Brendan McCarthy ran a body modification emporium in Wolverhampton before his arrest.
‘Dr Evil’: Wolverhampton modification artist admits GBH
Reply
Category Archives: Mind Building
Fear wrong metal plates used to fix fractures
Hospitals are told to review X-rays to check if patients have received the correct treatment for broken arms and legs.
West Bromwich family’s ‘nightmare’ over £200k medical bill
Mother-of-three Maxine Howell has been in an induced coma for a fortnight after falling ill in Mexico.
The 12 Most Shocking Health Scandals of 2016
From an exponential price hike on life-saving EpiPens to a cleansing conditioner that may cause hair loss, these are the health and wellness controversies that made headlines in the past year.
4 Ways Technology Is Injuring Your Body
You probably already know that your cell phone can be a pain in the neck. (And back. And shoulder.) It’s something that both researchers and doctors alike have been noticing for the past five years or so. But fast forward to today: Are our texting/Snapchatting/selfie-taking habits getting any healthier?
Probably not, says Jocelyn Szeto, MD, a primary care sports medicine physician with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Memorial Hermann Ironman Sports Medicine Institute at Texas Medical Center. In fact, if Hoda Kotb’s “selfie elbow” is any indication of our progress, it seems like we’re finding totally new ways to injure ourselves.
It’s hard to know exactly how many people suffer from tech-related aches—“the incidence rate is still underreported,” says Dr. Szeto—but she sees plenty of people who are bothered by tight tendons and overuse injuries.
The culprit, she says, is pretty much one thing: repetition, repetition, repetition. Problem is, we not only text, type, and selfie often, we also do so without really noticing it, she says. Time to change that. Here are four tech-related injuries to be aware of, and ways to ward them off.
Selfie Elbow
Selfies are all about finding the best angle for your face, not your joints: With our arms stuck out in front of us and our elbows held at an awkward angle—sometimes for 10 to 15 seconds at a time—"it's not a very ergonomic position,” says Dr. Szeto.
The problem: Taking tons of selfies can strain one of the forearm muscles that helps stabilize your arm. And when you use that muscle too often, tiny microtears form around the part of it that connects to the elbow joint, causing inflammation. “It’s the same muscles that are affected in ‘tennis elbow,’” she says.
The fix: Scale back on the selfies, which should give your muscles a much-needed break. Alternating your camera hand can help, too. (Or you can always ask a friend to take the picture for you.)
RELATED: 6 Ways Your Mobile Devices Are Hurting Your Body
Thumb Strain
Whether you’re a stickler about cleaning out your inbox, still playing Candy Crush, or are just really active on Tinder, you can trigger an overuse injury by repetitively swiping your thumb.
The problem: Scrolling, swiping, typing—your thumb is probably doing way more work than you give it credit for. And repeatedly moving your thumb in the same manner can cause inflammation in the tendons in your thumbs. (Dr. Szeto notes that this can also occur in the tendons of a person’s forefinger, which is often used for typing on a tablet or phone.)
The fix: Taking a break every few minutes or so to rest your fingers and thumb can help prevent overuse. Try switching up your typing fingers too.
Tablet Neck
Any hand-held mobile device can cause posture problems, but it’s hard to hold a tablet in an ergonomically friendly way, says Szeto. Most people hold their tablets too low—i.e., resting on their laps or propped against their thighs.
The problem: When you look down at your tablet screen, you’re also transferring more pressure to your upper spine; when that happens, your neck muscles have to work overtime to support your head, upping the odds that you’ll strain those muscles.
The fix: If you’re watching a video clip, prop up your tablet on a table at eye level; if you’re typing, try to use the device in the same way you’d use a desktop computer (as much as possible anyway). For example, use a keyboard and place the screen on your desk at eye level. And take a break every few minutes, says Dr. Szeto.
RELATED: 15 Natural Back Pain Remedies
TV Neck
The empty space about the fireplace mantle is an aesthetically-pleasing spot for a flatscreen. But it means you’re constantly craning your neck to watch your favorite shows.
The problem: When you look up at a TV, your neck is “hyperextended”— medical speak for “bent in an awkward position.” And since that puts extra stress on your neck muscles, you could wind up with a sore neck. (More incentive to move the TV to a more ergonomically-ideal place: Americans spend almost three hours a day in front of the tube, according to statistics from the Bureau of Labor.)
The fix: You should always put the TV at eye level, says Dr. Szeto, so you're looking straight ahead. This way, your neck and spine will be in the “neutral position”—i.e., you won’t have to lift or twist it to see the screen. Think of it like this: “No one fights to sit in the front row when they go to the movies,” Dr. Szeto points out. Besides, whose family room actually looks HGTV-ready in real life?
Earth’s magnetic shield booms like a drum when hit by impulses
The Earth’s magnetic shield booms like a drum when it is hit by strong impulses, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London.
As an impulse strikes the outer boundary of the shield, known as the magnetopause, ripples travel along its surface which then get reflected back when they approach the magnetic poles.
The interference of the original and reflected waves leads to a standing wave pattern, in which specific points appear to be standing still while others vibrate back and forth. A drum resonates like this when struck in exactly the same way.
This study, published in Nature Communications, describes the first time this effect has been observed after it was theoretically proposed 45 years ago.
Movements of the magnetopause are important in controlling the flow of energy within our space environment with wide-ranging effects on space weather, which is how phenomena from space can potentially damage technology like power grids, GPS and even passenger airlines.
The discovery that the boundary moves in this way sheds light on potential global consequences that previously had not been considered.
Dr Martin Archer, space physicist at Queen Mary University of London, and lead author of the paper, said: “There had been speculation that these drum-like vibrations might not occur at all, given the lack of evidence over the 45 years since they were proposed. Another possibility was that they are just very hard to definitively detect.
“Earth’s magnetic shield is continuously buffeted with turbulence so we thought that clear evidence for the proposed booming vibrations might require a single sharp hit from an impulse. You would also need lots of satellites in just the right places during this event so that other known sounds or resonances could be ruled out. The event in the paper ticked all those quite strict boxes and at last we’ve shown the boundary’s natural response.”
The researchers used observations from five NASA THEMIS satellites when they were ideally located as a strong isolated plasma jet slammed into the magnetopause. The probes were able to detect the boundary’s oscillations and the resulting sounds within the Earth’s magnetic shield, which agreed with the theory and gave the researchers the ability to rule out all other possible explanations.
Many impulses which can impact our magnetic shield originate from the solar wind, charged particles in the form of plasma that continually blow off the Sun, or are a result of the complicated interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field, as was technically the case for this event.
The interplay of Earth’s magnetic field with the solar wind forms a magnetic shield around the planet, bounded by the magnetopause, which protects us from much of the radiation present in space.
Other planets like Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn also have similar magnetic shields and so the same drum-like vibrations may be possible elsewhere.
Further research is needed to understand how often the vibrations occur at Earth and whether they exist at other planets as well. Their consequences also need further study using satellite and ground-based observations.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Queen Mary University of London. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
The physical forces of cells in action
The detection of physical forces is one of the most complex challenges facing science. Although Newton’s apple has long solved the problem of gravity, imaging the physical forces that act in living cells remains one of the main mysteries of current biology. Considered to play a decisive role in many biological processes, the chemical tools to visualize the physical forces in action do not exist. But today, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Chemical Biology, Switzerland, have developed probes inspired by lobster cooking, they enable to enter into cells. For the first time, physical forces can be imaged live inside the cells. These results, a turning point in the study of life sciences, can be found in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Since its creation in 2010, one of the central objectives of the NCCR Chemical Biology has been to solve the problem of detecting cellular physical forces. “Our approach to creating tension probes was inspired by the color change of shrimp, crabs or lobsters during cooking,” says Stefan Matile, Professor in the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Faculty of Science of the UNIGE and member of the NCCR. In live shrimp, the physical forces of the surrounding proteins flatten and polarize the carotenoid pigment, called astaxanthin, until it turns blue. “During cooking, these proteins are unfolded and the lobster pigment can regain its natural dark orange color,” continues the Geneva chemist. Intrigued by these crustaceans, the development of fluorescent probes operating on the same principle of planarization and polarization required about eight years of research.
External force probes have proven their worth
Last year, the NCCR teams finally produced the first fluorescent probe capable of imaging the forces acting on the outer membrane, called the plasma membrane, of living cells. Requests for samples from more than 50 laboratories around the world came in immediate response to the release of these results, demonstrating the importance of this breakthrough for life sciences. To meet this demand, UNIGE’s force probes were launched under the Flipper-TR® brand at the end of last year.
What about the internal forces of the cells?
The study of forces that apply outside the cells is not limited to chemical tools for fluorescence imaging. Cellular surfaces are accessible to physical tools like micropipettes, optical clamps, cantilevers of atomic force microscopes, etc. “But these physical tools are obviously not applicable to the study of forces within cells,” says Aurélien Roux, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Science of the UNIGE and a member of the NCCR. “Organelles such as mitochondria, responsible for energy production; endoplasmic reticulum, responsible for protein synthesis; endosomes, responsible for trafficking material to and within cells; or the nucleus, which stores genetic information, are simply beyond the reach of physical tools from outside.” Until today visualization of the forces that operate and control these organelles inside the cells was still impossible, although essential to understand their function!
This fundamental challenge in the life sciences is now being met. The NCCR team, led by Stefan Matile, Aurélien Roux and Suliana Manley, professor at the EPFL Institute of Physics, also member of the NCCR, succeeded in getting their force probes into the cells and selectively marking the various organelles. They are now able to show, for example, how tension rises in the mitochondria that are beginning to divide. “For the very first time, physical forces can be imaged live inside the cells,” enthuses Aurélien Roux. This new chemistry tool finally allows scientists to achieve what they have wanted to do for a very long time. “These new probes now offer us the opportunity to tackle mechanobiology and revolutionize the study of life sciences,” concludes Stefan Matile.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Université de Genève. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Investigating cell stress for better health — and better beer
Human beings are not the only ones who suffer from stress — even microorganisms can be affected. Now, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have devised a new method to study how single biological cells react to stressful situations. Understanding these responses could help develop more effective drugs for serious diseases. As well as that, the research could even help to brew better beer.
All living organisms can experience stress during challenging situations. Cells and microorganisms have complicated systems to govern how they adapt to new conditions. They can alter their own structure by incorporating or releasing many different substances into the surroundings. Due to the complexity of these molecular processes, understanding these systems is a difficult task.
Chalmers researchers Daniel Midtvedt, Erik Olsén, Fredrik Höök and Gavin Jeffries have now made an important breakthrough, by looking at how individual yeast cells react to changes in the local environment — in this case an increased osmolarity, or concentration, of salt. They both identified and monitored the change of compounds within the yeast cells, one of which was a sugar, glycerol. Furthermore, they were able to measure the exact rate and amount of glycerol produced by different cells under various stress conditions. Their results have now been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
“Yeast and bacteria have very similar systems when it comes to response to stress, meaning the results are very interesting from a medical point of view. This could help us understand how to make life harder for undesirable bacteria which invade our body — a means to knock out their defence mechanisms,” says Daniel Midtvedt, researcher in biological physics at Chalmers, and lead writer of the scientific paper.
He has been researching the subject since 2015, and, together with his colleagues, has developed a variant of holographic microscopy to study the cells in three dimensions. The method is built upon an interference imaging approach, splitting a laser beam into two light paths. One passes through a cell sample, and one does not. The two beams are then recombined at a slight offset angle. This makes it possible to read changes in the cell’s properties through the variations in beam phase offsets.
With this method of investigating a cell, researchers can see what different microorganisms produce under stress — without needing to use different types of traditional ‘label-based’ strategies. Their non-invasive strategy allows for multiple compounds to be detected simultaneously, without damaging the cell.
The researchers now plan to use the new method in a large collaboration project, to look at the uptake of targeted biomedicines.
“Hopefully, we can contribute to improved understanding of how drugs are received and processed by human cells. It is important to be able to develop new type of drugs, with the hope that we can treat those illnesses which today are untreatable,” says Chalmers professor Fredrik Höök, who further leads the research centre Formulaex, where AstraZeneca is the leading industry partner.
As well as the benefit to medical researchers, improved knowledge of the impact of stress on yeast cells could be valuable for the food and drink industry — not least, when it comes to brewing better beer.
“Yeast is essential for both food and drink preparation, for example in baking bread and brewing beer. This knowledge of yeast cells’ physical characteristics could be invaluable. We could optimise the products exactly as we want them,” says Daniel Midtvedt.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Chalmers University of Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Essex baby’s spine ‘repaired’ in the womb
Bethan Simpson’s daughter Eloise had a “foetal repair” carried out at 24 weeks after a spina bifida diagnosis.
Health24.com | Vaping is erasing gains made against US teen smoking
E-cigarettes have obliterated past progress in reducing tobacco product use among teenagers, US health officials said Monday.
About 4.9 million middle and high school students were current users of a tobacco product in 2018, up from 3.6 million in 2017, according to results from the annual National Youth Tobacco Survey.
All told, more than 1 in 4 high school students and about 1 in 14 middle school students used a tobacco product in 2018, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Researchers chalk this increase up entirely to e-cigarettes, noting that no significant change was found in the use in any other tobacco product – including traditional tobacco cigarettes.
“The skyrocketing growth of young people’s e-cigarette use over the past year threatens to erase progress made in reducing youth tobacco use. It’s putting a new generation at risk for nicotine addiction,” CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield said in a statement.
Kids who use e-cigarettes could be more likely to progress to smoking tobacco after becoming hooked on nicotine, according to previous research cited by the CDC.
Strong evidence
The nicotine in e-cigarettes also pose other health hazards, said Dr Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director.
“Nicotine is highly addictive and can harm brain development, including harmful effects on learning, memory and attention,” Schuchat said. Nicotine also primes the brain for addiction to other substances, she added.
Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the survey results “deeply troubling.”
“These results are strong evidence that e-cigarettes are not helping to drive down youth cigarette use,” Myers said. “Indeed, if anything, the evidence to date indicates that e-cigarettes could increase the number of kids who smoke cigarettes.”
There were 1.5 million more young e-cigarette users in 2018 than 2017, and those who vaped did so more often, the CDC found.
E-cigarette use increased to nearly 21% among high schoolers and 5% among middle schoolers in 2018, up from about 12% and 3% in 2017, respectively.
The proportion of high schoolers who vaped at least 20 of the past 30 days increased to 28% in 2018 from 20% the year before, the CDC added.
Appealing flavours
The agency specifically cited the e-cigarette JUUL in its report, noting that the increase in youth vaping mirrored increased sales of JUUL.
The JUUL is shaped like a USB flash drive and is easy to conceal, the CDC noted. It uses liquid nicotine refills called “pods” that contain at least as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, and they are available in flavours that appeal to teens.
“JUUL entered the US market in 2015 and since December 2017 has held the greatest market share of any e-cigarette in the United States. We know JUUL devices are being used among kids in school, including inside bathrooms and classrooms,” said Brian King, deputy director at the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.
“JUUL also has a high nicotine content, among the highest of any e-cigarette on the US market,” King continued. “The devices also use nicotine salts, which can allow high amounts of nicotine to be inhaled more easily and with less irritation than the free-based nicotine that’s used in most other e-cigarettes.”
For the fifth year in a row, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among high schoolers. Cigarettes (8%) were next most common, followed by cigars (7%), smokeless tobacco (6%), hookah (4%), and pipe tobacco (1%).
And many kids don’t limit themselves to one type of tobacco product, the CDC found.
Among current tobacco users, about 2 in 5 (1.7 million) high school students and 1 in 3 (270 000) middle school students used two or more tobacco products in 2018. The most commonly used tobacco product combination was e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes among both middle and high school students.
The findings were published February 11 in the CDC publication Vital Signs.
Rapid action needed
The US Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on e-cigarette marketing and sales aimed at teens, but more needs to be done, said Thomas Ylioja, clinical director of health initiatives at National Jewish Health in Denver.
“Vaping products successfully evaded the regulations that reduced youth tobacco initiation over the past 20-plus years, including age restrictions on purchases accompanied by retailer fines, advertising bans, taxes to increase the price, and the restriction on use of products indoors,” Ylioja said.
“Legislators and policy-makers are responding, but we need rapid action to ban advertising to youth including through social media outlets, restrict purchases including online, raise the age of purchasing nicotine products to 21, ban vaping in places where tobacco is prohibited, and ensure that nicotine vaping products are taxed like other tobacco products,” he continued.
Image credit: iStock
NEXT ON HEALTH24X
