Day: 03/29/2015

Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study of the Incidence of Adverse Events Associated With Cosmetic Dermatologic ProceduresLasers, Energy Devices, and Injectable Neurotoxins and FillersAdverse Events of Cosmetic Dermatologic ProceduresAdverse Events of Cosmetic Dermatologic Procedures

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Importance  Common noninvasive to minimally invasive cosmetic dermatologic procedures are widely believed to be safe given the low incidence of reported adverse events, but reliable incidence data regarding adverse event rates are unavailable to date.

Objective  To assess the incidence of adverse events associated with noninvasive to minimally invasive cosmetic dermatologic procedures, including those involving laser and energy devices, as well as injectable neurotoxins and fillers.

Design, Setting, and Participants  A multicenter prospective cohort study (March 28, 2011, to December 30, 2011) of procedures performed using laser and energy devices, as well as injectable neurotoxins and soft-tissue augmentation materials, among 8 geographically dispersed US private and institutional dermatology outpatient clinical practices focused on cosmetic dermatology, with a total of 23 dermatologists. Participants represented a consecutive sample of 20 399 cosmetic procedures. Data acquisition was for 3 months (13 weeks) per center, with staggered start dates to account for seasonal variation.

Exposures  Web-based data collection daily at each center to record relevant procedures, by category type and subtype. Adverse events were detected by (1) initial observation by participating physicians or staff; (2) active ascertainment from patients, who were encouraged to self-report after their procedure; and (3) follow-up postprocedural phone calls to patients by staff, if appropriate. When adverse events were not observed by physicians but were suspected, follow-up visits were scheduled within 24 hours to characterize these events. Detailed information regarding each adverse event was entered into an online form.

Main Outcomes and Measures  The main outcome was the total incidence of procedure-related adverse events (total adverse events divided by total procedures performed), as verified by clinical examination.

Results  Forty-eight adverse events were reported, for a rate of 0.24% (95% CI, 0.18%-0.31%). Overall, 36 procedures resulted in at least 1 adverse event, for a rate of 0.18% (95% CI, 0.13%-0.25%). No serious adverse events were reported. Adverse events were infrequently associated with known risk factors.

Conclusions and Relevance  Noninvasive to minimally invasive cosmetic dermatologic procedures, including energy, neurotoxin, and filler procedures, are safe when performed by experienced board-certified dermatologists. Adverse events occur in less than 1% of patients, and most of these are minor and transient.

Colorblind People See Certain Colors For The First Time Ever, Are Visibly Moved

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It’s easy to take the little things for granted. Like seeing certain colors, for instance.

After watching Valspar’s “Color for the Colorblind,” you might just look at the world through new eyes.

The video was made in partnership with EnChroma, a company that makes glasses that “enable colorblind people to see color for the first time in their lives,” co-founder Donald McPherson says in the video. The camera follows around various colorblind people as they interact with several brightly-colored art installations while wearing EnChroma’s glasses.

The impact is nothing short of what you’d expect.

“I’ve never been able to see this one,” says a woman named Atlee, pointing at a swatch of pink paint on the wall. “I just want to cry a little bit. I never realized how much I was affected by the fact that I can’t see the world … the way that other people see the world.”

“For a second I felt kind of sad, like, ‘Wow I’ve been missing out, how vibrant everything has been,'” she explained in another video, “and then I thought how cool it is I get the opportunity to see the world in a completely different way, and it’s special to me.”

One man named Andrew looks at art his son drew him, then stares at the sunset and asks with an incredulous smile, “So is that what you guys see every day?”

McPherson told The Huffington Post that the glasses, which range in price from $325 to $450, address red-green colorblindness, the most common form.

venice

Left: Venice seen by someone with colorblindness. Right: Venice seen by a colorblind person while wearing the EnChroma glasses.

shades

Left: A landscape seen by someone with colorblindness. Right: The same landscape seen by a colorblind person wearing EnChroma glasses.

“The effect of correcting color blindness can be profound,” McPherson told The Huffington Post in an email, describing how people react when they first wear the glasses. “The first experience is typically either one of quiet contemplation or excitement.”

“Later on, many users report finally ‘getting’ sunsets, and describe them to us in exacting detail,” he continued. “We also hear a lot of reports of appreciating the natural world, seeing the true colors of plants and flowers, realizing that trees have many shades of leaves, and being able to see the difference between flowers, fruit and foliage.”

The company is beginning to focus on helping kids, a particularly in-need population because so much information in schools is shared visually. According to McPherson, only 11 states test kids in schools for color blindness. With the wrong diagnosis, he said, colorblind kids are often inadvertently labeled as having a learning disability.

Watch the video. URL: https://youtu.be/ea_xOqNvntA

Electric Lights Disrupts Human Circadian Rhythm .

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Richard G. Stevens, Ph.D.,
Professor, Cancer Epidemiologist
UConn Health

Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Dr. Stevens: Since first introducing the concept of a possible connection between exposure to light at night and breast cancer in the mid-80s, we’ve seen growing evidence of how artificial light can suppress the circadian hormone melatonin and bring about physiological changes.

The extent of this “circadian disruption” varies by the type of light and the time of day. Humans evolved with a body clock that followed the solar clock. Nature intended us to be awake in daylight and at rest in the dark of night. Therefore, the intense, short-wavelength light of the sun in the morning triggers us to become awake and alert, just as the absence of sunlight in the evening allows our body to produce melatonin. Even with the use of fire to provide light in the evening, the circadian impact was relatively minimal because of firelight’s place on the red end of the visible spectrum.

Humans survived under this simple formula for many thousands of years. Then electric light started to take an increasingly strong foothold in everyday life. Today we are typically surrounded at all hours of the day and night by artificial light – in many cases it’s not bright enough during the day to match the sun, and it’s too bright at night to be conducive to the natural sleep/wake cycle. Think computer screens, tablets, smart phones, e-readers, etc. These devices emit enough short-wavelength, or blue, light to disrupt our body clocks in the evening. So do fluorescent and LED lights.

Our paper – I worked with Dr. Yong Zhu from Yale on this – represents a new analysis and synthesis of what we know up to now on the effect of lighting on our health. We don’t know for certain, but there’s growing evidence that the long-term implications of this may have ties to breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, and depression, and possibly other cancers.

Exposure to electric light  started about 130 years ago,  which is a tiny period of time in evolutionary terms. In other words, not long enough to undo human evolution.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Dr. Stevens: An understanding of the importance of maintaining the sleep/wake cycles, and the effect even typical lighting in the modern world can have on it, could go a long way in staving off the potentially harmful long-term impact. Our smart phones and LED bulbs can’t disrupt our body clocks if we don’t let them. We can opt for reading a book under an incandescent light before bed, rather than on an e-reader with a blue backlight. And because we’re gaining more of an understanding about this, we’re starting to see our technology come equipped with the option of adjusting the type and intensity of light it emits.

Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Dr. Stevens: Although studying people assigned to “dark” and “light” groups may tell us a great deal, we can’t ethically do that. What we can do is continue to study people who already have lifestyles that would be of interest to the science. We can survey third-shift workers and compare their  health experience to day workers, for example. Or we can follow children who grow up in a rural area who don’t use smart phones and compare them to city dwellers who do. We certainly can do studies with animal models. But perhaps most important would be an understanding of the possibility of long-term health effects associated with artificial light. If we’re aware of it, perhaps we can take steps today to reduce our chances of  illness tomorrow.

Citation:

G. Stevens, Y. Zhu. Electric light, particularly at night, disrupts human circadian rhythmicity: is that a problem? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2015; 370 (1667): 20140120 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0120

The Road to Cancer Treatment Through Clinical Trials .

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In 1947, children who developed acute lymphocytic leukemia died. Dr. Sidney Farber, a pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, was so distressed doing autopsies on these children that he moved into the clinic and, against the advice of more conservative colleagues, began treating children with aminopterin, a highly toxic drug that starved their cancerous white blood cells of critical nutrients.

Miraculously, for many the disease went into remission, only to recur months later. But Dr. Farber’s last-ditch attempt to save these children began an era of ultimately remarkable progress — decades of clinical trials of progressively complex treatments that now cure nearly 90 percent of children with leukemia.

Olivia Blair of Baltimore, who will be 3 in May, is showing the benefits of this progress. After her T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia was diagnosed when she was 17 months old, Olivia has weathered more than a year of treatment at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center with about 15 different drugs plus radiation to her brain and spine.

With her disease undetectable months later, she is now in a study of an experimental drug to help maintain the remission and is back to a near-normal childhood, a thriving, happy toddler who plays with other children, goes to day care and accompanies her mother grocery shopping.

Kelly Blair, Olivia’s mother, said, “It was very hard for us to decide to participate in the new study, but we finally thought that even if it didn’t help Olivia, it’s going to help other kids.”

The tortuous road to the kind of treatments now saving more than half of all cancer patients is graphically depicted in a six-hour series, “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,” produced by Ken Burns, to be broadcast on public television (PBS) March 30, March 31 and April 1.

The series is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” by an oncologist, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, who provides telling commentary throughout.

“The outcome in children is so stunning because 80 to 90 percent of young patients participate in clinical trials,” Dr. Mukherjee, of Columbia University, said in an interview. “Every trial taught doctors something that led to further trials and better results.”

But only about 5 percent of adults with cancer enter a clinical trial. “That’s not nearly enough to move cancer medicine forward,” he said. “No matter what you do in the lab or in basic science, the ultimate proof of which cancer medicines work comes from clinical trials.”

Although the backbone of today’s successful cancer treatments, clinical trials are poorly understood by the public, often viewed as treating people like guinea pigs instead of as giving them the best chance for survival.

Those who participate are randomly assigned to receive the innovative treatment being studied or the current standard of care. Through such trials, for example, highly disfiguring radical mastectomies for breast cancer have yielded to simple mastectomies or lumpectomies, typically followed by radiation and chemotherapy, with less trauma and far better survival rates.

Even metastatic cancer that has spread now sometimes yields to treatments being tested in clinical trials.

Doug Rogers of Lexington, N.C., was 58 in 2011 when he was found to have melanoma that, despite the best available chemotherapy, had spread throughout his leg and adjacent lymph nodes. He then went to the National Cancer Institute, where Dr. Steven Rosenberg and colleagues are testing an immunological remedy in which the patient’s own cancer-fighting T-cells are harvested, grown in a lab to billions strong and then given back to the patient.

Mr. Rogers, who is also featured in the TV series, said that repeated scans had shown no spread of his cancer and that he was “back to doing almost everything a 62-year-old man can do.”

Although it was once challenging to locate and join a clinical trial, patients and families can now easily find studies and determine eligibility without a doctor as intermediary. The Stand Up to Cancer website offers free information about and access to about 7,000 cancer trials in the United States and Canada. Or you can call the American Association for Cancer Research at 1-877-769-4829.

The American Cancer Society, at cancer.org/clinicaltrials, maintains a clinical trials matching service that is also free and can help locate studies most appropriate to a patient’s medical and personal circumstances. And atwww.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials, the National Cancer Institute offers up-to-date descriptions of more than 12,000 trials currently accepting participants, as well as recent trial results by type of cancer, the costs involved and questions to ask about participation. The institute also has a 10-step guide to finding a cancer trial.

The best time to explore participation in a clinical trial is often right after a cancer diagnosis and before receiving any treatment. Some trials won’t accept patients who have already been treated, and sometimes the best chance for success lies in getting the most effective treatment first. However, there are also trials for patients already treated elsewhere without success.

Dr. Mukherjee recommends asking about a trial’s aim. Is it to test safety or effectiveness of a treatment? Why is the trial being done? What were the data that led to the trial in the first place?

“Knowing the answers to such questions allows people to manage their hopes,” he said. “If patients go into a trial with the wrong expectations, they can set themselves up for disappointment.”

Dr. Wendy Schlessel Harpham of Dallas, whose non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was diagnosed in 1990, is today a highly productive author and speaker because she participated in early trials of rituximab, a monoclonal antibody. Despite intensive chemotherapy and radiation, her disease recurred and, with no other good options, she entered three successive trials that tested rituximab first for safety, then effectiveness.

She had further recurrences, all treated with rituximab, which was approved in 1997. With her last recurrence in 2007, she is now enjoying her longest remission and credits the trials with enabling her to see her three children grow up.

Medical Imaging: Phase-Contrast X-Ray Imaging .

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Making blood vessels visible without contrast agents; differentiating tumors more clearly from healthy tissues — and all with a low radiation dose and large energy savings. These are the objectives of a new generation of X-ray systems from the Siemens laboratories.

What happened on November 8, 1895, late one Friday evening in the Physics Institute of the University of Würzburg can doubtless be described as one of the most revolutionary developments in the history of medicine. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered a “new type of radiation” that seemed able to penetrate matter with ease, and he quickly recognized how useful this type of radioscopy  would be for medicine. Two days before Christmas, he succeeded in making the first “X-ray photograph”: it was an image of his wife’s hand, in which not only the wedding ring but also the bones were clearly visible. The fact that Röntgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 was only a logical consequence of his extraordinary achievement.

And it wasn’t long before the first commercial products appeared. On March 24, 1896, just three months after Röntgen’s discovery, the company Siemens&Halske obtained a patent for a new X-ray tube that was “especially suited to transillumination of the entire body of adult persons.” And to this day, Siemens has remained faithful to diagnostic radiology. The company offers a whole range of solutions, from mobile devices to fully digital systems to CT scanners for 3D images.

The Shortcomings of Current X-ray Systems

Over 90 percent of all medical imaging examinations worldwide now rely on X-rays. But the technology is still based on the fundamental principle that was used 120 years ago: electrons that are generated in a cathode and accelerated to high energies collide with a fixed anode — usually made of the heavy metal tungsten — and thereby release X-rays. The X-rays, in turn, are absorbed to a greater degree by bone than by soft tissue. The bones therefore appear dark in an X-ray image, and the soft tissues appear light.

From left to right: Prof. Alessandro Olivo (UCL), Prof. Dr. Oliver Heid (Siemens CT) and Dr. Paul Diemoz (UCL) are inspecting an “apertured” mask, a phase-contrast component.

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From left to right: Prof. Alessandro Olivo (UCL), Prof. Dr. Oliver Heid (Siemens CT) and Dr. Paul Diemoz (UCL) inspect an “apertured” mask, a phase-contrast component. These are low-aspect ratio structures, which are inexpensive to build and can be scaled up to large imaging areas.

Despite the success of this technique in medical engineering, it does have a few drawbacks. For example, the electrons that collide with the anode produce mainly heat. No more than one percent of the energy is converted to X-rays — a huge waste of energy. There are also many applications, such as tumor diagnostics, in which physicians want to be able to distinguish among various soft tissues more easily. But if  contrast is increased, the patient is exposed to a higher dose of X-ray radiation — which should be avoided, because high radiation doses can damage body tissue. In X-ray examinations involving cardiovascular diseases, on the other hand, contrast agents are often needed in order for the angiography systems to be able to make blood vessels visible in X-ray light — but nearly one out of ten patients suffers allergic reactions to these substances, which can lead to shock and kidney failure. A technique that uses smaller quantities of contrast agent, or even none at all, would therefore be beneficial to millions of people.

On the Horizon: A New Revolution in Medical Diagnostics

“The technology that we’re currently developing at Siemens could help us overcome all these challenges,” says Prof. Oliver Heid, head of the Global Technology Field of Healthcare Technology and Concepts at Siemens Corporate Technology. Heid is a medical doctor and holder of approximately 300 patents in a large variety of fields, from high-frequency technology to superconductivity, materials science, accelerators and software solutions. “We’re in the process of completely rethinking everything and changing everything: the method by which X-rays are generated as well as the technique used for detecting them. If everything goes well with our next-generation X-ray system, it will be another revolution in medical diagnostics,” says Dr. Heinrich Kolem, CEO for Angiography and Interventional X-Ray Systems at Siemens Healthcare.

graphic: Siemens next generation X-ray tube

Siemens’ next generation X-ray tubes will be completely different from today’s. Electrons will no longer come from a hot cathode, but from a cold cathode ring made of nanostructured carbon — and the X-ray light will be generated in a thin jet of liquid metal, rather than at a solid anode.

This multi-year R&D project, which is scheduled to run until 2017, brings together just the right innovators: alongside Heid and Kolem, they also include the team of Components and Vacuum Technology at Siemens Healthcare lead by its CEO Dr. Peter Molnar, researchers from Siemens Corporate Technology in Russia, external partners from institutions such as Oxford University, as well as Prof. Alessandro Olivo of University College London, whose contribution to the development team includes both scientific expertise and insights from clinical practice. Molnar, whose business unit produces approximately 22,000 X-ray tubes per year for CT machines, angiography systems, and X-ray equipment from Siemens, underscores the value of this cooperation. “Our shared objective is to commercialize the new system in a competitive form and successfully launch it on the market. Only then does a good idea become a true innovation,” he says.

Substantially Higher Energy Densities with Significantly Reduced Energy Demand

What is being changed exactly? It starts with the cathode. Here, the team is no longer using 2,000-degree Celsius filaments to emit electrons. Instead, they are using a ring-shaped “cold cathode” of nanostructured carbon that operates at a high voltage and at room temperature. The advantage of this approach is that it uses less energy than the previous cathodes.

The electrons no longer collide with a fixed target of tungsten, but with a new device invented by Siemens researchers that they’ve named LiMA, which stands for “liquid metal jet alloy” target. In other words, the electron target is a jet of liquid metal as thin as a human hair. The metal consists of 95 percent lithium and 5 percent heavy elements such as bismuth or lanthanum. The latter produces short wavelength X-rays, the former acts as a coolant. The energy of electrons leaving the liquid-metal-jet anode can potentially be reclaimed and fed back into the energy cycle. The result is that the X-ray tube requires less than half the electricity and cooling of previous devices, which greatly reduces total energy demand.

graphic: How a wave front detector works graphic: How a wave front detector works

A wavefront sensor consists of millions of concave metal or silicon lenses that create a matrix of focal points on the detector. The refraction of the X-ray waves in the object — a tumor, for example — can be determined from the shift of these focal points.

Significantly more important, however, is the fact that the tube can achieve a much higher energy density at the target. At the same light intensity, the focus of the new X-ray source is 400 times smaller than in conventional X-ray tubes – “at the focal point, this X-ray radiation is four billion times brighter than the sun on the surface of the earth,” says Heid, “which results in a 20-fold higher imaging resolution.”

Twenty Times the Resolution of Today’s Systems

That, in turn, is the prerequisite for an entirely new imaging technique, one that scientists around the world have been working on for years: phase-contrast X-ray imaging. Whereas conventional radiography simply records whether X-rays penetrate a certain tissue or not, phase-contrast imaging measures the effect that passing through bodily tissue has on the wave phase – i.e. the sequence of wave crest and trough. This same physical phenomenon can be seen in the light effects on the bottom of a water-filled swimming pool on a sunny day. This phase shift is highly revealing, since it varies depending on the refractive power of the tissue through which the radiation passes. The approach described here would make it possible to distinguish different soft tissues, in particular fat from water or iron levels in blood, which is essential for being able to easily differentiate a tumor in an early stage of growth from healthy tissue.

The researchers discuss the advantages of the new x-ray-system in UCL's X-Ray Phase Contrast Laboratory.
The researchers discuss the advantages of the new X-ray-system at UCL’s X-Ray Phase Contrast Laboratory.

“To be able to measure these phase shifts, we’re also working on a completely new component on the detector side,” says Dr. Andreas Geisler, project manager for the new X-ray system on Heid’s team. To this end, a wavefront sensor of the kind used in optics or astronomy, for example, is to be used for the first time for X-ray light. The sensor consists of millions of concave metallic or silicon lenses that generate a matrix of focal points on the detector. Through the displacement of these focal points, the refraction in the object can be calculated. This is not possible today with conventional detectors alone.

“So not only will these next-generation X-ray systems be very efficient to operate, they will also do a good job of registering contrasts among soft tissues at a relatively low radiation dose,” says Geisler. Blood vessels could be made visible in this way without contrast agents; tumors could be more clearly recognized thanks to the 20-fold higher resolution and phase-contrast X-ray imaging; and the new technology would be ideal for minimally invasive surgery too. “We want to guide and navigate catheters using magnetic fields, for example, and know at any time via the X-ray imaging where exactly they are located in the body,” says Heinrich Kolem. That isn’t possible with conventional X-ray tubes, because they are sensitive to magnetic fields – “the next-generation X-ray systems won’t have this drawback, and at the same time, they’ll be able to provide images that are more useful diagnostically.”

BROWN RICE V.S. WHITE RICE – WHICH ONE IS HEALTHIER?

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BROWN RICE V.S. WHITE RICEThe ancient grain-rice is a great source of complex carbohydrates and is abundant in many essential nutrients.  With regard to human nutrition and caloric intake, rice has become the staple food for over half the world’s population.

More precisely, around 3.5 billion people find this food essential for their daily diet. Rice can come in many shapes, colors and sizes.

What should you know about rice in general?

Rice is commercially classified by size: long, medium or short grain. Short-grain rice has fat, almost round grains, that have higher starch content. Long-grain rice is 4-5 times its width and is available in white and brown varieties, which are light, dry grains that separate easily when cooked.

Medium-grain rice has a size and character in between the other two. Rice strains and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally. For instance, in the areas of the Far East or Spain, there is a preference for softer and stickier varieties.

It is interesting to mention that the ancient India science of life – Ayurveda has a different take on the nutritious benefits of food. The timeless Ayurveda created a list of foods which are good for everyone and guess what – rice is on top of that list! Ayurveda also believes there is a period of the year good for the white rice intake only, and a time of the year when the brown rice is a much healthier choice for consumption.

However, these Ayurveda statements did not take into closer consideration the different caloric value and different fiber content of rice. Unlike this old Indian practice, the usual Western practice is to consume all strains of rice year-round depending on personal health.Despite the fact that the metabolism and constitution of each person is different and unique, rice always deserves a place on the dinner table!

Do all strains of rice have the same nutrition value?

The popularity of this food has made it a subject of numerous studies and researches that investigate the nutritious value and properties of each strain of rice. This resulted in a great controversial debate on the topic:

Which rice is healthier – the brown rice or the white rice?

When it comes to nutritive aspects of food, most of us follow the common belief that foods in their raw i.e. natural form are a much healthier choice. This is why the unrefined, raw brown rice is instantly perceived as superior to white rice. Peculiarly enough, the bad reputation of the white rice as unhealthy, low in nutritional value, and fattening food hasn’t made us change our tune about it yet!

The nutrition value of rice varies depending on a number of factors. It depends on the strain of rice that is on its color-white, brown, black, red or purple. Each of these varieties of rice is prevalent in different parts of the world.

Here we discuss the predominant varieties of rice in the western cuisine that is the white and the brown rice. When it comes to taste, the white rice wins the battle for the majority of people, but when it comes to digestive advantages, the white rice has long lost the battle to its brown counterpart. So, I will point out the different dietary advantages of both types of rice that you must take into consideration when planning your daily menu.

BROWN RICE

The grain of the brown rice is enclosed in the outer covering called ‘bran’. This outer edible husk of brown rice is much richer in fiber, B vitamins and some minerals in comparison with the white rice. Due to its superior content of nutrients, the bran is a very powerful help for our digestive systems as well.

When rice is refined, it does not have its bran any longer, so it becomes much more difficult to process. According to Ayurveda, our digestive fire is best in the cooler winter months. So, the brown rice should be consumed in the colder period of the year when the digestive system can process heavier foods much better than during the warm period.

Rice is typically rinsed before cooking to remove excess starch. Rice produced in the US is usually fortified with vitamins and minerals, so long rinsing will result in a loss of nutrients at the account of its improved texture and taste.

The brown rice takes slightly longer to cook. So, here’s a cooking tip: Rinse rice repeatedly until the rinse water is clear or soak it in water shortly before cooking in order to make it more digestible. Waters softens the outer covering of the brown rice, making it significantly easier to digest. If you ask me, this “brownie” certainly deserves an honorable place on your winter menu!

WHITE RICE

As mentioned above, the bran of brown rice is removed through the process of refining, making it snow white in color. This alters the flavor, texture and appearance of rice and helps prevent spoilage and extends its storage life. Although the white rice has significantly less fiber, it still has a great nutritional value. Due to the lack of bran, the white rice is much easier to digest, making it an excellent choice for you if you have a low digestive ability.

Ayurveda established that during the warm months of the year, our digestive potential is significantly lower.This is the reason why we get stomach ache after eating heavy or greasy food on hot summer days.

Thus, we should alter our diets appropriately and choose lighter foods in the warmer periods of the year, such as the white rice. The low fiber properties of the white rice are also beneficial for you if you suffer from colitis, diarrhea or morning sickness.

An illustrative comparison between the brown and white rice of protein quality, mineral and vitamin quality, carbohydrate and fat quality, suggests that neither is a complete nutrition source. Between the two, there is a significant difference in fiber content and minor difference in other nutrients.

We all have different tastes for food and different metabolisms, so we all react differently to various foods. So, it is up to you to decide which one is better for you: the white or the brown one!

 

Nanorobotic agents open the blood-brain barrier, offering hope for new brain treatments

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Confocal micrograph from the brainstem showing a central blood vessel with a compromised blood brain barrier. Glial cells, yellow; neurons, blue; blood vessel contents, red. Confocal micrograph. Credit: MRC Toxicology Unit, Wellcome Images

       

Magnetic nanoparticles can open the blood-brain barrier and deliver molecules directly to the brain, say researchers from the University of Montreal, Polytechnique Montréal, and Centre hospitalier universitaire (CHU) Sainte-Justine. This barrier runs inside almost all vessels in the brain and protects it from elements circulating in the blood that may be toxic to the brain. The research is important as currently 98% of therapeutic molecules are also unable to cross the blood-brain barrier. “The barrier is temporary opened at a desired location for approximately 2 hours by a small elevation of the temperature generated by the nanoparticles when exposed to a radio-frequency field,” explained first author and co-inventor Seyed Nasrollah Tabatabaei. “Our tests revealed that this technique is not associated with any inflammation of the brain. This new result could lead to a breakthrough in the way nanoparticles are used in the treatment and diagnosis of brain diseases,” explained the co-investigator, Hélène Girouard. “At the present time, surgery is the only way to treat patients with brain disorders. Moreover, while surgeons are able to operate to remove certain kinds of tumors, some disorders are located in the brain stem, amongst nerves, making surgery impossible,” added collaborator and senior author Anne-Sophie Carret.

Although the technology was developed using murine models and has not yet been tested in humans, the researchers are confident that future research will enable its use in people. “Building on earlier findings and drawing on the global effort of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, this technology proposes a modern version of the vision described almost 40 years ago in the movie Fantastic Voyage, where a miniature submarine navigated in the vascular network to reach a specific region of the brain,” said principal investigator Sylvain Martel. In earlier research, Martel and his team had managed to manipulate the movement of nanoparticles through the body using the magnetic forces generated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.

To open the blood-brain barrier, the magnetic nanoparticles are sent to the surface of the blood-brain barrier at a desired location in the brain. Although it was not the technique used in this study, the placement could be achieved by using the MRI technology described above. Then, the researchers generated a radio-frequency field. The nanoparticles reacted to the radio-frequency field by dissipating heat thereby creating a mechanical stress on the barrier. This allows a temporary and localized opening of the barrier for diffusion of therapeutics into the brain.

The technique is unique in many ways. “The result is quite significant since we showed in previous experiments that the same nanoparticles can also be used to navigate therapeutic agents in the vascular network using a clinical MRI scanner,” Martel remarked.  “Linking the navigation capability with these new results would allow therapeutics to be delivered directly to a specific site of the brain, potentially improving significantly the efficacy of the treatment while avoiding systemic circulation of toxic agents that affect healthy tissues and organs,” Carret added. “While other techniques have been developed for delivering drugs to the blood-brain barrier, they either open it too wide, exposing the brain to great risks, or they are not precise enough, leading to scattering of the drugs and possible unwanted side effect,” Martel said.

Although there are many hurdles to overcome before the technology can be used to treat humans, the research team is optimistic. “Although our current results are only proof of concept, we are on the way to achieving our goal of developing a local drug delivery mechanism that will be able to treat oncologic, psychiatric, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, amongst others,” Carret concluded.

 

Why Steve Jobs Didn’t Let His Kids Use iPads (And Why You Shouldn’t Either)

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If you fall within the Gen-Y era like us, chances are you’ve given a bunch of thought as to how you would raise your own children in this day and age (assuming you don’t have children already). Especially with technology, so much has changed since our childhoods in the 90s. Here’s one question: Would you introduce the technological wonder/heroin that is the iPod and iPad to your kids?

Why Steve Jobs Didn’t Let His Kids Use iPads (And Why You Shouldn’t Either)
Steve Jobs wouldn’t, and for good reason too.

In a Sunday article, New York Times reporter Nick Bilton said he once assumingly asked Jobs, “So your kids must love the iPad?”

Jobs responded: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

Especially in Silicon Valley, there is actually a trend of tech execs and engineers who shield their kids from technology. They even send their kids to non-tech schools like the Waldorf School in Los Altos, where computers aren’t found anywhere because they only focus on hands-on learning.

There is a quote that was highlighted in The Times by Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and a father of five. He explains what drives those who work in tech to keep it from their kids.

“My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules… That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”

If our current addictions to our iPhones and other tech is any indication, we may be setting up our children for incomplete, handicapped lives devoid of imagination, creativity and wonder when we hook them onto technology at an early age. We were the last generation to play outside precisely because we didn’t have smartphones and laptops. We learned from movement, hands-on interaction, and we absorbed information through books and socialization with other humans as opposed to a Google search.

Learning in different ways has helped us become more well-rounded individuals — so, should we be more worried that we are robbing our children of the ability to Snapchat and play “Candy Crush” all day if we don’t hand them a smartphone, or should we more worried that we would be robbing them of a healthier, less dependent development if we do hand them a smartphone? I think Steve Jobs had it right in regard to his kids.

So the next time you think about how you will raise your kids, you may want to (highly) consider not giving them whatever fancy tech we’ll have while they are growing up. Play outside with them and surround them with nature; they might hate you, but they will absolutely thank you for it later, because I’m willing to bet that’s exactly how many of us feel about it now that we are older.

Red Wine Compound May Improve Memory, Study Suggests

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A substance found in red wine and dark chocolate that has been touted for its supposed anti-aging effects may improve people’s memory, new research suggests.

In a study of overweight adults, those who took resveratrol supplements for six months had better short-term recall than their counterparts who took a placebo. The people who took the supplement also had more connections among brain areas involved in memory, and this paralleled improvements over the study period in their ability to break down sugar in the body, researchers found.

This small pilot study, detailed Wednesday (June 4) in the Journal of Neuroscience, is the first to show a link between the red wine compound and cognition in overweight adults, said Veronica Witte, a neuroscientist at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany.

“From a clinical point of view, our findings suggest that regular, high-level intake of resveratrol in the elderly may convey protective effects on cognitive functions, a hypothesis that now needs to be evaluated in large-scale clinical trials,” Witte told Live Science.

Brain booster?

Aside from red wine and dark chocolate, sources of resveratrol include red grapes, peanuts, blueberries and Japanese knotweed. Doctors think the compound mimics the effects of a restricted-calorie diet on the body.

Some studies have linked resveratrol to benefits in aging, heart health and anti-cancer effects. But other studies suggest the compound has no effect on longevity. Few studies have investigated resveratrol’s effects on cognition, and those that have done so investigated nonhuman primates, the researchers said.

In the new study, Witte and her colleagues tested 46 participants who were overweight, but otherwise healthy. Previous studies suggest resveratrol’s effects are more pronounced in overweight individuals.

Half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to take 200 milligrams of resveratrol daily for six months, while the other half received a placebo. Neither the researchers nor the volunteers knew who was receiving the supplement or the placebo.

Before and after the six-month period, the participants took a memory test, gave a blood sample and had their brains scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures changes in blood flow as a proxy for brain activity.

Cognitive benefits

Those who received resveratrol supplements remembered more words on a list that they had seen 30 minutes previously than those who received the placebo. Moreover, the brain scans showed more communication within the hippocampus, a memory-related brain region, and the blood tests showed reduced levels of a blood sugar marker, in the people who took resveratrol.

The findings suggest that sugar metabolism may be linked to brain connectivity and memory, the researchers said.

Other scientists praised the study, but agreed that more research was needed to confirm resveratrol’s brain-boosting effects.

The study provides the first evidence that resveratrol supplementation in healthy, overweight, older adults affects cognitive and brain function simultaneously, said Fabienne Aujard, an anti-aging researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France who was not involved in the study. “Nevertheless, further studies should be performed in non-overweight subjects to extend the observed results.”

The study showed modest, but still notable improvements in cognitive function and sugar metabolism, said Joseph Baur, a physiologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s school of medicine in Philadelphia, who was also not part of the study.

Still, the fact that the study involved healthy people, despite being overweight, “makes the detection of any benefit all the more impressive, but also suggests that the potential impact [of resveratrol] may be underestimated,” Baur said.

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Human Embryos Genetically Modified For The First Time .

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By Jesse Herman| Every few months, a new article pops up talking about genetically modified babies.  The concept of artificially altering an embryo so that it can have certain traits is one which is highly controversial.  Rapid progress in genetics is making “designer babies” more likely and society needs to be prepared, a leading scientist told BBC recently.  According to the BBC, the designer babies debate needs to start now, as recent scientific discoveries are beginning to pave the way for making this a reality.

A few days ago, Daily Mail reported:

Human embryos ‘genetically modified for the first time after leading scientists pioneer controversial technique’

  • Extensive work carried out into altering the DNA of human embryos
  • Revolutionary technique could lead to diseases being eliminated
  • But critics say the controversial treatment is ‘ethically unacceptable’

News like this sparks excitement and concern all-at-once. Government contracts, government incentives, corporate protections, patents and so on will make the Designer Baby game as corrupt as the food supply.

The possibilities are endless across the spectrum. And as crazy as it all sounds looking forward, one has to be naive to think some human DNA tinkering has not been done without public knowledge.

In fact, DailyMail shows a two-day old human embryo and underneath it a caption that reads…

News like this sparks excitement and concern all-at-once. Government contracts, government incentives, corporate protections, patents and so on will make the Designer Baby game as corrupt as the food supply.

The possibilities are endless across the spectrum. And as crazy as it all sounds looking forward, one has to be naive to think some human DNA tinkering has not been done without public knowledge.

In fact, DailyMail shows a two-day old human embryo and underneath it a caption that reads…

Leading American scientists have secretly carried out extensive work into altering the DNA of human embryos. Pictured here is a two-day old human embryo.

The Experiment

The research was carried out on ovary cells taken from a woman with inherited ovarian cancer to investigate the possibility of eventually using gene-editing to produce IVF embryos that are free of the disease.

The Independent reports that researchers at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, used the Crispr gene-editing technique on human ovarian tissue cultured in the lab to attempt to correct the defective BRAC1 gene which results in inherited breast and ovarian cancer.


The work was carried out last year by Luhan Yang, a researcher working in the lab of the respected Harvard geneticist George Church. Professor Church insisted that the work was purely experimental and there was no intention of fertilizing any eggs or transplanting them into a woman.

He said: ‘The experiments were not in human beings. They were in cells in culture.”, meaning that the experiments were done only on human cells.  But the point is, experimentation is already underway to create embryos free of undesirable genes.  In particular, inherited genes that contribute to cancer.

Should we use the results of this experiment to help prevent cancer deaths? Should we carry out further experiments for other diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, downs-syndrome, and Alzheimer?  Once we allow cancer-resistant genetically modified embryos to be created, at what point do we stop?

A group of leading researchers at Alliance for Regenerative Medicine in Washington, USA, have called for the work to now stop, citing ethical, safety and scientific reasons.

Professor John Parrington, from Oxford University discussed some of the availability of the technology:

‘I have been expecting this, perhaps not quite so soon. New genome-editing tools are highly efficient and relatively easy to use.

‘These are tools available to practically any molecular biology laboratory in the world and if you also have the ability to inject a fertilised egg, then combining these two technologies makes it possible to precisely modify the genome of the resulting embryo.

‘This makes it feasible for any reasonably skilled lab to use and science being what it is, people will seek to apply these technologies. Clearly some people have done it on human embryos.’

The Moral Issue

A comment article by leading academics in science magazine Nature this week warns of the dangers of the practice.  They wrote:

‘Genome editing in human embryos using current technologies could have unpredictable effects on future generations. This makes it dangerous and ethically unacceptable. Many oppose germline modification on the grounds that permitting even unambiguous therapeutic intervention could start us down a path towards non-therapeutic genetic enhancement. We share these concerns.’

A group of leading researchers at Alliance for Regenerative Medicine in Washington, USA, have called for the work to now stop, citing ethical, safety and scientific reasons.

In a statement, they said: ‘Philosophically or ethically justifiable applications for this technology — should any ever exist — are moot until it becomes possible to demonstrate safe outcomes and obtain reproducible data over multiple generations.

‘Many oppose germline modification on the grounds that permitting even unambiguously therapeutic interventions could start us down a path towards non-therapeutic genetic enhancement. We share these concerns.’

While some countries have explicit legislation prohibiting human engineering, many do not.  These scientific experiments have huge moral and even spiritual implications.  What do you think of the recent experiment that was carried out on human ovary cultures to create a cancer-resistant embryo? Should we continue experimenting with human embryos to weed out diseases and undesirable traits?

Watch the video. URL: https://youtu.be/3_c-6m9yJTA