HEALTH NEWS

Call HealthLine @ 1800 223 1313 and speak to our Counsellor-On-Call on 29 July (10.30am-12.00pm) and 1 August (2.30pm-4.00pm) in both English and Mandarin.

The nationwide Fruit & Vegetables Campaign will take place from 22 September until 19 October 2008. Learn more about the benefits of eating fruit and veggies and how you can include more of them in your diet

Antibodies are a tricky thing. Some confer protection for years, some a lifetime. To help explain, Eric Altschuler discusses new findings about the 1918 pandemic flu virus

Training in emotional intelligence could help medical residents and fellows become more sensitive toward their patients, according to a commentary in the September 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.


Patients are less likely to complain and more likely to have positive health results if their physician communicates well with them. For these and other reasons, medical schools include interpersonal and communication skills in their training programs. The JAMA article argues that medical education needs to delve even deeper to help doctors relate better.


The four components of emotional intelligence ? the abilities to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions ? are building blocks for interpersonal and communication skills. The challenge in medical education is to understand the psychology behind these skills and build programs to develop them, according to commentary authors Daisy Grewal., Ph.D., and Heather Davidson, Ph.D., of the department of medical education at Stanford University Medical Center.

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A comprehensive 30-year analysis of abortion rates in the U.S. finds they're on a steady decline

McCain and Obama's loony reappearance in the Senate last week got a doctor thinking: Do we really need employees we don't miss when they're not around?

There are even more reasons to celebrate this year! The Health Promotion Board is proud to present the "FuzeFactory", a free MMS and E-Cards service for YOU to send greetings to YOUths around YOU. Find out more.

One aspect of aging that?s usually fixable is cloudy vision due to cataracts.


In an otherwise healthy eye, cataract removal results in improved vision 95 percent of the time, according to the September issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter.


Cataracts are common. By age 65, about half of all Americans have developed some degree of lens clouding due to cataracts. Diagnosed during an eye exam, cataracts develop slowly and may not hamper vision much at first. But when cataracts affect the quality of life?interfering with driving or reading?it?s time to consider surgery, the only treatment. 

Rather than focusing on scary symptoms, the We Campaign focuses on the cure for global warming -- and motivates people to support sweeping change. Question is, will it be enough to effect any real change at all?

Register now for the 'Science, Medicine & Lifestyle - Impact on Tomorrow's Health' Congress 2008. Held on 7 and 8 November 2008 at Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre. Find out more.

Campuses may be getting greener, but college curriculums are falling behind in teaching students the basics of global warming and sustainability

Central nervous system ? Cocaine euphoria is associated with transient increases in EEG activity followed by longer-lasting increases in activity. Seizures may occur in persons without a seizure history, even with first time use of cocaine. These are usually single, generalized tonic-clonic seizures occurring within 90 minutes of cocaine use.


Craving for cocaine is associated with increased activity in the so-called mesocorticolimbic reward circuit in the brain. This includes the inferior frontal-orbitofrontal gyrus, amygdala (thought to mediate stimulus-reward association), anterior cingulate (mediating anticipation of reward), and nucleus accumbens/subcalllosal gyrus (mediating incentive motivation).


Cerebral vasoconstriction, cerebrovascular disease, and hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke are increased in cocaine users, even in patients with no other risk factors. Etiologic mechanisms include tachycardia and increased blood pressure from sympathetic activation, vasoconstriction, vasospasm, and intravascular thrombosis due to increased platelet aggregation.

Screening ? There are no broadly validated brief screening tests for cocaine abuse. Best studied are two tests modified from those used to screen for alcoholism: the 4-question CAGE and 2-question TICS. Both tests have sensitivities and specificities of 80 percent or greater in primary care settings for populations including women, pregnant women, the elderly, and patients with HIV infection.


Drug testing ? Drug testing detects cocaine use, but is not diagnostic of cocaine abuse, which implies adverse consequences from use. Conversely, a negative drug screen may only indicate lack of recent use. Cocaine and its metabolites can be measured in urine, blood, oral fluid, sweat, and hair. The window of detection is shorter for cocaine than for its major metabolite, benzoylecgonine, and varies with the sensitivity of the assay method.


Urine testing (which measures benzoylecgonine, not cocaine) is common in clinical settings because the sample can be collected non-invasively. It has a detection window of about two to three days after cocaine use, but may be positive up to two weeks after chronic heavy use.

With summer ending and school underway, parents are transitioning from hearing their children moan about not being able to swim everyday, to their child complaining about homework, their new teachers or being in a different class than their friends. Many parents also begin to hear more complaints of tummy aches and headaches as a result of returning back to school.


The psychological term for school-induced illnesses a child may develop when he or she is trying to dodge school is School Avoidance, or School Refusal. Symptoms include nausea, fatigue, headaches and abdominal pain. According to Lori Crosby, Psy.D., Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children?s Hospital Medical Center, even if children start to complain about stomach aches and other ailments, parents should still send their child to school unless they have symptoms of fever or a contagious illness. ?It would probably be helpful to schedule a visit with the child?s pediatrician to rule out a ?true? medical problem, which may give the parent the confidence to send their child when in doubt,? said Dr. Crosby.


Approximately 1-5 percent of children in the United States suffer from School Avoidance. An article in the American Family Physician states that School Avoidance/Refusal should be considered when a student will not go to school and experiences emotional distress of physical symptoms. 

Producing the world's beef and pork intake creates more greenhouse gases than all of the planet's cars, planes and boats combined

For workers with chronic low back pain, taking opioid pain medications can significantly improve their ability to lift and perform other work-related physical tasks, according to study published in The Journal of Pain, the peer review publication of the American Pain Society.


A team of Canadian researchers evaluated 30 patients with chronic low back pain of more than six months duration. In the double-blinded, random-ordered, placebo-controlled trial, subjects performed a lifting test twice, once after receiving intravenous fentanyl and once after taking a placebo. The goal of the study was to examine the impact of acute opioid administration on repetitive lifting and lowering exercise in workers with low-back pain.


Low-back pain is a common cause of work absences and reduced productivity. While opioids appear to be effective for short term pain reduction, few clinical trials have been performed to evaluate their efficacy in the workplace. 

A study finds that bit of celebrity worship can boost self-esteem. That's not a bad thing, as long as you realize the difference between the celebrity's life and your own

Although hand hygiene is an important method of hospital infection control, increasing the frequency of hand washing by doctors and other healthcare workers does not necessarily result in commensurate reductions in staphylococcal infections, according a new study.


?While it is undoubtedly the case that improved hand hygiene is beneficial, there is growing evidence that increased compliance may not yield the hoped-for results,? Dr. Kevin G. Kerr, of Harrogate District Hospital, and colleagues note in the latest issue of the online journal BMC Infectious Diseases. The results of several studies suggest that the ?law of diminishing returns? applies to hand hygiene, with the greatest benefits occurring with the first 20 percent of compliance.


Based on their research, Kerr and colleagues conclude that under most circumstances, it should be possible to prevent outbreaks of staphylococcal infection from occurring with a hand cleansing frequency of approximately 40 percent. 

A new study suggests that avid runners enjoy better health than non-exercisers -- and that the benefits endure for years

As if things weren?t tough enough for premature babies who have tubes down their throats and noses to survive, once the tubes are removed, they are often unable to take nourishment orally ? that is, suck.


But 20 tube-fed preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome treated with the NTrainer, a therapeutic device patented by the University of Kansas, rapidly learned to suck far better and transitioned to oral feeding faster than a control group of babies with the syndrome.


Respiratory distress syndrome, also known as hyaline membrane disease, is a common condition of prematurity, particularly in the youngest infants, because babies? lungs are too immature to survive outside the womb without the help of a ventilator and/or oxygen. Overall, it is the seventh leading cause of death among infants younger than one year, fifth for African-American and third for Hispanic infants.

The government said Thursday that the salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 1,440 people appears to be over, but its ultimate source may never be known

Teen smokers who volunteer for programs to help them quit are more hooked on tobacco than other teens who smoke, new West Virginia University research has found. The teens believe quitting is a good idea, but they aren?t fully confident they?ll be able to kick the tobacco habit.


What?s more, teens who volunteer for help are 60 percent more likely to use smokeless tobacco and more than 200 percent more likely to smoke cigars when compared with teen smokers nationally.


The conclusions, published in the journal Tobacco Induced Diseases, come from analysis of data involving almost 6,000 teen smokers who enrolled in Not On Tobacco (N-O-T) between 1998 and 2006. Developed at WVU, N-O-T is the most widely used smoking-cessation program for teens in the nation. 

Eukaryotic cells employ multiple strategies of checkpoint signaling and DNA repair mechanisms to monitor and repair damaged DNA. There are two branches in the checkpoint response pathway?ataxia telangiectasia-mutated (ATM) and ATM-Rad3-related (ATR). Many viruses are now known to interact with DNA damage sensing and repair machinery. These viruses have evolved tactics to eliminate, circumvent, or exploit various aspects of the DNA damage response of the host cell. Strategies include the activation of repair proteins or the targeting of specific cellular factors for degradation or mislocalization. Exploiting the activation of the DNA damage pathway by viral replication for the generation of antiviral drugs needs to be examined. In the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), it has been clearly determined that the prevention of viral integration inhibits viral replication and promotes cellular apoptosis. Thus, the ATM-specific inhibitor ku55933 can inhibit HIV replication in primary T cells.


Despite the availability of a safe and efficient vaccine, chronic hepatitis B virus infection remains a major health problem worldwide. Interferon treatment is effective in only approximately one-third of the patients and produces considerable side effects. Long-term treatment with the second-generation nucleoside analogue lamivudine (lam) efficiently inhibits HBV replication with frequent viral polymerase mutations. We found that HBV infection triggered an ATR-dependent DNA damage response, resulting in increased ATR and Chk1 phosphorylation levels, however, ATR checkpoint signaling was blocked downstream of the p53-dependent pathway to evade apoptosis by p21 degradation. We have designed a strategy to select new drug targets that inhibit a cellular gene required for HBV replication or restore a response stalled by HBV in the ATR DNA damage pathway.


A research article to be published on August 28, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. 

In psychologist Nicholas DiFonzo's new book, The Watercooler Effect, the author discusses why rumors stick and how best to control them

The sixth private citizen to go into orbit talks to TIME about the space race, Stephen Colbert and being a second-generation astronaut

In an editorial response to a report in the September 25 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine on the efficacy of intravenous thrombolysis treatment in the hours after acute ischemic stroke, Patrick Lyden, M.D., professor of neurosciences and director of the UC San Diego Stroke Center, cautions that the study should not be interpreted to mean that such therapy can be withheld for hours or even minutes.


?The risk of withholding such treatment from patients with acute stroke greatly exceeds the risk of giving it,? said Lyden. ?The potential for reversing the disabling side effects of stroke declines with every passing minute.?


The study, (?Thrombolysis with Alteplase 3 to 4.5 Hours after Acute Ischemic Stroke?) by Werner Hacke, M.D. et al, reports the findings from the European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study III (ECASS III).

First invented in the 1800s, the compound has been a staple of wartime materiel, a jet-age tableware trend - and a 21st century nutritional nightmare

The 2008 World Malaria Report finds that the global health agency overestimated rates of new malaria cases by about 100 million per year

Acute intoxication ? Treatment of acute intoxication is presented separately.


Withdrawal ? Cocaine withdrawal is treated by allowing the patient to sleep and eat ad lib in a supportive environment. No medication has been proven effective in treating the withdrawal syndrome, although bromocriptine and amantadine have been used on the theoretical basis that dopaminergic agents may ameliorate the hypothesized dopamine deficiency state of cocaine withdrawal. Propranolol has been used to manage severe cocaine withdrawal symptoms but can aggravate coronary vasoconstriction. Hospitalization is rarely indicated on medical grounds, and has not been shown to improve the short-term outcome for cocaine addiction.


A short-acting benzodiazepine such as lorazepam may be helpful in selected patients who develop severe agitation or sleep disturbance. Persistent (more than two to three weeks) depression or suicidal ideation may require antidepressant treatment. The risk of relapse is high during the early withdrawal period, in part because drug craving is easily triggered by stress or encounters with drug-associated stimuli. Patients should be referred to an addiction treatment program for ongoing care.

Interested to know the health of your eyes? Alexandra Hosptial and their partners are hosting a series of free eye screening from 20th -26th Sep. Find out more

A study led by a team of education researchers from Mayo Clinic and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concludes that Internet-based education generally is effective.


Lead author David Cook, M.D., an associate professor of medicine who practices general internal medicine at Mayo Clinic, worked with researchers from Mayo and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. They reviewed more than 200 studies about Internet-based instruction. The researchers concluded that Internet-based instruction is associated with largely positive effects compared with no intervention. The research also showed that Internet-based instruction compared favorably to traditional methods.


?Our findings suggest that Internet-based instruction is an effective way to teach health care professionals,? says Dr. Cook. ?We now can confirm that, across a wide variety of learners, learning contexts, clinical topics, and learning outcomes, Internet-based instruction appears to be as effective as similar to traditional methods.?

Contrary to public perceptions, foreign-born children are increasingly uninsured, rather than publicly insured, in the wake of immigration policy changes, according to a study by public health researchers at The Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia.


Despite a 1999 federal ruling that relieved immigrant families of a requirement to repay the U.S. government for Medicaid benefits, immigrant children did not increase their usage of publicly funded health insurance programs. The study authors said that these inequities in access to health care may hinder the ability of immigrant children to become productive future members of the American labor force.


Even after taking into account significant socioeconomic differences between U.S.-born and foreign-born children, the vast majority of immigrant children are much more likely to be uninsured, living in poverty, and have parents with less than a high school education, according to the study. The results, based on the analysis of data collected from 33,317 children for the 1997 to 2004 National Health Interview Survey, appear in the November 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

A reporter visits the fourth-largest island and one of the most astonishingly biodiverse places on Earth, where "endangered" has taken on a serious sense of urgency

Viewpoint: John McCain says the U.S. should drill untapped natural gas and oil. Here's another thought: Mine the country's far larger reserves of alternative energy