Page 351 - Health Medical Pharma
PM Modi announces 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan' on I-Day
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of Independence Day, announced the launch of 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan' on September 25. The scheme is the flagship project of Ayushman Bharat, the national healthcare policy launched by the Government earlier this year."Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan will be launched on September 25 this year. It is high time we ensure that the poor of India get proper access to good quality and affordable healthcare," he said from the ramparts of Red Fort.PM Modi further said that poverty is the reason why people cannot afford healthcare."The healthcare initiatives of the government will have a positive impact on the 50 crore Indians. It is important to ensure that we free the poor of India from poverty, due to which they cannot afford healthcare," he said while delivering the fifth and last Independence Day speech of his current term as the Prime Minister.Ayushman Bharat, also refered to as 'Modicare', was launched by the Government of ...
Healthy fat cells may uncouple obesity from diabetes
Turns out, studying about the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in fat metabolism might help to explore alternative ways to control obesity and type 2 diabetes that may involve the use of therapies.People with type 2 diabetes cannot effectively use insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas that helps the body turn blood sugar (glucose) into energy.According to researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, obesity is the most significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes and other metabolic conditions and affects one in three adults worldwide.The inability to use insulin, called insulin resistance, results in increased levels of blood sugar, which, if not controlled, can significantly raise the risk of major health problems such as blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation. Until recently, this type of diabetes was only seen in adults, but it is now also occurring increasingly and more frequently in children.Although obesity significantly increases ...
This mysterious enzyme can stop internal bleeding
Researchers have now uncovered a new approach for treating thrombocytopenia, a condition with a low blood platelet count.Blood platelets are like the sandbags of the body. Got a cut? Platelets pile in to clog the hole and stop the bleeding.But genetic mutations, infections and even radiation from cancer treatments can slash platelet numbers, leading to a condition called thrombocytopenia and putting people at risk for internal bleeding.Researchers at Scripps Research found an enzyme that can boost platelet production and may work as a future therapeutic.The study is the first to show that YRSACT is the key to one method of platelet production. Scientists worked with a platelet-deficient mouse model. Animals injected with YRSACT showed a dramatic increase in platelet production, especially under stressful conditions, such as radiation similar to what cancer patients face.So how does YRSACT work? The researchers found that YRSACT increases the production of large bone marrow cells ...
WHO worried Ebola can 'transmit freely' in DR Congo as death toll hits 41
Raging conflict is hampering efforts to rein in an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the WHO chief warned today, urging a ceasefire to stop the virus from transmitting freely. As the death toll in the outbreak declared on August 1 in DRC's violence-wracked North Kivu province hit 41, the World Health Organization chief also called for the rapid roll-out of an unlicenced drug being used for the first time to treat Ebola patients. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva he feared conditions on the ground in the eastern province had created "a conducive environment for the transmission of Ebola." Tedros, who travelled to the epicentres of the outbreak in Beni and Mangina in recent days, said he had been very worried before his trip, but that after the visit "I am actually more worried." The outbreak in North Kivu's Beni region, which shares borders with Uganda and Rwanda, was declared a week after WHO and the Kinshasa government hailed the end of an Ebola ...
Indian, Pakistani doctors save infant's life
A three-year-old baby Hadia Nesari from Afghanistan has been given a new lease of life by a team of Indian and Pakistani doctors here. The baby suffered from chronic liver disease.
6 people get new lease of life after organ transplantation
Six people got a new lease of life today after the organs of a brain dead 27-year-old man were harvested and transplanted on them. S Poovarasan, an assistant professor,met with an accident near Namakkal on August 12 and was declared brain-dead at the Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital the next day, a press release said. His parents then decided to donate his heart, liver, kidneys and eyes. One kidney was transplanted at the Kovai Medical Centre, the other at a private hospital here and the liver at a private hospital in Madurai, it said. The heart was transplanted at a private hospital in Chennai and both eyes at a private hospital here, the release added.
New genes that may contribute to Alzheimer's understanding identified
Researchers working on Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) have identified new genes that will further the understanding of the genetic risk factors that predispose people to the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Mixing energy drinks and alcohol has ill effects
If you like comsuming alchohol with energy drinks, beware! A key ingredient found in the energy drinks can worsen the negative effects of binge drinking, a new study reveals.Many people mix energy drinks with alcohol to neutralize the sedative nature of alcohol, tricking people into feeling more awake and less drunk than they really are.Researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil examined the effects of taurine, which is a key ingredient in many energy drinks, and alcohol on social and fear responses in zebrafish. They found out that taurine seemed to increase the fear-reducing properties of alcohol, but it also affected social communication."The effects of mixing alcohol and energy drinks is yet to be established. This study is the first to show that the two together may be exacerbating some of the negative effects of binge drinking; that is reduction of fear and problems in social communication while intoxicated, which ...
Ebola death toll in DR Congo at 41; new drug in use
Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo, health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients. Out of 57 recorded cases till yesterday, 41 were fatal, the Congolese Health Ministry and UN's World Health Organization (WHO) said. Fourteen of the deaths had been confirmed by lab tests, the ministry said. Last Friday, the ministry put the tally at 37 deaths, either confirmed or suspected. The outbreak is the country's 10th since 1976, when the disease was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near the Ebola River, a tributary of the Congo. Its epicentre is Mangina in the region of Beni, in the strife-torn eastern province of North Kivu. For the first time since the outbreak was announced on August 1, one fatality was recorded outside of North Kivu -- in the neighbouring province of Ituri, the ministry's directorate for disease control said. It added that doctors in Beni had started to use a ...
2 medical officials held for accepting bribe
Two senior medical officials were caught today for accepting Rs 80,000 as bribe, sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau said. Medical superintendent Dr R Murahari and senior assistant N Narender Goud of the District Headquarters Hospital in Sangareddy district accepted the money for doing an official favour, a press release from the bureau said. Goud received the money from the complainant under the direction of Murahari, the release said, adding that the two have been arrested.
Labour pain relieving drug may cut need for epidural: Lancet
Prescribing women a new drug called remifentanil to help manage their labour pain may halve the need for an epidural than the traditional pethidine, claims a study.
In death, Chatterjee keeps his pledge, donates body and eyes
The body of former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who passed away yesterday morning, will be used for educational purposes by medical students, a senior doctor at the SSKM hospital said today. Chatterjee's body was last evening donated to the anatomy department of the SSKM hospital here by his family members. The veteran leader passed away at the age of 89 following multiple organ failure. "The body has been embalmed to protect it from decomposition. Before that, a surgeon from the plastic surgery department retrieved Chatterjee's skin, which could benefit not just medical students, but also patients with burn injuries," Dr Asis Ghoshal, head of the anatomy department at the hospital, said. Much like his mentor and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu, Chatterjee had pledged to donate his body in early 2000 at the age of 73. Basu passed away in 2010 at the age of 95. Ghoshal said the former speaker's corneas were donated to the Priyamvada Birla Aravind Hospital. "Every .
AI can diagnose strokes, brain hemorrhage faster than humans
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence platform that can identify disease in brain CT scans in 1.2 seconds, and diagnose a range of acute neurological illnesses, such as stroke, and hemorrhage. The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows that the system was faster than human diagnosis. "With a total processing and interpretation time of 1.2 seconds, such a triage system can alert physicians to a critical finding that may otherwise remain in a queue for minutes to hours," said Eric Oermann, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the US. "We're executing on the vision to develop artificial intelligence in medicine that will solve clinical problems and improve patient care," said Oermann. This is the first study to utilise artificial intelligence for detecting a wide range of acute neurologic events and to demonstrate a direct clinical application. Researchers used 37,236 head CT scans to train a deep neural network to identify whether an image ...
Study finds reason why women get more migraines
According to a study, estrogen and other sex hormones could be responsible for the higher prevalence of migraine in women.The research suggests that sex hormones affect cells around the trigeminal nerve and connected blood vessels in the head, with estrogens -- at their highest levels in women of reproductive age -- being particularly important for sensitising these cells to migraine triggers."We can observe significant differences in our experimental migraine model between males and females and are trying to understand the molecular correlates responsible for these differences," explained Professor Antonio Ferrer-Montiel from the Universitas Miguel Hernandez, Spain. "Although this is a complex process, we believe that modulation of the trigeminovascular system by sex hormones plays an important role that has not been properly addressed."Ferrer-Montiel and his team reviewed decades of literature on sex hormones, migraine sensitivity and cells' responses to migraine triggers to ...
VR tech helps amputees feel prosthetics as part of body
Scientists have used a "breakthrough" approach, that combines virtual reality and artificial tactile sensations, to help two amputees feel as though their prosthetic hand belongs to their own body. The researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland show that the phantom limb actually grows into the prosthetic hand. The approach, described in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, is based on established research on how the brain identifies what belongs to its own body. Instead of using the sense of sight alone, they used an astute combination of two senses: sight and touch. "The brain regularly uses its senses to evaluate what belongs to the body and what is external to the body," said Giulio Rognini of EPFL. "We showed exactly how vision and touch can be combined to trick the amputee's brain into feeling what it sees, inducing embodiment of the prosthetic hand with an additional effect that the phantom limb grows into the prosthetic ...
'Simple blood test could detect rare cancer'
A simple blood test could improve early diagnosis of myeloma, a rare cancer, a study has found. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, investigated the best combination of blood tests that could be used to diagnose myeloma. Researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Exeter in the UK suggested a number of combinations of these tests sufficient to rule out the disease, and to diagnose it, saving the patient from the worry of specialist referral. Blood tests of 2,703 cases taken up to five years prior to diagnosis were analysed and compared with those of 12,157 patients without the cancer, matching cases with control patients of similar age among other relevant parameters. The researchers demonstrated that a simple combination of two blood parameters could be enough to diagnose patients. Such blood tests are routinely conducted in surgeries. "The combination of levels of haemoglobin, the oxygen carrier in the blood, and one of two ...
Chhattisgarh Governor dead
Chhattisgarh Governor Balramji Dass Tandon died here on Tuesday, Chief Minister Raman Singh said. He was 91.
VR technology helps amputees feel prosthetics as part of body
In a breakthrough approach that combined virtual reality and artificial tactile sensations, amputees felt as though their prosthetic hand was part of their own body.
Wearable electronic mesh can help monitor heart health
Scientists have developed a soft mesh that can record signals from the heart and muscles, paving the way for a new generation of flexible wearable health monitoring devices. The implantable device, provides information on muscle and cardiac dysfunctions, and thus could be implemented for pain relief, rehabilitation, and prosthetic motor control. It is the first soft implant that can record the cardiac activity in multiple points of a swine heart, according to a study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Researchers from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea used the device on human skin to record the electrical activity of heart and muscles, that is electrocardiogram (ECG) and electromyogram (EMG) respectively. Its softness, elasticity and stretchability, allows the device to follow the contours of flexible joints, such as the wrist. Worn on a forearm, it simultaneously monitored EMG signals, and delivered electrical and/or thermal stimulations that could be .
Long-term vaping may damage lung immune cells, warn researchers
With vaping becoming a style statement globally including in India, a small yet significant study has found that vaporisers may potentially disable key immune cells in the lung and boosts inflammation if used for long.