'Pullout method' nearly as effective as using condoms: Study

Washington: A new study has indicated that the old 'pullout method', pulling out just before ejaculation, works nearly as well as condoms in preventing pregnancies.
The study, titled "Better than nothing or savvy risk reduction practice? The importance of withdrawal," appears in the June edition of the journal Contraception, reports CBS News.
The authors find:
"If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4 percent of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year.
"However, more realistic estimates of typical use indicate that about 18 percent of couples will become pregnant in a year using withdrawal.
"These rates are only slightly less effective than male condoms, which have perfect- and typical-use failure rates of 2 percent and 17 percent, respectively."

Binge drinking harms teens' brains

Washington: In a study on adolescent binge drinkers, scientists have found that even rare consumption of large doses of alcohol during youth may compromise the coherence of the brain's white matter fibre.
Such incoherence has been known in adult alcoholics, but researchers were unaware as to when during the course of drinking white matter abnormalities become apparent.
"Because the brain is still developing during adolescence, there has been concern that it may be more vulnerable to the effects of neurotoxins, such as high doses of alcohol," said Susan F. Tapert, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.
The study's corresponding author has claimed that animal studies have suggested this to be true.
Duncan Clark, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said that "'white matter'" refers to brain areas that appear light in colour due to being primarily lipids."
He added: "White matter is composed of bundles of myelinated axons connecting grey matter areas of the brain, and has been shown to continue to develop throughout adolescence. These systematic changes in white matter organization reflect not only maturation of interconnections but continued maturation of the brain as a whole."
"White matter, and its integrity, are essential to the efficient relay of information within the brain. Indicators of white matter integrity are linked to performance on a range of cognitive tests, including measures of reading, copying complex figures, and speeded coding of information. Abnormalities in white matter health could relate to compromised ability to consider multiple sources of information when making decisions, and to emotional functioning," said Tapert.
For the study, the researchers enrolled 28 teens and used diffusion tensor imaging - an MRI technique sensitive to the random movement of water in cells of a target tissue - to examine fractional anisotropy, a measure of directional coherence of white matter tracts, in them.
It was found that out of the 28 adoloscents, 14 (12 males, 2 females) had and 14 (12 males, 2 females) did not have histories of binge drinking.
No participants had a history of an alcohol use disorder-drinkers were matched to non-drinkers on age, gender and education.
"This study showed that adolescents with histories of binge drinking episodes have lower coherence of white matter fibers, suggesting poorer white matter health, in a variety of brain regions. Frankly, I was surprised we found this, because the drinkers did not meet criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence," said Tapert.
Clark said: "These findings add to a growing literature indicating that adolescent alcohol involvement is associated with specific brain characteristics. One of the advantages of this study was that the adolescents with binge drinking did not have major mental disorders. Adolescents with alcohol-use disorders often have other problems. This suggests that the observed brain characteristics may be associated with alcohol involvement specifically rather than other complications."
"These findings indicate that adolescents who engage in binge drinking show low levels of brain organization," he said. "This characteristic could be a risk factor for accelerated alcohol use or an effect of alcohol. We need to know more about how alcohol influences adolescent brain development, [given] that alcohol may disrupt brain development."
The results of the study will be published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View

Diet high in fruits, veggies may protect against cancer

London: A diet rich in fruit and vegetables may protect against cancer and heart disease, claim researchers.
Fruit and vegetables contain high levels of salicylates, which are also the active anti-inflammatory ingredient of aspirin.
According to a review of the possible association of cancer prevention with this substance found in aspirin, published in the medical journal The Lancet, many herbs and spices are also especially rich in salicylates, reports The Independent.
Professor Peter Elwood, of the University of Cardiff's school of medicine, who led the review, said: "I think this is a very exciting area that should be researched in considerable depth.
"Most medical authorities have said for 20 years that it is the antioxidants in fruit and vegetables that account for their protective effects. It leads us to wonder if the beneficial effects of fruit and vegetables are because of the salicylates they contain," he said.
Salicylates were first identified in strawberries at the beginning of the 20th century, and they have been found to occur naturally in a wide range of plants.

Daily Drinking Poses Biggest Threat to Liver

London: Daily drinking, rather than binge drinking, poses the biggest threat to the liver, according to a new study.
University of Southampton researchers attributed increases in liver-related deaths to daily or near daily heavy drinking, not episodic or binge drinking, a pattern discernable at an early age.
In the study of alcohol dependency of 234 people with liver disease - 106 had alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) and 80 of them had evidence of cirrhosis or progressive fibrosis - the team found that 71 percent of ALD patients drank on a daily basis.
Conversely, patients with other forms of liver disease tended to drink sparingly with only 10 people (eight percent) drinking moderately on four or more days each week.
The study also explored lifetime drinking histories of 105 people and found that ALD patients started drinking at a significantly younger age (15 years) than other subjects and had significantly more drinking days and units than non-ALD patients from the age of 20 onwards, said a Southampton release.
Senior lecturer and consultant hepatologist Nick Sheron at Southamption, who led the study, said, "If we are to turn the tide of liver deaths. . . which means tackling cheap booze and unregulated marketing - we need to find a way to identify those people who are most likely to develop alcohol-related illnesses at a much earlier stage."
These findings were published in Addiction.

Surgeons announce world's first successful transvaginal nephrectomy using intra-umbilical Tri-port

Washington: Doctors at Instituto Medico La Floresta in Caracas, Venezuela, have successfully performed the world's first live human transvaginal nephrectomy using the Tri-port multi-channel port supplied by Advanced Surgical Concepts Ltd.
Dr. Rene Sotelo, the leader of the team of surgeons who carried out the operation, has revealed that the majority of the intra-operative endoscopic visualization and tissue mobilization for the natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) nephrectomy was performed transvaginally, with observation and occasional assistance from an intra-umbilical Tri-port.
According to him, no extra-umbilical incisions were needed.
The patient on whom the operation was performed was a 65 year-old woman with a 6 cm left kidney tumour, and a prior history of hysterectomy.
Sotelo revealed that it took 220 minutes for the surgery to complete, and that patient thereafter had to stay in the hospital for two days.
He said that the patient did not experience any complications, and was discharged with no visible abdominal scar.
Sotelo says: "The procedure went well and has great potential for the future."

Sleeping during the day ups mortality risk in older women

Washington: A new study has found that older women who take daily naps are at a greater risk of dying.
Researchers have found that women who reported napping daily were 44 percent more likely to die from any cause while 58 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular causes
Also 59 percent were more likely to die from non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes.
The study involving 8,101 Caucasian women aged 69 and older that showed that those who reported sleeping between 9-10 hours per 24-hour period also had a greater risk of mortality compared to those who slept between 8-9 hours.
The association was strongest for cardiovascular-related mortality.
However, researchers urge that the results should not be interpreted to mean that napping causes poor health outcomes, and it is not recommended that older adults avoid napping.
Napping and long sleep duration may be caused by sleepiness due to underlying sleep disorders or other medical conditions.
"Since excessive sleep suggests that night time sleep is disrupted, interventions to treat sleep disorders and improve sleep quality in older women may reduce mortality risk," said Katie L. Stone, co-author of the study.
However, further studies are required to explain why napping is linked with increased risk of death.
This study is published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

HIV beats our immune system by 'innovative mutations'

Washington : The human immunodeficiency virus or HIV adapts so well to the body's immune system that any successful AIDS vaccine must keep pace with its ever mutating profile, researchers say.
A new study, based on a survey of 2,800 HIV patients on five continents, better describes HIV's ability to adapt by spelling out at least 14 different "escape mutations" that keeps the virus alive after it interacts genetically with immunity molecules that attack HIV.
"Key genetic regions of HIV introduced into individuals of different ancestry in different places have been evolving to a greater or lesser degree according to inherited factors controlling immune response," said Richard Kaslow.
Kaslow is a professor at the University Kasof Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health and study co-author. "If HIV adapts differently in genetically distinct hosts, the challenge ahead in vaccine design is formidable," he said.
Researchers looked at different DNA variations of HIV in conjunction with different forms of human leukocyte antigen (HLA), a group of molecules that orchestrate immune response.
Normally HLA molecules present fragments of HIV proteins on the surface of infected cells to the immune system, acting as a signal for HIV destruction.
The Nature study shows just how efficiently the virus evolves escape mutations that help infected cells avoid destruction, Kaslow said, according to an UAB release.
The future of vaccine exploration will need to address the escape mutation capacity and identify new drug targets that work against an ever-changing HIV immunology landscape, said Philip Goulder, professor of immunology at the University of Oxford and the study's senior author.
These findings were published online in Nature......