New Delhi,March 08: India will have to scale up prevention of HIV to avoid having to spend an increasing share of its health budget on treatment of AIDS patients, the World Bank and other agencies said Sunday.
New Delhi spends about 5 percent of its USD 5.4 billion healthcare budget on treating AIDS patients.
India with 2.5 million patients is among the top three countries with the highest number of HIV cases, alongside South Africa and Nigeria.
New York, March 08: Women infected with HIV or at risk of becoming infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, appear more likely to develop lung cancer than women in the general population, possibly because they are much more likely to smoke cigarettes, study findings hint.
People with HIV have a much higher risk for many cancers. Still, it is unclear whether HIV infection plays a role in the development of lung cancer, Dr. Alexandra M. Levine, at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, and colleagues note in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
London, March 08: Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, seems to be the nature’s best antibiotic, for a new study says that it fends off infections by boosting the immune system.
Researchers in Denmark have found that vitamin D, which can be obtained from food or manufactured by human skin exposed to the sun, triggers and arms the body’s T-cells which seek out and destroy any invading bacteria and viruses.
Washington, March 08: In private pitches to Democrats, President Barack Obama says he will persuade Congress to pass his health care overhaul even if it kills him and even if he has to ask deeply distrustful lawmakers to trust him on a promise the White House doesn’t have the power to keep.
That, in a sometimes darkly joking way, is what the president is telling Democratic House members as he begins an all-out push to coax Congress into passing his proposals despite voters’ misgivings and Republicans’ dire warnings.
Hyderabad, March 06: Almost all hospitals and nursing homes in the twin cities are potential death traps for in-patients, out-patients and their attendants.
This inconvenient truth came out during an inspection of about 132 hospitals, nursing homes and healthcare units by the Fire Prevention Wing of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) between Feb 22 and 28.
The inspections were conducted in the wake of the major fire accident at Park Hospital in Somajiguda and a few other hospitals in the State capital.
New Delhi, March 06: The Union Health Ministry has approved purchase of 14 dialysis machines for two city hospitals to cater to the increasing number of patients suffering from renal failure.
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad informed Lok Sabha that the tender process for purchasing the machines for Safdarjung and Ram Manohar Lohia hospitals has already started.
Replying to a question, Mr. Azad hoped that with the procurement of the machines, both the hospitals would be able to take care of increasing number of patients requiring dialysis.
**********************************
********************************
London, March 06: The grieving mother of a baby girl who died at a crisis-torn hospital demanded to know last night if the death could have been avoided.
Aida Lo told of her shock at learning that a further three babies had died at the same hospital in the ten weeks since her daughter Nathalie lost her life.
The John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford this week suspended all heart surgery on children while it was last night confirmed that Caner Salih, the surgeon at the centre of the investigation, had left his job at the hospital.
Shillong, March 06: United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Friday inaugurated the first postgraduate medical institute in northeast India here and stressed on the need for an urban health programme like the government’s flagship rural health scheme.
The North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute for Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in the Meghalaya capital has been designed in line with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.
London, March 05: : Eat bigger and thicker chips if you want to stay slim, suggest officials from the Food Standards Agency.
They have said that chunkier versions of those potato or fish fryers absorb less fat and have lower calorie content.
But furious food industry representatives said they risk ruining Britain’s best-loved takeaway meal.
London, March 05: Eating plenty of potassium-rich foods such as leafy greens, potatoes and bananas may reduce the risk of stroke and coronary artery disease, according to Italian researchers.
The new analysis was based on 10 studies published between 1966 and 2009 that included almost 280,000 adults. During follow-ups that ranged from five to 19 years, there were over 5,500 strokes and almost 3,100 coronary heart disease events, the investigators found.
New Delhi, March 05: Sixteen cases of polio have been reported in the country this year so far with Uttar Pradesh topping the list, government said today. Out of the 16 cases reported this year till February 26, eight are from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Bihar (5) and one each from Haryana, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
This was stated by Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Lok Sabha. Last year, there were a total of 741 cases out of which a whopping 602 cases were reported from Uttar Pradesh.
Bihar came second in the list with 117.
—-PTI
Goettingen, March 05: A baby weighing just 275 grams has been born in Germany and survived, the lowest weight for a viable birth of a boy ever recorded, doctors said Thursday. Doctors normally assume that survival is impossible at birth weights below 350 grams.
The little boy was born in June last year in the 25th week of pregnancy, said Stefan Weller, a spokesman for the University of Goettingen Hospital. He spent six months in intensive care and was finally discharged in December after growing to 3.7 kilograms.
Amsterdam, March 05: People who are obese are at increased risk of becoming depressed, and people who are depressed are at increased risk of becoming obese, Dutch researchers have found.
“There is a reciprocal association over time between depression and obesity,” Dr. Floriana S. Luppino, of Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands, told.
Obesity, Luppino and colleagues found, increases the risk of depression in initially non-depressed individuals by 55 percent and depression increases the risk of obesity in initially normal-weight individuals by 58 percent.
New Delhi, March 05: The Regional Institute of Mentally Handicapped (RIHM) has found it is in fact home deliveries and prolonged difficult labour in pregnant women which are the leading causes of mental retardation in children below six years of age.
Kochi, March 04: Former ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair on Thursday said it was the prime responsibility of medical practitioners to serve the country’s rural populace.
Hardly two per cent of doctors go to villages to practice where 70 per cent of the population is living, half of them below poverty line. This is an anomaly, he said addressing the third batch of MBBS students passing out from the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) here.
Washington, March 04: Scientists have discovered that increasing dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may help reduce hangovers as well as alcohol-related side effects and accidents.
The research at the Chungnam National University, South Korea, found that dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcoholic drinks can accelerate the metabolism and elimination of alcohol.
The more the concentration of dissolved oxygen, the faster is the ethanol, or alcohol, oxidation, which reduces its influence on the person, it found.
Washington, March 04: Can’t lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
The small study of about 140 overweight or obese women showed that those on diets “appropriate” for their genetic makeup lost more weight than those on less appropriate diets, researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.
Chicago, March 04: New guidelines from the American Cancer Society urge doctors to make sure their patients fully understand the risks as well as the benefits of prostate cancer screening before any blood is drawn.
The updated guidelines issued on Wednesday reflect the ongoing debate over the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test after two large studies last year produced conflicting results about whether it actually saves lives.
Washington, March 04: President Barack Obama made what is expected to be his final push to overhaul the U.S. health care system, revising his plan in an attempt to win the support of moderate Democrats.
Mr. Obama’s latest proposal included some ideas favoured by Republicans, though he has little hope of winning over even a single Republican lawmaker. Republicans have called on him to discard his proposals and start working with them on a new one.
March 04: Here are 8 simple tips to distance yourself away from the dreadful disease.
1. SMOKERS – whether of cigarettes, pipes or cigars – are more than twice at risk of a heart attack than non-smokers.
Studies have found that even one to two cigarettes a day greatly increase the risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular conditions.
Non-smokers who are exposed to constant smoke also have an increased risk.
London, March 03: Sipping a strong cup of hot coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up energy, but it could be a lifesaver too, for a new study has revealed that caffeine protects the heart.
An international team has found that drinking coffee regularly could protect drinkers from irregular heart beats or rhythms — and the more cups they drink a day, the less likely they are to suffer from the condition.
Washington, March 03: Children as young as 13 who have evidence of secondhand smoke in their blood also have visibly thicker arteries, Finnish researchers reported.
Their study suggests that the damage caused by secondhand tobacco smoke starts in childhood and causes measurable damage by the teen years.
London, March 03: Aggressive treatment with blockbuster anemia drugs may offer the best approach for kidney dialysis patients with severe anemia, US researchers said on Tuesday.
But aggressive treatment only made things worse for patients in the final stages of kidney disease with mild anemia, they reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The findings may help guide regulators as they weigh new restrictions on erythropoiesis-stimulating agents or ESAs, such as Amgen Inc’s Epogen.
ESAs are used by 95 percent of patients with chronic kidney disease.
Washington, March 03: Warning signs of possible future heart disease can be found in obese children as young as three years old, a new study found.
According to the study published in Pediatrics, most obese children and teenagers have high blood levels of inflammatory markers including C-reactive protein (CRP).
Inflammation in artery walls is responsible for the damage seen in heart disease; high levels of blood CRP, therefore, can predict future heart attacks, the study found.