Showing posts with label medicine. Show all posts
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January 26, 2018
Disorders of the brain are difficult to treat, as medications can't be delivered to only the parts of the brain that need them. That could soon change thanks to a new system developed at MIT, which uses a hair-sized needle to directly deliver medicine to specific parts of the brain.

TARGETED TREATMENT

Researchers from MIT have created a system that can deliver medicine directly to areas of the brain as small as one cubic millimeter. Using a needle the size of a human hair, the system could make it possible to directly treat diseases affecting the brain through specific circuits or regions without injuring or interacting with other nearby areas. The study has been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The ultra-thin needle contains tubes that can deliver drugs deep into the brain. All of the components used are very fine, which gives the doctor performing the procedure as much control as possible in terms of placement and depth of the needle, as well as how much medication is dispensed. The researchers tested the technology on rats and were successfully able to deliver a dose of medication to a specific region of the brain that affected the rat’s motor function.
This miniature system could greatly improve the treatment of brain disorders. Image Credit: Canan Dagdeviren/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This miniature system could greatly improve the treatment of brain disorders. Image Credit: Canan Dagdeviren/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“We can infuse very small amounts of multiple drugs compared to what we can do intravenously or orally, and also manipulate behavioral changes through drug infusion,” Canan Dagdeviren, an Assistant Professor at MIT and lead author of the paper, said in MIT’s press release.

A TREMENDOUS IMPACT

The MIT researchers were not only able to successfully administer drugs to extremely specific locations, they were also able to inject a separate dose of saline to wash the drug away, which gave them maximum control when it came to dosing.
The ability to directly administer drugs to the brain could not only lead to new treatments but markedly improve existing ones. Many drugs currently used to treat brain disorders and disease often come with a host of side effects, largely because the drugs can affect regions of the brain other than what the drug was designed to treat.
“We believe this tiny microfabricated device could have a tremendous impact in understanding brain diseases,” said Robert Langer, a professor at MIT and one of the paper’s senior authors, “as well as providing new ways of delivering biopharmaceuticals and performing biosensing in the brain.”
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October 22, 2017

Joanie Simpson woke early one morning with a terrible backache. Her chest started hurting when she turned over.
Within 20 minutes, she was at a local emergency room. Soon she was being airlifted to a hospital in Houston, where physicians were preparing to receive a patient exhibiting the classic signs of a heart attack.
But tests at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute - Texas Medical Center revealed something very different.
Doctors instead diagnosed Simpson with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a condition with symptoms that mimic heart attacks. It usually occurs following an emotional event such as the loss of a spouse or child. That link has given the illness its more colloquial name: broken-heart syndrome.
In Simpson's case, the event that she says tipped her over the edge was the recent death of her beloved Yorkshire terrier, Meha.
"I was close to inconsolable," she said. "I really took it really, really hard."
Simpson's 2016 experience is described this week in the New England Journal of Medicine — not because of the dog's role, according to one of her doctors, Abhishek Maiti, but because hers was a "very concise, elegant case" of a fascinating condition that research has established as quite real and sometimes fatal.
Although not the first published case linking broken-heart syndrome to stress over a pet's death, it underscores something many animal owners take as a given: that grieving for sick or deceased pets can be as gutting as grieving for humans.
A growing body of research supports this notion, which was echoed in a recent study that found pet owners with chronically ill animals have higher levels of "caregiver burden", stress and anxiety.
It's the flip side of evidence that links pets to health and happiness, which gets more attention. Not that people who have lost beloved animals are likely to be surprised.
Simpson certainly wasn't shocked. At the time of what she calls her "episode," she'd been having a rough stretch: Her son was facing back surgery. Her son-in-law had lost his job. A property sale was proving to be complicated and lengthy. Meanwhile, 9-year-old Meha was suffering from congestive heart failure.

The dog was like a daughter, Simpson said. She adored jumping into the swimming pool, and when Simpson and her husband grilled on Friday nights, Meha was given her own hamburger.
"The kids were grown and out of the house, so she was our little girl," said Simpson, a 62-year-old retiree who previously worked in medical transcription.
But Meha started having more bad days. By May of last year, she was ill enough that Simpson made an appointment to have her euthanized. When the day came, the dog seemed fine, and Simpson canceled the appointment. Meha died the next day, and not peacefully.
"It was such a horrendous thing to have to witness," recalled Simpson. "When you're already kind of upset about other things, it's like a brick on a scale. I mean, everything just weighs on you."
After the helicopter carrying Simpson landed on the roof of Memorial Hermann, she was rushed to the cardiac catheterisation lab. Cardiologist Abhijeet Dhoble quickly threaded a thin tube into a blood vessel in Simpson's groin and up to her heart.
The team expected X-rays to show blocked arteries, said Maiti, then an internal medicine resident. They didn't.
"The artery was crystal clear. It was pristine," he said. Another artery was, too. Further tests indicated this was a case of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which is most common in postmenopausal women.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 is among those that confirmed that a flood of stress hormones may be able to "stun" the heart to produce spasms in otherwise healthy people.
Once medications stabilised Simpson, the physicians talked to her about the stress in her life, and they told her about broken-heart syndrome. It "made complete sense", Simpson said. She was sent home after two days, and though she still takes two heart medications, she is doing fine.
Simpson, who now lives about two hours northwest of San Antonio in the town of Camp Woods, only has a cat named Buster these days. She hasn't yet made the right connection with a dog, though she's sure it will happen.
She is the kind of person who takes "things more to heart than a lot of people," she said, and she figures this tendency means her heart will break again, though maybe not so literally.
And it will be worth it, Simpson said.
"It is heartbreaking. It is traumatic. It is all of the above," Simpson said. "But you know what? They give so much love and companionship that I'll do it again. I will continue to have pets. That's not going to stop me."
2017 © The Washington Post
This article was originally published by The Washington Post.
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August 12, 2016
Dr. Diane Harper, one of the leading experts on HPV vaccines, has spoken out about the ‘deadly effects’ the vaccines have on those who take it.
Dr. Harper was responsible for the Phase II and Phase III safety and effectiveness studies for Gardasil and Cervarix, which secured approval for their use on the public.

During a speech at the 4th International Conference on Vaccination, she decided to come clean to the public about the dangers of receiving the HPV vaccine – saying that she could no longer sleep at night.

Chief_ HPV_Scientist_Admits_Vaccines_Are_A_ Deadly_Scam-482124477

Healthlogics.press reports:
The following is an excerpt from a story by Sarah Cain:
“Dr. Harper explained in her presentation that the cervical cancer risk in the U.S. is already extremely low, and that vaccinations are unlikely to have any effect upon the rate of cervical cancer in the United States.
In fact, 70% of all HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in a year, and the number rises to well over 90% in two years.  Harper also mentioned the safety angle.  All trials of the vaccines were done on children aged 15 and above, despite them currently being marketed for 9-year-olds.
So far, 15,037 girls have reported adverseside effects from Gardasil™ alone to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and this number only reflects parents who underwent the hurdles required for reporting adverse reactions.  At the time of writing, 44 girls are officially known to have died from these vaccines.  The reported side effects include Guillian Barré Syndrome (paralysis lasting for years, or permanently — sometimes eventually causing suffocation), lupus, seizures, blood clots, and brain inflammation.
Parents are usually not made aware of these risks.  Dr. Harper, the vaccine developer, claimed that she was speaking out, so that she might finally be able to sleep at night.  ‘About eight in every ten women who have been sexually active will have HPV at some stage of their life,’ Harper says.  ‘Normally there are nosymptoms, and in 98 per cent of cases it clears itself.  But in those cases where it doesn’t, and isn’t treated, it can lead to pre-cancerous cells which may develop into cervical cancer.’”
Although these two vaccines are marketed as protection against cervical cancer, this claim is purely hypothetical.  Studies have proven “there is no demonstrated relationship between the condition being vaccinated for and the rare cancers that the vaccine might prevent, but it is marketed to do that nonetheless.  In fact, there is no actual evidence that the vaccine can prevent any cancer.  From the manufacturers own admissions, the vaccine only works on 4 strains out of 40 for a specific venereal disease that dies on its own in a relatively short period, so the chance of it actually helping an individual is about about the same as the chance of her being struck by a meteorite.”


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August 12, 2016
What’s this so called SHOCKING fact you ask?

Our minds have the power to heal our bodies!

If you don’t believe it I don’t blame you. It really is a hard fact to believe. Wait? What did I said? A fact?

Yes! The proof of this happening is in front of our eyes. The placebo effect holds some of the answer to this secret. The placebo effect has always been a big problem for the medical establishment.

The Spontaneous Remission Project is a database of over 3500 case studies from the medical literature. It contains a multitude of cases where patients have recovered from what were seemingly incurable illnesses.

According to Lissa Rankin, the real secret might be hidden behind the nurturing care of doctors and nurses.



When they tell you with a beaming smile that you’re going to be fine and that the drugs you just received (sugar pills) are incredibly effective and without side effects, you get a large release of healing chemicals and neurotransmitters like endorphins, nitric oxide and the love chemical oxytocin with its amazing healing capabilities.

No wonder kids’ first instinct is to kiss something that is hurt. Instinctively we know that love heals and creates harmony. We don’t know it produces certain chemicals that do the trick, but we instinctively know it’s the right direction.

This response is only turned on when you’re totally relaxed. This goes to show how important it is to find that place of inner peace in your life.

When doctors tell you that things look bleak and that you might have 3 more months to live, it triggers a fear response. The Amygdala signals to the adrenal glands that you’re in danger, triggering production and release of large amounts of stress hormones. These stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline shuts down your immune system.
Just a couple of weeks ago, researchers at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine made a discovery which will forever alter the way we look at the brain, concluding that there is a direct connection between the brain and the immune system. (Source)
Many other researches show amazing things happening once a person regains control of their mind.
In the words of Sadhguru (a wise mystic who have helped and cured a lot of people through various types of alternative healing) “We created this body from inside. So the manufacturer of this body is inside. So if you have a repair job to be done, would you like to go to the manufacturer or the local mechanic?”
Medical science has prolonged life and there is no question about that. However, by having access to the source of that which created your body definitely you can fix every problem that arises from inside of yourself. What is happening from within you can be very easily handled from within you.

But if something happens from without you, if something harms you from the outer world than you need to contact “the manufacturer” but also “the local mechanic” for a fix. If you get wounded or a virus enters your organism, the manufacturer can help but the mechanic needs to help you too.
“There are 2 kinds of ailments, infectious and chronic. Infectious ailments happen to you because of an external invasion to your organism. You must go to the doctor. Don’t try to meditate on it.” says Sadhguru with a smile on his face. “70% of the ailments on the planet are self created. I am saying self created because they happen from within you.”

If we understand that we are the force that created our body not the body per se, we can learn how to unlock our mind’s true power to heal ourselves.

Balance and harmony are things we should strive for. Your choices matter. If you poison your body with things that benefit your pleasure centers more than they benefit the harmony of your organism than you are, in a way, making things harder for your organism to maintain balance and harmony.

Armed with this knowledge and future research we will have to rethink how we keep people alive, healthy and thriving.



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August 01, 2016
Rudolf Brojs from Austria dedicated his whole life to finding the best natural cure for cancer. His all-natural juice has helped over 45,000 cancer people to fight and defeat this fatal disease. According to Brojs, cancer significantly depends on proteins for survival.

Cancer Cells Die In 42 Days_This Juice Cured Over 45k People_6775

As part of his anti-cancer treatment, he also proposed a 42-day eating regimen specially suited for this type of treatment. Along with the juice, which is based on beetroot, the diet plan must also be supported with high intake of tea. The cancer cells starve and therefore die, while your overall health improves during the 42 days of this regimen.

Ingredients:

To prepare this special juice you need these organic vegetables:

Beetroot (55%)

Carrots (20%)

Celery root (20%)

Potatoes (3%)

Radishes (2%)

Instructions:

The preparation of the juice is quite simple. Mix all the ingredients until well-blended. You can drink as much of the juice as you can stand, but be careful not to go over the board with it.

Beetroot is one of the most health-beneficial vegetables. It’s high in antioxidants, a wide range of vitamins including C, B1, B2, B6, folic and pantothenic acid, and a plethora of minerals such as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron, and zinc. Beetroot owes its red color to betacyanins or magenta pigments. There’s mounting evidence that finds the medicinal properties of beetroot beneficial for treatment of leukemia and cancer.

To start with, beets are rich in betaine, an amino acid with strong cancer-fighting properties. Betaine is also a powerful anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and detox agent. According to research, this potent amino acid can destroy tumor cells.

Beetroot is highly beneficial for the treatment of several types of cancer, including leukemia. A study examining the effects of beetroot on cancer patients revealed that 100% of the subjects responded positively to beet treatment.

Beetroot also provides numerous benefits for pregnant women, especially because it’s high in folic acid. Moreover, it improves liver and gall bladder function, and prevents constipation. It also alleviates headaches, toothaches, dysentery, bone problems, skin issues and menstrual pains. Beetroot should be an indispensable part of every diet due to its amazing health benefits.
  

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September 10, 2015
man-deprssed-hit-wall-his-head
Depression has become an epidemic of sorts across the globe. It is estimated that 350 million people are affected by some form of depression every year. What is worse is that research shows that 11% of adolescents develop symptoms of depression by the age of 18.
As doctors scramble to curb the trend of increasing depression rates, an interesting new line of research is suggesting that depression might actually be an allergic reaction to inflammation. Tim de Chant of NOVA writes: “Inflammation is our immune system’s natural response to injuries, infections, or foreign compounds. When triggered, the body pumps various cells and proteins to the site through the bloodstream, including cytokines, a class of proteins that facilitate intercellular communication. It also happens that people suffering from depression are loaded with cytokines.”
One of the major factors of inflammation is diet. High sugar diets, high quantities of trans fats, unhealthy diets in general, and obesity are all known factors in high levels of inflammation. Eleanor Morgan of VICE says, “Cytokines skyrocket during depressive episodes and, in those with bipolar disorder, halt in remission. The fact that ‘normal,’ healthy people can become temporarily anxious or depressed after receiving an inflammatory vaccine — like typhoid — lends further credence to the theory. There are even those who think we should re-brand depression altogether as an infectious disease … Carmine Pariante, a Kings College psychiatrist who is quoted in The Guardian report, says that we’re between five and ten years away from a blood test that can measure levels of inflammation in depressed people. If both Pariante’s estimate and the inflammation-depression theory are correct, we could potentially be just five years from an adequate ‘cure’ for depression.”
Caroline Williams of The Guardian writes: “The good news is that the few clinical trials done so far have found that adding anti-inflammatory medicines to antidepressants not only improves symptoms, it also increases the proportion of people who respond to treatment, although more trials will be needed to confirm this. There is also some evidence that omega 3 and curcumin, an extract of the spice turmeric, might have similar effects. Both are available over the counter and might be worth a try, although as an add-on to any prescribed treatment – there’s definitely not enough evidence to use them as a replacement.”

Treating the inflammatory causes of depression might actually be the key to solving the neurological impacts. This is great news in the battle to understand and treat depression.
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April 05, 2015
onion-inside-socks

Did you know that the bottoms of your feet are a direct entryway into your body through what Chinese doctors call meridians? Meridians are pathways to each organ in the body. Some argue that meridians don’t actually exist, but those who understand Chinese medicine recognize that meridians are closely related to the nervous system. And you have one of those, right? It’s basically the same thing.
The bottoms of your feet have a variety of different nerve endings. 7,000 to be precise. Those nerves link to a variety of different organs in the body. The electrical signals sent across these meridians often become dormant when you wear shoes. Stimulating those meridians is important. You can do so by grounding yourself with the earth’s negative ion field (stand outside without shoes on) or using onions.

One of the coolest ways to stimulate these meridians is with cut up onion or garlic in your socks (at the bottoms of your feet) while you sleep. Both bulbs are known as air purifiers and when applied to the skin, they kill germs and bacteria. Phosphoric acid also enters the blood stream and helps purify the blood. We don’t recommend reusing onions as they collect the germs and bacteria. We also don’t encourage eating the foot onions.
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November 04, 2014
The human immune system is a remarkable network of biological structures and processes. When functioning properly, it has the ability to remember diseases that it has previously encountered for more efficient removal, trigger immediate responses to emergencies through its advanced communication systems and much more.
herbs_Health_ immune_ brain_ medicine_plants

Despite its sophistication, however, the immune system is notoriously fragile, and even the healthiest of us can suffer from compromised immunity from time to time. During these difficult periods, when we're at a far greater risk of infection than usual, it is a good idea to supplement our diets with herbs that are well-known for their immune-boosting properties. Three of the best of these herbs are listed below.
Astragalus

herbs_Health_ immune_astragalus_herb
Astragalus is a perennial plant native to the northern and eastern regions of China, as well as Korea and Mongolia. Its antioxidant-rich root, which resembles a garlic bulb, has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries to strengthen the body against disease. Moreover, Astragalus adaptogenic qualities make it effective at fighting disease as well.
Astragalus has been well-studied in the West, and numerous studies confirm its alleged immunity-boosting properties. A study published in Cellular Immunology in 2011, for instance, found that Astragalus polysaccharides could stimulate the body's production of macrophages (white blood cells that tackle foreign invaders and cancer cells). A later study, published in Microbial Pathogenesis in January 2014, also discovered that Astragalus polysaccharides could regulate the production of T cells (white blood cells that defend the body from pathogens) in infected mice.
Cat's claw
herbs_Health_ immune_cat's claw_herb
Cat's claw is a woody vine native to the Amazon Rainforest of South America. While the indigenous people of Central and South America have used cat's claw -- which is named after its hook-like thorns -- to treat a wide variety of medical conditions, it is especially revered for its ability to strengthen immune function.
Few studies have been conducted on cat's claw compared to Astragalus and Echinacea, but the limited amount of research we currently possess is promising. A study published in Phytotherapy Research in August 2011, for example, discovered that cat's claw extracts could boost immunity by modulating "distinct patterns of the immune system in a dose-dependent manner."  A study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food in March 2007 also listed cat's claw as one of three herbs (the others being saw palmetto and Echinacea) that could regulate immune function by activating disease-fighting macrophages.


Echinacea
herbs_Health_ immune_echinacea_herb
Echinacea is a flowering plant that grows throughout North America and Europe. It was immensely popular in its native lands as an immunity booster and general "cure-all" during the 18th and 19th centuries, but its use began to decline after the advent of antibiotics. Fortunately, the West -- prompted by growing research into its health benefits -- seems to have rediscovered Echinacea in recent decades.
Studies into Echinacea's immunity-boosting properties are considerable, and new research is being published every month. For example, a study featured in International Immunopharmacology in March 2014 found that Echinacea polysaccharides could regulate T cell cytokine response, thus enhancing the body's defenses against infection.

source - ncbi
via - naturalnews
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September 24, 2014
A new iPad apps called Medopad aims to integrate all MEDICAL data's in the palm of a doctor's hand

Hospitals are packed full of valuable information about patients but doctors often struggle to use it effectively. A London-based start-up wants to change all that with a new suite of iPad apps called Medopad.
medopad-doctor-watching-a-ipad-app-about-patients-health

The idea is to link up every data-making system and machine in a hospital to a central service which can deliver a patient's collated records – from historical medical files to X-ray and MRI scans – at the touch of a doctor's iPad.

A number of bespoke Medopad apps help doctors manipulate and utilise this data. For example, one app broadcasts the readings from a patient's heart monitor to their doctor's iPad screen, so a check-up can be carried out from anywhere in the hospital building. Another app uses voice-recognition to let doctors create written notes on patients just by speaking.

For BMI Healthcare, the UK's largest private healthcare provider, Medopad could be about to transform how their doctors work. BMI has been piloting the software and testing integration with its hospitals' existing databases and is now deciding whether to roll it out for use with actual patients. "It's intuitive, and it kind of works the way doctors think," says group medical director, Mark Ferreira.

With Medopad in place, doctors will be able to refer cases to one another for a second opinion from within the app suite. Photos of a patient's visible symptoms can be taken using an iPad and shared, for example. Another Medopad app features integration with the Google Glass headset, which allows up to five clinicians to collaborate in real time, take pictures and share them, and access a patient's records simultaneously. A pathology app can even do some analytical work for doctors, with abnormal blood-test results flagged automatically.

The system has a number of security features. For example, it can be set up so that when a doctor's device physically leaves the hospital network, patient data will no longer be available on it.

Both doctors and patients should benefit from this kind of system, says Stevan Wing, who co-hosts a podcast on medical apps called The Digital Doctor. "If you increase the doctor's information as well as their ability to share it with patients and make joint decisions, then I think the quality of care must improve," he says.

source - newscientist
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August 16, 2014
New Zealand specialists are starting to view exercise as a powerful medicine that should be prescribed to all patients, rather than being viewed as a tool for fitness and weight management.
Dunedin sports and exercise medicine specialist Dr Hamish Osborne said literature overwhelmingly supported the use of exercise as medicine. Research showed that women diagnosed with breast cancer have their survival rate doubled if they exercise for an hour a day.
Similarly, research showed that with bowel cancer, for those who need chemotherapy, exercise was as powerful as chemo.The idea of exercise medicine has been toyed with for several years through the introduction of “green prescriptions”, although not enough money had been put into it to make it work.
The government does not spend any money on promoting but they happily pour gazillions of dollars into drugs to try and treat the illness that could have been partially prevented by exercising.Numerous studies have shown that by regularly exercising (for 30mins 5 times a week) there is roughly a 50% reduction in most illnesses.

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