Fish-rich diets may boost brain development in babies

According to a new research, slightly adjusting the diet of healthy pregnant women could be beneficial for their babies.

BS| Women could enhance the development of their unborn child’s eyesight and brain function by regularly eating fatty fish during pregnancy. The research supports previous findings that show how important a prospective mother’s diet and lifestyle choices are for the development of her baby.

According to study author Kirsi Laitinen, a mother’s diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding is the main way that valuable long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids become available to a fetus and infant brain during the period of maximum brain growth. Such fatty acids help to shape the nerve cells that are relevant to eyesight and particularly the retina. They are also important in forming the synapses that are vital for the transport of messages between neurons in the nervous system.

In this study, researchers analyzed the results of 56 mothers and their children. The mothers had to keep a regular food diary during the course of their pregnancy. Fluctuations in their weight before and during pregnancy were taken into account, along with their blood sugar level and blood pressure. Aspects such as whether they smoked or developed diabetes related to pregnancy were also noted.

The team recorded the levels of nutritional long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid sources in the mother’s diet and blood serum, and the levels in the blood of their children by the age of one month.

Their children were further tested around their second birthday using pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (pVEP). This sensitive and accurate, non-invasive method is used to detect visual functioning and maturational changes occurring within a young child’s visual system.

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Does Paracetamol use in infancy increases risk of asthma?

Turns out, children who take paracetamol during their first two years of life may be at a higher risk of developing asthma by the age of 18, especially if they have a particular genetic makeup.

According to a new research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in 2018, the link between paracetamol use and asthma seemed strongest in those who had a particular variant of the glutathione S-transferase (GST) gene, GSTP1.

However, study author, Xin Dai, warned that the research showed only that there was an association between paracetamol and asthma, not that paracetamol caused the condition. She also found that another GST gene variant, GSTM1, was linked with reduced lung function.

GST genes contain the instructions for making enzymes that use an antioxidant called glutathione to mop up the effects of exposure to toxins in the body and the lungs. This mechanism helps to prevent damage to cells and inflammation.

“Paracetamol, on the other hand, consumes glutathione, reducing the body’s capacity to deal with toxic exposure. We hypothesized that people who did not have full GST enzyme activity because of common genetic variations or deletions may be more susceptible to adverse effects on the lungs from paracetamol use,” explained Dai.

Dai and her colleagues investigated their hypothesis in 620 children who had been followed from birth to 18 years old as part of the Melbourne Atopy Cohort Study.

The children had been recruited to the study before they were born because they were considered to be potentially at high risk of developing an allergy-related disease. They had at least one family member (mother, father or sibling) with a self-reported allergic disease (asthma, eczema, hay fever or a severe food allergy).

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Back pain linked to risky behaviours in teenagers: Study

Does your adolescent son or daughter suffer from back pain often? Beware, he or she may be more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and report problems like anxiety and depression.

BS | Although often dismissed as trivial and fleeting, adolescent back pain is responsible for substantial health care use, school absence, and interference with day-to-day activities in some children.

The findings showed that the rising frequency of pain increasing the proportion of participants reporting smoking, drinking, and missing school rose.

For example, 14-15 year olds that experienced pain more than once a week were 2-3 times more likely to have drunk alcohol or smoked in the past month than those who rarely or never had pain.

Similarly, students that experienced pain more than once a week were around twice as likely to have missed school in the previous term.

The trend with anxiety and depression was less clear, although there was a marked difference between the children who reported no pain, and those who reported frequent pain, the researchers said.

“Findings like this provide an argument that we should be including pain in the broader conversation about adolescent health,” said lead author Steven Kamper from the University of Sydney in Australia.

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Back pain linked to substance abuse in teenagers

Adolescents who experience back pain are more likely to frequently smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and report problems like anxiety and depression.

BS | A new study noted that during adolescence, the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain (pain arising from the bones, joints or muscles) in general, and back pain, in particular, rises steeply. Although often dismissed as trivial and fleeting, adolescent back pain is responsible for substantial health care use, school absence, and interference with day-to-day activities in some children.

Researchers used data collected from approximately 6500 teenagers. The proportion of participants reporting smoking, drinking, and missing school rose incrementally with increasing frequency of pain.++

For example, 14 to 15-year-olds who experienced pain more than once a week were 2-3 times more likely to have had alcohol or smoked in the past month than those who rarely or never had pain. Similarly, students who experienced pain more than once a week were around twice as likely to have missed school in the previous term.

The trend with anxiety and depression was less clear, although there was a marked difference between the children who reported no pain and those who reported frequent pain.

Back pain and unhealthy behaviors not only occur together but also track into adulthood. This means that they are responsible for current issues, and also have implications for future health. Adolescent back pain may play a role in characterizing overall poor health, and risk of chronic disease throughout life.

Lead author, Steven Kamper said, “Findings like this provide an argument that we should be including pain in the broader conversation about adolescent health.”

The researchers involved with the study believe this is of concern because the developing brain may be susceptible to negative influences of toxic substances, and use in early adolescence may increase the risk of substance abuse and mental health problems in later life.

The full findings are present in the Journal of Public Health.

Acute critical illness raises risk of kidney complications

People with acute critical illness have an increased risk of kidney complications and death, finds a study.

BS | “Patients with acute critical illness without apparent underlying renal disease — a group traditionally considered to be at low risk of renal diseases — have clinically relevant long-term renal risks,” wrote Dr. Shih-Ting Huang and Dr. Chia-Hung Kao of Taichung Veterans General Hospital and China Medical University, Taiwan, respectively.

Most studies have looked at patients with pre-existing kidney disease, while this study looked at data on 33, 613 Taiwanese patients with critical acute illness and no pre-existing kidney disease compared with 63, 148 controls for a medium-term renal outcome.

More than half of the patients (53 per cent) were above 65 years of age and two-thirds (67 per cent) had high blood pressure. Patients who had experienced acute kidney illness were at an increased risk of renal complications, developing chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, with septicemia and septic shock being the strongest risk factors.

Of the critically ill patients in the study, 335 developed an end-stage renal disease, with a rate of 21 per 10 000 person-years compared with 4.9 per 10 000 person-years in the control group.

Patients who developed chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease were at a higher risk of death.

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New vaccine to offer treatment for acne

Do you often suffer from acne? Take heart, a potential vaccine that targets the bacterial toxins may soon be on the anvil, say researchers.

Health News : Instead of invading pathogens, the new vaccine would be the first to target bacteria already in human skin.

The researchers demonstrated that antibodies to a toxin secreted from bacteria in acne vulgaris can reduce inflammation in human acne lesions.

“Once validated by a large-scale clinical trial, the potential impact of our findings is huge for the hundreds of millions of individuals suffering from acne vulgaris,” explained lead investigator Chun-Ming Huang, from the University of California-San Diego, US.

An acne vaccination could circumvent potential adverse effects of topical or systemic retinoids and antibiotics, the current treatment options.

They found that Christie-Atkins-Munch-Peterson (CAMP) factor — a toxin secreted from the Propionibacterium acnes (P. acnes) bacteria, can induce inflammatory responses.

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Simple leg exercises can reduce negative effects on heart and blood vessels

Did you know how beneficial are simple leg exercises while lying down? A sedentary lifestyle can cause an impairment of transportation of blood in the body which in turn may increase the risk of diseases in the heart and blood vessels.

Health News:   Performing  Simple leg excercise can make a huge change and prevent such problems, a new study reveals.

Earlier work has demonstrated that prolonged sitting for up to 6 hours results in a decline in both blood flow to the limbs and in our larger arteries’ ability to widen to accommodate increased blood flow. This is the first study to show that sitting for just 10 minutes is sufficient to reduce blood flow to the legs and impairs the function of small blood vessels supplying muscles in the leg.

simple leg exercises

This paper also highlights a reduction in the function of small blood vessels when lying down. However, this study suggests that we might be able to reverse this impairment to some extent by performing some simple leg exercises when lying down in bed or on the sofa.

The effects of sitting on blood circulation have been attributed to blood passing more slowly through arteries while sitting. The researchers aimed to find out whether these reductions were caused by sustained sitting, or whether 10 minutes would be sufficient to have a negative effect.

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Feeling faint while standing up linked with dementia risk: Study

Any sudden drop in blood pressure in middle-aged people, which makes them feel faint, dizzy or light-headed while standing up, could be a sign of increased risk of dementia or stroke later, say researchers.

The findings suggested that people who experienced the blood pressure drop — known as orthostatic hypotension — had a 54 per cent higher risk of developing dementia.

They were also found to be at two times higher risk of developing ischemic stroke, which occurs when a blood vessel carrying blood to the brain is blocked by a blood clot.

“Orthostatic hypotension has been linked to heart disease, fainting and falls, so we wanted to conduct a large study to determine if this form of low blood pressure was also linked to problems in the brain, specifically dementia,” said Andreea Rawlings, from the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, US.

For the study, published in the journal Neurology, the team analysed data from 11,709 people with an average age of 54 years, who were followed for an average of 25 years.

The participants were instructed to lie down for 20 minutes and then stand up in a smooth, swift motion….READ FULL STORY