Low Vit-D ups infection in pregnancy

Good morning friends. Pregnant women with low vitamin D, may increase infection in their pregnancy.

Expectant women with low levels of vitamin D are at an increased risk of developing a common vaginal infection that raises the risk of preterm delivery, finds a new study.

University of Pittsburgh researchers have revealed that pregnant women with vitamin D deficiency may suffer from bacterial vaginosis (BV), a common vaginal infection.

"Bacterial vaginosis affects nearly one in three reproductive aged women, so there is great need to understand how it can be prevented," said Dr Lisa M Bodnar, assistant professor of epidemiology, obstetrics and gynecology, University of Pittsburgh.

"It is not only associated with a number of gynecologic conditions, but also may contribute to premature delivery, the leading cause of neonatal mortality, making it of particular concern to pregnant women," she added.

During the study, the researchers looked at 469 pregnant women, sought to determine whether poor vitamin D status played a role in predisposing women to BV. They also found that the prevalence of BV decreased as vitamin D levels rose.

Vitamin D may play a role in BV by regulating the production and function of antimicrobial molecules, which in turn may help the immune system prevent and control bacterial infection. "Although this is a preliminary study, it points out an interesting connection between vitamin D and BV," said Dr. Bodnar.

"We don't recommend pregnant women take mega doses of vitamin D based on these findings, but they should talk with their doctor if they have concerns about their vitamin D status.

"All women should be encouraged to eat a healthy diet and take a prenatal vitamin before they become pregnant or as soon as they find out they are pregnant," she added. The study appears in the Journal of Nutrition. –The Times of India

Gel made from radium weed sap can remove sun spots, prevent skin cancers

Good morning friends. Good news to those who wants to remove a sun spot. There is this kind of gel made from radium weed sap that can remove that spot, which prevent skin cancers.

An Australian drug-maker claims that sun spots can be removed, and potentially deadly skin cancers prevented, with the aid of a gel it has made from the radium weed sap, a common folk remedy for cancer.

Peplin, the Queensland-based pharmaceutical company, says that its gel can remove sun spots, which can develop into invasive skin cancers if left untreated.

Dr. Peter Welburn, General Manager of the company, has revealed that human trials have shown that the gel can treat sun spots and lesions in just two days.

He revealed that the trial involved 125 patients, who were made to apply gel once a day for two days.

According to him, the gel successively removed every sun spot on 27 per cent of patients, with 44 per cent having partial success.

"This is the first product that has demonstrated benefit in treating sun spots on the face, neck and difficult areas to treat like the arms and back of hands," News.com.au quoted him as saying.

Dr. Welburn also revealed that no major side effects were noticed during the study, apart from temporary redness and flaking skin.

He, however, conceded that the gel did not treat melanomas.

Dr Jim Aylward, the founder of Peplin, revealed that he conceived the idea of developing this treatment when his job was on the line at the CSIRO more than 10 years ago.

"I needed to pull out a trump card and I relied on some folklore," he said.

"My mother knew radium weed had some great effects on skin cancer.

"I said one day when I lose my job I will find the active (ingredient), and that's what I did," he added.
The gel is expected to be on the market in the United States by 2011 and in Australia soon after. (ANI) - Yahoo

Breast feeding to newborns can prevent epilepsy: Study

Good morning friends. As all says that breast feeding is the best thing to do for a child. Some mothers don’t want to do that, but they don’t know what will be the good result of having a breast feed baby. Not only breast feeding is good, also it can prevent epilepsy. And that could be a good thing for the children.

Immediate breast feeding to newly born babies, especially those born with low weight, is vital in preventing childhood epilepsy and other forms of brain diseases, a recent study has said.

When new born babies are not fed within few hours of birth due to various reasons, they are exposed to low blood glucose which leads to convulsions on the second or third day.

"It was observed that after the babies were discharged, they developed epilepsy in the first few years which was often resistant to treatment and also had other major issues like mental retardation, autism, learning problems and visual impairment," said Vrajesh Udani, Head, Child Development department of PD Hinduja hospital.

The study, published in the journal 'Indian Paediatrics', which was carried out to ascertain the cause of epilepsy in 100 children, found low blood glucose condition in the brain due to non-availability of mothers' milk in the first few hours, he said.

The babies developed symptoms like irritability, lethargy and even convulsions on the second or third day, said Udani and his colleagues P Munotam M Ursekar and S Gupta. – The Times of India

New way 'to starve out malaria

Good morning friends. I want to share with you what I have read about the malaria. With reference to Indian Express there are new way to starve out malaria.

It has been discovered by some researchers a way to starve out malaria parasites by targeting a digestive enzyme that the disease needs to feed on blood cells, a major breakthrough in the global fight against malaria which claims the life of a child across the world "every 30 seconds".

An international team has been able to deactivate the final stage of the malaria parasite's digestive machinery, effectively starving the parasite of nutrients and disabling its survival mechanism. And, this process of starvation leads to the death of the parasite.

The results had laid the scientific groundwork to further develop a "specific class" of drugs to treat the disease that's contracted by half-a-billion people and causes around one million deaths a year worldwide.

A single bite from an infected mosquito transfers the malaria parasite into a human's blood stream. "The malaria parasite must then break down blood proteins in order to obtain nutrients. Malaria carries out the first stages of digestion inside a specialized compartment called the digestive vacuole – this can be considered to be like a stomach.

The enzyme (known as PfA-M1), which is essential for parasite viability, is located outside the digestive vacuole meaning it is easier to target from a drug perspective.
About forty per cent of the world's population are at risk of contracting malaria. It is only early days but this discovery could one day provide treatment for some of those 2.5 billion people across the globe."

Walnuts can help keep breast cancer at bay

Good morning friends. Those who were crazy eating walnuts, it has a use to the women’s body. Walnuts can help keep breast cancer. Aside from the good taste of it, women out there can enjoy breast cancer free.



Walnuts contain compounds that reduce the risk of breast cancer, claims a new study.
Elaine Hardman, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at Marshall University School of Medicine, said that while her study was done with laboratory animals rather than humans, people should heed the recommendation to eat more walnuts.

"Walnuts are better than cookies, french fries or potato chips when you need a snack," said Hardman.

"We know that a healthy diet overall prevents all manner of chronic diseases," the expert added.

To reach the conclusion, researchers studied mice that were fed a diet that they estimated was the human equivalent of two ounces of walnuts per day. A separate group of mice were fed a control diet.

Standard testing showed that walnut consumption significantly decreased breast tumor incidence, the number of glands with a tumor and tumor size.

"These laboratory mice typically have 100 percent tumor incidence at five months; walnut consumption delayed those tumors by at least three weeks," said Hardman.
Molecular analysis showed that increased consumption of omega-3 fatty acids contributed to the decline in tumor incidence, but other parts of the walnut contributed as well.

"With dietary interventions you see multiple mechanisms when working with the whole food," said Hardman.

"It is clear that walnuts contribute to a healthy diet that can reduce breast cancer," the expert added.

The study has been presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009. (ANI) - Yahoo

Laugh your way to a healthy heart!

Good evening friends. Laugh your way to a healthy heart. Someone may think how laughter can make our heart healthy. It’s tough to think but it’s not. You have the option on how you want to laugh.

As the saying goes, laughter is the best form of medicine. And, now researchers have claimed that just 30 minutes of guffaw a day is adequate to keep your heart healthy.

A new study by Loma Linda University has revealed that watching half-an-hour of comedy everyday can reduce a person's levels of stress hormones as well as compounds that are linked to heart disease.

"The best clinicians understand that there is an intrinsic physiological intervention brought about by positive emotions such as mirthful laughter, optimism and hope," the 'Daily Mail' quoted lead researcher Dr Lee Berk as saying.

The researchers came to the conclusion after analysing 20 men and women taking medication for diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. All took their tablets as usual but half were also prescribed "mirthful laughter" in the form of 30 min of comedy every day.

Stress hormone levels fell in the comedy viewers after two months. By four months, levels of compounds linked to hardening of the arteries and other cardiac problems had also dropped, while levels of "good" cholesterol – thought to protect against heart disease – rose by 26 per cent.

Patients who took the medication without any extra laughter had just a 3 per cent rise. The group watching comedy programmes also saw a drop of 66 percent in harmful C-reactive proteins, which increase the risk of heart disease.

While the control group also saw a fall in the amount of the proteins, it was much smaller at 26 per cent over the course of the year. – Indian Express

Faulty fibres linking brain areas cause muscle disorders

Good morning friends. I’m reading some articles here and also health concerns are one of my favorite article to read. With reference to The Times of India there are faulty fibers linking in our brain areas which causes muscle disorders.

Muscle disorders like writer's cramp may result from abnormalities in fibres connecting different brain areas, according to a study.

Dr Christine Delmaire, of Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire Roger Salengro, Lille, France, and Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, Paris, came to this conclusion after studying 26 right-handed patients with writer's cramp and 26 right-handed control participants, who were the same sex and age.

All subjects underwent diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) that assesses the status of white matter, coated nerve fibres that allow impulses to travel through the brain.

Christine said that the DTI scans of the writer's cramp patients revealed areas of abnormalities in the white matter of nerve pathways connecting the main sensorimotor cortex to brain areas below the cortex, such as the thalamus.

The researchers further revealed that the same abnormalities were not observed in healthy controls.

"In conclusion, this study suggests that writer's cramp is associated with microstructural changes involving fibers that carry afferents (information from senses to the brain) and efferents (motor information from the brain to the muscles) to the primary sensorimotor cortex. However, it is unknown how these changes relate to the physiopathology of the disease," the authors write.

The study has been published in the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.