tagged w/ Medical Science
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Excerpt: [Swathi Kompella is a fairly typical 12-year-old. She attends Campus Middle School in Englewood. She plays violin -- "but I'm not a pro," she says. She dances. She plays in school sports. She's thinking about college, and a medical career beyond that.
Oh, and she's designing stem-cell technology that might regenerate damaged cells in the brains of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients.
Kompella has a vision of a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brains of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients. The device would attract neural stem cells and use them as a recuperative force.
"I'm trying to see if we could create a device that attracts neural stem cells and regenerates them," she explains. Then the renewed stem cells would make their way to the disease site to replace dead and diseased cells.
Swathi says she sees plenty of opportunities for additional related research in the future, but she's not exactly sure where it will take her. "There are a lot of factors to take into consideration," says Kompella. "I'm only 12 years old." Swathi's age makes access to a clinical environment difficult, but she says she hopes to find a laboratory soon where she can expand on her current work.]Excerpt: [Swathi Kompella is a fairly typical 12-year-old. She attends Campus Middle... more
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The centuries old motto ‘the dead teach the living’ adorns the doors and desks in many medical schools. Professor Vishy Mahadevan and Louise Evans, from the London Anatomy Office, provide rare insights on what happens when you donate your body to science and why individual consent is so important. The programme also touches upon the government’s proposal to switch to a system of presumed consent which will effectively mean the end to voluntary organ donation. Through interviewing the public on the streets and testing the government’s ideas, Citizen TV makers conclude, presumed consent is bad news. People, the programme suggests, are not just pieces of meat but are led by ethical considerations such as their sense of duty and generosity to others. To remain autonomous, able to make decisions about our own bodies, is surely a sign of a civilised society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbRe5x3052A&list=SP9KfsTTAa2dkb3qrO_I7DTy9Zi22MAiF1&index=6&feature=plcpThe centuries old motto ‘the dead teach the living’ adorns the doors and... more
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"Hard to believe, isn't it?" 47-year-old Wesley Warren Jr. said in the poorly lit apartment. "It's freakish."
What sat in front of where Warren was seated in shorts -- what is actually attached to him -- was more than 100 pounds of scrotum, the protective sac of skin and muscle that contains his testicles."Hard to believe, isn't it?" 47-year-old Wesley Warren Jr. said in the... more
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February 18th, 2011
05:16 PM ET
For untreatable OCD, a deep-brain solution
Obsessive-compulsive disorder can be a severely disabling illness. People with this condition tend to have troubling, unwanted thoughts and engage in compulsive behaviors to try to neutralize those feelings.
About 2.2 million Americans over age 18 have it, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health. But in some cases, no medical or behavioral therapy intervention works, and patients' lives become entirely consumed with anxiety and obsessive rituals.
A more radical solution for those who don't improve with conventional methods is gaining support. It's called deep brain stimulation, and it involves implanting an electrode deep into the brain to deliver an electrical current directly in the circuitry scientists believe is involved in the disorder.
Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, a psychiatrist at Brown University and at Butler Hospital, presented the latest results from his research on deep brain stimulation Friday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Deep brain stimulation therapy for OCD involves an implanted device designed to be worn for life, somewhat akin to a cardiac pacemaker for someone with heart problems, except the wires go through a hole in the skull into the brain instead of the heart, he says.
In the United States, there are about 60 or 70 patients who have had deep brain stimulation for OCD since 2000, Greenspan said. But the technology has been used for Parkinson's disease and other disorders; about 70,000 people have deep brain stimulation devices worldwide, said Michael Okun, neurologist at the University of Florida.
Greenspan is doing a small NIH-supported controlled trial to investigate deep brain stimulation. His newest results using Medtronic electrodes suggest in eight or more years of followup, patients who showed initial improvement and continued the deep brain stimulation have less severe symptoms than they did initially. It is not an instant cure, but it improves functioning, he said.
"They gain a lot more time in the day where what they’re doing is not OCD," he said.
A device slightly different from Greenspan's can be obtained under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration "humanitarian device exemption." That means when there are less than 4,000 patients yearly who have a specific condition - in this case, untreatable OCD - the FDA can approve a device for which research and development costs may be bigger than market returns if full clinical trials were run.
But the technique is still controversial. Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of medical ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, argued that there is not enough evidence to support having this therapy approved, and that its approval is putting patients at risk, in addition to restricting further scientific inquiry and benefiting the device manufacturers.
There are also, of course, documented side effects. Whenever you put something in the brain, there can be bleeding, which can have transient or permanent side effects. The rate of these is low, but it's still possible, Greenberg said. Infection and seizures at the time of the operation are also possible, and there's even the potential for seizures to emerge later in treatment. Behavioral side effects may include too much energy and trouble sleeping. And when a battery dies or a wire breaks or the patient goes through a metal detector, OCD symptoms get worse, sometimes very suddenly.
Deep brain stimulation is about as effective as permanent surgeries involving making lesions in the brain, although that's still being studied, Greenberg said. The advantage of deep brain stimulation is that the device is removable and adjustable, so the electrical current can be changed to suit the individual's treatment. But about half of patients who could choose this route instead elect surgical lesions because permanent surgery doesn't require maintaining a device or remaining connected to a specialized treatment center.
Deep brain stimulation is also being used in depression, targeted at the same brain circuits: Connecting the front part of the brain with deeper regions. These circuits are recognized as being key to behavioral disorders. There's a lot of commonality in the pharmacological treatments used in OCD and other mood disorders already, so it makes sense that deep brain stimulation would also target the same areas, Greenberg said.February 18th, 2011
05:16 PM ET
For untreatable OCD, a deep-brain solution... more
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U.S. government officials lowered recommended limits for fluoride in water on Friday, saying some children may be getting tooth damage from too much.
Fluoride is added to the water supply in most U.S. communities because it can prevent and repair tooth decay. But health and environment officials said Americans get fluoride in so many sources now, such as toothpaste and mouth rinses, that it makes sense to lower levels.
The Health and Human Services Department lowered its recommended levels to 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water -- the lower limit of the current recommended range of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would review its rules on how high fluoride levels may go. Currently they may go as high as 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/reuters/Health/78310U.S. government officials lowered recommended limits for fluoride in water on Friday,... more
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Although first approved to treat schizophrenia, new antipsychotic medications are increasingly being prescribed for a host of other uses, even when there is little evidence they work, U.S. researchers said on Friday.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/reuters/Health/78203Although first approved to treat schizophrenia, new antipsychotic medications are... more
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A lead poisoning outbreak that has killed more than 400 children in the rural farmlands of northern Nigeria remains 'a neglected, underfunded emergency,' the U.N. warned Friday, saying many villages remain coated with the deadly metal...
www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/Health/78198A lead poisoning outbreak that has killed more than 400 children in the rural... more
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This week more shame was heaped upon the discredited British researcher whose work gave rise to the childhood-vaccines-cause-autism movement, as a prominent medical journal published a report that the man had faked his data. But will it make a difference?.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/Health/78199This week more shame was heaped upon the discredited British researcher whose work... more
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New research found two weeks of treatment with an antibiotic relieves symptoms for some sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome, a poorly understood and painful condition that especially afflicts younger women
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/Health/78201New research found two weeks of treatment with an antibiotic relieves symptoms for... more
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Reversing a potentially controversial decision, the Obama administration will drop references to end-of-life counseling from the ground rules for Medicares new annual checkup, the White House said Wednesday..
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/Health/78202Reversing a potentially controversial decision, the Obama administration will drop... more
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If you saw the 2010 drama 'The Kids Are All Right,' in which two teens raised by a lesbian couple decide to make contact with their biological father, you might be wondering: Might such an experience leave psychological scars?
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/reuters/Health/77479If you saw the 2010 drama 'The Kids Are All Right,' in which two teens... more
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New research found two weeks of treatment with an antibiotic relieves symptoms for some sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome, a poorly understood and painful condition that especially afflicts younger women...
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/Health/76862New research found two weeks of treatment with an antibiotic relieves symptoms for... more
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