Day: 11/30/2016

For the First Time in Asia, AIIMS Will Conduct Virtual Autopsies for Better Results

Posted by

0


The mortuary at All India Institute Of Medical Science has Asia’s first digital radiological unit for doctors to conduct virtual autopsies using high-tech digital X-rays.

The unit can detect even the smallest clots and fractures, in less time.

ct-scan

Virtual Autopsy is a non-intrusive technique for human autopsy. The unit has a Computer Tomography (CT) unit and a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) unit. These provide a detailed view of the body and the resulting images can be used by medical examiners and pathologists.

“The virtual autopsies are less time consuming as compared to the traditional post mortem and are minimally invasive allowing the body to be released for cremation or burial sooner,” Dr. Sudhir Gupta, head of the AIIMS forensic department, told The Times of India.

He added that virtual autopsies help detect concealed fractures and injuries in decomposed bodies, which is difficult during visual examinations. Virtual autopsy also helps spot hairline and chip fractures, and they can be documented on X-ray films as well, creating permanent, digital records of the body. This makes it easy for forensic pathologists to work on the reports.

Ecstasy trials approved by FDA for PTSD patients.

Posted by

0


Turns out Ecstasy could have some medicinal value.

After successful preliminary trials, the FDA is moving forward with a large-scale study for using Ecstasy as a prescription drug to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study approved Tuesday would be the final measure necessary before the agency could legalize the drug, according to the New York Times. If the results are favorable, the drug also known as MDMA would be available to patients as early as 2021.

The trial, sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, reportedly will include 230 participants. Past research funded by the organization has studied the drug’s effect on veterans, sexual assault victims, police and firefighters suffering from PTSD.

“We can sometimes see this kind of remarkable improvement in traditional psychotherapy, but it can take years, if it happens at all,” researcher Michael Mithoefer told the New York Times. “We think it works as a catalyst that speeds the natural healing process.”

One patient suffering from PTSD who participated in a 2012 study on MDMA said the drug allowed her to confront trauma she experienced from sexual abuse as a child.

“It allowed me to rewire my brain,” Rachel Hope told CNN.

But some medical professionals had some reservations about treating patients with Ecstasy. Use of the drug raises concerns about addiction, according to Charles Marmar, head of psychiatry at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine.

“It’s a feel-good drug, and we know people are prone to abuse it,” he told the New York Times. “Prolonged use can lead to serious damage to the brain.”

Dementia now striking people in their 40s as mercury from vaccines causes slow, degenerative brain damage

Posted by

0


Victims of Dementia and other neurological brain conditions are getting younger, researchers at Bournemouth University, England have found.

The study, published in the Surgical Neurology International journal states that levels are “almost epidemic,” and environmental factors are thought to be the cause of this.
“The rate of increase in such a short time suggests a silent or even a ‘hidden’ epidemic, in which environmental factors must play a major part, not just ageing,” lead researcher Colin Pritchard said. “Modern living produces multi-interactional environmental pollution but the changes in human morbidity, including neurological disease is remarkable and points to environmental influences.”

The study looked a figures for neurological brain diseases in 21 Western countries from 1989 to 2010. The results showed that as of 2010, the average rate for Dementia to set it was 10 years earlier than in 1989, and that deaths from neurological diseases had a significant increase in those aged between 55 and 74, and had doubled for those over 75.

The changes were seen across the board, but were far worse in the United States. Deaths from neurological conditions in men over 74 tripled between 1989 and 2010, and increased by five times in women. Brain disease has now taken over cancer as the number one cause of death in elderly US women.

The researchers explained,  “Crucially it is not just because people are living longer to get diseases they previously would not have lived long enough to develop but older people are developing neurological disease more than ever before,” Pritchard said.

The findings have instead been attributed to environmental factors.
“The environmental changes in the last 20 years have seen increases in the human environment of petro-chemicals – air transport- quadrupling of motor vehicles, insecticides and rises in background electro-magnetic-field, and so on.”

“These results will not be welcome news as there are many with short-term vested interests that will want to ignore them,” he said.

There is also fears that exposure to mercury from vaccines could be contributing to neurological diseases.
A study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2010,showed that long term exposure to mercury produced the same effects as Alzheimer’s disease, including confusion and reduced cognitive function.

“Mercury is clearly contributing to neurological problems, whose rate is increasing in parallel with rising levels of mercury,” researcher Richard Deth said. “It seems that the two are tied together.”

Tech Firm Will Transfer People’s Consciousness Into Robots.

Posted by

0


“Will death always be inevitable? We don’t think so. HumaiTech.com“

 

An Australian startup tech company have announced plans to work on a way of transferring a person’s consciousness into a robots body so that people can continue to live after their bodies have died. 

 Tech firm Humai’s CEO Josh Bocanegra says the company wants to “bring you back to life after you die”, claiming that the company are:

“using artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to store data of conversational styles, behavioral patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the inside-out.”

“This data will be coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human. Using cloning technology, we will restore the brain as it matures“.

Techspot.com reports:

In an interview with Australian Popular Science, Bocanegra said: “We’ll first collect extensive data on our members for years prior to their death via various apps we’re developing.” After death, the company will cryogenically freeze members’ brains until the technology is fully developed, at which point the brains will be implanted into an artificial body.

“The artificial body functions will be controlled with your thoughts by measuring brain waves. As the brain ages we’ll use nanotechnology to repair and improve cells. Cloning technology is going to help with this too.”

Bocanegra believes, somewhat optimistically, that his company will be able to resurrect the first human within the next 30 years. At the moment, Humai only has four staff but it is looking to recruit more members over the coming months.

A lot of what Humai says is pretty vague when it comes to precise details, and the company seems to be relying on a lot of scientific breakthroughs being made in the near future.

Bocanegra, meanwhile, doesn’t come from a scientific background. He describes himself as “a serial entrepreneur, technology visionary and internet marketer” on his website. Before he started Humai, Bocanegra set up an Airbnb-Meets-OKCupid dating app called LoveRoom that lets two people live together for a week to see if they would be romantically compatible.

 

British man might be first in the world to be cured of HIV after ‘breakthrough’ treatment

Posted by

0


Pioneering new therapy launches two-stage ‘kick and kill’ attack on the virus.

doctor-hivdrugs-getty.jpg
A pharmacist dispenses HIV drugs 

A 44-year-old British man may have become the first person in the world to be cured of HIV.

Tests showed the virus had become undetectable in the blood of the previously HIV-positive man, after he was treated with a pioneering new therapy designed to eradicate the virus.

Researchers have cautioned that it is too early to tell if the treatment has really worked but said the man, a social worker, had made “remarkable progress”.

The patient was the first of 50 people to complete a trial of the ambitious treatment which launches a two-stage “kick and kill” attack on the virus.

The new therapy is unique in that it tracks down and destroy HIV in every part of the body —including in the dormant cells that evade current treatments.

“This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV,” Mark Samuels of Britain’s National Institute for Health Research told The Sunday Times.

”This is a huge challenge and it’s still early days, but the progress has been remarkable,” he said.

The clinical trials, which are being paid for by the NHS, are the result of a collaboration between doctors and scientists at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London and King’s College London.

HIV, which stands for ”human immunodeficiency virus,“ is mainly transmitted through sexual acts or by using infected needles. The virus weakens a person’s immune system by destroying T-cells which are crucial to fighting disease and infection.

About 36.7 million people are living with HIV worldwide, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Antiretroviral therapies target and suppress active infected cells but they leave millions of dormant infected T-cells lying in wait throughout the body. This means existing treatments can effectively control HIV but do not cure the disease.

The new treatment, however, would both suppress infections and kill the reservoir of dormant cells, The Sunday Times reported.

Sarah Fidler, a consultant physician and professor at Imperial College London, said medical tests of the potentially breakthrough therapy would continue for the next five years.

”It has worked in the laboratory and there is good evidence it will work in humans too,“ Ms Fidler said. ”But we must stress that we are still a long way from any actual therapy.”

Cold Plasma Can Help Treat Non-Healing Wounds and Trigger Cellular Regeneration

Posted by

0


IN BRIEF

Research by Russian scientists has revealed the efficacy of cold plasma as a treatment for non-healing wounds. Their study conclusions could lead to much-needed relief for the millions of people suffering from chronic open wounds.

A CHILLY DISCOVERY

Non-healing wounds are troublesome to treat, with current methods teetering between extremely difficult and impossible, but cold plasma might be able to change all that.

Researchers have attempted to use cold atmospheric-pressure plasma — a partially ionized gas with a proportion of charged particles close to 1 percent and a temperature of 99,726°C (179,540ºF) — for medical treatment before, but never specifically for non-healing wounds. Apart from confirming the bactericidal properties of cold plasma and showing that cells and tissues have a high resistance to it, those earlier studies yielded non-conclusive results.

By focusing on application pattern, a team of researchers from Russia’s Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) were able to reach more definite conclusions, establishing that cold plasma could indeed help heal non-healing wounds and trigger cellular regeneration.

To test their hypothesis that application was key, the researchers studied the effects of cold plasma treatment using two kinds of cells (connective tissue cells called fibroblasts and epithelial cells called keratinocytes) and three regimes of application. They were able to conclude that a single application was most effective in triggering regeneration and also observed that plasma treatment significantly reduced the levels of β-galactosidase, an enzyme that triggers cellular aging, in their samples.

Credit: MIPT

RELIEF, FINALLY.

These results mean that the effect of plasma treatment can now be characterized as regenerative, as opposed to just neutral or even harmful. This opens doors for further research in the area and could lead to the development of a plasma therapy program for the reported 5.7 million patients suffering from open (chronic) wounds.

In their future research, the scientists are planning to look into the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of plasma on cells and will also attempt to determine what impact, if any, a patient’s age has on the effectiveness of plasma therapy.

If this research is any indication, a whole lot of people may experience an improved quality of life thanks to cold plasma therapy in the future.