Health

Alaska man treated for flesh-eating infection

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A man from Juneau, Alaska, contracted a rare infection from flesh-eating bacteria and was in satisfactory condition in a Seattle hospital after being flown in for emergency treatment, hospital officials said on Thursday.

Ruben Pereyra was the latest person in the United States to suffer the flesh-eating disease that has also afflicted a Georgia graduate student who has had to undergo multiple amputations and a South Carolina woman who is a new mother of twins.

Pereyra arrived two weeks ago at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center from a Juneau hospital, Harborview spokeswoman Clare LeFond said.

Hospital officials did not give details about the extent, severity or circumstances of the case. But in an interview with the Juneau Empire newspaper, Pereyra’s wife, Ana, said her husband apparently got the infection from a splinter in his hand.

She also told the paper that her husband had surgery and that an amputation was possible.

Necrotizing fasciitis, otherwise known as flesh-eating disease, can be caused when a wound is infected with group-A streptococci or by staphylococci, common bacteria that live on people’s skin and in their noses.

Jim Strader, director of community relations for Juneau’s Bartlett Regional Hospital, said he and other hospital officials in the Alaska capital had been assuring the public the disease was not communicable, he said.

“It’s not an epidemic. It’s not a reason to panic,” he said, adding: “It’s fortunately very rare. But it has a really high mortality rate.”

The infection progresses rapidly and can quickly destroy muscles, skin and other tissues. “The wound sometimes looks like it’s healed over, and then it comes back very, very quickly,” Strader said.

Babies With Pets Not Dogged by Colds

Early exposure, especially to dogs, reduced respiratory infections in infants

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) — Babies who live with dogs and cats during their first year of life may be less susceptible to respiratory infections, such as the common cold, according to new research.

The study of nearly 400 children found that dogs were especially protective, and the babies who lived with dogs during their first year were about one-third more likely to be healthy during their first year, compared to babies who didn’t have a pet in the home. Babies with dogs in the home were 44 percent less likely to develop an ear infection, and 29 percent less likely to need antibiotics than their petless peers.

“Children who had dog contacts at home were healthier and had less frequent ear infections and needed fewer courses of antibiotics than children who had no dog contacts,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Eija Bergroth, a pediatrician who worked at Kuopio University Hospital, in Finland, at the time of the study.

Bergroth also noted that “cat contacts did not seem to have as strong of an impact on infection frequency in multivariate analysis as the dog contacts.”

Results of the study, released online July 9, will be published in the August print issue of Pediatrics.

Previous research on pets in the home has suggested that animals, and dogs in particular, may provide some protection against the development of asthma and allergies. But, other studies have found that household pets may increase the number of respiratory infections in children, according to background information in the study.

To get a better idea of the impact of pets on a child’s health, Bergroth and her colleagues reviewed data from a study of 208 children whose mothers were recruited during their last trimester of pregnancy. The mothers were from rural areas in Austria, Finland, France, Germany and Switzerland.

The study also included data from 216 mothers living in rural or suburban areas in Finland, who gave birth at Kuopio University Hospital in Finland. After excluding children with incomplete information, researchers looked at data from 397 children overall.

During the first year of life, 72 percent of the children experienced a fever, 40 percent had an ear infection, 97 percent had a runny nose, 84 percent had a cough and 32 percent wheezed at some point. Almost half of the children were given antibiotics at least once during their first year of life, according to the study.

Sixty-two percent of the children had a dog, and 34 percent had a cat at some time during the study. But, at the end of the 11-month study, almost two-thirds of parents said they had no dog in the home, and three-quarters said they had no cat.

Overall, children who had some exposure to dogs or cats in the home were healthier than those who didn’t. They had fewer weeks with cough, ear infections and runny noses, according to the study. They also needed fewer courses of antibiotics.

Read Full Article Here

 

Washington, July 7 (ANI): A study by an Indian origin researcher has found that an extract from algae could become a key to regulating cardiovascular disease.

Smiti Gupta, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of nutrition and food science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has found that dietary intake of ProAlgaZyme increased the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in an animal model.

While medications for the control of high plasma cholesterol levels such as statins and numerous dietary supplements primarily function by lowering levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or “bad cholesterol,” Gupta’s research explores the effects of raising levels of HDL, or “good cholesterol,” which work in part by carrying cholesterol out of the arterial wall.

“The cholesterol mechanism is crucial to heart disease,” Gupta said.

“Very few agents increase good cholesterol, but we found that this algae extract does. The ratio of total to HDL cholesterol improved significantly. This result, if replicated in humans, would be consistent with a decreased risk of heart disease.”

ProAlgaZyme, a clear liquid, was administered as part of the drinking fluid over four weeks. In addition to increasing HDL levels, the group found that it also changed the expression of genes involved in the reverse cholesterol transport mechanism.

And while they don’t know exactly how it will function in humans, Gupta said other research suggests a similar outcome.

“Its biological effect over time and toxic effects, if any, need to be further investigated in a long-term study in an animal model before testing its effects in humans,” she said.

“But this is a step in the right direction, since increased HDL is considered an important therapeutic target for improvement of the lipid profile and thus reduction of the risk for cardiovascular disease,” she added.

The result was recently published in the Journal of Nutrition and Dietary Supplements. (ANI)

 

 

Perth, July 7 (ANI): Some neurologists believe that the debilitating forms of multiple sclerosis (MS) could soon come to an end thanks to vitamin D.

A world first clinical trial will investigate the role vitamin D could play in preventing MS.

MSWA chief executive Marcuss Stafford said there was already indicators that vitamin D could play a role in the disease.

“The further you are born from the equator, the greater your likelihood of contracting MS, the second clue that we have is that there is a variation in genes that metabolise vitamin D and the third key clue that has led us down this path is that there is an association between vitamin D deficiency and relapses within MS as well,” WA Today quoted Stafford as saying.

MS, which is an incurable disease, manifests itself differently in individuals but affects the central nervous system and can, to varying degrees, interfere with the transmission of nerve impulses throughout the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.

There are currently no evidence-based interventions to prevent the development of it.

The trial would not involve people with diagnosed MS, but people in the early stages of showing MS symptoms.

It would look at the progress of those individuals towards MS.

The trial will be overseen by local neurologist Professor Bill Carroll from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and will involve 290 patients from across Australia and New Zealand.

“In this prevention trial we’ll be giving patients three different levels of vitamin D while others will be given a placebo,” he said.

“The link between vitamin D and MS appears strong.

“What we don’t know is how important this vitamin D effect might be or what the optimum dose of vitamin D might be. This study will give us those answers,” he added.

The trial will run for four years, and researchers will start to recruit patients who have experienced their first MS-like symptoms this month. (ANI)

 

 

Washington, July 8 (ANI): People with fructose malabsorption – a food intolerance that is as complicated as it is common – are turning to low FODMAP diet, which stands for six sugars, to tackle the condition.

The diet restricts most fruits, many vegetables, wheat, some dairy and other everyday foods such as honey.

Usually described as ”fructose intolerance”, but often extending to malabsorption of other sugars, scientists believe the condition could affect almost half of the 15 per cent of Australians with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and be the prime trigger of symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation, bloating and pain.

Diagnosis is confirmed by a breath-test, and the number of specialist diagnostic centres in Melbourne has risen since 1999 from one to an estimated 18.

Jackie Love, a 44-year-old French teacher, claimed her painful and socially awkward IBS symptoms have disappeared after following FODMAP diet and she’s not alone.

Love can eat bananas but not apples. Beans but not snow peas. Gluten but not wheat.

”I really have to look at every single thing I put in my mouth,” said Love.

The diet, which was developed in Melbourne by dietitian Dr Sue Shepherd in 1999 and later proved effective by Dr Shepherd and Monash University, has spawned a thriving local industry.

”There are lots of diets being promoted … but this is one where we know why it works,” the Age quoted Dr Shepherd as saying.

Her annual patient list has soared from 100 to 4000 in 13 years (about 80per cent of whom are being treated with the FODMAP diet) and she also publishes cookbooks, consults overseas and conducts supermarket tours and information sessions for chefs.

One of her patients, Natalie Nott, said ”FODMAPs has really changed everything.”

Relieved of her irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, last year she self-published the Low Fodmap Cookbook, which has sold about 600 copies, and has 1000 subscribers to her blog.

She says dining out is still difficult, but restaurants such as Fox in the Box, in Hampton, and The Firehouse, in Ringwood, now cater specifically for FODMAPs.

Food companies Naturally Good and Simply Wise include a ”fructose-friendly” label on relevant products.

Dr Shepherd says better diagnosis of fructose malabsorption has made the condition seem more prevalent, although some speculate that increased fructose in our diets, particularly from high- fructose corn syrup in many processed foods, is also to blame.

But Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton said the incorrect perception of food allergies and intolerances was also on the rise, and warned that the FODMAP diet should only be used under professional guidance.

”You need to go to a GP first to make sure you don’t have a serious, treatable medical condition – especially one of the inflammatory bowel diseases,” he said.

”There is an objective increase in recognised food intolerance s, But there’s probably an equal number of people who think they’re intolerant or allergic without robust reason,” he added. (ANI)

 

 

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Wanna get fat fast? Stay vitamin D deficient!

By J. D. Heyes, 
(NaturalNews) You have no doubt heard that excess fat, corn syrup, sugary drinks and high-fructose, high-starch diets will boost your beltline and add pounds to your physique. Well, according to a recent study, if you’re a woman there’s another way to tilt your scales: Just remain vitamin D deficient. Kaiser Permanente, which conducted the study that was published online recently in the Journal of Women’s Health, tracked more than 4,600 women aged 65 and older for about 54 months. Researchers…

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Holistic Health

 

 

Nutritional supplements prove better than toxic drugs

By Jonathan Landsman, 
(NaturalNews) Do you know anyone that believes in poisoning the body to “get well”? The sad truth is that most ill-informed people think that un-natural medicine is the only way to solve health problems. By brainwashing doctors (in medical school); controlling politicians (with lobbying efforts) and “social conditioning” (through T.V. ads) – the pharmaceutical drug cartel has created a system of sick care that profits shareholders and promotes dis-ease. (“insider” proof below – keep reading) Marcia…

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Pet Health

 

 

Your Own Health is Ultimately Affected by What You Feed Your Pet

• Dr. Michael W. Fox is interviewed by phone by Dr. Becker. They discuss his wonderful new book Healing Animals and a variety of topics centering on the health of animals, humans and the earth.
• Dr. Fox created the concept of the One Health Movement to help demonstrate that the health of humans, the health of animals and the health of the earth are not separate entities, but are intimately interconnected. We cannot hope to improve the well-being of humans while decimating the environment and treating animals with callous disregard. The One Health Movement is philosophically based on the global application of bioethics, a subject discussed in depth in Dr. Fox’s earlier book Bringing Life to Ethics: Global Bioethics for a Humane Society (State University of new York Press, Albany NY 2001.)
• Dr. Fox’s goal in writing Healing Animals is to inform and inspire people with good, sound, scientific information, so they can make informed choices for themselves and for their companion animals.

 

Dr. Becker Interviews Dr. Michael W. Fox (Parts 1 – 3)