Comments Off on Dogs Smell Cancer

By admin, August 10, 2013 9:15 am

University of Pennsylvania training dogs to sniff out ovarian cancer

Jonathan Ball trainings Ohlin to detect ovarian cancer in tissue samples. / University of Pennsylvania’s Working Dog Center

Studies have shown that dogs might have the ability to sniff out cancer. If true, the method could provide a cheap and potentially non-invasive way to detect the disease.

Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Working Dog Center are training three dogs how to sniff out samples that contain ovarian cancer markers.

“We’re really excited about it,” Dr. Cynthia Otto, director of the Working Dog Center and associate professor of critical care at Penn Vet, told CBSNews.com.

About 20,000 women in the U.S. get ovarian cancer each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system, even though it only accounts for 3 percent of all women-related cancers.

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Dogs make an ideal cancer detector because they have a higher density of olfactory or smell sensors and more olfactory genes than humans, Otto explained. In addition, their olfactory bulbs — the part of the forebrain that processes information gleaned from smells — is larger than ours.

“Mice can do a better job at sniffing out things (than dogs),” Otto explained. “But, there is an ability to communicate between a dog and a human so they can tell us what they are finding.”

“I also find working with dogs more rewarding than working with mice,” she added.

There are some theories for why dogs may be able to smell diseases on people. Otto said when she started the project, she had many people e-mail her about how their canines started acting differently when they were diagnosed with cancer. She believes there’s something innate about dogs that allows them to recognize different odors, and it may be tied to how animals tend to shun sick ones from their pack in the wild.

The research project, which was funded by an $80,000 grant from the Kaleidoscope of Hope Foundation, started about a year ago when researchers identified 16 puppies that had the potential to be working dogs. The dogs were selected because they were hunting breeds, and some of them had been bred from generations of working dogs.

The first round of training involved seeking and finding a leather toy and training the dogs how to find live humans. This gave the researchers a closer look at the dogs’ behavior and helped them select candidates.

In this Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013 photo, Jonathan Ball (right) introduces Marta Drexler, an ovarian cancer patient, to McBaine who is in the first round of training for a study that will eventually involve detecting cancerous tissue at Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia. Drexler donated ovarian cancer tissue for the study.

/ AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Two of the three finalists for the ovarian cancer training were chosen because they naturally sat down when they found the smell they were seeking.  The third dog, a Labrador, tended to bark when he found his target. However, he worked best when he was in an environment that had fewer distractions, which was perfect for the laboratory and not for other tasks like bomb sniffing.

The cancer training has only been going on for a week, but Otto is surprised at how quickly the pupils are picking up their skills. Right now, the dogs are being trained to sniff out ovarian cancer in tissue samples.

“They’ve already been showing such amazing recognition,” she remarked.

The Penn program isn’t the only research being done on dogs sniffing out disease.

A study in Germany in 2011 showed that dogs were able to detect people with lung cancer in 71 percent of the cases and determine that people didn’t have lung cancer in about 93 percent of cases. Recently, a West Hills, Calif. dog trainer has been working with researchers at the Pine Street Foundation to teach dogs how to detect ovarian cancer using breath samples.

Dr. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, told the Associated Press that canine cancer detecting research is promising but is not yet at the point where it can be used consistently for humans.

“We’re still looking to see whether something could be developed and be useful in routine patient care, and we’re not there yet,” said Lichtenfeld, who is not involved in the University of Pennsylvania research.

Otto hopes that the dogs will be able to detect cancer in blood samples one day. Eventually, she would like to use the dogs on less invasive samples, such as saliva or urine.

“This is just the pilot study,” she said. “We’re going to get more funding… This could provide cancer screening for millions of women.”

Comments Off on Dr Thomas Challenger – Doctors on Call Medcall

By admin, June 26, 2013 3:06 pm

Record demand for house doctors

FIRST ON 7: On-call doctors are gearing up for flu season, which is about to strike Queensland. Kylie Hodge reports.

Enlarge photo

On-call doctors are gearing up for the flu season about to strike Queensland.

There’s record demand for free GPs who visit patients in their own homes at night, on weekends, and holidays.

Every night hundreds of Gold Coast patients have MedCall doctors come to them for free.

DrTom Challenger started the service alone 13 years ago. He now employs 33 other GPs.

“My grandfather was in a nursing home and he was pretty ill and we couldn’t get a doctor out late at night and he ended up dying as a result,” Dr Challenger said.

In Brisbane, Family Care Friendly Medical Services answers calls from across the south east and interstate.

“We’ve got some very bad influenzas down south – some very sick children, and also some of the influenzas are impacting on elder members of the community,” spokesperson Stuart Tait said.

Every patient the doctors treat, is one fewer waiting in the emergency departments.

“They significantly assist with reducing the number of presentations to the emergency departments.” Dr Christian Rowan from AMAQ said.

“One day Telstra disconnected our phones in the office and all the hospitals on the Gold Coast went on bypass with the load of the patients we weren’t seeing.”

But the AMAQ says recent changes to federal funding for GPs are making it more difficult for practices to provide doctors on call.

“The federal government has made after hours viability more difficult,” Dr Rowan said.

Gold Coast:
Medcall, 55 311 224
Free, bulk-billing on-call GP service

Mon-Fri 6pm-8am, Saturdays from noon, All day Sundays & public holidays

Comments Off on Dr Tom Challenger honoured by White Pages

By admin, June 20, 2013 12:35 pm

Dr Tom Challenger honoured by White Pages

June 17, 2013

A commitment to improving the health of his region has landed Gold Coast general practitioner Dr Tom Challenger the cover of this year’s Gold Coast White Pages®.

Dr Challenger is recognised under the theme, Keeping Our Communities Healthy, as founder of Medcall, a medical service that provides after-hours house calls to more than 300 Gold Coast residents per night.

In 2000, after his grandfather died late at night, Dr Challenger established Medcall, a bulk-billing after-hours medical service that makes house calls. Volunteering his services, Dr Challenger would drive up and down the Gold Coast, supported by just one other doctor, to attend to people in need for hours on end.

Since its inception, Dr Challenger has grown Medcall into a key community service helping to take the strain off local hospitals and ambulances. Now with 33 doctors, Medcall provides medical attention to approximately 300 people each night who live between Beenleigh and Coolangatta.

When not on-call himself, Dr Challenger is working on plans to roll out similar services in other cities.

With Medcall operating 365 days of the year, Dr Challenger is a dedicated GP giving locals lifesaving care when they need it.

“On a personal level I know how crucial after-hours medical service is, so providing such important care to homes all over the Gold Coast is very rewarding. Being selected for the White Pages cover for something I’m so passionate about is quite humbling,” Dr Challenger said.

Comments Off on Relative sweetness

By admin, February 15, 2013 8:53 am

The primary reason that fructose is used commercially in foods and beverages, besides its low cost, is its high relative sweetness. It is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. Fructose is generally regarded as being 1.73 times as sweet as sucrose. However, it is the 5-ring form of fructose that is sweeter; the 6-ring form tastes about the same as usual table sugar. Warming fructose leads to formation of the 6-ring form.

The sweetness of fructose is perceived earlier than that of sucrose or dextrose, and the taste sensation reaches a peak (higher than that of sucrose) and diminishes more quickly than that of sucrose. Fructose can also enhance other flavors in the system.

The principal of addiction
swift peaks and troughs are the principals of any addiction

Eating Fruit in the Community is usually a natural way to self limit the amount of Fructose we consume

Fruits – dried or fresh – are a rich source of soluble fibre; this is material that is not absorbed by the intestines and instead remains within the bowel contents where it binds water; this increases the faecal water content and hence bulk. This promotes intestinal motility and the softer consistency makes the resulting stools easier to pass.

Dried fruits tend to be even more effective at provoking this result because – by virtue of being dried – they are less filling than their fully hydrated fresh counterparts and hence we tend to eat more of them in a portion; this means that the dose of soluble fibre, which is unaffected by the drying process, is higher and hence the aperient effect is more, shall we say, apparent!

Dietary guidelines for the management of fructose avoidance / minimization

Researchers at Monash University in Australia developed dietary guidelines for managing fructose malabsorption.

Unfavorable foods (i.e. more fructose than glucose)

• Fruit — apple, pear, guava, honeydew melon, nashi fruit, pawpaw, papaya, quince, star fruit, watermelon;
• Dried fruit — apple, currant, date, fig, pear, raisin, sultana;
• Fortified wines
• Foods containing added sugars, such as agave nectar, some corn syrups, and fruit juice concentrates.

Favorable foods (i.e. fructose equal to or less than glucose)

The following list of favorable foods was cited in the paper:  The fructose and glucose contents of foods listed on the Australian food standards website would appear to indicate that most of the listed foods have higher fructose levels.

• Stone fruit: apricot, nectarine, peach, plum (caution — these fruits contain sorbitol);
• Berry fruit: blueberry, blackberry, boysenberry, cranberry, raspberry, strawberry, loganberry;
• Citrus fruit: kumquat, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, tangelo;
• Other fruits: ripe banana, jackfruit, kiwi fruit, passion fruit, pineapple, rhubarb, tamarillo.

Comments Off on Weight Loss and NPY Protein

By admin, February 7, 2013 9:03 am

SCIENTISTS have pinpointed exactly why obese people don’t lose much weight when they diet.

‘s Researchers at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research have found that a chemical known as the Neuropeptide (NPY), which stimulates appetite, plays a major role in controlling whether the body burns or conserves energy.

The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, shows that when the body takes in less energy or is on a diet, high levels of NPY signal to the body that it’s in starvation mode, and the body subsequently starts storing as much energy as possible.

“Evolution provided us with these mechanisms to help us survive famine,” co-author Professor Herbert Herzog said.

“But now we’re eating more than we should because food is always available, so in many cases additional energy is stored as fat,” he said.

“When you try to lose the extra weight, NPY will trigger and it defeats the purpose of quickly lowering your calorie intake.”

Professor Herzog said with obesity being a major epidemic in the community, researchers have found it challenging to find ways of tricking the body into losing weight because of NPY.

“Now that we have identified the exact brain circuitry, drugs can be developed to target and control these types of neurons,” he said.

Professor Herzog said it was important to note that the study showed that fad diets simply did not work.

“Weight loss needs to be done over a long period of time and that’s what people underestimate,” he said.

Comments Off on Beta-blockers ‘may lower dementia risk’

By admin, January 8, 2013 11:48 pm

Beta-blockers ‘may lower dementia risk’

Beta-blockers slow heart rate to reduce workload and help the heart pump more efficiently

Taking beta-blocker drugs may cut the risk of dementia, a trial in 774 men suggests.

The medication is used to treat high blood pressure, a known risk factor for dementia.

In the study, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in March, men on beta-blockers were less likely to have brain changes suggestive of dementia.

Experts say it is too early to recommend beta-blockers for dementia.

The findings are preliminary and larger studies in men and women from different ethnicities are needed to see what benefit beta-blockers might offer.

People with high blood pressure are advised to see their doctor and get their condition under control to prevent associated complications like heart disease, stroke and vascular dementia.

Brain blood flow

Having high blood pressure may damage the small vessels that supply the brain with blood.

Blood carries essential oxygen and nourishment to the brain and without it, brain cells can die.

Vascular dementia is the second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease and can occur if blood flow to the brain is reduced.

Other research in a much larger sample of men – 800,000 in all – suggests another type of blood pressure drug known as an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) may cut dementia risk, including Alzheimer’s disease, by as much as 50%.

The latest work in 774 Japanese-American men found that all types of blood pressure medication were better than no treatment in terms of signs of dementia in the brain – brain shrinkage and tiny areas of brain tissue damage caused by poor blood supply – noted at autopsy after death.

However, men who had received beta-blockers as their only blood pressure medication had fewer abnormalities in their brains than those who had not been treated for their hypertension, or who had received other blood pressure medications, the University of Hawaii team found.

Men on beta-blockers and other medications also had fewer brain abnormalities, but not as big a reduction as that seen in the men on beta-blockers alone.

In the study, 610 of the men had high blood pressure or were being treated for high blood pressure.

Study author Dr Lon White said: “With the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease expected to grow significantly as our population ages, it is increasingly important to identify factors that could delay or prevent the disease.

“These results are exciting, especially since beta-blockers are a common treatment for high blood pressure.”

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Hypertension is a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s and other causes of dementia, and keeping high blood pressure in check could be important for preventing these diseases.

“This study suggests a link between the use of beta-blockers and fewer signs of dementia, but as the results of this study have yet to be published in full, it’s not clear what caused this link. It’s important to note that this study only looked at Japanese-American men, and these results may not be applicable to the wider population.

He said a better understanding of the links between high blood pressure and dementia could be crucial for developing new treatments or approaches to prevention.

“With 820,000 people affected by dementia in the UK, and that number increasing, we urgently need to find ways to prevent the diseases that cause it – that requires a massive investment in research,” Dr Ridley added.

Comments Off on Totally blind mice get sight back

By admin, January 8, 2013 11:47 pm

Totally blind mice get sight back

By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Totally blind mice have had their sight restored by injections of light-sensing cells into the eye, UK researchers report.

The team in Oxford said their studies closely resemble the treatments that would be needed in people with degenerative eye disease.

Similar results have already been achieved with night-blind mice.

Experts said the field was advancing rapidly, but there were still questions about the quality of vision restored.

Patients with retinitis pigmentosa gradually lose light-sensing cells from the retina and can become blind.

The research team, at the University of Oxford, used mice with a complete lack of light-sensing photoreceptor cells in their retinas. The mice were unable to tell the difference between light and dark.

Reconstruction

They injected “precursor” cells which will develop into the building blocks of a retina once inside the eye. Two weeks after the injections a retina had formed, according to the findings presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Prof Robert MacLaren said: “We have recreated the whole structure, basically it’s the first proof that you can take a completely blind mouse, put the cells in and reconstruct the entire light-sensitive layer.”

Previous studies have achieved similar results with mice that had a partially degenerated retina. Prof MacLaren said this was like “restoring a whole computer screen rather than repairing individual pixels”.

The mice were tested to see if they fled being in a bright area, if their pupils constricted in response to light and had their brain scanned to see if visual information was being processed by the mind.

Vision

Prof Pete Coffee, from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London, said the findings were important as they looked at the “most clinically relevant and severe case” of blindness.

“This is probably what you would need to do to restore sight in a patient that has lost their vision,” he said.

However, he said this and similar studies needed to show how good the recovered vision was as brain scans and tests of light sensitivity were not enough.

He said: “Can they tell the difference between a nasty animal and something to eat?”

Prof Robin Ali published research in the journal Nature showing that transplanting cells could restore vision in night-blind mice and then showed the same technique worked in a range of mice with degenerated retinas.

He said: “These papers demonstrate that it is possible to transplant photoreceptor cells into a range of mice even with a severe level of degeneration.

“I think it’s great that another group is showing the utility of photoreceptor transplantation.”

Researchers are already trialling human embryonic stem cells, at Moorfields Eye Hospital, in patients with Stargardt’s disease. Early results suggest the technique is safe but reliable results will take several years.

Retinal chips or bionic eyes are also being trialled in patients with retinitis pigmentosa.

Comments Off on Weight Loss

By admin, April 18, 2012 12:35 am

The bottom line is that to lose weight you must reduce the calories you take in and increase the calories you burn

Comments Off on Beaching Whales and Solar Radiation

By admin, January 24, 2012 7:11 pm

whales and solar radiation

Surges of solar activity may cause whales to run aground, possibly by disrupting their internal compass, German scientists suggest.

University of Kiel researchers Dr Klaus Vaneslow and Dr Klaus Ricklefs publish their study in the latest issue of the Journal of Sea Research.

The scientists looked at sightings of sperm whales beached in the North Sea between 1712 and 2003.

They then compared this record with astronomers’ observations of sunspots, an indicator of solar radiation.

More whale strandings occurred when the Sun’s activity was high, they found.

The Sun experiences cycles of activity that range from eight to 17 years, with 11 years being the average.

Short cycles are linked with periods of high-energy output, while long cycles are believed to be low energy.

Changes in levels of solar radiation have a big effect on Earth’s magnetic field.

The most notable events are discharges of highly-charged particles or solar flares. These cause shimmering lights, called aurorae, in the magnetic fields in polar regions.

Big solar flares can also disrupt telecommunications and power lines and knock out delicate electronic circuitry on satellites.

Comments Off on Whales Beaching – Solar Radiation

By admin, January 24, 2012 7:07 pm

Seems related