Clipmarks | mugofcoffee's doctors collection

It is a place I can go for a hug!

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:14:13 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: read thro the whole article is recommended at site...could not clip important details...

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Paul Steinberg, BBC News

"I don't know what will happen to us when we don't have this safe place to visit."

Eighteen years ago, aged 28, Maria was diagnosed with HIV.

Given just five years to live, she became depressed and lost her job and desperate to escape the negative reactions of her family and friends, she moved from her home-town of Madrid to Brighton.

She has benefitted from the emotional and practical support of staff and volunteers at Open Door, a charitable day centre located in a discreet terraced house by the seaside.

But the centre, which began its work in the mid-1980s at the height of the Aids crisis, is set to close this autumn.

It is not the only such service under threat. Others are closing or merging, which campaigners say is a sign of the changing nature of the HIV epidemic in the UK.

Better medication has meant HIV is now a chronic, not a terminal condition

Stroke risk from smoking partner

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:59:16 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Being married to a smoker will significantly raise your risk of stroke, even if you don't smoke yourself, say researchers.

The Harvard University team looked at records of more than 16,000 people.

The American Journal of Preventative Medicine study found the risk rose by up to 72% for some non-smokers.

The stroke dangers to smokers are well known, but there are fewer studies which have explored the risk from passive smoking.

Since the introduction of smoking bans in public places across the UK, the home is now the most likely place for non-smokers to breathe second-hand smoke.

The Harvard study looked at people aged over 50, and their spouses, over a period of, on average, just over nine years.

After the results were adjusted for other factors which could influence stroke risk, non-smokers living in the same house as a smoker were found to be at far greater risk of stroke.

The health benefits of quitting smoking likely extend beyond individual smokers to affect their spouses

warning over blood taking method...

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:01:00 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: interesting research...

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

People who take blood have been warned not to get the patient to tightly clench their fist during the procedure.

UK researchers who examined 200,000 blood test results found clenching then relaxing the fist could raise potassium levels, potentially confusing results.

Raised potassium levels can indicate kidney or heart problems, the Annals of Clinical Biochemistry study said.

A UK expert said clenching was an outdated practice and staff taking blood should not ask patients to do so.

Vanessa Thurlow, a biochemistry expert and co-author of the report, first noticed a problem when GPs were questioning test results for a small number of patients.

When she retested them, their potassium levels were normal - but they had all started to clench their fists before the test.

Her study looks at 200,000 results from blood tests requested by GPs between 2002 and 2005. The updated training was offered in September 2003.

R U carrying a rogue gene???

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:47:46 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: Discovery may boost statin safety

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Scientists have pinpointed a gene mutation as a major cause of a rare side effect of the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins.

They hope the discovery could lead to a simple test to identify patients at increased risk of myopathy - severe muscle pain and weakness.

This would also enable higher doses of statins to be safely prescribed to patients not at risk of the condition.

The University of Oxford study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Statins are now widely prescribed in the UK and are credited with saving almost 10,000 lives a year in England alone.

The researchers found that patients on the higher dose who carry one copy of the rogue gene were more than four times more likely to develop myopathy than those without a copy.

And for patients who carried two copies of the rogue gene - one from each parent - the risk was increased 16 times.

Around one in four people carries either one or two copies of the key genetic variant.

Soy foods 'reduce sperm numbers'

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:21:27 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A regular diet of even modest amounts of food containing soy may halve sperm concentrations, suggest scientists.

The study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, found 41 million fewer sperm per millilitre of semen after just one portion every two days.

The authors said plant oestrogens in foods such as tofu, soy mince or milk may interfere with hormonal signals.

However, a UK expert stressed that most men in Asia eat more soy-based products with no fertility problems.

Oestrogenic compounds in food or the environment have been of concern for a number of years, but we have mostly thought that it was boys exposed in the uterus before birth who were most at risk

The "normal" sperm concentration for a man is between 80 and 120 million per millilitre, and the average of men who ate on average a portion of soy-based food every other day was 41 million fewer.

Scientists identify cells for spinal-cord repair

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:43:48 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: By identifying for the first time where this subpopulation of cells is found, they pave a path toward manipulating them with drugs to boost their inborn ability to repair damaged nerve cells.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries.

results could lead to drugs that might restore some degree of mobility to the 30,000 people worldwide afflicted each year with spinal-cord injuries.

The tiny number of stem cells in the adult spinal cord proliferate slowly or rarely, and fail to promote regeneration on their own.

experiments show that these same cells, grown in the lab and returned to the injury site, can restore some function in paralyzed rodents and primates.

"We find that these cells proliferate upon spinal cord injury, migrate toward the injury site and differentiate over several months."

The study uncovers the molecular mechanism underlying the tantalizing results of the rodent and primate and goes one step further

Tags: stem cells, spinal cord therapy

Epilepsy is Just a Condition and Not a Disease

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:41:08 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: www.healthmad.com

Epilepsy is a problem affecting the brain, symbolized by recurring and uncontrolled seizures. Some of the symptoms of epilepsy are uncontrolled movements of the body, disorientation or confusion, sudden fear, or loss of consciousness. Epilepsy may occur due to a head injury, stroke, brain tumor, lead poisoning, genetic conditions, or severe infections like encephalitis.

Epilepsy has got nothing to do with “mental derangement” or “mental illness” like some societies of the world tends to believe!

Rather the epilepsy afflicted people are very special, and are specially blessed by God! Most of them are outstanding in at least one field or the other, especially in the creativity field! If not outstanding, at least they shine through in one area or the other, compared to the rest of their contemporaries!

Alexander the great - the Ancient Greek King

Agatha Christie - English crime fiction writer

Leonardo Da Vinci - The finest painter, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer

To go through such a pain most of her life!!!

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:38:27 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: what is the justification for the genetic diseases and disorders in God's world? What wrong the child has done, except being born to someone with diseases and illness? What kind of a system is this? Why there is no cure for such diseases?

Clip Source: www.authspot.com

She had taken out the bottle of her pills! She is suffering from a worst kind of an inherited disease! She was wondering the billionth time as to what right the parents has got to pass on such diseases to their children? What kind of a system this is in the God's world?

She is on medication for a long time now and still the pain walks through her, killing her body and the spirit, making her to kneel in front it, begging for forgiveness and kindness! It just bounces on her unannounced and it possesses her like a demon! She becomes invalid when the pain kills her from inside! A hundred doctors can never cure her but still they give her the medications! There are more medicines in her cupboards now, than in the entire shop of a chemist!

She took yet another set of medication and was sitting, waiting for the pain to go away

waiting for the pain to move away

for a short while, she shall become normal again!

CANCER: The Facts!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:23:33 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: need 2 visit the site to click on the various links for more info...

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

One in three of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our life.

The disease tends to affect older people - but can strike at any time.

Excluding certain skin cancers, there were more than 270,000 new cases of the disease in 2001 - and the rate is increasing by about 1% a year.

Some cancer, such as breast, are becoming more common, while new cases of lung cancer fall away due to the drop in the number of smokers.

However, while the overall number of new cancers is not falling, the good news is that successful treatment rates for many of the most common types are improving rapidly.

BBC News Online has produced, in conjunction with Cancer Research UK, a guide to some of the most common forms of cancer and the treatments used to tackle them.

To learn more about different types of cancer, and to read the experiences of patients, click on the links to the right.

Sex diseases 'double in over-45s'

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:21:02 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Sexually transmitted infections have doubled in under a decade in people over 45 and are now rising faster than in the young, research suggests.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) study said internet dating and erectile dysfunction drugs were partly to blame.

Men were most likely to be affected, with increases in herpes, syphilis, gonorrhoea and genital warts.

The number of sexually transmitted infections is rising in both young and old, despite sexual health campaigns urging people to avoid unsafe sex.

In total, 4,445 infections were detected in older people, with genital warts accounting for almost half of these diagnoses.

Within the over-45 age group, men and people aged 55 to 59 were most likely to have a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

The overall rate of infections more than doubled over the eight-year period from 16.7 per 100,000 population to 36.3 per 100,0000.

This meant a significantly higher increase for older people compared with younger patients.

psychological war on your doctor by pharma companies

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:45:25 GMT

clipped by: mugofcoffee
clipper's remarks: to prescribe their drugs for you....you need to read the article for better understanding..I am unable to clip more from there...

Clip Source: articles.mercola.com

Pharmaceutical sales reps are trained in tactics that are on par with some of the most potent brainwashing techniques used throughout the world, according to an in-depth report co-written by former Eli Lilly drug rep Shahram Ahari, and Adriane Fugh-Berman, associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C..

Tags: pharma companies, doctors, patients.