Sleeping More On Weekends May Lead to Obesity, Diabetes and Hypertension
Irregular sleep time has long been linked to a host of health ailments. Sleep plays a pivotal role in regulating some of the most vital processes in our body. Experts suggest that not sleeping for at least 7-8 hours every day may have severe health repercussions. Also, sleeping late at night – even though you may end up meeting the 8-hour sleep mark – is also linked with health issues.
Some of the previously conducted studies note that loss of sleep incurred during the week cannot be compensated by sleeping for longer time over the weekend. A latest study conducted by American experts explains that sleeping for long hours over the weekend may actually be adverse for the health and trigger heart issues and weight gain.Experts called this phenomenon ‘social jet lag’ described as a situation when one goes to bed and wakes up much later on weekends than during the week. This ‘social jet lag’ is associated with an 11 per cent increase in the likelihood of heart disease. The study was published in the journal Sleep and assessed sleep pattern and associated effects on health in close to 984 adults ageing 22 to 60 years.
“Results indicated that sleep regularity, beyond sleep duration alone, plays a significant role in our health. Regular sleep schedule may be an effective, relatively simple, and inexpensive preventative treatment for heart disease as well as many other health problems,” lead author Sierra B. Forbush, from the University of Arizona in the US.
Sleep deprivation may affect the brain activity, trigger memory problems, induce moodiness, anxiety and depression; it may also lead to lack of concentration, lethargy. Prolonged sleep deprivation is also tied to risk of heart disease, diabetes, weakened immune system, hypertension among others.
source: http://food.ndtv.com/health/sleeping-for-long-on-weekends-may-lead-to-obesity-diabetes-and-hypertension-1708090
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New gene therapy may ‘turn off’ asthma
The findings showed that the single treatment may give life-long protection from asthma as well as those who have severe allergies to peanuts, bee venom, shell fish and other substances by de-sensitising the immune system to tolerate the protein.
Researchers have developed a new gene therapy that may help to ‘turn-off’ the immune response which causes allergic reaction such as asthma, or potentially lethal food allergies, researchers have found.
“When someone has an allergy or asthma flare-up, the symptoms they experience results from immune cells reacting to protein in the allergen,” said Ray Steptoe, Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia.
The findings showed that the single treatment may give life-long protection from asthma as well as those who have severe allergies to peanuts, bee venom, shell fish and other substances by de-sensitising the immune system to tolerate the protein.
“The challenge in asthma and allergies is that these immune cells, known as T-cells, develop a form of immune ‘memory’ and become very resistant to treatments,” Steptoe said.
“We have now been able ‘wipe’ the memory of these T-cells in animals with gene therapy, de-sensitising the immune system so that it tolerates the protein,” he added.
For the study, detailed in the journal JCI Insight, the team took blood stem cells, and inserted a gene which regulated the allergen protein and put that into the recipients.
“Those engineered cells produced new blood cells that express the protein and target specific immune cells, ‘turning off’ the allergic response,” Steptoe noted.
The eventual goal would be a single injected gene therapy, that is simpler and safer which could be used across a wide cross-section of affected individuals, he said.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/new-gene-therapy-may-turn-off-asthma-4690204/
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Daily insulin shots for diabetes may be replaced by a monthly treatment
By creating a controlled-release mechanism for a drug and optimising its circulation time in the body, the new biopolymer injection has the potential to replace daily or weekly insulin shots with a once-a-month or twice-a-month treatments for type 2 diabetes, researchers said.
Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have developed a technology that may provide weeks of glucose control for diabetes with a single injection, which would be a dramatic improvement over current therapies.
In primates, the treatment has been shown to last for weeks, rather than days, researchers at Duke University in the US said. By creating a controlled-release mechanism for a drug and optimising its circulation time in the body, the new biopolymer injection has the potential to replace daily or weekly insulin shots with a once-a-month or twice-a-month treatments for type 2 diabetes, they said. Many current treatments for type 2 diabetes use a signalling molecule called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP1) to cause the pancreas to release insulin to control blood sugar. However, this peptide has a short half-life and is cleared from the body quickly.
Researchers, including Ashutosh Chilkoti, from Duke University, have created a technology that fuses GLP1 to a heat-sensitive elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) in a solution that can be injected into the skin through a standard needle. Once injected, the solution reacts with body heat to form a biodegradable gel-like “depot” that slowly releases the drug as it dissolves. In animal experiments, the resulting therapy provided glucose control up to three times longer than treatments currently on the market. Researchers systematically worked to vary the design of the delivery biopolymer at the molecular level and found a sweet spot that maximised the duration of the drug’s delivery from a single injection.
“By doing so, we managed to triple the duration of this short-acting drug for type 2 diabetes, outperforming other competing designs,” said Chilkoti, senior author of study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. Researchers optimised their solution to regulate glucose levels in mice for 10 days after a single injection, up from the previous standard of 2-3 days. In further tests, the team found that the optimised formulation improved glucose control in rhesus monkeys for more than 14 days after a single injection, while also releasing the drug at a constant rate for the duration of the trial.
“What is exciting about this work was our ability to demonstrate that the drug could last over two weeks in non- human primates,” said Kelli Luginbuhl, a PhD student in the Chilkoti lab and co-author of the study.
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/health/report-now-a-monthly-treatment-for-diabetes-may-replace-daily-insulin-shots-2463129
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New Radiation Injections for Better Cancer Treatment in the Offing
Close to 9 million people across the globe lost battle to cancer in the year 2015. Experts suspect this number to increase over time with no respite in the increasing incident of cancer cases. Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality across the globe. It is estimated that one in every 6 deaths globally is caused by the debilitating disease. Cancer is a lifestyle disease with its precise cause still under investigation, however experts point at a host of lifestyle factors that sum to causing this disease.In most cases, cancer goes undiagnosed for long; experts therefore explain timely detection and cancer prevention as the biggest tools in the global fight against cancer. Lack of easy availability of drugs and latest treatment has been another hurdle. Cancer research remains highly underfunded. Any breakthrough or novel research initiated toward providing better treatment to cancer patients is a welcome move. A team of Australian researchers have done just about that. Experts at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia began a clinical trial of injecting radiotherapy to combat aggressive breast cancer.
In a novel experiment, experts will aim at combining radiation with immunotherapy with an attempt to “reawaken” the immune system to fight the disease. Cancer is a disease wherein cancerous cells begin to form and multiply at a rapid pace outnumbering and killing the healthy cells in the body. It is much like an autoimmune disease where a person’s own mechanism starts acting up against it.
“We think that cancer outwits the immune system. Once you develop cancer, your immune system has failed. It can’t see the cancer any more, and it also actively suppresses the immune system.”
The team of Australian experts aims to target activation of the otherwise unresponsive, dying immune system. Women suffering from the most aggressive types of breast cancer will undergo treatment. This is the first time when gene therapy is been teamed with immunotherapy.
“The trial was approved after promising studies on animals where radiation was used to prepare the immune system to fight cancer,” Sherene Loi, head of translational breast cancer research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, said.
Breast cancer is the biggest killer of young and middle-aged Australian women. Cancer Australia estimated that 17,586 women would be diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia in 2017, accounting for 13 percent of all new cancers in the country. Primary cancer in the breast is usually curable, but if it comes back it is “incurable”, Loi was quoted as saying.
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source: http://food.ndtv.com/health/new-radiation-injections-for-better-cancer-treatment-in-the-offing-1709614
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How Diabetes Affects Your Hearing
Hearing loss is more common if you have poorly controlled diabetes.
If you have diabetes, you have at least twice the chance of experiencing hearing loss than someone who does not have the condition, according to the American Diabetes Association.
If you have prediabetes, your risk for hearing loss is 30 percent higher compared with those who do not have diabetes. Two other things that can increase the chance that you’ll experience hearing loss are age and smoking.
So just why are people with diabetes at a higher risk for hearing loss? “We believe it’s years of poorly controlled blood sugar,” says Dr. Deena Adimoolam, an endocrinologist and assistant professor of diabetes, endocrinology and bone disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
In short, the effects of high blood glucose over time can damage your hearing. “Although the exact reason for diabetes-related hearing loss is unknown, it’s suspected that there are two major causes,” says Dr. Jagmeet S. Mundi, an ear, nose and throat specialist with Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California. “This includes damage to the small blood vessels that provide blood flow to the inner ear and direct nerve damage to the inner ear structures. The combination of the two leads to hearing loss in these patients.”
Symptoms of Diabetes-Related Hearing Loss
For the most part, the symptoms of diabetes-related hearing loss will be like those of everyone else. One difference is that hearing professionals can track a consistent difference in the ability of those with diabetes to hear low- or middle-frequency sounds. However, that may not be something you notice. In fact, you may not detect any difference at all, at least not for a long time.
“People are notoriously bad at noticing the problem. It takes an extremely long time for people to blame [hearing loss] on themselves,” Konrad-Martin says.
It may be a loved one observing that your hearing is not that great anymore in certain situations, such as at a noisy restaurant or even in a quieter environment.
Other hearing loss symptoms include:
Thinking that people talking are mumbling
Not hearing when people speak directly to you
Turning up the volume on devices frequently
Speaking more loudly than necessary
Increased sensitivity to loud noises (this also could be the sign of a condition called hyperacusis)
A ringing sound in the ears (this also is associated with a hearing problem called tinnitus)
Feeling as if you can hear what someone says, but it’s not as clear as you’d like. “Think of it like a picture going out of focus,” Konrad-Martin says.
Although hearing loss is common as you get older, hearing professionals often find that the degree of hearing loss in someone with diabetes is more severe than someone of the same age who does not have diabetes.
Diabetes-Related Hearing Loss: Treatment and Prevention
If you think you are experiencing hearing loss, talk to your health care provider or schedule a visit to an audiologist. An audiologist specializes in hearing loss and can screen you with a full hearing exam.
It’s important to talk to your health care provider if your hearing loss occurs suddenly – a sign linked to uncontrolled diabetes – or if there are more subtle changes over time. Both situations require a closer evaluation.
Many people with hearing loss use a hearing aid. If that sounds intimidating to you, don’t worry. Today’s hearing aids tend to be smaller and easier to use than in the past. “People are generally happy with their hearing aids now,” Konrad-Martin says.
Depending on the circumstance, hearing loss can sometimes be reversed with the use of steroids, Mundi says.
An audiologist can also help coach you on ways to hear better in specific situations, such as in a noisy room.
Hearing loss can make life more challenging, so it’s important to try to prevent it. One additional reason to prevent it when you have diabetes is that you’re also at higher risk for vision loss. So, if you experience both hearing and vision loss, you’re hit with a sensory double whammy.
One way to prevent hearing loss related to diabetes is to keep your blood sugar under control. Take your medications as your doctor prescribes, stay physically active and make healthier food choices. These are all basic but important ways to improve your health and cut the risk for diabetes complications. “If you can maintain control of your blood sugar, you can prevent worsening of hearing loss,” Adimoolam says.
Source: http://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2017-05-09/how-diabetes-affects-your-hearing
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Coming Soon: A Robotic Device To Help Stroke Patients Restore Movement
A team of researchers from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have developed a new robotic device that can provide movement therapy to stroke patients and help recover mobility. According to them, robotic devices can become an important part of stroke rehabilitation for survivors. A stroke occurs due to damage caused to the brain because of interruption of blood supply. It is a medical emergency and can cause trouble walking and speaking as well as lead to paralysis or numbness of arms and legs.
A stroke may often cause muscle over-activity, physical impairment or lead to some sort of disability which requires therapy and exercises to restore movement. This is where robotic devices can come into play and prove helpful as new tools for therapists that are cost-effective and less labour-intensive.
The new study shows that a robotic tool can help in assessing muscle over-activity and movement dysfunction in stroke patients. The newly-developed rehabilitation robotic system was found to quantitatively measure the three degree-of-freedom (DOF) impedance of human forearm and wrist in minutes. With the help of the impedance estimation device and using the distal internal model based impedance control (dIMBIC)-based method, the team was able to accurately characterize the 3 DOF forearm and wrist impedance including inertia, damping, and stiffness, for the first time.
These results were published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Researchers believe that these findings lead to the development of robot-assisted rehabilitation at workplace accident rehabilitation hospitals as well as in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The research was led by Professor Sang Hoon Kang of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at UNIST in collaboration with Professor Pyung-Hun Chang of DGIST and Dr. Kyungbin Park of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. The team hopes that their findings will promote further wrist and forearm motor control studies and complement the diagnosis of the alteration in wrist and forearm resistance after a stroke by providing objective impedance values including cross-coupled terms.
Source: http://food.ndtv.com/health/coming-soon-a-robotic-device-to-help-stroke-patients-restore-movement-1711013
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