Tag Archive: bacteria


Princeton University reports fourth case of bacterial meningitis since March (Video)

Filed under: Biological Hazard, Disaster Management, Diseases, Earth Watch Report, Global Disaster Watch — Leave a comment
May 22, 2013

 

This disease is an inflammation in the protective lining around the brain and spinal cord, and is considered a medical emergency. http://www.WatchMojo.com speaks with a doctor at the Montreal Children's Hospital to learn more about meningitis.
 

A yet unnamed 20-year-old Princeton University student has been diagnosed with bacterial meningitis Monday when traveling to his home state, according to the Princeton University Office of Communications May 20.

 

He is currently being treated for the infection. This make the fourth case of the serious bacterial infection reported in students since March.

Princeton reports three other cases of meningitis associated with the University since March were caused by meningococcal bacteria known as type B, which has no effective vaccine but can be treated with common antibiotics.

Health officials are conducting tests to determine the type of bacteria in the most recent case.

Patient receiving a meningitis vaccine
Patient receiving a meningitis vaccine
Photo credit:
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
 
 

In the United States, almost all cases of meningococcal meningitis are caused by serogroups B, C and Y.

Currently, there are two vaccines in the United States ,meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine (Menomune®), and meningococcal conjugate vaccine (Menactra® and Menveo®), that protect against Neisseria meningitidis.

Read Full Article and  Watch Video Here

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A “nightmare” bacteria that is resistant to powerful antibiotics and kills half of those it infects has surfaced in nearly 200 U.S. hospitals and nursing homes : Federal health officials reported

Filed under: Diseases, Health, Health And Wellness Report, Medical Research, Pharmaceuticals — 7 Comments
March 5, 2013
  • .
  • CRE germs kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from themCRE germs kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them
  • Vutal Signsweb graphic4% & 18% – About 4% of the 4,000 US hospitals studied had at least one patient with a serious CRE infection during the first half of 2012. About 18% of the country’s 200 long-term acute care hospitals had one. This totals nearly 200 facilities with at least one CRE patient in six months.

    42 – One type of CRE infection has been reported in medical facilities in 42 states during the last 10 years.

    1 in 2 CRE germs kill up to half of patients who get bloodstream infections from them.

  • CDC staff show two plates growing bacteriaCDC staff show two plates growing bacteria in the presence of discs containing various antibiotics. The isolate on the left plate is susceptible to the antibiotics on the discs and is therefore unable to grow around the discs. The one on the right has a CRE that is resistant to all of the antibiotics tested and is able to grow near the disks.
  • CDC microbiologist, Kitty AndersonCDC microbiologist, Kitty Anderson, looks at a 96-well plate used for testing the ability of bacteria to growth in the presence of antibiotics.
  • CDC microbiologist, Kitty AndersonCDC microbiologist, Johannetsy Avillan, holds up a plate that demonstrates the modified Hodge test, which is used to identify resistance in bacteria known as Enterobacteriaceae. Bacteria that are resistant to carbapenems, considered “last resort” antibiotics, produce a distinctive clover-leaf shape.

 

New CDC Vital Signs: Lethal, Drug-resistant Bacteria Spreading in U.S. Healthcare Facilities

CDC News Room

Drug-resistant germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, are on the rise and have become more resistant to last-resort antibiotics during the past decade, according to a new CDC Vital Signs report.  These bacteria are causing more hospitalized patients to get infections that, in some cases, are impossible to treat.

CRE are lethal bacteria that pose a triple threat:

  • Resistance: CRE are resistant to all, or nearly all, the antibiotics we have – even our most powerful drugs of last-resort.
  • Death: CRE have high mortality rates – CRE germs kill 1 in 2 patients who get bloodstream infections from them.
  • Spread of disease:  CRE easily transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria.  For example, carbapenem-resistant klebsiella can spread its drug-destroying weapons to a normal E. coli bacteria, which makes the E.coli resistant to antibiotics also. That could create a nightmare scenario since E. coli is the most common cause of urinary tract infections in healthy people.

Read Full Report  Here

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‘Nightmare’ Bacteria Spreading in U.S. Hospitals, Nursing Homes: CDC

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 4 percent of U.S. hospitals and 18 percent of nursing homes had treated at least one patient with the bacteria, called Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), within the first six months of 2012.

“CRE are nightmare bacteria. Our strongest antibiotics don’t work and patients are left with potentially untreatable infections,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a news release. “Doctors, hospital leaders and public health [officials] must work together now to implement the CDC’s ‘detect and protect’ strategy and stop these infections from spreading.”

“The good news,” Frieden added at an afternoon teleconference, “is we now have an opportunity to prevent its further spread.” But, he continued, “We only have a limited window of opportunity to stop this infection from spreading to the community and spreading to more organisms.”

CRE are in a family of more than 70 bacteria called enterobacteriaceae, including Klebsiella pneumoniae and E. coli, that normally live in the digestive system.

In recent years, some of these bacteria have become resistant to last-resort antibiotics known as carbapenems.

Although CRE bacteria are not yet found nationwide, they have increased fourfold within the United States in the past decade, with most cases reported in the Northeast.

Health officials said they’re concerned about the rapid spread of the bacteria, which can endanger the lives of patients and healthy people. For example, in the last 10 years, the CDC tracked one CRE from one health-care facility to similar facilities in 42 states.

One type of CRE, a resistant form of Klebsiella pneumoniae, has increased sevenfold in the past decade, according to the CDC’s March 5 Vital Signs report.

“To see bacteria that are resistant is worrisome, because this group of bacteria are very common,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Most CRE infections to date have been in patients who had prolonged stays in hospitals, long-term facilities and nursing homes, the report said.

The bacteria kill up to half the patients whose bloodstream gets infected and are easily spread from patient to patient on the hands of health-care workers, the CDC said.

Moreover, CRE bacteria can transfer their antibiotic resistance to other bacteria of the same type.

This problem is the result of the overuse of antibiotics, Siegel said. “The more you use an antibiotic, the more resistance is going to emerge,” he said. “This is an indictment of the overuse of this class of antibiotic.”

 

Read Full Article Here

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When there is little water available for plants to grow, their roots form alliances with soil microbes that can promote plant growth even under water-limiting conditions, according to researchers from the University of Milan

Filed under: Adaptation, Beauty Of Nature, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Environmental — Leave a comment
November 1, 2012

Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It

Desert farming forms bacterial communities that promote drought resistance

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX)

 

FARM NEWS

File image.

When there is little water available for plants to grow, their roots form alliances with soil microbes that can promote plant growth even under water-limiting conditions, according to research published by Daniele Daffonchio and colleagues from the University of Milan, Italy in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Symbiotic relationships between plants and soil microbial communities are critical to the health of plants. Though the effects of drought on plants are well-known, little is known about how lack of water affects the bacteria around plant roots.

In this study, the researchers grew pepper plants under conditions of limited water and analyzed the bacterial species around the roots of the plants.

They found that drought stress enriched the microbial communities with bacteria capable of increasing plant photosynthesis and biomass production by up to 40% under limited water conditions.

According to Daffonchio, “Our findings highlight that fully functional plants cannot be considered single organisms anymore, but meta-organisms of the plant and its microbiome, which promotes essential functions like resistance to water stress. The promotion of drought resistance by bacteria can have important applications, for instance, in retaining high yields from plants even in the presence of lower irrigation.”

Marasco R, Rolli E, Ettoumi B, Vigani G, Mapelli F, et al. (2012) A Drought Resistance-Promoting Microbiome Is Selected by Root System under Desert Farming. PLOS ONE 7(10): e48479. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048479

 

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500-million-year-old gene from bacteria resurrected. Inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.

Filed under: Genetics, Medical Research — 1 Comment
July 13, 2012

Ancient life ‘re-evolves’ in Georgia lab

by Staff Writers
Atlanta (UPI)

Early Earth

Terra Daily

 


disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

Georgia Tech researchers say they’ve resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.

The resurrected bacterium has been growing for more than 1,000 generations, providing scientists a chance to observe evolution in action, the university announced Wednesday.

“This is as close as we can get to rewinding and replaying the molecular tape of life,” scientist Betul Kacar said of the effort, dubbed paleo-experimental evolution. “The ability to observe an ancient gene in a modern organism as it evolves within a modern cell allows us to see whether the evolutionary trajectory once taken will repeat itself or whether a life will adapt following a different path.”

The researchers began by determining the ancient genetic sequence of Elongation Factor-Tu (EF-Tu), an essential protein in E. coli. After achieving the difficult task of replacing the modern gene in E. coli with the ancient gene in the correct chromosomal order and position, Kacar produced eight identical bacterial strains and allowed “ancient life” to re-evolve.

The bacteria composed of both modern and ancient genes survived, but grew about two times slower than its counterpart composed of only modern genes, he said.

“The altered organism wasn’t as healthy or fit as its modern-day version, at least initially, and this created a perfect scenario that would allow the altered organism to adapt and become more fit as it accumulated mutations with each passing day,” Kacar said.

After 500 generations, the scientists sequenced the genomes of all eight lineages and found that not only did the fitness levels increase to nearly modern-day levels, some of the altered lineages actually became healthier than their modern counterpart.

The ancient gene had not yet mutated to become more similar to its modern form, they said, but rather the bacteria found a new evolutionary trajectory to adapt.

The finding could answer the question of whether an organism’s history limits its future and evolution always leads to a single, defined point, or whether evolution has multiple solutions to a given problem, Kacar said.

 

Related Links
Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com

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The link researchers have found between drinking diet soda and being overweight.

Filed under: Health, Poisons in Our Foods — Leave a comment
July 5, 2012

The strange reason diet soda makes you fat

By Jessica Levine
Men’s Health

Mario Tama / Getty Images

Calorie-free sweetness may confuse the brain into craving more sugar, research suggests.

Want one reason for your beer belly? How about 100 quintillion? That’s about how many bacteria live in your gut. And scientists now believe these bacteria can have a significant impact on your weight.

Consuming high amounts of fructose (a type of sugar), artificial sweeteners, and sugar alcohols (another type of low-calorie sweetener) cause your gut bacteria to adapt in a way that interferes with your satiety signals and metabolism, according to a new paper in Obesity Reviews. (If you’ve noticed you’ve been feeling tired all the time and gaining weight, your metabolism may be slowing.)

“An evolution of the gut flora to this new sweetener-rich environment has a potential to negatively impact our health,” says Amanda Payne, Ph.D., lead author of the review.

How does that happen? As bacteria in the gut process food, they give off byproducts called short-chain fatty acids. These can be beneficial and serve as energy in the body. But as the sweetener-adapted bacteria thrive and become more efficient at processing large amounts of high-fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and sugar alcohols, they also produce more and more short-chain fatty acids. (Not to imply that sugar is any better than artificial sweeteners.

In those high amounts, Payne says, short-chain fatty acids decrease satiety signals. “This signaling may cause disruptions in our feeling full and hence prevent us from stopping to eat when we should,” Payne says.

As if overeating isn’t enough, the short-chain fatty acids also promote inflammation in the lining of the gut. Just how? Scientists aren’t yet sure. But they do know that inflammation damages gut tissue and results in leaky gut syndrome. Pleasant as it sounds, it means bacteria leak through that damaged gut tissue into the blood stream and cause further inflammation there. That’s a serious problem that can lead to insulin resistance and an increased risk for coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Is This Sugar Making You Fat?

This could partly explain the link researchers have found between drinking diet soda and being overweight. In one study, people who drank two or more diet sodas a day had five times the increase in waist circumference over a 10-year period compared to people who didn’t drink any diet soda. There are a few explanations for the findings. Maybe people drink more diet soda because they’re trying to lose weight. Calorie-free sweetness may also confuse the brain into craving more sugar.

As for your gut, at this point it’s not clear if one diet soda a day is less damaging to the gut flora than ten. “I will say from a personal perspective that I don’t drink sodas–diet or regular–and I rarely eat processed foods, especially if they have high-fructose corn syrup listed on their label,” Payne says. Your best bet is to consume products containing these sweeteners in moderation, and drink mostly water. For gut flora to thrive, eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Food Safety and Health News – Friday March 23rd, 2012

Filed under: Alternative Health, Animal Abuse, Animal Advocacy, Cruelty to animals, Diseases, Food Safety, Health, Holistic Health, Natural Health, Nutrition, Pet Health, Poisons in Our Foods, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
March 23, 2012

Food Safety

Gov. Dept. Works With Major Corporation to Hide Animal Abuse

U.S. Government Supports CAFOS Over Small Family Farms

As reported by ABC News, Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy for Animals, stated:

“It is deeply troubling that a governmental agency that is entrusted with monitoring and overseeing agriculture and food production is so corrupt that it’s in bed with the very corporate interests that were documented abusing and neglecting animals. The fox apparently is guarding the henhouse.”

Indeed, the U.S. government has a history of supporting these industrial confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), both by looking the other way when abuse or contamination occurs, and by directly subsidizing cheaply produced beef, and corn and soy used for feed.

As it stands, 2 percent of U.S. livestock facilities produce 40 percent of farm animals,i and these large, corporate-owned CAFOs have been highly promoted as the best way to produce food for the masses. The only reason CAFOs are able to remain so “efficient,” bringing in massive profits while selling their food for bottom-barrel prices, is because they substitute subsidized crops for pasture grazing.

Factory farms use massive quantities of corn, soy and grain in their animal feed, all crops that they are often able to purchase at below cost because of government subsidies. Because of these subsidies, U.S. farmers produce massive amounts of soy, corn, wheat, etc. — rather than vegetables — leading to a monoculture of foods that create a fast food diet. As written in the book “CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories”:…..

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/22/animal-feeding-operations-contamination-abuse.aspx?e_cid=20120322_DNL_art_2

No Quick Fixes for Outbreak Surveillance and Response

By John J. Guzewich

Many of us have experienced the frustration of learning of a foodborne disease outbreak and wondering why didn’t we know about it sooner, why we don’t know all the details we wanted to know, why the investigation wasn’t successful or…

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/challenges-to-foodborne-disease-outbreak-surveillance-response/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120322

Cantaloupe Growers Invite Public to Webinars

By Dan Flynn

When the goal is to get consumers back after last year’s deadly cantaloupe outbreak, the industry’s Stephen Patricio says growers need to impose “transparent yet severe and expensive restrictions on ourselves.”And the industry groups sponsoring educational sessions for cantaloupe growers…

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/when-the-goal-is-to/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120322

Safeway Drops ‘Pink Slime,’ Walmart to Offer Consumers Choice

By Helena Bottemiller

Responding to widespread consumer concern, the nation’s second and third largest grocery chains, Safeway and SuperValu, will stop selling Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB), otherwise known as ‘pink slime,’ ABC World News reported Wednesday.Safeway said “considerable consumer concern” led to…

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/safeway-drops-pink-slime-walmart-to-offer-consumers-choice/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120322

Denver Defends New Restaurant Inspection Scheme

By Dan Flynn

Bob McDonald, Denver’s environmental health director, wants restaurateurs and the public at large to understand how the city now enforces inspections.McDonald met Tuesday with some of Denver’s restaurateurs who are upset because more fines are being levied after inspections.The city…

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/denver-defends-new-restaurant-inspection-system/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120322

Health

U.S. travelers to Olympics may bring home measles, CDC warns

Health officials are bracing for the possibility of a measles outbreak in the USA, fueled by unvaccinated American tourists returning home from this summer’s Olympic Games.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that each measles case costs $160,000 for investigation, follow-up and possible hospitalization.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the Olympics in London, as well as the Euro 2012 soccer cup in Poland and Ukraine, will be huge draws for American travelers and will increase the risk for measles infection. The virus is much more prevalent in Europe, leading to eight deaths and 26,000 illnesses last year.

“Disease knows no borders,” said Rebecca Martin, director of the CDC’s Global Immunization Division. “We are concerned about Americans coming back from the Olympics this summer and unknowingly infecting others.”

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2012-03-19/Travelers-to-Olympics-warned-of-measles-risk-if-unvaccinated/53655170/1

If aspirin is a miracle drug, shouldn’t we all be taking it?

A small dose of the painkiller every day can reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovasular disease and blood clots.

So, did you take a mini-aspirin this morning? If not, why not? Research appears to confirm aspirin’s growing reputation as that most medicinal of cliches – a miracle drug. The study, published on Tuesday, reported that taking a low dose of acetyl-salicylic acid – the generic name for aspirin – daily for between three and five years reduces the chance of being diagnosed with cancer during that time by 19 per cent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9158101/If-aspirin-is-a-miracle-drug-shouldnt-we-all-be-taking-it.html

Seaweed toast is same as half an hour on treadmill

Breakfasting on a slice of bread baked with ground-up seaweed could help burn more calories than half an hour on a treadmill, according to new research

Trials on nearly 80 healthy but overweight men showed those fed scrambled egg on seaweed enriched toast felt so full they consumed 179 calories less a day.

The tests at Sheffield Hallam University are the first to involve adding the entire seaweed plant to the bread mix rather than breaking it down to extract various chemicals.

The bread – served with the crusts cut off – did not include any salt at all with the seaweed acting as a total replacement.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9160343/Seaweed-toast-is-same-as-half-an-hour-on-treadmill.html

Breakthrough in cancer detection to be tested on smokers

A simple blood test that can detect lung cancer five years earlier than conventional screening will be trialled by the NHS on thousands of high risk smokers.

The test is being trialled in Scotland in the hope it could provide the first national screening program for lung cancer as well as paving the way for better detection of other tumorous cancers such as breast, colon and prostate.

A version of the test, developed at Nottingham University, to detect breast cancer early could be ready next year.

It could revolutionize how cancer is diagnosed and mean treatment can start at a much earlier stage when the chances of success are best.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9161892/Breakthrough-in-cancer-detection-to-be-tested-on-smokers.html

Holistic Health

Indoor urban farm in New York helps feed hundreds of families

By Jonathan Benson,

(NaturalNews) Flowering displays are replacing urban decay all across America, with recent reports out of New York illustrating the power of creative, resourceful thinking in implementing successful, city-based farming initiatives. New York Daily News reports that a food pantry in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., has successfully created a 250-square foot indoor farm that produces food for hundreds of local families and their children — and many others in the area are working…

http://www.naturalnews.com/035300_urban_farms_local_food_indoor.html

Vitamin E tocotrienols work through multiple pathways to delay disease onset and extend lifespan

By John Phillip,

(NaturalNews) The result of several new research bodies that have been published all point to the powerful effect of vitamin E tocotrienols to prevent stomach cancer, reduce fatty liver disease incidences and prevent disease mechanisms that can extend natural lifespan in humans. Over the past decade, many studies have highlighted the importance of the most common vitamin E isomer known as alpha-tocopherol. While this form of the vitamin is important to lower risk of heart disease, a plethora of new…

http://www.naturalnews.com/035303_vitamin_E_disease_prevention_lifespan.html

French pine bark contains powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds that ease symptoms of chronic disorders like arthritis, asthma

By Jonathan Benson, March 21 2012

(NaturalNews) An antioxidant-rich nutrient with powerful anti-inflammatory properties, French pine bark extract, also commonly known as Pycnogenol, is hailed by many as an effective treatment for asthma, osteoarthritis, chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and many other chronic diseases. And based on the myriad research that has been conducted on French pine bark over the years, all of this and more appear to be true of the nutrient. French pine…

http://www.naturalnews.com/035304_French_pine_bark_pycnogenol_anti-inflammatory.html

Pet Health

Caring for Your Pet’s Skin During the Winter Season

By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have discovered that winter weather can wreak havoc on our skin. Humidity is low, the outside air is cold and windy, and we’re going in and out of cold to warm and back again throughout each day. Even in homes with great ventilation, our bodies have to struggle to keep up with the temperature and moisture changes that occur throughout the day.

It stands to reason that the body cannot always keep up the necessary balance of chemicals, oils and bacteria the skin needs to stay soft, flexible and comfortable, and the common result is dry, itchy, flaking skin. What is true for human skin is often true for animal skin, as well, and many of the same remedies are useful for both preventing and treating skin problems in dogs.

http://www.petmd.com/dog/seasonal/evr_dg_winter_skin_care?icn=HL-tab-ED-picks&icl=5_evr_dg_winter_skin_care#.T2v0DbRZfe8

Recalls

Listeria Found in Ready-to-Eat Beef Sausage

By Julia Thomas

Southside Market & BBQ of Elgin, TX is recalling approximately 2,373 pounds of ready-to-eat beef sausage products that may have been contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Wednesday.The problem was…

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/03/listeria-found-in-ready-to-eat-beef-sausage-1/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=120322

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