Coffee Helps Reduce Type 2 Diabetes Risk

new study has offered fresh evidence that drinking coffee may help prevent diabetes and that caffeine may be the ingredient largely responsible for this effect. Previous studies have suggested that regular coffee drinking may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. The disease affects millions in the United States and is on the rise worldwide. However, little of that evidence comes from studies on lab animals used to do research that cannot be done in humans. As part of the new research, Fumihiko Horio and colleagues fed either water or coffee to a group of laboratory mice commonly used to study diabetes. Coffee consumption prevented the development of high-blood sugar and also improved insulin sensitivity in the mice, thereby reducing the risk of diabetes. Coffee also caused a cascade of other beneficial changes in the fatty liver and inflammatory adipocytokines related to a reduced diabetes risk. Additional lab studies showed that caffeine may be "one of the most effective anti-diabetic compounds in coffee," the scientists say. The study appears in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Source-ANI

Grow Tall to Avoid Heart Disease Risk

Short people are 50 percent likelier than tall people to die prematurely of heart disease, researchers reported Wednesday in a major review of three million people. The study showed that women under 1.53 metres (5 feet) and men under 1.65m (5 ft 5 in) are significantly more prone to cardiovascular or coronary heart problems than women and men taller than 1.66 (5 ft 6 in) and 1.73 metres (5 ft 8 in), respectively. The findings, published in the European Heart Journal, suggest that short stature should be added to the list of known heart disease risk factors alongside obesity, advanced age and high cholesterol levels, the researchers said. The link between height and heart conditions has been examined in nearly 2,000 studies from around the world over the last 60 years, but evidence remained contradictory. Scientists in Finland led by Puula Paajanen of the University of Tampere sifted through all this research to see if they could tease out a definitive answer. The best approach, they decided, was to compare the shortest group to the tallest group to highlight any differences that might emerge. They focussed on 52 earlier studies, examining more than three million people in all, that met their criteria for both comparability and high standards. "The results are unequivocal: short stature is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease," said Jaakko Tuomilehto, a professor at the University of Helsinki in commenting on the new study
Source:www.ayushdarpan.com

UN Chief Calls On Nations to Prioritize Women's Health

Either governments have to kick-start efforts to improve women's health or risk missing a UN-set deadline to cut maternal deaths, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has cautioned nations. Speaking at Women Deliver, the largest international women's health conference in a decade, Ban said Monday that women's and children's health issues have been the slowest of the UN Millennium Development Goals to make progress. He unveiled an action plan that would see the UN work with global governments to speed up work on women's health targets and get them back on track. "Our joint action plan demands that all women and children should benefit from the relatively simple, proven health practices and known technologies that save lives," Ban said. Among the UN targets -- set in 2000 by 189 countries -- is a commitment to efforts to reduce by 75 percent the number of women who die in childbirth. There are only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the goals. Reports published last month by The Lancet, a British medical journal, say that with just five years to go to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, only around two dozen countries are on track to cut maternal deaths by 75 percent. "Women are dying because their lives are not important enough to policymakers around the world," said Guttmacher Institute president and CEO Sharon Camp. She noted that while less than 12 billion dollars were spent last year to promote maternal health -- a sum she said should be at least doubled -- "Wall Street bosses paid themselves twice that in bonuses last year."

India Aims to Safeguard Yoga from Fake Patents

To protect India's rich heritage of medicinal and medical philosophy and practice, a government body has started filming hundreds of yoga poses in an attempt to provide evidence for anyone hoping to patent a new style of yoga that the Indians got first. A previous effort by the Government to define yoga, based on translations of ancient texts, had mixed results, so now they are trying again to videograph the yoga poses. "It's like soccer and Britain. You have given it to the world, which is wonderful and generous. But imagine that people started saying they had invented the sport. That would be annoying," said Suneel Singh, one of India's leading yoga gurus. The ministries of health and science have set up the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library jointly. Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, a Delhi-based government organization said: "Simple text isn't adequate. People are claiming they are doing something different from the original yoga when they are not." "Yoga originated in India. People cannot claim to invent a new yoga when they have not," The Guardian quoted Dr Gupta, as saying. The campaign to safeguard India's rich heritage of medicinal art and practice has already scored major victories, forcing European companies to reverse patents on the use of extract of melon, ginger, cumin, turmeric and onions for a range of health products. The government officials were able to use the new digital library to submit carefully translated excerpts from texts ranging from 19th century medical text books to 5th century manuals of traditional ayurvedic medicine to support their claims

Taliban Planning to Use HIV Bombs to Infect British Troops

An attempt is being made by the Taliban to infect British troops with HIV, The Sun reveals. Hypodermic syringes are hidden below the surface pointing upwards to prick bomb squad experts as they hunt for devices. The heroin needles are feared to be contaminated with hepatitis and HIV. And if the bomb goes off, the needles become deadly flying shrapnel. The tactic has been used in the Afghan badlands of Helmand, and was exposed by Tory MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer. Source-ANI

'Silent' Brain Damage in Younger People Could Raise Stroke Risk

Being young doesn't imply you are immune to a stroke. According to result of research from Hopital Notre Dame in Montreal, two silent factors - leukoaraiosis and silent brain infarcts - can be really tricky and dangerous. Lead investigator, neurologist Dr. Alexandre Poppe, suggests that patients aged 18 to 50 who present with stroke should have brain MRIs to identify those who have experienced silent strokes, in an effort to prevent further damage. Silent brain infarcts (SBI) are tiny strokes which can be seen on brain imaging but are asymptomatic; the patient is completely unaware of their occurrence, but this does not mean they are not causing damage. Research tells us that these conditions are common in older adults with acute ischemic stroke and predict recurrent stroke and cognitive decline. Their presence can help neurologists assess the risk of future stroke-related disease and emphasize prevention. Now, in a world-first study, Dr. Poppe has shifted the focus from elderly patients to a much younger, under-investigated age group: 18 to 50 year-olds. Dr. Poppe and his co-investigators studied 168 stroke patients in this younger age group, all of whom underwent MRI after a first stroke. They were followed for an average of 27 months. Over that time, stroke recurred in 11 per cent. Those with silent or covert strokes identified on their MRI were three times more likely to experience a recurrent stroke than patients without these covert lesions.


Source:http://ayushdarpan.com

Sexsomnia More Common Among Men Than Women

A new study reveals that sexsomnia is common in sleep center patients. The research shows men are more likely than women to report sexsomnia, but few patients talk to their doctor about the problem. Finding of the study indicate that 7.6 percent of patients (63 of 832) at a sleep disorders center reported that they had initiated or engaged in sexual activity with a bed partner while asleep. The prevalence of reported sexsomnia was nearly three times higher in men (11 percent) than in women (four percent). Co-investigator Sharon A. Chung, Sleep Research Laboratory staff scientist in the department of psychiatry at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, said: "There have been no previous studies of how frequently sexsomnia occurs. "While our finding of eight percent of people reporting sexsomnia seems really a high number, it should be stressed that we only studied patients referred to a sleep clinic. So, we would expect the numbers to be much lower in the general population." The study involved a retrospective chart review of 832 consecutive patients who were evaluated for a suspected sleep disorder; the sample consisted of 428 men and 404 women
SOURCE:http://ayushdarpan.com

Revolutionary Procedure Helps Patients to "Regrow Their Knee"

In a revolutionary approach, British medics have found a novel way to "re-grow" knees in patients whose knee cartilages have been damaged. Because the body cannot regenerate shock-absorbing cartilage, thousands of patients have to undergo multiple knee replacement operations. But now, surgeons scrape healthy cells from the knee, and send them to Germany to be re-grown in a petri dish with growth enhancers. A fragile sheet of cartilage made from the patients' cells and DNA is then stitched back into place to revitalise the knee. Surgeon Ashvin Pimpalnerkar operates on just ten patients a year at Good Hope Hospital, in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham. "It is an amazing breakthrough and may become the norm. It is quite expensive, so this is aimed at younger patients and sport injuries at the moment," The Sun quoted him as saying Patient Helen James, 33, of Rugeley, Staffs, was left with bone rubbing on bone after a fall destroyed her knee cartilage. "I was in agony. I was nervous but had no pain from the surgery. "It's mind-blowing to think that cartilage was taken out of my knee and regrown. It's amazing," she said. More than 70,000 knee replacement ops take place in England and Wales every year. Source-ANI

Study Says, Vaginal Microbes Vary Among Healthy Women

http://www.ayushdarpan.com/ NEWS:The delicate balance of microbes in the vagina can vary greatly between healthy women, a new study has said. The researchers of the study, led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences, hope further study will lead to personalized reproductive medicine for women, allowing doctors to tailor each woman's treatment and health maintenance strategies to her individual microbial make-up. The study, published online the week of May 31, 2010, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used genomics-based technologies to examine the vaginal microbes in 400 women. The work, a collaboration between the Institute for Genome Sciences and researchers at the University of Idaho, is the first in-depth, large-scale molecular characterization of vaginal microbial communities. The research is an example of an emerging field of genomics, the study of the human microbiome. The human microbiome refers to all of the microbes that live on and in the human body. Scientists believe these tiny organisms interact closely with the human genome and play a critical role in human health and disease. In the vagina, these communities of microbes play a critical role in maintaining and promoting a woman's health and in protecting her against disease. Vaginal microbes provide protection mainly by producing lactic acid to create an acidic environment that is hostile to certain harmful microbes or infection.