Health

Bangalore, October 09: With two new swine flu deaths being reported in Karnataka, the death toll due to the H1N1 virus in the state has reached 108, a health official said here Friday.

While a 40-year-old man died at a government hospital in Bangalore on Oct 5, the second victim is a 25-year-old woman who died at a private hospital in Gadag on Oct 6.

Reports confirming that both the victims had tested positive for the virus were received only Oct 8, a health official said.

Florida, October 09: The first swine flu vaccine arrived in Florida on Thursday, in Jefferson and St. Johns counties two northern Florida counties that together have had only one flu death since the H1N1 influenza began its spread in April.

The vaccines are part of 102,000 doses the state will get as its first batch from manufacturers this week. Miami-Dade and Broward counties, with 31 flu deaths, don’t expect their first vaccines until the middle of next week, and plan to start vaccinations a week from Monday, on Oct. 19 — entirely on school-age achildren.

Washington, October 08: The quality of healthcare Americans receive depends largely on where they live, with insurance coverage, access to preventive medicine and disease treatment varying widely from state to state, according to a study released on Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund.

“Where you live matters,” said the foundation’s Vice President Cathy Schoen, who co-authored the study for the private research group, in a conference call with reporters. “And it shouldn’t.”

New Delhi, October 08: Don’t reprimand your son for sobbing over a problem he is facing or tick him off for “behaving like a sissy”. It would only make him bottle up his emotions and lead to serious implications on his overall well being. Experts say men are more vulnerable to mental illness and depression than you would imagine.

London, October 08: Two-thirds of blind people worldwide are women and girls, and the gender bias has resulted in men and boys having twice the access to eye-care, says an international agency in a report to mark the ‘World Sight Day’ Thursday.

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness says in most developing countries, women are less likely to receive eye care services than men, and that additionally, women comprise more than half of the elderly population.

New Delhi, October 08: Close to 13 crore Indians may suffer from lifestyle diseases heart attacks and diabetes in the next few years, leaving a USD 160 billion hole in the national economy between 2010 and 2015, an Assocham-PWC study said.

The national loss on account of these diseases were earlier estimated at around USD 100 billion between 2005 and 2009, it said.

New Delhi, October 08: Tens of thousands of Indian women die needlessly every year during pregnancy or because of childbirth-related problems, a human rights group said Wednesday, blaming a medical system hobbled by poor planning, caste discrimination, a lack of accountability and limited access to emergency care.

India has a maternal mortality rate 16 times higher than Russia, and 10 times higher than China, Human Rights Watch said in a report. That means one out of every 70 Indian women who reach reproductive age will die because of pregnancy, childbirth or during unsafe abortions.

Washington, October 08: In a move to quicken detection for women at risk of breast cancer, Canadian researchers said they had developed a hormone testing technique that could eventually be used in a handheld device.

While the results are several years away from usage, the new “lab-on-a-chip” technique developed at the University of Toronto can analyze “tiny samples of blood and breast tissue to identify women at risk of breast cancer much more quickly than ever before,” researchers said.

New Delhi, October 07: In a key-hole operation which lasted 28 minutes, doctors at a Kerala hospital claimed to have removed a gigantic uterus weighing 4.9 kg, which could be a possible world record.

“We have successfully removed a uterus weighing 4.9 kg of a 49-year-old patient here. This uterus is the world?s largest one operated upon as compared to previous record of 3.9 kg as listed in the Guinness Book of World Record,” Dr Hafeez Rahman, Chairman, Sunrise Hospital Kochi told PTI.

Washington, October 07: Scientists claim to have found evidence that tiny hair-like structures in the kidney regulate the organ’s regrowth — and cause a disease if faulty.

An international team has shed new light on the microscopic antennas in the kidney that are involved in the organ’s repair process, a breakthrough they claim may pave the way for a cure for polycystic kidney disease, a potentially fatal disease that affects more than one in 1,000 people.

Washington, October 07: Vitamin B pills don’t cut down the risk of heart disease, says a new study. “There is no evidence to support the use of Vitamin B as supplements for reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke or death associated with cardiovascular disease,” says lead researcher Arturo Marti-Carvajal of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Network in Valencia, Venezuela.

New Delhi, October 07: A total of 43 people, 26 of them children, tested positive for swine flu virus here today, taking the total number of clinically confirmed H1N1 swine flu cases in the city to the 2963 mark.

“A total of 43 positive cases of H1N1 influenza have been identified today. Of these, 26 samples were of children alone,” Kiran Walia, Delhi Health Minister said.

Walia said that till date 2963 cases have tested positive for swine flu virus. More than 90 per cent patients have been successfully treated and discharged.

New Delhi, October 06: Eight swine flu deaths, including four in Maharashtra, were reported on Tuesday, taking India’s toll to 359, health authorities said here.

Also, 185 people were affected with the flu, taking the total number of people infected with the contagious virus to 11,253.

During the day, four deaths were reported – two in Maharashtra and one each in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat – but later four more deaths were found to be due to the virus.

Pune, October 06: The swine flu toll in the city has risen to 75 with four more persons succumbing to the virus, health officials said today.

The victims were identified as Soyab Shaikh (5), Sanjay Sakpal (35), Jyoti Pardeshi (45), and Trupti Magar (21), who died in different city hospitals.

The pandemic, which started in the city around three months back, has continued unabated with periodic aggravation in positive cases especially after the recent Ganesh and Navratri festivals.

Beijeng, October 06: China has announced its first swine flu death, saying a patient in its southwestern region of Tibet had died from the disease, as concern rises about a winter outbreak.

State-run Xinhua news agency said in a report from the Tibetan regional capital Lhasa that the victim was an 18-year-old woman.

A brief notice on the website of the health ministry earlier also said a person had died of the influenza A(H1N1) on Sunday, giving no details on the case or the patient.

London, October 06: Taking a step closer towards a wonder pill that could extend people’s lifespan by up to 25 years, scientists have claimed that over half of babies born in the new future in the UK and other wealthy nations will live to 100 years .

The drug, touted as the “elixir of life” drug, works by using a molecule called spermidine, which helps to protect the body against damaging chemicals known as free radicals.

New Delhi, October 06: It’s time to get rid of salted potato chips from your shelves and replace them with healthier nuts that will help you overcome hunger pangs and attain a healthy lifestyle.

For years it was said that nuts contain fat and lead to body heat and so they should be avoided, especially during summer.

New York, October 06: You may have heard the oft-quoted statistic that autism affects 1 in 150 US children. Turns out it’s more like 1 in 91 — and about 1 in 58 boys, according to new figures released Sunday.

That’s an estimated 673,000 US children — or approximately 1 percent of all U.S. kids, the researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and Harvard Medical School, Boston report in the journal Pediatrics.

Washington, October 06: Very early pre-term babies kept alive with ventilators, chest tubes and drugs to support the heart may live a little longer than they did 10 years ago, but are just as likely to die before ever going home, US researchers have reported.

Their study suggests the emotionally taxing and expensive care given these tiny newborns, delivered at 22 to 24 weeks gestation, does not in the end save their lives. Babies born at 22 weeks included in the study all died as infants, regardless of care.

Toronto, October 06: Indian Yoga guru, Swami Ramdev, has suggested that his techniques of pranayama, popularly known as breathing exercises, could help in healing many ailments, including swine flu and cancer.

“I want to promote and propagate ancient Indian heritage of yoga around the globe. My aim is to turn Toronto into a peace haven,” Swami Ramdev told thousands of yoga fans, who gathered at the Pearson Convention Centre in Toronto on Monday.

Washington, October 06: How far you can reach beyond your toes from a sitting position may show how stiff your arteries really are.

Among people 40 years and older, performance on the sit-and-reach test could be used to assess the flexibility of arteries.

Because arterial stiffness often precedes heart disease, the results suggest that this simple test could become a quick measure of one’s risk for early mortality from heart attack or stroke.

London, October 06: High mortality rates in small-bodied people, commonly known as pygmies, may partly explain their small stature, says a new study.

The study by Jay Stock and Andrea Migliano, both of the University of Cambridge, helps unravel the mystery of how small-bodied people got that way.

Why people in these populations are so small remains a mystery, but several hypotheses have been proposed. Stock’s and Migliano’s study provides the first long-term evidence for the mortality hypothesis.

Bangalore, October 06: The swine flu toll in Karnataka has touched 100 after one more person succumbed to the HIN1 virus, a health official said here on Tuesday.

The latest victim of swine flu was a 31-year-old woman who died at a private hospital in Bangalore on October 2. She was under observation at the hospital since September 15.

The report confirming that she tested positive for the virus was, however, received on October 5, a health official said.

Out of the 100 swine flu death reports in Karnataka, 67 were registered in Bangalore and the rest from other parts of the State.

New Delhi, October 06: It’s time to get rid of salted potato chips from your shelves and replace them with healthier nuts that will help you overcome hunger pangs and attain a healthy lifestyle.

For years it was said that nuts contain fat and lead to body heat and so they should be avoided, especially during summer.

New Delhi, October 05: More than 400,000 children die within 24 hours of their birth in India every year – the highest anywhere in the world, a study by an international charity said.

While globally this figure stands at two million babies dying within a day of their birth, the shocking and tragic fact is that the reason for these deaths are diseases and infections that are easily treatable, and therefore the deaths are preventable.