Miley Cyrus steps out without engagement ring

Miley Cyrus has been pictured without her engagement ring, sparking rumours that all is not well between her and fiancé Liam Hemsworth.

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Bumble Bee Tuna Recalled Over Loose Seals

Title: Bumble Bee Tuna Recalled Over Loose Seals
Category: Health News
Created: 3/8/2013 11:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/8/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Newer Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs Don't Seem to Increase Risk of Shingles

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- The newest medications used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis don't appear to raise the risk of developing shingles, new research indicates.

There has been concern that these medications, called anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs, might increase the chances of a shingles infection (also known as herpes zoster) because they work by suppressing a part of the immune system that causes the autoimmune attack.

"These are commonly used drugs for people with rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, and the issue was whether or not they increased the risk of [shingles]. We found there is no increased risk when using these drugs, which was reassuring," said study author Dr. Kevin Winthrop, associate professor of infectious disease and public health and preventive medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.

Results of the study are published in the March 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Shingles is a major concern for people with autoimmune conditions, particularly people who are older and more at risk for developing shingles in general. Shingles is caused when the same virus that causes chickenpox is reactivated.

The symptoms of shingles, however, are often far more serious than chickenpox. It typically starts with a burning or tingling pain, which is followed by the appearance of fluid-filled blisters, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Shingles pain can vary from mild to so severe that even the lightest touch causes intense pain.

People who have rheumatoid arthritis already have an increased risk of shingles, although Winthrop said it's not exactly clear why. It may be due to older age, or it may have something to do with the disease itself.

Rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune conditions are treated with many different medications that help dampen the immune system and, hopefully, the autoimmune attack. Corticosteroids such as prednisone often are the first line of treatment, but because these drugs have many side effects, the goal is to be on the lowest dose possible or off them altogether.

Two other classes of drugs -- the "biologic" anti-TNF drugs and a group of medications called non-biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) -- are newer medications that can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune conditions. Examples of biologics are adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel) and infliximab (Remicade). A commonly used DMARD is methotrexate.

Winthrop and his colleagues reviewed data from almost 60,000 people with various autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. More than 33,000 were taking biologic anti-TNF drugs, and almost 26,000 were on DMARDs. The study period ran from 1998 through 2008.

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Shifting Temps May Prime You for Spring Allergies

March 5, 2013 -- Spring allergy season is again off to an early start in many parts of the country, and doctors say there are some signs it may be even more miserable than usual this year.

Last year was the fourth warmest winter on record, with consistently mild temperatures. That led to record-breaking pollen counts that struck about a month earlier than normal in some places.

But this year, many areas got a false spring. Temperatures rose briefly and then dipped again. The swings caused pollen levels to rise, then fall, then rise again.

That pattern of pollen release sets people with allergies up for something called "the priming effect," says Stanley M. Fineman, MD, an Atlanta-based allergist and past president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

“When patients are exposed, then the pollen goes away for a while, there’s a weather change or whatever, then they are re-exposed to that pollen, they can have an even more significant effect because their system is primed to respond,” Fineman says.

“It results in patients having a lot more difficulty with significantly worse symptoms” that may be tougher to get under control, he says.

Some parts of the South and East Coast began logging high tree pollen counts in January. Then pollen levels dropped in early February before climbing again by the end of the month. Plenty of allergy-prone people were caught unprepared.

At the Allergy and Asthma Center of Georgetown, in Texas, doctors say they began seeing people with seasonal allergies about a month earlier than usual.

“The typical symptoms are congestion, runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing, watery eyes, sore throat, itchy throat, headaches, itchy ears,” not to mention all the patients who have asthma that’s triggered by allergies, says Sheila Amar, MD. “It’s pretty miserable."

The bad news is that these amped-up spring allergy seasons probably aren’t flukes. Scientists say that as climate change accelerates, so will allergies.

“Springs are coming earlier,” says Jake Weltzin, PhD, executive director of the USA National Phenology Network, a government project to track the effects of climate change on the habits of plants and animals.

As the weather gets warmer earlier in the year, more plants and trees start to bloom at the same time, creating “a pollen bomb,” Weltzin says.

What’s more, experiments show that plants exposed to higher levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide make more pollen. The pollen they make also has higher levels of proteins that trigger allergies, which makes it more potent.

Doctors say the best time to treat allergies is before they flare up.

“Once your immune system is revved up and reacting to the allergens, it’s always harder to get it under control,” Amar says. “In general, being proactive is a much better approach.”

Some prescription nasal sprays take weeks to build up in the nose, Amar says, so patients should try to anticipate their symptoms.

That can be tough to do when winter weather is unpredictable. If allergies already have you in their grips, some common-sense steps can cut the misery:

On higher-pollen-count days, avoid going outside, especially in the morning when pollen levels are highest. If you have to go out, take your allergy medications with you.Keep windows and doors closed. Run the air conditioner instead.Wear a mask if you have to work outdoors.Take a shower at the end of the day to wash sticky pollen grains from your hair. That can help you get a better night’s sleep.

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Mollie King shops at AllSaints

Mollie King wears a leather jacket and jeans as she shops at AllSaints in London- vote on celebrity fashion, style and red carpet looks in GLAMOUR.COM’s Dos and Don’ts

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Salty Diet Might Help Trigger MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- Eating lots of foods loaded with salt may do more than raise your blood pressure: Researchers report that it could also contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases, where the body's immune system mistakenly mounts an attack upon some part of the body.

Three new studies suggest salt may be a prime suspect in a wide range of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis (arthritis of the spine).

A significant increase in the incidence of autoimmune diseases, especially multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, suggests that environmental factors, and not genetics, may explain the trend, the researchers noted.

"The diet does affect the autoimmune system in ways that have not been previously recognized," said senior study author Dr. David Hafler, a professor of neurology and immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn.

It was an accidental discovery that triggered the researchers' interest in salt; they stumbled upon the fact that people who ate at fast food restaurants seemed to have higher levels of inflammatory cells than others, Hafler explained.

In the study, Hafler and his team found that giving mice a high-salt diet caused the rodents to produce a type of infection-fighting cell that is closely associated with autoimmune diseases. The mice on salt diets developed a severe form of multiple sclerosis, called autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Findings from animal studies are not always mirrored in human trials, however.

Inflammatory cells are normally used by the immune system to protect people from bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic infections. But, in the case of autoimmune diseases, they attack healthy tissue.

Hafler's study is one of three papers, published in the March 6 issue of the journal Nature, that show how salt may overstimulate the immune system. In addition to Hafler's research, scientists from the Broad Institute in Boston explored how genes regulate the immune response, and researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston zeroed in on how autoimmunity is controlled by a network of genes.

All three studies help explain, each from a different angle, how "helper" T-cells can drive autoimmune diseases by creating inflammation. Salt seems to cause enzymes to stimulate the creation of the helper T-cells, escalating the immune response.

"We think of helper T-cells as sort of the orchestra leaders, helping the immune system know what the cells should be doing in response to different microbial pathogens," explained Dr. John O'Shea, director of intramural research at the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, in Bethesda, Md. "The strength of these papers is that they have found another factor that drives [helper T-cell] differentiation -- salt."

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Mini-Organ Would Mimic Pancreas to Treat Type 1 Diabetes

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- A new bioengineered, miniature organ dubbed the BioHub might one day offer people with type 1 diabetes freedom from their disease.

In its final stages, the BioHub would mimic a pancreas and act as a home for transplanted islet cells, providing them with oxygen until they could establish their own blood supply. Islet cells contain beta cells, which are the cells that produce the hormone insulin. Insulin helps the body metabolize the carbohydrates found in foods so they can be used as fuel for the body's cells.

The BioHub also would provide suppression of the immune system that would be confined to the area around the islet cells, or it's possible each islet cell might be encapsulated to protect it against the autoimmune attack that causes type 1 diabetes.

The first step, however, is to load islet cells into the BioHub and transplant it into an area of the abdomen known as the omentum. These trials are expected to begin within the next year or year and a half, said Dr. Luca Inverardi, deputy director of translational research at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami, where the BioHub is being developed.

Dr. Camillo Ricordi, the director of the institute, said the project is very exciting. "We're assembling all the pieces of the puzzle to replace the pancreas," he said.

"Initially, we have to go in stages, and clinically test the components of the BioHub," he said. "The first step is to test the scaffold assembly that will work like a regular islet cell transplant."

The Diabetes Research Institute already successfully treats type 1 diabetes with islet cell transplants into the liver.

In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, the body's immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the beta cells contained within islet cells. This means someone with type 1 diabetes can no longer produce the insulin they need to get sugar (glucose) to the body's cells, so they must replace the lost insulin. This can be done only through multiple daily injections or with an insulin pump via a tiny tube inserted under the skin and changed every few days.

Although islet cell transplantation has been very successful in treating type 1 diabetes, the underlying autoimmune condition is still there. Because transplanted cells come from cadaver donors, people who have islet cell transplants must take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent rejection of the new cells. This puts people at risk of developing complications from the medication, and, over time, the immune system destroys the new islet cells.

Because of these issues, islet cell transplantation is generally reserved for people whose diabetes is very difficult to control or who no longer have an awareness of potentially dangerous low blood-sugar levels.

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Brain May Treat Wheelchair as Part of the Body

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- The brains of disabled people adjust to a wheelchair and treat it as an extension of their body, essentially replacing limbs that don't function properly anymore, new research suggests.

The findings provide more insight into how the brain compensates when it uses tools like a wheelchair, or even something as simple as a hammer or toothbrush, said study lead author Mariella Pazzaglia, an assistant professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, in Italy.

In the future, Pazzaglia said, this kind of research could lead to ways to enhance the body in people who are physically impaired. "Bodily representations can be extended to include exoskeletons, prostheses, robots and virtual avatars," she said.

At issue is what scientists call "brain plasticity," which describes the brain's ability to learn and adjust, something people do quite often when young and continue to do as they get older.

"If we learn how to play a piano or drive somewhere, that's plasticity in action," said Dr. Alexander Dromerick, chief of rehabilitation medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Human brains also can compensate for bodily changes such as the loss of a limb by adjusting what's known as the internal body map. The new study sought to understand how the brains of disabled people change their body maps to include wheelchairs.

The researchers surveyed 55 people in wheelchairs with spinal cord injuries about their lives, and then analyzed their responses. The study authors determined that the participants treated wheelchairs as part of their bodies, not simply as extensions of their limbs.

The study also found that people who had more movement in their upper limbs could interact more with wheelchairs, and this improved their ability to incorporate them into their body images.

Essentially, the participants' brains go into an automatic mode when it comes to using the wheelchairs. This leads to "more efficient and safer use, with lower costs, risks and dangers to the body," Pazzaglia said.

"To elude dangerous objects in the environment and the collisions that may occur during wheelchair use, the brain needs to encode an internal representation of the body that includes the wheelchair," she said.

"Moreover, the simple action of picking objects up from the floor without tipping out of the wheelchair implies a change in the representation of the body to enable this to happen successfully and without the risk of possible damage to the individual due to a fall," she added. "All daily activities become an automatic way of thinking, not merely a mechanical or practical process."

Automatic thinking -- based on body maps that encompass inanimate objects -- plays plenty of other roles in people's lives, Georgetown's Dromerick said. For example, people who can wield a hammer effectively or parallel park with ease have learned to treat hammers and cars as extensions of themselves, he said.

The study appeared March 6 in the journal PLoS One.

More information

For more on disabilities, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Tooth Loss Associated With Higher Risk for Heart Disease

Title: Tooth Loss Associated With Higher Risk for Heart Disease
Category: Health News
Created: 3/7/2013 12:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 3/8/2013 12:00:00 AM

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