Folic acid supplements taken during pregnancy prevent cleft lip and palate

The Hindu: A new study finds that women who take folic acid supplements early in their pregnancy can substantially reduce their baby's chances of being born with a facial cleft.

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that 0.4 milligrams (mg) a day of folic acid reduced by one third the baby's risk of isolated cleft lip (with or without cleft palate). Folic acid is a B vitamin found in leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, and whole grains. It can also be taken as a vitamin supplement, and it is added to flour and other fortified foods. The recommended daily dietary allowance for folate for adults is 400 micrograms or 0.4 mg.

"These findings provide further evidence of the benefits of folic acid for women," said Allen J. Wilcox, M.D. Ph.D., lead NIEHS author on the new study published online in the British Medical Journal. "We already know that folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects, including spina bifida. Our research suggests that folic acid also helps prevent facial clefts, another common birth defect." In the United States, about one in every 750 babies is born with cleft lip and/or palate.

"Folic acid deficiency causes facial clefts in laboratory animals, so we had a good reason to focus on folic acid in our clefts study," said Wilcox. "It was one of our main hypotheses."

The researchers examined the association between facial clefts and mothers' intake of folic acid supplements, multivitamins, and folates in diet. The researchers found that folic acid supplementation of 400 micrograms or more per day reduced the risk of isolated cleft lip with or without cleft palate by one-third, but had no apparent effect on the risk of cleft palate alone.

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Birth defects cost United States a fortune

HealthDay News: The initial economic cost of having a baby born with a birth defect is enormous, ranging from several thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars per child.

So concludes a study published in the Jan. 19 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Researchers found that cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal defects quickly run up the highest hospitalization bills. "This study is a very important slice of the pie in terms of how expensive birth defects are," said Dr. Nancy Green, medical director of the March of Dimes. "It's important in terms of helping to define some of the costs associated with birth defects, and as a way to remind the public that birth defects are fairly common and are very expensive in terms of dollars -- and of heartache."

As many as one in 33 babies born in the United States has a birth defect, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Birth defects are believed to generally occur during the first three months of pregnancy, often before a woman is even aware she is expecting.

The exact cause of many birth defects is unknown, but Green said they are presumed to occur as a complex interaction between the genetic predisposition of the fetus and "some sort of broadly defined environmental impact."

These defects can vary significantly in their severity. Some are mild. Others can cause the death of the baby soon after birth.

The current study included 2003 hospital data on 35 selected birth defects. The birth defects were chosen based on whether or not the condition could be diagnosed at birth and if it was a permanent condition without intervention.

The conditions responsible for the most in-hospital deaths during the study period were diaphragmatic hernia (protrusion of the stomach through the diaphragm), renal agenesis (absence of one or both kidneys), trisomy 18 (a serious birth defect in which there are three copies of chromosome 18), and several congenital heart defects.

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Selenium supplements boosts immune system in HIV patients

The Journal News: Taking an inexpensive selenium supplement has shown to boost the immune systems of HIV/AIDS patients regardless of whether they are taking antiretroviral medications, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The five-year study, conducted at the University of Miami and funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, found that taking 200 micrograms daily of a selenium supplement can suppress the progression of the disease and indirectly boost levels of CD4 white blood cells, which attack and destroy infections.

The study involved 262 participants with HIV, some who were taking antiretroviral treatments and some who weren't.

"The results support the use of high selenium yeast as an inexpensive, safe nutritional therapy in HIV spectrum disease," lead study-investigator Barry Hurwitz said in a written statement.

The study doesn't suggest that those who are on antiretroviral therapy can give up their expensive medications, which can cost $20,000 a year or more, and take selenium supplements instead, said Jeff Blumberg, professor of nutrition of Tufts University in Boston.

"I certainly wouldn't want to communicate to anybody that ... we found an alternative to ART, which is not what this study was designed to look at," said Blumberg, who was compensated to speak on behalf of Nutrition 21 Inc., the Purchase-based manufacturer of the supplement used in the study.

The product, known by its brand name Selenomax, sells for $16 for a two-month supply and is already available in all 6,200 CVS/Pharmacy stores across the United States, Nutrition 21 said.

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Common household items are potential sources of toxic heavy metals

HealthDay News: Exposure to heavy metals -- arsenic, lead and mercury -- can occur in the home through common items such as glazed pottery, herbal supplements, food, and garden pesticides/herbicides, notes an article in the January issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter.

Potential household sources of lead include: old painted surfaces; tableware such as leaded crystal, pewter and some glazed pottery; fumes when soldering stained glass projects; and pottery glazes with white or yellow finishes. Dietary supplements, especially those from China, can also be a source of lead exposure. And some jewelry from China may be made from lead.

Certain kinds of fish or shellfish may contain high levels of mercury, including shark, swordfish, tuna, pike, walleye, bass, and Atlantic salmon. While concerns have been raised about mercury in dental fillings, no firm link has been established between metal dental fillings and changes in the central nervous system, the article said.

Some garden herbicides and pesticides contain arsenic. People who use these products should always read and follow instructions on the labels. Until recently, arsenic was used in pressure-treated lumber. If you're working with older, treated lumber, wear gloves and a dust mask and do your work outdoors.

There is no government oversight on what's in homeopathic, herbal or complementary health products, and it's possible that they could contain heavy metals.

Limited exposure to heavy metals isn't likely to cause any harm to your health, the article said. Some general symptoms of heavy metal toxicity include hearing loss, impaired concentration, personality changes, and loss of feeling, especially in the fingertips. People who are concerned about exposure to heavy metals should talk to their doctor. Blood tests and other methods can be used to determine if a person has toxic levels of heavy metals.

First case of sleeping sickness reported in India

Medindia.com: The first case of human trypanosomiasis has now been discovered in India. Sleeping sickness or Human trypanosomiasis is endemic in Africa and in South America, where it is called Chagas disease.

A farmer in India, from the village of Shivani (district of Chandrapur) 140 km from Nagpur in the central State of Maharashtra, has recently been identified as the first confirmed case of human trypanosomiasis recorded in this country.

Human trypanosomiasis in Africa is caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Chagas disease in South America is induced by T.cruzi. In other regions of the world such as India, only animals were up to now known to be infected by certain trypanosomes, which are not pathogenic for humans.

In December 2004, a researcher form the IRD centre in Montpellier, a specialist in the African form of human trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), undertook the identification of the pathogenic agent, at the request of the Indian authorities and mandated by the WHO in collaboration with local medical services (1). Morphological examination of parasites contained in the patient’s blood revealed the presence of many trypanosomes belonging to the species T. evansi, which usually infects animals, particularly cattle.

The patient, who had been suffering for several months from recurring bouts of fever, had very high blood parasite count, equal or greater than 106 parasites/ml of blood. Parasitological, serological and molecular analyses confirmed this result. It is the world’s first formally identified case of human trypanosomiasis caused by T. evansi.

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Some blood pressure drugs increase the risk of diabetes

HealthDay News: Some common blood pressure drugs can substantially increase the risk of diabetes, especially among those already at risk for the condition, U.S. researchers report.

According to the report, angiotensin–receptor blockers (ARBs) and angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are the blood pressure drugs least associated with diabetes. These are followed by calcium-channel blockers.

Beta blockers and diuretics are the drugs most associated with the condition. "There are differences across the various types of drugs that we use to treat high blood pressure in people who develop diabetes," said study author Dr. William Elliott, from the department of preventive medicine at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago.

The report is published in the Jan. 20 issue of The Lancet. In the study, Elliott and his colleague Peter Meyer looked at 22 clinical trials that included more than 143,000 people. These people had high blood pressure but did not have diabetes at the start of the trials. In each trial, the participants received long-term treatment with each class of blood pressure drugs or placebo.

The traditional medicines used to treat high blood pressure in the United States are diuretics and beta blockers, Elliott said. "It so happens that they are the two drug classes that are most likely to precipitate diabetes. It turns out the two of the new classes of drugs -- ACE inhibitors and ARBs -- are the two that have the least amount of diabetes associated with them. In the middle, we have calcium-channel blockers," he said.

Elliott noted that your risk of getting diabetes while taking diuretics and beta blockers depends on a number of factors. These include how long you are on the medication, your weight, your family history of diabetes, whether or not you have recently gained weight, and other risk factors, he said.

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Personality disorder is common among women with anorexia or bulimia

Innovations Report: Among the young women diagnosed as having anorexia or bulimia, 48.5% also suffer from a personality disorder. This is one of the conclusions of a study conducted by scientists at the Universitat Jaume I which intends to unveil whether there is any link between eating disorders and certain personality traits.

Finding an answer to this enigma may be of prime importance for several reasons. One of them is prevention since discovering a relationship between eating and personality disorders may help detect problems beforehand in people who are particularly vulnerable to developing anorexia or bulimia given certain traits of their personality.

Another reason is related to the treatment of these pathologies. Even though treatments are effective, the percentage of relapses is still high. Being able to unravel and understand how personality disorders influence the tendency to relapse can also help increase the treatment’s chances of success.

With these objectives in mind, the researchers at the Department of Basic and Clinic Psychology and Psychobiology analysed the personality of 150 young women aged 24 on average, who were distributed into three different groups. A first group was made up of young women diagnosed as having purging-type bulimia nervosa (60%) and purging-type anorexia nervosa (40%); a second group was formed by participants who, even though they were not ill, showed restrictive eating behaviours; finally, the third was a control group.

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Microbicidal algal gel could prevent HIV infection

Medindia.com: Scientists involved in a worldwide research have come up with a microbicidal algal gel to prevent HIV infection. This gel is expected to evolve into a powerful new protection weapon for women against HIV. Preliminary lab tests suggest it would be 95% efficient.

Brazilian scientists, who aim to evolve various methods to prevent HIV infection by using microbicides, assure the gel will be on the market in seven years.

Women need to find ways to protect themselves from HIV, mainly in underdeveloped nations where AIDS is widespread and men refuse to use condoms.

US philanthropist Bill Gates has said: only giving women the power to protect themselves can control AIDS pandemic. Researcher Dr Luiz Castello Branco claims, ‘the gel had produced impressive results during the first phase of testing over the last three years.’

He said: 'We will certainly get to a final product with efficiency of above 50%'. 'Right now we will test the product's safety and the ideal dose.'

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Strategies for preventing heart diseases

MayoClinic.com: You can prevent heart disease by following a heart-healthy lifestyle. Here are five strategies to help you protect your heart.

Heart diesease may be the leading cause of death for both men and women, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it as your fate. Although you lack the power to change some risk factors — such as family history, age and race — there are some key heart disease prevention steps you can take.

Take steps to avoid heart disease — don't smoke, get regular exercise and eat healthy foods. Avoid heart problems in the future by adopting a healthy lifestyle today. Here are five heart disease prevention tips to get you started.

Don't smoke or use tobacco products

"If you smoke, quit," advises Sharonne Hayes, M.D., a cardiologist and director of the Women's Heart Clinic at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. "That's the most powerful, preventable risk factor for heart disease."

When it comes to heart disease prevention, no amount of smoking is safe. Smokeless tobacco and low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes also are risky, as is exposure to secondhand smoke.

Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,800 chemicals. Many of these can damage your heart and blood vessels, making them more vulnerable to narrowing of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Atherosclerosis can ultimately lead to a heart attack.

In addition, the nicotine in cigarette smoke makes your heart work harder by constricting blood vessels and increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke replaces some of the oxygen in your blood. This increases your blood pressure by forcing your heart to work harder to supply enough oxygen. Even so-called "social smoking" — only smoking while at a bar or restaurant with friends — is dangerous and increases the risk of heart disease.

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Gene linked to Alzheimer’s identified

BruneiDirect.com: Scientists said on Sunday they have pinpointed a new gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease, the incurable brain disorder that is the top cause of dementia in the elderly.

Abnormalities in a gene called SORL1 increased the risk for the disease, and this finding could help scientists develop new treatments, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Genetics.

The researchers looked at DNA samples from 6,000 people from four ethnic groups: Caribbean-Hispanics, North Europeans, black Americans and Israeli-Arabs. They found certain variations of SORL1 more often in people with late-onset Alzheimer's disease than in healthy people.

The late-onset form, affecting people age 65 and up, represents about 90 percent of Alzheimer's cases. The rarer early-onset form affects people from about age 30 to 65.

Only one other gene, called ApoE4, has been identified as a risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's. It was identified in 1993.

Several genes are linked with early Alzheimer's, and study of both types might lead to better understanding of how the disease begins and how to tackle it.

Many scientists think Alzheimer's begins with the buildup in the brain of a gooey material called amyloid that clumps together to form plaques. That material stems from a protein called amyloid precursor protein, or APP.

SORL1 controls the distribution of APP inside nerve cells of the brain. When working normally, the gene prevents APP from being degraded into a toxic byproduct called amyloid beta peptide. When SORL1 is deficient, it allows more of the bad amyloid beta peptide to accumulate, fostering amyloid plaques.

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Top ten myths about HIV/AIDS

In this video, Dr. Becky Kuhn, Co-founder, Global Lifeworks, explains about the top ten myths on HIV/AIDS and why they aren’t true.

Blood tests that detects NT-pro-BNP in blood can forecasts heart attack or stroke

Voice of America: The World Health Organization (WHO) says that cardiovascular disease causes approximately one third of all deaths worldwide (16.7 million). And those deaths are not just limited to industrialized nations. By 2010, the WHO estimates that heart disease and stroke also will be the leading causes of death in developing countries. But the WHO says heart disease is not always a death sentence. At least 20 million people survive heart disease and stroke every year. And now a blood test can accurately predict a patient's chances of a heart attack.

Many people already know what they should do to avoid a heart attack or stroke: Stay away from foods full of saturated fat, salt and carbohydrates. Eat more fruit and vegetables. Exercise more. Don't smoke. Take a cholesterol-lowering drug.

But sometimes the odds of a future heart attack or stroke are still higher for those people who have already been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

Sixty-four-year-old Thomas Gray has survived two heart attacks and is under regular medical care. But his doctor, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, believes the more she knows about the risk, the more aggressive his treatment can be. "The things we were interested in are things like a heart attack, a stroke, heart failure or dying from your heart disease."

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo and a team of medical researchers in San Francisco, California followed the progress of at least 900 heart patients. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that the presence of a marker called NT-pro-BNP in the blood helps forecast a possible attack.

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Smoking can worsen knee osteoarthritis

Medindia.com: Smoking was never known to be good. And the list of harmful consequences due to smoking seems to be ever growing. A school of thought, courtesy- research from the Boston University School of Medicine and Mayo Clinic, has revealed the heightened risk of cartilage loss, coupled with excruciating pain in men who smoke, and suffer knee osteoarthritis.

For 30 months, researchers tracked 159 men with knee osteoarthritis. Nineteen men of the group were smokers. After accommodating the study results with factors of age, body mass index and cartilage scores, they discovered that smokers portrayed an enhanced risk of experiencing cartilage loss and felt more pain as compared to men who did not smoke.

Dr. David Felson, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Unit and professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine, said ‘Our findings also suggest smoking plays a role in the progression of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis and, therefore, is a modifiable risk factor with important public health implications.’

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Leptin can do more than regulating body weight

Leptin, a protein hormone that plays a vital role in regulation of appetite and metabolism, is now found to prevent Type 2 diabetes in animals. A research carried out by University of Florida has shown that leptin was able to cure diabetes in animals and animals that received leptin therapy lived longer than the ones that didn’t. This finding could eventually become a breakthrough in the fight against diabetes, if the leptin therapy is successfully tested on humans.

Watch this video, which speaks more about this remarkable finding,

Why doesn’t our immune system attack tissues harboring bacteria in our small intestine?

SpiritIndia.com: Answering one of the oldest questions in human physiology, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered why the body's immune system -- perpetually on guard against foreign microbes like bacteria -- doesn't attack tissues in the small intestine that harbor millions of bacteria cells.

In a study in the February issue of Nature Immunology, and which is currently available on the journal's Web site as an advanced online publication, investigators led by Shannon Turley, PhD, of Dana-Farber identify an unlikely group of peacemakers: lymph node cells that instruct key immune system cells to leave healthy tissue alone. The finding, which illuminates a previously unknown corner of the human immune system, may lead to new forms of treatment for autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and multiple scelerosis.

"We've discovered that cells not generally thought of as part of the immune system actually play an important role in protecting the intestine from immune system attack," says Turley. "Because the cells are found in lymph nodes throughout the body, they may offer a way of suppressing a variety of autoimmune diseases," which result from immune system assault on healthy tissue.

The immune system distinguishes between normal and foreign agents by small proteins, called antigens, on the cell surface. In parts of the body, such as the pancreas, that are sheltered from the outside environment, cells known as dendritic cells display the antigens of their normal neighbors in a way that puts the immune system "at ease." By reading those antigens without being on alert, the immune system's T cells learn that such cells are off-limits to attack.

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Liver tissue from stem cells

Scientists at University of New Castle have grown liver tissues from stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood of new born babies. This development is seen as a first step in creating artificial organs from stem cells, a goal that is at least a few decades away. Watch this BBC report, which explains this recent development in stem cell research, in detail.

Anti-obesity therapies should be tested for their efficiency

BBC News: Better data on the long-term effects of anti-obesity drugs is needed before more widespread use of the therapies, a Canadian study says.

Researchers said such drugs would become more important in the future to combat the growing obesity crisis.
But the University of Alberta Hospital said in the Lancet that data on drugs already in use was limited particularly over cardiovascular outcomes.

They said there should be better testing of anti-obesity therapies.

The team analyzed articles published over the last six years on three drugs - hunger suppressant sibutramine, orlistat, which restricts the absorption of fat, and rimonabant, a relatively new drug being targeted at people with diabetes.

They said the long-term impact of the drugs was not clearly known with side effects including increased blood pressure and pulse rate for sibutramine and mood-related disorders for rimonabant reported.

The three drugs are used in the UK - where one in five adults are classed as obese - although they are restricted for clinically obese people or those at risk through conditions such as diabetes.

Doctors normally only prescribe them in tandem with exercise and dietary regimes and they are not often used for longer than a year.

But the researchers said as the obesity crisis escalates, as it is predicted to do, clinicians will have to increasingly rely on drug treatment programmes.

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Teenage girls who read a lot of articles on weight loss and dieting are likely to adopt drastic weight loss techniques

Medindia.com: Parents of teenage girls might want to have another look at that attractive magazine their daughter is reflecting upon.

According to recent studies, teenage girls who read articles on weight loss and dieting in such magazines are more prone to resort to drastic weight reducing techniques such as vomiting, laxatives or smoking more cigarettes, than those who don’t.

The study, published in Pediatrics' January edition, was conducted by studying 2,516 Minnesota teens, almost half boys and half girls. The teens were studied for five years, starting when they were about 13 to 15 years old and a follow- up done, 5 years later.At the study's start, the teens completed surveys about dieting, body image, and self-esteem. The survey also included this question: "How often do you read magazine articles in which dieting or weight loss is discussed?"

Forty-four percent of the girls reported reading such articles frequently, compared with 14 percent of the boys.
In results of the follow –up survey it was found that girls who read such magazines were twice as likely to develop unhealthy habits like skipping meals or fasting.

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