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Eliminating this enzyme may eliminate heart disease (Go To Top) Washington: A new study conducted on animals has revealed that eliminating a cholesterol transforming enzyme, called ACAT2, may drastically reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. "Our research in animals tells us that ACAT2 is a potential treatment target to protect people against heart disease," said Dr. Lawrence Rudel from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. According to the American Heart Association, cholesterol is needed to insulate nerves, make cell membranes and produce certain hormones. However, because the body makes enough cholesterol on its own, too much dietary cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. The researchers focused on enzyme that alters the molecular structure of cholesterol so that it can be transported to the body's cells. They found that mice and monkeys without this enzyme didn't get atherosclerosis. Rudel hopes the research will lead to a drug that can inhibit the enzyme's production in humans. Scientists already know that humans produce ACAT2 and that women have lower levels than men. Research has shown that estrogen can lower ACAT2 production, which may explain why women are less likely than men to get heart disease during their estrogen-producing years. "All of these findings tell us that a potential treatment for protecting against heart disease is a compound that decreases ACAT2 activity," he said. April 29, 2005 Cancer due to excessive use of pesticides in Punjab (Go To Top) Muktsar
(Punjab): Pesticides are to help crop production, not to harm crop
producers but the farmers of Muktsar district in Punjab are facing the
negative effects of using pesticides indiscriminately in farming. Incidence
of cancer and related death rate has risen steeply in the district due
to uncontrolled use of pesticides in farming. More than 100 people have
died in the district due to cancer in the last one-and-a-half years.
People complain that despite the increasing number of cancer deaths
the district's government-run hospital has no special facility for cancer
patients. "My son had cancer. I took him for treatment everywhere but
it was all useless," said Sukhdev Singh, whose 18-year-old son died
of cancer. Villagers accused the authorities of not heeding to their
demands for better facilities. "The population of the village is only
400 and around 25-30 cases of cancer have been detected in the last
2-3 years. We have made the government aware of the situation many times,
but, they are not doing anything," said Ranjit Singh, a villager. Farmers
in the district largely grow cotton and rice, and are known for their
excessive use of chemical pesticides. According to a study conducted
by 'Kheti Virasat', a voluntary organisation, excessive use of pesticides
for cotton adversely affected the region's environment and the health
of the people leading to cancer, kidney failure, yellowing of teeth,
joint pain, breathing problem and skin disorders. Children,
who are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of pesticides, were
marked with congenital defects like mental retardation. There were also
complaints of abortions and abnormal births. "Only 10 per cent of the
total pesticide sprayed on the crop is absorbed by it, the rest 90 per
cent goes into the soil or water or in air. So, now there is pesticide
in the entire milk chain. There is pesticide even in breast milk, in
the animal fodder and also in their milk. It's in the environment, its
everywhere in Punjab," said Umendra Dutt, administrator of 'Kheti Virasat'.
The most common cases of cancers found in the district are that of breast,
uterus, ovary, blood, oesophagus and skin. "We have around 10-15 patients
everyday, out of which at least one or two are diagnosed with cancer,"
H.P. Yadav, head of Adesh Cancer Research Center. The World Health Organization
estimates that 200,000 people are killed worldwide each year as a direct
result of pesticide poisoning. In 1990, that number was 30,000. They
also estimate that three million people are poisoned each year, a large
number of them are children. The pesticides industry in the country
is the fourth largest in the world and second largest in the Asia-Pacific
region, only after China. Estimates of its total market value vary between
3,800 and 4,100 crores of rupees (8.7 to 9.4 million dollars). Cannanbis can be good for your heart (Go To Top) Washington:
Scientists at University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, have found
that a compound derived from the cannabis plant protects blood vessels
from dangerous clogging. According to Nature magazine, the compound,
called delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), combats the blood-vessel
disease atherosclerosis in mice. The team led by Frangois Mach administered
tiny amounts of pure THC to mice that reduced the progression of blood-vessel
blockage formation by more than one-third. Furthermore, feeding the
mice a compound that interferes with binding to CB2 abolished the therapeutic
effect of THC. This proves that the process involves the CB2 protein
rather than a similar protein called CB1, which is found on cells in
the brain and nervous system and is responsible for cannabis's psychological
effects. The benefits for atherosclerosis occurred only at a certain
dosage. At higher and lower doses, THC has no therapeutic effect on
blood vessels, he says. He notes the similarly moderated effects of
alcohol on heart disease, adding that a single glass of Bordeaux may
reduce risk while overindulgence can increase it. Stress helps fight flu: Study (Go To Top) Washington:
A new study conducted by researchers at Ohio State Unversity suggests
that stress may enhance the body's ability to fight the flu. The researchers
found that short bouts of intense social stress improved the ability
in the mice to recover from the flu by boosting the production of specialized
immune cells that fought the virus. These special immune cells are called
T cells and are part of the immune system's memory response. T cells
"remember" specific infectious agents and can launch future attacks
against these intruders. The team led by David Padgett caged mice in
groups of three. One aggressive mouse, meant to disrupt the social environment
in the cage, was put in each of three cages for two hours at a time
for six consecutive days. At the end of the last stress session, the
researchers infected both the subordinate mice that had endured stress
and those mice that weren't caged with an aggressive mouse with a strain
of influenza virus that can also infect humans. Three months later,
the researchers injected either a small amount of saline solution or
influenza virus into the footpad of one hind paw of each mouse. This
kind of viral challenge caused what scientists call a "delayed-type
hypersensitivity" response; the skin test routinely used to test a person
for tuberculosis also causes this kind of response. The influenza challenge
caused the infected paws to redden and swell. The researchers measured
the thickness of paws daily until the swelling went down - this measurement
gave the researchers an idea of the number of cells responding to the
viral antigen. The affected paws of the stressed mice were noticeably
more swollen than those of the non-stressed mice, suggesting that the
immune system's of the stressed mice had had produced more immune cells
that could respond to this strain of flu virus. Three weeks later, the
mice were re-infected with influenza virus through the nose. About a
week later, the researchers examined the spleens and lungs from all
of the mice. The researchers measured the levels of flu-specific T cells
in both organs, and found a greater number of the cells in both the
spleens and lungs of the stressed mice. While the mice in the study
were re-infected with the identical strain of flu, there's a good chance
that a person would not catch the same strain again, since flu viruses
continually mutate. There are no black holes, says scientist (Go To Top) London:
Black holes have been the centre of science fiction novels and many
think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a
physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California,
these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.
Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have
shown that some 70 percent the Universe seems to be composed of a strange
'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion.
George Chapline thinks that the collapse of the massive stars, which
was long believed to generate black holes, actually leads to the formation
of stars that contain dark energy. "It's a near certainty that black
holes don't exist," he was quoted by Nature as saying. Black holes are
one of the most celebrated predictions of Einstein's general theory
of relativity, which explains gravity as the warping of space-time caused
by massive objects. The theory suggests that a sufficiently massive
star, when it dies, will collapse under its own gravity to a single
point. But Einstein didn't believe in black holes, Chapline argues.
"Unfortunately", he adds, "he couldn't articulate why." At the root
of the problem is the other revolutionary theory of twentieth-century
physics, which Einstein also helped to formulate quantum mechanics.
It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist. Laparoscopic surgery has a revolutionary grasper (Go To Top) Washington:
Laparoscopic surgeons will now have less stress to cope with because
a new articulated grasper tool will revolutionise laparoscopy, claim
researchers at the University of Nebraska . The tool named Intuitool,
has been designed by P rofessor Susan Hallbeck and a team of undergraduate
and graduate engineering students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
in collaboration with physicians at the University of Nebraska Medical
Center. Laparoscopic or keyhole surgery, minimally invasive surgery
is done through small incisions.It employs specialized techniques and
tools, miniature cameras with microscopes, tiny fiber-optic flashlights
and high definition monitors for surgery.. Laparoscopic surgery was
developed in the 1990s, said Dmitry Oleynikov, M.D., assistant professor
of surgery at UNMC. Patients have certain definite benefits from laparoscopy
including faster recovery and minimal risk of infection but surgeons
have to face a couple of difficulties in the use of tools for surgery.
"Current tools are essentially regular surgical tools on a long stick.
The handles look like toy scissors and are "one size fits all " and
surgeons with unusually large or small hands ar hampered. The tools
also are usually to be used right-handed, forcing lefties to adapt",
Newswise quoted Hallbeck as saying. "The current tools mean you are
basically forced to perform complicated tasks with chopsticks. They
are rigid, unwieldy instrument.", Oleynikov said. The surgeon has to
manipulate the tools outside the body, often using both hands because
the tools can grasp, but not rotate inside the body. This forces the
surgeon to hold the tools awkwardly, often causing stress and fatigue
in the surgeon's hands, arms and shoulders. Hallbeck said many surgeons
report numbness, tingling, pain and other problems when doing these
surgeries. Over time, this repetitive stress could shorten or end a
career or cause permanent damage. And because of pain or fatigue, surgeons
might have to stop during a surgery to rest before resuming the task,
lengthening the surgery. The breakthrough in the Intuitool is in the
articulation function -- the grasper end rotates up to 120 degrees side
to side using a roller ball the surgeon actuates using his or her thumb.
"Essentially, the Intuitool gives you a wrist on the tool," Hallbeck
said. "This is an unprecedented, even revolutionary breakthrough," Oleynikov
said."No one else has anything remotely similar. It absolutely excited
the imagination of surgeons." Indian scientists unravel X chromosome (Go To Top) Washington:
A team of scientists from India along with their counterparts in
the United States have uncovered genes, many of which are located in
regions of the X chromosome by intensely and systematically comparing
the human X chromosome to genetic information from chimpanzees, rats
and mice. The 26-member Indian team led by Akhilesh Pandey of the McKusick-
Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins and chief scientific
adviser to the Institute of Bioinformatics (IOB) in Bangalore pored
through the publicly available sequence of the X chromosome for 18 months
to identify genes and other important parts of its DNA. They looked
for similarities between the human X chromosome's protein-encoding instructions
and corresponding regions in the mouse. "So our only initial assumption
was that if a genetic region is important and codes for a protein, the
sequence will be conserved at the protein level. Thus, even if the genetic
sequence is different here and there, the protein sequence could still
be the same," Pandey said. In the regions that were the same between
species, the scientists found 43 new "gene structures" that encode proteins.
Some of the newly identified genes sit in regions long tied to X-linked
mental retardation syndromes, which appear only in boys, or other disorders.
References: Enzyme heart disease, cancer pesticides Punjab, cannanbis cardiac, flu stress, black holes, laparoscopic, X chromosome Indian scientist, Science, Research, Science News, India, India News, Newspaper, Indian, News, Travel News, India Travel Times, Travel,Tourism, Tour, Tourist, India, Times, News, Hotels, Airlines, Ayurveda, Yoga, Hindu, Taj Mahal, Cuisine, Festival, Temple, Trekking, Hindu, Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Odissi, Dance, Shimla,Varanasi, Kullu, Manali, Dehra Dun, Mussourie, Mussoorie, Haridwar, Hardwar, Rishikesh, Nainital, Delhi, Goa, Kovalam, Darjeeling, Bodh Gaya, Kancheepuram, Kanchipuram, Thekkady, Badrinath, Amar Nath,Vaishno Devi, Tirupati, Sabarimala, Guruvayoor, Kanyakumari, Kodaikanal, Ooty, Chennai, |
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