Encouraging Health

Dengue

Health Minister Graciela Ocana said Wednesday that a dengue outbreak in the country has worsened to an epidemic, as nearly 8,000 people are officially reported to be infected with the disease.

“Dengue is here to stay,” Ocana said.

Ocana had previously insisted that there was no epidemic. But local news media and political leaders in towns and cities affected by the mosquito-borne disease claimed the national government was underreporting the numbers to calm fears and avoid blame for not addressing the problem sooner.

While the Health Ministry says the northern province of Chaco — one of the worst hit — has registered 3,590 cases, Amalsi Ruiz, a spokesman for the provincial town of Charata, said nearly four times as many people are infected, based on house-to-house surveys and hospital visits.

The Ministry said there are 7,869 cases throughout the country — up from around 5,800 on Friday.

Dengue can incapacitate patients with severe headaches, joint pains, high fever and nausea. There is no specific medication to treat it, but authorities recommend consulting a doctor and drinking plenty of fluids.

Six people have died, including three infected with the severe hemorrhagic variant, which accounts for a fraction of dengue cases.

The Health Ministry has launched a national campaign to educate people on dengue prevention, including wearing insect repellant and covering exposed body parts with thick clothing.

Authorities say Argentina’s worst outbreak since the disease reappeared in the country in 1997 is linked to an epidemic in neighboring Bolivia, which has registered 51,000 cases.

Asthma

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers this information to evaluate the seriousness of your asthma flare-up:

A little bit of wheezing and mild difficulty breathing during activity indicates a mild asthma attack. When you sit, you should be able to breathe normally and speak in full sentences.
If you have trouble speaking, whether walking or sitting still, you’re having a moderate attack. You may need to pause to take a breath just to finish a sentence. Loud wheezing when you exhale also is common.
If you are having a very hard time breathing, that’s a sign of a more serious attack. You may also have trouble speaking just a few words without stopping to catch your breath, or feel tense or anxious.
Symptoms of extreme fatigue and confusion indicate a serious attack that needs more than just quick-acting asthma medicine. It requires a trip to the emergency room.

What are the signs and symptoms of the condition?
If someone complains of wheezing, the healthcare professional will need more information. Questions that may be asked include:

• when the wheezing started
• whether there is any family history of wheezing
• whether the wheezing is constant or comes and goes
• what medications, herbs, or illegal drugs a person takes, if any
• whether or not the person has been exposed to any substances that may irritate the lungs, such as tobacco smoke or industrial chemicals
• what other medical conditions a person has, especially heart and lung conditions
• if anything makes the wheezing better or worse, such as staying inside or being around cats, or exercise
• any other symptoms, such as fever, weight loss, or cough

Sometimes a healthcare professional can hear wheezing through a stethoscope during a physical exam when the person him- or herself has not complained of it or even noticed it.

What are the causes and risks of the condition?
Wheezing has many possible causes, including: asthma, a condition that causes reversible narrowing of the airways. This usually occurs after exposure to certain triggers, such as pollen, cold air, or exercise.chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. This is usually due to smoking cigarettes.heart conditions, such as congestive heart failure or mitral stenosis, a disorder that affects one of the valves of the hearta tumor in the lung, particularly primary lung cancer heartburn, also called gastroesophageal reflux disease allergic reactions, which may be from medications such as penicillin or aspirin, or due to exposure to cat dander, bee stings, a certain food, or some other substanceinfections, such as pneumonia, or a viral infection usually seen in children called bronchiolitis a foreign body somewhere in the windpipes. This commonly occurs in young children who can accidentally inhale small objects they put into their mouths.cystic fibrosis, an inherited condition that mainly affects the lungs and digestioninflammation of the lung from other conditions, such as a disorder known as sarcoidosis
What can be done to prevent the condition?
Prevention is related to the cause. For instance, avoiding smoking can help prevent most cases due to emphysema or lung cancer. Keeping small objects away from young children can prevent some cases due to a foreign body. Medicines can be used to help prevent wheezing when asthma is the cause. Many cases cannot be prevented.

st patrick

1. The potato crop was traditionally planted in Ireland after March 17

2. Blue not green is the color originally associated with St Patrick. “St Patrick’s Blue” is used on Ireland’s Presidential Standard or flag, while the Irish Guards sport a plume of St Patrick’s blue in their bearskins. The emphasis on green is thought to be linked to “wearing the Green”, a symbol from the 18th century on, of sympathy with Irish independence.

3. St Patrick is patron of fishermen in the Loire, where a legend associates him with a blackthorn bush. The saint is said to have slept beneath it, and when he awoke the next day, Christmas, the bush flowered, and was said to have continued to do so every Christmas until its destruction during the First World War.

4. A regiment of the Mexican army in the 1846 -8 War between Mexico and America was named after St Patrick. Members of the Batellón de San Patricio included Afro-Americans freshly liberated from the slave plantations of the South, and the soldiers were granted Mexican citizenship afterwards.

5. The first St Patrick’s Day parade took place in 1737 in Boston, followed in 1762 by New York. George Washington allowed his soldiers a holiday on March 17, 1780 as “an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

6. Until the 1970’s, all pubs were shut in Ireland on St Patrick’s Day, and the sole venue selling drink the annual dog show. Lenten fasting – and the obligation to abstain from meat – were lifted on the day, which most families would begin with Mass.

7. St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in Ireland and also in Monserrat “the Emerald Isle of the Carribean,” so called because it was settled in 1633 by Irish migrants from St Kitts.

8. According to legend, on the day of Judgement, while Christ judges all other nations, St Patrick will be the judge of the Irish.

9. Since 1962, tons of green dye are tipped on St Patrick’s Day into the Chicago river, although the quantity has reduced, for environmental reasons, from 100 to 40.

10. Should you wish to carry on celebrating St Patrick after March 17, in the United States, you might visit the four Shamrocks in the USA including Mount Gay-Shamrock, W.Va or the nine cities named Dublin, including Dublin, Ohio (the largest Dublin in the U.S.) and Dublin, Georgia.

5. The first St Patrick’s Day parade took place in 1737 in Boston, followed in 1762 by New York. George Washington allowed his soldiers a holiday on March 17, 1780 as “an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

6. Until the 1970’s, all pubs were shut in Ireland on St Patrick’s Day, and the sole venue selling drink the annual dog show. Lenten fasting – and the obligation to abstain from meat – were lifted on the day, which most families would begin with Mass.

7. St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in Ireland and also in Monserrat “the Emerald Isle of the Carribean,” so called because it was settled in 1633 by Irish migrants from St Kitts.

8. According to legend, on the day of Judgement, while Christ judges all other nations, St Patrick will be the judge of the Irish.

9. Since 1962, tons of green dye are tipped on St Patrick’s Day into the Chicago river, although the quantity has reduced, for environmental reasons, from 100 to 40.

10. Should you wish to carry on celebrating St Patrick after March 17, in the United States, you might visit the four Shamrocks in the USA including Mount Gay-Shamrock, W.Va or the nine cities named Dublin, including Dublin, Ohio (the largest Dublin in the U.S.) and Dublin, Georgia.

Elderly

New research suggests that old age actually begins even before we hit the ripe old age of 30. Gone are your glory years.

The research, done at the University of Virginia, indicates that our mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27, after reaching a peak at 22. There’s a reason you can’t finish that New York Times Crossword puzzle, and it’s not because the hints are too vague or bourgeois.

The researchers studied 2,000 men and women aged 18 to 60 over a seven year period. The people involved, mostly in good health and well-educated, had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Let’s hope these aren’t counting lapses of memory as precursors to these mental diseases.

The research, led by Professor Timothy Salthouse, reported in the academic journal Neurobiology of Aging, found that in nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.

The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak scores was 27 — for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualization. Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.

Salthouse said the results suggested that therapies designed to prevent or reverse age-related conditions may need to start earlier, long before people retire. So contact your local AARP office for ideas.

Your tax dollars

Not only are the banks taxing Unemployment debit cards, the Government is thinking of taxing the very health benefits you receive at your job, since it’s a non-monetary benefit.

Also, Mr. Obama’s own idea for raising revenues for health care — limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim — has run into opposition not only from Mr. Baucus but also from his counterpart in the House, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Obama’s proposed limit on deductions would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years, or half of his proposed “health care reserve fund.” That is a fraction of the revenues that could be raised from taxing employer-provided health benefits.

In the campaign, Mr. McCain estimated that taxing all health benefits would raise $3.6 trillion over a decade — “a multitrillion-dollar tax hike,” one Obama advertisement said.

The Congressional Budget Office says that including health benefits in taxable income could mean $246 billion in additional revenue for a single year. Stopping short of full taxation, as Mr. Baucus and others suggest, would mean less new revenue.

The latest government figures, for 2007, show that 70 percent of the 253 million people with health insurance received at least some of their coverage through employers. Employment-based insurance covers three-fifths of the population under 65.

Also, Mr. Obama’s own idea for raising revenues for health care — limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim — has run into opposition not only from Mr. Baucus but also from his counterpart in the House, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Obama’s proposed limit on deductions would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years, or half of his proposed “health care reserve fund.” That is a fraction of the revenues that could be raised from taxing employer-provided health benefits.

In the campaign, Mr. McCain estimated that taxing all health benefits would raise $3.6 trillion over a decade — “a multitrillion-dollar tax hike,” one Obama advertisement said.

calorie scale

President Barack Obama says the nation’s decades-old food safety system is a “hazard to public health” and in need of an overhaul, starting with the selection of a new head of the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Obama used his weekly radio and video address to announce the nomination of former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg as FDA commissioner, and his choice of Baltimore Health Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein as her deputy.

The president also said he was creating a Food Safety Working Group to coordinate food safety laws throughout government and advise him on how to update them. Many of these laws, essential to safeguarding the public from disease, haven’t been touched since they were written in the time of President Theodore Roosevelt, he said.

‘Unacceptable’
“That is a hazard to public health. It is unacceptable. And it will change under the leadership of Dr. Margaret Hamburg,” Obama pledged.

Hamburg, 53, is a well-known bioterrorism expert. She was an assistant health secretary under President Bill Clinton and helped lay the groundwork for the government’s bioterrorism and flu pandemic preparations.

As New York City’s top health official in the early 1990s, she created a program that cut high rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

She is the daughter of two doctors. Her mother was the first black woman to earn a medical degree from Yale University, and she credits her Jewish father for instilling in her a passion for public health.

Good luck, Mr. President.

microscope

If you’re going to have kids, guys, have them while you’re younger. Science has found children of older dads aren’t as smart as kids of younger dads.

Men and women are having children later particularly in developed countries. But while the effects of having children later for women are widely discussed, consequences of increased paternal age are not as well known.

Recent studies have drawn links between older fathers and specific health problems in their children, including birth deformities and cancer, as well as neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.

In the study, the researchers analyzed data from intelligence tests taken by 33,437 children who were born between 1959 and 1965 in the United States.

The children were tested at 8 months, 4 years and 7 years and were assessed for their sensory discrimination, hand-eye coordination, reading, spelling and arithmetic ability.

They found that the older the father, the more likely the child would have lower scores on the various tests.

In contrast, the older the mother, the higher the scores of the child in the cognitive tests.

“Previous researchers have suggested that the children of older mothers may perform better because they experience a more nurturing home environment; if this is the case, this study suggests that children of older fathers do not necessarily experience the same benefit,” the researchers wrote in a statement.

The researchers said the lower scores obtained by offspring of older men may have to do with mutation.

“Unlike a woman’s eggs which are formed when she herself is in the womb, a man’s sperm accumulates over his lifetime, which previous studies have suggested can mean increased incidence of mutations in the sperm at an older age,” they wrote.

Microscope

“Stem-cell research that requires destroying embryos is going the way of the Model T,” said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “No administration that values science and medical progress over politics will want to divert funds now toward that increasingly obsolete and needlessly divisive approach.”

Scientists, however, while praising the work as a potentially important advance, said it remains crucial to work on both types of cells because it is far from clear which will turn out to be more useful.

“The point is, we don’t know yet what the end potential of either of these approaches will be,” said Mark Kay of Stanford University. “No one has cured any disease in people with any of these approaches yet. We don’t know enough yet to know which approach will be better.”

Because embryonic stem cells are believed capable of becoming any kind of tissue in the body, scientists believe they could eventually lead to treatments or even cures for a host of ailments, including heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. In 2001, President Bush restricted federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research to prevent taxpayer money from encouraging the destruction of human embryos, which is necessary to obtain the cells.

The alternative cells, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, appear to have many of the same characteristics as embryonic stem cells but are produced by activating genes in adult cells to “reprogram” them into a more primitive state, bypassing the moral, political and ethical issues surrounding embryonic cells.

Brid Flu

taken from humans could provide protection from lethal strains of influenza, including the bird flu and the 1918 Spanish flu strain, according to research published this week.

has yet to be tested on humans, but scientists expressed optimism in using antibodies to defend against various types of the flu. Antibodies are proteins that the immune system produces to fight harmful substances in the body.

The research, funded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was conducted on mice and cell cultures. The findings appear online this week in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

Scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, and the CDC collaborated on the research.

“We pooled our distinct expertise to isolate and characterize a novel family of human antibodies,” said Robert Liddington, director of the Infectious Disease Program at the Burnham Institute. “We were surprised and actually delighted to find that these antibodies actually neutralized a majority of other influenza viruses, including most of the regular, seasonal flus.”

If the antibodies are tested to be safe and effective, it could take several years to develop a licensed product, according to a press release from the National Institutes of Health.

“These are fully human monoclonal antibodies — no further engineering has to be done,” Marasco said. “The antibodies we characterize in our published works are molecules to go into clinical trials and hopefully one day, will be approved for into human treatment.”

Nurses

Many novice nurses are thrown into hospitals with little direct supervision, quickly forced to juggle multiple patients and make critical decisions for the first time in their careers. About 1 in 5 newly licensed nurses quits within a year, according to one national study.

That turnover rate is a major contributor to the nation’s growing shortage of nurses. But there are expanding efforts to give new nursing grads better support. Many hospitals are trying to create safety nets with residency training programs.

The national nursing shortage could reach 500,000 by 2025, as many nurses retire and the demand for nurses balloons with the aging of baby boomers, according to Peter Buerhaus of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The nursing professor is author of a book about the future of the nursing work force.

Nursing schools have been unable to churn out graduates fast enough to keep up with the demand, which is why hospitals are trying harder to retain them.

Medical school grads get on-the-job training during formal residencies ranging from three to seven years. Many newly licensed nurses do not have a similar protected period as they build their skills and get used to a demanding environment.

Some hospitals have set up their own programs to help new nurses make the transition. Often, they assign novices to more experienced nurses, whom they shadow for a few weeks or months while they learn the ropes. That’s what O’Bryan’s hospital did, but for her, it wasn’t enough.

So more hospitals are investing in longer, more thorough residencies. These can cost roughly $5,000 per resident. But the cost of recruiting and training a replacement for a nurse who washed out is about $50,000, personnel experts estimate.