Health

New Delhi, October 28: A 32-year-old man was Wednesday found dead outside a building in Delhi University’s north campus. Police said he suffered from dengue and could have committed suicide by jumping from the building.
Sanyasu Shekhar Saho was found dead around 6.40 a.m. in his undergarments. He worked as a lab assistant in the chemistry department.

The police said the deceased was undergoing treatment for dengue at the St Stephen’s Hospital. He stayed in the university staff quarters.

London, October 28: Millions of people worldwide use statins, a class of drugs used to lower blood cholesterol, but new research shows they may also be effective against cancer.

Statins lower cholesterol by blocking certain enzymes involved in our metabolism. However, they have also been shown to affect other important lipids in the body, those that help proteins to attach to the cell membrane.

New Delhi, October 27: Two people have lost their lives to dengue in the capital and as many as 280 have been confirmed positive with the vector borne disease so far, health department officials said on Tuesday.

The first death – that of a 15-year-old boy – was reported Oct 23 and the death of a nine-year-old boy was reported Monday.

Bangalore, October 27:Members of the medical fraternity across Bangalore’s hospitals are undergoing special screening tests for the H1N1 virus, after seven doctors in the city tested positive for swine flu recently.

The seven are from Victoria Hospital and Bowring Hospital, informed a health department official.

Washington, October 27: Carbon nanotubes which are used in everything from sports equipment to medical applications can affect the lining of the lungs, say researchers.

The long term effects, however, remain unclear.

The study was a collaboration between North Carolina State University (NCSU), The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Using mice in an animal model study, researchers set out to determine what happens when multi-walled carbon nanotubes are inhaled.

Washington, October 26: How does your brain recall that you brush your teeth before you took a shower, and not the other way around? A study has now identified groups of neurons in the primate brain that code time with extreme precision.

Keeping track of time and remembering past events is one of the brain’s most important tasks, amid the welter of sights and sounds that it processes.

Toronto, October 26: Heart attack symptoms for men and women have many more similarities than is popularly believed, says a new study.

“Both the media and some patient educational materials frequently suggest that women experience symptoms of a heart attack very differently from men,” says Martha Mackay, clinical research fellow at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

“These findings suggest that this is simply not the case,” adds Mackay, also a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Nursing.

Toronto, October 26: Three months of physical activity can improve elasticity in the arteries of older adults with Type 2 diabetes, cutting down the risk of heart disease and stroke, say researchers.

Kenneth Madden, geriatric specialist at the University of British Columbia (UBC), studied adults between 65 and 83 years with controlled Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood cholesterol to see how increased activity might ease their stiff arteries.

“The theory is that aerobic activity makes your arteries less stiff and makes artery walls more elastic,” says Madden.

Kolkata, October 26: The cost of medical treatment involving bone grafting or dental filling could come down in India with the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI) Sunday signing an agreement for low-cost application of the technology with private player IFGL Refractories Limited.

Pune, October 26: With the death of a 30-year-old woman, the Swine flu toll in the city has gone up to 91, health officials said on Monday.

The woman died on Sunday night, they said.

The pandemic, which has been unrelenting in the city for about four months since its outbreak in July, continues to cause concern to the health machinery, now worried over the speculated possibility of a second wave in the winter.

New Delhi, October 25: Thirteen new swine flu deaths were reported Sunday, taking the total toll in India due to Influenza A(H1N1) virus to 444, health authorities said here.

For the first time, Punjab and Mizoram reported deaths – one each – since the first death was reported in the country Aug 3.

The maximum deaths were from Maharashtra where 11 people died since Friday. The total toll in the state has now touched 185 – the highest in the country.

Kerala, where 10 deaths had occured earlier, also recorded two new casualties.

Washington, October 24: More than half the people who take anti-depressants seldom get relief. A bnew study says this is because drugs designed to treat depression aim at the wrong target.

The study led by Eva Redei, psychiatry professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (NUFSM), found powerful molecular evidence that quashes the popular dogma that stress generally triggers depression.

Her new research reveals that there is almost no overlap between stress-related genes and depression-related genes.

Washington, October 24: Eating right, not supplements, is a sure way of keeping your good bacteria in fine fettle.

It is best to get the bacteria you need from healthy food, rather than taking expensive and potentially ineffective supplements, says Gail Cresci, author of a new study and dietician and assistant professor of surgery, Medical College of Georgia (MCG).

Washington, October 24: Cleanliness is next to godliness, so goes an old adage, which has now been borne out by a new study.

People in clean smelling environments show striking improvement in ethical behaviour, which has implications for offices and organisations relying on traditional surveillance measures to enforce rules.

“Companies often employ heavy-handed interventions to regulate conduct, but they can be costly or oppressive,” said Katie Liljenquist, who led the study.

Geneva, October 24: Swine flu is spreading faster and claiming new fatalities in Europe, health officials said, as the global death toll from the virus rose to nearly 5,000 victims and the US said millions had been infected.

Since the A(H1N1) virus was uncovered in April, there have been over 4,735 deaths reported to the World Health Organisation as of a week ago, the WHO said.

Most of the fatal cases — 3,539 — have been recorded in North and South America, the UN health agency said in its latest update on the flu pandemic.

New Delhi, October 24: The six-pack or the eight-pack abs of Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan may look mighty impressive but it’s inspiring many youngsters to pump iron without being aware that this “exercise addiction” could prove fatal. This week two people in India were victims of “exercise addiction”.

Forty-two year-old Ranjan Das, the youngest CEO in the country, collapsed with a massive cardiac arrest after working out in his in-house gym in Mumbai, while in Jaipur a young aspiring model died while working out at the treadmill at a gym.

Both were described as fitness freaks.

London, October 23: A sharp increase in the number of patients with swine flu admitted to critical care, many of them young, was highlighted by government experts yesterday as they warned the NHS faced a tough winter ahead.

The number of deaths in the UK has risen to 128, more than half of them of people aged under 45. In England the number of patients in critical care has risen to 99, the highest since the pandemic began.

Washington, October 23: Children should be taught about the importance of a good night’s sleep as part of the national curriculum, health campaigners say.

Sleep experts say it is just as important as a healthy diet and exercise in ensuring children get the best out of their schooling. They add that children would be less likely to nod off during lessons.

Lack of sleep, they argue, can lead to an inability to concentrate in lessons – and, of course, falling asleep in the classroom instead of in bed at home. It can also make children irritable, causing behavioural problems.

Washington, October 22: Eating right, not supplements, is a sure way of keeping your good bacteria in fine fettle.

It is best to get the bacteria you need from healthy food, rather than taking expensive and potentially ineffective supplements, says Gail Cresci, author of a new study and dietician and assistant professor of surgery, Medical College of Georgia (MCG).

New Delhi, October 22: After much persuasion and a mass protest, Law and Justice Minister Veerappa Moily said he will discuss the latest draft of the HIV/AIDS bill with the health ministry which, according to patients and civil society, have “key provisions” missing.

Raman Chawla of the Lawyers’ Collective, who led a six-member team from the Network of HIV Positive People to meet Moily late Wednesday, said the minister assured them of sorting out the differences as soon as possible.

New Delhi, October 21: Seven swine flu deaths were reported in India Wednesday, taking the toll due to Influenza A (H1N1) virus to 427, a health ministry statement said here.

Three deaths – one each in Delhi, Goa and Kerala – were reported Wednesday while four deaths reported from Maharashtra had occurred earlier but the laboratory confirmations of the viral infections came Wednesday, officials said.

Also, 61 new cases were reported in the country, taking the total number of people affected with the flu to 13,030.

Washington, October 21:Engineered light-sensitive molecules, introduced into a blind rodent’s eye caused it to see, according to results from an interdisciplinary collaboration among labs.

The results could lead to treatment for people with inherited blinding eye diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa which affects one in every 3,000 individuals.

In past studies, researchers made a blind animal’s visual cells respond to light by introducing a light-sensitive algae protein into the eye.

Washington, October 21:Pacifier, baby bottle or thumb sucking may hamper a child’s speech development if the habit goes on too long, says a new study.

The children were more likely to have difficulty producing certain word sounds and to simplify their pronunciation.

A team led by Clarita Barbosa from Corporacion de Rehabilitacion Club De Leones Cruz Del Sur in Patagonia, Chile, conducted the study with University of Washington (UW) Multidisciplinary International Research Training (MIRT).

Sydney, October 21:Scientists have discovered a tiny genetic irregularity that boosts the expression of a key gene which may lead to the development of Type-1 diabetes.

Type-1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, where the body attacks and destroys its own

insulin-producing cells. A serious illness, leading to many complications, it often starts in childhood or teenage years.

While there is no cure yet, prevention therapies are on the horizon, making the development of reliable screening tools critical. And that’s where the current finding has promise.

Washington, October 21: A new study has shed fresh light on why some women are infertile and why some pregnancies end in miscarriage, after researchers found that immune cells have an important role to play in both the cases.

An international team has examined the role of a type of immune cells known as macrophages or white blood cells within the ovary, which are found in abundance near developing eggs and in hormone-producing structures within the ovary.