Cyndrome

Archive for May, 2011

Nearly 90% of cases of type 2-diabetes could be solved by changes in lifestyle simple. In this case, it is important to think about prevention, because diabetes is very difficult to treat and some medicines used to do so can have serious side effects include cardiovascular system.

Type 2 diabetes is on the verge of becoming a national epidemic. In a report published in December 2009, said the Canadian Diabetes Association, the number of Canadians living with diabetes has doubled between 2000 and 2010, jumping from 1.3 to 2.5 million people.

Even worse, it is estimated that between 2010 and 2020, 1.2 million new diabetes cases will be diagnosed, bringing the number of people fighting this disease to nearly 3.7 million. According to the Diabetes Association, this is a “economic tsunami” as costs associated with the disease could reach $17 billion by 2020.

The damage caused by type 2 diabetes is due to the numerous problems stemming from chronic hyperglycemia: a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers, renal insufficiency, retinopathy, circulation problems in the lower limbs and even serious cognitive issues like Alzheimer’s Disease. Diabetes is not a “benign” disease, as is thought to be the case by many. It is, in fact, a very serious health problem that could lead to serious health consequences to the afflicted.

Side effects

The danger posed by type 2 diabetes remains high, as the disease continues to be very hard to treat. In fact, despite advances in medicine, the available treatment options are relatively minimal, and the available medications can have serious side effects. The class of medications called thiazolidinedione (TZD) is a good example: even if the compounds are very useful in improving the body’s response to insulin (and thus reducing blood sugar levels), the medication can frequently cause water retention that leads to an increase in blood volume. In some cases, this retention is so significant that their blood volume is too much for the heart’s pumping system, potentially leading to major complications.

Recent studies have shown that these side effects are the result of an unexpected action by TZD on the systems involved in the re-absorption of ions and water in the kidneys. In most cells, TZD interacts with a protein called the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR), and this interaction stimulates the synthesis of proteins that improve response to insulin and the entry of glucose into the cells. In the kidneys, however, the interaction of TZD with PPAR causes a completely different response: there is instead a large increase in the retention of sodium and bicarbonate that leads, by the process of osmosis, to a massive entrance of water into the cells. This retention makes it so that patients treated with TZD often see significant weight gain and, in more serious cases, suffer damage to the heart.

Importance of prevention

These observations show that although medicine developed in a way that allows them to interact as specific as possible with a goal, the human genome diversity and complexity of the regulatory system in the body’s physiological make these specifications very difficult to achieve. In general, the vast majority of medications can cause side effects. Thus, although we should be happy for medical progress, which helps us to treat serious diseases, however, we must accept the limitations of these treatment options and to recognize that prevention of these diseases is as important as the treated. This concept is particularly well illustrated by the type 2-diabetes, where a healthy lifestyle based on healthy eating, healthy weights and regular physical activity can give us the opportunity to prevent 90% of cases of this disease and avoid difficulties associated with it.

New Zealand decision to open its doors to imports of fresh pork to send shockwaves through the Australian pig industry, which is afraid of AIDS-like disease threatens our doorstep.

Australia and New Zealand are among the few countries where porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is endemic in swine herds. Farmers in both countries are angry because NZ is giving in to pressure to act in North America to facilitate the bio-security standards, which currently prohibits the import of raw pork and block the danger of PRRS virus highly infectious.

PRRS does not affect humans, but it is considered the number one enemy of the pork industry worldwide because it causes severe immune suppression, similar to HIV-AIDs, and it has a rapidly changing genetic make-up.

Australian Pork Limited (APL) has warned all local livestock industries that fresh pork imports into NZ has disease status ramifications for all other animal production systems which will be at risk of exposure to other unwanted global diseases.

“This decision resonates through all of NZ agriculture and indirectly our livestock industries, too,” said APL chief executive officer, Andrew Spencer.

“It smells of political quid pro quo at the expense of the NZ pork industry for benefits to others in the trade arena – the science base seems to have been conveniently ignored.”

Local pig industry leaders believe once NZ standards are lowered, Australia will face inevitable trade pressure to follow suit, undermining our livestock industry’s much-envied clean and green trading advantage.

“While Australia as a pig producing nation rates around 30th on a global scale, we rank 18th as an exporter, primarily because retaining our clean biosecurity status allows us to punch well above our weight in the ever-growing health conscious markets of the world,” Mr Spencer said.

“That not only goes for pig meat but other agricultural products, too, especially beef.”

The pork producers claim their NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) biosecurity in power will be abandoned and the courts have taken steps to stop the changes implemented.

I would like to begin by explaining in simple terms what the Phantom Limb Syndrome (PLS) methods and then correlated with the commitments of storytelling and constraints on civil society in Kashmir. PLS is a family disease that affects a hand or foot amputee for medical reasons. Patient complained of excruciating pain in the arm or leg, which is not his body anymore. You hear the movement of the fingers, the arm is long buried. This illusion is due to the mind tricks any body part. It ‘hard to improve the condition and takes a long time to form the mechanisms involved in neurophysiology and effective artificial replacement prostheses win ordeal.

I drew a parallel between the civil societies PLS and Kashmir, who begged forgiveness from respected members of these NGOs and the best researchers of culture in our society and welfare dereference the excellent work they are doing to fight for improved living conditions and environment. There are also pressure groups that have a thematic issue at a time and try to continue vigorously until their objectives are achieved. Question arises to what extent these interventions are recognized as an opportunity or a remote socket.

In Kashmir this amphitheatre presents a different appearance.  For example views are expressed that in rebuilding Kashmir, Civil Society can play a role (GK May 2 p7) while politicians are engaged in national higher problems and cloistered behind security cordons.  There are those who claim that plagued by apathy people must take a stock of their lives (GK May 3 p9) again the whole emphasis is on the society that is at the receiving end of physical and mental atrocities and submerged in a high grade repressive rule.  I thought it would be simple enough to recognize this phenomenon by just living a day in normal circumstances anywhere in the State but especially in the valley.  Let us exemplify this thesis by taking stock of a few problems menacing the lives of people.   A million tons of waste can be expected to be shifted from kitchens to recycling plants or landfill sites.  Some Civil Societies in Kashmir put dust bins at places and Print Media have been screaming about the consequences of rubbish on the roads.  These operations are the basic tenets of governance and only possible at that level.  Nowhere in the world is a Civil Society capable or involved in these functions.

One other problem highlighted in GK columns is the worsening state of traffic and condition of roads.  You need good quality life insurance and a fortified strong truck to be a part of the stream of traffic on the roads.   You also need multiple eyes at the sides and back of your head to drive effectively.  Civil Society can only save their own lives by keeping their distance from the chaos.  All measures taken by the administration are peremptory and violence against the society.  The punishments imposed include toeing away parked vehicles and shouting warning over loud speakers, extolling bribe from buses so that they can pick up passengers anywhere they wish to stop.   What stands out in traffic management is total absence of lanes, lights, footpaths, crossings and signs displaying traffic codes.  There are thousands of uniformed men blowing whistles with ineffectual control of traffic.  All steps for apparent good will no doubt will end up with a lucrative handshake and reinstallation of the illegal activity.

It is a far-fetched idea that any Civil Society can even attempt to put remedial measures in place to correct these problems.   There is a gulf of political tumult that separates the ranks of government and representative civil society.  A civil society that has any credence with authority is appointed from civil servants in service and in dreaded fear of repercussions if they make statements challenging and provocative.

A non-governmental organization cannot cope with multitudes of punitive constraints in daily lives of people that sum up to make their living very onerous.   Every individual who comes in contact with administration will tell you a story of arm twisting tactics and extraction of bribe.   They also tell you if there is a property involved then the case will never get solved because each official will sell the client to his successor and money will flow for generations.  How could a Civil Society cure the menace of corruption if the total infrastructure of administration was built on this raw material?  Some say this evil matter stems from the ballot box and permeates through.

The arrogance of such a system is passing over the ghost of all parts of the citizenship and the Phantom Limb Syndrome reflects the victory of authoritarian rule. They tend to punish the country to show that if you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Some of the companies with semi-autonomy. Only survive if it relies on sponsors to operate effectively. So I intend to release the civil society organizations, the responsibility can not be used for joint action against the evils of society, because their mandate is limited, and their limited voting rights. I dare say that hope can shine if the political parties law to make common cause with the civil society and give life to the abandoned part of the population through their pain and to make drastic changes to revise the entire environment in which people must live.

D Medical Industries reports that its subsidiary Spring-Set Health Solutions Ltd. has successfully completed a study of usability and security of its spring report of the Universal Infusion for delivery of insulin and other drugs from a insulin pump.

The study included 48 patients in a medical center in New York. The study examined the interfaces between users, systems and operating environments, the user ends successfully in carrying out each task. D Medical has concluded: “Most users had higher scores for satisfaction and the product has been classified as safe for use by the target population.”

D Medical Hezkiah Tsoory operations manager, said: “We conducted this study in preparation, in anticipation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510 (k) for our spring games infusion universal. This major achievement was reached earlier this week. But as we make final preparations for the deployment of the United States, we are convinced that the obvious benefits of this product is going to win the hearts and minds of the American pump users. ”

Share price closed at $ 4.79 D Medical yesterday on Nasdaq, after rising 60% on Monday, giving it a market capitalization of $ 37 million. The share price fell 5.6% in the afternoon on the TASE today to NIS 16.81

Gastric bypass surgery has been known to improve glycemic control, often send people with type 2 diabetes into remission, but experts have long wondered exactly how it goes.

Now, a new study provides some clues.

Movement of amino acids associated with insulin resistance decreased significantly in those who have bypass surgery, researchers have discovered. They compared 10 obese people with diabetes who underwent surgery with 11 who have lost weight by dieting.

“Something happens after gastric bypass, there are so many food-induced weight loss,” said Dr. Blandine Lafer, associate professor of medicine at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center and Columbia University, to New York City.

The study is published in the April 27 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

The surgery, which reduces the stomach to the size of a small pouch, also modifies the junction between the stomach and small intestine. It leads to a dramatic reduction in the level of circulating amino acids that have been linked with diabetes.

“The fact that gastric bypass results in the remission of diabetes in the majority of patients is not new,” said Laferrere. According to background information in the study, 50% to 80% of diabetes cases go into remission after the surgery.

What doctors have been trying to figure out, she said, is why the bypass surgery is so good at making the diabetes disappear. “The diabetes improves almost immediately, before a significant amount of weight loss occurs,” she said. “That points out it is something other than the weight loss.”

In the new study, the researchers evaluated biochemical compounds involved in metabolic reactions in the participants. Each group had lost about 20 pounds. The investigators found that the bypass patients had much lower levels of amino acids known as branched-chain amino acids, and the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine.

“Those changes in the amino acids could be implicated in the mechanism of diabetes remission after gastric bypass,” Laferrere said.

Experts know the amino acids are linked with insulin resistance partly due to animal studies, she said. “If you supplement the diet of rats with branched-chain amino acids, you can induce more insulin resistance,” she explained.

However, Laferrere said, the finding does not mean all obese people with diabetes should pick surgery over dieting. The surgery is highly invasive, she noted, and not everyone is a candidate.

While the findings are intriguing, she said, it’s too early to apply them to diabetes treatment. Eventually, she added, after experts understand more about how the surgery affects the amino acids, it may be possible to apply the findings to develop better diabetes treatments or a less invasive surgery.

The new study adds weight to other research finding a link between the decline in branched-chain amino acids and the decline in insulin resistance, said Dr. Thomas J. Wang, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a coauthor of the perspective accompanying the study.

“It’s known that gastric bypass rapidly reverses insulin resistance, which is one of the principal biochemical abnormalities that precedes diabetes,” Wang said.

“This study really does help to confirm that hypothesis that branched-chain amino acids do go down more in people who have weight loss surgery,” he said. While it lends support to the idea that there is a link between the reduction in the amino acids and the decline in insulin resistance, it does not yet prove cause and effect, Wang added.

“It shows people who get weight loss surgery have a bigger drop in their branched-chain amino acids. What is not yet proven is whether that reduction in branched-chain amino acids is the reason their insulin resistance declines,” he pointed out.

Wang and his co-author, Dr. Robert Gerszten are co-inventors of patent applications relating to metabolite predictors of diabetes.

Gerszten, and Wang also pointed out that the number of obese people have type 2 diabetes were 171 million worldwide in 2000. By 2030, the number should be doubled. Therefore, they wrote a detailed understanding of the role of amino acids in the diabetes would be valuable.