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NovaMin, a synthetic mineral composed of calcium, sodium, phosphorous and silica releases deposits of crystalline hydroxyl-carbonate apatite (HCA) structurally similar to tooth mineral composition.
A host of common chemicals endanger child brain development, report says
In a new report, dozens of scientists, health practitioners and children’s health advocates are calling for renewed attention to the growing evidence that many common and widely available chemicals endanger neurodevelopment in fetuses and children of all ages.
The chemicals that are of most concern include lead and mercury; organophosphate pesticides used in agriculture and home gardens; phthalates, found in pharmaceuticals, plastics and personal care products; flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers; and air pollutants produced by the combustion of wood and fossil fuels, said University of Illinois comparative biosciences professor Susan Schantz, one of dozens of individual signatories to the consensus statement.
Polychlorinated biphenyls, once used as coolants and lubricants in transformers and other electrical equipment, also are of concern. PCBs were banned in the U.S. in 1977, but can persist in the environment for decades, she said.
The new report, “Project TENDR: Targeting Environmental NeuroDevelopment Risks,” appears in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
“These chemicals are pervasive, not only in air and water, but in everyday consumer products that we use on our bodies and in our homes,” Schantz said. “Reducing exposures to toxic chemicals can be done, and is urgently needed to protect today’s and tomorrow’s children.”
Journal reference: Environmental Health Perspectives
In addition to mercury and lead, flame retardants, air pollutants and chemicals found in many plastics, cosmetics and food containers endanger child brain health, researchers say. Credit: Julie McMahon
Breastfeeding alters maternal metabolism and protects against diabetes for up to 15 years after delivery
“We observed that the metabolites in women who had breastfed for more than three months differed significantly from those who had had shorter lactation periods,” first-author Dr. Daniela Much from the IDF reports. “Longer periods of lactation are linked to a change in the production of phospholipids and to lower concentrations of branched-chain amino acids in the mothers’ blood plasma.” This is interesting because the metabolites involved were linked in earlier studies with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, the authors say.
“The findings of our study provide new insights into disease-related metabolic pathways that are influenced by lactation and could thus be the underlying reason for the protective effect,” concludes Dr. Sandra Hummel, head of the Gestational Diabetes working group at the IDF, who led the study. Breastfeeding, she explains, is a cost-effective intervention which aims to reduce the long-term risk of developing type 2 diabetes among women with gestational diabetes.
Daniela Much et al. Lactation is associated with altered metabolomic signatures in women with gestational diabetes, Diabetologia (2016). DOI: 10.1007/s00125-016-4055-8
Episiotomies Don’t Help Moms Or Babies In Most Cases, But Remain Common
Episiotomy, a once-routine surgical incision made in a woman’s vaginal opening during childbirth to speed the baby’s passage, has been officially discouraged for at least a decade by the leading association of obstetrician-gynecologists in the United States.
Nonetheless, despite evidence that the procedure is only rarely necessary, and in some cases leads to serious pain and injuries to the mother, it is still being performed at much higher than recommended rates by certain doctors and in certain hospitals.
In one recent case, Kimberly Turbin, a 29-year-old dental assistant who lives in Stockton, Calif., is suing her former obstetrician for assault and battery after he performed an episiotomy on her in 2013. A video of the birth, with Turbin begging the doctor not to cut her, has been viewed more than 420,000 times.
Dr. Emiliano Chavira, a maternal and fetal medicine specialist at Dignity Health’s California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, says he suspects three main reasons why some providers continue to perform routine episiotomies: They’ve always done them; they lack awareness of best practices; or they want to speed up deliveries.
“Certain segments of the obstetric community are very slow to modernize the practice,” Chavira says. “They’re very slow to abandon procedures that are not a benefit and, in fact, may be harmful. And it’s really disappointing.”
Women go through a lot in the delivery of a healthy baby. But in most cases, doctors say, an episiotomy needn’t be part of the experience.Marc Romanelli/Blend Images/Getty Images
A new study has found that paracetamol (acetaminophen), which is used extensively during pregnancy, has a strong association with autism spectrum symptoms in boys and for both genders in relation to attention-related and hyperactivity symptoms.
The findings were published this week in the International Journal of Epidemiology. This is the first study of its kind to report an independent association between the use of this drug in pregnancy and autism spectrum symptoms in children. It is also the first study to report different effects on boys and girls. Comparing persistently to nonexposed children, the study has found an increase of 30 per cent in the risk of detriment to some attention functions, and an increase of two clinical symptoms of autism spectrum symptoms in boys.
Claudia B. Avella-Garcia, Jordi Julvez, Joan Fortuny, Cristina Rebordosa, Raquel García-Esteban, Isolina Riaño Galán, Adonina Tardónf, Clara L. Rodríguez-Bernal, Carmen Iñiguez, Ainara Andiarena, Loreto Santa-Marina, Jordi Sunyer. Acetaminophen Use in Pregnancy and Neurodevelopment: Attention Function and Autism Spectrum Symptoms. International Journal of Epidemiology, 2016 DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyv
Breastfeeding dictator or breastfeeding enabler? Midwives’ support styles can make a difference
We have come a long way since the days when babies were whisked away from their mother at birth to be bathed and wrapped before being presented back as a brand-new packaged bundle. For much of the 20th century, nurses cared for babies in a “well baby nursery”, giving them back to their mothers for regimented feeds.
These days, the naked baby is placed onto its mother, skin to skin, immediately after birth. This keeps baby warm and allows the mother to respond to baby’s cues and to initiate breastfeeding. Babies are then kept with their mothers for on-demand feeds.
Access to timely, non-judgemental and ongoing support for breastfeeding challenges should be a health service priority. Appropriate and community-based support, such as that provided by peer support volunteers and community-based health services, should be readily available.
Abandoning the myth that there is one “right” way to breastfeed and moving towards a “go with the flow” approach, where mothers are supported to find their own way to breastfeed, will be another step in the right direction.
A New Milestone in Laboratory Grown Human Brain Tissue
A cutting-edge laboratory technique that turns human stem cells into brain-like tissue now recapitulates human brain development more accurately than ever, according to a new study from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The study, published in Nature Methods, demonstrates how to grow brain “organoids”—self-organizing mini spheres that now contain all the major cell types found in the human cerebral cortex—in laboratory dishes.
Since its debut, so-called organoid technology has revolutionized researchers’ ability to generate and study human tissue in the laboratory. But when it comes to the brain, the models were not entirely complete. This new study provides a missing link.
“We have taken the organoid system and added the third major cell type in the central nervous system—oligodendrocytes—and now have a more accurate representation of cellular interactions that occur during human brain development,” said Paul Tesar, PhD, the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman Professor of Innovative Therapeutics and associate professor of genetics and genome sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Oligodendrocytes are critical for a healthy brain. They make myelin, a fatty substance that wraps and supports nerve cell connections, much like insulation around an electric cord. Without myelin, nerve cells cannot communicate effectively and can deteriorate. Many neurological diseases result from myelin defects, including multiple sclerosis and rare pediatric genetic disorders.
“This is a powerful platform to understand human development and neurological disease,” said Tesar. “Using stem cell technology we can generate nearly unlimited quantities of human brain-like tissue in the lab. Our method creates a ‘mini-cortex,’ containing neurons, astrocytes, and now oligodendrocytes producing myelin. This is a major step toward unlocking stages of human brain development that previously were inaccessible.”
Tesar and colleagues also demonstrated how their improved organoid system can be used to test myelin-enhancing medications. “These organoids provide a way to predict the safety and efficacy of new myelin therapeutics on human brain-like tissue in the laboratory prior to clinical testing in humans,” said Mayur Madhavan, PhD, co-first author on the study. The team treated organoids with drugs previously identified to enhance myelin production in mice. For the first time, the researchers used the model to test drugs that enhance the generation of human oligodendrocytes and myelin.
The research team also generated organoids from patients with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, a rare but fatal genetic myelin disorder. “Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease has been a complicated disorder to study due to the many different mutations that can cause it and the inaccessibility of patient brain tissue,” said Zachary Nevin, PhD, co-first author on the study, “but these new organoids allow us to directly study brain-like tissue from many patients simultaneously and test potential therapies.” Organoids generated from patients with three different Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease mutations each demonstrated unique characteristics that could be targeted for drug treatment. The findings validate the set-up as a versatile platform to observe and dissect human myelin disease and test individualized therapeutics.
“Our method enables generation of human brain tissue in the laboratory from any patient,” said Tesar. “More broadly, it can accurately recapitulate how the human nervous system is built and identify what goes wrong in certain neurological conditions.”
Past Experiences Shape What We See More Than What We Are Looking at Now
A rope coiled on dusty trail may trigger a frightened jump by a hiker who recently stepped on a snake. Now a new study better explains how a one-time visual experience can shape perceptions afterward.
Led by neuroscientists from NYU School of Medicine and published online in eLife, the study argues that humans recognize what they are looking at by combining current sensory stimuli with comparisons to images stored in memory.
“Our findings provide important new details about how experience alters the content-specific activity in brain regions not previously linked to the representation of images by nerve cell networks,” says senior study author Biyu J. He, PhD, assistant professor in the departments of Neurology, Radiology, and Neuroscience and Physiology.
“The work also supports the theory that what we recognize is influenced more by past experiences than by newly arriving sensory input from the eyes,” says Dr. He, who is also part of the Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Health.
She says this idea becomes more important as evidence mounts that hallucinations suffered by patients with post-traumatic stress disorder or schizophrenia occur when stored representations of past images overwhelm what they are looking at presently.
Glimpse of a Tiger
A key question in neurology is about how the brain perceives, for instance, that a tiger is nearby based on a glimpse of orange amid the jungle leaves. If the brains of our ancestors matched this incomplete picture with previous danger, they would be more likely to hide, survive, and have descendants. Thus, the modern brain finishes perception puzzles without all the pieces.
Most past vision research, however, has been based on experiments wherein clear images were shown to subjects in perfect lighting, says Dr. He. The current study instead analyzed visual perception as subjects looked at black-and-white images degraded until they were difficult to recognize.
Nineteen subjects were shown 33 such obscured “Mooney images”—17 of animals and 16 manmade objects—in a particular order. They viewed each obscured image six times, then a corresponding clear version once to achieve recognition, and then blurred images again six times after. Following the presentation of each blurred image, subjects were asked if they could name the object shown.
As the subjects sought to recognize images, the researchers “took pictures” of their brains every two seconds using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The technology lights up with increased blood flow, which is known to happen as brain cells are turned on during a specific task. The team’s 7 Tesla scanner offered a more than three-fold improvement in resolution over past studies using standard 3 Tesla scanners, for extremely precise fMRI-based measurement of vision-related nerve circuit activity patterns.
After seeing the clear version of each image, the study subjects were more than twice as likely to recognize what they were looking at when again shown the obscured version as they were of recognizing it before seeing the clear version. They had been “forced” to use a stored representation of clear images, called priors, to better recognize related, blurred versions, says Dr. He.
The authors then used mathematical tricks to create a two-dimensional map that measured, not nerve cell activity in each tiny section of the brain as it perceived images, but instead similarities between nerve network activity patterns in different brain regions. Nerve cell networks in the brain that represented images more similarly landed closer to each other on the map.
This approach revealed the existence of a stable system of brain organization that processed each image in the same steps, and regardless of whether clear or blurry, the authors say. Early, simpler brain circuits in the visual cortex that determine edge, shape, and color clustered on one end of the map, and more complex, “higher-order” circuits known to mix past and present information to plan actions at the opposite end.
These higher-order circuits included two brain networks, the default-mode network (DMN) and frontoparietal network (FPN), both linked by past studies to executing complex tasks such as planning actions, but not to visual, perceptual processing. Rather than remaining stable in the face of all images, the similarity patterns in these two networks shifted as brains went from processing unrecognized, blurry images to effortlessly recognizing the same images after seeing a clear version. After previously seeing a clear version (disambiguation), neural activity patterns corresponding to each blurred image in the two networks became more distinct from the others, and more like the clear version in each case.
Strikingly, the clear image-induced shift of neural representation towards perceptual prior was much more pronounced in brain regions with higher, more complex functions than in the early, simple visual processing networks. This further suggests that more of the information shaping current perceptions comes from what people have experienced before.
Rethinking the stroke rule 'time is brain'
In 1993, neurologist Camilo R. Gomez, MD, coined a phrase that for a quarter century has been a fundamental rule of stroke care: “Time is brain!”
“Unquestionably the longer therapy is delayed, the lesser the chance that it will be successful,” Dr. Gomez wrote in an editorial 25 years ago. “Simply stated: time is brain!”
But the “time is brain” rule is not as simple as it once seemed, Dr. Gomez now argues in his most recent paper, published in the August, 2018 Journal of Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases. Dr. Gomez is a Loyola Medicine stroke specialist and nationally known expert in minimally invasive neuroendovascular surgery.
It is still true that stroke outcomes generally are worse the longer treatment is delayed so it remains critically important to call 911 immediately after the first signs of stroke. But, Dr. Gomez reports, the effect of time can vary greatly among patients. Depending on the blood circulation pattern in the brain, emergency treatment could greatly help one patient, but be too late for another patient treated at the same time.
“It’s clearly evident that the effect of time on the ischemic process is relative,” Dr. Gomez wrote.
About 85 percent of strokes are ischemic, meaning the stroke is caused by a blood clot that blocks blood flow to an area of the brain. Starved of blood and oxygen, brain cells begin dying.
Traditionally, there was little physicians could do to halt this ischemic process, so there was no rush to treat stroke patients. But in his groundbreaking editorial, Dr. Gomez wrote that rapid improvements in imaging technologies and treatments might enable physicians to minimize stroke damage during the critical first hours.
“It is imperative that clinicians begin to look upon stroke as a medical emergency of a magnitude similar to that of myocardial infarction (heart attack) or head trauma,” he wrote.
As new treatments such as the clot-busting drug tPA became available, doctors did indeed begin treating strokes as emergencies. In select patients, intravenous tPA was shown to stop strokes in their tracks by dissolving clots and restoring blood flow. Initially, tPA was recommended in select patients within three hours of the onset of symptoms. This therapeutic window later was lengthened to 4.5 hours.
But Dr. Gomez said there should be no hard-and-fast rule governing when therapy can be given because strokes progress differently in different patients. Time is not the only important factor. Also critical is the blood circulation pattern in the brain.
After an ischemic stroke strikes, a core of brain tissue begins to die. Around this core is a penumbra of cells that continue to receive blood from surrounding arteries in a process called collateral circulation. Collateral circulation can keep cells in the penumbra alive for a time before they too begin to die. Good circulation slows down the rate at which the cells die.
In his latest project, Dr. Gomez used computational modeling to identify four distinct types of ischemic stroke based on the collateral circulation. “It is no longer reasonable to believe that the effect of time on the ischemic process represents an absolute paradigm,” Dr. Gomez wrote. “It is increasingly evident that the volume of injured tissue within a given interval after the time of onset shows considerable variability, in large part due to the beneficial effect of a robust collateral circulation.”
Dr. Gomez added that this computational modeling “represents a first step in our journey to enhance clinical decisions and predictions under conditions of considerable uncertainty.”
Woman declared ‘dead’ awakens just before doctors harvest her organs
Imagine waking up to see operating room lights and doctors standing over you, armed with scalpels and other operating tools. That’s exactly what happened to 41-year-old Colleen Burns, who had arrived at the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., over a week earlier suffering from a drug overdose, Counsel and Heal reported. Mistakenly believing Burns to be dead, doctors at the center were about to harvest the woman’s organs for transplant, before she opened her eyes.
The 2009 incident is detailed in a recently revealed report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which also lists the series of mistakes by doctors that led to the terrible event. Burns had been found unresponsive, likely due to an overdose of Xanax and Benadryl. According to the report, hospital specialists recommended treating her with activated charcoals in order to stop the drugs from being absorbed into her stomach and intestines – but the staff failed to follow through with this recommendation. Burns eventually spent over a week at the hospital, with nothing being done to stop the drugs from being absorbed into her system. She started to suffer from seizures, though CT scans revealed her brain was normal.
Allegedly, nurses had also indicated improvement in Burns’ condition, noting that she was capable of curling her toes when touched. She could also move her mouth and tongue, as well as flare her nose, according to Counsel and Heal. And despite being on a respirator, Burns was starting to breathe on her own, the report said. However, doctors still misdiagnosed Burns with irreversible brain damage. Believing her to be beyond help, Burns’ family decided to take her off life support and donate her organs to patients in need.
The report maintained that not enough tests and brain scans were performed before the diagnosis. “The patient did not suffer a cardiopulmonary arrest [as documented] and did not have irreversible brain damage,” the report revealed. “The patient did not meet criteria for withdrawal of care.” Just before doctors were about to cut into her, Burns awoke, saving her own life.
However, Burns went on to commit suicide in 2011, and no one has ever filed charges against the hospital for the critical mistakes the doctors made. After a review of the incident, the hospital was fined $6,000.
[Read more of this FOX News article here]
Skipping breakfast raises risk of heart attack: Harvard study Eating that first meal of the day on waking may be something older men want to consider if they hope to keep their risk of heart attack at bay, a new study underlining the importance of breakfast to heart health suggests. [National Post files]
Brain signals translated into speech using artificial intelligence
In an effort to provide a voice for people who can’t speak, neuroscientists have designed a device that can transform brain signals into speech.
This technology isn’t yet accurate enough for use outside the lab, although it can synthesize whole sentences that are mostly intelligible. Its creators described their speech-decoding device in a study1published on 24 April in Nature.
Eat real food, as close to nature as possible. It’s what we do to food that is a problem — processing, refining, reducing and altering in general. Forget about reduced fat and skim milk. The less processing the better. If you’re going to eat fat, choose good quality and go for full-fat. Eat avocados, use olive oil or coconut oil (yes coconut oil is healthy) in cooking, have nuts, wild salmon, grass-fed butter, and pastured grass-fed beef. I think that reduced-fat foods, particularly skim milk, nonfat yogurt, etc. are a slippery slope. When you remove the fat content from one cup of milk, you lose a significant volume, which means it’s replaced with milk that has a higher concentration of sugar to fat ratio. It’s not the fat in milk that makes us fat. It’s the sugar.
A Chef and Doctor Talk About Butter (via zeb)
This is basically what the book Salt Sugar Fat is about. None of the executives at major food companies eat their own products. Telling..
(via medicalschool)
A five-minute workout called Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) lowers blood pressure in middle-aged to older adults; it also improves artery function and scores on memory tests, according to new research.
“IMST is basically strength-training for the muscles you breathe in with. It’s something you can do quickly in your home or office, without having to change your clothes, and so far it looks like it is very beneficial to lower blood pressure and possibly boost cognitive and physical performance,” said Dr. Daniel Craighead, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder.
IMST, developed in the 1980s as a mean to wean critically ill people off ventilators, involves breathing in vigorously through a hand-held device — an inspiratory muscle trainer — which provides resistance.
During early use in patients with lung diseases, patients performed a 30-minute, low-resistance regimen daily to boost their lung capacity.
But in 2016, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona published results from a trial to see if just 30 inhalations per day with greater resistance might help sufferers of obstructive sleep apnea, who tend to have weak breathing muscles.
In addition to more restful sleep, subjects showed an unexpected side effect after six weeks: their systolic blood pressure plummeted by 12 mm of mercury. That’s about twice as much of a decrease as aerobic exercise can yield and more than many medications deliver.
“That’s when we got interested,” said University of Colorado Boulder’s Professor Doug Seals, lead author of the project.
“Our goal is to develop time-efficient, evidence-based interventions that those busy mid-life adults will actually perform.”
In several experiments, Dr. Craighead, Professor Seals and co-authors found significant drops in blood pressure and improvements in large-artery function among those participants who performed IMST with no changes in those who used a sham breathing device that delivered low-resistance. The IMST group was also better on certain cognitive and memory tests.
When asked to exercise to exhaustion, participants were also able to stay on the treadmill longer and keep their heart rate and oxygen consumption lower during exercise.
“High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which is the number one cause of death in America,” Dr. Craighead said.
“Having another option in the toolbox to help prevent it would be a real victory.”
The researchers presented their results this week at Experimental Biology 2019 in Orlando, Florida, and in the FASEB Journal.
Widely-Used Food Additive E319 Impairs Immune Responses to Influenza Infection
http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/e319-immune-responses-influenza-infection-07071.html
Taking Too Much Vitamin D Can Lead to Kidney Failure
http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/vitamin-d-toxicity-07072.html