Doctors Use 3-D Printing To Help A Baby Breathe

Ever since the day Garrett Peterson was born, his parents have had to watch him suddenly just stop breathing.

“He could go from being totally fine to turning blue sometimes — not even kidding — in 30 seconds,” says Garrett’s mother, Natalie Peterson, 25, of Layton, Utah. “It was so fast. It was really scary.”

Garrett was born with a defective windpipe. His condition, known as tracheomalacia, left his trachea so weak the littlest thing makes it collapse, cutting off his ability to breathe.

“When he got upset, or even sometimes just with a diaper change, he would turn completely blue,” his mother says, “and that was terrifying.”So the Petersons contacted Dr. Glenn Green

He teamed up with Scott Hollister, a biomedical engineer who runs the university’s 3-D Printing Lab, to create a remarkable solution to Garrett’s problem — a device that will hold open Garrett’s windpipe until it’s strong enough to work on its own.

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Mom of Newborn Twins Fights Rare Placenta Cancer

Jenna Hinman is fighting for her life in a medically-induced coma after she gave birth to healthy twins at 30 weeks pregnancy, only to discover she had a rare cancer of the placenta that has filled her lungs with tumors.

The 26-year-old mother is in “critical but stable” condition at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y. The twin baby girls, Kinleigh and Azlynn are doing fine at 2 pounds, 9 ounces, and 3 pounds, 6 ounces, respectively.

The twins are doing well and don’t have breathing tubes anymore,” said Hinman, 30, who is stationed at Fort Drum. “Both are feeding and right where they need to be at 30 weeks.”

Crouse Hospital spokesman Bob Allen said her treatment was “a highly rare situation here, not just because of the pregnancy-related cancer, which is a big piece of it, but the fact that she is on ECMO technology.”

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Birth control pills — effectiveness, side-effects and health risks

Every day, over 100 million women all over the world pop an emergency oral contraceptive pill. Oral contraceptive pills are no doubt an effective way to birth control in sexually active married women. 

But, such widespread use of birth control pills is definitely alarming because most women using them are unaware about its mechanism of action and its safety aspect. In this article, we highlight important aspects about birth control pills that every woman should know.

How does a birth 

control pill work?

When should you take the pill?

What are the side-effects?

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Wash your hands after handling receipts to avoid BPA

Handling receipts may increase the body’s level of a chemical that has been linked to reproductive and neurological problems, suggests a new small study.

Bisphenol A – commonly known as BPA – typically enters the body when people eat food from a can. But it can also be absorbed through the skin from receipts, according to the study’s lead author.

BPA is used in the process of making hard plastics, and has been banned from use in manufacturing baby bottles. The chemical is also used in the interior lining of many food cans. The chemical can leach into foods that are stored in such containers and eventually end up in the body when people eat the food. More recent research has found that people can also end up with increased BPA levels after touching materials containing the chemical.

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When Men Get Breast Cancer?

As in a woman’s breast, the duct cells in a man’s breast can undergo cancerous changes fueled by hormones that influence the growth of cells. It is not clear why some men get breast cancer while most do not, but risk factors include a family history of breast cancer, inherited gene mutations, radiation exposure, extended occupational exposure to certain chemicals or intense heat, obesity, liver disease, alcoholism, and other cancer treatments.

All of these factors can influence the level of hormones in a man’s body and potentially spur breast cancer. That said, many men who develop breast cancer do not have any of these risk factors.

Fewer than 1 percent of breast cancers are diagnosed in men, but that is little comfort to the 2,400 men a year who learn they have the disease. For Dr. Bogler, 47, the diagnosis was particularly shocking because his wife had learned five years earlier that she had breast cancer.

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Sunlight may lower your blood pressure

Here’s why sunbathing feels so good: It may lower your blood pressure, British researchers reported Friday.

Just 20 minutes of ultraviolet A (UVA) sunlight lowered blood pressure by a small but significant amount in 24 volunteers, they report in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Further checks suggest the sun does this by increasing levels of nitric oxide, a chemical linked to blood flow. This health tip is useful for the blood pressure patients

The effects are so strong they may help explain why people who live in the darker north, like the Scots, have higher rates of death from heart disease, Richard Weller of the University of Edinburgh and Martin Feelisch of the University of Southampton say.

“We are concerned that well-meaning advice to reduce the comparatively low numbers of deaths from skin cancer may inadvertently increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, and goes against epidemiological data showing that sunlight exposure reduces all cause and cardiovascular mortality,” they concluded.

Their volunteers got the equivalent of 30 minutes of natural sunlight at noon on a sunny day in Southern Europe. They protected their volunteers from the warming effects, just in case that was the cause. It lowered blood pressure by about five points, and the effects lasted half an hour.

In other words, a little sunshine really may warm your heart.

Source: NBC News

5 Natural Beauty Cheats You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.

Whiten Teeth With Activated Charcoal

It seems counter-intuitive that activated charcoal – a black substance that stains everything – would help to whiten teeth, but it really is very effective. This health tip is very useful in whitening in teeth

Simply dip a wet toothbrush in some activated charcoal and brush for two minutes before rinsing the mouth with water. The activated charcoal will pull toxins out of the teeth and remove stains.

Treat Acne & Other Skin Conditions With Banana Peels

This is a great little trick for treating acne, warts, stopping the itch from bug bites and poison ivy and reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles with an ingredient you’d normally throw in the trash.

Simply rubbing the inside of a banana peel on your face helps all of the above. Banana peels are rich in antioxidants, vitamins and nutrients which are absorbed into the skin.

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Source: natural living ideas

A girl dies in Ireland after pharmacy refuses to give her EpiPen

A teenage girl has died outside a pharmacy in Ireland after a staff member refused to give her family an EpiPen to inject her for a nut allergy because she didn’t have a prescription.

Emma Sloan, 14, was out for dinner in Dublin with her family when she accidentally ingested a sauce containing nuts that she mistook for curry, the Irish Herald reported.

The teenager suffered a severe allergic reaction but was not carrying an EpiPen, which delivers a shot of adrenaline that can reverse the effects of a severe, fast-acting reaction known as anaphylactic shock.

The family went to a nearby pharmacy and pleaded for an EpiPen but Emma’s mother, Caroline Sloan, said a male staff member refused to give them one without a prescription.

“He told me I couldn’t get it without a prescription. He told me to bring her to an A&E,” she told the newspaper.
Mrs Sloan said she tried to take Emma to Temple Street Hospital, but her daughter collapsed and died on the way.
“She died on the footpath. A doctor was passing and tried to help and put her into the recovery position. Ambulance and fire brigade men worked on her. But she was gone,” Mrs Sloan told the Herald.

“My daughter died on a street corner with a crowd around her. ”I’m so angry I was not given the EpiPen to inject her. I was told to bring Emma to an A&E department. Emma was allergic to nuts and was very careful. How could a peanut kill my child?
“I want to appeal to parents of children with nut allergies to make sure their child always carries an EpiPen with them.”

Regulations prohibit the dispensing of EpiPen injections without a prescription, the Irish Herald reported.
Mrs Sloan said she had gone to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet with Emma and her two other daughters on Wednesday evening for a family meal.

While Emma was usually extremely careful about what she ate, on this occasion she overlooked a sign that warned a sauce contained nuts, Mrs Sloan said.

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Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Guinness World Record for heart transplant patient

A British man has entered the record books as the worlds longest-surviving heart transplant patient.

John McCafferty, 71, has surpassed the previous Guinness World Record of 30 years, 11 months and 10 days set by an American man who died in 2009.

Mr McCafferty was told he had five years to live when he underwent the life-saving operation at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex 31 years ago.

He says his record should give hope to others awaiting transplants.

Mr McCafferty, from Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, said: “I want this world record to be an inspiration to anyone awaiting a heart transplant and to those who, like me, have been fortunate enough to have had one.

“My advice is always to be hopeful, to look ahead with a positive mind, and, of course, to follow the expert medical advice.”

Mr McCafferty received his new heart on 20 October 1982 in a procedure carried out by world-renowned surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub.

He had been diagnosed, aged 39, with dilated cardiomyopathy – one of the most common causes of heart failure. It leads to scarring of the heart wall and damage to the muscle, which causes the heart to become weakened and enlarged, preventing it from pumping efficiently.

The first ever successful heart transplant operation was performed in South Africa in 1967 by Prof Christiaan Neethling Barnard and a team of 30 physicians at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town. The patient, Louis Washkansky, survived for 18 days with the new heart.

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Source: BBC news

Being overweight may affect men’s semen quality

Overweight and obese men in a new study showed diminished quantity and quality of semen, suggesting that a weight problem might also affect fertility, researchers say.

“The heavier the men, the higher the chances of a low sperm count,” urologist Dr. Keith Jarvi told Reuters Health. “I don’t think that this message is well known or appreciated by men in general,” said Jarvi, who was not involved in the new study.

Dr. Michael Eisenberg, of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and his colleagues recruited 468 couples in Texas and Michigan who were planning to conceive a child and tested several aspects of the men’s semen.

They also weighed the men and measured their waists and found that greater waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight relative to height – were both linked to lower ejaculate volume.

“All aspects of semen quality are important,” Eisenberg said. “Ejaculate has several chemicals that provide a safer environment for sperm. As such, if the volume is low it may be a problem.”

Sperm count, another important metric, was lower among men with bigger waists.

“The sperm count is just that: the number of sperm in each cc of semen,” said Jarvi, director of the Murray Koffler Urologic Wellness Centre and Head of Urology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

Higher semen volume, within the optimal range between 2 and 5 milliliters, will overall have more sperm, Jarvi said. A volume under 1.5 mLs may cause infertility, he said, but too much is not good either.

In the study, a typical man in the normal BMI range had an ejaculate volume of 3.3 mL, compared to 2.8 mL for men in the highest BMI category, severely obese.

Men with the largest waists, over 40 inches, had about 22 percent lower total sperm count compared to men with waist measurements under 37 inches.

There appeared to be no link to semen concentration, motility, vitality or physical appearance, according to the results published in the journal Human Reproduction.

About half of the men had already fathered children when the study took place and none of the couples were seeking help with infertility when they were recruited.

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Source: Reuters

Pre-Natal Care Goes Mobile in Uganda

In Uganda, three students have invented a smartphone application that can measure the heartbeat of a fetus. The device could improve prenatal care in rural clinics, and may even help prevent deaths during childbirth.

Joshua Okello’s first love was medicine. He studied to be a doctor before quitting to pursue his second love: technology. However, his interest in medicine never left him. Last year, Okello and two other students at Kampala’s Makerere University invented a smartphone application that they think could change the face of maternal health care in Africa.

The app is called a WinSenga – “senga” is the local term for an aunt who helps out during pregnancy. It consists of a tiny microphone in a plastic horn, based on the Pinard horn used by midwives for centuries.

“It’s a long cone-shaped device with a hole through it and a flat top. The midwife places it on the belly and listens in. Every midwife in this country has seen it, and that is what they are trained with,” said Okello.

The sound the horn picks up is fed into a smartphone that records and analyzes the fetal heartbeat. From there, said Okello, the WinSenga suggests different courses of action.

“Say you have a baby and we detect that the heartbeat is less than 120 beats per minute. That is a problem. So immediately, we pop up something that says ‘Please, we suggest that you could do A, B, C, D,’” explained Okello.

The device is not yet fully functional, but last year Okello and his partners won a $50,000 grant from Microsoft – the “Win” in WinSenga is short for Windows. They are now developing their app from a Microsoft-funded technology incubator at the university, set up to encourage Uganda’s nascent tech sector.

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Source: All Africa

Doctors perform C-section on woman who wasn’t pregnant

Officials in southeastern Brazil say doctors performed a cesarean section on a 37-year-old woman only to discover that she wasn’t pregnant.

Simone Carvalho is a spokeswoman for the Health Department of the coastal city of Cabo Frio. She said Tuesday the woman told doctors at the city’s Woman’s Hospital she was 41 weeks pregnant and in pain.

Carvalho said one reason doctors believed she was pregnant was because “she had the symptoms associated with pregnancy like an enlarged abdomen and nausea.”

Carvalho said “doctors could not hear the baby’s heartbeat and feeling its life was in danger ordered an emergency cesarean after which they discovered it was a false pregnancy.”

The spokeswoman added the woman “was so convinced she was pregnant, that she altered her prenatal tests that showed otherwise because she was convinced the results were wrong.”

Source: fox news

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Aloo Methi: Healthy recipe

Servings: 7
Total Time: 35 min
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min

Methi is a common ingredient in many North Indian recipes especially during winter months. This dry potato and methi recipe is very simple and easy to cook. It is cooked as part of a main course meal and is eaten with rotis and paranthas. The characteristic aroma of fresh fenugreek leaves is enhanced with the blend of powdered spices used.

Ingredients
1 pound potatoes
3/4 pound picked fresh fenugreek leaves (methi)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
A pinch of asafetida
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon dry mango powder (amchur)
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
1 green chili (finely chopped)

Step by Step:

Wash the fresh fenugreek leaves thoroughly under running water multiple times to remove all the dirt. Drain and finely chop the leaves. Keep aside. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1 inch cubes.

Heat olive oil in a heavy non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add cumin seeds and asafetida. Sauté for 2 minutes. When the cumin seeds start cracking add all the powdered spices and stir fry for 1-2 minutes, till a specific aroma comes out.

Now add the potatoes, fenugreek leaves and salt. Mix well so that the potato cubes and fenugreek leaves are coated with the fried masala all over. Cover the pan with a lid. Cook on low- heat for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. You can cook longer if there is water left from the fenugreek leaves and cook until all the water is fully evaporated.

Serve hot with rotis and parathas.

Source: health

Read More: http://www.texilaconnect.com/

Blue pills may help alleviate menstrual cramps

Viagra may no longer be just for the gentlemen. A new study suggests that those little blue pills may also help women, though not in the way you might think.

Researchers have found that sildenafil citrate, the main ingredient in Viagra, Revatio and other drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction, can also be used to alleviate moderate to severe menstrual cramping in women.

“It seems counter intuitive, but what sildenafil citrate does is dilate blood vessels,” said Richard Legro, a gynecologist at Penn State College of Medicine and one of the authors of the study. “It leads to an erection in men, but in women, we think it can be an effective treatment for acute menstrual pain.”

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Source:  Los Angeles Times

5-year-old recorded in UK: weighs 143 pounds

Britain’s fattest five-year-old has been taken into care after weighing in at more than 143 pounds, or at least three times the weight of what is expected of a healthy child.

Child protection experts told the Sunday Times the case was “a tragedy”, expressing disbelief that action was not taken sooner by the local council.

The newspaper says the girl was seized in Newport, south Wales, in August last year weighing approximately 145 pounds – heavier than any 5-year-old of either sex recorded in an English school since 2008. Typically, girls that age weigh about 42 pounds.

Newport city council said the decision was made purely because of the girl’s obesity.

Source: Fox news

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5 ways to stop snoring

There’s no miracle cure for snoring, but lifestyle changes may help.

As snoring can be related to lifestyle, there are some simple changes you can make to minimise it.

Snoring self-help tips:

Maintain a healthy diet and weight. Being overweight by just a few kilograms can lead to snoring. Fatty tissue around your neck squeezes the airway and prevents air from flowing in and out freely.

Try to sleep on your side rather than your back. While sleeping on your back, your tongue, chin and any excess fatty tissue under your chin will probably relax and squash your airway. Sleeping on your side prevents this.

Avoid alcohol before going to bed. Alcohol causes the muscles to relax more than usual during a normal night’s sleep. This added relaxation of the muscles makes the back of the throat collapse more readily, which then causes snoring.

Quit or cut down on smoking. Cigarette smoke irritates the lining of the nasal cavity and throat, causing swelling and catarrh. If the nasal passages become congested, it’s difficult to breathe through your nose because the airflow is decreased.

Keep your nasal passages clear so that you breathe in through your nose rather than your mouth. Try rubbing a few drops of eucalyptus or olbas oil onto your pillowcase. If an allergy is blocking your nose, try antihistamine tablets or a nasal spray. Ask your pharmacist for advice, and see your GP if you’re affected by an allergy or condition that affects your nose or breathing.

Source: nhs choices

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New candy eats ‘bad’ bacteria in the mouth, benefitting teeth

The most common strain of this “bad” bacteria is called Mutans streptococci. However, the researchers say that in previous studies with rats, another bacteria called Lactobacillus paracasei has been shown to reduce levels of the cavity-causing bacteria, decreasing the number of cavities in the rodents.

The team, led by Christine Lang, believe that by binding with M. streptococci, the L. paracasei bacteria prevent this bad bacteria from reattaching to the teeth, causing it to get washed away by saliva.

Candy ‘significantly lowered’ bad oral bacteria levels

In a pilot trial involving 60 subjects, Lang and her team tested whether their sugar-free candy, which contained heat-killed samples of L. paracasei DSMZ16671, reduced levels of bad oral bacteria.

One-third of the subjects ate candies with 1 mg of L. paracasei, while another third ate candies with twice this amount (2 mg). The final third served as a control group and ate candies that were similar in taste but that contained no bacteria.

In total, all subjects ate five candies during the 1.5-day study. They were not allowed to perform any oral hygiene activities during this time, and they were also not allowed to consume coffee, tea, wine or probiotic foods.

Results showed that nearly 75% of the participants who ate candies with the good bacteria had “significantly lower” levels of Mutans streptococci in their saliva than before, compared with the control group.

Source: Medical News Today

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New Hampshire Hospital Worker Gets 39 Years in Hepatitis Case

A traveling medical technician was sentenced Monday to 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and infecting dozens of patients in four states with hepatitis C through tainted syringes.

David Kwiatkowski, 34, was a cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals in seven states before being hired at New Hampshire’s Exeter Hospital in 2011. He had moved from job to job despite being fired at least four times over allegations of drug use and theft. Since his arrest last year, 46 people have been diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C he carries.

Kwiatkowski admitted stealing painkillers and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood. He pleaded guilty in August to 16 federal drug charges.

He apologized Monday, saying he was very sorry what he done.

Prosecutors had pushed for a 40-year prison sentence, saying he created a “national public health crisis,” put a significant number of people at risk and caused substantial physical and emotional harm to a large number of victims.

Source: Time

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Study shows how brain forms memories

Scientists have discovered how memories are stored in specific brain cells. The new study also pinpoints how these incidents are recalled.

Using a video game in which people navigate through a virtual town delivering objects to specific locations, a team of neuro scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Freiburg University has discovered how brain cells that encode spatial information form “geotags” for specific memories, and are activated immediately before those memories are recalled.

Their work showed how spatial information is incorporated into memories, and why remembering an experience can quickly bring other events to mind that happened in the same place, reports the Science Daily.

“These findings provide the first direct neural evidence for the idea that the human memory system tags memories with information about where and when they were formed, and that the act of recall involves the reinstatement of these tags,” said Michael Kahana, professor of psychology in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences.

Source: Daijiworld

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Skipping meals can lead to weight gain, diabetes

Are you skipping your meals as part of a quick fix diet plan to lose weight? You are in for trouble. 

Because skipping meals does more bad than good to your body. Not only is your body deprived of essential nutrients but this also drastically affects the metabolism leading to weight gain and diabetes.

Most people tend to skip breakfast for instant weight loss. 

But in their desperate attempt they send their metabolism for a toss. Metabolism is the simple process of breaking your food into smaller, usable parts that helps you stay active through the day.  When you skip meals your metabolism has nothing to do. As a result your metabolism is unable to break down portions that you eat later in the day, and the food gets stored as fat leading to weight gain.

Skipping meals also drastically affects blood sugar levels. During metabolism some part of this food that you eat is stored as fat, while other parts enter the bloodstream as sugar, to provide you with energy throughout the day. Not eating at regular intervals can drastically lower your blood sugar levels making you susceptible to developing diabetes later in life.

So eat at the right times, eat healthy and exercise to stay fit.

Source: Zee News

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