Category Archives: Health Care

Why do Bats Transmit so Many Diseases like Ebola?

Bats are generally wonderful creatures and helpful to us. For example, they eat lots of insects that are annoying (like mosquitoes) and pollinate lots of plants. Of course, they also eat lots of good (for us humans) insects but the insects still seem to be able to fulfill their environmental niches so all is good.

And they are flying mammals which is, of course, cool.

But bats also transmit virus to us, which do us lots of damage. As the video explains as we have intruded into bat territory and chopped down their natural feeding spots we have come into contact with them more. And because bats evolved to be very resilient to virus and they live in large colonies (for easy transmission of the viruses to lots of bats) they can host viruses and survive long enough to infect lots of other bats, and to infect us if we meet them.

I actually didn’t know this (mentioned in the video): most viruses have a very difficult time surviving even with temperatures a bit above the normal human temperature (98 degrees Fahrenheit). Bats, while they fly, have internal temperatures that soar to 104 degrees (40 degrees centigrade) which kills off most viruses, but certain hardy viruses survive. This also explains why we run fevers when we are sick (which then can kill off viruses) – which I am sure I learned at some point but I forgot. But for the bat viruses that strategy doesn’t work.

Bats, of course, are not impervious to disease. In the USA a disease has killed more than 90 percent of the cave bats in Eastern states.

One of the causes of the current ebola outbreak is believed to be people eating bats in West Africa.

Related: Ebola Outbreak in Uganda (2007) – A Breakthrough Cure for Ebola (2010) – Swine Flu: a Quick Overview (2009)

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iPhone Addition as Alternative to Expensive Ophthalmology Equipment

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed two inexpensive adapters that enable a smartphone to capture high-quality images of the front and back of the eye. The adapters make it easy for anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely with other health practitioners or store it in the patient’s electronic record.

The researchers see this technology as an opportunity to increase access to eye-care services as well as to improve the ability to advise on patient care remotely.

The standard equipment used to photograph the eye is expensive — costing up to tens of thousands of dollars — and requires extensive training to use properly. Primary care physicians and emergency department staff often lack this equipment, and although it is readily available in ophthalmologists’ offices, it is sparse in rural areas throughout the world.

“Adapting smartphones for the eye has the potential to enhance the delivery of eye care — in particular, to provide it in places where it’s less accessible,” said Myung. “Whether it’s in the emergency department, where patients often have to wait a long time for a specialist, or during a primary-care physician visit, we hope that we can improve the quality of care for our patients, especially in the developing world where ophthalmologists are few and far between.”

“A picture is truly worth a thousand words,” he added. “Imagine a car accident victim arriving in the emergency department with an eye injury resulting in a hyphema — blood inside the front of her eye. Normally the physician would have to describe this finding in her electronic record with words alone. Smartphones today not only have the camera resolution to supplement those words with a high-resolution photo, but also the data-transfer capability to upload that photo securely to the medical record in a matter of seconds.

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A Healthy Lifestyle is More About Health Care than the Sickness Management That We Call Health Care Is

American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults

Being physically active is important to prevent heart disease and stroke, the nation’s No. 1 and No. 4 killers. To improve overall cardiovascular health, we suggest at least 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise (or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity). Thirty minutes a day, five times a week is an easy goal to remember. You will also experience benefits even if you divide your time into two or three segments of 10 to 15 minutes per day.

For people who would benefit from lowering their blood pressure or cholesterol, we recommend 40 minutes of aerobic exercise of moderate to vigorous intensity three to four times a week to lower the risk for heart attack and stroke.
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The simplest, positive change you can make to effectively improve your heart health is to start walking. It’s enjoyable, free, easy, social and great exercise. A walking program is flexible and boasts high success rates because people can stick with it.

It really is important for giving yourself the best chance for health by taking sensible steps to exercise based on your own situation (obviously some health conditions may limit your ability to exercise safely, which is something each person has to judge and see a doctor about if necessary).

Doing small things like using a treadmill while you watch TV or taking the stairs instead of the elevator for short trips can help. Another option is to walk instead of driving your car, or if you drive parking a few blocks away (or at the far side of the parking lot) walking, or if you are running several errands walk between those that you can even if you are using your car. Biking to work is another healthy lifestyle choice (if you city has made this safe – too often they fail to do sensible things).

photo of a forest

Forest hike on Hole in the Wall trail, Olympic National Park, Oregon, USA by John Hunter

Swimming is good exercise and something I took up several years ago (I was super lame at first but within a month or two it was better. I love hiking through national parks. A standing desk (or treadmill desk) is another option to reduce the damage of our sedentary lives.

Another thing to remember is losing weight is hard. It is better to avoid gaining too much weight in the first place. Avoiding the weight gain may also be a challenge but it is better than the alternative.

Too often we treat “health care” as sickness management. Doing things like creating a healthy lifestyle are are health care. Taking pills and antibiotics is mainly about sickness management.

Related: Better Health Through Exercise, Not Smoking, Low Weight, Healthy Diet and Low Alcohol Intake – Physical Activity for Adults: Inactivity Leads to 5.3 Million Early Deaths a Year – Healthy Diet, Healthy Living, Healthy Weight – Study Finds Obesity as Teen as Deadly as Smoking

Science Explained: How Cells React to Invading Viruses

This illustrated webcast introduces the microscopic arsenal of weapons and warriors that play a role in the battle for your health.

TED education has been putting out some good videos which is a wonderful thing to see. It is wonderful to let people everywhere (kids and adults) that are interested in learning (and that have internet access) can learn about the world around us. Traditional educational institutions have not done much with this opportunity to broaden their impact.

The video looks at the cells reaction to a virus infiltrating the cell.

Related: Cells Alive – Science Explained: Cool Video of ATP Synthase, Which Provides Usable Energy to Us – This webcast is packed with information on the makeup and function of eukaryotic (animal) cells – Cool Animation of a Virus Invading a Person’s Body – Cell Aging and Limits Due to Telomeres – Webcast of a T-cell Killing a Cancerous Cell

How Healthy Is Squid for Us?

I try to eat healthfully, especially when I can tweak what I eat to gain a health advantage. I know fish have good qualities. I live in Malaysia now and squid (called sotong here) is often available. I often prefer squid to fish here as the fish use here are often fairly small with bones to deal and not much meat for the effort (it is great sometimes but I am often lazy).

photo of squid dinner

Sambal Sotong (squid) with bitter gourd (home delivery). Very tasty. The bitter gourd is very bitter, but a few bites are ok.

So I looked online for some details, it wasn’t as easy I would have hoped. The Shellfish Association of Great Britain offered a good overview.

They say 100g of raw squid (pre cooking weight) provides about 200% of Vitamin B12, 100% of Selenium, 80% of Copper, 50% of Vitamin B6, 35% of Vitamin E, 34% of Phosphorous, 30 % of Protein, 20% of Niacin, 10% of B1 (Thiamin), 8% of Potassium, 10% of Magnesium, 14% of Zinc.

From various sources online it seems there are 92 calories in 100 grams of Squid with a calorie breakdown of 72% protein, 14% fat and 14% carbs.

From the Heart Association of Australia “omega-3s are found primarily in oily fish, such as Atlantic and Australian salmon, blue-eye trevalla, blue mackerel, gem fish… Other fish such as barramundi, bream or flathead, and seafood such as arrow squid, scallops and mussels, are also good sources of omega-3… To reduce the risk of heart disease, the Heart Foundation recommends that Australian adults consume about 500 milligrams of omega-3 (marine source) every day.”

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More Muscle Mass Appears Linked to Longer Life

New UCLA research suggests that the more muscle mass older Americans have, the less likely they are to die prematurely. The findings add to the growing evidence that overall body composition — and not the widely used body mass index, or BMI — is a better predictor of all-cause mortality. The study was published in the in a closed science journal (it is too bad UCLA promotes such anti-science practices). The research was funded by the NIH (who also shouldn’t allow such anti-science practices).

Dr. Preethi Srikanthan: “many studies on the mortality impact of obesity focus on BMI. Our study indicates that clinicians need to be focusing on ways to improve body composition, rather than on BMI alone, when counseling older adults on preventative health behaviors.”

The researchers analyzed data collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, conducted between 1988 and 1994. They focused on a group of 3,659 individuals that included men who were 55 or older and women who were 65 or older at the time of the survey. The authors then determined how many of those individuals had died from natural causes based on a follow-up survey done in 2004.

The body composition of the study subjects was measured using bioelectrical impedance, which involves running an electrical current through the body. Muscle allows the current to pass more easily than fat does, due to muscle’s water content. In this way, the researchers could determine a muscle mass index — the amount of muscle relative to height — similar to a body mass index. They looked at how this muscle mass index was related to the risk of death.

They found that all-cause mortality was significantly lower in the fourth quartile of muscle mass index compared with the first quartile.

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Study After Study Find No Benefits to Multivitamins

The largest study of its kind concludes that long-term multivitamin use has no impact on the risk of common cancers, cardiovascular disease or overall mortality in postmenopausal women.

“Dietary supplements are used by more than half of all Americans, who spend more than $20 billion on these products each year. However, scientific data are lacking on the long-term health benefits of supplements,” said lead author Marian L. Neuhouser, Ph.D., an associate member of the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

The study focused the effects of multivitamins because they are the most commonly used supplement. “To our surprise, we found that multivitamins did not lower the risk of the most common cancers and also had no impact on heart disease,” she said.

The study assessed multivitamin use among nearly 162,000 women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative, one of the largest U.S. prevention studies of its kind designed to address the most common causes of death, disability and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. The women were followed for about eight years.

Nearly half of the study participants – 41.5 percent – reported using multivitamins on a regular basis. Multivitamin users were more likely to be white, live in the western United States, have a lower body-mass index, be more physically active and have a college degree or higher as compared to non-users.

The study found no significant differences in risk of cancer, heart disease or death between the multivitamin users and non-users.

These findings are consistent with most previously published results regarding the lack of health benefits of multivitamins, Neuhouser said, but this study provides definitive evidence. Since the study did not include men, Neuhouser cautions that the results may not apply to them.

So what advice do Neuhouser and colleagues offer to women who want to make sure they’re getting optimal nutrition? “Get nutrients from food,” she said. “Whole foods are better than dietary supplements. Getting a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains is particularly important.”

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Better Health Through: Exercise, Not Smoking, Low Weight, Healthy Diet and Low Alcohol Intake

These 5 activities/state reduce the risk of chronic diseases: regular exercise, not smoking, healthy bodyweight, healthy diet and low alcohol intake. How these were defined

  • not smoking
  • body mass index (BMI): 18 to under 25
  • diet: target was to be 5 portions of fruit and/or vegetables a day, but since almost no one meet that target they reduced the acceptable rate to 3 as accepted as ‘healthy.” Also a diet with less than 30% of calories from fat was required.
  • physical activity: walking two or more miles to work each day, or cycling ten or more miles to work each day, or ‘vigorous’ exercise described as a regular habit
  • alcohol: three or fewer units per day, with abstinence not treated as a healthy behaviour.

Healthy Lifestyles Reduce the Incidence of Chronic Diseases and Dementia: Evidence from the Caerphilly Cohort Study (PLoS open science publication).

The numbers of men judged to be following a healthy lifestyle were as follows: 179 (8%) followed none of the five behaviours, 702 (31%) followed one behaviour, 814 (36%) followed two, 429 (19%) followed three, 111 (5%) followed four or five behaviours and only two (0.1%) followed all five behaviors.
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Within a representative sample of middle-aged men, the following of increasing numbers of healthy behaviours was associated with increasing reductions in several important chronic diseases and mortality: an estimated 50% reduction in diabetes, 50% in vascular disease and 60% for all-cause mortality. These results therefore confirm previous studies and provide further data on the association of lifestyle with cognitive impairment and dementia, with a reduction of about 60% in cognitive impairment and about the same in dementia. These reductions, and especially those in cognitive function, are of enormous importance in an ageing population.

Healthy habits reduce dementia risk (Cardiff University press release):

The people who consistently followed four or five of these behaviors exp
experienced a 60 per cent decline in dementia and cognitive decline – with exercise being the strongest mitigating factor – as well as 70 per cent fewer instances of diabetes, heart disease and stroke, compared with people who followed none.
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Principle Investigator Professor Peter Elwood from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine. “What the research shows is that following a healthy lifestyle confers surprisingly large benefits to health – healthy behaviours have a far more beneficial effect than any medical treatment or preventative procedure.
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Christopher Allen, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said:

“The results of this study overwhelmingly support the notion that adopting a healthy lifestyle reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia.

Related: Examining the Scientific Basis Around Exercise and Diet Claims – Healthy Diet, Healthy Living, Healthy Weight – Study Finds Obesity as Teen as Deadly as Smoking – Physical Activity for Adults: Inactivity Leads to 5.3 Million Early Deaths a Year – Today, Most Deaths Caused by Lifetime of Action or Inaction

Search for Antibiotic Solutions Continues: Killing Sleeper Bacteria Cells

Killing Sleeper Cells and Superbugs with Assassin Janitors

Discovered in 2005 by scientists from Bayer Healthcare in Germany, ADEP4 killed a variety of different bacteria and cured lethal infections in mice and rats.

Here’s how it works. Proteins need to fold into very precise shapes to do their jobs, and misfolded proteins are wastes of space. Bacteria dispose of these useless molecules with ClpP—a janitorial protein that digests other proteins. It works with a partner, which recognises misfolded proteins, unfolds them, and threads them through a hole in the middle of ClpP so they can be broken down. But ADEP4 opens ClpP up so it no longer needs its partner. The janitor now becomes an assassin, running amok and chopping up any protein it comes across, misfolded or not.

The Bayer scientists showed that ADEP4 can force fast-growing cells to self-destruct, but Lewis suspected that it would do the same to persisters. Afterall, ClpP’s partner requires energy to do its job, but ClpP itself doesn’t. Once ADEP4 opens it up, it should go about its fatal business even in a dormant cell.

Lewis’ team found that ADEP4 did effectively kills persister populations of Staphylococcus aureus, but the bacteria bounce back. ClpP isn’t essential, so the bacteria just inactivated it to evolve their way around ADEP4. This, says Lewis, is why Bayer stopped working on the drug.

His solution was to pair ADEP4 with another antibiotic called rifampycin. ADEP4 would kill off the majority of the persisters, and if any of the rest started growing again, rifampycin would finish them off. He predicted that the double-whammy would leave very few survivors, maybe just a thousand cells or so.

“That’s not what we saw,” he says. “What we saw was complete sterilisation.”

This is a very nice effort. As our efforts fail to find “magic bullet” antibiotics fail and antibiotic resistance increases combo drug solutions offer some hope. While this is good news, the overall state of our ability to treat bacterial infections continues to decline as our misuse of antibiotics has greatly increased the speed at which antibiotic resistance has developed in bacteria.

This solution only works on gram positive antibiotics. ADEP4 is too big to pass through the extra outer layers of the gram-negative bacteria like ecoli and salmonella.

Related: Entirely New Antibiotic Developed, Platensimycin (2006) (2013 update: Platensimycin is a very effective antibiotic in vivo when continuously administered to cells, however this efficacy is reduced when administered by more conventional means. Efforts continue to find a way to create delivery options that are successful in treating people.) – New Family of Antibacterial Agents Discovered (2009) – Potential Antibiotic Alternative to Treat Infection (2012)

Outdoor Air Pollution Resulted in 223,000 Cancer Deaths in 2010

The specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), announced today that it has classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans.

After thoroughly reviewing the latest available scientific literature, the world’s leading experts convened by the IARC Monographs Programme concluded that there is sufficient evidence that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer. They also noted a positive association with an increased risk of bladder cancer.

Particulate matter, a major component of outdoor air pollution, was evaluated separately and was also classified as carcinogenic to humans.

The IARC evaluation showed an increasing risk of lung cancer with increasing levels of exposure to particulate matter and air pollution. Although the composition of air pollution and levels of exposure can vary dramatically between locations, the conclusions of the Working Group apply to all regions of the world.

Air pollution is already known to increase risks for a wide range of diseases, such as respiratory and heart diseases. Studies indicate that in recent years exposure levels have increased significantly in some parts of the world, particularly in rapidly industrializing countries with large populations. The most recent data indicate that in 2010, 223,000 deaths from lung cancer worldwide resulted from air pollution.

“The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” says Dr Kurt Straif.

The stories of amazingly high (and persistent) air pollution levels in China have been continuing for years. But, while China, likely represents several of the worst existing air pollution conditions hundreds of thousands have died outside China due to air pollution just in the last 5 years.

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