Revolutionary Operation Performed Live For Heart Rhythm Congress

A revolutionary heart operation technique using cutting edge technology is being performed on Monday 20 October and broadcast live to delegates at the Heart Rhythm Congress 2008 taking place in Birmingham.

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The procedure to tackle heart rhythm disorder will be performed by Dr Andre Ng, Senior Lecturer in Cardiology at the University of Leicester and a Consultant Cardiologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

He will use technology that allows rapid and accurate location of the origin of the heart rhythm disturbance in a 3-dimensional geometry of the heart chambers and guides successful treatment with the use of catheter ablation.

Dr Ng said the procedure would highlight not only the advanced technology itself but also of the leading position his team at Glenfield Hospital in the management of heart rhythm disorders as well as the world-class research in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Leicester.

Dr Ng said: “I have been invited to operate on a patient in a catheter ablation procedure as a live case demonstration at the coming Heart Rhythm Congress 2008. The meeting is the 2nd Annual Congress of the Heart Rhythm UK which is the national society for heart rhythm disorders.

“I will perform the ablation procedure using cutting-edge technology with advanced 3-dimensional mapping with the Ensite Array Catheter in Southampton and the procedure will be broadcast to the audience at the auditorium in the Congress at Birmingham during the morning of 20 October 2008.

Dr Ng has extensive experience in the management of heart rhythm disorders, especially in catheter ablation procedures and advanced mapping techniques. He is an expert in the use of the non-contact array balloon catheter (Ensite Array, St Jude Medical) in mapping the source of heart rhythm disturbance and identifying the location for ablation to cure the rhythm disorder.

Dr Ng has hosted 3 previous international Ensite Array courses at Glenfield Hosptial, University Hospitals of Leicester where live case demonstration of the use of this cutting-edge technology in different types of heart rhythm disturbance was shown to over 300 visiting physicians and cardiac technicians from many countries in Europe, Middle East and Canada.

Angular Cheilitis and Vitamin Deficiency

In dealing with Angular Cheilitis, we need to understand that there are some connections between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency. For the most part, this isn't so much a relationship of cause and effect, but more of one feeding into the other's present state. That is to say, in the relationship between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency, it isn't necessarily that this deficiency causes this condition, but that it can hinder the healing of it. When our immune systems chug away at the task of healing ourselves, such action consumes bodily resources, and we merely need to keep replenishing these vitamins in order for our immune systems to maintain a certain level of ability and strength.

There are mainly five major vitamins involved in this connection between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency; vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), vitamin B3 (Niacin), vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine), Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamine), and Iron. While again, a deficiency in these vitamins are not the cause of this condition, it is reported that those who already suffer a deficiency in these vitamins before contracting Angular Cheilitis are more prone to suffering from it more seriously, with quicker advancements of the condition.

Realizing this connection between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency, and arming ourselves with this data, we can see how it would be quite beneficial to keep aware of our vitamin intake, maintaining it either through supplements, through proper nutrition practices, or both. This is pretty much the relationship between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency in a nutshell. Those who suffer from this condition may benefit from eating foods or drinking juices that are rich with these vitamins, as this can help bolster their immune systems to help battle this condition, while allowing any treatments to do their work in an unhindered environment.

Minor Surgery for Migraine Headaches

All sorts of pharmaceuticals and other treatments are available today to treat or stop migraine headaches. Some of the drugs can eliminate a headaches in a few minutes while others are taken regularly for prevention purposes. There are also many other non invasive treatments available including using heat, ice, magnets, aromas and even massage.

The latest weapon against migraine is surgery. This is not a new procedure and has been used in facial plastic surgery for some time now. This surgery has only recently been initiated in the US and involves removing the corrugator muscle found above the eyebrows. The overall ideas is that the procedure will eliminate migraines because it will get rid of the muscle that is causing the problems. This is an extremely drastic and radical approach to traditional treatment against debilitating migraines.

The surgery targets the trigger point where migraine headaches usually begin. The pressure will be removed once the muscle is eliminated which should alleviate pain. This procedure does not help all migraines. It will only work for corrugator muscle triggered migraines and the specific nerve group in the head. The doctor will screen the patient to see if his or her migraines are caused by this trigger and if so he or she will be eligible for the procedure.

It is important to understand that though the surgery eliminates the trigger and therefore the pain, it does not remove or cure the root cause of migraines. Although the pain and symptoms are gone the root problem may still exist and might need to be addressed by the patient.

Tumors, high blood pressure, aneurysm, stroke and heart problems are some of the health issues linked to migraines. Whether the patient decides to pursue surgery or not, there should be close consultation with one's doctor for determining the cause of the migraine.

This exciting procedure is welcome news to many migraine sufferers. All patients must research and study the consequence of the surgical procedure. Surgery is an extremely invasive procedure and is best avoided if not necessary. If indeed surgery will make the sufferer's life quality better then it would be worth the risk, so that they can live as normally as possible.

It is a good idea to discuss all treatment choices with your doctor before making any decisions regarding surgery.

Fatty acids clue to Alzheimer's

Controlling the level of a fatty acid in the brain could help treat Alzheimer's disease, an American study has suggested.

Tests on mice showed that reducing excess levels of the acid lessened animals' memory problems and behavioural changes.

Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the team said fatty acid levels could be controlled through diet or drugs.

A UK Alzheimer's expert called the work "robust and exciting".

There are currently 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK, but that number is forecast to double within a generation.

Over-stimulation

Scientists from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California looked at fatty acids in the brains of normal mice and compared them with those in mice genetically engineered to have an Alzheimer's-like condition.

They identified raised levels of a fatty acid called arachidonic acid in the brains of the Alzheimer's mice.

This is cause for cautious optimism, as fatty acid levels can be controlled to some extent by diet and drugs Rebecca Wood, Alzheimer's Research Trust

Its release is controlled by the PLA2 enzyme.

The scientists again used genetic engineering to lower PLA2 levels in the animals, and found that even a partial reduction halted memory deterioration and other impairments.

Dr Rene Sanchez-Mejia, who worked on the study, said: "The most striking change we discovered in the Alzheimer's mice was an increase in arachidonic acid and related metabolites [products] in the hippocampus, a memory centre that is affected early and severely by Alzheimer's disease."

He suggested too much arachidonic acid might over-stimulate brain cells, and that lowering levels allowed them to function normally.

Dr Lennart Mucke, who led the research, added: "In general, fatty acid levels can be regulated by diet or drugs.

"Our results have important therapeutic implications because they suggest that inhibition of PLA2 activity might help prevent neurological impairments in Alzheimer's disease.

"But a lot more work needs to be done before this novel therapeutic strategy can be tested on humans."

'Cautious optimism'

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the UK's Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This research on mice suggests a connection between fatty acids and the abnormal brain activity that exists in Alzheimer's disease.

"This is cause for cautious optimism, as fatty acid levels can be controlled to some extent by diet and drugs.

"However, it is not yet clear if these findings are applicable to humans, and a lot more research is needed before any human trials can be conducted."

Professor Clive Ballard, director of Research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the work was "robust and exciting".

He added: "This is a novel and potentially exciting area of research, but it is still at a very early stage.

"Much more research is needed to see if fatty acids could lead to a treatment for those living with the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease."

Western diet 'raises heart risk'

Swapping fried and salty foods for fruit and veg could cut the global incidence of heart attacks by a third, a study of eating habits suggests.

Researchers analysed the diet of 16,000 people in 52 countries and identified three global eating patterns, Circulation journal reports.

The typical Western diet, high in fat, salt and meat, accounted for about 30% of heart attack risk in any population.

A "prudent" diet high in fruit and veg lowered heart risk by a third.

30% of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet Lead author Romania Iqbal

An Oriental diet, high in tofu, soy and other sauces, made no difference to heart attack risk. The researchers created a dietary risk score questionnaire based on 19 food groups and then asked 5,561 heart attack patients and 10,646 people with known heart disease to fill out their survey.

People who ate a Western diet had a 35% greater risk of having a heart attack than those who ate little or no fried foods and meat.

The typical Western diet has been widely linked to heart disease. High salt in the diet can raise blood pressure and the wrong type of fat can clog blood vessels.

Investigating overall eating patterns is more true to life than looking at intake of individual foods or nutrients.

Global trend

The researchers said their work suggested that the same relationships between food and heart disease that are observed in Western countries exist in other regions of the world.

Lead author Romania Iqbal, of McMaster University in Canada, said: "30% of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet."

The researchers said that while components of the Oriental diet might be bad for the heart - such as the salt in soy sauce - these elements were likely cancelled out by protective components.

Ellen Mason, a cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, said: "This study shows that it doesn’t matter whether you live in Bolton or Bombay, or whether you like to eat British, African Caribbean or Asian foods.

"The vital thing is to reduce your intake of salty, fried, fatty food to a minimum but increase the amount of fruit and vegetables you eat."

Bacterium 'to blame for Crohn's'

Researchers believe the lack of a specific bacterium in the gut may be a cause of Crohn's disease.

A shortage of naturally-occurring bacteria is thought to trigger the inflammatory gastrointestinal disorder by over-stimulating the immune system.

Now a French team has highlighted the bug, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, which they show secretes biochemicals that reduce inflammation.

The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, had already shown that patients with Crohn's disease have a marked deficiency in bacteria from the Clostridium leptum group.

Their latest work shows that F. prausnitzii - a major component of this group - accounts for a large part of the deficit.

Bowel surgery

The researchers found that Crohn's patients who underwent bowel surgery were more likely to experience a recurrence of the condition if they had low levels of F. prausnitzii.

And in experiments on cultured cells, they showed that liquid in which F. prausnitzii had been grown provided an anti-inflammatory effect.

The researchers said that if ongoing animal trials prove successful, human patients could benefit from a probiotic treatment with F. prausnitzii.

Dr Anton Emmanuel, medical director of the digestive disorders charity Core, called the study "exciting" and agreed it raised the possibility of a therapeutic "replacement" therapy.

"It would be interesting to see how this finding relates to the emerging body of evidence looking at genetic changes in some patients with Crohn's disease, with the known abnormal gene being one that codes for the body's ability to recognise foreign bacteria."

Dr John Bennett, chairman of Core, said there was growing evidence that micro-organisms combined with immunological weaknesses to either cause, or exacerbate Crohn's symptoms.

However, he said: "The gut contains a huge number and variety of organisms, and many of them have been investigated without any single one seeming to be entirely responsible."

Dr Bennett said scientists were testing the theory that harmful bacteria could be neutralised, or at least counter-acted, by preparations of beneficial "probiotic" micro-organisms, but as yet no definitive proof of their effect had been produced.

Professor Jonathan Rhodes, a consultant gastroenterologist from the Royal Liverpool Hospital, described the study as "interesting".

However, he said: "It is too early to tell whether this will lead directly to a new treatment as other probiotics have tended to produce good results in animal studies only to prove disappointing in clinical trial in Crohn's disease."

Heart Attack Risk Increased Globally By 'Western' Diet

The typical Western diet - fried foods, salty snacks and meat - accounts for about 30 percent of heart attack risk across the world, according to a study of dietary patterns in 52 countries reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers identified three dietary patterns in the world:

• Oriental: higher intake of tofu, soy and other sauces;
  
  
• Prudent: higher intake of fruits and vegetables; and
  
  
• Western: higher intake of fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat.

The Prudent diet was associated with a lower heart attack risk than the Oriental, researchers said.

"The objective of this study was to understand the modifiable risk factors of heart attacks at a global level," said Salim Yusuf, D.Phil., the study's senior author.

Previous studies have reached similar conclusions about the Prudent and Western diet in the United States and Europe. This study broadens those findings and identifies a unique dietary pattern that researchers labeled "Oriental" (because of a higher content of food items typical of an Oriental diet.) The dietary pattern recommended by the American Heart Association is similar to the Prudent diet described in this study.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world," said Yusuf, professor of medicine at McMaster University and director of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

Researchers analyzed the INTERHEART study, which documents the association of various risk factors and the risk of heart attack in about 16,000 participants in 52 countries. Here, they analyzed 5,761 heart attack cases and compared them to 10,646 people without known heart disease (controls).

The researchers created a dietary risk score questionnaire for heart attacks patients, based on 19 food groups and adjusted it for dietary preferences for each country. Trained medical personnel interviewed the heart attack patients and the control group. The questionnaires included healthy food items (such as fruits and vegetables) and unhealthy food items (such as fried foods and salty snacks).

"A simple dietary score, which included both good and bad foods with the higher score indicating a worse diet, showed that 30 percent of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet," said Romania Iqbal, Ph.D., lead author of the study.

After adjusting for known risk factors, researchers found:

• People who consumed the Prudent diet of more fruits and vegetables had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack compared to people who ate little or no fruits and vegetables.
  
  
• People who consumed the Western diet had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack compared to people who consumed little or no fried foods and meat.
  
  
• The Oriental pattern showed no relationship with heart attack risk.

Researchers said that while some components of the Oriental pattern may be protective, others such as the higher sodium content of soy sauces, may increase cardiovascular risk, neutralizing any relationship.

It's expensive and time-consuming to establish a large and long-term study examining the relationship of diet and heart attack in every region of the world. So the approach of this study is the only feasible way to examine the relationship to diet and heart disease from multiple populations in a relatively short time at an affordable cost, Yusuf said.

Data from this study helped confirm that changes in dietary intake, including the consumption of more fruits and vegetables, can help reduce the risk of having a heart attack in populations worldwide, he said.

"At the same time, an unhealthy dietary intake, assessed by a simple dietary risk score, accounts for nearly one-third of the world population's attributable risk," Yusuf said.

Insomnia In Breast Cancer May Be Predicted By Respiratory Rhythms

The breathing and heart rates and cortisol levels of women with metastatic breast cancer can be used to predict if they'll suffer from chronic insomnia and sleep disruptions, a common complaint from patients who want to maintain their quality of life, according to a study by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

This report, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, is the first to identify the body's parasympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system that controls breathing and heart rates and the body's response to stress, as a contributor to poor sleep, which is a persistent problem for women with breast cancer, according to lead author Oxana Palesh, Ph.D., research assistant professor at Rochester's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center.

"We were able to identify the role that the parasympathetic nervous system plays in insomnia. It's reasonable to suggest that simple breathing exercises may help more than we realize with insomnia," Palesh said. She is a member of the University of Rochester Cancer Center Community Clinical Oncology Research Base, which specializes in cancer control studies.

She suggests regulating deep diaphragmatic breathing through yoga, meditation and other techniques may help thwart insomnia and sleep disruptions, which are two to three times as common in cancer patients compared to the general population. Scientists don't know why people with cancer experience greater sleep problems and how to prevent it. Many doctors prescribe people with cancer various sleep aides or hypnotics.

Palesh led a study of 99 women with metastatic breast cancer or recurrent disease over 45 living in San Francisco. Among the women, 39 took antidepressants and 19 used medications to treat their insomnia

Participants collected saliva for cortisol measurement for two days, completed questionnaires and wore actigraphs to monitor sleep and awake cycles for three days. They also participated in Trier Social Stress Tasks, a standardized social and cognitive stress test, after their cortisol baseline collections.

Scientists measured participants' heart rate during a stress task and found that lowered heart rate variability was associated with efficiency of their sleep, how long after sleeping that they awoke, how long they were awake and the average number of times they woke in the night.

Results showed that most women spent about eight hours in bed at night, but had on average 15 wake episodes in the night with each episode lasting about 5 minutes, for a total of 71 minutes

Insomnia and sleep problems are tied to fatigue, mood disorders and sometimes psychiatric illness, and can reduce quality of life for people facing the disease.

In healthy people, cortisol levels peak during the morning and typically level out during the end of the day. However in more than a third of the women with metastatic breast cancer, circadian rhythms are disrupted and cortisol peak multiple times or rise during the end of the day. In this study, Palesh found that Cortisol disruption was also associated with waking up at night.

In studies of healthy people, evidence shows people with insomnia typically have an elevated response to stress, which contributes to the problem.

	Gallstones in the Liver: A Major Health Risk

(NaturalNews) Think of the liver as a large city with thousands of houses and streets. There are underground pipes for delivering water, oil, and gas. Sewage systems and garbage trucks remove the city's waste products. Power lines deliver energy to the homes and businesses. Factories, transport systems, communication networks, and stores meet the daily requirements of the residents. The organization of city life is such that it can provide all that it needs for the continued existence of the population. But if a major strike, a power outage, a devastating earthquake, or a major act of terrorism, such as the one we witnessed in New York City on September 11, 2001, suddenly paralyzes city life, the population will begin to suffer serious shortcomings in all these vital sectors.

Like a city's infrastructure, the liver has hundreds of different functions and is connected with every part of the body. Every moment of the day, it is involved in manufacturing, processing, and supplying vast amounts of nutrients. These nutrients feed the 60 to 100 trillion inhabitants (cells) of the body. Each cell is, in itself, a microscopic city of immense complexity, with billions of chemical reactions per second. To sustain the incredibly diverse activities of all the cells of the body without disruption, the liver must supply them with a constant stream of nutrients, enzymes, and hormones. With its intricate labyrinth of veins, ducts, and specialized cells, the liver needs to be completely unobstructed in order to maintain a problem-free production line and frictionless distribution system throughout the body.

Diabetes And Mortality In Men With Locally Advanced Prostate Cancer: RTOG 92-02

In the September 10, 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Matthew Smith and his colleagues reported on the association of diabetes mellitus (DM) and death in men treated for prostate cancer (CaP) with radiotherapy and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The authors cited a meta-analysis whereby an inverse relationship between diabetes and CaP diagnosis was noted. This report used the database from RTOG 92-02 in which men with CaP were randomized to radiotherapy with either 4 months of ADT or 24 months of extended ADT. The primary endpoint was cause of death.

In total, 1,551 patients were enrolled in the study: 763 to the short-term ADT and 758 to long-term ADT. Median age was 70 years and patients with DM had significantly greater body weight as well as lower PSA levels. In univariate analysis, DM was significantly associated with greater all-cause and non-CaP mortality, but not CaP mortality. In multivariate analysis, age, race, Gleason score, tumor stage, PSA, treatment arm and weight were controlled for. In this model, DM was significantly associated with both greater all-cause mortality and non-CaP mortality. DM was not associated with greater CaP mortality. Tumor stage and Gleason score, age, greater weight and treatment arm were significantly associated with CaP mortality. In both treatment arms, DM was associated with greater all-cause and non-CaP mortality, but not CaP mortality.

The authors suggested that the association of greater weight, but not DM with increased CaP mortality, indicates that mechanisms other than diabetic metabolic alterations account for death.