Month: January 2022

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

US Sees Surge in Hypertension Hospitalisations

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Camilo Jimenez on Unsplash

The number of people hospitalised for a hypertensive crisis in the US more than doubled from 2002 to 2014, according to researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Possible causes included socioeconomic factors such as reduced access to healthcare.

A hypertensive crisis is an acute, marked elevation in blood pressure that is associated with signs of target-organ damage. This increase in hypertensive crises happened at a time when some studies reported overall progress in blood pressure control and a decline in related cardiovascular events in the US. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Although more people have been able to manage their blood pressure over the last few years, we’re not seeing this improvement translate into fewer hospitalisations for hypertensive crisis,” said first author Joseph E. Ebinger, MD, a clinical cardiologist and director of clinical analytics at the Smidt Heart Institute

Dr Ebinger said there could be a number of explanations for the incrrease. More people may be unable to afford hypertension medications or are taking inadequate doses of these drugs. Socioeconomic factors may also make it difficult for people to avoid unhealthy behaviours that can contribute to hypertension, such as smoking, as well as having limited access to health care and other concerns.

“We need more research to understand why this is happening and how clinicians can help patients stay out of the hospital,” Dr Ebinger said.

For their study, the investigators used data from the National Inpatient Sample, which is a publicly available database. The data include a subset of all hospitalisations across the US, providing a picture of nationwide trends. They found that annual hospitalisations for hypertensive crises more than doubled over a 13-year period. Hospitalisations related to hypertensive crises accounted for 0.17% of all admissions for men in 2002 but 0.39% in 2014, and represented 0.16% of all admissions for women in 2002 but 0.34% in 2014.

The mortality risk for hypertensive crisis, however, did decrease slightly overall during the studied time period. Women died at the same rate as men, even though they had fewer health issues than men who also were hospitalised for a hypertensive crisis.

“These findings raise the question: Are there sex-specific biologic mechanisms that place women at greater risk for dying during a hypertensive crisis?” said senior study author Susan Cheng, MD, MPH, director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute. “By understanding these processes, we could prevent more deaths among women,” she added.

Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Categories : Healthcare Politics and RegulationsTags :

Mediclinic and Discovery Sound Warnings over NHI Bill

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Private hospital group Mediclinic has warned that the government’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system will threaten public health in South Africa, and bring about the destruction of private healthcare and medical aid cover.

The NHI Bill is currently undergoing a public consultation process, with a number of healthcare, civil society and political groups presenting on why the new system should or should not be introduced.

The Bill as it stands will have a direct impact on access to healthcare services in South Africa. Mediclinic notes that there are insufficient resources to implement it; private-sector hospitals will be curtailed; and medical aids will be eroded.

The financial and human resources necessary to effectively implement the NHI scheme is a legitimate concern, Mediclinic said. It pointed out South Africa’s low doctor- and nurse-to-population ratios are low compared to peer countries.

“Everyone’s right of access to health care services would be threatened if the existing health care delivery system is uprooted and the NHI scheme envisaged in the Bill cannot be effectively implemented,” it said.

Private healthcare is an integral part of the healthcare system with everything from hospital beds to staff at risk if replaced by the NHI.

The Bill’s key components threaten the private hospital sector, with the contracting and reimbursement frameworks proposed in it unable to accommodate private hospital participation.

Additionally, the NHI Fund will create a monopoly by acting as the single purchaser of health care services in South Africa, capable of harming the competition and eroding private sector resources.

Medical scheme provider Discovery said that current private health care funding amounts to R212 billion, some 44% of the total healthcare spend. If the government were to finance this through direct taxation, this would equate to 4.1% of GDP, an unfeasible amount.

Mediclinic also warned that medical aid in South Africa would be significantly eroded under the NHI, meaning only the bare basics for South Africans needing medical care, and expensive treatments being unavailable. It gave the example of a patient with chronic renal failure receiving haemodialysis treatment currently covered by a medical scheme, and showed that the patient would be placed on a long waiting list for this life-saving treatment since it was covered (but not properly funded) by the NHI.

Source: BusinessTech

Categories : HospitalsTags :

Solar-powered Oxygen System Saves Lives in Somalia

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A newly installed solar-powered medical oxygen system at a hospital in central Somalia is proving effective in saving lives, Somali and World Health Organization doctors told Voice of America.

The innovative solar oxygen system, the first of its kind in the country, was installed at Hanaano hospital, in the central town of Dhusamareb a year ago. Doctors say the system is having an impact and helping save the lives of very young patients.

“This innovation is giving us promise and hopes,” says Dr Mamunur Rahman Malik, WHO Somalia Representative.

According to Dr Malik, 171 patients received oxygen at the hospital from the solar-powered system from February to October 2021. Of these, only three patients died, and five others were referred to other hospitals.

Every year some 15 000 to 20 000 deaths occur in Somalia among children under five years of age due to pneumonia, said Dr Malik, making it the deadliest disease among under-fives.

The director of Hanaano hospital, Dr Mohamed Abdi, said the innovation is making a difference.

“It has helped a lot, it has saved more than a hundred people who received the service,” he said to VOA Somali.

“It was a problem for the children under one year and the children who are born six months to get enough oxygen. Now we are not worried about oxygen availability if the electricity goes out because there are the oxygen concentrators.”

One patient was Abdiaziz Omar Abdi, admitted to the hospital on January 16 with severe pneumonia and was struggling to breathe normally. The oxygen rate in his body had dropped to 60%, Dr Abdi said. Doctors immediately put him on oxygen along with ampicillin and dexamethasone medications. When discharged three days later, he was breathing normally. His oxygen was up to 90%.

Dr Malik said the oxygen is being used to treat a wide range of medical conditions – asphyxia, pneumonia, injuries, trauma, and road traffic accidents.

“We have seen in other countries that use of solar-powered medical oxygen (if applied in a timely manner) can save up to 35% of deaths from childhood pneumonia,” he said, adding that it could save the lives of at least 7000 children who die “needlessly” due to pneumonia.

The initiative to install solar-powered bio-medical equipment at Hanaano hospital emerged during the height of COVID in 2020, at a time when people were dying due to respiratory problems. Hospitals were unable to keep up with case loads and the cost of a cylinder of oxygen rose to between $400 to $600, and only 20% of health facilities had any kind of access to oxygen, said Dr Malik.

“If you look at the current situation, as of today Somalia needs close to 3000 or 4000 cubic metres of oxygen per day. So, oxygen was the biggest need in all the hospitals.”

Solar power can also be used for medical refrigerators, and their use is becoming widespread in Africa.

Source: Voice of America

Categories : Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

Robot Performs Surgery Without Human Assistance

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Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels

In a significant step toward fully automated surgery on humans, a robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without human guidance. 

Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) is described in Science Robotics.

“Our findings show that we can automate one of the most intricate and delicate tasks in surgery: the reconnection of two ends of an intestine. The STAR performed the procedure in four animals and it produced significantly better results than humans performing the same procedure,” said senior author Axel Krieger, PhD, an assistant professor at John Hopkins University.

The robot excelled at intestinal anastomosis, which connects the two ends of an intestine. It is a procedure that requires a high level of repetitive motion and precision and is arguably the most challenging step in gastrointestinal surgery, requiring a surgeon to accurately and consistently suture. A slight hand tremor or misplaced stitch can result in a leak with potentially catastrophic complications for the patient.

The team developed a vision-guided system designed specifically to suture soft tissue. Their current iteration advances a 2016 model that repaired a pig’s intestines accurately, but required a large incision to access the intestine and more guidance from humans.

The team equipped the STAR with new features for enhanced autonomy and improved surgical precision, including specialised suturing tools and state-of-the art imaging systems that provide more accurate visualisations of the surgical field.

Soft-tissue surgery is especially hard for robots because of its unpredictability, forcing them to be able to adapt quickly to handle unexpected obstacles, Dr Krieger said. STAR features a novel control system that can adjust the surgical plan in real time, just as a human surgeon would.

As the medical field moves towards more laparoscopic approaches for surgeries, it will be important to have an automated robotic system designed for such procedures to assist, Dr Krieger said.

“Robotic anastomosis is one way to ensure that surgical tasks that require high precision and repeatability can be performed with more accuracy and precision in every patient independent of surgeon skill,” Dr Krieger said.

“We hypothesise that this will result in a democratised surgical approach to patient care with more predictable and consistent patient outcomes.”

Source: John Hopkins University

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions Mental HealthTags :

In Chronic Disease, Psychiatric Comorbidity Doubles Mortality Risk

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The risk of all-cause mortality among patients with chronic, non-communicable diseases is more than doubled if they also have a psychiatric comorbidity, according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine.

Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are a global public health challenge accounting for an estimated 40 million excess deaths annually. Researchers drew on Swedish health data for 1 million patients born between 1932 and 1995 who had diagnoses of chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. More than a quarter of the people in the analysis also had a co-occurring psychiatric disorder during their lives.

Within 5 years of diagnosis, 7% of the people included in the study had died from any cause and 0.3% had died from suicide. Comorbid psychiatric disorders were associated with higher all-cause mortality (15.4% to 21.1%) when compared to those without such conditions (5.5% to 9.1%). When compared with an unaffected sibling to account for familial risk factors, patients with psychiatric comorbidity remained consistently associated with elevated rates of premature mortality and suicide (7.2–8.9 times higher). Different psychiatric diagnoses affected mortality risks; in those with comorbid substance use disorder it was 8.3–9.9 times compared to unaffected siblings, and by 5.3–7.4 times in those with comorbid depression.

“Improving assessment, treatment, and follow-up of people with comorbid psychiatric disorders may reduce the risk of mortality in people with chronic non-communicable diseases,” the authors concluded.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : TransplantsTags :

Two Pig Kidneys Transplanted into Human

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Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash

In a new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation, researchers report that they successfully transplanted two kidneys from a genetically modified pig into a human recipient who had suffered brain death.

The use of pig organs, genetically modified to enable transplantation into humans, could ease the shortage of available donor organs for transplantation and prevent thousands of deaths that result each year due to a shortage of organs. Recently, a US man became the first human recipient of a genetically modified pig heart.

This study used a novel preclinical human model to answer numerous critical safety questions. No hyperacute rejection was seen for the 74 hours until termination. No chimerism or transmission of porcine retroviruses was detected. Longitudinal biopsies revealed thrombotic microangiopathy that did not progress in severity, without evidence of cellular rejection or deposition of antibody or complement proteins. Although the xenografts produced variable amounts of urine, creatinine clearance did not recover. Whether renal recovery was impacted by the milieu of brain death and/or microvascular injury remains unknown.

The study provides important insights and identifies several areas where additional research is needed before xenotransplantation can be used to help address the current organ shortage.

“This study provides knowledge that could not be generated in animal models and moves us closer to a future where organ supply meets the tremendous need,” said senior author Jayme E. Locke, MD, MPH, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Source: Wiley

Categories : Ageing Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

Reduced Heart Failure Risk in Postmenopausal Women Who Walk Faster

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A study of postmenopausal women, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that those who reported a faster walking pace had a lower risk of developing heart failure. 

Among 25 183 women aged 50 to 79 years, there were 1455 cases of hospitalisation for heart failure during a median follow-up of 16.9 years. Compared with women who walked at a casual pace, those who walked at an average pace or fast pace had 27% and 34% lower risks of heart failure, respectively.

Fast walking for less than 1 hour per week was associated with the same risk reduction of heart failure as average or casual walking for more than 2 hours per week.

“This study confirms other studies demonstrating the importance of walking speed on mortality and other cardiovascular outcomes,” said senior author Charles B. Eaton, MD, MS, of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “Given that limited time for exercise is frequently given as a barrier to regular physical activity, walking faster but for less time might provide similar health benefits as the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate physical activity.”

Further study is warranted to determine whether interventions to increase the walking pace in older adults will reduce heart failure risk and whether fast pace will compensate for the short duration of walking.

Source: Wiley

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Vitamin D Supplements Reduce Autoimmune Disease Risk

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A five year-long randomised, placebo-controlled study found that in older adults taking vitamin D supplements, alone or with omega-3 fatty acids, the risk of developing autoimmune disease was reduced.

Autoimmune diseases (AD) such as rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease and psoriasis, are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality as people age. Few effective treatments are available for AD, but some research has hinted that supplements, including vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, could have beneficial effects.

In a new study published in the BMJ, investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital evaluated whether taking vitamin D and/or omega fatty acid supplements could affect rates of AD. The large-scale vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL), a randomised study which followed participants for approximately five years. Taking vitamin D, or vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids had a significantly lower rate of AD than placebo.

“It is exciting to have these new and positive results for non-toxic vitamins and supplements preventing potentially highly morbid diseases,” said senior author Karen Costenbader, MD, MPH. “This is the first direct evidence we have that daily supplementation may reduce AD incidence, and what looks like a more pronounced effect after two years of supplementation for vitamin D.”

“Now, when my patients, colleagues, or friends ask me which vitamins or supplements I’d recommend they take to reduce risk of autoimmune disease, I have new evidence-based recommendations for women aged 55 years and older and men 50 years and older,” said Dr Costenbader. “I suggest vitamin D 2000 IU a day and marine omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil), 1000 mg a day – the doses used in VITAL.”

VITAL included 25 871 participants, with men aged 50 and older and women aged 55 and older, conducted to investigate whether taking vitamin D3 and/or omega-3 supplements could reduce the risk for developing cancer, heart disease and stroke in people who do not have a prior history of these illnesses. Prior to the launch of VITAL, investigators determined that they would also look at rates of AD among participants, as part of an ancillary study.

Participants answered questionnaires about new diagnoses of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease, with space to write in all other new onset ADs. Medical records were reviewed to confirm reported diagnoses.

“Autoimmune diseases are common in older adults and negatively affect health and life expectancy. Until now, we have had no proven way of preventing them, and now, for the first time, we do,” said first author Jill Hahn, ScD, post-doctoral fellow at the Brigham.

Among patients randomised to vitamin D, 123 participants in the treatment group and 155 in the placebo group were diagnosed with confirmed AD (22 percent reduction). Among those in the fatty acid arm, confirmed AD occurred in 130 participants in the treatment group and 148 in the placebo group. Omega-3 fatty acids alone did not significantly lower incidence of AD, but there was some evidence of a decrease over long periods.

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : Regenerative MedicineTags :

Scientists Succeed in Regrowing Frog Legs

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Photo by Nature-for-Future from Pexels

Using a mix of drugs and a regenerative seal, scientists were able to successfully regrow frog legs, as reported in Science Advances. This represents an eventual step towards possibly regrowing limbs in humans.

On adult frogs, which are naturally unable to regenerate limbs, the researchers were able to trigger regrowth of a lost leg using a five-drug cocktail applied in a silicone wearable bioreactor dome that seals in the treatment over the stump for just 24 hours. That brief treatment sets in motion an 18-month period of regrowth that restores a functional, near-complete leg.

In humans and mammals loss of a large and structurally complex limb cannot be restored by any natural process of regeneration in humans or mammals. In fact, we tend to cover major injuries with an amorphous mass of scar tissue, protecting it from further blood loss and infection and preventing further growth.

The Tufts University researchers triggered the regenerative process in African clawed frogs by enclosing the wound in a silicone cap, which they call a BioDome, containing a silk protein gel loaded with the five-drug cocktail.

Each drug fulfilled a different purpose, including tamping down inflammation, inhibiting collagen production which would lead to scarring, and encouraging the new growth of nerve fibres, blood vessels, and muscle. The combination and the bioreactor provided a local environment and signals that tipped the scales away from the natural tendency to close off the stump, and toward the regenerative process.

A dramatic growth of tissue was observed in many of the treated frogs, re-creating an almost fully functional leg which was able to respond to stimuli, though the “toes” grown had no bones.

“It’s exciting to see that the drugs we selected were helping to create an almost complete limb,” said Nirosha Murugan, research affiliate at the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts and first author of the paper. “The fact that it required only a brief exposure to the drugs to set in motion a months-long regeneration process suggests that frogs and perhaps other animals may have dormant regenerative capabilities that can be triggered into action.”

Within the first few days after treatment, they detected the activation of known molecular pathways that are normally used in a developing embryo. Activation of these pathways could allow the burden of growth and organisation of tissue to be handled by the limb itself, similar to that in an embryo, rather than require ongoing therapeutic intervention over the many months it takes to grow the limb.

Animals naturally capable of regeneration live mostly in an aquatic environment. The first stage of growth after loss of a limb is the formation of a blastema, a mass of stem cells at the end of the stump, which is used to gradually reconstruct the lost body part. The wound is rapidly covered by skin cells within the first 24 hours after the injury, protecting the reconstructing tissue underneath.

“Mammals and other regenerating animals will usually have their injuries exposed to air or making contact with the ground, and they can take days to weeks to close up with scar tissue,” said Tufts University Professor David Kaplan, co-author of the study. “Using the BioDome cap in the first 24 hours helps mimic an amniotic-like environment which, along with the right drugs, allows the rebuilding process to proceed without the interference of scar tissue.”

Previous work using just progesterone with the BioDome resulted in a spike-like limb.

The five-drug cocktail is a major step toward the restoration of fully functional frog limbs and suggests further exploration of drug and growth factor combinations could lead to regrown limbs that are even more functionally complete.

“We’ll be testing how this treatment could apply to mammals next,” said corresponding author Professor Michael Levin at Tufts University.

“Covering the open wound with a liquid environment under the BioDome, with the right drug cocktail, could provide the necessary first signals to set the regenerative process in motion,” he said. “It’s a strategy focused on triggering dormant, inherent anatomical patterning programs, not micromanaging complex growth, since adult animals still have the information needed to make their body structures.”

Source: Tufts University

Categories : NeurologyTags :

An Updated Look at the Link Between Alcohol and Epilepsy

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A new meta-analysis has established an association between alcohol and epilepsy, in contrast to previous studies which reported conflicting results on the relationship.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological conditions, with an annual incidence of 40–70 per 100 000 people in industrialised countries. It is also a  disease that is highly stigmatised.

A number of studies have focused on how alcohol consumption leads to provoked seizures, commonly resulting from alcohol withdrawal, or heavy intoxication. Very few of these however focused on the link between alcohol consumption and unprovoked seizures. A 2010 meta-analysis found that alcohol users were more prone to developing unprovoked seizures – but data from recent cohort studies contradict these findings. A 2018 meta-analysis suggested that the relationship may only hold true for heavy drinkers.

Now, using more accurate diagnostic methods and recent data, a team of scientists from Pusan National University, South Korea, conducted an updated meta-analysis to conclusively clarify the relationship between alcohol consumption and unprovoked seizures and epilepsy.

For this meta-analysis, appearing in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, the researchers included a total of eight studies, of which five were case-control studies and three were cohort studies. They analysed the data to assess the dose-response relationship between alcohol intake and epilepsy. The results suggested that overall, compared to non-drinkers, alcohol drinkers were at a significantly higher risk of developing epilepsy, which increased with alcohol intake. These findings are consistent with previous meta-analyses.

An important finding was that cohort studies did not show a positive association between alcohol intake and epilepsy. In fact, 2 out of 3 cohort studies suggested that alcohol intake reduces the risk of epilepsy.

More large cohort studies are needed to prove a causal relationship between alcohol drinking and epilepsy, as well as a threshold of onset, said second author Professor Yun Hak Kim.

Source: EurekAlert!