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News on Health & Science

Antibody ‘Fixes Internal Bleeds’

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Scientists say they have discovered an antibody that could minimise the major internal bleeding seen in traumas like bullet wounds and car crashes.
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The team at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) has discovered that a protein called histone is responsible for much of the damage.

They say they have found a specific type of antibody that can block the ability of histone to cause damage.

They say it could lead to new ways to treat diseases and serious injuries.

‘Life threatening’
Writing in the journal, Nature Medicine, the OMRF researchers found that when mice had a bad blood stream infection (sepsis), their blood contained high levels of histones.

They checked this in primates and humans and found the same result.

The histone protein normally sits in the nucleus of a cell, packed around the strands of DNA.

It regulates the DNA, causing it to fold and form the characteristic double helix.


Bullet wounds often lead to severe internal bleeding

When the cell is damaged by injury or disease, the histone is released into the blood system where it begins to kill the lining of blood vessels, causing damage, the OMRF researchers said.

This, they believe, results in uncontrolled internal bleeding and fluid build-up in the tissues, which are life threatening.

Dr Charles Esmon, of OMRF who led the research, said: “When we realised that histones were so toxic, we immediately went to work looking for a way to stop their destructive tendencies.”

Mouse antibody
Marc Monestier, a colleague at Temple University in Philadelphia, had already discovered a specific type of antibody known as a monoclonal antibody that could block the histones.

It had been observed that patients with auto-immune diseases make antibodies to the proteins in their cell nuclei but it was not known why.

This antibody came from a mouse with an auto-immune disease.

The OMRF team have tested the antibody in mice with sepsis and it does stop the toxic effects of the histones and they recover, the researchers say.

They now want to test it in primates and eventually humans.

Dr Esmon said histones were similar in all mammals because they were such basic building blocks.

So a mouse antibody should work equally well in a human.

He said: “We think it was an adaptation during evolution.

“Millions of years ago, when people and animals got ill, they did not die of heart attacks or car accidents they died of infectious diseases.

“Their immune systems went into overdrive throwing everything at it and we believe the histones in the cell nucleus, part of the basic building blocks of life, were the last resort.”

Dr Stephen Prescott, president of OMRF, said: “These findings offer some clues as to why people suffering from one traumatic injury often experience a catastrophic ‘cascade’ of secondary traumatic events.

“If we can figure out how to control the initial injury, perhaps that will stop the domino effect that so often follows.”

Source: BBC News: 26th.Oct.’09

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News on Health & Science

White Wines ‘Bad for the Teeth’

Teeth of a model.
Image via Wikipedia

 

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Pale plonk packs an acidic punch that erodes enamel far more than red wine, Nutrition Research reports.

It is not the wine’s vintage, origin or alcohol that are key but its pH and duration of contact with the teeth.

Eating cheese at the same time could counter the effects, because it is rich in calcium, the German authors say.

It is the calcium in teeth that the wine attacks.

In the lab, adult teeth soaked in white wine for a day had a loss of both calcium and another mineral called phosphorus to depths of up to 60 micrometers in the enamel surface, which the researchers say is significant.

Riesling wines tended to have the greatest impact, having the lowest pH.

A “kinder” tooth choice would be a rich red like a Rioja or a Pinot noir, the Johannes Gutenberg University team found.

Power of saliva
Even if people brush their teeth after a night of drinking, over the years repeated exposure could take its toll, say Brita Willershausen and her colleagues.

Indeed, excessive brushing might make matters worse and lead to further loss of enamel.

But they said: “The tradition of enjoying different cheeses for dessert, or in combination with drinking wine, might have a beneficial effect on preventing dental erosion since cheeses contain calcium in a high concentration.”

This helps neutralise and boost the remineralising power of saliva to halt the acid attack.

But eating strawberries while supping on your vino or mixing sparkling whites with acid fruit juice to make a bucks fizz may spell trouble because this only adds to the acid attack.

Professor Damien Walmsley, of the British Dental Association, said: “The ability of acidic foods and drinks to erode tooth enamel is well understood, and white wine is recognised as being more erosive than red.

“But it’s the way you consume it that’s all important. If you’re going to have a glass of wine do so with your meal and leave a break of at least 30 minutes afterwards before you brush your teeth and go to bed.

“Consuming wine alongside food, rather than on its own, means the saliva you produce as you chew helps to neutralise its acidity and limits its erosive potential.

“If you’re going to have a glass of wine do so with your meal and leave a break of at least 30 minutes afterwards before you brush your teeth and go to bed.”….Says Professor Damien Walmsley of the British Dental Association

“And leaving time before brushing teeth gives the enamel a chance to recover from the acid attack and makes it less susceptible to being brushed away.”

Source: BBC News:Oct.20.’09

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Meditation

Compassion Meditation: A Great Stress Buster

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Individuals who engage in compassion meditation may benefit by reductions in inflammatory and behavioral responses to psychological stress, a new Compassion  study has found.
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“While much attention has been paid to meditation practices that emphasize calming the mind, improving focused attention or developing mindfulness, less is known about meditation practices designed to specifically foster compassion,” says Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, who designed and taught the meditation program used in the study.

Negi is senior lecturer in the Department of Religion, the co-director of Emory Collaborative for Contemplative Studies and president and spiritual director of Drepung Loseling Monastery, Inc.

The study focused on the effect of compassion meditation on inflammatory, neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress, and evaluated the degree to which engagement in meditation practice influenced stress reactivity.

“Our findings suggest that meditation practices designed to foster compassion may impact physiological pathways that are modulated by stress and are relevant to disease,” said Charles L. Raison, MD, clinical director of the Mind-Body Program, Emory University”s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory School of Medicine, and a lead author on the study.

Sixty-one healthy college students between the ages of 17 and19 participated in the study. Half the participants were randomized to receive six weeks of compassion meditation training and half were randomized to a health discussion control group. Although secular in presentation, the compassion meditation program was based on a thousand-year-old Tibetan Buddhist mind-training practice called “lojong” in Tibetan.

A variety of student participation activities were employed such as mock debates and role-playing. Both groups were required to participate in 12 hours of classes across the study period. Meditators were provided with a meditation compact disc for practice at home. Homework for the control group was a weekly self-improvement paper.

After the study interventions were finished, the students participated in a laboratory stress test designed to investigate how the body”s inflammatory and neuroendocrine systems respond to psychosocial stress.

No differences were seen between students randomized to compassion meditation and the control group, but within the meditation group there was a strong relationship between the time spent practicing meditation and reductions in inflammation and emotional distress in response to the stressor.

Consistent with this, when the meditation group was divided into high and low practice groups, participants in the high practice group showed reductions in inflammation and distress in response to the stressor when compared to the low practice group and the control group.

You may click to see:->

Buddhist Compassion Meditation Techniques
Can We Train Our Brains Through Compassion Meditation?

How to Beat Stress and Angst Through Meditation

Science of Meditation

Source: The Times Of India

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News on Health & Science

Why Anti-Depressants Don’t Always Work?

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More than half the people who take anti-depressants seldom get relief. A bnew study says this is because drugs designed to treat depression aim at the wrong target.

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The study led by Eva Redei, psychiatry professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (NUFSM), found powerful molecular evidence that quashes the popular dogma that stress generally triggers depression.

Her new research reveals that there is almost no overlap between stress-related genes and depression-related genes.

Her findings are based on extensive studies with a model of severely depressed rats that mirror many behavioural and physiological abnormalities found in patients with major depression.

“This is a huge study and statistically powerful,” Redei said. “This research opens up new routes to develop new anti-depressants that may be more effective. There hasn’t been an antidepressant based on a novel concept in 20 years.”

She took four genetically different strains of rats and exposed them to chronic stress for two weeks. Later, she identified genes in the brain regions (linked with depression in rats and human), that had increased or decreased in response to the stress in all four strains.

“This finding is clear evidence that at least in an animal model, chronic stress does not cause the same molecular changes as depression does,” said Redei, according to a NUFSM statement.

These findings were presented at a recent Neuroscience conference in Chicago.

Source: The Times Of India

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Positive thinking

A Flow of Joy

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Good Vibrations …...CLICK & SEE
Feelings vibrate, just as all things in the universe do, at a particular frequency. Negative feelings like anger, guilt, and depression vibrate at low frequencies, while positive feelings like joy, appreciation, and passion vibrate at high frequencies. These high frequency vibrations make us feel good. This is why people and places that inspire and cultivate positive feelings have what we call good vibrations…..CLICK & SEE

Good vibrations inspire health, happiness, and optimism. When we are tuned in to good vibrations, our bodies heal, our hearts open, and our minds shift toward the light. We see new possibilities and feel powerfully energized to follow our inner visions. At the same time, we feel relaxed and capable of manifesting these visions without giving in to stress or struggle. Good vibrations put us in a state of perfect receptivity so that we feel it is the energy flowing through us that accomplishes what needs to be done. We feel guided, supported, protected, and nourished within this joyful flow. We sometimes forget that we are allowed to feel this way all the time....CLICK & SEE

Lower frequency vibrations are not bad in a moral sense, but they are bad in the sense that they simply don’t feel good. Still, they have a purpose, which is to alert us to the fact that we are blocking out the higher frequency vibrations that we need to function well. They are a call for healing ourselves from within. The key to our healing lies in remembering that it is our birthright to feel good and that feeling good is the essence of our true nature. When we are receiving and sending out good vibrations, we are in the flow. When we are not, we can begin to raise our vibration by seeking out people, places, and situations that vibrate at a higher frequency. Whether we need to go on retreat or just call a friend who makes us laugh, seeking out those good vibrations and basking in them is a sacred and loving practice that returns us, time and again, to the joyful flow of the universe.

Source: Daily Om

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