Ondine's Curse

A 6 months old Delhi child has been diagonosed to have Ondine's curse disease or Central hypoventilation syndrome...
Why I shared the news because its a very rare condition in which a person can't respire while sleeping... This disease may be congenital or aquired....
At the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, Yatharth Dutt’s parents and grandparents cannot remember the last time they slept for a full eight hours. They have been taking turns watching Yatharth sleep the entire night and looking for a blue tinge on his skin and lips, a sign that his body has run out of oxygen.
Ondine's curse is a rare genetic respiratory disorder with around 1,000 to 1,200 cases globally...

It is generally congenital but in rare conditions it may be aquired. Aquired cases are generally caused by trauma or brain damages.....

Stay safe... stay healthy..

Beta blockers

Some people usually take beta blockers to lower the blood pressure. So here are a few things you may like to know about these drugs. Examples of oral beta blockers:
Acebutolol
Atenolol
Bisoprolol
Metoprolol
Nadolol
Nebivolol
Propranolol
Uses for beta blockers
Doctors prescribe beta blockers to prevent, treat or improve symptoms in a variety of conditions, such as:
High blood pressure
Irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia)
Heart failure
Chest pain (angina)
Heart attacks
Migraine
Certain types of tremors
Side effects and cautions

Side effects may occur in people taking beta blockers. However, many people who take beta blockers won't have any side effects.

Common side effects of beta blockers include:

Fatigue
Cold hands or feet
Weight gain
Less common side effects include:

Shortness of breath
Trouble sleeping
Depression
Beta blockers generally aren't used in people with asthma because of concerns that the medication may trigger severe asthma attacks. In people who have diabetes, beta blockers may block signs of low blood sugar, such as rapid heartbeat. It's important to monitor your blood sugar regularly.

Beta blockers can also affect your cholesterol and triglyceride levels, causing a slight increase in triglycerides and a modest decrease in high-density lipoprotein, the "good" cholesterol. These changes often are temporary. You shouldn't abruptly stop taking a beta blocker because doing so could increase your risk of a heart attack or other heart problems.
(Source: Internet/Mayo Clinic)

Recently a news about minor boy's pregnancy was circulated... Have a look...

Following post is directly copied from google.
"It is very surprising and unbelievable news that a 6-year-old boy was pregnant, the doctor has removed the undeveloped fetus from his stomach.
This phenomenal incident is from Varanasi.
Ramesh's father, a resident of Gadwa in Jharkhand, said that for the last few days, there was a lot of pain in the baby's stomach and for quite some time he did not eat anything properly and was becoming more weak
Firstly, he was treated at the BHU,, he did not get any relief, he was shown in a private hospital. In the initial investigation, the doctors told him to be tumor in the stomach and said to do the operation to remove the knot. But when the operation started, the doctors got shocked, that thing which looked like a knot was an undeveloped fetus which was removed after 2 hours of operation. This is the first case of such a small child being pregnant.
Doctors believe that this is the case with any one of the children in 5 lakh children and this is possible. It is called Turo Thieri, in which two mothers have fetuses in a mother's womb, but develops only one, and that undeveloped fetus goes into the child's stomach. And slowly starts to grow. Doctors told that this is such a case in India, even before 9 such cases have been reported.
After listening to the fetus's hearing in the baby's womb, the senses of the family got swept away and they were not convinced, but after understanding the whole cats, the families were satisfied. Doctors told that the child was becoming weak because of this, but now everything is fine."

Cancer..... a new mystry....

I recently found a facebook post, uploaded by someone "Ray Napier". Its about Cancer so I would like to paste ot here for our visitors.
"The word called cancer is a lie…You might not believe this but cancer is not a disease; it is a business.Cancer consists of only a deficiency of vitamin B17. It is nothing else.Cancer has become widespread; it has affected the old, young, baby and everyone.Sharing this wonderful post will expose many of the hidden hands of the world’s manipulators and annoy them.
Do you know that the book “World Without Cancer” has up till now been prevented from being translated into many world languages?
Know this: there is no disease called cancer. Cancer consists of only a deficiency of vitamin B17. It is nothing else.
Avoid chemotherapy, surgery and or taking medicines with strong side effects.
You would recall that in the past, quite a large number of seamen lost their life to a named disease (scurvy); a disease that took the life of numerous people as well. And a number of people got an enormous income from it. Afterwards, it was discovered that scurvy was just a deficiency of vitamin C. That means it wasn’t a disease (illness).

Cancer is also just like that! The colonizing world and the enemies of humanity established the cancer industry and made it into a business. from which they earn billions in income.

The cancer industry flourished after world war II. To fight cancer, all these delays, details and enormous expenditures are not needed. They only go to line the pockets of colonizers, especially since the cure for the condition was found long ago.

The prevention and cure of cancer will be obtained simply through the following strategies:

Those who have cancer should first try to know what cancer is. Do not panic! You should investigate the condition.

Nowadays does anyone die of an illness called scurvy? No. Because it gets cured.

Since cancer is only a deficiency of vitamin B17, eating 15 to 20 pieces of apricot stone/nucleus (fruit stone) everyday is enough.

Eat wheat bud (wheat sprouts). Wheat bud is a miraculous anti-cancer medicine. It is a rich source of liquid oxygen and the strongest anti-cancer matter named laetrile. This matter is present in the fruit stone of apple and is the extracted form of vitamin B17 (Amygdalin).

The American medicinal industry has started implementing the law forbidding laetrile production. This medicine is being manufactured in Mexico and gets smuggled into USA.

Dr. Harold W. Manner, in a book named “Death of Cancer” has stated that the success of cancer treatment with laetrile is as high as above 90%.

Sources of Amygdalin (Vitamin B17)

The foods containing vitamin B17 include the following:

-The fruit stone or grain(seed) of fruits. This contains the highest amount of vitamin B17 in nature. This includes fruit stone of apple, apricot, peach, pear, and prune (dried plum).

-Common beans, corns(grains), which include bean, lentil sprout (lentil bud) Lima (Lima beans) and pea.

-Kernels: Bitter Almond (Richest source of vitamin B-17 in nature) and Indian almond.

-Mulberries: almost all mulberries such as black mulberry, blueberry, raspberry and strawberry.

-Seeds (Grains): sesame and linseed (seed of linen/flax seed).

-Groats of oats, barley, brown rice, groats of block wheat, linseed, millet and rye.

This vitamin is found in grains and fruit stones of apricot, brewer’s yeast, rough rice (paddy) and sweetmeat pumpkin.

List of Anti-Cancer Foods
•Apricots (kernels/seeds)
•seeds from other fruits like apples, cherries, peaches, prunes, plums, pears
•Lima beans
•Fava beans
•Wheatgrass
•Almonds
•Raspberries
•Elderberries
•Strawberries
•Blackberries
•Blueberries
•Buckwheat
•Sorghum
•Barley
•Millet
•Cashews
•Macadamia nuts
•Bean sprouts
All are the highest sources of absorbable vitamin B17.

Ingesting dish washing liquids (used in the kitchen) and hand washing liquid (used in the restroom) is the main cancer causing factor so your eating of them should be restricted.You will surely say that we do not eat them!
However, you daily wash your hands with hand washing liquid and wash your plates with dish washing liquid.The liquid is absorbed and will not leave the plate with washing. When cooking or eating food, the soap in the plate or dish gets attached to the hot food and so we end up eating the dish washing liquid with our food. Even if you rinse the plate hundreds of times, that will be of no use.

But the solution is to pour half of the dishwashing liquid and hand washing liquid and top it up with vinegar.
It is as simple as that.Do not eat blood cancer causing agents and also save your family from this danger.Similarly, seriously desist from washing vegetables with even a few drops of dishwashing liquid because irrespective of how much you would rinse them, the chemicals would have already entered the tissues of the vegetable and will not get rinsed away.Instead, soak fruits and vegetables with salt and then rinse with water. And to keep them fresh, add vinegar."

Tea consumption cause epigenetic changes in women

Tea consumption cause epigenetic changes......story on sciencedaily.com 31/May/2017
" Epigenetic changes are chemical modifications that turn our genes off or on. In a new study from Uppsala University, researchers show that tea consumption in women leads to epigenetic changes in genes that are known to interact with cancer and estrogen metabolism. The results are published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics.
It is well known that our environment and lifestyle factors, such as food choices, smoking and exposure to chemicals, can lead to epigenetic changes. In the current study, researchers from Uppsala University in collaboration with research groups around Europe, investigated if coffee and tea consumption may lead to epigenetic changes. Previous studies have suggested that both coffee and tea play an important role in modulating disease-risk in humans by suppressing tumour progression, decreasing inflammation and influencing estrogen metabolism, mechanisms that may be mediated by epigenetic changes.

The results show that there are epigenetic changes in women consuming tea, but not in men. Interestingly, many of these epigenetic changes were found in genes involved in cancer and estrogen metabolism. "Previous studies have shown that tea consumption reduces estrogen levels which highlights a potential difference between the biological response to tea in men and women. Women also drink higher amounts of tea compared to men, which increases our power to find association in women," says Weronica Ek, researcher at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, who led the study. The study did not find any epigenetic changes in individuals drinking coffee.

Results from this study highlight the role of pharmacologically active components in tea being involved in cancer and estrogen metabolism, which can reflect that health effects related to tea consumption might be due to epigenetic changes. However, this study does not show if it is healthy or not to drink tea and further research is needed to understand how epigenetic changes found in this study affects our health. It has previously been demonstrated that tea catechins lead to epigenetic changes in vitro and in cultured cancer cells, arguing that some of the health effects of tea may be mediated by epigenetics.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Uppsala Universitet. Note: Content may be edited for style and length."

"Solibacillus kalamii" a new organism discovered and named after A.P.J. Kalam by NASA

Recently it was announced that a new organism has been discovered by NASA in international space station and was named after A. P. J Abdul kalam as Solibacillus kalamii. I would like to quote the article directly published in "The Hindu" online edition.

"Solibacillus kalamii has been found only on the International Space Station and not on Earth.

In great news for India, scientists at NASA have named a new organism discovered by them after the much-loved A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Till date, the new organism — a form of bacteria — has been found only on the International Space Station (ISS) and has not been found on earth!

Researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the foremost lab of NASA for work on interplanetary travel, discovered the new bacteria on the filters of the International Space Station (ISS) and named it Solibacillus kalamii to honour the late President, who was a renowned aerospace scientist.

His tryst with NASA

Dr. Kalam had his early training at NASA in 1963 before he set up India’s first rocket-launching facility in the fishing village of Thumba in Kerala.

“The name of the bacterium is Solibacillus kalamii, the species name is after Dr. Abdul Kalam and genus name is Solibacillus which is a spore-forming bacteria,” said Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, senior research scientist, Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group at JPL.

The filter on which the new bug was found remained on board the ISS for 40 months. Called a high-efficiency particulate arrestance filter or HEPA filter, this part is the routine housekeeping and cleaning system on board the international space station.

This filter was later analysed at JPL and only this year did Dr. Venkateswaran publish his discovery in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Astronauts share space with them

According to Dr. Venkateswaran, even as it orbits the earth some 400 kilometres above, the ISS is home to many types of bacteria and fungi which co-inhabit the station with the astronauts who live and work on the station.

Dr. Venkateswaran said even though Solibacillus kalamii has never been found on earth till date, it is really not an extra-terrestrial life form or ET.

“I am reasonably sure it has hitch-hiked to the space station on board some cargo and then survived the hostile conditions of space,” he explained.

Naming the new microbe after Dr. Kalam was natural to Dr. Venkateswaran and his team. “Being a fellow Tamilian, I am aware of the huge contributions by Dr. Kalam,” he said.

New bacteria are usually named after famous scientists.

Is anybody out there?

Dr. Venkateswaran is part of a team which is asking that eternal question: “Are we alone in the universe?”

Towards that, his responsibilities include monitoring the bug levels on the ISS and he also has to ensure that all spacecraft that fly to other planets are free of terrestrial bugs.

One of his big jobs was to ensure that NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover — the massive car-sized almost 1000 kg buggy — was totally sterile when it left earth.

By international law, this extreme hygiene is required or else other planets could get contaminated by bugs hidden on human satellites.

Today the ISS is the size of a football field and its construction started with a launch in 1998 and as of now it is the largest human-made object orbiting the earth.

Weighing about 419 tonnes, it can house a maximum of six astronauts and has costs roughly USD 150 billion.

With numbers, hygiene is crucial

Till date, 227 astronauts have flown to the space station. This makes the space station actually a very dirty place and maintaining hygiene is critical so that humans can live on it with ease.

On the space station all the air and water is recycled, being a completely closed environment there is a rapid build-up of moulds and bacteria on the station.

These not only have to be cleaned but monitored to ensure that they do not corrode the walls of the space station and do not turn hazardous to the astronauts.

Dr. Venkateswaran’s main job is to monitor the environment of the space station so that harmful bugs do not proliferate.

He heads the ‘Microbial Observatory’ on the ISS projects to measure microorganisms associated with compartments owned by the U.S.

According to NASA, he also directs several research and development tasks for the JPL — Mars Program Office, which enables the cleaning, sterilisation, and validation of spacecraft components. He directs several NASA competitive awards on the microbial monitoring of spacecraft and associated environments for the Exploration System Mission Directorate, closed habitats like ISS or its earth analogues for the Human Exploration and Operation Mission Directorate.

‘Useful bugs’

But is the new bug of some use?

“These spore formers tend to withstand high radiation and also produce some useful compounds protein-wise which will be helpful for biotechnology applications,” Dr. Venkateswaran said.

His team has not characterised the bacteria fully but he hints that the new bug could be a key source for chemicals that can help protect against radiation damage."

Artificial womb for LAMBS

Hello friends! I just read a news from online edition of "Indian Express" about a research. According to the said news scientists have created an artificial womb for lambs which would be beneficial in case of Premature birth.
I would like to copy the news content directly to share it with my viewers.
"In a bizarre turn of events, scientists have come up with an artificial womb resembling a plastic bag which can help keep premature lambs alive for four weeks outside of their own mothers’ wombs and could one day be applied to premature babies.
The sealed bag which is made of polythene, mimics the environment of a natural womb. Containing amniotic fluid, it provides all the nutrients and protection needed for growth and also acts as a proper interface delivering oxygen just as an umbilical cord would, and exchanging gases just like a placenta would.

According to CNN, Dr Alan Flake who led the research and a fetal surgeon and director of the Center for Fetal Research in the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said, “We’ve developed a system that, as closely as possible, reproduces the environment of the womb and replaces the function of the placenta. This, in theory, should allow support of premature infants.”
The group of scientists worked with five premature lambs aged 105 to 111 days, as they are developmentally similar to a human fetus at 23 weeks and also also experimented with three lambs that were slightly more mature, age 115 to 120 days.
After the experiment, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is now planning to refine the system by downsizing it for human infants and developing the ideal amniotic fluid for human use. This move is to meet the unmet needs of extreme prematurity but it will take time."

Pig-Human Embryo

Dear visitors! We had been in a discussion since too long that there was a mythical creature chimeras present which was a Lion-Goat-Serpent Monster. According to the BBC news scientists have tried to develop an embryo with the cells of more than one species. It is necessary to note here that fertilization can never occur between the gametes of two different species so scientists injected the stem cells of human into the pig embryo. For more information I would like to copy the article of "James Galleger" from BBC website.
[It is the first proof chimeras - named after the mythical lion-goat-serpent monster - can be made by combining material from humans and animals.
However, the scientific report in the journal Cell shows the process is challenging and the aim of growing human organs in animals is distant.
It was described as an "exciting publication" by other researchers.
To create a chimera, human stem cells - the type that can develop into any tissue - are injected into a pig embryo.
Image caption
The spherical pig embryo is held in place while a tiny needle is used to inject human cells
The embryo - now a mix of human and pig - is then implanted into a sow for up to one month.
The process appears very inefficient - of the 2,075 embryos implanted only 186 continued to develop up to the 28-day stage.
But crucially there were signs that human cells were functioning - albeit as a tiny fraction of the total tissue - as part of a human-pig chimera.
"This is the first time that human cells are seen growing inside a large animal," Prof Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, from the Salk Institute, told the BBC News website.
Image caption
Human cells, coloured green, were found in the four-week-old embryo
Commenting on the inefficiency, Prof Belmonte said: "Humans and pigs are separated by a long time in evolution."
Development in the womb is also much faster in pigs - pregnancy lasts less than four months compared with about nine in people.
"It is like a freeway with one car going much faster than another - you're more likely to have an accident," Prof Belmonte said.
He added there was a "long distance" between now and growing animals with human organs - such as a heart, pancreas or liver, that can be transplanted.
However, in the meantime the Salk researchers argue that making chimeras with more human tissue could be useful for:
screening drugs before human trials
studying the onset of human diseases
understanding the earliest stages of human embryo development.
explaining differences between organs in different species
Dr Jun Wu, part of the research team, told the BBC: "[Getting the efficiency] in the range of 0.1% to 1% human cells should be enough.
"Even at this early stage [28-days], billions of cells in the embryo would have millions of human cells, then testing would be meaningful and practical."
There was no evidence that human cells were integrating into the early form of brain tissue.
Organ breakthrough
On Wednesday, a study in the journal Nature showed how organs could be grown in one species for use in another: by making some room.
Rats were genetically modified so they could not produce a pancreas - the organ crucial for controlling blood sugar levels.
Mouse stem cells were injected in the deficient rat embryos, promptly took advantage of the missing pancreas and grew a mouse one there instead.
This was then transplanted back into mice to treat diabetes.
The work to try this in humans and pigs is already under way.
Although in the long term cows look likely to be a better host for human organs as both cow and human pregnancies last about nine months.
The field is also ethically charged, the US National Institutes of Health at one point imposed a moratorium on funding the experiments.
The researchers have done only research that is legal, but they are aware of the controversy.
Prof Belmonte said: "We are restricting development to one month in the pig, the reason is this is enough for us now to understand how cells mix, differentiate and integrate.
"One possibility is to let these animals be born, but that is not something we should allow to happen at this point.
"Not everything that science can do we should do, we are not living in a niche in lab, we live with other people - and society needs to decide what can be done.
Dr Wu said: "When the public hears the world chimera it is always associated with Greek mythology, there is always this associated fear.
"But angels are chimeras, it can be a positive image and hopefully help with a worldwide shortage of organs, not create a monster."
Image caption
Chimeras are named after the fire-breathing beast of Greek mythology
Prof Bruce Whitelaw, the interim director of the Roslin Institute where Dolly the sheep was cloned, said: "This is an exciting publication.
"It clearly demonstrates that human stem cells introduced into the early pig embryo can form a human-pig chimera.
"This is the first scientific publication to achieve this result.
"This is a first in the development of chimeric animal production and paves the way for significant advances in our understanding of development in the embryo and hints towards future novel biotech applications."
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, from the Francis Crick Institute, said: "An ability to make interspecies chimeras would be valuable in terms of providing basic understanding of species differences in embryo development and organ function.
"It would also offer the possibility of growing human tissues or organs in animals for transplants - although this is still a long way off.
"The goals of this study are therefore highly laudable."]

Effect of Inhalers on children

This research article was published in online magazine "Science daily" on 16th july 2014
  Corticosteroid drugs that are given by inhalers to children with asthma may suppress their growth, evidence suggests. Two new systematic reviews published in The Cochrane Library focus on the effects of inhaled corticosteroid drugs (ICS) on growth rates. The authors found children's growth slowed in the first year of treatment, although the effects were minimised by using lower doses.
Inhaled corticosteroids are prescribed as first-line treatments for adults and children with persistent asthma. They are the most effective drugs for controlling
asthma and clearly reduce asthma deaths, hospital visits and the number and severity of exacerbations, and
improve quality of life. Yet, their potential effect on the growth of children is a source of worry for parents and
doctors. Worldwide, seven ICS drugs are currently available: beclomethasone, budesonide, ciclesonide, flunisolide, fluticasone, mometasone and triamcinolone. Ciclesonide, fluticasone and mometasone are newer and
supposedly safer drugs. The first systematic review focused on 25 trials involving 8,471 children up to 18 years old with mild to moderate persistent asthma. These trials tested all available
inhaled corticosteroids except triamcinolone and showed that, as a group, they suppressed growth rates when compared to placebos or non-steroidal drugs. 14 of the trials, involving
5,717 children, reported growth over a year. The average growth rate, which was around 6-9 cm per year in control groups, was reduced by about 0.5 cm in treatment groups. "The evidence we reviewed suggests that children treated daily with inhaled corticosteroids
may grow approximately half a centimetre less during the first year of treatment," said lead
author of the review, Linjie Zhang, who is based at the Faculty of Medicine at the Federal University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande, Brazil. "But this effect is less pronounced in subsequent years, is not cumulative, and seems minor compared to the known benefits of the drugs for controlling asthma and ensuring full lung growth."
In the second review, the same authors, working with two others, reviewed data from 22 trials in which children were treated with low or medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids. These trials tested different doses of all drugs except triamcinolone and flunisolide. Only
three trials followed 728 children for a year or more, with one of these trials testing three different dosing regimens. In the three trials, using lower doses of the inhaled corticosteroids, by about one puff per day, improved growth by a quarter of a centimetre at one year.
The researchers found that growth suppression varied across studies, and so they looked at
the relationship between a variety of factors and their effects on growth. Some of the
variation could be explained by the drugs used, although since this was an indirect
comparison the authors say more evidence is needed. "Conclusions about the superiority of
one drug over another should be confirmed by further trials that directly compare the drugs,"
said Zhang.
More long-term trials and trials comparing different doses are also needed, particularly in
children with more severe asthma requiring higher doses of inhaled corticosteroids, the
researchers conclude. "Only 14% of the trials we looked at monitored growth in a systematic
way for over a year. This is a matter of major concern given the importance of this topic,"
said Francine Ducharme, one of the authors of both reviews and senior author of the second
review, based at the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Montreal in Montreal,
Canada. "We recommend that the minimal effective dose be used in children with asthma
until further data on doses becomes available. Growth should be carefully documented in all
children treated with inhaled corticosteroids, as well in all future trials testing inhaled
corticosteroids in children."