Infants Eyes Ignored? The Risk is Blindness!

A mother's or father's love is not always enough. Parents often ignore their little one's eyes, with tragic consequences.

Childhood blindness is heartbreaking, and yet so few infants are tested for any form of early eyesight issues or disease, from cancer to crossed eyes.

The stats are shocking--- ten percent of children in the U.S., claimed to be one of the richest nations on earth, have undetected vision problems, often leading to blindness.

The American Optometric Association's (AOA) annual Eye-Q® survey reports that only 19% of US parents even took taking their infant for a comprehensive eye assessment.

Worse, perhaps, is that a whopping 33% of US parents wait until their child is almost 2 years old. And 26% wait until their child is 5 or even older!

Dr. Glen Steele, optometrist and chair of the AOA InfantSEE® committee, said: "Optometrists have the clinical background and expertise to detect eye and vision problems--- as well as ensure your baby has healthy eyes, and their vision is developing appropriately."

Few parents know that cancer can inflict their infant's eyes.

Beyond cancers, other infant eye ailments are 'lazy eye' (amblyopia), crossed eyes, nearsightedness and farsightedness-- these can ALL be identified and given early treatment.

"Early intervention is essential for maintaining infant eye and vision health," said Dr. Steele. "Most conditions are easier to treat when caught early."

The AOA recommends that infants have an InfantSEE® assessment before their first birthday. Young children need comprehensive eye exams at age three, and before starting school, and then every two years.

Often, once a problem is noticed by a parent, its too late--- the child will become blind for life. Testing and preventative treatment can save the sight of so many!

Dr Steele added: "It is critical that infants undergo a comprehensive eye assessment from an optometrist by the time they turn a year old."

Tai Chi Defeats Pain!

One of the most common and yet incredibly painful chronic diseases, fibromyalgia, is a little-understood condition with 5 million victims in the US alone. Most sufferers are women, though it is not known why. And no cure has been found.

But now, a new study points to a significant path for fibromyalgia relief. A natural path. A path that brings new energy as well as relief from the tormenting agonies.

What is this amazing path? Tai Chi. Yes, that's right. The ancient Chinese art of Tai Chi.

The study (published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine) shows that Tai Chi relieved the pain of its study subjects, when practiced regularly.

The term t'ai chi ch'uan translates as "supreme ultimate fist", "boundless fist", "great extremes boxing", or simply "the ultimate". Tai Chi evolved in agreement with many Chinese philosophical principles, including those of Taoism and Confucianism. And it's timelessness seems to be proven again.

A clinical trial at Tufts Medical Center found that after 12 weeks of tai chi, patients with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, did significantly better in measurements of pain, fatigue, physical functioning, sleeplessness and depression.

The control group was simply given stretching exercises and wellness education, and saw much less improvement.

More significantly, perhaps, Tai Chi patients were also more likely to sustain improvement three months later!

One observer who had no stake in the test, Dr. Daniel Solomon, (chief of clinical research in rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston), said, “This was a well-done study. It was kind of amazing that the effects seem to carry over.”

Another--- Dr. Robert Shmerling, clinical chief of rheumatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston--- said, “We thought it was notable that The New England Journal accepted this paper, that they would take fibromyalgia on as an issue, and also because tai chi is an alternative therapy that some people raise eyebrows about. Fibromyalgia is so common, and we have such a difficult time treating it effectively. It’s defined by what the patient tells you. It’s hard for some patients’ families and their doctors to get their head around what it is and whether it’s real. So, that these results were so positive for something that’s very safe is an impressive accomplishment.”

There is obviously an incredible amount to learn, and to profit from, in this exchange of cultural insights into healing.

One great impact, we hope, should be an increased mutual awareness, globally--- in the West, the healing arts of the East are often poorly understood, and regarded often in great ignorance. And that is a great loss indeed. And an absurd irony, in this day of the world wide web and global exchanges of ideas.

We sincerely hope that such studies are only a beginning!

"Third Hand" Smoke, and You

You check into a motel or hotel room. It's a non-smoking room. But you detect a whiff of old cigarette... still, it's faint, not too bad, and there's a covering clean scent that pretty much clears the room of any kind of smell at all.

That's ozone, that covering clean scent. Ozone is almost universally used to de-skunk rooms--- walls and beds, after being fouled with the stench of a cigarette.

You walk in and smell the faint cigarette/ozone smell. You're tired from traveling. You just want to flop and sleep. Should you just ignore it?

RUN. Get out of that room as fast as you can!!!

Why? You are breathing a deadly brew called THIRD-HAND SMOKE.

One part ozone--- any kind, including hotel cleaning ozone, will do. One part nicotine--- secondhand smoke works just fine. Mix well. Result? "Third-hand smoke", like we said. Super-small organic aerosol particles, that penetrate your lungs incredibly deeply.

A new study by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that ozone react with the nicotine in secondhand smoke--- to form ultrafine particles--- a bigger threat to asthma sufferers than nicotine itself!

At most risk are the very old and the very young. But it threatens everyone who has lungs.

Mohamad Sleiman, a chemist with the Indoor Environment Department of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), led this research.

"Because of their size and high surface area to volume ratio, ultrafine particles have the capacity to carry and deposit potentially harmful organic chemicals deep into the lower respiratory tract where they promote oxidative stress," Sleiman says. "It's been well established by others that the elderly and the very young are at greatest risk."

Cancer Loves HFCS

Would you encourage cancer to bloom and spread in your body? Would you garden tumors, and even feed cancer its favorite food?

A new study has found that HFCS--- High-fructose corn syrup--- is cancer's favorite fast-growth food. This terrifying possibility seems to be the conclusion of yet another study, more damning than ever.

That is correct. UCLA researchers have concluded a cancer growth study and announced a shocking discovery--- that cancer cells love - in fact, prefer! - refined fructose.

In their study tests, pancreatic cancer cells gobbled up refined fructose, rapidly accelerating their growth rate in the test body.

Head researcher Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, said, "These findings show that cancer cells readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation."

Published in the journal Cancer Research, the findings are even more condemning of HFCS--- the study destroys a widely-held belief in mainstream
medicine--- that all sugars are the same.

In fact, they are not, when cancer is involved. Cancer just loves HFCS.

Fructose directly causes cancer cells to reproduce and spread in a way that glucose does not. Tumor research in the study clearly proves this fact. There is a huge difference.

The team stated, "Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different."

So the study solidifies the fact that there is a major difference between high fructose corn syrup, a highly-refined sugar commonly used in processed American foods and beverages, and refined sugar cane. Both can lead to health problems, but high fructose corn syrup is worse in terms of cancer growth.

Dr Heaney added this: "I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets."

So here's the question yet again--- the same question we asked a few entries ago--- why hasn't the US Govt outlawed HFCS?

How much would health care costs be reduced? How much suffering would be eliminated?

If HFCS is illegal in Europe and Australia and elsewhere, why not in the USA?

Anesthesia: CRNA or Anesthesiologist, Who Provides the Best Quality of Care?

Health Affairs, (the preeminent peer-reviewed journal covering health policy), has released important new research regarding the quality of anesthesia care.

This may not come as a surprise to most inside the medical profession, but may surprise those outside medicine--- the study shows that there are NO differences in patient outcomes, when anesthesia services are provided either by CRNAs (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists), or by physician anesthesiologists, or by CRNAs supervised by physicians.

According to the study, the CRNA's quality of anesthesia care is as good as it gets. The research, titled "No Harm Found When Nurse Anesthetists Work Without Supervision by Physicians," is out in print in the August issue of Health Affairs.

Conducted by RTI International, a leading USA research institute, the study results send a strong message to the healthcare community, policy makers, as well as patients who need anesthesia services, and their families.

The researchers were Brian Dulisse, a health economist at the Research Triangle Institute, in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Jerry Cromwell, a senior fellow in health economics at the Research Triangle Institute.

This research, as I said above, is no news to many inside medicine. In 2001, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) allowed states to opt out of the requirement for reimbursement that a surgeon or anesthesiologist oversee the provision of anesthesia by certified registered nurse anesthetists.

By 2005, fourteen states had exercised this option. An analysis of Medicare data (for 1999–2005) finds no evidence that opting out of the oversight requirement resulted in increased inpatient deaths or complications. Based on our findings, we recommend that CMS allow certified registered nurse anesthetists in every state to work without the supervision of a surgeon or anesthesiologist.

In fact, the US military has always used CRNA's, seeing no need to employ expensive and redundant physician anesthesiologists--- who typically stand by but themselves rarely even perform actual anesthesia--- which is almost always administered by CRNA's.

So, the message for hospitals, wishing to save money while ensuring quality of anesthesia care, is this--- that CRNAs, practicing without physician supervision, provide safe, cost-effective, high-quality, anesthesia.

New Joints: Without Transplants?

"Cartilage is one of the most resistant tissues for regeneration. This is the first time an entire cartilage joint was regenerated." --- Dr Jeremy J. Mao, Columbia University


Sounds crazy? New joints to replace our old worn-out ones? New joints, made of natural tissue from our own bodies? Really? Brand new?

It may seem impossible, but NIH-funded researchers recently regenerated rabbit joints--- using a cutting edge process, to form the joint inside the living subject's own body, or 'in vivo'.

The research team infused 'Bioscaffolds', (three-dimensional structures made of biocompatible and biodegradable materials in the shape of the tissue), with a protein. This process very effectively promoted growth of the rabbit joint. Bioscaffolds infused with TGFB3 recruited 130 percent more cells. A new layer of cartilage tissue formed--- with greater compressive and shear properties than those who received the bioscaffold without the TGFB3.

Crippled rabbits, with TGFB3-infused bioscaffolds, resumed weight-bearing activity and locomotion--- just three to four weeks after joint replacement.

At five to eight weeks after surgery, these rabbits moved nearly as well as the undamaged control rabbits. Rabbits whose bioscaffolds did not contain TGFB3 remained crippled.

The team was diverse, and packed with expert researchers. Doctors Chang H. Lee, Avital Mendelson, Eduardo K. Moioli, and Jeremy J. Mao of Columbia University Medical Center Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory, New York City; James L. Cook, University of Missouri School of Veterinary Medicine, Columbia; and Hai Yao, Clemson University and Medical University of South Carolina Department of Bioengineering, Charleston. Their study is being published in the July 29 issue of The Lancet.

Growing dissimilar tissues, such as cartilage and bone, is a huge achievement on its own. But to grow new structures entirely from the host's own cells is simply amazing!

The goal would be to ultimately replace arthritic or damaged joints in patients who would otherwise need total artificial old-fashioned joint replacement.

Is this the future of regenerative ortho medicine? In-vivo procedures are already stimulating (previously irreparable) organs or tissues to self-heal.

And now this joint technique goes beyond repair of an old joint--- rebuilding it like new, naturally, with the body's own cells!

Nano-water Now?

"While the current generation of nanofilters may be relatively simple, it is believed that future generations of nanotechnology-based water treatment devices will capitalize on the properties of new nanoscale materials." --- Dr Mahapatra

The ice caps are melting, sending the planet's greatest freshwater reserves into the salty oceans. Half our world is getting flood levels of rain while the other half is increasingly seared by drought. More people suffer thirst, and diseases associated with bad water and sanitation, than ever in the history of mankind.

Nothing, arguably, is more essential for basic good health than clean water. The health of mankind depends upon sustainable supplies in the future.

Now, a research paper (published in the "International Journal of Nuclear Desalination", of all places), gives hope for a world increasingly desperate for potable human drinking water.

Researchers at the D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, in Mumbai, India, have identified several nanotechnology approaches to water purification. These are not daydreams. Several are already underway.

Dr Alpana Mahapatra and colleagues Dr Farida Valli and Dr Karishma Tijoriwala, made this statement: "Water treatment devices that incorporate nanoscale materials are already available, and human development needs for clean water are pressing."

How, you ask? The scientists say that water purification by nanotechnology can exploit nanoscopic materials to remove impurities. New technology such as carbon nanotubes and alumina fibers do the nanofiltration. Also, nanoscopic pores in zeolite filtration membranes, nanocatalysts, and magnetic nanoparticles can be employed. Already, nanosensors (titanium oxide nanowires or palladium nanoparticles) detect water supply contaminants.

The scientists said that the impurities that nanotechnology removes include sediments, chemical effluents, charged particles, bacteria and other pathogens. Toxic trace elements such as arsenic, and viscous liquid impurities such as oil can also be removed using nanotechnology.

"The main advantages of using nanofilters, as opposed to conventional systems, are that less pressure is required to pass water across the filter, they are more efficient, and they have incredibly large surface areas and can be more easily cleaned by back-flushing compared with conventional methods."

If this nanotechnology can be employed on a vast scale, what would be the environmental consequences? The health consequences?

We all know that these kinds of seemingly miraculous solutions can become Pandora's Boxes, and many have backfired many times before.

But if it did work, without consequences, a sustainable freshwater supply could end the suffering of billions of people worldwide!