Cord blood banking, next level of good parenting?

You could call this new age insurance. Cord blood stem cell banking! These are stem cells which are harvested from a mother's umbilical cord after delivery and can be used in life-saving transplants for many diseases. It is already a whopping Rs 100 crore industry in India. But is it the miracle cure?

You've probably started hearing a lot more about cord blood banking – where you can pay to have your newborn baby's umbilical cord blood processed and stored for years in laboratory conditions.

Rich in stem cells, cord blood has the potential to save your child's life in case of transplants for diseases like blood cancer, haemophilia, thalassaemia and other immune system-related genetic disorders.

Meet Neelima Sharma, a young mother who like the 30,000 other registered Indian couples to store cord blood is banking on hope as much as medical science with stem cell research still in the nascent stages, chances of a child needing his or her own cord cells to treat a disease vary from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 2,00,000. But is it the next level of good parenting?

Neelima says, “It’s good parenting for sure, even when you buy a new vehicle you get it insured. So one lakh for my son's future health is priceless. So many diseases can be cured with it - hope my son never needs it - but if he does, I know I have banked the cure.

However, the treatment comes with a heavy price tag – about Rs 1 lakh for 21 years of storage.

The country doesn't yet have any public cord blood banks.

However, the flip side of the new research is that the cord blood stem cells cannot be used to treat the most common type of childhood leukemia. Scientists have now found that chances of leukemia increase by 80 per cent if one's own cord blood cells are used. Experts also worry that cord stem cells harvested today, may not even work in the future, when cures may be available,

Doctors at the New Delhi’s Gangaram Hospital says, “Companies who say 80 to 90 per cent diseases can be cured by cord blood cells are fooling the people, it is a money minting industry going by the day, but yes, couples with a medical history of blood related disorders, blood cancer etc, should bank.

The debate will continue whether cord blood is a medical waste or a miracle, and since no cord blood cell cure is in sight, n way are you an irresponsible parent if you haven't banked these cells.

First Aid For Drowning

Health Tip: First aid for drowning

The wet clothes should be removed immediately and the person should be kept warm by covering with a blanket. The patient's face should be turned down to one side and his arms stretched above his head. The water should be drained out of the lungs by raising the middle part of the body. Mouth to mouth artificial respiration should be given if the breathing is slow or absent. Once he starts breathing, he should be kept warm by a blanket and then shifted to a hospital.

Anaesthesia plays spoilsport in children's learning

Children under four years who are administered general anaesthesia are much more vulnerable to the risk of developing learning impairment compared to others of similar age, according to a new study.

Randall Flick, a paediatrician at Rochester's Mayo Clinic, and his colleagues identified 593 children born between 1976 and 1982 who underwent anaesthesia before the age of four and more than 4,700 others who did not.

Children undergoing anaesthesia twice were found to be 59 percent more likely to be learning impaired. If they got it for three or more times, then they had more than double the chances of developing these conditions than other unanaesthetised children.

Children who remained under anaesthesia for more than two hours, however, faced the greatest risk in this connection, a Mayo Clinic release said.

"This is indeed a very important and in many ways a thorough study," said Tom Hansen, a paediatric-anaesthesiologist at Denmark's Odense University Hospital.

The findings are slated for publication in the April edition of Anaesthesiology.

Ten Tips For Health and Shape

How to Return to Your Real Body

Follow these ten tips to get back into your body, into great health and shape and get real with yourself and your life.

1. Include plenty of room temperature water in your diet every day. Quit drinking fizzy, sugary drinks, even the diet variety. Cut back on alcohol.

2. Become aware of what you do eat and how much each day by keeping a list for a week. Later re-think your diet. Eat simple basic foods. Include more fruits, vegetables, brown bread, grains, non-sugary cereals. Consider becoming vegetarian.

3. Make time every day for yourself. Even ten minutes is vital. You need to let go, sit still, relax, and do nothing. Let your thoughts come and go. Breathe deeply from the bottom of your stomach. Say firmly in your mind: "I am letting go of everything I no longer need". Mean it!

4. Rub your stomach slowly backwards and forwards, then round and round with slow circular movements of your hand. Breathe deeply. This will calm and soothe you when you are tired, anxious, or stressed, and replace the need of reaching for the ice cream and cookie jar.

5. Look at yourself in the mirror. Simply look. Do not judge. If you find yourself doing so, stop. Simply look, accept what you see and look for the beauty beyond any pain in your face and your eyes.

6. Love yourself completely without condition. Use positive affirmations each day. Be open to realizing how wonderful, amazing and special you really already are. Don't wait for tomorrow to be perfect. Love and accept yourself just as you are today and every day. Realize that you do know what you are doing at all times and that there are no mistakes.

7. Bring color into your life. Wear it. Bring it into your home or workplace. Or imagine being surrounded by color and breathe it all through your body until you are full.

8. Ask yourself at least once a day: "Where am I right now?" You may be driving to work and yet still in events in previous days or well into the future in anticipated events. Become aware of where you are and how you are more often. Make a point of also recognizing who you are being. Are you playing a role or are you simply being yourself?

9. Dream. Visualize how you want your life to be one year from now, 5 years, 10 years. Expect the best. See the positives in all negatives for they are there waiting for you to discover. Remember, nothing is ever only as it seems.

10. Lighten up. Have fun. Stop feeling responsible. Break patterns. Be spontaneous. Explore other facets of yourself. Throw away, give away or even sell everything you no longer need.

Sipping hot tea can cause throat cancer

People who drink their tea piping hot run a higher risk of throat cancer than counterparts who prefer a cooler cuppa, according to an investigation published on Friday by the British Medical Journal.

Cancer of the oesophagus is linked especially to smoking and alcohol abuse but hot beverages have also been considered a risk factor, possibly because of damage to throat tissue. Interested in finding out more, Iranian researchers went to Golestan province, which has one of the highest rates of oesophageal cancer in the world.

Inhabitants there sip large quantities of hot black tea — typically drinking more than a litre per day per person — but also have a low incidence of tobacco and alcohol use.

A team led by Reza Malekzadeh of the Digestive Disease Research Centre at Tehran University of Medical Sciences looked at 300 people who had been diagnosed with a throat tumour and a matched group of 571 healthy people who lived in the same area.

Those who drank hot tea (between 65-69°C) were twice as likely to develop throat cancer compared with those who drank warm or lukewarm tea, whose temperature was 65°C or less. Drinking very hot tea (at least 70°C) was associated with an eightfold increased risk compared with warm or lukewarm tea.

In an editorial, the Lancet said the study backed evidence that scorching fluids may cause damage to the throat’s epithelial lining and lead to cancer, although exactly how this happens remains unclear.

But it also said that there was no cause for panic, as most people tend to drink tea at a warm temperature. Previous studies in Britain have reported an average temperature preference of 56-60°C. It recommended that tea junkies wait at least four minutes before drinking from a freshly boiled cup.

Prostate cancer Treatment

Prostate cancer Treatment

Treatment for prostate cancer may involve active surveillance, surgery, radiation therapy including brachytherapy (prostate brachytherapy) and external beam radiation, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), chemotherapy, cryosurgery, hormonal therapy, or some combination. Which option is best depends on the stage of the disease, the Gleason score, and the PSA level. Other important factors are the man's age, his general health, and his feelings about potential treatments and their possible side effects. Because all treatments can have significant side effects, such as erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence, treatment discussions often focus on balancing the goals of therapy with the risks of lifestyle alterations.

The selection of treatment options may be a complex decision involving many factors. For example, radical prostatectomy after primary radiation failure is a very technically challenging surgery and may not be an option. This may enter into the treatment decision.

If the cancer has spread beyond the prostate, treatment options significantly change, so most doctors who treat prostate cancer use a variety of nomograms to predict the probability of spread. Treatment by watchful waiting, HIFU, radiation therapy, cryosurgery, and surgery are generally offered to men whose cancer remains within the prostate. Hormonal therapy and chemotherapy are often reserved for disease which has spread beyond the prostate. However, there are exceptions: radiation therapy may be used for some advanced tumors, and hormonal therapy is used for some early stage tumors. Cryotherapy, hormonal therapy, and chemotherapy may also be offered if initial treatment fails and the cancer progresses.

Blood Clots In Eye

Q. I have blood clots in my right eye and these are spreading though my vision is clear. What can be done and will it spread to my retina? Is there any medication?

A. You don't need to worry about this or treat it. It is called subcunjunctival haemorrhage. However, you need to know what caused this in the first place. Injury, high BP, straining while at stool, coughing, sneezing or blood disorder can cause this as well.

source:ndtv.com

Ranchi docs remove 4-ft rod from 3-year-old's belly

Mehul before his surgery

City doctors successfully removed a four-foot iron rod that pierced through the stomach of a three-year-old boy when he was playing Holi on the terrace of his grandparents' house.

"Mehul Kumar is out of danger,'' said Dr Sandeep Agarwal, who led the team of five Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) doctors, which carried out thethree-hour-long operation, on Thursday.

Mehul was playing with colours on the terrace when he suddenly fell on an iron rod left standing on the under-construction terrace, his uncle Raja Kumar Vishwakarma said. The rod pierced through his body and then broke, resulting in his fall from the roof.

He was rushed to the Hazaribagh sadar hospital from where the doctors, after giving first aid, referred him to RIMS. The boy, who was in Hazaribagh to celebrate Holi at his grandparents' house, was brought to Ranchi in an ambulance
within two hours of the incident.

"We first removed the rod following which an operation was done to repair the vital organs that had been injured,'' he said, adding the doctors found over 500 ml blood in his peritoneum because of the two-layer injury in liver and four-layer injury in the stomach and large gut. "That's why two units of blood was transfused into the patient,'' he said.

RIMS director N N Agarwal said, "Mehul would recover fast and properly because he is a child and most of his vital organs are in the process of development.''

In July last year, AIIMS doctors in New Delhi performed a six-hour surgery to remove a five-foot iron rod from the chest of the 22-year-old Supratim Dutta after a road accident.

Fitness: Exercise at home using simple tips

Back Pain

Back pain can occur due to bad posture, pressure on the back muscles and from taking too much weight at once. try out the following for controlling the pain.

* When you get a sudden back pain, lie on the bed and take rest for at least 2 full days,
* Apply an icepack on the effected area. After half an hour keep a hot pack. Repeat if needed.
* Keep pillows under the chest and legs and lie on your stomach. Dip a towel in boiling water, twist the water out from the towel and apply it to the affected area. Steaming the area also will reduce the pain.
* Heat some coconut oil or mustard oil mixed with a little camphor (Karpuram) powder and apply on the effected area.
* Heat some coconut oil mixed with crushed dried ginger and garlic. Apply this warm oil to the affected area and place a hot bag over the area.

But, if you get back pain without any particular reason or if it is accompanied with chest pain, breathlessness, stomach pain, fever etc or if the pain does not go or lessen even after 2-3 days or if the pain spreads to other areas like legs, knees, feet etc. show a doctor immediately.

Caffeine in sunscreen may cut skin cancer risk

Adding caffeine to sunscreens could boost protection against the most common form of skin cancer, claim scientists.

According to the study, conducted by a team from Harvard Medical School and Pfizer, caffeine has an effect on cells which can go on to cause non-melanoma skin cancers and found that the stimulant encourages the harmful cells to die.

The breakthrough study shows at caffeine helps eliminate human cells damaged by UV light, which can develop into cancer, by causing them to commit suicide, reports The Telegraph.

Writing in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology the authors said: "These data suggest topical application of caffeine...perhaps in a sunscreen or after-sun preparation could be investigated as an approach to minimise or reverse the effects of UV damage in human skin."

Gavin Greenoak, Managing and Scientific Director of the Australian Photobiology Testing Facility (APTF) at the University of Sydney, Australia, said: "This research show the potential to improve protection from non-melanoma skin cancer by adding caffeine to topical sunscreens or through more specific drug synthesis."