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Dr. Marie Gabrielle Laguna

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Flu Vaccination Can Lower Risk for Dementia

Aug 19, 2016

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Flu Vaccination and Dementia

The risk for dementia was lowered by half in heart failure patients who were vaccinated for flu greater than three times.

Influenza vaccination is associated with a lower risk of dementia in patients with heart failure, in line with a new study involving more than 20,000 patients.

Influenza vaccination is associated with a lower risk for dementia in sufferers with coronary heart failure, as shown by a study involving 20,000 sufferers presented at the Third World Congress on Acute Heart Failure. The findings of the study were presented by Dr Ju-Chi Liu, director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Taipei Medical University — Shuang Ho Hospital, in New Taipei City, Taiwan. According to him Previous studies have shown that there is link between impairment in cognitive function and heart failure. Some reports have also suggested that inflammation after getting the flu might contribute to dementia. However, there are no solid data to demonstrate that influenza vaccination could decrease the relative risk of dementia in patients with heart failure.�

The Benefits of Flu Vaccination

The present study investigated whether or not coronary heart failure sufferers who had acquired the flu vaccine had a decreased risk of dementia. The study involved all sufferers over 60 years of age who visited healthcare amenities in Taiwan with a diagnosis of coronary heart failure for the duration of 2000 to 2012. Individuals who had dementia prior to being identified with heart failure have been excluded from the study. Sufferers were recruited from the National Health Insurance Research Dataset, which holds information on 98% of Taiwan residents.

The study monitored 20, 509 patients with heart failure. Of these, 10,797 acquired as a minimum one vaccination against influenza and the other 9712 were not vaccinated during the 12 year follow-up period.

After adjusting for reasons that would have an effect on the association, the investigators have found out that heart failure sufferers who had received the flu vaccine have been 35% much less likely to have dementia than those who had not been vaccinated. Folks that had been vaccinated more than 3 times had a 55% lower dementia hazard. According to Dr. Liu, We think that the flu virus can activate the immune response and cause inflammation which may injure the brain cells. Respiratory infection during flu can induce changes in blood pressure and heart rate, referred to as an unstable haemodynamic status, which may also harm the brain tissue.�

He further added, These effects of the flu could play a role in the development of dementia, particularly in heart failure patients who already have impaired circulation in the brain. Vaccination reduces the chance of getting the flu, which means that the associated immune activation, inflammation and unstable haemodynamic status do not occur. This could explain the reduced risk of developing dementia. The more vaccinations patients received, the less chance they had of getting the flu, which might be why they had an even lower risk of dementia.�

Once they examined the association by age, the researchers found that vaccinated heart failure sufferers had a 44% lower risk of dementia if they have been over 70 years and a 26% decrease in risk if they are between 60 and 69 years old. Vaccinated male coronary heart failure patients had a 40% lower of dementia while vaccinated female coronary heart failure sufferers had a 31% lower risk for dementia.

Dr. Liu remarked, Our findings indicate that influenza vaccination plays an important role in patients with heart failure,” continued Dr Liu. “The flu shot not only decreases the risk of respiratory infection and death from pneumonia, but may also decrease the risk of dementia in future.�

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Telehealth Improves Autism Health

Aug 18, 2016

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Telehealth in Autism

Parents struggling to search out and manage to pay for remedies for children with autism could be able to furnish that remedy themselves with the help of telehealth coaching, a new report suggests.

Studies led by Michigan State University’s Brooke Ingersoll shows that telehealth coaching for parents of children with autism can reinforce the kid’s social conversation and the parents' competence.

Findings from a federally funded primary study of telehealth coaching at Michigan State University show that the web program efficiently helped parents of youngsters with autism to support their child’s social conversations using research-centered intervention techniques. The results are published online in the journal Autism and in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

The Benefits of Telehealth on Autism

Additional study is under review now at MSU, however the findings offer hope that telehealth or the supply of health services and information through the web and associated technologies can fill a huge need. The incidence of autism has accelerated dramatically over the last two years without a corresponding progress in the availability of intervention services for parents.

According to Brooke Ingersoll, lead investigator on the study, We now have good preliminary evidence that telehealth can increase access to parent training interventions for families of young children with autism spectrum disorder. The ultimate goal is to use these types of methods to assist parents who live in rural and medically underserved areas, underrepresented groups, and even countries that don’t have the infrastructure for more intensive service delivery.�

The lead author of the study has spent greater than 15 years in researching options for households of kids with autism, a developmental disease that impacts an estimated 1 in 68 children and has monetary costs of greater than $250 billion per year in the U.S. annually. The pilot study was funded via the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs which has considered autism as one of its priorities.

The study monitored 28 parents of children with autism. All parents accomplished one 75-minute self-directed on-line lesson per week, for 12 weeks, and practiced the intervention approaches with their child. One half of the parents additionally got two 30-minute coaching classes per week (all-in all 24) from a therapist through video conferencing.

The results point out that telehealth training benefited parents and kids in both teams. The parents saw growth in their youngster’s social communication skills and their possessed competence regardless of which team they were in, although parents who acquired therapist assistance made larger beneficial properties in their capacity to make use of the intervention strategies. The author noted that therapist help would come at a greater rate and be available during particular occasions of day.

With her current study, Ingersoll is attempting to fully grasp which degree of training intensity could also be pleasant for exceptional families with the intention to advance a stepped-care model. That project is funded via the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, which is a part of the U.S. Division of Health and Human Services.

According to the author, The general idea of stepped-care is that you can have low-intensity, low-cost service available to all families in the form of self-directed parent training, and then parents who need more support in learning the intervention techniques can be provided with coaching via videoconferencing. The key is to identify which families will need more support in order to benefit from telehealth training.�

In the primary study, the parents in both groups also noticed upgrades in their stress phases, a main finding, Ingersoll noted, as parents of youngsters with autism most often have greater stress than other parents. She further added, Parents of children with autism can be highly stressed and oftentimes it’s because they don’t know how to communicate with their child. Many parents feel at a loss. So by giving them the skills to help communicate and engage with their child, it improves their sense of competence and decreases their stress.�

Eventually, telehealth has accelerated care for persons with long term diseases and extended access to health knowledge in other fields. The advantage is there for autism as well.

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Facebook, Smartphones Are Now Valuable in Healthcare

Aug 17, 2016

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Facebook, Smartphones in Healthcare

Telemedicine, which makes it possible for medical professionals to communicate, diagnose and even treat their patients remotely is now very possible thanks to advances in information technology. It makes it possible for healthcare employees to securely connect to patients in inaccessible places of the world and leads to offering better timed responses for patients in lots of situations. New studies suggest that the famous social networking site, Facebook, and smart phone use could make telemedicine even more fashioned and valuable in healthcare.

Agostino Giorgio of the Politecnico di Bari, Italy, has pointed out that, for many patients, telemedicine can lead to fewer clinic visits, however it additionally provides central services that may otherwise be unavailable. Hearts monitoring remotely done and different diagnostic instruments are getting quite common. Now, Giorgio has developed smartphone software, a utility or “app,” that connects patients and doctors via the social networking web site Facebook, although it would be tailored to work with an additional networking method.

Care-App in Healthcare

The Care-App makes it possible for confidential and secure verbal exchange between the health practitioners and patient as well as supplying a remedy diary for the sufferer; it also includes the rescue name and hospital search and booking utility. Video connectivity makes the visit private but additionally makes it possible for a sufferer to show the healthcare professional some signs or issues.

There is also the option to make use of a “tele-stethoscope” device that connects to the smartphone headphone jack and can be provided to the sufferer or their carer. Giorgio and colleagues within the Cardiology department have already confirmed and validated a tele-stethoscope with this app. Other gadgets similar to blood-oxygen saturation and pulse monitors, electrocardiogram and thermometer might also be used together with the smartphone or in some circumstances simply via the video connection or a verbal or textual reporting of temperature.

According to Giorgio, The patient also may use the Facebook share button or private message button, to send the doctor any other kind of information he may acquire and store with its own smart phone, concerning its own health status. Care-app manages all these steps, apps and operations, performed by the doctor and by the patient during the remote medical visit.�

Care-app is written in HTML5/Java, and so should work on any running process with all devices such as smartphones, tablets, notebooks and other computer systems.

Giorgio further added, The app offers patients frequent and easy check-up in the privacy of the home and by avoiding expensive hospitalization.� This could permit a significant saving of the healthcare expenses and an improvement of the quality of chronic patient’s life.�

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Spread of Zika Virus Can Now Be Predicted By A Tool

Aug 16, 2016

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Zika Virus Transmission Tool

A new tool developed by Japan researchers predicts the threat of Zika virus importation and local transmission for 189 countries.

The risk is presented as the percentage of watching regional transmission by 2016 and is coloured by intensity as 0-15, 15-30, 30-45 and 45-60 percentage, respectively. Brazil and other international locations that have already had case importation prior to importation event in Brazil are colored with grey.

Countries which might be well related to or from Brazil have been at certainly high risk of importation, consistent with the analysis of a group of researchers from the University of Tokyo, Hokkaido University, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

However, subtropical and tropical nations with a historical past of dengue and different mosquito-borne ailments have the greatest hazard of the virus spreading as soon as it arrives within the nation. These means many international locations in South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, face the best possible danger of contamination and must take measures to prevent mosquito bites, due to research lately published. France, southern parts of China and the United Arab Emirates may additionally fall into this category having experienced prior outbreaks.

Zika Prediction

According to Hiroshi Nishiura, a professor of hygiene at Hokkaido University, We have shown that the predicted risk of local transmission was frequently seen in tropical and subtropical countries with dengue or chikungunya epidemic experience, while the risk of importation was more scattered around the world�.

The Zika virus was initially found in Uganda in 1947, and then detected in 39 international locations all over the world, including the USA, India and Japan. In early 2015, a Zika virus outbreak in Brazil was soon followed by many microcephaly circumstances, wherein toddlers are born with abnormally small heads. The link between the two isn’t definitively understood, but is strongly suspected. Since the Brazil outbreak, Zika virus has been detected in yet other 39 nations, together with in Europe, the U.K., South America and Asia.

Many researchers are working to expect the virus’s spread, principally for the reason that it can be carried through lightly infected tourists after which it is passed onto others through mosquitos.

Professor Nishiura and his colleagues anticipated the virus’ possibility of importation and regional transmission by the end of 2016 by making use of a survival analysis model, information on airline transportation networks, and transmission information for dengue and chikungunya viruses, which might be additionally transmitted by equal mosquito species. They collected Zika information up to January 31, 2016, and so they noticed that new cases have been demonstrated in more nations shortly thereafter.

The authors advocate that a finer scale evaluation be executed to more accurately predict the spread inside areas. For instance, units must include ecological knowledge about mosquitoes. According to Professor Nishiura, Despite a clear need to improve predictions in the future, the present study successfully devised a simple global risk prediction of importation and local transmission. Countries at low risk may focus on prevention among pregnant women who must travel to epidemic areas.�

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Toxic Substance Acrolein Can Prevent Neurodegenerative Disease

Aug 15, 2016

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Acrolein and Neurodegenerative Disease

Scientists have found out that acrolein — a toxic substance produced in cells during occasions of oxidative stress — in fact may play a role in stopping the process of fibrillation, an irregular clumping of peptides that has been related to Alzheimer’s disorder and other neural diseases. The important thing to this new role is a chemical process often called 4+4 cycloaddition.

Scientists from RIKEN in Japan have found out that acrolein, a poisonous substance produced in cells during occasions of oxidative stress may play a role in preventing the process of fibrillation, an abnormal clumping of peptides that has been related to Alzheimer’s sickness and other neural ailments. The key to this new function is a chemical process known as 4+4 cycloaddition, where two molecules with “backbones” made up of four-atom chains come collectively to form a ring-like constitution with eight atoms. The group located that in some occasions, acrolein can mix with a category of molecules called polyamines, which themselves are most important biological substances, to make components that can prevent the fibrillation of A?40 peptides.

Acrolein and Polyamines

The results of this study are published in the June issue of Advances Science. The lead author, Ayumi Tsutsui, said, What is remarkable is that the reaction involves acrolein and a class of substances known as polyamines, which are all associated with oxidative stress. Polyamines are known to play very important biological roles, but the mechanisms are still poorly understood.

Another researcher, Tamotsu Zako of Ehime University, remarked It made sense to see acrolein simply as a dangerous substance that triggers disease, and many researchers saw it that way. But in our previous work we had discovered that acrolein could bind with polyamines such as spermine and spermidine to form eight-atom cyclic molecules, and we wondered what biological role these rings might play.�

As the group commenced on the experiments, they have been surprised to see that these molecules made out of a blend of acrolein and the polyamines looked as if they would prevent amyloid-beta from aggregating collectively, a process linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, where neurons are gradually killed by using the buildup of those amyloid peptides.

The crew demonstrated the speculation through incubating A-beta40 peptides in combinations of acrolein, a polyamine often called spermine, and a cyclic compound formed by acrolein and polyamines. Neither of the primary two molecules on their own had any effect on fibrillation, but the cyclic compounds became robust inhibitors. The researchers also learned that once acrolein and polyamines had been introduced together right into a living cell, they mixed naturally by 4+4 cycloaddition to create the diazacylooctane molecule.

According to the leader of the team Katsunori Tanaka, This is important for several reasons. First, it gives us insights into the mechanism through which polyamines–which we know to be tremendously important biologically–exert their action. And secondly, because acrolein and polyamines combine naturally in cells to form these powerful anti-fibrillation substances, it may open the way for us to influence the progression of terrible neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s.�

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

The Benefits of Beer on the Brain

Aug 14, 2016

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Can Beer Have Health Benefits?

Even as most humans will agree that too much consumption of alcohol can have a hazardous outcome on the mind, there is much less debate related to the results of light or reasonable drinking. This entails drawback and controversy surrounding the effects of drinking on the progress of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. This study investigated the association between consumption of different alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, and spirits and one of the vital neuropathological indicators of Alzheimer's disorder, beta-amyloid organization in the brain.

Beer Drinking and the Brain

Researchers examined data gathered from 125 men collaborating in the Helsinki unexpected dying autopsy series, who on the time of death had been 35 to 70 years old. Consumption of alcohol, A? aggregation within the brain, and apolipoprotein E genotype had been assessed. Surviving family memebers and children answered a questionnaire used to acquire the alcohol consumption history of the deceased, and A? was discovered by immunohistochemical staining of brain sections.

Findings recommend that beer consumption may lead to the protection of A? aggregation within the brain. The quantity of alcohol consumed is not often linked with A? aggregation, and neither was spirit or wine consumption. Since the progress of dementia occurs over a couple of years and even for a long time, the authors call for further studies to identify early and lifestyle motives that may stimulate or protect towards A? aggregation.

However, too much of a thing is not good. We are all aware of the fact that too much alcohol intake can lead to many diseases such as liver problems, stroke, heart disease, diabetes and atherosclerosis. Alcoholism can also bring about weakened immune resistance.

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Estrogen Levels May Drop More Quickly in Women with Migraine

Aug 13, 2016

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Estrogen and Migraine

Researchers have known for a long time that hormones reminiscent of estrogen play a position in migraine. However there may have been little study on how that works. Do females with migraine have greater estrogen levels generally or do they have greater levels at the height of their monthly cycle?

Research released in the June 1, 2016 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, indicates that, for ladies with a historical past of migraine, estrogen levels could drop more rapidly within the days earlier than menstruation than they do for females who don’t have migraine in the past. For different hormone patterns, there have been no variations between females with migraine and females who didn’t have migraine.

The study additionally showed that the women with a migraine past had faster estrogen decline in spite of whether or not they had a migraine during that cycle. According to the study author, These results suggest that a ‘two-hit’ process may link estrogen withdrawal to menstrual migraine. More rapid estrogen decline may make women vulnerable to common triggers for migraine attacks such as stress, lack of sleep, foods and wine.�

Hormonal Changes and Migraine

In this study, researchers reviewed migraine history, every day headache diaries and hormone data for 114 women with a history of migraine and 223 ladies without a history of migraine. The average age of the women is 47 years. The investigators measured hormone phases from everyday urine samples for month-to-month cycles; the individuals’ peak hormone levels, ordinary everyday phases and day-to-day rates of decline were calculated over the five days following each hormone peak of their cycles.

In the two days after the greatest estrogen level in the luteal segment of the cycle, which is the time after ovulation and earlier than menstruation, the estrogen levels in the females with migraine dropped by 40 percent compared to 30 percent for women without migraine. The cost dropped 34 picrograms per milligram of creatinine (pg/mgCr) in females with migraine, compared to 23 pg/mgCr in females without migraine.

The study author further noted, Future studies should focus on the relationship between headaches and daily hormone changes and explore the possible underpinnings of these results�

Limitations of this study include more Chinese and Japanese women in the group without migraine and more white and black ladies within the migraine group. The level of sex hormones may fluctuate consistently with racial and ethnic variations.

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Drinking Soda Can Worsen Dehydration

Aug 12, 2016

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New Study Shows The Dangers of Drinking Soda

Repeated dehydration from a hot climate has been related to greater risks of long-term kidney injury in mice. New research in rats reports that ingesting soda has worsened dehydration and kidney harm.

Repeated heat-associated dehydration has been associated with elevated hazards of chronic kidney damage in mice. The results of this study were released in the American Journal of Physiology Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The results say that ingesting soft drinks to rehydrate can lead to worsened dehydration and kidney harm.

Soda and Dehydration

For 4 weeks, study rats were exposed to mild dehydration with heat after which they were made to drink water, water containing fructose and glucose content of a usual sift drink, or water with stevia. Fructose and glucose, two sugars that naturally occur in food, are introduced to soft drinks for sweetness. Stevia is a sugar alternative derived from a plant and has no caloric content.

Rats that drank the fructose-glucose water after repeated dehydration from heat were more dehydrated and had worse kidney injury than rats that drank simple water or water with stevia. According to the authors, Our studies raise serious concerns for the common practice, especially among adolescents and young adults, to drink soft drinks as a means to quench thirst following an episode of dehydration�

Participants of the study staff are inventors on patent purposes for drugs to preclude kidney damage by way of blocking off fructose metabolism and have funding from Amway and Danone.

The article “Rehydration with soft drink-like beverages exacerbates dehydration and worsens dehydration-related renal injury” is released within the American Journal of Physiology — Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

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Salicylic Acid Can Fight Off Cancers

Aug 11, 2016

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Can Salicylic Acid Treat Cancer?

Scientists have identified a brand new pathway through which salicylic acid, which is a key compound in the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs aspirin and diflunisal, stops infection and tumor development in cancer. Salicylic acid and diflunisal can both suppress two key proteins that support the control of gene expression in the course of the body. Through inhibiting these proteins, the two drugs block the activation of alternative proteins involved in infection and cell development, along with one linked to leukemia.

Scientists from the Gladstone Institutes have recognized a new pathway during which salicylic acid–a key compound in the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines aspirin and diflunisal stops cancer and inflammation.

Salicylic Acid and Gene Supression

In one study published in the journal eLife, the researchers found out that salicylic acid and diflunisal suppress two key proteins that can control gene expression in the body. These sister proteins, p300 and CREB-binding protein (CBP), are epigenetic regulators that manipulate proteins that are involved in infection or are concerned in telephone progress. By way of inhibiting p300 and CBP, salicylic acid and diflunisal block the activation of these proteins and preclude cell damage brought about by infection. This provides the primary concrete demonstration that both p300 and CBP will also be acted upon by medicinal drugs and can have essential medical implications.

According to the senior author of this study, Salicylic acid is one of the oldest drugs on the planet, dating back to the Egyptians and the Greeks, but we’re still discovering new things about it. Uncovering this pathway of infection that salicylic acid acts upon opens up a number of new scientific possibilities for these drugs.�

Earlier studies conducted within the laboratory of co-creator Stephen D. Nimer, MD, director of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and a collaborator of Verdin’s established a relationship between p300 and the leukemia protein AML1-ETO. In the current study, scientists at Gladstone and Sylvester labored together to test whether suppressing p300 with diflunisal would suppress leukemia progress in mice. As expected, diflunisal stopped cancer progression and contracted the tumors in the mouse model of leukemia.

Nimer added further, The ability to repurpose drugs that are already FDA-approved to be part of novel therapies for cancer patients is incredibly exciting. We have conducted a clinical trial of salicylic acid in patients with hematologic cancers and found it to be safe. Thus, this collaborative effort to develop novel epigenetic therapies is an important next step in our journey to find more effective treatment for leukemia patients.�

The scientists are actually pursuing a clinical trial on the way to test the ability of salicylic acid to deal with patients with leukemia as a part of new combo remedies. Different possible scientific purposes for salicylic acid include other forms of melanoma, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and even neurodegenerative issues, akin to Alzheimer’s sickness. Prior research showed that a drug containing salicylic acid prevented the buildup of tau in neurons and prevented cognitive decline in a mouse model of dementia.

If you want to know about the latest news in medicine and to know more about maintaining good health and preventing diseases, feel free to read our other articles on this site.

Stress Hormone Cortisol May Lead to Psychosis

Aug 10, 2016

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Stress Hormone and Psychosis

A relationship between levels of the stress hormone cortisol and psychosis has been established by researchers, which would help identify persons at greatest threat of developing this severe mental disorder. According to JCU Associate Professor Zoltan Sarnyai, this was the primary meta-analysis to evaluate the extent of cortisol in the body of an awakened patient with the stage of schizophrenia they are having. He also mentioned that doctors could also be competent to eventually determine individuals who will improve full-blown psychosis from among individuals who present with early stages of the sickness.

According to him Only some 20 to 30 per cent of individuals who are at high-risk of developing psychosis due to their clinical presentation or family history actually do so. Identifying those people early is where the cortisol measurement comes in. Biomarkers are very few and far between in psychiatry, so even though a huge amount of work is still needed, this could become a valuable technique.�

Cortisol Awakening Response

Researchers at the Psychiatric Neuroscience Laboratory at the Australian Institute of Tropical health and medicine (AITHM) at JCU did a meta-analysis of eleven studies.

The resulting paper, published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews suggests that patients have distinct stages of the stress hormone after awakening (Cortisol Awakening Response, CAR) relative to normal controls.

The co-author of the study, JCU’s Dr Maximus Berger, said that scientists had suspected cortisol may have a position in psychotic disorders for a very long time, however until now, some results had been contradictory. He remarked, We were able to show that patients with psychosis fail to produce cortisol after they wake up in the morning. We found this even in patients with recent onset of the illness.�

The paper identified some evidence that advised that high risk participants who later have psychosis already have changes in cortisol before they have the illness.

Dr Sarnyai mentioned that low cortisol levels are also an indicator of risk for other� long term illnesses and were linked to systemic inflammation and changes in the microbial flora of the gut, which meant that there was potential for early analysis and medication of those conditions too.

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