Category: Health

{Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that a change in weather patterns, brought on by the ‘Godzilla’ El Niño of 2015, fuelled the Zika outbreak in South America.}

The findings were revealed using a new epidemiological model that looked at how climate affects the spread of Zika virus by both of its major vectors, the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus).

The model can also be used to predict the risk of future outbreaks, and help public health officials tailor mosquito control measures and travel advice.

The model used the worldwide distribution of both vectors as well as temperature-dependent factors, such as mosquito biting rates, mortality rates and viral development rates within mosquitoes, to predict the effect of climate on virus transmission. It found that in 2015, when the Zika outbreak occurred, the risk of transmission was greatest in South America.

The researchers believe that this was likely due to a combination of El Niño — a naturally occurring phenomenon that sees above-normal temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and causes extreme weather around the world — and climate change, creating conducive conditions for the mosquito vectors.

El Niños occur every three to seven years in varying intensity, with the 2015 El Niño, nicknamed the ‘Godzilla’, one of the strongest on record. Effects can include severe drought, heavy rains and temperature rises at global scale.

Dr Cyril Caminade, a population and epidemiology researcher who led the work, said: “It’s thought that the Zika virus probably arrived in Brazil from Southeast Asia or the Pacific islands in 2013.

“However, our model suggests that it was temperature conditions related to the 2015 El Niño that played a key role in igniting the outbreak — almost two years after the virus was believed to be introduced on the continent.”

“In addition to El Niño, other critical factors might have played a role in the amplification of the outbreak, such as the non-exposed South American population, the risk posed by travel and trade, the virulence of the Zika virus strain and co-infections with other viruses such as dengue.”

The World Health Organisation recently declared that Zika, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological complications, will no longer be treated as an international emergency, but as a “significant enduring public health challenge.”

Professor Matthew Baylis, from the University’s Institute of Infection and Global Health, added: “Zika is not going away, and so the development of tools that could help predict potential future outbreaks and spread are extremely important.

“Our model predicts a potential seasonal transmission risk for Zika virus, in the south eastern United States, southern China, and to a lesser extent over southern Europe during summer.”

The researchers now plan to adapt the model to other important flaviviruses, such as Chikungunya and Dengue fever, with the aim of developing disease early warning systems that could help public health officials prepare for, or even prevent, future outbreaks.

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emerging Infections and Zoonoses, a collaboration between the University of Liverpool, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Public Health England.

The paper ‘Global risk model for vector-borne transmission of Zika virus reveals the role of El Niño 2015’ is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

{People who have a greater risk of developing schizophrenia are more likely to try cannabis, according to new research, which also found a causal link between trying the drug and an increased risk of the condition.}

The study from the University of Bristol comes on the back of public health warnings issued earlier this year by scientists who voiced concerns about the increased risk of psychosis for vulnerable people who use the drug. Those warnings followed evidence to suggest an increased use of particularly high potency strains of cannabis among young people. However, experts cautioned that the risks should not be overstated given the need for greater research into links between mental health and illicit drugs.

This latest study from Bristol’s School of Experimental Psychology sheds fresh light on the issue, while still cautioning that the results ought to be considered in the wider context of other contributing factors of mental health.

While some evidence was found to support hypotheses that cannabis use is a contributory factor in increasing the risk of schizophrenia, the researchers were surprised to find stronger evidence that the opposite was also likely. This adds weight to the idea that the drug may be used as a form of self-medication.

“The evidence suggested that schizophrenia risk predicts the likelihood of trying cannabis,” said Dr Suzi Gage, Research Associate with the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit. “However, the relationship could operate in both directions. Our results don’t really allow us to accurately predict the size of the effect — they’re more about providing evidence that the relationship is actually causal, rather than the result of confounding or common risk factors.”

The study used Mendelian Randomization (MR) techniques to examine publicly available data from genome-wide association studies. MR is a form of instrumental variable analysis, using genetic variants that predict either cannabis use risk, or risk of developing schizophrenia.

MR was used as an alternative to traditional observational epidemiology in an attempt to account for other variants that may affect the association, given that people who choose to use cannabis are likely to be different from those who don’t in lots of other ways.

Dr Gage added: “Our results use a novel method to attempt to untangle the association between cannabis and schizophrenia. While we find stronger evidence that schizophrenia risk predicts cannabis use, rather than the other way round, it doesn’t rule out a causal risk of cannabis use on schizophrenia. What will be interesting is digging deeper in to the potential sub-populations of cannabis users who may be at greater risk, and getting a better handle on the impact of heavy cannabis use.

“In this study we could only look at cannabis initiation. What would really help progress this research is to use genetic variants that predict heaviness of cannabis use, as it seems that heavy cannabis use is most strongly associated with risk of schizophrenia. Once genetic variants are identified that predict heaviness of cannabis use we’ll be able to do this.”

{A study of older adults links consumption of a pigment found in leafy greens to the preservation of “crystallized intelligence,” the ability to use the skills and knowledge one has acquired over a lifetime.}

The study is reported in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Lutein (LOO-teen) is one of several plant pigments that humans acquire through the diet, primarily by eating leafy green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, or egg yolks, said University of Illinois graduate student Marta Zamroziewicz, who led the study with Illinois psychology professor Aron Barbey. Lutein accumulates in the brain, embedding in cell membranes, where it likely plays “a neuroprotective role,” she said.

“Previous studies have found that a person’s lutein status is linked to cognitive performance across the lifespan,” Zamroziewicz said. “Research also shows that lutein accumulates in the gray matter of brain regions known to underlie the preservation of cognitive function in healthy brain aging.”

The study enrolled 122 healthy participants aged 65 to 75 who solved problems and answered questions on a standard test of crystallized intelligence. Researchers also collected blood samples to determine blood serum levels of lutein and imaged participants’ brains using MRI to measure the volume of different brain structures.

The team focused on parts of the temporal cortex, a brain region that other studies suggest plays a role in the preservation of crystallized intelligence.

The researchers found that participants with higher blood serum levels of lutein tended to do better on tests of crystallized intelligence. Serum lutein levels reflect only recent dietary intakes, Zamroziewicz said, but are associated with brain concentrations of lutein in older adults, which reflect long-term dietary intake.

Those with higher serum lutein levels also tended to have thicker gray matter in the parahippocampal cortex, a brain region that, like crystallized intelligence, is preserved in healthy aging, the researchers report.

“Our analyses revealed that gray-matter volume of the parahippocampal cortex on the right side of the brain accounts for the relationship between lutein and crystallized intelligence,” Barbey said. “This offers the first clue as to which brain regions specifically play a role in the preservation of crystallized intelligence, and how factors such as diet may contribute to that relationship.”

“Our findings do not demonstrate causality,” Zamroziewicz said. “We did find that lutein is linked to crystallized intelligence through the parahippocampal cortex.”

“We can only hypothesize at this point how lutein in the diet affects brain structure,” Barbey said. “It may be that it plays an anti-inflammatory role or aids in cell-to-cell signaling. But our finding adds to the evidence suggesting that particular nutrients slow age-related declines in cognition by influencing specific features of brain aging.”

{For those suffering depression or anxiety, using cannabis for relief may not be the long-term answer.}

That’s according to new research from a team at Colorado State University seeking scientific clarity on how cannabis — particularly chronic, heavy use — affects neurological activity, including the processing of emotions.

Researchers led by Lucy Troup, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, have published a study in PeerJ describing their findings from an in-depth, questionnaire-based analysis of 178 college-aged, legal users of cannabis. Recreational cannabis became legal in Colorado in 2014. Since then, seven other states have enacted legalization for recreational use, while many others allow medical use.

“One thing we wanted to focus on was the significance of Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational cannabis, and its own unique population and use that occurs here,” Troup said.

Through the study, which was based solely upon self-reported use of the drug, the researchers sought to draw correlations between depressive or anxious symptoms and cannabis consumption.

They found that those respondents categorized with subclinical depression, who reported using the drug to treat their depressive symptoms, scored lower on their anxiety symptoms than on their depressive symptoms – so, they were actually more depressed than they were anxious. The same was true for self-reported anxiety sufferers: they were found to be more anxious than they were depressed.

In other words, “if they were using cannabis for self-medication, it wasn’t doing what they thought it was doing,” explained co-author Jacob Braunwalder, a recently graduated student researcher in Troup’s lab.

Study co-author Jeremy Andrzejewski led the development of the questionnaire, called R-CUE (Recreational Cannabis Use Evaluation), that took a deep dive into users’ habits, including questions about whether users smoked the drug, or consumed stronger products like hash oils or edibles. The researchers are particularly motivated to study biochemical and neurological reactions from higher-tetrahydracannabinol (THC) products available in the legal market, which can be up to 80-90 percent THC.

The researchers are quick to point out that their analysis does not say that cannabis causes depression or anxiety, nor that it cures it. But it underscores the need for further study around how the brain is affected by the drug, in light of legalization, and by some accounts, more widespread use in Colorado since legalization.

For example, said Andrzejewski, “there is a common perception that cannabis relieves anxiety.” Yet research has yet to support this claim fully, he said.

Graduate student and co-author Robert Torrence pointed to past research that shows that chronic use reduces naturally occurring endocannabinoids in the brain, which are known to play a role physiological processes including mood and memory.

“There is research to suggest that cannabis can help with anxiety and depression in the beginning, but it has the reverse effect later on,” said Torrence, a U.S. Army veteran who is especially interested in studying cannabis’ effectiveness in treating post-traumatic stress disorders.

Due to the federal government’s stringent regulations around researching cannabis, which is a schedule I drug, the general public’s perception of how it affects the brain is often based in “mythos,” Braunwalder said. “We want to add more information to the entire body of research.”

There are currently no CSU research labs that administer cannabis to study participants, as administration of the drug for research would require special licensing and security.

Moving forward, the researchers want to refine their results and concentrate on respondents’ level and length of exposure to legally available high-THC products like concentrates and hash oils, around which there has been little scientific inquiry.

“It is important not to demonize cannabis, but also not to glorify it,” Troup said. “What we want to do is study it, and understand what it does. That’s what drives us.”

{Women tend to get high quicker than men, and there’s a scientific reason why only few women can drink their male counterparts under the table — they have less of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol before it enters the blood stream.}

“Females have only about one-fifth as much alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomachs, so women get more effect, ounce for ounce, than men,” explains Dr Marianne Legato, founder of The Foundation for Gender Specific Medicine in New York.

It seems that as a result, women suffer more the next morning, too.

A survey by the University of Missouri found that women’s experiences of the most common hangover complaints — dehydration, tiredness, headaches, nausea and vomiting — were more severe than men’s.

This may have a long-term effect on women’s health, says Dr Adam Taylor.

“A high amount of alcohol consumption in females has the potential to show a progression to liver damage more quickly than in men.

“This is probably because the female liver is having to do more work in the first place due to fewer enzymes being produced to process it.”

Women have to drink only half of what men consume — between seven to 13 drinks a week — to be at risk of alcohol-related liver disease, according to a 2013 study in the journal Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

{A Canadian study has found that women have a circadian rhythm, which runs between 1.7 and 2.3 hours ahead of their male partners.}

According to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this means they are likely to feel more tired earlier in the evening than men. The researchers say these differences are mainly due to the influence of our sex hormones.

According to Dr Adam Taylor, a senior lecturer in anatomy at Lancaster University Medical School: “These hormones can affect our health in everything from how fast our hair grows to how quickly we blink and even how rapidly we digest food and alcohol.”

A woman’s heart is about two-thirds the size of a man’s, weighing an average of 120g, compared to an average 180g in the male.

However, because the female organ is smaller, it beats slightly faster to make up for its size.

While the average male heart beats 70-72 times a minute, an adult woman’s beats 78-82 times a minute.

However heart experts say this has no effect on women’s overall heart health during their lifetimes or the type of heart problems they develop.

{In a large Kaiser Permanente study of women with invasive breast cancer, socially integrated women — those with the most social ties, such as spouses, community ties, friendships and family members — were shown to have significantly lower breast cancer death rates and disease recurrence than socially isolated women. This study was published in the American Cancer Society journal Cancer.}

“It is well established that women who have more social ties generally, including those with breast cancer, have a lower risk of death overall,” said Candyce H. Kroenke, ScD, MPH, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and lead author of the study. “Our findings demonstrate the beneficial influence of women’s social ties on breast cancer-specific outcomes, including recurrence and breast cancer death.”

This is believed to be the largest study to date of social networks — the web of personal relationships that surround an individual — and breast cancer survival. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the study included 9,267 women diagnosed with stages 1 to 4 invasive breast cancer enrolled in the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project, a pooled cohort of four studies of women with breast cancer, including one conducted at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Data was collected and analyzed from breast cancer survivorship studies conducted in California, Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Texas and Shanghai, China. Researchers examined how a range of lifestyle factors — including exercise, diet, weight management and social factors — affect breast cancer survivorship.

Within two years of a breast cancer diagnosis, women answered surveys about their personal relationships and social networks, including spouses or partners; religious, community and friendship ties; and the number of first-degree, living relatives. They were followed for up to 20 years.

The women were characterized as socially isolated (few ties), moderately integrated, or socially integrated (many ties). The large sample size allowed researchers to control for numerous factors that might confound results.

Compared to socially integrated women, the study found that socially isolated women were:

43 percent more likely to have a recurrence of breast cancer
64 percent more likely to die from breast cancer
69 percent more likely to die from any cause
Despite these findings, Kroenke noted that the results also point to complexity, in that not all types of social ties were beneficial to all women.

For example, researchers found that older white women without a spouse or partner were 37 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than older white women with one, a relationship that wasn’t apparent in other demographic groups. By contrast, non-white women with few friendships were 40 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than those with many friendship ties, and non-white women with fewer relatives were 33 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than those with many relative ties, relationships that were not apparent in white women.

“The types of social ties that mattered for women with breast cancer differed by sociodemographic factors including race/ethnicity, age and country of origin,” Kroenke noted. “Ultimately, this research may be able to help doctors tailor clinical interventions regarding social support for breast cancer patients based on the particular needs of women in different sociodemographic groups.”

The study builds on previous research by Kroenke and colleagues who found that positive social interactions are related to higher quality of life in breast cancer patients; high-quality personal relationships are related to better survival; and larger networks are related to healthy lifestyle factors.

{If you intend being a father in future, you need to start paying attention to the quality of your semen.}

Below are 8 signs that suggest your semen is healthy

{{1. You manage stress well }}

Stress can affect the quality of your semen. Stress reduces the sperm concentration in the semen. You are more likely to have abnormal sperm when you are stressed out. Managing stress by sleeping and getting good rest helps you get healthy semen.

{{2. You have a lean midsection }}

You have to watch your waist because carrying too much weight around your midsection isn’t good for your sperm. Men with a waist circumference of 40 inches or greater have been found to have lower sperm concentrations.

{{3. You don’t smoke}}

Your chances of having a healthy sperm are high if you are not a smoker. Smoking isn’t good for the sperm as it reduces sperm count and affects the DNA that your semen carries.

{{4. You eat lots of fish }}

Men who are fish lovers generally have healthy semen. Research has found that men who eat more fish generally have a 65% greater sperm concentration than men who rarely eat fish. Fish is rich in omega-3s which plays a part in sperm production.

{{5. You rearely eat junk food }}

Men who rarely eat junk foods have better semen than those who eat junk foods. This is because eating processed meat and junk food damages the quality of the sperm. So before you eat that junk food, always remember it makes your sperm unhealthy.

{{6. You don’t wear tight underwear }}

It’s fashionable for men to wear tight underwear but research has found that men who wear tight underwear are more likely to have low-motile sperm count. Wearing tight underwear increases scrotal temperature which may hinder sperm production.

{{7. You don’t keep your phone in your pocket }}

Men who rarely keep their phones in their trouser pocket are more likely to have better semen than men who keep phones in their trouser pockets. This is because radiation from your phone can affect your sperm count.

{{8. You exercise regularly }}

Exercise is good for the health of your semen. Researchers have found that men who exercise regularly have a sperm concentration that was 73% higher than guys who don’t exercise. Regular exercise helps prevent free radicals from damaging the sperm cells.

{A recent cabinet decision of increasing medical insurance premium in both public and private institutions for RAMA/RSSB by 25% and 15% for Military Medical Insurance (MMI) and private medical insurances has caused discomfort among members of the public, worried it is to eat into their savings as they foot the bills. Mituelle de santé was not affected. }

The spokesperson of Rwanda Defense Forces, Lt Col Rene Ngendahimana has told IGIHE that MMI won’t be affected.

“It is a decision taken based on different criteria including what is offered to avail health services especially at public hospitals. Regarding the case of MMI, it means the service formerly offered at Rwf 1000 will now set back consumers of medical services by another Rwf150 with the new changes,” he said.

Private operators in medical services have expressed worries that changes may affect their clientele.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of SORAS, Charles Butera has said that institutions offering health services have been holding discussions requesting the increase of prices for some services offered to patients.

“For us, we have categories where a person pays a particular amount seeking health care services while others don’t pay. This doesn’t regard anyone who doesn’t pay as the insurance company will have covered 100% of payments but the 15% will be increased to the cost,” he said.

Butera explained that the price changes come at a time when some customers’ contracts had not yet expired adding that much attention will be drawn next time before extending contracts.

“We will wait for contracts to expire; but this will affect our operations because we will have to respect the changes yet we didn’t plan for it earlier,” he said.

As he concluded the civic education for health workers on 4th December 2016, Premier Anastase Murekezi announced that the cost of health services was set to rise by December to match demand quality services.

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Jean Pierre Nyemazi has told IGIHE that the rise of health cost won’t affect patients since increased percentage will be covered by insurance companies.

“Patients won’t be affected because the increased price will be covered by medical insurance to which people are affiliated. That is why we encourage people again to join medical insurance,” he said.

{Most of us are used to washing every edible before we eat them. In fact, some people even wash food before cooking them. If you’re one of such people who are so ‘hygienic’ they have to wash everything, you may want to take raw chicken off that list.}

According to report, raw chicken carries a bacterium known as Campylobacter. So how does this affect you, you may wonder? Well, first of all, water helps spread bacteria. So when you wash raw chicken, which has this bacterium, you risk spreading it to surfaces in your kitchen, and you can get food poisoning when you put other food materials on the contaminated surface. So the washed chicken isn’t the problem since you’ll still cook it, the problem is the risk of spreading the bacteria to areas where you may take other foods.

Who’s at risk of Campylobacter? According to health experts, young adults, children and elderly people are usually the most exposed to the bacteria. Research has said that the bacterium is the number one cause of food poisoning in the UK, and most parts of the world.

It is advised that you don’t wash your chicken before you cook it, since cooking will rid it of any harmful germ or bacteria. If you must wash raw chicken, use a disinfectant on the surface you washed it on, to avoid risk of suffering food poisoning.