No cognitive decline for women with migraines: study

No cognitive decline for women with migraines: study

WASHINGTON: Women suffering from migraines are more likely to experience changes to their brain tissue, though these do not appear to cause long-term damage to their mental condition, a study said Tuesday.
The study of 286 women and men, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that women with migraines were more likely to have brain changes that appeared as bright spots on magnetic resonance imaging.
"We've known for a while that women with migraine tend to have these brain changes as seen on MRI," said Linda Porter, pain health science policy adviser in the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which helped fund the study.
Previous studies have found a link between the bright spots known as hypersensitivities and risk factors for atherosclerotic disease, increased risk of stroke and cognitive decline.
"An important message from the study is that there seems no need for more aggressive treatment or prevention of attacks," said Mark Kruit, a principal investigator for the study who is also a neuroradiologist from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, which led the study.
The researchers were careful to stress that the brain changes that trigger the bright spots seen on MRI scans are unknown, and that the matter requires more research.
People with migraine-associated brain lesions did not demonstrate significant losses in cognitive abilities such as memory, concentration and attention compared to those without migraines, according to the study.
Unlike women, men with migraines had no greater incidence of brain changes than other men without migraines of the same age.

Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar

Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar 

LONDON: A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.
The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.
On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.
"The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case)," the WHO said.
The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.
Britain's Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
"Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up," it said.
It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked - they were from the same family, living in the same household.
"Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered," the WHO's statement said.
Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.
The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as "London1_novel CoV 2012".
The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.
"Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases," it said. (Reuters)

Knee replacement linked to weight gain: study

Knee replacement linked to weight gain: study 

NEW YORK: Being overweight is known to increase the risk of needing a knee replacement, but a new study finds that knee replacement surgery may also raise a person's risk of gaining weight, according to a US study.
Researchers, whose findings appeared in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients, and found that 30 percent of them gained five percent or more of their body weight in the five years following surgery.
One possible explanation for the counter-intuitive results, experts said, is that if people have spent years adapting to knee pain by taking it easy, they don't automatically change their habits when the pain is reduced.
"Patients who undergo knee arthroplasty are at increased risk of clinically important weight gain following surgery," wrote study leader Daniel Riddle, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
"Future research should develop weight loss/maintenance interventions particularly for younger patients who have lost a substantial amount of weight prior to surgery, as they are most at risk for substantial post surgical weight gain."
Riddle's group used a patient registry from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which collected information on 917 knee replacement patients before and after their procedures.
The researchers found that five years after surgery, 30 percent of patients had gained at least five percent of their weight at the time of the surgery - at least 5 kg or more on a 100-kg person, for example.
In contrast, fewer than 20 percent of those in a comparison group of similar people who had not had surgery gained equivalent amounts of weight in the same period.
"After knee replacement we get them stronger and moving better, but they don't seem to take advantage of the functional gains," said Joseph Zeni, a physical therapy professor at the University of Delaware, who was not part of the study.
"I think that has to do with the fact that we don't address the behavioral modifications that have happened during the course of arthritis before the surgery."
Riddle's team explained that this degree of weight gain can lead to "meaningful effects on cardiovascular and diabetes related risk as well as pain and function."
Part of the explanation for the weight gain could be the age at which patients get surgery. People in their 50s and 60s tend to gain weight anyway. Still, in light of the lower rates of weight gain in the comparison group, which was also middle aged and older, Riddle said something else may also be at work.
Indeed, the team found that patients who had lost weight before their surgery were slightly more likely to gain weight afterwards - perhaps because when people lose weight in anticipation of an event, such as surgery, they are more likely to put it back on after they're achieved the goal.
Zeni said that to help people stave off weight gain after surgery, health care providers need to address the sedentary lifestyle people often adopt to accommodate their arthritis.

 

Vitamin D deficiency causes bone diseases

Vitamin D deficiency causes bone diseases 

ISLAMABAD: Dr Sayed Mehfooz Alam, consultant Rheumatologist said that 40 per cent people across the world suffer from bone diseases because of vitamin D deficiency.
He said that less physical activity, junk food and a busy lifestyle are the main reasons for this disease.
He said in daily routine use of computer, video games and TV has increased a lot which ends up with less physical activity causing arthritis (joints' pains).
Talking about preventive measures relating to arthritis, he suggested a balanced diet and reduction in weight.
Dr Mehfooz said that wrong posture while sitting and during sleep also promote the problems of neck and backache.
Excessive use of red meat, fish, nuts, spinach and tomato increases uric acid in human body which causes joint swelling, he added.
He recommended that one should enhance the use of dairy products like egg, milk and yogurt in their normal diet and must control cholesterol level for healthy life.

 

US doctors defeat leukemia with modified HIV

US doctors defeat leukemia with modified HIV

 

NEW YORK: US doctors say they have saved a seven-year-old girl who was close to dying from leukemia by pioneering the use of an unlikely ally: a modified form of the HIV virus.
After fighting her disease with chemotherapy for almost two years and suffering two relapses, the young girl "faced grim prospects," doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said.
So in February this year they agreed to take her on in an experimental program that fought fire with fire.
Helped by a genetically altered HIV virus -- stripped of its devastating properties that cause AIDS -- doctors turned the girl's own immune cells into a superior force able to rout the "aggressive" leukemia.
Emily Whitehead was the first child and is one of only a handful of people in total to be given what's officially known as CTL019 therapy. The hospital stressed this could not yet be called "a magic bullet."
However in her case at least the success was dramatic.
First, millions of the girl's natural immune system cells were removed. Then the modified HIV virus was used to carry in a new gene that would boost the immune cells and help them spot, then attack cancer cells that had previously been able to sneak in "under the radar," the hospital said on its website.
Finally the rebooted immune cells were sent back in to do their work.
"The researchers have created a guided missile that locks in on and kills B cells, thereby attacking B-cell leukemia," the hospital said.
Pediatric oncologist Stephan Grupp, who cared for the girl, explained Tuesday that there was never any danger of AIDS during the process.
"The way we get the new gene into the T cells (immune cells) is by using a virus. This virus was developed from the HIV virus, however all of the parts of the HIV virus that can cause disease are removed," he said in an email.
"It is impossible to catch HIV or any other infection. What's left is the property of the HIV virus that allows it to put new genes into cells."
During the treatment, Emily became very ill and went into the intensive care unit, underlining how risky the procedure can be. However, drugs that partly block the immune reaction were administered, without interfering with the anti-leukemia action, and she recovered, the hospital said.
The result was "complete" and best of all, the doctors say, the boosted immune shield continues "to remain in the patient's body to protect against a recurrence of the cancer."
"She has no leukemia in her body for any test that we can do -- even the most sensitive tests," Grupp told ABC television. "We need to see that the remission goes on for a couple of years before we think about whether she is cured or not. It is too soon to say."
Emily's parents Kari and Tom told the hospital that the success of the operation has changed their world. Instead of chemotherapy that made the girl lose all her hair, she is now back in school, walking her dog Lucy and playing soccer. "T cell therapy was really the only option left for Emily," Tom said.
Grupp said on the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia website that cell therapies might eventually replace the more costly, painful bone marrow transplant treatment, a standard last-ditch defense against cancer.
"I've been meeting with families to discuss bone marrow transplant for 20 years," he said.
"In almost every meeting, I say that bone marrow transplant is very hard and that if we had an alternative for children at that point in treatment, I would be delighted to put myself out of business. And for the first time, we're seeing how that might actually happen." (AFP)