Month: January 2011

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News on Health & Science

Pill With a Will

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Patients often fail to take their medication properly. Technology steps in with some ideas. Amber Dance reports .

Did you take your medicine today?” Soon, patients won’t have to rely on their memories for the answer. Scientists are developing tablets and capsules that track when they’ve been popped, turning the humble pill into a high-tech monitoring machine. The goal: new devices to help people take their medicines on time and improve the results of clinical trials for new drugs.
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Doctors can already prescribe pills that release drugs slowly or at a specific time. They even have camera pills that take snaps of their six to 12-metre journey through the gastrointestinal tract. The new pills tote microchips that make them even cleverer: they will report back to a recorder or smart phone exactly what kind and how much medicine has gone down the hatch and landed in the stomach. Someday they may also report on heart rate and other bodily data.

This next generation of pills is all about compliance, as it’s termed in doctor-speak — the tendency of patients to follow their doctors’ instructions (or not). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), half of patients don’t take their pills properly. They skip doses, take the wrong amount at the wrong time or simply ignore prescriptions altogether.

The most common reason for medication mistakes is forgetfulness, particularly among the elderly. “The number of prescriptions they get is mind-boggling,” says Jill Winters, dean, Columbia College of Nursing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to a 2004 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Merck Institute of Aging and Health, the average 75-year-old takes five different drugs.

Often, occasional lapses don’t matter. Smart pills like these are “not for your aspirin or even simple antibiotics,” says Maysam Ghovanloo, an electrical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The new technology is aimed at time-sensitive or costly medications.

For certain medications, not taking every pill can have serious consequences. For example, those mentally ill may require regular treatment to stay stable. Chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics for treating tuberculosis (TB) are also time-sensitive.

Blood pressure (BP) medication works only when taken on a regular basis; suddenly stopping it can cause the BP to skyrocket, says Daniel Touchette, a pharmacist and researcher at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

With drugs for transplant patients, a person who misses a dose risks rejection of the new organ. Novartis International AG, based in Basel, Switzerland, is developing pills for transplant recipients; the pills communicate with a patch on the skin when they reach the stomach.

And in the case of TB, treatment requires a six-month course of antibiotics that come with side effects such as nausea and heartburn. Many people don’t understand why they have to keep taking the unpleasant drugs once they feel better — but going off the medication may make patients contagious again and allow drug-resistant TB to develop.

Yet another arena where compliance is crucial is clinical drug trials. Drugmakers can only be sure their medicine works if they’re sure subjects are actually taking it as directed. For now, experimenters rely on diaries where participants record their medication use. But people may fudge the data, not wanting to admit they dropped a pill down the drain or forgot to take it for a few days. To account for those who miss their medicines, firms have to spend extra — trials cost hundreds of millions of dollars — for larger trials just so enough people will actually take the drug.

Technology already offers some solutions, with mobile phone reminders and pill bottles that record when they’re opened. But none of these actually confirms that the medicine has been swallowed.

Ghovanloo hopes to improve compliance with a necklace that records every time a special pill slides down the esophagus. He calls it MagneTrace. By sounding an alarm or sending a mobile phone message, the necklace also would inform the wearer when it’s time for another dose. Caretakers or doctors could monitor the signals too.

The system works by radio-frequency identification, or RFID. Three magnets on a choker-type necklace act like pillars, continually surveying the neck. The pill contains an RFID chip to communicate with the magnets. When Ghovanloo tested the system in an artificial neck made of PVC pipe, the necklace detected 94 per cent of pills passing through it. He hopes to get that number up to 99 per cent and is adding a microchip that will also transmit information about the specific drug taken and its dose.

Ghovanloo coats the chips with a non-reactive material so that after the medicine dissolves, the hardware simply passes through and out of the digestive tract. However, Ghovanloo says he needs make the design more fashionable. “Right now, it’s not something that a lady would be willing to wear,” he says. For men, he might embed the device in a shirt collar.

Rizwan Bashirullah, an electrical engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is also working on pills that will confirm they’ve been taken. “They’re essentially little stickers,” he says of his technology, called the ID-Cap. Gainesville-based eTect is developing the product.

Each sticker contains three components: a microchip, an antenna and an acid sensor. Altogether it’s approximately half the size of a postage stamp, says eTect President Eric Buffkin. The sensor activates the device when it lands in the acid environment of the stomach, and the chip uses the antenna to send electronic signals directly through the body’s tissues to a receiver, worn on a wristband. The silver antenna and sensor dissolve into safe components; these and the microchip, about as big as a grain of sand, are flushed out of the gut. Over the next year, the company plans to test the capsule for safety in animals and people, Buffkin says.

Source : Los Angerles Times

Published by The Telegraph ( Kolkata India)

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Herbs & Plants

Derris

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Botanical Name :Derris elliptica Benth.
Family: Fabaceae (pea family)
Subfamily: Faboideae
Genus :  Derris
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Fabales
Tribe: Millettieae

Synonyms: Deguelia elliptica (Roxb.) Taub., Galedupa elliptica Roxb., Pongamia elliptica Wall. [basionym] (GRIN 2002).Cylista piscatoria Blanco ,Galactia terminaliflora Blanco  ,Milletia splendidissima Vidal  ,Milletia piscatoria Merr.

Common Names: Derris, tuba root (Bailey and Bailey 1976, GRIN 2002), poison vine.Bauit (Tag.) Tubling-pula (Tag.),Lapak (Bik.) Tuva (Iv.),Malasiag (Tag.) Upei (Bon.)
Tibalau (Tag.), Tuba (Malaya),Tibanglan (Tag.) Derris (Engl.),Tubli (P. Bis., Tag., Buk.)  Poison vine (Engl.),Tugli (Tag.)  Tuba root (Engl.)

Habitat ;Native range: D. elliptica is native from India to Indonesia (Bailey and Bailey 1976).Abundant in thickets along streams, in secondary forests at low and medium altitudes.

Global distribution: D. elliptica is cultivated and naturalized to 400 m (1,312 ft) in Fiji(Smith 1985). According to PIER (2000), D. elliptica is observed climbing over small trees and shrubs on Rota, and is also known from Micronesia, American Samoa, Hawai’i, and Christmas Island.

Description:
A rambling climber, with branches covered with brown hairs. Leaves are pinnate and 30-50 cm long with 11-15 leaflets. Leaflets are narrowly oblong-obovate, 9 to 13 cm when mature, smooth above and subglaucous and silky beneath, half as broad. Racemes are lax, 15 to 30 cm long, with reddish flowers in stalked clusters. Pods are 6-8 cm long, with 1 to 3 flat and reniform seeds.

You may click to see the pictures

Cultivation: Derris is cultivated in the tropics for the insecticide Rotenone which is
derived from the roots of the plant (Bailey and Bailey 1976).

Propagation: D. elliptica is propagated by seeds, or the commercially important kinds are propagated by cuttings (Bailey and Bailey 1976).

Properties and constituents:
*Insecticidal because of the rotenone in the roots.
*Root contains rotenone, derrid, anhydroderrid, derrin, tubotoxin, and tubain.
*Study yielded two new rotenoids–4′,5′-dihydroxy-6a,12a-dehydrodegueline and 11,4’5′-trihydroxy-6a,12a-dehydrodeguelin–along with known rotenoids, rotenone and deguelin. source.

Medicinal Uses:

Parts used: Leaves and roots.

Folkloric
*Root with a little opium used as abortifacient, applied nightly in the vagina.
*Infusion or decoction of roots with coconut oil applied to itchy lesions.
*Plaster of the root used for abscesses and leprosy.
*Used by Ifugao-migrants for wounds and skin disease. source

Studies
• Larvicidal: In a study of 96 ethanolic extracts,44 showed activity against the larvae of A aegypti, Derris elliptica one of six that showed high larvicidal activity.
• Rotenone / Pest Control: Derris elliptica extracts containing rotenone have been long used as natural insecticide. Preliminary testing show that Derris emulsifiable concentrate was more effective than Derris water-dispersible granules in controlling spodoptera litura.

Other Uses:
*Roots are insecticidal; rotenone from roots is raw material for insecticides against plant pests.
*White milkly sap from pounded roots used as fish poison.
*Malay indigenous people also use the sap as arrow-poison for hunting. source
*In Borneo, used to make blow-dart poison.
*Despite its toxicity, Derris is used as a food plant by the larvae of numerous Lepidoptera species including Batrachedra amydraula.

Known Hazards:Derris is not only poisonous to insects and fish, but also to other animals and to men. In the Philippines cattle are known to have been killed by eating the leaves. The root has been used as a poison for humans in both suicidal and murder cases. However, it has been generally concluded that there is little likelihood that any residue left from a spray will poison people, as the amount consumed would have to be considerably more than it is ever likely to be in this
case. Rotenone occurs as white crystals which vary in shape but are mostly hexagonal or acicular. It has the empirical formula C23H22O8 and melts at 163°C.; it is optically active,the optical rotation ranging in different solvents from 66° to 230° at 20° C.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:

Click to access derris_elliptica.pdf

http://www.stuartxchange.com/Tubli.html

Click to access tugli.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derris

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Herbs & Plants

Tree Bean

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Botanical Name :Parkia javanica Merr.
Family : Fabaceae (Leguminosae)
Other Scientific Names :Gleditsia javanica Lam.,Acacia javanica DC.,Mimosa biglobosa Roxb.,Parkia roxburghii G. Don,
Local Common Names :Amarang  (Tagb.); bagoen (Ilk.); balaiuak (Ilk.); kupang (Tag., Sbl., Tagb., Ilk.).Tree bean (Engl.),Inga timoriana DC.,Mimosa peregrina Blanco ,Acacia niopa Llanos,Parkia timoriana Merr.

Habitat :Tree Bean is native to northeastern India to Java. It is common in forest at low and medium altitudes in La Union to Laguna Provinces in Luzon and in Palawan.

Description :
A very large tree growing to a height of 25 to 40 meters. The leaves are evenly bipinnate, 30-80 cm long. The pinnae are 40 to 60, 8 to 20 cm long. The leaflets are 60 to 140, linear-oblong, 6-12 millimeters long, close-set, shining above, and pointed at the tip. The heads are dense, obovoid or pyriform, axillary, long-peduncled, up to 6 cm long. Flowers are white, about 1 cm long. The pods are 25 to 30 cm long, about 3.5 cm wide, rather thick, pendulous, black and shining when mature, containing 15-20 seeds.
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Propagation : It is grown from seeds.The wood is attracted by termites , so it has no commercial value.

Edible Uses: The seed pods are edible.Their pulp is golden yellow, with a sweetish taste and an odor like that of violets.Roasted seed are used in certain parts of Africa to make an infusion like coffee, for which reason they have been called “soudan Coffee”.

Chemical constituents and properties:-
Pulp contains 60% sugar weight (dextrose and levulose); 0.98 % free tartaric and citric acids, fats, and albuminoids.
Study extracted a lectin from the beans . The purified lectin showed two forms of protein that appeared to be singkle polypeptide chains.

Medicinal Uses:
Folkloric
*Seeds used for abdominal colic.
*In India, pods are used for bleeding piles. Bark extract used for diarrhea and dysentery.
*Lotion made from bark and leaves applied to sores and skin affections.

.

Studies
• Phytochemicals: Study yilelded two new iridoid glucosides, javanicosides A and B along with known compounds, urosolic acid, B-sitosterol from the leaf and bark of Pj.
• Hemagglutinating Activity: Study yielded a lectin from the beans of Pj. The purified lectin could agglunate the RBCs of rabbit and rat but not human, sheep or goose.

Other Uses:
Fruit skin known to give a brown color but not used extensively for dyeing fabrics.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:
http://www.stuartxchange.com/Kupang.html

Click to access kupang.pdf

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Our body extricts

Sweat

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Defination:
Sweating (Perspiration, transpiration, or diaphoresis) is the production of a fluid consisting primarily of water as well as various dissolved solids (chiefly chlorides), that is excreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals. Sweat contains the chemicals or odorants 2-methylphenol (o-cresol) and 4-methylphenol (p-cresol), as well as a small amount of urea.
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In humans, sweating is primarily a means of thermoregulation, although it has been proposed that components of male sweat can act as pheromonal cues. There is widespread belief that sweating, for example, in a sauna, helps the body to remove toxins, but the belief is without scientific support. Evaporation of sweat from the skin surface has a cooling effect due to the latent heat of evaporation of water. Hence, in hot weather, or when the individual’s muscles heat up due to exertion, more sweat is produced. Sweating is increased by nervousness and nausea and decreased by cold. Animals with few sweat glands, such as dogs, accomplish similar temperature regulation results by panting, which evaporates water from the moist lining of the oral cavity and pharynx. Primates and horses have armpits that sweat like those of humans. Although sweating is found in a wide variety of mammals, relatively few, such as humans and horses, produce large amounts of sweat in order to cool down..

 

A study has discovered that men, on average, start perspiring much more quickly than women, then twice as much when they are in the middle of exercising.


Mechanism :
A man sweats after exercising.Sweating allows the body to regulate its temperature. Sweating is controlled from a center in the preoptic and anterior regions of the brain’s hypothalamus, where thermosensitive neurons are located. The heat-regulatory function of the hypothalamus is also affected by inputs from temperature receptors in the skin. High skin temperature reduces the hypothalamic set point for sweating and increases the gain of the hypothalamic feedback system in response to variations in core temperature. Overall, however, the sweating response to a rise in hypothalamic (‘core’) temperature is much larger than the response to the same increase in average skin temperature. The process of sweating decreases core temperature, whereas the process of evaporation decreases surface temperature.

There are two situations in which our nerves will stimulate sweat glands, making us sweat: during physical heat and emotional stress. In general, emotionally induced sweating is restricted to palms, soles, armpits, and sometimes the forehead, while physical heat-induced sweating occurs throughout the body.

Sweat is not pure water; it always contains a small amount (0.2–1%) of solute. When a person moves from a cold climate to a hot climate, adaptive changes occur in the sweating mechanisms of the person. This process is referred to as acclimatisation: the maximum rate of sweating increases and its solute composition decreases. The volume of water lost in sweat daily is highly variable, ranging from 100 to 8,000 mL/day. The solute loss can be as much as 350 mmol/day (or 90 mmol/day acclimatised) of sodium under the most extreme conditions. In a cool climate and in the absence of exercise, sodium loss can be very low (less than 5 mmols/day). Sodium concentration in sweat is 30-65 mmol/l, depending on the degree of acclimatisation.

Composition:
Sweat contains mainly water. It also contains minerals, lactate, and urea. Mineral composition varies with the individual, their acclimatisation to heat, exercise and sweating, the particular stress source (exercise, sauna, etc.), the duration of sweating, and the composition of minerals in the body. An indication of the minerals content is sodium 0.9 gram/liter, potassium 0.2 gram/liter, calcium 0.015 gram/liter, magnesium 0.0013 gram/liter. Also many other trace elements are excreted in sweat, again an indication of their concentration is (although measurements can vary fifteenfold) zinc (0.4 mg/l), copper (0.3–0.8 mg/l), iron (1 mg/l), chromium (0.1 mg/l), nickel (0.05 mg/l), lead (0.05 mg/l). Probably many other less-abundant trace minerals leave the body through sweating with correspondingly lower concentrations. Some exogenous organic compounds make their way into sweat as exemplified by an unidentified odiferous “maple syrup” scented compound in several of the species in the mushroom genus Lactarius.   In humans sweat is hypoosmotic relative to plasma

You may click to learn more

You may also click and see:
*Diaphoresis
*Hyperhidrosis
*Anhidrosis
*Hyponatremia
*Hyperthermia
*Body odor
*Hidradenitis-Suppurativa
*Pheromones
*Sweat gland
*Sweat therapy
*Eccrine gland
*Apocrine gland

Click to see :

Sweat

What is Sweat?

Do you Sweat excessively? Here are the solutions

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspiration

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Herbs & Plants

Subsuban

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Botanical Name :Polygonum barbatum Linn.
Family  : Polygonaceae

Other Scientific Names :  Polygonum stoloniferum Blanco, Polygonum serrulatum Hook. Polygonum persicaria Walp. ,Polygonum serulatum Lagasca ,Polygonum fissum Blume Persicaria barbata Linn.  Polygonum fissum Hassk. Persicaria omerostroma (Ohki.)Sasaki. Polygonum fissum Miers., Polygonum omerostromum Ohki.   Polygonum eruthrodes Miq.,Polygonum stagnimum Miers.
.

Local Common Names: Bukakau (Bik.),Kanubsubang (Pamp.)Kaykayu (If.),Saimbangan-tubig (Sul.),Sigan-lupa (Tag.),Bearded knotweed (Engl.),Subsuban (Tag.),Jointweed (Engl.),Knotgrass (Engl.),Smart-weed (Engl.)

Other Common name: Bearded Knotweed, water milkwort
Bengali: bekh-unjubaz
Kannada: konde malle, kondemalle
Malayalam: belutta-modela-mucca
Manipuri:  Yelang
 Marathi: dhaktasheral
Mizo: anbawng
Nepali:  Bish
Tamil: niralari, neer alari
Telugu: kondamalle, neeruganneru

Habitat :It is found in the streamsides, wet areas, water sides; sea level to 1300 m.In the places like  Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].

Description:
Herbs perennial, rhizomatous. Stems erect, 40-90 cm tall, robust, pubescent, simple or branched above. Petiole 5-8 mm, densely hispidulous; leaf blade lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, 7-15 × 1.5-4 cm, both surfaces pubescent, base cuneate, margin ciliate, apex acuminate; ocrea tubular, 1.5-2 cm, membranous, densely hispidulous, apex truncate, cilia 1.5-2 cm. Inflorescence terminal, spicate, erect, 4-8 cm, several spikes aggregated and panicle-like, rarely solitary; bracts funnel-shaped, glabrous, margin ciliate, each 3-5-flowered. Pedicel short. Perianth white or greenish, 5-parted; tepals elliptic, 1.5-2 mm. Stamens 5-8, included. Styles 3; stigmas capitate. Achenes included in persistent perianth, black, shiny, ovoid, trigonous, 1.5-2 mm. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 60.

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Edible Uses: Young leaves and shoots cooked as vegetable.

Medicinal Uses:
Parts used: Leaves, seeds, and roots.

Properties:
Considered astringent, carminative, parasiticide.

Folkloric :-
*Pounded leaves applied to wounds as cicatrizant.
*Seeds are used for colic.
*Decoction of leaves and stems used to wash wounds and ulcers.
*It has been tried for diabetes with no observed benefits.
*Sap applied to wounds as antiseptic.
*Paste of roots used for treatment of scabies.

Studies
• Anti-Ulcer: A study on the aqueous and methanolic leaf extracts of P barbatum showed reduction of gastric volume, total acidity, free acidity and ulcer index. The antiulcer activity may be due to the presence of flavanoids and tannins.
• Wound-Healing: A study of wound healing on albino rats of Wistar strain showed a significant increase in wound closure rate, tensile strength and decrease in epithelization perioe in PB treated group. Study concludes that ethanolic extract of P B had greater wound healing activity than nitrofurazone ointment.

CLICK TO LEARN MORE

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:

http://www.stuartxchange.com/Subsuban.html

http://medplants.blogspot.in/2014/05/persicaria-barbata-polygonum-barbatum.html

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=3&taxon_id=200006714

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