2,000 iPhones given for free by Japanese gov’t to passengers stuck on ship due to coronavirus

The Japanese government gave away 2,000 free iPhones to passengers stranded on a cruise ship due to the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus. The country’s health minister stated that 355 people onboard the ship have tested positive for the virus.

The smartphones were handed to each cabin so passengers could access an app made by the government, as per Macotakara via 9to5mac last Friday, Feb.14.

The said app from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare will allow people on the quarantined ship to consult with a doctor. Smartphones registered outside of Japan are unable to access the app. This also prompted the ministry to hand out the devices to the passengers.

According to the report, the 2,000 devices were handed out to ensure that each cabin had one unit.

The ship arrived near the Japanese coast earlier this month with more than 3,700 people on board from over 50 countries. It was placed under quarantine after a passenger who left the vessel in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus.

The Japanese government may begin testing the travelers for the disease from Feb. 18, the captain said. Passengers with negative results will be allowed to disembark the ship starting Feb. 21.


The disease has already killed over 1,000 people and infected more than 42,000 worldwide. The World Health Organization named it COVID-19 after declaring the outbreak as a global health emergency. Ryan Arcadio/JB


source: technology.inquirer.net

Hainan envisions China as a medical tourism destination

BEIJING — Southern China’s Hainan province has unveiled plans aimed at building the tropical island into a world-class medical tourism hub, combining high-end medical tourism with characteristic Chinese healthcare.

The move follows a plan released a week ago by the National Development and Reform Commission to encourage tourism-related activities in Hainan, such as medical tourism, horse racing, sports betting and an instant lottery.

Focusing on four key areas — medical treatment, medical cosmetology, rehabilitation and health promotion — Hainan will introduce internationally renowned institutions, insurance providers and intermediary service agencies to build a high-end foundation for the international medical tourism market, the plan said.

In 10 years, Hainan is projected to become a major medical tourism destination with total annual business revenue reaching 40 billion yuan ($5.84 billion).

Eight major tourism projects will be developed, covering fields such as cancer treatment and rehabilitation, fertility therapy, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease treatment and rehabilitation, environmental healing and sports recuperation, traditional Chinese medicine and spiritual retreat.

Medical tourism has become one of the world’s fastest-growing emerging industries, and Hainan has unique conditions for developing it, Governor Shen Xiaoming said on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018 in April.

Under the plan, Hainan will tap its characteristic resources of vast coastal areas, tropical rainforests and hot springs to cultivate innovative healthcare and leisure products, and develop a high-end and characteristic medical tourism service system.

It will strive to establish a complete healthcare tourism service system that provides high-end, precision medical treatment and high-quality specialty in medical beauty and health promotion services, it said

To stimulate the industries, Hainan will explore flexible policies, regulatory models and management systems for investment, financing, fiscal and taxation, financial innovation, entry and exit, to create a highland for medical tourism opening up.

Worldwide, increasing convenience in transportation, expansion of the internet and improvement of people’s incomes have led to a booming medical tourism industry, which grows at about 20 percent annually around the globe. According to media reports, the business volume of medical tourism jumped to $700 billion in 2017 from $10 billion in 2000. In China, more than 600,000 people went overseas as medical tourists in 2016.

As a demonstration project, launched in 2013 by the State Council to explore international medical tourism, Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone has been granted nine special preferential policies including permission to import medical technology, equipment and medicine, and cutting-edge technological research on stem cells before other parts of China.


Twenty-seven medical projects have been completed or are under construction in the pilot zone, and another 38 projects have passed medical technology appraisals. Eight projects are now open. All projects in the pilot zone are targeted to be completed within five years.

According to Shen, the pilot zone will first attract domestic patients who would otherwise travel abroad, and later patients from Southeast and even the whole of Asia. Last year, medical institutions in Sanya alone received nearly 20,000 medical tourists from overseas.

“Hainan will first attract domestic tourists with advantages of prices, convenience, language and culture over outbound medical tourism,’’ said Chen Yang­le, a professor at Hainan University’s Tourism College.

“The industry will also attract international medical institution investors. … In the long run, there will also be comparative advantages for Hainan to attract medical tourists from southeast Asian countries and other areas in terms of natural environment, favorable policies and convenient air services,’’ said Chen.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

New York University makes tuition free for all medical students

NEW YORK – New York University (NYU) said Thursday it would offer all its current and future medical school students free tuition in an effort to tackle soaring debt levels and encourage more applicants.

The move – which it said was financed by the generosity of the university’s “trustees, alumni, and friends” – amounts to a reduction of $55,018 in annual fees, regardless of financial needs or academic merit.

It does not cover living and administrative costs averaging $27,000 a year.


“A population as diverse as ours is best served by doctors from all walks of life, we believe, and aspiring physicians and surgeons should not be prevented from pursuing a career in medicine because of the prospect of overwhelming financial debt,” said Dr. Robert Grossman, dean of the NYU School of Medicine.

In its statement, NYU also pointed out that high student debt was putting graduates off pursuing less lucrative specializations including pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the median debt of a graduating medical student in the US is $202,000 – while 21 percent of doctors who graduate from a private school such as NYU face over $300,000.

“Our hope — and expectation — is that by making medical school accessible to a broader range of applicants, we will be a catalyst for transforming medical education nationwide,” said Kenneth Langone, chair of the Board of Trustees of NYU Langone Health.

Thursday’s announcement came as a surprise ending to the school’s annual white coat ceremony, which marks the start of first-year students’ medical careers.

Those 93 students will benefit from the scholarship, along with 350 others enrolled further along in the program.

NYU said it is the only top 10-ranked medical school in the US to offer such an initiative.  /kga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Eating spicy food can prolong life—study

Fond of spicy food? Well, you have greater chances of prolonging your life.

According to a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE, consuming adequate amounts of chili peppers can lower the risk of natural death by an impressive 13 percent.

Researchers from the Larner College of Medicine of the University of Vermont analyzed 16,000 American men who had completed the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1988 and 1994.

 




Of the men who participated in the study, 34 percent passed away during a 19-year period, but when data was limited to just those who consumed pungent chili peppers, the figure dropped to just 22 percent.

The researchers concluded that chili peppers had nutrients that can prolong human life. Dr. Benjamin Litternberg, the study’s co-author, claimed that capsaicin, an active component of chilies, shortens inflammation and ailments. Capsaicin is also used to treat arthritis and is regarded as an effective painkiller for muscle and backache.

“The types of deaths that were lowest in the pepper group were deaths due to vascular disease, heart attacks, and stroke,” he wrote, according to Science Daily.

The findings resonated with a study conducted among 500,000 Chinese people, which concluded that people who ate spicy dishes three times a week had 14 percent lower risk of mortality. Gianna Francesca Catolico

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Woman auctions off virginity online to pay for schooling abroad

The price of good education nowadays is expensive and this Russian woman is willing to give “everything” of herself away just to achieve it.

Twenty-year-old student Ariana is auctioning off her virginity on an escort site in order to raise money to study abroad.

The bidding, which starts at £130,500 (P8.2 million), went online last week on the Russian-based escort site Sinderella, according to a report from The Sun.

Although she looked at other ways to raise the money, Ariana decided to sell her innocence since she says it’s the quickest and easiest way to raise her money.

“Many students have the issue that during their studies they have to deal with multiple problems. You have to go to work in order to pay for your education,” she said in the report.

“I want to move to another country for my studies in medicine. The university will be very expensive; the rent will also be high and I imagine that living in another country will be very hard. Therefore, I want to get the financial burden out of the way so I can focus on my medical studies,” she elucidated.

Her parents have no idea of her novel way to raise money, but she said she was open to explain it to them if and when they do discover what’s going on online.

The hopeful scholar added that that selling her virginity was her own choice, and described herself as an “independent woman” in her auction profile.

She also attributed her decision to her cynical approach on love, adding that she has waited so long to give her virginity to the right person, but it’s never worked out in the past.

“Why should I wait any longer?” she said. “Why should I lose my virginity to someone who could then break my heart later?”

Despite her seemingly rash judgment, Ariana admitted that she is looking at the sale as an investment, and hopes that whoever wins the auction will deal with her respectfully.

Aside from Ariana, her best friend Lolita is also auctioning her virginity, with bids also starting at £130,500. Khristian Ibarrola

source: technology.inquirer.net

Vigorous exercise helps people live longer – study

MIAMI, United States - Vigorous exercise, the kind that makes you sweat, get red in the face and breathe hard, may be better than moderate exercise when it comes to living longer, researchers said Monday.

The study by Australian researchers is based on more than 200,000 adults over age 45, and is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine.

The study participants were followed for more than six years.

Those who did jogging, aerobics or competitive tennis -- vigorous exercise for 30 percent of their weekly workouts -- had a mortality rate that was nine to 13 percent lower than those who did moderate exercise, like swimming, social tennis, or household chores.

"The benefits of vigorous activity applied to men and women of all ages, and were independent of the total amount of time spent being active," said lead author Klaus Gebel from James Cook University's Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention.

"The results indicate that whether or not you are obese, and whether or not you have heart disease or diabetes, if you can manage some vigorous activity it could offer significant benefits for longevity."

Currently, the World Health Organization urges adults to do at least 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week.

But the current research suggests that given the choice, people should opt for some higher intensity exercise if they can, and if their doctor agrees, the study authors said.

"Our research indicates that even small amounts of vigorous activity could help reduce your risk of early death," Gebel said.

"For those with medical conditions, for older people in general, and for those who have never done any vigorous activity or exercise before, it's always important to talk to a doctor first." — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Apple's ResearchKit to give scientists ready access to study subjects

CHICAGO - Apple Inc on Monday released ResearchKit, an open-source software tool designed to give scientists a new way to gather information on patients by using their iPhones.

Several top research institutions have already developed applications to work on the ResearchKit platform, including those pursuing clinical studies on asthma, breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson's disease. They include Stanford University School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.

The format will allow users to decide if they want to participate in a study and decide how their data is to be shared with researchers.

"With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research," said Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of Operations, said in a statement.

The ResearchKit platform is designed to work hand in hand with Apple's HealthKit software, which allows iPhones to work with health and fitness apps that gather information on weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use.

The ResearchKit also allows researchers access to accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in the iPhone to gain insight into a patient's gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.

The software is also designed to help researchers build more diverse study populations, which traditionally have been limited by physical proximity to large academic medical centers.  — Reuters

Eating placentas? US moms swear by health benefits

WASHINGTON - Health trends come and go, but one post-birth fad is gaining a foothold in the United States among some new mothers who extol the benefits of eating their own placentas.

Convinced it helps to boost energy, produce healthy milk and ward off postpartum depression, the practice is catching on among mothers who shun modern medicine for natural care, or Hollywood celebrities eager to adopt new-age trends.

It is called "placentophagy," and entails eating the iron-rich afterbirth in any form: liquid, solid or packed into a pill.

The bloody, spongy organ provides the fetus with nutrients, oxygen and hormones via the umbilical cord during the 40-week gestation period.

Some midwives promote its nourishing virtues for mothers too.

"Placenta helps to restore your body with vitamins, minerals and hormones," midwife Claudia Booker told AFP.

"Not rejuvenate you so you can go to parties... just restore you when you feel like a used machine," she said, speaking over her kitchen sink in Washington where she prepares placenta pills.

For $270, Booker, a 65-year-old with cropped hair and tattooed ears, processes and prepares the vascular organ into a course of capsules lasting several weeks.

The process of turning placenta into pills is perhaps more familiar to cooks than scientists: she cleans it, presses the blood from it and steams it before placing it in a dehydrator overnight.

The dried placenta is then cut into strips and put in a coffee grinder to turn into a powder she puts inside small capsules, a technique she learned from a Chinese acupuncturist.

Placenta smoothie

There are no scientific studies on the number of new moms partaking in the practice and few on its effects, but that has not prevented the trend from taking hold in some circles, including among A-listers.

"Clueless" star Alicia Silverstone has tried it and swears by it. And "Mad Men" vixen January Jones tried it too, earning her the nickname "Mad Mom" in some American media.

The trend has even spawned cookbooks and a devoted army of recipe testers on mommy blogs who write about placenta lasagnas, tacos or chocolate truffles.

Mother of seven Catherine said wanted to try it after giving birth to her last child. She chopped her placenta into cubes and blended it with almond milk, honey and blueberries for an afterbirth smoothie.

She opted for a pureed version to "disguise the taste," she said, adding that she froze leftovers to be enjoyed later.

Placenta being a rare item, some mothers want to make sure none goes to waste.

For others, packing placenta nutrients into edible treats like chocolate truffles is preferable to taking vitamins.    

"It seemed to be a good idea because I tend to forget to take my vitamins but I don't forget that I'm in the mood for chocolate!" mother-of-three Melissa told AFP.

Emotional benefits

Booker maintains that the benefits of eating the placenta are also psychological, helping mothers to stave off postpartum depression that affects up to 19 percent of women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It is one of the pieces of the puzzle that helps you to decrease the emotional roller coaster of the early postpartum period," Booker said, the pungent scent of cooked blood wafting through her house.

It is also believed to ease fatigue and anxiety in the tumultuous post-birth period, she added.

But researchers are only starting to conduct comprehensive studies on the practice, which first emerged in the United States in the 1970s, according to Daniel Benyshek, a medical anthropologist at the University of Nevada.

Americans are believed to be among the first to eat their own afterbirth, he said, though dried placenta has been long used in Chinese medicine, prized by healers for its curative qualities.

Others have examined the effect in mammals, most of which eat afterbirth.

Psychologist Mark Kristal from the University at Buffalo found that mice experience less pain in the post-birth period if they eat their placenta.

But most studies about human benefits do not meet acceptable scientific standards, Benyshek said. Instead, most evidence is anecdotal.

"There is a lot of positive feedback from women, including women who experienced postpartum depression," he said.

Based on a survey of 189 women in 2013 conducted by Benyshek, 98 percent reported the effects of eating their own placenta as "positive."

He is planning to release a full study this summer based on research from 30 women.

'Night-and-day difference'

Scientifically proven or not, many are embracing placentophagy as an essential post-birth ritual.

"The reason that I chose to do that it is that there is a history of depression and one of the purported benefits of course is that it helps bounce my hormones," said Melissa.

Fellow mother Laura Ransom from Las Vegas, Nevada, said she wished she had tried it earlier.

She took placenta pills after the birth of her third child and said it helped her manage a hectic schedule.

"I did not do this with my first two pregnancies and I can't express the night-and-day difference of my emotional and physical recovery," she said.

"The pills gave me energy, curbed my mood swings, actually made me really happy, and helped me to handle things in the midst of adding number three to our family after a move and my husband starting a job." — AFP


source: gmanetwork.com

Medication mistakes common among young children – US study

NEW YORK - Roughly every eight minutes from 2002 through 2012, a child in the US experienced a medication mistake, according to a new study of calls to poison control hotlines.

The number and rate of reported medication mistakes rose during the 11-year study, except for cough and cold medicines, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

The reduction in mistakes with cough and cold medicines follows a multipronged campaign to decrease the use of these products among young children, which suggests education is helpful in reducing errors, Henry Spiller, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health.

“We think that multipronged effort had an effect,” said Spiller, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. “We can see a drop associated with these efforts.”

Medication errors can cause injury, increased healthcare spending and even death, the researchers write.

Most studies have focused on medication mistakes in healthcare facilities like hospitals. Less is known about mistakes that happen with children’s medicine at home.

For the new study, the researchers used data on medication errors reported among children younger than six years between 2002 through 2012. The data were obtained from the National Poison Database System, which records information on calls made to the 55 US poison control hotlines.

On average, 63,358 children experienced medication errors during each year of the study. Put another way, among every 10,000 young children in the US, there were 27 medication errors each year.

While the vast majority of the cases did not require additional medical attention, 25 children died during the 11 years as a result of medication mistakes.

Over a quarter of the mistakes involved children being given the same medication twice.

The most common mistakes involved pain medications like aspirin. Next most common were mistakes with cough and cold medicines and allergy medicines.

Medication errors became less common as children got older, the researchers found. About a quarter of the mistakes occurred in infants under age one year.

Pause before giving medication 


Spiller said in a phone interview that parents and caregivers should pause for a moment before they administer medications to their children.

“This is when a lot of these medication errors occur—during these distracted periods,” he said, adding that parents should make sure they’re giving the correct medication, the appropriate dose, and not giving a second dose.

“If you just take a moment, you can kind of save that mistake,” he said.

Dr. Huiyun Xiang, the study’s senior author, said there is also a lesson in the reduced number of mistakes among cough and cold medicines following an education campaign.

“A similar case can be made against the routine use in young children of other medications that are frequently associated with errors, like analgesics,” he wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

“Parents and caregivers can do their parts by using smart phone apps to schedule and track medication doses and by using measuring cups provided with liquid medications to give accurate doses,” wrote Xiang, of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where he directs the Center for Pediatric Trauma Research.

When medication mistakes do occur, Spiller said parents and guardians should call their poison center.

“You’re going to get an expert immediately,” he said. — Reuters

Nanotechnology May Help Identify Early-Stage Mesothelioma

The earlier cancer is discovered, the greater the chances of successfully fighting it.  Advances in medicine are helping to put earlier detection within closer reach.  Nanotechnology, which combines molecular science and technology, is one such advancement that may help in identifying cancers such as mesothelioma at an early stage.

While cancer cells result in the production of unique proteins which could theoretically aid in detection of the disease, it is not easy to spot these proteins.  This is due to the fact that the proteins become weakened in a patient’s bloodstream.  Applying nanotechnology may enable scientists to increase the visibility of cancer indicators through engineered biomarkers.  This could help doctors more readily locate and identify molecules linked to cancer.  

Nanotechnology functions by making use of nanoparticles, which, due to their microscopic size, have properties that are different from those of materials on a larger scale.  Scientists treat the nanoparticles with peptides that are susceptible to attack from enzymes called MMPs, which are frequently secreted by cancer cells.

The nanoparticles are injected into a person’s body, and once there, they will connect with a tumor.  The cancer enzymes cut many peptides off the nanoparticles into even smaller fragments, which make their way into the bloodstream.  The enzymes then build up in the kidneys, which results in biomarkers being passed into a person’s urine.  The biomarkers can be identified in the urine, and can help lead to earlier detection of disease.  Another benefit of this type of research is that it is far less invasive than other methods of diagnosis, such as a biopsy.

Once the biomarkers have been spotted and sampled, mass spectrometry is utilized to view the particles, and to tell them apart.  This helps researchers determine characteristics attached to specific tumors.

The process might also enable tracking of disease proliferation in the body, as well as measuring the effectiveness of treatment on tumors.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is focused on ensuring the safety and effectiveness of nanotechnology as it is applied to medicine, and is actively monitoring developments.

source: cooneyconway.com

A low-sodium diet is still the best bet – study

NEW YORK - Eating less than one teaspoon of salt per day remains the ideal goal for Americans, according to a new study.

Most research has linked high sodium consumption with greater risks of stroke and cardiovascular disease. Evidence has shown that men and women age 51 or older, African Americans or those with hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease face especially high risks.

But when several studies produced findings suggesting diets could be too low in sodium, the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) asked experts to review studies on the health effects of sodium.

The data "weren't entirely convincing," said Nancy Cook, lead author of the current study published in the journal Circulation, and a member of that expert panel.

Cook is a statistician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

In an attempt to resolve the conflicting information, Cook and her team analyzed data from a previous large study called the Trials of Hypertension Prevention (TOHP) designed to look at high blood pressure. The TOHP followed the field's "gold-standard" technique of measuring salt consumption in 24-hour urine samples.

Other salt consumption studies have used single urine collections or overnight samples, neither of which provide as much consistency and accuracy as samples that participants collected throughout an entire day and night.

"The quality of the sodium measures (in TOHP) is probably better than any other study out there," Cook said.

"We found there were no adverse effects with lower amounts of sodium and benefits continued to be seen at the lowest sodium levels," she said. The findings match up with most evidence available.

"People should realize—and it may be difficult to do with all of the conflicting information in the press—that quality differs from study to study," Cook said. "When you get down to the details, some studies are more reliable than others."

Main food culprits containing high sodium include bread, cured meat, pizza, poultry, soup, cheese and snacks, wrote Lyn Steffen of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis in an editorial that accompanied the new study.

On the nutritional facts panel on food packaging, if the sodium amount per serving is 5 percent daily value, then that is a low-sodium product, Steffen said. Products with 20 percent daily value are high-sodium.

Even though modern lifestyle is busy, Dr. Graham MacGregor of Queen Mary University and chairman of the World Action on Salt and Health lobby group, suggested a solution: "If you cook fresh vegetables, potatoes, pasta and rice with fresh meat or fish, make more than you can consume, you can then put portions in the freezer and use this on different occasions so that the food can be instantly ready."

In restaurants, the challenge to eat less salt can be greater. "You can request that no salt be added," Cook said.

"If you suddenly cut all sodium from your meals, then things will taste bland," Cook said. "So it's important to lower sodium gradually and get accustomed to lower amounts of salt."

As the body adjusts to lower sodium levels, then foods with high sodium may be less appealing, she said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Braces help avoid surgery in teens with scoliosis

NEW YORK - In the first large-scale test of whether wearing a brace helps to prevent an already-curved childhood spine from twisting further, bracing was nearly twice as effective as a watch-and-wait approach at preventing kids from needing corrective surgery.

But the study also found that too many children with scoliosis are being given a brace when they don't need one. Data from the new research may help doctors identify which children need to wear the brace and when it is better to just keep tabs on the child.

The study "really answers the question that parents raise—'If you're going to prescribe a brace for my child, does it work?'" said Dr. Stuart Weinstein, lead author of the study, which was published online by the New England Journal Medicine and reported Thursday at the Scoliosis Research Society's annual meeting in Lyon, France. "The answer is that braces have a very high success rate," he told Reuters Health.

"We also found that the longer the child wore the brace, the more likely you were to achieve success," he said. "Children who wore it more than 13 hours a day had a 90 percent to 93 percent chance of success for avoiding having the curve progressing to a surgical threshold."

The results were so pronounced, the test of 242 youngsters in the U.S. and Canada was halted early.

"It certainly reinforces our present approach to bracing in these at-risk adolescents," Dr. Allan Beebe, an orthopedic specialist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who was not connected with the research, told Reuters Health in an email. "This study appears to be better science" than the previous research on bracing.

About 2 to 3 percent of children have some degree of spine curvature, but only 0.3 to 0.5 percent have progressively worsening curves that make them candidates for treatment aimed at avoiding the need for surgery.

Once the spinal curve gets beyond 50 degrees, there's a high risk it will continue worsening into adulthood unless corrected surgically. So treating the problem early is preferable, and less expensive.

Weinstein and his colleagues point out in their report that there were more than 3,600 spinal surgeries to correct adolescent scoliosis in the U.S. in 2009. At a total cost of $514 million, the procedure "ranked second only to appendicitis" for children 10 to 17 years old.

"Bracing has been the standard method of trying to protect patients from needing surgery ever since a brace was developed in the 1940s, said Weinstein, of the University of Iowa. "But it was never really proven if it was effective. There was never a randomized trial where some children were braced and some weren't. The data were inconsistent."

The original plan for the study was to randomly assign some children to a brace and to simply watch others to see whether the curve of the spine became too severe. In either case, progression of the curve to 50 degrees or more indicated that the assigned treatment had not worked.

But many parents had strong feelings about how they wanted their child treated and declined to allow a treatment to be randomly selected for them. So the research team let those parents choose a treatment; 70 percent chose a brace.

"The interesting fact was that when you looked at both the randomized children and those who chose their preference, bracing produced an overwhelming 72 percent success rate when it came to preventing the need for surgery," Weinstein said. The success rate in the observation group was 48 percent.

The success rate among children randomly assigned to bracing was even higher, at 78 percent.

A temperature sensor logged the amount of time the child wore the brace.

"The study provided pretty overwhelming evidence that braces are effective," Weinstein said.

But it was also clear from the results that many bracing treatments are unnecessary.

Nearly half of the participants in the watch-and-wait group during the trial did not have curve progression to the point of needing surgery. The same was true for 41 percent of kids in the bracing group who actually spent very little time wearing their braces.

"We're unnecessarily bracing two patients to get the one patient who actually needs it. We are still overtreating patients," Weinstein said.

A further analysis of the data might prevent some of that unnecessary treatment, he said.

"We will probably, in the next year or so, be analyzing all the factors so we can hone down better who the ideal candidate for bracing is," Weinstein said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Extra fiber tied to lower risk of stroke — UK study

NEW YORK - People who get more fiber in their diet are less likely to have a stroke than those who skimp on the nutrient, according to a new review of existing research.

"A few people in the past have looked at the relationship between fiber and cardiovascular disease, which includes coronary heart disease and stroke," senior author Victoria Burley told Reuters Health.

But this is the first time all the available results from long-term studies have been pulled together into one analysis, said Burley, a senior lecturer in nutritional epidemiology at the University of Leeds in the UK.

Burley and her coauthors pooled the results of eight studies conducted since 1990 that included close to 500,000 participants. Those people reported on their dietary fiber consumption and were followed for anywhere from eight to 19 years.

The researchers found the risk of suffering a first stroke fell by 7 percent for every 7-gram increase in dietary fiber people reported each day - so that those who ate the most fiber had the lowest chance of stroke, according to findings published in the journal Stroke.


The average U.S. woman gets 13 grams of fiber per day, and the average man gets 17 grams - well below the Institute of Medicine recommendation of 24 and 35 grams, respectively.

An extra 7 grams could come from two slices of whole wheat bread and a serving of fruit, for example, Burley said. But even less than that - just 2 or 3 extra grams per day - might affect stroke risk.

Americans suffer almost 800,000 strokes annually, and strokes cause one out of every 18 U.S. deaths, or 130,000 per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most happen when a clot blocks blood flow in a brain vessel.

"Stroke is a very common and chronic disease in our society because the risk factors are growing," Dr. Dean Sherzai, a neurologist at Loma Linda University in California, told Reuters Health.

The new results are important because at the moment there are limited treatments and preventive measures available for stroke, but diet changes such as adding more fiber are relatively easy, said Sherzai, who was not involved in the study.

The report didn't look at the effects of different types of fiber on people of specific ages - so it's possible some may glean more benefit from eating extra fiber than others, he added.

The findings don't prove fiber directly prevents strokes. Researchers also don't know why fiber would be linked to a lower risk, although they have some ideas.

"There could be all sorts of things going on," Burley said.

Foods high in fiber tend to be low-calorie and help people maintain a healthy weight, which reduces stroke risk, she said. Fibrous foods also have vitamins, minerals and antioxidants including polyphenols and flavonoids, which make blood vessels more elastic.

The findings should serve as more encouragement for people to get their daily recommended fiber, Burley said. She'd like to see fiber back on the agenda - since it sometimes falls to the wayside in low-carbohydrate or gluten-free diets.

"Sometimes things like this just aren't deemed sexy enough," Sherzai said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Eating fish linked to longer life: US study

WASHINGTON - People age 65 and older who eat fish may live an average of two years longer than people who do not consume the omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in seafood, a US study suggested on Monday.

People with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids also had an overall risk of dying that was 27 percent lower, and a risk of dying from heart disease that was 35 percent lower than counterparts who had lower blood levels, said the study.

The research was led by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

While other studies have demonstrated a link between omega-3 fatty acids and lower risk of heart disease, this research examined records of older people to determine any link between fish-eating and death risk.

Researchers scanned 16 years of data on about 2,700 US adults aged 65 or older. Those considered for the study were not taking fish oil supplements, to eliminate any confusion over the use of supplements or dietary differences.

Those with the highest blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in fish like salmon, tuna, halibut, sardines, herring and mackerel, had the lowest risk of dying from any cause, and lived an average of 2.2 years longer than those with low levels.

Researchers identified docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as most strongly related to lower risk of coronary heart disease death.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) was strongly linked to lower risk of nonfatal heart attack, and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) was most strongly associated with lower risk of dying from a stroke.

The findings persisted after researchers adjusted for demographic, lifestyle and diet factors.

"Our findings support the importance of adequate blood omega-3 levels for cardiovascular health, and suggest that later in life these benefits could actually extend the years of remaining life," said lead author Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

"The biggest bang-for-your-buck is for going from no intake to modest intake, or about two servings of fatty fish per week," said Mozaffarian. —Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com