HM International Blog

The Internet has become a popular socializing tool for adolescents and a new study shows those with chronic health conditions might rely on it more heavily than their peers do.

According to the new Swiss study, Internet use among adolescents in the country is similar to other Western regions, with 91 percent of 14 to 19 year olds logging online several times per week. However, researchers wanted to know how important the Internet is in the lives of adolescents with chronic conditions who are more at risk of being isolated from their peers.

The study, led by Joan-Carles Suris, M.D. of at the University of Lausanne, appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Suris and his colleagues evaluated data from a 2002 Swiss Multicenter Adolescent Survey on Health. In the study, 731 adolescents between 16 and 20 reported having a chronic condition, which the study defined as a disease lasting more than six months and needing regular care or a disability that limits daily activities. The researchers did not provide data on the adolescents’ specific conditions.

Adolescents without a chronic condition were part of the control group. All participants answered questions about their time spent on the Internet in the past 30 days as well as which categories of Web sites they visited, such as health, leisure and school related.

Adolescent girls with chronic conditions were more likely to use the Internet than girls without chronic conditions. Where only about 11 percent of girls with conditions were not using the Internet, 15 percent of their peers were not. Of girls with chronic conditions, 4.9 percent were heavy Internet users – online more than two hours each day – compared with 2 percent of girls without such conditions.

According to Dr. Khurana, since tumors take at least a decade to develop, the studies showing that very few people have had tumors due the use of cell phones are invalid and that using mobile phones for 10 years could double the risk of brain cancer. Dr. Khurana told The Independent newspaper of London, “This danger has far broader public-health ramifications than asbestos and smoking.” This assessment was based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, which is three times higher than people who smoke. Smoking kills some five million globally each year and far fewer people are exposed to the deadly effects of asbestos.

Dr. Khurana also told The Independent that handset radiations could heat the side of the head or potentially thermoelectrically interact with the brain, whereas Bluetooth devices and unshielded headsets could alter the handset user’s head into an effective, potentially self-harming antenna.

Dr. Khurana conducted a 15-month review of over 100 prior studies regarding the effects of mobile handsets and concluded that the use of cell phones should be avoided whenever possible. In addition, he called for governments and industry to take “immediate steps” to reduce radiation exposure through the mobile devices. He stated that “If industry and governments do not adopt immediate and decisive measures,” the rate of malignant brain tumors and the resulting mortality rate will grow at a global level within about ten years. But at that point it will be too late to intervene. He added, “In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumor incidence rates.”

The French government has already warned against mobile phone use, especially by children. In addition, Germany and the European Environment Agency have advised their people to curtail their exposure to mobile handsets.

The study was the work of researchers based at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL), UK and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), University of Montpellier, France, and is published in the November issue of the The British Journal of Psychiatry which is available online.

In their background information the authors explained that much research on diet and depression tends to focus on individual nutrients so they thought they would look at links between overall dietary patterns and depression.

For the study they looked at data covering 3,486 participants of average age 57 years (nearly three quarters were men) who were part of the Whitehall II study.

The Whitehall II study was set up by co-author and UCL Professor Sir Michael Marmot to investigate links between disease and social class, psychosocial factors and life style. It began by looking at the health of working people, and is now also looking to answer questions about how previous and current circumstances affect health and quality of life in an ageing group of participants.

The data allowed the researchers to identify two dietary patters: a whole food diet and a processed food diet. The whole food diet comprised mainly fresh fruits and vegetables and fish, while the processed diet comprised mainly sweetened desserts, fried foods, high fat dairy foods, processed meat and refined grains.

To assess depression, the researchers used self-reported data that had been gathered five years after the dietary data using the CES-D scale.

CES-D, short for Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression scale, is a commonly used self-report questionnaire for assessing depression. It asks a series of multiple choice questions about how the participant has been feeling over the past week, covering topics such as concentration, loss of appetite, worry, how well they have been able to shake off depressive moods, quality of sleep, feelings of loneliness, self-worth, energy levels, and so on.

I applaud President Obama for his nomination of Dr. Benjamin, and I greatly appreciate the work of Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Leader, for making this vote possible tonight. This is indeed a proud day for the people of Alabama.”

President Barack Obama nominated Dr. Benjamin in July. But the confirmation vote has been delayed due to a political tug of war over health care reform.

• Pregnant Women
• Children 6 months through 4 years old
• Parents, caregivers and siblings of children less than 6 months old
• Children and adolescents, 5 through 18 years old, with underlying medical conditions
• Health care workers

“We must target our limited amounts of vaccine to individuals at the highest risk because of the uncertainties in supply we face,” Dr. Donald Williamson, state health officer, said. “We ask for your support and understanding at this time. As more vaccine becomes available, our department and other health care providers will begin vaccinating school children and others outside of these target groups.”

The State Health Department hoped to receive 570,000-600,000 doses by the end of October. But it only has 55,000 doses available at this time. Dr. Williamson said 60% of the state’s supply will not arrive until after December 1. So the State Health Department has had to delay plans for things like vaccination clinics at schools until then.

“There appears to be a lack of appreciation of the potential benefits of identifying and treating those infected,” said Dr Korda. “Although Australia has adopted universal hepatitis B vaccination for infants, there are many people already infected for whom vaccination offers no benefit.

“Immigration patterns, the ageing of the infected pool of individuals and the small number of people receiving HBV drug therapy, together imply that the long-term pathology of HBV infection can be expected to become increasingly evident over the next decade.”

According to the report, under current levels of medical management and treatment:

- The number of people living with chronic hepatitis B infection will increase from 187,000 to 276,000

- The number of deaths attributable to chronic hepatitis B each year will increase from 450 in 2008 to 1,550 in 2017

- There will be a three-fold increase in the number of people living with liver cancer directly caused by hepatitis B

The researchers say that increases in the rate of infection could be mitigated through the development of a national strategy for Hepatitis B, which would increase awareness of the disease and encourage those infected to seek treatment.

“Our cost-effectiveness analyses indicate investment in such a strategy is economically justified given the looming increase in the numbers of people infected and the drug therapies that are available to treat those infected,” said Professor Butler.

Exposure to the drugs during adolescence has a more severe impact on short-term memory than being exposed as adults, researchers found in a study that was to be presented this week at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in Chicago.

“Animals that were given the amphetamine during the adolescent time period were worse at tasks requiring working memory than adult animals that were given the same amount of amphetamine as adults,” study co-author and psychology professor Joshua Gulley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in a school news release. “This tells us that their working memory capacity has been significantly altered by that pre-exposure to amphetamine.”

The researchers gave amphetamines to rats in two ways: Some were given a steady dose every other day, while others were given more and more over four days, followed by a “binge” consisting of big doses every two hours for eight hours on day five.

The findings could indicate what might happen to teenagers who take amphetamines either as a recreational drug or to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the study authors suspect. But until more research is completed, it won’t be clear whether the rat tests accurately indicate what happens in humans.

Gulley noted that the research in rats suggests that teens who take amphetamines recreationally may be at the most risk because their doses are higher than those who take them as prescribed by doctors.

“Adolescence is a time when the brain is continuing to develop into its mature form, so drug exposure during this critical period could have long-lasting, negative consequences,” he said. “Our findings reveal that adolescents are particularly sensitive to the adverse effects of amphetamine on cognitive function and that these effects can persist well after drug use is discontinued.”

A robot designed to help doctors diagnose swine flu has been unveiled at an exhibition in Japan.

The life-sized humanoid machine, displayed at the Security & Safety Trade Expo (RISCON) in Tokyo, exhibits symptoms of the H1N1 flu virus.

It was developed to help medical workers recognise symptoms of the illness and learn to treat patients.

The robot is coated in a human-like skin. It sweats, moans, cries and convulses, just like a human would when infected with the H1N1 virus.

If it is not treated properly the symptoms gradually get worse and the robot stops breathing.

The robot was one exhibit amongst many others at the show aimed to either help prevent or aid treatment of swine flu.

As of October 11, there were 4,735 swine flu-related deaths reported worldwide to the World Health Organisation (WHO), with around 400,000 confirmed cases of swine flu in the same period.

Vaccination programmes against the virus have been rolled out in Britain for front-line health workers.

The Department of Health said at-risk groups will be given priority in the following order: people aged over six months and under 65 years in current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups; all pregnant women; household contacts of people with compromised immune systems; and people aged 65 and over in the current seasonal flu vaccine clinical at-risk groups.

Recently published research suggests that more than half of babies now born in wealthier nations will reach the age of 100, but unless we do something about it, their bodies will still degenerate at the same rate with age and their extra years will be accompanied by poor quality of life, so a new 50 million pound project was launched in the UK this week to find ways to give people “Active Times of 50, After The Age Of 50″.

The new research initiative was launched at the University of Leeds. The University’s Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (iMBE) will be coordinating the project. Leeds’ iMBE is the UK’s largest bioengineering unit and a world-leading centre of excellence in research for artificial joint replacements.

The program will focus on developing tissue engineering and regeneration technologies that can revitalize those parts of the human body that wear out with age such as joints, spine, teeth, heart and circulation.

The project will also be speeding up the time it takes for new methods to move from discovery into clinical practice. One of its ambitious goals is to develop ten new products in the first five years and halve the time it takes to get them to market.

The iMBE itself focuses on three main areas: joint replacement, tissue re-engineering and functional spinal interventions. Researchers at the iMBE are hoping to give older people new body parts and implants grown from their own tissue, starting with hips, knees and heart valves.

Professor John Fisher, who does joint replacement and substitution research at iMBE told the BBC that they have already made an artificial hip designed to last for life, instead of the 20 or so years patients expect from current technology.

Fisher said by combining a durable cobalt-chrome metal alloy socket with a ceramic ball they can make a replacement joint that easily allows athe recipient to take the 100 million or so steps that the average 50-year old will be expected to take over another 50 years of life.

Fisher’s colleague Professor Eileen Ingham said that she and her team at iMBE are currently developing ways of making transplantable tissue and organs that grow in the patient’s own body, thus overcoming the problems of rejection currently faced by recipients of donated tissue and organs.

They have already made fully functioning heart valves using their method. They take a donated heart valve (the donor could be a human or an animal like a pig), strip out the donor cells, and implant the remaining inert scaffold in the patient where it re-populates with new cells from the patient.

Ingham told the BBC that trials in Brazil on humans and animals have shown promising results.The money for the “50 active years after 50″ initiative will come from a number of sources ranging from research councils, charities and industry groups. The project will bring together engineers, computer experts, chemists, physicists, biologists, researching and practising dentists and physicians, from all over the UK and overseas.

There are two major projects in the program: the 10 million pound Innovation & Knowledge Centre in Regenerative Therapies and Devices and the 11 million pound Wellcome EPSRC Leeds Medical Engineering Centre.

At issue is the immune system’s ability to take out the trash — to get rid of cells that don’t have long to live.

“Just like in mice, in humans, if you don’t clear the dying cells, then that predisposes you to lupus,” said Lata Mukundan, a Stanford University School of Medicine researcher and co-author of a study published online Oct. 18 in the journal Nature Medicine.

“If you look at patients with lupus, they have an inability to clear those dead cells,” Mukundan said in a statement.

The study authors report that they gained insight into how immune-system cells detect which other cells are dying in order to dispose of them. They looked at human and mouse cells outside the body and in genetically engineered mice.

The researchers suspected that a molecule known as PPAR-delta was crucial to the process. “We wanted to know, if you took a mouse and only deleted PPAR-delta from its macrophages, is that sufficient to cause an autoimmune disease?” asked Dr. Ajay Chawla, assistant professor of endocrinology and co-author of the study, in a statement. “Apparently it is,” he said.

The researchers say currently existing drugs activate the molecule in question. Perhaps, they say, the drugs could treat lupus.