Page 267 - Health Medical Pharma
AP Investigation: Hospital patients held hostage for cash
The Kenyatta National Hospital is east Africa's biggest medical institution, home to more than a dozen donor-funded projects with international partners - a "Center of Excellence," says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The hospital's website proudly proclaims its motto -- "We Listen ... We Care" -- along with photos of smiling doctors, a vaccination campaign and staffers holding aloft a gold trophy at an awards ceremony. But there are no pictures of Robert Wanyonyi, shot and paralyzed in a robbery more than a year ago. Kenyatta will not allow him to leave the hospital because he cannot pay his bill of nearly 4 million Kenyan shillings (USD 39,570). He is trapped in his fourth-floor bed, unable to go to India, where he believes doctors might help him. At Kenyatta National Hospital and at an astonishing number of other hospitals around the world, if you don't pay up, you don't go home. The hospitals often illegally detain patients long after they should be medically ...
Healthy lifestyle linked to reduced stroke risk: Study
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which includes quitting smoking and reducing weight, can help people at high genetic risk to decrease their chance of suffering a stroke.
Another Canaan Cafe opens in Coimbatore
: Another Canaan Cafe was opened here Thursday by tea manufacturer Darmona Estate, in association with Assisted Shopping Kiosk (ASK), to provide good quality beverage. The cafe was inaugurated to provide quality tea to consumers, managing director of Darmona Estate Dinesh Raju told reporters here. The tea is unadulterated unlike that served in petty shops and roadside eateries, he said, while citing the findings of the department of food safety in Tamil Nadu that 90 per cent of the tea in such shops and eateries was adulterated. The beverage, produced by Darmona, is known for its rich flavour, aroma and strength and has won the golden leaf award 13 consecutive times, he said. There is a plan to open 20 more Canaan Cafes to cover various areas of the city, said director of ASK Rajesh Keerthi said.
Some BP drugs may increase lung cancer risk: BMJ study
Long-tem use of certain widely prescribed blood pressure (BP) drugs may increase the risk of lung cancer, according to a study published Thursday in The BMJ. Risk for individuals is still low, but could translate into large numbers of patients, said researchers led by Professor Laurent Azoulay from the McGill University in Canada. Use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor drugs (ACEIs) to lower BP is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer compared with use of another group of blood pressure drugs called angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), researchers said. ACEIs are widely prescribed, so these small relative effects could translate into large absolute numbers of patients at risk for lung cancer, they said. ACEIs are effective drugs used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension). Evidence suggests that ACEIs may increase the risk of lung cancer through the build-up of protein-like chemicals called bradykinin and substance P in the lung, said researchers. These ...
Regulator asks drugmakers to label Fluoroquinolone with side-effect warnings
Central drug regulator DGCI has asked all drugmakers manufacturing the 'fluoroquinolones' antibiotic to label it with a cautionary message about its side-effects of potentially causing low blood sugar and mental health related problems. The warnings need to be carried on the package as well as promotional literature of the drug and follows safety issues reported by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for this drug. In an order, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) S Eswara Reddy has directed all state drug controllers to ensure that the label of the product carries a cautionary message that "this drug may cause low blood sugar and mental health related side-effects". Besides, the package-insert and promotional literature would also need to mention a warning: "The drug may cause low blood sugar and mental health related side effects. Low blood sugar levels, also called hypoglycaemia, can lead to coma. The mental health side effects are more prominent and more consistent
Institutional deliveries in public facilities have increased from 18 to 52 pc: Patel
Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel Thursday said institutional deliveries in public facilities have increased from 18 to 52 per cent under the National Health Mission. She added that the out of pocket expenditure for childbirth in public health facilities has decreased in rural areas. Patel was speaking after inaugurating a seminar on 'Women's Health Challenges, Access and Prevention' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The minister said India has made a considerable progress in the area of women's health. "Maternal mortality Ratio (MMR) is one such indicator which reflects this progress," she said. "India's MMR in the last few years has declined at an accelerated pace to reach 130 per one lakh live births in 2014-16. This means we save more than 30 mothers every day," she said. Patel said under the National Health Mission a "continuum of care" approach is employed to ensure the best possible health outcomes for women throughout their reproductive ...
Fruit fly studies may help develop treatment for Alzheimer's
Studies on fruit flies' brain may help unlock the mysteries behind Alzheimer's disease and pave the way for new treatments for the neurodegenarative disorder, scientists say. A new Dementia Research Institute set up at Cardiff University in the UK includes a fly laboratory. The fruit fly has many genes which are similar to those in Alzheimer's disease in humans, researchers said. Dr and one of the researchers, said the flies can help us understand brain function. "Flies allow us to do imaging techniques which we aren't able to do in other model systems," Owen Peters, a lecturer at Cardiff, told BBC. "If we find a gene in the human genetic studies that looks like it's linked to Alzheimer's disease - and flies have it - it allows us to have a very rapid, inexpensive system, which we can test to see how these affect brain function," Peters said. Fruit flies are just a small part of the genetic research which is looking to understand better how a family of diseases, which also includes ...
Some BP drugs linked to increased lung cancer risk
Some drugs widely prescribed for treating high blood pressure could be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer by almost a third, claims a research.
3 kids from Morena die of dengue, 90 more cases in district
Three children hailing from Madhya Pradesh's Morena district died of dengue in the last one week and more than 90 others were suffering from the vector-borne disease, an official said Thursday. An eight-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy died while undergoing treatment at different hospitals in Delhi. Besides, a 15-year-old boy succumbed at a medical facility at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Morena district malaria officer Dr Harendra Singh told PTI. He said over 90 people tested positive for the virus in Morena since October 1. Of them, 50 were undergoing treatment at different hospitals outside the district. Family members were rushing patients to private hospitals following a decline in their blood platelets count, he said. Singh said mosquito fogging was being done in areas where dengue cases had come to light and adequate arrangements were made at government-run hospitals in the district to treat the patients. Besides, people were also being made aware of measures to ..
Taller people may be at increased cancer risk
Tall people are more likely to suffer from cancer, claims a study which found that every 4-inch increase in height above the average lead to a 10 per cent greater risk of developing the deadly disease. However, researchers said that height is only one of many factors that determine a person's cancer risk. Scientists from University of California in the US compiled from four large-scale studies in the UK, US, South Korea, Austria, Norway and Sweden. Each study chosen had to include 10,000 cancer cases for each sex, the 'BBC' reported. Of 18 cancer types analysed in both men and women, four -- pancreas, oesophagus, stomach and mouth/pharynx -- showed no apparent increase with height. According to the report, for every 4 inch increase in human height above the average used in the study of 5 feet 7 inch for men and 5 feet 3 inch for women, there is a 10 per cent greater risk of that person getting cancer. Since height can not be modified, unlike lifestyle risk factors, such as body ...
Revamp of e-auctioning of tea delayed: Tea Board official
A senior Tea Board functionary on Thursday expressed concern over the delay in revamping of the old electronic auctioning system, as its officials related to the exercise were on leave. The board had taken the initiative to revamp the existing electronic auctioning system for better price discovery, and appointed a consultant for this purpose. "Most of the officials who are supposed to interact with the consultant are frequently on leave," a top official of the Tea Board told PTI. The appointed consultant is an expert on auctioning and a professor of IIM (Bangalore), he said. The issue of delay would be shortly brought to the notice of the PMO, the official stated, adding that the consultant had already interacted with industry people. On the outlook for the tea industry, he said that prices are suppressed and remained flat since 2012. "The prices are suppressed by market dynamics, although the input costs are going up," the official said. "We need to pay the labourers a ..
Cannot share Parrikar's health update: Goa Minister
Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said he could not share any update on ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's current condition.
Norwegian crown princess has pulmonary fibrosis
Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit says she has a lung-scarring disease which may occasionally "limit the exercise of her official program." Mette-Marit said that she has "had health challenges for several years" and has been diagnosed with an early stage of pulmonary fibrosis, in which scar tissue forms in the lungs. The disease can cause serious breathing problems and there is no known cure. Norway's future queen said in late Wednesday's statement by the royal palace that she would get treatments and further tests but gave no further details. Matte-Marit, 45, made headlines in 2001 when she married Crown Prince Haakon, because she was a single mother who had lived a freewheeling life with a companion convicted of a drug offense. The couple has two children together.
Being tall can increase cancer risk: Study
Taller people could be more at risk of developing cancer, claimed a new study that examined over a million people.
Stress in middle-age can impair memory, reduce brain size
People more stressed out during middle-age are more likely to suffer memory loss and have a reduced brain size, say researchers, including one of an Indian-origin.
Adhering to healthy lifestyle may cut stroke risk
Turns out, people at high genetic risk of stroke can still reduce their chances of having a stroke by sticking to a healthy lifestyle, in particular stopping smoking and not being overweight, a new study has revealed.The study which appeared in the BMJ highlights the potential of lifestyle measures to reduce the risk of stroke across entire populations, even in those at high genetic risk of stroke.Stroke is a complex disease caused by both genetic and environmental factors, including diet and lifestyle.A team of international researchers decided to find out by investigating whether a genetic risk score for stroke is associated with actual ("incident") stroke in a large population of British adults.They developed a genetic risk score, based on 90 gene variants known to be associated with stroke from 306,473 white men and women in the UK Biobank - a database of biological information from half a million British adults.Participants were aged between 40 and 73 years and had no history of .
This is what stress does to your brain
According to a recent study, stress can impair memory and can even reduce brain size in the middle age.Adults in their 40s and 50s with higher levels of cortisol - a hormone linked to stress - performed worse on memory and other cognitive tasks than peers of the same age with average cortisol levels, the research found.Higher cortisol in the blood also was associated with smaller brain volumes, according to the study.The findings have been published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology."In our quest to understand cognitive aging, one of the factors attracting significant interest and concern is the increasing stress of modern life," said study senior author Sudha Seshadri. "One of the things we know in animals is that stress can lead to cognitive decline. In this study, higher morning cortisol levels in a large sample of people were associated with worse brain structure and cognition."Lead author Justin B. Echouffo-Tcheugui of Harvard Medical School ..
Painkillers during pregnancy linked to early puberty in girls
According to a new research consuming painkillers during pregnancy, can cause the daughters to hit their puberty early.Researchers from Aarhus University have examined the correlation between the intake of the analgesic paracetamol during pregnancy and girls and boys pubertal development. The results have been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.Breasts, pimples and menstruation, hair growth in places where there was none previously, and unpredictable mood swings. Welcome to puberty, which for the majority of girls begins when they are around ten or eleven years old, or even earlier if the mother has taken painkillers with paracetamol during pregnancy."We found a 'dose-response' correlation. That is to say, the more weeks with paracetamol during pregnancy, the earlier puberty in girls, but not in boys," said study author Andreas Ernst.The study is based on the largest collection of puberty data in the Danish birth cohort (BSIG.dk). A group of around 100,000 women ...
Stress hormone changes brain's volume, but stress is not to be only blamed: Study
There have been studies about stress causing the brain to shrink. Now, a latest study claims that the notion of brain volume decreasing owing to stress may be premature.The study, which is published in the journal Neurology, reports smaller brain volumes and worse memories in people with higher-than-average levels of cortisol, popularly called as the stress hormone. However, saying stress is going to shrink the brain is too early to rule, The Verge reported.Researchers studied the brain volumes and functionalities of 2,000 apparently healthy individuals and found cortisol to be just the 'tip of the iceberg'. There are a number of factors which are likely to be related to the release of cortisol, including high inflammation.
Goitre prevalence rate down from 34 pc to 1 pc in Nagaland
Goitre prevalence has come down from 34.3 per cent in the 1960s to 1 per cent recently in Nagaland, which falls under "areas of severest iodine deficiency", an official said. This has been possible through concerted awareness efforts, State Programme Officer, National Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Programme, Directorate of Health & Family Welfare, Nagaland, Dr. Akuo Sorhie said. Nagaland is located in the sub-Himalayan belt and falls under areas of severest iodine deficiency, she said. Iodine deficiency remains one of the most neglected and most widespread of all nutritional deficiencies in the sub-Himalayan areas, Dr Sorhie said. "Nagaland was declared as one of the Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) endemic states in India through a base line survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in early 1960s, where 34.3 per cent of goitre prevalence was recorded, she said. A recent survey indicated that the prevalence rate has come down to about 1