Wearable sensors and disease diagnosis.

A new study has shown that wearable sensors could tell if a disease condition exists before the signs are obvious.Wearable sensors that monitor heart rate, activity, skin temperature and other variables can reveal a lot about what is going on inside a person, including the onset of infection, inflammation and even insulin resistance, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. An important component of the ongoing study is to establish a range of normal, or baseline, values for each person in the study and when they are ill. "We want to study people at an individual level," said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor and chair of genetics. Snyder is the senior author of the study, published online in PLOS Biology. Postdoctoral scholars Xiao Li, PhD, and Jessilyn Dunn, PhD, and software engineer Denis Salins share lead authorship. Altogether, the team collected nearly 2 billion measurements from 60 people, including continuous data from each participant's wearable biosensor devices and periodic data from laboratory tests of their blood chemistry, gene expression and other measures. Participants wore between one and eight commercially available activity monitors and other monitors that collected more than 250,000 measurements a day. The team collected data on weight; heart rate; oxygen in the blood; skin temperature; activity, including sleep, steps, walking, biking and running; calories expended; acceleration; and even exposure to gamma rays and X-rays. The study demonstrated that, given a baseline range of values for each person, it is possible to monitor deviations from normal and associate those deviations with environmental conditions, illness or other factors that affect health. Distinctive patterns of deviation from normal seem to correlate with particular health problems. Algorithms designed to pick up on these patterns of change could potentially contribute to clinical diagnostics and research. This is practical illustration of the study;On a long flight to Norway for a family vacation last year, Snyder noticed changes in his heart rate and blood oxygen levels. As one of the 60 participants in the digital health study, he was wearing seven biosensors. From previous trips, Snyder knew that his oxygen levels normally dropped during airplane flights and that his heart rate increased at the beginning of a flight—as occurred in other participants. But the values typically returned to normal over the course of a long flight and after landing. This time, his numbers didn't return to baseline. Something was up, and Snyder wasn't completely surprised when he went on to develop a fever and other signs of illness. Two weeks earlier, he'd been helping his brother build a fence in rural Massachusetts, so his biggest concern was that he might have been bitten by a tick and infected with Lyme disease. In Norway, Snyder persuaded a doctor to give him a prescription for doxycycline, an antibiotic known to combat Lyme disease. Subsequent tests confirmed that Snyder had indeed been infected with the Lyme microorganism. Snyder was impressed that the wearable biosensors picked up the infection before he even knew he was sick. "Wearables helped make the initial diagnosis," he said. Subsequent data analysis confirmed his suspicion that the deviations from normal heart rate and oxygen levels on the flight to Norway had indeed been quite abnormal.Source

Spaying and neutering your pets triggers cancer and dysplasia.

Spaying and neutering your pets triggers cancer and dysplasia according to a new study:over the last several years, a number of small, breed-focused and primarily retrospective studies have been conducted on the effects of spay/neuter in large and giant breed dogs, including the Rottweiler and Golden Retriever. The following information to illustrate what the research has uncovered about the potential benefits and adverse effects of gonadectomy: spaying or neutering large and giant breed dogs decreases or prevents most reproductive organ disease, as you would expect, since conventional desexing surgery removes some or all of those organs and the hormones they produce. The diseases for which spayed or neutered dogs are at increased risk are, as you also might expect, some of the most common disorders seen in dogs today. They include obesity, cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) ruptures, hip dysplasia, several types of cancer, urine dribbling (incontinence) and cystitis (bladder inflammation). Musculoskeletal Disorders in Desexed Large and Giant Breed Dogs,removing a dog’s ability to produce important hormones while his skeleton is still developing can result in delayed closure of the growth plates at the end of each long bone. This can cause a dog’s legs to grow longer than normal, as you can see in this example of two adult male Golden Retrievers. The big guy on the left is intact, with normal conformation for the breed. The leggier guy on the right was neutered at 5 months and has a quite noticeable longer-limbed conformation. Sadly, even though the taller Golden on the right is certainly as handsome and fit-looking as the dog on the left, his longer limbs may put him a higher risk for orthopedic disease.Labrador and Golden Retrievers neutered before 6 months of age develop one or more joint disorders at two to five times the rate of intact dogs. When it comes to problems with cranial cruciate ligaments, large breed dogs spayed or neutered at under 6 months of age have three times the risk for early life CCL injuries. Dogs desexed at any age have a two to three times higher incidence of CCL disease compared with intact dogs. A study involving several hundred Golden Retrievers, none of the intact dogs had CCL disease; however, 5 percent of neutered males and 7.7 percent of spayed females who were desexed before they were a year old developed CCL injuries. The body condition score was the same for all the dogs, which indicates that changes in the build of the desexed dogs was to blame. Male Golden Retrievers neutered at under 1 year developed hip dysplasia at double the rate of intact males, and the disease also appeared earlier in the desexed dogs. Another study of 40 years of data collected on a range of different dogs desexed at a variety of ages showed a 17 percent increased risk of hip dysplasia.continue

Study finds association between eating hot peppers and decreased mortality.

A new study has associated eating hot peppers and decreased mortality,according to researchers at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, who found that consumption of hot red chili peppers is associated with a 13 percent reduction in total mortality, primarily in deaths due to heart disease or stroke—in a large prospective study. Going back for centuries, peppers and spices have been thought to be beneficial in the treatment of diseases, but only one other study—conducted in China and published in 2015 - has previously examined chili pepper consumption and its association with mortality. This new study corroborates the earlier study's findings. Using National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III data collected from more than 16,000 Americans who were followed for up to 23 years, medical student Mustafa Chopan '17 and Professor of Medicine Benjamin Littenberg, M.D., examined the baseline characteristics of the participants according to hot red chili pepper consumption. They found that consumers of hot red chili peppers tended to be "younger, male, white, Mexican-American, married, and to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and consume more vegetables and meats . . . had lower HDL-cholesterol, lower income, and less education," in comparison to participants who did not consume red chili peppers. They examined data from a median follow-up of 18.9 years and observed the number of deaths and then analyzed specific causes of death. There are some possible explanations for red chili peppers' health benefits, state Chopan and Littenberg in the study. Among them are the fact that capsaicin - the principal component in chili peppers - is believed to play a role in cellular and molecular mechanisms that prevent obesity and modulate coronary blood flow, and also possesses antimicrobial properties that "may indirectly affect the host by altering the gut microbiota." more

US woman dies of infection resistant to all 26 available antibiotics.

A US woman has died from an infection that was resistant to all 26 available antibiotics, health officials said this week, raising new concerns about the rise of dangerous superbugs. The woman, who was in her 70s, died in Nevada in September, and had recently been hospitalized in India with fractured leg bones, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.The cause of death was sepsis, following infection from a rare bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which is resistant to all antibiotics available in the United States. The specific strain of CRE, known as Klebsiella pneumoniae, was isolated from one of her wounds in August.Tests were negative for the mcr-1 gene—a great concern to health experts because it makes bacteria resistant to the antibiotic of last resort, colistin. It was unclear how the woman's infection acquired resistance.Experts said she had been treated repeatedly in India during the last two years for a femur fracture and hip problems, most recently in June 2016. Once the bacteria was identified in Nevada, the patient was isolated to prevent the infection from spreading in the hospital.Postmortem tests showed her infection might have responded to a treatment called fosfomycin, which is not approved in the United States. Paul Hoskisson, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, in Scotland, said that several European countries, including Britain, license fosfomycin for intravenous use in such cases."This is important because we are seeing increasing numbers of drug-resistant infections, and this is one of the first cases for Klebsiella where no drug options were open to the medical staff." Multi-drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae has been described by the World Health Organization as "an urgent threat to human health." According to Nick Thomson, leader of the bacterial genomics and evolution group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, this bacteria is likely to become more and more resistant. "The report highlights international travel and treatment overseas as a feature in the introduction of this pan-resistant isolate into the USA," he said."Since we live in such an interconnected society, this is important because this isolate represents a truly untreatable infection" which leaves health-care professionals with few options but to seek to prevent further transmission.more

Climate change could kill off parasites, destabilizing ecosystems.

Climate change could kill off parasites, destabilizing ecosystems according to a new study.Photogenic animals, from polar bears to people, aren't the only creatures under threat from global climate change. A new review led by UC Berkeley suggests the phenomenon threatens parasites with extinction, which could have big consequences for ecosystems. The vast majority of research into parasites and environment change focuses on how hosts, particularly humans, will be harmed. Few studies have addressed how the loss of parasite biodiversity may affect other aspects of host health, ecosystem connectedness and health and biodiversity as a whole. Previous research suggests that parasites are up to 10 times more vulnerable to extinction than are their hosts. continue

Uganda detects bird flu.

Uganda announced Sunday it had detected bird flu among migratory birds, without specifying whether it was the particularly virulent H5 strain detected this season in countries worldwide. The agriculture ministry said bird flu had been detected in two spots, one near Entebbe, on the banks of Lake Victoria, and another in the Masaka distict about 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Kampala. Five domestic ducks and a hen in Masaka were also infected, leading authorities to call for all poultry to be kept inside to avoid further contagion from migratory birds,continue

How to choose the perfect breeding stock.

Running a cattle ranch is rewarding and very demanding,you need to get the right breeding stock and follow required protocols to ensure health of the animals. Starting off on a good note will mean starting with the best breeding stock,having considered all the desirable traits before selection and introduction in the farm. This is how to select your stock continue