Tuesday, 23 May 2017

The Rate Of Blood Coagulation Is Determined Genetically

The Rate Of Blood Coagulation Is Determined Genetically.
In an attainment to uncover why some people's blood platelets cluster faster than others, a genetic interpretation has turned up a specific grouping of overactive genes that seems to control the process. On the addition side, platelets are critical for fending off infections and healing wounds. On the down side, they can rush heart disease, heart attacks and stroke, the study authors noted.

The current find regarding the genetic roots driving platelet behavior comes from what is believed to be the largest reassessment of the human genetic code to date, according to co-senior study investigator Dr Lewis Becker, a cardiologist with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our results give us a palpable set of unheard of molecular targets, the proteins produced from these genes, to develop tests that could help us identify subjects more at risk for blood clots and for whom certain blood-thinning drugs may work best or not," Becker said in a Johns Hopkins low-down release.

So "We can even look toward testing new treatments that may scurry up how the body fights infection or recovers from wounds". The study findings were published online June 7 in Nature Genetics.

Mammogram Warns Against Cancer

Mammogram Warns Against Cancer.
Often-conflicting results from studies on the value of procedure mammography have only fueled the argument about how often women should get a mammogram and at what age they should start. In a new examination of previous research, experts have applied the same statistical yardstick to four large studies and re-examined the results. They found that the benefits are more in conformance across the large studies than previously thought. All the studies showed a affluent reduction in breast cancer deaths with mammography screening.

So "Women should be reassured that mammography is completely effective," said study researcher Robert Smith, senior manager of cancer screening for the American Cancer Society. Smith is scheduled to present the findings this week at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The findings also were published in the November distribution of the weekly Breast Cancer Management.

In 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an self-assured group of national experts, updated its recommendation on mammography, advising women elderly 50 to 74 to get mammograms every two years, not annually.The group also advised women venerable 40 to 49 to talk to their doctors about benefits and harms, and decide on an lone basis whether to start screening. Other organizations, including the American Cancer Society, on to recommend annual screening mammograms beginning at age 40.

In assessing mammography's benefits and harms, researchers often demeanour at the number of women who must be screened to prevent one death from breast cancer - a issue that has ranged widely among studies. In assessing harms, experts defraud into account the possibility of false positives. Other possible harms include finding a cancer that would not otherwise have been found on screening (and not been questionable in a woman's lifetime) and anxiety associated with additional testing.

Monday, 22 May 2017

Some Postmenopausal Women From Breast Cancer Can Protect Hormonal Therapy

Some Postmenopausal Women From Breast Cancer Can Protect Hormonal Therapy.
In a conclusion that seems to token the prevailing wisdom that any form of hormone replacement cure raises the risk of breast cancer, a new look at some old data suggests that estrogen-only hormone group therapy might protect a small subset of postmenopausal women against the disease. "Exogenous estrogen such as hormone treatment is actually protective" in women who have a low risk for developing heart tumors, said study author Dr Joseph Ragaz, a medical oncologist and clinical professor in the School of Population & Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. With his colleagues, Ragaz took another glance at text from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study, a nationalistic trial that has focused on ways to prevent breast and colorectal cancer, as well as guts disease and fracture risk, in postmenopausal women.

The team planned to present its findings Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas. Research presented at medical meetings is not analyzed by appearance experts, unequal studies that appear in peer-reviewed medical journals, and all such findings should be considered preliminary. Launched in 1991, the WHI includes more than 161000 US women between the ages of 50 and 79.

Two groups were part of the trial run - women who had had hysterectomies and took estrogen unassisted as hormone replacement therapy and a group that took estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement therapy. The confederation therapy trial was halted in 2002 after it became clear those women were at increased peril for heart disease and breast cancer.

In the new look at the estrogen-only group "we looked at women who did not have high-risk features". They found that women with no ex history of benign heart of hearts disease had a 43 percent reduction breast cancer risk on estrogen; women with no kinsfolk history with a first-degree relative with breast cancer had a 32 percent risk reduction and women without foregoing hormone use had a 32 percent reduced risk.

Saturday, 20 May 2017

Still Occasionally After Surgery In Children Remain Inside The Surgical Instruments

Still Occasionally After Surgery In Children Remain Inside The Surgical Instruments.
It on rare occasions happens, but that's toy comfort for those involved: Sometimes surgical instruments and sponges are progressive inside children undergoing surgery, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University. Children affliction from such mishaps were not more likely to die, but the errors result in convalescent home stays that are more than twice as long and cost more than double that of the average stay, the researchers found. And that's not even counting the mental toll on families.

And "Certainly, from a family's perspective, one event for example this is too many," said lead researcher Dr Fizan Abdullah, an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins. "Regardless of the data, we as a form care system have to be sensitive to these families. The extraordinary thing is that when you look at the numbers, it translates to one event in every 5000 surgeries. When there are hundreds of thousands of surgeries being performed on children across the US every year, that's a lot of patients".

The gunfire is published in the November 2010 matter of the Archives of Surgery. For the study, Abdullah's span collected data on 1,9 million children under 18 who were hospitalized from 1988 to 2005. Of all these children, 413 had an contrivance or sponge left inside them after surgery, the researchers found.

The mistakes occurred most often when the surgery interested opening the abdominal cavity, such as during a gynecologic procedure. Errors were less appropriate to occur during ear, nose, throat, heart and chest, orthopedic and spine surgeries, Abdullah's organize notes.

Thursday, 18 May 2017

New Features Of The Immune System

New Features Of The Immune System.
A renewed read has uncovered evidence that most cases of narcolepsy are caused by a misguided immune system attack - something that has been hunger suspected but unproven. Experts said the finding, reported Dec 18, 2013 in Science Translational Medicine, could captain to a blood test for the sleep disorder, which can be awkward to diagnose. It also lays out the possibility that treatments that focus on the immune system could be used against the disease. "That would be a elongate way out," said Thomas Roth, director of the Sleep Disorders and Research Center at Henry Ford Hospital, in Detroit.

So "If you're a narcolepsy compliant now, this isn't succeeding to change your clinical care tomorrow," added Roth, who was not confusing in the study. Still the findings are "exciting," and advance the understanding of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy causes a arrange of symptoms, the most common being excessive sleepiness during the day. But it may be best known for triggering potentially perilous "sleep attacks".

In these, people fall asleep without warning, for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. About 70 percent of living souls with narcolepsy have a symptom called cataplexy - impetuous bouts of muscle weakness. That's known as type 1 narcolepsy, and it affects brutally one in 3000 people, according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Research shows that those ancestors have low levels of a brain chemical called hypocretin, which helps you stay awake.

And experts have believed the deficiency is unquestionably caused by an abnormal immune system attack on the leader cells that produce hypocretin. "Narcolepsy has been suspected of being an autoimmune disease," said Dr Elizabeth Mellins, a chief author of the study and an immunology researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine, in California. "But there's never positively been proof of immune system activity that's any other from normal activity". Mellins thinks her team has uncovered "very strong evidence" of just such an underlying problem. The researchers found that colonize with narcolepsy have a subgroup of T cells in their blood that reply to particular portions of the hypocretin protein - but narcolepsy-free people do not.

T cells are a frequency part of immune system defenses against infection. That finding was based on 39 commoners with type 1 narcolepsy, and 35 people without the disorder - including four sets of twins in which one double was affected and the other was not. It's known that genetic susceptibility plays a impersonation in narcolepsy. And the theory is that in people with that inherent risk, certain environmental triggers may cause an autoimmune repulsion against the body's own hypocretin.

Tuesday, 16 May 2017

Personal Hygiene Slows The Epidemic Of Influenza

Personal Hygiene Slows The Epidemic Of Influenza.
Simple steps, such as pointer washing and covering the mouth, could analyse helpful in reducing pandemic flu transmission, experts say. However, in the May spring of the American Journal of Infection Control, a University of Michigan swotting team cautions that more research is needed to assess the true effectiveness of so called "non-pharmaceutical interventions" aimed at slowing the varnish of pandemic flu. Such measures contain those not based on vaccines or antiviral treatments.

On an individual level, these measures can include frequent washing of the hands with soap, wearing a facemask and/or covering the stoma while coughing or sneezing, and using alcohol-based boost sanitizers. On a broader, community-based level, other influenza-containment measures can include shape closings, the restriction of public gatherings, and the promotion of home-based work schedules, the researchers noted. "The new influenza A (H1N1) pandemic may provide us with an opportunity to address many enquire gaps and ultimately create a broad, comprehensive strategy for pandemic mitigation," lead maker Allison E Aiello, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said in a newsflash release. "However, the emergence of this pandemic in 2009 demonstrated that there are still more questions than answers".

She added: "More investigation is urgently needed". The call for more investigation into the potential benefit of non-pharmaceutical interventions stems from a still in nappies analysis of 11 prior studies funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and conducted between 2007 and 2009. The known review found that the public adopted some preservative measures more readily than others. Hand washing and mouth covering, for example, were more commonly practiced than the wearing of facemasks.

Friday, 12 May 2017

Harm To Consumers From Changes In The Flexibility Of The Expenditure Account

Harm To Consumers From Changes In The Flexibility Of The Expenditure Account.
It's the age of year for break parties, gift shopping and air enrollment, when many employees have to make decisions about their employer-sponsored health-care plans. Last year's feature health care reform legislation means changes are in store for 2011. One of the most significant: starting Jan 1, 2011, you'll no longer be able to reward for most over-the-counter medications using a flexile spending account (FSA). That means if you're used to paying for your allergy or heartburn medication using pre-tax dollars, you're out of fortuity unless your doctor writes you a prescription.

The exception is insulin, which you can still avenge oneself for for using an FSA even without a prescription. Flexible spending accounts, which are offered by some employers, enable employees to set aside profit each month to pay for out-of-pocket medical costs such as co-pays and deductibles using pre-tax dollars. "This is basically reverting back to the practice FSAs were used a few years ago," said Paul Fronstin, a superior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, DC "It wasn't that covet ago that you couldn't use FSAs for over-the-counter medicine".

Popular uses for FSAs allow for eyeglasses, dental and orthodontic work, as well as co-pays for prescription drugs, doctor visits and other procedures, explained Richard Jensen, model research scientist in the department of health behaviour at George Washington University in Washington, DC Over-the-counter drugs became FSA "qualified medical expenses" in 2003, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The approach an FSA works is an staff member decides before Jan 1, 2011 (usually during the company's open enrollment period) how much bundle to contribute in the year ahead. The employer deducts equal installments from each paycheck throughout the year, although the perfect amount must be available at all times during the year.

Typically, FSAs operate under the "use it or lose it" rule. You have to devote all of the money placed in an FSA by the end of the calendar year or the money is forfeited. Since in general speaking, the cost of over-the-counter medications pales in comparison to the cost of co-pays and deductibles, the 2011 coin shouldn't be too onerous for consumers.

Tuesday, 9 May 2017

Prevention Of Atherosclerosis By Diet Of Fruits And Vegetables

Prevention Of Atherosclerosis By Diet Of Fruits And Vegetables.
Children who consume a regimen rich in fruits and vegetables may be able to help ward off atherosclerosis in adulthood, a predecessor of heart disease, a new study suggests. And a second new work found that children as young as 9 years old may already be exhibiting health problems such as high blood demand that put them at risk of heart disease as adults. Both reports, from researchers in Finland, are published in the Nov 29, 2010 online number of Circulation.

Commenting on the first study, Dr David L Katz, commandant of the Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, who was not tangled with the study, noted that it had taken knowledge about diet and heart health a step further. Atherosclerosis is a outfit in which plaque - a sticky substance consisting of fat, cholesterol, and other substances found in the blood - builds up middle the arteries, eventually narrowing and stiffening the arteries and primary to heart problems. It's a process that can take years, even decades, and this study shows that intake even in childhood - helps prevent the condition.

And "We certainly, before this study, knew that vegetable and fruit intake were unbelievable for our health in general, and good for cardiovascular health in particular". For the in front study, researchers led by Dr Mika Kahonen, chief physician in the Department of Clinical Physiology at Tampere University Hospital in Finland, looked at lifestyle factors and rhythmic the thrumming of 1622 people who took part in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. The participants ranged in maturity from 3 to 18 when the study began and were followed for 27 years.

The researchers also assessed "pulse undulation velocity" - a measure of arterial stiffness. The researchers found that those uninitiated people who ate fewer vegetables and fruits had higher pulse current velocity, which means stiffer arteries. But those who ate the most vegetables and fruits had a pulse wave 6 percent deign than people who ate fewer fruits and veggies. Because arterial stiffness is linked with atherosclerosis, exacting arteries makes the heart work harder to pump blood.

Besides gloomy fruit and vegetable consumption, other lifestyle factors such as lack of physical activity and smoking in babyhood was associated with pulse wave strength in adulthood, the researchers said. "These findings suggest that a lifetime prototype of low consumption of fruits and vegetables is related to arterial stiffness in unsophisticated adulthood," Kahonen said in a news release from the American Heart Association, which publishes Circulation. "Parents and pediatricians have yet another percipience to encourage children to consume high amounts of fruits and vegetables".

New Methods Of Treatment Parkinson's Disease

New Methods Of Treatment Parkinson's Disease.
Parkinson's disability has no cure, but three speculative treatments may help patients cope with unpleasant symptoms and related problems, according to redesigned research. The research findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego from March 16 to 23, 2013. "Progress is being made to prolong our use of medications, originate new medications and to treat symptoms that either we haven't been able to treat effectively or we didn't cotton were problems for patients," said Dr Robert Hauser, professor of neurology and chairman of the University of South Florida Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center in Tampa. Parkinson's disease, a degenerative intelligence disorder, affects more than 1 million Americans.

It destroys valour cells in the brain that make dopamine, which helps control muscle movement. Patients sample shaking or tremors, slowness of movement, balance problems and a stiffness or rigidity in arms and legs. In one study, Hauser evaluated the remedy droxidopa, which is not yet approved for use in the United States, to alleviate patients who experience a rapid fall in blood pressure when they stand up, which causes light-headedness and dizziness. About one-fifth of Parkinson's patients have this problem, which is due to a lead balloon of the autonomic nervous pattern to release enough of the hormone norepinephrine when posture changes.

Hauser studied 225 people with this blood-pressure problem, assigning half to a placebo gathering and half to take droxidopa for 10 weeks. The downer changes into norepinephrine in the body. Those on the medicine had a two-fold decline in dizziness and lightheadedness compared to the placebo group. They had fewer falls, too, although it was not a statistically significant decline.

In a surrogate study, Hauser assessed 420 patients who knowledgeable a daily "wearing off" of the Parkinson's pharmaceutical levodopa, during which their symptoms didn't respond to the drug. He compared those who took exceptional doses of a new drug called tozadenant, which is not yet approved, with those who took a placebo.

All still took the levodopa. At the onset of the study, the patients had an average of six hours of "off time" a lifetime when symptoms reappeared. After 12 weeks, those on a 120-milligram or 180-milligram dose of tozadenant had about an hour less of "off time" each heyday than they had at the start of the study.

Nutritionists Recommend Some Rules

Nutritionists Recommend Some Rules.
In the agitation of holiday celebrations and gatherings, it's uncomplicated to forget the basics of food safety, so one expert offers some simple reminders. "Food refuge tips are always important, and especially during the holidays when cooking for a crowd," Dana Angelo White, a nutritionist and Quinnipiac University's clinical underling professor of athletic training and sports medicine, said in a university scandal release. "Proper hand washing is a must!" Simply washing your hands is an prominent way to stop the spread of germs, Angelo White advised.

She well-known that providing guests with festive and scented soaps will encourage them to keep their hands clean in the kitchen. Angelo White provided other tips to assistant those preparing meals ensure holiday comestibles safety, including. Don't cross contaminate. Using separate cutting boards for unprocessed meats and seafood is key to preventing the spread of harmful bacteria.

Raw meats, poultry and seafood should also be stored on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator so that drippings from these products do not debase other foods. It's also important to dodge rinsing raw meat in the sink. Contrary to popular belief, research suggests, this profession can spread bacteria rather than get rid of it. Consider time and temperature.