Medindia Health News

Be Careful About What You Speak to a Pregnant Woman, for There is Somebody Listening from Inside
Foods to Boost Your Sex Drive Naturally
New Smart Sock to Track Your Baby's Health
Women Who Drink During Their Teens Face Higher Breast Cancer Risk
Potential Cause of Autism Discovered
Low-Fat or Low-Calorie Diet Improves Hepatitis C
330,000 New Pediatric Infections Added To Pool Of 3.4 Million Children Living With AIDS
NIH Trial Reveals Oral Regimen for Hepatitis C Shows Promise
Type 1 Diabetes Study Finds No Difference In Overall Decline Between Treatment And Placebo Groups
Certain HIV-infected Patients Face Up to 20 Fold Greater Risk Of Fungal Disease
Migraine Attacks Could Be Triggered When Drug Blocks Light Sensors in Eye
Researchers Debunk Myth That Marijuana is A 'Safe Drug'
'Robust' Treatment For Stroke Offered By Microscopic Material in Cells: Researchers
IL-7 Ensures That Sufficient Number of T Cells are Present In Our Body
Women Waste More Than 100 (Dollar) on Wrong Shades Of Makeup Every Year
Kyrgyzstan Battles Bubonic Plague, 3 More Endure Disease
Australian Billionaire Builds New Version Of Titanic
Chinese Media Announced That Conjoined Twin Girls Were Separated In A Marathon Operation
Study Explores Why Taller People are Slightly Smarter
Lose Post-pregnancy Weight Fast With Five Easy-to-do Yoga Poses
Skype Marks 10 Years by Bringing the World Closer
Indian Kashmir Himalayas Getting Polluted in the Name of Pilgrimage
Study Finds 3 Subtypes of Gastric Cancer Require Different Treatment Approaches
Researchers Develop New Approach to Detect Coeliac Disease
High-Tech Imaging Contributes to Overtreatment of Low-Risk Thyroid Cancer
Insights into Human TRIC-Associated Deafness
Combination of Screening Strategies Emerges for Colorectal Cancer
Swimming Proves to be a Blessing for Baby Boy With Half a Working Heart
Helper Cells Increase the Stem Cells' Endurance
Bangladesh Holds Import of Powdered Milk from New Zealand
World's First Conjugate Typhoid Vaccine Launched by Indian Company
Overuse of Painkillers Leads to More Headaches, Warn Health Experts
New Cooling Technique Used to Remove Kidney Stone
How Memories are Encoded in Nervous System

Be Careful About What You Speak to a Pregnant Woman, for There is Somebody Listening from Inside

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A recent insight has revealed that language learning could well begin in the womb. Research which studied brain wave patterns found that babies begin to actually recognize words they have heard in the womb. The fetus in the womb can hear sounds from the outside world and remember them even after birth. Researchers found that during the last trimester of pregnancy, the parts of the brain that processes sound actually become active. The sound does penetrate ...

Foods to Boost Your Sex Drive Naturally

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Sex drive can be increased by foods that increase estrogen and testosterone levels, produce nitric oxide, help reduce stress and create better blood flow.

New Smart Sock to Track Your Baby's Health

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A new smart sock designed by scientists lets parents monitor their baby's health anywhere via a mobile phone app. Developers have designed a sock that lets parents monitor their baby's health from anywhere via a mobile phone app, the New York Daily News reported. The sensor-packed sock, from Owlet Baby Care, measures the baby's heart rate, blood oxygenation levels, sleep quality, skin temperature, and sleep position, and transmits it to the ...

Women Who Drink During Their Teens Face Higher Breast Cancer Risk

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Young women who drink regularly are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer, says US research. Each alcoholic drink a woman takes daily from when her menstrual periods start until her first full-term pregnancy ups her lifetime risk of breast cancer by 13 percent, said the study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The findings were based on a survey of 91,005 mothers in a major US health study from 1989 to 2009. The ...

Potential Cause of Autism Discovered

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Problems with topoisomerases can have profound effects on the genetic machinery behind brain development and potentially lead to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), say researchers. "Our study shows the magnitude of what can happen if topoisomerases are impaired," said senior study author Mark Zylka, PhD, associate professor in the Neuroscience Center and the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at UNC. "Inhibiting these enzymes has the potential to profoundly ...

Low-Fat or Low-Calorie Diet Improves Hepatitis C

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A diet plan that includes a low-fat diet or a low-calorie diet along with adequate exercise or physical activity could benefit overweight patients with hepatitis C infection, reveals recent study. a href="http:www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/obesity.htm" target="_blank"Obesity/a has been associated with insulin resistance, which can give rise to a href="http:www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/diabetes.htm" target="_blank"diabetes/a. In ...

330,000 New Pediatric Infections Added To Pool Of 3.4 Million Children Living With AIDS

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The scope of the current HIV elimination agenda must be broadened in order to ensure access to care and treatment for all children living with HIV argues Scott Kellerman and colleagues. In 2011, despite the global initiative to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, 330,000 new pediatric infections were added worldwide to the existing pool of 3.4 million children living with the virus. Children are more vulnerable to HIV infection and have higher morbidity ...

NIH Trial Reveals Oral Regimen for Hepatitis C Shows Promise

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A majority of volunteers with liver damage due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were cured following a six-month course of therapy that combined an experimental drug, sofosbuvir, with the licensed antiviral drug ribavirin, in a study of an all-oral drug regimen. The results showed that the regimen was highly effective in clearing the virus and well tolerated in a group of patients who historically have had unfavorable prognoses. Scientists from the National ...

Type 1 Diabetes Study Finds No Difference In Overall Decline Between Treatment And Placebo Groups

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Dr.Steve Gitelman (University of California, San Francisco) had led the START clinical study (Study of Thymoglobulin to Arrest Newly Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes) which was sponsored by the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN). The results of this study was published today in iThe Lancet Diabetes (and) Endocrinology/i. The study did not meet its primary endpoint: at 12 months, insulin production, as measured by C-peptide responses, showed no difference in overall decline between the treatment ...

Certain HIV-infected Patients Face Up to 20 Fold Greater Risk Of Fungal Disease

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A 20-fold greater risk of contracting cryptococcal disease is faced by HIV-infected people who carry a gene for a specific protein face, reveals a study. The study was published in imBio (Regd) /i, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. iCryptococcus neoformans/i is the most common cause of fungal meningitis among HIV-infected individuals. While the disease is a risk for everyone with HIV who has a very low level of CD4+ T cells, ...

Migraine Attacks Could Be Triggered When Drug Blocks Light Sensors in Eye

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Bright lights are a surefire way to exacerbate headaches for many migraine sufferers. For certain people, especially some night-shift workers, a stroll through a brightly lit parking lot during the morning commute home can be enough to throw off their body's daily rhythms and make daytime sleep nearly impossible. But a new molecule that selectively blocks specialized light-sensitive receptors in the eyes could help both these groups of people, without affecting normal vision. ...

Researchers Debunk Myth That Marijuana is A 'Safe Drug'

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Researchers have discovered that the nature of the teenage brain makes users of cannabis amongst this population particularly at risk of developing addictive behaviors and suffering other long-term negative effects. The researchers are from the University of Montreal and New York's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "Of the illicit drugs, cannabis is most used by teenagers since it is perceived by many to be of little harm. This perception has led to a growing ...

'Robust' Treatment For Stroke Offered By Microscopic Material in Cells: Researchers

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Microscopic material in the cells offers a "robust" treatment for crippling stroke, finds researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The finding was made during the the latest in a series of experiments testing the use of stem cells to treat neurological disease. "In this study we pioneered a totally new treatment for stroke, and possibly for all neurological disease," says Michael Chopp, Ph.D., scientific director of the Henry Ford Neuroscience Institute. The ...

IL-7 Ensures That Sufficient Number of T Cells are Present In Our Body

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The immune messenger protein which ensures that a sufficient number of T cells are present in our body for immune defence is the molecule interleukin-7 (IL-7). Researchers from ETH Zurich have now demonstrated that IL-7 has another important function: it enhances the drainage function of lymphatic vessels, which collect fluid that has leaked out of blood vessels into the body tissue and return it to the bloodstream. In the future, this finding could become useful for lymphedema ...

Women Waste More Than 100 (Dollar) on Wrong Shades Of Makeup Every Year

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A study conducted by Britain's online store MyVoucherCodes.co.uk reveals that women waste over 76.38 pounds (over (Dollar) 100) every year on wrong shades of makeup products like blusher, bronzer, eyeshadow and lipstick. Despite buying an average of 6.2 items in the wrong colours, more than two-fifth women respondents of the study admitted that they never return the products to the shopkeeper. A majority of them said they didn't think they would be allowed to return the ...

Kyrgyzstan Battles Bubonic Plague, 3 More Endure Disease

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A bubonic plague killed a rural boy last week as three more people showed possible symptoms of the disease. The Kyrgyzstan officials have been scrambling to control the spread of the disease. The easternmost district of Ak-Suu in the Central Asian country was on lockdown while police guarded the hospitals where 15-year-old Temirbek Isakunov was treated and died last Thursday. The emergency ministry said that three more people from the same village as ...

Australian Billionaire Builds New Version Of Titanic

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A new version of the ill-fated liner the Titanic is being built by an Australian billionaire. There has been a huge global response to the project because it was about love and courage. Clive Palmer, who is standing in next month's Australian election after founding his own political party this year, said the vessel -- which will resemble the original as closely as possible -- was never designed to make money. "It was meant to just be a recreational ...

Chinese Media Announced That Conjoined Twin Girls Were Separated In A Marathon Operation

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State media has reported that conjoined twin baby girls have been released from a hospital in China almost three weeks after they were separated in a marathon operation. It took a team of 20 medical workers nearly 10 hours to separate the girls, who were joined at their livers, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing doctors at a hospital in the southern region of Guangxi. One of the girls took their shared navel while the other may have surgery ...

Study Explores Why Taller People are Slightly Smarter

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A study exploring the genetic connection between height and IQ finds two phenomena that explain why taller people tend to be slightly smarter. The same genes affect both traits and taller people are likelier to mate with smarter people, the study reveals. The study led by the University of Colorado Boulder did not find that environmental factors contributed to the connection between being taller and being smarter, both traits that people tend to find attractive. ...

Lose Post-pregnancy Weight Fast With Five Easy-to-do Yoga Poses

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Post-pregnancy weight is a nightmare for most women, but if some easy exercises as the ones listed below, are done regularly, post pregnancy weight can be easily reduced. Femalefirst.co.uk shares five easy-to-do yoga poses which help lose weight fast: 1. Eagle: This exercise releases tension in shoulders and upper back. It brings fresh oxygenated blood to the reproductive organs, strengthens lower back, legs, feet and ankles. It opens all the major ...

Skype Marks 10 Years by Bringing the World Closer

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A generation ago, if David Huang had left his native Taiwan for Sweden, he would have taken a giant leap into the unknown. Now, with the help of Skype, the 35-year-old businessman is able to reach relatives from his Stockholm home as easily as if they lived around the corner, and not half a world away. "Skype has made work easier, but more important than that, it has enabled me to talk to my family whenever I feel like it," he said. Internet ...

Indian Kashmir Himalayas Getting Polluted in the Name of Pilgrimage

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In Indian Kashmir, every summer for two months, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus, some chanting hymns, trek high into the Himalayas in a gruelling pilgrimage to a cave shrine. Surrounded by clouds and 3,800 metres (12,800 feet) above sea level, the Amarnath shrine is one of Hinduism's most revered sites. But the debris left behind is anything but sacred. By the end of the 55-day pilgrimage season, rubbish, including plastic bottles and bags, as ...

Study Finds 3 Subtypes of Gastric Cancer Require Different Treatment Approaches

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Stomach cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide, actually falls into three broad subtypes that respond differently to currently available therapies, say researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore. The finding could greatly improve patient care with the development of a genetic test to classify tumors and match them to the therapies that offer the best outcomes. "One of the features that makes gastric cancer so lethal ...

Researchers Develop New Approach to Detect Coeliac Disease

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A new approach is being developed by Australian researchers to detect coeliac disease, revealing this immune disorder is far more common than previously recognised. In a study of more than 2500 Victorians the researchers combined traditional antibody testing (measuring the immune response to gluten) with an assessment of specific genetic risk markers. They found more than half of Australians had genetic risk factors for developing coeliac disease. The research ...

High-Tech Imaging Contributes to Overtreatment of Low-Risk Thyroid Cancer

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An increasing gap between the incidence of thyroid cancer and deaths from the disease suggests that low-risk cancers are being overdiagnosed and overtreated. A study from the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery finds this. The study appears in the current issue of the iBritish Medical Journal/i. "High tech imaging technologies such as ultrasound, CT and MRI can detect very small thyroid nodules many of which are slow growing ...

Insights into Human TRIC-Associated Deafness

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Through the outer ear to the cochlea, sound waves are filtered, where hair cells convert the sound into the electric impulses that travel through the auditory nerve to the brain. Cochlear hair cells are extremely sensitive to stress and loss of these cells is a common cause of deafness. The formation of tight junctions between cells allows epithelia to form barriers to prevent fluid and other molecules from moving freely throughout the body. In this ...

Combination of Screening Strategies Emerges for Colorectal Cancer

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A strategy that combines two effective colorectal cancer screening methods, fecal immunological test and colonoscopy, may reduce costs and improve prevention and detection of colorectal cancer. This is according to a new study in iClinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology/i (iCGH/i), the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. The study used a simulation model to test a hybrid screening strategy consisting ...

Swimming Proves to be a Blessing for Baby Boy With Half a Working Heart

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Baby boy, Charlie Cobb, was born with half a working heart. Doctors gave him just 50% chance of survival. Hours following his birth, he underwent life saving surgery. Yet, he suffered a heart attack due to a rare heart condition - hypoplastic left heart syndrome, where the left ventricle of the heart does not develop properly. Doctors did not think he would survive. Yet, this baby has beaten the odds with the unflinching belief and support from his parents. Charlie's ...

Helper Cells Increase the Stem Cells' Endurance

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Specially engineered "helper cells" transplanted along with stem cells can dole out growth factors to increase the stem cells' endurance, at least briefly, like volunteers handing out cups of energy drinks to marathon runners. Johns Hopkins researchers report this and their study, published in the September issue of iExperimental Neurology/i, is believed to be the first to test the helper-cell tactic, which they hope will someday help to overcome a major barrier ...

Bangladesh Holds Import of Powdered Milk from New Zealand

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Officials reveal that Bangladesh authorities have restricted imports of powdered milk mostly from New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra following a contamination scare that has seen global recalls. Customs officials are holding more than 600 tonnes of powdered milk mostly from Fonterra until mandatory chemical tests showed they were safe, a senior official in the port city of Chittagong said. "Samples have been sent for chemical tests, we will release them ...

World's First Conjugate Typhoid Vaccine Launched by Indian Company

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The world's first conjugate typhoid vaccine has been launched by an Indian firm, Bharat Biotech. The vaccine is known by the name - Typbar-TCV. Polysaccharide versions of the typhoid vaccine have been available so far. These type of vaccines are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi and GSK. The conjugate version by Bharat biotech is available for the first time. Mr.Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, said that ...

Overuse of Painkillers Leads to More Headaches, Warn Health Experts

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Taking too many painkillers for migraine attacks can lead to more headaches, warn health experts. According to Professor Gillian Leng, from medicines watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), headaches and migraine can have a very significant, negative impact on sufferers, therefore people should understand that different headaches require different treatments, the Daily Express reported. Leng said that overusing some ...

New Cooling Technique Used to Remove Kidney Stone

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At Henry Ford Hospital, a first-ever technique using ice slush and minimally invasive robotic surgery to remove a particularly large type of kidney stone has been reported by urologists. Dubbed RANL, for robotic anatrophic nephrolithotomy, the technique was devised to remove staghorn calculi - large kidney stones with sharp, craggy branches - that can cause disease and sometimes death if left untreated. In a study to be published in the iJournal of ...

How Memories are Encoded in Nervous System

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One of the most challenging questions in biological research is 'where' and 'how' memories are encoded in a nervous system. The formation and recall of associative memories is essential for an independent life. The hippocampus has long been considered a centre in the brain for the long-term storage of spatial associations. Now, Mazahir T. Hasan at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and Jose Maria Delgado-Garcia at the University Pablo de Olavide of Seville, ...