Fancy body piercing? Get your hygiene right |  |
- Fancy body piercing? Get your hygiene right
- Achieving realistic physical activity goals benefits RA patients
- West Bengal to train 50,000 women to meet shortage of nurses
- A question of gene silencing
- Cholera pandemic's source discovered
- Three-part handoff delivers proteins to membrane surface
| Fancy body piercing? Get your hygiene right Posted: 25 Aug 2011 10:01 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Aug 25 - Aparajit Sinha, 21, pierced his eyebrows in the first year of college to look cool. But within two days he had to take the studs out because of extreme infection and severe pain. Body piercing has come a long way - from earlobes and the nose traditionally to eyebrows, belly button, lips and tongues now. But it needs care in the initial days to avoid infections. Many youngsters impulsively head for piercing without taking note of their skin type, proper sterilisation and post-piercing care information. 'Lack of hygiene, lack of proper sterilisation of the area and the gun are the common reasons why pierced areas catch infection. Also, there are some people whose skin is very sensitive and when they clean the pierced area with antiseptic, they get irritant eczema,' Sachin Dhawan, clinical and aesthetic dermatology at Artemis Health Institute in Gurgaon, told IANS. Dhawan gets around 10 percent queries for piercing complications. While piercing the earlobes and eyebrows result in common complications, nose or naval infections can be fatal. Nose infection could result in swelling and pain for a few days at the pierced site, says Mumbai-based cosmetic surgeon Meenakshi Agarwal. Also, studs and rings can get caught in clothes, which can aggravate the problem. 'There are times when a stud gets caught in clothes and pulls the skin, leaving one in extreme pain. So this unexpected rubbing too can lead to further complications,' said Mumbai-based dermatologist Ashwini Padmawar. Experts also suggest that one should avoid going to any random piercing shop and opt for experienced hands to avoid infections. 'A lot of ENT surgeons and plastic surgeons also do piercing, it is safer to get it done from them, as they understand the body system better,' said Agarwal. Sixteen-year-old Anamika Kalsi, who got her belly pierced without informing her parents and chose a cheaper place for piercing, realised this later. She... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Achieving realistic physical activity goals benefits RA patients Posted: 25 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers from The Netherlands report that patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have higher levels of self-efficacy for physical activity are more likely to achieve their physical activity goals. According to the study now available in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), achievement of physical activity goals is associated with lower self-reported arthritis pain and increased health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that RA, a chronic autoimmune disease causing inflammation in the lining of joints, affects nearly 1% of the world population. In the U.S., the ACR reports 1.3 million adults suffer with RA. Studies indicate that RA patients cite pain and stiffness as the most limiting factors of their illness, and report lower HRQOL than healthy individuals. RA patients who do not engage in regular physical activity have a more pronounced effect from the disease. For the current study, Keegan Knittle, MSc, from Leiden University in The Netherlands and colleagues surveyed 106 patients with RA to assess physical activity, motivation and self-efficacy for physical activity, level of arthritis pain, and quality of life. After six months, participants were surveyed again and asked to indicate the extent to which they achieved their baseline physical activity goal. Previous research has shown that self-efficacy, described as one's belief in his or her own capabilities to perform a specific behavior, is associated with increased physical activity participation among RA patients. Results showed that 75% of participants rated their physical activity goal achievement at 50% or more. Higher levels of self-efficacy for physical activity increased the likelihood that patients would achieve their physical activity goals, and goal achievement had a direct positive effect upon quality of life outcomes. Researchers found that patients who... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| West Bengal to train 50,000 women to meet shortage of nurses Posted: 24 Aug 2011 04:15 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Kolkata, Aug 24 - West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday said the state health ministry will train fifty thousand women to meet the shortage of nurses in the state. 'We have a very high shortage of nurses in the state,' Banerjee said while addressing a medical programme here. 'Earlier trained nurses from south India used to come and serve in hospitals and nursing homes of the state. But now those nurses from Kerala and Chennai go abroad for jobs. 'We have decided that we will train 50,000 women - create 50,000 nurses to meet the shortage. I will ask the state health ministry to look into the matter. We will also make sure that these nurses get jobs only in hospitals of the state,' Banerjee said. Banerjee also urged doctors and nurses to work in their country rather than go abroad for more money. 'There is lot of mental peace in serving the rural people of your country,' Banerjee said. 'You won't get that peace by working abroad and earning lots of money.' http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Posted: 24 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) When investigating cancer cells, researchers discovered numerous peculiarities: Particular RNA molecules are present in large numbers, particular genes are overactive. Do these characteristics have a relation to cancer? Do they promote cell growth? Do they inactivate growth brakes or are they just a whim of nature? To find clues for answering these questions scientists perform what are called loss-of-function analyses. They knock out (silence) the gene of interest in living cells or whole organisms and subsequently look for any changes in the cells' metabolism, physiology or behavior in order to find out whether specific cellular functions are lost. However, what was still missing was a method for selectively silencing those genes that do not code for proteins, said Dr. Sven Diederichs, who is head of a Junior Research Group at DKFZ and at the Institute of Pathology of Heidelberg University. With his team, the molecular biologist has now developed a new method for selectively silencing such non-protein-coding genes and, thus, determining their function. In many cancers we find that specific non- coding genes are particularly active. Therefore, we want to understand what the RNA molecules transcribed from these genes bring about in the tumor cells. Diederichs and his team have based their method on the use of zinc finger nucleases. These are engineered protein molecules that cut DNA at precisely defined sites and thus facilitate specific targeting and cutting of genes. Although the cell's repair machinery will re-connect the two ends after the cutting process, silencing works well for protein-coding genes. The repair enzymes usually do not repair the site precisely and insert small defects. This destroys the protein information so that the proteins can no longer be formed. For non-protein-coding genes, however, such small defects are not relevant. Therefore, mere cutting does not bring the desired result. The repair process... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Cholera pandemic's source discovered Posted: 24 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers have used next generation sequencing to trace the source and explain the spread of the latest (seventh) cholera pandemic. They have also highlighted the impact of the acquisition of resistance to antibiotics on shaping outbreaks and show resistance was first acquired around 1982. Whole genome sequencing reveals that the particular cholera type responsible for the current pandemic can be traced back to an ancestor that first appeared 40 years ago in the Bay of Bengal. From this ancestor, cholera has spread repeatedly to different parts of the world in multiple waves. These findings offer much better understanding of the mechanisms behind the spread of cholera - a diarrhoeal infection which is usually linked to unhygienic conditions and poor sanitation systems often found in disaster areas, such as the Haitian earthquake in October 2010. It is estimated that cholera affects 3 million to 5 million people each year, with 100,000-120,000 deaths. The team tracked the spread of the organism by analysing the genomes of the causative bacterium Vibrio cholerae taken from 154 patients across the world over the last 40 years. Using the ability to track single DNA changes in the genome of this strain, they were able to map the transmission routes of the bacteria, aiding future health planning and enabling 'backtracking' of the disease to its origin. They discovered that the current strain of the bacterium - known as the El Tor strain - first became resistant to antibiotics in 1982 by acquiring the genetic region SXT, which entered the bacterium's genome at that time, triggering renewed global transmission from the original source. Through comparing the genomes of 154 cases of cholera, we have made important discoveries as to how the pandemic has developed says Dr Julian Parkhill, a senior group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and a senior author of the study. Our research shows the importance of global... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Three-part handoff delivers proteins to membrane surface Posted: 24 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The delivery system for an important class of proteins in the cell membrane can be fully replicated with a mere three components, according to a new study. Tail-anchored proteins, the molecular machines that make up approximately five percent of the membrane proteins in a cell, are known to have their own special pathway for trafficking to the membrane after construction. New research from the University of Chicago and the National Institutes of Health blending structural and functional experiments finds that these proteins can be delivered to the membrane via a simple three-part system. This deeper understanding of the tail-anchored protein pathway could have significance for the development of new drugs and bioengineering methods. Researchers studying how other types of proteins are delivered to the membrane may also benefit from comparison with this specialized pathway as it is further manipulated and dissected. What we are really excited about is the prospect of having a completely defined, completely synthetic controlled system, said Robert Keenan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. Now we can really start asking detailed mechanistic questions. A team of six scientists from the University of Chicago and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, led by Keenan and Ramanujan Hegde, MD, Ph.D., published the findings on Wednesday in the journal Nature. Proteins are put together by ribosomes, which read DNA instructions and link amino acids together into their final form. But many proteins must be delivered from the ribosome to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where they are packaged and sent to their final destination. The majority of membrane proteins navigate this route by using the co-translational pathway, where the ribosome builds the protein directly into the ER membrane. But tail-anchored (TA) proteins, so named because only a single, small... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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