Protecting Your Skin Can Save Your Life

Five places to check:

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, more than 1 million new cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year. The association urges regular self-examination.

1. Look for abnormal or new spots such as moles, age spots and freckles.

2. Examine your body front and back in the mirror, then right and left sides with arms raised.

3. Bend elbows and look carefully at forearms, upper underarms and palms.

4. Look at the backs of your legs and feet, on the soles and in the spaces between your toes.

5. Examine the back of your neck, back, buttocks and scalp (part hair for a closer look) with a hand mirror.

5 Tips For a Flat Stomach

Lynn VanDyke shows how anyone can have a rock solid stomach using these 5 simple tips.

As a personal trainer I routinely field questions about flat stomachs and six pack abs. Men and women want the secret formula to a rock solid mid-section. There are 5 tips that can help anyone increase their chances of a slimmer, fat-free waistline.

Flat Stomach Tip 1) Eat plenty of fibrous foods. This helps aid digestion and elimination. All too often the protruding lower abdominals are caused by enlarged intestines. Aiding the body's digestion and elimination processes will help give a flatter appearance to the lower stomach area.

Flat Stomach Tip 2) Create a strength training routine that addresses all of the major muscle groups. A nice trick I learned along the way is to increase the muscle in your shoulders. This gives the appearance of a smaller waist. Working your while body is more advantageous for many reasons. A few reasons are:


- Working the entire body creates balance. Working just the abs will result in an imbalance and may lead to over-use, under-use or injury of certain muscles.

- Working the entire body will add more lean muscle. Women need to add lean, toned muscle to their body. They should not be afraid of bulking up or looking like men. The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn. Each pound of muscle burns 35-50 calories per day.

- Just working the abs usually results in over training. With a full body routine each muscle receives attention and proper rest.

Flat Stomach Tip 3) Drink plenty of fluids. Water and unsweetened teas are best. Keeping the body properly hydrated will aid in digestion and elimination.

Flat Stomach Tip 4) Participate in a cardio session most days of the week. I recommend doing a mix if session lengths and intensity levels. The total workout time should typically be kept under an hour (including strength training). A few days should be for medium intensity and medium length cardio sessions. A few days should be reserved for long session with low intensity. One day each for a higher intensity, shorter program and a rest day.

Flat Stomach Tip 5) Incorporate the Plank Pose into your ab routine. The Plank Pose works the transverse abdominis muscle. This muscle is responsible for holding the stomach in and supporting posture. This is one if the best ab workouts in my opinion. It really works the muscle responsible for a flat stomach.

Combine these 5 tips for a flat stomach and get ready for results. Genetics play a role in the over all appearance of your stomach, but just about everyone can benefit from a reduction in body fat. The simplest way to a tight mid-section is to make a lifestyle change. Dieting is a quick fix that usually results in frustration and weight gain. Learn to achieve optimal health by applying positive habits.

source:buzzle.com

Kids Superheavy book's bags

Experts say that a bag that weighs more than 10% of a kid's body weight can cause a host of painful problems, such as bad posture, aching shoulders, and a sore neck.

Keep them safe: Pick a pack with extra cushy shoulder and back padding. "It should sit high on the back—a few inches above the waistline on the spine," says Samuel Forjuoh, MD, PhD, director of research in the department of family and community medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine. "If it slips lower, all that pressure could lead to spine damage." Because backpacks evenly distribute the weight, they're preferable to messenger or tote bags. But if your daughter doesn't want to give up her satchel, remind her to switch shoulders throughout the day.

Will A Computer “Symbiote” Be Implanted in Future Human Brains?

Will future humans have computers implanted in their brains? Researchers are developing a neural implant that can think independently—just like the human brain does. Creepy? Yeah. Cool? Definitely. Scientists at the University of Florida aren’t just creating a neural implant that can translate human brain signals, but one that can act independently to increase its efficiency and synergy with the brain as it learns new things.

"In the grand scheme of brain-machine interfaces, this is a complete paradigm change," said Justin C. Sanchez, Ph.D., a UF assistant professor of pediatric neurology and the study's lead author. "This idea opens up all kinds of possibilities for how we interact with devices. It's not just about giving instructions but about those devices assisting us in a common goal. You know the goal, the computer knows the goal and you work together to solve the task."

These “brain computers” are programmed with complex algorithms that can interpret thoughts. But the algorithms used in current brain-machine interfaces are incapable of adapting to change, Sanchez explains. They are order-takers, but not adaptive problem-solvers.

"The status quo of brain-machine interfaces that are out there have static and fixed decoding algorithms, which assume a person thinks one way for all time," he said. "We learn throughout our lives and come into different scenarios, so you need to develop a paradigm that allows interaction and growth."

Sanchez and his colleagues tested out evolving brain-machine interface using rats.

The rats’ brains were fitted with tiny electrodes that capture thought signals. Three rats were taught how to move a robotic arm toward a target using just their thoughts. Each time they succeeded, the rats were rewarded.

The computer, on the other hand, was programmed to earn as many points as possible by figuring out how to help the rat. The closer a rat moved the arm to the target, the more points the computer received, which helped the computer determine which brain signals lead to the most rewards. The computer then knew how to streamline the process to make it more efficient and ultimately easier for the rats.

The researchers made things progressively more difficult for the rats by requiring them to hit targets that were placed farther and farther away. However, the symbiotic relationship between the computer and the rats allowed the rats to complete tasks more efficiently each time despite the increasing difficulty.

So how does this all apply to humans? Well, there’s not a lot of legitimate funds available out there to turn humans into superhuman cyborgs “just for fun” (well, other than DARPA funding, of course), so initially the technology will be developed for therapeutic applications, such as allowing paraplegics victims to control their own limbs again and so forth.

However, there is a whole slew of other fantastic sci-fi inspired applications that are theoretically possible with this type of computer “symbiote” implants. For example, how would you like to be able to calculate enormous equations in your own head? You’d just think about what you wanted calculated and your neural implant would do the work for you instantaneously. Or how would you like the entire library of congress stored neatly in your brain where you can access any kind of information you’d ever want instantly just by thinking about. You wonder to yourself, “When was Abraham Lincoln born?” Your symbiote could then theoretically feed the correct answer back to you in what felt as natural as your own thoughts.

Mental work like creating company reports and term papers would become ridiculously easy. It’d be better than having a photographic memory, but of course with a neural implant you could theoretically have one of those too! Your implant could easily store an image of everything you’ve ever looked at, especially the way micro data storing technology is developing.

Neural implants would also allow people to control heavy machinery (or gigantic evil robots) with nothing but their thoughts remotely—perhaps even halfway around the world. However, giving a “thinking” computer a portion of the steering wheel, could conceivably raise a whole new class of questions about who’s really in charge. Up until now, brain-machine interfaces have always been designed as a one-way conversation between the brain and a computer. The brain gives the instructions and the computer merely follows commands. But now, according to findings published this month online in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, the system UF engineers created gives the computer a say in that conversation, as well.

Just imagine the autoworker in court convincingly replacing the outdated “devil made me do it” argument with “my neural implant made me do it…I mean, sure I thought about crushing my boss with that 2 ton metallic robot arm, but I had no idea my neural implant would take me so seriously.”

Marvel Comics first coined the term symbiote to denote a sentient organism that bonds with other organisms in a co-captain style of control where both organisms think synergistically—although the symbiote always seems to have the upper hand. In sci-fi, symbiotes have incredible adaptive attributes and quickly adapt to and enhance the abilities of the human they bond to while granting them a range of other incredible powers to boot. Traditional comic book symbiotes have been biological extraterrestrial aliens, but the real life expression of symbiotes could end up being advanced computer systems—hopefully programmed without the volatile and murderous urges that defined their fictional counterparts. In theory, a computer-brain interface could allow people to download a program that makes them think more creatively. You could download a movie you’ve been wanting to watch and just relax anywhere while it plays out in your head.

The sci-fi inspired implications are staggering. Will it give humans ESP using blue tooth technology to “beam” thoughts directly from one implant to another? What if you could somehow remotely override someone else’s neural computer? In theory you could control their physical actions and even their words. Or what if neural implants become commonplace enhancements for those who can afford it, effectively separating the human race into two major classes—superhuman vs the non-enhanced?

The questions and implications are endless, and while they are all likely far away possibilities, we now know its not just fiction. In reality, technological advancements often lead to real changes that are much stranger that fiction. The eventual melding of the human mind with advanced computer technology would revolutionize the world ways that we cannot even possibly imagine.

Source: http://www.news.health.ufl.edu/news/story.aspx?ID=5103

Drug May Reverse Mental Retardation Caused By Genetic Disorder

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have found that an FDA-approved drug reverses the brain dysfunction inflicted by a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC).

Since 50 percent of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer new hope for addressing learning disorders due to autism, according to researchers.

Using a mouse model for TSC, the researchers tested rapamycin, a drug approved by the FDA to fight tissue rejection following organ transplants.

Rapamycin is well-known for targeting an enzyme involved in making proteins needed for memory and researchers went for it because the same enzyme is also regulated by TSC proteins.

"This is the first study to demonstrate that the drug rapamycin can repair learning deficits related to a genetic mutation that causes autism in humans. The same mutation in animals produces learning disorders, which we were able to eliminate in adult mice," Nature quoted principal investigator Dr. Alcino Silva, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as saying.

"Our work and other recent studies suggest that some forms of mental retardation can be reversed, even in the adult brain," Silva added.

First author Dan Ehninger, postgraduate researcher in neurobiology, said: "These findings challenge the theory that abnormal brain development is to blame for mental impairment in tuberous sclerosis."

"Our research shows that the disease's learning problems are caused by reversible changes in brain function -- not by permanent damage to the developing brain," Ehninger added.

Researchers studied mice bred with TSC and verified that the animals suffered from the same severe learning difficulties as human patients.

Next, the UCLA team traced the source of the learning problems to biochemical changes sparking abnormal function of the hippocampus, a brain structure that plays a key role in memory.

"Memory is as much about discarding trivial details as it is about storing useful information. Our findings suggest that mice with the mutation cannot distinguish between important and unimportant data. We suspect that their brains are filled with meaningless noise that interferes with learning," Silva said.

Ehninger said: "After only three days of treatment, the TSC mice learned as quickly as the healthy mice. The rapamycin corrected the biochemistry, reversed the learning deficits and restored normal hippocampal function, allowing the mice's brains to store memories properly."

The study is published in the online June 22 edition of Nature Medicine.

Dealing With Sports Injuries

The best way to deal with sports injuries is to prevent them. Prevention includes knowing the rules of the game one is playing, using the proper equipment, and playing safe. Sports injuries typically occur while participating in organised sports, competitions, training sessions, or organised fitness activities. These injuries may occur for a variety of reasons, including improper training, lack of appropriate footwear or safety equipment.

Sports activities can result in injuries - some minor, some serious, and still others resulting in lifelong medical problems. There are two general types.

1. Acute traumatic injury: Acute traumatic injuries usually involve a single blow from a single application of force. These injuries include the following:

* a fracture - a crack, break, or shattering of a bone
* a bruise - caused by a direct blow, which may cause swelling and bleeding in muscles and other body tissues
* a strain - a stretch or tear of a muscle or tendon, the tough and narrow end of a muscle that connects it to a bone
* a sprain - a stretch or tear of a ligament, the tissue that supports and strengthens joints by connecting bones and cartilage

2. Overuse or chronic injury: Chronic injuries are those that happen over a period of time. Chronic injuries are usually the result of repetitive training, such as running, overhand throwing, or serving a ball in tennis. These include:

* stress fractures - tiny cracks in the bone's surface often caused by repetitive overloading (such as in the feet of a basketball player who is continuously jumping on the court)
* tendinitis - inflammation of the tendon caused by repetitive stretching
* bursitis - an inflammation of the bursa, which is a small sac, in the shoulder, elbow, or knee.

Head injuries include concussions, contusions, fractures, and haematomas. A concussion is a violent jarring or shock to the head that causes a temporary jolt to the brain. If severe enough, or recurrent, concussions can cause brain damage. A haematoma is a bleeding or pooling of blood between the tissue layers covering the brain or inside the brain. All of these injuries can be caused by impact to the head from a fall, forceful shaking of the head, a blow to the head, or whiplash. Whiplash is an injury to the neck caused by an abrupt jerking motion of the head. It is necessary to always wear helmets for contact sports and when doing activities like biking to prevent head injuries.

Neck injuries are among the most dangerous. One can hurt the neck through a sudden traumatic injury in sports like mountain climbing, skydiving, horseback riding, gymnastics, diving, or boxing. Neck injuries include strains, fractures, contusions, and sprains. Most neck injuries are caused by impact to the head or neck sustained during a fall or a blow. The neck can also be injured a little at a time. Too much strain on the neck can cause increasing pain, sometimes only on one side of the neck. If the injury is severe and there is a chance that the neck might be injured, it is very important to keep the injured person still with their head held straight while someone calls for emergency medical help.

Foot injuries can include ligament strains, stress fractures, heel bruises, and bursitis. Because one’s feet support all of the weight and must absorb a lot of force over and over again, they can be particularly susceptible to injury.

Sex Organs: When it comes to injuries to the sex organs, boys and men usually suffer more trauma than girls because the penis and testicles are outside the body and lack natural protection during contact sports. They should always wear athletic supporters, or in some sports a cup, to protect the genitals from serious injury. Injuries to the uterus or ovaries are rare, but breast injuries are common complaints among girls. As the breasts develop, they can often be sore, and a blow from a softball or a jab from an elbow, can be painful. Girls should wear supportive sports bras while playing sports or exercising.

Back injuries include sprains, fractures, contusions, and strains and are caused by twists or overexertion of back muscles during bending or lifting movements. These injuries can occur in contact sports like football, weight lifting, skating, gymnastics, dancing, and basketball.

Hand injuries include fractures, dislocations, and sprains and often occur in contact sports such as football, hockey etc. Hand injuries can result from a fall that forces the hand or fingers backward, a forceful impact to the hands, or a direct blow.


If the pain progressively increases with activity and causes any limping or loss of range of motion, one needs to see a doctor as soon as possible. The most important thing to do when one suspects injury is to stop doing whatever sport has caused the injury right away and see a doctor. For more severe or complicated injuries, it may be best to see a doctor who specialises in sports medicine. Once the doctor knows the full extent of the injury, he will start with conservative treatment techniques such as rest and ice to help decrease swelling. Pain relief and anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen may be prescribed. Splints, casts, and surgery also may be needed, depending on the injury. The doctor may recommend that one not play while the injury heals and to use protective devices.

Preventing Cricket Injuries:

Overall, cricket injuries are mostly sprains, fractures and bruising. Adult cricketers most often sustain injuries to the upper limbs, followed by the lower limbs and the head. A direct blow from the ball during delivery or fielding, mostly to the face, fingers and hand, is the most common cause of injury and results in fractures and bruising. Overuse injuries are also common and are most often associated with back injuries to fast bowlers, particularly at the elite level and in young cricketers.

Safety Tips:

* Good preparation is important
* Warm up and stretch before the day's cricket. Bowlers, particularly fast bowlers, should warm up before their bowling session
* Good technique and practices will help prevent injury
* Coaches should undergo regular reaccreditation and education updates to ensure they have the latest information about playing techniques
* Wear appropriate safety equipment, wear body padding when batting including gloves, leg pads, boxes and forearm guards
* When batting, wicket keeping or fielding in close wear a cricket helmet with a faceguard
* Wear protective gear during informal play as well as competition
* Seek professional advice on appropriate cricket shoes
* Modify rules for children
* Drink adequate water during the day's play.
* Wear a broad spectrum sunscreen, hat and sunglasses when appropriate
* If an injury occurs ensure all injured cricketers receive adequate treatment and full rehabilitation before they resume participation.

source:ndtv.com

Mysterious Brain Cells Linked to Blood Flow

Nearly a century after the discovery of strange star-shaped cells in the brain, scientists say they have finally begun to unravel their function.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in Science that it appears astrocytes—named for their stellar form—provide nerve cells (neurons) with the energy they need to function and communicate with one another, by signaling blood to deliver the cell fuels glucose and oxygen to them.

When astrocytes were first discovered, it was believed that they were bit players in the brain. But the new research indicates they may actually be major operators that, when out of whack, may help trigger mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Study coauthor Mriganka Sur, a neuroscientist and head of MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, says his team saw astrocytes in action while examining brain activity in ferrets.

Using technology called two-photon microscopy, Sur and his colleagues observed that astrocytes in the visual cortex (part of the brain responsible for vision) activated and blood flow increased to nerve cells just seconds after the neurons had fired or sent out signals.

Sur believes the astrocytes—which are as plentiful in the brain as neurons—may control the strength and length of nerve cell communications. Consequently, he says, if astrocytes fail, so, too, may nerve cell connections, potentially leading to still largely unexplained neurological disorders.

"A great many genes that have been linked to autism and schizophrenia are likely to be active in astrocytes," Sur says. "We believe astrocytes will have a huge role in understanding certain brain diseases."

He says astrocytes may also shed light on brain activity captured on scans such as fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging), which measure blood flow allowing scientists to diagnose strokes (areas that are deprived of blood or oxygen) and regions activated during tasks and activities from solving problems to daydreaming.

The reason, according to a Science editorial by neuroscientists Fred Wolf and Frank Kirchhoff of Germany's Max Planck Institute: the findings indicate fMRI "reflects the responses of both cell populations [neurons and astrocytes] in the brain."

Sur says that when the team blocked astrocytes, blood flow did not increase to firing neurons. That means, he says, that "[fMRI is] really measuring astrocyte activation. Thus, anything that influences astrocytes is likely to influence fMRI readings."-

source:.sciam.com

Hormone Replacement for Men: Pros, Cons

Testosterone Replacement May Lower Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes, Death, but Long-Term Effects Unclear

replacement therapy can help older men deficient in the hormone reduce their risks of heart disease , diabetes, and death, according to new research presented this week at ENDO 08, the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society.

''The goal of testosterone treatment is to keep the levels within normal range," says Farid Saad, director of scientific affairs for Bayer Schering Pharma in Berlin. Saad presented two of the studies at the meeting, held in San Francisco. Bayer Schering Pharma makes several testosterone products.

Low levels of testosterone are common with age, Saad says, occurring in about 18% of 70-year-olds. Low levels of testosterone, he says, are associated with the metabolic syndrome -- a cluster of risk factors such as abnormal cholesterol and high blood pressure that boost risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes as well as other risks to health.

In the studies, Saad and his colleagues found that testosterone replacement therapy reduced the metabolic syndrome risk factors and did so in a similar way in all the age ranges studied.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy and Heart Disease Risks

In the first study, Saad's team looked at 95 men, aged 34 to 69, with low levels of testosterone.

All had metabolic syndrome. Those who have this diagnosis must have three of five risk factors: increased waist circumference, low "good" cholesterol or HDL, high triglycerides , elevated blood pressure, and elevated blood sugar.

"We treated them for at least a year," he tells WebMD. Every three months, they measured cholesterol, waist circumference, and other parameters.

The testosterone replacement was given as a long-acting injection, every three months. The same product is not yet available in the U.S., Saad says, although other types are.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy: Test Results

"We saw a consistent improvement of the parameters of metabolic syndrome," Saad says. The men were not given a special diet or exercise program .

The supplemental testosterone reduced total cholesterol, "bad" LDL cholesterol , triglycerides, and body mass index while improving "good" HDL cholesterol . The men lost their pot bellies, Saad says. "What we see after 12 months is a reduction in two or three trouser sizes, three or four inches off the waist. We see a reduction by one-fourth to one-third of their total cholesterol."

No adverse effects were reported, he says.

While hormone replacement therapy for women has been found to be associated with increased risks of heart disease and other problems, Saad doesn't foresee that will be the case with testosterone replacement. "There are fundamental differences between hormone replacement in women and testosterone treatment in men," he tells WebMD.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy: No Age Effects?

In a second study, Saad divided the same 95 men into three groups, based on age: less than 57, 57 to 63, and older than 63.

They found the older men and the younger men had similar improvement in their risk factors.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy: Follow-up

"There are some precautions with testosterone supplementation," Saad tells WebMD. "We need to monitor the prostate."

"It is well known that with prostate cancer , the cancer is usually dependent on testosterone. Prostate cancer is a slow-growing tumor." Cancer of the gland must be ruled out before starting supplements, he says. He also advises routine prostate checkups while on treatment.

A test to monitor red blood cell formation, called a hematocrit, is needed, too. "Testosterone increases red blood cells," he says. In excess, it can theoretically boost heart attack or stroke risk.

Testosterone and Death Risk

Low testosterone levels are associated with an increased risk of eath, according to Robin Haring, a researcher from the Institute for Community Medicine at Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Griefswald, Germany, who presented the finding at the meeting.

He evaluated data on nearly 2,000 men, aged 20 to 79, who participated in the Study of Health in Pomerania, following them for seven years until August 2007. He noted testosterone levels, age, weight , smoking habits, and physical activity. The drugmaker Novo Nordisk partly funded the study.

During the follow-up, 226 men died. "Men with low testosterone have a more than twofold higher risk of death during the follow-up period," he says.

They were more likely to die of cardiovascular disease and cancer, but not of other causes.

Testosterone Replacement Therapy: Long-Term Effects Unknown

Another researcher, Jane F. Reckelhoff, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, offers a caveat about supplemental testosterone: "We don't know what the long-terms effects are. The safety studies have not been done and they need to be done."

She reviewed the studies for WebMD and has published on a review about testosterone supplements for the American Journal of Physiology Renal Physiology.

Her chief concerns: "Testosterone [in excess] can increase blood pressure and compromise kidney function."

But an advocate of testosterone replacement therapy, Martin Miner, MD, co-director of the Men's Health Center at the Miriam Hospital of Brown University in Providence, R.I., says the studies show that restoring testosterone when it is low improves metabolic syndrome factors and could help prevent type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risks.

He agrees close monitoring of men on testosterone is needed। "Checking hematocrit, PSA (prostate-specific antigen), and lower urinary tract symptoms in men is vital to the management of testosterone replacement therapy," he says.

source:cbsnews.com

Cancer Patient Recovers After Injection Of Immune Cells

A cancer patient has made a full recovery after being injected with billions of his own immune cells in the first case of its kind, doctors have disclosed.

The 52-year-old, who was suffering from advanced skin cancer, was free from tumours within eight weeks of undergoing the procedure.

Roger Highfield on the new cancer treatment
Telegraph view: Cancer breakthrough

After two years he is still free from the disease which had spread to his lymph nodes and one of his lungs.

Doctors took cells from the man's own defence system that were found to attack the cancer cells best, cloned them and injected back into his body, in a process known as "immunotherapy".

Experts said that the case could mark a landmark in the treatment of cancer.

It raises hopes of a possible new way of fighting the disease, which claims 150,000 lives in Britain every year.

Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "It's very exciting to see a cancer patient being successfully treated using immune cells cloned from his own body. While it's always good news when anyone with cancer gets the all clear, this treatment will need to be tested in large clinical trials to work out how widely it could be used."

However, the treatment could prove extremely expensive and scientists say that more research is needed to prove its effectiveness.

Genetically altered white blood cells have been used before to treat cancer patients but this is the first study to show that simply growing vast numbers of the few immune cells in the body to attack a cancer can be safe and effective.
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Normally there are too few of the cells in a patient's body to effectively fight cancer.

Dr Cassian Yee, who led the team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, said: "For this patient we were successful, but we would need to confirm the effectiveness of therapy in a larger study."

The work raises hopes that this approach could not only offer a more effective treatment for skin cancer, or melanoma, which kills around 2,000 people in Britain alone, but be applied to other cancers too.

The patient was one of nine with metastatic melanoma, that is skin cancer that has spread, who were being treated in a recently completed clinical trial to test bigger and bigger doses of their own white blood cells.

Larger, more elaborate, trials are now under way.

Almost 9,000 new cases of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, are diagnosed every year in Britain, and nearly 2,000 patients die from the disease.

Prof Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK's chief clinician, said: "This is another interesting demonstration of the huge power of the immune system to fight some types of cancer.

"Although the technique is complex and difficult to use for all but a few patients, the principle that someone's own immune cells can be expanded and made to work in this way is very encouraging for the work that Cancer Research UK and others are carrying out."


Immunotherapy, in which a patients own immune cells are used to treat cancer, is a growing area of research that aims to develop less-toxic treatments than standard chemotherapy and radiation.


Because cancer occurs when the body's own cells grow out of control, the immune system only responds weakly.

The ability of the body's own defences to tackle cancer in this case is all the more remarkable because most deadly feature of the disease is its ability to colonise other parts of the body, when it becomes much more difficult to treat.

A dramatic example of immunotherapy was reported two years ago by one pioneer of the field, Dr Steven Rosenberg of the US National Cancer Institute, who eradicated cancer from two dying men using genetically modified versions of their own cells.

Both Mark Origer and "Thomas M" were suffering from advanced melanoma but the hope is that such methods could be customised to attack other common cancers, notably breast, colon and lung.

Dr Rosenberg told The Daily Telegraph the new work is an "interesting study that helps to confirm the effectiveness of cell transfer immunotherapy for treating cancer patients. We have now treated 93 patients with metastatic melanoma using their own anti-tumour cells with response rates up to 72 per cent. Mark Origer remains disease free now over three years after treatment."

source:telegraph.co.uk

Why Do I Get Red Rashes And Itchy Bumps After Shaving Armpits?

Q. I am a 21 years old boy. Every time I shave my armpits, I get red rashes and itchy bumps there. The itching increases when I sweat. What is causing all this and how can this be treated?

A. You have a problem each time you shave and not otherwise. If your observation is correct then the cause and effect relationship is obvious. You could be having contact dermatitis to the material used for shaving or friction dermatitis. Clinical examination when you develop the problem should be able to differentiate between the two. Change the shaving material. If it does not solve your problem then consult your dermatologist.

source:ndtv.com

Goodbye To High BP And Obesity

Can a single pill treat problems of high blood pressure, reduce cholesterol level and act as a blood thinner? Seems like this may be possible soon. In one of the largest clinical trials being conducted for the first time, the impact of the ’wonder drug’ is being assessed across 20 cities in India.

The trials of the drug ’polypack’ manufactured by Cadila Pharmaceuticals are being conducted on 2,000 subjects, between the age of 45 and 80 years, who have any one of the risk factors - age, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar.

The ’polypack’ contains a combination of five drugs in eight different formulations (three blood pressure lowering agents, an antiplatelet drug, a beta blocker, an ACE inhibitor, a diuretic and a statin) for treating cardio-vascular conditions such as reducing blood pressure and lowering cholesterol levels.

Simply put, the polypack includes blood pressure lowering combinations, aspirin (blood thinner) and a statin, which is a cholesterol lowering agent.

The trials are being conducted by St John Research Institute, Bangalore and Canada-based Population Health Research Institute.

"We need to assess the impact (efficacy) of the different combinations on an individual who has cardio-vascular risk factors, and also the safety of these drugs taken together. The side-effects of the five medicines will also be studied," says Dr Rajeev Gupta of Fortis Hospital, Jaipur who is involved in the study.

The subjects will be given the combination drug for three months and a follow up will be done in the fourth month. The trials will be completed by July and findings put together by end of the year.

The second phase of trials will assess whether heart attacks and strokes can be prevented with the combination drug, Gupta added.

Cardiovascular diseases are major causes of mortality in the Indian subcontinent, causing over 30% of deaths. It has been predicted that these diseases will increase rapidly and India will contribute to over half the cases of heart diseases in the world within the next 15 years.

Coronary heart disease and stroke have increased in both urban and rural areas. The sharp rise in cardiovascular problems including heart disease and stokes is attributed to increasing number of smokers, obesity with high waist to hip ratio, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stress and sedentary lifestyle.

source:indian-stockmarket-updates.blogspot.com

Smoking Harmful For Both Sexes

Women who smoke are no more likely than men to get lung cancer but, among non-smokers, women appear to have a higher risk than men, US researchers reported on Friday.

Women who had never smoked were 1.3 times more likely to develop lung cancer than men who had never smoked, Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues found.

"We noted slightly higher age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer in women who had never smoked than in men who had never smoked," Freedman and colleagues wrote in the Journal Lancet Oncology . His team looked at a survey of 279,214 men and 184,623 women aged 50 to 71 first questioned in 1995 or 1996.

"The questionnaire asked participants about their past and current smoking status, demographics, alcohol intake, tobacco smoking, physical activity, and included a food-frequency questionnaire of 124 items," the researchers wrote.

They were watched until 2003. "During follow-up, lung cancers occurred in 4,097 men and 2,237 women," the researchers wrote.

Among men who had never smoked, 99 got lung cancer, compared with 152 women who never smoked.


The researchers did not ask about how much anyone had smoked or whether they were exposed to second-hand smoke. Experts agree that second-hand smoke also causes lung cancer.

"But when we compared smokers with similar smoking histories we noted that men tended to have slightly higher incidence rates than women.

"Our findings suggest that women are not more susceptible than men to the carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoking in the lung," Freedman's team wrote.

They said more study needs to be done to see if female non-smokers actually do have more of a risk of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer worldwide, with almost 1.2 million deaths per year — 162,000 deaths a year in the United States alone.

Why Mobile Phone Addiction So Bad For Your Kids

Teens who barely stop talking on their mobile phones are more prone to disrupted sleep, stress, fatigue and restlessness, finds a new international study.

This in turn is leading to poorer performance at school, and emotional health, including a higher risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The finding is based on two studies that will be presented at the at the Sleep 2008 meeting of Associated Sleep Societies in the United States this week.

The first study was conducted by researchers at Sweden's Sahlgren Academy, who found that adolescents who made more than 15 phone calls and sent more than 15 text messages in a day not only slept poorly, but when compared to kids who made did the same less than five times a day, they were also leading more careless lifestyles, including spending more time on their computers, drinking more alcohol and caffeinated drinks.

Based on this, lead author Dr Gaby Badre, said that mobile addiction could compromise a teen's health, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The second study was conducted in the US by Fred Danner at the University of Kentucky.

He found that teens, who were addicted to their phones, slept less than eight hours a night and thus got poorer marks at school. In addition to this, he also found that such kids had a higher level of emotional disturbance and risk of developing ADHD.

BURN INFORMATION

TYPES

Burns occur when heat from any source - hot liquids ( scalds ), hot solids, flames, ultraviolet radiation (sunburn ) or radioactivity, electricity and chemicals destroy some or all of the different layers of cells which form the human skin. Respiratory insults resulting from smoke inhalation are also burn injuries.

* Flame burns are the commonest form of burns.
If the clothes catch fire and cannot be removed at once, severe burns can occur.
* Scalds are usually caused by hot water and other hot fluids and steam.
The burns sustained are less serious than those with flame, which always has a higher temperature.
* Chemical burns can be caused by both strong acids and alkalies.
Usually, the chemicals penetrate the skin and are difficult to remove and cause deep burns. Considerable scar formation and deformity occur. If the face is involved the eyes may be badly damaged.
* Electricity - In burns due to electricity, the damage is at the point where the electricity enters the body, where it leaves and in the deeper tissues between these two points.
* Radiation burns occur in doctors and other people working with x-rays without protection.
* Nuclear warfare will cause severe burns in the survivors.

It has been seen that 95% of the burn injuries are accidental and can be prevented with care and precautions. A lot of times women and children are involved because a lot of accidents occur at home and in the kitchen. The pressure stoves are very risky and floor level cooking using kerosene stoves etc. also cause a lot of accidents. Fire crackers during Diwali cause a lot of burn injuries when not used with care. Fires also happen with faulty electrical connections and in factories using dangerous gases and chemicals.

Using Mobile Phone During Pregnancy? Beware!

Using a mobile phone during pregnancy could cause behavioural and emotional problems in children, researchers at the University of California have found.

The study of more than 13,000 children found that pregnant women using mobiles just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. Specifically, mothers who used mobile phones were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioral problems.

The likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phone before the age of seven. When children use a mobile phone themselves, they were 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour.


They were also 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.

The results of the study took the top scientists who conducted it by surprise. The research will carry particular weight because one of its authors, UCLA's Professor Leeka Kheifets, had previously been skeptical that mobile phones could pose a risk to health.

source:timesofindia.com

"HEART ATTACK" Can we stop it?

Cholestrol - A silent killer : The truth about your heart

Guys, all you are very well known about the word "HEART ATTACK". Someone of us has experienced it with their relatives. Can we stop it? It is my immense request to all you, please take care of yourself. Just remember the 'Know' and 'How' all about the Heart Attack and relative terms. Just take a look.

What is CHOLESTROL?

Cholesterol is a white, waxy substance that belongs to the fat family. Cholesterol plays an important role in the body. It is an essential building material of the body’s cells and necessary for manufacturing a number of important hormones (e.g. estrogen), bile and vitamin D that are essential for normal body functions.

Where does your body get Cholesterol from?

You get cholesterol in two ways. The first source is the body itself, mainly the liver, which produces varying amounts, usually about 1000 milligrams a day. The second source is the food that we eat which is derived from animals (especially egg yolks, meat, poultry, whole-milk and dairy products). Foods from plants (fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds) do not contain cholesterol.

What are the different types of fats in your body?

Fats travel in the blood in two forms; cholesterol and triglycerides. Cholesterol attaches to a protein to form a lipoprotein that transport sit around the body. There are two main types of lipoproteins: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).


Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is also known as ‘bad’ cholesterol. If too much LDL circulates in the blood, it can slowly build up on the walls of the arteries feeding the heart and brain and result in the formation of fatty streaks. These fatty streaks slowly increase in size and produce raised areas called fibrous plaques. Over the years these plaques increase in size and ultimately can block the blood flow to part of the heart and cause a heart attack. If the blood flow to the brain is blocked, a stroke can result.

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) is also known as ’good” cholesterol as it helps to carry cholesterol away from the arteries to the liver, where it is processed and excreted from the body. It removes excess cholesterol from the blood thus providing protection against a heart attack or stroke. Triglycerides are a type of fat produced by the liver. They provide energy to undertake your daily activities.

source:nazarsudhakar.blogspot.com