Gadkari recovers after diabetes, weight loss surgery

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• Gadkari recovers after diabetes, weight loss surgery
• Delhi hospitals lacking in emergency protocols
• Daily deal companies are here to stay, according to consumers
• The cause of Earth's largest environmental catastrophe
• Study to examine direct-to-consumer drug ads on TV
• Smithsonian conservation team develops new technique for dating silk
• Study predicts sea level rise may take economic toll on California coast
• Plant compound reduces breast cancer mortality
• The American Society for Microbiology honors Benjamin P. Howden
• The American Society for Microbiology honors John G. Bartlett

Gadkari recovers after diabetes, weight loss surgery Posted: 14 Sep 2011 11:32 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Mumbai, Sep 14 - Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, who underwent a surgical procedure related to diabetes Tuesday, is likely to be discharged in a couple of days, according to an official statement here Wednesday. The procedure also leads to weight loss. 'Gadkari, who underwent a successful gastric bypass surgery for treatment of type-2 diabetes at Saifee Hospital, is progressing well,' his surgeon Muffazal Lakdawala said. A gastric bypass surgery makes the stomach smaller, leading to an altered response to food intake. He is progressing well and his sugar level is now under control, Lakdawala said. Gadkari is likely to be discharged in a couple of days from the hospital, but has been advised rest for at least a week or so, he added. The BJP chief, a known diabetic, has had poor control on his sugar levels in the past few months. He had developed early diabetic nephropathy despite the best currently available medical management. 'His sugar was not getting controlled for sometime and hence he decided to undergo a gastric bypass surgery for treating the type-2 diabetes,' a party office-bearer said. http://www.rxpgnews.com

Delhi hospitals lacking in emergency protocols Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:06 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Last week's Delhi High Court blast, which left 13 dead and around 90 injured, once again exposed one of the most glaring shortcomings of the capital's hospitals -- lack of a robust emergency response system, medical experts say. 'Emergency protocols are needed to receive mass casualties or victims of disaster in public hospitals. There are no dedicated trauma surgeons and very few designated trauma centres in India. Other than this, speedy redistribution of patients from the accident site to nearest hospitals strategically can save more lives,' Sanjeev Bhoi, head of emergency at the Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, -, told IANS. A redistribution system helps give proper medical attention to all the patients without burdening any specific hospital. The lack of a proper redistribution mechanism can seriously hamper response to emergencies. For example, the Ram Manohar Lohia - Hospital, where most of the Sep 7 Delhi blast victims have been admitted, had to evacuate its surgery wards to accommodate the blast victims. The hospital received around 60 victims in the first hour of the blast after 10.15 a.m. The number swelled later, doctors said. 'Workload is tremendous at government hospitals. We had to discharge some of our routine patients that day to accommodate blast victims,' a senior doctor at the RML Hospital told IANS on condition of anonymity. 'It is important for other hospitals to respond quickly to the crisis. Private hospitals that have had land on concessional rates could also contribute in such situations,' the doctor added. The JPNATC at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences - is the second exclusive trauma management centre in the capital, after the Sushruta Trauma Centre in north Delhi. The JPNATC has 30 trollies in the emergency room, apart from a 280-bedded trauma centre, say doctors. In case of any emergency, a hospital is alerted to press its orthopaedic department, general surgery department,... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Daily deal companies are here to stay, according to consumers Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Despite recent news reports questioning the long-term viability of daily deal companies, a new study from researchers at Rice University and Cornell University shows that the companies are more popular than ever among consumers. The key finding is that there is no evidence of waning interest among consumers of daily deal promotions, said Rice University's Utpal Dholakia, co-author of Daily Deal Fatigue or Unabated Enthusiasm? In fact, the more deals purchased by an individual, the more enthusiastic they seem to be. Dholakia, professor of management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, and Sheryl Kimes, professor of hospitality management at Cornell University, examined consumer perceptions of daily deal promotions. The researchers surveyed 973 respondents in August; 655 were daily deal users and 318 were not. Dholakia said the study is good news for daily deal companies, who have been hit hard in recent weeks with reports of the industry's decline. Even previous research by Dholakia found that not enough businesses are coming back to daily deals to make the industry sustainable over a long time. The new study shows significant opportunity for growth among consumers, as only 16.7 percent of the research panel's population has used daily deals before, and the majority of non-users (90.6 percent) haven't bought a deal because of awareness or access issues. We see significant further opportunity for trial and use of daily deals by current non-users, Dholakia said. Overall, daily deal customers tend to have little interest in being seen as different or fringe in their shopping patterns, are not very careful with their personal finances and do not think about spending issues all the time. They are interested in trying new products and services to have new experiences to talk about and influence others. They are attracted to a deal because it is a deal, and are likely to be less sensitive to the actual terms of... http://www.rxpgnews.com

The cause of Earth's largest environmental catastrophe Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The eruption of giant masses of magma in Siberia 250 million years ago led to the Permo-Triassic mass extinction when more than 90 % of all species became extinct. An international team including geodynamic modelers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences together with geochemists from the J. Fourier University of Grenoble, the Max Plank Institute in Mainz, and Vernadsky-, Schmidt- and Sobolev-Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences report on a new idea with respect to the origin of the Siberian eruptions and their relation to the mass extinction in the recent issue of Nature (15.09.2011, vol. 477, p. 312-316). Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) are huge accumulations of volcanic rock at the Earth's surface. Within short geological time spans of often less than one million years their eruptions cover areas of several hundred thousand square kilometres with up to 4 kilometers thick lava flows. The Siberian Traps are considered the largest continental LIP. A widely accepted idea is that LIPs originate through melting within thermal mantle plumes, a term applied to giant mushroom-shaped volumes of plastic mantle material that rise from the base of the mantle to the lithosphere, the Earth's rigid outer shell. The high buoyancy of purely thermal mantle plumes, however, should cause kilometer-scale uplift of the lithosphere above the plume head, but such uplift is not always present. Moreover, estimates of magmatic degassing from many LIPs are considered insufficient to trigger climatic crises. The team of scientists presents a numerical model and new geochemical data with which unresolved questions can now be answered. They suggest that the Siberian mantle plume contained a large fraction of about 15 percent of recycled oceanic crust; i.e. the crust that had long before been subducted into the deep mantle and then, through the hot mantle plume, brought back to the Earth's lithosphere. This recycled oceanic crust was... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Study to examine direct-to-consumer drug ads on TV Posted: 14 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Do pharmaceutical ads educate patients and improve health -- or merely spur drug sales? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy will conduct the first comprehensive study of televised drug commercials using Nielsen Media Research and health care utilization data. The research is funded by a $3 million, four-year grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The U.S. is the only country that allows televised ads for prescription drugs. Direct-to-consumer drug commercials are the fourth most common category of television advertising. The increase in the amount of advertising has coincided with huge increases in health care costs, said Sherry Emery, principal investigator of the project at UIC, who notes that advertising has not likely caused the entire rise in health care costs. On the one hand, the pharmaceutical industry claims that these advertisements provide a public service by educating consumers and giving people information to take to their doctors that might improve their health and ultimately result in lower health care costs, Emery said. But there are a lot of economists who would suggest that you don't advertise a product unless you expect to make money from it -- and these ads might be driving excess demand. Previous research has not demonstrated either effect conclusively, said Emery, a senior research scientist at the UIC institute, perhaps because such studies have focused on single categories of drugs. Several studies have examined the effect of direct-to-consumer advertising on consumers' behavior and health outcomes, but most have used aggregate spending rather than more refined measures of ad exposure. It seems reasonable that an advertisement for a cholesterol medication that treats a non-symptomatic condition might be different than an advertisement for an asthma medication, where if you don't adhere to the medication, you may end up in... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Smithsonian conservation team develops new technique for dating silk Posted: 13 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Strand for strand no fabric can compare to the luxurious feel, luminosity and sheen of pure silk. Since millennia, the Chinese have been unraveling the cocoons of the silk worm (Bombyx mori) and weaving the fibers into sumptuous garments, hangings, carpets, tapestries and even artworks of painted silk. Now, for the first time, scientists at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute have developed a fast and reliable method to date silk. This new technique, which is based on capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry, has great potential to improve the authentication and dating of the priceless silk artifacts held in museum and other collections around the world. The new method uses the natural deterioration of the silk's amino acids--a process known as racemization--to determine its age. As time goes by, the abundance of the L-amino acids used in the creation of the silk protein decreases while the abundance of D-amino acids associated with the silk's deterioration increases. Measuring this ever-changing ratio between the two types of amino acids can reveal the age of a silk sample. Archaeologists and forensic anthropologists have used this process for decades to date bone, shells and teeth, but the techniques used required sizeable samples, which for precious silk objects are almost impossible to obtain. Many things an animal makes are protein based, such as skin and hair. Proteins are made of amino acids, explains Smithsonian research scientist Mehdi Moini, chief author of a recent paper in the journal Analytical Chemistry announcing the new dating method. Living creatures build protein by using specific amino acids known commonly as left-handed [L] amino acids. Once an animal dies it can no longer replace the tissues containing left-handed amino acids and the clock starts. As L- changes to D-amino acids [right handed], the protein begins to degrade, Moini explains. Measuring this ever-changing ratio between... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Study predicts sea level rise may take economic toll on California coast Posted: 13 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) California beach towns could face hefty economic losses caused by sea level rise in the next century, according to a new state-commissioned study conducted by economists at San Francisco State University. The study forecasts the economic impact of sea level rise on five communities: Ocean Beach in San Francisco; Venice Beach and Malibu in Los Angeles; Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County; and Torrey Pines State Reserve in San Diego County. Funded by the California Department of Boating and Waterways, the study examines the cost of coastal storm damage and erosion, both of which are expected to increase as sea levels rise. It also forecasts the economic impact of sea level rise on tourism and natural habitats, as beaches that have been narrowed by erosion lose their appeal to visitors and their ability to sustain wildlife. The results suggest that visitor hotspots like Venice Beach could lose up to $440 million in tourism revenue between now and 2100 if sea levels rise by 4.6 feet (1.4 meters), a projection specific to the California coast, based on recent scientific studies. At San Francisco's Ocean Beach, accelerated erosion could cause up to $540 million worth of damage. Sea level rise will send reverberations throughout local and state economies, said Philip King, associate professor of economics at San Francisco State University. We also found that the economic risks and responses to a changing coastline will vary greatly over time and from beach to beach. The findings suggest that the cost and type of damage will vary depending on a community's economy, geography and local decisions about land use. For example, if sea level rises by 4.6 feet, Malibu beaches could lose almost $500 million in accumulated tourism revenue between now and 2100. Revenue losses would be much smaller at San Francisco's windswept Ocean Beach ($82 million), which attracts fewer visitors per year. In addition to mean sea level rise, the study... http://www.rxpgnews.com

Plant compound reduces breast cancer mortality Posted: 13 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Phytoestrogens are plant compounds which, in the human body, can attach to the receptors for the female sexual hormone estrogen and which are taken in with our daily diet. A number of findings have attributed a cancer protective effect to these plant hormones. At DKFZ, a team headed by Prof. Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude summarized the results of several studies in a meta-analysis last year and showed that a diet rich in phytoestrogens lowers the risk of developing breast cancer after menopause. Now the Heidelberg researchers wanted to find out whether phytoestrogens also have an influence on the course of breast cancer. Prior investigations on this topic had provided contradictory results. The most important type of phytoestrogens in our Western diet are lignans, which are contained in seeds, particularly flaxseeds, as well as in wheat and vegetables. In the bowel, these substances are turned into enterolactone, which is absorbed by the mucous tissue and which was determined by the Heidelberg researchers as a biomarker in the patients' blood. From 2002 to 2005, the DKFZ researchers used the MARIE study to take blood samples of 1,140 women who had been diagnosed with postmenopausal breast cancer. After a mean observation time of six years, they related enterolactone levels to clinical disease progression. The result: Compared to the study subjects with the lowest enterolactone levels, the women with the highest blood levels of this biomarker had an approximately 40 percent lower mortality risk. When the scientists additionally took account of the incidence of metastasis and secondary tumors, they obtained a similar result: Women with the highest enterolactone levels also had a lower risk for such an unfavorable disease progression. We now have first clear evidence showing that lignans lower not only the risk of developing postmenopausal breast cancer, but also the mortality risk, says Jenny Chang-Claude. There had been prior... http://www.rxpgnews.com

The American Society for Microbiology honors Benjamin P. Howden Posted: 13 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Benjamin P. Howden, Ph.D., Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia, has been chosen by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) to receive a 2011 ICAAC Young Investigator Award. Sponsored by the ASM, this award recognizes an early career scientist for research excellence in microbiology and infectious diseases. Dr. Howden is an Infectious Diseases Physician and Medical Microbiologist at Austin Health, a leading tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. His nominator, M. Lindsay Grayson of Austin Health, calls Dr. Howden an outstanding infectious diseases physician and microbiologist whose key research focus has been the pathogenesis of serious bacterial infections, particularly Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Entercoccus faecium (VRE). Dr. Howden obtained his M.B.B.S. in 1993 from Monash University, and subsequently completed training as an Infectious Diseases Physician (as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians) and Medical Microbiologist (as a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia). During his doctoral studies at Monash University, Dr. Howden used new comparative and functional genomics approaches to understand in vivo evolution of S. aureus during persistent infection, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. These studies have led to new insights into the molecular basis of vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA), and have revealed a novel mechanism of reduced linezolid susceptibility in S. aureus. His most recent research, based on the results of large-scale comparative genomics, has uncovered an important link between antimicrobial resistance and virulence in S. aureus. He is one of the leaders of an integrated bacterial research program based in the Austin Centre for Infection Research (ACIR) at Austin Health, a program focused on investigating the... http://www.rxpgnews.com

The American Society for Microbiology honors John G. Bartlett Posted: 13 Sep 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) John G. Bartlett, M.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, has been honored with the prestigious Cubist-ICAAC Award from the American Society for Microbiology. Supported by Cubist Pharmaceuticals, the award rewards outstanding accomplishment in antimicrobial chemotherapy, development of new agents, investigation of antimicrobial action or resistance to antimicrobial agents, and/or the pharmacology, toxicology or clinical use of those agents. Dr. Bartlett served as Chief of the Infectious Disease Division at the School for 26 years, stepping down in July of 2006. Thomas O'Brien, Academy Fellow from Harvard Medical School, says that Dr. Bartlett has contributed more to our understanding of numerous kinds of infecting microbes and their interactions with antimicrobial agents than anyone else I can think of. Dr. Bartlett's career is distinguished by the breadth of his contributions to ID; the depth of his knowledge across the field; and his enormous productivity. He is a true visionary, able to predict the importance of emerging problems and innovations before most people have taken notice, adds a supporter of the nomination, Joel E. Gallant of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Bartlett received his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, and his medical degree at Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, NY. He trained in internal medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, MA, and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and he completed his fellowship training in infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Before accepting his current position at The Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Bartlett served as a faculty member at UCLA and Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, and was associate chief of staff for research at the Boston VA Hospital. Dr. Bartlett has worked in several areas of research, all related to his specialty in infectious... http://www.rxpgnews.com

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