India to celebrate 64th Independence Day

Today, Sunday, August 15, 2010. India, the world's biggest democracy, celebrates its 64th Independence Day reminding the masses of an end of British rule on August 15, 1947.

Happy Friendship Day

A friend is always happy about your success - even if it surpass his. Your success is also his success becuse he longs to see you happy.

Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat- Golden Jubilee celeberation

It's the 50th birthday celebration of Gujarat state. I called myself a Gujarati. I'm proud of that.

Acne drug may help prevent HIV breakout

Good morning friends. A cheap acne drug that's been used for decades effectively targets infected immune cells in which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, lies dormant and prevents them from reactivating and replicating, claim Johns Hopkins researchers.

The drug, minocycline, likely will improve on the current treatment regimens of HIV-infected patients if used in combination with a standard drug cocktail known as HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy), according to research published now online and appearing in print April 15 in The Journal of Infectious Diseas es.

“The powerful advantage to using minocycline is that the virus appears less able to develop drug resistance because minocycline targets cellular pathways not viral proteins,” says Janice Clements, Ph.D., Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Faculty Affairs, vice dean for faculty, and professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“The big challenge clinicians deal with now in this country when treating HIV patients is keeping the virus locked in a dormant state,” Clements adds. “While HAART is really effective in keeping down active replication, minocycline is another arm of defense against the virus.”

Unlike the drugs used in HAART which target the virus, minocycline homes in on, and adjusts T cells, major immune system agents and targets of HIV infection. According to Clements, minocycline reduces the ability of T cells to activate and proliferate, both steps crucial to HIV production and progression toward full blown AIDS.

If taken daily for life, HAART usually can protect people from becoming ill, but it’s not a cure. The HIV virus is kept at a low level but isn’t ever entirely purged; it stays quietly hidden in some immune cells. If a person stops HAART or misses a dose, the virus can reactivate out of those immune cells and begin to spread.

The idea for using minocycline as an adjunct to HAART resulted when the Hopkins team learned of research by others on rheumatoid arthritis patients showing the anti-inflammatory effects of minocycline on T cells. The Hopkins group connected the dots between that study with previous research of their own showing that minocycline treatment had multiple beneficial effects in monkeys infected with SIV, the primate version of HIV. In monkeys treated with minocycline, the virus load in the cerebrospinal fluid, the viral RNA in the brain and the severity of central nervous system disease were significantly decreased. The drug was also shown to affect T cell activation and proliferation.

“Since minocycline reduced T cell activation, you might think it would have impaired the immune systems in the macaques, which are very similar to humans, but we didn’t see any deleterious effect,” says Gregory Szeto, a graduate student in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine working in the Retrovirus Laboratory at Hopkins. “This drug strikes a good balance and is ideal for HIV because it targets very specific aspects of immune activation.” The Times of India

Scabies pill also works against resistant lice

Good morning friends. Scabies pill also works against resistant lice. Ivermectin, a pill prescribed for the skin disease known as scabies, also gets rid of hair lice that are resistant to conventional lotions, a study published on Thursday says.

Lice affects over 100 million people worldwide each year, especially children of primary school age, according to the paper, appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine. The main treatments are diluted forms of an insecticide called permethrin and malathion, but since the 1990s lice have becoming more and more resistant to these chemicals.

That has left parents with little choice other than to be, literally, nit-pickers -- to go through their children's hair with a fine comb to haul out the parasites. Ivermectin is a promising alternative, say French researchers who led the study. They tested it in a trial involving 812 adults and children in 376 households in Britain, France, Ireland and Israel.

Half of the patients were treated with malathion and half with ivermectin, which was administered twice, seven days apart, at a dose of 400 microgrammes per kilo (2.2 pounds). After two weeks, 95.2 per cent of the ivermectin group were lice-free, compared with 85 per cent in the malathion group.

"Ivermectin is more effective than the best anti-lice lotion, but it should be reserved for difficult, resistant cases," said the study's coordinator, Olivier Chosidow of France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). Over-using the drug could make it succumb to resistance, following the same path as the lotions, he said. – The Times of India

High-fat diets raise stroke risk in women, study

Good morning friends. Women should listen to this … High-fat diets raise stroke risk in women, Eating a lot of fat, especially the kind that's in cookies and pastries, can significantly raise the risk of stroke for women over 50, a large new study finds.

The new study is the largest to look at stroke risk in women and across all types of fat.

It showed a clear trend: Those who ate the most fat had a 44 per cent higher risk of the most common type of stroke compared to those who ate the least.

"It's a tremendous increase that is potentially avoidable," said Dr Emil Matarese, stroke chief at St Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. "What's bad for the heart is bad for the brain."

He reviewed but did not help conduct the research, which was presented yesterday at an American Stroke Association conference.

It involved 87,230 participants in the Women's Health Initiative , a federally funded study best known for revealing health risks from taking hormone pills for menopause symptoms.

Before menopause, women traditionally have had less risk of stroke than similarly aged men, although this is changing as women increasingly battle obesity and other health problems

After menopause, the risk rises and the gender advantage disappears, said Dr Ka He, a nutrition specialist and senior author of the study from the University of North Carolina.

He and another researcher, Sirin Yaemsiri, wanted to see whether dietary fat affected the odds. – The Times of India

Strokes can happen to children too

Good morning friends. Don’t be relax parents, not only older people acquire stroke. Also children can acquire the disease. Parents should be aware of that. Strokes can happen to children too as we least expected.

Children can have strokes too that can be recurrent, according to pediatric researchers.

Unfortunately, boffins said, the strokes often go unrecognized the first time, and the child does not receive treatment before the recurrence.

Pediatric neurologist Rebecca Ichord, MD, director of the Pediatric Stroke Program at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, reported the study of arterial ischemic stroke in children at the International Stroke Conference 2010 in San Antonio, Texas.

An arterial ischemic stroke results from a blockage or constriction in an artery in or leading to the brain.

To come up with the findings, Ichord and colleagues at Children's Hospital followed 90 children with a median age of about 6 years old, treated for stroke between 2003 and 2009. Twelve patients (13 per cent) had a recurrent stroke during the study period, most of them within a month of the first stroke. In six of the 12 children with recurrent strokes, no one diagnosed the initial stroke until a recurrent stroke occurred.

"Strokes don't occur only in the elderly," said Ichord. "They can also affect children as young as infants. Our findings reinforce how important it is to diagnose stroke in children as quickly as possible so that medical caregivers can provide emergency treatment and take measures to prevent recurrence."

Strokes can arise in children as a complication of other illnesses, such as sickle cell disease, which obstructs blood circulation, or from an undetected heart condition. A whiplash injury to a child's neck may damage an artery and leave it vulnerable to a blood clot that causes a stroke. Signs of a stroke are the same as in adults—a sudden loss of neurologic functions such as vision or speech, unsteady gait, or weakness on one side of the face or in limbs. What is different in children, said Ichord, is that symptoms may be subtle, examination is difficult and children are less able to describe their symptoms.

Emergency treatment for a stroke typically involves assuring adequate breathing and circulation, supplying intravenous fluids and improving blood supply to the brain.

Medications such as aspirin or blood thinners are given to lower the risk of a recurrent stroke. In the aftermath of a stroke, rehabilitation is critical to promote recovery.

"Because a stroke can recur, we need improved awareness of pediatric stroke among primary health care providers, and more research on the best ways to prevent a recurrence after a child suffers a first stroke," added Ichord. – The Times of India

Early eczema can affect mental health later

Good morning friends. Early eczema can affect mental health later. A new study has discovered an association between eczema in early childhood and psychological problems in children at ten years of age.

Eczema is a non-infectious skin disease characterized by scaling itchy skin rashes. It is the most common skin disease in children and adolescents. Children who suffer from eczema are known to have an increased predisposition for hay fever and allergic asthma. Eczema symptoms are accompanied by a broad spectrum of secondary symptoms, such as sleep disorders.

The prospective birth cohort study was done by scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München and colleagues of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Technische Universität München (TUM) and Marien-Hospital in Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia.

The research, which followed 5,991 children born between 1995 and 1998, has appeared in the current issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 125 (2010); 404-410.

Researchers led by Assistant Professor Jochen Schmitt of Dresden University Hospital, Dr. Christian Apfelbacher (Heidelberg University Hospital) and Dr. Joachim Heinrich of the Institute of Epidemiology of Helmholtz Zentrum München, found that children who suffered from eczema during the first two years of life were more likely to demonstrate psychological abnormalities, in particular emotional problems, at ten years of age than children of the same age who had not suffered from the disease.

Dr. Heinrich said, “This indicates that eczema can precede and lead to behavioral and psychological problems in children.”

Children whose eczema persisted beyond the first two years of life were more likely to have mental health problems than children who had eczema only in infancy.

Within the framework of the GINIplus study, scientists tracked the family history of the children, collected data on their physical health and emotional condition at age 10 years and gathered information on their daily lives. Questions were asked about the course of disease – also in early childhood – with special focus on diseases such as eczema, asthma, allergic rhinitis, stress tolerance and behavioral abnormalities.

Joachim Heinrich said, “We suspect that it is mainly the secondary symptoms that have a long-term effect on the emotions of the affected children.”

The authors of the study therefore recommend documenting the occurrence of eczema as potential risk factor for later psychological problems in the children’s medical records, even if the actual primary disease abates and disappears during the course of childhood. – The Times of India

Childhood stress may lead to brain damage

Good morning friends. Childhood stress such as abuse or emotional neglect can result in structural brain changes, a new study has shown.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers have shown that childhood stress such as abuse or emotional neglect, in particular when combined with genetic factors, can result in structural brain changes, rendering these people more vulnerable to developing depression.

Commenting on the significance of the findings, Trinity''s Professor Thomas Frodl at the School of Medicine and Trinity Institute for Neuroscience said: "This improved neurobiological understanding shows how stress and genetic variants interact and affect brain structure and function. In turn it demonstrates how it could affect a person''s propensity for depression. These structural alterations of the brain are associated with a higher vulnerability to depression and a more chronic course of the depression might be associated with further structural changes".

"Therefore, early intervention in the case of major depression is necessary to increase the chance of a good disease outcome. Fortunately, depression can be treated very well by psychotherapy and antidepressant medication. Moreover, prevention strategies for childhood neglect and misuse are highly important to increase public health and to avoid in later life for these individuals, the burden of major depression."

The study was conducted on a total of 24 patients (aged 18-65 years) being treated as inpatients for major depression. They were investigated with high-resolution structural MRI and childhood stress asessments. Special analysis programmes were used to measure brain regions. These patients were compared with 27 healthy control subjects from the local community who were matched for age and gender. Further research is needed in a larger number of patients and controls to identify the underlying causes of depression and stress-gene interaction on brains structure as well as function.

The study led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin has just been published in the international scientific journal, Neuropsychopharmacology . – The Times of India

New breast cancer screening technology

Good morning friends. Breast cancers is one of the problem of women. Not only older women acquire this illness. Anyone can have it, even you are still in the peak of you teenage days. There is a New breast cancer screening technology. As early as possible women should have to go to the doctor and have a checked up. They said that prevention is better than cure.

With the number of breast cancer cases on the increase, a new screening technology has been introduced by Siemens Healthcare .

"For the first time in India, Siemens Healthcare introduced a breakthrough innovation called Automated Breast Volume Scanner (ABVS) at Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre, Mumbai," D Ragavan, the company's Sector CEO for Healthcare, South Asia, told the media here.

ABVS automatically acquires volume images of the breast, helping in comprehensive screening using ultrasound, he said. "This new technology comfortably images patients with dense breast tissue or with a history of breast disease."

The machine is equipped to ensure accurate and consistent diagnosis, Ragavan said. The one-button locking mechanism simplifies and expedites volume acquisition and addresses the common problem of repetitive stress injuries, he said.

With this technology, images can be acquired in less than 10 minutes, as compared to half an hour in the conventional systems, Ragavan said. – The Times of India

New way to treat prostate cancer

Good morning friends. Prostate cancer is one of the problem of men when they reach the age of 40 and above. Like as in women, they have breast cancer. But there will be a new treatment way of prostate cancer.

Monash University researchers have discovered a new way to treat castrate resistant cells in prostate cancer patients.

The findings of the study, conducted by scientists from the Prostate & Breast Cancer Research Program, have appeared in the medical journal PNAS.

Associate Dean, Research Centres & Institutes and co-author Professor Gail Risbridger said: "The research showed that drugs that activate one of the two estrogen receptors, causes cell death. Most commonly cell death in patients with prostate cancer is achieved by withdrawing androgens (male hormones) which results in castration.

"Although the bulk of the tumor is removed by castration, some cells remain and these castrate-resistant cells are the ones that give rise to recurrent incurable disease."

Using a drug, the team selectively and specifically activated the beta estrogen receptor in the prostate.

Prof Risbridger said: "It not only inhibits the growth of prostate cancer but also kills off cancer cells that are resistant to conventional treatment such as androgen deprivation therapy, more commonly known as castration therapy and does so using a mechanism that is different to castration."

The study group made the discovery in animal models, and then successfully replicated laboratory results using human cells and tissues from prostate cancer sufferers.

Prof Risbridger said: "The team at Monash University has discovered how this compound working through the beta receptors targets a small, but very important, population of cells in the tumor. It is a significant piece of the puzzle that will help medical research in this field - an achievement that could eventually enhance treatment options for patients around the world with advanced prostate cancer."

Risbridger added: "This research also has personal meaning and provides me with the imperative to conduct basic biomedical research where the fundamental outcomes such as those we describe, may ultimately translate into more effective ways to treat prostate cancer." – The Times of India

How does the body heal itself?

Unlocking the secrets of how the body heals itself, especially when organs become diseased, a new study shows that the presence of small particles known as microvesicles helps cellular communication and enables healing.

Microvesicles are much smaller than a normal cell and contain genetic information such as messenger ribonucleic acid (RNA), other species of RNA and protein.

Jason Aliotta, physician researcher at the critical care and hematology-oncology departments at Rhode Island Hospital (RIH), and colleagues focused on these small particles.

During times of cellular injury or stress, or with certain diseases like cancer, infections and cardiovascular disease, these particles are shed and then taken up by other cells in the body.

The genetic information and protein in the microvesicles help to reprogramme the accepting cell to behave more like the cell from which the particle was derived.

Aliotta, also an assistant professor of medicine at the Brown University, said: "What we attempted to understand is how cells within the bone marrow are able to repair organs that are unrelated to those bone marrow cells, such as the lung.

"Our work suggests that when the lung is injured or diseased and cells within it are stressed or dying, they shed microvesicles. Those microvesicles are then consumed by cells within the bone marrow, including stem cells, which are present in small numbers within the circulatory system. Those bone marrow cells then turn into lung cells."

Other researchers have reported similar findings over the last couple of years. Microvesicles have been known for over 40 years and have often been considered irrelevant, says an RIH release.

Aliotta concludes: "We are now recognizing the relevance of microvesicles - they are important mediators of cell-to-cell communication."

Their paper is slated for publication in the March edition of Experimental and is now available online. – The Times of India

Vitamin E supplements do more harm

Good morning friends. Indiscriminate use of high-dose Vitamin E supplementation does more harm than good, a new study has warned.

"There were so many conflicting reports about Vitamin E and its effect on various diseases, particularly heart disease, that we wanted to set the record straight, says Prof. Dov Lichtenberg of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine.

Study co-author Dr. Ilya Pinchuk said: "Our new study shows that some people may be harmed by the treatment, whereas others may benefit from it. Now we’re trying to identify groups of people that are most likely to benefit from the effects of Vitamin E.”

The researchers evaluated the results of the prominent studies measuring the health benefits of Vitamin E but reached varying conclusions. There have been many previous publications on the subject.

Analysis of the results of all these past publications together revealed that subjects who did not take a Vitamin E supplement enjoyed more quality-adjusted-life-years (QALY), a standard parameter used in medicine to assess the effect of medical interventions.

Dr. Pinchuk said: "To explain the meaning of this parameter, consider a participant who was healthy during the first 10 out of 20 years of the study, but then suffered a stroke and became dependent on others throughout the following 10 years.

“The QALY during the first 10 years of healthy life is 10, but after the stroke the quality of life is only half of what this person had before. Therefore, the second decade is considered the equivalent of merely 5 years of healthy life and in sum a person’s QALY is 15,” Dr. Pinchuk added.

The researchers examined data from more than 300,000 subjects in the US, Europe and Israel.

"Our major finding was that the average quality-adjusted life years (QALY) of Vitamin E-supplemented individuals was 0.30 less than that of untreated people. This, of course, does not mean that everybody consuming Vitamin E shortens their life by almost 4 months. But on average, the quality-adjusted longevity is lower for vitamin-treated people. This says something significant," Dr. Pinchuk said.

The results were recently reported in ATVB, a leading journal of cardiology, and discussed in the journal BioFactors. The Times of India

61st Republican Day

Wishing All A
61st Republican Day
To My Countrymen

Happy Uttarayan from Gujarat

Happy Uttarayan to All

from Dhirendra from Gujarat.

May this 2010 1st feastival

bring Happiness to your life.

I wish you and your family a very

Happy Makar Sankranthi.

Calcium vital to tickle our taste buds

Good morning friends. A new study has shown that calcium plays a vital role in tickling our taste buds.

The team of Japanese researchers have shown that calcium channels on the tongue are the targets of compounds that can enhance taste. Kokumi taste foods contain various compounds that have no taste themselves, but can enhance the basic sweet, salty and umami taste sensation they co-exist with. Lead researcher Yuzuru Eto examined whether calcium channels- which sense and regulate the levels of calcium in the body- might be the mechanism involved.

They found that calcium channels are closely related to the receptors that sense sweet and umami (savory) tastes and that glutathione (a common kokumi taste element) is known to interact with calcium channels. During the study, researchers created several small molecules that resembled glutathione and analyzed how well these compounds activated calcium channels in cell samples.

They diluted the same test substances in flavored water (salt water, sugar water, etc.) and asked volunteers (all trained in discriminating tastes) to rate how strong the flavors were. The findings revealed that the molecules induced the largest activity in calcium receptors and also elicited the strongest flavor enhancement in the taste tests. The research tested several other known calcium channel activators, including calcium, and found all exhibited some degree of flavor enhancement, while a synthetic calcium channel blocker could suppress flavors. The Times of India

Greetings on New Years Day

Wishing you all

the warmth and cheer

of the Holiday Season

today and always.
Happy new Year!

Visual source: blogspot

3 easy ways to soothe stiff joints

Good morning friends. Don’t you hate it when you get out of bed with a pain in your head, neck, and back? So before you nod off, do a quick posture check. There are three positions that help the ease strain on these body parts...

Poses for relaxation

According to researchers, joint-friendly sleeping habits can help protect creaky body parts from developing a crick. Choose one of these postures: - If you sleep on your back, put a small pillow under your knees. - If you sleep on your side, avoid tucking your neck and chin into the fetal position. - If you sleep on your stomach, put a pillow under one side of your body, so your head and neck aren’t strained.

Did you know?

Rather than popping pills, eat healthy to reduce the risk of arthritis. Have a cup of green tea. It is great for bone cartilage. You can also make a daily routine of having a bowl of salad before each meal. It does a whole lot of good for your hands and knees. – The Times of India

Steroid jabs delay diabetic retinopathy

Good morning friends. A new study has revealed that injecting steroids into the eye can significantly reduce progression of diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that can cause vision loss and blindness.

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy occurs when new blood vessels form on the optic disc or another component of the retina. Controlling blood glucose levels can help prevent the development of retinopathy and laser treatments can reduce the risk of vision loss, but the identification of other treatments remains desirable.

The researchers showed that steroid injections interfered with the creation of new blood vessels, possibly by reducing the production of compounds that spur their growth.

During the study, lead researcher Dr Neil M. Bressler, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore analyzed 840 eyes of 693 participants who had macular edema, a leakage of fluid into part of the retina that occurs in many cases of retinopathy.

Eyes were randomly assigned to receive one of three treatments: photocoagulation (a laser treatment that destroys blood vessels) or a 1-milligram or 4-milligram injection of triamcinolone acetonide directly into the eye as often as every four months.

After two years, the research team found that retinopathy had progressed in 31 percent of 330 eyes treated with photocoagulation, 29 percent of 256 eyes treated with 1-milligram doses of triamcinolone acetonide and 21 percent of 254 eyes treated with 4-milligram doses.

These differences appeared to be sustained at three years. "Use of this intravitreal [injected into the eye] corticosteroid preparation to reduce the likelihood of progression of retinopathy is not warranted at this time because of the increased risk of glaucoma and cataract associated with intravitreal steroid use," the authors write.

"Any treatment to be used routinely to prevent proliferative diabetic retinopathy likely needs to be relatively safe because the condition already can be treated successfully and safely with panretinal photocoagulation.

“Nevertheless, further investigation with regard to the role of pharmacotherapy for reduction of the incidence of progression of retinopathy appears to be warranted," they added. – The Times of India

The study appears in journal Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Exercise shows opposing effects on appetite

Good morning friends. Exercise seems to simultaneously make people hungrier, yet more readily satisfied by a meal -- and differences in these responses from person to person may help explain why some exercisers shed pounds more easily than others, researchers say.

In a study of 58 overweight and obese adults who started an exercise regimen, researchers found that exercise tended to boost participants' hunger before a meal, compared with their sedentary days.

On the other hand, they were also more easily satisfied by their morning meal than they had been before becoming active.

But while both effects were generally at work across the study group, there were subtler differences between participants who were more successful in their weight loss and those whose extra pounds stubbornly hung on.

In general, exercisers who did not meet their expected weight loss were both hungrier after fasting -- that is, right before breakfast -- and throughout the day, compared with their hunger ratings at the study's start.

In contrast, those who were more successful in shedding pounds generally saw their pre-breakfast appetites increase after becoming active. But they were not hungrier throughout the day.

"The reason that some people are more successful (at weight loss) could be due to a lesser increase in appetite and the prevention of an increase in food intake," lead researcher Dr. Neil King, an associate professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, told Reuters Health in an email.

But the bottom line for new exercisers, he said, is that they should not throw in the towel if they start feeling more hungry than normal -- or fail to shed as many pounds as they'd been hoping.

Other research shows that exercise has health benefits -- like improved cardiovascular fitness, and lower blood pressure and cholesterol -- even if weight loss is modest.

For the current study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, King's team had 58 overweight men and women go through a 12-week supervised exercise regimen designed to burn 500 calories per session.

At the beginning and end of the study, participants were given a breakfast of cereal and toast, and were asked to rate their hunger before the meal, immediately after and throughout the rest of the day.

After 12 weeks, 32 participants had lost the expected amount of weight based on the calories they burned during exercise; 26 had not. On average, both groups showed a revved up appetite before breakfast on week 12, but daily hunger was greater in those who had not lost a substantial amount of weight.

Both groups of exercisers, though, seemed to be more readily satisfied by their breakfast than they had been before becoming active.

It's not clear why these two different appetite effects arise from exercise. But physical activity, while spurring hunger, may also boost the sensitivity of the body's fullness-signaling system, according to King's team.

"The key messages," King said, "are exercise is good for you, don't expect unrealistic weight loss and don't give up exercising just because of lower-than-expected weight loss." - Indian Express