11. 4.2009
Though wireless technology has made our daily lives so much simpler, isn't it about time that it spread out of the confines of our homes and into life-critical environments such as hospitals? Apparently, it has. As a result of which, we might get to experience (hopefully not) devices such as the Sensium Digital Plaster - a wireless monitoring patch that can be stuck to a patient's body like a Band-Aid strip, to monitor his/her vital signs.
The disposable wireless patch is powered by "thin" batteries and can give information on a person's heart rate, temperature and perspiration for a period of several days. It can also interface with smartphones and PDAs, and wirelessly transmit clinical data to your doctor. The device is currently under clinical trial and is expected to complete the first round of trials by end of this year. For those who have experienced the discomfort of being hooked to a bulky, imposing machine that takes away the few remaining moments of peace with its unwanted blips and peaks on the screen, you know what a blessing this alternative can be.
Via The Red Ferret.
Posted by kanchana
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09.18.2009
Four vaccines against the new infuenza, the one we used to call swine flu but now is known as H1N1, will be ready for distribution next month in the US.
This according to the government, which also issues another piece of good news: it appears that a single vaccination will keep this more-serious-than-usual flu at bay. For a while it was thought that immunity to H1N1 would require at least two shots, but the experts now say not. These findings apply to adults, though. It's still not clear whether children may need more than one dose.
Health authorities have worried that the coming Northern Hemisphere flu season will be worse than usual. A pattern with new flu viruses like this one is that they tend to be particularly severe the winter after they first surface. Hence the hurry to make a vaccine available quickly.
And of course we'll still have with us the regular old seasonal flu, which kills several thousand in the US every year. There's a vaccine against that one too, as usual.
Dealing with the flu this year will be particularly tricky because H1N1 and seasonal flu tend to attack different populations. The young are particularly vulnerable to H1N1, while seasonal flu mostly preys on the elderly and infirm.
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08.28.2009
Quickly now, which causes more deaths in the US every year: avoidable medical errors or auto accidents?
I guessed auto accidents too, probably because car carnage is in the headlines every day. But a new study reports that it's medical errors. They're responsible for more than 200,000 deaths annually, the study says. And these are all preventable deaths.
More widespread technology for linking medical records, which is supposed to be part of that health insurance reform legislation currently being "debated" at top volume all over the country, might help prevent errors. But it might not. One expert says there are a growing number of reports of medical mistakes due to computer errors.
Read all about it at Scientific American's 60-second Science Blog.
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08.28.2009
Dieters have long been advised to eat more fiber. Now there's a bit of evidence that increasing your fiber consumption can indeed help you lose weight.
The Eating Well blog is reporting on a study that has refined that advice into a formula: Add 8 grams of fiber for every 1000 calories you consume. In the study, women who did that lost an average of 4 1/2 lbs in less than 2 years.
I know, I know, it ain't all that much. But adding fiber is pretty painless and often pleasant--and fiber, as we know, is also very healthful for, ahem, other reasons.
Eating Well appends a short list of fiber-rich foods. I see that a cup of raspberries has 8 grams of fiber. Yum yum.
So if I just turn that hot fudge sundae into a hot-fudge-and-raspberry sundae, I should come out even, right? And yet somehow I don't think it would work that way.....
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08.27.2009
You've probably heard this before, but now it's extremely official: Tanning beds cause cancer.
Tanning beds cause all kinds of cancer, from basal cell (the not-serious kind that your dermatologist can freeze off) to melanoma, the potentially deadly kind that can move fast. Also, yikes, eye cancer.
WHO says? A bunch of experts put together by the World Health Organization, that's WHO. You can't get more authoritative than that. Journal Watch Dermatology has a brief explanatory article that's free.
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08.21.2009
Recently I wrote about how two Web policing agencies, LegitScript and KnujOn, reported rogue pharmacies--online drug stores that fill prescriptions illegally--were the predominant drugstore ads on the Microsoft search engine Bing.
Now LegitScript and KnujOn are back, reporting the same discouraging tale for Yahoo! search.
More than 80% of the Yahoo! Internet pharmacy ads they reviewed operate contrary to US federal and state laws, they say. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, an industry group, jumped in immediately with praise for the report.
I'll be fascinated to learn the Google score. Meantime, maybe we all better fill our prescriptions, as in olden days, at the corner drugstore. Assuming you live where there is a corner drugstore. Or even a corner.
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08.20.2009
Yet more fabulous news about the health benefits of dark chocolate!
As I noted here a few months ago, there's lots of authoritative evidence that dark chocolate is good for your heart. Now Discoblog reports on a Swedish study showing that folks who had already had a heart attack were less likely to die of heart disease if they ate dark chocolate 2 or 3 times a week. (In fact, there's a hint that the more dark chocolate they ate, the less likely they were to die of heart disease. But let's not go overboard and forget all the evil calories also lurking in that luscious confection.)
Remember: health benefits are associated only with dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.
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08. 8.2009
If you've been playing with Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, the word is to be very very careful about using Bing to fill your prescriptions for meds.
Two Web policing agencies, LegitScript and KnujOn, have teamed up to report that rogue pharmacies--online drug stores that fill prescriptions illegally--are grabbing most of the ad space on that coveted first page of Bing hits. The study found that the sites were selling drugs without a prescription and also supplying counterfeit drugs.
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07.23.2009
It is a disease that strikes most of us once too often - either forgetting to take the meds, or forgetting the ones that have been already downed, and thereby ending up with an overdose. Well, here's the good news. Patients with eye problems such as dry-eyes and glaucoma can now look forward to some help from technology that promises to take over when you have discovered the imperfections of your own memory. And it is a contact lens that delivers medication gradually over time, and eliminates the need to use messy eye drops.
Heard right. Boston researchers report that they’ve created a contact lens that can deliver a high concentration of antibiotic at a constant rate for more than 30 days. Call this a great boon for eye patients considering the statistics that even if you do diligently put in your eye drops, for every administration, only 1 to 7 percent of the medication actually gets absorbed into the eye, while the rest drips down the cheeks or into the back of the throat. The new contact lens design can apparently provide large amounts of drug released at constant rates for long periods of time, which previous discoveries have not been able to do.
The research is currently being tested in a lab dish and is expected to soon move towards animal testing. Human lenses of this kind? Perhaps well before we set up life on the moon.
Via Medlaunches.
Posted by kanchana
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06.27.2009
There is none. But you knew that.
The New York Times's Catherine Saint Louis explains why. If you are beach-bound, there's really only one small ray of hope. Your cellulite may be temporarily less noticeable if the skin around it is plumped up. Cellulite creams and machines often work this way. They irritate your skin so that it swells, which disguises lumpiness a little bit for a little while.
Very irritating.
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