News
Eosinophilic Oesophagitis: Rapidly emerging disorder.
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Eosinophilic Oesophagitis (EoE), first described in the early 1990’s, has rapidly evolved as distinctive chronic inflammatory oesophageal disease. The diagnosis is based clinically by the presence of symptoms related to an oesophageal dysfunction and histologically by an eosinophil-predominant inflammation once other conditions leading to oesophageal eosinophilia are excluded. This striking male-prevalent[1] disease has an increasing incidence and prevalence in the westernised countries. Currently, EoE represents the main cause of dysphagia and bolus impaction in adult patients.[2]
Faecal Transplantation Works for C. difficile Colitis
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I have written a number of times about the role of faecal transplantation in the established intervention for Clostridium difficile and have hinted at the possible cross mechanism benefits of inducing commensal bacteria that favour tolerance into the gastrointestinal tract. The implication being, that individuals experiencing illness driven by loss of immunological tolerance, not simply within the digestive tract, but systemically may benefit from an evolutionary transplant.
Researchers Pinpoint How Vitamin D May Help Clear Amyloid Plaques in Alzheimer’s Disease
Published in the March 6 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the early findings show that vitamin D3 may activate key genes and cellular signalling networks to help stimulate the immune system to clear the amyloid-beta protein.[1]
Previous laboratory work by the team demonstrated that specific types of immune cells in patients with Alzheimer’s disease may respond to therapy with vitamin D3 and curcumin, a chemical found in turmeric spice, by stimulating the innate immune system to clear amyloid beta. But the researchers didn’t know how it worked.
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Does Avoiding Allergens When Pregnant or Breast Feeding Confer Any Benefit
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It has been considered over the last few years to advise mothers during pregnancy and whilst breast feeding to avoid allergenic foods such as milk, nuts, and other risky foods to reduce the risk of childhood allergy. Not for the first time researchers say this practice may be doing more harm than good. Research papers presented at a recent American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology conference suggests that exposure may be better than avoidance.[1]
Taking a Good Family History Made Easy
My Family Health Portrait is the Web-based tool from NHGRI and the U.S. Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative that helps you create your own family health history. Using any computer, an Internet connection and an up-to-date Web browser, you provide your health information to build a drawing of your family tree and a chart of your family health history. Both the chart and the drawing can be printed and shared with your family members and your doctor.
Tracing the illnesses suffered by your parents, grandparents and other blood relatives can help your doctor predict the disorders to which you may be at risk, and help you take action to keep you and your family healthy.
Free Genetic Testing
There is a genetic test that is pretty good at predicting some degree of one’s individual susceptibility. It’s a genetic test that is free, and we don’t use it very effectively. That’s your family medical history. How many of us, or indeed any health care practitioner, really takes a great and etailed family meical history. So many times practitioners ask a few subjective questions and may then simply make a note that it appears non relevant or, “non-contributory.”
I would suggest that rarely is the family history non-contributory unless this is somebody who is adopted and has no information about any of their blood relatives, because there are clues and we should be using those more effectively. Part of the problem is that taking a family history takes time, and often the patient doesn’t quite recall the details of what happened to aunts and uncles and so on.
There is a tool, which I think many hundreds of thousands of people have used, that the Surgeon General has put up on her department’s Website. If you click on this link “surgeon general family history,” it’ll take you to that tool. This is something for patients or clients to enter information about their own family members as far as their medical experiences. It ends up getting put into this software and then gets printed out as a standard format.
That gives the patient or client the chance to do all of the time-consuming work of getting the information. This saves time in clinic, but also lets you really examine the history in a quick and self reported manner that may well mean that you make better and more informed recommendations concerning prevention strategies.
I recommend you look it over and consider adding the link to your welcome to my clinic pack.
How Fast You Walk and Your Grip in Middle Age May Predict Dementia, Stroke
A presentation at the American Academy of Neurologys 64th Annual Meeting in 2012 suggests that simple tests performed in clinics may provide insights into future stroke and dementia risk.[1]
Simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength may help doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop dementia or stroke.
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Faecal Transplant by Enema Works for Stubborn C. Difficile.
I have previously discussed the use of faecal transplant therapy as an effective treatment for the pervasive infectious agent C.Diff. This is a serious often difficult to resolve bacterial infection that occurs primarily whilst patients are hospitalised but is not limited only to residential care.
C. difficile infections tripled between 1996 and 2005, and they now affect about 84 out of every 100,000 people.
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70% of Europeans suffer from low vitamin D levels
A group of experts has prepared a report on vitamin D supplementation for menopausal women after it was revealed that Europeans have suffered an alarming decrease in their levels of this vitamin. In their opinion, the ideal would be to maintain blood levels above 30 ng/ml. Vitamin D is essential to the immune system and processes such as calcium absorption.[1]
The team of experts analysed the conditions and diseases that are associated with vitamin D deficiency and recommended the intake of supplements in postmenopausal women. As well as stimulating calcium and phosphorus absorption, the vitamin D system has numerous functions. Low vitamin D levels are linked to rickets, osteomalacia, osteoporosis and the risk of bone fracture, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, infections and degenerative diseases.
“In healthy postmenopausal women, we have seen that a good level of vitamin D is linked to good physical fitness and has an effect on body fat mass as well as muscle strength and balance,” state the authors of the article published in the Maturitas journal.
The researcher explains that patients with risk factors associated with hypovitaminosis (obesity, pigmented skin, intestinal malabsorption syndromes and living in regions close to the North and South poles) should increase their intake to up to 4,000 IU per day. There is scientific evidence that a daily dose of 4,000 IU/day is not poisonous in healthy people.
Reference
[1] Faustino R. Pérez-López, Marc Brincat, C. Tamer Erel, Florence Tremollieres, Marco Gambacciani, Irene Lambrinoudaki, Mette H. Moen, Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, Svetlana Vujovic, Serge Rozenberg, Margaret Rees. “Vitamin D and postmenopausal health”. Maturitas, 71, 83-88, Jan 2012. View Full Paper
Does Your Daily Slice of Bacon With A Sausage Cause Pancreatic Cancer
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The thought that part of the British Breakfast may be nibbling away at our pancreatic cells integrity is bound to put a shock wave through households across the country – or is it? We as a nation along with most other advanced nations consider that our diet is no one else’s business and that eating processed meats is a perfectly acceptable part of the daily diet, despite long term questions about their health risks.
Functional Medicine, A Systems Wide Approach To Health Care
Over the time that man has worked to meet the medical needs of our various populations dealing with problems such as diseases and trauma the various cultures on our crowded planet have evolved differing philosophies, scientific explanation and style of medical practice.
The last 120 years or so has predominately favoured what is referred to as the western or reductionist approach, during which time we have seen tremendous gains in knowledge and comprehension of physiology, biochemistry and immunology. The results have been seen in the development of vaccines, medicines and sewerage management, all of which have contributed to substantial benefits in limiting the destruction wreaked on our populations from numerous diseases, infectious agents and trauma.
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