NEWS UPDATE:BENEFITS OF CASHEW NUTS

THE INCREDIBLE BENEFITS OF CASHEW NUTS

Cashew trees came to India from their homeland Brazil. The wonderful shrubs may some times called as trees can grow a maximum height of 14 meters in an extraordinary growth.

It belongs to the botanical family Anacardium accidental. It is indigenous to South America especially to Brazil. It looks very greenery.

It is very common on the east and west coast of southern India.

The tree yields cashew apple which is attached with the nut at its bottom tip. According to a botanist the nut is originally the fruit and the fruit like upper part is originally the pearl millet or a swollen stem attachment of the fruit to the tree.

The apple and the nuts are having huge benefits for our health.

1. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), in a case study revealed that eating cashew nuts on a daily basis has many cardiovascular benefits by their rich omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids. Cashew eating can lower LDL and increase HDL.IN 2003 the FDA also confirmed that cashews help lower LDL and decrease cardiovascular defects.
The Heart Association recommends a fist full of cashew nuts per week can be beneficial for heart diseases but warns against taking too much cashew nut as they are heavy in calories.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has also confirmed the association of eating cashew nuts with a lower incidence of death due to heart diseases, cancer, and respiratory diseases due to their rich content of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and anti-carcinogenic agents.
The study stated that cashews are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, fibers, protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
2. Cashew nuts are preventing iron deficiency anemias by their rich in copper content. Copper facilitates the absorption of iron and its metabolism.
3. Cashew contains a powerful antioxidants pigment known as Zeaxanthin. This pigment is directly absorbed by our retina. Zeaxanthin is one of the major retinal components mostly present in the central macular retina.
4. Cashewnut oil is rich in zinc, selenium, magnesium, iron, and phosphorous. Because of these elements along with protein and antioxidants cashew oil is good for the skin.
5. Since cashew nuts are rich in omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids they are good for weight reduction. The rich unsaturated fatty acids help excess fats to burn fast. They improve excess fat metabolism. Many studies have proved that those who consume cashew nuts on a regular basis have reduced and healthy BMI.
6. According to many studies cashews are rich in dietary fiber carbohydrates. The two important dietary fibers are oleic acid and palmitic acid which the body cannot be produced by the body. Cashewnuts are found rich in oleic acid and palmitic acid which helps digestion and absorption.
7. Cashew oil which is rich in zinc, copper, and selenium using this oil on a regular basis is good for hair growth and their health.

 

SATURATED FATS INCREASE HEALTH?

ARE MEAT,EGGS,BUTTER,CHEESE-HARMLESS?

The answer is yes, says a recent study at the KG Jabsen Center For Diabetes Research at the University of Bergen
The saturated fats intake rather increases the good cholesterol and not increases the risk of heart attack, the researchers say.
The above concept is totally against the old concept of the intake of saturated fats such as red meat, butter and cheese increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
In the new Norwegian Fat Intervention study (FATFUNC) published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study leader asst prof. Simon Nitter Dankel et al have overturned and questioned the older dietary concept that taking saturated fat is unhealthy for the population which dominated the medical literature for more than 50 years.
The notion of reducing saturated fat intake to keep the body weight in control and to prevent many chronic illnesses such as heart attack, blood pressure, and many diseases. But the scientists and many health organizations however contrasted with this theory with recent studies.
The American Heart Association (AHA) goes with the government warnings and echo that consuming too much-saturated fat may cause heart attack and other problems.
But The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics however recommend de-emphasizing the role of saturated fat in causing heart problems as there is no established link between the two.
The majority of the foods containing saturated fat comes from animal sources and dairy products.
The AHA recommends reducing the intake of these foods based on the strong science they believe behind the old concept.
Daniel and his colleges tested the harmful effects of saturated fat on 38 men with abdominal obesity. The participants were divided into two groups. Group A was given a diet rich of high fat with low carbohydrate and group B was given a diet rich of low fat and high carbohydrate for 12 weeks.
The researchers measured the fat mass in the abdomen and also assessed cardiovascular risk factors.
They found the result was negative towards the current theory of the group which was with the diet of high fat and low carbohydrate diet should be at higher risk of getting cardiovascular problems than the other group.
However that was not the case, there was no difference between the groups. 
"The very high intake of total and saturated fat did not increase the calculated risk of cardiovascular disease", the researchers said.
On contrary the participants under high saturated fat diet shown substantial improvements in several cardiometabolic risk factors such as ectopic fat storage (Fat deposits around the organs in the abdominal cavity such as liver and pancreas, skeletal muscle, heart and mainly as triglycerides with very little adipocytes), blood pressure, blood lipids, insulin, and blood sugar.

The Overriding Principle

Finally from the study, we could understand it is not the quantity of saturated fat but it is the quality of the saturated fat that may affect our health.

 

 

ERYTHROBLASTOSIS OR HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA

ERYTHROBLASTOSIS FETALIS

 

This is a condition in which the red blood cells are destroyed by an autoimmune system of our body and thereby cause oxygen depletion and tissue death. The condition is very serious and fatal.

Rh factor is a kind of an inherited protein usually present on the surface of the red cells(RBC). People whose RBC contains Rh factor are considered to be Rh-positive. On the contrary those whose RBC not contains Rh factor are considered to be Rh-negative.

If the mother is Rh-negative and the father is Rh-positive then the child would be mostly Rh-positive. If this is the case then the pregnancy will be risky for both mother and child. During such pregnancy if any opportunity occurred for mixing the mother and baby's blood on either side then it is fatal and risky of getting erythroblastosis by any of them or both.

OPPORTUNITIES

1. During delivery when the placenta detaches from the uterus wall.

2.Pregnancy with heavy bleeding

3.Manual rotation of a breech baby

4.Miscarriage (premature delivery or spontaneous abortion)

5.Ectopic pregnancy(PREGNANCY OUTSIDE WOMB)

6.Abortion

7.Traumas, or a sudden fall.

8.Invasive prenatal tests such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling.

Dangerous Rh sensitization occurs in the mother during chorionic villus sampling. The Rh-negative mother is at risk by mixing her baby's potentially Rh-positive blood with her own.

As a result the mother's body immune system will recognize in future any blood entry of the Rh-positive factor as a foreign body and will attack them. The antibodies produced by the mother may pass into the fetus also and causes the destruction of its RBCs.The result is the death of a fetus or illness due to erythroblastosis and abortion.

The Rh-positive contamination can occur due to careless uses of contaminated injection needles, and blood transfusion.

Erythroblastosis may not occur due to the difference in blood groups.

The fetus may be born with defective blood or illness. The RBCs of the fetal blood are destroyed. They lost their oxygen-carrying function. Severe anemia will stimulate the liver, spleen, and bone marrow to produce more RBC. This may cause organ damage. Excess formation of bilirubin as a byproduct of RBC damage may cause jaundice and the baby will look yellow in color.

Symptoms

1.Yellowish amniotic fluid (The fluid-filled in the pregnant womb) due to excess bilirubin seen on an amniocentesis test

2.An enlarged liver, spleen or heart

3. Fluid builds up in the abdomen, lungs, and scalp can be recognized by an ultrasound scan test.

Newborns may bear with the following symptoms

1.Pale skin

2.Yellow amniotic fluid, umbilical cord, skin, or eyes either at birth or within 24 to 36 hours after delivery.

3.Organs such as liver or spleen enlargement

4.Breathing difficulties due to full body fluid build-ups.Heart failure. The condition is known as Hydrops Fatalis

Complications

1.Mild to severe anemia

2.Jaundice

3.Organ enlargement

4. Kernicterus:-Excess bilirubin build up in the brain causes deafness, seizures, brain damages, and death.

Diagnosis and Treatments

1. A test for Rhesus or Rh factor may be helpful to diagnose and treat the problem.

An antibody screening test in the first semester, followed by a repeat test after 28 weeks of gestation.

This may reveal a clear knowledge about the presence of Rh incompatibility during pregnancy.

2. Testing the fetus include ultrasound test, amniocentesis, fetal middle cerebral artery blood flow measurement, and fetal umbilical cord blood testing.

After birth in the newborn tests for hemolytic anemia must be carried out.

1.Test for blood group and Rh factor

2.RBC count

3.Test for antibodies and bilirubin levels.

The treatments include fetal blood transfusion and delivery of the baby between 32 to 37th week of gestation.

Treatments of the newborn should be carried out with the following conditions:-

1.Blood transfusion

2.Intravenous fluids

3.Management of breathing difficulties

4.Use of Intra Venous Immuno Globin. The use of IVIG antibody treatment is to reduce the RBC destruction and to control bilirubin raise.

Some times exchange transfusions are carried out by replacing a portion of the newborn's blood in order to increase RBC count and to minimize the bilirubin level.

Prevention

The Rh sensitization can be prevented by giving the medication  Rh immunoglobin (RhIg) also known as RhoGAM before women become sensitized.

This is medication helps the mother not develop destructive antibodies.

But this medicine may not helpful to those women who have been already sensitized

Hence this medicine can be helpful only to those women who are not yet sensitized but at the risk of sensitization.RhoGAM can be given as follows:

1.After 28th week of gestation

2.72 hours following delivery

3. Within 72 hours of miscarriage, abortion, or ectopic pregnancy.

4.Following an invasive prenatal test such as amniocentesis, and chorionic villus sampling.

5. Following vaginal bleeding, if any 

If a woman carries beyond 40 weeks of gestation an additional dose of RhoGAM is recommended.

 

NEWS UPDATE:COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF PD PATIENTS ON POSTURES

Standing up may unmask cognitive deficits in patients with Parkinson's

Adapted Media Release

Published: Thursday 1 December 2016

email

52Share1

---

In a new study published online in the journal Neurology, a research team led by neurologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and neuropsychologists at Boston University has shown that when patients with Parkinson's disease experience a drop in blood pressure upon standing up - a condition known as orthostatic hypotension (OH) - they exhibit significant cognitive deficits. These deficits reverse when they lie down and their blood pressure returns to normal.
These cognitive impairments may go unnoticed by physicians assessing patients with Parkinson's who are lying down or seated, and could lead to difficulty in daily activities performed while standing and walking, such as tracking conversations, counting change and interpreting traffic signals.
"Cognitive impairment is a common symptom of Parkinson's disease," said co-senior author Roy Freeman, MD, director of the Center for Autonomic and Peripheral Nerve Disorders at BIDMC and a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "In this study, we demonstrated that the upright posture in patients with Parkinson's disease exacerbated cognitive deficits, and that this effect is transient and reversible. Based on these results, we encourage clinicians to include cognitive testing in a variety of postures in their assessments of patients."
Marked by characteristic tremor, rigidity, and slowness of movement, Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive degeneration of parts of the nervous system. It affects many aspects of movement and can cause a masklike, expressionless face, rigid limbs, and problems with walking and posture. PD is also associated with cognitive defects attributed to breakdowns in connectivity between regions of the brain. Up to 50 percent of people with Parkinson's disease may also have orthostatic hypotension.
In a previous study, Freeman and colleagues demonstrated that orthostatic hypotension is linked to reversible cognitive impairment in patients with a rare neurological disorder called autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy. In this new study of the far more prevalent Parkinson's disease, the researchers investigated whether OH is linked to reversible cognitive deficits in patients with PD as well.
Freeman and colleagues including lead author Justin Centi and co-senior author Alice Cronin-Golomb, Ph.D., director of the Vision and Cognition Laboratory and Center for Clinical Biopsychology and a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University divided 55 volunteers into three study groups: 18 patients with both PD and OH, 19 patients with PD but without OH, and 18 control participants with neither PD nor OH. All participants were given a series of cognitive tests, with the tests administered while supine and again while tilted to 60 degrees. Researchers measured and recorded the participants' blood pressure before and during each round of cognitive testing to ensure that participants were never at risk for fainting.
"As we suspected, people with both Parkinson's disease and orthostatic hypotension showed posture-related impairments when upright relative to supine on nearly all measures of cognition," said Centi, who noted that study participants with Parkinson's disease without orthostatic hypotension demonstrated deficits on only two cognitive tests. There was no difference between upright and supine scores for the control group.
When the three groups' relative performances were compared to each other, postural changes had no significant impact on participants with PD but without OH, compared to the control group. However, Participants with PD and OH were far more susceptible to posture-related impairment on several tests, including those that measured math skills, the ability to produce words easily, keeping the information in mind while working on it, paying sufficient attention so that later memory is efficient and searching for items quickly and accurately.
"Essentially all neuropsychological tests are given to patients in the seated position in the clinic as well as during most research studies - with the exception of imaging studies in which the patient is lying down," said Cronin-Golomb. "The cognitive performance that we see in those patients with Parkinson's disease who are tested when seated or lying down, in fact, may underestimate their cognitive problems in real life when they are standing up and going about their business of daily activities. Also, the patterns of brain activity that we see on imaging when they are lying down may not be the patterns that the brain produces during normal upright activity."
Cognitive deficits in PD result, at least in part, from neurodegeneration, the authors explained. But transient blood pressure changes when upright may indeed play a contributing role. Clinical providers might miss an important target for intervention when not considering OH as a contributor to cognitive impairment.
This work was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS067128) and support from a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F31NS074801).
Article: Effects of orthostatic hypotension on cognition in Parkinson's disease, Justin Centi, Roy Freeman, Christopher H. Gibbons, Sandy Neargarder, Alexander O. Canova, & Alice Cronin-Golomb, Neurology, DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000003452, published online 30 November 2016.

FRANKINCENSE OIL-FACTS

FRANKINCENSE OIL-REAL FACTS

There are numerous studies have been conducted with the essential oil frankincense which is the major extract of Boswellia Tree.

There is a Biblical concept about the oil that some wise men gifted it to Jesus as it has numerous medicinal values.

The oil is called as Suva in Hindi and kumanjam (குமஞ்சம் ) in Tamil. There are many studies have been carried out with this oil and found that many of its medicinal benefits such as anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer effects are due to its content known as Boswellic Acid.

Boswellic acid is found to have the effects of stop bleeding, speed up the process of healing, and reduce inflammation.

As several studies have proved that there are links between inflammation and cancer this concept results with a belief that boswellic acid can reduce the incidence of cancer. But further studies are necessary to confirm this. Yet the frankincense oil has not been approved by the FDA as a cancer cure.

The anti-inflammatory effects of frankincense oil can be effectively used to treat Rheumatoid arthritis, Ulcerative colitis, Bronchial asthma, and Crohn's disease(inflammation of the small intestine).

The anti-inflammatory effects of the boswellic acid in frankincense oil are due to the inhibition of an inflammatory enzyme known as 5-lipoxygenase. Also further study has proved that boswellic acid removes free radicals and cytokines and prevents them to produce inflammations at the target cells.

NEWS UPDATE:ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES-PROS AND CONS

E-CIGARETTES-ARE THEY HARMFUL?

In 2003 a Chinese pharmacist has invented a handheld inhaler device to inhale or vape nicotine contain liquid as an alternate for conventional smoking. The device came into the market in 2004. When it was introduced as an alternative to conventional cigarette smoking or stop smoking it rapidly picked up the market. The sales increased exponentially in Europe and America.

The device contains a liquid known as e-cigarette liquid which mainly contains nicotine along with glycerine, propylene glycol and other flavouring agents.

But unfortunately, recent studies have proved that vaping(inhaling) nicotine is as harmful as or more harmful than conventional smoking.

These vaping cigarettes have been found that they make the oral and buccal areas more prone to be damaged by gum diseases and oral cancer. These e-cigarettes cause more damages to mouth cells than tobacco smoking.

The e-cigarettes are handheld battery-operated devices that contain a heating device a cartridge full of liquid which can vaporize while the person puff it and the vapour is inhaled. The liquid contains nicotine as equal to the tobacco.

It is found that the menthol flavoured e-cigarette nicotine causes more damages than the non-flavoured conventional cigarettes.

 

NEWS UPDATE:CONTROLLED GLUCOSE DELIVERY BENIFITS DIABETICS

TYPE 2 DIABETES AND GLUCOSE

Type-2 diabetes is the condition in which the blood glucose level is elevated due to insufficient secretion of insulin from the pancreatic beta isle cells.

A recent study has revealed sweet news that administering controlled pulses of glucose has the power to restore normal insulin production and prevent the development of type-2 diabetes.

The study has been conducted by Dr.Joseph McKenna, from Florida State University and colleagues, and published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

We all know that insulin is secreted by the Langerhans Islets(beta islets) of the pancreas. For a full study of diabetes please refer the post-1 in this blog.

In healthy individuals, beta islets release insulin in a pulsatile manner whenever glucose enters into the blood. Glucose enters the system with two sources. The first source is food that is absorbed from the digestive system. Another source is glucose that is generated and secreted from the liver which is endogenous.

The pulses of insulin released from the islets of pancreas restrict the amount of glucose released from the liver as well as regulate the absorption of glucose by our body tissues.

However, in people with diabetes, this regulation is impaired and the islets of the pancreas are no more responding to glucose secretion either from liver or from the digestive system. This eventually leads to hyperglycemia an elevated glucose level in the blood which is known as diabetes mellitus.
High levels of glucose or splash entry of glucose may cause over-stimulation of the islets and may cause damages or blunt their sensitivity.
A newer study has revealed a controlled entry of glucose into the system may repair the islets of the pancreas and can make them more responsive to secret sufficient insulin.
A daily intake of 15gms of glucose may be healthy for a type-2 diabetic patient.

ROLE OF mRNA IN DM

A new study in mice has been revealed that micro RNA may be useful in treating type-2 diabetes in humans. A report from Xiaolin Lin of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China has been revealed in PLOS Genetics.

The study found that the serum of type 2 diabetic patients had lower levels of mRNA (miR-155) than healthy people. This suggests that this miR-155 might be involved in blood sugar control and diabetes.

The study shows that the miR-155 dampening some molecules which are interfering with the ability of insulin to respond to the higher glucose levels. Hence it is concluded that a lower level of this type of mRNA causes unresponsiveness of insulin to sugar level.