New surgery improves outcomes for severe flat foot deformity
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A surgery developed at Hospital for Special Surgery can improve patient outcomes in individuals with severe adult flat foot deformity, a problem that is increasingly being seen in hospitals across the country. Patients who undergo the new surgery have better long-term outcome and mobility than those who undergo traditional surgery. The paper will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS, abstract 348) in National Harbor, Md., on July 8.
“Before this study, we were not sure whether you could salvage patients with flat foot and ankle deformity and correct their ankle as well as their foot deformity,” said Jonathan Deland, M.D., chief of the Department of Foot and Ankle Surgery at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). “Now we know that with this technique you can save the ankle, and it provides a correction of the deformity even at nine years after surgery.” Dr. Deland developed the surgery and is senior author of the study.
Adult acquired flat foot deformity is basically a severe type of flat foot that develops for unknown reasons in individuals who have had flat feet all their life. It is more prevalent in women and those who are overweight, and it usually develops in individuals in their 40s and 50s. In stage I of the deformity, the tendon that runs along the inside of the ankle begins to degenerate. In stage II, the arch starts to fail, and a person develops a more severe case of flat foot. As the arch continues to collapse and the flat foot becomes more pronounced, mobility becomes difficult, and the foot becomes stiff, which is considered stage III.
Researchers Discover New Way Diseases Develop
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Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a previously unknown mechanism by which cells direct gene expression, the process by which information from a gene is used to direct the physical and behavioral development of individuals. The research, which may help scientists gain insight into how muscle and heart diseases develop, is published in the July 8th issue of Nature.
Using a combined approach of structural and molecular biology, a team of researchers led by Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Professor and Chair, Structural and Chemical Biology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, determined that the molecular interactions between proteins are very different than previously thought, and that they play an essential role in the initiation of gene transcription of muscle and the heart. Gene transcription is the first step to gene expression, a cellular process that occurs in response to physiological and environmental stimuli, and is dictated by chemical modifications of the DNA and histones, which are the proteins responsible for packaging the DNA.
US cancer death rates continue drop: report
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U.S. cancer death rates are falling, with big decreases in major killers such as colon and lung cancer, the American Cancer Society said on Wednesday.
The improvement was due a decline in smoking, better treatment and earlier detection, it said.
The group predicted 1,529,560 new cancer cases in the United States in 2010 and 569,490 deaths.
Pricey lung disease drugs have no benefit: study
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Recommendations for expensive treatments made for a genetic disorder called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency should be withdrawn because the drugs have no benefit, scientists said on Wednesday.
The disorder causes chronic lung disease and researchers who reviewed data from two trials on 140 patients with it found no evidence that alpha-1 antitrypsin medicines do any good.
Based on this evidence, the researchers said the treatment, which costs up to $150,000 a year in the United States, should not be recommended by doctors and advocacy groups.
Viagra-popping seniors lead the pack for STDs
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Even if you’re past your prime and have a hard time getting an erection, you might still need to worry about unprotected sex, according to U.S. doctors.
In fact, they report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in older men taking erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra is twice as high as in their non-medicated peers.
In both groups, however, the numbers are swelling. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than six new cases of STDs per 10,000 men over 40 in 2008, up almost 50 percent since 1996.
Protein Must Exist in Specific Brain Cells to Prevent Diet-Induced Obesity
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A protein found in cells throughout the body must be present in a specific set of neurons in the brain to prevent weight gain after chronic feeding on high-calorie meals, new findings from UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggest.
Nicknamed the “longevity” protein because of its apparent role in mediating the effects of dietary restriction on life span, SIRT1 has been studied as a potential target for anti-aging drugs. Prior research also has shown that this metabolic sensor protein in peripheral tissues plays an important role in regulating metabolism, but its physiological relevance in brain neurons remained unclear.
“This is the first study to show that SIRT1 in hypothalamic neurons, specifically POMC neurons, is required for preventing diet-induced obesity and maintaining normal body weight,” said Dr. Roberto Coppari, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the mouse study, available online and in the July 7 issue of Cell Metabolism.
Doctors See Trend in Summer Injuries Among Children
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It is a time most families look forward to every year – summertime. For parents, the warm summer months are often filled with family vacations and cookouts. For kids, it is a chance to play outdoors and enjoy a few months without homework. However, doctors at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have recently noticed a trend in injuries that occur in children during the summer months that are both predictable and preventable.
With the long school days in the past, most kids become more active during the summer and often have more free time. Kathy Nuss, MD, associate medical director of Trauma Services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and a team of doctors, have narrowed down a list of the most common mechanisms of injuries that cause children to end up in hospitals during the summer months.
• Falls – Falls are constantly topping the list of summer injuries. While objects such as trampolines have proven to be dangerous, many injuries arise from things that parents may assume are much safer.
Food body sets rules for bagged salad, melamine use
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An international food safety body set new rules on Tuesday on preparing bagged salads and said the chemical melamine that tainted Chinese milk is acceptable only in tiny amounts in infant formula and food.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission decided at its meeting in Geneva that animal manure should not be used to fertilize lettuce and other fresh vegetables sold “ready to eat” to avoid dangerous diseases.
Contaminated water must also be kept away from bagged produce that is not heat-treated, the Codex experts said, fixing new benchmarks that could change production and harvesting norms across the world.
ICU death rates higher on weekends: study
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It’s not something you can control, but when you or a loved one is admitted to an intensive care unit may be linked to your survival: Patients treated in an intensive care unit on a weekend may be more likely to die during the hospital admission than those admitted on a weekday, a new study suggests.
The findings, from an analysis of 10 international studies, add to evidence that patients admitted to a hospital during “off-hours” tend to fare worse.
Studies have found, for instance, that heart attack and stroke patients admitted during hospital off-hours—overnight or on the weekend—have a higher risk of dying than those admitted on weekdays. There is also evidence of a relatively higher risk of childbirth complications when women deliver at night, though the absolute risk is still quite low.
Health and austerity: When budget cuts cost lives
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European leaders slicing away at national budgets are keen to persuade voters that healthcare is sacrosanct, but they will struggle to escape the truth that cutting spending elsewhere also eventually costs lives.
If a government’s first priority is to protect the lives of its people, then ringfencing health spending while cutting other budgets and trying to drive down the cost of medicines—policies being pursued in Europe—seem sensible options.
Yet experts say the planned cuts in welfare and other state programmes will hit everything from pensions to housing to playgrounds, all of which also affect the health of nations.
Virginia, government square off over healthcare
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The state of Virginia and the government were pitched in a legal battle in a federal courtroom on Thursday that could lead to the undoing of the massive healthcare reform law passed three months ago.
Judge Henry Hudson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Richmond heard the federal government’s arguments to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Virginia that contends the healthcare law’s requirement that all Americans have health insurance is unconstitutional.
Before President Barack Obama signed the radical overhaul of the multibillion dollar health insurance industry into law, Virginia’s legislature passed its own law that took effect on Thursday that says no one could be mandated to buy health insurance.
Higher testosterone may raise risk of heart disease in elderly men
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A large U.S. multicenter study shows that older men with higher testosterone levels are more likely to have a heart attack or other cardiovascular disease in the future. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.
“The study finding contradicts smaller studies that have shown that testosterone levels are not associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease,” said presenting author Kristen Sueoka, MD, a resident physician at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Many in the general public are using testosterone supplements for various medical problems, including low sex drive and mood disorders, which are not life-threatening. These men may unknowingly be placing themselves at higher risk for cardiovascular disease,” she said.
Consulting ‘Dr. Google’
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The quality of online information about the most common sports medicine diagnoses varies widely, according to a study published in the July 2010 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). Therefore, patients who use the Internet to help make medical decisions need to know that the web may not be giving the whole picture.
“The reason that we decided to undertake this study is that patients are presenting to their physicians office with increasing frequency armed with printouts of information obtained from the Internet,” said Madhav A. Karunakar, MD, an orthopaedic surgeon at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., and one of the study’s authors. “Physicians and patients should be aware that the quality of information available online varies greatly. Additionally, physicians should be prepared to discuss this information with their patients in order to ensure that it is not misinterpreted.”
Nearly three-quarters of the U.S. population has access to the Internet, and more than half of those people go online for health-related information at least once a month. However, quality controls over the health information found on the web have not grown at the same rate that Internet use has.
Sleep problems linked to weight gain in middle-age
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Women, try not to think of this if you lie awake at night: having trouble sleeping means you’re likely to gain weight.
As if simply getting older weren’t hard enough, new research shows that middle-aged and older women who have trouble falling or staying asleep may pack on more pounds than their well-rested contemporaries.
A number of studies have found that sleep-deprived children and adults are more likely to be overweight than those who usually get a full night’s rest. But many of those studies assessed people at one point in time, so it was hard to know which came first, the sleep problems or the excess pounds.
Frozen blood a source of stem cells, study finds
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Frozen blood from stored samples can be used to make cells resembling stem cells, researchers said on Thursday - opening a potential new and easier source for the valued cells.
They used cells from blood to make induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells - lab-made cells that closely resemble human embryonic stem cells but are made from ordinary tissue.
These iPS cells have in the past been made from plugs of skin, but blood is much easier to take from people and to store, the researchers reported in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
