Study links kidney stones and gallstones

NEW YORK: People who have had a kidney stoneseem to have a heightened risk of gallstones -- and vice versa, according to a new study.

Researchers already know that obesity, diabetes and having a generally unhealthy diet put people at risk for both types of stones. But even when those common risks were taken into account, the link remained.

The report "raises our antenna to this shared relationship between these two disorders," said Dr. Brian Matlaga, a urologist at theJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

"From an anecdotal standpoint, certainly it's not an uncommon scenario that a patient would have had both," Matlaga, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health. But, he continued, "I'm a little bit at a loss trying to define what that relationship would be."

That's because stones in the kidney and gallbladder form differently, he said, and are made of two different things -- kidney stones of calcium and gallstones of cholesterol, most of the time.

Data for the current analysis came from three different long-term studies of nurses and doctors who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire, then reported any new medical conditions every two years afterward. In total, more than 240,000 people were followed for between 14 and 24 years.

Over that time, there were about 5,100 new kidney stones diagnosed and close to 18,500 new cases of gallstones.

Depending on the population -- male or female, older or younger -- people with a history of gallstones were between 26 and 32 percent more likely to get a kidney stone than people who hadn't ever had gallstones.

And the link also went in the opposite direction. A past history of kidney stones meant study participants were between 17 and 51 percent more likely to report a new gallstone.

That was after factoring in the impact of age, diabetes, high blood pressure, weight and certain aspects of diet on the risk of both kinds of stones.

Researchers led by Eric Taylor from the Maine Medical Center in Portland said it's possible that a shift in the type of bacteria in the intestines might somehow predispose people to both kidney stones and gallstones. But, Taylor said, "the fairest thing is that we just don't know" why the two would be linked.

In their report in the Journal of Urology the researchers echoed Matlaga's call for more detailed research into any explanations for a common cause -- which might help doctors prevent or treat both kidney stones and gallstones, they added.

"They are really two different kinds of stones, so the relationship is not going to be simple between the two conditions," Taylor told Reuters Health.

Matlaga said that for now, there are steps people can take to reduce their risk of both gallstones and kidney stones, even if they've already had one condition.

"You'd like to try to minimize those common risk factors and work on things like weight loss and cholesterol control," he said.

Taylor agreed that the findings "emphasize the importance of healthy diet and healthy weight." (Reuters)

New study sees little need for vitamins, cites risks

WASHINGTON: There is no need for most people to take vitamin supplements and some may even be linked to a higher risk of dying in older women, according to a study published in the United States.

Iron stood out among supplements as a particular concern, while calcium appeared to be linked to lower death risk, said the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

With about half of Americans taking vitamin pills of some kind, the study aimed to examine whether the $20 billion supplement industry was having any effect on extending lifespan in an already well-nourished population.

The researchers confirmed their theory -- that supplements were not helping people ward off death. But the reasons for the link to higher risk of overall mortality, or the risk of dying for any reason, were less clear.

"Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements," wrote the study authors from the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Minnesota.

"We found that several commonly used dietary vitamin and mineral supplements, including multivitamins, vitamins B6, and folic acid, as well as
minerals iron, magnesium, zinc, and copper, were associated with a higher risk of total mortality."

The US and Finnish researchers examined data from the Iowa Women's Health Study, including surveys filled out by 38,772 women with an average age of 62.

Women self-reported their supplement use in 1986, 1997 and 2004, and data showed their use rose from 66 percent of survey-takers at the start to 85 percent by 2004.

Those who took supplements showed a range of healthy lifestyle factors, and
were more likely than non-supplement users to be non-smokers, eat low-fat diets and exercise.

But in many cases they showed a higher risk of dying than their supplement-free counterparts.

"Of particular concern, supplemental iron was strongly and dose dependently associated with increased total mortality risk," said the study.

On the other hand, "supplemental calcium was consistently inversely related to total mortality rate," meaning that calcium-takers showed a lower death risk, though the same dosage relationship was not visible.

The authors said they could not rule out the possibility that the reason for the higher death rate in iron users could have been due to underlying conditions for which they were taking supplements, and more research is needed.

In the meantime, doctors urged patients to consider the risks of taking supplements unless they are needed to stave off deficiencies.

"We think the paradigm 'the more the better' is wrong," wrote doctors Goran Bjelakovic of the University of Nis in Serbia and Christian Gluud of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark in an accompanying commentary.

These findings "add to the growing evidence demonstrating that certain antioxidant supplements, such as vitamin E, vitamin A, and beta-carotene, can be harmful," they said.

"We cannot recommend the use of vitamin and mineral supplements as a preventive measure, at least not in a well-nourished population."

Bjelakovic and Gluud said the only supplement that may be beneficial to older women, and possibly older men, is vitamin D3, if they do not already get enough through their diet or from sun exposure.

"The issue of whether to use calcium supplements may require further study," they added. (AFP)

Dengue claims life of former Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker

LAHORE: Former Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Rana Shamim died due to dengue on Sunday.

Shamim was being treated at the Sheikh Zayed hospital in Lahore.

Dengue continues to spread across Punjab with at least 200 people being diagnosed with the virus during the last 24 hours, out of which 186 were from Lahore.

The death toll has now reached 197 in the province.

Overall, the total number of dengue patients in the province has reached 15,235, out of which 13,000 belonged to Lahore.

This Articel Orignaly Published at Express Tribune pk

Beta blockers 'may stop breast cancer spreading'

Cancer experts are to carry out a major study to see if commonly used blood pressure drugs cut the risk of breast cancer spreading.

Data from 800 patients has already shown those previously given beta blockers had half the chance of their cancer spreading as women who had not.

So-called secondary cancers have a high death rate.

The Cancer Research UK backed study will look at about 30,000 patients, and will report next year.

If that too shows benefits from the medication, further research in which breast cancer patients would be treated with beta blockers, would follow.

Doctors cannot move straight to this kind of study because they need to have more evidence there is a beneficial effect of taking beta blockers first.

They say there is no evidence so far that anything else explains the benefits seen - but the large study will look into that even further.Read more at BBC

Death toll from Dengue reaches 123 in Lahore

LAHORE: Dengue claimed seven more lives as the death toll climbed to 123 in the city, Geo News reported.

Figures released by the health department state that 464 new Dengue cases have been reported in Punjab during the past 24 hours. The total number of cases is 12,379 in the province out of which 10,904 cases are in Lahore.

10,585 people have been cured in Lahore while a large number of people are still visiting hospitals, the health department further added.

Meanwhile a team of Indonesian experts have arrived in Lahore to provide assistance in controlling the spread of the disease.

Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has instructed that fumigation be conducted in private nurseries and cooperative societies. Sharif said Biology and Zoology students along with teachers would be included in the Dengue campaign.(GEo.tv)

MPA, Chinese doctor among seven killed by dengue

LAHORE: Dengue fever claimed the lives of seven more people in Lahore on Thursday, including those of a member of Punjab assembly and a Chinese doctor.

PML-N MPA and parliamentary secretary for education Chaudhry Mumtaz Ahmad Jajja and Chinese doctor Chuwong Chen died in Jinnah Hospital. Fatima Bibi died in Mayo Hospital, Gulnaz in Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Saima, Sobia and Mudassar in private health facilities.

Allama Iqbal Medical College principal Prof Javed Akram told Dawn that the MPA and the Chinese doctor had died of DSS (dengue shock syndrome) complications.

He said Chaudhry Mumtaz had been admitted to the hospital with renal complications and during treatment he was also diagnosed to be suffering from dengue fever. Doctors carried out dialysis and finally put him on a ventilator because of his deteriorating health.

He was shifted to the ICU three days ago because of failures of his organs, including liver and kidneys.

Dr Chuwong, 66, was running an acupuncture clinic in Gulberg. He was tested positive for dengue virus about five days back. Prof Javed said that during treatment Dr Chuwong suffered from acute appendicitis but could not be operated upon because of low platelet counts.

He said Mr Chuwong was living alone and the hospital administration had shifted his body to the mortuary for storage on the request of Chinese embassy officials.

Chaudhry Mumtaz was twice elected MNA in 1985 and MPA in 2008 elections.

This Articel Orignaly Published at Dawn.com

Lung cancer linked to risk of stroke

NEW YORK: People recently diagnosed with lung cancer are at higher risk of having a stroke than those without lung tumors, suggests a large new study from Taiwan.

Researchers looking at data covering more than 150,000 adults found that among those with lung cancer, 26 in every 1000 experienced a stroke each year, compared with 17 in 1000 who did not have cancer.

"This is one more telling sign of the long term risk of smoking," said Dr. Andrew Russman, a stroke specialist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who was not part of the study.

The Taiwanese researchers didn't factor in lifestyle issues -- such as smoking, drinking or diet -- that might influence stroke risk, explained senior author, Dr. Fung-Chang Sung of the China Medical University, to Reuters Health in an email.

Still, they report in the journal Stroke, that stroke risk was highest during the first three months after lung cancer diagnosis for men and during the first four-to-six months for women. Risk decreased in men after one year and after two years in women.

They also found that a less common type of stroke -- hemorrhagic stroke, caused by sudden bleeding into the brain -- occurred more often among the lung cancer patients than ischemic stroke, which is usually caused by a clot blocking blood flow to brain tissue.

Some evidence suggests that excessive bleeding and blood clots, both of which can be caused by tumors, as well as chemotherapy side effects, could partly explain the apparent link between cancer and stroke, researchers note.

"The most common type of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma, increases the body's propensity to form blood clots, even more so than other types of cancers," Russman told Reuters Health.

More than 52,000 people with lung cancer and more than 104,000 people without lung cancer were selected from a nationwide health insurance database.

Most of the study population were blue-collar workers such as farmers, fishermen and vendors, who tended to have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

"There's a higher rate of high blood pressure and diabetes and pulmonary disease in patients with lung cancer," said Russman. "I think this reflects the heavy burden of smoking and smoking related risk factors in the population," he said.

According to the American Lung Association, smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths.

"In the U.S., smokers have twice the risk of having a stroke, regardless of lung cancer," said Russman.

Stroke accounted for one out of eighteen deaths in the U.S. in 2007, based on a report by the American Heart Association. (Reuters)

This Articel Orignaly Published at Reuters

WHO targets non-communicable 'lifestyle' diseases

The World Health Organization has set out a plan to tackle non-communicable diseases like heart disease, which now pose a greater global burden than infectious diseases.

"Lifestyle-related" diseases are now the leading cause of death worldwide, killing 36 million people a year.

Much of the toll is in low and middle-income countries and this is where efforts must be focused, says WHO.

It suggests affordable steps governments should take.

The list includes measures that target the population as a whole, such as excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol, smoke-free indoor workplaces and public places, as well as campaigns to reduce salt and dangerous fats in foods.

Other tactics focus on individuals and include screening and treatment for cardiovascular disease and cervical cancer, as well as immunisation against hepatitis B to prevent liver cancer.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

The challenge to these countries is tremendous, but this study proves that there are affordable steps all governments can take to address non-communicable diseases”

End Quote Dr Ala Alwan World Health Organization

WHO estimates the total cost for adopting these strategies in all low-and middle-income countries would be $11.4bn (£7.2bn) per year.

In comparison, the cumulative costs of heart diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes in poorer countries are expected to top $7 trillion (£4.4 trillion) in 2011-2025, an average of nearly $500bn (£316bn) a year, according to the World Economic Forum.

Many countries have already adopted the public health interventions, and have seen a marked reduction in disease incidence and mortality. Read more

This Articel Orignaly Published at BBC

Stimulating brain with electricity aids learning speed

Electrically stimulating the brain can help to speed up the process of learning, scientists have shown.

Applying a small current to specific parts of the brain can increase its activity, making learning easier.

Researchers from the University of Oxford have studied the changing structure of the brain in stroke patients and in healthy adults.

Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg presented their findings at the British Science Festival in Bradford.

The team at Oxford has been conducting research into how the structure of the brain changes in adulthood, and in particular what changes occur after a stroke.

They have used an approach called functional MRI to monitor activity in the brain as stroke patients re-learn motor skills that were lost as a result of their illness.

One of the major findings is that the brain is very flexible and can restructure itself, growing new connections and reassigning tasks to different areas, when damage occurs or a specific task is practised.

As part of this research, they investigated the possibility of using non-invasive electric brain stimulation to improve the recovery of these motor skills; the short-term improvement in stroke patients had already been noted.

But an unexpected result was found when the same brain stimulation was applied to healthy adults: their speed of learning was also significantly increased.

This Articel Orignaly Published at BBC

Four more dengue patients die in Punjab

Dengue fever claimed four more lives in Lahore on Tuesday.

1100 more dengue cases have been confirmed in Punjab during last 24 hours. Today Javed Iqbal, Khalil, Javed and 22 years old Muqadas died of dengue fever in different hospitals of Lahore.

Sri Lankan experts visited different hospitals of Lahore.

This Articel Orignaly Published at AAJ Tv

Dengue claims 4 more lives in Lahore

Four more persons have died of dengue on Sunday in Lahore, taking the toll to 38. The city has been severely hit by the mosquito-borne disease over the past few weeks.

The Punjab provincial government has imposed emergency measures to stave off the spread of the disease.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has fixed the fee for dengue blood test at Rs. 90 in private laboratories to deal with the growing number of dengue patients. These facilities have been warned of strict action if they charge more.

Dengue fever is caused by a virus transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains and a skin rash similar to measles. Patients suffer from bleeding and low blood pressure when it reaches the life-threatening stage.(AAj Tv)

Four types of dengue reported in Pakistan

KARACHI: The recent outbreak of dengue fever confirmed the presence of all four types of dengue viral infections in Pakistan. Experts also warned that dengue could spread severely throughout the country as it has in the province of Punjab.

This was stated by Dr. Javed Akram, the Head of Jinnah Hospital Lahore and chairman of dengue expert committee.
Until date, officially more than 3,500 people have been infected and over a dozen have died from the recent dengue outbreak in Pakistan.

“These are the official figures but I think the number of unreported dengue patients is more than 500, 000,”Akram told Dawn.com.

Akram said that in the past they had warned the authorities about the worst possible outbreak of dengue fever in Pakistan but this time they seemed to have been too late. Next year, the epidemic will be even more catastrophic than it has been now, he added.

Akram, along with others contributed a research paper about the 2008 dengue outbreak study in two hospitals of Lahore. The paper was published in 2009 in the International Journal of Infectious Disease.

An estimated 100 million persons worldwide get infected with dengue annually, a resurging viral infection spread by the mosquito Aedes aegyptii. In Pakistan Aedes aegyptii is mainly responsible for this disease.

Several hundred thousands of patients develop dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) — a more severe, usually fatal form in which bleeding and shock occurs.

A study of two outbreaks in Lahore in 2008, conducted on 110 patients from two hospitals, showed more than half of them had developed the more severe form which is now confirmed by the current dengue outbreak in Punjab.

Malik Asif Humayoun, then the head of the department of medicine at Allama Iqbal Medical College and the Jinnah Hospital, and his colleagues describe this increase in the more severe form as compared to previous years as alarming.

Four strains of the dengue virus circulate worldwide, including South Asia, and the fatal DHF form occurs when a previously infected and cured dengue patient gets re-infected again, usually with a different strain of the virus.

Two of these were reported in previous outbreaks in Karachi city, while a third has been reported in the Lahore outbreak of 2008. Now all four types of dengue serotypes have been confirmed in Punjab.

“There is urgent need to have a countrywide epidemiological survey for multiple dengue serotypes (strains),” said Humayoun.

There is also a need for larger clinical studies in Pakistan and other South Asian countries to better understand the range of infections, endemic patterns and genetic susceptibility of different populations to the dengue virus, the researchers concluded.Read more at Dawn.com

Top official among four die of dengue

LAHORE, Sept 12: Dengue continues to haunt citizens as on Monday it claimed the lives of four more people, including Punjab mines and minerals department secretary Attaullah Siddiqui, a UAE-returned Pakistani youth and a school teacher.

Mr Siddiqui was the first senior government officer to have fallen prey to the fatal virus which, according to official figures, took the lives of seven people over the past one month or so. But sources claimed that more than 15 people had lost their lives in Lahore alone during the period.

Mr Siddiqui, a resident of GOR-IV and a grade-19 official, was suspected of contracting dengue a week ago. Later clinical reports tested him positive for the virus with low counts which continued to decline till his death. He remained on ventilator for three days. His body was taken to Muzaffargarh.

Thirty-year-old Haji Shahzad had returned from the UAE 15 days ago to celebrate the birth of his son. Shahzad, a resident of Iqbal Road, was taken to a private hospital on Ferozepur Road. He was diagnosed with dengue and his platelet counts continued to decline. He was later shifted to Ittefaq Hospital with massive bleeding from mouth, ears and nose. He died late on Sunday night.

Samina, a 25-year-old school teacher and resident of Waris Road, and 12-year-old girl Farwa Naveed, resident of Chungi Amer Sidhu, died in hospitals.

Six more Chinese engineers tested positive for dengue on Monday. They were working on the project site of under-construction Information Technology Tower on Ferozepur Road. They were taken to the Jinnah Hospital, where their other colleagues were already under treatment for the virus.

Two of them were kept in the intensive care unit because of low platelet counts. Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Prof Dr Javed Arkam told Dawn that Mr Wong was immediately given two mega units of platelets and Mr Lee one mega unit.

Meanwhile, some 655 more people, including Abdul Latif (brother-in-law ofPML-N chief Nawaz Sharif), PML-N MPA Saiful Malook Khokhar, Housing Secretary Sohail Amir and three senior doctors, tested positive for dengue in Lahore, showing a visible surge in the number of patients suffering from the virus.

The number of dengue patients has shot up to 3,800 in Lahore and 4,000 in other parts of the province.