Natural therapy: Found

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Scientists Have Found Possible Cure for Gray Hair and Vitiligo

by Mita Majumdar on? June 15, 2013 at 2:49 PM Health Watch A team of European researchers developed a topical, UVB-activated compound called PC-KUS, which they claim can reverse oxidative stress responsible for causing gray hair and vitiligo. Scientists Have Found Possible Cure for Gray Hair and Vitiligo
The pigment melanin determines the color of our skin, hair and eyes. Loss of melanin in the skin and hair causes vitiligo (white patches on the skin) and graying of hair.

Our hair goes gray due to massive oxidative stress caused by accumulation of hydrogen peroxide in the hair follicle. This causes our hair to bleach itself from the inside out. Karin Schallreuter and colleagues, from the Institute for Pigmentary Disorders, E.M. Arndt University, Greifswald, Germany; and Centre of Skin Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, U.K, developed a photo-activated compound (PC-KUS) that could reverse this build up of hydrogen peroxide. This proprietary treatment works for vitiligo as well.

'To date, it is beyond any doubt that the sudden loss of the inherited skin and localized hair color can affect those individuals in many fundamental ways,' said Schallreuter, the lead researcher of the study. 'The improvement of quality of life after total and even partial successful repigmentation has been documented.'

This study analyzed the effects of the medication on an international group of 2,411 patients with vitiligo, where 2.4 percent were diagnosed with strictly segmental vitiligo (SSV), and 3.2 percent were diagnosed with mixed vitiligo (SSV plus non-segmental vitiligo NSV).

Non-segmental vitiligo is the most common type of vitiligo in which the patches often become visible equally on both sides of the body, with some kind of symmetry. These symmetrical patches generally appear on skin that is exposed daily to the sun.

Segmental vitiligo, on the other hand, is rare, non-symmetrical, and usually tends to affect dorsal roots of the spine. It is more stable, less erratic, and responds well to topical treatments.

The researchers of this study found that patients who have SSV within a certain nerve distribution involving skin and eyelashes show the same oxidative stress as observed in the NSV, which is associated with decreased antioxidant capacities of enzymes like catalase and other antioxidants.

The researchers treated the patients with PC-KUS (a modified pseudocatalase) and found that the treatment led to successful re-pigmentation in their skin and eyelashes, that is, the original color was restored.

'For generations, numerous remedies have been concocted to hide gray hair, but now, for the first time, an actual treatment that gets to the root of the problem has been developed. While this is exciting news, what's even more exciting is that this also works for vitiligo. This condition, while technically cosmetic, can have serious socio-emotional effects of people. Developing an effective treatment for this condition has the potential to radically improve many people's lives,' said Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.

This study is a follow up on a 2009 study published in the journal FASEB which described the cause of age-related graying of hair. According to the study findings, low levels of enzyme that breaks up hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen (catalase) cause the build up of hydrogen peroxide. These hair follicles also have low levels of enzymes MSR A and B, which are used to repair the damage. Further complicating matters, the high levels of hydrogen peroxide and low levels of these enzymes, disrupt the formation of an enzyme tyrosinase (which produces melanin in hair follicles), thus causing graying of hair.

References:

http://www.fasebj.org/content/early/2013/04/29/fj.12-226779.abstract
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/foas-gha050313.php

Source-Medindia

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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Two American Men Found to be Cured of HIV

by Kathy Jones on? July 05, 2013 at 10:59 PM AIDS/HIV News Doctors in the US revealed that two American men have joined the handful number of people who were infected with HIV but have managed to overcome the virus, increasing hopes that a potential cure may not be too far away. Two American Men Found to be Cured of HIV
Doctors from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston announced on Wednesday night that two previously HIV-positive patients no longer had detectable virus levels in their blood or tissue after having bone marrow stem-cell transplants to treat cancer between two and four years ago, the Age reported.

Remarkably, the two men - a young man and another in middle age - have also remained clear of the virus after stopping anti-retroviral therapy eight and 15 weeks ago.

When most HIV-positive people stop taking treatment, the virus becomes active again within four to eight weeks.

The Boston pair look set to join a Mississippi toddler believed to have been cured of HIV by intense treatment 30 hours after birth and Timothy Ray Brown, the "Berlin patient" famously cured of HIV six years ago after having a similar bone marrow transplant to treat cancer in Germany.

However, there is a key difference between the Berlin and Boston patients that could advance research towards a cure for HIV.

Brown received a transplant from a donor with an unusual gene mutation that resists HIV whereas the Boston patients received transplants from donors with no known resistance to the disease.

Timothy Henrich and Daniel Kuritzkes, the doctors managing the Boston patients, told an HIV conference in Malaysia that this suggested the process of stem-cell transplantation was responsible for their suspected remission.

In particular, they believe a common complication of transplantation, graft-versus-host disease, could be at play because it involves newly transplanted donor cells attacking the transplant recipient's body.

The doctors said although it was too early to say whether their patients had been cured permanently, repeated tests of large volumes of cells, plasma and tissue had found no sign of the virus.

Source-ANI

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Monday, July 8, 2013

Drug-Resistant Bacteria Linked With Livestock Found Among Industrial Livestock Workers

by Kathy Jones on? July 05, 2013 at 10:44 PM Environmental Health A test of nose samples among livestock workers in North Carolina by American researchers reveals the presence of drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock among industrial workers and not in antibiotic-free workers. Drug-Resistant Bacteria Linked With Livestock Found Among Industrial Livestock Workers
The drug-resistant bacteria examined were Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as "Staph," which include the well-known bug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). New Staph strains are emerging in people who have close contact with livestock animals and for this reason have been given the name livestock-associated Staph. While everyone in the study had direct or indirect contact with livestock, only industrial workers carried antibiotic-resistant Staph with multiple genetic characteristics linked to livestock. The study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, the George Washington University, and the Statens Serum Institute, published July 2 by the journal PLOS ONE, confirms earlier findings in Iowa and raises concern about antibiotics use in livestock production.

Many industrial livestock operations raise animals in large conferment buildings and use antibiotics, including non-therapeutically in animals' feed and water to promote their growth. Previous studies have detected strains of drug-resistant S. aureus from livestock, first among farm workers, and subsequently in hospital and community settings in Europe. In the United States, such strains have been detected among industrial livestock operation workers in Iowa and now North Carolina making scientists concerned that these bacteria could follow a similar trajectory into the community. North Carolina is a major livestock producer, ranking second behind Iowa in hog production in the United States.

S. aureus can cause a range of illnesses in humans, from minor to life-threatening skin, bloodstream, respiratory, urinary and surgical site infections. Like most illnesses caused by bacteria, S. aureus infections are treated with antibiotics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some Staph cannot be killed by antibiotics, meaning they are resistant. MRSA is a strain of Staph bacteria that is resistant to methicillin and certain first-line antibiotics called beta-lactams. Infections with drug-resistant strains, like MRSA, can be particularly difficult to treat.

The study was based on interviews and nose swabs that were collected and analyzed from individuals who worked at two different types of livestock operations in North Carolina. At industrial livestock operations, animals are grown in large confinement buildings using antibiotics. At antibiotic-free livestock operations, animals are grown without the use of antibiotics, typically outdoors on pasture. Researchers tested the S. aureus isolated from nose swabs for resistance to a range of antibiotics and for genetic markers considered to indicate that the bacteria may have come from livestock.

"This study shows that these livestock-associated strains are present among workers at industrial livestock operations and that these strains are resistant not just to methicillin, but to multiple antibiotics - including antibiotics that are used to treat human infections," said Christopher Heaney, PhD, corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Workers were not experiencing Staph infections at the time of the study, but when antibiotic resistant bacteria do cause infections, they can be harder to treat. Researchers found that S. aureus that were multidrug-resistant were roughly twice as prevalent among individuals exposed to the industrial compared to the antibiotic-free livestock operation environment and S. aureus that were resistant to tetracycline - an antibiotic that has been used in industrial livestock production since the 1950's - were 19 times as prevalent among industrial compared to antibiotic-free livestock operation workers.

Source-Eurekalert

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Thursday, June 6, 2013

Disagreement Found on the Role of Primary Care Nurse Practitioners

In 2010 an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee recommended that "advance practice registered nurses should be able to practice to the full extent of their education and training" and that nurse practitioners should be able to admit patients to hospitals and hospices, lead medical teams and medical homes, and receive reimbursements similar to what physicians receive for providing the same services.

A study published in the May 16 New England Journal of Medicine finds, however, that while primary care physicians and nurse practitioners for the most part agreed with the first recommendation, they significantly disagreed about some proposed changes to the scope of nurse practitioners' responsibilities. Specific points of disagreement revealed in the survey - led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Institute for Medicine and Public Health at Vanderbilt University Medical Center - include appropriate leadership roles for nurse practitioners, reimbursement levels and the overall quality of services they provide.

"We were surprised by the level of disagreement reported between these two groups of professionals," says Karen Donelan, ScD, EdM, of the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at MGH, lead author of the report. "We had hypothesized that, since primary care physicians and nurse practitioners had been working together for many years, that collaboration would lead to more common views about their roles in clinical practice. The data reveal disagreements about fundamental questions of professional roles that need to be resolved for teams to function effectively."

Adds Peter Buerhaus, RN, PhD, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Vanderbilt and a co-author of the paper, "It is unsettling that primary care physicians and nurse practitioners, who have been practicing together for several decades, seem so far apart in their perceptions of each other's contributions. I am concerned that these large gaps in perceptions will inhibit efforts to redesign care delivery and to improve the productivity and configuration of the primary care workforce." Additional co-authors of the paper are Catherine DesRoches, DrPh, Mathematica Policy Research, Cambridge, Mass.; and Robert Dittus MD, MPH, Veterans Administration Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center and Vanderbilt Institute for Medicine and Public Health.

Although debates on the appropriate roles of health professionals are nothing new, the authors note, little data has been available on the roles played by nurse practitioners in primary care and how they differ from those of primary care physicians. The current study was designed to assess those roles and how expanding them might affect the health care system. The survey was mailed to a national random sample of nearly 2,000 primary care clinicians - evenly divided between physicians and nurse practitioners - and responses were received from 467 nurse practitioners and 505 physicians.

The majority of both groups - 96 percent of nurse practitioners and 76 percent of physicians - agreed with the IOM recommendation that nurse practitioners "be able to practice to the full extent of their education and training," and 76 percent of nurse practitioners reported they were doing so. Majorities also agreed that increasing the supply of primary care nurse practitioners would improve the timeliness of and access to care, and respondents working in collaborative practices indicated that both professions provide a wide range of services in their practices.

But the survey revealed significant disagreements on specific recommendations: 82 percent of nurse practitioners believed they should be able to lead medical homes - practices using a team-based model to deliver coordinated patient care - but only 17 percent of physicians agreed; 64 percent of nurse practitioners agreed they should be paid equally for providing the same services, compared with only 4 percent of physicians; 60 percent of nurse practitioners in collaborative practices indicated they provided services to complex patients with multiple conditions, but 23 percent of physician in such practices responded that those services were provided by nurse practitioners, the two groups disagreed significantly regarding whether an increase in the supply of nurse practitioners would improve patient safety, the effectiveness of care and health costs, with one third of physicians responding that such an increase might have a negative effect on safety and effectiveness.

The investigators note the need for more analysis of the economic implications of expanding nurse practitioner roles and responsibilities, as well as the contribution of nurse practitioners to the care of complex patients. Buerhaus stresses, "At this stage, discussion is critical to finding points of agreement. Several states have workforce commissions that might serve as a forum for primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, payors and even patients to discuss these issues. Our study did not find major differences by states and did not include physician assistants or other allied health professionals, but including everyone in this dialogue will be important."

Adds Donelan, "Patients need health care teams that work in concert. We need to look at models of successful collaboration and understand how good teams function effectively and efficiently. We also need to consider how to structure nursing, medical and interprofessional education to enhance understanding and appreciation of each others' professional cultures."

Source-Eurekalert

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Deficiencies Found in Addictions Training for Medical Residents

Significant numbers felt unprepared to diagnose or treat such disorders, results similar to surveys of practicing physicians. In response to the findings, recently published online in the journal Substance Abuse, the MGH has increased residents' training in addiction medicine.

"Our residents estimated that one in four hospital inpatients has a substance use disorder, which matches what other studies have found and represents a disease prevalence similar to that of diabetes," says Sarah Wakeman, MD, chief medical resident at MGH and lead author of the report. "Finding that the majority of residents feel unprepared to treat addiction and rate the quality of their education so low represents a tremendous disparity between the burden of disease and the success of our current model of training."

The study's authors note that residents provide most direct medical care in teaching hospitals and often find caring for patients with addictions to be troublesome - possibly due to a lack of training and faculty role models - which can lead to a lack of trust between patients and physicians. Several previous studies have pointed out deficiencies in addictions education for primary care and internal medicine residents, with some programs offering none at all. Wakeman explains, "Our findings are in line with previous data from training programs that reported limited addictions training and with studies of medical residents showing low satisfaction in caring for addicted patients. It is unlikely that MGH is unique in this educational deficiency, but rather these findings may demonstrate a critical failure in medical education as a whole."

Wakeman and her colleagues designed their survey to assess residents' basic knowledge of substance use disorders, how they evaluated the training they had received and how prepared they felt to diagnose and treat addiction to alcohol or drugs. In May 2012 the survey was e-mailed to all MGH residents in internal medicine, primary care and in a joint medicine/pediatrics residency - a total of 184 recipients. Survey recipients were informed that their participation was voluntary and anonymous, and 101 of them completed and returned the survey. The authors note that while psychiatrists care for many patients with addiction, people with substance use disorders are most likely to seek medical care from internists, often for problems caused by their addictions.

At the time the survey was taken, formal addiction training for most residents was confined to a single noontime conference on alcohol withdrawal and three highly rated lectures on addiction-related topics during ambulatory rotations. The primary care residency, however, included an intensive two-week outpatient rotation in addictions, which was available as an elective to other residents. One quarter of survey respondents indicated feeling unprepared to diagnose addiction, and 62 percent felt unprepared to treat it. Addictions training in the outpatient setting was rated fair to poor by 72 percent of respondents, and 56 percent rated inpatient addictions training as fair to poor. In contrast, 95 percent of participants in the primary care addictions rotation rated it as good or excellent.

Participants were also asked six questions evaluating their knowledge about diagnosing and treating substance abuse, and while their diagnostic answers were more accurate than their knowledge of treatment options - including the available FDA-approved medications - none of them answered all questions correctly, and only 6 percent correctly answered all three questions regarding pharmacologic treatment options for addiction. How many years into residency the respondents were made no significant differences in any of the survey responses.

James Morrill, MD, PhD, an MGH internist and core faculty member of the outpatient addictions elective rotation, says, "It's time to bring the level of addictions education in elite medical training programs like MGH's up to the same high level that residents receive in areas such as cardiology. We need to help our residents recognize the great potential of primary care to stem the tide of morbidity and mortality due to addiction and keep addicted patients in treatment and out of the hospital."

Also on the faculty of the outpatient addictions rotation, Michael Bierer, MD, an MGH internist specializing in addiction treatment, says, "Addictions are highly prevalent; they affect general health and health care, break up families and cause suffering that extends beyond the patients themselves. But they are highly treatable. Ignoring these problems doesn't make sense from any perspective, and doing the right thing at the right time is not hard. Treating addictions well is certainly no more complex than some of the sophisticated skills our residents typically master."

In response to the survey's findings, the MGH has expanded resident education on addictions - adding another ten noontime conferences and including addiction case histories in 25 percent of ambulatory intern reports. Wakeman and her co-authors are now repeating the survey to assess the impact of those changes. They also hope to expand the survey to a national sample of residents to determine whether their findings can be broadly applied to programs nationwide. Wakeman, Morrill, Bierer and several other faculty members have formed a group that meets monthly to discuss additional educational needs in addiction medicine and develop more resources for MGH residents.

"Along with designing new addiction treatment models, the more we can involve patients in our educational programs, the better," Wakeman says. "Having patients involved in lectures and in small-group teaching settings may help residents develop more empathy for the courageous men and women living with and recovering from addiction. And as we enter an era of patient-centered medical homes, having patients as the central focus point of our care models is crucial."

Source-Eurekalert

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DM

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Scientists Have Found Possible Cure for Gray Hair and Vitiligo

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Two American Men Found to be Cured of HIV

Monday, July 8, 2013

Drug-Resistant Bacteria Linked With Livestock Found Among Industrial Livestock Workers

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Disagreement Found on the Role of Primary Care Nurse Practitioners

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Deficiencies Found in Addictions Training for Medical Residents