The Virtue of Treating People Like Animals: Why Human Health Care Should Mirror Veterinary Health Care.

When Lily a 2 year old, began vomiting and refused her food and water, I took her to my veterinarian who, after a battery of X-rays and other tests, found nothing conclusive. The vet offered a preliminary diagnosis of gastritis, an inflammation of the stomach lining, and sent us home with medication to treat the condition. When twenty-four hours of the treatment yielded no improvement, we returned to the vet, who admitted Lily for observation overnight. The next evening, the vet phoned to say: “Lily is still vomiting and refusing food and water, so we ran a second set of X-rays and a comparison of the two sets revealed that her intestines are bunching as if something’s lodged inside. There’s an emergency veterinary clinic twenty miles away that has an ultrasound machine, which will enable us to see what’s inside. Please come pick up Lily and drive her there; we’ll notify them that you’re on your way.” The ultrasound revealed a large quantity of thread tangled in Lily’s digestive tract. Unbeknownst to me, she had extracted a bobbin of thread from my sewing kit and swallowed the contents. The condition required surgery, which the vet at the emergency clinic performed that night, removing the thread (which was lodged in Lily’s stomach, small intestine, and large intestine) without complications. Lily remained in intensive care for two days before the vet sent her home with a scar on her stomach, some antibiotics, and a list of instructions for postoperative care. She recovered fully and was back to mischief in short order. As this story indicates, the state of animal health care in America, in terms of the quality of the diagnostics and treatments available, is in many ways on par with that of human health care. And the fact that advancements in veterinary medicine have progressed in close parallel with those in human medicine should come as little surprise: Animals are important to us. They provide us with, among other things, food, labor, and companionship. To ensure that our animals are respectively tasty, reliable, healthy, and happy, we need the services of well-trained veterinarians equipped with the latest technologies. That demand is nicely satisfied. source.

Rapid test detects mobile resistance gene mcr-1.

Scientists have evaluated a rapid test that detects the dreaded colistin resistance gene within twenty minutes. It can therefore be used in hospitals and for livestock. Colistin is used as the "last-resort antibiotic" for dreaded multidrug-resistant pathogens, especially in hospitals. However, gut bacteria that have become insensitive to colistin now exist -- owing to the mobile resistance gene mcr-1. In early 2016, bacteria carrying this resistance gene were detected in Germany for the first time.The risk of a further spread of this colistin resistance is high because it takes place through so-called mobile genetic elements (plasmids) which are transferred between different types of bacteria relatively easily. For the evaluation of this rapid test, the scientists from the German center for research worked together with the company AmplexBiosystems GmbH which provided the testing kits free of charge. 104 bacterial isolates from animals, humans and the environment underwent testing with the molecular rapid test: the rapid test results were compared to those from complete genome sequencing or PCR, and demonstrated one hundred percent sensitivity and specificity. The test could clearly differentiate between common colistin resistance and mobile resistance located on plasmids and the test results become available in only twenty minutes.

The gizzard: the neglected poultry organ.

Things are changing in poultry production and how birds are managed: antibiotic-free broilers and intestinal health management, to name a few. In this context, the gizzard is an organ that typically does not get the attention it deserves in broilers. In the last decades, the focus has been on digestibility and yield. Dr. Kip Karges, director of technical service and research H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc.’s feed division, during IPPE last week, he said that we may need to shift the pH of the gut a little bit, to make it more environmentally friendly for fiber digesters and other microbial cultures. If gizzard works the way it should, it is easier in general terms to improve gut health. Karges said that we have forgotten the gizzard, because we did not need it. We had antibiotics. It’s an interesting point. All this seems to be a matter of feed particle size. We simply reduce the particle size of raw materials for a faster throughput. And what about the retention time in the small intestine? By maximizing passage, we maximize starch digestion. But we should not be concerned about predigesting starch. Karges says that it is, more or less, the gizzard’s function. Gizzards breaks up things. Let us remember it is a very strong muscle. Nowadays we have wonderful hammer mills to reduce particle size and leave the gizzard alone. But, if we need to shift the pH and microbial activity in the gut, we might need a bit larger grain size. But, we do not need this all production cycle long. We need it only for the first two weeks of age. Improving cultures in the gut in that period creates good conditions for the rest of the feeding period. source

US foundation works to end African poverty with chickens.

The World Poultry Foundation (WPF) take a $21.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and, in four years, wants to improve incomes and nutrition for millions of smallholder chicken farmers in rural Africa. The team leading the World Poultry Foundation is working in rural Nigeria and Tanzania to empower smallholder farmers – especially women – to earn higher incomes and improve the nutrition of their families through poultry-growing enterprises. The foundation says the grant allows them to implement a strategy that gives rural farmers access to improved genetics, provides technical assistance and training, and allows access to new markets, with a goal of impacting 2.5 million households across Tanzania and Nigeria at the end of the four-year initiative. The goals are in alignment with the World Poultry Foundation’s mission, which has shifted from helping a trading partner out of self-interest (keeping the Russian market open to U.S. poultry) to helping people in underdeveloped nations where no gain is expected for the U.S. poultry industry. continue

Eat brown rice and live longer.

Eating brown rice could prevent an early death, research suggested . Experts at Harvard University found just one 16g serving per day of whole grain cuts the risk of dying from any cause, heart disease or cancer. And, they argued, the more whole grains people eat, the bigger the benefits. Their analysis of studies showed that for every single serving (16g) of whole grains, there was a 7 per cent drop in risk of death from any cause. source

Arsenic poisoning and method of rice cooking.

You may not think there's anything wrong with how you cook rice - but there probably is. If you're not using enough water then you're at risk of heart disease and cancer, a scientist has warned. Cooking the grains in excess water helps to flush out arsenic, preventing any possible chemical poisoning. While soaking rice overnight slashes levels of the industrial toxin by around 80 per cent, a contamination expert claims. Arsenic gets into the rice as a result of industrial contaminants and pesticides that were used in the past. It can remain in the flooded paddy fields where the rice is grown for decades, research has suggested. continue

Doctors find live cockroach in woman's skull after she reports experiencing 'crawling sensation'.

The 42-year-old Indian woman was in deep slumber last Tuesday night until she awoke around midnight to a “tingling, crawling sensation” in her right nostril. At first, the woman, a domestic worker named Selvi, brushed the feeling off, assuming she might be catching a cold, the Times of India reported. But she soon felt something move. She spent the rest of the night in discomfort, waiting for the sun to rise so she could go to the hospital. “I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect,” she told the New Indian Express. “Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes.” continue