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Health
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Health
Tips from Cougars
Aids
 What
is AIDS? What causes AIDS?
AIDS
stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. An HIV-infected person
receives a diagnosis of AIDS after developing one of the CDC-defined
AIDS indicator illnesses. An HIV-positive person who has not had
any serious illnesses also can receive an AIDS diagnosis on the
basis of certain blood tests (CD4+ counts). A positive HIV test
result does not mean that a person has AIDS. A diagnosis of AIDS
is made by a physician using certain clinical criteria (e.g., AIDS
indicator illnesses). Infection with HIV can weaken the immune system
to the point that it has difficulty fighting off certain infections.
These types of infections are known as "opportunistic" infections
because they take the opportunity a weakened immune system gives
to cause illness. Many of the infections that cause problems or
may be life-threatening for people with AIDS are usually controlled
by a healthy immune system. The immune system of a person with AIDS
is weakened to the point that medical intervention may be necessary
to prevent or treat serious illness. Today there are medical treatments
that can slow down the rate at which HIV weakens the immune system.
There are other treatments that can prevent or cure some of the
illnesses associated with AIDS. As with other diseases, early detection
offers more options for treatment and preventative care. <more>
Allergy
Twenty
Percent May Outgrow Peanut Allergy, Scientists Reveal
People who live in fear of their peanut allergy, anxiously avoiding
numerous products and worrying that accidental exposure could cause
a severe or even fatal reaction, may be cheered to learn that they
may outgrow it, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers
reported in the February issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical
Immunology. “In our patient group, roughly 20 percent outgrew their
peanut allergy,” says Robert Wood, M.D., associate professor of
pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and lead investigator of the study.
He cautions, however, that people should only be tested and reevaluated
under a doctor’s care before abandoning preventive or avoidance
measures. “Until now, the rules have been that when you diagnose
a patient with peanut allergy, tell them that it is a life-long
allergy, with no chance of being outgrown,” says Wood. “I recommend
from this study that children with peanut allergy be retested on
a regular basis, every one or two years.” Adults who have not had
any reactions since childhood and who have never been retested should
also be reevaluated, according to Wood, who has peanut allergy himself
and whose own retest disappointingly found he still is allergic.
In a study of 223 people with well-documented peanut allergy from
Hopkins, the Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Wood’s private clinic,
scientists discovered that 48 did not have an adverse reaction after
eating 4 grams of peanut protein. The researchers found that people
were more likely to outgrow their peanut problem if they had lower
levels of peanut specific IgE, antibodies produced by the immune
system that cause allergic reactions. When exposed to peanut proteins,
these antibodies, which sit on the surface of allergy (mast) cells,
trigger symptoms such as hives, swelling, vomiting or difficulty
breathing. Children who had lost sensitivities to other foods, including
milk or egg, were also more likely to outgrow peanut allergy. The
allergy, which can be triggered by a mere 1/1000 of a peanut, causes
the most severe reactions of all food allergies and is estimated
to kill approximately 100 people per year. Allergic individuals
carry a tremendous burden of fear, anxiously attempting to avoid
the remarkable number of products that contain peanuts, peanut flour
or peanut derivatives. This includes steering clear of many cookies,
crackers, chips, cereals, baked goods and Asian foods, as well as
making sure that a cooking utensil contaminated with peanut residue
or oils is not used to prepare one of their foods. Because allergy
shots do not work (they create too much risk of a severe reaction),
people who are allergic to peanuts are advised to carry an epinephrine
shot with them at all times in case of anaphylaxis, the life-threatening
allergic reaction that can constrict airways in the lungs, severely
lower blood pressure, and cause swelling of the tongue or throat,
literally suffocating victims. Prior to this study, when doctors
retested children for allergies, they found that while many outgrew
their allergies to milk, egg, soy and wheat, peanut allergy remained
as strong and potent, year after year. Wood and his colleagues,
however, recognized a few cases that did not follow this pattern.
“We saw a few allergic people who did not react when they had an
accidental exposure or when they were retested as part of our normal
follow-up of food allergies,” says Wood. “We were interested in
finding out how many people outgrew their allergy and if we could
predict who was going to outgrow it. Food allergies often travel
together, so we tested other food allergies along with peanut allergy.”
The doctors identified patients with peanut allergy, ages 4 to 20
years, and investigated their initial and subsequent reactions to
peanut, as well as their history of other allergies. The volunteers
then underwent skin testing, which measures redness and swelling
after pricking the skin with an allergen, in this case peanut. They
also measured the level of peanut specific IgE in the patient’s
blood. Those who met specific criteria, principally a peanut IgE
level below a certain point, were invited to undergo an oral challenge
under a doctor’s supervision. On the basis of past experience and
IgE levels, 126 patients were eligible for an oral peanut challenge.
Out of the 85 people who agreed to participate, 48 had no adverse
reaction. This means that over 20 percent of all the children studied
had lost their allergy. Wood also said that since the formal completion
of the study, he has identified at least 20 additional children
who have outgrown their peanut allergy. “People who may have outgrown
their allergy, based on the criteria established in this study,
should definitely go through a formal oral challenge under a doctor’s
supervision,” says Wood. “Relieving the burden of fear that is caused
by a peanut allergy is easily worth going through the challenge.”
Wood next plans to monitor children from their initial diagnosis
in an attempt to pinpoint other signs that will indicate which people
are more or less likely to outgrow the allergy.
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Arthritis
Attack
Arthritis With Antioxidants
How
do you help keep your joints ache free and arthritis free? Antioxidant-rich
fruits and veggies may be the answer. Studies have shown that the
antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables may protect joints--especially
the knee joint--from the ravages of osteoarthritis (OA). In particular,
the antioxidants lutein and lycopene--both found in tomatoes--have
been linked to a lower risk of OA. Other studies have demonstrated
that people with high intakes of vitamin C and beta carotene, which
can be found in red peppers, broccoli, and sweet potatoes, also
had a reduced risk of knee pain and disease progression. Yet another
antioxidant, vitamin E, which can be found in olive oil, wheat germ,
and nuts, has been shown to ease arthritis pain better than nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Getting the correct amount of
antioxidants and antioxidant vitamins C and E in your diet or with
supplements can make you as much as 6 years younger.
Heavy
Smokers' Arthritis Risk
A long-term smoking habit of 20 or more cigarettes a day leaves
people at a higher than average risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis,
say researchers. People who have smoked heavily for 40-50 years
are 13 times more likely to develop the condition. The study, carried
out at St.Helens and Whiston Hospitals, Merseyside, found over half
of those with rheumatoid arthritis had no family history of the
disease. When people with rheumatoid arthritis have been studied
there's a connection between them having smoked for a long time
and very high levels of antibodies. The team looked at 239 patients
with rheumatoid arthritis, and 239 healthy people. Those with rheumatoid
arthritis were more likely to be smokers than the healthy group.
And over half had no family history of the condition, which the
researchers said was a known risk factor. Rheumatoid arthritis is
a debilitating condition, which affects three in 100 people in Britain.
Joints become inflamed which means the body "turns on itself" and
damages cartilage and tissues. Osteoarthritis is different because
in that condition, joints are worn away. The reason a long-term
heavy smoking habit makes developing the condition more likely is
unclear, say the researchers. But they said the link with heavy
smoking could explain increased death rates amongst sufferers of
the rheumatoid arthritis. It is known that smoking produces an antibody
called rheumatoid factor, a blood protein caused by a reaction in
the immune system. There is uncertainty about what the antibody
does. Some researchers think it makes certain cells release their
contents within the joint, or that it creates inflammation in the
joint in some other way. But rheumatology experts agree it is key
to the condition. Rheumatoid arthritis can affect people in many
different ways, from aching joints to severely deformed joints.
The researcher who led the work in Liverpool, Dr David Hutchinson,
said making the link between heavy smoking and rheumatoid arthritis
could help the medical profession understand how the condition worked..
Those identified in the study as having a family history of the
disease were less likely to be heavy smokers, leading the researchers
to believe there are two factors in the development of rheumatoid
arthritis, the genetic and the environmental - such as smoking.
Dr Hutchinson told BBC News Online: "Certainly, when people with
rheumatoid arthritis have been studied there's a connection between
them having smoked for a long time and very high levels of antibodies.
"We're considering people who have never smoked and who smoked at
the time of diagnosis as two different groups to see if there are
and genetic differences between the two, and differences in their
responses to treatment." There are subtle differences in the way
the condition manifests itself dependent on whether people are heavy
smokers or have a family history. Deborah Symmons, professor of
rheumatology and musculoskeletal rheumatology at the Arthritis Research
Campaign's epidemiology unit in Manchester, said the Liverpool study
built on the findings of an ARC research team four years ago - and
was even more conclusive. She said: "We found in a study of 180
people in Norfolk that people who smoked were two to three times
more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who didn't
- the Liverpool study puts it at 13 times higher." "That difference
could be explained by the fact we took people at the start of their
disease whereas the Liverpool study took people who were already
attending hospital so probably had more advanced disease. "The study
takes our knowledge just that bit further, and builds up an even
stronger case against smoking and its association with rheumatoid
arthritis." Amanda Sandford, research officer at Action on Smoking
and Health said: "This is yet another disease to add to a long long
list of smoking related diseases. This is an unpleasant and debilitating
condition."
This paper is published in The Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
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Blood
Pressure
Great
Bulbs of Garlic
When
it comes to foods that really work for you, garlic is as good as
it gets.
This
pungent bulb offers a plethora of health benefits. For starters,
studies show that people who consume garlic regularly have lower
cholesterol levels. Other research indicates that garlic thins the
blood--specifically by preventing platelets from sticking together
and clotting--and that may translate into lower blood pressure as
well as a diminished risk of heart disease and stroke.
What's
less well known is that garlic gets much of its goodness from its
high selenium content, a trace mineral that has been heralded for
its antioxidant and cancer-fighting properties. In fact, if you
load your meals with lots of garlic, you shouldn't need to add a
selenium supplement to your diet.
Breast
Milk May Fight Hypertension
Babies fed infant formula grow up to have higher blood pressure
than those given breast milk, new research suggests. The findings,
to be published Saturday in The Lancet medical journal, come from
the first experimental study of how early nutrition influences blood
pressure, a predictor of heart disease risk later in life. Earlier
studies have noted that adults with high blood pressure tended to
have been fed formula as babies. But none took account of scores
of other factors that raise blood pressure, such as a bad diet in
adulthood, stress and lack of exercise. Experts say the results
bolster the theory that an infant's diet influences the risk of
several diseases in adulthood. Breast-feeding is also considered
better for children's intelligence. The study by scientists at the
Institute of Child Health in London involved pre-term babies, who
are sometimes not strong enough to suck or may need a more concentrated
formula. That also eliminated the ethical problem of experimenting
with healthy full-term babies whose mothers can easily breast-feed
exclusively. ``When you put this together with the two observational
studies linking formula to higher blood pressure in full-term babies,
there's a strong possibility these results would apply to healthy
full-term babies,'' said one of the researchers, Dr. Alan Lucas,
a professor of pediatrics at the Institute of Child Health. Nearly
20 years ago, the researchers randomly divided 216 pre-term babies
into three groups: one received donated breast milk, one received
infant formula made for pre-term babies and the third received regular
infant formula. Each diet, begun within 48 hours of birth, was used
as a sole food or as a supplement to mother's milk, depending on
what the mother wanted to do. The infants remained in the study
until they weighed enough to go home, usually after one month. The
children then returned about 16 years later to have their blood
pressure measured. There were two comparisons. One compared breast
milk with pre-term formula, and the other compared pre-term formula
with full-term formula. ``Just one month of one diet rather than
another had a major impact,'' Lucas said. ``We created a situation
where the only difference between them was what they were fed in
the first month of life.'' The scientists found that the diastolic
blood pressure reading – the lower Number – was 3.2 points lower
in the teens fed breast milk than in those given pre-term formula.
The systolic reading – the higher number – was 2.7 points lower.
An elevation in either reading is bad. Within the formula-fed group,
babies on the highest proportion of formula to mother's milk ended
up with the highest blood pressure. There was no difference in blood
pressure between the groups fed pre-term formula and regular formula,
which contain different nutrients. The results were not related
to birth weight, the study said. ``These few millimeters may look
small, but it's a large effect,'' Lucas said. Major American heart
disease studies have found that if adults' diastolic blood pressure
was lowered just two points, the prevalence of high blood pressure
would drop by 17 percent, the risk of heart disease would fall by
6 percent and the risk of stroke and heart attacks would drop by
15 percent, he noted. ``The most likely thing is there's something
in breast milk that protects,'' Lucas said. Identifying the specific
differences in the composition of human milk and commercial formula
that produced the difference in blood pressure is important for
making better infant formula, said Susan Roberts, an expert at Tufts
University's Human Nutrition Research Center in Boston, who was
not connected with the study. The study discounted any relation
between high blood pressure among teens and sodium and total fat
in the infant milk or formula, she noted.
Study
Suggests Babies Fed on Infant Formula Grow Up with Higher Blood
Pressure
Babies fed on infant formula grow up to have higher blood pressure
than those given breast milk, new research suggests. The findings,
to be published Saturday in The Lancet medical journal, come from
the first experimental study of how early nutrition influences blood
pressure, a predictor of heart disease risk later in life. Earlier
studies have noticed that adults with high blood pressure tended
to have been fed on formula as babies. But none of those studies
took account of scores of other factors that raise blood pressure,
such as a bad diet in adulthood, stress and lack of exercise. Experts
say the results bolster the theory that an infant's diet influences
the risk of several diseases in adulthood. Breastfeeding is also
considered better for children's intelligence. The study by scientists
at the Institute of Child Health in London involved pre-term babies,
who are sometimes not strong enough to suck or may need a more concentrated
formula. That also eliminated the ethical problem of experimenting
with healthy full-term babies whose mothers can easily breastfeed
exclusively. ``When you put this together with the two observational
studies linking formula to higher blood in full-term babies, there's
a strong possibility these results would apply to healthy full-term
babies,'' said one of the researchers, Dr. Alan Lucas, a professor
of pediatrics at the Institute of Child Health. Nearly 20 years
ago, the researchers randomly divided 216 pre-term babies into three
groups: one received donated breast milk, one received infant formula
made for pre-term babies, and the third received regular infant
formula. Each diet, begun with 48 hours of birth, was used as a
sole food or as a supplement to mother's milk, depending on what
the mother wanted to do. The infants remained in the study until
they weighed enough to go home, usually after one month. The children
then returned about 16 years later to have their blood pressure
measured. There were two comparisons. One compared breast milk with
pre-term formula, the other compared pre-term formula with full-term
formula. ``Just one month of one diet rather than another had a
major impact,'' Lucas said. ``We created a situation where the only
difference between them was what they were fed in the first month
of life.'' The scientists found that the diastolic blood pressure
reading _ the lower number _ was 3.2 points lower in the teens fed
breast milk as infants than in those given pre-term formula. The
systolic reading _ the higher number _ was 2.7 points lower. An
elevation in either reading is bad. Within the milk-fed group, babies
on the highest proportion of formula to mother's milk ended up with
the highest blood pressure. There was no difference in blood pressure
between the groups fed pre-term formula and regular formula, which
contain different nutrients. The results were not related to birth
weight, the study said. ``These few millimeters may look small,
but it's a large effect,'' Lucas said. Major American heart disease
studies have found that if adults' diastolic blood pressure was
lowered by just 2 points, the prevalence of high blood pressure
would drop by 17 percent, the risk of heart disease would fall by
6 percent and the risk of stroke and heart attacks would drop by
15 percent, he noted. ``The most likely thing is there's something
in breast milk that protects,'' Lucas said. Identifying the specific
differences in the composition of human milk and commercial formula
that produced the difference in blood pressure is important for
making better infant formula, said Susan Roberts, an expert at Tufts
University's Human Nutrition Research Center in Boston, who was
not connected with the study. The study discounted any relation
between high blood pressure among teens and sodium and total fat
in the infant milk or formula, she noted.
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Brain
Researchers
Find Critical Link For Estrogen's Neuroprotective Effects University
of Kentucky College of Medicine researchers have determined that
one specific estrogen receptor, called ERa, is a critical link in
mediating the protective effects of estradiol in brain injury. The
study was led by Phyllis Wise, Ph.D., professor and chair, and Dena
Dubal, graduate student in the M.D./Ph.D. program, of the Department
of Physiology, UK College of Medicine, and appears in the Feb. 6
online issue and the Feb. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. Previous research by Wise’s team has demonstrated
that estradiol, a type of estrogen, protects against brain injury
(including injury from stroke), neurodegeneration and cognitive
decline. The UK College of Medicine research team examined whether
estrogen receptors are critical for estrogen’s neuroprotective effects.
The team focused on two estrogen receptor types, ERa and ERb. Using
animal models in which one of the receptor types had been deleted,
they demonstrated that when ERa is absent, estradiol no longer has
protective effects in any area of the brain. But when ERb is absent,
estradiol still provides effective neuroprotection. “We have demonstrated
that future research and development for therapies that capitalize
on estradiol’s neuroprotective effects should focus on ERa,” Wise
said. “These results have tremendous implications for developing
therapeutic agents for treating brain injuries.”
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