Restless legs could trigger imminent orgasms in women

London: Restless legs and overactive bladder could trigger imminent orgasms in women, according to a study.
Neuropsychiatrist Marcel Waldinger and his colleagues of Utrecht University and The Hague's HagaHospital studied 18 Dutch women with Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS).
Their findings were recently published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Women affected by this rare and mysterious syndrome experience persistent genital sensations as if they are continuously on the verge of an orgasm.
All participants received in depth interviews and various medical examinations such as MRI-scans of the brain and pelvis. The study showed that most women in this research also had restless legs, symptoms of an overactive bladder and pelvic varicosis.
"These results are a very important breakthrough in the research of this syndrome and show that this is a real physical disorder," Waldinger emphasised.
In 2001, PSAS was mentioned for the first time in medical literature. Only 22 case reports have been described so far. A key feature of the syndrome is that sexual contact does not lead to diminishment but to aggravation of the symptoms. The complaints may lead to desperate and depressive feelings.
The majority of women in the study, the largest on PSAS so far, reported that their complaints were accompanied by restless legs and frequent urge to void.
Some of them reported to have restless legs symptoms long before their genital complaints. MRI-scan and ECHO-Doppler investigations of the pelvis and genitals also demonstrated a high prevalence of pelvic varicosis.
Notably, varicosis and restless legs are associated. The researchers are currently continuing their research on restless legs and bladder functioning in women with PSAS, said a Utrecht University release.
According to Waldinger, PSAS is a genital form of restless legs. Based on scientific observations, he postulated the view that the weird genital sensations are equivalent to the sensations belonging to the Restless Legs Syndrome.
"In order to emphasise this equivalence, we decided to change PSAS into Restless Genital Syndrome (RGS)", Waldinger explained

A walk in a park a day can help keep mental fatigue at bay

Washington: A simple walk in the park a day can help improve your memory and attentiveness, according to a new study.
The new study led by Marc G. Berman, John Jonides, and Stephen Kaplan from the University of Michigan have found that spending time in nature may be more beneficial for mental processes than being in urban environments.
For the study, the researchers conducted two experiments to test how interactions with nature and urban environments would affect attention and memory processes.
First, a group of volunteers completed a task designed to challenge memory and attention. The volunteers then took a walk in either a park or in downtown Ann Arbor. After the walk, volunteers returned to the lab and were retested on the task.
In the second experiment, after volunteers completed the task, instead of going out for a walk, they simply viewed either nature photographs or photographs of urban environments and then repeated the task.
The results showed that performance on the memory and attention task greatly improved following the walk in the park, but did not improve for volunteers who walked downtown
Moreover, the group who viewed the nature photographs performed much better on the retest than the group who looked at city scenes.
The authors suggest that urban environments provide a relatively complex and often confusing pattern of stimulation, which requires effort to sort out and interpret.
Natural environments, by contrast, offer a more coherent (and often more aesthetic) pattern of stimulation that, far from requiring effort, are often experienced as restful.
The study appears in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Scientists studying how asbestos fibres cause Cancer

Washington: Ohio State University scientists claim that they are for the first time studying how an asbestos fibre triggers cancer in human cells.
The researchers believe that their work may aid in drug development efforts, aimed towards finding potential cures for illnesses caused by excessive exposure to asbestos, including the deadly cancer called mesothelioma.
With a view to observing how a single asbestos fibre binds with a specific receptor protein on cell surfaces, the research team uses atomic force microscopy.
Study's co-author Eric Taylor, a doctoral candidate in earth sciences at Ohio State, described atomic force microscopy as "Braille on a molecular level", which allows the team to feel what was happening on molecular surfaces.
"We're looking at what molecules are involved in the chain of events when the fibre touches the cell. Does the binding occur over minutes, or hours? And what processes are triggered?" said Taylor, who presented the research at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
So far, the study has been focused to blue asbestos (Crocidolite), a part of the amphibole group of asbestos minerals that were used in such products as ceiling tiles and thermal insulation, before being banned in most of the Western world by the mid-Eighties.
However, the researchers eventually hope to study how all six forms of asbestos interact with certain proteins on cell surfaces.
According to them, some forms of asbestos can dissolve in the lungs if they are inhaled, but others are believed to essentially "stick" to cells, especially at high concentrations, and eventually cause lung diseases.
"For the first time, this will give us data on biological activity that should help policymakers determine which forms of asbestos are the most dangerous," said Steven Lower, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State and a co-author on the study.
"The hypothesis we're testing is that binding of cell surface receptors to asbestos fibers triggers a signal event, which initiates the cancer.
"There seems to be something intrinsic about certain types of asbestos, blue asbestos in particular, that elicits a unique signal, and it triggers inflammation, the formation of pre-malignant cells and, ultimately, cancer," added Lower, also a faculty member in the School of Environment and Natural Resources.
The researchers have revealed that the first protein to be studied is epidermal growth factor receptor, which is present on the surface of every human cell.
Lower said that understanding the intricacies of the binding process between the mineral and one or more proteins might provide an index of the biological activity of a particular type of asbestos, and lead the researchers to figure out how to prevent or undo that interaction.
Taylor said that the driving motivation behind the research was the potential to find a way to intervene and prevent illness even after someone was exposed to asbestos.

Protein expression predicts breast cancer survival in an unexpected way

Washington: A new research led by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has revealed that the expression of the microtubule-binding protein Tau is not a reliable means of selecting breast cancer patients for adjuvant paclitaxel chemotherapy.
In the study, the researchers found that Tau expression does predict survival, yet in an unexpected way.

In previous neoadjuvant studies, researchers from M. D. Anderson found that low levels of Tau predicted a good response to pre-operative chemotherapy.

In vitro studies had shown that down-regulation of Tau expression increased the sensitivity of breast cancer cell lines to paclitaxel.

Other studies suggested that high levels of Tau partially protect microtubules from paclitaxel binding and that low levels of the protein leave microtubules more accessible and vulnerable to the drug.

'If you treat patients who have a low level of Tau protein expression with pre-operative chemotherapy in neo-adjuvant studies, they are very likely to have a good response to the chemotherapy. We wanted to see if this correlation would hold up in predicting survival in adjuvant studies,' said Lajos Pusztai, M.D., D. Phil, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at M. D. Anderson and the study's first author.

In collaboration with researchers at the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP), the investigators assessed Tau protein expression in primary breast cancer specimens from 1,942 patients in the NSABP-B28 clinical trial.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the prognostic value of Tau in these patients, who were treated with four courses of doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (AC) or AC followed by four courses of paclitaxel. All hormone receptor-positive patients in the trial also received adjuvant endocrine therapy.

The hypothesis was that patients whose tumours expressed low levels of Tau would preferentially benefit from the addition of paclitaxel to their adjuvant regimen, Pusztai explained.

Univariate and multivariate analyses found that both Tau-positive status (high Tau expression) and estrogen receptor (ER) -positive status were associated with better disease-free and overall survival.

However, the researchers found no significant correlation between Tau expression and benefit from paclitaxel in the total population or among estrogen receptor (ER) -positive or ER-negative patients.

'We eventually found that Tau is very predictive of survival but in the opposite manner than we initially thought,' 'Low Tau expression was actually associated with a relatively poor survival despite a higher sensitivity to chemotherapy,' Pusztai said.

'On the other hand, patients with high levels of Tau-and we knew these patients were not particularly sensitive to chemotherapy-actually did very well. They had a significantly better survival in this large randomized study,' he added.

The study has been presented at the CRTC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Contraceptive Methods affect Women's Sexual Pleasure & Satisfaction

Washington: A new study has shown that contraceptive methods can have a significant impact on women's sexual pleasure and satisfaction.
The researchers from The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University have found that many women think condoms decrease sexual pleasure.
On the other hand, those who use both hormonal contraception and condoms report higher overall sexual satisfaction.
"The public health community has paid little attention to women's sexual experiences with contraceptive methods, especially condoms," said Stephaine Sanders, associate director of The Kinsey Institute and a co-author of the study.
"If women think condoms detract from sexual pleasure, they may be less inclined to use them consistently," she added.
During the study, women admitted condoms make sex less pleasurable, while those who used only hormonal methods-such as the birth control pill-were unlikely to associate their method with decreased sexual pleasure.
When asked about the effect of contraceptives on sexual enjoyment, women who used condoms either alone or with hormonal methods reported decreased sexual pleasure.
However, while considering overall sexual satisfaction, which goes beyond the immediate sexual moment and includes factors such as sexual self-esteem and relationship satisfaction, women who used both condoms and hormonal methods reported the highest levels of sexual satisfaction.
The findings revealed that only 4 percent of women who relied on hormonal methods of contraception reported decreased pleasure, but hormonal users reported the lowest overall sexual satisfaction scores.
While 23 percent of women who used both condoms and hormonal methods reported decreased pleasure, they had the highest sexual satisfaction scores.
Women who used condoms alone or along with a hormonal method were six to seven times more likely to report decreased sexual enjoyment compared to those who used hormonal methods only. [From Internet]

Women likely to miscarry if exposed to cigarette smoke

Washington, Dec 6: Women exposed to cigarette smoke, either as adults or children, are more likely to face fertility problems and suffer miscarriages.
An analysis of more than 4,800 non-smoking women showed those who were exposed to cigarette smoke six or more hours a day as children and adults, faced a 68 percent greater chance of facing difficulties in getting pregnant and suffering one or more miscarriages. "These statistics are breathtaking and certainly point to yet another danger of second hand smoke exposure," said Luke J. Peppone, assistant professor at Rochester University's James P. Wilmot Cancer Centre. In the study, four out of five women reported exposure to second hand smoke during their lifetime. Half of the women grew up in a home with parents who smoked and nearly two-thirds of them were exposed to some second hand smoking at the time of the survey.

More than 40 percent of these women had difficulty getting pregnant (infertility lasting more than a year) or suffered miscarriages, some repeatedly, according to a Rochester release.

"We all know that cigarettes and second hand smoke are dangerous. Breathing the smoke has lasting effects, especially for women when they're ready for children," said Peppone, who analysed information in the Patient Epidemiology Data System, a well-studied resource that has yielded information on a variety of cancers.

Peppone analysed surveys collected from 4,804 women who visited Roswell Park Cancer Institute for health screenings or cancer care from 1982-1998. Each participant in this study reported that they had never smoked, and had been pregnant at least once or tried to become pregnant. Participants reported whether one or both of their parents smoked and if they lived with or worked with smokers as adults.

They also estimated the amount of time they were exposed to second hand smoke.Many of the women in the study grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, long before the surgeon general issued the first warning about the dangers of cigarette smoking in 1964. The study was published online in Tobacco Control.

Using cosmetics during pregnancy 'increase birth defect risk'

Melbourne: Pregnant woman have been warned against the use of cosmetics, for they could lead to birth defects.
The warning follows a study, which found that women exposed to high levels of hair spray during pregnancy were twice as likely to have babies born with a urinary tract defect.
It encouraged calls for a new European cosmetics labelling system that would mark out some products as off-limits to mothers-to-be.
The French Government declared last week considering such a labelling system for cosmetics.
"Women who are planning to conceive or who are in the first three months of pregnancy should look at what they are using," the Australian quoted Prof Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, as saying.
"The cosmetics industry needs to look at this and clearly label their products.
"Anything like this raises concerns, but I don't think people should panic," he added.

Stomach ulcer bug may be behind bad breath

Washington:A new study has suggested that bacteria, which cause stomach ulcers and cancer, may be behind bad breath.
Scientists, for the first time, have found that Helicobacter pylori living in the mouths of people, who are not showing signs of stomach disease.
The mouth is home to over 600 different species of bacteria, some of which can cause disease.
Helicobacter pylori has recently been shown to cause stomach ulcers and is behind a large proportion of gastric cancers.
"Recently, scientists discovered that H. pylori can live in the mouth. We wanted to determine whether the bacteria can cause bad breath, so we tested patients complaining of halitosis for the presence of H. pylori," said Dr Nao Suzuki from Fukuoka Dental College in Fukuoka, Japan.
The researchers found that the bacteria in the mouths of 21 out of 326 Japanese people with halitosis.
In these people, the concentration of a bad breath gas and the level of oral disease were significantly higher.
In patients with periodontal (gum) disease, 16 of 102 people had H. pylori in their mouths.
"Halitosis is a common problem in humans, and bad breath is largely caused by periodonitis, tongue debris, poor oral hygiene and badly fitted fillings," said Dr. Suzuki.
"Bacteria produce volatile compounds that smell unpleasant, including hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulphide. Doctors often measure the levels of these compounds to diagnose the problem. Gastrointestinal diseases are also generally believed to cause halitosis," Dr. Suzuki added.
Patients who were carrying H. pylori had more blood in their saliva and were also carrying Prevotella intermedia, which is one of the major periodontal bacteria.
"Although the presence of H. pylori in the mouth does not directly cause bad breath, it is associated with periodontal disease, which does cause bad breath," said Dr. Suzuki.
"We now need to look into the relationship between H. pylori in the mouth and in the stomach. We hope to discover the role of the mouth in transmitting H. pylori stomach infections in the near future," Dr. Suzuki added.
The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

'For men, the penis is the window to the heart'

Melbourne: Forget pills and creams, the secret to maintaining a healthy sex life well into old age is as simple as fighting the extra flab, according to a leading expert.
According to Gary Wittert, endocrinologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, erectile dysfunction is often a warning sign of underlying lifestyle-related diseases, which include heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
"For men, the penis is the window to the heart," ABC Online quoted Wittert, while speaking at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress in Brisbane.
"The blood vessels in the penis are exactly the same as the blood vessels in the heart. If they have some erectile dysfunction then they've probably got subclinical coronary artery disease," the expert added.
A study of more than 19,000 men by Dr Ian Thompson of the Texas Health Science Center and colleagues, which was conducted in 2005, found that those who reported erectile dysfunction were just as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as smokers.
Much coverage has been given to the age-related decline in testosterone and it effect on sexuality, however Professor Wittert says there is plenty of evidence that healthy, active men are able to maintain a healthy, active sex life well into their later years.
"What I truly believe is it's not just age. It is not inevitable that you lose your erections with age," the expert added.
He says, as obesity becomes more prevalent in younger men, they too are experiencing erectile problems as a result of their weight and associated health problems.
"You're starting to see with obesity a very high prevalence of erectile dysfunction in younger men and it's a warning sign," the researcher said. [From Internet]

Eating an egg a day can up, type two diabetes risk by 60 percent

Melbourne: Eating an egg every day can raise the risk of developing diabetes, a shocking new study has found.
What's more, intake of more than a couple of eggs a week can make the condition worse in those who already have diabetes.
Scientists in Australia have urged that type 2 diabetics and people at risk of developing the blood glucose condition should limit their egg intake after a US study found them to be detrimental to their health, reports News.com.au.
According to Harvard Medical School scientists, eating an egg every day may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by about 60 per cent.
Women were most susceptible, with females consuming seven eggs or more a week increasing their risk by 77 per cent, the study found.
Dr Michael Dr Gaziano wrote in the journal Diabetes Care that eating just one egg a week carried no increased risk.
The study reached the conclusions after tracking the egg-eating habits of almost 57,000 men and women over two decades. [From internet]

Touchy feely couples less likely to be stressed

London: Couples who hug and kiss more often or become physically intimate are less likely to be stressed, especially if they are married.
A week-long study of 51 double income German couples (mostly married) by Zurich University found that touchy feely pairs, who did everything from holding hands to having sex, had lower levels of stress hormone cortisol in their saliva.
The body secretes more cortisol during its fight or flight response and is at the root of stress-related bodily changes.
The study found that couples experiencing more work-related problems had the lowest levels of cortisol through such displays of affection and intimacy, according to online reports.
Beate Ditzen of Zurich University, who conducted the research, informed that intimacy perked up moods that tended to improve hormone levels.
But she cautioned couples not to compete in expressing such intimacy, but involve themselves in tasks that nurture togetherness in both partners.
The finding appeared in Psychosomatic Medicine. [From Internet]

Gender matching in heart transplantation leads to long-term survival

Washington: A new study has revealed that gender matching between donors and recipients is important to short- and long-term survival in heart transplantation,
"In clinical transplantation, we generally don't assume that organs from male and female donors have inherent differences affecting long-term outcomes, but our data suggest that there are important differences which must be taken into account," said Eric Weiss, M.D., first author of the study and a post doctoral research fellow in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at The Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS), identifying 18,240 patients who received their first orthotopic (replacing a failing organ with a healthy one) heart transplant between 1998 and 2007. In this dataset, patients were followed for 10 years, with the average follow-up time being 3.4 years.
Patients were sorted into four groups: male donor with male recipient, female donor with male recipient, male donor with female recipient, and female donor with female recipient.
Overall, 71 percent were matched by gender to their donor (77 percent of male recipients and 51 percent of female recipients). Twenty-five percent of patients died during the study.
The researchers found that matching donor and recipient by gender resulted in 13 percent lower risk of graft rejection within the first year; 14 percent lower rate of graft rejection over the study period; 25 percent drop in 30-day death rate; and 20 percent lower one-year death rate.
Statistical modelling revealed that the greatest chance for death during the study occurred when pairing a male donor with a female recipient, which made the risk of death an estimated 20 percent higher compared to a male donor with male recipient.
The most successful transplants occurred between male recipients and male donors, when the cumulative chance for survival was 61 percent.
"These results fit with our hypothesis that sex matching in heart transplantation leads to improved survival rates. We hypothesized that we would see a big difference in the short-term survival - which we did, most likely because of heart-size issues - but what was interesting was the substantial difference in the long term, as well," said Weiss.
The study has been presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2008. [From Internet]

'Anti-aging' pill may reverse time clock in humans

Washington : After successfully conducting studies on mice, scientists have claimed that SRT1720, touted as an 'anti-aging pill,' can be tested in human trials.
The new drug study from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., claimed that SRT1720 activates the same receptor as the much-discussed resveratrol, the chemical in red wine that may slow some effects of aging.
Scientists are testing both resveratrol and SRT1720 for first treating type-two diabetes, and possibly later for other age-related diseases.
"We are very excited by these results. These compounds are mimicking calorie restriction and exercise while lowering levels of glucose and insulin in mice. It's a game changer," Discovery News quoted Michelle Dipp of Sirtris as saying.
In the study, the scientists overfed two groups of mice by about 40 percent, which can make up for almost eating 3,000 calories a day, and enough to pack on significant weight.
After drug administration in various concentrations, the scientists found that after 15 weeks of eating the high-calorie diet, the control mice gained significant weight.
However, the mice taking 500 mg of the drug, did not gain any weight. The cholesterol levels of the mice on the drug also improved.
The animals' exercise habits were also recorded. Mice without SRT1720 ran for roughly half a mile. Mice given 100 mg ran roughly seven-tenths of a mile. And mice on 500 mg of SRT1720 were able to run a full mile, twice the distance of untreated mice.
Dipp said that tests have shown that above 500 mg, the drug's effects plateau. SRT1720 has no known side effects.
Johan Auwerx at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland led the research.
The SIRT1 receptor is also activated during caloric restriction diets, which have been shown to lengthen life span in multiple animal models, and during exercise.
SIRT1 receptors are found in mitochondria, often called the powerhouse of the cell because of all the energy they produce.
The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism. [From Internet]

Nerves damaged by brain and spinal cord injuries regenerated in mice

Washington: Nerves damaged by brain or spinal cord injury may be regenerated by silencing natural growth inhibitors, according to a new study.
Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston conducted an experiment on mice by temporarily silencing genes that prevent mature neurons from regenerating, and causing them to recover and re-grow vigorously after damage.
Dr. Zhigang He, Associate Professor of Neurology who is also the senior author of the paper, highlights the fact that currently there is no treatment for spinal cord or brain injury because injured neurons cannot regenerate.
Studies conducted in the past, which looked at removing inhibitory molecules from the neurons' environment, have found only modest effects on nerve recovery.
However, He and Dr. Mustafa Sahin have found that re-growth is primarily regulated from within the cells themselves.
"We knew that on completion of development, cells stop growing due to genetic mechanisms that prevent overgrowth. We thought that this kind of mechanism might also prevent regeneration after injury," says He.
The researchers point out that the key pathway for controlling cell growth in neurons, called the mTOR pathway, is active in cells during development, but is substantially down-regulated once neurons have matured.
Upon injury, this pathway is almost completely silenced, presumably for the cell to conserve energy to survive.
The researchers are of the view that preventing this down-regulation may allow regeneration to occur.
During the study, He's team used genetic techniques to delete two key inhibitory regulators of the mTOR pathway, known as PTEN and TSC1, in the brain cells of mice.
The mice were subjected to mechanical damage of the optic nerve two weeks later.
Two weeks post-injury, it was observed that about 50 percent of injured neurons in the mice with gene deletions of PTEN or TSC1 survived, compared to about 20 percent of those without the deletions.
Up to 10 per cent of the surviving mutant mice showed significant re-growth of axons, the fibre-like projections of neurons that transmit signals, over long distances.
This re-growth, according to the research team, increased over time.
He says that though the current study used genetic techniques, it may be possible to accomplish the same re-growth through pharmacologic means.
"This is the first time it has been possible to see such significant regeneration by manipulating single molecules. We believe that these findings have opened up the possibility for making small-molecule drugs or developing other approaches to promote axon regeneration," adds He.
The researchers have also to determine whether such regenerated axons can restore function.
They are presently looking at axon regeneration after spinal cord injury, hoping that their approach may lead to future neural regeneration therapies. [From Internet]

Women's hands carry more diverse bacteria than men's

Washington: Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that human hands harbor far higher numbers of bacteria species than previously believed, and that women's palms carry a significantly greater diversity of microbes than those of men.
Assistant Professor Noah Fierer, the lead author of the study, says that the new findings have implications for better understanding human bacteria, and should help establish a "healthy baseline" to detect microbial community differences on individuals that are associated with a wide variety of human diseases.
Reporting their study in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers revealed that they used powerful gene sequencing techniques for their research, which revealed that a typical hand in had roughly 150 different species of bacteria living on it.
The researchers detected and identified more than 4,700 different bacteria species across 102 human hands in the study, but only five species were shared among all 51 participants.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," said Fierer.
He further said that the diversity of bacteria on individual hands was not significantly affected by regular hand washing.
Fierer said that the research team's observations suggested that the standard skin culturing of human skin bacteria, a technique used by many labs, dramatically underestimated the full extent of microbial diversity.
The researcher said that skin pH might be behind the higher bacterial diversity on women's hands, since men generally have more acidic skin, and other research has shown microbes are less diverse in more acidic environments.
He added that the difference could also be due to differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production.
The study also revealed that the right and left palms of the same individual shared an average of only 17 percent of the same bacteria types.
The participants, who were CU undergraduates, shared an average of only 13 percent of bacteria species with each other.
Fierer said that while the composition of bacterial communities on dominant and non-dominant hands of subjects was significantly different, diversity levels were similar.
He said that the differences found between dominant and non-dominant hands were likely due to environmental conditions like oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual.
The researchers also observed that some groups of bacteria were less abundant following hand washing, while others were more abundant.
Biochemistry Assistant Professor Rob Knight stressed that regular hand washing with anti-bacterial soap was beneficial.
"The vast majority of bacteria are non-pathogenic, and some bacteria even protect against the spread of pathogens. From a public health standpoint, regular hand washing has a very positive effect," Knight said.
In their study report, the researchers wrote: "Although hand washing altered community composition, overall levels of bacterial diversity were unrelated to the time since the last hand washing. Either the bacterial colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as practiced by the students included in this study) does not remove the majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface."
Knight revealed that the research team used the metagenomic survey to simultaneously analyze all of the bacteria on a given palm surface.
According to him, the procedure involved isolating and amplifying tiny bits of microbial DNA, then building complementary DNA strands with a high-powered sequencing machine that allowed the team to identify different families, genera and species of bacteria from the sample.
He said that the richness of bacteria types on the palm was three times higher than that found on the forearm and elbow.
Fierer added that the total diversity of hand bacteria appeared to match or exceed levels of bacteria colonizing other parts of the body, including the esophagus, the mouth and lower intestine.
"I view humans as 'continents' of microscopic ecological zones with the kind of diversity comparable to deep oceans or tropical jungles. Today we have the ability to answer large-scale questions about these complex microbial communities and their implications for human health that we weren't even asking six months or a year ago," Fierer said. [From Internet]

How to get rid of belly fat

Washington: Want to get rid of your belly fat? Well, then all you need to do is follow the simple tips given in a new book, 'The Flat Belly Diet'.
The book is written by Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass, the editors of health magazine 'Prevention', reports CBS News.
Here are some tips that can help you get rid of belly fat:
1. Eat four 400-calorie meals per day
2. Never go more than four hours without eating
3. Incorporate monounsaturated fats or "MUFAS" into meals
4. When the body is under stress, it produces a hormone called "cortisol," which turns into belly fat. Learning to control the stress in life can go a long way toward reducing the belly fat.
5. Keep a strong social support group. Get your friends to join you, or find an online support group.
6. Keep a record of what you've eaten, and how much. [From internet]

Kids who sleep less more likely to be obese as adults: Study

Melbourne: Kids who sleep less are more likely to be obese as adults, according to a New Zealand study.
For the study, researchers at the University of Otago followed more than 1000 children born in Dunedin between 1972 and 1973.
They found that kids aged between five and 11 who spent less time in bed had higher Body Mass Indexes as adults and were significantly more likely to be obese.
Lead author of the study Erik Landhuis said the importance of getting a good night's sleep was well known, but this was the first study to show potential implications for adult obesity from lack of sleep during childhood.
"It is not clear why lack of sleep might lead to weight gain, but experimental studies have shown that sleep deprivation may disrupt the hormones that regulate appetite," the Age.com.au quoted Landhuis, as saying.
"It has also been suggested that tired kids may simply have less energy and are therefore less active.
"Our findings indicate that ensuring adequate sleep time in childhood may play an important part in the prevention of adult obesity," Landhuis added.
Researchers documented participants' time in bed every two years between ages five and 11 and measured body weight at age 32.
They ruled out early signs of obesity such as socioeconomic factors, parental control, television watching, and a parental history of obesity as possible explanations for the results.
The study is published in the United States journal Paediatrics. [From Internet]

Test developed to predict menopause

London: Scientists have developed a test to predict when a woman will go through menopause, enabling older women to plan for motherhood.
The breakthrough by American scientists will help women prepare mentally for losing their fertility and allow those in their late 30s and 40s who are considering trying for a baby to pinpoint just how long they have left to conceive, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday.

“This test seems to be reasonably predictive of menopause. Lots of people want to know when it's going to happen so that they can plan their life and work and their children, if possible, and this test would give them an idea of that,” said Bill Ledger, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Sheffield.

“It would give them an idea of where their body is in relation to the menopause, how soon it's coming,” he added.

The test, developed by international researchers led by MaryFran Sowers of the University of Michigan, measures three hormones in the blood to calculate how many eggs are left in a woman's ovaries.

The researchers found that changes in the levels of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and inhibin B concentrations foretold when they would enter menopause.

AMH fell to a very low or non-measurable level five years before a woman has her final period, the newspaper said, quoting the study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. [From Intenet]

WHO warns against melamine contamination in milk products

New Delhi: In view of reports about the melamine contaminated milk leading to death of infants in China, World Health Organisation has alerted South East Asian countries against possible dangers of distribution and consumption of melamine-contaminated milk products leading to serious health hazards.
Contaminated batches of infant formula or other milk-containing products such as biscuits, chocolates and snack food have reportedly been exported to Member States in South-East Asia, posing a serious public health risk, especially to infants, WHO South East Asia Regional Office pointed out.
WHO has recommended that countries set standards for maximum limits of melamine content in food products. A surveillance case definition based on clinical manifestations, key diagnostic criteria (notably ultrasound examination features) and guidelines on differential diagnosis, clinical treatment and necessary medical follow-up have also been provided to Member States.
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for all infants for the first six months of their lives. No other liquid or food, not even water, is needed during this period. Thereafter, infants should receive adequate and safe supplementary foods, while breastfeeding can continue up to two years of age and beyond, it said.
Replacing powdered infant formula with other products such as condensed milk, honey mixed with milk, or fresh milk is not recommended as this could compromise safety and nutrition.
WHO-SEARO is taking steps to support Member States in dealing with the issue. Information on reported and confirmed contaminated products, including a compilation of official test results obtained through the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) , has been shared with all Member States. [From Internet]

Bone-building find hold hope for improved osteoporosis treatment

Washington: A team of American scientists claims to have uncovered an important step in hormone-triggered bone growth, paving the way for new osteoporosis drugs and better bone-building therapies.
The research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) showed that parathyroid hormone (PTH) given intermittently enhances the body's own bone-building action through a specific "co-receptor" on the surface of bone cells.
While scientists have known for long that PTH stimulates bone formation, the exact mechanism underlying this effect has been unknown to date.
"Our study uncovers a novel mechanism for how parathyroid hormone signaling selectively stimulates bone formation. We have identified the protein co-receptor crucial to the whole process," said Dr. Xu Cao, UAB professor of pathology and senior author on the study.
During the study, the researchers focused on PTH signals in mice to see which cell receptors would actively recruit calcium from the blood.
Dr. Mei Wan, UAB associate professor of molecular and cellular pathology and first author on the study, said that the team's efforts helped uncover the one co-receptor responsible for turning on bone building.
Dr. Jay McDonald, pathology professor and director of UAB's Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, pointed out that the exact mechanism of PTH-signalled bone formation was previously shrouded by the joint production of osteoblasts and osteoclasts, two types of cells that are instrumental in regulating a healthy skeleton.
While osteoblasts regulate a healthy skeleton by forming new bone, and osteoclasts do so by resorbing old and brittle bone.
McDonald highlighted the fact that many existing osteoporosis drugs target both osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which can lead to zero or minimal bone formation.
"The ideal would be to have one drug to shut down the osteoclasts and turn on the osteoblasts to effectively build bone. We don't have that yet, but this study shows us the path to get there," he said.
An article describing the new study has been published in the journal Genes and Development. [From Internet]

New hair counting software may turn out boon for baldies

Melbourne: Counting hairs to check the efficacy of baldness treatments and depilatory creams is now just a matter of a mouse click, all thanks to a new software developed by Australian researchers.
Researchers from CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences in Sydney has developed the software, which can analyse exactly how many hairs there are in a patch of skin.
The software makes use of images captured by a small flatbed scanner pressed onto the skin.
Developed in collaboration with a UK company, the software, according to image analyst Dr Pascal Vallotton, would make it easier for scientists developing hair removal creams to accurately assess how well they work
"Up to now they were counting the number of hairs that survived after treatment manually," ABC Online quoted him as saying.
He added: "That's hard work and it's difficult because you may count a hair twice or you may miss it, so image analysis offers distinct advantages because you always get the same counts and you get the right counts."
The software makes use of a mathematical algorithm to identify and trace each individual hair relying on the understanding of a hair's unique features, such as its relative straightness.
It can also differentiate between hairs and other features on the skin such as wrinkles, wounds or moles.
"We have a lot of defects in our skin irregularities that make it difficult to say this is a hair or this is a wrinkle," said Vallotton.
He added that by comparing the earlier and later images, it is possible to determine if hair is growing quickly or slowly.
However, the researchers checked the accuracy of the software by manually counting the hair strands, and were pleased to find that the counts matched.
According to Vallotton, the software could also be useful in testing the effectiveness of balding treatments and counting or tracing substances other than hairs, that are long and thin and otherwise difficult to image.
For instance, one can use the software to work out the number of neurons in a cell sample or to trace biological polymers such as long strings of protein.
The findings have been published in the latest issue of the journal Skin Research and Technology. [From Internet]

Frequent urination protects against bladder cancer

Washington: Frequent urination at night might be a good thing after all, it protects your bladder against cancer, according to an exhaustive study.
The results indicate that those people who usually get up at night at least twice to pass urine reduced their risk of suffering from bladder cancer by 40 to 59 percent.
This "protective effect" was found in both men and women and did not relate to the consumption of tobacco or the quantity of water they drank.
Night-time is usually the period during which there is the longest interval between urination.
For this reason carcinogenic agents like tobacco "are present in the urine, (that) constitutes an important factor towards the likelihood of developing bladder cancer", explained Juan Alguacil, a researcher from University of Huelva (Spain) and one of the authors of the study.
The research group, made up of Spanish and North American scientists, analysed the urinary frequency in 884 recently diagnosed bladder cancer cases and in 996 non-cancer 'control patients', from five regions in Spain.
The patients, aged between 21 and 80 years, came from 18 hospitals in Vallés, Barcelona, Asturias, Alicante and Tenerife, according to a release of Plataforma SINC.
The study authors underlined that "it would be necessary to transport this discovery from the lab to the hospital in order to achieve the prevention of almost 357,000 new cases diagnosed every year globally and 145,000 deaths.
Although the best advice is to avoid exposure to stop smoking and to avoid direct contact with chemical products or pollution particles, the risk of bladder cancer could be reduced by increasing urinary frequency and drinking more water.
The research appeared recently in the International Journal of Cancer. [From Internet]

How women with Lupus can boost their chances of Healthy Pregnancies!!

Washington: Rheumatologists at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York have now uncovered how women suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease
Earlier, women with SLE were advised not to have children, and in case they did conceive a child, they were advised to have therapeutic abortions to prevent severe flares of their lupus.Now, the new research provides information that may yield insights that support a reversal of that thinking.Titled, the PROMISSE (Predictors of pRegnancy Outcome: bioMarkers In antiphospholipid antibody Syndrome and Systemic lupus Erythematosus) Study, the multi-center research is led by Jane Salmon, M.D., attending physician at Hospital for Special Surgery.Salmon will present two research projects based on data gathered from the PROMISSE Study.The researchers identified factors that help a woman and her doctor plan for a healthy pregnancy.

Lupus patients usually experience a disease "flare" quite late, when symptoms such as a red rash across the nose and cheeks, painful or swollen joints, swollen legs or extreme fatigue appear suddenly.

For the first presentation, aimed at finding if problems during pregnancy can be correlated to the severity, the researchers followed 198 pregnant patients with lupus.

They found that women who conceived while their disease was stable or only mildly active had relatively infrequent flares during their pregnancies and delivered healthy babies, regardless if past disease severity or past kidney disease.

The findings inform women with lupus on how to plan when to conceive to have a low risk pregnancy.Patients with Lupus, as well as other patients with the antiphospholipid syndrome, produce special types of proteins called antiphospholipid antibodies that can attack their own tissues and cause pregnancy complications.

The second study showed that the presence of a specific subset of these autoantibodies is linked with poor pregnancy outcomes. In fact, they found that women having an autoantibody called lupus anticoagulant were more prone to have complications such as miscarriage or preeclampsia during pregnancy.

With the help of these findings, it is possible to identify patients at high risk for complications just by a blood test to determine if they are positive or negative for the lupus anticoagulant autoantibody.

Though it is possible for women with lupus or the antiphospholipid syndrome who are positive for this protein to have successful pregnancies, their doctors should monitor them more closely for early signs of pregnancy complications.

The two studies will be presented at this year's American College of Rheumatology meeting in San Francisco.

Kicking the butt may help control rheumatoid arthritis

Washington: For smokers with rheumatoid arthritis, kicking the butt might help in controlling its progression, according to a study.
Smoking is known to increase the risk and severity of RA, and its cessation has been shown to have a positive impact in slowing the progression of other diseases like coronary disease and emphysema.

The researchers conducted the study over 14,847 patients with RA based on their smoking status. Of those, 65.4 percent were non-smokers, 22.1 percent were former smokers and12.5 percent were active smokers.

They monitored the change in Clinical Disease Activity Index-a composite measure of disease activity in people with RA that assesses change over time.They found that Clinical Disease Activity Index was higher among active smokers than among patients who had stopped smoking.

Individual measures of active disease including swollen and tender joint counts and C-reactive protein were all lower in the patients who had stopped smoking. These results suggest that stopping smoking can lessen RA disease activity over and above current medical treatment.

"While these results are preliminary, it seems that quitting smoking, which would have many other health benefits, also may benefit patients with rheumatoid arthritis," said Dr Mark C. Fisher, MPH; Research Fellow, NYU Medical Center; Hospital for Joint Disease, New York, N.Y."RA patients who stop smoking may see an improvement in the number of joints that hurt them every day and in how they feel overall," he added.

The research was presented at the American College of Rheumatology

New cancer treatment uses heavy ion beams to kill deep-seated tumours

New Delhi: Chinese nuclear physicists have developed a new treatment for cancer that uses heavy ion beams to kill malignant tumours more than 2.1 cm below the skin's surface.

Zhan Wenlong, the leading nuclear physicist in the country, has claimed that heavy ion beams score over light ion beams, such as gamma rays and X-rays used in traditional radiotherapies.

High ion beams can accurately moderate the amount of radiation and minimize the damage done to healthy cells, reports China Daily.He further said that the new treatment uses stronger heavy ion beams that reach a maximum of 400 mega electron volts (MeV), and can travel further into the human body to kill deeper tumours.

One of the key roles in generating the beams has been played by the 'Cooler Storage Ring', which is a 300 million yuan project by the Heavy Ion Research Facility (HIRF) in Lanzhou, the capital of the northwestern Gansu province.

Zhan said that the amount of ions in heavy ion beam treatment sky rocket when they get to the deep tumors, and become strong enough to kill tumor cells and better protect healthy cells along the way.

On the contrary, in traditional light ion beam treatment, the amount of ions diminishes the further it travels, The researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have produced a broad spectrum of heavy ion beams, which range from 80 to 400 MeV and can treat both shallow and deep-seated tumors.

Zhan also said that scientists are now optimizing the system software to open new doors for massive clinical testing in the near future.

According to HIRF Director Yue Haikui, the method had been used on 85 cancer patients by the end of 2006, with satisfactory results. The researchers will continue monitoring the patients to probe the effect of the treatment. [From Inernet].

No time for veggies? Squeeze them

Washington: Drinking vegetable juice daily could compensate the shortfall in dietary intake of vegetables, according to a new study.
With seven out of 10 adults falling short of daily vegetable intake as recommneded by US dietary guidelines, researchers studied whether drinking their juice could act as its substitute.

"What we found was that drinking vegetable juice seemed to address some of the key barriers to vegetable consumption such as convenience, portability and taste, so individuals were more likely to meet their daily recommendations," said Carl Keen, study author and professor of nutrition & internal medicine, University of California, Davis (UC-D).

"Furthermore, vegetable juice drinkers reported that they actually enjoyed drinking their vegetables, which is critical to adopting dietary practices for the long-term." In fact, after six weeks of the study, vegetable drinkers reported they felt "more satisfied" with the ease of getting vegetables into their diet, and that the vegetable juice provided an important additional source of vitamins and minerals. The study looked at three groups of healthy men and women.

They received dietary counseling on ways to get more vegetables, but only two of the groups were instructed to consume at least one serving of vegetable juice.

Of those two groups, one drank one eight ounces of juice daily and the other drank two eight-ounces doses daily as part of a balanced eating plan, according to a release of UC-D.

The study found that those who received dietary counselling and consumed veg juice were far more likely to meet daily veg recommendations, about two and a half cups (five servings), than those who received counselling alone.

These findings were presented this week at the American Dietetic Association's annual conference.

Older women can have stronger muscles but risk falling

Washington: Elderly women can regain muscle strength as much as any young women, according to a new study.
The research compared strength gains of inactive elderly women and inactive young women after both groups participated in an eight-week training regime.

Yet while the two groups increased similar percentages of strength, the older group was far less effective in increasing power, which is more closely related to preventing falls.

"Power is more important than strength for recovery from loss of balance or walking ability," said Dain LaRoche, assistant professor of exercise science at University of New Hampshire (UNH) and co-author of the study. Preventing falls, which occur in 40 percent of people over 65 and are the top reason for injury-related emergency room visits, is the driving force behind LaRoche's research agenda.LaRoche compared the initial strength of 25 young (18-33 years) and 24 old (65-84 years) inactive women, then had both groups participate in resistance training on a machine that targeted knee extensor muscles, which are critical for walking, stair-climbing, or rising from a chair.

"They're what let you live on your own," he said. After eight weeks of training, the older group not only increased their strength by the same percentage as the younger group, they achieved strength similar to a control group of young inactive women, said a UNH press release. But the older group's ability to increase power - force over time - was significantly less than the younger group's; the elderly women saw only a 10 percent increase in power versus the younger women's 50 percent increase.

Acknowledging that the type or frequency (six sets, three times per week) of his training protocol may have affected the older group's ability to make gains in power, LaRoche is continuing to research older women's capacity to develop muscle power. As baby boomers age, doubling the over-65 population by 2030, research that supports fall prevention and independent living is a growth area.

"I tell my students, 'there's room for you in this field'," said LaRoche.The results were published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Depression during pregnancy doubles risk of premature delivery

Washington: Depressed pregnant women face twice the risk of premature delivery than their counterparts with no such symptoms, according to a new study.
Besides the increased risk of premature delivery, the study found that the risk grows with the severity of the depressive symptoms, among pregnant women.

These findings also provide preliminary evidence that social and reproductive risk factors, obesity, and stressful events may aggravate depression-premature delivery link, according to researchers."Premature delivery is the leading cause of infant mortality, and yet we don't know what causes it," said co-author De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland.

"This study adds to emerging evidence that depression during early pregnancy may interfere with the neuroendocrine pathways and subsequently placental function," Li said."The placenta and neuroendocrine functions play an important role in maintaining the health of a pregnancy and determining the onset of labour," Li explained.
Because the majority of the women in the study did not use anti-depressants, the study provides a clear look at the link between depression and preterm delivery.The study, among the first to examine depression and premature delivery in a representative and diverse population in the US, looked at 791 pregnant Kaiser Permanente members in San Francisco city and county from October 1996 through October 1998.

Researchers interviewed the women around their 10th week of pregnancy and found that 41 percent of the women reported significant or severe depressive symptoms, according to a Kaiser Permanente press release.The women with less severe depressive symptoms had a 60 percent higher risk of premature delivery -- defined as delivery at less than 37 completed weeks of gestation -- compared with women without significant depressive symptoms, and the women with severe depressive symptoms had more than twice the risk.

In addition to being the leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity, preterm delivery is also the leading medical expenditure for infants, with estimated annual cost of about $26 billion in the US alone. The study is published online in the Oxford University Press' journal Human Reproduction. [From Internet]

World's first hernia repair through vagina conducted

Washington: Surgeons at UC San Diego Medical Center have conducted what is said to be the world's first hernia repair through vagina.As part of a clinical trial, Garth Jacobsen, M.D., and Santiago Horgan, M.D., were able to repair a painful weak spot in a patient's abdominal wall using the vagina as the path to the surgical site.
"This minimally invasive hernia repair is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. and abroad. If research proves that this 'natural orifice' technique is ideal for patients, more than 50,000 women in the U.S. may be eligible for this innovative hernia surgery," said Horgan, director of the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery. A hernia is an abnormal bulging of organs or fatty tissue through a muscular wall.

The bulge is repaired by closing the hole with stitches and then placing a mesh over the repair for reinforcement.The mesh is made up of a biologic absorbable material and over time is incorporated into the body's tissue.

This repair itself was performed by entering the vagina and making a small incision behind the uterus through which the abdomen could be accessed with surgical tools. Only one small external incision was made to place a camera to safely view the surgery.

A traditional laparoscopic repair uses three incisions.The process of performing surgery through a natural opening means avoiding major incisions through the abdomen, and patients may experience a quicker recovery with less pain and scarring.

Surgeons at UC San Diego Medical Center have performed 38 of these natural orifice surgeries as part of a clinical trial comparing "scarless" to laparoscopic techniques. Patients recruited to the trial have had diseased gallbladders and appendix removed through either the mouth or vagina.

A gastrectomy, an obesity surgery that reduces the size of the stomach, and the hernia repair, are also part of the clinical trial.

Note: In general terms, we can say that a hernia occurs when the layers that make up the abdominal wall weaken. In other words, the fabric of muscle and other tissues which protect the gut, develops a defect, or weakness. Through that defect the peritoneum (PER-IT-TA-NEE-UM) - and perhaps other organs - push their way outward, forming a lump which can be felt - and sometimes seen - protruding from the abdomen.