Top 5 Health News Of The Week : 16th – 21st November 2009
A very warm welcome to all our readers. Time does pass pretty quickly as we have once again reached the end of the week. New innovations, researches and studies seem to have kept scientists quite busy this week. So if you have by any chance missed out on any important news then do not worry. We are here to provide you with the top 5 best news of the week.
The first news that you may need to get updated with revolves around breast cancer. So the fairer sex may want to pay attention to this one. A drop in recent years in the amount of cases of breast cancer in women aged 50-59 years apparently depends on a decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy to ease issues related with menopause. A Swedish research under the sponsorship of Karolinska Instituet has supposedly examined trends in the occurrence of breast cancer in Sweden between 1997 and 2007, a period during which the use of HRT is said to have dropped significantly. The percentage of women aged 50-59 years who used HRT is believed to have reduced from a max of 36% in 1999 to about 27% in 2002 and to roughly 9% in 2007. So as per the above statistics, reduced use of HRT may give rise to less cases of breast cancer.
The subsequent news concerns people suffering from osteoarthritis. Study experts from University of Toronto and the SickKids Hospital have apparently discovered a pharmacological approach to treat osteoarthritis. The experts had been exploring the function of a family of proteins known as Hedgehog and how they play a role in the growth of cartilage tumors. At that time, they supposedly chanced upon an unforeseen observation. They found that when Hedgehog proteins were triggered in mice, the animals apparently contracted osteoarthritis. Hedgehog proteins are said to play an important function in adapting chondrocytes, or cells that supposedly formulate the joints or growth plates. Patients and mice who suffered from osteoarthritis are also thought to have a high level of Hedgehog. More notably, it was discovered when the protein was blocked either hereditarily or using a Hedgehog jamming drug; they could reduce the quantity of arthritis that developed.
The next one brings news from the world of innovation and technology. Neal Nurnberg, diagnosed with Clark’s Level III melanoma couldn’t believe that an outdated and ineffective procedure is used by most physicians to document and observe the look of lesions during a skin cancer screening. Following this, Neal decided to take matter in his hands to combat this hitch. Nurnberg and his business partner Jacob Golden created MidCon Distribution to seek and obtain ground-breaking medical products like the Optomed Smartscope M3-1, to physician practices across the United States. The device is a handheld, cordless digital imaging device that uses LED lighting and a fixed-zoom lens to supposedly generate reliable, dependable images during skin cancer screenings. The Macro Image Manager software gauges lesions mechanically and enables a physician to fasten notations to the images. This information then apparently becomes part of a patient’s electronic medical record and is documented to trail lesion development in due course.
The fourth news talks about the brain capabilities of blind people. UCLA experts propose that in a few situations, blindness could enhance other senses, thereby aiding individuals to adjust. Now scientists have apparently verified that blindness could cause structural alterations in the brain, therefore signifying that the brain may restructure itself functionally in order to adjust to a loss in sensory input. The research observed that the early-blind group i.e. people who were blind before they were 5, varied considerably from the control group in the region of the brain’s corpus callosum that apparently assists in the broadcast of visual information between the two hemispheres of the brain. The scientists propose that this may be because of the decreased quantity of myelination in the nonattendance of visual input. Myelin, the fatty sheaf that apparently encloses nerves and enables speedy communication, supposedly grows quite fast in the extremely young.
The last important news concerns Lyme disease. A new research from Yale University claims that a protein present in the saliva of ticks may aid in shielding mice from contracting Lyme disease. It is claimed to be the first time that antibodies against a protein in the saliva of a pathogen’s transmitting agent has supposedly been exposed to bestow immunity when administered protectively as a vaccine. The Lyme bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi is spread by ticks. When it moves through the tick, it is supposedly covered with a tick salivary protein called Salp15. The Yale team apparently inserted Salp15 into healthy mice and discovered that it could considerably defend them from developing Lyme disease. When merged with outer surface proteins of B. burgdorferi, the protection was said to be even greater.
So we have come to the end of the weekly. We will once again meet next week with more news from the world of health. Till then, stay happy and healthy!
