DoctorsHealthPress.com Supports Study Showing Music Therapy to Be an Effective Therapy for Brain Function

The Doctors Health Press, a publisher of various natural health newsletters, books and reports, including the popular online Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin, is supporting a clinical trial to investigate the benefits of singing in patients who had suffered brain damage. The Doctors Health Press, a publisher of various natural health newsletters, books and reports, including the popular online Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin, is supporting a clinical trial to investigate the benefits of singing in patients who had suffered brain damage. As reported in Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin on Thursday, May 10, 2012 (http://www.doctorshealthpress.com/brain-function-articles/a-little-known-therapy-to-help-brain-function ), researchers at the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function in the Bronx, New York found that, by getting brain damage patients to engage in singing, a number of measurable benefits could be seen. The Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin article reports that one of the primary benefits was that breathing improved in the patients. By taking in deeper breaths, more oxygen was supplied to the brain, aiding in the healing process. Next, the researchers found that singing increased verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors, again boosting brain healing by giving the brain more exercise. Singing also, not surprisingly, improved articulation and speech patterns. Singing helped to exercise the vocal chords and attune the brain to changes in rhythm, pitch and volume — all important aspects of verbal speech. All of these beneficial effects were enhanced or diminished by the choice of music and the way it was interactively delivered. The Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin article further reports that the researchers concluded that there are definite benefits from music therapy that could help heal brain damage in patients suffering from head trauma. Source:DoctorHealthPress.com

FDA reviews first rapid, take-home test for HIV

The Food and Drug Administration is considering approval of the first over-the-counter HIV test that would allow consumers to quickly test themselves for the virus at home, without medical supervision. FDA reviewers said Friday the OraQuick In-Home HIV test could play a significant role in slowing the spread of HIV, according to briefing documents posted online. But they also raised concerns about the accuracy of the test, a mouth swab that returns results in about 20 minutes. The review comes one day after an FDA advisory panel endorsed the HIV pill Truvada for preventive use. If FDA follows the group's advice, the daily medication would become the first drug approved to prevent healthy people from becoming infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Public health experts estimate one-fifth, or about 240,000 people, of the 1.2 million HIV carriers in the U.S. are not aware they are infected. Testing is one of the chief means of slowing new infections, which have held steady at about 50,000 per year for two decades. In a trial conducted by the company OraSure Technologies Inc., the test correctly detected HIV in those carrying the virus 93 percent of the time. That rate is below the FDA-recommended 95 percent threshold for accuracy. The FDA estimates the test would miss about 3,800 HIV-positive people per year, if approved for U.S. consumers. The test was more accurate at correctly clearing patients who do not have the disease. In company studies, OraQuick correctly identified HIV-negative users 99 percent of the time. In their briefing documents, FDA scientists noted both the benefits and risks of expanding HIV testing with the take-home diagnostic kit. "There is considerable personal and public health value in informing infected, but otherwise untested, persons of their true positive HIV status," the reviewers state. "However, this benefit is offset in some measure by HIV-positive individuals who receive an incorrect message that they are not infected." The lukewarm endorsement apparently spooked investors. OraSure's stock tumbled $1.32, or 11.8 percent, to close at $9.85 in trading Friday. On Tuesday, the FDA will ask a panel of outside experts whether the test should be approved for over-the-counter sales in U.S. The agency is not required to follow the group's advice, though it usually does. Based in Bethlehem, Pa., OraSure has marketed a version of OraQuick to doctors, nurses and other health care practitioners since 2004. The test sells for $17.50, though OraSure declined to discuss how it would price the consumer version. When used by professionals, the test is shown to accurately identify both carriers and non-carriers 99 percent of the time. While it's not clear why the test was less accurate in consumer trials, CEO Doug Michels said company researchers anticipated that its "performance in the hands of a consumer would be different from that observed in hands of a professional." OraSure tried the new version of the test in a study of 5,800 people of various sexual orientation, race and income levels. The trial identified about 100 HIV carriers who were previously undiagnosed. The FDA has already approved HIV test kits that people take home. However, those kits, which require a blood sample, must be sent to a laboratory for development. But OraSure argues that a test that can be done at home will appeal to a much broader group of people. According to the company's study, 41 percent of people who discovered they were HIV-positive using OraQuick had never been tested previously. In its own briefing documents, the company estimates that 9,000 new HIV carriers would be identified for every 1 million people who use the test. Source:AP

Preventable diseases still ravage children: study

Preventable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria claimed the lives of nearly five million children younger than five in 2010, a paper in The Lancet medical journal said Friday. A total 7.6 million children died in the first five years of their life that year, the authors said, and warned the world was not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Two in every five deaths ocurred within the first 28 days of life. "Preterm birth is now the second leading cause of child death after pneumonia, and is likely to become the top cause of death by 2015 unless rapid scale-up of available interventions occurs," said the report. Five countries -- India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, and China -- contributed to almost half the deaths of children younger than five. While child deaths have declined by about two million or 26 percent since 2000, when the goal was set, this was not enough, the authors said. The attainment of the goal "is possible only if life-saving maternal, newborn, and child health interventions are rapidly scaled up in high-burden regions and countries and across major causes in the next few years." Source:AFP

Study Reveals Why Astronauts' Immune Systems Dysfunction in Space

Previous research has shown that astronauts suffer from several types of stress while adapting to weightlessness in space. For years, scientists have known that our immune system works less well in space, and trying to find the reason is a driving force for space research. Researchers at the University of Teramo, the European Centre for Brain Research and the Santa Lucia Foundation have discovered that a particular enzyme, called 5-LOX, becomes more active in weightlessness. The 5-LOX enzyme in part regulates the life expectancy of human cells. Most human cells divide and regenerate but the number of times they replicate is limited. To find out if a change in 5-LOX enzyme activity could affect astronauts' health in space, the researchers needed to test their theory in the only laboratory that can 'switch off' gravity: the International Space Station. Blood samples from two healthy donors were sent to the orbital outpost. One set was exposed to weightlessness for two days, while the other was held in a small centrifuge to simulate Earth-like gravity. The samples were then frozen and sent back to Earth for analysis. As predicted, the weightless samples showed more 5-LOX activity than the centrifuged samples and a set that had remained on the ground. In fact, the centrifuged samples remained identical to the ground samples. "We now have a target enzyme that could play a real role in causing weakened immune systems," Professor Mauro Maccarrone from the University of Teramo explained. "The 5-LOX enzyme can be blocked with existing drugs, so using these findings to improve human health could be a close reality," Maccarrone added. Research will continue on the 5-LOX enzyme and related compounds. A follow-up experiment returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 30 crew last week. Scientists will look for other changes in the cells to understand the underlying mechanisms fully. Limiting biological activity of cell signals such as those controlled by 5-LOX might even slow parts of the ageing process. These findings are being shared with the scientific community, especially researchers studying people with reduced immune response. The chances are that elderly people could benefit from this field of investigation. Source-ANI

Japanese researchers show that acupuncture can improve skeletal muscle atrophy

Team hopes findings will bolster practice’s reputation as a nonpharmacolgical treatment A team of Japanese researchers will reveal study results Monday at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting that show how acupuncture therapy mitigates skeletal muscle loss and holds promise for those seeking improved mobility through muscle rejuvenation. "It is my hope that this study will demonstrate acupuncture's feasibility with regard to improving health among the elderly and medical patients. Our findings could identify acupuncture as the primary nonpharmacological treatment to prevent skeletal muscle atrophy in the future," says Akiko Onda, an acupuncturist and graduate student at the Waseda University School of Sport Sciences, who has been conducting a series of studies on skeletal muscle atrophy for the past four years. Her presentation will be at 12:25 p.m. Monday, April 23, at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting, which is part of EB2012. Loss of skeletal muscle mass has a profound effect on the ability of the elderly and the sick to engage in physical activity. Because skeletal muscle has high plasticity, interventions such as exercise training, improved nutrition and mechanical stimulation are often recommended to prevent atrophy. Unfortunately, these can be challenging goals for those who are already frail or who have severe medical conditions. Onda insists an alternative nonpharmacological intervention is urgently required, and so she and her collaborators in two labs at Waseda University decided to explore how acupuncture affects skeletal muscle at the molecular level. "The main focus of this study is changes in the mRNA expression levels of muscle-specific atrophic genes such as atrogin-1," Onda says. "Muscle mass and structure are determined by the balance between protein degradation and synthesis." The team showed that decreases in muscle mass in mice and in the mRNA expression level of the E3 ubiquitin ligase atrogin-1 can be significantly reversed by acupuncture. In spite of the World Health Organization's endorsement of acupuncture and the widespread use of acupuncture as a treatment for various diseases, acupuncture is still regarded by many as obscure and suspicious, and its underlying molecular mechanisms are almost completely unknown. "Our results have uncovered one molecular mechanism responsible for the efficacy of acupuncture treatment and clarified its usefulness in preventing skeletal muscle atrophy in mice," Onda said. "We hope to introduce acupuncture as a new strategy for preventing skeletal muscle atrophy in the future. Further investigations into its molecular mechanisms will help to decrease the medical community's suspicion of acupuncture and provide us with a better understanding of how acupuncture treatment prevents skeletal muscle atrophy." Source:Eurekalert

Medicine barometer

Disease, like death, is a great leveller, but the infection or disorder that gets you varies with where and how you live. Countrywide, infections are the undisputed dukes of hazard in the diseases reckoning, with the anti-infective medicines market valued at Rs. 10,394 crore, which is almost one-fifth of the country's total top 15-selling drugs market of Rs. 58,824 crore. Medicines to treat heart disease are a low second, pegged at Rs. 6,601 crore, followed by gastrointestinal problems worth Rs. 6,203, shows data from Secondary Stockist Audit 2011. The pecking order, however, changes depending on whether you live in a metro or a small city or village. Heart-related medicines top the prescription charts for Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, along with the more affluent states of Gujarat, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, replacing the more pedestrian infections that are the number-one afflicter of people countrywide. In rural areas, cardiac problems are pegged at number five. "It's to do with lifestyle, with people living in cities gaining weight rapidly because of inactivity and unhealthy diets. More than one study show that the longer you live in the city, the higher are your chances of having heart problems and diabetes as compared to those who remained in rural areas," says Dr R.R. Kasliwal, chairman, division of clinical and preventive cardiology, Medanta. Booming towns, shrinking villages Body fat, blood pressure and fasting insulin levels - a measure of your diabetes risk - of people in India shoot up within a decade of moving to a city, reported the American Journal of Epidemiology last year. The study compared the health of rural Indians to their siblings who moved to one of four cities in India - Lucknow, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Both blood pressure and insulin kept rising steadily over time among urban residents, found the study. Siblings who lived in a city the longest had the highest average blood pressures. For instance, men who lived in a city for more than 30 years had an average systolic blood pressure of 128, compared to the rural average of 123. The change in body fat was most evident in the first 10 years after moving to a city, but then it levelled off. India's urban population is growing by 1.1% each year, while the proportion of people in rural areas is shrinking by 0.37 %, shows UN data. But India's population is still predominantly rural - currently, 30% of Indians live in urban areas, compared to 82% of people in the US - which explains why the anti-infective medicine sales countrywide far surpass those for heart disease and diabetes. Split wide open The big unifier in disease patterns is that apart from diabetes replacing respiratory infections in metros, the top 10 diseases remained the same countrywide across the urban-rural divide. Anti-diabetes drugs were a low number 7 and 8 among the drugs sold countrywide and in rural areas respectively, which surprised given that India is the diabetes Capital of the world with 50.8 million people living with diabetes. "There are several reasons for this. Under-diagnosis, where people are not getting diagnosed because diabetes creeps up silently, with symptoms showing up years after - if at all - a person develops the disorder. Also, diabetes is often sub-optimally treated, where people try changes in diet, alternative therapies or stop treatment mid-way hoping for a permanent cure, even when international guidelines clearly state people should start medication immediately after diagnosis as the beta-cell function goes down precipitously if left untreated," says Dr Anoop Misra, chairman, Fortis C-DOC centre for Diabetes. Pancreatic beta cells secrete insulin in response to a rising blood glucose levels. Diabetes is caused by the inability of beta cells to produce adequate insulin. The more laidback lifestyles of people living in Class 1-6 towns ensures their disease patterns closely track people living in rural areas than the highly-stressed metropolitan residents. "Ironically, while modern medicines and better infrastructure - clean drinking water, better sanitation etc - have kept infections in check, poor lifestyles have increased lifestyle diseases in large cities. There's just no getting away from eating healthy, controlling weight and getting more active," says Dr Misra. Source:HT Media Limited

Viruses can Result in Acute Attacks of Chronic Lung Diseases

Viral infection of the respiratory tract is linked to acute attacks of respiratory diseases like asthma, COPD and cystic fibrosis. Viruses are found everywhere and are responsible for some of the worst and incurable infections. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is known to be the fourth leading cause of global mortality. Recent researches have revealed that by the year 2020, it will become the third leading cause. Rhinoviruses not only cause common cold but are also responsible for COPD exacerbations. Other organisms responsible for COPD exacerbations are adenovirus, influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza virus and metapneumovirus. COPD symptoms may vary from mild to severe depending upon the intensity of the airway disease. Some of the common symptoms of COPD are dypnea, chronic cough, excessive sputum production, fatigue, wheezing or whistling sound during breathing, clubbing of fingers, etc. COPD is an irreversible lung disease. The treatment involves antimicrobial drugs, bronchodilators, corticosteroids, aerosol agents, etc. Besides COPD, other lung conditions like asthma and cystic fibrosis also show exacerbations in the presence of viral infection. Aran Singanayagam and colleagues have published an article in BMC Medicine 2012 on "Viruses exacerbating chronic pulmonary disease: the role of immune modulation." The article mainly reviewed the existing knowledge about the role of viruses and immune modulation in COPD, asthma and cystic fibrosis. The authors concluded that the immune response to viruses is reduced in these chronic lung conditions, either through a similar or different mechanism. Understanding the mechanisms responsible for the decreased immunity can help to reduce the impact of acute exacerbations of these lung diseases following viral infection. Reference: Viruses exacerbating chronic pulmonary disease: the role of immune modulation; Aran Singanayagam et al; BMC Medicine 2012