Energy drinks may increase blood pressure, change heart’s rhythm

March 24, 2013 (CBS News) — Researchers are warning some energy drink fans that their habit may be taking a toll on their hearts.

A new study presented at the American Heart Association’s 2013 Scientific Sessions in New Orleans revealed that energy drinks may increase blood pressure and change the heart’s rhythm.

Energy drinks have made headlines recently with negative health reactions allegedly caused by the beverages. The FDA announced in November 2012 that it was investigating 13 deaths tied to 5-hour Energy products and other reports of adverse events. Read more…

Doctors reveal a connection between certain foods and breast cancer

Eating non-fat food can reduce breast cancer

March 15, 2013 (CBS News) — Women with breast cancer may want to avoid high fat dairy foods. A new study found patients who ate one or more servings of products such as whole milk, ice cream or cheese had a 64 percent higher risk of dying. Researchers at Kaiser Permanente say switching to low fat dairy products can lower the risk.

Drinking a couple of cups of coffee or green tea everyday may help prevent a stroke. A study from the American Heart Association found combining the two was even more beneficial. People who drank one cup of coffee and two cups of green tea daily had a 32 percent lower risk of stroke. Read more…

Newborn Baby Cured Of HIV Say Doctors In Medical First

By ANDREW POLLACK and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

March 6, 2013 (New York Times) — Doctors announced on Sunday that a baby had been cured of an H.I.V. infection for the first time, a startling development that could change how infected newborns are treated and sharply reduce the number of children living with the virus that causes AIDS.

The baby, born in rural Mississippi, was treated aggressively with antiretroviral drugs starting around 30 hours after birth, something that is not usually done. If further study shows this works in other babies, it will almost certainly be recommended globally. The United Nations estimates that 330,000 babies were newly infected in 2011, the most recent year for which there is data, and that more than three million children globally are living with H.I.V. Read more…

Brain-to-brain interface lets rats share information via internet

A rat with a brain-to-brain implant responds to a light (circled) by pressing a lever. Its motor cortex was connected to that of another rat. Photograph: Scientific Reports

March 1, 2013 (The Guardian) — Rats thousands of miles apart collaborate on simple tasks with their brains connected through the internet.

Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”.

The US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water.

In one radical demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to link the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles, with one in the researchers’ lab at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the other in Natal, Brazil. Read more…

Heart Health Center: How to Boost Your ‘Good’ Cholesterol

January 31, 2013

At the risk of sounding like a certain 20-something socialite, High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is hot! Advances in research have brought more attention to the blood lipid (or fat) we often call “good” cholesterol.

“Good” cholesterol doesn’t refer to the cholesterol we eat in food, but rather to the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol circulating in our blood. It’s one of the fats measured in the lipid panel blood test doctors perform. And it’s the component you want more of, because a higher HDL is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

Read more…

CWRU researcher finds different genes result in same adaptation to thin air

January 8, 2013, USA (CWRU Daily) — Highlanders in Tibet and Ethiopia share a biological adaptation that enables them to thrive in the low oxygen of high altitudes, but the ability to pass on the trait appears to be linked to different genes in the two groups, research from a Case Western Reserve University scientist and colleagues shows.

The adaptation is the ability to maintain a relatively low (for high altitudes) level of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells, at notably high altitudes. Members of ethnic populations who historically live at low altitudes naturally respond to the thin air by increasing hemoglobin levels. The response can help draw oxygen into the body, but increases blood viscosity and the risks for thrombosis, stroke and difficulties with pregnancies. Read more…

Health: Squeezing breasts ‘can stop cancer’

Squeezing breasts could prevent cancer, best study ever says

Getting to second base, the holy grail for hormonal boys, is now science: New research has shown that squeezing breasts could prevent malignant breast cells from causing cancer. This doesn’t give pervy dudes license to grope you on the subway, ladies, but it does mean boob-grabbing should be a regular part of your self-care routine (yes, absolutely try it DIY-style). Experiments found that physical pressure led cells back to normal growth patterns, and that even after compression was no longer applied, the malignant cells stopped growing. Spread the word, boob-lovers of the world.

Squeezing breasts ‘can stop cancer’

December 20, 2012 (MSN) –A little squeeze may be all that it takes to prevent malignant breast cells triggering cancer, research has shown. Read more…

Milk poisoning in Ethiopia

Feb 17, 2012 (ILRI) – Staphylococcal poisoning from drinking non-pasteurized or non-homogenized milk was found to affect over 90% of a tested population in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. The cause? “Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that can cause mastitis (udder infection) in dairy cows” according to collaborative research undertaken by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Addis Ababa University. The bacteria can then produce enterotoxins in the milk which, when consumed by a person, cause a real risk of food poisoning.

Scientists have been measuring the level of staphylococcal poisoning – also known as food poisoning – found in the fermented milk in Debre Zeit. The research has also shown that traditional milk fermentation can help ensure milk is safe for consumption by reducing “the risk of food poisoning by Staphylococcus aureus by 93.7%.”

During milk souring: “…the organic acids produced during fermentation inhibit the growth of spoilage micro-organisms, thereby prolonging the storage life of the milk.” These traditional techniques are especially useful when industrial milk preparation methods are not available. Read more…

Starve a Virus, Feed a Cure?

New Findings Show How Some Cells Protect Themselves against HIV

Baek Kim and Waaqo Daddacha in Kim’s laboratory. Their ability to make precise measurements of DNA’s building blocks helped them discover why HIV-1 does not infect certain white blood cells.

February 14, 2012 (University of Rochester) – A protein that protects some of our immune cells from the most common and virulent form of HIV works by starving the virus of the molecular building blocks that it needs to replicate, according to research published online in Nature Immunology.

The finding comes from an international team of researchers including scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center, NYU Langone Medical Center, several institutions in France – and a graduate student who who is a political refugee from Africa and is now at work in a Rochester laboratory, intent on helping his people who have been devastated by the HIV epidemic.

While researchers hope the work will one day lead to a way to make anti-HIV drugs more effective by increasing their potency against the virus, they’re also excited about its implications for our knowledge of other pathogens, such as herpes viruses, which use the same machinery within our cells that HIV does to replicate. Read more…

WiFi may damage sperm quality: Study

November 29, 2011 | Argentine scientists found WiFi from a laptop kills or maims the little swimmers

WiFi technology may cause a major handicap for men hoping to build a family: sperm damage.

A team of Argentine scientists led by Conrado Avendano of the Nascentis Center for Reproductive Medicine in Cordoba found that placing drops of semen from healthy men under a laptop connected wirelessly to the Internet kills or maims the little swimmers.

The scientists reported their findings this month in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

After four hours next to the WiFi-connected computer, 25% of the sperm had stopped moving and nine percent showed DNA damage.

By comparison, semen kept at the same temperature but away from the computer showed just a 14% drop in mobility and only 3% suffered DNA damage. Read more…

‘Criminal’ cuts to AIDS fund make Africa’s dire situation even worse

November 26, 2011 (The Globe and Mail) - As donors cut back on funds for HIV treatment, new data is revealing how many millions of impoverished Africans have been unable to get life-saving medicine even before the latest cuts.

Donor governments in Europe and elsewhere, suffering from the global economic slowdown and concerned about corruption in some recipient countries, are drastically reducing their support for a crucial health fund: the $22-billion Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is the biggest source of money for combating the world’s three deadliest infectious diseases. Read more…

New studies show progress, value in vaccination against deadly pneumonia

Advances lauded as Malawi becomes next developing country to introduce pneumococcal vaccine on Saturday — World Pneumonia Day

GENEVA, November 9, 2011 (eurekalert) – Vaccines against the primary cause of deaths from pneumonia in developing countries could save millions of lives and are highly cost-effective, according to a comprehensive new analysis to be released on Thursday, Nov. 10. Read more…

AIDS Drugs Offer Hope of Normal Lifespan in Africa

July 18, 2011 (VOA News)- Over the last 30 years life expectancy rates in Africa plummeted, as HIV/AIDS claimed millions of lives. But a new study says antiretroviral drug treatment can dramatically reverse that trend.

Professor Jean Nachega co-authored the study of some 20,000 patients in Uganda. He said, “The overall key finding of our study is that the patient in Africa receiving antiretroviral therapy for HIV can expect to live a near normal lifespan.”

The findings were released at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Rome – and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Read more…