 |
|
|
Want to live till 90? Here's the trick Washington, May 28: Want to now the secret how one can add years to his or her lives? If researchers in the United States are to be believed, elderly people who weighed the least when they were 21 and regularly exercised when they were older, were more likely to see their 90th birthday than those who did not take care of such factors. Although previous studies have suggested that weight, body mass index (BMI) and physical activity are associated with lower risk of death, very few studies have looked at whether this also counts for older adults. The results of the research, which was conducted by Dr Maria Corrada, Dr Annlia Paganini-Hill and Dr Claudia Kawas from the University of California, was presented at the 55th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Hawaii. The survey involved more than 10,000 adults, aged 75 on an average, who were studied for more than 20 years. The participants had to answer questions about their height, weight, BMI, level of outdoor exercise and weight at age 21, according to a report published in News24. The elderly men and women who tipped the scale the furthest at age 21 were more likely to die before the age of 90. It was also found that the risk of dying increased with every 2.5 kg increase in weight at 21 years of age. Another finding was that the seniors with the highest body mass indices were more likely to die before their 90th than those who had a lower BMI. Hearty news from fatty fish (Go To Top) Washington, May 27: Researchers have now found that oily fish like salmon, tuna or bluefish can reduce the risk of cardiac deaths by blocking dangerous irregular heart rhythms, according to a report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The study conducted by Alexander Leaf, M.D., Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, Boston and colleagues presented a detailed explanation of how omega-3 (n-3) fish oils benefit the heart. "Animal experiments show that fatty acids from n-3 fish oils are stored in the cell membranes of heart cells and can prevent sudden cardiac death or fatal arrhythmias," Leaf says. Arrhythmias are irregular heart rhythms. Leaf says that studies of individual heart cells demonstrated that the omega-3 essential polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) specifically block excessive sodium and calcium currents in the heart. Those excessive electrical discharges cause dangerous and erratic changes in heart rhythm. Chew aspirin if it's a heart attack (Go To Top) Washington, May 26: Aspirin is the most recommended drug for heart patients. Health experts have now advised that chewing the tablet can be more effective in protecting one who is suffering a heart attack, according to the American Journal of Cardiology. For the study, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School recruited 12 volunteers and measured the length of time it took for the aspirin to inhibit blood clotting, which is the reason to take it after a heart attack, said a report in Health Scout News. They found that swallowing a whole aspirin takes 12 minutes to have any effect on the blood's clotting time; drinking a liquid remedy containing aspirin takes seven minutes to work, but chewing a regular aspirin tablet begins to show benefits in only five minutes. Damaged liver treatable by bone marrow stem cells: Research (Go To Top) Washington, May 15: A study conducted in immune deficient mice suggests that stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood may be useful for treating people with liver damage due to cirrhosis, viral infection, trauma, chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The findings of this research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are published in the May 15 issue of the journal, Blood. "There is a huge demand for liver transplants but there are never enough organs, and the procedure is not always successful," says study leader Jan A Nolta, PhD, associate professor of medicine. Isolating highly purified human stem cells from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood, Nolta and her colleagues transplanted them into immune-deficient mice. A month later, after the human stem cells had established themselves in the animal's bone marrow, the investigators induced liver damage. Following this after a month, the investigators compared the damaged organs to healthy ones from control mice that also had been transplanted with human stem cells. They tested the livers for the presence of human albumin, a protein produced only by liver cells. The greatest number of human-albumin-producing cells were found in the damaged livers of mice that had been treated with human hepatocyte growth factor. Human albumin was not detected in mice with healthy livers. The study also represents the first successful animal model for studying how stem cells from human bone marrow and umbilical cord blood might be used to treat liver disease. Protein that leads to hair growth discovered (Go To Top) Washington, May 15: A researcher at the University of Michigan noticed stubble on the shaved skin of experimental mice in his laboratory, instead of the tumours he had originally expected to see. David Van Mater had stumbled on the discovery that beta-catenin ("bay-tuh-kuh-TEEN-in"), a signalling protein involved in embryonic development and several types of cancer, also triggers changes in adult mouse hair follicles that lead to the growth of new hair. The discovery will be published in the latest issue of Genes and Development. "Other researchers have shown that beta-catenin and other genes in the Wnt ("wint") pathway are important for normal development of hair follicles in embryos and after birth. What's new about our study is the finding that a brief activation of beta-catenin in resting hair follicles could be enough to trigger the complex series of changes it takes to produce a normal hair", said Andrzej A Dlugosz, an associate professor of dermatology in the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Centre. The study used genetically altered mice. By adding a packaged set of genes called a construct to fertilized mouse eggs, the researchers created a new strain of transgenic mice with an inducible form of beta-catenin in their skin cells and hair follicles. Van Mater induced beta-catenin signalling activity by applying a chemical called 4-OHT to shaved areas on the backs of the transgenic mice and matched control mice with normal beta- catenin genes. This chemical turned on the beta-catenin in the skin and follicles of the transgenic mice. The plan was to use 4-OHT to turn on beta-catenin activity in the transgenic mice until skin tumours developed, and then turn off beta-catenin activity to see if the tumours disappeared. "But we never saw tumours - just massive hyperplastic growth of hair follicle cells", Van Mater noted. The scientists also noticed other skin changes that suggested an exaggerated growth phase of the hair cycle. "Many hair follicles in bald men are greatly reduced in size, so merely reactivating hair growth would not produce a normal hair. Also, activation of beta-catenin in the body would need to be tightly regulated, since uncontrolled beta-catenin activity can lead to tumours of hair follicle cells or tumours in other sites, such as the colon, liver or ovary", Van Mater added. Neutrino generator capable of destroying N-arms: Scientists (Go To Top) Tokyo, May 15: A team of Japanese scientists have said that a super-powered neutrino generator could, in theory, be used to instantly destroy nuclear weapons anywhere on the planet. The futuristic device, if ever built, could be used by a state to obliterate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy by firing a beam of neutrinos straight through the Earth, according to a report in New Scientist. But the generator would need to be more than a hundred times more powerful than any existing particle accelerator and over 1000 km wide. It would also require 50 Giga Watts of power to operate and would cost an estimated 100 billion dollars to construct. "It is really quite futuristic. But the maths and physics seems to be right", Alfons Weber, a neutrino scientist at Oxford University, UK, told New Scientist. However, John Cobb, another researcher at Oxford University, cautioned that it might be technically feasible, given massive investment, but there were still unsolved problems. Neutrinos are elementary particles with no electric charge and virtually no mass. They are produced in the nuclear reactions within stars and pass through the Earth in their thousands every day. As they pass through ordinary matter, neutrinos scatter atomic nuclei, the report said. By scattering neutrons in uranium or plutonium, a sufficiently high-powered beam of neutrinos would destabilise a nuclear bomb, the report added. According to Hiroyuki Hagura and Toshiya Sanami at Japan's KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization and Hirotaka Sugawara at the University of Hawaii, this would cause the weapon to "melt down" without triggering the chain reaction needed for it to fully detonate. Drug that reduces impact of smoking and drinking (Go To Top) Washington, May 15: A drug called mecamylamine blocks the effects of nicotine on the brain and is believed to reduce the rewarding effects of cigarette smoking, a new study has found. It was also discovered that mecamylamine reduces self-reported stimulant and euphoric effects of alcohol in humans, as well as their desire to drink more. The findings, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, has revealed that mecamylamine reduces the self- reported stimulant and euphoric effects of alcohol in humans, and also decreases their desire to drink more. Lizard-like wall walking a possibility (Go To Top) Washington, May 15: Scientists in California have started work on how to make a material coated with synthetic gecko hairs, which would open up new vistas like walking on walls. The prospect of being able to emulate a lizard and walk up a wall and across the ceiling is now slowly nearing reality, reported the New Scientist. Super-grip shoes for athletes and tyres that will hold the road better in all weathers are just a few possible examples. And of course for Hollywood actors playing superheroes like Spiderman, it will be a cakewalk to climb walls and cruise across the ceiling, without the studios resorting to computer graphics. The hairs on a gecko's feet, called setae, are the key to its remarkable grip on just about any surface, whether rough or smooth, wet or dry. The tips of the setae being sticky, help the geckos to hang from a ceiling with the entire weight suspended from a single toe. Researcher Ron Fearing and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley, showed the adhesion in the tips can be sourced to very weak intermolecular attractive forces called van der Waals forces. The bases of gecko setae measure tens of micrometres across, but split into lots of thinner, curvaceous hairs, towards the end, which finally broaden out into flat spatulas at their tips. These can bend and conform to the surface of the wall at the molecular level, thereby maximising the van der Waals attractive force. Your occupation reflects your personality (Go To Top) Sydney, May 11: Researchers at Monash Uiniversity have linked people's occupations with their personalities. So, if you are a carpenter, electrician, chef, mechanic, gardener or labourer, your personality traits tend to be asocial, conforming, reserved, introspective, unpopular, orderly, careful, unimaginative and defensive, according to a report in News24.com. By contrast, if you are a business manager, company director, public servant or sales representative, you are likely to be acquisitive, adventurous, ambitious, energetic, extroverted, friendly and generous, the report added. Sesame oil helps reduce high blood pressure (Go To Top) Washington, May 11: A new study by Indian researchers have found that using sesame oil, instead of other cooking oils, helps reduce high blood pressure and lower the amount of medication required to control high blood pressure. The study looked at the effect of sesame oil on 328 people with hypertension who were taking 10 to 30 milligrams a day of the calcium channel blocker drug nifedipine, which lowers blood pressure by relaxing arterial membranes, according to a report in Health Scout. The average age of the people in the study was 58, and they had moderate to severe long-term hypertension but no history of stroke or heart disease. They consumed an average of 35 grams of sesame oil a day for 60 days. Their blood pressure was measured at the start of the study, every 15 days during the study and on day 60, the report said. The study found that using sesame oil as their sole cooking oil lowered their blood pressure levels. The average dose of nifedipine taken by the people in the study was reduced from 22.7 milligrams per day to 7.45 milligrams per day by the end of the study, it added. Severe immune response kills Sars patients: WHO (Go To Top) Hong Kong, May 3: A severe immune reaction seems to kill Sars-infected people, World Health Organisation's chief scientist Klaus Stohr has revealed. Scientists have also discovered that the Sars virus can remain viable for at least 24 hours after being deposited in a droplet on a plastic surface - a simulation, for example, of an infected person coughing on to the wall of a lift, according to a report in New Scientist. "In the first week or so of the disease, the virus is replicating mainly in the upper respiratory tract, causing high fever and dry cough. But in the second week we see an over-reaction of the immune response, and in 20 per cent of cases that leads to very severe disease", Stohr said. This excessive response seems to be destroying the alveoli, the tiny sacs at the end of the lung tubing where the oxygen is absorbed, Mark Salter, WHO's coordinator for the clinical management of Sars, told New Scientist. "It is like stripping all the leaves from a tree, making breathing extremely difficult", he added. "The immune response develops, but then continues growing unchecked. You then get cytokines, tumour necrosis factor and so on released not just at the virally infected cells they are supposed to kill, but throughout the tissue. This also happens in other diseases but the mechanism is not entirely understood, and certainly not in the case of Sars", Stohr noted. Nevertheless, the observation significantly strengthens the basis on which doctors can select the treatments given to patients. In particular, it suggests the use of corticosteroids, alongside other drugs that reduce the viral load such as interferon. Corticosteroids suppress the immune system and are normally used against asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and in transplant patients to reduce the risk of rejection, the report said. Their use does raise the risk of further infection, but Hong Kong hospitals are claiming success with combinations of the anti-viral ribavirin and pulsed steroids, it added. Did Einstein, Newton have autism? Yes, say researchers (Go To Top) London, May 1: A surprising aspect of history's two biggest geniuses has come to light. Researchers now believe that Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton may have suffered from some kind of autism. Researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities believe both scientists displayed classic signs of Asperger's syndrome, which include eccentricity, lack of social skills, obsession with complex topics and communication problems. It is also suggested that Einstein, who discovered the theory of relativity, and Newton, who discovered the laws of gravity, had these traits in varying degrees. According to the researchers, Einstein showed signs of Asperger's from a young age. As a child, he was a loner and often repeated sentences obsessively until he was seven years old. He was also a notoriously confusing lecturer, reports BBC. Later in life, the Germany-born scientist made intimate friends, had numerous affairs and spoke out on political issues. However, the researchers insist that he continued to show signs of having Asperger's. "Passion, falling in love and standing up for justice are all perfectly compatible with Asperger's syndrome," Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge, one of those involved in the study, said, reports BBC quoting New Scientist magazine. "What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting - they can't do small talk." The researchers believe that Newton too displayed classic signs of the condition. He hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the few friends he had. If no one turned up at his lectures, he delivered them anyway - talking to an empty room. At the age of 50, he had a nervous breakdown brought on by depression and paranoia. However, others believe that these traits can be attributed to the high intelligence of both men. "One can imagine geniuses who are socially inept and yet not remotely autistic," said Dr Glen Elliott, a psychiatrist at the University of California at San Francisco. "Impatience with the intellectual slowness of others, narcissism and passion for one's mission in life might combine to make such individuals isolative and difficult." -ANI |
|