Stay healthy with a glass of wine a day

Washington: Moderate alcohol consumption can boost your immune system and potentially improve your ability to fight infections, a new study has claimed.
 

A research team led by an immunologist at the University of California, Riverside found that moderate consumption of alcohol can improve immune response to vaccination.
 

The finding could pave the way for potentially new interventions to improve our ability to respond to vaccines and infections, benefiting vulnerable populations, such as the elderly for whom the flu vaccine, for example, has been found to be largely ineffective.
 

"It has been known for a long time that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower mortality," said Ilhem Messaoudi, an associate professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine and lead author of the study published in the journal Vaccine.
 

"Our study, conducted on non-human  primates, shows for the first time that voluntary moderate alcohol consumption boosts immune responses to vaccination," Messaoudi said.
 

To study the impact of alcohol consumption on the immune system, the researchers trained 12 rhesus macaques to self-administer/consume alcohol on their own accord. The team first vaccinated the animals (against small pox) and then allowed them to access either 4 per cent ethanol (the experimental group) or calorically matched sugar water (the control group).
 

All the animals also had open access to water as an alternative fluid, as well as food. The researchers monitored the animals' daily ethanol consumption for 14 months. The animals were vaccinated one more time, seven months after the experiment began.
 

The research team found that over nine months of the animals' ethanol self-administration, mean daily ethanol intake varied markedly among them. "Like humans, rhesus macaques showed highly variable drinking behaviour. Some animals drank large volumes of ethanol, while others drank in moderation," Messaoudi said.
 

The animals' voluntary ethanol consumption segregated them into two groups: animals in the first group were those that consumed more alcohol, averaged a blood ethanol concentration (BEC) greater than the legal limit of 0.08 per cent and were therefore designated 'heavy drinkers'; animals in the second group consumed less alcohol, averaged a BEC of 0.02-0.04 per cent and were designated 'moderate drinkers.'
 

"Prior to consuming alcohol, all the animals showed comparable responses to vaccination. Following exposure to ethanol, however, the animals showed markedly different responses after receiving the booster vaccine," Messaoudi said. The researchers found that those animals that drank the
largest amounts of alcohol showed greatly diminished vaccine responses compared to the control group.

Soybean compound may prevent HIV spread

A compound found in soybeans can be used in new treatments to inhibit the deadly HIV infection, scientists claim. Researchers from George Mason University in the US found that genistein, derived from soybeans and other plants, may become an effective HIV treatment without the drug resistance issues faced by current therapies.

Genistein is a "tyrosine kinase inhibitor" that works by blocking the communication from a cell's surface sensors to its interior.

Found on a cell's surface, these sensors tell the cell about its environment and also communicate with other cells. HIV uses some of these surface sensors to trick the cell to send signals inside. These signals change cell structure so that the virus can get inside and spread infection.

But genistein blocks the signal and stops HIV from finding a way inside the cell. It takes a different approach than the standard antiretroviral drug used to inhibit HIV.

"Instead of directly acting on the virus, genistein interferes with the cellular processes that are necessary for the virus to infect cells," said Yuntao Wu, a professor with the George Mason-based National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases and the Department of Molecular and Microbiology.

"Thus, it makes the virus more difficult to become resistant to the drug. Our study is currently in its early stage. If clinically proven effective, genistein may be used as a complement treatment for HIV infection," Wu said.
Researchers caution that this doesn't mean people should start eating large amounts of soy products.
"Although genistein is rich in several plants such as soybeans, it is still uncertain whether the amount of genistein we consume from eating soy is sufficient to inhibit HIV," Wu said.

Wu sees possibilities in this plant-based approach, which may address drug toxicity issues as well. Because genistein is plant-derived, it may be able to sidestep drug toxicity, a common byproduct of the daily and lifelong pharmaceutical regimen faced by patients with HIV to keep the disease at bay,
Wu said.

Typically, patients take a combination of multiple drugs to inhibit the virus. The frequency can lead to drug toxicity. Plus, HIV mutates and becomes drug-resistant. Wu and his team are working at finding out how much genistein is needed to inhibit HIV. It's possible that plants may not have high enough levels, so drugs would need to be developed, Wu said.

Urine may help regrow lost teeth

Stem cells obtained from urine could one day allow humans to regrow lost teeth, scientists claim. Chinese scientists used stem cells from urine to create tiny 'tooth buds' that when transplanted into mice grew into tooth-like structures.

Stem cells - cells which can grow into any type of tissue - are popular among researchers looking for ways to grow new teeth to replace those lost with age and poor dental hygiene.

The group at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health used urine as the starting point, 'BBC News' reported. Cells which are normally passed from the body, such as those from the lining of the body's waterworks, are harvested in the laboratory. These collected cells are then coaxed into
becoming stem cells.
In the study, a mix of these cells and other material from a mouse was implanted into the animals. The researchers said that after three weeks the bundle of cells started to resemble a tooth: "The tooth-like structure contained dental pulp, dentin, enamel space and enamel organ."

However, the "teeth" were not as hard as natural teeth.  The research is not immediately going to lead to new options for the dentist, but researchers said it could lead to further studies towards "the final dream of total regeneration of human teeth for clinical therapy".

However, experts caution the goal faces many challenges. Professor Chris Mason, a stem cell scientist at University College London, said urine was a poor starting point. "It is probably one of the worst sources, there are very few cells in the first place and the efficiency of turning them into stem cells is very low. You just wouldn't do it in this way," he said.

He also warned that the risk of contamination, such as through bacteria, was much higher than with other sources of cells. The study was published in Cell Regeneration Journal.

Vitamin C proves new way to combat tuberculosis

In an "unexpected" discovery, vitamin C has been found to kill drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, which could mean existing drugs can be redesigned to combat the disease.

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York have determined that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in laboratory culture.

The finding suggests that vitamin C added to existing TB drugs could shorten TB therapy, and it highlights a new area for drug design. TB is caused by infection with the bacterium M tuberculosis. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), TB sickened some 8.7 million people and took some 1.4 million lives in 2011, researchers said.

Infections that fail to respond to TB drugs are a growing problem: About 650,000 people worldwide now have multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), 9 per cent of whom have extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB). The discovery arose during research into how TB bacteria become resistant to isoniazid, a potent first-line TB drug.

William Jacobs, lead investigator and senior author of the study and his colleagues observed that isoniazid-resistant TB bacteria were deficient in a molecule called mycothiol. "We hypothesised that TB bacteria that can't make mycothiol might contain more cysteine, an amino acid," said Jacobs.
 

"So, we predicted that if we added isoniazid and cysteine to isoniazid-sensitive M tuberculosis in culture, the bacteria would develop resistance. Instead, we ended up killing off the culture - something totally unexpected," he said.
 

Researchers suspected that cysteine was helping to kill TB bacteria by acting as a "reducing agent" that triggers the production of reactive oxygen species, which can damage DNA. "The combination of isoniazid and vitamin C sterilised the  M tuberculosis culture. We were then amazed to discover that vitamin C by itself not only sterilised the drug-susceptible TB, but also sterilised MDR-TB and XDR-TB strains," he said.

Vitamin C induced what is known as a Fenton reaction, causing iron to react with other molecules to create reactive oxygen species that kill the TB bacteria. "We don't know whether vitamin C will work in humans, but we now have a rational basis for doing a clinical trial," said Jacobs.

Obesity and High Genetic Vulnerability cause Diabetes in India

IMARC Group, one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms, finds that the total number of diabetes patients in India grew at CAGR of nearly 3% during 2004 - 2012. Estimates from their latest report entitled “Indian Diabetes Market Report: Epidemiology, Patients, Prevalence, Oral Anti-diabetics, Insulin and Diagnostics”, suggests that the total number of diabetes patients in India is expected to reach 107 million by 2032.

Findings from the report suggest that a major driver of the diabetes epidemic in India is the increasing levels of obesity. The Indian population that had faced under nutrition for a long time is now exposed to high fat diets and sedentary lifestyles. As a result of increasing disposable incomes and flourishing fast food chains, there were around 157 million overweight and 24 million obese people living in India in 2010. The report expects these levels to increase significantly by 2015.

Apart from the increasing obesity levels, the report also found that Indians are genetically more vulnerable to diabetes compared to other population groups. According to an analyst at IMARC Group “As a result of a higher percentage of body fat to muscle, Indians are more vulnerable to type-2 diabetes compared to other population groups. This fat increases the sugar levels as it gets deposited around the abdomen and interferes with insulin. As a result, Indians get diabetes at a much younger age compared to other population groups”.

IMARC’s new report “Indian Diabetes Market Report: Epidemiology, Patients, Prevalence, Oral Anti-diabetics, Insulin and Diagnostics” provides an analytical and statistical insight into the Indian diabetes market. The report provides both current and future trends in the prevalence, demographical breakup, diagnosis and treatment of diabetes in India. The report has segmented the Indian diabetes market into three segments - Oral Anti-diabetics, Insulin and Diabetes Diagnostics. For each of the aforementioned categories, the report provides historical and future market sales, performance of key classes and the performance of top players.

The research study serves as an exceptional tool to understand the epidemiology, market trends, therapeutic structure, competitive structure and the outlook of the Indian diabetes market. This report can serve as an excellent guide for investors, researchers, consultants, marketing strategists and all those who are planning to foray into the Indian diabetes market in some form or the other.

Economic Survey 2013: Plan Outlay for Health up by 13.9 Per Cent

New Delhi: The economic survey tabled today in Parliament  by the Finance Ministry has increased the plan outlay for health up by 13.9 per cent for the year 2013-14. 


The Survey noted that the government had increased its plan outlay for health by 13.9% to Rs.30,4777 crores in 2012-13. Under the NHRM, over 1.4 lakhs Health Human Resources have been added (upto September, 2012) and under infrastructure strengthening 10,473 sub centres, 714 primary Health Centres and 245 community Health centres have been newly constructed. A sum of Rs.520 crore have been released to open 132 ANM schools and 137 general nursing and mid wifery schools in districts where there are no such schools. Opening of six Nursing colleges at the sites of AIIMS like institution at a total cost of Rs 120 crore is also under consideration. 

The survey also noted that due to Janini Suraksha Yojana, the number of institutional delivery have increased from 1.08 crores during 2005-06 to 1.75 crores during 2011-12. 

In 2012-13 under Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yogna (IGMSY), a budgetary outlay of Rs.520 crores was allocated to target over12.5 lakhs pregnant and lactating women, the survay said, adding, that the allocation of gender budgeting as a percentage of total budget have gone up from 2.8 % in 2005-06 to 5.96 in 2012-13. 

A proposal for strengthening and restructuring of the ICDS scheme within an overall budget allocation of Rs.1,23,580 crores during the XIIth Plan has been approved. Under Sabla Programme against an allocation of Rs.750 crores for 2012-13, Rs.496 crores has been released. In 2012-13 under Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yogna (IGMSY), a budgetary outlay of Rs.520 crores is outlayed to cover 12.5 lakhs pregnant and lactating women . 

The Survey points out that Janini Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Janini Shishu Suraksha Yojana (JSSK) and Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) have many overlapping features and the same beneficiaries. This calls for a careful exercise in identifying overlapping schemes and weeding out or converging them, the survey further said. 

Highlights of Economic survey 2013:

• Economic growth pegged at 6.1-6.7% in 2013-14
• March 2013 inflation estimated at 6.2-6.6%
• Priority will be to rein in high inflation
• FDI in retail to pave the way for investment in new technology and marketing of agriculture produce
• Survey calls for widening of tax base and prioritising expenditure to bridge fiscal deficit
• Calls for curbing gold imports to contain current account deficit
• Aadhaar-based direct cash transfer scheme can help plug leakages in subsidies
• With subsidies bill increasing, danger of missing fiscal targets is real in FY13
• Survey pitches for hike in prices of diesel and LPG to cut subsidy burden.
• Foreign Exchange reserves remains steady at $295.6 billion at December, 2012-end
• At present, overall energy deficit is about 8.6 pc and peak shortage of power is about 9 pc. 
• Infrastructure bottlenecks affecting industrial sector performance
• Prospects for world trade as well as of India are still uncertain.
• Pitches for further opening of sectors for FDI

Omega-6 cooking oil increases heart ailment

 

In a recent study conducted by Dr. Christopher Ramsden, a clinical investigator with the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Washington, researchers offered a fresh analysis of data from the Sydney Diet Heart Study, which studied 458 Australian men aged 30 to 59 with a history of cardiovascular disease for more than three years."The group that was fed Omega-6 from Safflower oil, they had increased risk of death from all causes as well as death due to coronary heart disease and death due to cardiovascular disease" said study author Dr. Christopher Ramsden.

New Delhi: Since long the health monitoring bodies have allowed companies to put health messages on their labels saying that replacing saturated fats with poly-unsaturated fat Omega-6 rich vegetable oils help lower cholesterol. But in a story carried widely on CBC-TV's The National, this theory has been trashed.


Dr. Ramsden speculated that having more omega-6 in the diet could promote oxidation and inflammation in the arteries.

Nutrition professor Richard Bazinet, who studies fatty acids at the University of Toronto said this week's study in the British Medical Journal suggesting that omega-6s may borderline increase heart attack risk, needs to be publicized for public safety.

Dr. Artemis Simopoulos, President of the Centre for Genetics, Nutrition and Health in Washington advised "The goal should be to consume a balanced amount of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids". She added "We should lower the intake of omega-6 rich oils such as corn oil, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed oil, including soybean," Dr. Simopoulos said. "Increase the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in our diet, which can be obtained from oils that are rich in omega-3s such as flaxseed oil, Canola oil."

For consumers, the subtle and shifting messages can be confusing. Dr. Bazinet advises reading labels carefully". Like Simopoulos, he said "flax and canola are the safer options and people might want to stay away from the straight safflower, corn and sunflower oils that typically make up five per cent of purchases".
In India, the most widely sold cooking oils like Safflower (Saffola), Soyabean, Sunflower, Cottonseed contain very high Omega-6 fats. It would be in the interest of the consumers to look at better options like Canola Oil that has high Omega-3 and the right ratio of Omega-3:6 ratio (1:2).

When we spoke to Dr. Anoop Mishra, HoD of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, Fortis Hospital, he added "I would rate Canola Oil as no. 1 amongst all available cooking oils in India". In a teleconversation with Jivo Wellness who are the largest sellers of Canola Oil in India we learnt that lakhs of consumers have been shifting to Canola Oil primarily due to the health benefits offered like lowest bad saturated fats, high Omega-3, best ratio of Omega-3:6. With rising medical costs, it is felt that Good health comes at a low cost if we use our choices carefully.