Go Go Gone

Poolside 1 BHK Apartment in Resort

Siolim, Goa, India
Serene Siolim- Gateway to the pristine beaches of North Goa at Tropical Dreams Resort with Lush green surroundings Ground Floor across the biggest swimming pool in Goa is furnished with SplitAC Ref...
Vacation Rentals in Siolim

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Lack of Vitamin D can up Heart Attack Risk

Lack of Vitamin D can up Heart Attack Risk

 
http://www.healthjockey.com/2008/01/08/lack-of-vitamin-d-can-up-heart-attack-risk/

Harvard researchers have said that a lack of vitamin D could increase one’s risk of heart attacks, strokes and other such cardiovascular problems.

Dr.Thomas Wang of Harvard Medical School said that the risk of problems goes up by 60% only if the personal has a moderate vitamin D deficiency.

And, if you have a very severe deficiency, the risk can go up by nearly 100%.


“A number of laboratory studies suggests that vitamin D has a variety of important effects on the heart and the blood vessels surrounding the heart,” said Dr.Wang.

Sources of vitamin D include milk, fish and of course sunshine. Supplements of vitamin D are also very effective.

Three quarters of hip fracture patients apparently lack vitamin D-Indian population of all age groups apparently has very low vitamin D levels due to skin pigmentation, traditional clothing and sunlight avoidance

Three quarters of hip fracture patients apparently lack vitamin D-Indian population of all age groups apparently has very low vitamin D levels due to skin pigmentation, traditional clothing and sunlight avoidance

http://www.healthjockey.com/2010/12/15/three-quarters-of-hip-fracture-patients-apparently-lack-vitamin-d/

Vitamin D seems to play an important role in preventing hip fractures. New Delhi scientists assert that three quarters of hip fracture incidences occur among patients who are vitamin D deficient. It was suggested that vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for hip fracture. Vitamin D levels can probably serve as a useful index for the assessment of hip fracture risk in elderly people.

The study was initiated on 90 patients with hip fracture and a matched control group having similar age, sex and co-morbidity. Scientists compared results of both the groups with each other. It appeared that among patients with hip fractures, 76.7 percent were vitamin D deficient as measured by serum 25(OH)D levels of less than 20 ng/ml. Also this group reported a 68.9 percent increase in PTH levels.

The control group was registered with 32.3 percent lacking vitamin D and 42.2 percent had heightened PTH levels. Authors linked vitamin D deficiency with the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. It is believed that vitamin D is considerably involved in muscle strength, certain cancers, multiple sclerosis as well as diabetes. Indian population of all age groups apparently has very low vitamin D levels due to skin pigmentation, traditional clothing and sunlight avoidance. It was alleged that serum 25 (OH)D levels can be a beneficial index for evaluating risk of hip fracture in elderly people.

The study was published in Osteoporosis International.

Stem cells from testicles may help cure diabetes


Stem cells from testicles may help cure diabetes
Updated on Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 10:36

http://www.zeenews.com/news674362.html
 
Melbourne: It may soon be possible for men with type 1 diabetes to use stem cells from their testicles to replace their damaged insulin-secreting beta islet cells, say US scientists.

The new research details how the cells, which would normally become sperm, can be coaxed into taking on this new role.

Lead author Associate Professor Ian Gallicano from Georgetown University in Washington DC, says that this is a proof-of-principle study for which they obtained the "spermatagonial" stem cells (SSCs) from the testes of deceased human organ donors.


"From one gram of tissue we were able to obtain more than a million beta islet-like cells that were successfully used to treat diabetic mice," ABC Science quoted him as saying.

It''s a two-step process. First the SSCs are ''de-differentiated'' to become embryonic-like stem cells, meaning they have the potential to form any cell type in the body. This takes two weeks. Then, over the course of the next three weeks, these cells are given specific nutrients to ensure they grow into beta islet-like cells.

While Gallicano's team were able to decrease blood sugar levels in three mice for up to a week, he explains this is not their most important finding.

"Transplanted beta islet-like cells don't need to be producing much insulin to ''cure'' a mouse with diabetes - this has been done before, using beta islet-like cells derived from other types of adult stem cells; but these have been reprogrammed using genetic manipulation, which has potential problems. We didn't need to do any genetic manipulation to get the SSCs to become embryonic-like stem cells," he says.

"One reason that the mouse work hasn't translated into human benefit is that there are currently no [laboratory-derived] cells that secrete enough insulin to be clinically relevant.

"The target is to have 1-10 percent of protein from a cell as insulin. The best cells I've seen are secreting between 0.01 and 0.1 percent, so a 10-100 times increase is needed," he says.

The study has been presented at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology in Philadelphia.

ANI

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Folic-acid fortification may increase cancer risk from CARLY WEEKS

Folic-acid fortification may increase cancer risk
from CARLY WEEKS

 

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Dec. 13, 2010 5:46PM EST

As a result of a federal program requiring some foods to be fortified with folic acid, nearly half the population now consumes high amounts of the vitamin, which may put some at risk of cancer.

The finding is part of a study published on Monday that also revealed that one in five women of child-bearing age – the group that is targeted by the folic-acid fortification – are not getting enough of the vitamin, raising questions about the program’s effectiveness and whether it needs to be re-examined.


“I think it really says to me we need to have ongoing monitoring [of the folic-acid program],” said Deborah O’Connor, a professor at the University of Toronto, director of clinical dietetics at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the authors of the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

White flour, enriched pasta and cornmeal have been fortified with folic acid since 1998 to help ensure that women of child-bearing age consume adequate amounts of the vitamin to prevent neural-tube defects in their offspring.

Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin that occurs naturally in leafy greens, lentils and other foods. It helps the body produce healthy red blood cells and perform a range of other functions, but also guards against neural-tube defects, such as spina bifida.

The Public Health Agency of Canada stresses the importance of folic acid for women of child-bearing age. In addition to food fortification, the agency recommends that those women take a 0.4-milligram folic-acid supplement daily, ideally starting three months before pregnancy and continuing for the first three months of pregnancy.

The number of babies with neural-tube defects, a type of birth defect that develops in the first few weeks of pregnancy, has dropped since the introduction of mandatory fortification in Canada.

In addition, less than 1 per cent of the population has a folic-acid deficiency, according to the study, conducted using data from 5,248 people aged 6 to 79 who were involved in the Canadian Health Measures Survey, which is conducted by Statistics Canada.

But the study also found that despite not having a folic-acid deficiency, meaning very little of the vitamin in their blood, 22 per cent of women of child-bearing age consumed amounts of folic acid that were too low to prevent neural-tube defects.

The researchers say their study is the first comprehensive assessment of folic-acid levels in the blood of Canadians to be conducted in 30 years.

Now, their findings are giving voice to new concerns that a large number of Canadians are being needlessly exposed to high levels of folic acid, which may be a detriment to their health.

The researchers found that 40 per cent of the population has high levels of folic acid in their blood. It’s a concern because a large chunk of the population, namely men and children, do not require high amounts of the vitamin.

Dr. O’Connor said it may be a good idea for men and children to avoid supplements or multivitamins that contain folic acid. “We’ve shown that there’s virtually zero chance of [men and children] being deficient, but [their] levels are starting to get a little on the high side,” she said.

Excessive consumption of folic acid is drawing increasing concern from scientists who fear that it may be linked to cancer. For instance, a Norwegian study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year found that heart-disease patients treated with folic acid and B12 were more likely to be diagnosed and die from cancer than patients who did not receive those vitamins as treatment.

The link between folic acid and cancer is not yet definitive, and researchers say much more work needs to be done in order to understand what the risks are, if any.

Researchers said education and income levels did not seem to play a factor in determining which women consumed too little folic acid.

Policy-makers should pay attention to the fact that a significant portion of the Canadian population consumes high amounts of the vitamin while members of the target population are not getting enough, said Cynthia Colapinto, lead author of the study who works in the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute as well as being a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

“It should always be revisited no matter what,” she said. “Nothing is set in stone once it’s implemented. It should always be refined.”


Roger Cooper

9:35 AM on December 14, 2010

The problem is not with foods containing natural folate, but with the artificial folic acid that is added to many processed foods, such as breakfast cereals, breads, pastas, nutrition bars and drinks. The liver can't break down folic acid as easily as it does natural folate, which means the acidic form will stay in the blood longer and at higher concentration.

Check the nutrition facts box of your breakfast cereal. Some are heavily fortified to contain the full daily value of folate in the form of folic acid.

Some foods like flours and dairy are fortified, but not necessarily for the reasons of preventing disease, as described in the article. Rather, they are fortified because the processing and refining reduces the amount of nutrients that are naturally present. Fortification, in these instances, serves to put back what was removed during processing.

Also there are many reasons why folic acid levels may be correlated with higher risk of cancer. It does not mean however, that folic acid is causing an increase in cancer. It could be that cancer is increasing as a result of other factors (smoking, better detection) and that folic acid consumption has also increased during the period of observation. A good study will attempt to control for these other factors, but it is not always possible to do so, particularly when there are unexplained effect


Monday, December 13, 2010

Causes Of Erection Difficulties (erectile dysfunction, or ED) by Zinn Jeremiah

Causes Of Erection Difficulties (erectile dysfunction, or ED) by Zinn Jeremiah 

http://www.healthzone.pk/detail.php?i=180

Causes Of Erection Difficulties

Though it may seem to be a natural and effortless occurrence, performing sexual intercourse requires any number of physical functions in both men and women to occur. In the absence of these physical functions occurring as they normally do, sexual intercourse can be difficult or even impossible to perform. Though women can and do have difficulty with sexual functioning, what's likely the most commonly occurring sexual dysfunction is a man being unable to achieve erection.

Male erectile problems are a regular occurrence, though they certainly don't happen to all men with any degree of frequency. Erectile problems are common enough that there's a medical terminology to describe the problem. The specific medical term for erection difficulty is erectile dysfunction, or ED. As there's a medical term for erection difficulties, there's also naturally enough pharmaceuticals available to treat the disorder. Pharmaceuticals for the treatment of erection problems in fact have nearly become household names, with the Viagra brand leading the way.

Treatment options aside, what are the actual causes at work when a male is unable to achieve an erection? There are obviously various possible explanations for the difficulty, but a few baseline reasons typically cover much of the problem. One possible explanation is anxiety. Males may feel as though they are under obligation to take the lead in sexual performance, and to be always pleasing to their partners. This sort of expectation pressure can lead to performance anxiety, which when significantly internalized can prevent the male from being able to sexually function at all.

There are also medical conditions that can prevent a male from achieving an erection. Problems with the prostate gland can affect erection capability. The prostate is in direct proximity to the penis and an irregular prostate, a condition older men tend to have, can disrupt erection as well as cause urinary problems. Diabetes is another condition that's linked to erection difficulties. The issue with diabetes and poor erection capability is almost certainly a result of the circulatory problems that diabetes can cause. Circulation is an essential but often overlooked component of consistently being able to achieve an erection.

Stress is often another factor in erection difficulties. Modern life presents a multitude of challenges and difficulties. Many people, men included, often feel overburdened and underappreciated. There's also the stress that can occur from a specific problem cropping up, as often seems to happen in most of our lives. Under enough stress, any person is going to be compromised in how they are able to physically perform. Still, stress rarely remains in place indefinitely, and once stress has drained off, erection problems caused by stress will become resolved.

------------------------

Zinn Jeremiah is a freelance author. Read more of Zinn's writings at http://www.hubonline.biz/website-content.htm . For male enhancement products, visit http://www.hubonline.biz/more-satisfaction.htm

Brushing Your Teeth for Two Minutes

Brushing Your Teeth for Two Minutes
 

According to the Johns Hopkins Health After 50 Medical Letter, a recent study found that brushing your pearly whites for two minutes with medium force removed the same amount of plaque as brushing them for five to 10 minutes.

Either way, don't apply too much force, the newsletter warns. Brushing too hard can damage your teeth and gums.

Foreign mouthwash gets recalled in Singapore

Foreign mouthwash gets recalled in Singapore
HONG KONG: Health authorities in Singapore have issued a public warning to customers and medical professionals over imported mouthwash found to be contaminated with the Burkholderia cepacia bacteria group.

Several unsold batches of ‘Oral Guard Antiseptic-Antiplaque Mouthwash' imported by Medimex Singapore Ltd and distributed by IDS Pharmaceutical Division were recalled after the country’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) detected irregularities in three samples of the product during a regular product quality testing in November.

Burkholderia cepacia, a gram-negative bacillus, is usually found in moist environments such as water or wet soil. Its is considered medically harmless but can pose health problems for people with weakened immune systems or chronic lung disease, medical experts say.

According to a HSA press release, the affected mouthwash is manufactured by Group Pharmaceuticals Ltd in India and labelled for use as an antiseptic aid for treating oral conditions such as inflammation of the gums, dental plaque, mouth ulcers or sore throat. It is available in a limited number of retail stores and distributed to dental clinics, specialist institutions and medical hospitals throughout the country.

Medimex has refused to name exact numbers of the recalled products, according to an article in the newspaper.

U.S. FDA to re-examine health effects of mercury dental fillings

U.S. FDA to re-examine health effects of mercury dental fillings
 
U.S. health regulators are seeking a second opinion on whether mercury-containing dental fillings pose a risk to dental patients, especially children and pregnant women.

Food and Drug Administration officials said that while there are no new scientific findings on such silver-coloured cavity fillings, it wants feedback on methods it used to weigh available data and decide last year that the metal alloy is safe.

In documents released on Friday ahead of a public meeting on the issue, the agency said it would ask its panel of outside experts to assess how much mercury dental patients are exposed to and how much exposure is acceptable.

The FDA in July 2009 declared the fillings, known as dental amalgam, posed no risk. A year earlier, it had cautioned against their use in certain more vulnerable people such as pregnant women and children, noting mercury’s risks.

The agency is revisiting the issue after four groups questioned its assessment and petitioned for a second look. On Tuesday and Wednesday next week, the panel of outside experts will consider available data as well as the agency’s interpretation before offering recommendations.

“Based on its own review and feedback from the panel, FDA will decide whether to make changes to its regulation,” Nancy Stade, deputy director of policy for the FDA’s device centre, told reporters on Thursday. “At this time, the FDA is not modifying its existing recommendations to consumers.”

Mercury is a known toxin, and at issue is whether the vapours released from mercury in dental fillings are enough to cause harm such as brain or kidney damage.

While some experts and advocacy groups say mounting data show a clear link between mercury and side effects and that dental fillings are no exception, industry groups and dentists say the evidence shows dental amalgam is safe.

Any reversal could affect dental filling makers such as Dentsply International Inc and Danaher Corp’s Kerr unit, and distributors such as Henry Schein Inc and Patterson Cos Inc.

Shares of Dentsply, Danaher and Henry Schein were all up less than 1 per cent in morning trade Friday. Shares of Patterson were up 1.2 per cent.

The American Dental Association said earlier this month “there is no scientific reason to revisit” FDA’s 2009 ruling and that the data has not changed since then.

But various groups are planning to hold protests outside the meeting and want such fillings banned. The controversial issue is also expected to draw four hours of public comments during the two-day meeting.

“Amalgam is a primitive, polluting, pre-Civil War device which no modern dentist uses,” Charles Brown, the lawyer for the Consumers for Dental Choice advocacy group, told Reuters. But, he added, “we’re actually pleases to see such serious questions” will be posed to the FDA’s panel.

While it now backs the fillings, FDA has changed how it regulates them. Products must carry warnings against use in poorly ventilated areas or in patients with mercury allergies.

About 50 per cent of an amalgam contains mercury, while the rest is silver and other metals. Millions of Americans have such lower-cost fillings to patch cavities in their teeth. Other options include tooth-colored composite resins, although there is also some concern they can contain bisphenol A.

Many elderly have preventable eye problems- age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness

Many elderly have preventable eye problems- 
age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness

 
http://www.healthzone.pk/detail.php?i=302

NEW YORK: A large fraction of elderly people have age-related degenerative changes in their eyes that put them on a path to blindness -- but could be preventable - a new study finds.

Eye exams given to more than 5,000 elderly Icelanders found that over one in 10 people in their 60s and nearly one in four in their late 70s have an early form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness.

The risk of later-onset forms of the condition also increased with age, the authors report in the journal Ophthalmology. People 85 and older appeared to be 10 times more likely to have late AMD than people aged 70 to 74.

Recent evidence suggests that there may be a way to prevent the progression of some of these lesions, study author Dr. Fridbert Jonasson of Landspitali University Hospital and the University of Iceland said. There is no cure for AMD, but a U.S. government clinical trial has found that a specific high-dose mix of antioxidants -- vitamins C and E, beta-carotene and zinc -- can slow the progression of AMD that is in the intermediate stages, and doctors now commonly prescribe it for such patients.

Another study published earlier this year found that older adults who eat fatty fish at least once a week may have a lower risk of serious vision loss from AMD.

"Catching AMD early means that we can start this treatment early, so hopefully reduce the risk of late AMD," Jonasson said.

AMD is caused by abnormal blood vessel growth behind the retina or a breakdown of light-sensitive cells within the retina itself, both of which can cause serious vision impairment.

Despite the frequency of AMD, it has not been clear how often it occurs in the "oldest old," Jonasson said in an e-mail. To investigate, Jonasson and colleagues captured detailed images of the eye interior of 5,272 people aged 66 and older living in the Reykjavik area.

They found that 11 percent of people in their late 60s had an early form of AMD. As they aged, the rate of early AMD increased, to 36 percent of people 85 and older.

Two forms of late AMD (geographic atrophy and exudative AMD) also increased with age, from affecting one percent or less of people ages 75 and younger, to between eight and 11 percent of those 85 and older.

This dramatic increase was somewhat unexpected, Jonasson acknowledged. "We know that this condition is age-related; however, it was a surprise to me to find those in the oldest age-group had 10-fold higher prevalence of late AMD than those 70 to 74 years old."

The rates of late AMD in this Icelandic population also exceed most of those found among previously studied populations, and may have something to do with pigment, Jonasson explained. Icelanders tend to have less pigment in their skin than other populations, and therefore less pigment in their hair, eye color and retina. "We do not know if this makes the retinal pigment (tissue) more vulnerable to AMD; however, several studies have shown, for instance, blacks are less likely to develop late AMD than are whites."

Dr. Stuart Richer of Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science, who reviewed the findings for British news gancy, said the article confirms what many people already know: "AMD disease gets worse with age, impacting on crucial activities of daily living such as reading standard-size print and safely driving an automobile at night."

Sadly, the report likely captures only the "tip of the iceberg," since newer technology, available since the study was conducted, allows doctors to look deeper and observe pathology that was invisible using earlier techniques.

And there may be one more reason why Icelanders may be more prone to AMD, Richer noted -- a relative lack of dark, leafy vegetables in their diets. Research suggests that people who consume more xanthophylls -- found in green leafy vegetables or orange peppers, for instance -- tend to have healthier eyes.

Junk food eating dads could give diabetes to kids

Junk food eating dads could give diabetes to kids

http://www.healthzone.pk/detail.php?i=307

LONDON: Men who pile on junk food may be condemning their future children to diabetes. Prospective fathers should keep an eye on their diet in the same way as mothers-to-be, a new study implies.

The warning comes as Britain fights an epidemic of type 2 diabetes, with two million people already diagnosed and the figure forecast to double by 2025.

A further seven million are on the borderline of the condition, which usually comes on in middle age. It greatly raises the odds of heart disease, stroke and conditions which lead to limb amputation. It can also shorten lifespan by 10 years, reports the Daily Mail.

Much of the increase in incidence has been blamed on expanding waistlines. But the study suggests that at least some of the seeds of destruction could be sown in previous generations, according to the journal Nature.

Australian and American researchers fed young male rats a diet high in fat, mated them with healthy females and tracked the health of their female pups.

These ‘daughters’ developed diabetes before they reached puberty, with blood glucose concentrations double those of young born to other males.

The junk-food rats’ daughters also produced half the amount of insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels and is key to the development of diabetes.

Although the experiment included only female pups, it is thought that male offspring would be similarly affected.
It is thought that fatty food caused subtle changes to DNA in the rats’ sperm, causing problems in the metabolism of the next generation.

Margaret Morris, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, told the journal New Scientist: “If similar effects apply in humans, it underlines the need for men to maintain a healthy diet and body weight.”

Researchers show sperm stem cells can help treat diabetes

Researchers show sperm stem cells can help treat diabetes


http://www.healthzone.pk/detail.php?i=304



Men with insulin-dependent diabetes may one day have their condition treated using cells from their testicles.
Scientists have succeeded in transforming sperm stem cells into the pancreatic cells that generate insulin.

Tests on diabetic mice showed the beta islet cells could produce enough of the vital hormone to start reversing their disease.

Researchers hope in future it may be possible to treat men with Type-1 diabetes with islet cells grown from their own spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs).

Because the therapeutic cells would originate from their own bodies, they would not be rejected by the immune system.

However, a leading charity warned against raising hopes of a cure prematurely.

Type-1 diabetes, which affects about 300,000 people in the UK, is an auto-immune disease in which insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are gradually destroyed.

Doctors have investigated replacing the lost cells with transplants from deceased patients, but there are few suitable donors and rejection is a serious problem.

Experiments with "induced pluripotent" stem (IPS) cells - ordinary cells reprogrammed to have the properties of stem cells from embryos - have also met with obstacles. The technique produces tumours in mice and involves inserting genes, which can be harmful.

Instead of IPS cells, the new research focused on SSCs, early precursors of sperm cells found in the testes. They come ready-equipped with the genes necessary for them to morph into "pluripotent" cells - cells capable of launching themselves on many different development paths.

A US team led by Ian Gallicano, from Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington DC, took the SSCs from the testes of dead human donors.

One gram of tissue was used to grow about a million stem cells with the biological characteristics of beta islet cells. These were then transplanted into the backs of immune-deficient diabetic mice, where they secreted insulin.

In about a week the animals' blood glucose levels had been reduced, showing that enough insulin was being produced to tackle the excess sugar load characteristic of diabetes.

"No stem cells, adult or embryonic, have been induced to secrete enough insulin yet to cure diabetes in humans, but we know SSCs have the potential to do what we want them to do, and we know how to improve their yield," said Dr Gallicano.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology in Philadelphia.

Popular Posts

Search This Blog