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Vitamin D May Guard Against Artery Disease
People with low vitamin D levels may face an increased risk for peripheral artery disease (PAD), according to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
PAD is a common disease that occurs when arteries in the legs become narrowed by fatty deposits, causing pain and numbness and impairing the ability to walk. PAD affects about eight million Americans and is associated with significant disease and death, according to the American Heart Association, ScienceDaily reported.
People obtain vitamin D by making it themselves (through skin exposure to sunlight), by ingesting foods such as fish and fortified dairy products that contain vitamin D, or by taking dietary supplements. Adequate vitamin D levels are necessary for bone health, but scientists are only beginning to explore vitamin D’s connection to cardiovascular disease.
“We know that in mice, vitamin D regulates one of the hormone systems that affects blood pressure,“ said Dr. Michal Melamed, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the departments of Medicine and Epidemiology & Population Health at Einstein.
“Since cells in the blood vessels have receptors for vitamin D, it may directly affect the vessels, although this has not been fully worked out.“
To see whether vitamin D might influence PAD, Dr. Melamed and colleagues analyzed data from a national survey measuring vitamin D levels in the blood of 4,839 US adults.
The survey tested these people using the ankle-brachial index, a screening tool for PAD that measures blood flow to the legs. Also measured were other risk factors for PAD such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure and presence of diabetes.
The researchers found that higher levels of vitamin D were associated with a lower prevalence of PAD. Among individuals with the highest vitamin D levels--more than 29.2 nanogram per milliliter (ng/mL)--only 3.7 percent had PAD. Among those with the lowest vitamin D levels--less than 17.8 ng/mL--8.1 percent had PAD.
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Perfecting Biodegradable
Hypodermic Needle
One drug delivery idea is to create a biodegradable needle made of a particular drug, inject the needle into the body and leave it there to dissolve.
According to NewScientist, the trouble is that nobody has perfected a way of making needles out of pharmaceuticals, at least not ones that are sharp and narrow enough not to cause pain, as well as long and strong enough to penetrate the epidermis, which is about 50 micrometers thick, on average.
But Hyung Il Jung at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, has hit upon an idea that could change this. He and a colleague say that solid microneedles can be made by mixing a drug with a sticky syrup-like substance, which is coated in a thin layer onto a substrate. This can be drawn into a needle shape by touching it from above with a pointed object and then drawing out the mixture by lifting that point, like touching syrup with your finger.
This creates a thin and narrow needle up to several hundred micrometers long, which is then cured to make it hard. By bringing several points into contact with the surface, it is possible to create an array of needles like the head of a brush. Hyung Il Jung says these needles can be injected without pain and will biodegrade quickly to release whatever drug they are carrying directly into the body.
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Bionic Eye Implanted
In Blind Patients
A “bionic eye“ may hold the key to returning sight to people left blind by a hereditary disease, experts believe.
A team at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital has carried out the treatment on the UK’s first patients as part of a clinical study into the therapy, BBC wrote.
The artificial eye, connected to a camera on a pair of glasses, has been developed by US firm Second Sight.
It said the technique may be able to restore a basic level of vision, but experts warned it was still early days. The trial aims to help people who have been made blind through retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that affects the retina.
The disease progresses over a number of years, normally after people have been diagnosed when they are children. It is estimated between 20,000 to 25,000 are affected in the UK. It is not known whether the treatment has helped the two patients to see and any success is only likely to be in the form of light and dark outlines, but doctors are optimistic.
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Healthy Lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle may help cancer survivors prevent recurrence of the disease and live longer, yet cancer survivors have rates of obesity and physical inactivity similar to those of the general population.
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Aerobic Exercise Boosts
Older Bodies, Minds
Aerobic exercise could give older adults a boost in brainpower, according to a recent review of studies from the Netherlands. “Aerobic physical exercises that improve cardiovascular fitness also help boost cognitive processing speed, motor function and visual and auditory attention in healthy older people,“ said lead review author Maaike Angevaren.
Around age 50, even healthy older adults begin to experience mild declines in cognition, such as occasional memory lapses and reduced ability to pay attention, ScienceDaily said.
Angevaren and her colleagues at the University of Applied Sciences, in Utrecht, evaluated 11 randomized controlled trials, comprising about 670 adults ages 55 and older, which examined the effects of aerobic exercise on areas of cognition including cognitive processing speed, memory and attention.
Aerobic exercise involves continuous, rhythmic activity that strengthens the heart and lungs and improves respiratory endurance. In the studies included in this review, participants exercised aerobically between two and seven days a week for three months and underwent fitness and cognitive function tests. Not surprisingly, eight of the 11 included studies found that participation in aerobic exercise programs increased participants’ VO2 max, an indicator of respiratory endurance, by 14 percent.
Magnets Used
In Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatments can be delivered straight to tumor cells using tiny magnets, saving healthy cells from their toxic side-effects, researchers said.
According to Guardian, the new drug delivery method is expected to begin human trials within two years, and could dramatically improve the experience of chemotherapy.
In experiments on mice, researchers filled immune cells with iron particles and were able to guide them in large numbers around the body towards tumor cells.
They said the immune cells could be modified to deliver standard chemotherapy drugs or even emerging treatments such as gene therapy, and could also be used to treat other diseases. This would make sure drugs were focused in the places they were needed in the body, reducing the dose needed and the side-effects.
Securing Evidence at Crime Scene
Securing evidence at the scene of a crime, measuring faces for medical applications, taking samples during production--three-dimensional images are in demand everywhere. A handy cordless device now enables such images to be prepared rapidly anywhere.
The car tires have left deep tracks in the muddy forest floor at the scene of the crime. The forensic experts make a plaster cast of the print, so that it can later be compared with the tire profiles of suspects’ cars, ScienceDaily reported.
There will soon be an easier way of doing it: The police officers will only need to pick up a 3-D sensor, press a button as on a camera, and a few seconds later they will see a three-dimensional image of the tire track on their laptop computer.
The sensor is no larger than a shoebox and weighs only about a kilogram. The sensor radios the data to the computer via WLAN--a wireless local area network, which is the linking of two or more computers without using wires--and draws its power from batteries.
“It consists of two cameras with a projector in the center,“ says IOF head of department Dr. Gunther Notni. “The two cameras provide a three-dimensional view, rather like two eyes. The projector casts a pattern of stripes on the objects. The geometry of the measured object can be deduced from the deformation of the stripes.“
Oral Drug Reduces
Disease Activity in MS
A drug that can be taken orally reduces the number of attacks people with multiple sclerosis (MS) have, according to new research.
“All of the current treatments for MS must be injected, so having a pill you can swallow with a glass of water would be a welcome improvement for many people,“ said study author Giancarlo Comi, MD, of Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy.
The results reported are from an extension of a six-month study with 281 people with relapsing MS, two-thirds of whom took the drug FTY720 (fingolimod) and one-third of whom took a placebo, Eurekalert reported.
After six months, those taking FTY720 had more than 50 percent fewer relapses, or attacks, than those who took the placebo.
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