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Pills

HIV drug linked to AIDS-like immunosuppression

GreenMedInfo Research Group
GreenMedInfo
Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:01 UTC
antidepressant pills
What if the very drugs used to treat HIV infection are contributing to the development of AIDS?

So-called 'antiretroviral' HIV drugs in the integrase inhibitor category such as raltegravir and elvitegravir have been long touted as life-saving interventions, and yet, concerning new research indicates that they may not be living up to their promises. Published in Cell Death and Disease and titled, "HIV integrase inhibitor, Elvitegravir, impairs RAG functions and inhibits V(D)J recombination," researchers at the Indian Institute of Science discovered that when mice were administered the drug elvitegravir, it resulted in significant reduction of mature B lymphocytes in 70% of mice studied.

Because the purported effect of HIV infection is disruption of the immune system, any treatment that is immunotoxic or immunodisruptive has the potential to worsen the condition and contribute to the diagnosis and progression of AIDS. Indeed, there has been a long history of criticism against the view that HIV infection alone is responsible for a set of 25 varied diseases which collectively comprise Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The etiology of AIDS, like most syndromes, is multifactorial. Indeed, published studies have already implicated drug toxicity as a driver of AIDS deaths.1,2,3 For instance, according to Matt Irwin, MD:4
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Syringe

Kenya: After half a million women are sterilized by tetanus vaccine, pharma company has license suspended

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 15:44 UTC
vaccine needle
A state-sponsored forced sterilization on a massive scale has allegedly taken place in Africa according to opposition leaders and the public who are railing against the government. An industrial pharmaceutical laboratory has since had its license suspended by the Kenya Accreditation Service as a result of the controversy.

Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga-who swore himself in as president on Tuesday-claimed that at least 500,000 young girls and women may be infertile, following a tetanus vaccine administered by the government in 2014 and 2015.

The controversy began coming to a head in 2016 when Agriq-Quest Ltd, a Nairobi-based pharmaceutical company got in a dispute with Kenya's Ministry of Health over their tetanus and polio vaccinations. A group of Catholic doctors originally made the accusations claiming that the vaccines may contain a hormone that is dangerous to young women and can cause potential sterilization.

Comment: See also:

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Health

US: 16 more children dead from flu - peak still to come, says CDC

Susan Scutti
CNN
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 13:52 UTC
flu shot vaccine
© Global Look Press
Sixteen flu-related deaths were reported Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its weekly flu report. This brings the total number of pediatric flu-related deaths to 53 for the season, which began in October.

According to the report, influenza activity is now widespread in 48 states and Puerto Rico, down from 49 states in the previous two weeks. Oregon joined Hawaii in lower activity levels for the week ending January 27.

"Our latest tracking data indicate that flu activity is still high and widespread across most of the nation and increasing overall," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the acting CDC director. "So far this year, the cumulative rate of hospitalizations is the highest since we've been tracking in this way, which goes back to 2010.

"This is a very difficult season," she said.

Caused by viruses, flu is a contagious respiratory illness with mild to severe symptoms that can sometimes lead to death.

The CDC also recorded an uptick in the percentage of patients who visited health care providers complaining of influenza-like illness across the nation: 7.1% of patients for the week ending January 27, up from 6.5%, the newly revised estimated from the previous week.

Comment: Are the children dying from the flu across America vaccinated?

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Brain

Sleep cycle disruption could be an early warning sign for Alzheimer's

Dr. Jeremy Dean
Psyblog
Sat, 03 Feb 2018 13:20 UTC
old man stare
Damage to the brain can occur 15 to 20 years before the clinical symptoms appear.

A disrupted body clock, leading to sleep problems, could be an early sign of Alzheimer's, new research finds.

Changes in the sleep cycle occur much earlier than memory problems or other symptoms of dementia.

The finding is an important sign because damage to the brain can occur 15 to 20 years before the clinical symptoms appear.

Comment: It wouldn't be surprising if circadian disruption turned out to be a contributing factor, or warning sign, for cognitive decline. The more research done, the more it seems proper circadian hygiene is one of the most important factors for our health.

For more on Alzheimer's, see:

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Evil Rays

Government study shows cellphone radiation cause tumors in male rats

Hannah Albarazi
CBS
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 12:19 UTC
cellphone celular movil
© CC BY 2.0 / Andy Rennie /
High exposure to radiofrequency radiation - the radiation known as RFR and emitted from your cell phone - causes a rare cancer in male rats, according to draft conclusions released by the National Institutes of Health on Friday.

The two technical reports, one on mice and the other on rats, released by the NIH's National Toxicology Program (NTP) show the exposure to the high levels of radiation resulted in tumors in the tissues surrounding nerves in the heart of male rats.

Both male and female rats that were exposed to high levels of RFR showed increased patterns of damage to their heart tissue, according to the researchers.

Comment: See also:

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Pills

PQQ: The supplement for optimizing mitochondrial function, brain health and heart function


Dr. Eddy Bettermann MD
Sat, 20 Jan 2018 00:01 UTC
mitochondria
© Shutterstock
The simplest way to explain PQQ-or pyrroloquinoline quinone - is to compare it to the engine of a car. Without PQQ, many cellular metabolic processes won't be driven to completion. This non-protein chemical, called a cofactor or coenzyme, can be described as a helper molecule. It aids enzymatic reactions that fuel biochemical processes. PQQ is especially important to mitochondrial health and is a key factor in cellular and metabolic function. Like many biochemicals involved in mitochondrial chemistry, it also possesses powerful antioxidant properties. The human body constantly recycles PQQ, yet many people are in dire need of this important molecule.

Comment: Anything that can help with the optimal function of the mitochondria is highly beneficial. The ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting seem to be big players in optimizing mitochondrial function, but if a supplement can help things along, all the better. See also:

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Laptop

Google used 46B data points to predict medical outcomes of hospital patients

Dave Gershgorn
Quartz
Sat, 27 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
googlecaducesdata
© unknown/KJN
Some of Google's top AI researchers are trying to predict your medical outcome as soon as you're admitted to the hospital.

A new research paper, published Jan. 24 with 34 co-authors and not peer-reviewed, claims better accuracy than existing software at predicting outcomes like whether a patient will die in the hospital, be discharged and readmitted, and their final diagnosis.

To conduct the study, Google obtained de-identified data of 216,221 adults, with more than 46 billion data points between them. The data span 11 combined years at two hospitals, University of California San Francisco Medical Center (from 2012-2016) and University of Chicago Medicine (2009-2016).

Comment: What's in your health chip? You know it's coming.

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Health

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan team up to redesign US healthcare

Hamish McRae
Independent
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
DimonBuffettBezos
© Simon Dawson/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Andy Kropa/Invision/AP; Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesJamie Dimon, CEO JPMorgan Chase; Warren Buffett, CEO Berkshire Hathaway; Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
Sometimes, not very often, there is a news story that makes you sit up and think: wow, this is going to change the world. And so it was on Tuesday, when Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced they had agreed to join forces to create an independent healthcare system for their US employees.

It is headline stuff because it brings together the world's richest person (Jeff Bezos), the most-admired US investor (Warren Buffett) and the head of its largest bank by assets (Jamie Dimon). Bezos understands logistics, Buffett understands insurance and Dimon understands money. Together they ought to be able to improve US healthcare. But it is more than that. If these three companies can really deliver more efficient healthcare, that will become a model that will disrupt health provision around the world. And the funny thing is that this has been inspired by Obamacare.

The reputations of those three companies are huge. That they should combine shows that big companies are dissatisfied with the provision of healthcare in the US. It is extremely expensive, absorbing some 18 per cent of US GDP (double that of most European countries), and yet is uneven in its service. The best is wonderful, but there are of course many holes in the system, and outcomes overall are not as good as Western Europe or Japan.

Comment: 'Amazon and the social media giants know a huge amount about us. If you could pool all the data and use artificial intelligence to analyze it'...and that statement is quite a scary thought, especially if "the chips are down."

Improving someone's health - but on who's research and by what standards? Will they outlaw evil vaccines? We probably know the answer to that one. Make it more efficient? Efficient is 'more profitable'.

More from NPR:
So people perked up Tuesday morning when the CEOs of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase said in a press release that their companies are going to partner in a nonprofit venture to figure out "ways to address healthcare for their U.S. employees, with the aim of improving employee satisfaction and reducing costs."

The press release, such as it is, said technological solutions would be the "initial focus" of the venture's work. All three companies have a lot of experience using technology to make life easier for consumers.

Amazon's online reach and experience may be the most obvious. But Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico, a juggernaut in direct-to-consumer sales of insurance. And JPMorgan Chase's consumer finance services - from mortgages and credit cards to traditional banking - give it expertise in dealing with people about complex decisions in person and online.

Think then of an online app that might help employees shop for health care with information about prices and quality. What if the app helped them book appointments with doctors and nurse practitioners, too?

Would an app that eases the way for employees to more easily choose health services that offer better value make much difference in how much the companies spend on care? Maybe a little, but probably not a lot.

In California, a health care pricing tool launched in 2014 for government employees and retirees didn't really catch on. Only 12 percent of employees used the tool to shop better for lab tests, office visits and imaging services, according to a paper published by the journal Health Affairs in August. And the tool didn't reduce overall spending on the services it included.

[T]his wouldn't be the first time that employers have banded together to improve health care quality and do something about costs. It has happened many times before, in fact.

Two prominent examples in recent years include the Leapfrog Group, founded by big companies in 2000 to spur hospitals to improve quality and patient safety, and the more recent Health Transformation Alliance, a corporate consortium that emerged publicly in 2016.

Neither of those efforts could be said to have fundamentally changed how health care is delivered or paid for, even if they have made a difference on the margins.

But as the Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt said on Twitter, there is no chance the nation can budge health spending without the big bosses at least trying.


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Health

Researchers warn of the link between raw chicken necks and a rare form of canine paralysis


PysOrg
Fri, 02 Feb 2018 20:18 UTC
sick doggie
© University of MelbourneRaw chicken can be risky for dogs.
Feeding dogs raw chicken meat, particularly chicken necks, has been linked to a rare but potentially fatal type of canine paralysis.

A study led by the University of Melbourne's U-Vet Werribee Animal Hospital found the consumption of raw chicken meat increased the risk of developing the paralysing condition acute polyradiculoneuritis (APN) by more than 70 times.

Dr. Matthias le Chevoir, chief investigator on the project said the cause of APN in dogs had baffled the veterinary community for a long time.

"It is a rare but very debilitating condition where the dog's hind legs first become weak and then may progress to affect the front legs, neck, head and face. Some dogs may die from the disease if their chest becomes paralysed," Dr. le Chevoir said.

"Most dogs eventually recover without treatment but it may take up to six months or more in some cases. It can be difficult for owners to nurse their pet until the condition gradually improves.
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Health

Desperate parents of autistic kids turn to bleach and turpentine for miracle cure

Grace Macaskill
Mirror
Sat, 27 Jan 2018 18:47 UTC
Emma Dalmayne
© Oli Rudkin/Mercury PressCampaigner for children's rights Emma Dalmayne has spoken out against the use of turpentine.
Desperate parents are trying to cure autism by making their kids drink poisonous chemicals.

At least six police forces across Britain have questioned families over allegations children as young as two were forced to drink bleach and turpentine.

Some were also given bleach enemas to purge "parasites" which a church cult and unqualified advocates like ex-drug addict Danny Glass blame for causing the behavioural condition.

Tonight, as a task force of MPs and campaigners investigated, a doctor warned that the quack remedies will end up killing children.

One in every 100 kids in the UK suffers from some form of autism, for which there is no medical cure.

Comment: More on MMS:

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