Parents should ignore the myths and get their children vaccinated, the chief medical officer says.
‘Don’t be taken in by anti-vaccine myths on social media’
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Category Archives: Mind Building
Health24.com | Decorative contact lenses a danger at Halloween (and any time)
Colourful or unusual-looking contact lenses are popular at Halloween, but they could harm your eyes, vision experts warn.
“Decorative contact lenses may seem like a fun costume accessory, but if you’re not careful, they can cause serious eye and vision problems,” said Samuel Pierce, president of the American Optometric Association (AOA).
“Many people mistakenly believe they don’t need a prescription for decorative contact lenses. It’s extremely important that anyone desiring to wear contact lenses for any reason get an eye exam from a doctor of optometry and only wear contact lenses, with or without vision correction, that have been properly fitted,” Pierce said.
Be careful where you buy novelty contact lenses
There is growing concern about sales of illegal decorative contact lenses online and at locations such as costume shops and gas stations.
A recent AOA survey found that 26% of Americans who have worn decorative contact lenses bought them without a prescription from a source other than an eye doctor.
Illegally purchased contact lenses can cause bacterial infections, allergic reactions and even permanent vision loss.
To combat this problem, the AOA is conducting its annual “31 in 31” campaign, in which it sends letters to 31 online and other sellers who have been reported to the AOA as conducting illegal contact lens sales.
“Unfortunately, far too many companies are breaking the rules… to make sales and profits,” Pierce said in an AOA news release.
“Through our ’31 in 31′ campaign, we strongly urge these companies to reverse their policies of illegally distributing contact lenses without valid prescriptions in violation of federal law,” he added. “These sales potentially put patients at risk for sight-threatening complications. It’s a matter of public safety.”
More information
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on contact lenses.
Health24.com | ‘I was pronounced dead at the scene of my accident – but I wasn’t’
How’s this for a near death experience: A car accident left 48-year-old Cesaltina da Cunha medically dead at the scene, but miraculously, she lived to tell the tale…
I had just dropped my youngest child at school in May 2009 and was on my way to work our three horses in Krugersdorp, where I live. I was driving at 112km/hour when a reckless driver jumped a stop street and smashed into my vehicle on the driver’s side. The chassis folded in two and I was trapped in the passenger seat, where the impact had shifted me.
Read more: “I felt completely normal, but my blood pressure was through the roof”
Cesaltina’s ‘death’
My only visible injury was a long jagged cut from my right cheek to my ear, but I had no heartbeat or pulse and had stopped breathing. I was pronounced dead.
At school, my daughter somehow sensed something was wrong and started to pray for me. After some time, the paramedics managed to get a pulse, stabilised me and I was taken to hospital. My pelvis was fractured in four places on the right side. I had four broken ribs, a punctured lung, which had filled with fluid and, by the time I was wheeled into theatre, my chances of survival were slim.
Read more: “The drink spiker robbed me of my last memory with my dad”
And her recovery
I lay in hospital for 35 days waiting for my broken body to mend, followed by six months of intensive rehab – one leg was shorter than the other due to the way my pelvis had fractured. It was another nine months before I could walk without crutches.
At 48 I still did ballet and martial arts, trained horses and taught personal training. When the orthopaedic surgeon told me I would never be the same again, that I would have pain for the rest of my life and swimming would be my only exercise, I thanked him. I resolved to prove him wrong on all counts.
I’ve just turned 54 and I still teach personal training, do Ballet Barre and Tae Bo and I can still sail a catamaran in high-speed winds. The permanent scar across my cheek reminds me of that almost-fateful day. Pain is my daily validation that I’m stronger than what happened to me. It’s a miracle that I survived and I know I was given a second chance to be the person I was meant to be, to be there for my children and to live my best life.
Read more: “These 7 simple yoga stretches got me walking again after a stroke”
Tips from arrive alive
1. Get enough rest. Being sleepy behind the wheel is just as dangerous as driving drunk.
2. Time your drive. Accidents occur most frequently at closing time for bars and clubs.
3. Wear. Your. Seatbelt. A mere 40% of South Africans buckle up, yet research shows it reduces your chance of death or serious injury in a car crash by 75%.
4. Be seen. Drive with your lights on, even in daylight.
5. Save this ER number to your phone: 084 124.
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthsa.co.za
Image credit: iStock
Spinal implant helps three paralysed men walk again
The electrical device can also help damaged nerves regrow, offering hope of independent movement.
Appendix identified as a potential starting point for Parkinson’s disease
Removing the appendix early in life reduces the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by 19 to 25 percent, according to the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, published today in Science Translational Medicine.
The findings also solidify the role of the gut and immune system in the genesis of the disease, and reveal that the appendix acts as a major reservoir for abnormally folded alpha-synuclein proteins, which are closely linked to Parkinson’s onset and progression.
“Our results point to the appendix as a site of origin for Parkinson’s and provide a path forward for devising new treatment strategies that leverage the gastrointestinal tract’s role in the development of the disease,” said Viviane Labrie, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) and senior author of the study. “Despite having a reputation as largely unnecessary, the appendix actually plays a major part in our immune systems, in regulating the makeup of our gut bacteria and now, as shown by our work, in Parkinson’s disease.”
The reduced risk for Parkinson’s was only apparent when the appendix and the alpha-synuclein contained within it were removed early in life, years before the onset of Parkinson’s, suggesting that the appendix may be involved in disease initiation. Removal of the appendix after the disease process starts, however, had no effect on disease progression.
In a general population, people who had an appendectomy were 19 percent less likely to develop Parkinson’s. This effect was magnified in people who live in rural areas, with appendectomies resulting in a 25 percent reduction in disease risk. Parkinson’s often is more prevalent in rural populations, a trend that has been associated with increased exposure to pesticides.
The study also demonstrated that appendectomy can delay disease progression in people who go on to develop Parkinson’s, pushing back diagnosis by an average of 3.6 years. Because there are no definitive tests for Parkinson’s, people often are diagnosed after motor symptoms such as tremor or rigidity arise. By then, the disease typically is quite advanced, with significant damage to the area of the brain that regulates voluntary movement.
Conversely, appendectomies had no apparent benefit in people whose disease was linked to genetic mutations passed down through their families, a group that comprises fewer than 10 percent of cases.
“Our findings today add a new layer to our understanding of this incredibly complex disease,” said Bryan Killinger, Ph.D., the study’s first author and a postdoctoral fellow in Labrie’s laboratory. “We have shown that the appendix is a hub for the accumulation of clumped forms of alpha-synuclein proteins, which are implicated in Parkinson’s disease. This knowledge will be invaluable as we explore new prevention and treatment strategies.”
Labrie and her team also found clumps of alpha-synuclein in the appendixes of healthy people of all ages as well as people with Parkinson’s, raising new questions about the mechanisms that give rise to the disease and propel its progression. Clumped alpha-synuclein is considered to be a key hallmark of Parkinson’s; previously, it was thought to only be present in people with the disease.
“We were surprised that pathogenic forms of alpha-synuclein were so pervasive in the appendixes of people both with and without Parkinson’s. It appears that these aggregates — although toxic when in the brain — are quite normal when in the appendix. This clearly suggests their presence alone cannot be the cause of the disease,” Labrie said. “Parkinson’s is relatively rare — less than 1 percent of the population — so there has to be some other mechanism or confluence of events that allows the appendix to affect Parkinson’s risk. That’s what we plan to look at next; which factor or factors tip the scale in favor of Parkinson’s?”
Data for the study were gleaned from an in-depth characterization and visualization of alpha-synuclein forms in the appendix, which bore a remarkable resemblance to those found in the Parkinson’s disease brain, as well as analyses of two large health-record databases. The first dataset was garnered from the Swedish National Patient Registry, a one-of-a-kind database that contains de-identified medical diagnoses and surgical histories for the Swedish population beginning in 1964, and Statistics Sweden, a Swedish governmental agency responsible for official national statistics. The team at VARI collaborated with researchers at Lund University, Sweden, to comb through records for 1,698,000 people followed up to 52 years, a total of nearly 92 million person-years. The second dataset was from the Parkinson’s Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI), which includes details about patient diagnosis, age of onset, demographics and genetic information.
In all, this study involved scientists from Van Andel Research Institute, Northwestern University, Lund University and Michigan State University. In addition to Labrie and Killinger, authors include Zachary Madaj, M.S., Alec J. Haas, Yamini Vepa, Patrik Brundin, M.D., Ph.D., and Lena Brundin, M.D., Ph.D., of VARI; Jacek W. Sikora, Ph.D., and Paul M. Thomas, Ph.D., of the Proteomics Center of Excellence at Northwestern University; Nolwen Rey, Ph.D., of Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience; Daniel Lindqvist, M.D., Ph.D., of Lund University; and Honglei Chen, M.D., Ph.D., of Michigan State University.
Controlling future summer weather extremes still within our grasp
Continued burning of fossil fuels is likely to fuel even more extreme summers than that of 2018 because of its impact on the jet stream. The rapid disappearance of aerosols produced by pollution may, however, mitigate the impact until mid-century if countries like China phase out these fuels, according to an international team of climate scientists using climate models to predict changes in the occurrence of so-called Quasi-Resonant Amplification (QRA) events associated with persistent weather extremes.
These extreme paths for the jet stream bring about flooding, drought and wildfires. In 2018, summer weather included flooding in Japan, record heat waves in North America, Europe and Asia, wildfires in Greece and even parts of the Arctic. Heat and drought in California led to the worst wildfire season ever recorded.
The jet stream and extreme weather events
QRA events produce extreme summer weather when the jet stream exhibits broad north-south meanders and becomes stationary with the peaks and troughs locked in place.
“Most stationary jet stream disturbances will dissipate over time,” said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director, Earth System Science Center. “However, under certain circumstances the wave disturbance is effectively constrained by an atmospheric wave guide, something similar to the way a coaxial cable guides a television signal. Disturbances then cannot easily dissipate and very large amplitude swings in the jet stream north and south can remain in place as it rounds the globe.”
“If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, and lasting rains can lead to flooding,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany.
In summer 2018, climate change impacts on extreme weather were no longer subtle, according to Mann.
“It played out in real time on our television screens and newspaper headlines in the form of an unprecedented hemisphere-wide pattern of extreme floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires,” Mann added.
Quasi-Resonant Amplification’s role
Mann notes that the phenomenon of QRA played an important role in producing that hemispheric array of unprecedented weather events.
Previous work by Mann and colleagues showed a connection between extreme climate events and climate-induced changes in the jet stream. While researchers cannot accurately identify QRA events in climate models, one thing the climate models capture very well is temperature change.
“QRA events have been shown to have a well-defined signature in terms of the latitudinal variation in temperature in the lower atmosphere,” explained Mann. “The change in temperature with latitude and how it responds to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations depends on physics that are well understood and well represented by the climate models.”
The researchers found that the pattern of amplified Arctic warming — Arctic Amplification — that slows down the jet stream also increases the frequency of QRA episodes.
Study co-author Dim Coumou, who is both at PIK and VU Amsterdam said we do not trust climate models enough yet to predict these types of extreme weather episodes because the models are too coarse.
“However, the models do faithfully produce large scale patterns of temperature change,” added co-author Kai Kornhuber of PIK.
The researchers report today (Oct. 31.) in Science Advances that the amplified Arctic warming, called Arctic Amplification, associated with human-caused climate change both slows down the jet stream and increases the frequency of QRA episodes.
They found that climate models, when used to project future changes in extreme weather behavior — because they are unable to capture the phenomenon of QRA — are likely underestimating how future climate change could lead to more persistent summer weather extremes like those during summer 2018. If carbon dioxide continues to be added to the atmosphere, the incidence of QRA and associated extreme weather events would continue to increase at the same rate they have over the past decades.
Aerosol’s effect on regulating temperatures
However, greenhouse gases are not the only consideration when looking at the future of Earth’s climate. Although the U.S. and Europe have switched to “cleaner” coal-burning methods, which remove aerosol-generating pollutants from emissions, many other areas of the world have not. Aerosols are particles suspended in the air.
If these countries, through midcentury, switch to cleaner coal-burning technology, then the mid-latitude areas of the world will warm and Arctic Amplification will diminish. This will occur because aerosols, especially in the mid-latitudes where there is abundant sun, cool Earth by reflecting heat away from the planet. Without those aerosols, that area of Earth will warm, mitigating any further increase in QRAs as the difference in warming between the Arctic and mid latitudes diminishes.
However, by mid-century, once the aerosols are no longer produced, greenhouse warming once more dominates climate. Curtailing the burning of fossil fuels can prevent an increase in persistent summer weather extremes, though the current rate of occurrence of summers like 2018 will likely persist. “The future is still very much in our hands when it comes to dangerous and damaging summer weather extremes.” Said Mann. “It’s simply a matter of our willpower to transition quickly from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
Also working on this project are Sonya K. Miller, programmer analyst, Penn State; Byron A. Steinman, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences and at Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota: Duluth; and Kai Kornhuber and Stefan Petri, Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, partially funded this project.
Astronomers discover the giant that shaped the early days of our Milky Way
Some ten billion years ago, the Milky Way merged with a large galaxy. The stars from this partner, named Gaia-Enceladus, make up most of the Milky Way’s halo and also shaped its thick disk, giving it its inflated form. A description of this mega-merger, discovered by an international team led by University of Groningen astronomer Amina Helmi, is now published in the scientific journal Nature.
Large galaxies like our Milky Way are the result of mergers of smaller galaxies. An outstanding question is whether a galaxy like the Milky Way is the product of many small mergers or of a few large ones. The University of Groningen’s Professor of Astronomy, Amina Helmi, has spent most of her career looking for ‘fossils’ in our Milky Way which might offer some hints as to its evolution. She uses the chemical composition, the position and the trajectory of stars in the halo to deduce their history and thereby to identify the mergers which created the early Milky Way.
Gaia’s second data release
The recent second data release from the Gaia satellite mission last April provided Professor Helmi with data on around 1.7 billion stars. Helmi has been involved in the development of the Gaia mission for some twenty years and was part of the data validation team on the second data release. She has now used the data to look for traces of mergers in the halo: “We expected stars from fused satellites in the halo. What we didn’t expect to find was that most halo stars actually have a shared origin in one very large merger.”
Thick disk
This is indeed what she found. The chemical signature of many halo stars was clearly different from the ‘native’ Milky Way stars. “And they are a fairly homogenous group, which indicates they share a common origin.” By plotting both trajectory and chemical signature, the ‘invaders’ stood out clearly. Helmi: “The youngest stars from Gaia-Enceladus are actually younger than the native Milky Way stars in what is now the thick disk region. This means that the progenitor of this thick disk was already present when the fusion happened, and Gaia-Enceladus, because of its large size, shook it and puffed it up.”
In a previous paper, Helmi had already described a huge ‘blob’ of stars sharing a common origin. Now, she shows that stars from this blob in the halo are the debris from the merging of the Milky Way with a galaxy which was slightly more massive than the Small Magellanic Cloud, some ten billion years ago. The galaxy is called Gaia-Enceladus, after the Giant Enceladus who in Greek mythology was born of Gaia (the Earth goddess) and Uranus (the Sky god).
The data on kinematics, chemistry, age and spatial distribution from the native Milky Way stars and the remnants of Gaia-Enceladus reminded Helmi of simulations performed by a former PhD student, some ten years ago. His simulations of the merging of a large disc-shaped galaxy with the young Milky Way produced a distribution of stars from both objects, which is totally in line with the Gaia data. “It was amazing to look at the new Gaia data and realize that I had seen it before!,” says the astronomer.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Groningen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Parkinson’s disease ‘may’ start in gut
The brain disease may actually start in the depths of the digestive system, US scientists say.
Pharma company charged over baby feed ‘contamination’
ITH Pharma is a manufacturer of nutrition given to babies in neonatal intensive care units.
Health24.com | Is marijuana addictive? Study shows withdrawal symptoms can occur
The wave of marijuana legalisation that’s swept across the United States in recent years has been fueled in part by the popular belief that pot is essentially harmless.
But a new study shows that some heavy users will experience withdrawal symptoms while coming down from their high.
About 1 in 10 frequent cannabis users reports symptoms like anxiety, hostility, insomnia and depression after the intoxicating effects of weed start to wear off, said senior researcher Deborah Hasin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
These folks might be using pot to help treat their anxiety or depression, unaware that they’re putting the cart before the horse, Hasin said. “There’s a lot of overlap between the symptoms of cannabis withdrawal and the symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders,” Hasin said. “People may actually mistakenly feel that cannabis is helping a depression or an anxiety disorder, when what’s happening in reality is they’re perpetuating a withdrawal syndrome. Using cannabis makes the symptoms go away, but it’s not a good solution to it.”
Advocates of marijuana legalization acknowledge that pot can cause withdrawal symptoms, but point out that its addictive potential is far less than other products that have been legally available to consumers for decades.
“The fact that these withdrawal symptoms are relatively mild and short-lived is one of the reasons why cannabis possesses a far lower dependence liability than most other controlled substances, including alcohol and tobacco,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, a group advocating for reform of marijuana laws.
“For instance, the profound physical withdrawal effects associated with tobacco are so severe that many subjects who strongly desire to quit end up reinitiating their use,” Armentano explained.
“In the case of alcohol, the abrupt ceasing of use in heavy users can be so severe that it can lead to death. Simply withdrawing from caffeine can lead to a number of adverse side effects, like rebound headaches,” he said.
Is pot harmless?
At this point, 30 states have laws that legalize marijuana in some form. Nine states and Washington, D.C., have made pot legal for recreational use, while the rest allow for use of medical marijuana.
To test the notion that pot is harmless, Hasin and her colleagues analyzed data gathered by a 2012-2013 federal survey on health problems caused by alcohol and other substance use. During the survey, federal researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with more than 36,000 participants across the United States.
The new study focused specifically on responses from more than 1,500 survey participants who reported using pot three or more times a week during the previous year, Hasin said. They were considered frequent or heavy marijuana users.
About 12 percent of heavy pot users reported symptoms that align with those of cannabis withdrawal syndrome, a condition outlined in DSM-5, a diagnostic manual produced by the American Psychiatric Association.
These included nervousness or anxiety (76 percent), hostility (72 percent), sleep difficulty (68 percent) and depressed mood (59 percent), researchers reported.
Physical symptoms were reported less frequently, but heavy users were more likely to experience headaches, shakiness or tremors, and sweating, the study found.
People with a history of mood or personality disorders had a greater risk for experiencing withdrawal symptoms, Hasin said.
Are teens twice as likely to become addicted?
Frequency of use within a week was not significantly associated with withdrawal symptoms, but the number of joints smoked per day did make a difference, researchers found.
Smoking six or more joints per day was associated with cannabis withdrawal syndrome, while smoking five or fewer joints per day was not.
“If people are using cannabis frequently and they’re experiencing these symptoms, they should really consider cutting down on their use, at least to see what happens,” Hasin said.
“While many people can use cannabis without harm, there are some people who have adverse consequences from using it,” she continued. “If they’re frequent users and they’re experiencing some of these symptoms, they should consider the possibility that cannabis may be causing rather than helping them with those symptoms.”
Emily Feinstein, executive vice president for the Center on Addiction, praised the study for shedding new light on the relative safety of marijuana use.
“Misinformation and misunderstanding about marijuana is rampant,” Feinstein said. “Marijuana is addictive, and people who are dependent on the drug exhibit the same symptoms as those with other addictions, including cravings and withdrawal.” She was not involved with the study.
“When teens and young adults use marijuana, they are nearly twice as likely to become addicted as adults. In the debate about legalizing recreational marijuana, we can’t lose sight of that,” Feinstein continued. “We need to take the public health risks associated with expanded use of the drug seriously.”
The new study was published recently in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
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