Federal government approves $11m for condoms and family planning

The Director of Family Health in the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Bridget Okoeguale, stated this during the 47th National Council Meeting of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria, where Mr. Oladele Olaniyi succeeded Mrs. Lami Buba as President.

 According to her, “last year, in order to reduce maternal mortality rate, the government proclaimed that reproductive health commodities and family planning commodities like condoms and implants to be made free.” 

 “So the government along with the partners made a forecast as to what we need in the country and contributed $3millio in 2011 through a Memorandum of Understanding which we implemented.” On July 11 in London, there was a family planning summit organized by DFID and other partners to increase the commitment of governments all over the world to family planning. 

 “Nigeria came in a big way and Mr. President, through the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Muhammad Pate, announced the government’s commitment to the world with additional $8.3m reproductive health commodities.”

 Dr Bridget added that maternal mortality has reduced in Nigeria, right now I can’t really say the rate until we do the National Demographic Health Survey next year”, adding that “the Federal Government is also committed to reducing maternal mortality rate in the country.”

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Posted in: latest health news

Venom from world's deadliest spider could cure erectile dysfunction within 20 minutes

It sounds like a most unlikely aphrodisiac. But scientists have discovered the venom from what’s considered the world’s deadliest spider could be the secret to bolstering a man’s love life. Toxins produced by the Brazilian Wandering Spider, or Phoneutria nigriventer, appear to combat erectile dysfunction within 20 minutes of entering the body. 

Tests carried out on rats show the venom boosts performance by increasing the release of nitric oxide, a chemical that dilates blood vessels and improves blood flow. This is similar to how existing impotence drugs work. The Brazilian Wandering Spider is responsible for k*ll*ng more people than any other arachnid. 

Victims usually die within an hour of being bitten. It is also known as the banana spider because of its habit of stowing away in shipments of the fruit. In 2008, a supermarket in Chatham, Kent, was forced to close after an assistant spotted one of the spiders under a box of bananas as she stacked them. One in ten men in the UK suffers erectile dysfunction at some point in their lives. 

 Although drugs such as Vi*gra, Cialis and Levitra have revolutionised treatment in the last ten years, around 30 per cent of men who take them see no improvement. For these men, the only other options are to inject drugs straight into the penis, or use a pump that manually increases blood supply to the organ. Neither is very popular. A drug made from spider venom could prove to be an effective alternative.

 Researchers from Brazil and the US extracted the toxin, called PnTx2-6, from the d*adly venom and injected it into rats which had age-related erectile dysfunction. They found the toxin boosted erections by triggering the release of nitric oxide, which boosts circulation in the male genitals by helping blood vessel walls relax. 

In a report on their findings, published in The Journal of S**xu*l Medicine, the researchers said: ‘The decrease in er*ct*le function associated with age was partially restored 15 to 20 minutes after injection with PnTx2-6.’ Brazilian scientists first became interested in the d*adly spider’s ability to boost s**xu*l performance when victims of bites reported major improvements in their sex lives.

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Posted in: erectile dysfunction news,latest health news

Rise of the designer v**g**na

A growing number of young women are seeking v*g**n**l rejuvenation according to experts. The hour-long procedure which was originally popular with patients suffering from incontinence or a sagging of the vaginal canal following childbirth, is now more widely used for cosmetic purposes to either to enhance the appearance of the genitalia or boost s**xu**l satisfaction.

 While the average age of those requesting the surgery is between 30-45 some doctors are concerned the trend is causing teenagers to become increasingly 'misled or confused' about what is normal.

 'I heard of a mother taking in a 16-year-old and 11-year-old wanting to get it done. It's just not right,' Dr Iglesia, a Washington, D.C., gynecologist, noted in an editorial in the June issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. 

Critics believe it is yet another service aimed at women pursuing an impossible ideal of physical perfection, and surgeons say the majority of patients have been influenced by internet pornography and the media industry. Dr. John Miklos who trained as a gynecologist and reconstructive surgeon, and now calls himself a 'medical tailor,' specializes in surgery to reshape a woman's private parts. 

On average he performs as many as 180 labiaplasties a year to cut back the skin flaps surrounding the v**g**n**l opening. By all measures, Miklos has thrived on his expertise and along with his partner Dr. Robert Moore, now has practices in Atlanta, Georgia and Beverly Hills.

 In 2011 more than 2,140 U.S. women underwent v**g**n**l rejuvenation, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery while the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons put the total at almost 5,200 in 2010.

 Experts note such figures do not include the many procedures done by gynecologists. And last year, according to NHS figures the demand for genital cosmetic surgery in the UK rose five-fold over the course of a decade. 

'More women today are concerned about the aesthetics of their private parts. 'The concept of beauty has extended from having the right looking cheeks to the right looking genitals,' Dr Sachin Dhawan told India Today.

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Posted in: latest health news

Exercise can help cancer sufferers beat the disease and stop it returning

Cancer patients can cut the risk of recurrence by half if they exercise, a number of studies have found. 

Despite the results the study also showed that many patients are reluctant to make efforts to keep fit and consider their daily activities sufficient exercise. 

The study is part of a series of investigations looking at exercise habits among cancer patients conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. 

‘As doctors, we often tell patients that exercise is important, but to this point, nobody had studied what patients know about exercise, how they feel about it and what tends to get in the way,’ says lead author Dr Andrea Cheville. 

For patients who have gone through breast or colon cancer treatment, regular exercise has been found to reduce recurrence of the disease by up to 50 per cent. The study, published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, found that patients who exercised regularly before their diagnosis were more likely to keep up their routines afterwards.

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Posted in: cancer news,latest health news

Smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day

Smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day almost triples the chances of suffering a potentially fatal brain haemorrhage, research has shown. Quitting reduces the danger but heavy smokers who give up tobacco are still twice as much at risk as people who have never smoked. 

Researchers in Korea investigated 426 cases of subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) between 2002 and 2004. Patients were compared with a group of 426 people matched for age and sex who had not experienced a brain bleed.

An SAH occurs when a bulge in a weakened artery, called an aneurysm, bursts in the brain. The chances of surviving are only about 50 per cent, and victims who live often face a lifetime of disability. Study participants who smoked were more likely to have suffered an SAH than non-smokers, scientists found. 

The more people smoked, the more at risk they were. After adjusting for other factors such as salt intake, weight and family history of diabetes, smokers were on average 2.84 times more likely to have a brain haemorrhage as non-smokers. 

 Giving up tobacco for at least five years dramatically reduced the overall risk to 59 per cent. But people with a history of heavy smoking - defined as smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day - were still 2.3 times more likely to have an SAH than those who had never smoked.

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Posted in: latest health news,smoking news

Regular Use of Marijuana Can Cause Permanent, Irreversible IQ Loss

Regular use of marijuana during adolescence can lead to irreversible IQ loss, findings from a long-range study suggest. The report, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, relies on data from a series of interviews conducted with over 1,000 residents of Dunedin, New Zealand, who were tracked from birth until the age of 38.

 Those in the study group who reported using marijuana more than once a week during their teen years scored, on average, 8 points lower in IQ tests at age 38 than at age 13. Furthermore, friends and relatives of persistent users were more likely to note attention and memory problems than those of non-users.

 "Adolescent-onset cannabis users showed significant I.Q. declines, and more persistent use was associated with greater declines," said lead author Madeline H. Meier of Duke University. 

From Science Daily:

While 8 IQ points may not sound like a lot on a scale where 100 is the mean, a loss from an IQ of 100 to 92 represents a drop from being in the 50th percentile to being in the 29th, Meier said. Higher IQ correlates with higher education and income, better health and a longer life, she said. "Somebody who loses 8 IQ points as an adolescent may be disadvantaged compared to their same-age peers for years to come," Meier said.

The study notes that quitting cannabis "did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset cannabis users."

Interestingly, interviewees who did not begin using marijuana before reaching adulthood did not present a similar IQ decline. It was unclear, however, at what age marijuana use becomes "safe."

"The simple message is that substance use is not healthy for kids," said co-author Avshalom Caspi, also of Duke. "That's true for tobacco, alcohol, and apparently for cannabis."

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Posted in: Effects of marijuana,IQ news

MEDICAL MYSTERY: New AIDS-like disease in Asians, not contagious

Patient Kim Nguyen, right, and her husband Quang Nguyen are seen at National Institute of Health in Bethesda

Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.The patients’ immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn’t known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.

This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn’t spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

She helped lead the study with researchers in Thailand and Taiwan, where most of the cases have been found since 2004. Their report is in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

“This is absolutely fascinating. I’ve seen probably at least three patients in the last 10 years or so” who might have had this, said Dr. Dennis Maki, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

It’s still possible that an infection of some sort could trigger the disease, even though the disease itself doesn’t seem to spread person-to-person, he said.The disease develops around age 50 on average, but does not run in families, which makes it unlikely that a single gene is responsible, Browne said. Some patients have died of overwhelming infections, including some Asians now living in the U.S., although Browne could not estimate how many.

Kim Nguyen, 62, a seamstress from Vietnam who has lived in Tennessee since 1975, was gravely ill when she sought help for a persistent fever, infections throughout her bones and other bizarre symptoms in 2009. She had been sick off and on for several years, and had visited Vietnam in 1995 and again in early 2009.

“She was wasting away from this systemic infection” that at first seemed like tuberculosis, but wasn’t, said Dr. Carlton Hays Jr., a family physician at the Jackson Clinic in Jackson, Tenn. “She’s a small woman to begin with, but when I first saw her, her weight was 91 pounds, and she lost down to 69 pounds.”

Nguyen was referred to specialists at the National Institutes of Health who had been tracking similar cases. She spent nearly a year at an NIH hospital in Bethesda, Md., and is there now for monitoring and further treatment.

“I feel great now,” she said Wednesday. But when she was sick, “I felt dizzy, headaches, almost fell down,” she said. “I could not eat anything.”

AIDS is a specific disease, and it stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. That means the immune system becomes impaired during someone’s lifetime, rather than from inherited gene defects like the “bubble babies” who are born unable to fight off germs.

The virus that causes AIDS — HIV — destroys T-cells, key soldiers of the immune system that fight germs. The new disease doesn’t affect those cells, but causes a different kind of damage. Browne’s study of more than 200 people in Taiwan and Thailand found that most of those with the disease make substances called autoantibodies that block interferon-gamma, a chemical signal that helps the body clear infections.

Blocking that signal leaves people like those with AIDS — vulnerable to viruses, fungal infections and parasites, but especially micobacteria, a group of germs similar to tuberculosis that can cause severe lung damage. Researchers are calling this new disease an “adult-onset” immunodeficiency syndrome because it develops later in life and they don’t know why or how.

“Fundamentally, we do not know what’s causing them to make these antibodies,” Browne said.

Antibiotics aren’t always effective, so doctors have tried a variety of other approaches, including a cancer drug that helps suppress production of antibodies. The disease quiets in some patients once the infections are tamed, but the faulty immune system is likely a chronic condition, researchers believe.

The fact that nearly all the patients so far have been Asian or Asian-born people living elsewhere suggests that genetic factors and something in the environment such as an infection may trigger the disease, researchers conclude.

The first cases turned up in 2004, and Browne’s study enrolled almost 100 people in six months.

“We know there are many others out there,” including many cases mistaken as tuberculosis in some countries, she said.

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Posted in: Acquired Immune deficiency diseases,Diseases in Asia

Why having a pot belly 'is a bigger heart risk than obesity'

Having a pot belly – even if you are not overweight – poses a greater risk of death from heart problems than being generally obese, warn doctors. A ‘spare tyre’ around the waist is uniquely dangerous because it is packed with ‘bad fat’, research shows. 

The US study found that those who were not overweight but had a bulging midriff were 2.75 times more at risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than normal weight and a proportionate waistline. They were also at 2.08 times the risk of dying prematurely from all causes. 

Most strikingly, people with a healthy overall weight but too much abdominal fat were even more likely to be heart victims than generally obese people, whose risk was 2.34 times more than those of normal weight with a regular waistline. Middle-aged spread – known as central obesity – is partly responsible for the development of heart disease and diabetes.

 Fat packed around the organs in the abdomen is more dangerous than fat on the hips because it’s ‘metabolically active’, releasing more of the inflammatory, toxic chemicals that raise heart disease risk. Many experts now want waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio, which indicates levels of abdominal fat, adopted as a more accurate guide than body mass index (BMI), which relates weight to height.

 Dr Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, senior author on the study and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said: ‘We knew from previous research that central obesity is bad, but what is new in this research is that the distribution of the fat is very important even in people with a normal weight. 

‘This group has the highest death rate, even higher than those who are considered obese based on BMI. From a public health perspective, this is a significant finding.’ 

 The latest study looked at data on 12,785 people aged 18 and over, who were divided into three categories of BMI – normal, overweight and obese – then divided by whether waistlines were normal or larger. Over 14 years, there were 2,562 deaths, of which 1,138 were cardiovascular-related. The highest risk of death was in people with normal BMI and large waistlines. 

Dr Karine Sahakyan, who is a cardiology research fellow at the Mayo Clinic, presented the findings yesterday at the European Cardiology Congress in Munich. Dr Lopez-Jimenez added: ‘Our research shows that if a person has a normal BMI, this by itself should not reassure them that their risk for heart disease is low.

 'Where their fat is distributed on their body can mean a lot, and that can be determined easily by getting a waist-to-hip measurement, even if their body weight is within normal limits.’

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Posted in: latest health news,obesity information

New Insights Into Age, Height and S*x Reshape Views of Human Evolution

The study, based on the DNA of around 85,000 Icelanders, also calculates the rate of human mutation at high resolution, providing estimates of when human ancestors diverged from nonhuman primates. It is one of two papers published this week by the journal Nature Genetics as well as one published at Nature that shed dramatic new light on human evolution. "Most mutations come from dad," said David Reich, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and a co-leader of the study.

 In addition to finding 3.3 paternal germline mutations for each maternal mutation, the study also found that the mutation rate in fathers doubles from age 20 to 58 but that there is no association with age in mothers -- a finding that may shed light on conditions, such as autism, that correlate with the father's age. 

The study's first author is James Sun, a graduate student in Reich's lab who worked with researchers from deCODE Genetics, a biopharma company based in Reykjavik, Iceland, to analyze about 2,500 short sequences of DNA taken from 85,289 Icelanders in 24,832 father-mother-child trios.

 The sequences, called microsatellites, vary in the number of times that they repeat, and are known to mutate at a higher rate than average places in the genome. Reich's team identified 2,058 mutational changes, yielding a rate of mutation that suggests human and chimpanzee ancestral populations diverged between 3.7 million and 6.6 million years ago. 

A second team, also based at deCODE Genetics (but not involving HMS researchers), published a paper this week in Nature on a large-scale direct estimate of the rate of single nucleotide substitutions in human genomes (a different type of mutation process), and came to largely consistent findings.

 The finding complicates theories drawn from the fossil evidence. The upper bound, 6.6 million years, is less than the published date of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, a fossil that has been interpreted to be a human ancestor since the separation of chimpanzees, but is dated to around 7 million years old. The new study suggests that this fossil may be incorrectly interpreted. 

Great Heights A second study led by HMS researchers, also published in Nature Genetics this week, adds to the picture of human evolution, describing a newly observable form of recent genetic adaptation. The team led by Joel Hirschhorn, Concordia Professor of Pediatrics and professor of genetics at Boston Children's Hospital and HMS, first asked why closely-related populations can have noticeably different average heights. David Reich also contributed to this study. 

They examined genome-wide association data and found that average differences in height across Europe are partly due to genetic factors. They then showed that these genetic differences are the result of an evolutionary process that acts on variation in many genes at once. This type of evolution had been proposed to exist but had not previously been detected in humans. 

Although recent human evolution is difficult to observe directly, some of its impact can be inferred by studying the human genome. In recent years, genetic studies have uncovered many examples where recent evolution has left a distinctive signature on the human genome. The clearest "footprints" of evolution have been seen in regions of DNA surrounding mutations that occurred fairly recently (typically in the last several thousand years) and confer an advantageous trait, such as resistance to malaria. 

Hirschhorn's team observed, for the first time in humans, a different signature of recent evolution: widespread small but consistent changes at many different places in the genome, all affecting the same trait, adult height. "This paper offers the first proof and clear example of a new kind of human evolution for a specific trait," said Hirschhorn, who is also a senior associate member of the Broad Institute.

 "We provide a demonstration of how humans have been able to adapt rapidly without needing to wait for new mutations to happen, by drawing instead on the existing genetic diversity within the human population." Average heights can differ between populations, even populations that are genetically very similar, which suggests that human height might have been evolving differently across these populations.

 Hirschhorn's team studied variants in the genome that are known to have small but consistent effects on height: people inheriting the "tall" version of these variants are known to be slightly taller on average than people inheriting the "short" versions of the same variants. The researchers discovered that, in northern Europe, the "tall" versions of these variants are consistently a little more common than they are in southern Europe. 

The combined effects of the "tall" versions being more common can partly explain why northern Europeans are on average taller than southern Europeans. The researchers then showed that these slight differences have arisen as a result of evolution acting at many variants, and acting differently in northern than in southern Europe.

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Posted in: latest health news

Debbie has breast cancer and needs your help urgently(PHOTOS)

Idiagbonya Osarere Debbie is a medical technician who is suffering from 4th grade Invasive Ductal Carcinoma - cancer of the breast and its spreading really really fast. One of the breasts is condenmed already and it has moved to the second breast and her neck. 

She desperately needs N6 million for surgery and her family and friends say that she has barely one month more to live without surgery. Please please, donate to debbie, no matter how small, please. Continue to see photos of Debbi's condition right now.

To donate to Debbie - Account details below Bank:

 Access bank Account no: 0000216933

 Account name: Idiagbonya Osarere. 

 And if you need to reach anyone for more details about Debbie's condition, then please call these numbers - 08096682757 or 08030968033.

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Posted in: breast cancer news,latest health news

Children born to older women have a better start in life

Children born to older mothers appear to have a healthier start in life as they are less likely to be admitted to hospital and more likely to have vital immunisation jabs, say researchers. The study also found children with older mothers experienced faster language development and suffered fewer social and emotional difficulties before the age of five. 

Researchers from University College London analysed data from more than 78,000 children born in England between 2000 and 2002. The mothers were between 13 and 57 years of age. In developed countries, there has been a strong trend towards later childbearing.

 In England and Wales, the number of births to women 40 and over trebled from 1989 to 2009 to almost 27,000. Although there has been substantial research on young mothers and childhood development, there is little evidence of any effects of older mothers. So the team looked at outcomes including child weight, accidents, hospital admissions and language development. 

Rates were adjusted for several factors, including child’s sex, age, birth weight, father’s age, family income and social class. Results showed that both the risk of accidents and hospital admissions decreased with increasing maternal age. The risk of a nine-month-old child with a 20-year-old mother having an accident was 9.5 per cent. 

This fell to 6.1% for a mother of 40 and the decline continued for three and five-year-olds. Similarly, at nine months, the risk of a child with a 20 year old mother being hospitalised was 16 % which fell to 10.7% for a mother of 40. Babies were also 98.1% likely to have had their immunisations if their mother was 40 compared to 94.6% if their mother was half that age. 

The authors say that older mothers tend to be more educated, have higher incomes and be married - all factors which are associated with greater child well-being. They concluded that the 'findings are noteworthy given the continuing increase in average age at maternity'.

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Posted in: latest health news

I swam with my contact lenses in - now I'm blind in one eye

As a contact lens wearer, Jennie Hurst knew the importance of good hygiene to prevent eye infections. ‘I was meticulous about removing my lenses before bed and making sure I did so with clean hands,’ says the 28-year-old from Southampton.

 ‘I wore monthlies — where the lenses are removed each night and replaced once a month — but I was so conscious of getting an infection that I replaced them every two weeks. And I always cleaned them with contact lens cleaning solution, unlike some of my friends who’d run their lenses under the tap or even moisten them with saliva.’ 

Despite this, Jennie, who works as an environmental co-ordinator, is now blind in her left eye — the result of a vicious infection. The cause? Swimming while wearing her contact lenses, something she never realised put her at risk.

Jennie is one of a growing number of people — the majority of them young — suffering potentially devastating eye infections due to a lack of knowledge of the risks of contact lenses, say experts. In her case the problem is acanthamoeba keratitis, caused by an amoeba — a parasite found in almost all soil, fresh water and sea water. 

It thrives where limescale and bacteria are present, but contact lens wearers are at highest risk if they clean their lenses or lens cases in tap water, or if they swim, shower or bathe while wearing their lenses. 

 This means the parasite can become trapped between the lens and the eye, allowing it to burrow into the eyeball. Indeed, Jennie’s problems began after a quick swim in a hotel pool while on a break in the West Country last summer.

 ‘The irony is that I don’t even like swimming — I only did a few laps,’ says Jennie, who had worn contact lenses for five years at that point. ‘I had no idea of the dangers of swimming in lenses — my biggest concern was simply losing a lens in the pool. 'I remember getting some water in my eye, but thought nothing of it.

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Posted in: latest health news

Women With Alzheimer’s Deteriorate Faster Than Men

In the paper published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, the researchers discovered that men with Alzheimer's consistently and significantly performed better than women with the disease across the five cognitive areas they examined. 

Most remarkably, the verbal skills of women with Alzheimer's are worse when compared to men with the disease, which is a striking difference to the profile for the healthy population where females have a distinct advantage.

 The researchers led by Professor Keith Laws completed a meta-analysis of neurocognitive data from fifteen published studies, which revealed a consistent male advantage on verbal and visuospatial tasks, and tests of both episodic1 and semantic2 memory. Keith Laws, Professor of psychology, said: "Unlike mental decline associated with normal aging, something about Alzheimer's specifically disadvantages women. "There has been some previous, but limited, evidence that females with Alzheimer's deteriorate faster than males in the earlier stages of the disease. 

And possible explanations are for a hormonal influence, possibly due to oestrogen loss in women or perhaps a greater cognitive reserve in males which provides protection against the disease process. But further studies to examine sex differences with the disease are needed to provide greater clarity on these issues." Further analysis of the study data showed that age, education level and dementia severity did not explain the advantage that men with the disease have over women with the disease.

 Alzheimer's disease, a common progressive condition affecting memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion, is the most common form of dementia. Alzheimer's Disease International estimates that there are currently thirty million people in the world with dementia, with 4.6 million new cases every year. 

The incidence of Alzheimer's is greater among women than men, with the difference increasing with age. 1Episodic memory -- our ability to recall specific events of our own past, accompanied by the feeling of remembering. 2Semantic memory -- other knowledge that we acquire which is purely factual without any personal feeling or history attached.

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Posted in: latest health news

West Nile virus kills 17 in Texas

An outbreak of West Nile virus has killed 17 people in Texas, the US Department of Health has announced.

This year alone 465 cases of this mosquito-borne disease have been recorded in Texas, more than in any other American state.

The American Center for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a total of 693 cases across the United States. 26 people died as a result of the epidemic. 

Dallas has declared a state of emergency over the spreading of West Nile virus, with Mayor Michael Rawlings asking the authorities to allow for the aerial pesticide spraying in Dallas neighbourhoods to fight mosquitoes.

The West Nile infection is spread predominantly by Culex and Anopheles mosquito genera and is marked by strong fever, sight loss and paralysis.

The infection was first recorded in Uganda in 1937.

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Posted in: west Nile virus

300 hospitalized with suspected cholera

 More than 300 people have been hospitalized in the Dominican Republic with suspected cholera symptoms over the past three days. 

The authorities have blamed this latest outbreak on the poor quality of drinking water.

The country had a cholera epidemic last year. Fortunately, it was quickly curbed thanks to timely precautions, but the disease spilled across the border into neighboring Haiti where it claimed 7,000 lives.

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Posted in: cholera news

Eating walnuts daily may improve sperm quality

 Men who are attempting to make the step into fatherhood may benefit from a daily dose of walnuts.A new study from UCLA researchers and funded in part by the California Walnut Commission shows that men who ate 75 grams of walnuts - about half a cup - a day for 12 weeks were able to improve the quality of their sperm.

Approximately 70 million couples deal with subfertility or infertility worldwide, the researchers stated. In 30 to 50 percent of those cases, the problem has to do with the man.

Researchers asked 58 healthy men between the ages of 21 to 35 to eat half a daily dose of walnuts, while they advised another group of 59 men to avoid eating tree nuts. Most of the men snacked on the walnuts raw, but a few added them into other dishes including grinding them up into hamburgers or mixing them with applesauce and cinnamon. 

Sperm quality was checked before the experiment began and after 12 weeks. The men who ate the walnuts had improved sperm shape, movement and vitality. In addition, the nut eaters' sperm had fewer chromosomal abnormalities. The other group that avoided all tree nuts showed no improvements. There were no significant changes in body-mass index, body weight or activity level in all of the subjects. The study was published on Aug. 15 in Biology of Reproduction.

"It would be relatively easy to poke fun at studies like this, but there is increasing evidence to show that aspects of a man's diet can affect the number and quality of sperm produced by his testicles," Dr. Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said to the BBC.

The researchers hypothesized that because walnuts are a source of a-linolenic acid, a natural plant source of omega-3, the compound may be what is giving the sperm the extra boost.
 

Pacey was not involved with the study, but commented that the study was well-done except for the fact that because there was no placebo, there was a slight possibility that the walnut group may have taken more actions that would have made their sperm more fit. Still, he believed the results showed a small but statistically significant improvement.

Also, while the study doesn't show whether or not walnuts would help men with fertility problems, researcher Dr. Wendie Robbins, from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, told WebMD that this may show that men should pay closer attention to what they are consuming.

"I would say that it's time that we pay more attention to what the male eats around the time of conception," Robbins pointed out.

Robbins added that she intends to study the effects of walnuts on men who have fertility issues. 

(CBS news)

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Posted in: eating walnuts,overcoming low sperm count,sperm quality

Schoolgirl, six, that is allergic to a kiss and must be wrapped in bandages all day

A little girl has such severe allergies that even a kiss could prove deadly. Isla Franks, six, suffers such severe reactions that she is wrapped in bandages from the neck down for 24 hours a day, to protect her super-sensitive skin. 

Her condition is so severe that she had to be rushed to hospital after her little sister gave her a kiss - hours after she had drunk a glass of milk. Her parents have to keep her clothes in a freezer instead of a wardrobe - because of her extreme reaction to dust mites. 

Isla was diagnosed with extreme allergies to eggs, milk, wheat, grass and dust when she was just six months old - and her parents told she would have to be wrapped in bandages to protect her skin. Isla has a special cupboard for her food to stop it coming into contact with anything else.

Her mother Katy, from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, said: 'We can’t do the things that other families can - even something as normal as going out for dinner could be deadly for Isla. 'If anything Isla is allergic to so much as brushes past her skin, she comes up in a huge angry rash which is really painful for her.

 'And if it goes anywhere near her face, her throat will start to swell. She has so many allergies, it’s difficult to keep her away from them.' The schoolgirl struggles to live a normal life - and is regularly sent home from school after suffering from flare ups. 

Last month, she suffered a reaction after sitting next to a school friend who owned a cat - revealing another allergy for her worried parents to add to the list. Mrs Franks added: 'We noticed that something wasn’t right when Isla was six months old - she stopped sleeping properly and was really grumpy. 'Her skin would flare up so badly that people even stopped me in the supermarket and asked if I had burned her.

 'The hospital carried out all sorts of tests, and discovered she was allergic to eggs, milk, wheat, dust and grass - we were devastated. 'We were told she had to wear bandages to cover her skin from the neck down to stop her skin flaring up. 'When her skin gets particularly bad, Isla has to have a layer of wet bandages, to cool her skin, over her usual layer of dry bandages, which she has to wear 24 hours a day.

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Posted in: Allergy news,latest health news

Consumption of Alcohol/Energy Drink Mixes Linked With Casual, Risky S*x

According to the study's findings, college students who consumed alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmEDs) were more likely to report having a casual partner and/or being intoxicated during their most recent sexual encounter. 

The results seem to indicate that AmEDs may play a role in the "hook-up culture" that exists on many college campuses, says study author Kathleen E. Miller, senior research scientist at UB's RIA. 

The problem is that casual or intoxicated sex can increase the risk of unwanted outcomes, like unintended pregnancies, s**xually transmitted diseases, s**xual assault and depression, says Miller. And previous research has linked energy drink consumption with other dangerous behaviors: drunken driving, binge drinking and fighting, for example.

 "Mixing energy drinks with alcohol can lead to unintentional overdrinking, because the caffeine makes it harder to assess your own level of intoxication," says Miller. "AmEDs have stronger priming effects than alcohol alone," she adds. "In other words, they increase the craving for another drink, so that you end up drinking more overall." 

The good news: Miller's study found that consumption of AmEDs was not a significant predictor of unprotected sex. Drinkers were no less likely than nondrinkers to have used a condom during their most recent sexual encounter. Regardless of their AmED use, participants in the study were more likely to use a condom during s**x with a casual partner than during s**x with a steady partner, consistent with previous research. A steady or committed partner is a less risky prospect than a casual partner whose s**xual history is unknown, Miller notes, so using a condom may not feel as necessary.

To be published in the print edition of Journal of Caffeine Research and available online to subscribers of the journal, the study is part of a larger three-year research project by Miller, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

 The research included 648 participants (47.5 percent female) enrolled in introductory-level courses at a large public university. They ranged in age from 18 to 40 but mostly clustered at the lower end of the age spectrum. More than 60 percent were younger than 21.

 According to the study's findings, nearly one in three sexually active students (29.3 percent) reported using AmEDs during the month prior to the survey. At their most recent s*xual encounter, 45.1 percent of the participants reported having a casual partner, 24.8 percent reported being intoxicated and 43.6 percent reported that they did not use a condom. 

According to Miller, drinking Red Bull/vodkas or Jagerbombs doesn't necessarily lead people to get drunk and become intimate with strangers, but it does increase the odds of doing so. But she points out that these drinks are becoming increasingly popular with college-age adults and should be considered a possible risk factor for potentially health-compromising s*xual behaviors.

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Finally, the Promise of Male Birth Control in a Pill

This compound produces a rapid and reversible decrease in sperm count and motility with profound effects on fertility," said James Bradner of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the lead author of the study. 

A male birth control pill hasn't been easy to come by in large part because of the challenge of getting any drug across the blood:testis barrier, where it can reach the sperm-generating cells. That lack of contraceptive alternatives for men is partially responsible for the high rate of unplanned pregnancies. 

Despite the unsatisfactory options for male contraception, nearly one-third of couples rely on male-directed birth control methods. Known as JQ1, the compound developed in the Bradner lab works by targeting a testis-specific protein called BRDT that is essential for fertility. 

When mice are given the BRDT-inhibiting molecule, they begin producing fewer sperm and those sperm they do produce don't swim as well. "This is a good reason to get excited about low sperm counts," said Martin Matzuk of Baylor College of Medicine, another author of the report. 

Mating studies confirm that JQ1 indeed works as effective contraception. Even better, those effects are complete and reversible and without adverse consequences for the animals' testosterone levels or behavior. The small molecule also comes without any apparent adverse effects on the males' future offspring.

 "There has not been a new reversible contraceptive for men since the development of the condom, centuries ago," notes William Bremner from the University of Washington, Seattle in an accompanying commentary in which he refers to Matzuk and Bradner's contraceptive method as "a breakthrough new approach."

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Birth Control Pills Affect Memory

"What's most exciting about this study is that it shows the use of hormonal contraception alters memory," UCI graduate researcher Shawn Nielsen said. "There are only a handful of studies examining the cognitive effects of the pill, and more than 100 million women use it worldwide." She stressed that the medications did not damage memory.

 "It's a change in the type of information they remember, not a deficit." The change makes sense, said Nielsen, who works with neurobiologist Larry Cahill, because contraceptives suppress s*x hormones such as estrogen and progesterone to prevent pregnancy. Those hormones were previously linked to women's strong "left brain" memory by Cahill's research group.

 "This new finding may be surprising to some, but it's a natural outgrowth of the research we've been doing on s*x differences for 10 years," Cahill said. A neurobiologist not involved in the latest work agreed it was a logical and intriguing next step in the examination of memory differences between the sexes. Like any research, she added, it would be important to validate it further. 

"Larry Cahill is already well known for his phenomenal research linking s*x to memory," said Pauline Maki, professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who specializes in memory and brain functioning. "The fact that women on oral contraceptives remembered different elements of a story tells us that estrogen has an influence on how women remember emotional events."

 In the study, groups of women either on the contraceptive or experiencing natural hormonal cycles were shown photographs of a mother, her son, and a car accident. The audio narrative differed; some in each group were told the car had hit a curb, while others were told the car had hit the boy and critically injured him. One week later, all were given surprise tests about what they recalled.

 Women using hormonal contraceptives for as little as one month remembered more clearly the main steps in the traumatic event -- that there had been an accident, that the boy had been rushed to the hospital, that doctors worked to save his life and successfully reattached both his feet, for instance. Women not using them remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car. 

Nielsen and fellow researcher Nicole Ertman agreed the findings could help lead to fuller answers about why women experience post traumatic stress syndrome more frequently than men, and how men remember differently than women. Men typically rely more on right-hemisphere brain activity to encode memory. 

They retain the gist of things better than details. Women on the pill, who have lower levels of hormones associated with female reproduction, may remember emotional events similarly to men. Nielsen plans to do her doctoral thesis on whether hormones affect the retention of details.

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How Stress and Depression Can Shrink the Brain

The findings, reported in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, show that the genetic switch known as a transcription factor represses the expression of several genes that are necessary for the formation of synaptic connections between brain cells, which in turn could contribute to loss of brain mass in the prefrontal cortex.

 "We wanted to test the idea that stress causes a loss of brain synapses in humans," said senior author Ronald Duman, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of neurobiology and of pharmacology.

 "We show that circuits normally involved in emotion, as well as cognition, are disrupted when this single transcription factor is activated." The research team analyzed tissue of depressed and non-depressed patients donated from a brain bank and looked for different patterns of gene activation. 

The brains of patients who had been depressed exhibited lower levels of expression in genes that are required for the function and structure of brain synapses. Lead author and postdoctoral researcher H.J. Kang discovered that at least five of these genes could be regulated by a single transcription factor called GATA1. 

When the transcription factor was activated, rodents exhibited depressive-like symptoms, suggesting GATA1 plays a role not only in the loss of connections between neurons but also in symptoms of depression. Duman theorizes that genetic variations in GATA1 may one day help identify people at high risk for major depression or sensitivity to stress. 

 "We hope that by enhancing synaptic connections, either with novel medications or behavioral therapy, we can develop more effective antidepressant therapies," Duman said. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Other Yale authors of the paper are Bhavya Voleti, Pawel Licznerski, Ashley Lepack, and Mounira Banasr.

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South Africa: Citizens Fighting for Access to Safe Water

A decision by the High Court in Pretoria upholding its earlier verdict relating to the supply of water in Mpumalanga was welcomed by the DA on Friday. The court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by Chief Albert Luthuli and Gert Sibande municipalities. 

 Democratic Alliance chief whip in Mpumalanga James Masango said it was evident the municipalities did not intend to abide by the court order issued in July. "The fact that both municipalities had the audacity to appeal and to apply for relief while the appeal process is ongoing, shows that they did not intend to abide by the court's order from the outset," he said. 

 "They instead chose to waste more taxpayers' money, which could have been used to deliver water in the first place, by applying for relief and having costs awarded against them," said Masango.

 He said the DA hoped the thwarted court bid would serve as a valuable lesson to the two municipalities, to deliver on their Constitutional mandate. "Perhaps they will realise that it is futile to appeal the original ruling, and would rather concentrate their efforts on providing clean, potable water to thousands of residents desperate for relief," said Masango.

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Babies born naturally 'have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section'

Babies born naturally may have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section, new research claims. According to scientists, when women give birth naturally there are higher levels of a special protein in babies’ brains that helps boost intelligence levels as they develop. 

Scientists at Yale University in the US say the increased levels of the protein, called UCP2, in babies born naturally could help foster their short and long term memories – key components of the human IQ – as they grow up. 

They made the discovery after studying the hippocampal region in the brains of mice born naturally and by caesarean. Mice born by C-section were found to have lower levels of UCP2 and, as a result, suffered 'impaired adult behaviours'. 

UCP2 has already been credited with helping to improve the chances of newborns breastfeeding. The findings come at a time when a deal of controversy surrounds C-sections. Critics have said that C-sections can increase the risk of internal bleeding and can lead to problems to do with fertility in the future.

 They think that celebrity mothers, such as Victoria Beckham and Zoe Ball, are to blame for more women opting for them. Around one quarter of babies in NHS hospitals are delivered by caesarean, although the figure is thought to be as high as 60 per cent in private clinics. 

 Study author Dr Tamas Horvath, whose findings are published in journal PLoS ONE said: 'These results reveal a potentially critical role of UCP2 in the proper development of brain circuits and related behaviours. 'The increasing prevalence of C-sections driven by convenience rather than medical necessity may have a previously unsuspected lasting effect on brain development and function in humans as well.'

 She added: 'We found that natural birth triggered UCP2 expression in the neurons located in the hippocampal region of the brain. 'This was diminished in the brains of mice born via C-section. Knocking out the UCP2 gene or chemically inhibiting UCP2 function interfered with the differentiation of hippocampal neurons and circuits, and impaired adult behaviours related to hippocampal functions.'

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