sábado, 27 de septiembre de 2014

Un chino come demasiado pescado crudo durante años y casi muere lleno de gusanos

Un hombre de la provincia China de Guangdong ha estado a punto de morir debido a la excesiva ingesta de pescado crudo contaminado, informa 'Daily Mail'.
Los síntomas de dolor de estómago y picazón en la piel le advirtieron e hicieron ir al médico, cuyos informes revelaron la existencia de parásitos en su cuerpo. La infección de los peces se produce cuando estos ingieren larvas de tenia. El sushi y el sashimi, dos platos típicos de la región, se consumen crudos y las larvas que pudieran albergar los peces pueden pasar a cualquier persona que los ingiera. La infección podría haber matado al sujeto de haber llegado al cerebro. / RT

Fuente: http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20140925/insolito/2407/Un-chino-come-demasiado-pescado-crudo-durante-años-y-casi-muere-lleno-de-gusanos.htm

El misterio de los Hunza: un pueblo que jamás envejece ni se enferma


NOTICIAS

Yaca, el árbol de vida para un mundo con hambre

El futuro de la COMIDA
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Yaca, el árbol de vida para un mundo con hambre
Fotografía por Shutterstock
Yaca, el árbol de vida para un mundo con hambre
Por Diane Ragone*
2014-09-23
El superalimento ya existe, y empezó a distribuirse en países como Haití, Kenia, y Jamaica.
Todo el mundo está buscando el próximo superalimento que mejore la salud y nutrición, y alivie el hambre en el planeta. Bueno, en realidad ya está entre nosotros, y ha estado durante mucho tiempo. La yaca, también conocida como árbol de pan, se ha cultivado en Oceanía por más de 3,000 años, y en muchas islas los árboles forman el corazón de complejos agrobosques multiespecies. Estas selvas de alimentos son un modelo de sistema de producción sustentable, y podrían ayudarnos a destrabar losdesafíos de seguridad que muchas partes del mundo tropical están enfrentando.

¿Por qué la yaca? Se trata de un árbol perenne de larga vida, fácil de cultivar en una amplia gama de condiciones ecológicas con un cuidado mínimo. Los árboles alcanzan el desarrollo necesario a los tres o cuatro años, al producir un fruto rico en almidón y carbohidratos equivalente al cultivo discontinuo anual de granos como el arroz y el maíz, así como de papa y camote. Eso implica una cantidad de trabajo menor que el necesario para el cultivo de productos que deben ser recolectados y replantados, reduce la pérdida de suelo superior y almacena carbono. Para los habitantes de la isla del Pacífico, la yaca se ha convertido en un árbol de vida.
Recomendamos: En las ramas (galería)

En la década de 1970, el Jardín Botánico Tropical (NTBG, por sus siglas en inglés) reconoció la necesidad de conservar la diversidad de la yaca. Me involucré con el NTBG a mediados de la década de los 80 y viajé a más de 50 islas del Pacífico, recogiendo cientos de variedades y documentando prácticas tradicionales y conocimientos relacionados con este importante cultivo. Los jardines botánicos están en una posición ideal para hacer este tipo de trabajo, porque la comprensión de las plantas y sus usos es la esencia de lo que hacemos.


Ahora administramos el depósito de yaca más grande del mundo y gracias a una amplia investigación sobre este tesoro es posible crecer y distribuir el árbol de pan en grandes cantidades, para así ayudar a aliviar el hambre. ¿Por qué es importante esto? Casi mil millones de personas en el mundo no tienen lo suficiente para alimentarse. Dos mil millones más se ven afectadas por el "hambre oculta", es decir, por la falta de micronutrientes adecuados.
En 2009, con la ayuda de nuestro socio Cultivaris LLC (www.globalbreadfruit.com) implementamos una iniciativa global con el objetivo de distribuir yaca a nivel mundial. Estamos verdaderamente motivados por la respuesta, ya que en la actualidad son 30 países, entre ellos Ghana, Haití, Kenia, Jamaica, Nicaragua y Pakistán, los que han recibido más de 40,000 árboles. Este trabajo se lleva a cabo con la colaboración de miles de individuos y organizaciones comunitarias. Es emocionante ver el gran interés que hay en todo el mundo alrededor de este patrimonio agrícola.

* Diane Ragone es directora del Breadfruit Institute del Jardín Botánico Tropical Nacional

Fuente: http://www.ngenespanol.com/comida/articulos/769923/yaca-arbol-vida-mundo-con-hambre/

domingo, 14 de septiembre de 2014

Study of 1.25 Million Patients Evaluates Risk for 12 CVDs

News Author: Sue Hughes
CME Author: Laurie Barclay, MD
CME/CE Released: 07/29/2014 ; Valid for credit through 07/29/2015
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Clinical Context

In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for the overall burden of disease worldwide. High-income countries have recently experienced reduced cardiovascular mortality, despite increased prevalence of patients living with cardiovascular disease, thanks to the more widespread use of preventive drugs.
Previous studies have not examined the associations of blood pressure with various types of incident cardiovascular disease in a contemporary population. The goal of this study was to determine whether blood pressure was associated with 12 different manifestations of cardiovascular disease and whether associations varied by age and by systolic vs diastolic elevations.

Study Synopsis and Perspective

New data from a UK study including 1.25 million patients in a primary care setting has drummed home the substantial burden of hypertension and identified some new observations on how blood pressure affects 12 different manifestations of cardiovascular disease, including various forms of stroke.
It finds that a 30-year-old patient with hypertension has a large increase in lifetime risk for a cardiovascular event compared with a normotensive individual (63% compared with 46%) and will develop cardiovascular disease an average of 5 years earlier.
The researchers, led by Eleni Rapsomaniki, PhD, from the Farr Institute for Health Informatics Research, London, United Kingdom, reported associations of blood pressure with a substantially wider range of incident cardiovascular diseases than seen before, across a broader age range (including people younger than 40 years) and a wider range of blood pressure values (including less than 115/75 mm Hg).
For nearly all cardiovascular diseases, there was a linear relation between systolic or diastolic blood pressure with outcomes at all ages, further supporting the absence of a J-shape curve, even in the elderly.
Senior author Harry Hemingway, MD, also from the Farr Institute for Health Informatics Research, commented to Medscape Medical News: "We have produced a treasure trove of data. This is the largest database ever produced on how blood pressure is related to cardiovascular disease. Because we had data on so many patients we could separate out many different clinical pathologies and see how systolic and diastolic blood pressure was related to them. We were also able to look across a wider range of blood pressures than has been done before. This is like improving the magnification in the lens of a microscope to establish greater detail."
He added: "This is contemporary data (up to 2010) from clinicians recording information on real everyday patients in clinical practice. It faithfully replicates what we already know, which proves validation, and it also identifies new associations not examined before."
The study appears in the May 31 issue of The Lancet.
In an accompanying comment, Professor Thomas Kahan, MD, from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, says the study provides important new information to improve risk assessment, patient counseling, and decision making for patients with hypertension, and he concludes that, "The clinical benefit of improved risk assessment and appropriate treatment might be substantial."
Focus Guidelines to Specific Risks
For the study, researchers analyzed data on blood pressure from electronic medical records and linked those results to other databases on hospital admissions and deaths resulting from 12 different presentations of cardiovascular disease.
Noting that substantial debate has surrounded the benefits of treating mild hypertension in young people, the researchers state, "In the absence of long-term randomized trials, our estimates of lifetime risk and cardiovascular disease-free years of life lost provide epidemiological evidence of substantial morbidity associated with raised blood pressure, irrespective of the starting baseline risk."
They point out that their data on how blood pressure relates to the 12 cardiovascular conditions at various ages can be used to extend the existing counseling of patients and decision making, which is currently based on heart attack and stroke risks alone. They say this "will help to focus guidelines and clinicians to the disease areas in which screening and treatments are more likely to have an effect."
For example, they point out that of the 5 years of cardiovascular disease–free life lost associated with hypertension, nearly half were attributable to stable and unstable angina, whereas in patients aged 80 years and older, heart failure accounted for nearly a fifth of the years of life lost.
Although most of the 12 cardiovascular outcomes investigated correlated better with systolic pressure (with the strongest associations being seen for stable angina and intracerebral and subarachnoidal hemorrhage), abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) was weakly associated with systolic pressure and much more strongly associated with diastolic pressure. Professor Hemingway suggested that this observation may improve the selection process for AAA screening.
The authors also found that the age-specific relevance of blood pressure depends on which disease outcome is studied. For example, in patients older than 80 years, stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) were strongly associated with raised blood pressure, whereas unheralded coronary death was not.
"Our data shows that PAD is a common initial presentation of cardiovascular disease in the elderly," Professor Hemingway commented. "This condition has not been well represented in clinical trials in recent years, but our data suggests it should be."
Risk More Important Than Numbers
Another paper in the same issue reports that treatment rates for hypertension have almost doubled and control rates have tripled in England between 1994 and 2011, resulting in the saving of tens of thousands of lives each year.
Although the investigators, led by Emanuela Falaschetti, MSc, from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, and the authors of the accompanying comment suggest this is a cause for optimism, a Lancet editorial points out that control was achieved in only 37% of patients in 2011 and concludes that, "Clearly, a more concerted effort and different approaches are needed urgently."
Professor Hemingway agrees with the Lancet editorial, pointing out that control of blood pressure is not synonymous with normalization of risk. "If we are doing well with hypertension management, then the risk of cardiovascular disease would be the same whether the patient had a history of hypertension or not. But this is definitely not the case," he told Medscape Medical News.
He added: "Clinicians talk about blood pressure control, meaning that the numbers have been brought back into a certain range. But patients don't care what their numbers are. They care about their risk of MI, stroke, PAD, etc. In our study, we show that among people with hypertension — some controlled, some not controlled — there is a strong association with lifetime risks of many different cardiovascular conditions.
"It is not just about the blood pressure numbers. They must be interpreted within the wider context of overall cardiovascular risk. It is clear that more needs to be done. We need better strategies to lower blood pressure and cardiovascular risk and more support to clinicians to help them implement these strategies."
Professor Hemingway believes the electronic health record is a good place to focus these strategies and support.
"We could build in tools in the records to prompt clinicians to ask certain questions and consider overall cardiovascular risk when assessing blood pressure," he noted. "We could also display the risks to the patient and show how the risks are reduced with various interventions. There is an awful lot more we can do with electronic health records."
The study by Rapsomaniki et al was funded by the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, and Wellcome Trust. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. The study by Falaschetti et al received no funding. Falaschetti has disclosed no relevant financial relationships; disclosures for the coauthors appear in the article. Professor Kahan reports he has received research grants from Celladon, Medtronic, Pfizer, and Servier.
Lancet. 2014;383:1861, 1866-1868, 1899-1911, 1912-1919. Rapsomaniki Abstract Falaschetti Abstract Commentary Editorial

Study Highlights

  • The cohort for this study consisted of 1.25 million patients who were at least 30 years old and who had no cardiovascular disease at enrollment.
  • The investigators identified this cohort using linked electronic health records from 1997 to 2010 in the CALIBER (Cardiovascular Research Using Linked Bespoke Studies and Electronic Health Records) program.
  • Of patients in the cohort, 20% were treated with blood pressure–lowering medications.
  • The investigators examined the heterogeneity in the age-specific associations of clinically measured blood pressure with 12 acute and chronic cardiovascular diseases.
  • They also estimated the lifetime risks (up to age 95 years) and cardiovascular disease–free life-years lost, after adjustment for other risk factors at index ages 30, 60, and 80 years.
  • There were 83,098 initial cardiovascular disease presentations during follow-up (median duration, 5.2 years).
  • People with systolic blood pressure of 90 to 114 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure of 60 to 74 mm Hg had the lowest risk for cardiovascular disease in each age group.
  • There was no evidence of a J-shaped increased risk for cardiovascular disease at lower blood pressures.
  • For various cardiovascular disease endpoints, the effect of high blood pressure varied from strongly positive to no effect.
  • The strongest associations with high systolic blood pressure were for intracerebral hemorrhage (hazard ratio [HR], 1.44; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.32 - 1.58), subarachnoid hemorrhage (HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.25 - 1.63), and stable angina (HR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.36 - 1.46).
  • The weakest association with high systolic blood pressure was for AAA (HR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.00 - 1.17).
  • Elevated systolic blood pressure had a greater effect on angina, MI, and PAD than did diastolic blood pressure.
  • However, elevated diastolic blood pressure had a greater effect on AAA than did elevated systolic pressure.
  • Pulse pressure was inversely associated with AAA (HR per 10 mm Hg, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.86 - 0.98).
  • Pulse pressure was directly and most strongly associated with PAD (HR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.20 - 1.27).
  • Lifetime risk of overall cardiovascular disease at age 30 years was 63.3% (95% CI, 62.9% - 63.8%) in people with hypertension (blood pressure ≥140/90 mm Hg or treatment with blood pressure–lowering drugs) compared with 46.1% (95% CI, 45.5% - 46.8%) for those with normal blood pressure.
  • People with hypertension developed cardiovascular disease 5.0 years earlier (95% CI, 4.8 - 5.2 years) than those with normal blood pressure.
  • For persons having hypertension from index age 30 years, stable and unstable angina accounted for 43% of the cardiovascular disease–free years of life lost.
  • For persons having hypertension from index age 80 years, heart failure and stable angina each accounted for 19% of years of life lost.
  • The investigators concluded that their findings do not support conventional wisdom that blood pressure has strong associations with all cardiovascular diseases across a wide age range, and that diastolic and systolic associations are concordant.
  • They also note the substantial lifetime burden of hypertension despite modern treatments, as well as the need for new blood pressure–lowering strategies.

Clinical Implications

  • Findings of a large cohort study do not support conventional wisdom that diastolic and systolic associations with cardiovascular diseases are concordant.
  • These findings also support varying associations of blood pressure with different cardiovascular diseases at different index ages for hypertension. Despite modern treatments, hypertension carries a substantial lifetime burden, highlighting the need for new blood pressure–lowering strategies.
Fuente: http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/827735?nlid=62704_2802&src=cmemp

Es así...


miércoles, 10 de septiembre de 2014

Este programa SI es una joya !!!!!

Reyes de los autos clásicos






Fuente: http://www.tudiscovery.com/imagenes/galleries/reyes-de-los-autos-clasicos/

Bad News, Arachnophobes: All Adults Have Facial Mites

August 28, 2014 | by Lisa Winter
Photo credit: NCSU
Most people are aware that their bodies are teeming with microscopic life, though that usually focuses on bacteria in the gut or all over the skin (including that cesspool we call a navel). However, less people realize that their skin is crawling with different species of mites: D. folliculorum that lives on their hair follicles and D. brevis that lives in their sebaceous glands. These mites aren’t insects, they’re arachnids. Not that having “microscopic spider-relatives embedded in your skin” is any more or less reassuring.
While previous studies have shown that only about 10-20% of adults have mites at any given time, a new paper published in PLOS ONE, led by Megan Thoemmes from North Carolina State University, has revealed that 100% of all adults they tested had traces of DNA from at least one Demodex species.
Anatomy of Mites
These mites are microscopic at around 0.3-0.4 mm in length. Their small stature allows them to easily pack into your pores, with about one D. folliculorum per follicle and a few D. brevis per sebaceous gland. The average adult human body has roughly 5 million hair follicles, which gives you an idea of the potential for mite habitability.
But don’t rush off to scrub yourself down in boiling water quite yet; these mites are harmless for the most part. Suppressed immune systems can lead to an overpopulation of mites, which can cause some inflammation and itchiness. There are also correlations to blepharitis (chronically inflamed eyelids), rosacea, and certain types of acne, but the vast majority of people will never even notice their mites. Regular good hygiene practices are often enough to keep them in check.
Collecting Mites
In order to collect mites for sampling, researchers usually press Scotch tape against a person’s skin and pull them out, pluck out hairs using tweezers, or scrape the skin and collect it for examination. This study, however, squeezed the skin on the nose to expel sebum from the pores, which was then scraped up. The sample was then transferred to a mineral oil until the DNA could be extracted.
The Results
The study found that 100% of samples from people over 18 yielded mite DNA, as did 70% of the teenagers that were studied. Why is this figure so different from previous studies that found whole mites less than a quarter of the time? Though each person has millions of hair follicles, the mites might not be evenly spread across the entire body. It’s very possible that the samples just aren’t taken in the right location. Additionally, the manner in which the mites are collected might not be reliable without more invasive methods.
Analyzing these mites at the genetic level could yield information about their diversity and offer clues as to where and when these mites first began hitching a ride on humans. The scientists hope to further their study by conducting similar research in different regions of the world in order to find out whether mites are ubiquitous there and, if so, how they might vary among geological regions.


Fuente: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bad-news-arachnophobes-all-adults-have-facial-mites

viernes, 5 de septiembre de 2014

Se acerca un asteroide que causaría una destrucción total

16 de marzo de 2880. Esa puede ser la fecha fatal y final para la especie humana. Porque ese es el día en que, según los cálculos de los científicos, un gran asteroide chocará contra la Tierra produciendo una destrucción total. Expertos de la Universidad de Tennessee son los encargados de observar a esta enorme roca que gira a una velocidad endemoniada y, contra lo que podría esperarse, no se ha deshecho en mil pedazos hasta el momento… por lo que podría no hacerlo nunca. Y, en efecto, si gracias a las fuerzas cohesivas entre partículas se mantiene entera, a la humanidad no le quedará más que despedirse para siempre.  El asteroide mide mil metros de diámetro y tarda apenas dos horas y seis minutos en dar una vuelta sobre sí mismo. Y sin embargo, lamentablemente, no se desintegra.
Algunos científicos, que eligen mirar el lado positivo de las cosas, como Ben Rozitis, proponen que entender por qué este asteroide se mantiene entero podría ayudar a crear una estrategia para evitar posibles impactos futuros. Es una buena perspectiva; no obstante, la amenazadora roca avanza hacia la Tierra a una velocidad de 15 kilómetros por segundo y su impacto sería comparable con la explosión de 44.800 megatones de dinamita; es decir, incomparable. Este asteroide fue visto por primera vez en 1950 y se lo volvió a ver el 31 de diciembre de 2000; a pesar de todo, los científicos creen que durante el tiempo que todavía tardará en llegar a nuestro planeta, los científicos desarrollarán la solución para su visita.
FUENTE E IMÁGENES.
NASA; La Flecha; Conexión Total
Fuente: http://tuhistory.com/noticias/se-acerca-un-asteroide-que-causaria-una-destruccion-total