Rising Hope for AIDS Cure

I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of years ago regarding the discovery of a genetic mutation that makes people resistant to HIV. It was an email conversation, complete with many exclamation points, a sign of the times both in communication and in the promise of a cure for AIDS in our lifetime. Now, that promise is a little closer to becoming a reality.

According to ABC News, a 46-year-old man named Timothy Brown, diagnosed with AIDS, received a transplant of blood stem cells to treat leukemia in 2007. The adult blood donor had this HIV-resistant gene mutation. Brown is now the only person in the world to be cured of AIDS. But there will be more.

According to Dr. Lawrence Petz, the medical director for the umbilical cord blood bank StemCyte, the process is complicated by the fact that this HIV-resistant mutation is very rare, with fewer than 1 percent of Caucasians having it, and even fewer individuals of other races. Brown's transplant involved a very close donor match. However, umbilical cord blood doesn't require as close of a match. But it does require the rare mutation and Petz and his colleagues have only discovered 102 umbilical cord blood samples in 17,000 tested that contain it.

Within the past few weeks, an HIV-infected patient received a cord blood transplant. Another is planned later this year. It will take months to know if these patients will see an impact from the transplants as Brown did. But Petz is hopeful. He says that the cure can happen. It's just a matter of time.

I believe that the promise is much brighter with this advancement. I believe, as Petz and Brown believe, that there will be a cure for AIDS, for all people suffering from AIDS. It may take a bit longer to come, but it is happening. And that's a wonderful thing. A hopeful thing.

View the Original article

"Pre-diabetes,"' diabetes rising among U.S. teens

background:url(http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/a/5b/a5ba32682eb601fb573b57542c19b9c1.png);width:115px;height:25px;margin-left:50px;margin-top:7px

View the Original article

Rising Obesity Rates Might Mean More Rheumatoid Arthritis

HealthDay – Fri, May 4, 2012 FRIDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- A new study suggests that severe weight gain might raise the risk for rheumatoid arthritis -- a painful, chronic ailment -- especially among obese women.

The epidemiological research indicated that about half of the increase in rheumatoid arthritis cases in one Minnesota county may be linked to rising obesity rates there over three decades.

"The findings outline yet another disease, or disease group, associated with the current obesity epidemic," said study co-author Dr. Sherine Gabriel. "We are likely to see an increasing incidence of rheumatoid arthritis as a result of the increasing prevalence of obesity if we don't address this health crisis."

Moreover, the research suggested that obesity precedes the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, said Gabriel, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The impact of obesity on rheumatoid arthritis risk appeared greater for women in the study, which may be due to the fact that women get the disease three times more often than men. Men often develop the condition later in life, according to the Arthritis Foundation.

The study, conducted at the Mayo Clinic from 1985 to 2007, appeared online recently in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

Rheumatoid arthritis affects about 1.3 million Americans, or 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to Arthritis Foundation figures. The autoimmune disorder attacks joint tissues and sometimes organs, causing swelling, inflammation, fever and fatigue. The condition can develop at any time, but it usually develops between the ages of 30 and 60.

The illness is influenced by both genetics and environmental factors, according to background information in the study.

The new research was focused on Olmsted County, Minn., where records of all medical providers have been collected on every resident in one database for decades, Gabriel said.

Adults who developed rheumatoid arthritis were matched with other people based on age, sex and year of diagnosis. Of the 813 people with the disease and another 813 without it, 68 percent were women and about 30 percent were obese. Their average age was 56.

Researchers reported that during the study the incidence of the disease increased by about nine people per 100,000, and 52 percent of the change was attributable to obesity.

Obesity rates in the United States have risen steadily, from about 10 percent of the population in 1980 to almost 36 percent of adults in 2007, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 17 percent of children are obese, the agency's data shows.

Commenting on the new findings, one expert expressed concerns about increasing rates of rheumatoid arthritis fueled by rising obesity rates, but agreed with the study's conclusion that more research was needed because the Minnesota group was not racially diverse. Olmsted County is 90 percent white, according to the study.

"The study was pretty well done," said Dr. Olivia Ghaw, a rheumatologist at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. But "the population was limited to one county, so I'm not sure the results can be extrapolated to the entire country."

Ghaw said that because rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease and obesity has been linked to inflammation, a connection between rising rates of both seemed likely.

"The increase in rheumatoid arthritis is troubling," she said. "Obesity confers a greater risk of inflammatory disease" because certain chemicals in fat cells promote inflammation in the body.

Ghaw also cautioned that treating obese patients for rheumatoid arthritis might be more difficult because they may not respond as well to the medications due to "a chronic inflammatory state."

On a positive note, she said the research showed that some patients may be able to prevent the disease by keeping their weight down.

Although the study found an association between obesity rates and rheumatoid arthritis, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

To learn more about rheumatoid arthritis, visit the Arthritis Foundation.

View the Original article

'Catastrophic' Head Injuries to High School Football Players Rising

background:url(http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/a/5b/a5ba32682eb601fb573b57542c19b9c1.png);width:115px;height:25px;margin-left:50px;margin-top:7px

View the Original article

Brazil alarmed over rising obesity rate

"A family enjoys Ipanema beach at sunset in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2011. In Brazil, a country known for girls in mini-bikinis and where body-consciousness borders on obsession, nearly half the population is overweight, a study by the Ministry of Health released Tuesday found. (AFP Photo/Antonio Scorza)" title

View the Original article

Suicide rates rising among Canadian girls: study

Reuters – 15 hrs ago (Reuters) - Suicide rates for female teens and pre-teens in Canada rose over the past few decades even though the overall number of youths who took their own lives was dropping, according to a Canadian study that covered nearly 30 years.

Researchers whose findings were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal also noted a change in the preferred methods of suicide, from guns or poisons to suffocation by strangulation.

"Our message is that all suicide is a tragedy and the trend is very disturbing," said lead author Robin Skinner, an epidemiologist with the Public Health Agency of Canada in Ottawa.

In 1980, 0.6 per 100,000 girls between the ages of 10 to 14 committed suicide, rising to 0.9 per 100,000 in 2008. But among girls 15 to 19 years old, the rate rose from 3.7 per 100,000 in 1980 to 6.2 per 100,000 in 2008.

Overall, suicide is the second leading cause of death for Canadians between 10 and 19 years old, after accidents.

Skinner told Reuters Health there was a small improvement in suicide rates for all Canadians in that age group between 1980 and 2008.

Whereas 6.2 of every 100,000 young Canadians killed themselves in 1980, the rate fell to 5.2 per 100,000 in 2008 -- in general, a 1 percent annual decline over nearly three decades.

The group found there was no significant change in the suicide rate for boys 10 to 14 years old. In 2008, 1.6 per 100,000 committed suicide. But the rate for those aged 15 to 19 fell considerably, from 19 per 100,000 in 1980 to 6.2 per 100,000 in 2008.

The study did not examine why the rates for girls increased over the 28-year period, or why that of boys dropped, but they did point out a steady rise among both sexes in deaths by suffocation.

Previous research has found that young people perceive hanging to be a "clean, quick and painless method" of suicide, according to the authors.

In addition, they write, a so-called "hocking game" has grown in popularity among kids and teens during the study period. It involves either strangling the throat or applying pressure to the chest to achieve euphoria from oxygen deprivation.

"The 'game' can turn deadly if the participant being choked is physiologically susceptible or if the pressure is not released quickly enough after the loss of consciousness," Skinner's team wrote.

"Deaths resulting from the 'choking game' have the potential to be misclassified as suicides, especially when the 'game' is played alone."

A commentary by Laurence Kirmayer, of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, that accompanied the study suggested the increase in suicides among girls might be explained by the more lethal methods being used to attempt suicide in general.

"Girls tended to use poisoning not gunshots, hanging is potentially more lethal than poisoning, partly because people often use sublethal doses of pills or other substances," he told Reuters Health in an email. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HdqVhu and http://bit.ly/Hj1ugM

(Reporting from New York by Andrew Seaman at Reuters Health; Editing by Elaine Lies and Paul Tait)

View the Original article

Weight Loss Surgery Proving a Valuable Tool to Combat Rising Obesity Rates

Share: Tweet21
Dec
2011 Obesity in adults and children leads to conditions like heart disease, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. With current obesity rates reaching what the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) calls a widespread epidemic, people are finding that diet & exercise alone are not always enough.

(1888PressRelease) December 21, 2011 - With North American obesity numbers on the rise, the number of people looking to weight loss surgery for relief is also on the rise. In Canada, nearly one in four residents are considered obese. That number increases to one in three for the American public.

For the past two decades, obesity rates have increased significantly in Canada and the United States. The rate of increase for men was 10 per cent in Canada and 12 per cent in the United States. It was slightly less for women.

The trend shows no signs of easing as a recent study of 34 OECD countries put the United States and Canada in the top 3 countries with the highest childhood obesity rates. In Canada that number is one in four, with an even higher rate in the United States.

For adults as well as children, being overweight or obese can have a devastating effect on their health. Diabetes, heart disease, metabolic disorders, high blood pressure, joint problems, sleep apnea, and other chronic health problems are common conditions related to being severely overweight. Not to mention the tremendous negative emotional and psychological impact of simply carrying a few extra pounds.

It is clear that an active lifestyle combined with a healthy diet is the key to maintaining a healthy body weight. What isn't clear is how a severely overweight or obese person gets to a BMI or Body Mass Index that can be maintained with diet and exercise.

Losing a large amount of weight in the form of excess body fat is a daunting task. With a large majority of this group already experiencing health problems, the chances of success without surgical intervention are low.

A number of surgical interventions are available. Of these, gastric banding or laparoscopic banding has proven to be the best choice with high success rates and a much lower risk of complications. Laparoscopic banding is a minimally invasive operation with a lower rate of operative complications than gastric bypass. It has demonstrated its effectiveness and is proven to be the best and safest choice for most weight loss surgery candidates.

While there are plenty of clinics offering gastric banding surgery throughout North America, a potential candidate should choose their provider wisely. The experience of the surgeons, effectiveness of the program, aftercare and support should all play a role when you're deciding who to trust with your health.
Leaders in the field like Slimband have performed thousands of gastric banding surgeries. They have experienced surgeons as well as the dedicated support staff needed to ensure success. The whole process from assessment to surgery to aftercare and support needs to be seamlessly delivered to ensure the best results. Weight loss surgery leaders like Slimband should be your first choice when considering your weight loss surgery options. The Slimband surgical weight loss clinic has one of the most active gastric banding programs in the world with over 6,000 surgeries performed to date.

The surgery itself involves the placement of a gastric lap band around the top of the stomach in order to reduce the volume of food the stomach can hold. This reduces the amount of food that can be ingested, curbs hunger, and leads to significant weight loss.

Many studies have been conducted that review the effectiveness and safety of weight loss via gastric banding. The results are promising:

- The average gastric banding patient loses 1 - 2 pounds per week consistently

- The average band patient loses about 50 per cent of their excess weight within a year of undergoing the operation

-Lower mortality rate versus gastric bypass surgery
-Reversible - the stomach will return to normal size if the band is removed
-No cutting or stapling of the stomach
-Outpatient procedure
-Fast recovery
-The band can be easily adjusted (filled)
-Fewer complications versus gastric bypass surgery

As with any surgery there are potential complications, though considerably lower incidence as compared to gastric bypass.

-Standard risks associated with outpatient surgery
-Productive burping
-Ulceration
-Gastritis
-Nausea and vomiting
-Gastric band slippage
-Stoma obstruction

John C. of Toronto had a gastric band inserted 3 years ago by Slimband because of high blood pressure and concerns over diabetes. He dropped over 150 pounds and now maintains his weight with proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle.

"Slimband gave me the tools that allowed me to build a future that looks brighter than I ever thought possible. The combination of the Slimband, as well as the nutritional and lifestyle coaching they provided has helped me go from 408 pounds all the way down to 258 pounds, and I've kept it off for 2 years! I don't have any more back or joint pain, and my edema, as well as risk for type 2 diabetes, are things of the past. More than ever I feel confident knowing that this time my past struggles with weight will actually stay in the past."

If you are a potential candidate for weight loss surgery, consider your options carefully when choosing your gastric banding clinic. Your weight loss success and higher quality of life are in their hands.

For further information, please contact the Slimband Clinic of Toronto at 1.800.700.7373, or visit their website at www.slimband.com They are located at 64 Prince Arthur Ave.

###

  Visit Our Site

Contact Information

Lisa Borg

Slimband

64 Prince Arthur AvenueToronto, OntarioCanada

M5R 1B4

Voice: 1-800-700-7373

Visit our Site

Press Release Tools

   

View the Original article