intervention periodically may promote longevity in humans and protect against risk factors for certain diseases. They add:

"Although the clinical results will require confirmation by a larger randomized trial, the effects of FMD cycles on biomarkers/risk factors for aging, cancer, diabetes, and CVD, coupled with the very high compliance to the diet and its safety, indicate that this periodic dietary strategy has high potential to be effective in promoting human healthspan."

The team says they are now putting the FMD intervention through a rigorous testing process in order to gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use. This involves testing the efficacy of the diet in 60-70 participants, before moving to a clinical trial with 500-1,000 participants.

"This is arguably the first non-chronic preclinically and clinically tested anti-aging and healthspan-promoting intervention shown to work and to be very feasible as a doctor or dietitian-supervised intervention," says Longo.

The researchers stress that because the effects of the FMD intervention are potent, individuals should only follow such a diet under medical supervision.