Category: General Interest

Categories : General Interest Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

For Alzheimer’s, Old Dogs Can Teach Humans New Tricks

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash

Researchers have found that quantifiable changes can be measured in dogs suspected of suffering from cognitive decline: an approach that could serve as a model for evaluating cognitive decline progression in, and treatments for, humans with Alzheimer’s disease.

In dogs there is a similar condition to similar to Alzheimer’s disease in humans, canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CCDS). In CCDS, cognitive decline is associated with the development of amyloid plaques as well as cortical atrophy. CCDS is also challenging to diagnose. Traditionally, CCDS is diagnosed based on ruling out any obvious physical conditions and an owner’s answers to a questionnaire.

“One problem with the current approach is that questionnaires only capture a constellation of home behaviours,” explained Professor Natasha Olby, co-senior author of the paper. “There can be other reasons for what an owner may perceive as cognitive decline – anything from an undiagnosed infection to a brain tumour.”

Olby and co-senior author Assistant Professor Margaret Gruen, wanted to see if cognitive function could be accurately quantified in dogs.

“Our goal was to bring together multiple tools in order to get a more complete picture of how CCDS presents in dogs,” A/Prof Gruen said.

To accomplish this, they recruited 39 dogs from 15 breeds. All of them were in the senior and geriatric age range, but in good health overall. A dog is considered ‘senior’ if it is in the last 25% of its expected life span based on breed and size, and geriatric beyond that.

The dogs underwent physical and orthopaedic exams, as well as lab work that included a blood test that is a marker of neuronal death. Their owners filled out two commonly used diagnostic questionnaires, and then the dogs participated in a series of cognitive tests designed to assess executive function, memory and attention.

“The approach we took isn’t necessarily designed to be diagnostic; instead, we want to use these tools to be able to identify dogs at an early stage and be able to follow them as the disease progresses, quantifying the changes,” Prof Olby said.

The team found that cognitive and blood test results correlated well with the questionnaire scores, suggesting that a multi-dimensional approach can be used to quantify cognitive decline in aging dogs.

“Being able to diagnose and quantify CCDS in a way that is clinically safe and relevant is a good first step toward being able to work with dogs as a model for Alzheimer’s disease in humans,” Prof Olby said. “Many of the current models of Alzheimers disease – in rodents, for example – are good for understanding physiological changes, but not for testing treatments.”

“Dogs live in our homes and develop naturally occurring disease just like we do,” A/Prof Gruen said. “These findings show promise for both dogs and humans in terms of improving our understanding of disease progression as well as for potentially testing treatments.”

Source: North Carolina State University

Categories : General Interest GeneticsTags :

People with Blue Eyes Share a Single Ancestor

On By ModernMedia
Eye
Source: Daniil Kuzelev on Unsplash

New research published in Human Genetics shows that people with blue eyes trace their ancestry back to a single individual. Researchers tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6–10 000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans without albinism alive on the planet today.

While blue eyes evolved only once, blonde hair has evolved at least twice: in Melanesian populations, blonde hair evolved independently to European populations, involving a mutation in a different gene.

“Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Professor Hans Eiberg from the University of Copenhagen. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch’, which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.” The OCA2 gene codes for the P protein, which is involved melanin production. This ‘switch’, located in the gene next to OCA2, does not completely shut off production but instead is limited to reducing the production of melanin in the iris, effectively ‘diluting’ brown eyes to blue. The switch’s effect on OCA2 is very specific therefore. If the OCA2 gene is completely destroyed or turned off, albinism would be the result.

Eye colours from brown to green depend on the amount of melanin in the iris, but blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” said Professor Eiberg. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Brown-eyed individuals, by contrast, have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production.

Professor Eiberg and his team studied mitochondrial DNA and compared the eye colour of blue-eyed individuals in countries as diverse as Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. His research stretches back to 1996, when he first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colour.

The mutation of brown to blue eyes does not confer any evolutionary advantage, as with others such as hair colour.

As Professor Eiberg explained, “it simply shows that nature is constantly shuffling the human genome, creating a genetic cocktail of human chromosomes and trying out different changes as it does so.”

Source: University of Copenhagen

Categories : General InterestTags :

Message Boards Showing Highway Death Toll Cause More Crashes

On By ModernMedia
Driver at the wheel of a car
Photo by Why Kei on Unsplash

Displaying the highway death toll on message boards (eg, “1669 deaths this year on Texas roads”) is a common awareness campaign, but new research published in Science shows that it actually leads to more crashes.

Their study focuses on Texas, where officials chose to display these messages only one week each month. The researchers compared crash data from before the campaign to after it started as well as examined the weekly differences within each month during the campaign. They found:

  • There were more crashes during the week with fatality messaging compared to weeks without.
  • Displaying a fatality message caused a 4.5% in crashes in the 10km after the message boards. This increase is comparable to raising the speed limit 5–8kph or reducing highway police by 6–14%, according to previous research.
  • The researchers suggest this “in-your-face” messaging approach weighs down drivers’ “cognitive loads,” temporarily impacting their ability to respond to changes in traffic conditions.

“Driving on a busy highway [and] having to navigate lane changes is more cognitively demanding than driving down a straight stretch of empty highway,” said Assistant Professor Joshua Madsen. “People have limited attention. When a driver’s cognitive load is already maxed out, adding on an attention-grabbing, sobering reminder of highway deaths [can] become a dangerous distraction.”

Another finding was that the higher the number in the fatality message, the more harmful the effects. The number of additional crashes each month increased as the death toll accumulated throughout the year, with the most additional crashes occurring in January when the message stated the year’s total. Crashes were also found to increase in areas where drivers experienced higher cognitive loads, such as heavy traffic or driving past multiple message boards.

“The messages also increased the number of multi-vehicle crashes, but not single-vehicle crashes,” said Hall. “This is in line with drivers with increased cognitive loads making smaller errors due to distraction, like drifting out of a lane, rather than driving off the road.”

However, crashes were reduced when the displayed death tolls were low and when the message appeared where the highways were less complex. Madsen said this suggests that at times the messaging was not as taxing on drivers’ attention. However, alternative campaigns should be considered.

“Distracted driving is dangerous driving,” said Madsen. “Perhaps these campaigns can be reimagined to reach drivers in a safer way, such as when they are stopped at an intersection, so that their attention while driving remains focused on the roads.”

Source: University of Minnesota

Categories : Diet and Nutrition General InterestTags :

Financial Rewards are an Effective Weight Loss Motivator

On By ModernMedia
Bathroom scale
Photo by I Yunmai on Unsplash

A large scale weight loss programme conducted with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has demonstrated that personal accountability coupled with financial rewards continue to be a key motivator for successful weight loss.

The report [PDF] analysed data from over 48 000 CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet members, more than triple the sample size from the original study in 2018. The authors found that those who successfully claimed the financial incentive offered by the programme, managed a 28% greater weight loss than those members who did not claim it.

Financial reward claimants lost an average of 6.2kg (or 6.7% of their starting body weight), versus the 4.8kg (or 5.2% of starting body weight) lost by those who did not claim the financial reward.

CSIRO Research Scientist and report author Dr Gilly Hendrie said the research was telling evidence of how taking personal accountability by engaging in self-monitoring behaviours promoted healthy weight loss.

“It is encouraging to see the results of our study support other psychology and behavioural change research that self-accountability and financial incentives can have a meaningful impact on people’s weight loss success,” Dr Hendrie said. 

“Breaking unhealthy habits that have developed over a long time can be hard and it is easy to lose motivation if you are not seeing immediate results on the scales.

“We’ve found self-accountability activities like tracking your weight and taking progress photos can be positive for members to see the physical changes from one week to the next; it can give them the drive to stay on track and continue to form the healthy habits which will help them achieve their health goals,” she said.

In addition, two thirds of members who claimed the reward lost a clinically relevant amount of weight, more than 5% of their starting body weight, compared to half of the non-rewarded members.

“A five per cent reduction in body weight is proven to markedly lower the risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and improve metabolic function in obese and overweight people,” Dr Hendrie said.

Programme participant Brian Thomas said he believes the refund reward was key to his 27 kg weight loss.

“The refund reward was not only a key motivator to me signing up, but it helped me achieve my weight loss goals and regain my health because it sets up the framework to do things you need to do to be successful,” Mr Thomas said.

“If I didn’t have to track my food for the refund reward, maybe I would never have got into the habit of tracking. Even now, three months after I received my refund, I’m still keeping up those behaviours. It’s allowed me to make positive changes to my own life and habits, and it has had a positive impact on my family.  Best of all it didn’t cost me a cent.”

The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet offers a financial reward equal to the cost of the program (AUS $199/R2 200) for people who complete the 12-week programme and follow the science-based criteria to make lifestyle changes for long-term weight loss. The criteria include weekly weigh-ins, uploading a photo to track progress, and using a food diary at least three times per week.

Source: CSIRO

Categories : General Interest Healthcare Politics and RegulationsTags :

WHO Condemns Attacks on Hospitals in Ukraine

On By ModernMedia
Source: Pixabay CC0

On Sunday 13 March, the World Health Organization released a statement condemning recent attacks on hospitals and other healthcare facilities in Ukraine, which it called “horrific”. It also called for an immediate end of all such attacks, which are killing and injuring both patients and health care workers, as well as threatening vital health services.

“To attack the most vulnerable – babies, children, pregnant women, and those already suffering from illness and disease, and health workers risking their own lives to save lives – is an act of unconscionable cruelty,” the organisation said.

WHO’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA) has documented 31 attacks on health care since the outset of the war that started with the Russian invasion on 24 February, now in its third week. These include 24 incidents of damage to or destruction of health care facilities, and five cases of ambulances.

In one incident, a maternity hospital was hit by a Russian air strike, causing three deaths including a child.

There have been 12 deaths and 34 injuries as a result of these attacks, and impaired access to and availability of essential health services, the WHO stated. Since attacks are ongoing, this is expected to continue.

The organisation also stresses that such attacks also directly impact the needs of vulnerable groups, and the health care needs of pregnant women, new mothers, younger children and older people inside Ukraine are rising even as violence curtails health care access.

“For example, more than 4,300 births have occurred in Ukraine since the start of war and 80 000 Ukrainian women are expected to give birth in next three months. Oxygen and medical supplies, including for the management of pregnancy complications, are running dangerously low,” the WHO statement read. WHO warned that Ukraine’s health care system is “clearly under significant strain” and a collapse would be a “catastrophe”. It stresses that “every effort must be made” to prevent this.

“International humanitarian and human rights law must be upheld, and the protection of civilians must be our top priority.

They call for international humanitarian and human rights laws to be upheld, with the protection of civilians as a top priority. Aid and health care workers must be able to continue and strengthen service delivery, and health services should be provided at border crossing, to provide prompt care and referral for children and pregnant people. Care should be unimpeded, with access to civilians in all areas of the conflict, and health care and services should be protected from attacks.

WHO stated that, in the wake of COVID’s huge strain, “such attacks have the potential to be even more devastating for the civilian population.” As such, it called for an urgent ceasefire.

“Finally, we call for an immediate ceasefire, which includes unhindered access so that people in need can access humanitarian assistance. A peaceful resolution to end the war in Ukraine is possible.”

Source: World Health Organization

Categories : General Interest Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

SAMRC Honours Medical Scientists

On By ModernMedia
Credit: South African Medical Research Council

On Thursday, March the 10th, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) honoured a selection of leading SA medical scientists and researchers at its 8th SAMRC Scientific Merit Awards at a hybrid event.

This year’s Presidential Award, which is awarded to scientists who have made exceptional lifelong contributions to medical research and public health, was bestowed upon Professor Koleka Mlisana, the country’s first black microbiologist. With over 40 years’ experience in health sciences, Prof Mlisana is the current executive manager of academic affairs, research, and quality assurance at the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and Co-Chair of the COVID-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC). In the 1990s, she was one of the scientists investigating the unknowns of HIV. Her research focused on understanding the body’s response to acute HIV infection.

The Platinum Medal, for South Africans who have made seminal scientific contributions and who have also made an impact on health, especially for those living in developing countries, was awarded to Professor Andre Pascal Kengne. As a physician and an internationally renowned non-communicable diseases epidemiologist, his work focuses on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. He is the current Director of the SAMRC’s Non-Communicable Diseases Research Unit and holds conjoint appointments as Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, as well as Extraordinary Professor of Global Health at Stellenbosch University.

In the Gold Medal category, which is for researchers who have made substantial and influential contributions that have impacted on health especially in the developing world, the awardees are Professors Tulio de Oliveira, Ntobeko Ntusi, Ambroise Wonkam and Grant Theron.

Silver Medals are conferred to emerging and upcoming scientists and those committed to capacity development. This year, the medal recipients are Professors Diane Gray, Marlo Moller, Rabia Johnson, and Dr Nasheeta Peer.

SAMRC President and CEO, Prof Glenda Gray said that scientific research remains fundamental for reducing the nation’s burden of disease and preventing mortality. “The knowledge produced by these exceptional scientists will carry our country’s legacy of science forward and continue to improve the lives of citizens as it is evident with COVID-19.” Their work shows the country’s ingenuity, she added, noting that “it was scientists in South Africa who first discovered and sounded the alarm on Omicron, which rapidly became the dominant variant of concern.”

Source: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)

Categories : General InterestTags :

A Romantic Partner’s Perception of Emotions may Improve Relationships

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Monstera from Pexels

In a study examining the perception of emotion in romantic relationships, researchers found that, regardless of how an individual is truly feeling, knowing their partner sees their emotions as a typical reaction to a given situation might lead to better relations between the couple, especially when conflict arises.

To find out how emotional meta-accuracy – the ability to correctly understand a romantic partner’s impressions of the self – impacted momentary relationship quality, the researchers surveyed 189 romantic couples. The couples were mostly heterosexual, average age 23 and were recruited from around the university campus. The researchers asked their subjects to engage in three different types of interactions: couples were asked to engage in a neutral unstructured conversation; then, they were asked to talk about something they disagreed on; finally, they engaged in a positive conversation. They were then surveyed on their own emotions and their partners’ perception of their emotions.

“We were interested in understanding how our beliefs about how we are seen by others affects the quality of our relationships,” said Hasagani Tissera, a PhD candidate and lead author on the paper.

“No matter why you are feeling a certain way, interactions within a couple are likely to be more positive when you know your romantic partner sees your emotions as similar to how a typical person would feel in a given situation,” Tissera said.

The researchers found that, overall, couples were better able to cope with conflict when they knew how their partner perceived their emotions.

Furthermore, the study suggests that “…to remain blissfully unaware of [your partner’s] unique impressions…” may lead to better momentary relationship quality. “Or, to put it differently, if you know your romantic partner sees you’re angry because of a reason that’s unique to your experience and not based on how the average person might feel, chances are it will hurt your relationship – at least in that moment,” Tissera said.
The findings were published in the journal Personal and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Source: McGill University

Categories : General Interest HIVTags :

HIV Co-discover Dies

On By ModernMedia
HIV Infecting a T9 Cell. Credit: NIH

Luc Montagnier, the French virologist credited as being a co-discoverer of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has died aged 89. He jointly received the 2008 Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to Montagnier for his work in isolating the virus.

He was lauded for his crucial research, but in later life he was criticised for unscientific claims about autism and COVID.

Local news site FranceSoir reported that he died on Tuesday in Neuilly-sur-Seine “surrounded by his children”.

The virologist first began working on the virus in the early 1980s while at the Pasteur Institute in France. Montagnier and his team examined tissue samples from patients who had the mysterious new syndrome.

In 1983, Luc Montagnier’s team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered HIV‑1. They cultured T cells from a lymph node biopsy from a 33-year-old homosexual French patient with symptoms that can precede AIDS (subsequently called pre-AIDS), such as lymphadenopathy. 
Finding that they had isolated a retrovirus, they were able to infect T cells from a healthy donor, but were unable to infect other cell types, including B cells and fibroblasts. 

The group concluded that this patient at risk for AIDS was infected with a T cell–tropic retrovirus; however they could only tentatively associate it with AIDS. In 2008, Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from his team were awarded the Nobel Prize for the isolation and characterisation of HIV-1.

However, US scientist Robert Gallo published similar findings in the same edition of Science in which the Pasteur team had announced theirs. He later concluded that the virus caused Aids. This led to years of heated debate over who actually discovered HIV.

Gallo revealed in 1991 that the virus he found came from the Pasteur Institute the year before, and the two men publicly agreed in 2002 that Montagnier’s team discovered HIV, but that Gallo first showed its role in causing Aids.

However, when Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008 for their work – alongside Harald zur Hausen for his work on cervical cancer – the committee made no mention of Gallo, which provoked controversy.

Later on, Montagnier attracted great criticism for a series of unscientific claims, including over the causes of autism and later over the origins of COVID.

French media first reported that he had died at the American hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 8 February, and his death was officially declared by authorities some time later.

Source: BBC News

Categories : General Interest Medical IndustryTags :

ICD-11 Comes into Effect

On By ModernMedia
Source: Pixabay

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the Eleventh Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) has now come into effect, with the latest update going online on Friday, 11th February.

Compared with previous versions, ICD-11 is entirely digital with a new user-friendly format and multilingual capabilities that reduce the chance of error. It has been compiled and updated with input from over 90 countries and unprecedented involvement of health-care providers, enabling evolution from a system imposed on clinicians into a truly enabling clinical classification and terminology database that serves a broad range of uses for recording and reporting statistics on health. It also allows entries to appear in multiple categories: for example, stroke appears under both the cardiovascular and neurological categories.

“International classification of diseases is the cornerstone of a robust health information system”, said Dr Samira Asma, the Assistant Director-General for Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact at the World Health Organization (WHO). “ICD has been instrumental in helping us respond to the COVID pandemic using standardised data and continues to be crucial for tracking progress towards universal health coverage. We hope all countries will take advantage of ICD-11’s powerful new features.”

Among other updates, ICD-11 improves the clarity of terms for the general public and facilitates the coding of important details such as the spread of a cancer or the exact site and type of a fracture. The new version also includes updated diagnostic recommendations for mental health conditions and digital documentation of COVID certificates.

These updates reflect recent progress in medicine and advances in scientific understanding. For example, codes relating to antimicrobial resistance are now aligned with the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS). ICD-11 is also more capable of capturing data on health-care safety, thus identifying and reducing unnecessary events that may harm health such as unsafe workflows in hospitals.

ICD is used by health insurers who make reimbursement decisions on the basis of ICD coding, by national health programme managers, by data collection specialists, and by anyone who tracks progress in global health and determines health resource allocation.

“A key principle in this revision was to simplify the coding and provide users with all necessary electronic tooling – this will allow health-care professionals to more easily and completely record conditions,” says Dr Robert Jakob, Team Lead, Classifications Terminologies and Standards, WHO.

In addition to coding and capability updates, ICD-11 includes new chapters on traditional medicine, sexual health, and gaming disorder – which has now been added to the section on addictive disorders.

ICD-11 was adopted at the World Health Assembly in May 2019 and Member States committed to start using it for mortality and morbidity reporting in 2022. Since 2019, early adopter countries, translators, and scientific groups have recommended further refinements to produce the version that is posted online today.

Source: World Health Organization

Categories : General Interest Healthcare Politics and RegulationsTags :

NHI Faces Healthcare Human Resource Emigration Challenges

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Daniel Eledut on Unsplash

While the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) could make use of existing private healthcare human resources, the necessary tax increases to fund it could drive more healthcare professionals from the country, the Professional Provident Society (PPS) has said.  Economic and other factors, such as the Durban unrest, have already caused a surge of emigrations of professionals since July last year. In addition, foreign students graduates who study critical skills in South Africa (such as nurses and GPs) will no longer have an easy route to permanent residency. 

The PPS, which counts about 30 000 healthcare professionals among its membership, pointed out the vulnerability of South Africa’s tax base – which has shrunk to only 6.9 million taxpayers, down from 7.6 million the year from the year before.

While it raised a number of concerns about the NHI, the group stated that it was broadly supportive of establishing universal healthcare in the country, and this goal could still be accomplished by using a dual public-private system. The PPS further noted that the government could benefit from the exceptional administrative capabilities and existing patient management systems.

However, NHI is dependent on strong, competitively remunerated human resources, with PPS pointing out that “South Africa has experienced a mass exodus of nurses in the 90s; we cannot risk that again. Both the government and private sector need to find a solution for South Africa and it cannot ‘import solutions’.”

“Professionals are a big proportion of healthcare delivery and the tax base. Their voices need to be considered.

“We urgently need to see the funding model, the implementation of the Health Market Inquiry (HMI) and details of how the system will work.”

The PPS said in a 2019 report that the highest risk to effective universal health cover in South Africa is losing highly skilled professionals to emigration. Healthcare professionals have a great deal of geographic freedom, and it is becoming easier to work in their trades the world over. COVID with its restrictions may have slowed emigrations by skilled professionals, but since July 2021, experts have seen a surge backed up by 18 months of pent-up demand. 

The PPS noted that research has shown “that the decision to emigrate is a complex one that is driven by various personal and societal pull and push factors.”  The NHI could be yet another push factor adding to the list of healthcare professionals’ sore points. “Healthcare worker migration from South Africa in the past has been driven by policy decisions and socio-economic and political considerations.

“In 2001, the number of nurse emigrants was roughly 20% of the total number working within the public sector in South Africa. That, together with being ranked as having the eighth-highest global number of emigrating physicians in the year 2000, created a dire situation for the sustainability of healthcare in South Africa at the time.”

Among general professionals, PPS’s research has indicated that many are considering emigration. A majority of respondents surveyed (73%) cited NHI as a potential reason for emigration, with 15% unsure and only 12% not considering leaving at all.

In addition to losses from emigration, the Department of Home Affairs has ended a 2014 waiver which allowed a quicker path to a residency permit for foreign students who acquire critical skills in South African higher learning institutions. Going forward, foreign students will no longer be able to apply for permanent residency visas without complying with the usual requirements such as providing proof of five years’ work experience. This is seen as detrimental to South Africa’s ability to attract and retain skilled professionals. This may further impact NHI implementation as the necessary skilled human resources are squeezed further as fewer foreign students may choose to study and then work in South Africa.

Source: BusinessTech